It would be easier to say 'everyone sucks major ass and should move to a continent that doesn't include me'

My girlfriend works at a major international chain coffee shop that will not be named in this post, apart from the above. It's Starbucks. Anyway, due to her employment by the single biggest non-discount-price corporation, I spend a lot of time in said shop. It's not because I like the atmosphere.

Incidentally, does anyone really understand what 'I like the atmosphere' means? I've only ever heard it in reference to places like Starbucks and various booksellers, but I've never heard it in reference to places like Wal-Mart, JC Penny, Macys, Best Buy, or any "Bar and Grill(e)" restaurant. Do these places not have atmosphere? I've been inside them, and I can breathe (except when there are waaaay too many people and I get a little claustrophobic). I imagine the atmosphere is made up of nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2, much like the rest of the gods damned planet. And if it's a metaphor (which yes, I know it is), I would LOVE to know what makes one retail establishment more interpersonally accessible than another.

So the reason I spend a lot of time in Starbucks is because they have chairs to sit in, usually tables to set a portable computer on, and wi-fi, which my aforementioned lady friend gets at fifty per cent off. Normally I would prefer to sit at a shop with free wi-fi, like the locally owned coffee shop has (I think), but as this Starbucks stays open later than all but one other Starbucks in town, and is so very convenient to a) my lady, and b) my own workplace, I am willing to make sacrifices.

The problem (or one of them) I have with my own spending so much time in Starbucks is that when every other shop in the complex closes, all the teenagers, who on this occasion I find myself identifying as "Trendy MacPopcollars", flock directly to the inside of this shop. Now I realise it's summer, and they want to all hang out with friends. I just think that they should be able to find at least one friend who is willing to have drugs and alcohol to be consumed at unwisely high rates. Isn't that what being high school age is about? That's how it was when I was in HS. Or so I'm told, because I took the other option to massive intoxication, which was hanging out at home and talking online to like-minded people who picked "option B".

But I heard plenty of stories about getting drunk and high during the school year, so how am I supposed to believe that the same thing wasn't going on daily, or at least most days, throughout the summer? You have even FEWER places to be! And it's not like these kids have jobs, like some of my classmates did. (My classmates, being students at an upscale private Catholic HS, frequently had jobs at country clubs. I don't know exactly what they did, but I presume it was anything but kitchen work - you want the white kids to be visible and the "ethnic" kids to be in the kitchen and taking out the rubbish.) Now I had jobs where I could work in the evening, such as at a couple cinemas, a restaurant, and a Best Buy. I frequently did work in the evening. But that meant I didn't have time to hang out in fucking coffee shops until they kicked me out. And if I wasn't working evenings, I had to be in at 9 or 10 the next morning, so I was usually at home, either sleeping or making half-arsed attempts at sleep while actually playing video games!

The real problems I have though, aren't that they're there. It's that there's always at least five of them. Once the fifth member of the party leaves though, things quiet down thankfully. In the mean time, they're taking up large sections of the shop, and making lots of loud conversation at each other. Tonight one even threw another's Trendy McSandal across the shop.

(At this point, the author lost what semblance of a topic he had, and ends up yelling about individual things) ... (Or rather, he did that 20 minutes ago and is just now admitting it)

(I need an editor)

I may have to completely give up on fandoms.

I'm not saying I'm going to stop reading Star Wars, or Batman, or X-men, or Buffy, or Sandman, etc; I'm saying I can't stand listening to fans of any of those talk about said fandoms.

In Star Wars, the stories have been getting progressively darker. This is in large part thanks to the general taste of fiction since, to pick a date at random, 9/11. Since the largest terrorist attack on US soil, fiction has been getting progressively darker, partly to reflect the state of reality. Reality gets darker, our fiction has to get darker for us to believe it. Meanwhile, there are still people who don't like this change, and turn to fiction for escapism. This is fine, but if they really want escapism in fiction, they're going to have to go to romance novels.

Star Wars has always had dark bits and massive amounts of conflict. In the first movie, Darth Vader enters Princess Leia's cell with what is clearly an interrogation droid, and proceeds to torture her in an attempt to get her to confess the location of the rebel base. In order to get a PG rating, nothing could be shown of said torture, and since the only rating above PG was R at the time, they wouldn't have made NEARLY the money they did if it was R. In the same movie, Obi-wan Kenobi cuts off a drunk walrus's arm. There is blood aplenty. All other lightsabre amputations are immediately cauterised.

In the second installment, Luke's hand is chopped right the hell off by Darth Vader, immediately before Vader reveals that he is Luke's father. In Return of the Jedi, widely considered the tamest of the original series, the Emperor tortures Luke with lightning for damn near a full minute before Vader realises "oh shit that's my son maybe I should not let him be electrocuted to death huh". That's not something I'd consider to be happiness and light.

As for Batman, I've never seen a good interpretation of the Dark Knight that wasn't, well, dark. Burton's Bat was semi-dark, and Nolan's Bat is very much dark. Batman, in fact, has only been not dark in my memory in the 30s, when dark was synonymous with EVIL, in the 60s on television (ADAM WEEST!) and in the 90s, when Joel Schumacher added exaggerated codpieces and armoured nipples. The only GOOD interpretations of Batman were always dark. Adam West's Bat was good when I was a kid, but if I look at it now, I weep.

My main point, I suppose, is that no-one will ever write something that satisfies everyone. I realise this, but it still annoys me when I'm hearing someone, even a friend, talking about 'you know it would be so much better if OMG THEY MADE ANOTHER DEATH STAR LOLZ', while the person sitting next to him says 'OMG THEY NEED TO STOP FOCUSING SO MUCH ON THE SKYWALKERS', which prompts someone else to say 'THEY NEED TO FOCUS EXCLUSIVELY ON THE SKYWALKERS OMG'. This all prompts me to stab myself in the ear until I don't have to listen to this shit anymore. So I think I'm ought to take care of that before I have to shed blood.