Florida is weird.

I hear news stories about Florida a lot, these days. You got your bath salts face-biting and your FloridaMan twitter account, (which is admittedly hilarious); you got botched elections and former governors who use too much spray tan. We have a lot of weirdos, to be sure, but these stories got me thinking about my feelings toward my home state in a more general sense. You see, many people in the States have a strong affinity and feeling of pride for their birth state, but I find myself lacking such a feeling, at least in any particular strength.

That's because Florida is weird.

Now, I don't mean weird in the sense of those stories I mentioned earlier. Let's be truly honest: those could have happened anywhere. I mean that being from Florida is a weird thing to describe, because the state is so vastly different anywhere you go. Take my home county for instance: Collier. Collier County, Florida was actually featured in Ace Ventura as the home of Ray Finkle, and it was shown as a desolate swampy area with no people for miles and miles. This is true enough, but my home town is also in Collier County, and this is what Naples looks like:

Not exactly swampy.

Even in just one county, depending on where you are, you have vastly different cities, people, and lifestyles. It's true: most of Collier County is swamp, but when you get to the coast, you have lovely beaches and tons and tons of old, retired, rich, white people. The same is true of my current home, Alachua County and the city of Gainesville. The 'ville is home to UF, so within a few miles of the university campus, (which is three square miles itself), you have all the bars, hangouts, chain restaurants, apartment complexes, etc. But go not five minutes past I-75, and you soon find yourself in the middle of fucking nowhere. Farms. Cows grazing. Small, gentle hills. Two-lane roads with speed limits 55+ mph. It's an entirely different world, and you just left Gainesville a mile ago. 

Since Florida is so weird, living here instills a lot of weird behaviors in us. Here's a list of things about Floridians that are weird:

1.) Hurricanes aren't even worth worrying about unless they're Category 4. Maybe Category 3 for some people. But Cat 2s, Cat 1s, and Tropical Storms? We fly kites and go the beach in that shit. It's fun. 

2.) Because of the above, we love laughing when hurricanes bypass us and make their way further north on the Atlantic coast. Watching news reports of Yanks FREAKING OUT about a Cat 2 storm is hilarious. 

3.) We have no sympathy for people who don't carry umbrellas in their cars or leave their car windows rolled down. 

4.) Spring Break is more of an eye-roll for us. A lot of us are from typical Spring Break destinations and honestly, it's more annoying to us than anything. My best Spring Break was going to North Carolina and getting to see snow. That's how desensitized to beaches and shit I am; I'd rather go where it's snowing, because at least it'd be a change. 

5.) True Floridians may very well be a minority in many cities. Naples, in particular, is home to almost entirely, (or so it feels), older folks who have moved there for their retirement, or other people who moved down from the North. While working at Barnes & Noble, a woman tried to make small-talk with me while I was preparing her latte. She asked where I was from. When I said, "I'm from here; from Naples," she was FASCINATED and astounded and proceeded to probe me about it. Though what I could have possibly elaborated about, I haven't the faintest idea. Luckily I was 17 and looking stupid and clueless is a thing all teens are good at. 

6.) Bugs aren't terribly worrisome to us. They're everywhere here, and some of them are pretty huge. 

7.) Many of us will bust out straight-up winter coats that are damn near parkas for 60 degree weather. Because normally it's 96 degrees out, and we get tired of that part of our wardrobe gathering dust, (though I am admittedly not part of this phenomenon, I do understand it).

8.) We will wear flip-flops for almost any occasion. Mostly because our seasons go like this:

SuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmerBitChillySoMaybeWeCanCallThisNOPE!MORE SUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

9.) Never tell us it's humid where you're from. Go outside in central Florida in August at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and then come talk to us. 

10.) I didn't even know what a humidifier was and what the hell you would ever need one for until I was practically an adult. 

11.) It is rarely cool enough to turn the AC off. And when it is, there are no heaters being turned on; it's not that cold. Our tiny winter may as well be called Save-Money-Off-Electric-Bill season.

12.) We have an entire theme park dedicated to alligators. No, seriously, we do. It's called Gatorland, and as Gabriel Iglesias has pointed out, their automated phone message is hilarious, (although they've changed it since whenever he called them; it's not nearly that funny, but it's still pretty entertaining). 

13.) Though we are technically part of the South, and even the Deep South, I know very few Floridians who consider themselves "southern". I do, but not because I'm from Florida; because my father's family is from North Carolina, which as the name implies, is much further north than my home. 

So we have these weird quirks, which are amusing, I suppose, but it's weird. I don't really feel pride in being from Florida. Maybe because it's just such an odd amalgam of people, it's hardly to feel centrally united by much of anything. 

I will surely think of more weird things about Florida and Floridians to post later. 

P.I.E. #2: Why Clara Oswald is the worst (modern) Doctor Who companion.

Welcome to the second installment of Pointlessly In-Depth Examinations, which Clinton suggested I abbreviate to "PIE" because he is far more clever than I.

You should have guessed it would only be a matter of time before I tackled something Doctor Who-related in this fashion. It was between this and everything that was wrong with the 50th Anniversary special, but I honestly still enjoyed The Day of the Doctor, numerous problems aside. I do not, however, enjoy Clara in any way, shape, or form. I'm actually listening to my playlist of MLP songs while I write to make sure I stay relatively calm.

BE WARNED. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

So after Amy & Rory depart from the series, in a supposed-to-be-sad-but-is-still-only-marginally-so mid-season finale, we are introduced to Clara Oswald in Victorian-era London.

Well, that's not entirely true. We meet her in Asylum of the Daleks, which takes place in the far future, where she's a crew member of the Starship Alaska that "survived" crashing onto the Dalek Asylum planet. And then she dies. And then also dies in Victorian London while helping the Doctor do his Doctor-y thing.

Even though the Doctor never saw her face in Asylum, we as the audience know that it's the same chick, which the Doctor figures out by the end of The Snowmen. So to Steven Moffat's credit, Clara actually starts out with some serious potential; she's shown up twice, in completely different eras of time, and died both times. What's up with that? 

So The Doctor goes on a hunt for her, determined to figure out what "the impossible girl"'s deal is. He finds her again in present-day London, because of course he does, because every modern, long-term companion is from modern London, modern being anywhere from 2005-2013, depending on when the episode aired. And then they go on grand adventures together, because obviously you should go off to see the universe with the dude who you don't even know who camped out outside of your house for an entire day until you finally decide to talk to him. Definitely a reasonable decision. 

But here's the problem with Clara: she's a boring as balls character. She fits perfectly into the character archetype of "manic pixie dream girl", which is basically an adorable, quirky girl character who has no real depth other than being quirky and adorable. They exist to be quirky and adorable, and they don't need any personality beyond that. They are written for straight men by straight men, and straight men, (accepting one friend of mine who is female and extremely easy to please, entertainment-wise), are the only people I've spoken to who actually like and try to defend Clara. They exist to have someone men wish their wives and girlfriends could be like, in a way that's more "realistic" than supermodel and/or movie star. And those men are typically not supermodels themselves; they are the more "nerdy" crowd, who probably intuitively know they'll never land a supermodel, so an adorable and quirky girl seems more reasonable. For info on what makes MPDGs so boring and terrible, I invite you to read this article, written by a much more talented and eloquent writer than I: I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, by Laurie Penny, 

In fact, when I see people defend Clara, the defense I see the most is, "But she's hot!". Okay, yes, Jenna Coleman is a very good-looking young lady, but damnit, that just shows your hideous sexism without any type of guise; you're basically admitting you like her because you might like to possibly have sex with her. This does not make her an engaging or interesting character, and for those of us who actually like to care about the "people" we watch on TV, being hot isn't enough. You have to be believable. You have to have flaws. Clara is not believable, and she has no flaws. 

No, really, she doesn't. Think about it: when in the course of the series so far has Clara ever been wrong? Made a mistake? Been bad at something? Okay, she sucks at making souffles. But beyond that, give me one single, concrete example of Clara being definitively wrong or bad at what she was doing. I suspect you are having difficulty. 

In addition to being a manic pixie dream girl, Clara is also a Mary-Sue. To those who don't know, a Mary-Sue is a character who has little to no flaws. They are perfect at everything, (In fanfiction, it also usually involves self-insertion, but not always: Definition of Mary Sue, via Wikipedia). Don't believe me? Let's look at it episode by episode:

In Asylum, she hacks the entire prison-planet with ease, despite being a prisoner herself. And also a Dalek. 

In The Snowmen, her bartender boss adores her and doesn't want her to leave. Her boss as a governess adores her, (in more way than one), and thinks she is far better at the whole parenting thing than he is. The kids she's a nanny for adore her as if she were their own mother. She's the one who pulls the Doctor out of his shlump after Amy and Rory's departure, (because in his 1100-ish years of life, in everything he's seen and all the friends and family he's had to say goodbye to, the "loss" of those two people was definitely all it took for him to become a grumpy, mopey, unattached hermit). Her death is ultimately what solves the whole episode's plot, because it makes it rain, which melts the death-snow. Even in death, she fixes everything. 

In The Bells of Saint John, she suddenly becomes amazing with computers, (though the Doctor does claim this is from her being "uploaded"), and manages to come up with a plan to find where they need to go that not even the Doctor could have come up with, despite his centuries of experience with computers, many far more advanced than a 21st century laptop. 

In The Rings of Akhaten, she's the one who convinces Mary that she does need to sing her song, and more importantly, it's her sacrifice of "the most important leaf in the world" that keeps "Grandfather" as bay, not the Doctor offering up his centuries of life, loss, and experiences. 

In Cold War, Clara is decided to be the only one who can actually talk to the Ice Warrior, Grand Marshal Skaldak. At the end, when Skaldak is about to blow the whole planet to bits, the Doctor helps, but it's primarily Clara asking him why he showed mercy once but not now, (and also reminding him of his daughter), that convinces him. 

In Hide, despite the fact that both the Doctor and the TARDIS insist that going into a pocket universe would kill the TARDIS's engines, Clara annoys the sentient machine enough that she is allowed entry and manages to fly into the pocket universe the Doctor is trapped in to save him. And everyone is fine. They even do it again, just to show how wrong the Doctor apparently was. Because why the fuck not? (And another thing: if the TARDIS can just fly itself where ever it wants to go whenever the Doctor's friends annoy and bother it enough, why didn't it just fly Rose back to him in The Parting of the Ways? She went through a shit ton more effort than Clara's simple chastising, and still had to break the damn console open to accomplish her goal).

In Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, Clara's concept of "big happy button" is ultimately what fixes everything, including her burning herself on said happy button, so that the Doctor in the future sees the message burnt onto her palm. Yeah, I know it's nonsense. I swear it used to be entertaining nonsense. Also, she finds the TARDIS library, where there just so happens to be a book on the history of the Time War laying out on a pedestal, and she just so happens to open right to the page with the Doctor's real name on it, something only the Doctor and River Song know. Because of course she does. 

In The Crimson Horror, it's Clara pointing out the the chimney doesn't produce any smoke that leads the crew to discover the full extent of Mrs. Gillyflower's plans. She's also the one who smashes Gillyflower's machine with a chair, after the Doctor offers his for-once-insufficient sonic screwdriver. 

In Nightmare in Silver, she is suddenly an awesome commander and planner, though we have never seen any previous evidence of this. She commands a group of troops and deals with the Doctor and his temporary split-personality, and actually basically runs the whole show while the Doctor is busy playing chess with himself. 

In The Name of the Doctor, she jumps into his timeline to save his life and keep the Great Intelligence from succeeding in his glorious grudge-match, thereby pissing anyone who is also a fan of the old series off by suggesting that it was Clara who first told the Doctor and Susan which TARDIS to take. Because of course she did. 

And most irritatingly of all, she ruins what could have been an amazing message in the 50th Anniversary special because she doesn't like what's happening.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a screencap of her boo-hoo face, but suffice it to say, when the War, 10th, and 11th Doctors have all three of their hands over the Gonna-Blow-Everything-Up button--basically the Doctor confirming to himself thrice over that he did not, in fact, have a choice in the Time War, and did, in fact, have to do it--Clara starts crying. Bad Wolfy Rosey person then decides this is definitely the best time to show them all an image of the people on Gallifrey, and Clara indignantly declares, "These are the people you're going to kill?"

Me, as an audience member, wanted to scream, "Yes! They are! Because if he doesn't, the Time Lords and Dalek may very well destroy the whole universe! To protect the whole of the universe and all of its future and all of its past, he has to sacrifice his own people. It's a strong, important message, damnit! Shut up and stop ruining it!"

But no. She ruins it. Because she basically says, "I don't like this, I'm gonna cry about it now. You need to fix it like you always fix it," and 11 is so damned whipped by her bullshit, that he immediately churns out some nonsense, convoluted plan to save the planet with the help of War, Ten, and every other one of his regenerations, (which is so not even a little bit well-enough explained), thereby erasing the emotional trauma that has built the Doctor's character up to where it currently is. So thanks to Clara, the whole back story of the entire rebooted series is now gone. Gallifrey and the Time Lords weren't destroyed, J/K LOL. Nevermind all the time the Doctor spent grappling with his guilt and the effect it had on his life and his decisions and his development as a character; that is all nullified by Gallifrey's survival, (more on this; excellent read). And Gallifrey fell no more because Clara cried. What...the fuck. 

The last time someone was this important to the Doctor's survival--because seriously, he'd be dead like at least seven times if not for Clara's always-being-right thing--it was a big fucking deal. Donna Noble was the most important woman in the universe, because she's the one who told the Doctor to stop. Had she not, he'd have died and the UK would have fallen to shit. Her one decision had an immense weight, and she almost couldn't grapple with this fact when it was revealed to her. But Clara does basically the same thing like eight fucking times like it's no big thing. And apparently it really isn't a big deal, because not even the Doctor ever says anything about it. 

She solves everything. Clara always fixes everything. She's perfect. And you know what? Perfect characters suck. It's Superman-syndrome; if you are practically perfect in every way, you are boring to watch because there is no drama. There is nothing at stake, because no matter what happens, you're going to fix it. You're always going to make the right decision and the right decision is almost never going to have any serious consequences. It makes things that are supposed to be dramatic seem stupid, because what's the point? If you're just going to have your MPDG magically fix everything with her whimsical ways, tell me honestly: what is the point? 

And this is why I wouldn't care if 11 died and the first thing 12 did was stab Clara in the face. Because since she has no personality, no depth, no flaws, I just straight-up don't care about her, one way or the other. Whether she leaves by violent death or just by waving goodbye and walking away, I won't care. I'll just mumble a quick "good riddance" and just wait for the show to either pick back up, or find more new and exciting ways to disappoint me.