you can call me Pen / they/them / nonbinary / aroace / Jewish / American but not like. happy about it / profile picture is a commission from my good friend @starsinmysoop and represents me and my queerplatonic life partner @fruitybirds-fruitywords. they're the fennec fox and I'm the pygmy marmoset / please read my pinned post before you start to have opinions about me
Hi! You can call me Pen. I use they/them pronouns, and I'm a trans and nonbinary American Jew. I am aro/ace, and I'm dating my queerplatonic partner @fruitybird-fruitywords.
Finally making a pinned post for my blog because at the time of writing I have enough energy to finally do it.
Stuff I post about or reblog:
Jewish stuff, which will always be tagged #jumblr, including stuff about antisemitism, tagged #antisemitism and some stuff about israel, tagged #israelposting, and israel/palestine, tagged #i/pposting and culturally christian nonsense, tagged #supercessionism. I'll expand on this in a reblog but if you use the word zionist perjoratively you should probably go ahead and block me. #supercessionism
Queer stuff, especially transgender stuff (mostly nonbinary and transmasculine stuff, since I am nonbinary and I'm more aligned with the transmasculine experience) and ace, aro, and aroace stuff, with the obvious tags. If you think ace and aro people aren't queer you should block me (hopefully that discourse is too old to matter anymore) and if you think transandrophobia isn't real and trans men as a class have unconditional male privilege you should block me.
Stuff related to american politics, especially about how the american government is a clown show, mostly memes, tagged #clownworld
stuff about education---I want to be an elementary school teacher, tagged #future teacher
stuff about my disorders---I've got chronic depression, anxiety, autism, adhd, sleep apnea, and probably some kind of chronic fatigue thing, tagged #disorderposting and #actually (disorder).
things I find funny, tagged #heehee haha (tag subject to change but I'll go through and retag)
some fandom stuff, but more rarely, and if so it would be the murderbot diaries (the books, not the show) and dropout stuff and tamora pierce books. also i have a post in the works about laura ingalls wilder so there might be some random fandoms out of the blue---I am succeptible to being frogboiled into fandoms by mutuals especially my partner (thanks for murderbot love you). like i'm into heated rivalry not that i've actually seen the show or read the books (unlike with murderbot) but that's because I'm sex repulsed. I like the fanfiction tho! tagged with #[fandom] and #fandomposting
other stuff. sue me sometimes I'm just gonna make a post out of the blue and you'll be like. wait does Pen like that? yes. i contain multitudes. woe, insanely long post about nolan's odyssey adaptation be upon you
My original posts will be tagged with #my poasts; my reblogs will be tagged #my reblogs; my reblogs with comments will be tagged both #my poasts and #my reblogs; my less thought out or less serious in tone original posts will also be tagged #yapping
if that stuff sounds like your cup of tea, follow! if not, don't!
When I say 'if you think/do x you should block me' that's really just a suggestion. you don't have to. I don't really believe in dnis. but you should know that I consider myself a zionist in the sense that there should be a culturally Jewish but fully egalitarian state called Israel with roughly the borders the current state has, and that a lot of things need to be changed about the current israel to get there, including but not limited to full equality for Palestinians, and I have expanded about this other posts; and that I think transandrophobia is real and bad; and if you like or reblog any of my posts you should acknowledge those are the opinions I hold and not be surprised.
I actually have energy to write stuff down so I'm taking the opportunity to say some things that have been percolating in my head.
I am very alarmed by antisemitism from the left, and from antizionists generally. (antisemitism from the right is old news. Yeah those guys hate Jews. they hate all minorities. that's normal. but the left is supposed to like minorities so when they don't it alarms me.) I am also incredibly frustrated with the fuckass Israeli government who are in my view recklessly making antisemitism and antizionism worse by behaving like fuckass violent authoritarian asshole idiots---which is not to say I think antisemitism is caused by Israel, because I think antisemitism is caused by antisemites.
I am a Zionist in the sense that I think a culturally Jewish country called Israel should exist roughly in the borders the current Israel does now, but I think that country should have a totally different government who accepts the fact that Palestinians. exist. and live there too and gives them equal treatment under the law if they're citizens and respectful treatment indistinguishable from any other noncitizen if they are not.
And I think Israel should not be a theocracy, if that's the term that accurately describes the current situation where halacha (Jewish law) is the law of the land---for example I think people in gay marriages should enjoy full legal marital status and not just civil marital status, because the current situation gay Israeli Jews getting married, say, in Cyprus because you can't get legally married in Israel if you're gay---to my understanding not because it's illegal to be gay married---they will recognize gay marriages performed in other countries, that's the civil marriage part---but because the only people authorized to perform legal marriage in Israel are state recognized rabbis, priests, and imams, which is by no means all of them, and they won't perform them. My hope for Israel, as a Jew who cares a lot about it, is that it becomes a full egalitarian democracy. My hope for the world is that they let it.
I'm an anti-anti-Zionist in the sense that because of the way that the movement at large does not police antisemitism Jews have been murdered by people screaming Free Palestine. Like would I like Palestinians to have more rights? Yes! Would I like Israel to Stop just. *gestures wildly* All That? Yes! But I would also like people to stop using Zionist to mean Nazi, which is to say 'somebody who commits genocide' because obviously people using it that way don't believe The Thing about Nazis was their antisemitism (which it was). Consider the term zionazi. Literally just exists to be holocaust inversion (which is when people accuse Jews of committing the holocaust on ourselves). By the way, if you're here to call me a zionazi just block me instead because that's what I will do immediately anyway. I consider that a slur. Zio too---coined by david duke, the kkk grand wizard, to refer to all Jews. Honestly I'll probably block you if you call me a zionist perjoratively even if it's not one of the worse variations.
I don't think it's useful to call what Israel is doing a genocide unless you're willing to accept that as many Palestinian leaders have equally genocidal intentions, they're just less able to actually carry them out because Israel is a stronger power. I think if we want to have actual useful, serious, good faith discussions we have to acknowledge that both sides are fighting what they consider to be an existential war, where if they lose they, and their entire culture, will be wiped out. Either both sides are attempting to/committing genocide/genocidal acts against the other, or both sides are fighting an existential war, but everybody, zionists and antizionists alike, needs to stop acting like only one side carries all the blame. All that does is make us feel better. It just isn't the truth. This conflict has been continually escalating because one side does an atrocity to the other, and then the other side retaliates, sometimes with a worse atrocity, and then the other side retaliates to the retaliation, and nobody can agree who started it.
It doesn't matter who started it. It just needs to end. And the only way it will end is when both Israel and Palestine (however you want to define it, I know that there are multiple Palestinian factions) decide that they are willing to stop retaliating, and acknowledge the other side's retaliation does come in part from trauma. (and both sides need to change leadership to do that probably.) And that also applies to both zionists and antizionists broadly.
We all need to put our weapons down.
Now, I'm not trying to be naive. I know it will take a lot of time to get there. But I also think the current way that discourse around the conflict happens is not actually helping. Everybody has to understand that nobody is going anywhere, Israelis or Palestinians. Antizionists need to stop acting like interacting with anything Israeli (or let's be real, Jewish) is Evil And Actually Morally Identical To Killing Palestinian Children With Your Bare Hands, and we zionists need to curb the reaction that Actually Israel Has Never Done Anything Wrong Shut Up. I do think in the diaspora there is more work for antizionists to do than zionists because they are. killing diaspora jews. but that may be my own bias talking. I just have not heard of zionists, or diaspora jews, kill diaspora antizionists. (we are not talking about Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in this case, i've already adressed how that's bad and should stop [and diaspora zionists should clearly condemn it when diaspora antizionists bring it up, not throw Palestinian atrocities against Israelis back in their faces]). I have seen zionist rhetoric as disgusting as the worst, most antisemitic antizionist rhetoric, just not as much of it. Still, it also needs to stop, and we zionists should condemn it when we see it as much as we are calling for antizionists to purge their movements of antisemitism.
We all need to put our weapons down, and acknowledge that the other side is not going away, and find a way to make peace with them, or we are all going to suffer.
Didn't think that I'd have to post this exact comparison again, didn't even think I'd have to post it once, and yet I stand disappointed again.
On the left: a sign in German on a street in Bavaria, reading: "Jews are unwanted here." Photo taken by an American in 1937.
On the right: a message from a hotel in Bavaria, Zum Hirschen, sent to Israelis who tried to book a stay, reading: "Sorry, there are no Jews allowed in our hotel." June 2026.
Again, the incident has been "handled": Booking.com took the hotel off its platform and the hotel itself was contacted by the Israeli consulate in Munich. The hotel at first denied sending the message, but later stated that it was indeed one of its employees that sent it. It is yet unclear if the case will lead to formal proceedings.
Let me point out that one small detail. They didn't said Israelis weren't allowed, they didn't say Zionists weren't allowed. They said Jews. Now Bavarians aren't new at the scene of antisemitism, in fact they are very experienced, but nowadays, we don't say Jews when we're being discriminatory, no, we say something else. You're not supposed to say the quiet part out loud! (For those in my comments who don't understand sarcasm, that was it.)
This joins many concerning cases across Europe and the UK (not to mention the US!) that reenact the nostalgic scenes of the 1930s and 1940s. (Again, sarcasm). I haven't yet made a post about the spa in Spain that refused a Jewish woman on entry on account of her Magen David necklace. And here Europe strikes again, in the very place the Nazi party rose to power. All those woke westerners that are so proud to chant about punching Nazis, and where are you now? Aren't you ashamed? Wouldn't even recognize one if it was saluting in your face.
I love you cherry picking nuanced images you know nothing about without proper context. Let me provide it since I'm sure you forgot.
As with everything that has to do with the West Bank, nothing is what it seems on the surface, and everything is complicated, tense, and intense. I like to joke that it's not the West Bank, it's the Wild West. The West Bank is decided as agreed upon in the Oslo Accords into three areas. Area A is assigned to the Palestinians and is governed by the Palestinian Authority, Area B is for both Israelis and Palestinians, and Area C is for Israelis alone and is governed by Israel. At the entrance to any Area A section is a sign that looks like this:
Looks familiar? Now doesn't that scream apartheid? In truth, it isn't. Not only Israelis are forbidden to enter by law, do you see the part where it says that the entrance for Israeli citizens is endangering their lives? That is there for a reason. Look up the Ramallah Lynching of 2000 (and use a RELIABLE source). That's what happens when Israelis enter Area A by accident. It is THAT dangerous. (Fun fact! The photo that would show up of Aziz Salha is the base for that oh so popular red hand pin. Actually that's a not so fun fact, because you virtue signaling good hearts are using a pin that idolizes the symbol of Israeli blood on Palestinian hands. Not so peaceful.)
Now let's look at the photo you shared. This sign was placed at the entrance to Yitzhar, an Israeli village on Area C, a bit south of Nablus, which is in Area A. The locals of this village are religious Jews, and it is unfortunately located in a VERY tense area of the West Bank. A lot of terror attack took place around there both by Palestinians and Jews. Here is a good example (out of a very long list of shootings, stabbings lootings and fire settings).
September 13th 2008. A 17yo Palestinian lit a family house in Yitzhar on fire, where young children lived, as well as stabbed a 9yo several times.
The next morning, a group from Yitzhar went to seek revenge in the Palestinian village of the 17yo. They destroyed property, and attacked and wounded a few Palestinian locals. The Israeli PM at the time, Ehud Olmart, condemned that reaction strongly.
That cycle of attacks and vengeance seems like it is neverending and runs very deep. That people at Yitzhar have a deep distrust of Palestinians and Arabs, as well as the security forces that enforce the area. Now, my personal opinion is that vengeance only adds fuel to an already scorching fire, and I expect Jews who are so close to the religion to act way more peacefully, but this is the Wild West, and I can honestly cannot speak for the people of Yitzhar, who suffered as much violence as they delivered.
On to the sign in the photo. During covid, in 2020, a health industry covid test administer seeked to enter the settlement and deliver the tests, and the people of Yitzhar blocked his entrance, per their illegal but unenforced "no entrance for Arabs" policy (he was an Arab Israeli citizen). IDF officials instructed the locals to change of the illegal policy and allow entrance for the covid checker.
In protest, the locals put up that sign in the entry road to the settlement. It is NOT an official Israeli policy, and it is NOT a legal policy. It is a protest.
Is it right? In my opinion, no. It is illegal. Do I understand the frustration of the people? Also no. It is nuanced and incredibly complex. Now, full picture, what are your thoughts?
Thank you for enlightening me with what you think the "full" picture is. Unfortunately you left out the nearly century long occupation of Palestinian land by zionist colonizers, plus the numerous massacres commited by the IOF
So now I win because I have more sources than you, right?
Oh, that was fun. I can see why you do it. However, this actually isn't a game. takes off my clown nose and clown wig and clown makeup to go back to being a serious person having a serious discussion in good faith
Those massacres of Palestinians by Israelis, some by the Israeli government and some by Israeli terrorist extremists, are terrible and horrifying as any massacre is. They should never have happened, full stop. I acknowledge them. I unequivocally condemn them. They are evil, and the people responsible for them were and are evil and ought to have been, and should soon be, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for their crimes. Such people include israeli prime minister Netanyahu and his somehow even farther right even crazier minister of national security Ben Gvir, and countless others in their administration. Also, let's throw in those racist asshole Israelis who broke Israeli law to be racist to Palestinians. They should also be in jail.
And---not but, and---your 'full picture' is leaving out the equal hatred Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and Iran and, frankly, most of Israel's neighbors, have for Israel, and for Jews, that leads to equally terrible and horrifying massacres against Israelis, and Jews in the diaspora.
This hatred is partly born from justifed anger against Israel for the very real atrocities Israel has committed both during its founding and since. But in order to have a productive conversation about the conflict, we must acknowledge that in large part, that hatred is also born from the thousands of years of pre-existing antisemitism.
We also have to acknowledge that Zionism is a word with ten hundred billion definitions. Depending on you you ask, it's the belief that Jews deserve self-determination in our homeland, Israel, or it's the belief that Israel should have only Jews and no Palestinians, and every Palestinian in Israel should be killed. You will be able to find self described Zionists of each of these flavors. However, the former is a basic tenet of pretty much everything that calls itself Zionism, and further is a basic tenet of Judaism as a culture and as a religion, whereas the latter is, in my experience, an extremist position widely decried by the majority of self described Zionists today. It is important to define our terms if there may be confusion.
It is also important to use accurate language, because the truth of the matter is that though the way that Israel was founded was messy and downright atrocious---in the sense that atrocities were absoutely committed by the founding Zionists---and that matters, and I am by no means discounting that, it also matters that the founding zionists were, by modern definitions of the word, not contemporary definitions, not actually colonizing the area. Herzl, the coiner of the term (though not the underlying idea) of Zionism did in fact use the term colony and or a derivation but it's much more likely that he meant 'colony' in the simple, more archaic sense of a settlement in a new place, not the modern political sense of settler colonialism, which is what most people nowadays mean when they talk about colonization, and which is the type of colonialism people are accusing Israel of.
Here's the definition of 'colonization' according to wikipedia:
"the act or process of sending people to live in and govern another country... settler colonialism is a type of colonization structured and enforced by the settlers directly, while their or their ancestors' metropolitan country (metropole) maintains a connection or control through the settler's activities."
The two things I want to point out are 'sending people' and 'ancestor's metropolitan country'. Who sent the founding Zionists of Israel? Well... they sent themselves, as refugees from global antisemitism. This includes lots and lots of Holocaust survivors. But what country sent them? Well... pretty much every arab majority country in the world sent them, because after the founding of Israel, almost all of them expelled their Jews, or ramped up antisemitism so much that their Jews had to leave, and Israel absorbed them. But what country is Israel's metropole? Uh... Israel is. By which I mean the ancient kingdoms of Israel, which are historical and not just biblical. If you click through the 'History of Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel' link you will find that Jews and Jewish history starts in the land of Israel---and notice 'land of;' that's an important concept because there are three Israels:
עם ישראל (am yisrael), or the people of Israel. This refers to not Israelis, but Jews, all Jews, whether they have any connection to the state of Israel or not. It comes from---actually, all three Israels come from---the biblical figure Israel, Jacob/Yaakov, son of Isaac/Yitzhak son of Abraham/Abram/Avram, the father of Joseph/Yoseph and his brothers, where the twelve tribes of Israel come from. That's the Israel of the tribes. Jacob/Yaakov recieved the name, meaning 'wrestles with God' after he wrestled an angel, and after he became a better person. When we say am yisrael, (the people of israel) or b'nai yisrael (children of israel) we are referring to Jews.
אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל (eretz yisrael), or the land of Israel. This is the physical land, the birthplace of am yisrael, the Jews, and Judaism, our culture and religion, and is what the Jews have been culturally and religiously, if not personally, yearning to return to for thousands of years. This is what Jews mean when we say that we are indigenous to Israel---the land.
מדינת ישראל (medinat yisrael), the modern state of israel. This is what non-Jews are generally referring to when they say 'Israel.' This is the Israel that people are, and can, and should be, criticizing. They just need to be careful because the word Israel, as we have just seen, refers to two other incredibly important concepts, Jews as a people and our homeland, which we have been yearning to return to since the diaspora started.
You seem to care a great deal about decolonization, about people having political control of the countries they are indigenous to. That's a really good instinct, although it has messy implications. Here are two.
First: it makes more sense to call what is happening in Israel decolonization than colonization. The Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. We came from Israel. Our culture started in Israel. Our traditions revolve around the agricultural calendar in Israel. No matter where we are in the world, we pray facing Israel. We deeply struggled as a religion and a culture about how to stay Jews when we were forced out of Israel, because Jewish identity was so tied up with living in Israel. You can't have a useful discussion about Israel/Palestine without acknowledging this.
That brings me to the second implication: that it truly matters in the here and now, and is central to how the conflict will be solved, who is indigenous to Israel. You must acknowledge Jewish indigeneity and Jewish ties to the land to discuss the conflict, yes. That's still true. Everybody also has to acknowledge that the Palestinians also have a tie to the land, because the thing that truly matters, the thing I think a lot of anti-zionists lose sight of, is that nobody is going anywhere. That has to be the basis of lasting peace in the region. The Israelis have to acknowledge that however the Palestinians got here, they are here now and deserve to stay. The Palestinians must acknowledge the same. If either the Israelis or the Palestinians are holding onto the idea of a future where the other group does not get to live in the region as unmolested, equal citizens, they are fucking kidding themselves. They're living in a fantasy. And you know what? Many if not most of the people in both groups' governments are still looking towards that future.
The point here, is that the full picture of this situation is that this situation is messy and nuanced. Right now both sides are entrenched in this awful and bloody and atrocious war, where both sides are committing awful and bloody atrocities, based on some justified and some unjustified ethnic, racial, and religious hatred of each other because they both contain factions who have decided they cannot live with the existence of the other. This, by the way, is what makes people say Israel is a genocidal state, because there are people in its government who probably do want all Palestinians dead or gone. But if we are going by that definition, we must acknowledge that Hamas, the government of Gaza, is also genocidal, because they want, explicitly, according to their own charter, to drive all the Jews into the sea.
You know how wars go when both sides have decided they will settle for nothing less than the other side's annihilation? They escalate. They get worse. The atrocities mount, and become bloodier, and each atrocity justifies, according to that side, the atrocity they are about to commit next.
But we get nowhere pretending that there is one clear villain.
The point is that if we are going to have a discussion we all need to put our weapons down. All Zionists do, all anti-Zionists do. Israel does, Palestine does. We cannot have a discussion if we think the people sitting on the other side of the table should not exist. We can disagree with them, we can even dislike them, but we must accept their presence at the table. We just have to.
That is the full picture.
So now one of three things will happen. You will shoot back a pithy but disingenuous and bad faith reply like you did before, and I will block you; or you will do nothing and I will do nothing; or you will also take off your clown nose and hair and makeup and actually have a good faith discussion with me and with @just-the-salt (whose points you should actually engage with, because they are important and well put, and who you should probably apologize to in order to prove that you really are interested in having a good faith discussion) as serious people who are not interested in any further ragebaiting, and I will continue to engage with you, because such discussions are actually worth having. Unfortunately, I think i might be able to guess which one you will choose because of the fact that your username is just ragebait in and of itself and the fact that your blog is pretty much entirely picking fights with Jews.
Anyway what happens next is up to you and I truly don't care, because if you keep being a ragebaiting troll then I'm right; if you say nothing then I don't have to put in the effort of responding; and if you take your clown costume off then there's one less clown in the circus. And besides, I've said what I wanted to say, and defended a member of my community from trolling; I got to have my cake and eat it too by responding to your trolling in kind and then transitioning back into a serious person and responding to your points; I didn't get angry, which is a win---I actually enjoyed writing this.
And for the record, I didn't write this for you. I wrote it to actually try to contribute to important discussion about how we solve this terrible, atrocious conflict, and so that your trolling wouldn't go unopposed.
I already did what I wanted. Now it's your turn. You get to decide whether you want to keep being a clown, or whether you want to actually do some good for the cause you claim to care about.
this reading keeps having bangers. Five year olds will "reverse letters and numbers, either swapping positions as in writing 'ot' for 'to' or drawing the letters backwards so that a 'd' looks like a 'b'; to help children become more self-aware, teachers can ask about the letter they reversed but not ask them to correct the reversal."
and like yeah I was reading along hearing how I would do that in teacher voice because I've literally done that. "Oh, you're done with your sentence! Can I see? Oh, what letter is that? Is it a d-d-d-dee or a b-b-b-bee? Hmm, I'm not sure if that's right. Would you like to try again? That's right, it's a b-b-b-bee! Is that what you meant to write? And what is the letter you meant to write? Good, that's right! So can you show me how to write a d-d-d-dee? Yes, that looks great! Well done!"
Just had a great idea when the reading said that five year olds have such a vivid imagination they sometimes believe their toys are alive and they get upset if something is 'hurting' the toys. Like obviously I knew that already but I hadn't thought of it as such and I want to share the idea I had.
"Don't worry, the toys don't feel pain; they're just happy they're making the students happy. Do you see how happy [so and so] is playing with the toys?"
And if the way they were playing was dangerous, I'd say "Oh, the toys really prefer being played with in a way that will make all the students happy and safe, and I think the way you're playing with them might be making them sad because you're scaring [so and so]."
And if another kid says "Toys aren't alive!" I'd respond, "They are if that's the way you want to play with them. It's how you play with them that makes them alive. So if you don't want to play with alive toys, they won't be alive for you, and if you do want them to be alive. The toys want to make you happy."
And if a kid says "But wait, if the toys are alive, why can't they move?" I'd say "well, plants are alive and they can't move. Besides, your toys are moving. They're moving just the way you want them to! That's their superpower."
this reading keeps having bangers. Five year olds will "reverse letters and numbers, either swapping positions as in writing 'ot' for 'to' or drawing the letters backwards so that a 'd' looks like a 'b'; to help children become more self-aware, teachers can ask about the letter they reversed but not ask them to correct the reversal."
and like yeah I was reading along hearing how I would do that in teacher voice because I've literally done that. "Oh, you're done with your sentence! Can I see? Oh, what letter is that? Is it a d-d-d-dee or a b-b-b-bee? Hmm, I'm not sure if that's right. Would you like to try again? That's right, it's a b-b-b-bee! Is that what you meant to write? And what is the letter you meant to write? Good, that's right! So can you show me how to write a d-d-d-dee? Yes, that looks great! Well done!"
Anyone can probably use these tips, but I am going through things specifically explaining things that might not seem obvious to us autistic people that I've found allistic people tend to inherently understand.
This will be a long chain of reblogs labeled by skill or tip above a read more with the bulk of the post underneath because. long.
Everything will be tagged with '#how to make friends by autistics for autistics' and '#how to make friends' as well as '#actually autistic'
I started writing this series as comments on a post by @devil-maay-cry in the Autism community in response to a question about coping with losing friends when they weren't actually your true friends because you cared about them more than they cared about you. I am editing these so they might be different from the original comments but not substantially.
Note on my use of the term 'autistics' in the title: I usually say autistic people, I'm just using 'autistics' as a shorthand so the title isn't too wordy. I know there's 'autists' but for a reason I can't articulate I don't love using that word. (That's personal preference; you can do what you please.)
Let's get started!
With the Abnormal At Socialization Disorder (literally before i was diagnosed with autism i had a diagnosis that was like ‘social domain disorder’ or basically ‘bad at making friends disorder’ because I was a teenage nonbinary person instead of a five year old boy; it was basically Girl Autism But We Don’t Call It Autism Or Treat It Because You’re A Girl even though im enby) which makes it difficult to connect with people already in a lot of ways combined with the fact that a lot of people are just mean even to other neurotypicals about anything abnormal, and they have a lot more things to be shitty about to a neurodivergent person. This means that the usual truth that there are just going to be people you don’t click with is doubly, even trebly true for autistic people. But you can find your people. In the reblog I will explain how I’ve found mine.
Unfortunately, you do have to make the first move if you want somebody to be your friend. It really sucks since autism is so often comorbid with anxiety, or at least it is with me, but my experience is that generally you can trust that the person you think is cool and that you want to befriend won’t do the scary things you're afraid that they'll do if you're anything like me if you use the general framework I'm about to lay out.
You'll say something like (doesn't have to be verbatim) 'Hi [name, if you know it], sorry to bother you, but I'm [name], and [state the reason you wanted to be friends with them in the form of a compliment along the lines of 'i noticed that you (blank) and I really like it/am the same way/wanted to know (blank)']. [If you didn’t say the ‘im the same way’ or otherwise say something about yourself during the compliment tell them something about yourself now, especially something related to the thing you noticed about them that made you want to be friends.] <if you don't know it> What's your name?'
Then, and this is crucial, invite them to do something casual and free or inexpensive that is structured (next part will cover what that means specifically) with you soon, like ‘do you want to go grab coffee after class?’ (Maybe offer to pay if you have the money and it’s inexpensive, but if you do, don’t phrase it like ‘can i buy you a coffee’ because I think they might assume it’s a date. Unless you want a date, then do that. Up to you.) Importantly: don’t just ask for their number, you might forget to/chicken out and not text them, and then the ball’s in their court and you need to be taking the initiative in this situation. In my experience friendship doesn't truly kick off, i.e. you don't really become friends and not friendly acquaintances, until you do a dedicated activity with them. I don't think it has to be one on one but you should aim for one on one communication early on if you're looking to make friends with specifically That Person and not form a friend group.
This is scary. I know that from experience. It sucks to put yourself out there and be vulnerable. But people generally think it’s brave or at least a good quality to come up to strangers and say nice things and they tend to think well of you when you give them a compliment about something you noticed about them, and people respond well to finding out similarities they have with people who have just complimented them. This means that they will then be more likely to agree to do something with you, because they'll be inclined to think positively of you and are probably intrigued by you.
They may not end up doing the activity with you or becoming your friend after you do the activity but you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take and also somebody else might see you and think you’re cool for complimenting a stranger and putting yourself out there and ask if they can do the thing with you and then you get to know that person. Is it likely? No, but it’s possible and so it counts.
Remember from part two that the activity is casual, free or inexpensive, and structured (that's the most important part. The other parts you can fudge a little. Not the structured part.)
You want the friend first date to be casual because you are not close with this person yet, and coming on too strong too quickly tends to makes people uncomfortable. You want it to be in public. You want the planning to be as simple as possible: meet here at this time; go there after this thing we both go to already. You don't want it to be out of the way. You don't want it to require tickets.
You want the friend first date to be free or inexpensive---this is money, but it's also any other resources, mostly your time, but also opportunity cost. This adds to the feeling that it's casual---you're not putting any/many resources into it. It's also because if it goes badly, you want the only thing you spent there to be the time the activity took, and definitely not anything too valuable. I would say you want to be spending less than twenty american dollars, and that value might be different in different places and for different people. It's the price of a drink or a snack at most. To reiterate from last part, if the activity costs money, you can offer to pay, but don't frame it as 'let me take you out to [blank]' unless you want there to be a chance they'll think you want a romantic first date and not a friend first date. (I think I'm assuming my reader is also aromantic, because I am. I'm sorry if that's not an autism blind spot and you're reading this going yeah duh.)
You want the friend first date to be structured, meaning there is an actual activity happening, like drinking coffee or looking at books in a bookstore, or checking out a free art gallery, because you want to be able to fall back on ‘how’s your coffee?’ ‘Have you been here before’ ‘oh look at that’ if things aren’t going well. Remember, though, the activity still needs to be casual, and free or inexpensive. Coffee is a good one because most people, especially college students, are always interested in caffeine and if they’re not there’s snacky snacks and other drinky drinks. People tend to like cafes. Meals at someplace cheap are also good---but you want breakfast or lunch, not dinner, because dinner is too intimate---don't ask me why, it just is---and often more expensive.
Casual, free or inexpensive, and structured: the keys to friend first date success.
Anyone can probably use these tips, but I am going through things specifically explaining things that might not seem obvious to us autistic people that I've found allistic people tend to inherently understand.
This will be a long chain of reblogs labeled by skill or tip above a read more with the bulk of the post underneath because. long.
Everything will be tagged with '#how to make friends by autistics for autistics' and '#how to make friends' as well as '#actually autistic'
I started writing this series as comments on a post by @devil-maay-cry in the Autism community in response to a question about coping with losing friends when they weren't actually your true friends because you cared about them more than they cared about you. I am editing these so they might be different from the original comments but not substantially.
Note on my use of the term 'autistics' in the title: I usually say autistic people, I'm just using 'autistics' as a shorthand so the title isn't too wordy. I know there's 'autists' but for a reason I can't articulate I don't love using that word. (That's personal preference; you can do what you please.)
Let's get started!
With the Abnormal At Socialization Disorder (literally before i was diagnosed with autism i had a diagnosis that was like ‘social domain disorder’ or basically ‘bad at making friends disorder’ because I was a teenage nonbinary person instead of a five year old boy; it was basically Girl Autism But We Don’t Call It Autism Or Treat It Because You’re A Girl even though im enby) which makes it difficult to connect with people already in a lot of ways combined with the fact that a lot of people are just mean even to other neurotypicals about anything abnormal, and they have a lot more things to be shitty about to a neurodivergent person. This means that the usual truth that there are just going to be people you don’t click with is doubly, even trebly true for autistic people. But you can find your people. In the reblog I will explain how I’ve found mine.
Unfortunately, you do have to make the first move if you want somebody to be your friend. It really sucks since autism is so often comorbid with anxiety, or at least it is with me, but my experience is that generally you can trust that the person you think is cool and that you want to befriend won’t do the scary things you're afraid that they'll do if you're anything like me if you use the general framework I'm about to lay out.
You'll say something like (doesn't have to be verbatim) 'Hi [name, if you know it], sorry to bother you, but I'm [name], and [state the reason you wanted to be friends with them in the form of a compliment along the lines of 'i noticed that you (blank) and I really like it/am the same way/wanted to know (blank)']. [If you didn’t say the ‘im the same way’ or otherwise say something about yourself during the compliment tell them something about yourself now, especially something related to the thing you noticed about them that made you want to be friends.] <if you don't know it> What's your name?'
Then, and this is crucial, invite them to do something casual and free or inexpensive that is structured (next part will cover what that means specifically) with you soon, like ‘do you want to go grab coffee after class?’ (Maybe offer to pay if you have the money and it’s inexpensive, but if you do, don’t phrase it like ‘can i buy you a coffee’ because I think they might assume it’s a date. Unless you want a date, then do that. Up to you.) Importantly: don’t just ask for their number, you might forget to/chicken out and not text them, and then the ball’s in their court and you need to be taking the initiative in this situation. In my experience friendship doesn't truly kick off, i.e. you don't really become friends and not friendly acquaintances, until you do a dedicated activity with them. I don't think it has to be one on one but you should aim for one on one communication early on if you're looking to make friends with specifically That Person and not form a friend group.
This is scary. I know that from experience. It sucks to put yourself out there and be vulnerable. But people generally think it’s brave or at least a good quality to come up to strangers and say nice things and they tend to think well of you when you give them a compliment about something you noticed about them, and people respond well to finding out similarities they have with people who have just complimented them. This means that they will then be more likely to agree to do something with you, because they'll be inclined to think positively of you and are probably intrigued by you.
They may not end up doing the activity with you or becoming your friend after you do the activity but you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take and also somebody else might see you and think you’re cool for complimenting a stranger and putting yourself out there and ask if they can do the thing with you and then you get to know that person. Is it likely? No, but it’s possible and so it counts.
Anyone can probably use these tips, but I am going through things specifically explaining things that might not seem obvious to us autistic people that I've found allistic people tend to inherently understand.
This will be a long chain of reblogs labeled by skill or tip above a read more with the bulk of the post underneath because. long.
Everything will be tagged with '#how to make friends by autistics for autistics' and '#how to make friends' as well as '#actually autistic'
I started writing this series as comments on a post by @devil-maay-cry in the Autism community in response to a question about coping with losing friends when they weren't actually your true friends because you cared about them more than they cared about you. I am editing these so they might be different from the original comments but not substantially.
Note on my use of the term 'autistics' in the title: I usually say autistic people, I'm just using 'autistics' as a shorthand so the title isn't too wordy. I know there's 'autists' but for a reason I can't articulate I don't love using that word. (That's personal preference; you can do what you please.)
Let's get started!
With the Abnormal At Socialization Disorder (literally before i was diagnosed with autism i had a diagnosis that was like ‘social domain disorder’ or basically ‘bad at making friends disorder’ because I was a teenage nonbinary person instead of a five year old boy; it was basically Girl Autism But We Don’t Call It Autism Or Treat It Because You’re A Girl even though im enby) which makes it difficult to connect with people already in a lot of ways combined with the fact that a lot of people are just mean even to other neurotypicals about anything abnormal, and they have a lot more things to be shitty about to a neurodivergent person. This means that the usual truth that there are just going to be people you don’t click with is doubly, even trebly true for autistic people. But you can find your people. In the reblog I will explain how I’ve found mine.
i’m gonna cry it’s raining right now and i just passed by a family where both parents were without an umbrella but their kid who couldn’t have been older than like 3-4 was proudly holding this GIANT umbrella whose diameter was as tall (if not taller) as the kid. both the parents were getting absolutely drenched but u could tell the kid was just so happy to have an “adult” task and carry the umbrella themselves and i think that sacrifice is what love is all about
I am by no means an Odyssey buff but I watched the movie the day it came out and my thoughts have been percolating and i've seen other people's thoughts and now I would like to share. these lists are in no particular order
spoilers obviously, and it's a LONG post. nobody is obligated to read the whole thing I just liked writing it.
Things I Liked
the scene where circe is turning the men into pigs.
its extremely physical she's shoving her hand down their mouths and violently reshaping their jaws and ears and shoving them down on the floor it's great.
sinon.
elliot page did a great job. the opening scene of the movie where he dies to get the trojans to take the horse is great. sets the tone really well, especially knowing odysseus and a bunch of the other greeks are right there inside the horse, and then later when odysseus meets him again in the underworld and he's like why did you lie to me *chef's kiss* THANK YOU ELLIOT PAGE.
AND when he's like 'give antinous back his shame' and gives him the lot (the stick that antinous gave him that made him go to war) then odysseus says 'tell sinon i gave you back your shame' and stuffs the lot in his mouth at the end when he kills antinous GREAT.
Also I can't not mention that as a trans person it meant a lot to me that they cast a trans man actor to play a cis man character. Some people headcanon sinon as trans and that's also a good interpretation. In conclusion more trans actors
Lupita Nyong'o.
Killed it as Helen AND Clytemnestra. There's argument I'll get into later about whether it makes sense that both of them were played by Lupita Nyong'o but that wasn't Ms. Nyong'o's fault and her performance was amazing. Honestly might be my favorite performance(s? not sure if it's plural if she played two characters) in the movie over Elliot Page and Robert Pattinson (he's next) and I really liked both of them.
the scene where helen is interupting meneleus and kind of taunting him about how her sister killed his brother. The part where helen hugs Telemachus and tells him to apologize to penelope for her since she was the cause of the war. Clytemnestra's agony when Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter. The scene where Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon. Basically every time she was on screen she stole the show. I wanted more Lupita Nyong'o
Robert Pattinson.
He really faded into Antinous and he was such a slimeball coward. I loved hating him and that's the mark of a good villian actor. I might be mistaken but I feel like Robert Pattinson hasn't played a lot of villains, at least until recently (I think he's playing one in dune three, wouldn't really know that's not my thing) and he should get more villain roles because I really loved his performance. no notes.
Telemachus.
Tom Holland did a good job as telemachus but unlike the three previous actors it wasn't a stand out performance and I feel like Telemachus is also a pretty straightforward character to play. Still, I liked his performance. I enjoy a good coming of age story. I liked seeing him learn to fight and learning about his father. I think Telemachus is an easy character to like. His arc is pretty uncomplicated compared to, say, Odysseus's arc but uncomplicated doesn't mean bad, and I think it was executed well. Unfortunately another instance of Tom Holland being forced to be American (they're greek???? we'll come back to that) instead of being allowed to use his real accent but that's not a big deal.
the dog.
except boooo the dog died. still I did tear up when the dog recognized Odysseus and that was what made Telemachus realize it was actually Odysseus and not a soldier who fought with him sent ahead. the suitors were too mean to the dog. i guess it shows they're really evil but like.
:((((( puppy :(((((( no don't hurt him he's a good boy he's waiting for Odysseus to come home.
Eumaeus, the blind servant.
I really enjoyed his performance. I liked how he was helping Telemachus learn to fight, I liked when he was like 'too loud, coward' and locked one of the suitors in the armory from the outside so he couldn't get weapons to the other suitors, and I liked the part at the end where the fighting is all done and he goes 'did Odysseus win?' because he can't see. I'm very sad the suitors kept beating him up very rude of the suitors they definitely deserved to get killed
specifically the 'odysseus and his crew were the sea people all along' part and the theme of how breaking hospitality customs was what broke society.
like how the trojan horse (which, sidenote, should be called the Greek horse because the greeks made it, just like how helen of troy is actually helen of sparta, like that's the whole thing, why do the trojans keep getting things attributed to them that are textually not theirs) anyway how the horse which sparked the sacking of Troy was one giant breach of zeus's law. that was cool. I have problems with the broader themes of the movie but that specific piece resonated with me
The sacking of Troy sequence.
Like obviously the actual actions are horrific and I clearly don't condone them it's just that the way we follow Odysseus who is numbly walking through the city after his plan has worked and knowing that he is directly responsible for the violence that has happened as a result. Like this is what breaks society and yeah man I totally buy that. My partner and I saw the movie together and when we were talking about it afterwards we were referring to it as the rape of troy.
speaking of rape my partner and I both thought that the implication of rape through the onscreen violence against women and how the camera keeps cutting away before anything too bad happens was tasteful and the right amount. i'm also thinking now that the cuts away from the violence kind of represent Odysseus himself turning away from what he has caused since he's the POV character.
I just really enjoyed the secondhand Oh Shit feeling you get from Odysseus as he is realizing. yeah this is what was always going to happen when we got into Troy after ten years of brutal, slogging warfare on the beaches. and i'm the one who got us in. the horse was my plan and it worked.
we come right off of the adrenaline of the opening of the gates sequence and when the gates open and all the greeks are cheering and yelling there's this feeling of triumph, and I read it as Odysseus's feeling of triumph, and it very quickly turns to Oh Shit as the fires start and the greeks start murdering civilians and he's just numbly walking through the city not doing anything. he's not participating in it, but he's the reason it's happening. and he's not taking any steps to stop anything from happening even when athena/her preistess begs him to stop his men from executing her.
Things I'm mixed about
Lupita Nyong'o's Amazing Double Role
this one is more here because I think the debate is interesting and I haven't really decided what I think rather than any real problem I had but yeah Helen and Clytemnestra being played by the same actress has some implications i'm unsure Nolan intended. It kind of gives the sense that actually Helen's not this uniquely beautiful Most Beautiful Woman In The World Sought By All Men woman, because uh. she has a twin sister with the exact same face. who is married to Agamemnon. On the one hand, some people say this cheapens like. the entire Trojan War. like it makes the Greeks look like stupid assholes for fighting a meaningless war for ten years. Like Agamemnon you have The Most Beautiful Woman In The World at home.
(not that saving a kidnapped woman is meaningless. but like. you get it. not to mention there's debate about whether Helen went with Paris willingly, and in this movie clearly her relationship with Menelaus is Bad given that he seemingly scarred her face, and they clearly don't respect each other at the least. Side note to the side note some people seem to dislike that choice and say Helen and Menelaus canonically have a great relationship and she chose him out of all her suitors but like. you can choose a guy and later he turns out to be an abuser and I think it's interesting to explore the idea that Menelaus values Helen as a prize and not a person).
But on the other hand, some people think that the choice to make the Trojan War meaningless is actually brilliant and very well done (and I'm slightly leaning that way though I have my doubts about whether it was intentional on Nolan's part) because it underscores Agamemnon's character trait of being a dick that nobody liked but everybody had to follow, and supports and is supported by the line about how oh the war is all about trade routes. People also say that it's an interesting parallel to certain current wars that certain western civilizations are embroiled in which I think might be a stretch (and again maybe not intentional) but assuming it's true there is real value in artists, especially big name, big money movie makers like Nolan, standing up against unjustifiable war.
Anyway yeah that's less of a real thing i'm mixed about and more of an interesting discussion I saw people have after the fact. Actually uh i'm gonna make a confession here don't laugh. uh. I did not notice Helen and Clytemnestra were both played by the same actress. I know I know but listen I was more focused on Clytemnestra's hands holding the dagger she killed Agamemnon with Lupita Nyong'o my QUEEN I'm so sorry i didn't recognize you
Penelope.
Anne Hathaway did a good job with what she was given, and I thought her being resentful of and angry at Telemachus was an interesting direction to take her character. Like textually in the movie she is not a good mother, or at least a lot of the scenes we see her and Telemachus are moments of bad parenting (in my opinion) but that isn't a bad thing about the character; i think it's interesting texture.
however I do think that there was not enough of Penelope being smart and crafty. Like Athena is her patron goddess, and canonically (to the epic) she is as smart as Odysseus. We are told by Antinous that she is unraveling what she weaves so that her grandfather's shroud will never be finished and she never has to choose a suitor but I'd love to have been shown how smart she is. (Nolan telling and not showing will be a problem going forward. I'll point it out as it happens). I mostly got Angry and Sad, which are good emotions for her to have but not the only ones I wanted to see. Give me back the olive tree marriage bed thing. Have her test Odysseus some more. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the homecoming scene.
Also she should have been black, and then Telemachus should've been mixed (or would I say black? if any black people or other poc want me to change that I will) because Penelope is Helen and Clytemnestra's first cousin, meaning one of each of their parents are siblings, and I don't see how that would really work genetically when Lupita Nyong'o is pretty dark skinned and Anne Hathaway is super pale. And like I've been through the permutations the only thing that works is that Penelope's adopted. absolutely no shade to adoption, I just feel like if you had the opportunity to make Penelope and by extension Telemachus played by people of color you should have taken it.
I think Nolan was just scared of the racists and was willing to make Helen and Clytemnestra who, while very important, don't have a ton of screen time black, but not Penele\ope who is both important and has a ton of screen time, and has a son who should also be a person of color. So I guess Penelope's adopted. I just think it's lazy and or cowardly. Make Penelope black. there are a ton of black actresses who could have killed it. Give Lupita Nyong'o an incredible triple role and have her play Penelope too i don't know.
circe generally.
don't get me wrong specifically the scene where she physically turns the men into pigs is great but I'm not sure I liked the larger sequence because it almost felt like the implication was that she was being hysterical and the men weren't actually there to rape her. I feel like Eurylochus, Odysseus's second in command, was clearly not intending to hurt her. Like yes he came on strong and absolutely should have approached her without weapons and not grabbed her but at least for me I felt that at the beginning of that scene we were supposed to be sympathizing with him and the men because they were literally out of food and desperate.
i feel like nolan should've made it so that Eurylochus specifically and the men or some of the men generally, were absolutely willing to hurt circe to get her food, because as it is it nolan's just trying to have it both ways: the men are just desperate people who weren't trying to hurt circe and circe is justified in cursing them and that doesn't work for me. it mostly just cheapens what is for me the coolest visual sequence in the movie when she actually turns them into pigs.
Also what the fuck was up with her bird sister. and I don't like that odysseus gets her to turn his men back by threatening to hurt her bird sister as opposed to like being crafty. And I would've liked circe to feel more threatening? I feel like she very quickly went from being an extreme badass and shoving her hands down people's throats while she turned them into pigs and clocking that Odysseus had a weapon to being like 'oh i'm just a pitiful helpless woman don't hurt me look at me crying' but that's just me.
I liked her whispering 'back into your disguises' when she was turning the men back into humans that was funny. And the actual visuals of the men into pigs sequence was so cool that I can't dislike the character fully. thus mixed
the gods situation
Uh yeah they are. not there. Like the only god who is played by a human actor is athena and nolan really doesn't give her much to do. Come on man that's Zendaya she's a good actress give her more to do than like what three lines and a bunch of somber looks at Odysseus if you're gonna have her. Athena's a massive part of the original epic, and she's supposed to be helping Telemachus too; apparently in the original epic Mentor is usually Athena in disguise, which would have been cool since Telemachus is constantly talking about gods having wise eyes---athena's the goddess of wisdom.
However I see what nolan was going for, or what he could have been going for; i haven't read like actual reviews, I'm not sure what his intentions were. He may have been suggesting by not casting other gods that perhaps there are no gods or that the gods aren't really that interested in Odysseus and maybe Athena is just a manifestation of his remorse and the sea and the storms are just nature, and that's interesting. Like it's not how EYE would adapt the odyssey---I strongly prefer much more faithful adaptations---but I can see why you would do that. You can definitely have a magic and monsters setting without necessarily having divinity. But I do have some issues with how that choice changes some other parts of the movie and the execution/consistency of the choice which I will cover in the dislikes section.
Except I will say here that the relationship Athena had with Odysseus in the epic is changed in a way I don't like and I don't understand why. In the epic she is his patron. They have a close relationship. In the movie he just. has an Athena pin that his wife gave him, and its implied that having an Athena pin is uncommon for a man. Why???? Athena is the god of wisdom and like battle tactics and Odysseus is (supposed to be, we'll get to that) the wisdom and battle tactics guy. That was a good and normal thing for men to be.
It's clear that this is a setting where people do worship the gods/put stock in them even if it's supposed to be implied that they aren't really there, so why not establish that Odysseus does actually put stock in athena before his wife gives him the pin---it could be a moment to showcase how similar Odysseus and Penelope are, as well as a token of her love he can carry with him, and a token of their shared worship of athena---and have it be that he maybe lost faith in her as he saw the results of his brilliant plan, which came from the qualities she so prizes. It could have really interesting resonance with the part where they execute athena/her priestess and behead the athena statue, and the rest of the movie could really delve into his relationship with Athena/the concept of Athena.
Although the implication that Athena isn't real, she's just a manifestation of Odysseus's guilt for not saving her/her priestess, is interesting, it's not interesting enough to justify changing his relationship with Athena, and maybe you can even do both; have him worship athena initially, but when she/her preistess is killed and her statue is beheaded he's so traumatized and remorseful (i will talk about remorse later) that he begins hallucinating her as a manifestation of his guilt. I should write this movie.
Things I didn't like
Nolan's Take On Odysseus
Yeah it's A Take. I mean I guess Nolan deserves to have one but unfortunately the take is Actually Odysseus Is The Same Guy I, Christopher Nolan, Keep Writing In All My Movies Where The Thing The Character Is Really Good At (in many cases that being Causing A Great Amount Of Death) Causes Them Deep Remorse Because He's Really Such An Honorable Guy Deep Down (Bourne and Oppenheimer being two perfect examples because they're Men Who Are Really Good At Dealing Death; the guy from interstellar (sue me I'm not looking that up) being a less perfect but still relevant example) Except I Named The Character Odysseus This Time (instead of. i don't know. Achilles. he should have adapted the illiad) which comes off like Nolan doesn't trust his audience to know Odysseus is supposed to be the hero if he's not Honorable And Remorseful and also not basically* (I'll get to it) stripped of his canonical defining features of cunning and pride. This causes some deep character inconsistencies because at his core the character Nolan has written really isn't. um. Odysseus. And unfortunately Nolan is adapting the odyssey. and the odyssey is about. Odysseus.
The movie tries really hard to explain away how him Being Honorable This Time Don't Worry About It actually still allows him to be Cunning Odysseus; Oh Don't You See There Are Times Honorable Men Do Dishonorable Things And Can't You See How Much It Kills Them Inside but yeah it didn't work for me um. because um. for some reason Nolan decided that because of his honor and remorse Odysseus Actually Maybe Doesn't Really Want To Go Home????? It seems to be because oh he's changed so much, and maybe the implication is that he thinks he doesn't deserve to go home, or he won't let himself go home?
Like... okay maybe i'm just not an Odyssey scholar and this is super normal and acceptable for Odyssey adaptations (also I totally cop to being a huge hater of When Adaptations Change Things yeah I know I know) but like come on. The Odyssey is the Odysseus Wants To Go Home movie. Odysseus is the I Want To Go Home guy. that's The Thing about Odysseus. (and I'm not saying this specific choice makes the movie bad, I just didn't like it.) Mostly I won't harp on this point because maybe (I say through gritted teeth) the choice to subvert Odysseus's main desire and the driving force of the plot is actually good interesting (and I'm mostly not even being sarcastic) but Boy Do I Have Other Points To Make.
Let's talk about the bow strumming thing. That's a signalling of What An Honorable Guy This Guy Is. Like okay yeah it was interesting and honestly had really good payoff when he strings his bow and strums it in the reveal scene but the whole idea that Odysseus strums his bow because he wants a fair fight when he's hunting is anathema to his character in my mind. in what world is one of Odysseus's main character traits that he's honorable instead of that he's cunning.
Like it's not that Odysseus can't be honorable, it's just that above anything else he's cunning and he's prideful. It doesn't make sense to me that the reason he strums his bow is that he's so honorable he doesn't want to kill animals before they have a chance to run or fight. Like I don't even want to bring up my issue about adaptations that are not faithful again here because there's problems with character consistency with things that are established in the Nolan Odyssey anyway. You're telling me This Guy---the guy that broke zeus's law so hard with the EXTREMELY CUNNING trojan horse plan IN THIS VERY MOVIE NOT TEN MINUTES AGO that he broke society---is honorable above all?
And it can't be that he didn't realize it would break zeus's law; the first ten minutes of the movie is people telling Telemachus (and the movie Telling Us) just how smart Odysseus is. It makes zero sense he wouldn't understand that his plan would break Zeus's law. Why not have him strum his bow because he wants to show off how good he is at hunting that even when he gives the animals a chance he can still catch them? Then we get the cool thing and we're not being weirdly inconsistent within the Nolan movie.
The other main trait Odysseus has is his remorse, which is a major change, even if the honor isn't. That's not the problem I have. It's fine, good even (unironically I know i'm an Adaptation Changing Things Hater but I enjoy a good remorseful character. I liked Oppenheimer a lot). It can be interesting to examine a character who is very unremorseful in the original canon and make him extremely remorseful in the adaptation. But you do have to execute the concept well, and I don't think they did. Odysseus's original character traits of his cunning and pride is that they drive the story, and Nolan's Odysseus's honor and remorse just don't.
Here's an example of something canonically driven by his pride (that Nolan's Odysseus doesn't really have) that Nolan actually kept. Why didn't Odysseus go home the way everybody else was going home? Well, because he wanted to go the way nobody's gone before. Why would he do that if he's not prideful? It certainly isn't driven by remorse, or honor. If he was so honorable, wouldn't he want to get his men home as quickly and safely as possible? Where's the honor in a gamble on his men's lives? And then there's a second question. Why didn't he bring provisions with him from Troy? Nolan tries to drive this choice with his honor and remorse, having Odysseus say 'We've already taken enough from Troy' and that's a good reason, but honor and remorse alone don't explain the other terrible choice to gamble on the unknown way being faster and there being ports to restock at along the way. Now, it's also not very cunning of him, but that's explained in canon because his cunning and his pride exist in tension with each other, which makes for a much more interesting character.
Here's a second example of the plot not having a driving force without his cunning and pride:
Uhhh no Nobody????
The scene as Nolan wrote it without the Nobody trick really suffers from confusion in what's driving it. It seems like Nolan was confused about. uh. the point of the scene? Because the only part of any interview about this movie I've seen (and only through tumblr, so take it with a grain of salt) was that Nolan said he couldn't include the Nobody scene because it was a pun that couldn't translate. My immediate thought upon reading that was, 'What the fuck is he talking about? Nobody isn't a pun.'
That's apparently because I'm American and only read the odyssey in graphic novel form in english and not a real classicist's full translation of the epic, because I gather that the greek word Odysseus used for Nobody sounded like Odysseus? So it is in fact a pun, good job Nolan for knowing that, you get ten points. Except you lose like a hundred points for seemingly not knowing---given that it is Not Mentioned in the interview---that the pun is not the point of the Nobody trick, it's the cherry on top of an already excellent sundae, and the sundae is that Odysseus causes All Of His Own Problems after the Trojan War is over because his fatal flaw is hubris---deadly pride. The Nobody trick, or more specifically, what comes directly after, is the best example I can think of of a character being hoisted on their own petard.
He has an excellent plan that means that when Polyphemus calls out to the other cyclopes 'Nobody is hurting me' they think he's fine and don't come to his aid, and he knows there's other cyclopes because he's talked to Polyphemus, because Odysseus in the epic is not The Best Fighter Ever---that's Achilles. And where's Achilles now? Dead. Odysseus is not supposed to be the best and most strongest fighter ever, he's a brillliant tactician. He's brain over brawn. He's cunning. He knows he can't fight the cyclops, so he has to talk to it so he can get information to trick it.
And when his plan works, he's so prideful that after he's already escaped and is absolutely scot free he taunts Polyphemus and then tells him it wasn't nobody who tricked him, it was him, Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, because he can't bear not to take credit for his excellent trick. And so Polyphemus is able to tell his father poseidon exactly who to punish, which KICKS OF THE ENTIRE REST OF THE PLOT. If Poseidon wasn't attempting to kill Odysseus for hurting Polyphemus, he wouldn't've been blown off course and to meet all the obstacles he did. His cunning and his pride drive the plot.
Without the Nobody trick, the scene we get is... weird. They haven't eaten any of Polyphemus's sheep yet, although Odysseus has sampled his food, and Polyphemus---though he's never even named (put a pin in that)---comes in, closes the cave, and starts chowing down on greeks, even though he has sheep there and he didn't even see Odysseus eat that one bite of his food, so I guess he's just a random monster who enjoys eating humans (put a pin in that redux). They make a run for it when he opens the cave next morning, he kills and eats more of them, and they eventually realize they have to blind him. Once they do, he starts mumbling to himself and they recognize it as language (another pin please), and one of the men is like whoa it can talk should we try talking and Odysseus says no, it's too late for that, which, yeah, fair, you did just blind him. Then they tie hay to their backs to trick Polyphemus into thinking they are sheep (pin time) and run out. Then, Odysseus, for NO REASON, when they have ALREADY ESCAPED, shoots Polyphemus with an arrow, so he chases the greeks into their boats, and one of the men says he heard (or maybe only thinks he heard? I can't remember) the cyclops say he was a son of poseidon (or maybe just say the word poseidon) so now poseidon will surely curse them. (one more pin.)
Okay. So now we can get to our pins, including the one from the mixed section way back when about the messy implications of gods not being real and the poor execution thereof that I said we're getting to later. it's later now. So first, making Polyphemus not a fully intelligent, sentient being is super weird, because it makes the men thinking that Poseidon has cursed them really weak? and if it's supposed to be weak because maybe the gods aren't supposed to be real, that's really not clear to me, so it's a place where the execution is bad. It would be clearer if Polyphemus was a fully sentient guy that can fully talk.
But wait, I hear you say, Polyphemus is a fully sentient guy who can talk, and they mention it and decide it's too late for talking! Okay, second pin time---that would be way more clear if Nolan ever named him; that would really humanize him. anthropomorphize. sentientize. whatever. Either way, now we're pulling out the third pin and saying yeah that's true he can talk but it is mumbling and not really full sentences; i don't even remember if we're supposed to be able to undersand what he says because I forget if I understood what he was saying when I watched the movie, it was a few weeks ago, but that means it probably wasn't plot relevant, and if this is the moment we find out Polyphemus can actually talk and therefore make the gods thing less messy it should be much clearer that Polyphemus is like. Smart and able to talk coherently. it could even bolster the remorse thing, because they blinded a sentient being they could've talked to. also call him polyphemus goddamn. Like maybe one of the men (or odysseus because he's so fucking smart you Told us that for ten minutes already) has heard of Polyphemus and names him. Or he fucking introduces himself when he taunts them.
Now we pull out the fourth pin and add that by changing the hanging under the sheep thing to putting hay under their backs, maybe for logistical reasons like the actors couldn't figure out how to do that (skill issue hire stuntpeople who can specifically do that this was like a hundred billion dollar blockbuster and you're christopher nolan) Nolan also perhaps unintentionally tells us that actually Polyphemus can't tell the difference between hay and sheep, even though he seems to be in the nolan movie canonically a shepherd so actually he is incredibly stupid after all and so gods aren't real.
Building on that, our last lonely pin reminds us that uh Odysseus literally never says his name so how the fuck does Polyphemus tell Poseidon who to curse? I guess the gods really aren't real after all, glad we settled that! Except the very next thing that happens is their ships are blown off course to the island of the man-eating giants (who i'm pretty sure are supposed to be the Lastrygonians and therefore are descendants of poseidon) which, based on the basic editing theory that two ideas' proximity relates them to each other, tells the audience that actually yeah textually they have been cursed by poseidon, and nothing ever refutes that theory, and in fact later on Calypso says to Odysseus that he has to let Poseidon punish him and don't worry zeus won't let him die and so he does that and she's right, he doesn't die.
So removing the Nobody trick leaves the scene extremely messy in terms of themes, and removes the best way to show the audience Odysseus's canonical and most well known in pop culture traits of cunning and pride, but let's circle back to the fact that Nolan removing the driving themes of cunning and pride in that scene leaves the scene with. nothing? driving it?
Nolan is emphasizing honor and remorse in this adaptation, but he didn't use them to drive that scene. I can't decide whether or not to ding the fact that Nolan makes a point to show Odysseus dishonorably leaving the corpses behind and not doing proper funeral rites, something he has to fix later by going to the west, because I can't decide whether this breach of honor that causes remorse pays for itself by leaning into the other trait that's supposed to drive the movie or not.
Either way, Odysseus is not remorseful about the thing the does that is the least cunning thing he does in the entire movie: shooting Polyphemus for no goddamn reason. Like all his men are like 'what the fuck dude' and he's just like 'i'm angry grr he killed so many of my men revenge grr i'm a man' like w h a t do you mean. Why did you do that. You're supposed to be smart. You're the smart guy, everybody's been telling us that (but not showing). It doesn't come from pride, it doesn't come from honor, and it certainly doesn't come from remorse.
This is a problem the whole movie has that the Nobody trick is emblematic of.
The Plot Doesn't Feel Driven By Odysseus
Because in the original epic Odysseus's cunning and pride and desire to go home drive the plot, and Nolan has mostly excised those in favor of emphasizing honor and remorse, it really begins to feel like Odysseus has no agency, and instead of driving the plot, the plot is just happening to him and his men because the world is cruel, or at best some karmic retribution for the sacking of troy and being the sea people. But to me, karma is a boring driver of the plot, or at least in this movie it is/would be (don't want to affirmatively ascribe that intention to Nolan because it might not have been, though if it wasn't... hmm. thought Nolan was a better writer than that) because the actions don't seem to connect to each other, except for Odysseus's choice to have them gamble on an unknown route back to Ithaca and not take food from Troy in the first place.
But the thing about that is that it's implied after they're blown off course by the storm after they escape Polyphemus's island (which is itself implied to be because of a curse from Poseidon Polyphemus asked him to lay on them, and I've already explained at length why I think that doesn't work, but I'll just add that IF NOLAN HAD USED THE NOBODY TRICK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED THAT POSEIDON'S CURSE WAS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT HIS FAULT PROVIDING ODYSSEUS MUCH NEEDED AGENCY i promise i'm not angry it's just a movie deep breaths) that they would have been fine if they kept going on the course they set out on. I think Circe might straight up say that they're super fucking lost now in the scene where she tells Odysseus how to get to the land of the dead, implying that their problems are because they're lost.
Then his men all dying, six to scylla (put a pin in that) and the rest because they eat one of the sun god's cattle is prophecied by one of the dead, and not related to anything Odysseus did---I think in the original epic the fate of his men is more related to a choice he makes, but either way, his men all dying seemingly unpreventably further strips Odysseus of agency. There is an argument to be made that Odysseus's unpopular choices made his men not want to listen to him anymore, and that is supported by the fact that his men do mutiny or at least come close earlier in the movie, I think before Circe's island.
However, the problem with that is that the stated reason the men eat a cow is 'we decided we'd rather drown than starve' (which side note I found immersion breaking because how did they know the punishment was going to be drowning? like they're right but it's the Sun God's cattle, not Zeus's or Poseidon's, so I assumed he was gonna like. burn them up with the power of the sun.) I guess it's more 'maybe the gods aren't real' but in this case that's stupid there is a literal prophecy that they die because they ate the sun god's cattle and I don't accept the argument that the prophecy is real and true except for the part about the sun god. So actually its not related to anything Odysseus did at all. So what the fuck.
(This is off topic but getting back to that scylla pin I thought it was unnecessary and honestly stupid and dishonorable for Odysseus not to tell his men 'hey you guys I got a prophecy in the land of the dead that you guys are all gonna die, either all to charybdis or six to scylla and the rest because you ate the sun god's cattle.' like he does tell them the sun god's cattle part afterword when he's pressed and it doesn't work but it goes against the honor that Nolan established for Odysseus to not give his men all the information. Maybe you can argue Odysseus is tired of honor at that point in the movie, but in that case at what point in the movie is he supposed to have held on to his honor? Literally just the bow strumming and not wanting to go home? Come on Nolan if you take away the character traits he canonically has then you gotta at least commit to the replacement character traits You Gave Him.)
Also nothing happens on Calypso's island. It seems like it exists solely to give the movie a place where Nolan can have flashbacks in order to preserve the pacing of the movie, which I actually thought was good and worked well (the pacing, not nothing happening on calypso's island) and also because not enough time has passed, which might be okay but it would be way better if anything interesting happens there. The common interpretations of what happens on Calypso's island for Odysseus to stay there for seven years is that 1) he falls in love with her and is conflicted about leaving for seven years before finally deciding to be loyal to Penelope, and/or 2) she falls in love with him and keeps him there for seven years before he finally is able to escape.
I can mostly understand why Nolan didn't want to go for either of those because the second one is just the tired and misogynistic temptress trope, and the first one might make Odysseus too complicated a character (you coward Nolan Odysseus should cheat on his wife it would be interesting and actually give weight to the absurd choice to make him stay on Calypso's island for so long because he made this dishonorable choice to cheat on his wife and now out of remorse he feels he can't face her. Literally I could write Nolan's Odyssey better.)
So Nolan doesn't choose either of those, which is okay in general, good even! It's good for stories to do new things, even I, the Adaptations Making Changes Hater can acknowledge this. However in this case the reason he actually chose for Odysseus staying on Calypso's island for seven years is that Calypso has been feeding him lotus flower which made him forget everything but don't worry it's not because she's evil she needed to to heal him but then oopsie he just loved the lotus flower So Much that she just HAD to keep letting him eat it because she fell in love with him, but not because she wanted to keep him there, just because she wanted him to be happy. Which feels disingenuous, as you may be able to tell from my tone, but it also feels like actually Nolan wanted to choose the evil temptress route but chickened out at the last minute and softened it because he didn't want to look like a misogynist so it comes off as Calypso looking like maybe she did it on purpose to keep him there but she's lying about it? Which is. worse. and the movie doesn't confirm it either way which makes nolan look like a coward, or at least not decisive enough to commit to something)
Actually I am going to talk about this---the interesting choice here would have been to make Odysseus cheat on Penelope. Honor's already kind of out the window but he does get a lot of mileage out of remorse. Not. like. enough mileage. but he's committed to it more than honor. It would have been a way more interesting choice, and it wouldn't have accidentally (?) villified calypso/been the chickenshit and boring choice of nobody's at fault uwu it just happened. Also it would've given Odysseus agency; let his own choice drive why he stayed on Calypso's island for seven years, and also given Penelope an interesting reason to maybe reject Odysseus when he makes his 'oh I'm so different now' speech which to me had no tension in it because obviously she was going to take him back she's Penelope the I Miss My Husband character. Like obviously she still would but it would have been interesting. Christopher Nolan hire me as your ghostwriter.
The Behind-The-Scenes Fuckery
I'm gonna be way briefer about this stuff because other people have said it better than I could and I don't have extensive thoughts on this stuff I just can't not mention it because what the fuck Nolan
No Greeks cast in the Greek movie set in Greece? What the fuck Nolan. Like Matt Damon was not necessary to this movie you could've cast a greek. Movies don't need to be all famous actors all the time it would've been nice to see a more unknown actor as the lead in such a big movie. or you probably could have found a well known greek actor i'm sure he exists
I've been hearing Zendaya and maybe other actresses were wearing earrings that were looted from Iran or made from artifacts looted from Iran I'm not sure at what point but like whether it was antiquity or recent that's. uh. bad. what the fuck Nolan
Dumping props???? into the sea???? WHAT THE FUCK NOLAN
Conclusion
I know I've spent a lot more time on what I didn't like about the movie than what I did like, but that's because I didn't feel the need to justify what I liked. I really actually didn't hate Nolan's Odyssey i promise. I actually do think this movie is worth watching. Do I think it's a good adaptation of the Odyssey? No, but somebody else might, and that's their prerogative. Do I think the movie was fun to watch in the moment? Yes, actually! Most of this stuff didn't bother me right away. In the moment the film works. My immediate impression was just all the stuff I liked a lot, which is a huge point in favor of the movie. It wasn't until I took a closer, more critical look at the movie that I decided it didn't really hang together because some of the choices Nolan makes pose inherent structural problems for the movie, and the execution of some of Nolan's choices leaves much to be desired.
6/10
Edit: Maybe 7.5/10 (i don't know the numbered rating was a last minute choice.)
I was today years old when I learned that ‘star-crossed’ meant ‘can’t be together’ and not ‘fated to be together’ (in my defence being crossed by the stars kind of sounds like the stars, or the fates, are entwining your souls, not that the stars have crossed, or gone against, you) reblogging this to spread the word
I am having the very rare problem for me of having too many creative things I want to do at once. like come on brain i know before I was starving and begging you for food but you've overcorrected. now there is so much food that most of it will go bad before I get the chance to eat it. let's spread out the creative motivation a little. Or let's have creative motivation that actually lasts any amount of time.
And now I am having the very rare experience for me of actually being able to do the things I want in the order I wanted to do them at the time I wanted to do them without any problems. I recognized that if I didn't go get ready for bed Right The Fuck Now I simply would not go to bed tonight because the inertia of the creative energy would prevent me from stopping once I got started. And I not only Actually Went Upstairs And Brushed My Teeth (RARE, we're talking artifact level babey) but then I actually took my earrings out (I usually keep them in) AND got clothes ready for tomorrow (I literally never do that even though it would make my mornings way easier and getting out of bed is a Known Ordeal) AND put out the earrings I would wear tomorrow (usually if i take my earrings out I don't put new ones in the next day) AND I took my meds and put my cpap on (usually i just. hope that I remember to do it before I actually go to sleep).
Is this what neurotypical people are able to do? I often eschew the label of disabled because I'm not convinced I 'deserve' it (as if i'm taking something away from somebody else by describing my own experience) (although I do worry about doing something akin to cultural appropriation) (even though I have diagnosed autism and adhd) but like. if this is what the normal is yes I am disabled because typically I am not able to do this. my abilities are absolutely being dissed. Presumably by my disorders.
I am having the very rare problem for me of having too many creative things I want to do at once. like come on brain i know before I was starving and begging you for food but you've overcorrected. now there is so much food that most of it will go bad before I get the chance to eat it. let's spread out the creative motivation a little. Or let's have creative motivation that actually lasts any amount of time.
Step three: notice a green skittle sitting loose on the counter
Step four: oh! I gave my dad the rest of my skittles earlier, he must’ve left this one for me
Step five: eat the skittle
Step six: this is not a skittle, this is an m&m. Weird. I didn’t know we had m&ms in the house
Step seven: oh hey this m&m tastes bad huh I think I want to spit this out
Step eight: oh this is an edible. this is one of my parents' edibles that they left out by accident because they're about to start their date and they like to have some weed before they go out. i have to spit this out
