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soc_puppetFor those of you who haven't seen it: Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed To Work. Yeah, I was skeptical about the title, too, and then I read it. So much truth, man. ...Though, uh, potentially triggering, as well. Nature of the beast and all that :/
Next, there's a fab review of The Stepsister Scheme over here. I know I've talked about it a million times already, but that post goes into depth I skimped on. It talks about the book from a feminist perspective, examining both its merits and its flaws (and yes, there are flaws). It says a lot of things I thought about, but never got around to saying. If I were to write a comprehensive review of the book, rather than just listing reasons I think it is awesome, I think it would turn out something like that. Not exactly, but definitely similar. If you're not entirely spoiler-phobic, I encourage you to give the review a look-see.
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Mood went up and down yesterday. Up in the morning, lasted most of the day, tanked around when Dad picked me up for Family Dinner Night in the late afternoon. See, something I just bought came packaged in white mesh, so I was wearing it on my forearms to deter my dermatillomania. Naturally, Dad asked about them, and I replied, "It's to stop me from picking at myself."
The resulting change in his behavior was markedly subtle. His posture changed slightly, and his tone was entirely nonchalant when he replied with, "Oh. Is that a problem for you especially these days?"
Fail, Dad =_= I don't even know entirely why that pissed me off so much, only that it did. (My mental and emotional health is not the weather, Dad, please to not be inquiring about it as if it is? I've been doing this for over a year and you only notice when I finally do something about it? Somehow I get the feeling you're going to have a Long and Meaningful conversation about me with Mom instead of with me because of this, Dad? Or do you just think it's more of the same from the woman who pulled out most of her eyelashes in grade school, and then told you she was clinically depressed in a way that must have seemed out of the blue one morning in Jr High? Either it's no big deal, in which case you follow up with, "Oh. Well, I hope you get that sorted out, then," or similar, or it is a big deal, in which case you can actually talk with me about it. [End possible reasons I'm pissed.])
Anyway, dinner didn't go much better from there, as I was not inclined to curb my responses when the family asked what I was interested in these days, or what I'd heard about District Nine, etc. (Me: I'm interested in feminism! Also, I heard that District Nine is full of racism, here are five examples of it.) Managed to mostly snap myself out of politics by the second half of the meal, but still.
Followed it up with a family viewing of 9. These here are my thoughts:
* I agree with sentiments that 7 was hands-down awesome, and would totally cosplay her.
* Ditto to sentiments that the twins were adorable.
* The fact that the twins were blatantly gender ambiguous kinda made up for the fact that 7 was the only blatantly female character.
* 5 and 2 are so married, man.
* 9 may or may not have had something of a crush on 5! If he did, he was probably oblivious to it.
* From his 'hair', I actually went on to assume that 6 was meant to be black. Which may have been right or wrong, I'm not sure. This assumption colored my view of him, though. On the one hand, character of color in not entirely stereotyped role, yay! (See also: Wybie in Coraline.) He wasn't even the druggie! On the other hand, uh. You do realize that the black-and-white-stripes is reminiscent of horrible prison uniforms. Also, he still died.
* I'm pretty sure the entire movie would have been better done if it 9 had started out with the rest of them. As it was, I didn't feel like I got enough time to connect with the characters. It all felt quite rushed.
* ...Okay, I get that this is supposed to be an "optimistic" ending rather than a happy one, but uh. I'm kinda missing part of how. Less than half of Inventor Dude's soul is left "alive", and while the rest is out there rejuvenating the planet (or whatever), it's still not whole. What happens to the parts now that they are not a whole? Is it arguing that we are equal to the sum of our parts, or is the world put on hold/doomed in general because we are more than the sum of our parts? Um, help?
* Really, Wall-E totally did better with the post-apocalyptic evil-robot-vs-cute-robot/construct thing in general.
* Cool designs, though. Steampunk sure is popular these days, innit?
Standard disclaimer: You are welcome to agree or disagree with any of my thoughts. Being as I was in something of a Mood already when I was watching the movie, this may have colored my viewing, so don't expect them to be all positive.
Blah blah, felt better when I got back to the apartment. You know it's been a bad few hours when the cats I complain about so often were the thing that cheered me up :P
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Oh, I also found my camera, finally! Hoping to get some much belated amigurumi and henna pics uplater tonight sometime tomorrow (too tired tonight) :3b Yay for more positive entry!
Next, there's a fab review of The Stepsister Scheme over here. I know I've talked about it a million times already, but that post goes into depth I skimped on. It talks about the book from a feminist perspective, examining both its merits and its flaws (and yes, there are flaws). It says a lot of things I thought about, but never got around to saying. If I were to write a comprehensive review of the book, rather than just listing reasons I think it is awesome, I think it would turn out something like that. Not exactly, but definitely similar. If you're not entirely spoiler-phobic, I encourage you to give the review a look-see.
----
Mood went up and down yesterday. Up in the morning, lasted most of the day, tanked around when Dad picked me up for Family Dinner Night in the late afternoon. See, something I just bought came packaged in white mesh, so I was wearing it on my forearms to deter my dermatillomania. Naturally, Dad asked about them, and I replied, "It's to stop me from picking at myself."
The resulting change in his behavior was markedly subtle. His posture changed slightly, and his tone was entirely nonchalant when he replied with, "Oh. Is that a problem for you especially these days?"
Fail, Dad =_= I don't even know entirely why that pissed me off so much, only that it did. (My mental and emotional health is not the weather, Dad, please to not be inquiring about it as if it is? I've been doing this for over a year and you only notice when I finally do something about it? Somehow I get the feeling you're going to have a Long and Meaningful conversation about me with Mom instead of with me because of this, Dad? Or do you just think it's more of the same from the woman who pulled out most of her eyelashes in grade school, and then told you she was clinically depressed in a way that must have seemed out of the blue one morning in Jr High? Either it's no big deal, in which case you follow up with, "Oh. Well, I hope you get that sorted out, then," or similar, or it is a big deal, in which case you can actually talk with me about it. [End possible reasons I'm pissed.])
Anyway, dinner didn't go much better from there, as I was not inclined to curb my responses when the family asked what I was interested in these days, or what I'd heard about District Nine, etc. (Me: I'm interested in feminism! Also, I heard that District Nine is full of racism, here are five examples of it.) Managed to mostly snap myself out of politics by the second half of the meal, but still.
Followed it up with a family viewing of 9. These here are my thoughts:
* I agree with sentiments that 7 was hands-down awesome, and would totally cosplay her.
* Ditto to sentiments that the twins were adorable.
* The fact that the twins were blatantly gender ambiguous kinda made up for the fact that 7 was the only blatantly female character.
* 5 and 2 are so married, man.
* 9 may or may not have had something of a crush on 5! If he did, he was probably oblivious to it.
* From his 'hair', I actually went on to assume that 6 was meant to be black. Which may have been right or wrong, I'm not sure. This assumption colored my view of him, though. On the one hand, character of color in not entirely stereotyped role, yay! (See also: Wybie in Coraline.) He wasn't even the druggie! On the other hand, uh. You do realize that the black-and-white-stripes is reminiscent of horrible prison uniforms. Also, he still died.
* I'm pretty sure the entire movie would have been better done if it 9 had started out with the rest of them. As it was, I didn't feel like I got enough time to connect with the characters. It all felt quite rushed.
* ...Okay, I get that this is supposed to be an "optimistic" ending rather than a happy one, but uh. I'm kinda missing part of how. Less than half of Inventor Dude's soul is left "alive", and while the rest is out there rejuvenating the planet (or whatever), it's still not whole. What happens to the parts now that they are not a whole? Is it arguing that we are equal to the sum of our parts, or is the world put on hold/doomed in general because we are more than the sum of our parts? Um, help?
* Really, Wall-E totally did better with the post-apocalyptic evil-robot-vs-cute-robot/construct thing in general.
* Cool designs, though. Steampunk sure is popular these days, innit?
Standard disclaimer: You are welcome to agree or disagree with any of my thoughts. Being as I was in something of a Mood already when I was watching the movie, this may have colored my viewing, so don't expect them to be all positive.
Blah blah, felt better when I got back to the apartment. You know it's been a bad few hours when the cats I complain about so often were the thing that cheered me up :P
----
Oh, I also found my camera, finally! Hoping to get some much belated amigurumi and henna pics up
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-22 02:26 am (UTC)Re: 7 being only blatantly female character - well, inasmuch as any of them really had a gender, yeah, she was a she. On the other hand, considering they're all made from the soul of a
mad scientist dudeguy, that might not be such a huge surprise. Then again who knows. I did like 7 *g*Yes, 2 and 5 are sooo married. XD
Yeah, the split up soul bits thing... And y'know, I kinda wanna see a crossover with FMA for this now, because dude if that wasn't a transmutation array, I'll eat my hat. And also Ed would freak out so amusingly.
And there'd finally be someone shorter than Ed aroundI, uh, completely didn't see 6 as black, but then I wasn't looking. He didn't twig that way for me. *shug* But I've been known not to notice things. I did pick up on the black and white = prison thing, but that more to me read as 6 being 'trapped' in his own world. Also I love his spiffy ink-stained claw-hands. I mean, they all had them, but his seemed the most... claw-y.
In general, I definitely saw the Burton influence. Visually it was absolutely gorgeous. However, I agree that I didn't get enough time to connect to the characters. Also, it felt like they were trying to do too much in the time they had were and drawing on too many sources without smoothing out the edges - alchemy and giant evil robots? And yeah the giant evil robot was created by alchemy(kinda), but... eeehhh. And the ending could have been more cohesive.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 02:45 am (UTC)IDK. I mean, aside from the twins (and the Machine), they all seemed to have a pretty clear gender identity to me, even if they didn't really have a sex. Also, the idea that men are only 11% blatantly female, and the only other option is to not have a gender identity, kinda bugs the hell outta me. *shrugs* YMMV.
2 and 5 totally needed a gay wedding in there somewhere.
XD I'd read that fic!
*also shrugs* I only really had the hair to go off of, which was also my clue for Wybie in Coraline, actually. Or, well, one of my main clues, at any rate. (His grandma was totally the give-away.) And yeah, I can totally see the prisoner-in-his-own-mind thing, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also play into the US cultural meme of People of Color in prison :/ Though, as I said before, I am so glad they didn't make him the druggie as well, I can't even say.
I'm pretty sure they were actual pen nubs/tips! It would totally make sense to me.
Oh, absolutely. While I understand that there were probably time constraints for them to make the 9/9/09 deadline, that doesn't keep me from wishing that they'd taken more time to develop things more. (I also think it would've been about 90% more awesome as a stop-motion-animation pic, like Corpse Bride (which also suffered from too little time/exposure/development/wev) and The Nightmare Before Christmas. But maybe that's just me.)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 03:36 pm (UTC)...Come to think of it, this movie would've looked really damn awesome in stop-motion animation. I mean, damn! Probably wouldn't have been finished for 9/9/09 if it were, though.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 03:40 pm (UTC)Also, that still leaves the problem of those four chunks of soul floating around out there, separate from the rejuvenation. I mean, they could probably attend to the new life, but. Do they live forever? Do they die? What happens to them in the end? I dunno, it just would've made more sense to me if they all turned into glowy green bits in the rain, I guess.
(Don't mind me, I'm probably just overthinking things.)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-18 11:12 pm (UTC)