The Millennial Gospel Project

 

 

 

 

GIVING TO THE POOR AND WALKING WITH THE OUTCASTS IS PUNK ROCK. If Jesus were a millennial he would be a punk socialist and nothing anyone will ever say with convince me otherwise. Mary Magdalene with artfully placed runs in her black stockings leading down to her studded Doc Martens, are you with me?

When I first read this enthusiastic response to a Tumblr post I had made, I had no idea it was the seed of a 1,600 follower-strong virtual faith family and brew-house of creativity. I just knew it excited me.

The enthusiast in question was Alice, who would become co-moderator of the Millennial Gospel Project, but at the time she was just an internet friend in Alabama with a literature degree and a complicated relationship to her Catholic upbringing. I was eighteen, tentatively shaking off the trappings of mainline Christian evangelism, and trying to assemble a faith walk that fit the fraught Thing I had with God.

DID SOMEBODY SAY PUNK GOSPEL AU? I typed with a grin, and added my own embellishments.

Peter as that Marxist kid with patches on his jacket who usually gets arrested at protests, Mary as a sassy Gen X mom: “I didn’t get slut-shamed by all of Georgia for having you at sixteen so you could grow up to wise-ass me, Jesus Emmanuel.” Jesus is a total introvert (please forward all unexpected social events to Peter or Mary, and don’t do the whole kiss-the-hem-of-his-jeans-in-prostration thing, it makes him uncomfortable) but super fun when you get him to loosen up (Remember that wedding? Water into wine? Best party ever). And his message? Life changing.

When Alice shot back with Gabriel with a lip piercing and a twitter account (@Gabe’sHorn), tweeting all of the prophets with #ispeakuntothee I was hooked. So, it turned out, were plenty of other people.

Alice and I kept the game going, eventually typing up long form pieces of Bible fanfiction and making photosets to illustrate the way we were trying to fit the gospel into a modern, millennial frame. When people starting requesting new art pieces and asked if they could submit their own, we launched a separate blog to accommodate the virtual traffic. We had struck onto something accidentally, something that I felt taking root in my own life as well as in the lives of others. Re-claiming the Jesus story from the privatization and commodification of the mainstream American church felt good, really good.

Moreover, re-framing these familiar stories allowed us to open up to what Jesus might have been trying to teach us all those years ago about equality, moral responsibility, charity, and social justice.

So many people think they don’t get a say in what the church looks like, and that the stories in the Bible don’t belong to them and aren’t theirs to explore or question or re-invigorate with creativity. Alice and I wanted to push back against these boundaries, and create a space in which young people could come and get their hands messy playing in the Biblical sandbox. That was it. No agenda. No mission statement. No hidden evangelical motive. Just an opportunity to start a conversation with some long-dead folk heroes and have fun with it, for God’s sake.

As the MG, as it is affectionately referred to, took off, Alice and I started fielding requests for LGBTQ affirming congregations and Bible verses that supported women’s ordination. We uploaded articles about Arab Christians protecting Muslims at prayer, nuns battling church corruption, and rabbis standing with water protectors in North Dakota. I shared songs that expressed messy feelings about God, and Alice quoted liberation theologians unafraid to lean into the social and political demands of the gospel. Young people of increasingly diverse backgrounds submitted their secret struggles, their poetry, their anger with the church, their drawings, their happiest moments with God, their essays.

Currently our patchwork online family consists of atheists, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, pagans, Muslims, agnostics, and no shortage of seekers, those unlabeled multitudes who wish to draw nearer to the Divine but are disillusioned with religious institutions.

With a body of creatives so large and diverse, there have been tense moments along the way (plenty of which were caused by my own insensitivities or blind spots) but mostly there has been love, the deep, compassionate, abiding kind that makes me believe in a Good and Involved God on my own doubting days. I try to stay open to criticism and change, and have been so humbled by the way the Millennial Gospel mob routinely reminds me to listen more than I talk and let go of any illusion I have of control over this world or the people in it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned working on this blog, it’s that if you just give people a safe place to honest and then get out of the way, the Spirit will work amazing healing in the lives you have been entrusted with.

As a Millennial, I think the MG represents the exciting access people in my generation have to unlimited information and numerous platforms from which to participate in the production and dissemination of that information. With a phone camera, anyone can be a journalist, with a Netflix subscription, anyone can be a film critic, and with a Tumblr url and access to biblegateway.com, anyone can be a theologian.

There are obvious downsides to this culture (the abandonment of much-needed guidelines on what counts as reliable journalism, people claiming to be experts in subjects on which they are honestly uninformed, a temptation to throw scriptural fact-checking out the window) but it still excites me, and I want to be a part of it. It’s worth the risk, and it’s worth learning how to do well. As a person of faith, I think this co-creative way of doing religion is essential in a world where churches vie for political authority, Americans are fractured down a stark liberal/conservative divide, and so many congregations are ravaged by abuse, anti-intellectualism, and an unwillingness to talk about difficult topics.

It’s been four years since the Millennial Gospel first started. Alice earned her Masters in literature at NYU and communicates with me from a cozy Brooklyn apartment, and I joined the Episcopal church, enrolled in the Masters of Divinity program at Princeton Theological Seminary, and spend my days trying not to start theological arguments (well, not too many) with my professors. I would never have applied to the program if it weren’t for the encouragement I received from all my beloved Millennial Gospel members, and I would never have realized that I’m at my most self-actualized when I’m helping others maintain their individual faith lives if countless young people hadn’t trusted me with their hearts through the project. For those two things, I will never cease being grateful.

It’s always hard to end a story you’re still living in, so I suppose I’ll take my leave with an invitation. This is formal permission for you to Come and See, a very honest welcome into the ramshackle DIY household Alice and I have built with hundreds of other people.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a person of faith or not, if you’re a millennial or not, if you’re straight or cis or rich or poor or conservative or liberal or a messy mishmash or too many modifiers to count. We want to hear your story. We want to know your pain and raise you up in your joy. And we’re pretty sure that God, however He/She/They decide to manifest in your life, wants to as well. So wear something you don’t mind getting messy in and show up whenever. The door’s always open.

 

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Sarah Gibson is a graduate student of theology, writer of poetry and prose, and village wise woman in training. She spends her days blowing her paycheck on tea lattes and putting too much faith in humanity. You can find more of her writing at sarahtaylorgibson.tumblr.com or start a conversation with her on twitter @s_t_gibson.

 

On The Edge of Seventeen and Something Bigger: The Reclaiming of the Female Film Protagonist

 

Nadine Franklin is having a rough year.

 

Though 2016 has been a difficult one, arguably for much of the general population, Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen reminds us that every year is a rough one, when you’re in high school. Beyond the agony of pimples, romance troubles, and friend drama, however, The Edge of Seventeen paints (or splashes, really) a bigger picture- one of the recent twenty-tens trend of the female director-screenwriter combo breaking their female protagonists and their costars out of the boxes that a century of cinema has placed them in. Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen joins the ranks of Lake Bell’s 2013 film In a World… and Gillian Robespierre’s 2014 indie hit Obvious Child, making a (somehow still) bold statement that perhaps the people who can best write and direct female characters and actors, are in fact, women themselves.

The protagonists of these films swear, and not in a huge outburst kind of way, but a slip-into-multiple-conversations-daily type of way. They go to the bathroom, and not just in a drunken haze or to take a pregnancy test. They have dislikable moments, and make you want to sink into your theater seat as if it were quicksand. They are far from perfect, and the filmmakers make damn sure by the end of the film that the audience knows it, too.

In a drizzly Oregon town of Craig’s creation, seventeen-year-old Nadine is struggling when her best friend from childhood starts dating her twin brother- the Gallant to Nadine’s Goofus. Sound familiar? Sound like similar plots have been seen before in the oft-dreaded “coming of age” comedy? I thought so too (and especially as a twin myself, I’m often wary of the good twin/bad twin trope). But the trailer is misleading in capturing the true tone of the film- it’s a coming of age film in a world where coming of age (especially for teenage girls) is harder than ever. The film has humor, absolutely, and Woody Harrelson as Nadine’s dry, deprecating teacher brings many laughs with and at Nadine’s expense.

But The Edge of Seventeen has a rawness that so many of teenage-targeted films fail to capture, Craig’s script captures these emotions with unflinching honesty; this is the mastery of Hailee Steinfeld’s acting at work. Oscar nominee and teen pop star hybrid, Steinfeld plays Nadine as awkward, but not in the “cute” way- she’s full of biting comments and social anxiety, is quick to blame, and at times, is quite cruel. Craig doesn’t shy away from the anger of the teenager girl, she instead embraces it as one who has lived through it- teenage girls do, after all, have a lot to be understandably angry about.

On the other side of the country, mid-twenties NYC stand-up comedian Donna (Jenny Slate) gets dumped, makes jokes on stage about it about it, hooks up with a guy “so Christian, he’s like, a Christmas tree” and then gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion. This is Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child. There is no question, in the film, if Donna will have the procedure, the plot revolves around whether or not she will tell the nice guy she “played Russian roulette with [her] vagina” with, as her best friend and closest confidante Nellie, puts it.

Back on the West Coast, and not too far from Nadine, but a dozen years older, In a World’s Carol (Lake Bell as director and actor) is the daughter of a famous voice actor and struggling to make her own name in the business in LA, though, as her father puts it, “let’s face it- the industry does not crave a female sound… I’m not being sexist, that’s just the truth”.

In some ways, all three women tell one story, and show the growth, through the ages, of how young women can accurately be portrayed in cinema, when given the right actresses and filmmakers. All three films easily pass the Bechdel test, despite all three having romantic comedy subplots and more than one romantic interest. Craig is blunt about Nadine’s misdirection in falling for Nick, a just-out-of-juvie senior who takes Nadine out for a ride in his car. She comments on the nice waterfront view, and then the script has him park the car in front of a waste disposal container instead.

The jokes are subtle digs at the contradictions and ultimate mystery of being a teenager in the modern day, yet never is offensive to the “elusive” creature of the teenage girl. Nadine has a negative view of the world, and is angry at it for letting her father die and at Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) for falling for Darien (Blake Jenner) – unwilling to believe that Krista could have both siblings, and selfishly insisting she pick only one. Nadine is smart, and that’s what makes her cruelty pack a punch- she knows where to hurt the people who’ve hurt her, and she’s not going anywhere until she gets her chance to swing at them- even if it isn’t entirely justified. In a painful poolside scene, she asks her friend Erwin if he “wants to have sex” and then pauses for effect, followed by laughter and declaration of the joke. (So often female characters are punished horrifically for their cruelty, while reckless teenage males can go unpunished. Nadine grows greatly in the course of the film, she learns to apologize and to fix her wrongdoings, but is not humiliated and directly punished for her actions. What happens to her in the latter half of the film is a result of her actions, not a “punishment”- and the film also distinguishes that she’s not the only one to blame. Her issues with Erwin meanwhile, are worked out in a healthy manner- through art and apology, discussion and addressing the issue head on).

Robespierre’s Donna, meanwhile, may be a self-admitted “menorah on the top of the tree, that burns it down”, with bitter feelings towards and even moments of stalking her ex-boyfriend. Yet like Nadine turning to her cynical but surprisingly supportive history teacher, in her darkest moments Donna turns to her parents (creating a new relationship with her mother in the process), and closest friends for support.

Similarly, Carol turns to her sister for support (they even have a phrase for it- #sistercode), even after she inadvertently and unintentionally almost sabotages her sister’s marriage.

Bell, Robespierre, and Craig feature strong and genuine female relationships with their protagonists- Nadine to Krista, Donna to Nellie and her mom, Carol to her sister Dani. And these relationships defy the male gaze, dare to go where films by male directors worry about and avoid going, using physicality, blunt honesty, and still taboo topics of how a woman can or should act on film.

The first three minutes of Obvious Child mention buttholes and vaginal discharge, and include fart noises by Slate on stage. She swaps shirts in a dressing room in a very not sexy scene with her friend, though there’s a lot of skin shown on both of them. Slate is seen shirtless at least three times, yet every time she has armpit hair lingering, and is wearing a plain and practical nude bra. Like Nadine and Krista early in the film, Nellie and Donna are very physically affectionate, crawling into each other’s laps during dark times and blatantly telling each other without fear of judgement who they want to have sex with in brighter ones. In a World… dares to have two male character be so misogynistic in every conversation they have with one another, that they become false caricatures of their gender- something so many female characters and actors are faced with daily. Almost every male figure in the film is portrayed as ridiculous, in some way, yet the women are too. The characters of Bell’s film aren’t afraid to live real life on screen- their conversations are drowned out a bit by kitchen noises, they verbally acknowledge painfully awkward silences filled with tension, they call their sibling while sitting on the toilet.

The scripts of these female talent whirlwind films feature realistic dialogue and aren’t afraid to go beyond the sphere of their approximately two hours. There are references to vague stories about bell peppers and grandmothers, and jokes you never quite understand, purely because they’re inside jokes of the characters, and you haven’t known them their whole lives. They live separate from you, you don’t exist to them, you’re only given a short window of insight into their world and then you must leave. These films make you feel like even after you walk out of the theater, the characters still live on.

A problem with so many female-audience focused films is the relatability factor. And sure, Steinfeld is hardly an ugly duckling, and the harping on her odd clothing choices seems a bit repetitive, reminding us of how quirky she is. But she gets pimples, Donna farts endlessly, and Carol’s hair is more often than not a complete mess. Above all, Nadine is a teenage girl, Donna a twenty-something, Carol a genuine thirty-year old, and they’re all real ones at that. Nadine vomits in a toilet after getting drunk, and falls asleep on the bathroom floor, in an incredibly unglamorous way. (Krista takes care of her throughout the ordeal). Halfway through the film, she enters a tiny TCBY bathroom, sits down on the toilet, and pees, as she has a mock-conversation with god. With the actual noise of her urinating in the background, in this scene no more than sixty seconds long, Nadine asks him why he’s always let her down- followed with a shot of her realizing there’s no toilet paper left on the roll.

These filmmakers do not shy away from the grittier, sadder, grosser parts of life either. There are mentions of Carol and Dani’s mom overdosing on purpose. We see, in a flashback, Nadine’s father die and her casually, comfortably mention taking pills to battle her depression, and Nellie announces to Donna that she’s going to drop a “dookie” while they spend the two minutes awaiting the pregnancy test results, in again, a closet-sized bathroom. (I find it amusing but also not surprising that all three of these films feature many a bathroom scene- showing a real part of real women’s lives- something that you never see, despite all the male peeing in the wilderness and discussions over urinals we get in Hollywood). Whispering to herself “Don’t be awkward, socialize” in a bathroom at a party she has no desire to be at, Nadine’s heartbreaking vulnerability is a trait in all of us, male or female, that Steinfeld nails better than any teenage actor in recent memory. Yet at the same time, we feel for her brother Darian and for Krista, for Nadine’s unfairness and way she pins the blame on anyone but herself. By the end of the film, I was pleasantly surprised to see Darian fully fleshed out, and found myself sympathizing with him as well as his sister. Robespierre and Bell’s films too- regardless of how small a role, the script puts in a great effort to make the audience feel as if we really know a little about themselves and how they see the world by the end credits.

The Edge of Seventeen may very well join the ranks of relatable, well-acted teenage anthem films, like Juno, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and even earlier, the creations of John Hughes (whom Craig cites as an influence). But more importantly, the film crosses genres, like Obvious Child and In a World…, and isn’t afraid to show the darker sides of coming of age, romance, stand-up comedy, family and friend relationships. These filmmaker’s films are relatable because they too were or are the age of their protagonists, and can fight against the male gaze and describe what it’s really like to be a woman in America like no one else.

Yet if relatability and the genuine nature of the character’s experiences are what drive this type of film, there is something to be said in the valid concern that these films, made by white women and featuring mostly white actors, are not as inclusive as they should be. (The Edge of Seventeen’s Erwin, played by excellent newcomer Hayden Szeto, is Chinese Canadian, however, a huge step in the classic role of a love-interest). There’s still a long way to go in accurate, intersectional female representation, but In a World…, Obvious Child, and The Edge of Seventeen prove that not only can female directors and screenwriters inspire movie-goers (myself included), but that they can inspire each other- these films were, after all, only made in the last four years.

I can’t wait to see the bathroom scenes, best-friend relationships, realistic romance, and fart jokes still to come.

 

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Lauren is a cinema studies student in her final year of university (and is more than a little stunned at that fact). Based in Boston, she spends her time drinking earl grey tea, pretending she knows how to take photographs, and over-analyzing every movie she sees (with a few impassioned arguments in defense of her favorite fictional characters, here and there). Sunbeams, falling leaves, watching old movies, and Harry Potter make her happy (and she hopes you have beautiful things that make you happy too). You can find her on twitter (@labackus) and instagram.

 

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Expectations Before the Inauguration

I Have Heard What the Talkers Were Talking, the Talk of the Beginning and the End (But I Do Not Talk of the Beginning or the End)

 

It just hit me that I’m really, truly scared of what’s coming up ahead.

The inauguration is in less than a week. In four days, we will have a president whose word we cannot trust, whose hatred for people unlike him is undisguised, whose entire strategy has been to play on the anger and fear of hardworking, undereducated citizens. And I’m writing this article because I haven’t seen anything like it since about a week after the election. We have become complacent, supportive even, not fighting what lies ahead.

I believe we need to fight. And I am a hypocrite for that belief, because I too have stopped fighting. I am living in a world surrounded by people who talk to me in the patient voice of a suicide hotline, pleading with me to understand and admit to my mistakes in voting for someone like Hillary Clinton to represent the highest office of our people. And for the first few weeks, I fought. I fought bitterly, embarrassing my sister because it was three cousins and two of their friends on one me for over an hour, and at the end of the night, each side assumed they were victorious. I begged for our weekly family dinners to be politics-free, because I couldn’t deal with the praise being thrown in the direction of someone who hasn’t earned it, and received eye rolls and “grow up”s in return. My class WhatsApp group remains one-sided, because I and the one other confirmed Democrat are both miraculously keeping our mouths shut on this one, because we know we will never get our point across.

I am too tired to fight, and I hate that I even have the luxury. That I even have the choice. I hate that I am writing this on my phone, in bed, near suffocating and paralyzed from a sudden rush of anxiety. All because the Washington post reported that construction for the wall between the US and Mexico could begin as early as April, funded by the dollars of taxpayers who didn’t ask for this. Who didn’t ask for him.

And it’s even more frightening, considering Obama is still in office. That plans are being contrived and finalized and he isn’t even our president yet. That this whole world is going crazy, and it’s people who have gotten it this way.

Despite being a woman, I otherwise live in tremendous privilege. The president-elect doesn’t hate people like me, people with my skin color and my religion and my socioeconomic status. So when people wonder aloud, why do you even care?, I offer one of two possible responses, based on which one I feel will speak to them more.

The first: he doesn’t hate me today. But that doesn’t mean he won’t hate me tomorrow. This has proven wildly ineffective, for the most part; I mostly get rolled eyes and exasperated comebacks bemoaning my melodramatic tendencies. I don’t care. This isn’t drama. This is the tragic reality.

The second I haven’t really had a chance to use. Nobody in my vicinity wants to hear it, because it’s the real answer, and the truth is a loaded thing. I care because it isn’t right. No person is inherently greater than another. We all have skills. We all have talents. We all have rights, and it’s about time everyone recognized that, and gave the people on lower ground a stepstool, to get us all on equal footing.

The New York Times Book Review has a weekly interview with a different author, and they will often ask, “If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?” A book seems a bit ambitious, because I expect the president will be quite busy, come the 20th of January, so I would like to offer a poem instead. A long poem, but even just the first few lines will suffice:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

 

Walt Whitman wrote Leaves of Grass in 1891, and like most Transcendentalist writings, he imbued within it the themes of unity, of a universal divinity within all people that makes us simultaneously equal and great. We are all equal. We are all divine, and we all have the capability for greatness.

I was on the subway when a black teenager began to recite a poem he had written himself. One sentiment stuck with me; he said that black is a combination of every color, so that when he says black lives matter, it means all lives matter. And he is so right. Because it’s easy to say that all lives matter when all is subject to your definition of alive. It is only when all is truly all, when you can quantify each of its components and prove that every variation of humanity is included, that we will achieve that transcendentalist ideal of community, of acceptance. Of peace.

It may look like there is peace. The rallies are dead. The protests are a distant memory. I no longer see commuters with safety pins affixed to their shirts. But my words are still alive, and I intend to use them until the very last breath leaves my body. I am not done, and hopefully, neither are you.

I am fighting in my own way, and I’m begging you to fight alongside me in yours.

(note: title is also from Leaves of Grass)

 

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Love Languages

 

 

This article starts a couple years ago, when my teacher was out of the country and the administration couldn’t find a sub for my class. So instead of reasonably leaving us to have a free period, we got combined with one of the other classes happening concurrently with ours.

I just… have you ever had a teacher who’s sweet and devoted and doing everything right, but you just can’t stand them? Picture me raising my hand a la Hermione Granger when Snape refuses to call on her. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t take her seriously. So when she decided to forego her intended lesson plan because of the 25 kids unceremoniously dumped into her custody for 50 minutes, and told us she would speak about her latest passion, love languages, instead, I was completely unimpressed.

And I probably would have stayed that way if I weren’t such a sucker for what I like to call “pop psychology”. You know, those things that everyone knows about in a superficial sense, like Myers-Briggs personality types. And I had a friend who, in addition to actually being a psych major, was really into this stuff as well, so that only exacerbated my relatively tame fascination with the field. After plying me with online quizzes to help determine my enneagram type (“of course you’re a tri-type,” she groaned, “you never could fit into a box, could you?”) she moved on to love languages.

Our friendship was fraying at that point anyways, so I ignored love languages, again. And even though the concept flitted around my brain for the next two years, I never really did much research on it. All I knew is that there are five love languages: words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch, quality time, and receiving gifts, and apparently understanding your partner’s language is key to a strong relationship.

And then it was my birthday. I got a 12:01 text from my best friend and fell asleep smiling. And more messages through the day from friends all over, both casual and close. E-cards from my baby cousins and my dad (well, my sister on his behalf. He still thinks that there’s a tiny someone in his computer telling him that ‘you’ve got mail!’). I got hundreds of words that day, and I have never felt so loved in my life. And that’s when it hit me. Words of affirmation. Caroline, time to do some research.

The idea of five love languages was developed by Dr. Gary Chapman. In 1995 he published his book The Five Love Languages – the Secret to Love That Lasts, and it became a New York Times bestseller in 2009. The basic premise behind love languages is that while everyone appreciates love in each of its forms, each person has one love language that’s most dominant. So you can love your partner to death and spoil them with a gift a day, but if their love language is physical touch, just they won’t feel loved.

It’s a simple concept, really. But I feel like there’s more, and I want to share my personal thoughts on the topic. Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book. I haven’t taken the quiz either; my assessment is purely from a self-knowledge perspective, as well as some casual analysis of and discussion with my friends. With this in mind, I would like to propose my theory: every person encapsulates all five love languages.

Because thinking back to that same birthday, I recalled my friend sitting next to me in calc and telling me that she had a present for me, she just couldn’t bring it to school that day. I also remember inwardly cringing, because I get so awkward about receiving gifts, and honestly, if I want something, I’ll save up for it myself. It feels better that way. So here are two love languages- my love language, and what I’ll call my un-love language, the language that makes me feel uncomfortable.

And then I was talking to my sister, who told me that she found love languages so funny, because what she likes getting is different from how she actually shows affection. And I realized I’m like that, too; compliments and words keep me going, but I rarely dole out any of my own. Instead, I am all about acts of service. And the flip side to that is the love language I have the hardest time giving, which for me is physical touch. And the final love language is your neutral one.

So what does this mean?

It means love languages are a little more complex than they appear. Because it’s no longer simply about identifying your and your partner’s love languages; all the types have to be somewhat compatible. Because if the one language I can’t stomach is quality time and my partner craves it, then it takes extra effort on my part to fix myself and my aversion to quality time to make sure my partner feels love.

Because at the end of the day, I believe that the point of love languages is to become comfortable giving and receiving each and every one of them. Obviously, you will always have an innate preference, and that’s perfectly okay! But I would be knocking out a good 2/5, maybe 3/5 of the world if I only stuck to people whose preferences for showing and accepting love were exactly compatible with mine.

And one final thought; I think love languages are for more than relationships. I think every friendship, every encounter with a parent or child or sibling can only be strengthened when you know their love language and engage them with it. Loving isn’t exclusive to a romantic relationship.

2016 Summarized by Music

2016. What a year!

It was definitely a memorable year and a year that will be hard to forget. So much happened in all aspects of life including politics, music, art, lifestyle, science, technology and general news.

It was a hard year for many people, including myself. Events throughout the world shook me to my core. Since 2016 was such a defining year to me, I figured it had to be monumental to other people as well.

I channeled 2016 into something creative, which is why this article will not be the usual content I write for Loud and Alive. I created a playlist of music that summarizes, defines and illuminates the past year. It’s creative, different, and something we can all connect to.

Below you will find songs I picked out that I associate 2016 with, which means they are of all different genres, time periods and by different people.

However, while I have tried to use world events and achievements, most of the song choices have been influenced by events in my world which could be very different from yours.

And with that, enjoy!

 

 

Where Is The Love? – The Black Eyed Peas

This song first came out in 2003 but the band redid it in September of 2016. I associate so many events with this song. Many of the instances of police brutality in the United States reminded me of this song. The PULSE club shooting in Orlando. Syria’s civil war and the humanitarian crisis. Attacks in Belgium, Nice, Turkey. And everything the song talks about. 2016 was a year where I found hate and fear dominated the world and this song speaks to that.

 

 

 

 

Sorry or Formation – Beyoncé

2016 may have not been the most inspiring year for women, but to me I think it had a lot of amazing instances of women power, especially women of color. Beyoncé’s songs convey that strength and power we have seen from women and women of color. A few instances include Simone Biles, Simone Manuel, and Almaz Ayana at the Olympics. Michelle Obama and her speeches throughout the US elections. Hillary Clinton and her historic run for president. Angela Merkel and her time as Chancellor of Germany.  2016 was full of instances where women were unapologetic and powerful.

 

 

 

Freedom – Beyonce ft. Kendrick Lamar

This song is described as an anthem for black girl power and that is exactly what it is. The song talks about racism throughout the United States and women’s issues, both of which were major focuses in the US. Black Lives Matter took the country by storm and continues to fight in a highly publicized way. Women’s rights came under attack during the US elections and protests around the issues have been organized. In my mind, this highly energized track is the anthem for protests.

 

 

 

Controversy – Prince

2016 was a year we lost so many beautiful voices and artistic minds including Prince. So I had to include at least one of his songs in this playlist. I chose this specific song because I think it speaks to the division of people in 2016 and the labels that were used to define people. Immigrant. Black. White. Latino. Asian. Gay. Transgender. “We are all just the same.”

 

 

 

Heroes – David Bowie

Another musical voice we lost in 2016. He was so influential, especially in rock music, so of course I had to include him. If we need to be reminded of love, inspiration and aspirations at the end of any year, it has to be 2016. I know Bowie is desperate to have his love and be a hero just for a day, but so much can happen in a day. Hero for a day sounds pretty good.

 

 

 

Make it Happen – Mariah Carey

Are you confused by this song choice? I wasn’t planning on putting it in this playlist if I’m being honest. But 2016 was a year where people made stuff happen. South Korea impeached their president. The construction of the DAPL was halted due to protests. Civil protests throughout the world have brought publicity to certain issues that affect communities. Those people are making change happen.

 

 

Light the Sky – Grace Vanderwaal

If you’ve seen Google’s year in review video, you’ll know that this song was used. 2016 emphasized being yourself even when the entire world is yelling at you to be someone else or to go somewhere else. LGBT citizens refused to cower after the PULSE shooting. Women continue to fight for their rights even after Trump was elected. Black Lives Matter protestors are not backing down from the important issues they fight for. Minority communities have been told this year to shut up and sit down, yet they refuse. They will continue to shine bright.

 

 

 

Alright – Kendrick Lamar

This song is one of the best rap/hip hop songs I know. Lamar perpetuates the idea that even through suffering and pain (mainly the black community in the United States) we will be alright. The song was used as an anthem for Black Lives Matter and since the movement only grew in 2016, it is fitting to include this song in this playlist. People continue to fight discrimination and this song acknowledges it.

 

 

 

Stand by me  – Ben E. King

I know that division was a recurring theme in 2016. I felt it through Trump’s victory, the vote for Brexit, the divide between natural citizens and immigrants, the divide between different faiths. However, I also saw unity and support from so many communities. When people lined up to donate blood to victims of the Orlando shooting. When people joined together to protest the bathroom laws in North Carolina. When people of all different races joined together to stand up to the DAPL. When support for “Emily Doe” in the Stanford rape case poured in. When people of all different backgrounds joined to reject the bigotry the Trump presidency perpetuated. 2016 showcased the humanity in so many people.

 

 

 

Imagine – John Lennon

The song is a plea for unity and peace. Something everyone should be hoping for after this year. Let’s imagine a place where we all can be together.

 

 

The Currents – Bastille

This song was inspired by the bigotry that was so prevalent in 2016. It talks about how your words can hurt and how opinions can be hurtful. It’s something I’m sure so many felt throughout the year. Words define who we are and we cannot let the words of the world be filled with hate and fear. The song does an amazing job about talking about the power of ‘just words.’

 

 

 

Faith – George Michael

I think this song is the perfect song to close out this playlist. We lost George Michael this year as well and he was such a monumental figure not only in music, but in civil rights as well.

 

2016 was hurtful, divisive, disheartening, and just plain horrible. But it was also filled with hope, unity, power, and beauty. We have to have faith in our ability to be humane, to be sympathetic and to be good people. We have to have faith in hope and the prospect that life will be alright in the future.

In 2017, Please Be Kind

 

 

On the first of January, 2016, I entered a competition on a writing website called Movellas. It was about writing New Year’s Resolutions, and I eventually won it for the seven that I had listed out. I’d thought about them carefully; thought about myself and who I wanted to be for 2016, for the rest of my life, and I wrote them down.

Here’s how that went, and how I got on.

 

Resolution #1: To be brave

I am not brave, nor have I ever been. I worry over the smallest of matters, and over think everything that comes my way. I’m afraid to tell my parents of a single Christmas gift I receive from a friend because it’s expensive, because they’ll ask why he got it for me, because it’ll lead to questions. I want to be brave in 2016. I don’t want to fear the unknown, and cry over issues that I can’t change. I want to be able to stand before someone, tell them how I feel, I want to be able to rest my head on my friends’ shoulders without worrying what they’ll do. I just want to stand up for something, and mean it, and not be afraid.

I don’t want to fear the world anymore.

How it went:

I haven’t cried much in 2016. I’m not saying that crying means a person is weak, I’m saying that when I’m afraid, I cry. I’m not as brave as I’d like to be, I avoid politics and controversial conversations, as well as walking at night and talking to strangers in bars – but I don’t think I ever meant that I wanted to be brave in that sort of way.

I don’t necessarily fear the world, but I can’t say I’m best friends with it. Even so, I started university, I met new people and I’m beginning to stand up for what I want. That’s as good a start as any.

 

Resolution #2: To be happy

I am a notoriously unhappy person.

Yes, I can plaster a smile on my face, and have fun – but that’s no longer enough for me. I want to feel happiness in my gut; I want to wake up in the morning not dreading the day; I want to look out the window and not be annoyed by the state of my town and my life, but accept it – move to change it.

I really just want to be happy. I want to be okay again. I want to feel like I did when I was a child; blissfully unaware. I want to feel the way I do when I’ve read something beautiful all the time.

How it went:

When out drinking, my friends and I have a saying about going to the toilet – once you’ve done it, you’ve broken the seal. There’s no going back. That’s what this is like – I’m never going to be blissfully unaware, with childlike innocence, being able to ignore what’s happening in the world. I’ve broken the seal on what’s happening out there, and I can’t undo that.

But I can find happiness in other places.

I realise, looking back on where I was in January of 2016, that my unhappiness was due to my hatred of the courses I was taking, the company I kept, and that I hadn’t realised the magic of self-love. Since then, I’ve taken up a new course in a new place, I’ve ditched the person (or people) who made me feel bad, and I’ve found that if you keep telling yourself that you’re cute, you’re smart, you’re fun – eventually, you will be.

 

Resolution #3: To keep my friends

In 2015, I lost and gained my friends. Some just disappeared from my life for extended periods of time, some just went all together. Others, I had to learn to like and then love, and one or two I can’t say I completely get along with. But I want them to stay around, all the same. I want to keep the people I care about, and I don’t want to have to face losing them again.

I entered the new year with Alex, with the girl who used to be my best friend, and now could still be as such – if I weren’t afraid of having them now. I lost her for four months last year. I want her for all twelve this year.

In recent months I made a fantastically amazing new friend named Callum. I don’t really know what I’d do if I lost him. I can’t imagine my life without him, and so, in 2016, I want to put effort into keeping these people in my life. I don’t want to be facing my future without them.

How it went:

I laughed when I saw that this was one of my resolutions, because how it turned out was so unpredictable to me at that time. There’s a truth you have to face when leaving a city and moving to a new one: you’re going to lose contact with people you thought you loved. And here’s another one: sometimes, you’re not going to mind.

I kept Alex, and I still have her, and I think all twelve months with her have been a dysfunctional rollercoaster that could really do with some maintenance – but it’s been good. It’s been fun. It’s been sitting in her garden at two AM in November as she cries, but it’s also been sword fighting with rolls of wrapping paper as we make our way down the road.

And Callum – well, I can see my life perfectly without him, because that’s simply what it is for me now. It’s been this way for longer than I knew him for, and honestly – it relates back to my choice to be happy. Sometimes, there are people you are blinded by; by your love for them, by their love for you, by the way you both try so hard to keep the friendship together – but ultimately, a friendship isn’t real unless you can see them in the dark and still be happy with what you find.

My happiness comes first. Always. And sometimes, that just means facing a future without the people you think you need, and figuring out you’re happier without them.

 

Resolution #4: To commit to one thing every day

I feel like I’m wasting my days away, in bed, in the house, in my pyjamas. I’m sick of it.

Even if that one thing is just remembering to empty the dishwasher or take out the recycling, I want to commit to it. I want to commit to doing my revision and homework every day. I want to just have one thing that I will commit to – a different thing every day; something that just has to be done.

Today, I want to be dressed.

Sometimes it’s just really difficult to face being a functioning person, but I want to try it. I want to be able to get dressed because then I’ll feel like I’m ready for the day. I want to then be able to say, that when I’m dressed, I could go out if I wanted to. I could walk up the road and see my friend, I could go out and buy ice cream, I could sit in the car if my parents elected to go somewhere.

I want to be dressed.

I want to commit to something every day. Even if it’s another person.

How it went:

Honestly, I still have days like this. I still have days where facing the sunlight is too much for me, and I just don’t leave my room until absolutely necessary. These are what I call the ‘bad days’, and the beginning of this year was full of them. As I’ve gotten older, and moved away, I’ve found that the good days tend to outweigh the bad.

I still commit to one thing a day, though. As often as I can. It works, truly it works. Some days, it’s still just getting out of bed, getting dressed, eating a real meal, cleaning my plates, attending a lecture. Other days, it’s going to a body combat class, it’s walking across town, it’s meeting a friend, it’s doing my school work.

I commit to one thing a day, every day – and eventually, I get things done.

 

Resolution #5: To try

I think this resolution speaks for itself, but it’s been so long since I really have tried. It’s been a long time since I’ve put effort into people, into my work, into myself. I know I have it in me.

How it went:

Sometimes, it’s just not worth trying.

Other times, it really is.

Maybe in 2017 I’ll resolve to figure out which is which so I don’t pour my effort into the wrong thing.

Even so: I really did have it in me.

 

Resolution #6: To pass my A-levels

My other resolutions are based a lot on me changing as a person; on my development. But this one is still important, it’s something that people want for me, and it’s something I want for myself. Even if I don’t enjoy the courses I’m studying, I want to be able to say that I’ve passed. I want universities to accept me, even if I haven’t received a single response from them yet. I want them to want me to study with them – I want to succeed.

How it went:

I passed. Mostly. Okay – I got a D in one course but I didn’t like that one anyway. I got into my first choice university. I did what I wanted to do.

 

Resolution #7: To be kind

This is a goal of mine every day. It has been for as long as I can remember.

Recently, a friend told me that kindness comes naturally to good people. He said that just because someone has the capacity to be kind if they really, really try, doesn’t make them a good person. Kindness has always come naturally to me, I think. I’ve never wanted to harm others, and I’ve always tried to be empathetic, compassionate, caring.

I am going to continue to try to be, anyway, whether I made it a resolution or not. The only difference about this, is that I want to also be kind to myself.

I want to acknowledge how I look, and not just briefly with a grimace. I want to realise that my eating habits aren’t healthy, and be kind to my body by changing them. I want to care about myself, and be kind to the body I’ve been given as well as the mental facilities I’ve been blessed with. I want to let myself have something I want – I want to hug people and stop distancing myself from others. I want to be able to do what’s best for me, instead of what’s best for others. I know that I have always been the person who will set myself on fire to keep others warm – this year, I want to learn how to make kindling out of firewood instead of my body.

How it went:

In 2017 I plan to be kind.

In 2018, 19, 20, 21 I plan to be kind. Kindness is essential, detrimental, and at the heart of who we are and who we need to be. And sometimes it does involve letting yourself burn for others – sometimes it really does come down to facing the flu and frostbite and sitting bare foot outside in the middle of the night because your friend needs you, sometimes it really is going out of your way to help someone else because they need you.

Sometimes it involves turning off your phone (something I have been doing more and more often recently) and being kind to yourself. Sometimes, it’s marathoning a TV show and eating your favourite food because you’ve had a bad day, and sometimes it’s remembering to moisturise because your skin is drier than the Sahara.

I don’t know whether kind people are good people, or if good people are kind – but I know that we all have the capacity, no matter who we are, to be kind, to reach out, to love other people.

I think I’ve made a good attempt this year, but in 2017 I want to do better.

 

My 2017 New Year’s Resolutions:

1: To be brave

2: To be happy

3: To be patient

4: To commit to one thing every day

5: To try

6: To pass my first year of university

7: To be kind

 

Wishes for 2017

 

As 2016 comes to an end, here are five wishes for 2017:

 

May things not be as terrible as we fear.

Yes, challenging times are coming our way as a result of certain elections and political appointments. No one knows how things are going to turn out, but right now all signs are pointing to danger. Let’s hope that the signs are wrong, and that things will be okay.

Even if things do turn out to be bad and difficult, may we stand in solidarity with people who need our help and support- may we remember to care for those around us and to act as a community rather than as unconnected people. May we make things better by the compassion in our hearts and the way we deal with whatever happens.

 

May you meet one new person who changes your life for the better.

Connection with other people is one of the most important parts of being human. Through relationships with the people around us we are able to grow, to learn, to have new experiences, and to develop compassion. We receive so much from the people in our lives, both good and bad. It’s important for us to remain open to what we can learn from those around us.

On the flip side of this wish, may you also make a positive change in someone else’s life in the upcoming year. It doesn’t have to be a huge change, just something that brings a little more light into their days. Maybe you can start saying hello to your neighbor whenever you meet at the mailbox, or you can have actual conversations with the people you see at the grocery store each week. Sometimes it really is the smaller acts of simple kindness that make the biggest difference for people.

 

May you learn a new skill that brings you joy.

It can be so easy to get stuck in routines, or to say you want to try something and then you never do. Don’t let yourself get away with that anymore. Go to a library and pick up books on cooking, or knitting, or woodworking, or how to learn another language. Learn something new by the end of the year so that you can see a difference in yourself by the time 2018 rolls around.

Obviously, it’s also important that you do things to make yourself happy in the coming year. Personally, I’m planning to start taking kickboxing lessons again. It’s been years since the last time I went to a class, but I remember it being the best time I ever had being physically active.

 

May you grow emotionally in a way that makes you look back at the start of the year and barely recognize yourself.

This wish is a big one. Growth is so important- it keeps us open to new thoughts and opportunities, it helps us adjust to new challenges and ideas, and it gets us closer to becoming the people we want to be. Sometimes that growth can be scary, but in the end it is always a good thing.

 

May you find something in your life that you feel passionate about, regardless of what other people say.

Passion is something that is precious and all too rare. If you are lucky enough to find something that makes your eyes light up when you talk about it- or even luckier to have that passion line up with a career path- hold onto that passion and follow it, regardless of what anyone else might say or expect of you.

Here’s the deal- this is your life. In the end, you are the one who has to live with your choices and the results. If there is something you want out of life, work for it. Do not let other people determine what you do or how you spend your time. Don’t go into things just because you think it is what you’re supposed to do. Living by other people’s expectations won’t make you happy- only you can really make yourself happy.

Diversity and Disability

 

Calling for diverse disability representation

 

It is no secret that disability representation in media is incredibly rare, and I can’t help but wonder why that is, since diversity in literature and television is becoming more common. It’s absolutely amazing, and we should be proud of this positive change, because although it might be far from perfect, we’re still moving in the right direction.

However, it is sad that the current disability representation – when it occurs – is so one-dimensional and stereotypical.

Now, hear me out: I’m so happy that the amount of representation for people with disabilities has increased since I was a child. As I was growing up, I rarely encountered characters in books or TV shows that were like me, and those I did see, I couldn’t really relate to. Why? That’s because they were mostly adults living an unhappy life.

And I was a happy kid! A girl with an imagination that refused to be caged, so it roamed around constantly. The problem was that I never saw a character like that: a happy, young girl with a disability that didn’t define who she was. If you ask me, the unhappy portrayal is a little depressing, and it says a lot about how stereotypical disability representation in media often is.

In fact, people with disabilities make up around 10% of the world’s population, which makes it the largest minority in the world. It isn’t like the media has been limited creativity-wise in any way – there are so many different ways to shape a character with a disability. In fact, there are no limitations!

Allow me to break it down:

•     People of color as well as white people can have disabilities
•     People of every social class can have disabilities
•     LGBTQA+ people can have disabilities
•     People of every age can have disabilities
•     ….

And the list goes on, so why is it that characters with disabilities are – more often than not – rich, white men? (Looking at you, ‘Me Before You’). Why is it that characters with disabilities are almost always portrayed as lonely and depressed? And when they’re not, their struggles in life are completely erased from the narrative?

When I talk about this online, some people become mad at me, and I can do nothing but explain to them how sad it is to see representation for millions of people be the exact same every time. We all deserve to have our stories told. It annoys me that able-bodied writers who create characters with disabilities rarely take this into account. When I criticized author JoJo Moyes for writing an ableist story about a man with a permanent disability, who (SPOILER ALERT) commits suicide and leaves his able-bodied girlfriend a bunch of money, people jumped at my throat, trying to silence me on the subject forever.

Here’s the thing, though: I’m not going to accept the situation as it is now, and that’s because I keep imagining the kind of happiness it would bring to a child with a disability to see someone like them be portrayed in cartoons or books. I know what difference it would have made for me.

Allow me to gush about a character with a disability on television that I think has been written quite well, and that is Raven Reyes from The 100. For those of you who haven’t seen the show, I can tell you that Raven Reyes is a beautiful Latina woman who becomes disabled after being shot in the back. The narrative does not erase her struggles – in fact, she has plenty of them, but she’s (canonically) the strongest character on the show. Hearing some of her lines almost made me tear up, especially this one: “My shoulder is killing me and I can barely walk, but my brain is all kinds of awesome.” That, at least in my opinion, is disability representation done right! It notes the fact that she has her struggles, yet they are nothing compared to how much of a genius she is. They don’t define her.

I wish that there were more characters like her out there. That’s what I’d want for the future of disability rep: lovely, well-rounded, disabled characters that are diverse as opposed to reduced to some horrible stereotype that – most of the time – belongs in the trash.

There’s one last, crucial point I want to make, which is: People with disabilities deserve happy endings. They deserve to find romantic love (if that’s something they want), and they deserve to feel like they’re useful and wonderful, which they are. But characters with disabilities deserve those endings, too; otherwise no kid with a disability will be able to relate to them in a good way.

I don’t see why it’s so difficult to write happy endings for characters with disabilities. Maybe it’s because a lot of the able-bodied people who create characters with disabilities believe that disability is the end of a life. No, it’s not. I call tell you that. I’m eighteen years old, was born with Cerebral Palsy, am studying in high school and planning to study either psychology or law. Happiness is not exclusively for able-bodied people.

People with disabilities are the future of this world, too, and we deserve to have our stories accurately told for everyone to see, so that we can look at their shocked faces and smile. That’s when the ableist writers out there will know that they had us all wrong.

 

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5 Female Lesbian/Bi Characters and Why They Matter

 

 

Media representation of people in the LGBT community is something that has been discussed at length both in academic circles and in the popular arena. In the GLAAD- Where We Are on TV 2016 Report, only 4.8% of series regular characters on primetime television were identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. While this is the highest number they’ve ever found, they also reported that a lot of those characters still fall under stereotypes about their sexuality. There is still a lot of work to do in terms of reaching equality in numbers and quality of LGBT characters on television.  

Over the years, a few lesbian and bisexual characters have left a major impression on me. These characters are well developed, three-dimensional, and are not used as punchlines or confined to background roles. They either have helped me to identify traits that I want to develop in myself or find in a partner, helped me to better accept myself, or have simply reassured me that there are other people out there who feel things similar to what I feel.

 

Korra (Avatar: The Legend of Korra)

 

The main character of the Avatar: The Last Airbender sequel/spin-off show, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, is one of my favorite characters of anything I’ve ever seen. Korra starts out at age 17 in the show and is strong, rebellious, talented, and determined to reach any goal she sets for herself. By the end of the series, she has mellowed. She is still strong, talented, and determined, but she is less rebellious and stubborn and has grown into a fully realized Avatar (master of all four elements). She puts the needs of others before herself, but remains true to herself by doing things in her own way.

Korra is also an amazing example of diversity. She is a woman of color, experiences Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the last season after being nearly killed in a fight at the end of the third season, and her body type isn’t the general “pretty” body type a lot of women are depicted as having. She is shown with defined muscles and curves that aren’t excessive.

Oh, and did I mention she’s bisexual?

Over the course of the show she is shown in a relationship with a man, Mako, but by the end of the show she is shown beginning a romantic relationship with another woman, Asami. Their relationship had a lot of build up, particularly in the last two seasons. The two women were shown developing a close friendship and supporting each other through very difficult times before they became romantically involved.

As mentioned, Korra is one of my favorite characters, especially after her character development in the third and fourth seasons. She learns to recognize when she needs help and accepts that help, something that a lot of people struggle with both in media and real life. Her struggles with PTSD, shouldering the responsibility of protecting the world, and trying to still be a somewhat normal young adult are surprisingly relatable, and I adore her quick wit, physical and emotional strength, and her willingness to stand up for what she believes is right. She is the kind of woman I wish I could be.

 

Santana Lopez (Glee)

 

I mentioned in a previous article that the character Santana Lopez on Glee helped me to figure out my own sexuality. She also is one of the first lesbian characters I remember seeing in anything (another would be Emily Fields on Pretty Little Liars).

There were a few things about Santana that stuck with me. One, her coming out was not perfectly smooth- which is what a lot of people like to pretend when they think about coming out. Santana did not have an easy time coming out, between being publicly outed in a political ad, blaming being outed on a friend, and certain members of her family not being supportive. Her grandmother- with whom she was incredibly close- was not willing to accept her as lesbian, and so basically disowned her. That was incredibly hard to watch, but it also added a reality to the situation that is frequently missing in depictions of characters coming out.

Another thing that stuck with me was her own hesitance to come out to the people in her life. It is so easy to just stay quiet and in the closet, but once you are honest about yourself it can feel so much better- as if a weight has lifted from your shoulders. I felt that struggle and relief was shown pretty well during her character arc, which is something I definitely appreciate.

Santana showed me that it was okay to be honest about what you want- and that while it might not be easy, you just might end up having a beautiful wedding with the woman of your dreams.

 

Clarke Griffin (The 100)

 

This next character might be a little controversial due to some fandom issues, but Clarke Griffin from the CW show The 100 is a character that matters to me (to be fair, I still haven’t watched season three and so am mostly basing this off the first two seasons). She is only 18 in the show, but assumes a leadership position in her society out of need to make sure her people are alright. Her initial skills are as a healer, not a fighter, unlike in most sci-fi dystopian fiction.

Since she is only 18, she makes mistakes. Yes, her mistakes in the show have much worse consequences than the mistakes of normal eighteen year olds, but she does try to do the right thing. Clarke tries to learn from her mistakes, and works to forgive those who have wronged her.

She is also bisexual. Over the course of the first and second seasons, she shows romantic interest in both male and female characters. To be fair,  Clarke has not said she is bisexual, but the showrunner did explicitly say on Twitter that she is bi. She is not treated like her sexuality is the most important part of her character, which is something that all too frequently happens on CW shows. It’s nice to see her still treated as a person, and not just a sex object.

 

Laura Hollis (Carmilla)

 

There are a lot of things I love about the webseries Carmilla– there are only a total of four male characters, the majority of the characters aren’t straight, there is some really great character development from all the main characters, and they have non-binary representation- but the main character Laura Hollis is definitely one of the main reasons to watch the series.

She starts out as a bright-eyed, idealist college freshman who thinks she can change the world by uncovering the evils of the world. Laura believes in standing up for what is right, believes in speaking up for those who can’t, and is extremely outspoken in her belief that everyone deserves to be treated with respect and kindness. She is the ultimate do-gooder, at least until the end of the second season when her morals are put to the test.

After she realizes she isn’t quite as perfectly upright and moral as she used to believe, Laura undergoes substantial character development. She does her best to make amends, but learns there are some things that can’t be fixed.

Laura openly identifies as a lesbian, and a large part of the show revolves around her on-again-off-again romance with the titular character Carmilla. I’ll admit that I am a bit of a sap when it comes to romance, so I really love their relationship. Each season has at least one episode with a declaration of love, and each of those episodes moved me to tears. Laura is an eloquent character, and so of course she has beautiful speeches about love. I hope someday to be as good at expressing myself as Laura Hollis.

Meg March (The March Family Letters)

 

Finally, in The March Family Letters, the modern web series retelling of the classic novel Little Women, Meg March is in love with a woman. The character John Brooke is adapted as Joan Brooke, making it possible for the story to remain the same while changing Meg’s sexuality.

Growing up, I read Little Women at least three times. Watching the web series, I was so happy to see that while Meg was changed in one major way, nothing else about her character changed. She still was neurotic, a little vain, and the mom-friend. It is always wonderful to see directors, writers, and actors recognize that someone’s sexuality doesn’t define them, but is just another piece of them, like any other personality trait or physical characteristic.

 

There’s no question that the media and society as a whole has a long way to go in terms of LGBT representation.There are still huge issues with the over-sexualization of characters based on their sexuality and acting like the character’s sexuality has more weight than any other part of their personality. This is extremely harmful, as it makes it look like there is only one way to be if a person is LGBT. We need more varied examples of LGBT characters in order to have representation of different people as LGBT- we are by no means all the same.

Obviously, the over-sexualization is another problem because of the way it makes a relationship- especially a relationship between two women- something merely for the excitement and pleasure of (usually) men. Rarely do those relationships get shown as something deep and real rather than just as two hot girls making out.

However, knowing that some shows are heading in the right direction is reassuring. I was very happy to see that this year had the largest amount of LGBT series regulars than any other year previously, and I am hopeful that the increasing LGBT character trend will continue.

 

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Why NaNoWriMo?

 

 

Here we are, heading  into the home stretch of NaNoWriMo. No matter where you are in your challenge, whether you have already hit 50k or are trying to reach it, or are worried that you are too far behind to write everything you need, or know you’re too far behind to reach the goal, or gave up in the first week, there’s a question that might be in your head.

What does it mean?

Why am I doing NaNo? What is the point of this challenge?

Even if you’ve written 50k words, chances are that your story is not done. Whether there’s more story to tell or you need to go over it to revise it, NaNoWriMo is only one part of a journey towards writing.

I’ve  been doing NaNoWriMo for 10 years now, and I feel like my results have run the gamut from giving up (year 7 I think) to finishing the story at 100k (year 1). Sometimes I end up with a manuscript that I am confident in and keep working on for the following years to finish. Sometimes I end up with the beginning of a project that I finish up the next year at NaNoWriMo (NaNo rebellious). Sometimes I’ve got some pretty good fan fiction to post. Sometimes I just discard what I worked on because that flu in the middle of November really did me in.

There is no one way for NaNo to end up. There is no proper form for your NaNo writing to take.

So why do NaNoWriMo?

Because the process of NaNoWriMo gets you writing.  Aside from whatever manuscript you end up with, that body of work that you wouldn’t have at all if it weren’t for NaNo, NaNoWriMo gets you to commit to your writing, to sit down, to type out those words and begin to craft a story.

No matter where you are as a writer, whether starting out with your first major writing project, or after decades of writing experience, NaNoWriMo offers an impetus to commit fully to writing.

 

What are the benefits of committing to NaNoWriMo?

 

•  Whatever you’ve written— 100k, 50k, 25k, 5k— you’ve written it. That’s something that didn’t exist before. Congratulations. 

•  Engaging in the regular practice of sitting down to the keyboard or paper and writing means you are developing a habit of writing. You are learning what it takes for you to write. And what might interfere with your writing practice that needs to be dealt with. This is the heart of writing. Applying butt to chair. It seems like it would be more complicated than that, but nope. Show up to the page. Deal with what comes next. This is being a writer. 

•  Committing to writing, to BEING a writer for the month of November, means that you are declaring yourself. It means that you are taking your desires to write seriously enough that you will give time and energy, space and thought, to yourself, your dreams and your own goals. It’s the commitment that makes you a writer? Whatever your process, if you declare it and act on it, you are it. You are a writer. 

•  Facing your demons. Here’s the news flash folks. It doesn’t matter where you are in your writing career, everyone struggles with writing. Writing is hard. And it’s not putting the words in the right places that is the hardest thing, at least not once you’ve gotten past a certain place. The biggest struggle of writing is the internal struggle. It’s the fight with yourself. The doubts you have that you are good enough. Fears that you shouldn’t be doing this. The question of whether you deserve to call yourself a writer. The insecurity about whether you have a voice, or something to say, or a good story, or anything at all that is worthy of being read. Sitting down and pounding out those pages means you have bearded your dragons in their den. It means you are brave, a warrior. You fought for those words. And you won them. 

•  It’s fun. Whatever is the best part for you, whether it’s having those words finally done and counted, or watching that little graph thingy go up every day and getting new badges, or talking about writing and story on the forums, or figuring out your characters and conflicts as you go, or working out that tricky plot point, or that feeling when the writing is going well and you are entirely absorbed in the story you are telling and don’t even realize that you aren’t living in the world of your mind— well, NaNo is just fun. Sure, the deadlines and word counts might add to the tension, but in a way, it’s that challenge that keeps it exciting. 

•  You are now fully engaged in the process of writing. You’ve got a writing practice that you can adjust to something that works for you personally. You’ve got a habit of writing so you know how it can be done, what works for you and what doesn’t. You’ve got a place or places where you have actually successfully written and can return to when you want to write. You have techniques and tools that have helped you get your writing done that you can use as you move forward. You might have made writing friends if you went to a write in or engaged in the forums or with your buddies, that is a writing community. You’ve got an MSS in whatever state it is, which means you have a project to work on. There is no more blank page.

 

In my experience, NaNoWriMo is not an end point. It is the beginning of a process that continues on. It is about getting us writing and putting those words down on the page so that we can move forward as writers.

NaNoWriMo is process, not product.

However, we also get that nice 50k (or however many words it is) product at the end, so that’s a bonus.

 

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Rowena Murillo is a writer, artist and teacher from New York City, now living in Florida horse country. She’s got to get her drama somewhere. Hello, The 100.
You can find her on her blog, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and check out her Etsy shop.

 

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