imaginary_golux

Part 1: Why I Liked TFA So Damn Much

So there are a fair number of things bothering me about the Star Wars Sequel Series (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, hereinafter TFA, TLJ, and TROS), and I figured I’d write them down so I can stop subjecting my poor Best Beloved to my angry rants.

A little background: I went to TFA in 2015 because Best Beloved asked me to; I had previously seen all of one Star Wars film, mostly because Best Beloved was horrified that I had missed out on such a cultural milestone, and wasn’t hugely invested in it. I came out gleeful, and proceeded to write (let me check now) more than two hundred fic, ranging from tiny little drabbles to the 41K+ “Seek and Ye Shall Find,” most of them in the two years between TFA and TLJ.

I’ve asked myself several times why this movie, of all movies (I don’t even like most movies very much) caught my attention and gave me so damn many plotbunnies. Seriously, my Google Docs folder for TFA still has over a hundred plotbunnies and half-finished stories lurking in it. It’s not as though TFA is an exquisitely perfect movie too good for this world; it has plenty of flaws, and at its core, it’s a Star Wars film: we’re here for the lightsaber battles and things blowing up in space.

So why this one?

Because of the protagonists.

First off, we have Poe Dameron. The Poe we’re given in TFA is a hotshot fighter pilot who runs his mouth at inadvisable moments, but also the sort of man who names his rescuer in the middle of their daring escape, adores his droid, and would follow Leia Organa into hell itself. He’s brave enough to mouth off to Kylo Ren, and stubborn enough to hold out against horrendous torture. He wears his heart on his sleeve and isn’t afraid to make cheesy speeches to encourage his friends. He believes in the Resistance so fiercely it even worries the General. He’s sweet, in a way that macho fighter pilot characters so rarely are; he’s not afraid to be kind, to be affectionate, to be soft in ways that his character archetype so rarely is.

Also he’s ridiculously into Finn, which - well - same, Poe, same.

So then we have Finn: a Stormtrooper who won’t kill innocents. A man raised and trained by the Dark who chooses the Light, and thus a perfect foil for Kylo Ren. Finn is scared out of his mind for huge swathes of the movie - of the First Order, of dying horribly, of his friends being hurt or killed - but he fights through his fear to protect the people he cares about, not just once but repeatedly. He’s brilliant: he comes up with a plan to escape the First Order that works, and manages to improvise a second plan to bring down Starkiller’s shields and free Rey, which, like his first plan, is both batshit insane and completely successful. He’s clearly Force-sensitive (there’s no other explanation for Maz Kanata handing him a lightsaber and telling him he has a weapon), which only strengthens the mirroring effect with Kylo. He’s competent with the ‘saber and the Falcon’s weapon system and the TIE fighter’s guns. He’s enthusiastic and a little dorky and falls in love at the drop of a hat, first getting so attached to Poe that he keeps his jacket and saves his droid, and then getting so attached to Rey that he goes back into his worst nightmare for her.

Which brings us to Rey: feral desert child raised by sand. If Finn and Poe are allowed to be soft in ways that action heroes so often aren’t, Rey is allowed to be fierce. She’s often angry and fairly violent, and is obviously good enough at being violent that she has managed to survive in the harsh environment of Jakku; indeed, we meet her as she is beating up on four adults with her quarterstaff, and winning handily. She’s Force-sensitive and stubborn and whip-smart (she speaks or understands, at a demonstrated minimum, Aurebesh, Binary, and Shyriiwook, a notoriously difficult tongue), a skillful pilot and a gifted mechanic, who can fix the Falcon in flight and steer it through a hulked Star Destroyer with ease. She also gets easily attached - mostly to droids - and is fiercely protective of what she considers to be hers; she’s willing to give up food for a droid she met yesterday. She’s waiting for her family to come back for her. What she gets is Finn coming back for her, into his worst nightmare.

So by the end of the movie we have Poe looking at Finn with hearts in his eyes because Finn brought BB-8 back safely, along with the map to Luke Skywalker, and Rey looking at Finn the same way because he came back for her, as no one else ever has. And that’s one of the things I love about this movie: how much time the protagonists spend being nice to each other. We see it with Poe naming Finn; with Finn and Rey praising each other after the Falcon-chased-by-TIEs scene; with Poe giving Finn his jacket. They’re all small moments, but the reason the fandom latched onto them so hard is because they’re so sweet. No one is trying to look macho and emotionless and stoic; they’re all having emotions all over the place, and a lot of those emotions are love.

Interestingly, the villains are also having emotions all over the place, and all of those emotions are hate.

Kylo Ren is - well, he’s a school shooter. Well-brought-up white boy who decides that slaughtering all his classmates and joining a fascist party is a good life plan. He’s desperate to become his grandfather, but hasn’t got anything like the sort of control over himself or his powers that Darth Vader did. He throws temper tantrums - destructive ones - anytime he doesn’t get his way. He’s a very good villain precisely because he resonates so strongly with our current society: we’ve all met whiny white manchildren who insist that women are ‘meant to be’ with them and then get violent when they’re rejected. His is a ‘hot’ hatred, for lack of a better word, flaring up in violence at the drop of a mask.

Hux (Armitage, apparently, though for a while everyone was assuming he was Brendol Jr) is honestly a nastier sort than Kylo Ren. The thing is, Kylo is a very personal sort of villain. He kills people up close and personal with his very own laser sword, for personal reasons, whatever those might be. Hux is a very impersonal villain. He can order the destruction of an entire planet without blinking, and feel no remorse for doing so. He’s a lot more effective than Kylo Ren is, but Kylo is scarier in the moment, because he’s so unpredictable and flies off the handle so frequently. Hux has a ‘cold’ sort of hatred: he will do the work to get the result he wants, quietly and competently, and then go and premeditatedly murder billions of sapients.

The reason I think so much of the fandom latched onto Kylux as a ship is that despite being on the same side, Kylo and Hux hate each other. They spend all of their shared screentime despising each other as pointedly as they can, tearing each other down and demonstrating contempt at every opportunity. That sort of tension can be fun to play with. It also contrasts fascinatingly with the protagonist trio (precious fluffballs that they are), who spend all of their shared screen time, in whatever configuration, admiring and building each other up, praising and complimenting and generally being good to each other.

Star Wars is, of course, worryingly black and white in its ethics (Light good, Dark bad, shades of grey irrelevant), but this contrast makes it utterly clear to the audience why we should be rooting for the Light side rather than the much more fashionable Dark side, and the answer it gives us is: because they love each other. Because they’re good to each other. Because the only thing the Dark has to offer is constant, bitter competition, with a side of backstabbing and contempt.

Part 2: What Could Have Been Done

Obviously what I wanted after TFA was glorious OT3 snuggles, but expecting Disney to put a polyamorous interracial threesome on screen was...not gonna happen. I wrote a lot of fic instead. But what could Disney have done to do justice to the sweet, stubborn, good protagonists - and the wholeheartedly malevolent villains - it gave us in TFA?

Rey’s fight with Kylo, where she is overwhelmed by her anger and nearly loses, then focuses on the Force and being less homicidally angry and is able to beat the crap out of him, is exactly where her arc needs to go. She’s got a lot of perfectly justified anger in her, but that brings with it the danger of going Dark; learning to set aside her anger would be a perfect Jedi lesson. It also aligns her interestingly with Anakin Skywalker, who was (as I understand it) frequently furious about many things, often with significant justification, which would make Luke helping her overcome her anger and/or channel it more productively a really beautiful way to wind up that whole Luke-Vader-Rey tangle. Luke could definitely be hesitant to train her because she has so much rage, and could talk about his own father’s struggle with the Dark and his own moments of hesitation and error, giving us some glorious flashbacks and some good character development and explaining how Luke Skywalker went from who he was at the end of the original trilogy to a hermit on an island. And he could learn to hope again, because under the rage Rey is good. He could even encourage her to see that although her blood family abandoned her, she has a new family, the ones who chose her: Finn, and Chewie, and Luke himself, and maybe others in the future.

Then if the second movie ended with the Knights of Ren finding Ahch-To and Luke fighting them off to give Rey time to escape, we could have her arc in the third movie being Rey fighting her own desire for vengeance and almost falling to the Dark out of rage, and pulling herself back with Finn’s help and support and in order to make her teacher-mentor-father figure proud.

It would be very nice to have Rey not be from a famous Force lineage, because frankly we’ve got enough Skywalker angst up in this story, but in TFA, for reasons which are never fully explained, Kylo Ren is obsessed with her from the very first time she’s mentioned, and even chooses capturing her over finding the map to Luke Skywalker. This suggests either some sort of Force vision or feeling, or he knows about her ahead of time. A strong fan-theory when the movie first came out was that Rey was Luke’s daughter and a survivor of the slaughter of Luke’s students, possibly rescued and stashed on Jakku by Kylo himself in a fit of remorse, whose loss helped drive Luke into seclusion.

Later research (yes, I did a lot of research to write fic) suggests that Kylo Ren was 23 when he slaughtered Luke’s other students and turned to the Dark, and that Rey was 13 at the time, and had already been on Jakku for eight years. So the Rey-was-Luke’s-student theory doesn’t hold water based on later research; but if going purely off of TFA, it could be made to work. Rey was 5 when left on Jakku, which would make Ben Solo 15 when he went Dark and started his homicidal career. That would give him fourteen years to establish himself as Kylo Ren, rather than six. So that could work; and if Rey is Luke’s long-lost daughter, that would play interestingly with her going to him for training. It would bring up the question of who Luke had a relationship with, but that’s a different problem.

Other possible lineages guessed at included Kenobi (presumably a descendant of Obi-Wan and a youthful fling with Duchess Satine), Qui-Gon Jinn, or even Count Dooku. Any of those would actually be kind of interesting in that Anakin and Luke are trained by Obi-Wan, who is a scion of the Jedi training lineage that goes from Qui-Gon to Dooku to Yoda himself; bringing another blood relative into the Jedi lineage would actually be rather interesting. A famous family name still doesn’t explain why Kylo Ren is obsessed with her, though.

(Her being a Palpatine, however, is patently absurd. Darth Sidious doesn’t want an heir. He plans to live forever, and/or burn down the universe behind him when he goes.)

So that’s Rey’s arc. What about Poe? When we leave him at the end of TFA, he has just led his fighters to a remarkable victory - the complete destruction of Starkiller Base - at the cost of 17 of his 24 fighters. He’s also seen Finn brought in on a gurney and taken directly to medical with a life-threatening lightsaber injury. Poe being Poe, which means he cares about everyone under his command, I’m going to assume that after the initial celebration of their victory, he’s going to be wracked with guilt for not somehow managing to prevent the deaths of his fighters. The Battle of Starkiller also marks the end of several dramatic and stressful days for Poe: finding the map, being captured, being tortured, being rescued, crashing, being rescued again, spending what must be at least a full day panicking over having lost his droid and the map, fighting off TIE fighters on Takodana, and then leading the attack on Starkiller. Frankly, PTSD and immense survivor’s guilt are the least of what he ought to be dealing with.

He’s also a demonstrably competent war leader and the person Leia trusted to find the map in the first place. It would make a lot of sense for her to take him under her wing, with the explicit intention of training him to be her successor: the Resistance needs his energy and devotion. Poe has the heart and the brain and the instincts and just needs the training to become a leader of the entire Resistance rather than just his fighter squadrons. She could also spend time talking to him about dealing with having led people to their deaths, since of all people, General Organa would understand that.

So obviously the Resistance has to be doing something while Rey is off learning to Jedi. Poe could conceivably do any or all of the following: go on a recruiting trip to try to bring new fighters into the Resistance; learn to lead larger groups and/or larger ships as Leia’s new right hand; lead a daring raid on a First Order depot for much needed supplies; have a nervous breakdown; scout for a new headquarters; spend time showing Finn around the Resistance; and/or hold a funeral for his fallen comrades. Or something else I haven’t thought of!

That leaves Finn. Finn is going to wake up in a whole new world - literally, given that he passed out on Starkiller and will presumably wake up either on D’Qar or on a different Resistance base. He’s going to need to recover from a life-threatening injury and from a lifetime of brainwashing. He has no idea what life is like outside the First Order, down to simple things like body language: it’s demonstrated during the scene on Starkiller that he doesn’t understand Han’s head-jerks as an attempt to draw his attention in a certain direction. He’s got a spectacular fish-out-of-water thing going. On the other hand, he’s a brilliant tactician and has a hell of a lot of information about the First Order in his head. That’s not a resource General Organa is going to pass up. So Finn needs to spend the next movie learning who he is when he’s not a brainwashed Stormtrooper, and why he should stay with the Resistance rather than run as far from the First Order as possible. It makes perfect sense for Finn to be terrified of the First Order, and him overcoming that fear - embracing the entire Resistance as his people as strongly as he does Rey and Poe - would make a very good second movie arc. Something like Poe asking Finn to give them a month to change his mind, or something; that seems a Poe thing to do.

For a third movie arc, it would make sense for Finn to gain rank in the Resistance, to begin to use that brilliant tactical mind to lead, coming up with batshit insane plans that work. It would also make sense if Rey, once she rejoins the Resistance, begins to train him in what she has learned, having recognized upon re-meeting him that he has the Force. And finally, it would make beautiful sense for Finn, the Stormtrooper who got out, to find a way to incite and lead a Stormtrooper rebellion. He can be Rey’s anchor to the Light when she goes to fight Kylo and the Knights - possibly even her backup against the Knights. If one wanted to include it, Luke could give Rey Leia’s lightsaber before she leaves Ahch-To, and either Rey or Leia could give it to Finn.

And then the third movie could end with happy trio hugs, because I’m not giving up on that anytime soon.

So I had the pleasure last night - genuine pleasure, I should note - of seeing the recent collection of Disney Pixar shorts. They are, of course, gorgeous: wonderful art in many styles, with beautiful music to accompany them, and cute little stories to make the viewer laugh or cry or go awwwwww as appropriate. I enjoyed myself. But there were two things that rather bothered me.

The first thing was the introduction to the story of John Henry, in which all of the directors and producers who were shown were white. I say this as a white person: John Henry and his tragic triumph are not a white person's story. There should have been some people who were not white involved in the production, and if there were, why weren't they shown?

The second thing was actually the adorable Paperman. It is, in fact, adorable; it is what I think is usually called magical realism, its characters were well-developed despite the lack of words and the brief nature of the short film. But. Our male protagonist is instantly smitten with our female protagonist; that's easy to see. And then he spends the rest of the short thinking about her - wishing to see her again, trying to get her attention, searching for her. But while he's thinking about her, he's not actually thinking of her. We see that when she walks into the office across the way, she's there for some important reason: she's dressed to the nines, she shakes hands with the person in the office and gives them the folder she's been carrying, she sits patiently but nervously while the person reads through the folder. This is important to her, whatever it is. And the male protagonist thinks nothing of trying, desperately, to interrupt this clearly important moment in his life. What impact would it have made on her meeting if a paper airplane had interrupted it? Would she have been judged, however unfairly, because someone chose to hassle her from across the street? It's not an unreasonable assumption that she might have been. But the male protagonist doesn't think of this; he thinks of nothing but that he wants her attention, regardless of what else she is doing at the moment.

That bugged me.

But not all men are like that! Not all men are violent when they are rejected, not all men catcall women, not all men become angry when someone refuses them sex, not all men go shoot up sororities because women won't sleep with them.

Yeah, not all men are like that. But enough men are.

See, that's the thing. It doesn't have to be 'all men' to be a problem. Just like not all sharks are dangerous - we still get out of the water when we see a fin. Not all snakes are poisonous - we still try to avoid getting near them in case of being bitten. Not all raw eggs have salmonella in them - we still cook our eggs to avoid getting ill. Not all of any of those are dangerous - but enough of them are dangerous that we avoid them anyhow!

And it's possible to learn to tell which sharks are dangerous and which are safe to swim with. It's possible to tell which snakes are poisonous and which are safe to handle. The chance of salmonella is small enough that an occasional raw egg probably isn't going to kill you. Violent - or potentially violent - men don't have nice brightly colored stripes on their backs to identify them as dangerous; they don't have clear markings which we can read and be wary of. Sometimes they display clear behavior markers which we can identify; sometimes they don't. The only way to be wary of the men who are dangerous is to be wary of all of them until they prove themselves to be safe.

So yes, women are wary of all men. Because enough men are dangerous that it's the only safe choice.

And those men who don't like that? Well, perhaps they could start doing something about the men who think that catcalling is a fun pastime, that women are required to put out if the man paid for dinner, that 'too drunk to consent' means the sex wasn't rape, that violence is an appropriate reaction to rejection. Perhaps when the best available statistics don't show that four men in every hundred are rapists - and likely to be serial rapists, too - perhaps when every woman out there doesn't have a story about how she or her sister or mother or best friend was violently assaulted, perhaps when walking down the street wearing comfortable clothing is not the catalyst for being obscenely propositioned...perhaps then we can reconsider being wary of all men.

But for right now, enough men are ruining it for all of you.

So I read Captain Awkward, and the DFD thread on Making Light, and Shakesville, and any number of advice columns on and off, because I am fascinated by humans and how and why we do things. One of the big things I see is in the matter of romantic relationships. Someone – usually a woman – will say something like, “My significant other leaves broken glass in the sink,” or, “My significant other pisses in cups and leaves them lying around,” or, “Of course I do all the housework despite working a sixty-hour week because my significant other just can’t do it,” and the thing is, nine times out of ten that significant other is male. And then a whole heck of a lot of other women chime in to say, “Hey, mine does that too, you are not alone!” (or, more hopefully, “My ex did that, and we are no longer together for a reason,”).

And I work in a mostly-female department of a mostly-female organization (librarians: very often female!), and a lot of my patrons are women, and I hear a lot of, “Oh, well, you know how men are,” and what the person means is: they don’t cook, they don’t clean, they don’t do childcare, they don’t do emotional anything, they expect their beer and their dinner and their marital rights and they lift heavy things and kill bugs. Good to have around but not, you know, useful for a whole lot of things, and you certainly can’t expect them to hold up their end of an emotional entanglement; if you want romance you have to pull that weight yourself: just be glad you have one who doesn’t hit you – or at least not much.

And that? That is grade-A prime-cut BULLSHIT. And I wish to dispute it.

First off, you don’t need a man. Nope. It is nice to have a romantic partner if that is something you want in your life, and if you are interested sexually and romantically in men then it is nice to have a man in your life, but for the love of little birdies, just having one is not an accomplishment to be desired, and certainly the attitude of, “Well, this one is crappy to me but at least I have one” – that attitude needs to be taken away in a sack, never to be seen again. So.

Secondly, let’s say you want a man in your life, in the sexual and romantic sense. Let me tell you a thing.

I am married. Have been for just under eight months now, which I grant you isn’t a lot but I lived with my husband for just under four years before we were married, and the pastor who gave us premarital counseling basically said to our faces that marriage was, frankly, not going to change a damn thing about our relationship – that in every way that mattered except the legal, we were already married.

And when someone says to me, “Oh, you know how men are,” and they mean ‘useless violent jackwagon with the emotional intelligence of a small grey rock,’ frankly, I kind of see red. Because that is NOT TRUE of the man I married, and I know for a fact there are more men like him out there.

Let me brag on my husband for a minute, because here are some things which good men do:

• My husband goes shopping with me, after we have made the week’s menus together and looked through the cabinets together and decided what we need.
• My husband makes dinner with me, except on the nights I work late and come home and fall over, when he makes dinner for me, and does it damn well.
• My husband eats dinner with me at our little table, and we talk about anything and everything and laugh our heads off about the weirdest things and discuss philosophical issues and how to rule the world when our grand plans work out and we become evil overlords of the universe.
• My husband does the dishes with me, side by side at the sink chatting about our days or our plans for the week or the story one of us is writing or whatever else happens to come up in conversation.
• My husband semi-regularly scrubbed out the tub (before it started draining properly), and damn it looked nice. Also he does the vacuuming when we clean because I hate that thing.
• My husband tells me if my clothing looks acceptable in public when I ask, because he has a much better eye for color and fit than I ever have, and also he thinks I am beautiful and should wear clothing which looks good on me.
• My husband is warm and snuggly and comes up behind me while I am on the computer to hug me from behind and get his beard caught in my hair like Velcro and laugh at whatever I’ve got up on Tumblr.
• My husband betas my fiction and worldbuilds with me, and I beta for him and worldbuild with him, and both our writing improves.
• My husband plays Diablo III with me and we go kill monsters gleefully and laugh and trade interesting items. And then he quotes the characters at me while we are doing other things so that I fall over laughing.
• My husband explains football to me, very patiently, over and over because I think it is a silly sport and do not understand it but I know he likes it so I don’t mind if the game is on, and sometimes I want to know why everyone is cheering.
• My husband makes really awful puns and laughs at my really awful puns.
• My husband lets me rant about my co-workers or patrons or the computers at work that don’t do what I need them to and hugs me when I am done.
• My husband never tells me I am stupid or ugly or useless, even when my own brain does, but he does tell me I am beautiful and smart and have really good ideas.
• My husband goes dancing with me.
• My husband brings me water and meds when I am sick, and rubs my back, and makes soothing noises. (Especially relevant this week, when I am making horrid hacking noises and snorfling.)

…Look, I could go on for a very long time about what a wonderful man I have married, but the thing is, look at that list. It is a list of ways my husband is kind to me, of ways my husband shares the work of being married with me instead of making me do it on my own, of ways that my husband demonstrates that he cares about me as more than just provider-of-food-and-sexy-times.

And no one, no one, NO ONE DAMMIT, should have to settle for less than someone who cares about them, and is kind to them, and shares the work of the relationship with them.

So if you are someone who wants a man in your life, romance-wise, do not fall for all of the many, many, many lies about ‘how men are’ and ‘you know how it is’ and ‘it’s just the way things work.’ No. There are men in the world who are kind and considerate, who tell awful jokes and hug you when you are sad and make dinner with you and never tell you that you are ugly or stupid or worthless. There are men who marry you after six years together because they want to, none of this who-buys-a-cow-when-milk-is-free bullshit. There are men who choose jewelry for you that is something you like, because they have paid attention to your interests, and buy you Hobbit socks for your birthday, and choose your engagement ring because it hasn’t got any sharp edges and they remember the time you cut yourself on a ring, years ago. There are men who do not make fun of your old teddy that is all flat and worn but you love it so damn much anyway. There are men who lean over and double-check that you’ve taken your pill because you like the outside confirmation, and who geek out about your favorite books with you, and who play computer games with you and never tell you you’re a ‘fake geek girl’ whatever the hell that is.

There are good men out there. My father is one. My husband is one. My husband’s brother, and his father, and on and on and they exist, okay?

If you really want a man in your life, do not settle for any man who will have you. Look for one who will be kind to you, and care for you, and respect your autonomy and your decisions; who will help you do the work of the relationship, and be your friend as well as your lover. Such men exist. Do not settle for less.

Welp, I'm appalled by my country. Seriously, an armed adult can claim he was 'scared' of an unarmed teenager and that counts as a defense?

...In other news, I'm trying to find a place to move, once I get a job, and Florida has just rendered itself quite effectively off the list of places I will *EVER* go. For a job, for a visit, for any reason whatsoever. Just...no. So much no.

Man, I have whiplash from the last few days of Supreme Court/Texas legislature shenanigans. On the one hand, augh, why did SCOTUS squash the bits of the Voting Rights Act which made it work? On the other hand, WHOO! DOMA is dead. On the same hand, WHOO! Wendy Davis is all kinds of awesome. On the first hand again, WHAT EVEN with the Republican party calling a vote after midnight and trying to pretend it was before midnight and then sort of backing down and going, oh, okay, actually Davis won that round.

...Seriously, has the Texas Republican party not heard of the internet? It's this big thing with tubes, Al Gore invented it, it lets *lots of people* talk to each other *instantaneously.* Also lots of people on the internet don't like you guys and are only too happy to point out your moments of idiocy. So maybe don't give them ammo?

Eh, the world is a strange and occasionally frustrating place.

...
In better news, hey, as of a week and a half ago I'm married!

So Best Beloved and I were talking over dinner, as we do, and we got to discussing the scientific method as it relates to right-wing religious wingnuts. I was thinking specifically about a thing from a while back, where a prominent wingnut said something about all porn turning people gay - don't even ask, I dunno - and thinking, okay. Back when I was going through puberty and figuring out my sexual orientation, my thought process went something like this: 'Data point: I am attracted to men. Data point: I am also attracted to women. Conclusion: You know, I think I may be bisexual. Huh, who'd've thunk.'

Whereas if you're in one of those areas where being gay is not an acceptable option, that process might go: 'Conclusion: I cannot be gay. Data point: I am attracted to men. Extrapolation: Some horrible outside force is tainting me and turning me towards the dark side, aiee!'

Which...no. That is not how science works. You're allowed and encouraged to have hypotheses, because those give you a starting point, but when the data does not back up your hypothesis - and I remember this clearly from science class! - you write up a conclusion which says, in essence, "Well whaddaya know, I was wrong, I thought X was true but pretty clearly X is not true, and Z might well be true instead, we should do some more experiments." And then you come up with a hypothesis about Z and start testing *that*.

Now, this is not nearly so easy with self-image and sexuality as it is with chemicals in a lab, and I quite understand that. But I think a lot of things would benefit from being approached with the scientific method: I think X is true. I will gather lots of data to see if I am correct. If I am not correct, well, drat. Better find a new hypothesis!

You know that feeling when you think you've written a nice little PWP with no redeeming social value and then the plotbunnies attack and suddenly you're seven chapters into a twenty-plus-chapter fic with epic journeys and social implications of arranged marriage and a possible sequel?

...Yeah. That would be where I am now. Oh my gods, you guys, this thing is trying to eat my life. If I end up trying to re-write LotR with Frodo, Prince of the Blue Mountains (adopted), I may have to bang my head against a wall for a while. Re-writing the Hobbit without the dragon is bad enough!

Best Beloved just laughs at me. Suppose I deserve that, really. But seriously, this may be the longest fic I've ever written and it's *not even done yet.* I have sixteen chapters plotted and am nowhere near the end.

Though I admit that writing in a huge fandom and getting such magnificent amounts of feedback is kind of making me squee.

Was over reading a very cogent post from N.K. Jemisin, who is an absolutely wonderful author, on racism and sexism in SFF fandom, and ran into the mention that someone had tried to use Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold as evidence that Heinlein was not racist.

I...just...AUGH MY BRAIN. What? Seriously, the only other Heinlein book as truly awfully racist as that one is probably Fifth Column, and...just...OMG WHAT.

...If you're going to try and prove something, at least give it a good go, okay? Don't pick one of the most racist novels by a given author to prove he isn't racist. Please? It breaks my brain.

So I adore Sherlock Holmes; he is a wonderful character and the books are wonderful and Dr. Watson is all kinds of adorable and I want one. I also quite like the BBC's Sherlock; it seems to me to be a decent adaptation of the original works into modern London.

I will not be watching Elementary for one reason: because every review I've seen says that Joan Watson is not the competent, war-tested, even-tempered, highly intelligent doctor that Dr. Watson should be. Yes, ok, Dr. Watson doesn't solve the cases. That's because he's not Sherlock Holmes, because no one else is Sherlock Holmes. That doesn't mean he's incompetent or stupid; it just means he isn't Sherlock Holmes. He's a very talented doctor, he's a good man, he's a soldier with a soldier's skills in fighting, he's immensely patient and astonishingly good-natured, given what he has to put up with! He is good at his job. He just isn't Sherlock Holmes.

So any Watson that modern adaptations provide had better be a brave, competent, highly intelligent ex-military doctor, because that's who Watson is, regardless of gender.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [humans] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These words were revolutionary 235 years ago when they were written. They should not be revolutionary now. They should not be anathema now. They should not die, here in the country where they were born.

Oh, my beloved country.

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(As a side note, I’ve been trying to decide what to call my boyfriend on this blog, because obviously I’m not going to use his real name, do I look stupid? and finally settled on calling him my Wolf. And yes, this is possibly related to the pretty pretty icon. Er. My kinks, I has them?)

Anyhow. I was listening to my co-workers at one of my jobs (I have three, kill me now) talking about their respective male significant others, and noticed something a little disturbing. When I talk about my Wolf, in public or in private, it’s usually to mention something good about him – he makes me hot chocolate, he did the dishes, he’s funny, he has better dress sense than I do. When my co-workers talk about their male SOs, it’s often…not as complimentary. They’re insulting, they’re hypochondriacs, they’re hard to get on with, they don’t like my friends…

I find this a little disconcerting, really. I keep wanting to say, If he’s that unpleasant, whyinell are you with him? What good points does this man have? What made you take up with him in the first place?

And then I realized that this is linked to something I’ve ranted about before: the idea that all men are uncommunicative boors, and all women are brainless bimbos, and really they have nothing in common except occasionally sex (and even then the women have to be pressured into it), so just hook up with someone attractive and deal with the fact that you have nothing in common and don’t really like each other. Which is BULLSHIT. But it’s infected so many of us. There’s this idea that if a man wants you – any man – it’s a compliment; that if a man is attractive or rich, or if you’ve been with him for long enough, you should just stay with him because he’s good enough. Who wants an equal? Just go for any available penis!

And…I think that’s utter bullshit. I think we should all – male, female, or other – be pairing up with people who make us happy, who make us feel safe and warm and fuzzy inside, who we can talk to. Who love us, and who we love. And if that means that we don’t go for the first available person with the socially-approved genitalia who makes cow eyes at us, then good! Reach for the sky, people! There are good people out there – I’ve met them, I’ve gone to school with them – and if we’d just…oh, bah. What I’m trying to say is, we shouldn’t settle. None of us. And if our SOs aren’t making us happy, if each time we see them there’s a sense of doom or sadness or tension (that isn’t sexual), then we should feel free – even encouraged – to move on, to find someone who makes us HAPPY.

My Wolf makes me happy, and that is why I am planning on staying with him for the foreseeable future, as long as he’ll have me. I really just wish some of the people around me had the same sort of happiness, and weren’t just settling for…less.

ETA: (As a side note to the side note, and in order to demonstrate respect for my partner and fairly good communication skills, and also that I am occasionally an ass, I shall point out that my SO had much rather be referred to as Best Beloved than Wolf, and that therefore, henceforth I will be calling him Best Beloved. I am sure this will thoroughly confuse all...two...people regularly reading this blog. Hi guys! You're awesome!)

I'm American - a citizen of the United States of America. I love my country and its ideals dearly; I think that the ideas embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in the Declaration of Independence and the writings of our Founding Fathers and Mothers, that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, are wonderful ideas, ideas which all people should support, because only by treating everyone as our equals can we become better than we are.

I'm a liberal. I think health care is good, and people who are poor should be helped not spat upon, and if I have to pay taxes, well, that sucks, but they help everyone, including me, because they support emergency rooms and roads and sewage systems and all sorts of other useful things. I think women should control their own bodies and gay and lesbian people should marry whom they please, with all the legal rights and privileges attached to that state.

I would like to say this to my political opponents: I think you are wrong. That's why we're opponents. I think some of your ideas are actively harmful, and others are passively harmful. But I also believe that you have reasons to hold those ideas, and I would rather like to sit down with you and discuss this like civilized beings. Perhaps there are things we can agree on. Perhaps there are things we must agree to disagree on. Perhaps there are things I will think you are right about, and perhaps there are things you will think I am right about.

But I cannot do this - I cannot sit down with you, O hypothetical rational political opponent of mine, and discuss our differences like civilized beings, because as far as I can tell, the people who hold views in political opposition to mine also think that I and the others who believe as I do ought to be rounded up and shot like rats in a trap. I do not care for this view. I do not think my political opponents ought to be shot - voted out of office, yes. Debated publicly, yes. Disproved scientifically, yes. But not shot. Because that is not how democracy works. Democracy is a civilized system, and that means WE DO NOT GO AROUND SHOOTING EACH OTHER WHEN WE DISAGREE. Okay?

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