Pluviophile, Ailurophile

And this causes children to be perceived as failures (either by themselves, their parents and/or society at large) when they are not successful according to the logic of capital. It's one of many ways capitalism has commodified our relationships.

Something about the way Nimona makes it clear there is no way to appeal to people who already refuse to see you any other way, but Ballister continues to try anyway. Something about the way Nimona says they wouldn’t literally die if they didn’t shapeshift, but they wouldn’t really be living.

Something about the way Nimona responds genuinely when Ballister asks what shapeshifting feels like out of genuine curiosity after a vulnerable moment where he’s patched up their leg and has shown he actually cares. Unlike the time when he insists not everyone is as understanding as him after imposing his own ideas of what would be ‘easier,’ and Nimona asks, “Easier for who?” Something about the way Nimona describes the feeling of not shapeshifting as a continuous physical discomfort similar to the moment before a sneeze when you’d be holding your breath, where the relief would only come when they shapeshift.

Something about the way Nimona says, “You changed the way you see me,” to Ballister.

Something about the way Gloreth didn’t see Nimona as a monster until the adults made it clear Nimona is “different.” Something about the way Nimona is a “monster” since defending themself is what spreads the fire, but the villagers consider themselves righteous for starting the flame.

Something about the way Nimona says that they don’t know what’s worse. That everyone in the kingdom wants to drive a sword through their heart, or that sometimes they just want to let them.

Something about the way that Ballister saying, “I’m sorry. I see you, Nimona. You’re not alone,” is what eases the fear in the expression and stance of the little girl who raised a sword at Nimona and called them a monster earlier. Something about the way the director’s hatred for Nimona is the tipping point to her being willing to target everyone else.

Sign me up for the Bong Joon Ho anti-AI military squad.

And some years before that, King had gone to school with a couple of girls he pseudonymously calls Tina and Sandra, who were bullied and shunned by the other kids—Tina for wearing the same clothes every day, Sandra for her epilepsy and extremely religious mother, but both really for having some undefinable Other quality that kids pick up on like blood in the water. Both of them were dead by the time King began writing Carrie: Tina by suicide, Sandra from her epilepsy.

Carrie was what King imagined might have happened if that explanation of poltergeist activity were correct, and if Tina and Sandra had been able to tap into such an energy. He started writing the story a few years after getting married (his wife Tabitha is also a writer), but abandoned the idea a few pages in; the raw, merciless adolescent cruelty the story called for was too much to deal with, and what did he know about teenage girls, anyway? But Tabitha dug the pages out of the trash and read them, and convinced him it was a story that needed telling.

Carrie is a story which, perhaps like poltergeist activity, could only happen to a girl on the brink of womanhood, when every emotion and sensation is excruciatingly vivid and nothing makes sense anymore and every single occurrence in your life is the most important thing that will ever happen to you. It's about being horribly powerful and vulnerable at the same time, and alienated from your own body. It's about the visceral, starved animal fear and rage of being a teenage girl, and it goes to show what an arcane and powerful craft creative writing is that a man could manage to capture that without having experienced it firsthand.