Finn Michael Roberts

Yo! I'm Finn! I write YA and horror stories. I frequently post about education, comics, and pro-wrestling too.

[finnmichaelroberts]

2016-11-09

The news today makes me want to stop caring.

Caring is hard. It hurts. It's putting your heart out there only to have people, your country, let you down.

Like, it's a lot easier to sit on the sidelines and be cynical. If you're on neither side, then you never lose. You just get to feel superior to those who do. That's gotta be a better feeling than what I feel now.

Like, I wish I didn't care that my Mexican-American kids were upset a year ago when Trump called their families rapists. Wish I didn't care when I read the kid's email today that he's worried his Hispanic friends will be deported. Also wish I didn't overhear the LGBTQ girl openly worry about conversion therapy.

I made a point to tell my kids at the start of each class that I was glad each and every one was in the room today. And my first two hours, I let them know I don't believe in sharing how I voted with students, but I understand if they are hurt by last night's decision. And I told them (because I believe this) that they are a kinder, more empathetic, and all-around better generation than mine or the ones that have come before me.

But when they weren't in the room, I wanted to curl up in a ball, disappear, and not engage in anything ever again.

Except...

Except--screw that.

Because here's the thing--America is already great. You don't have to make America great again. You have to protect America and encourage it to be better.

Did you know that your state and national representatives represent you even if you didn't vote for them? And their contact information is just, like, all over the place? Readily available. It's right there.

So here's what I'm doing. I'm taking a social media break. Mostly from Twitter, it makes me anxious. I'm going to watch Stranger Things again and catch up on The Amazing Spider-Man. But I also bought a book of stamps and a bunch of envelopes, and I'm going to start writing everyone who represents me in the state of Indiana and in the federal government about why school choice is hurting my school. That's where I'm starting. We'll see where it goes from there.

Will I make a difference? Probably not. But what if you joined me? Will *we* make a difference? Well, then our odds go up. And apparently, this is the year of overcoming the odds.

Do what you can. Do what you're comfortable with. Talk to people on Facebook. Protest. Write letters. Sign people up to vote. Phone bank. Remember, midterms are in two years. Vote in those! Go to a local city council meeting. Hey, if you're Republican, YOUR DEMOCRAT FRIENDS WANT YOU TO DO THIS TOO. I know none of you, my Republican friends, hate gay people and birth control as much as Mike Pence thinks you do, so if you could tell your party that you want lower taxes but not this stuff--that helps the country by removing the barriers that keep us from meeting halfway.

So, be angry. Be sad. Be disappointed. Take a month off. But I don't like feeling helpless, I hate being cynical, so I'm going to channel my energy into something that is maybe a drop in the bucket, but at least it's doing something. I am going to be more guarded, sure. But I'm still going to care about things.

Because no one ever won the game by sitting on the sidelines.

And I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me.

[north-of-annwn]

Hurricane Matthew

PSA for those on the Coast: BE SAFE, and BE SMART! 

This one is going to be a gnarly one.  It’s not expected to make landfall, but ride the coast all the way up. This means it probably won’t reduce in strength like most storms do.  Mother Nature is a terrifying force and sometimes we cannot stand against her. 

If you are in Evacuation Zones please heed warnings and the advice of Emergency Responders. If demanded to evacuate, please comply.  Things can be replaced, you can’t.

The National Guard has been mobilized, but not evacuating when you should puts their lives at risk as well as yours. 

To those outside the danger zones, but still in the path- Hunker down.  Make sure you have: 

Dry Food

Candles

Flashlights

Batteries

window/door seals

pull in all outside decor/furniture not cemented down (they’ll become projectiles). 

Your Bathtub filled with water in case they shut off the city water

FIrst Aid supplies, benedryl, epipen, bandages, antiseptic, etc

Duct Tape (You never know what this stuff is good for)

emergency radio

An emergency plan should you get separated from family (keep in mind cell towers may be out)

[staff]

For more information on how to get through this thing, take a look at FEMA’s website—it’s packed with resources, including tools through which you can help first responders get to those in need. Stay safe down there, Tumblr, and be sure to check in with your loved ones. 

If you’re looking for ways to help Haiti out, check out our earlier post, and also add Sow a Seed to that list. They focus on orphans in the Caribbean, and they’re currently directing their efforts to hurricane relief.  

<3 <3 <3 Tumblr

[neilcicierega]

this is the original PokéRAP

[micdotcom]

Singer John Legend has lent his voice to the chorus of outrage that’s cropped up in the wake of two high-profile police killings of black Americans this week. His tweets echo a similar sentiment shared by Larry Wilmore on The Nightly Show.

[rubyweapon]

[fuckingscreaming]

Is this real?

[queenie-ohqueenie]

Yep, it’s real. 

[headlikea-sugartown]

This is wonderful

[korrasera]

They won’t be able to erase her name now.

[werewolfastrology]

I’m happy they used her true name 💚

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

Her name.  They used her name.  HER NAME.  OMG. 

[virginiagentlenerd]

This actually brings tears to my eyes. Rest well, sweet girl. No one will forget you.

[kierongillen]

I wondered if you had any comment on people questioning the queer character deaths in WicDiv? I (queer myself) understand an issue with such a lack of proper representation/appreciation for queer characters, especially with the recent discussions of queer deaths in media. Yet with WicDiv I see all characters as equally cared for, even in death. Just curious on your thoughts?

There’s certainly been people who’ve found it upsetting and stopped reading the book for it, which we understand entirely. At least part of the reason our story front loads the “All these people are going to die” is that we want to put our cards on the table. It’s essentially a warning sign: in this story, this horrible thing is going to happen. I suspect this has reduced the level of anger. I also hope that, as you say, our treatment of the characters in life and death influences people’s responses. I hope our love for the cast is clear Their tragedies are not related to their identities.

I was chatting to a reader about this, in both Angela and WicDiv, as she was upset about a few things, primarily things entirely contrary to our intent. While we were talking about it, she came up with the observation: in culture, we are so used to seeing bad things happen to LGBT characters because they are LGBT, that we can read negative intent into stories where bad things happen to them despite that they they are LGBT. I suspect she’s right.

It does beg the question why not do something happy?

Doing the books with the casts I do is important to me. However, I’m also aware that my own aesthetic and philosophy is never going to make me write Lumberjanes, as much as I would like to. I’m not wired that way. I am driven by death and loss and fear of both. My work is bitter-sweet at best, and any success is riddled with irony. As such, I try and find ways to balance both creative desires. I take it seriously and question myself a lot, and try and ensure that there’s an understanding of what the stories will be and what they are not. Tonally signalling in a book is key, and I hope it works.

[uncannybrettwhite]

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

[gendigo-deactivated20170404]

pros of long fics: well thought out, character development, builds relationships

cons of long fics: impending sense that something is going to go wrong at any moment

[mathylibrarian]

They’re together and happy, but there’s still ten chapters left.

[earlgreytea68]

I have discovered that you do not need to build any tension into a fic in order to maintain suspense. Readers’ own anticipation of impending doom will maintain the suspense for you. 

[musicalluna]

FANFICTION IS THE GREATEST FOR THIS THOUGH. IN ORIGINAL FICTION YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE READER CARE ABOUT THE PROTAGONIST, YOU HAVE TO WORK AT IT. IN FANFIC THEY COME IN CARING SO HARD THEY’RE PRACTICALLY ON THE VERGE OF ANEURYSM. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS HAVE FUN AND TRY TO PACE IT TO MAXIMISE THEIR EMOTIONAL RESPONSE.

i mean, you often don’t even have to introduce what the character is going to be traumatized by because everyone already knows because of a) canon or b) fanon, so as soon as they hear key words like “ice” or “cave”, they start going OH SHIT SHIT IS GONNA GO DOOOOOOOWN. it is honestly the greatest.

fanfic is also great, because you 100% don’t have to include any tension, and because people are already so invested in the characters, they are THRILLED to read that. THAT IS MAGICAL. YOU COULD NEVER GET AWAY WITH THAT IN PUBLISHED FICTION.

[finnmichaelroberts]

[finnmichaelroberts]

Will Grayson, Will Grayson and  Bisexual Identities

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is John Green’s best novel. It might be David Levithan’s. (Every Day is pretty good though. Check it out!)

You’ve probably heard of this. There are two kids, both named Will Grayson. John Green writes straight Will Grayson’s chapters. David Levithan writes gay Will Grayson’s chapters. Their lives intersect because of Tiny Cooper, who is either the best character ever or an extremely problematic caricature depending on your experiences or what day of the week it is.

It’s been a good four years since I’ve read Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but I loved it when I did. And I found Green’s Will Grayson’s story (the straight one) resonated with me more than Levithan’s (the gay one), which is an odd thing to admit in a #PrideMonth post.

But it shouldn’t be.

A lot of people want to dismiss a bisexual person’s experiences if they aren’t in a same-gender relationship. Bi-erasure exists in our society, and even the LGBTQIA+ community is guilty of saying bisexuals aren’t queer enough. The beautiful and confusing thing about bisexuality is that you get to have straight and gay experiences. And when you’re growing up, you can feel those with the same intensity. Or differing intensities. Or intensities that seem to shift depending on the day of the week.

You might read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and yearn to find your Blue. But then you might turn around be like, “Wow, I’m that jackass in 500 Days of Summer too.”

Naming the lead characters Will Grayson invites the reading that the boys are fundamentally the same in some way. When you’re a bisexual teen, it can feel like you’re two different people. Like your narrative is split. You don’t neatly fit in the “straight box,” but you don’t fit in the “gay box” either. You spend time being a whiny mess over Jane Turner, but meanwhile your Tiny Cooper is drawing you deeper into his mess. The gay you gets some chapters, straight you gets some others, and those divisions are not as neatly divided as they are in this book.

But in the end, you’re not actually two different people. In the book, there’s a straight Will Grayson and a gay Will Grayson, but in you’re real bisexual life, eventually you realize neither of those versions of you exist. You’re not gay or straight. You’re just you. You’re Will Grayson, even if you’re still working out who that is. 

You can find my other #ReadProud and #PrideMonth posts here.

[hydramoon]

Anyone in Orlando or has followers from the area please!

AB, O+ and O- blood donors needed ASAP!!! Due to the shooting overnight, the hospital and blood bank is critically low right now for donated blood. If you are able, please go this morning to donate at one of the locations below. This valuable gift you can give is a direct way to help those injured from this tragic incident. The Orange, Osceola, and Seminole locations open today are:

Orlando - West Michigan Donor Center 345 West Michigan St #106 Orlando, FL 32806 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 7:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Orlando - Main Donor Center 8669 Commodity Circle Orlando, FL 32819 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 7:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Apopka Donor Center 131 North Park Ave Apopka, FL 32703 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Kissimmee Donor Center 1029 North John Young Pkwy Kissimmee, FL 34741 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Oviedo Donor Center 1954 West 426 #1100 Oviedo, FL 32765 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 7:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Lake Mary Donor Center 105 Waymont Ct #101 Lake Mary , FL 32746 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Sun: 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM

[kateordie]

Reblogging this again to add some pertinent links, because I couldn’t find one definitive roundup post. A note: Blood banks in Orlando are reporting that they are AT CAPACITY and urge people to make appointments to return in the coming days. Blood has a shelf life. Also, unfortunately, no FDA bans have been lifted, which means gay men are still restricted from donating. I agree, that’s horrible. The Washington Post has a large collection of links and information which is updating as news develops, including articles to send your racist relatives who insist this attack wasn’t homophobic in nature. It was.

Need to talk?

You can call The Trevor Project at [phone]. The Trans Lifeline in the US: [phone] and Canada: [phone]. Scarleteen is open all day. You can text them at [phone].

Want to donate?

Equality Florida has set up a GoFundMe for victims of the Pulse shooting. This is the best place to donate. You can donate to Orlando hospitals through the Orlando Health Foundation. The Orlando Youth Alliance provides services to LGBTQ+ youth. The Center is Orlando’s largest LGBTQ+ organization and is taking donations.

Remember, even the shooter’s father insists this was not based on religious beliefs or ideologies. Do not use this horrific incident as an excuse to attack Muslims. These were the actions of one person driven by hate. Don’t perpetuate that hate. The Medium has posted a guide to contacting your local representatives about gun control, which you should if you are able to.

[amythegloriouspond]

Cybermen Vs Daleks Trash talk (requested by anonymous)

[finnmichaelroberts]

teens in a ya novels: we drove down the highway in my mom's stolen bmw going 120 mph and singing along to obscure japnese songs after pulling off the perfect robbery at fort knox

teens in real life: we had math homework???

[finnmichaelroberts]

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg and Books That Explain Your Life in Ways You Can’t

When I first read Openly Straight, I figured I was too old to have reading experiences that ripped out my heart an laid it bare on the page. I thought as an adult I didn’t need books to do that for me anymore.

Yet Bill Konigsberg put words to experiences that I never had words for before.

Openly Straight is about Rafe, a guy who is gay in a supportive school and family. However, he also feels like he’s “the gay kid,” so when he goes to boarding school, he chooses to try passing as straight. There, he meets a guy named Ben, and they form an intimate, close friendship. That gets intense. Then complicated. Then really, really complicated.

Openly Straight resonated with me for two important reasons:

Your friends and family can be supportive, but you still want to control your identity.

When I was first coming out to my friends, I avoided the label “bisexual,” even though that’s what I was (and am). I used things like “I’m attracted to guys sometimes” or “I’m kinda gay, I guess.” I knew my closest friends would be cool with it, I don’t really hang with pure jerks, but I was worried that this would change how they saw me. Like, some of my straight male friends are really open with their emotions--maybe that changes if they know I’m not a “straight male person” like them? I really wanted to be seen as Finn. Being attracted to all genders is important to who I am, but in our daily interactions, you’re far more likely to have to deal with my love of Spider-Man or pro-wrestling. I’m forcing myself to talk about this more explicitly because it’s #PrideMonth, but normally I make only oblique references to my orientation (like tweets about NXT wrestler Dash Wilder’s adorable head).

Being straight isn’t “better,” but being straight comes with the privilege of not having your orientation define you. You don’t have to think about how people are reading your interactions because of your “queerness,” so you’re freer to simply be Jordan. Or Jaylen. Or, in Rafe’s case, Rafe.

The desire to be seen for who you are and not just one aspect of what you are . . . Konigsberg nailed that.

But there are lots of books that tackle identity. The big thing that I didn’t know other people had experienced (even though I should have) was . . .

When you’re not being honest about who you are, your friendships can get messy and complicated.

At school, Rafe meets a guy named Ben. Ben thinks Rafe is straight; Ben thinks Ben is straight. But Ben and Rafe form an emotionally intense friendship. And it’s not that straight guys can’t form emotionally intimate relationships with each other, but if you’re a queer kid growing up in a conservative state with conservative churches telling you to repress your queerness, it’s easy to find “safer” labels for things that you’re feeling. You’re not in love with this guy, he’s your best friend. He’s your brother. What you share is agape.

One of my more isolating experiences growing up was my friendship-that-totally-wasn’t-just-a-friendship. I don’t know if I was Rafe or Ben, but things got messy. And complicated. And then everything started to suck. And then you “break up,” only it’s not really a break up because you weren’t really in a relationship (even though you kind of totally were). Everything that happened was super coded, so you can’t talk about anything directly. And there would be tons to unpack, that one or both of you don’t want to address, so you can’t. And you can’t talk to any of your friends about it because that is betraying the other person’s trust. It was a trainwreck, that felt like losing your partner and friend at the same time, and there was no way to deal with it.

Reflecting on it, there’s probably lots of people who grew up during or before the 90s/2000s who have gone through this. But I spent so much time keeping it to myself, that it took watching Rafe and Ben go through the same thing to know that it was the situation that was broken, not me.

SPOILER - One of the most heartbreaking but true things in the book is that, at the end, Ben feels hurt and betrayed by Rafe. And Ben will not even entertain the idea that he’s anything other than a straight person. It’s not even about wanting Rafe and Ben to get together at that point. It’s about wanting Ben to be accepting of himself. And happy. It broke my heart. Because it was one of the realest experiences I’ve had with YA literature.

Konigsberg has a follow-up to Ben’s story due in 2017 called Honestly Ben.

You can find my other #ReadProud posts here.

[benito-cereno]

Is it possible to reconcile liking an artist but disliking what they draw? I love Jordi Bernet's art, specifically Torpedo but a lot of it involves rape and general violence against women.

I think ultimately it depends on you and the artist (and the art), I think. You have to decide whether the cost of looking at some shit you don’t like is worth the benefit of looking at some shit you do.

This subject is somewhat at the heart of my essay on Tintin, but as someone who really likes old comics, it’s something I have to confront pretty regularly. Artists I otherwise really like, such as CC Beck, Floyd Gottfredson, Will Eisner, and pretty much anyone else working in the Golden Age drew some pretty heinous racial caricatures, primarily of the Japanese, but also of black Americans and various indigenous people. Similarly, pretty much any Silver Age Kirby Marvel comic has Stan Lee writing some dumb shit about women in it.

Me, though, I come equipped with the Ultimate Privilege Sampler pack, and so it’s easy for me to compartmentalize this stuff and go, “Okay, this stuff is bad, but this other stuff is really good,” without it affecting me like a slap in the face. Not everyone is so lucky. For example, a friend of mine has told me she couldn’t get through the Lee/Kirby FF run because of the way Reed and Sue’s relationship is written, and I have to respect that. Is it shitty that she’ll never see Doctor Doom flying on a cosmic surfboard because of that? Yeah, it is, but I can’t force her to read some shit she hates in order to get to that.

You’ve got to figure out what’s right for you, I guess, and it does, I think, depend on the art as well. There’s a difference of intent between non-malicious but mega-ignorant and still hurtful depictions of race and, like, rape, so…again, it depends on the reader and the material.

I guess ultimately that’s just a lot of words to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[thedemsocialist-deactivated2018]

The (((echo))), explained

Why a lot of people have parentheses around their twitter names all of a sudden.

If you read Twitter recently, you’ll have noted that a wide range of figures have changed their Twitter names to incorporate a series of parenthesis. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, for example, is now (((goldberg))), and we’ve also got Center for American Progress president (((Neera Tanden))) and Politico finance writer (((Ben White))).

Even the internet satire account formerly known as Fake Jeff Jarvis has gotten in on the game, referring to itself as Prof. (((tronc))), combining the parenthesis fad with a joke about the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times renaming itself tronc.

These renamings are themselves a response to an exciting new trend on the alt-right, a mostly online movement of mostly white nationalists who’ve gained new prominence largely thanks to Donald Trump’s campaign. They’ve taken to identifying Jewish individuals and what they see as Jewish-controlled institutions by surrounding their names with parentheses — a typographical convention known as an echo.

An alt-right article or tweet, for example, might refer to this as a (((Vox))) explainer written by Matt (((Yglesias))) to signify that its author is Jewish despite a not-very-Jewish name and that Vox, like many American media establishments, features a number of Jewish writers and editors that is disproportionately high relative to Jews’ presence in the overall American population.

The echo’s popularity online signifies both the alarming increase in vocal and visible anti-Semitism associated with the Trump campaign and, in a practical sense, its limits. The echo is spreading so widely as a self-ascription because Jews themselves are adopting it as a gesture of defiance and reappropriation, and because non-Jews are adopting it as a gesture of solidarity designed to undermine the implicit threat.

[finnmichaelroberts]

Pride Month and #ReadProud

It’s Pride Month, and inspired by The Gay YA, I’m challenging myself to post about some of the most memorable young adult LGBTQIA+ stories I have read.

These will be a combination of my favorites and stories that captured something that hit my heart like an arrow, not necessarily books that are “the best.” As such, your mileage may vary on these. To each their own!

And, hey, if you don’t like my stories, check out the #ReadProud tag to hopefully find some that you do!