Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
My class 10/10 lost the plot today. I don’t even know where to start or how to explain to their parents that I think they’ve all turned into tiny little rebels.
9:10 - we are studying a report about Chernobyl in guided reading. Several are looking at me gone out when I explain that nuclear power can be dangerous. “So why use it?” one asks. Why indeed.
9:12 - we are now discussing renewable energy. Several more express outrage and ask why the country doesn’t have to use renewable energy. Several more state that we should avoid pollution because it kills polar bears and stuff right, Miss?
9:13 - I mention that it’s a complicated issue because of different viewpoints, and that certain people, say Drumpf, don’t believe in climate change.
9:14 - chaos.
9:15 - small child suggests someone murder Drumpf. I say that murder is both bad and illegal.
9:16 - the class have learned the word impeach and are shouting IMPEACH TRUMP IMPEACH TRUMP IMPEACH TRUMP while banging on the tables.
9:17 - headteacher comes in to see what is going on. Small child tells him quite angrily that SOME PEOPLE JUST DECIDE TO NOT BELIEVE IN SCIENCE WHICH YOU CAN’T DO BECAUSE IT’S SCIENCE. He backs out of the room quite quickly.
9:25 -I have abandoned plans for grammar and the children are now writing persuasive pieces about Why We Should Use Renewable Energy.
The saga continued after lunch when we continued our WW2 topic work, learning about the holocaust.
1:35 - we are discussing Kristalnacht. The class are collectively outraged and appalled. One is in tears.
1:40 - “Miss, I fucking hate Hitler.” that’s okay, but please express your hatred of fascism without the F word or I’ll have to ring your Mum again.
2:00 - small child who suggested murder earlier says “isn’t this exactly what Drumpf tried to do to the Muslims?” There’s a heady mix of realisation and outrage in the room.
2:13 - “Racism makes no sense” says a child, looking quite confused.
2:33 - “Hitler would have killed me because I’ve got cerebral palsy, right?” says a boy. He is tackle-hugged by a girl from across the table. I have to pretend I’m not crying.
2:34 - The rest of his table have made a pact to never let anyone hurt him. I am still pretending to be super chill. I am obviously failing as another child offers me a hug.
2:37 - I ask the children to look at nine examples of things the nazis did against Jewish people, and then arrange them in a diamond with what they consider the worst at the top.
2:38 - Mutiny. They all collectively decide to arrange all nine cards in a line and say that they’re all awful things so they all go at the top.
2:39 - I tell them if they kind find a way to fit a line of all nine in their books then fair enough. Smart child suggests a circle. Everyone cheers. We have a break, and they go outside raging about Hitler, Drumpf, racism, prejudice and injustice in general. I am handed a very strong tea by my TA who congratulates me on my gang of angry eleven year olds.
Faith in humanity both challenged and restored. Bring on tomorrow.
Reblog if it’s okay for your followers
to leave you an ask telling you what the one thing is they remember
you for as a writer. Is it a scene or a detail or a specific line?
Is it something like style or characterization? Is it that one weird
kink they never thought they’d be into, but oh my god wow
self-discovery time?
I’m not talking about fanfictions or AU’s based off of a video game/comic/TV series, I’m talking about a story with a world and characters that are YOURS and YOURS alone.
Talking to a guy who knows my parents but doesn’t know me very well, and he tells me that his friend (indeed, a very nice and talented actor) recently put out a horror movie. And I’m interested until I hear the words “So it’s about this guy with OCD…” and at that point my mom and I give each other a sidelong glance.
I say, “I don’t know, because I have OCD and it’s a pretty serious thing for me.”
To which he follows up, “Oh, you don’t have it like this guy! You’re totally functional!”
Okay, dude. Yes, I am standing before you in a fancy club, dressed nice, and looking relatively balanced. But you do not know me. You do not know OCD.
You do not know that I have been non-functional, and that in order to maintain my current balance of sanity, I take daily medication and see a weekly therapist, and I still have downward spirals and panic attacks.
OCD can add to a story, for sure. The Aviator is a great example–albeit, it was on the voyeuristic side, kind of “check out what a weirdo this guy really is”, but his condition was portrayed in a realistic and *sympathetic* manner, because it focused so hard on his anxiety and entrapment.
I don’t need a horror movie about my disorder for a couple reasons.
1. I already live the horror movie that is OCD.
2. Just like people with psychosis, schizophrenia/schizotypal disorders, dissociative identity disorders, and any other number of mental disorder that makes us act in unusual and yes, sometimes frightening ways, I don’t need it to be the hinge for your horror flick, a handy device that makes more people like you scared and misunderstanding of people like me.
3. And for people with the above disorders who may not be diagnosed, they don’t need to be told that they are dangerous monsters and cause them to avoid treatment out of fear. (This goes double for people who experience paranoia or delusions as part of their symptoms.)
This post ended up way longer than I meant, but really, truly, hear me out creators:
MENTAL ILLNESS IS A TRAIT AMONG AN INFINITE VARIETY OF PEOPLE. IT IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW, AND IT IS DEFINITELY A POOR PLOT DEVICE FOR THE HORROR GENRE. YOU CAN DO BETTER.
*Loudly looks @ the movie “Split” *
For real can we stop this shit along with having horror movies take place in mental hospitals
But imagine that the protagonist is the one with the OCD.
She is targeted by a serial killer who enjoys toying with people, gaslighting by proxy, and ‘maybe I’m going crazy’ works perfectly on all his victims until this one.
Because she knows the difference. She checks that her door is locked a dozen times before leaving the house, so she knows she didn’t leave it open. She unplugs every appliance in the house before she leaves, so she knows she didn’t leave the television on. Her clothes have to be organized in a very specific way so she knows that someone’s been touching them.
Of course, the horror movie aspect comes in when, because she has OCD, nobody believes any of this. Not the police, not her friends and family, nobody. “Everybody just forgets sometimes” or “It’s just your mind playing tricks on you” mouthed by people who don’t understand that she doesn’t EVER forget, that her mind plays tricks on her all the time and this is not like that, this is someone else *doing* it. she has more than enough experience to tell the difference.
When she reports whispers coming from inside the walls, she gets asked if it could just be ‘in her head’. No. It can’t. She knows what the inside of her head sounds like and it’s nothing like this. But nobody believes that.
She can’t leave the house because every time she does, someone comes in and touches and moves her things but nobody believes her. Her family come over to try to ‘calm her down’ which is absolutely zero help. It doesn’t matter how many traps she sets to prove that someone is in the house, nobody believes she didn’t trip them herself. In desperation, she turns to the people in her therapy group. Someone is in my house, moving things, whispering things, and nobody believes me, I need help or I’m pretty sure he’ll kill me.
And they show up, en masse, with improvised weapons and toolboxes, and they search every inch of her house (without making a mess in any way because they totally understand that that would upset her) and when she says the voice comes out of her bedroom wall they start measuring every room and wall and *that* wall might be thick enough for someone to hide inside so they tap on every inch with a rock taped to the end of a broomstick so they’re not in arm’s reach and that bit sounds hollow and that and that and that but *that* bit doesn’t and the serial killer bursts out to find a) way more people than he expected and b) OCD protagonist wielding a butcher knife.
When he’s doubled up on the floor screaming and clutching his bleeding abdomen they call an ambulance because they are not murderers unlike this guy and he gets pulled out and taken to hospital and her friends from therapy offer her a scrupulously clean spare bedroom and help cleaning up the blood and fixing the place up again and anything else she needs.
Six months later she’s back at work, and hears a receptionist talking about how her ex is being kind of creepy and she’s sure he’s sneaking into the house when she’s not home but her friends think she’s totally overreacting and maybe she’s just crazy -
OCD protagonist tells her that no, she is not crazy, and anyone who discounts her fears like that is not a friend. If she doesn’t feel safe, she needs to take steps to protect herself. Would she like to know how to rig some little traps to let her know for sure if someone’s been in the house? OCD protagonist knows some good ones.
:D this is EXTREMELY relevant to my interests and now I’m mad this movie doesn’t exist because so few promising horror movies are coming out this year
This seems like a good place to mention that I especially love narratives where the MC’s mental illness or neurodivergence helps them out (aside from the ‘white autistic man is good at math’ trope because that’s been done to death) in situations that neurotypical people would have a hard time with - this reminds me of what I tried to do with Sally in The Ninth Daughter, where there’s a monster that specializes in manipulating reality without people noticing - but Sally’s schizophrenic and used to checking and re-checking the world around her for reality, so it doesn’t work on her.
YES PLEASE GIVE ME A HORROR MOVIE WHERE THE HERO’S MENTAL ILLNESS IS WHAT SAVES THEM ALL
On an adjunct note: when teaching character workshops for RenFest,
always emphasized disability is not a character occupation. She (and I when I started helping with classes) had a number of castmates who would try to create characters out of disabilities. Which was even more problematic when the disability was supposed to be a punchline for this character.
Please no.
Not in horror or comedy.
High heeled shoes don’t become flats if you break the heels off.
The posts of earrings aren’t sharp.
Nail polish takes a long time to dry and smudges when wet.
You can’t hold in a period like pee.
Inserting a tampon is not arousing or sexual in any way, ever.
Feel free to add your own.
- Bras leave red marks on the skin under and around boobs and it is a magical experience when taken off.
- Make up can take anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes depending on how skilled you are.
- Taking hair out of a ponytail after wearing it for hours does not make it perfectly straight when it comes down.
- Hair when wet sticks to the skin it no longer flows, idiot.
-When women with long hair kiss, turn around, do anything, their hair falls in the way.
- Stockings are itchy and tear like wet paper bags.
- Pantyhose, tights, leggings, and stockings are each different.
- Waxing hurts and leaves red skin for a while afterwards while shaving leaves stubble
- Most can’t run in heels unless they have been VERY worn
- Insecurity in appearance doesn’t mean “buy me a drink”
- EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT TASTES IN EVERYTHING
-Having large breasts sucks. It sucks beyond belief. If a garment happens to fit your large chest, odds are it won’t fit the rest of you. Underboob sweat is real and terrible. Bending over for extended periods of time will tweak your back out. Running can be painful due to boob turbulence. Bras are hella expensive. Big breasts are not fun.
Putting a tampon in isnt a quick bend-poke-done kinda deal. It involves cubicle yoga, messy hands, numerous curse words as you realise it isnt in correctly and have to take it out and start again with a new one.
Yes to all of this. But also:
If her hair is in an updo, one does not simply remove a hairpin to send her hair cascading down her back. No. If her hair is an updo, it will take at least an hour and an extra set of hands to remove the 137 bobby pins that are holding her hair in place. Furthermore, there’s probably a can’s worth of hairspray in there, intended to withstand category 2 hurricane winds. There’s no cascading happening here - the best you can hope for is a misshapen nest of hair to clump and poof unattractively in the back while it still remains flat against her scalp.
This is one of the funniest posts I’ve seen in a while (especially if you read all the comments), but also really depressing because at 42 I still judge myself as having failed for not matching up to all these mythical stereotypes despite knowing they’re impossible
^^^This though
The odds of a woman having smoothly shaved legs and armpits are directly proportional to the amount of skin her clothing bares and/or the amount of fucks she gives at that particular moment.
GLASSES ARE NOT COSMETIC. If we whip them off, we do not become gorgeous fashion models. We become squinty.
Just remember. There is no such thing as a fake geek girl. There are only fake geek boys. Science fiction was invented by a woman.
Specifically a teenage girl. You know, someone who would be a part of the demographic that some of these boys are violently rejecting.
Isaac Asimov.
yo mary shelley wrote frankenstein in 1818 and isaac asimov was born in 1920 so you kinda get my point
If you want to push it back even further Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole - oft credited as one of the first scifi novels
Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms)was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it
even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?
PbbBFFTTBBBTBTTBBTBTTT so desperate to discredit the idea of Mary Shelly as the mother of modern science fiction you didn’t even do a frickin google search For Shame
And if you want to go back even further, the first named, identified author in history was Enheduanna of Akkad, a Sumerian high priestess.
Kinda funny, considering this Isaac Asimov quote on the subject:
Mary Shelley was the first to make use of a new finding of science which she advanced further to a logical extreme, and it is that which makes Frankenstein the first true science fiction story.
Even Isaac Asimov ain’t having none of your shit, not even posthumously.
You know what else was invented by women? Masked vigilantes, the precursor to the modern superhero. Baroness Emma Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905.
The character would later inspire better known masked vigilantes such as Zorro and Batman.
Stick that in your international pipe and smoke it
I have literally been telling people this for over a year.
the first extended prose piece - ie a novel, was not, as many male scholars will shout, Don Quixote (1605) but The Tale of Genji (1008) written by a woman
The first autobiography ever written in English is also attributed to a woman, The Book of Margery Kempe (1430s).
The day may come when I find this post and do not reblog it, but it is not this day.
