Weak af but down to fight whenever

The movie is captivating, but the book is twenty kinds of terrifying, even now, ten years after I first read it. As disturbing as the movie may have been to some, the things Selick added really serve to cushion just how horrific the story really is.

First of all, the character of Wybie does not exist in the book. Coraline is facing all of this nearly alone, with her only help coming from the sly comments of the cat, a warning from the circus mice, and the stone given to her by her neighbor, presented with no comment but that it “makes the unseen seen.”

Second, the Other Parents are never quite as warm (and, dare I say, normal) as they are in the gifs above. They’re described as having paper-white skin and the Other Mother’s hair is said to move on its own, and her long, red, claw-like nails don’t ease any uncertainty that she is absolutely, positively up to no good. The first time Coraline meets them, they (and the rest of the Others) seem to be playing roles (for whatever reason, Coraline does not seem to pick up on this), like they all know what to say and what to do and are simply waiting for Coraline to make her move in their terrifying play world. This is shown to be partly true when the Other Parents tell her they know she’ll be back soon after she refuses the buttons - this time, to stay.

Third, the Other Mother commits atrocities that really should not have been in a book for anyone not fully grown up. She physically deforms the world around Coraline to slow her progress in their game beyond any mild traps the movie portrays, and, instead of turning the Other Father into the wandering pumpkin-thing seen in the film, she simply ceases to use him and throws his body away in the cellar, leaving him to rot with whatever bit of sentience he has left. She begins to lose her touch, as Coraline gains the upper hand. Her world doesn’t just become a nightmare - it falls apart completely. No creepy but oddly cool bug furniture here, just the house that now appears to be a child’s drawing. Whatever the Other Mother is (a beldame, but something tells me she’s much more ancient and powerful than that), she does not give half a hump about what she has to do to ensnare Coraline. Destroy the supporting characters of her twisted creation? Done. Allow herself to be dismembered to ruin Coraline’s life in the normal world? Not even gonna bat an eyelash.

On a final, personal note, imagine eight year-old me, ignored by my parents, absorbed in the story and identifying with Coraline from the start. Imagine me finishing this bloodcurdling book and immediately thinking of my basement, where there is still a locked door that my grandmother swears up and down is nothing more than a storage room, but has not once in my (or my mother’s) lifetime unlocked.

Man: Good news first please, doc!

YOU NEED

A BIG SHEET OF PAPER & A PENCIL

SOME MOTHER FUCKING MACCARONI (MAKE SURE THEY’RE DRY BRO DON’T WANT NO STICKY-ICKY MAP)

AIGHT THAT SHIT DON’T LOOK LIKE NO COUNTRY I KNOW (EXCEPT MAYBE AUSTRALIA FUCK THEM THOUGH)

ORGANIZE YOUR MACCARONI! MAKE SOME FUCKING COASTLINES!

BETTER, BUT NOT FUCKING GOOD! WHATEVER, TRACE THE COASTLINE WITH YOUR PENCIL. BE SURE TO BE SLIGHTLY SQUIGGLY AND, OH, FUCK THOSE LITTLE ISLANDS YOU MADE THEY’RE NOT BIG ENOUGH TO BE WOBBLY ENOUGH SO YOU’RE BETTER OFF USING EITHER RICE (OR SIMILAR) OR JUST TRY TO MAKE SOME REALISTIC FUCKING ISLANDS (SPOILER: YOU WON’T)

GOOD ENOUGH I GUESS WHATEVER LOOK AT THAT VAGUE SORT OF ISLAND/COUNTRY/CONTINENT SHAPED PIECE OF SHIT. SEE THE ISLANDS? I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO DAWG.

NOW TAKE A SHARPIE AND MAKE EVEN SQUIGGLIER FUCKING LINES AS YOU FILL IN YOUR ISOUNINENT

LOOK AT THIS WONDERFUL PIECE OF SHIT IT TOOK ME LITERALLY TEN MINUTES TO MAKE TOPS AND NOW YOU JUST NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHERE TO PUT ALL YOUR DWARF-FUCKING ELVES AND LIZARD-PEOPLE WITH BOOBS

it feels better than drugs when i finish making a thing—and then show it off or gift it.

and then so people my age say to me ‘well—i can’t draw/paint/knit/etc. like you can. my stuff would be terrible.’ yeah, well duh—a part of developing skill is sucking at something and then practicing it over and over and over again until you suck less. u’ll have a hard time feeling lonely or bored when you can’t stop thinking abt a technique you want to try or something you want to make for someone else. making things has SAVED MY LIFE. it gave me a reason to keep living day after day when i wanted to die.

making things have improved my generational relationships (when i worked for the newspaper i would talk to customers abt jamming recipes or cross-stitch, one of my grandmas always gives me pattern books and tell me abt when she knitted things for mom, my other grandma is giving me a wedding quilt that HER grandma gave her 50 years ago because she knows i will appreciate it). it also got me likeminded friends who also make things.

Can you see green outside? Can you get some dirt? Then you can have a hobby.

Do you have a pen and paper? Hobby.

Something with a keyboard? Hobby.

The ability to walk? Hobby.

Have two feet and a heartbeat? Go for a fucking walk, do some pushups, volunteer to play with shelter dogs.

Have two hands and a heartbeat? Sketch. Napkins are free, steal a pen from your job, voila! Picasso.

Have one hand and a pacemaker? Might I recommend composing music on garage band?

The Y offers low-cost social classes. There are also coding classes online. Turn a hobby into a job!

Your computer has a microphone. Start making podcasts.

Crafty and bedbound? Try watercolours; they’re available at the dollar store.

Granola hippy? Get a towel, find a floor, queue up a yoga tutorial on YouTube. Namaste.

Garden witch? Dollarstore pot and a small bag of potting mix. Take your old head of lettuce, keep the bottom wet for a day, put butt of lettuce into dirt. Voila. Salad. Mint works well and is likewise indestructible.

Not into sports? Read books online. There are thousands of classic titles available. Internet got cut off? Library. Illiterate? Perfect — there’s your project. Or: books on tape, available at your local library, for free.

Look — I don’t take joy in my commute and I wish I had a helicopter to take me everywhere I wanted to go. But whining about my misfortune doesn’t solve my problem, and neither does this defeatist attitude.

If you have the time and tech to scroll this website, you have the time to develop a fulfilling hobby.

Anything else is just wallowing in your own misery because the alternative — trying and failing — is too daunting.

I’m considering coming out to my family as non-binary, and so today I brought up the subject of non-binary gendering/transgendering with my Dad as a casual conversational topic. He’s told me that if somebody is born a boy then they “should stay a fucking boy” and not trans to a girl or be a boy some days/girl other days/genderless other days.

I told him that I think gender identity should be something one can choose for themselves, and he says that nobody thinks like that and anybody who is trans/non-binary will just be shunned by every member of society they meet. He doesn’t think that people support n-b/t communities, because he doesn’t. He says to me that not staying one’s natural gender is wrong and against the point of being born a boy/girl.

There are also many types of intersex. Children born with XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity, so they physically look female. Children born with XX where the second X is mutated causing them to to appear male. Children born with Swyer syndrome have XY chromosomes with a mutated SRY gene resulting in someone who is physically and mentally female. Children born with both testicular and ovarian gonadal tissue. Hormones we are exposed to before birth impact physical and mental gender expression with some of those children born intersex. XXY, XYY, XXX, XYY, XX/XY… and so many more exist.

There is also the whole can of worms that is genetics. Each year, we find out more and more about the building blocks that make us… us. The short version is that there are many genes that have an impact on gender and gender identity. Some of them are on the sex chromosome (XX or XY), but not all of them are. Some of these genes could be turned off that are supposed to be turned on. Some could be turned on that are supposed to be turned off. Some can be mutated. Some can be resistant to a cascading affect caused by a previous gene resulting in it and those after it not turning off/on in order to align with sex. Gender is not a light switch; it is a row of dominos. While most of the time they work as expected, they don’t always. Just because it’s different, doesn’t make it unnatural. It makes it different. Like redheads.

Until the late 1980s/early 1990s, babies born that were identified as intersex at birth were given gender conforming surgery so that they could be clearly identified as male or female. These surgeries could render the baby infertile or leave behind scar tissue that did not properly grow with age, resulting in issues as an adult. Sometimes, they were never the wiser. Sometimes, the parents consented while other times the doctors would lie to parents about what was wrong and the reason for the surgery. From my understanding, it was done due to the belief that the baby would not develop properly and live as a healthy productive member of society if they were not a male or female. At times, a second surgery would be performed on the child as a teen. I was born in the 80s. I have scar tissue. My dad was told the surgery was to fix a minor birth defect. My mother took me to a doctor (who is no longer a doctor due to malpractice) when I was a teen to put me under (she told me it was to get urine directly from my bladder) and I woke up having had some kind of surgery. As an adult, I had to go to a vulvar pain specialist because the skin was so thin in places, you could see the glands and nerves. I tried to get pregnant in my late 20s and couldn’t. I was told to consider fertility treatments which my insurance wouldn’t cover and I couldn’t afford. I didn’t find out I was intersex until a few years ago. A gynecologist told me the doctor that did my surgery did me a favor.

You should share this for people in DC and close to you!!