BlackberryJam

I stand by my unpopular opinion that sitcoms aren't funny and aren't worth watching.

I gotcha. Sometimes people don't like a story line and get dismissed as if they are JamLikeMe. "Well, it's not that the story is bad, you just don't like teenagers." And you're like, "No that story is bad." Well, that and the rules for children working as actors are difficult for soaps to follow. As long as they aren't showing it's face or anything, I'm fine with using dolls for babies in scenes. Just swaddle it a doll. It's fine.

For me, that's exactly the problem, that they are teenagers. They are teenagers, doing teenage things, with a teenage perspective, and a teenage POV. I don't want stories that involve teenagers, simply because I don't like teenagers. I think not liking them because they are teenagers is a perfectly valid position. Sure, there may be other reasons to dislike the teen character, based on story line or actor, but sometimes, it's just because it's teenagers. I don't like younger children either. I'm at the point in life that I'm happy to watch shows where no one is younger than 22.

Try Anna Wintour Andre Leon Talley drama. There are a ton of articles.

Nina's ending was horrific. Martha at least got to live. I'd have been happy if Paige died. Not sure how unpopular this will be, but I don't like child centered stories in my adult shows. If you're watching say, Dawson's Creek, that's a show about teens. It's fine, and it's what you expect. When I was watching The Americans, and suddenly this snotty ass teenager is eating up all the screen time? Hate it.

Bad day for the Brits. Murray and Raducanu both out. Just Rafa, making me smile.

@RealHousewife In many conversations, especially with men, when I'm told I need to make my language equal and include men, etc, I say I'm making up for the thousands of years of male rule. The I propose that for ten years, just ten, men will spend 100% of their time making coffee and getting slapped on the ass leaving women in charge of every major decision. Just ten years, when women have put up with it for thousands. The suggestion doesn't go over well. I'm mostly joking when I do that, but part of me isn't. Part of me wants reparations. Part of me thinks a period of role reversal would be enlightening. As a small business owner, I struggle with paid family leave and years of parental leave at all, even unpaid. In my field, there simply isn't a talent pool available to fill in for workers on parental leave, male or female. Also, as a person who doesn't want children and doesn't want to be around children, I think to myself, "Why the fuck would you want to take a year and be around a baby? Those things are gross." So perhaps I'm not the right person to create a parental leave plan. I don't think half the population is worthless or horrible or sucks. Oh wait, I do think that, just not based on gender. It sounds like your friend is dealing with a lot of internalized misogyny. I see it in my mom, who prioritizes the men in my family when scheduling things, deciding where or what to have for dinners, what gifts to buy, etc. Once I asked her why she did that and she answered, "Well, X male works hard and provides a lot for the family." My response was that I worked more hours and made over three times as much money as X, and that because of that, I often bought dinner for everyone, so why weren't my wishes considered first? She had no answer. In her family, the women cooked, the men got served dinner, the men ate, then the women cleaned the table, washed the dishes so they would have available plates/silverware, then the women ate while the men sat on the porch, then the women cleaned the entire kitchen and did dishes a second time. In her mind, men's wishes come first. I always struggled visiting my mother's family because I am terrible at making beds; I don't enjoy cooking; I feel no desire to clean things; I don't like or enjoy children; and I'd get pissed off when ordered to do these things while my male cousins got to goof off. And I didn't keep my mouth shut about it. The work done in the home is valuable and very much underpaid, but gender imbue one with a special skill for it. I was made to feel worthless by my female relatives. I'm in a male dominated profession and dealing with the Old Boys Network a lot. I realized early on that putting down other women might make the OBN feel good about me, but they weren't going to let me join the club. So I developed the attitude, and statement, "I'd participate in your pissing contest, but it'd just run down my leg. So why don't you stop being useless and start getting the work done?"

Something that always bothered me about TV shows and writer. Women aren't sex vending machines. Male characters who put in enough "nice guy" to the relationship aren't entitled to sex out. Whedon views himself as an incel who has just gotten lucky so he's going to grab all the sex he can before it gets cut off.

I'm rewatching The Americans and that finale...when the train pulls away...I didn't even like that character and it was still a gut punch. Unpopular opinion, I don't care how good The Sopranos or Breaking Bad were, I'm not interested in watching shows about white men in mid-life crisis. At this point, I'm just being contrary about it; I acknowledge that. When people suggest those shows to me, I'll also say, "If I'm going to watch a show all about a midlife crisis white guy, he better be smoking hot, and those two actors? Not even a little."

Oh thank the Seven, it wasn't just me! I know, age difference/problematic/power dynamic, but damn they were hot. Looking at those soaps through a 2022 lens is like brushing your teeth and then chewing one of those red plaque tablets they made chew in school. You think it's all good and fun and your mouth is clean, but then it's all covered in inappropriate stories and predation and pink residue on your teeth. Soaps were telling women's stories, using more female POV, and yes, attempting to tackle social issues. I can't regret my years of soap watching.

I was a big OLTL fan, and talk about problematic, but I loved 1990s Todd Manning and Blair Cramer. That's also where I developed my crush on Nathan Fillion, who was Joey Buchanan on OLTL. He did a May/December romance storyline with Robin Strasser, who played Dorian Lord, who is 26 years his senior. I look back on those shows and what was normalized, and think, "No wonder I've gone decades without calling men out on predation. My entertainment made it seem expected and not a big deal."

I haven't just read that one, I own it, and I specifically remember parts of it! "She pronounces the 't' in 'often.'" When I did the Great Book Purge of 2017 and donated over 3k books, I kept that one. I read "improving" books, but when life is rough, and life is rough sometimes, I like my trash. I like my easy books. The Olive Garden Fettuccini Alfredo of Fiction. Peyton Place, The Carpetbaggers, Scruples, anything by Sidney Sheldon, Wifey. Oh, the trashy novels of my youth! Is anyone writing those kinds of books anymore?

Yeah, I was being nice about it, but Mal hated himself for being attracted to a dirty whore, which is how he categorized her in his mind. There was nothing about the show that screamed feminist. Any time I rewatch, I just fastforward through those parts. I wish there were a nice "registry of jackasses" so that I could keep track of who is awful. Speaking of awful, Death on the Nile is getting released next month. I know many actors and actresses can't always choose their co-stars, but Branagh chose Armie Hammer.

I acknowledge that my first exposure to Sarah Michelle Gellar was my mother making me watch All My Children and UGH. So I was predisposed to be annoyed with the actress. Also, no particularly hot guys in the show, so I couldn’t find it in me to invest. I also have almost no interest in movies based on comic books. I hated comic books as a child and seeing them on big screen holds no interest. Whedon can fall in a hole any day now.

I’m reading Going There by Katie Couric. I checked it out of the library for all the scandalous trash it was supposed to include, but it’s so, so boring. This is her story of her life and it’s shallow. Even reading about her husband’s illness and subsequent passing is dull. How can that be? I was looking for good trash, like High on Arrival by MacKenzie Phillips, which was a great read. I read A Counterfeit Suitor by Darcie Wilde, #5 in the Rosalind Thorne books and wow the love interest is charmless. The mysteries are good. I read Spoiler Alert and All the Feels by Olivia Dade which are GoT/JaimeBrienne fanfic made original fic. They are fun. I have Anne Glenconner A Haunting in Holkham up next.

Joss Whedon. Okay…I never watched Buffy. I saw like 10 minutes, hated it, turned it off. I loved Firefly, but the female characters were Prostitute, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Badass Ballerina and Fantasy Warrior, I never, ever got Whedon as a writer to be held up as a feminist. I mean, I loved the show, but he wasn’t covering any new ground there. I soldiered through Dollhouse because Tahmoh Penikett, but the women in that show were actual fantasy dolls with interchangeable personalities designed solely for the pleasure of men. How in the world did the man get held up as a champion of female characters? HOW? Rarely am I surprised when a powerful white male in Hollywood is outed as a creeper, but Joss Whedon was telling people his thoughts on women from early on. Reading that article though? Did he take an idiot pill before hand? Was he snorting coke in the bathroom during his pee breaks?

My truly unpopular opinion appears to be that I enjoy mostly enjoy finales. I loved the ending of BSG. I loved the ending of Lost. (To be fair, I skipped like three seasons of Lost and just tuned in for the ending.) I enjoy it when a show ends and ties up the stories, even if I disagree with how they were tied up. Not Dexter though. The ending of the first Dexter is an abomination.

So, France is passing legislation requiring vaccination for all hospitality venues. That would include Roland Garros. Novak has plenty of notice that a recent positive test will not create an exception. In AO news, Keys took out Kenin. I can't be sad about that. I think Kenin struggles with likability and I feel sorry for her, a young girl taking so much abuse. But yet...Kenin is really unlikable. As opposed to Coco Gauff who is delightful, but also lost in the first round. Osaka and Barty are through. Nadal is through as well.

Uhm...did you ever see David Carr? He spent most of his time on the ground during his tenure with the Texans, but Jimmy G is a low rent David Carr. I got nothing for Ron Mexico or Phil Simms, but give me some Colin Kaepernick, a bit of Mark Sanchez, classic Dan Marino and Mitch Trubisky, yeah I said it.

If you turn off comments completely, they can't troll you ON AO3 at all. They can still find you other places. Also, tell that troll to fuck off.

You can turn off or moderate comments on AO3. Turning them off means you can't interact with anyone. Sorry you had to deal with assholes. I just want to say thanks to everyone who agrees that comment trolls or people who discourage other writers are dicks.

I ship it.

Bowman! 2001.

I loved this finale, but I kind of wanted something out of the blue, like when they were doing the pod check-ins, for Amos to say, "Hey Bobbie, if we make it, wanna get married? I've never been married before." And her replying, "Why the hell not? I've never been married before either." Just to see the looks on everyone's faces. So Laconia is covered in protomolecule and Xan is the new Gage from Pet Semetary/Julie Mao. The parents were right to lock the little creeper in the closet. I loved it. I loved it so much.

This from The Fisher King.