For The Book Rant- Fahrenheit 451

CLUELESS (1995), dir. Amy Heckerling + Letterboxd Reviews

Sorry, no stream tonight.

Twitch and OBS are both being absolute dicks and I've spent the last hour trying to fix it to no avail.

I'm really sorry everyone

If sexual activity between same-gender people became illegal, the police would be the ones enforcing those laws.

That's why police are not welcome at Pride. Pride is for unconditional supporters, not for those who would become enemies as soon as they're ordered to.

250 posts!

Did it really take me this long?? Your girl has been caught slacking

God I hate economists. Especially when they put get their stupid stinky hands on sociology

I'm having my wedding to Leon Kennedy tonight at 10 and you're all invited

the catcher in the rye is horrible, the writing feels as a call for attention from a child, but a grown man writes it. It blows my mind that schools push this subpar book and demand kids read it. I have no idea why people consider this a classic

I promised not to judge, so I won't. I can see where you're coming from though

I am going through all of the wonderful book rants that I received. I love all of them and everyone who sent them.

Even the person who trashed one of my favorite books - but don't worry, as I promised, I am not judging or arguing. I accept your rage as my own all the same.

I haven't been able to answer all of them yet, but I will.

And feel free to send in more if you want to. I am always open to them

R*wling shows throughout the series that she believes that bad things are only bad when they're done by the Bad Guys. However, if one of the designated Good Guys does the same thing it's not bad.

For example, use of the Unforgivable Curses. When the Bad Guys use them it's horrific, evil, one of the Worst Things Ever. But when Harry uses them, with alarming frequency, it's fine. He's not a Bad Guy, so the things he does can't be bad.

Then there's Snape. He's awful. Just awful. He's an incel creep. He's racist. He bullies young children just because he can, and is outright abusive to them if he didn't like their parents (even when said parents died when the kid was an infant). And oh yeah, he's an incel creep who became obsessed with a girl who did not return his feelings, called her slurs, and was a-okay with her husband and infant son being murdered. You cannot tell me that he wasn't hoping to swoop in and try to manipulate her into a relationship when she was vulnerable due to extreme grief. But, because she for some bizarre reason unwilling to stand aside quietly during the murder of her family, he started working for the Good Guys, which totally means that he's a Good Guy and none of the horrible things he did actually matter.

And then there's Dumbledore! Oh boy, I could write at least an Order of the Phoenix sized book about all the terrible things he did. But I'll keep it short here. He knowingly left a particularly vulnerable child in an abusive situation, and didn't even bother to actually check in on him now and again to make sure that he wasn't being, you know, abused or anything like that. He also left the baby in a basket, outside, for hours, because that was for some reason better than knocking at the door? He then manipulated a young child into basically becoming his private soldier against an evil wizard so powerful that the entire magical world pissed themselves at the mention of his name. But all this gets glossed over and is forgiven as easily as if he had just lost a pen someone had lent him. Because, after all, he's the ultimate Good Guy. And a Good Guy can't do bad things. Therefore, none of the things he did were actually bad.

This got a lot longer than I intended it to be. The views on morality in this series really bother me.

Sometimes I just sit around and think about ways to improve the Harry Potter books. Not even in a fix-it fic way. Just like...there are some seriously dropped threads in Deathly Hallows especially.

Do y'all ever think about the thing with Griphook? Harry choosing to deceive him about the sword of Gryffindor? Well, I do. It bothers me that there are no negative consequences for this. Because oop- Griphook double-crossed them too! So we never have to think about Harry making that choice. And the characterization of Griphook is squicky, man. He relishes the idea of weak creatures suffering, he's obnoxious. We can't even REALLY examine wizard/goblin relations because Griphook is such an uncomplicated little asshole. Did Gryffindor steal the sword from the goblin king??? Harry is uncomfy about it for like two seconds and then oop--guess we never need to think about it again. It's a bad writing choice and when I think about a book like Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay--a book that complexly and carefully and humanely examines racism--i feel super disappointed in the way the Harry Potter series just like...lets some things go.

This is, I think, one example of a handful of moments when Harry does a Bad Thing: lies, uses unforgivable curses etc. But there's no real examination of it. She nods at it a little like "harry was becoming as reckless a godfather and Sirius was to him" but then it just gets...dropped. There isn't even a "this is war; there is no moral high ground" moment. R*wling just seems to have no plan at all to examine any moral complexity in that final book. It makes me nuts.

I have to say, Kirkwall seems like such a nice, respected, not-at-all-terrifying town.

Come join me for some Dragon Age fun!