Criticism
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Day 501: When I Realized I Was Both Tom and Summer
From time to time, someone decides to resurrect the same debate about 500 Days of Summer (2009): was Summer the villain, or was Tom simply delusional? The response to that question rarely changes. Summer is perceived as a cold, evasive witch who purposely misleads poor Tom, while Tom is defended as a romantic, perhaps naive, but well-intentioned good guy. The framing of that narrative is quite unsurprising, almost expected, because it provides the natural urge to assign fault cleanly; a way to make sense of a dramatic, romantic split by assigning one person the role of the wrongdoer and the other the role of the one wronged.
Heated Rivalry and the Heated Debate of Queerness
For many, myself included, the show feels like it saved our 2025. The show is first and foremost a romance, documenting the nearly ten-year love affair between pro hockey stars Shane Hollander and Illya Rozanov. The two main characters struggle to keep their attraction to each other a secret from the world and from each other. For hockey fans like myself, the commentary about the current state of the NHL is glaringly obvious: as of 2026, there has never been an openly queer NHL player, active or retired.
Comicorpse Book One Finale (Episode 22)
Episode 22 (Finale) of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
This Is Why You Can’t Decide
Real commitment used to lead to milestones. A marriage, a mortgage, a job, a new city. These were all declarations, not just one-off choices or premeditated decisions. Today, permanence feels less like security and more like risk: to our identity, our autonomy, our finances, even our sense of self—especially as a woman who has been told both to settle and to have it all.
Fair warning, this essay is not nostalgic for compulsory marriage or shrinking yourself to fit into someone else’s script.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 21)
Episode 21 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
The Mundanity of Apocalypse à la Centralia Pennsylvania
Last summer, I finally made the drive up from Philadelphia to Centralia. Reddit posts warn that little draw remains. Gone are the pits spewing white smoke that Bill Bryson described in A Walk in the Woods while commenting that Centralia is “the strangest, saddest town I believe I have ever seen.” The stretch of Route 61, cordoned off due to the fires and transformed by taggers into a shifting canvas affectionately named "Graffiti Highway,” was buried in 2020.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 20)
Episode 20 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
J.D. Vance and the Façade of Masculinity in the Republican Party
The 2000s ushered in a progressive discussion on gender and sexual orientation and has since challenged social signifiers of what it means to be a man. It has thrown confusion into a vat of insecurity for those whose identity rests in material, surface level traits. In an effort to combat this, conservatives have reclaimed antique signifiers to masculinity; manliness has been pushed to the extreme. Any hint of emotionalism, the acceptance of women as equals, or physical weakness is considered a betrayal to the inherently ‘masculine.’
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 19)
Episode 19 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
How to Live A Fulfilling Life Under Tyranny
Inside a community center at Allentown, Pennsylvania, the Working Families Party (WFP) organized a watch party for the Super Bowl half time show for groups of migrant families—only one of many around the country. The air was heavy with anxieties of a possible ICE raid as people huddled around one screen to watch a great American artist perform. This is not an excerpt from Orwell’s 1984, or a 21st century fiction retelling of World War II. This was two weeks ago in the U.S.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 18)
Episode 18 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 17)
Episode 17 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 16)
Episode 8 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
“Polymerizing is Not Resurrection,” A close reading of Pynchon's “Gravity's Rainbow."
Gravity’s Rainbow is about a lot of things. It explores paranoia and conspiracy, culpability and morality. And all of this is set against the backdrop of Europe before, during, and directly after World War II. It’s dense and disturbing and devastating and somehow hilarious. It’s also all about plastic and how evil it is.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 15)
Episode 8 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 14)
Episode 14 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic
Where Do We Go From Here? The State of English Education
We live in an age of information abundance. Open any social media, any news (I use that term liberally) website, any Google search, and you’ll notice the overwhelm of informational noise. With so much distraction, it’s vital that our students learn to discern between trustworthy and untrustworthy sources and to reflect on how bias and motive can influence the information they consume. Without getting into specifics, we’ve seen the faltering of this skill taken to extremes in recent years—people falling victim to disinformation without considering the incentives or motivations behind their consumption.
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 13)
Episode 13 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 12)
Episode 12 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse
Comicorpse Book One (Episode 11)
Episode 11 of Book One — Romey Petite’s comic series, Comicorpse