everytime I hear about children of the corn I think about the guy I met at comic con who actually lived in the town they filmed that movie at, and on the farm where they filmed in the corn.
he was a teenager at the time and him and his friends would get drunk on moonshine and rustle the corn and let the air out of the tires of the production team’s trailers and shit.
and now there’s Wikipedia pages about how the children of the corn set was haunted and they thought they angered god but it was really just drunk hillbillies
I don’t like adding to posts but I also have a funny story like this, so I was watching the movie the Blair witch which takes place in burkettsville maryland, which to me is so funny because that is were my grandfather lives and the town is literally just old people and cows with their main street consisting of a post office. Well anyway he told me that after it came out people were coming in like bus loads to the town to find the witch and my grandfather lives up in the Mountain area and people were up in his property trying to find the witch and it made him angry so he went out and hung up stick people and stacked rocks and it freaked the people out so they started thinking something was out there when really it was my 80 year old Italian grandpa who wanted people out of his woods.
We had ghost hunters come to a historic house in my town to film and if you think every high school kid in town respectfully stayed at home that night instead of going to fuck up that filming you’re dead wrong.
this is comforting, actually, sometimes paranormal things are just a bunch of bored people dicking around in the woods.
We start with a slow pan down to Gotham as Oracle narrates
“Ask your average person who Gotham’s most famous citizen is, and you’ll get the same response every time: Bruce Wayne. Everybody’s heard of Bruce Wayne. You’ve probably heard his name a million times before. But there are some things that the average citizen doesn’t know about him. See, to the people of Gotham, Bruce Wayne is a rich kid who never grew up. They think he’s a buffoon, an airhead, a moron. But the truth is…”
*Batman bursts out of a window, screaming, on fire*
*record scratch, freeze frame*
“…they aren’t entirely wrong about that.”
EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE
This is then followed by a series of clips from interviews with various Gotham citizens, all of whom give humorously ironic descriptions of Bruce Wayne’s idiocy:
“Bruce Wayne? I hear the guy gets through a super-car every month! Replaces every one, just like that!”
*Cut to shot of the Batmobile flipping end-over-end after slamming into one of Bane’s APCs*
“Wayne? Please! The guy would probably have accidentally killed himself years ago if he didn’t have that butler to babysit him!”
*Cut to Alfred physically restraining Bruce from going out to fight Scarecrow while having a broken arm, a concussion, and the flu,*
“I bet he throws away cash like it grows on trees!”
*Cut to Batman shouting “Hey, Lucius! Ask R&D to make some kryptonite/Nth metal alloy baterangs! Y’know, just in case!”
“I’m almost jealous. Super rich and he gets to hang out with gorgeous women across the world? Sign me up!”
*Cut to Bruce being slammed face first into a wall repeatedly by Lady Shiva.*
He’s gorgeous. Brooding. Bejeweled with countless sequins. He stresses over and over again that he and the female protagonist have a “connection,” are “soulmates,” or something else that you’d generally expect to hear from that one creepy kid who used to stare at you in class. Similarly, in true creep fashion, he uses their supposed connection as an excuse to blatantly stalk her, and is narratively treated as nothing short of a romantic in spite of it because he’s attractive (and sparkly) enough to pull it off.
Examples:
In the Twilight Saga, Edward is canonically over one hundred years old, making it extra creepy that he’s A) hanging around a high school for no particular reason, and B) dating a seventeen-year-old girl. He uses derogatory terms about past lovers, attempts suicide when Bella tries to break up with him, and shows up at her home uninvited to watch her sleep. Moreover, his systematic isolation of Bella from her friends and family is all-too reminiscent of real life abusive dynamics.
Try to avoid a blatant power imbalance. Edward is stressed to be older, stronger, more experienced, and more intelligent than Bella. Sometimes power imbalances are unavoidable due to species differences, but this can be countermanded by giving the human love interest qualities that make them valuable in other ways.
Overall, if you’re attempting to portray a healthy relationship, try to base it on an equal exchange of power and mutual respect.
2. The Christian Grey (i.e. the glorified rapist)
How to spot him:
When I first found out that the 50 Shades of Grey franchise was originally Twilight fanfiction, I initially (incorrectly) presumed it to be a joke. After I’d come to terms with the fact that it was not, my next thought was that it made perfect sense, because Christian is literally Edward Junior on steroids: the same abusive brand of stalker who gets off on a blatant power imbalance, with the added unpleasantries of excessive wealth and bad BDSM etiquette. Oh, yeah. And he’s a rapist.
Examples:
Christian disregards Ana’s request for a condom, stating “her body belongs to him,” threatens punishment when she refutes his attempts to discretely grope her in public, and at one point, ignores her safe word. Throughout the book, Ana is pressured into sex she feels uncomfortable with.
How to avoid him:
If you’re going to write about BDSM, actually study BDSM etiquette.
Healthy BDSM relationships are forged on mutual trust and a consensual, mutually beneficial exchange of power. Even if you are writing about BDSM, if you intend to write about a healthy relationship, be sure to base it off of these values.
Just because a character is dominant doesn’t mean they need to be emotionally callous; Christian completely neglects Ana’s emotional needs, such as her aftercare (i.e. the period of tenderness recommended after BDSM sessions to compensate for the emotional and physically taxing task of surrendering one’s power.)
In short, don’t use kink as a means of excusing emotionally unhealthy and abusive dynamics.
3. The Ross Geller (i.e. the entitled “nice guy”)
How to spot him:
He thinks his hot female friends (and only the hot ones, mind you) are owed to him because he’s “nice,” romantic, and intelligent. However, upon closer scrutiny he really isn’t a particularly nice guy (i.e. he bullied his sister Monica and benefits from enjoys her emotionally abusive parents’ favoritism), is self-centered, and consistently places his needs ahead of her own.
Examples:
The minute Rachel begins to find self-fulfillment in her career, Ross becomes jealous and hounds her at work, accuses her of “not having enough time for (him),” and generally tries to make her feel guilty for being successful and having priorities other than him.
How to avoid him:
Again, I cannot stress this enough: mutual respect. This is literally the foundation of all successful relationships, fictitious or otherwise.
Have your male characters support their significant other’s decisions and allow them to be happy for their success.
Your male character’s significant other is allowed to do things that don’t necessarily involve him. Make sure he understands that.
Intelligence in and of itself does not make a character a better person than his fellows, and intelligence does not have to equate the superiority with which Ross appears to associate himself.
Just look to the healthier couples Friends churned out in its time: Monica and Chandler, for example, love and respect one another’s goals, and are no the less interesting and hilarious because of it.
4. The Sheldon Cooper (i.e. the annoying autism stereotype)
How to spot him:
He’s a bloated paragon of autism stereotypes. He’s got zero regard for the feelings of his friends, considers himself superior to everyone, and is incapable of talking about anything but his own interests. As someone who’s on the spectrum myself, he’s basically my personal pet peeve.
Examples:
“His spot” on the sofa, his need to knock three times before speaking to the person on the other side of the door, etc. These are stereotypical and inaccurate portrayals of some autistic people’s comfort in routine.
How to avoid him:
Research symptoms of Asperger’s in adults (and for god’s sake, stay away from Autism Speaks.) Similarly, try and learn from actually people with Asperger’s, as anti-autism, “cure”-based sentiment tends to run high in allistic academia.
Study the mannerisms of famous people who may have been on the spectrum, such as Albert Einstein, Allan Turing, Leonardo da Vinci, and Sherlock Holmes’s inspiration, Joseph Bell.
If you’re not ready to depict an autistic character, I’m going to say wait. It’s okay to admit to ignorance, and it’s okay to wait to do more research before depicting a certain subgroup.
Try to avoid inserting autistic symptoms into characters to use as comedic fodder.
Asperger’s coded (and confirmed, by creators and cast) characters like Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Bones) and Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) have their stereotypical moments, but they’re still successfully presented as lovable, intelligent, and productive characters; look to them to see better representation of intelligent, autistic characters in mainstream television.
5. The John Winchester (i.e. the abusive parent with a redemption arc)
How to spot him:
The John Winchester is a textually abusive or otherwise toxic parent who damages his children’s lives for his own purposes, inflicts emotional or physical harm, and is shown or mentioned to be violent, controlling, and/or neglectful. However, his redeeming/sympathetic qualities or otherwise heroic actions lead him to be narratively treated as a benevolent character and “good” parent.
Examples:
In Supernatural, John leaves his boys for weeks on end in motel rooms, sometimes over important holidays (and keep in mind that this was in the 80s and 90s, when child sexual abuse was at an all-time high.) He often places his eldest son as the soul caregiver of his other child, despite the fact that he was a child too at the time, and left them both alone with loaded firearms. He also uses unfairly harsh punishments, such as leaving his young son alone at a boy’s home for an entire summer because he stole food for himself and his brother. His son literally, unironically realized he was being possessed by a demonic entity when it said it was proud of him.
How to avoid him:
Educate yourself on the different definitions of abuse (emotional, verbal, physical, etc.) and what qualifies as each. Psychology Today is a great resource for this (they have some rudimentary definitions here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/child-abuse.)
Feel free to endow abusive parents with sympathetic qualities (in fact, please do; 100% evil characters tend to be campy, boring, and/or unintentionally hilarious) but be aware that no sympathetic qualities negate or justify child abuse.
Please, for the love of God, don’t use the “he was doing his best” excuse as a resolution. Many abusive parents legitimately are doing their best, and many abused children are acutely aware of this. It really doesn’t provide much comfort.
Remember that abused children frequently refuse to turn on their parents, often defending them long into their adulthood. The child’s forgiveness does not equate the parent’s redemption.
Similarly, I’d personally recommend staying away from the “I can finally forgive him” trope as well; it’s done to death, and often frustrating to real-life survivors.
Before the Meninsits™ come for me about this, I am going to be writing a list of female character archetypes as well, and then make lists of positive attributes to include in male and female characters, respectively, to provide a counterpoint. I might also make a part two of this post for all the other characters I hate, because I fear it would get too long.
In the meantime, there will be essays like this published at least once every other week, so be sure to follow my blog and stay tuned for future writing advice and observations!
•buy toys/dolls/crayons
•play with Legos
•play old videogames/dress up games
•weave friendship bracelets
•watch cartoons
•use stickers
•draw pics of your favorite characters
If it makes you feel nice, do it.
Don’t even worry about what other people think, because it doesn’t matter–if it brings you happiness, it’s not “ridiculous”, or “immature”.
You deserve to enjoy yourself.
Let me share with you what I consider to be the most important less I’ve learned in my adult life:
“Growing up doesn’t mean you can’t have Zebra Cakes. Growing up simply means that, if you want to have Zebra Cakes, you buy them for yourself.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Bear?” Well, let me explain. For those of you who live outside of the US, this is a Zebra Cake:
It’s a little pre-packaged snack cake that is horribly cheap and junky and really not that great, but it is like manna from heaven to me. I fucking love these things. When I was a little kid growing up, my mom bought Zebra Cakes but once in a blue moon. They were intended to be put in mine and my siblings’ school lunches, but my brother and I would eat them whenever we wanted, so Mom just didn’t see the point. (They also used to be kind of expensive, at least for our family’s budget.) Needless to say, the coveted Zebra Cakes were a luxury for me, and were one of the tastes of my childhood.
Fast forward to my college years. I was living in an apartment with three other people, doing my own shopping and cooking. I was in the grocery store, picking up some stuff, and I happened to walk past a display of snack cakes. Among them were several boxes of Zebra Cakes.
I paused at this, chuckling to myself. Oh man. Zebra Cakes. I haven’t had those in years. I loved those when I was a kid. I reminisced happily and thought about how much I missed the taste of Zebra Cakes, then started to walk away.
And then I stopped dead.
Because I had realized that there was literally nothing stopping me from buying a box of Zebra Cakes. There was nothing stopping me from buying ten boxes of Zebra Cakes. If I wanted Zebra Cakes, I could have goddamn Zebra Cakes, because it was my money and my decision to make.
I put two boxes in my cart (they were 2 for $5) and never looked back.
Here’s the secret I learned that day: The idea of something being “just for kids” is, by and large, bullshit. What you do on your own adult free time with your own adult money is, by its very nature, adult stuff. It’s like comedian Eddie Izzard (who frequently performed his routines in drag) once said when someone asked about him wearing ‘women’s clothes’: “They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.”
I am 25 years old, and yesterday I bought myself a shark lunchbox. Look at it. Look at how awesome my lunchbox is.
Was this lunchbox intended to by bought for and used by a child? Yes. The tag said it was for ages 3 and up. But it was bought by and will be used by an adult, and anyone who thinks that’s wrong is probably just jealous that they don’t have the self-confidence to rock a shark lunchbox at 25.
So like. Being “mature” and “an adult” doesn’t mean you have to completely abandon the things that made you happy when you were younger. It just means that you may have to approach them in a different way.
Pay attention, there’s a lesson here
I hesitated reblogging this, and I am not entirely sure why.
I friggin’ love Zebra Cakes – especially the special Valentines ones they put out in February.
I have Marvel glasses cases – yes two. The optician didn’t bat an eye.
I’ve had this realization multiple times, and one of the first was specifically with Zebra Cakes.
Aliens. Meeting. Deadpool. They’d flip out so hard seeing this thing that takes everything that makes an average human scary and distilled it and dialed it up to one hundred eleven. I need to see this
Human: tsk… of all the stupid things this idiot could do… look, they picked up a blue ringed octopus!
Human 2: is it dangerous?
Human: it’s australian, golden with bright blue circles. of course it’s deadly.
Human 2: oh dear, how can one be so stupid to pick up random animals in australia???
Alien: what’s with australia?
Human: well, everyone knows that australian animals are ten times more deadly than everywhere else. you don’t go picking up animals in australia, unless it’s a quokka. pretty much everything else is venomous, highly aggressive, or brings diseases. a combination of the three is possible.
Human 2: I remember that they had to censor an episode of a children tv show because it taught not to be afraid of spiders… in australia you MUST be afraid of spiders.
Alien: so… let me get this straight. you come from what we define as a Death World, and yet on your death world there is a place even more dangerous??
A problem that we might have is the importance of food. There are certain things that I’m quite certain will be constant from culture to culture, and, barring the possibility of aliens taking control of their evolution in such a way that they no longer need to eat, I think food would be one of them.
People would be careful in the beginning, but eventually some people would break more and more quarantine and contraband laws, resulting in unusual fusion which we might not be able to predict.
“What’s this apple-looking thing I’m eating?”
“It’s actually an animal that sucks sap out of trees. Think of it as a vegetarian tick.”
“What is that?”
“It’s called chocolate, want some?”
***Two Hours Later***
“I see colors!”
“Chocolate is space cocaine. Got it.”
“Human, I have made gumbo using ingredients from my planet. Would you like some?”
“Isn’t your biome arsenic-based?”
“Your point?”
“Want some chips?”
“Are you insane human!? That has SALT in it! Are you trying to kill me!?”
