Day Out With A Friend (Paper Towns)

This might be the last time I'm seeing a friend in my hometown before I move up permanently to take apartment residence near my college. It's the friend I was talking about the other day -- the one I've known since I was six. So today, we went out together, and for once (on my behest) it was just the two of us.

I wasn't feeling well to start out with. I'd just gotten my period, so my stomach and back were in pain, I was hungry except not hungry, and I was going to the bathroom about every five minutes. But I felt much better after the day was through! A nice day out was good for me!

We listened to music on the drive to the movie theater, chatted, shared drunken stories -- my friend had just recently lost her phone while on a drunken misadventure. Then we went to see Paper Towns in theaters. It's based off a John Green novel. I love John Green's books. The Fault In Our Stars is one of my all-time favorite novels ever.

On that note, I loved the movie!

It made me really like Quentin, but that wasn't a big surprise because I had always liked Quentin. What was a bigger surprise was that they made me like Margo! I hated Margo in the book; I LOVED her in the movie. It made me see her in a whole new light.

The movie was funny, too. And not just for actual, movie-based reasons. A guy in the theater made the bathtub scene with Lacey HILARIOUS. He kept filling in Quentin's lines for him.

"Do you want to get in the tub with me?"

"YES."

"And I don't have chlamydia -- anymore."

"Oops. Better get outta this tub fast!"

It was the funniest thing.

One thing I noticed is that the search for Margo wasn't as intense as it was in the book. But I suppose they only have so much time. Not much room for mystery. I also noticed the actor who played Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars in the gas station scene! I did not miss that! Girls in the theater started gasping!

They changed the ending. I actually liked it better. I think this is the only book-based film where I liked the movie better than the book. (I actually cannot say that about The Fault in Our Stars, so this admittance is a big thing for me.)

After, we went on a great mission to have lunch and find my friend's lost phone. We didn't manage to find the phone, but the trip was fun. We sang and laughed over song lyrics, and made morbid jokes about how underweight we both usually were. (We both have an illness -- hers physical, mine psychiatric.) I also told her I had just reached a normal weight for my height, and she gave me a high-five!

We had pasta for lunch at a restaurant. The music there was pretty good -- I liked the playlist. We talked about people we knew who had gotten married too early, about our frustrations in not finding men who were mature enough for us and also our age, and she confided in me about some things. I'm a good listener, so people come to me to confide and ask for advice a lot.

This time, she talked about her friend's unhealthy on-again, off-again relationship, her divorced parents and pushy, controlling father, and about how she wants to start her own business but doesn't want to go back to school and finish her degree. She seemed interested in my virtual internship and asked questions about how I had gotten it. I told her I went to my school's career center, made an account on their website, asked them for help writing my resume, and then sent said resume to companies who had posted up ads saying they were interested in college students on the school's website.

On our way home, something really funny happened. Two military-looking men in a Jurassic Park truck were next to us. "Oh, cool, Jurassic Park!" my friend said. Then she looked closer. The two men were making out. And the look on my friend's face -- oh my God it was priceless! I laughed so hard!

We danced in the car and sang (loudly and badly) along to "Bringing Sexy Back" and "Blank Space" on the radio on the way home. It was the most fun I've had in ages.

On Strong Female Characters

This fucking article:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters

I should have it on constant reblog status. Every time I read this article, I think, "Yes, yes, YES! PREACH IT, SISTER!" And every time I read it, I am reminded of just how far I have to go as a writer.

Let me explain to you what I mean. The gist of this article is that the Strong Female Character isn't good enough. Why not? you may be asking. How much more could you reasonably ask for?

It's because the Strong Female Character is not a human being. She's a throwaway character. She is the token woman -- kinda like how there's always a token Black person. It's like, "Gee, thanks. Most women are weak and worthless, but yours is STRONG. I get it."

As the author also points out, many of our best and most complex male characters are not strong. They're weak, but they're also more than that. They're vain, or self centered, or addicts -- and yet they are still the heroes. Because there are so many men in films, they are allowed to be themselves. They don't have to represent their gender. They're allowed to be interesting individuals.

I don't want my main female characters strong. I want them interesting. And I want there to be several of them. And I want them to talk to each other. About stuff that's not men. You know. LIKE HOW THERE IS USUALLY MORE THAN ONE MAN AND HE TALKS TO OTHER MEN ABOUT STUFF THAT IS NOT A WOMAN.

I WANT THAT.

But we never get that. Either a woman is weak, or she is strong. Either she is like a woman, or she is like a man, is the implication. And she never has interesting relationships with other women, and she's always the love interest.

I want to see women who are stuck-up, and are not necessarily taken down a peg by the more "human and easygoing" man. I want to see women who are free spirited. I want to see women who are cruel. I want to see women who are kind. I want to see lots of different kinds of women -- the same way you see it in real life.

And I have in fact been so inundated by this culture of "strong women" and "weak women" that I have trouble going outside those lines with my female characters myself. I try to write good female characters, and sometimes I succeed, but other times I get the vague feeling that something's not right. That they're being overshadowed by the men, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Let me make this even plainer to you: I CANNOT EVEN WRITE INTERESTING WOMEN AND I AM ONE.

Women aren't allowed to be interesting. Not in the same way men are. People try so hard to "write female characters." It shouldn't be this hard. Women are a lot like men. They have flaws and foibles and quirks, just like men do. Women should be allowed to flourish in their own right within fiction.

I don't want strong female characters. I want interesting, three-dimensional, flawed, goddamn human female characters.

Rant over.