ShawarmaHeadStudios

Absurdity With Reason

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

Alright! a new post is up on the blog! https://shawarmaheadstudios.com/2019/04/08/fruits-basket-2019-episode-1-where-is-the-comedy/

[iserenademefan]

Hera and Zeus

Real quick, can we please talk about the demonization of Hera in Greek mythology? She’s the villian in so many stories and everyone acts like she’s bat shit, but can we pause for a moment and think about her story?

Hera was literally eaten by her father at the time of her birth and finally freed from his stomach YEARS later. Then, her “heroic” brother took control of Olympus and she had the misfortune of catching his eye (like literally every other woman Zeus decides he wants). When she turns him away, he disguises himself as a bird caught in a storm and Hera– who everyone says is this hateful bitch– nurses him back to health only for him to transform back into himself. At this point, Hera is a virgin with no desire to sleep with Zeus. His changing into a bird doesn’t magically change her mind, no. He RAPES her, guys.

And because she’s the goddess of marriage, she is forced to marry him because he took her virginity.

To add insult to that already devastating injury, Zeus continues to flaunt her powerlessness by having hundreds of affairs and then letting the illegitimate children of those affairs rule at his right hand. He gives Hera no respect, neither for her body not her feelings. He is the King of Olympus and he makes her subservient to him, so the only way she can retaliate against him and prove she is not completely powerless, she goes after the children and women of these affairs. While that’s unjust and wrongs, it’s also the only way she can try to find some measure of control over a terrible situation.

Hera is constantly abused by Zeus and constantly treated as the “villian” despite Zeus being the perpetuator of literally every crappy story involving Hera.

So yeah, fuck Zeus.

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

https://shawarmaheadstudios.com/2019/02/11/fruits-basket-skip-beat-two-anime-adaptations-that-need-to-be-continued/

[iserenademefan]

Understanding Where We’re Coming From

I keep seeing posts about why women blow off “nice” guys or why we can be “bitchy” to men for just “complimenting” us. Here’s the thing, most of the time, we don’t want to be considered “bitchy”. We generally aren’t “bitches” and don’t want anyone, stranger or friend, to think so. But at the same time, when we’re “nice”, we become easier targets for inappropriate asshole people.

Case in point. I took the wrong bus one day and it dropped me off about a mile from my house, so I had to walk the rest of the way home. Now, I live in Arizona. It’s hot as hell and walking is a pain in the ass. That in mind, some people feel bad for walkers and try to be nice by offering rides. It’s generally nice, yeah? Well, except for the fact that I’m a young woman (at this time, I was barely nineteen) and only men ever stopped.

Now, statistically, I’m sure the majority of these guys just saw a young woman walking in the heat and wanted to help. One guy once offered me a water bottle. It’s meant generally as a kindness. I would always smile and ALWAYS decline. Most guys nodded and wished me a good day and left. That was that.

Some guys, however, were put off by my refusal. Some guys would offer a ride and then, when I declined, would say, “Can I at least get your number?”

The answer was always no. And guys, it didn’t matter what age these men were. If they were handsome or not. If they were good at flirting or not. The answer was no because I’m not about to get in the car with an absolute stranger. I’m not about to give my number to an absolute stranger. The answer is no.

Some guys took that final no with a nod and a well-wish and were off. Cool.

But that one day, walking home from the wrong bus stop, I was about to pass the opening of an apartment complex when a car pulled in in front of me. The guy rolls down his window and asks if I live in the complex. I say no. He asks if I want a ride, I do my smile and decline bit. “No, it’s fine. I like walking, etc.” He asks my name. Not wanting to seem rude, I tell him. He asks if I’m SURE I don’t want a ride. I am. He asks for my phone number. I tell him I don’t give it out to strangers. He laughs and tells me his name, “See, now we’re not strangers.”

I laugh and demure. He’s blocking my path. I’d have to go into the busy street to get around his car. He asks if I have a boyfriend. I say yes. We girls always say yes. I tell him said boyfriend wouldn’t be comfortable with me giving my number because this guy is still asking for it.

He says, “Well, what about Instagram?” I don’t have one. I tell him as much.

“Well, do you have a Facebook? I’ll just look it up under your name.”

I’m beginning to feel panicky, trapped. This guy isn’t leaving me alone and he’s blocking my way. He’s trying to flirt despite my every dissuasion. I’m trying to be firm without being a “bitch”.

I let him have my name for Facebook, you guys. I was so nervous and uncomfortable that I let this man who I did not know have my full name. Access to pictures of me. Access to information. He only let me pass when I gave it up to him.

Sure, I blocked him once I was far enough away, but the nerves lingered.

And the shitty part? Everyone asked, “Well, why didn’t you tell him no?”

I DID. I did multiple times, but no meant nothing to this guy. He didn’t care that I was uncomfortable. He cared that he thought I was cute and wanted me to give him something because of that.

Why didn’t I tell him, “Fuck off?” you ask? Because, I’m a five-five teenager who is blocked in by a car, a wall, heavy traffic and a man who’s got probably a half a foot on me and sixty pounds.

Sure, maybe if I’d been more standoffish to begin with, he’d have taken the hint. Maybe. Sure, pretending to laugh at his jokes probably made him feel more comfortable. With. Not. Accepting. My. No.

Just because we laugh and say, “No.” Or smile and say, “No.” Or give you our name and say, “No.” It still has the same fucking meaning. It’s still NO. It’s just padded by years of women having to tiptoe around the damn word.

So if a girl– screw that, actually, if a person– is “bitchy”, maybe you should stop and think what being nice cost them. Whether it was their comfort, their time, their peace of mind, or their body– just consider what being nice just might have cost them.

I still try and be nice. I still struggle with it. I think some situations can be handled nicely and some can’t and some shouldn’t have ever had to be handled in the first place. The minute someone says no, you take that no as law. As final. Smile and wish them a good day and leave. I’m more comfortable walking in a hundred degrees than being hounded by a stranger. It’s okay to ask, guys. But don’t you dare be offended by her saying no, or it was never a question to begin with.

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

I don’t need to add anything. Everything that needed to be said, was said here.

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

https://shawarmaheadstudios.com/2018/12/15/lets-have-a-fast-haruno-sakura-is-the-most-human-character-in-naruto/

If You Hate Sakura. Read This. If You Don’t Hate Sakura. Still, Read It.

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

And as long as I'm committing heresy, I know I may get blowback for stating what is kind of the obvious to everyone of all stripes, but we, and by we, I mean our culture. We kind of hate teenage girls. We hate their music, we hate their insipid backstabbing, we hate their vanity, we hate their selfie sticks, we hate their makeup, we hate their stupid books and the stupid sexy actors they made famous and their stupid sparkly vampires. And then we wonder why so many girls are eager to distance themselves from being the object of societal contempt. Hell, there is a reason why in 1999 I went hard on the new metal, while openly broadcasting my disdain for the boy bands that other, lesser more womanly girls voted for on TRL

Lindsay Ellis: Dear Stephanie Meyer Youtube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O06tMbIKh0

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

https://shawarmaheadstudios.com/2018/12/11/three-things-mean-girls-taught-me-about-power-dynamics-lets-have-a-fast/

Gretchen Wieners is a political genius - Change my mind.

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

https://shawarmaheadstudios.com/2018/12/10/4-alternative-theories-on-why-itachi-killed-the-uchiha-according-to-pinterest/

Here are 4 Alternative Theories that I have for why Itachi Killed the Uchiha. According to Pinterest.

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

https://shawarmaheadstudios.com/2018/11/04/alison-dilaurentis-mean-girl-of-the-month-november-2018/

Think it's easy being a mean girl? Alison DiLaurentis would disagree.

[iserenademefan]

My Response to Hate

So this is going to get real for a minute. I’ve seen so much “anti” culture since I joined Tumblr. I’ve seen such visceral hatred towards fictional characters, their creators, and worse, their fans.

It has, and will continue to, baffle me. I’ve picked my brain wondering what it is that drives people to such extremes. Why dedicate an entire part of yourself to negativity? I’m not talking about people who express their opinions about not liking something. I’m not talking about well-formulated reasons that a person finds a certain series or person problematic and unenjoyable. I’m not talking about the people who say, “Wow, I did NOT like that movie/book/etc.” Or even people who say, “That movie sucked.”

That is the nature of entertainment. It resonates with some and not with others. I am, however, confused about people who dedicate their time, effort, and energy into tearing something down at the expense of someone else. I’m talking about the people who send death threats and hatemail to authors, who go under anonymous and message nasty comments at fans, who viciously shut down other people’s opinions that differ from theirs. That’s awful. That’s wrong. That harms other people and their ability to express themselves.

Here’s a story. When I was in sixth grade, I read Twilight. I loved it. It was my first teen-based YA fantasy (I’d read Harry Potter and other books here and there, but nothing quite like Twilight.)

Now, this was just before the first movie came out. I loved the series. I made friends with people who loved the series, which was a huge step for eleven-year-old me who was painfully shy and was more into reading than interacting with people. I didn’t have internet at my house, so this was the only outlet for books I had. I was over the moon.

When the movie came out, there was obviously critics. People my age either loved the series or hated it with a passion. I had reservations myself about parts of it: Edward was too controlling, Bella was most interesting when not around him, the entirety of the last part of Breaking Dawn (the Renesmee thing bothered me then and it bothers me now.)

Here’s the thing. I would have outgrown Twilight on my own eventually. I would have moved on to series I liked more and Twilight would have faded to a distant, but sweet memory of my adolescence.

I didn’t get that chance. Hatred was poured down my throat like poison. My friends and I were bullied already, but then our love of Twilight became the focal point of teasing. They called us “The Twilight Bitches” and mocked us. Kids waited until one or two of us was alone to corner us and mock and belittle us. We were alienated, mercilessly teased. All because we loved something someone else didn’t.

We weren’t hurting anyone with our Team Jacob shirts or our copies of New Moon in our backpacks. But someone saw us enjoying the thing they hated and we became targets for the critics it the series.

By highschool, I openly hated Twilight. I rolled my eyes at the posters and made disparaging comments about the plot. I was never into the movies but I now took the time to make open, mocking comments about them. I didn’t hate on people who liked them, but I would share a look with a friend that said, “Doesn’t she/he know? Don’t they know how bad those books are? Has no one yet taught them?”

I never got to phase out of Twilight. I learned to hate it to survive. No way was I going to go into high school and be subjected to a larger, nastier crowd who demanded I cede to their views. I learned to hate something I once dearly loved.

And there was a cost. Do you know how many of my friends stopped reading entirely after middle school? I had a friend who had wall-to-wall bookshelves in middle school, who read like it was oxygen she needed to live. She almost completely stopped reading when we got into high school. She didn’t really read again until last year when I convinced her to read Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

She read it in two days. She read it like someone deprived of water for days in the desert drinks water. I almost cried when she read it.

Most all of my friends stopped reading in high school. Friends I had made literally because of books… They stopped reading altogether. They all mocked what once had bound us together. I might not have stopped reading, but I stopped sharing. When people asked what I was reading, I was embarrassed by the titles. I wouldn’t tell people I wrote fantasy. I would blush and shrug when people asked me my favorite genre. I became embarrassed by who I was and what I loved because I was shamed into believing it made me lesser.

Now, I am no longer a fan of Twilight. There’s too much history between me and that book to ever give it a go again. I’m older, too, and it doesn’t appeal to me. I have thoughts and reservations that I would have eventually reached regardless of the hate I received as a child. But I have let go of the derision surrounding it. If someone tells me they like it, I encourage them with their opinion.

Of course, people don’t say they like it anymore. Because if you like/liked Twilight, it became something you keep secret; a dirty little shame you lock away.

Every day, someone’s passion is destroyed by the cruelty of others. Every day, someone is shamed into letting go of something they love. Every day, some hateful comment breeds hatred into the hearts of others.

We don’t even realize what a tragedy it is until we look back and see what flowers were trampled to make way for weeds.

So please, I implore you all; let people love. There’s too much hatred in the world already. Let people love that song you find annoying. Let people read those books you believe are asinine. Let people watch shows you don’t understand the draw of. Their love doesn’t hurt you. Their love does not invalidate you. Their love is something precious and personal and when you twist at it, something inside them breaks.

Your opinions are so valid. Every one of you has the power to change the world. So change it with kindness, not mockery. Don’t be the reason someone is ashamed. You’re better than the person who belittles someone until they’re so small, something inside them disappears forever.

And to my lovely readers and dreamers and listeners; you are also valid. You should not be ashamed of the places you find beauty. All the better that you see rainbows where others see gray skies.

[shawarmaheadstudios-blog]

I, ShawarmaHead wrote a post on my blog titled ‘Stephanie Meyer did nothing wrong’ briefly discussing why the hate directed at her was unwarranted. 

https://shawarmaheadstudios.com/2018/09/01/lets-have-a-fast-stephanie-meyer-did-nothing-wrong/

What Twilight received was hate. Criticism was there too with valid points being made. But those criticisms were further used to perpetuate hate rather than as a way of engaging this series in an interesting manner. No matter how much anyone hates it, this book series was popular for a reason. It touched people of all ages. It had mass appeal. But we never got to explore any of that. Or any of the possibilities that came with it

Reading this made me extremely sad and even more so angry. But more than all of that, I’m thankful that I am not the only one with this sentiment. I had done some research on why people had hated it so much, but I could not find much on how this made twilight fans feel. I don’t plan on having the conversation end here. Just from the little research that I have done, there is so much to unpack.

iserenademefan, thank you for sharing this.