Laughter Through Tears

On Saturday night, I finally watched the Wonder Woman movie. It's been highly anticipated in general, both because of Gal Gadot's short but redeeming performance in last year's appalling Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but also because of the revolving-door rumors about a WW movie, and its many years in so-called development hell. It took me a long time to become a fan of the character myself, given the nature of creative work on a shared universe like DC Comics' universe. Writers and artists come and go, each one wanting to leave their mark on the character. With each change in creative teams, you never know what version of your favorite character you're going to get next. At the end of the day, every fan has their own idea of what Wonder Woman is, or should be.

Fortunately, this is an idea that the movie takes a strong stance on. Wonder Woman is a character full of contradictions. She's a superhero, a princess, a warrior, a mythological figure and an ambassador for peace, and none of these roles, no matter how conflicting they might seem, can be elided and still remain true to form. An explicitly feminist character from her inception, Wonder Woman was initially conceived as a superheroine who fights evil, "not with fists but with love". There's a great deal that might be said about William Moulton Marston and his ideas of gender, and how they gave rise to the Diana we know. Whatever else might be said, though, what persisted is a profile of a heroine combining strengths stereotypically both masculine and feminine.

( Read more... )

Instead I will close with this: Wonder Woman is a five-star summer action film which approaches its subject matter with a little more finesse than is typical for the superhero genre. It fulfilled every expectation I had for it and then some. I fully see myself rewatching it, and finding more to see and love in it than I did in the first viewing. I recommend it whole-heartedly and have high hopes for a sequel.

Crossposted to hazelgold.net.

Last week: first half of the week (and the second half of the previous) was dominated by the exam I had to take for the OU, fortunately my only one of the season (since I tanked badly on linear algebra). I didn't study quite well enough, but the exam went decently and I came out of it after an hour and a half feeling okay. And was able to put the matter out of mind and spend the evening and the following day decompressing in the extreme.

Then I went back to work and readjusted to routine, after a week of feeling weirdly detached from my own life and the schedule I built for myself. This is still a work in progress, I suppose. On Thursday they held a kind of team event which took us out of the office. I enjoyed it, but it was hot and I came home exhausted. On Friday my sister pointed out that I had been sunburned, a little bit, around the collar and on the back of my neck. Dedicated nerd, vampire jokes etc. etc. My doctor also says that my vitamin D is critically low again.

This week: work. On Sunday night I went to see the new Ghostbusters with my brother and found it delightful. Laughed out loud more than once, a rarity for me with comedies. Today is my first dedicated writing day in a while and I'm finding it hard to get back in the rhythm. Probably because sometime in the last week or so I sank back into The Sims 2 of all things, and last night I stayed up much later than I had intended.

I actually realized several times that I forgot to cross-post my review of Martha Wells' dragon shapeshifter books, but I kept forgetting to do something about it. I'm posting it now, back-dated. And I need to think on what my next blog post should be. I mean, I could review Ghostbusters, but I really don't have anything intelligent to say that hasn't been said a billion times already.

I made some writing-related business decisions re: Patreon and itch.io, but since I haven't properly implemented anything, it's soon to concern with that. I am making inroads with Ren'py, though, I can say that much. And with the script of my in-progress game taking on a distinct shape, I think I could make a decent visual novel out of it, if I can find the right assets. And then I would have something to put on my itch.io, and to link to when I say grandiose things like "I am a game writer".

I fly to the US on Thursday night (yes, I know that's the first time I've mentioned it on this blog). I booked what needed booking, described to my mother as "a tour of New York's airports", borrowed a suitcase, planned what clothes to take, started carefully scheduling the laundry cycles... and today I went bra-shopping.

( Body talk, I guess )

Anyway, Age of Ultron was frothy but satisfying like a very artificial-tasting milkshake. My brother was naturally more forgiving of it than I was. Some issues I didn't bother bringing up, but I had to mention that the Wanda/Pietro storyline could be lifted right out of the movie with almost no impact. Natasha got an origin, apparently in lieu of actually getting a solo film like the boys. Wanda, though, felt pretty vacant to me.

Whedon's thing with emotionally-damaged brunettes again, I suppose. Or maybe I am being too harsh.

I'm still trying to cut out all alcohol and all caffeine from my diet. I feel like the waters are very muddled now and I want things to be a bit clearer. I've been wanting to do this for a long time and it has not been as successful as I might have hoped, I keep starting then slipping.

For example, last Wednesday I went to see Man of Steel with my brother and we both found it absolutely dreadful. But when we were waiting for the movie I completely spaced out and bought a half-liter diet coke before I even remembered that coke has caffeine in it. When I checked the details it turned out that coke has more caffeine than decaf, which is the only coffee I have in the house right now.

So at the moment I'm craving coffee something severe and trying so hard to be good, and not even sure if it's worth it.

MOS really was completely awful, and it's not like I had high expectations or anything. It wasn't even Nolanized the way we expected, it was just crudely written and edited and made no sense.

Last night I watched The Hobbit with my brother. Naturally it put me in a frame of mind for the fantastic and my mind was churning with ideas for my latest slow-burn original fic project. When I got home I sat my ass down and made a list of preliminary names for some major characters. Now it might be easier to think about my protagonist, since I don't have to call her, "You, there, girl!" anymore.

So, last night I finally saw Avengers and now I'm one of the cool people.

Whoops I forgot to update my journal in almost two weeks. No idea why. I've still been checking my DW basically every day.

Stuff that happened in that time:

Got a Twitter (here), at the behest of a couple of Israeli friends. There are massive fiscal-related protests in Israel right now and Twitter is one of the online epicenters of news and discussion. A bunch of my tweets and retweets are in Hebrew, just so you know.

Finished my very last piece of work for the semester, which was a mock research proposal that turned out more complicated than I'd anticipated.

Watched Green Lantern a couple of weeks ago and found it fairly dull, having not enough aliens and not nearly enough shiny explody green stuff -- too much talking and ~character drama~. Watched Captain America last night and found it much more enjoyable.

The new light rail in Jerusalem opened. I was on it yesterday to get to the movie and so far it is pretty terrible.

Wrote a bunch of anonymous fic, and also made a bit of progress on my absurdly late help_japan fic. It will be sad, I think, but perhaps bittersweet. It is also getting my mind on perhaps writing some more VM fic, after I finish it. Right now, though, finishing it is my top writing priority, and then getting a good beta.

Things that are still to happen:

In a week I'm flying to Atlanta with my brother for DragonCon. Eep.

Finishing an anonymous WIP that I've been working on all summer and spring and posting it to AO3, possibly after extensive editing/beta. This is a thing that is going to happen.

When offices at uni open again, calling the life sciences secretaries and figuring out whether my lab request was approved. This has to happen before I sign up for classes. Then I have to sign up for classes when, yet again, I will take more courses on my first semester than I am comfortable with, due to 'constraints' (had to look that up on morfix).

I am recording some of my worst writing habits for posterity.

Today's Google logo is the coolest. Yes, it is even cooler than the Pac-Man one.

Tonight my brother and I watch X-Men: First Class. Tomorrow is the Tel Aviv Pride Parade and I want to go, but only if I meet friends there. There is A Thing about the difference between the TA gay community and the Jerusalem gay community that I don't want to get into, but I am not really a Tel Aviv person. If I went alone I would feel lonely, estranged and out of place. If I went with friends, it would be awesome.

TV tropes is a kind of special hell for writers.

There is some sort of phenomenon with fandom kink memes that inspire a lot of gen. I don't really know what causes that to happen, but it's very interesting.

I have a lot of questions and observations today, but no answers or conclusions.

fannish5 of the week: Name your five favorite evil characters.

1. X-Men: Magneto. There's something ludicrous and yet elegant about a villain who's simultaneously tragic and sympathetic, as well as a cackling, finger-steepling, gaudy-helmet-wearing overlord. FCOL, he founded a society called the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But he's brilliant and filled with righteous rage, and underneath the trappings of comic book villainy there's a kind of disastrous misdirected fear that strikes true.


2. BtVS: The Mayor. Villains are so often weighted down with all sorts of pointless shorthand characteristics, it's still hilarious to see an ultra-wholesome teetotaler plot doom and destruction. Seeing him become a father figure to his sword-arm is downright touching. And still, sufficiently easy to hate.


3. Order of the Stick: Redcloak. I haven't even read the prequel (yet!) but Redcloak is a perfect counterpoint to the joke-cracking pile-o-bones he reluctantly calls boss. He's evil, but he's doing it for a cause, but he's definitely not just "technically" evil, and he's definitely dangerous. The idea that he might change alignment and find himself on the side of the heroes (for the right reward) is simultaneously impossible and highly appealing. If I were a different sort of fan, I'd probably be fighting tooth and claw to say he's not really evil, and he must be redeemed.


4. AtLA: Azula. Many people two many terrible things throughout the series. Azula is the scariest, I think, even though Ozai is technically more dangerous. She's validated by being considered a success by her father, and by her obvious talent, intelligence and skill. It's the idea that she's a winner, that she's the hero of the story, that makes her so dangerous. Depite being terrifying (to me) and not at all sympathetic (again, YMMV), redeeming her is tempting just because it's such a waste.


5. Probably most animated Disney villains could go here, but let's go with Ursula the sea witch. Sea witches are cool, dammit. Maleficent could work also, she's equally hammy and she's a freaking dragon.

I have weird definitions of things like "villain" and "evil" and so my list is a little weird, and actually neglects a lot of my favorite villains. I mean, the original post said "evil" and most of my favorite villains (or antagonists) are not really evil. Actually, I don't really believe in evil, I think. I definitely don't think I could ever write a really evil character. I used to have a bunch back when I role played a lot. I quite liked a lot of them, but nowadays, I don't think I'm up to it.

Maybe evil TS3 Sims count. I have a family of four that's evil, so maybe they count.

This linkspamming is becoming a habit.

I am very looking forward to this movie, because how often do you get films about pagan astronomer ladies? Even though it will likely be less fascinating than her actual life, and much more dramatized, and the trailed is just ~lolarious~.

Another lady scientist they should make a movie about: Saint Hildegard von Bingen. I first heard of her when I was reading up on the early history of geology (my dad is a geologist) and she was one of the first people in Medieval Europe to collect and catalog minerals and the like. She was also remarkable on many other levels, and it appears she had her fingers in just about every science and art that was available to her.

Out of all possible X meets Y premises, X-Men meets Little House on the Prairie wins. Especially when it looks like this.

I haven't read this review of Persuasion all the way through yet, but so far I've found it fascinating and insightful.

When you describe a book that "opens with a dispute over how much of a father's body should be eaten by each family member", it makes me want to read it.

shiegra wrote about vampires, heroines and sex in a way that compelled me to subscribe to her. I was compelled.

I swear I will finish that meta post sometime soon. No, I don't know why I'm suddenly fascinated by vampires, I just am.