homebase

on being yourself

heart locket gif maker

minecraft advancement maker

minecraft logo font text generator w/assorted textures and pride flags

windows error message maker (win1.0-win11)

FromSoftware image macro generator (elden ring Noun Verbed text)

image to 3d effect gif

vaporwave image generator

microsoft wordart maker (REALLY annoying to use on mobile)

And my dad and brothers? Were deeply disturbed by the movie Jennifer’s Body. I was flabbergasted. It’s not scary! It’s not even that gory. But they were horrified by it. These men who grew up on 70s slashers were legitimately shook by 90 minutes of Megan Fox eating a few teenage boys, mostly off-screen.

Similarly, my all-male reading panel for my thesis? Were so disturbed by my synopsis of the film Teeth that they couldn’t even talk about it. One of them said he couldn’t look at his wife for a week after reading it.

Again, grown-ass men who study and teach media for a living. Who definitely watch and enjoy horror movies. One of whom was a huge Tarantino buff. We watched and read worse in his intro to mass media class! But one movie about a girl whose vag could bite was enough to haunt him.

Then of course you have things like the Gone Girl backlash–men yelling that Amy Dunne is evil and women clamoring to assure everyone that they know she is not someone to emulate–the backlash against Carol Danvers, and, more recently, the griping from MRAs against the upcoming film Hustlers, which is about strippers scamming their Wall Street clients.

My conclusion? Most men–at least most straight, cisgender men, who are both my sample population and most of the ones whining that Carol is a “villain”–are perfectly fine with, and desensitized to, media where men do violence to women (horror movies), or men do violence to men (horror and action movies). They’re even sort of fine when women do violence to women (“ooooo cat fight!”).

But they get intensely uncomfortable when women are depicted doing any kind of violence to men, especially in films that tilt the balance of power to the other side of the m/f gender binary beyond a single moment or scene.

So woman as flesh-eating monster with men as her preferred cuisine? Woman who responds to unwanted sexual contact by biting it off? Woman who frames her cheating husband for murder? Woman whose response to harassment–behavior that many of the loudest whiners know is both creepy and reflective of their own thoughts/actions–is to break something?

Too scary. Unacceptable. Disturbing. These men hate being presented with the idea, even in fiction, that their position of power is socially constructed, that it could easily be flipped the other way. It terrifies them.

In feeling that terror, they experience a tiny modicum of what living, existing, moving, being perceived as a woman in the world is like.

Whatever: the reason Holly was capable of holding her breath that long underwater while the demogorgon was busy searching for her is that her swim instructor, Billy Hargrove, had been super strict about teaching her and other kids exactly how to do that during his lessons back in 1985. At the time, Holly was too little, and she didn’t exactly understand why her teacher had been so fixated on them developing that specific ability.

“You never know when you might need it.” He used to say.

She had never fully got it.

His first interaction with him is a 10-second stare down while he was drunk as FUCK, and then the next day at practice he STILL remembers his name despite having been wasted the night before, and says things like: “king Steve, king Steve, everyone!!” To people who basically had known Steve literally their entire fucking lives lmaoooo, continuing with shit such as “I like it. You are playing tough today.”, all of this while acting like a fucking peacock and turning to him the SECOND he does his trick with the leg like “you saw that babe?? “

And then, of course, he roughs him up a bit on the court, only to give Steve solid advice that will actually save his life against the demo dogs in the long run.

“He was just trying to prove to Steve that he was better than him.” So, give Steve advice that might actually make him capable of beating Billy at the game is useful to him in what way, exactly? Except finally give him a challenge with Someone that he considers to be at his level?

AND THEN, of course, there is the shower scene. AND OF COURSE, he picks the shower closer to Steve, and at this point you’d expect some typical bullying tactics, like Billy taunting him about the shitty game he played and ‘really, how could you ever be captain with a stance like that, Harrington?’

But no. Billy literally tells him: “don’t sweat it, Harrington. Today is just not your day, man.” LIKE WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HIM. trying to cheer him up??? Really?? While u are butt naked in the showers? Okay. You are kinda failing at this rivalry thing, buddy…

You know who is not, though? Tommy! who swoops in and HE is the one trying to piss Steve off with the comment about Nancy and Billy - who usually cannot shut his mouth - just listens and even appears annoyed at the fact that Tommy (who is not Steve’s equal, not really, not like he is) had dared to tease him about his ex girlfriend. LIKE, wouldn’t someone who is simply trying to assert his dominance on the former king take the opportunity to tease him the fuck off everything?? ESPECIALLY a fresh break up??

Instead, oh my god, what does billy do?? “Don’t take it too hard man, a pretty boy like you has nothing to worry about.”

Trying to cheer him up in his weird fucking way. And he is the only character EVER in the show to tell Steve he is beautiful and could basically have everyone he wanted.

Like.

WHAT THE HELL.

“Oh, he called him pretty to emasculate him” you know, if he Hadn’t acted like he did in the previous scenes I would have been inclined to believe you. But also the bedroom eyes and the leaning towards Steve when he calls him pretty and the act shutting his faucet off in order to MAKE HIM LOOK AT HIM AFTER IMMEDIATELY SAYING that ‘there are many bitches in the sea’ doesn’t help your case that much.

And DON’T get me started on the ‘am I dreaming or is that you, Harrington?’ Or the ‘so you got some fire in you after all!’ Because there is not ONE time where billy doesn’t say something flirty to that poor man’s face.

And, honestly, I think Steve clocked him with that ‘don’t cream your pants’ line. Yeah. He was that obvious.

But when he says it about Steve Harrington, that's not how it plays out. when he tries to start shit that first night, tries to start an honest to god posturing contest that he'd happily have end in a brawl-Harrington doesn't even respond. just returns his stare for a minute and then flicks his eyes down like a total pussy. shows his neck and walks away from it with his head down. The least satisfying win in Billy's fucking life. So he says, "That guy's acting like an omega." and the people around him laugh.

"That's nothing." Tommy tells him. "You should see when he-"

"See?" one of the other cuts off. "You should hear his whine. Fucking spot on impression."

"Fuck the impression, last week he let the Byers Zombie Boy practice his posturing on him." someone in the crowd says. "out on the pavement, like that's not crazy. Six times before he had to tap out. Never even growled at the kid for it."

"What the fuck?" Because seriously, what kind of shit does this hick town get up to. They just all laugh again, like it's nothing. like it's just a little quirk.

"That's Harrington." Tommy says. "Total freak, right?"

billy thinks jonathan is pretty cool, since he stole steves girl and thus made sure that steve would be single, and because he's got steady access to weed.