Man, talk about that America! And I thought the movies I watched were crazy! Heh, heh...okay, joking aside. I'm here to tell you that we are going to be okay. It will not be easy...but it will be okay.
I'm writing this largely because of how I've spent the last couple days. Cold. Tense. Nauseous. Panicked. And it only got worse when the night ended two days ago. But now, I've passed through it, and I want to try to light up the world. Because I think in some ways, we can take help and safety and security for granted. We don't like to face up to the fact that our way of life is not fixed in time, and it can be taken away before we even know it. Unfortunately, that is life: nothing stays the same. All we can hope for is that our lives and the lives of our loved ones are long and happy. And I want you to have that. I want it if you are my friend; I want it if you are my enemy, or if we are just passing acquaintances, or if we've never met. If you are a human being, you deserve your life, and you deserve to be happy.
In a sense, that's why I do this. I started Adam Mudman's A-List because I loved these movies and books so much that I couldn't keep it to myself anymore. Even if no one cared about them--and I'm learning now that people do care--I had to try to share that love, just that maybe even one person would watch Winterbeast or read The Riddle of the Traveling Skull, and be changed by it in the way I was changed. Because it's fun to find new things!! And that's why the forces we face are wrong. It's good to embrace the weird, the different, the new and unprecedented. Throwing people out of here, or stopping them from coming in, or making it so they want to leave is just taken what is a lovely bush of flowers and cutting it down to only one color...with a chainsaw. And I want more than anything to emphasize the "fun" part of it, because I've seen how my peers and heroes in these sorts of reviews have reacted, and I'm with them: I will always be here to make you laugh and smile, and to lead you to things that will elicit more of the same. Movies and books like these, that are politically "useless," are still important, because even though we need to fight and engage with the real world, we will still need a place to go. We will still need imaginations, escape hatches, unrealistic divergences.
Of course, I'll be doing political stuff, too. I feel I have to. Yeah, some of the reviews will have politicized analysis. But keep your eyes peeled for news on some of my other literary projects, which will be dedicated towards mobilizing artists into speaking their mind and standing up for social justice. Art and entertainment, along with donations, protests, and volunteering, are how our side fights back.
Don't be afraid. I may be white, and relatively abled, and financially stable, but I'm a queer woman. I won't run from that; anyone who tries to stop me, I will just walk through and over. I can't understand every fight, but I can sympathize because I have my own experiences. I don't know everyone's pain, but the pain in any form is bad enough. As a queer woman, I'm not scared. Being scared is what they want, and letting that fear run your life will give them power to do more (as hard as that is to think about, I realize). Just remember that if you were sweating all the way through the election, the worst has happened. For many of you this may be your absolute worst fear. But the thing about running into your fears is that you face them; you accept them. You know that Doom is here, but the Doom of Real Life is way, way smaller than the Doom of What Could Be. It's like in movies: suspense is scarier than the reveal. So now that worst fear is confirmed, and this man is our President, but as long as we fight and work together, we have nothing to fear.
I leave you with the words of Blind Guardian. Yeah, we're Doomed, but it's happened before, and we'll find a way out.
We will remember!
Skies may fade and stars may wane;
we won't forget.
And your light shines bright, yes,
so much brighter--
shine on!
We will remember,
until the skies fall in we won't forget.
We will remember;
we all shall follow Doom.
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