disturbing

THROUGH HER WINDOW
by Harper Kingsley

He’d found her through the Internet in a remarkably easy way.

It was almost as though she wanted him to find her.

He didn’t mention the leaks in her security. Just quietly followed the gingerbread trail until here he was.

Standing outside her house.

Peeking in through her windows and seeing her there. In her house. Her safe place. Her home where she and her family lived.

He watched her for a long time. Standing there in the dark. Huddling in his jacket to deal with the night chill.

He saw all her secrets. The her she was when she was alone.

The strange, beautiful her. The awkward, disgusting, slovenly, vulgar, lovely her.

He watched her and there was no part of him that wanted to look away. Even though he felt guilty. Even though he knew that what he was doing was wrong.

Wrong on a fundamental level.

The level of "Thou shalt not secretly follow people home" badness.

He’d done things when he was younger. Things that had disturbed his mother enough that she’d enacted several awkwardly horrible "discussions" that basically amounted to "Don’t be a rapist."

It had upset him when he was younger. There were several instances where he had wanted to scream at her to "Stop! Stop! STOP!" But now… He kind of understood where she had been coming from.

The very thought of sexual assault disgusted him. He had NO interest in being That Guy. He’d always been careful in his everyday life to not share certain jokes and to not touch without permission. Even as a kid, he’d had a clear awareness of "Personal Bubble."

It was just that as a kid he’d been very obvious about what he was thinking about. It had set adults … Read the rest “SHORT FIC: Through Her Window disturbing, stalking”

Read a Wired article, “Rape Scenes Aren’t Just Awful. They’re Lazy Writing,” and all I can say is, “Good.” This is something that needs to be said. I’ve probably read a variation of this article a dozen times in the past year, and it needs to be written again and again and again until movie and television creators get it through their thick skulls.

Rape is not titillating. It is not romantic. It’s not a plot point that needs to be pursued via a step-by-step scene progression that’s slowed down to -10 speed so every agonizing emotion can be read and cataloged.

Rape is an act of aggression committed by depraved individuals that need to spend a significant amount of their life locked up in a small box having their brains reconditioned.

At the very least, rapists need to be made aware that what they’re doing is WRONG. Like seriously, dude, if you don’t know that holding someone down and ignoring them saying “No, stop, no” is rape, then you should not be having sex with ANYONE, not even yourself, until you’ve taken some kind of class.

And I will opine that a lot of the confusion people feel about what constitutes as rape is due to popular culture. Movies, television, books, music, comic books — creators think they’re being clever or blurring the lines by introducing “conflict” in the form of a “traumatic past.” It’s too hard to just say that someone was physically assaulted; there needs to be a horribly drawn out flashback scene detailing every moment of degradation and fear. Because, you know, that’s what society needs. Realism or something.

From the Wired article:

But do we really? Although the recent Mad Max: Fury Road movie featured a number of central female characters who had

… Read the rest “That Wired article: “Rape Scenes Aren’t Just Awful. They’re Lazy Writing”

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"I Saw the Devil"

Title: I Saw the Devil
Genre: serial killer, horror
Rated: R for graphic depictions of violence
Director: Jee-woon Kim
Writer: Hoon-hung Park (screenplay)
Starring: Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik choi, and Gook-hwan Jeon

Summary borrowed from IMDB: When his pregnant fiancee becomes the latest victim of a serial killer, a secret agent blurs the line between good and evil in his pursuit of revenge.

aStore: DVD, Blu-Ray, digital


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Wow. I don’t even really know where to start with this one. I’m not even sure if I even liked it or not, and I highly doubt that I’ll ever watch it again. But that’s just my personal preference.

This is a revenge movie ala “Oldboy” or “Otis,” though this movie keeps it real.

Starts off with a woman having a flat tire and being stuck on the side of a mountain road. While she waits for the tow truck, she calls her fiance. His advisement: “Lock the doors and stay put. Wait for the tow truck.”

While she’s waiting, a van drives up and a man gets out. He taps on her window — she’s smart enough not to open the door — and offers to check things out. She tells him she’s waiting for the tow truck, but he insists.

Creepy guy fiddles around near the tire while she’s still talking to her fiance. She tells her fiance goodbye and hangs up, then settles in to wait for the tow truck. Which is about the point that creepy guy pops up and tells her to open the door. She says no… and things get serious.

He busts in her car window with a hammer, thumps her with it on the head, then roughly drags her body to his van. At this point, I thought that she was dead … Read the rest “RE MOVIE: I Saw the Devil [Korean]”

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"A Frozen Flower"

Movie: A Frozen Flower
Genre: mm, Korean, historical
Director: Ha Yu
Writer: Ha Yu (screenplay)
Stars: Jin-mo Ju, Ji-hyo Song, In-seong Jo
Rated: R for graphic violence, sex

IMDB says: A historical drama set in the Koryo dynasty and focused on the relationship between a king and his bodyguard.

HanCinema says: Source http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr  Synopsis:  In the end of Goryeo era politically manipulated by the Yuan Dynasty, the ambitious King of the Goryeo Dynasty organizes Kunryongwe. Hong Lim, the commander of Kunryongwe, captivates the King of Goryeo, and the Queen keeps her eyes on the relationship between Hong Lim and the King with a reluctant view. Meanwhile, the bilateral relation between Goryeo and the Yuan gets worse as Yuan demands to install the cousin of the King in the Crown Prince of Goryeo with ascribing it to no son the King has. The King refuses it resolutely, so the high-ranking officials of Goryeo, who are in submission to Yuan, are discontented with the king. One day, the King gives Hong Lim a covert yet unobjectionable order to sleep with the Queen instead of himself to protect the independence of Goryeo from the Yuan by making a son, the successor to Goryeo throne.

aStore: DVD


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So, okay, I watched this the other day and the only thing I can say is that the cinematography is excellent, as is the camera work in every scene. I fell in love with the characters and I desperately wanted them to have happiness in every regard. But given the nature of what they were doing and the time period when they were doing it in… well, there’s no other way it could have gone, not with the tone the movie was taking.

I honestly wish the King and guard could have loved each other the … Read the rest “RE MOVIE: A Frozen Flower [Korean]”

Things I like: bacon. Bob's Burgers. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. cats. cheese. chocolate. crossword puzzles. Dredd. eggrolls. fried chicken. gochujang. Hannigram. HEAs. HFNs. jigsaw puzzles. kimchi. lo mein noodles. mushrooms. nectarines. Nintendo Switch. paperback books. pineapple. pizza. potstickers. raspberry jam. Rick and Morty. sleeping in. snickerdoodles. spaghetti. strawberries. sudoku. tacos. tomatoes. vacations. vaccinations.