Premise: An exiled Puritan family trying to survive in the wilderness is targeted by an enigmatic supernatural threat, but the worst threat might be the paranoia that drives them to turn on each other. Briefly: Beautifully made, with an excellent cast and a haunting soundtrack. The archaic language is aContinue Reading
What makes a main character my favorite? I’ve made a list of some of my favorite protagonists, from some of my favorite books, and thought about why they hooked me. I’m someone who is pulled in by character first, before ideas. I don’t have to directly relate to a character,Continue Reading
When I was a kid, Phyllis Schlafly used bathroom panic to help defeat the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have made sexual equality a constitutionally protected value. The claim was that the ERA would strip women of the “right to privacy based on sex” in “public restrooms and other publicContinue Reading
I want to talk about Star Wars, but that’s dangerous for me, because I don’t want to deliver any spoilers, but apparently I don’t know what a spoiler is. I think a spoiler is “a shocking or unexpected plot twist that’s important to the story.” Gandalf dying, then coming back fromContinue Reading
Act 1 — Circa 100 AD — two people pass each other in the marketplace Good day. Good day. Have you heard the good news? What good news? We are all loved and should love one another in return. That sounds pretty good. How do you know this? The creatorContinue Reading
NaNoWriMo 2015: I succeeded, but barely, and a little sloppily. The words weren’t all from the same novel, for example. And normally when I write, if I change my mind mid-scene about how the scene should go or what line of dialog the person should say, I will delete theContinue Reading
One of my earliest memories is my first nightmare. I was five, had just started kindergarten, and was having… social adjustment problems. As the oldest child in my family, I was used to interacting with adults. I was also a nerdy little thing, already prone to big words (for aContinue Reading
(Saving the world from Strong Female Characters so you don’t have to, Part 9 of 9. VICTORY IS MINE!!!!!!!! ) Let’s see, where were we? I believe our essayist was insisting that his erotic preferences are, in fact, the obvious and objectively correct default for the entirety of the humanContinue Reading
(Saving the world from Strong Female Characters so you don’t have to, Part 8 of 9. Really? We’re not done yet? Good lord. ) When we left off, we were talking about feminism-as-cult. So why are the ladies in despair? Why do they commit suicide in record numbers? Is itContinue Reading
(Saving the world from Strong Female Characters so you don’t have to, Part 7 of 9. I… I don’t know if I can make it after all… let me just lie here… and die… ) When we left off, our essayist was explaining the conspiracy to take over the country forContinue Reading
(Saving the world from Strong Female Characters so you don’t have to, Part 6 of 9. I can taste victory!) When we left off, Mr. Wright was talking about how unrealistic he finds women in film who can kick your butt. He goes on: I have never seen a sceneContinue Reading
(Saving the world from Strong Female Characters so you don’t have to, Part 5 of 9. We’re in the home stretch now!) Earlier in the essay, we were treated to the spectacle of our essayist pretending he didn’t understand the dictionary definition of sexism. So, he redefined it to something he personallyContinue Reading
(Saving the world from Strong Female Characters so you don’t have to, Part 4 of 9. We’re almost halfway there!) Back to our deconstruction of the essay, we briefly diverge into something that isn’t detailing exactly the ways in which our essayist believes that women are different from men. Instead,Continue Reading