The Desert Mermaid

My sister is here! Hooray!

Dang, I love it when she visits. Who else can I go from discussing the publishing industry to gleefully squealing at a Let's Play of Five Nights at Freddy's* to contemplating the attributes of fairy jail in the Disney Fairyverse** with?

It's good to have people who get me.


*If you haven't seen it, I warn you that even with Markiplier's delightful self-comfort chatter in that video, that video and the game itself is fucking TERRIFYING. I haven't had so much fun watching most actual horror MOVIES as I have watching that LP.

**Have I mentioned that I LOVE the Disney Fairies? Especially the movie versions. For one thing, Peter Pan has been thoroughly bussed from the movies (I think it's technically before Tinker Bell meets him, which I'm fine with), and Tink has a much more likable personality. More importantly, though, they're girly as unicorns in a meadow full of rainbow glitter, and yet Tinker Bell is also an ENGINEER. You can totally be a girly mechanical engineer! The Fairies say so, god dammit! (And the latest movie, The Pirate Fairy, has a SCIENCE FAIRY who does experiments and alchemy and stuff! IT'S GREAT.

I've mostly been quiet on the way the internet is eating itself over this whole Guy Says He Hates Women, Shoots Up Women, And Then We Have To Convince People That Misogyny Might Be A Problem thing, because I felt I had nothing useful to add. But then gwalla pointed me to this excellent article, which makes a lot of good points. I'm not going to go over what he's saying because, y'know, he already wrote the article, but there is one small, stupid, petty thing right in the title that I realized has bothered me for years, which is a tiny symptom of the whole big mess, and as long as we're confessing things I want to get it off my chest.

Why the hell does everyone imply that Mario is saving the princess solely so that he can bang her?

Look, I get it. This is the internet. Rule 34, off-color jokes, Grimdark Mario, I-Can't-Unsee-It searches on DeviantArt. But here's the thing: I grew up with Mario. I was introduced to him as a kid--hell, Super Mario Bros. came out the same year I did. And while he doesn't talk much, he's got a pretty definite personality and characterization. And part of that characterization is that he is a Good Guy. Not a Nice Guy--I'm not talking about the term that disparages the very disparageable group of dudes mentioned in the above article. He's not just WAITING for the princess to notice how great he is. He is a fucking GOOD GUY. He is thrown into this world that has just been taken over by hostile dragons; the princess has been kidnapped and her subjects are suffering. This is bad.

So he goes to save her. Not because she's hot and he might get see her naked, but just because it's the right thing to do. Hell, he probably isn't even doing it for the completely nonmetaphorical and quite literal cake. He's doing it because somebody's gotta save the kingdom.*

So call me silly, but he's always been kind of my hero for that.

And so it pains me to think that something I saw as heroic--yes, it's a silly story, but it's still heroic--read to other people as doing something with a selfish ulterior motive.

I guess it's because we often project aspects of ourselves onto characters, and it's annoying when you're projecting the unselfish motives onto a character and somebody else projects a baser image. And because I rather like rescue narratives but get frustrated by how often the rescuee is considered a prize rather than a person being, y'know, RESCUED. I'd like to disentangle those two ideals. And for me, starting this game as a naive little kid, Mario was a good place to start.


BONUS THOUGHTS: It occurs to me that I also have an image of Princess Peach that is slightly skewed from the normal perception of her as a Dumbass In Distress, due largely to a couple of factors. One, of course, is the greatest game in the world, Super Mario RPG, wherein she DOES start out as a Dumbass In Distress but then joins your party to wallop everyone with parasols and frying pans. The other is the Super Mario Adventures comic by Kentaro Takekuma (the one that ran in Nintendo Power back in the day). If you can track this comic down, DO IT. It is weird and funny and colorful and action-packed, and also possibly where the Marioverse's obsession with cake started, and more to the point Princess Peach/Toadstool is kind of a badass in it. She does get captured--while LEADING AN ARMY to battle Bowser. And she winds up ninja-ing her way out of prison, dressing as Luigi to rescue Mario (don't ask), and obliterating Wendy O. Koopa's tower in the process. Also, she's the one who uses the cape power-up. It ... may have colored my perception of her a bit.


*And also because he seems to be having a really good time despite the peril. You probably know my alternate theory, which actually seems to fit the whole franchise's tone better, is that Bowser, at least, and possibly everyone else, thinks that the princess-saving obstacle courses are just another form of weekend recreation with his buddies, like the tennis and golf and go-kart racing they do on other weekends. One weekend they're at the racetrack; the next one the game is Capture-The-Princess. Bowser isn't so much a villain as he is a game designer. I strongly suspect Mario enjoys these weekends, too. And Peach never seems particularly put out by them, either. Maybe they all just think it's a super-fun elaborate game.

(Also, when Mario stomps on Goombas or whatever they don't die, they just teleport to the Goomba-Reinflation Center. That's why Bowser doesn't just flatten Mario by sending a hundred thousand Goombas at him at once. There are only about 50-100 Goombas total in the Koopa Kingdom. I HAVE THOUGHT THIS THROUGH.)

Y'all might think we Salt Lakers are weird, but we ain't got NOTHING on our slightly-to-the-south neighbor Provo and its BYU Bubble.* Sure, here in SLC we do get Disapproving Mormons who will frown at your immodest tank top, and a lot of them do insist that the onus is on the woman to keep men from thinking Impure Thoughts,** but the concern troll notes aren't quite such a big deal.

I shouldn't have read the comments, though. Highlights include:

-The original author of the post going "Dude, I wrote this like FIVE MONTHS AGO, what is even happening"
-A lot of helpful comments along the lines of "But my dear that is a VERY IMMODEST SHIRT do you want the boys to THINK ILL OF YOU?" when it's like an ordinary T-shirt.***
-Creeps, creeping on her
-My absolute favorite in terms of wrongness, in which a lady sanctimoniously declares that "my innocent 10-year-old son told me that the layers shirt I was lounging around the house in was making him uncomfortable; did I bite his head off about being a pervert or shame him into leaving the room? No; I changed my shirt because I love him and I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable" like that makes her really nice and considerate when all I can think is, How the HELL did this 10-year-old boy become an obsessive prude? and suddenly the whole anecdote gets really creepy.

God, I live in a weird neighborhood. At least I'm just on the outskirts.


*A lot of great artists and authors go/went to Brigham Young University, and while a lot of them are cool, somehow I can always tell just by the art and writing whether it's a BYU person. There's some intangible flavor there that's tough to explain to outsiders.

**Were I a dude, I would frankly be insulted by the constant implication that I was completely incapable of restraining myself around women I found attractive. The argument that they are helpless victims of women's wiles has always baffled me for that reason.

***Not that even smaller shirts would be worthy of notes like that, but it does go to show how hypersensitive people can get about things like this.

I harbor a lot of resentment for Peter Pan.

It’s not an out-and-out hatred. I mean, I was willing to see the Disney movie, and the movie version of Mary Martin as Mr. B Natural as Peter Pan, and I read the book version that my aunt had around the house, and I wasn't exactly furiously chucking the book across the room or anything. But I did always leave feeling ... rather put off.*

It took me a long time to articulate why. There were a lot of reasons. For one, Neverland seemed to be made up of a bunch of random elements that JM Barrie vaguely remembered finding appealing as a kid--the old-timey equivalent of something that nowadays would cram robots, aliens, superheroes, princesses, ponies, zombies, ninjas, and okay yeah pirates into a world without any logic or reason.** It was clearly a nostalgia’s-eye view of pretend time, and it was grating.

For another, Peter Pan was a schmuck. I could never tell if he was supposed to be endearingly self-centered and egomaniacal--like kids can be--or if it was meant as a slightly darker commentary on those same characteristics.*** No matter what, though, he seemed far too self-centered. Kids aren’t all that one-note shitty.

But mostly, it was the ladies.

I could not stand the female characters in Neverland. They were all written with such malice. Their automatic hostility toward Wendy was inexplicable and pointless--especially if it really was centered around the fact that they all wanted Peter’s attention, because the hell with him. Not a single character was likable, but the females got some extra attention paid to detailing their unlikability. And Wendy herself was an obnoxious load--whiny, helpless, codependent, and prone to forget that, you know, SHE COULD FUCKING FLY.

Which is still true in most adaptations. I stand by the fact that Wendy is a terrible character as originally written. However, I tend to run all the permutations of her together, so I missed something kind of excellent about Disney Wendy until my brother pointed it out: unlike with the other Wendys, Disney Wendy’s main character arc is the dawning realization that Neverland is bullshit.

And my brother is right.

When you watch it with that in mind, it's actually pretty great. In the beginning of the movie Wendy’s all for going to Neverland, and she’s clearly crushing on Peter. And then every single experience she has is a miserable disappointment. Woo, mermaids! Oh, hang on, mermaids are bratty and cliqueish. Woo, fairies! Oh, wait, they’re bratty too. Woo, Lost Boys! Holy shit never mind they just straight up tried to murder me. Woo, Indians! Oh GOD they are racist stereotypes and also they won’t let me join the party but keep making me gather firewood. Woo, pirates! Oh, right, they’re FUCKING PIRATES. Woo, Peter Pan! Oh, wait, this kid is a god damn SOCIOPATH. Everyone else acts stupid and childish, and finally she just can’t TAKE it anymore. So when she goes back to the real world--with, might I add, no implication that she’s gonna be trapped in some stupid one-sided relationship where Peter flies back to collect her for “spring cleaning” each year—she’s pretty much like “GET ME THE HELL OUT OF THIS NURSERY; I AM SO READY TO BE A GROWNUP.”

And suddenly the reason I still had a soft spot for Disney Wendy (well, that and the fact that I’m in love with Kathryn Beaumont’s voice work) was clear to me.

So yes, I still very much dislike Peter Pan. But it’s rather heartening to realize that Disney Wendy feels kind of the same way.


*Especially by the Mr. B Natural one, because I know stage rules are different, but man, they weren’t even TRYING to make the illusion work.

**I’m not saying these things can’t be awesome together, but you’ve got to WORK on it.

***Yes, I know they touched on that in the more recent live action movie, but it still didn’t quite fully grasp it.

I haven't linked to Scalzi's painful but brilliant post yet because I always assume that everybody on the entire internet reads Scalzi anyway, but today I decided I ought to boost the signal for anyone who missed it. (A warning: the piece is GROSS. It is very, very effective, but you may not want to read it--and if you do, you might need a shower afterward. That is perfectly all right, unless you're one of those conservative politicians, in which case it should be played on a constant audiotape loop at you.)

Plus, it's a nice segue into this. I've been kicking around the idea of satirizing the whole abortion debate using xenomorphs--something about a panel of xenomorph queens blocking a guy from getting the nice simple chestbursterectomy procedure before he explodes into blood and acid, and maybe that same panel of ALIEN QUEENS discussing why inoculations against alien fetuses should not be covered by insurance--but I haven't been able to pull it together. Fortunately, somebody else did it far more pithily than I could have. Sometimes Something Awful hits it right on.

In other news, I just swallowed one of the birth control pills I’ve been on since age 14. It’s called polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormone condition that messes with my metabolism and blood sugar, makes my body hair into goddamn kudzu,* causes periods that look like Steve Buscemi at the end of Fargo, and—believe it or not—gives me lots of cysts on my ovaries.

So, my fine politicians, quite apart from how my sex life is none of your damn business, I need that god damn Pill. I would rather not have something I depend on for health purposes become the latest iteration of your pissing contest, thanks.


*In the right light, I appear to have a pencil-thin mustache. Sexy!

Been rereading the Tortall books after the new short story collection came out. I still think a Tortall adventure game would be excellent. Shit, can you imagine playing a game as Alanna, doing magic and fighting immortals and bandits and collecting mystical crysticals? I mean, it's like a perfect gaming world with an actually strong female protagonist,* just waiting to be coded. God damn, I would play that fucker till my thumbs fell off. Hell, I would buy and learn how to drive a Non!tendo console just to play it.**

I say we start a campaign. Anybody with me?


*As opposed to the kind of "strong female protagonist" that appears to be a babe with huge boobs and a sword/gun. For some reason game designers seem to prefer that one.

**I have never been good at consoles that aren’t Nintendo. Brand loyalty, I haz it.

And just to let y’all know … yes, I do know about my state’s fucking stupid misogyny bill.

I haven’t mentioned it because, first off, I tend to take Utah’s awful policies for granted. Living here is like living with your senile racist grandpa. After a while the bullshit gets so unremarkable that you don’t feel the need to comment every damn time.

And secondly, it really speaks for itself; I can’t add much onto it.

But I realized that it may not have gotten around, and it’s phenomenal enough that maybe I should let y’all know, because even for Utah that’s a lot of horse shit. I wish you a lot of luck with the angry letters.

This made me cry tears of sympathy. It must be so sad not to be able to enjoy a genre secure in the knowledge that it’s excluding other people.

And you know, the anonymous yelling douchebag at the comically overcompensatory magazine* has a point. Here I was all set to write my next sci-fi book about a badass superpowered commando character with a gonzo streak who rescues people from crazy terrorists and then delivers explody justice to them along with her team of commandos,** but now I realize that what I actually wanted to do with the character was make her ride a sparkly space unicorn and shoot magical stars and rainbows from her wand that turn all straight men gay and render them unable to “do things” (as “doing things” is apparently what sci-fi lacks these days thanks to all the WOMEN and QUEERS), and making the galaxy boring because only straight men shooting each other is interesting. At the end everyone sits down to a tea party to talk about their FEEEEELINGS and wear frilly dresses.

Thank you, anonymous yelling douchebag, for clearing that up!


*The SPEARHEAD?! AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

**This is true, actually.

AMELIA: I would like to purchase this fine product! *hands cashier tiny Wii*

CASHIER: Now, this is not a real Wii. You realize it is simply a tin to hold gift cards and is in fact $2.99, which is slightly less than even a used Wii costs.

AMELIA: Yes. I am aware of this. Perhaps its size, price, and the way it says “gift card tin” on the package were clues.

CASHIER: Very well. I will ring you up.

I am very glad he didn't ask me what it was for.


Also, dear video game companies: It’s nice that you’re trying to expand your audience to include girls, but I’m beginning to wonder if games like “Imagine You’re a Babysitter” or “Imagine You’re A Fashion Designer” are the right answer to the complaints that there are not enough video games with female protagonists. Just, you know, for the record.