Trout Nation Posts

Last year, I wrote a Sophie and Neil Christmas story for That’s What I’m Talking About’s “Mistletoe Madness” holiday event. I wanted to write some brand new Neil and Sophie for this year, but things got in the way. So instead of sharing new Neil and Sophie, I’m sharing old Neil and Sophie. I’ve picked a couple of my favorite Christmas scenes from their books.

“I was trying to find one specific chapter recap by Googling the one line that I could remember from it (“Who is Kate, E.L.? How did she hurt you?”) and I came across another blog called Rhyming with Oranges. She’s got some recaps up, too. They read like Laura Harner, if you know what I mean.

It looks like the blog is run by someone called Naomi Knight. I wasn’t sure if you were familiar with her or if you had given her permission to reblog or anything like that, but I felt it kind of unlikely since she does have some of her own thoughts (or yours broadly reworded). I apologize if this is a false alarm, I just wanted to let you know just in case.”

That was the email I received from a concerned reader named Nora yesterday. And I’ve gotten emails like that before. I go and check them out, but it usually only takes a quick scan to tell that it’s just a case of us recapping the same material, and coming to some similar conclusions.

Not the case here.

Naomi Knight lifted whole chunks of my blog to use for hers. She reworded some sections, so what read:

Christian thinks about how he doesn’t want anyone but Ana, and how maybe he might have given her the impression that he liked her with the whole inviting her out for coffee thing. Maybe going to her work with a flimsy excuse to be there might have done that too, genius. He’s going to try to think of a way to apologize to her.

on my blog became:

Christian thinks about how he doesn’t want anyone but Ana, and how maybe he might have given her the impression that he liked her with the whole inviting her out for coffee thing. Maybe going to her work with a flimsy excuse to be there might have done that too, genius. He decides he’ll send Ana an apology present and then he can move on.

on hers.

And it wasn’t just one instance. This is just an example. If I went through and found all the places she’d plagiarized me and then added a few words to throw the dogs off the scent, we’d be here all day–she even used lines where I called Grey “Chedward”, for God’s sake–and she’s already admitted to the plagiarism, so there’s nothing to prove. She didn’t just do it to me, either, or just to my Grey recaps. Readers found a Love, Actually post she’d made by smooshing together parts of one of mine with parts of Lindy West’s piece from Jezebel. As readers poured over her blog, they discovered that Naomi Knight is a serial plagiarizer.

I recently wrote about Laura Harner’s plagiarism of Becky McGraw and Opal Carew. I know that the plagiarism of her work had a tremendous emotional impact on McGraw, because I spoke with her about it. I had no idea, though, how deeply it cuts to see someone else claiming your words for their own. As I read Naomi Knight’s blog, I laughed in disbelief. Mr. Jen asked me what was so funny. I said, “I’ve been plagiarized.” My hands shook. My whole body shook. I was sick to my stomach. Then I started sobbing.

I did my deep breaths. I took two Xanax. But I was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack. All from just seeing my words attributed to someone else. I knew plagiarism was a serious crime; I didn’t realize it could have an affect on a person’s physical well-being.

Naomi Knight had a Twitter, so I took to that, my favorite social media platform, to call her out:

.@NaomiTheKnight Since the first five of “your” Grey recaps were written by me, maybe you want to credit me or do your own goddamn work.

— Jenny Trout (@Jenny_Trout) December 20, 2015

.@NaomiTheKnight Is there anything else you want to steal from me? I write great books.

— Jenny Trout (@Jenny_Trout) December 20, 2015

I was angry. But it wasn’t just anger. There was a lot of despair, too:

Can I have one goddamn thing someone doesn’t take from me? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

— Jenny Trout (@Jenny_Trout) December 20, 2015

Coming on the heels of this blog post about my identity, my OCD fired up its engines. See? You can’t have anything of your own. Let’s just file that away in our Imposter Syndrome folder, shall we? Because this is a sign, Jenny. This is a sign that you’re not supposed to be a writer. This is probably a sign that you should kill yourself. Oh, and by the way, you don’t deserve anything you’ve ever created. That’s why it’s being taken from you.

I couldn’t stay in the depths of what was quickly becoming a death spiral of intellectual violation. And really, I didn’t need to. Within twenty minutes of outing Naomi Knight as a plagiarist, she deleted her twitter account. Within an hour, her blog went to invite only, then completely vanished. People sent me screen caps of her plagiarism, and notes of support. I went to see the new Star Wars and tried to put it all out of my mind.

When we got in the car and headed for home, someone alerted me to Naomi’s new twitter account, made for her art, which she claimed to have been neglecting, and that was the reason for the sudden account change. And after that twitter and site were pulled down (again, within minutes of being outed) I received an email from Naomi Knight. She tried to “apologize”. Maybe I have a cold heart, but I viewed her explanation of the situation as a cheap ploy to prey on my tender heart. I won’t go into detail because she divulged personal information, but all I could think was, “yeah, well, me too, but I never ripped off a whole bunch of people because of it.”

Asking for that apology just made me more angry. I hadn’t gotten a full twenty-four hours to process my feelings, and now she wanted me to put hers ahead of mine? I felt robbed all over again. The “apology” was just another punch in the face. I did what I wasn’t supposed to do, and used alcohol to cope with my feelings.

This morning, I have a much clearer head, except for the hangover. I decided that I’m not going to lock myself into a “Code of Silence” situation all over again. What Naomi Knight did was wrong, and no matter what’s happening in her personal life, I don’t have to forgive her or go easy on her. I don’t have to be the bigger person. I can think all the rude, malicious, and horrible thoughts I want to about her. I don’t owe her anything.

I have a really bad habit in my personal life of letting people do something that makes me feel ooky, then feeling as though I have to accept their apology because if I don’t, I’m not nice. I think it probably has something to do with being raised Catholic, and I don’t say that to be funny. It’s an entire religion built around forgiveness that’s given without hesitation, just because someone asks. There’s a whole sacrament about it. Maybe I’m still walking around thinking I should be Christ-like and forgive everyone for everything from minor annoyances to major transgressions. So I’m actually thankful for this incident; it made me examine my inability to stick up for myself when I’m so quick to stick up for others. It made me realize that I’m fully entitled to be pissed off about something, even if someone asks for forgiveness, and that I never have to tell someone “no problem” if I feel it’s really a problem. That forgiveness is something you give because you feel it, not because someone else asks for it.

But most importantly, it showed me how much love and support I really get from you guys. Within seconds of my first tweet, I had responses from people asking how they could help, what they could do for me. They went and left comments on the blog Naomi Knight deleted, and took screen shots to send to me. Hours later, it was a reader who found Knight’s “art blog” and secondary twitter (thanks, Pixelfish!). The theft made me feel alone; the outpouring of support made me feel less so.

I’m doing a lot better today. I’m going to go have lunch with my pseudo-brother, finish up some Christmas shopping, and super over-decorate my planner. I’m going to have an overall mentally healthy day. And I’m not going to forgive Naomi Knight. I don’t care what her personal circumstances are. I get to be angry, and I don’t owe her anything. She’s already taken plenty.

Hey everybody! I can’t believe we’re here, standing at the very precipice of 2015. It’s gone by so fast! I thought a quick update to tell you what’s going on–and what will be going on in 2016–would be just the ticket today.

Here’s what you can expect for the rest of the year:

Recaps: Recaps are on hiatus until the New Year, because of the holidays and year-end stuff I’d like to do.

#LegionXIII is also on hiatus. We’ll resume on January 6th.

Biter, my Patreon-driven first draft, will see a new chapter next week.

Best of 2015: I’m going to do some “best of 2015” lists to round out the year. Look for those next week.

And of course I’ll be reporting on my 2015 resolutions and goals, and making some new ones for 2016.

Here’s what you can expect in 2016:

More Grey and Apolonia recaps: Apolonia is almost finished, but when it is, I won’t be picking up another recap project until Grey is done.

The end of The Afflicted: My free historical horror serial, The Afflicted, will wrap up in mid-2016. Haven’t started it yet? Read it for free, here.

Buffy, Season 3 recaps: Season three starts in January!

I’m really hoping to devote more time and energy to the blog next year. I feel like I’ve dropped the ball a bit. But every year is a new story, with new challenges. I’m excited to see what happens next!

CW: Suicide

“And it’s hard to believe after all these years
That it still gives you pain and it still brings tears
And you feel like a fool, because in spite of your rules
You’ve got a memory

And you can’t talk about it
Because you’re following a code of silence
You’re never gonna lose the anger
You just deal with it a different way
And you can’t talk about it
And isn’t that a kind of madness
To be living by a code of silence
When you’ve really got a lot to say”– Billy Joel, “Code of Silence”

There is one particular blog post I’ve written more than once, and erased more than once. When I write it, I’m typing it up in anger and pain, and I’m usually at a point that’s so low, I can convince myself that by coming forward and saying something, I would be wrong. That I am a bad person for still being angry and hurt. So I always delete it.

It’s a post about my name.

Hey everybody! Fridays is usually when I post my #XIIILegion post, but there was a death in the family yesterday, so this week is off the menu. This teaches me for leaving Friday posts until Thursday morning. Probably no #DSBM post, either, though those are pretty much just for my own amusement, I think.

Anyway, have a good one, y’all, and I’ll be back whenever!

Do you hear those sleigh bells ringing? Just kidding, it’s your doorbell, and Rick Grimes is here to inappropriately express his love to your wife.

 

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when we watch the movie you always put on in front of your kids or parents because you remember it being pretty safe, but you forgot all the scenes where naked Bilbo Baggins simulates sex with an equally nude blond girl.

It is time for us all to watch Love, Actually.

This year, just like last year, there will be two chances to join in the fun. I did three slots one year to cover as many time zones as possible, but I was up for like twenty-four hours straight. If anyone from another time zone wants to set up their own watch along, put it in the comments!

So, grab some popcorn and tweet to #BillyMack as we revel in our annual holiday tradition of watching the movie I once described as “a warm, snuggly blanket for my internalized misogyny.”

Friday, December 18, 4 p.m. EST (UTC -5)

Friday, December 18, 8 p.m. EST (UTC -5)

 

This is the chapter where if anyone knows anything about radio, we could use some fact checking. So even if you don’t generally read these recaps, it would be swell if you’d take a look at a section toward the end where radio wattage and frequency is being discussed.

Let’s have some happy news this time, about Fifty Shades of Grey-related movies, rather than the actual tragedy that will undoubtedly be the second movie.

First up, Marlon Wayans has given Fifty Shades the Scary Movie treatment. His parody, Fifty Shades of Black, will be out in January 2016, just a month before Fifty Shades Darker was supposed to have hit the screen. Knowing Wayans, the movie will probably be raunchy and in very poor taste, which is like, the #1 reason I like his movies in the first place. I feel like I should send him flowers and a thank you card for making my dreams come true with this one.

Also? Fifty Shades of Grey star and my imaginary girlfriend, a.k.a. most adorable woman alive, Dakota Johnson, has a new movie coming out soon with two of my other lady crushes, Leslie Mann and Rebel Wilson, called How To Be Single. Does it look like the most feminist and diverse thing that’s ever happened to cinema? Not at all. But it isn’t Fifty Shades of Grey, for which we can all be thankful.

Now, let’s plunge ourselves into something far more ridiculous. Let’s get into this recap of part three of the chapter that will probably never end.

Content warning: fat hate, disordered eating, and every other warning you’ve already heard about Jessica Jones (rape, PTSD, violence, misogyny, all sorts of warnings that fat women don’t deserve).

You’re on the internet, so I assume you’ve heard of, if not already binge watched, the Netflix/Marvel series, Jessica Jones. The show has been praised–rightfully so–for its unflinching, unapologetic themes of rape, PTSD, and even the sinister, casual misogyny of a man telling a woman to smile.

If the title of this post drew you in because you’re looking for another fawning think piece about how refreshing and wholly feminist this marvel (no pun intended) of a modern superhero franchise is, you’re probably the exact feminist I want to have a confrontation with.

I’d heard so many wonderful things about the show, so I tried it. It sucked me in immediately. About seven minutes into the first episode, our heroine is on a fire escape, spying through people’s windows. She sees a fat woman running on a treadmill. The woman steps down and retrieves a fast food burger to messily gorge herself on while Jones looks on and sneers, “two minutes on the treadmill, twenty minutes on a quarter-pounder.”

Despite the claims of notorious fat hating internet enclaves, there hasn’t been an outcry over this “triggering” content. And that’s what I–a sniveling, cowardly SJW, just to get that bit out of the way–am concerned about.

You know about trigger warnings–the term “content warning” is preferable, as it doesn’t appropriate or water-down terminology pertaining specifically to PTSD–because everyone on your Facebook timeline is complaining about them. Trigger warnings are everywhere, coddling the gentle feelings of a generation doomed to failure from being handled with white kid gloves, or so increasingly crusty fellow Gen Xers have decided. So where was the warning for that fat shaming joke that the pathetic, bottom-feeding Reddit dwellers so gleefully noted the absence of? Like most of the online drama that feeds their oxygen-deprived, shriveled little erections, the outcry was totally manufactured. In fact, when I googled the quote, not a single result on the first two pages were about the joke itself, but the overblown reaction the fat haters believed everyone was having.

So where the fuck was the overblown reaction, guys? Where was the trigger warning everyone thinks wasn’t needed? Where the fuck was it? There have been plenty of content warnings for rape, for violence, for suicide, for PTSD flashbacks. Was there no compassion or consideration left for the fat women? If even the fat shamers believed that the absence of a trigger warning should be cause for outrage, where the fuck were you? In a day and age where a marine biology Tumblr tags its posts with the mind-bogglingly obvious “TW: water”, where was a single social media feminist when your fat sisters were being brutally let down? And not just let down, but mocked for a reaction that wasn’t happening at all, let alone on the scale dreamed up by a bunch of sentient pubic hairs on the internet?

“But it’s feminist here! And over here!” you might be tempted to cry. Put a hold on that transaction, because I’m not buying. If I’m willing to cop to my seasonal worship of the misogynist shit-fest that is Love, Actually, you can good and goddamn admit that your unproblematic fave has two lines that are problematic, and you can take two seconds out of your day to acknowledge that and give fat women a head’s up.

By the end of the first episode, it was clear that this is going to be a show I love, and I’m going to stick with it all the way to the end because I am thoroughly enchanted. Krysten Ritter is, without any whiff of overstatement, flawless. The writing–in the first episode, at least–is tight as a drum, and it’s probably the only time I’ve seen a television character who wasn’t Olivia Benson tell a rape survivor that her assault wasn’t her fault. Jessica Jones is a great show. I was about to gush to my husband about how great it was, when I realized that he might want to watch it as a result. I thought about all the times he’s seen me red faced and sweating after a run, how many times I’ve tried to diet only to say “fuck it all!” and launch into some Taco Bell. How many times he’s seen me launch into some Taco Bell when I wasn’t saying “fuck it all!” to a diet and eating just because damn, I love those chicken quesadillas so much. I thought of him seeing the smart, strong Jessica Jones saying something I’d said to myself in my deepest moments of self-hatred a million times before. I thought about a following scene, where Jones tucks carelessly into a sandwich that will be the only thing we see her consume in this episode besides booze. And I thought about how embarrassing all of that was when combined. Even though I know that my husband doesn’t care about my weight–a shocking claim that would no doubt be denounced as a delusion or an outright lie by the slobbering anti-fat internet masses–, even though I know he’s still with me when I can’t stand being with myself, I would be mortified to watch that episode with him. So when he asked how it was, I didn’t do what I wanted to do, which was to grab him and shake him and scream in his face, “Why the fuck haven’t we watched this yet? What is wrong with us?” Instead, I shrugged and said, “It’s okay.”

And that’s me, a fat woman who no longer flirts with disordered eating, who no longer laments that her gag reflex can’t be triggered by something so puny as an index finger. A woman who would now be comfortable getting a tattoo of a Taco Bell chicken quesadilla on her forehead with the words “Fuck it all! Taco Bell!” in letters that replace her eyebrows. I can’t imagine how it must feel to women who haven’t developed a thicker skin yet, who haven’t overcome demons that will wake up hungry and cranky when they see a sweating fat woman eat a burger followed by a rail-thin beauty devouring a sandwich. I can’t imagine how many women turned off the show right there and missed all the powerful feminist content everyone is lauding. And all anyone needed to do to protect them was to mention how the show failed here. A single line in the middle of a four-thousand word praise orgy would have sufficed. A single word in defense to our legions of haters would have been even better.

Look, I’m a realist. Fat shame is here to stay. As long as horrible people are brutally oppressed by having to be nice to the people who count, fat people–who obviously don’t count–will be the target of impotent, frustrated egos that need to lash out at their own insecurities. Would I have preferred that Jessica Jones didn’t feature a fat shaming joke? Of course, especially since the production is helmed by a female show runner and is being praised as a feminist masterpiece. Do I think the show is irredeemably antifeminist because of it? Absolutely not. Do I want to prevent future episodes from being filmed, picket Netflix headquarters, and demand a full apology? Of course not. I’m not one of the fragile, fascist fatties who demand everyone worship us as sexual objects and who were completely invented by the gong farmers of the internet, because those types of fat people don’t exist. But you know what I do want? Some admission by my fellow feminists that fat women deserve just as much consideration and protection as every other woman. It’s one thing to declare that fat is a feminist issue. It’s another entirely to bother to do anything with that information. All you needed was a single content warning hashtag. All you needed was to acknowledge that we could be hurt by such a cheap, throwaway joke. And you didn’t.

Quick rundown of the episode: James Purefoy showed his wang.

Okay, other stuff happened, too. Like, for example, Pompey’s group is sitting around in tents, all uncomfortable, while his son, Quintus, skins somebody alive. They learn that the gold they were looking for ran afoul of Caesar’s scouts, but Caesar doesn’t have it, either. Quintus is dispatched to find whoever took the money.

Atia is throwing her uncle a welcome home party, which is a big deal, because she wants to cement her status as first lady of the city. I mean, Caesar is married, but the real threat to Atia is Servilia, because she’s the chick Caesar is passionate about, in an extramarital way. Meanwhile, Octavia has figured out that her mother probably killed her husband.

Lucius Vorenus is getting ready for the grand opening of his grocery store, which involves a lot of praying. Way more praying than I usually run into at parties. But Mark Antony has shit he needs to say, and he needs to say it in the nude. And he shows his wang. And the Lord looked up on it, and he saw that it was good. Antony doesn’t think Vorenus is going to be able to pull off the whole grocery store thing. He offers him a promotion and a bonus to come back to the army, but Vorenus won’t let a bag of gold turn his head.

So, two parties are happening. At one, Servilia and Caesar are seeing each other for the first time in eight years, but they’re playing it cool. Niobe’s sister, Lyde, is trying to play it cool, too, but it’s her husband that Niobe was making out with last week, so some shit clearly went down while Vorenus was away, and it is shit that Lyde cannot keep together at all.

Caesar knows that he has to have the people on his side, and he plans to do that by buying a good sign from the priests. Speaking of religious signs, Lyde gets hammered drunk and knocks over the religious icon that’s supposed to be bringing them good luck or whatever for their business. Niobe is cleaning up the pieces when Quintus Pompey rolls in with his gang. They’re going to cut up Niobe so Vorenus tells them where the stolen gold is. Except, he doesn’t know where it is. And the man who does know where it is gets there at exactly the wrong time. Titus Pullo arrives in a litter, tossing handfuls of gold, with the slave girl from the last episode all dressed up in nice clothes and a shit ton of jewelry. There is a massive brawl, in which Vorenus and Pullo take Quintus hostage. They deliver him to Caesar at Atia’s house. Because having the son of his enemy is a pretty good thing, and since Caesar had no idea there was any missing gold in the first place, he doesn’t punish Pullo for spending some of it. But they do take the rest.

Atia figures out that Servilia is fucking Caesar, and Pullo figures out that Niobe was fucking Lyde’s husband. This is bad news for both Servilia and Lyde’s husband. And Lyde, come to think of it. Pompey gets Caesar’s message telling him to disarm and give up, but Pompey isn’t having it. He thinks he can still win, even without money or like, even being in the city at all. Caesar gets the religious sign he’s paid for, and now Pompey doesn’t even have the will of the people behind him. He’s basically on an extended camping trip for the rest of his life now.

My favorite part of the episode: Atia’s recipe for putting oak in someone’s penis. It’s eating goat testicles. Just in case you were developing a “distinctly feminine anima” and you wanted to correct that or something. Goat testicles.

My least favorite part of the episode: Caesar’s seizure (say that a few times out loud, for funsies) is historically inaccurate. Caesar was definitely a part of the epileptic cool people brigade, but his seizures are recorded as being more like simple or complex partials, not the grand mal he’s shown having. The speed of his recovery from the seizure is also pretty unrealistic. He’s full blown tonic-clonic in one breath, totally functional (albeit out of breath) in the next.

Favorite costume:  Even though nobody is wearing them, Atia’s wigs:

Team Atia or Team Servilia: Servilia. Atia completely humiliated herself with her clumsy manipulation attempts at the party. Step up your game. I know you can do better.

Favorite watch-a-long tweet:

Even back then people were drawing dicks everywhere #LegionXIII

— Dylan Bimberg (@dylanbim) December 1, 2015

What hairdo or costume would Bronwyn steal? I actually debated on this one, but I think Niobe’s fancy up-do might be the one:

Guess Jess’s head canon. There’s naked Mark Antony and oil wrestling involved. Vorenus may or may not be there. But I think he’s there.

Now go check out Bronwyn’s and Jess’s posts, and join us Monday at 9 PM EST for season one, episode five, “The Ram Has Touched The Wall”. Tweet to #LegionXIII to join us!