Last year I did up 25 Gifts for Writers, and may have accidentally suggested you kidnap Neil Gaiman. WELL NO MORE OF THAT, says this very specific legal writ. This year I’m back with another ten suggestions for the penmonkeys in your life.

Freedom

What if I told you that there existed a piece of software that slammed a giant glacial wall between A WRITER and the INTERNET so that said writer could write? BOOM INTERNET BLOCKING SOFTWARE. Which sounds strange, I know, because it’s like a cookie jar that bites you every time you reach for it, but dang, it does the trick. Sure, the first few days the writer will be greasily pawing at her monitor trying to get at that sweet sweet Facebook game she’s been mindlessly playing instead of writing, but after a week she’ll settle into the warm productive bliss of hot, fresh word count. Get this for a writer and help them eliminate distractions. (Bonus points: actually give the writer in your life time to write!)

Tonx Coffee Subscription

A writer needs coffee. Tonx has amazing coffee. They will send it to you automatically. Yay.

Evernote Subscription

Give somebody the ability to take notes and gasp keep them anywhere with the magic that is Evernote. As writers, we all basically have brains that look like 10-year-old underwear, all ratty and ragged, so give us this. Help us out. (If not that, then an iTunes or Android gift card to get us other writing or note-taking apps. Or maybe just porn. Who doesn’t need more porn?)

Wonderbook

A book that explodes and dissects story in the most visually-explosive of ways. The writer in your life may not need this book, but they’ll damn sure savor it. Wonderbook, baby.

A Houseplant

Houseplants give oxygen. They make excellent silent companions. And in a pinch they can be eaten for various hallucinogenic benefits. Ta-da! Health! Nature! Hallucinations!

A Corkboard

Plus pins, markers, string, whatever. A corkboard on the wall — or a whiteboard or a chalkboard — make a damn good receptacle for a writer’s thoughts in a very physical, present way. You know how detectives or CIA agents or conspiracy nuts sometimes have that crazy wall with all the photos and all the strings connecting them? Writers are like that, too. Forget that thing I said about Evernote: an outline or mind-map right on your wall is magic stuff. The writer will appreciate this. Check Etsy for home-spun versions.

Noise-Canceling Headphones

Life is distracting as all fuck. Kids screaming inside. Lawnmowers roaring outside. The wails of those you’ve trapped down in your basement. And so: ta-da, noise-canceling headphones. Also don’t be upset that when the writer in your life ignores you for a while — it’s nothing personal, it’s just, THE STORIES WILL SPOOK IF YOU SCARE THEM WITH LOUD TALKY TALKY.

External Storage Device (or Dropbox)

Redundant backups are powerful voodoo for a writer, so get them a USB key, an external hard drive, or a paid Dropbox account. I also use a robot monkey, an NSA drone, and the photographic memory of a 125-year-old Buddhist monk to store my writing, but I understand if you don’t want to take it that far. … Poser.

Solar-Powered Bluetooth Keyboard

I fucking love my solar-powered keyboard. Note I didn’t say “I love fucking my solar-power keyboard,” because I figure that would hurt. Never tried it, though. And my  mother always said I should try everything once? Hm. Anyway. I’ve got the Logitech one for Mac, though larger ones are available. I take it with me wherever I go — er, I mean, when I travel, it’s not like I’m bringing it to the fucking gas station and shit. But it’s great. No batteries required. Very responsive. Will bludgeon an interloper in a pinch. The word-herder in your life may diggit.

Writer Dice

Daniel Solis created these great physical dice — d6 “Writer Dice” — that work to help a writer continue pushing your story forward. You’ll find varieties other than these, too, like Rory’s Story Cubes. Related, but different: also awesome to get a writer word-bases games like Balderdash or Scrabble, or even awesomer, get them hooked on tabletop roleplaying games.

Shameless Plug #1: The Kick-Ass Writer

My book, The Kick-Ass Writer, will punt a writer’s netherquarters into the wordosphere with 1001 hard jabs of writing, storytelling and publishing advice. It exists in physical format, which means the aforementioned writer-type can get naked with it and rub it all over themsleves to absorb its dubious wisdom via fleshy osmosis. Details here.

Shameless Plug #2: Terribleminds Merch

Mugs and shirts terribleminds-style, baby. Certified Penmonkey! Art Harder, Motherfucker! And now I’ve added a new mug: the Art Harder Safe-For-Work version, where FUCKER gets a bunch of fancy asterisks. Whee! Asterisks! Asterisks look like cat buttholes!

HERE IS THE STUFF I LIKED THIS YEAR OKAY THANK YOU BYE.

Novels

As my writing career has deepened, my reading habits have changed. I finish far fewer books these days. That’s not down to the quality of the books, necessarily, but in part due to an increasing persnicketiness when it comes to what books I like and what books I don’t. A story gets very little room to breathe in my world — I generally like to give a book till page 50, but realistically, if I’m not into the book by page 10, I put it down and find another.

This might seem like I’m overly impatient. And maybe I am, and it’s entirely possible I’m missing out on great books this way — but with a toddler running around and way too many books of my own to write, I don’t have that kind of time to grant to a novel that just isn’t burying its claws in me. Some books click. Some don’t. I’ve got a teetering tbr pile threatening to crush me daily.

(This is why I don’t buy the bullshit meme that writers are beholden to review other books negatively. If you do — more power to you, but it’s not an obligation. If you can’t trust my positive reviews because I also don’t contribute negative ones into the world, that’s your problem, not mine. My job is to write books, not criticize somebody else’s. Realistically, my negative reviews would be full of shit anyway. My tastes, as noted, are increasingly finicky. And if I don’t like a book? I don’t finish it. What kind of a review is that? It’s no kinda review, is what it is.)

Point is, if I make it through a book, then for me it was a damn good one.

Below are the books that I finished this year, which is to say, the damn good ones.

Twelve-Fingered Boy, by John Hornor Jacobs

A very serious candidate for favorite book of the year. I fucking devoured this YA sorta-kinda-coming-of-age novel about a pair of psychic boys in an Arkansas correctional institution. It’s dark and twisted and funny and violent and the writing is downright powerful and the characters are grip-your-throat compelling. It’s a little bit horror novel, it’s a little bit X-Men, it’s a whole lotta Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn. I’ve liked JHJ’s earlier novels quite a bit, but this one really buried its hooks in me. Bonus: already read the second in the series, The Shibboleth, which takes the small seed of mythology in the first book and grows a whole goddamn tree out of it, turning up the volume on the X-Men / Chronicle vibe. Go find the first book now, now, now.

The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes

The second very serious candidate for favorite book of the year. I think Zoo City is an amazing achievement and deserves its very own pedestal — but Beukes really ratcheted things up with The Shining Girls. (How to sell it in brief: “A survivor of a time-traveling serial killer’s attack attempts to understand what happened to her and soon finds herself hunting the hunter.”Rich and layered, creepy and poetic. Full of complex and compelling characters — many (most) of them “shining” women who the serial kill wants to rob of their spark. Contains one of the most brutal, cringe-worthy scenes I’ve ever read. (Like, in a good way. I still get the shivers thinking about it. LAUREN BEUKES IS ONE OF OUR MOST BAD-ASS DANGEROUS WRITERS. Read her.)

NOS4A2, by Joe Hill

It’s a book big enough to bludgeon a bull elk, and that’s a damn good thing because it’s one of those books you never want to end (and also, you might get attacked by a bull elk and trust me when I say, those guys are assholes). I’m guilty as a writer of encouraging folks to get to the story, to step on the accelerator and move this motherfucker along — and certainly Hill knows how to do that, because with a book like Heart-Shaped Box he took what I woulda thought would’ve been the whole novel and collapsed that part into the first 30 pages, which gave that particular book a surprising amount or urgency and surprise. But NOS4A2, which offers up a young girl’s lifelong battle against a vampiric wretch bound to a candy-cane hellscape known as Christmasland, is an epic horror story that takes a lot of time to grow compelling characters before plunging you into the dark and icy waters. (In fact, it is the protagonist’s struggle against herself that is as fascinating as her battle against the monster, Charlie Manx. Powerful writing, inescapable horror, grave dread punctuated by the small-town life made famous by the novels of Hill’s own father. (In fact, this book has some loose tie-ins to the Dark Tower mythology, if that tweaks your nipples.) Great, great book. One of those books where I wish I was a time-traveling serial killer, actually, so I could go back in time, murder Joe Hill, and claim this book as my own.

The Waking Dark, by Robin Wasserman

“Hey, what would it be like if Stephen King wrote YA novels?”

*drops The Waking Dark in your lap*

I’ll say no more except: holy shit read this book.

Vicious, by V. E. Schwab

Here’s generally how it works if you ask me to blurb a book: I will take the book and make it very clear, “I probably don’t have time to read this,” which is true, but also a way for me to insulate you against the reality that I may not dig the book, or I might just forget because I have a brain like a hamster-nibbled cracker. The books I inevitably do blurb often get blurbed because of one reason: because I pick it up on a lark and idly read the first couple pages.

Or, that’s what I think will happen

What really happens is suddenly I look up from the book and I’ve wolfed down like, 50-100 pages.

And I blink and go, “Whoa-dang,” and then I devour the rest like pie at Thanksgiving.

Books like that get blurbed because I fall into them. Because any and all of my critical response levels are shut-down and dazzled by the powerful prestidigitation and misdirection of a damn good story. And that’s this book. A supervillain book as much as it is a superhero book. A book about bad people and nemeses and redemption. Crackling writing and pinpoint plotting. Needs its own comic book, TV show, breakfast cereal. Doubly upsetting is that Schwab isn’t even 30 years old yet GODDAMN IT who let her in the club was it you?

The Thicket, by Joe Lansdale

I’ll read anything Joe Lansdale writes.

You could say, “He wrote this Chinese takeout menu,” and I’ll stop whatever I’m doing and read every line of that menu penned by Champion Joe. The Thicket is one of his best and he’s in nearly perfect form here. I don’t like giving out the plot details but this is pretty grim and hilarious turn-of-the-century take on the “coming-of-age” story. Read this. And then if you haven’t read any other Lansdale, read all of it with an aim to savor but a plan to gorge.

Abaddon’s Gate, by James S.A. Corey

Abstractly, I care nothing for space opera. But I read the first book in the Expanse series (Leviathan Wakes) on a trip and found myself swiftly addicted to the story. The second book, Caliban’s War, was even better. This is the third book and it continues the horror-tinged space opera epic with all its magnificence intact. It’s a little slower to build than the second book, but once it kicks into gear — sweet motherless goatfucker, it gets cray-cray.

In other news, James S.A. Corey is like, fifteen people or something. Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck I know for sure. But I also think there’s like, some kind of alien hive-mind at work here, and maybe a talking llama, and definitely a supercomputer housed in an ancient glacier.

Apocalypse Now Now, by Charlie Human

I can’t explain this book using words. I can only use my mouth to mumble and mutter while my eyes grow larger and larger. I blurbed this and, quite seriously, that was basically my blurb: “NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK TO SAY.” It’s like, if you took Zoo City and made Neil Gaiman rewrite it but first you made him read Naked Lunch and eat a lot of hallucinogenic drugs? Cape Town supernatural weirdness. There. That’s all I got. I don’t think this has a US deal yet?

Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer

This isn’t out yet but it lands on shelves in in January, so, fuck it, it counts. If you let David Lynch write Lost, or you made H.P. Lovecraft and Michael Crichton have a book-baby, this is what would result. A cold and poetic story of a woman’s descent into a mysterious zone called Area X where other teams have gone before and (often) not returned. It’s like, weird biology and archaeology and psychology and it’s another book where I’m pretty sure I ate like, a fistful of psilocybin before reading it. I read it fast and it blew me away. It’s part of a trilogy, too, which weirds me out even more because — what? What the hell happens now? *grabs at the air*

Yay Other Awesome Books But I’m Going On Too Long Already: Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone; City’s Son and its follow-up, Glass Republic, by Tom Pollock; Dreams & Shadows, by C. Robert Cargill; Parasite, by Mira Grant; The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau; Shambling Guide to NYC, by Mur Lafferty; The Age Atomic, by Adam Christopher; certainly a bunch of other books that I read and adored but am forgetting because dumb.

Comics

Leaving Megalopolis, by Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore

Listen, I kinda didn’t pay much attention when I backed this on Kickstarter. I was like, “HEY YAY GAIL SIMONE” and then I flung some money at the screen. I was probably drunk. It doesn’t matter. What I got — just the other day, actually — was a graphic novel that scared the genitals off my body. Imagine an apocalyptic horror novel where the superheroes are the fucking monsters and holy crap what. I tweeted the other day: “Sweet gore-soaked fuckmittens, LEAVING MEGALOPOLIS is batshit whoa-dang scarymazing.” Beautiful. Bloody. Soul-wounding. And bad-ass every step of the way.

Lazarus, by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark

Only a few issues deep yet, but so far so awesome. The future-flung world is controlled by a handful of superpowerful families, and the lead in this one is a woman of one such family who has been engineered into… well, I don’t know exactly what but let’s go with “the human equivalent of a Terminator.” So good.

Saga, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan

It’s trippy space opera with TV-headed royalty and sex and naughty words and rocket ships made out of trees and dongs and cool bounty hunters and uber-violence and why are you still here?

Fatale, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

When this first came out I kinda thought it was a straight crime story but oh shit it’s all occult-magic crazy. It’s like L.A. Confidential as painted with the blood of Aleister Crowley.

High Crimes, by Christopher Sebela and Ibrahim Moustafa

The first comic series I’ve ever blurbed, actually: “Sharp as an ice ax, taut as a climbing rope. The writing and art have a vertiginous quality as if at any moment the characters — and you with ’em — will drop down into a dark canyon abyss. Let me put it another way: if you’re not reading High Crimes, we probably can’t be friends.” I think that’s my favorite blurb I ever done blurbed, actually. I love this series (from the awesome folks at Monkeybrain) so hard. Everest + crime + spy thriller conspiracy + wtf.

Locke and Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

I’m not caught up but this is one of those comics that you think is one thing but then kinda becomes another? At least, it was, for me. I expected something straight-up Lovecraftian but it soon leaves horror and becomes fantasy and creates wonder before circling back and becoming even more horrific and it’s really amazing — but again, not caught up, so if you spoil the last arc for me I’m going to shit on all your pets. Yep, even the guinea pig.

Wonder Woman, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

The New 52 is hit or miss for me — though one supposes that’s to be expected given that no comics company bats 1000 every day of the week. I like a lot of the Batman titles but I was wary of this one. I dig it — I think it takes WW down the right road, which is to say, epic and mythic, but not hyper-powered, either? Check it out.

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, by Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks

YA high school story about a friendship ruined by a battle over money that will go toward either a robotics competition or the cheerleading squad. So good. Very wow.

Thrillbent, Anything By Anyone

Go to thrillbent.com. Start reading comics. Give them money. TA-DA YAY.

Other Awesome Comics: Fairest, Hawkeye, Manhattan Projects, Detective Comics, Bandette, Sweet Tooth, Sixth Gun.

Kid Books

I read a lot to the Tiny Human and I, as an adult who writes stories, happens to like books for him that actually tell a story. Go figure. And so I recommend: Little Blue Truck and Little Blue Truck Leads the Way by Alice Shertle and Jill McElmurry; anything by Mo Willems ever; Little Miss Spider, a Christmas Wish by David Kirk; and probably a bunch of others I’m forgetting.

Also: apps by Toca or Callaway Digital Arts are always a winner.

Music

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mosquito

NIN, Hesitation Marks

Lorde, Pure Heroine

Haim, Days Are Gone

Kacey Musgraves, Same Trailer Different Park

The Civil Wars, The Civil Wars

The Lonely Island, The Wack Album

Gin Wigmore, Gravel & Wine

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, The Heist

They Might Be Giants, Nanobots

TV

Orphan Black, because holy crap. Breaking Bad, because double holy crap. Uhh, what else? Parks & Recreation. The Mindy Project. House of Cards. Homeland. I think I’m done with Walking Dead but will remain adoring the gut-punch that is Game of Thrones. Luther. I’m sure there’s plenty more I watch that I’m spacing on because whatever this shit is getting long so shut up quit lookin’ at me.

Oh! Fuck. Hannibal. How the hell did that show even get to be a show? It’s so good and so shouldn’t be. Nobody was asking for this. And yet, what the fuck? It’s great.

Adored the Sleepy Hollow pilot but haven’t gotten deeper yet.

Oh, some kids shows that are actually awesome and not crappy: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Sarah & Duck (so fucking cute). Pocoyo. Curious George.

Movies

I feel bad, but film is grabbing me less and less where TV is grabbing me more and more. Riskier storytelling being done in the television space, I think. The Heat cracked me up. Stoker was a trip. Wreck-It Ralph ruled.

I liked Pacific Rim a lot even though I have a lot of problems with it.

Eh? You know, part of it too is that my wife and I have time for TV in fits and starts but watching a full two-hour film is a luxury with the toddler running around. And if we have a toddler-free two hours, we’re not watching movies IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

I mean we’re probably eating a meal in peace, you savages, jeez.

Food

I love anything from Jeni’s Ice Cream.

And all of the Noosa yogurts.

And Dogfish or Stone beer.

And Vosges chocolates.

And La Colombe coffee.

If it’s gin, it’s Bluecoat.

If it’s Scotch, it’s Balvenie Doublewood.

If it’s bourbon, it’s Basil Hayden’s.

And if I see you with a pack of Tim-Tam cookies (“biscuits”) I’ll stab you for them.

Games

I still buy games like I don’t have a toddler — and I continually forget that I have damn near zero game-playing time beyond, say, two or three hours on a Sunday afternoon after I write this blog. Still, I do manage, and got some time with some solid entries this year: Far Cry 3, GTA V, Bioshock Infinite, Minecraft, Tomb Raider.

And that’s all she wrote, folks.

Healthcare-dot-gov, as we all know, is something of a clusterfuck.

I applied very early, within the first week, and my identity verification took until about two weeks ago. And then, promptly thereafter, the website wouldn’t let me log on anymore — though that has been fixed again, and now I can log on.

But I see no next steps. Like, everything just says IN PROGRESS, with no “Click Here For Plans!” magic button. I called the number (it should be noted that every phone conversation has been immediately connected and very helpful with excellent customer service) and they told me they will now review my application and physically mail me paperwork so that I can apply — she swore this would happen before the deadline of December 23rd (which is what would be necessary to get me onto a plan by Jan 1st in order to stop paying the monthly chest of gold and blood to COBRA).

Anyone else have experience here? This accurate to your experience? I was made to understand the whole thing might be online, though perhaps this represents a shift in how they’re mitigating tech fails is by ushering some of the burden to physical paperwork.

(For the record, this blog post is not an excuse to get into the OBAMACARE SUCKS or YAY ACA discussion. I’m looking for practical information based on some kind of evidence here. Thanks!)

Here’s your assignment:

In the comments, I want to know:

A book you read in 2013 you’d recommend.

A comic book you dug in 2013.

A TV show.

A movie.

A game.

One of each.

Just one.

Get shut of the idea of “best” — just, you know, if you had one of each of these that you could recommend to me or to everyone else reading here, what would it be?

Bonus question:

And why?

Your 2013 list:

GO.

First round is right here.

Second round is right here.

The rules are simple:

Look through the now 400-word entries from last week (round two, linked above).

Pick one.

Add another 200 words to the story.

(Easiest way forward is to copy the chosen 400 words to your own blog, then add the next 200. Don’t forget to link to your now 600-word story in the comments. Someone may want to continue the tale next week, for part four.)

You do not need to have participated in the first rounds to participate in this one.

Try to choose to continue a story in which you have not yet participated.

Do not finish the story. This is a five-part fiction experiment: we’ll end the year with several 1000-word stories, each built out of 200-word chunks by you guys. This is a collaborative game. It is Whisper Down the Lane. It is Telephone. It should be very interesting by the end. One hopes.

You’ve got one week.

Due by Friday, December 13th (gasp!), noon EST.

Join the narrative chain, won’t you?

We all want a Wonder Woman movie.

Why? Because a Wonder Woman movie would be crazy aces.

You could do a really cool thing with her being equal parts superhero and warrior princess demi-goddess — fighting not aliens or supervillains but creatures and figures out of mythology. Struggling with her own place in this world, and you could even color it with her struggle as a woman — never too heavy-handed on that point, but still keenly felt.

It’d be the melodrama of gods, the epic heroism of myth put onto the streets of modern-day America, a cracking lasso, bullets deflected. Maybe no invisible jet, though, because, c’mon.

Similar to Thor, which really isn’t a “superhero” movie. (Alternate idea: do a Captain America version, where she fights Nazis. Because, c’mon. Nazis! Check out this cool fan film.)

This isn’t what’s happening.

What’s happening is — at least, what we know is — Zach Snyder is making a movie about Batman and Superman and we’re just now hearing that Wonder Woman is a part of it. We don’t know how significant her role will be. We don’t know the script. We don’t know much more than that.

Oh, we do know that the actress that’s playing her. Gal Gadot — and, by the way, let’s cut criticisms of her body or her once-model status out of the argument, because body shaming is body shaming no matter the shape of the body. It’s not “okay” just because she doesn’t look like you or because she doesn’t look like your idea of the character of Wonder Woman. I don’t recall Wonder Woman being in my history books, do you? And even if she did — artists get to draw her differently, and so actresses can portray her differently. (The same people will say something about Lynda Carter being great, and please be advised: Lynda Carter and Gal Gadot are the same height, and Carter was also a supermodel.) Gadot is a professional actress. She’s acted in films before. She has gotten paid to act in those films. And Gadot was in the Israeli army. Can we really not believe that a regimen of exercise plus movie magic can’t make her look like a passable Diana? Christian Bale before Batman looked like a thin strip of beef jerky. So, let’s cut the shit, please.

The problem isn’t Gadot. The problem is, at least potentially, Snyder.

Snyder has made some strong films, at least visually.

Snyder hasn’t offered us many really strong female characters.

Lois Lane in Man of Steel came close for the first half of the film until she ended up relegated to worthless love-interest/helper-monkey by the end. Gorgo, similarly, is a mixed bag — strong in many ways but then relegated to rape victim to move the plot along. The women in Watchmen aren’t given the same level of attention that they are in the comic.

And don’t get me started on Sucker Punch.

(You are of course free to have loved that film as much as many of you surely do. As time goes on, it’s a film for me that only serves as little grain of sand stuck to my butthole — it just keeps itching and itching, an irritating mote sure to become a rash, never become a pearl. For my mileage, it’s a film that not only fails at its supposed purpose, but actually subverts its own ideas of “empowerment” into shallow, septic nonsense. YMMV, IMHO, etc.)

So, now we’re getting Snyder’s version of Wonder Woman.

Right out of the gate, we’re getting some warning signs.

First, that she’s not part of the trio, but rather, a third wheel to the two men. I say this because the film is called Batman Vs. Superman. She’s not going to be a main character because, drum roll please, the main characters are already there.

Second, we’re not following the Marvel path of, “Introduce new character with their own film, then give them the team-up movie.” This is reverse-engineering (and I’ll tell you why that’s a problem in a minute).

Third, the fear that romantic drama will be at play here, with Wonder Woman offered up as kissy-fodder for Superman to create emotional conflict with Lois. (Again, why else introduce her in a film not about her unless she’s to be used as a prop to hold up some aspect of the plot?)

Fourth, Man of Steel wasn’t — for me — a great film, or even a good film, or even a film I want to see ever again. (It’s another movie that over time lost any luster it had when I left the theater).

Fifth, and finally: Sucker Punch. Again.

So, here’s what happens:

We get the movie.

It’s full of the Snyder bombast. Maybe it has a good script. Maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe it’s okay. Maybe it’s awesome. Maybe it sucks dooky-shoes.

Maybe it makes fat bank. Maybe it crumbles like an ill-baked cookie at the box office.

But the film could be a justification for us never ever getting a proper Wonder Woman movie.

Here’s how:

No matter how the film does, any time the subject of a Wonder Woman film comes up, they’ll be pointing to this movie as the test. And if this movie isn’t a stellar representation of her?

Game over, goodbye.

But you’re saying, “Batman has had plenty of shitty entries into the film canon. Superman, too.” And you’d be right. But, here’s a secret shh don’t tell anybody: those are white guys.

And this is Hollywood.

Here’s what happens when a film or television show succeeds or fails when white guys are involved: “Great script! Shit script. Strong director. Shoulda gotten a better director.” And so on. It’s judged based on the merits of the film and the roles filled in support of that film.

What happens when a film or television show fails — key word, fails — when one or several women are involved? It’s because she was a woman. “Nobody responds to female-driven comedies,” they might say. “Or this is why we don’t have a lot of female directors.” It won’t be because of the technical merits. Won’t be because of a bad script or a rough market or, or, or.

It’ll be blamed on those with vaginas.

And that’s what will happen here.

If Wonder Woman fails on-screen — hell, if she falls short of the 90% awesome mark on-screen — then the excuse will be, as it has been in various LA-LA-Land meetings already, “Nobody wants to see a Wonder Woman film.” They’ll say she’s hard to get right. Hard to make her work on screen. Whether she’s in this film for five minutes or fifty, this is what we’ll get. And this is why the Marvel approach would’ve been so much more desirable. Creating her movie upfront would have given us a chance to have her succeed on her own merits, not fall down because she’s a value-add in a film about two superdudes. If we had assumed her film was a necessary one before the inevitable Justice League film, it would’ve guaranteed at least one movie.

But that’s not happening. We get this one role. So we’d better hope it’s a good one. Because —

They could make 10 shitty Batman movies, and we’ll always see more Batman movies.

But if Wonder Woman isn’t top of the pops for every second she’s on-screen in Snyder’s film, they’ll burn the character down and salt the earth and the topic won’t come up again for another 30 goddamn years. Wonder Woman will be poison on the lips.

And that’s the danger of putting Wonder Woman in Batman Versus Superman.

It’s a perfect — meaning, sad — example of how you might kill a Wonder Woman franchise.

(Disclaimer: all of this is of course pure speculation. I’ve not seen a script. I’d like to be cautiously optimistic here. But I can base some thoughts on what has come before, and that’s what I’m doing here. Fingers crossed that all of this is delightfully inaccurate.)