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The Doom Generation (1995) dir. Gregg Araki

Cinematographer: Jim Fealy

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We love you Murder Grandpa

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Let's start with the guy who you maybe have the longest relationship with in the country, Jon Moxley... — Going Ringside Ep. 46: Eddie Kingston Unfiltered

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oh BTW here's my teeny tiny list of my favourite pigeon species

White breasted ground dove

Nicobar pigeon

Cinnamon headed green pigeon

Yellow footed green pigeon

Pheasant pigeon

Yellow breasted fruit dove

Many coloured fruit dove

Crowned pigeon

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Another year, another group of my delightful ninth graders trying to spell the word "tragedy" for their Romeo and Juliet assignment.

Last year's collection

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Kanda, Fukuoka Prefecture

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hurls more weird horse art at you

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Porygon

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Ch🤒

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First thing you see after you zoom in is how you die

How you dying 👀

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you try to turn it off but youre too turned on by it

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John Jude Palencar

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'Stańczyk' by Jan Matejko, 1862 // Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce, Mash episode 'As You Were', 1974

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Y'all, I feel like all the love for Mikey and Nicky really glosses over the part where Nick takes Mikey to his girlfriend's place, has sex with her on the floor against her wishes while Mikey waits awkwardly in the kitchen like 10ft away, then offers her to Mikey like she's a drag off his cigarette and when she rejects him, Mikey fucking strikes her. Fucking nuts if that ain't a dark turn.

The earlier scene where Mikey blows up over the cream at the diner felt like an act of desperation to care for his friend. It's aggressive and dramatic, but the scene with Nick's girlfriend is disturbing. Mikey is led into a scene that none of us can unsee and he knows it. The scene feels like Nick saying "I need you to want what I have for once, and then feel bad for wanting it." It shows us how irreparably broken and toxic this relationship is.

From then on, the movie is so much less, "find ya a buddy who'll fight you like a puppy for your own good" and more about how this mode of fraternal loyalty has brought them into this escalating doom spiral where Nick, jealous of his best friend, sets him up to be shamed, tested and put in very real danger while still depending on him for his literal survival. Mikey is pulled deeper and deeper into Nick's narcissistic self-destruction and it's almost certainly been the arc of their entire relationship.

Neither of these characters are "good" people, but we see the way Nick gets into Mikey's head. Mikey starts to become more hostile with his wife after Nick's jabs leave him feeling like she doesn't see him as clearly as Nick does and that was done on purpose. Nick needs to be the most important person in every interaction. He needs attention, power, validation, comfort, and protection, and he needs to constantly test the limits and devotion of the people around him.

In the end, Mikey is pushed into the understanding that the only way to retain his own identity in the face of Nick's increasingly unstable behavior is to be rid of him. In that moment of breaking free, we see Nick play every emotional card, love, pity, rage, resentment, in an attempt to hold on to what he has even if it threatens to pull everyone he loves down with him.

I've seen the film described as an exploration of friendship and betrayal or self-preservation vs loyalty, but no amount of love, support or sacrifice will change or help Nick. Nick has many opportunities to escape, but he needs the people in his life to prove to himself that he is real. He clings to Mikey like a security blanket. He degrades and humiliates his girlfriend who for whatever reason hasn't turned him in. He can't stop calling his wife just to torment and emotionally blackmail her. He keeps returning to places he knows aren't safe to solicit comfort and validation.

Mikey's commitment to his friend consumes and compromises him. There is real love between them but Nick cannot conceptualize other people existing independently of him. Mikey is willing to put himself at risk to give his friend the slightest chance of escape and Nick repays that by playing shit-magnet on Mikey's actual front porch.

Nick's last words may as well be, "I can't live with myself, so watch me die and know it's your fault." Nick sucks.

Before I actually watched this movie, I kept getting the impression that people saw something sweet and *maybe* a little queer in the relationship between Mikey and Nick. Now, honestly the queer angle is neither here nor there for me on top of what feels like romanticizing a toxic and abusive relationship through omission. The memes and gif-sets can't convey Nick treading on Mikey's Jewish values or undermining his other relationships.

I see the appeal from arms length. Nick is impulsive and intense. Mikey is fiercely loyal and sweet. They have a series of little adventures and from a distance, it's a damn near love story but any closer, it's clear this is a tragedy. The only way for Mikey to live his own life is to let go and let his best friend burn out alone.

(edited 12/1/22, after it was noted that it sounded like I was calling the potentially queer angle toxic. Not the case. Maybe if they'd just made out when they were younger this might have gone differently)