#I freaking love these two down to a narrative level

[m-u-n-c-h-y]

Preston/Gage is a really interesting dynamic - It's hard not to notice that they have a LOT in common, but stand on completely opposing sides especially when it comes to morality. Seeing as you're the only person I can find who actually ships these two, I just wanted your thoughts on how those two might work in more than just a hatefuck/bad-time situation? Especially considering Preston's history and trauma relating to raiders. Even if it's not a romantic/sexual way, just both working for Sole and not tearing each other apart?

Oh you sweet summer child, you have opened the flood gates lmao

In all seriousness, the similarities are by design. My friend and I (we're like the only two people that actively ship them), noticed a while ago that Gage and Preston are written to be narrative foils. They're very similar in their over arching goals, wants, motives, backstories, etc. But they're complete opposites when it comes to their morals and personalities. And that's on purpose. They're differences contrast each other to highlight them, and make them easier to spot and see, usually for the main character. In this case it's us, the player.

Basically, my friend and I often say that they both believe that community is the best at surviving. But for Preston it's about working together and helping to rebuild and defend, while for Gage it's about power and taking what you need (survival of the fittest, but community style).

In terms of working together? Oh boy, I've got a lot of thoughts.

Particularly, I have a bunch of AUs where Preston is forced by Gage to become the Overboss, and AUs where Gage is forced to work under the Sole Survivor. A lot of the time, their working together is due out of pure necessity. Mostly because Gage is threatening innocent people either outright or just by his presence alone (plot related stuff).

It's always very tense and usually there's a major threat if one lets the other die, forcing them both to behave. Preston and Gage in terms of actually fighting and working together is interesting. Preston is used to a more long ranged, structured, and defensive style, while Gage is more close quarters, chaotic, and aggressive (which is actually reflected a little in their companion perks). And both of them seem to prefer planning strategies and working with teams. So, they actually compliment each other. When they're not arguing over everything that is.

But in terms of... expressing themselves, actually talking to each other? It's a bit of a toss up. A lot of the time, when they aren't arguing or insulting each other, both like to slap down truth bombs every once in a while. Making the other see a new perspective, even if they don't want to. Preston pointing out Gage's unwillingness to trust anyone, while Gage points out that trusting no one got him this far in the first place. Gage being the first in line to criticize setters for always needing help, making them weak and unable to defend themselves. Preston in turn, criticizes raiders for their overzealous belief in taking rather than building, growing, stabilizing, which just makes them just as weak. Both not realizing that the other is working towards trying to change that. Trying to get their respective factions to grow strong enough to be self sufficient.

I also think, weirdly, they would be willing to defend the other when it comes to people criticizing their work ethics. They're both hard working, they both get shit done, they're competent. And to question that of either man, sets the other off. They may hate each other, but both of them have a willingness to put work in, to (excuse the language here) pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get shit done. It's a weird respect they both share.

In terms of trauma... it's hard. So damn hard. They were both betrayed, horribly so, basically left to die. Gage took away the idea that he can't trust anyone, but also still looking for people to just listen to him. While Preston was left with so many feelings of worthlessness and bitterness, yet he still wants to find a way to help.

In many of my AUs, I like to imagine a scenario where both of them, being forced to work together, have to confront Clint. And it always ends with Gage taking Preston's side. Not because most of my aus involve them being in some kind of fucked up relationship, but because Gage would HATE Clint. On principal. Which, I think says a lot about Gage's character.

I could go on and on, but that's just my present thoughts atm. I'm thinking of making a general Fallout discord server that focuses more on lore and fandom, so if anyone would be interested in more of my ramblings about my specific AUs and weird little ships, I'll definitely be posting an invite link soon. In the mean time, feel free to just poke my brain about Preston/Gage (or Preston/Maxson cause I ship that too lmaoooo), or any of my AUs. I've got a lot of them.

[ominous-horse-noises]

im ab to be annoying ab dimension20 fhjy but im genuinely loving the character arcs for the bad kids this season?

kristen going from self-annihilatingly stupid to trying to build a genuine bridge with the man who not only wielded the religion that traumatised her (bobby dawn), but also was trying to ruin her life, just bc she thought a grieving father ought to be comforted in some way? her genuine distress at being unable to revivify buddy even though the two had only had negative interactions, or her biting her tongue in front of her parents so she could better look after her little siblings? grappling with the fact that she still, on some level, expected practising religion to be easy and convenient for her as a holdover from an entire childhood spent being a Chosen One, and finally putting her nose to the grindstone and committing to working her ass off for a deity that couldn't even benefit her for a hot minute? making an effort to be cordial with tracker's new gf and letting go of that codependency? the kristen applebees from ep20 would NOT do all the same stupid shit as ep1 and i love that.

fabian being humbled by the narrative again and again has been an absolute treat for his character. the whole ivy/mazey situation was great: freshman/sophomore year fabian would've gone for ivy no sweat, i mean her character seemed pretty similar to pre-redemption aelwyn and he had a huge crush on her then. but this time, when he realised he'd hurt a genuinely great person, and intentionally swallowed his pride to make it up to mazey, even though it required him being 'uncool' with the whole twister thing. his general arc of learning that earnestness and humility doesn't make him less of a man felt like a natural extension of fabian defining his own version of masculinity- sure, a 'maximum legend', but also someone deeply involved in the arts, and someone who is less afraid of saying sorry and being vulnerable in front of someone he likes

fig. fig fig fig. what a woman. its been absolutely fascinating watching build her sense of identity over these three seasons. at her core, fig is a character that loves so deeply. in freshman, she was terrified of the depth of her own devotion, so she tried to distance herself emotionally from everyone. in sophomore, she built herself around that love for other people. in junior year, fig's arc has been learning she can do both: that she's defined by her love for others, but not solely by it. ik emily wanted to retire the character before this season but i think fig's paladin arc was the best capstone to her journey possible.

gorgug's arc has been about establishing clear boundaries for himself and i love it. im aware there's been some Discourse ab the mango soda scene but to me that was pretty easily chalked up to teenage insecurity. a big part of gorgug's arc was trying to believe in himself when everyone around him told him he was too dumb to follow his passion- imagine struggling in an area that you have no natural aptitude for, and someone comes along and also trounces you in the one area you thought you were the best in. i'd be petty and reactive too (gorgug follows up calling her a freak with the fact that she beat the shit out of him, so its clearly him just still smarting from a bruised ego and not actual malice). in general, i've really like gorgug learning to put his foot down and say enough is enough without completely losing his gentleness.

adaine hasnt had an obvious arc, but considering she addressed most of her baggage in the first two seasons, i'm not surprised. i would've liked to see the other bad kids address her 'teenage adult' behaviour, but her self-awareness about it and relying on fabian to pull in clutch for the oracool stuff still felt like she'd learned to rely on her friends at least + her reaching out to aelwyn and the two of them healing from their parents together has been rewarding it its own right.

riz is perfect and has learned nothing. his neuroticism is part of his natural swag

[demonslayedher]

Things that went through my head while watching this episode:

--This is the episode when I can most look at Gyokko's eyes as eyes

--We were robbed of the chance to see Muichiro and Shinobu tag-teaming on a verbal slaughter of a demon

--That said, with how much I started wanting more Muichiro & Kanamori interaction in the previous episode, I was really, really, really happy to get it here. Kanamori's freak-out performance is a gem, and now I headcanon that in the immediate aftermath, Muichiro recovered in Kanamori's home so that he and his wife could look after him (and Kanamori could get to know him better, if only Muichiro weren't probably out cold (or hot?) for two days and then brought to the Butterfly Mansion where his temperature was recorded--but hey, the light novel gives me hope for more off-screen interactions).

--Haganezuka is such an MVP

--Kotetsu's calmness is so appreciated. He really is so stoic in a lot of ways, and wise beyond his years. ...Not always, of course.

--In the demon profiles in the second fanbook, their elimination is credited to the Corp members who killed them, though sometimes that credit is widely attributed if it was a group effort (for instance, everybody we focused on the Natagumo arc gets some credit in taking down Rui). In Gyokko's case, I think it's only fair if Kotetsu, Kanamori, and Haganezuka is get some credit in Gyokko's defeat. Muichiro wouldn't have survived without them.

--It really is Gyokko's bad luck he was the strongest opponent Muichiro has faced thus far, because that was part of what it took to push Muichiro to both a desperate point that tipped him over the edge in attaining both his mark and his memories. Gyokko was a goner against a genius with two power-ups, especially while he was already frustrated with a man like Haganezuka.

--Gyokko's final words about how he is a more perfect being than Muichiro sounded very Muzan-like, so I looked back in the fanbooks to double-check that indeed, Muzan rather likes Gyokko. Perhaps that it only due to selling his pots, because a one of my favorite 4-panel comics has Muzan very blatantly state that he doesn't care if Gyokko burns up in the sun, but I'd like to think Muzan found him likable for his own arrogance too. It was clear, of course, that Gyokko considers Muzan the most perfect being.

--This also reminded me Gyokko has a preference for eating children. Kinda ironic, dontcha think? Aside from being beaten by someone who is still practically a child, this battle could have been a lot darker if Gyokko took a hungry interest in Kotetsu.

--Ms. Tokito is pretty and I wish we got more of her. : /

--Muichiro is so many levels of child in this episode. Such a brat. The biggest brat. Snot-nosed, arrogant brat. BABY.

--I love how much this episode added little touches of humanity to Amane and her daughters; Ufotable really went for that. The struggle Amane, a mother of multiples, feels as he separates the twins' handhold. And then the narrative symmetry of having ghost!Yuichiro place his hand back on top of Muichiro's! Kya, I love it!!

--Speaking of love

--Mitsuri-chan, you may as well be the Angel Pillar. You are too sweet and graceful and wonderful for this world. That entrance, and it background music. That move wrapping the sword around one serpent and practically floating with the momentum as you use it to knock down the others. That cheerful assurance to your juniors. I love you. I love you right down to your peachy fingernails.

--Backing up a bit, credit where credit is due--Tanjiro is holding up amazing well and someone keeping minimally injured. He and Genya and Nezuko have been a significant help keeping him/them occupied this long, otherwise the damage to the village would have been far more wide-spread than just what the monster fishes did.

--Also, poor Tanjiro and Muichiro both have had to go this whole battle without shoes! Poor kids! And Nezuko too, those feet are just spares anyway.

--Genya is using those demon powers for more than just regeneration now! Look at him take on that serpent with his bare hands!

--I love how much Ufotable committed to making us feel everything Tanjiro went through in a series of very busy manga panels--his foot getting messed him, the damage to his ear and how that throws him off, and then that squeeze! It's easy to forget that happened in the manga because it was so quick, but with all those sound effects and darkness, they really sold how close he came to being mush. (Consider this practice, Tanjiro.)

--Thanks for the Rengoku feels, Gotouge. You crocodile.

[mythomaniac-freak]

I'm a mythomaniac freak

I think I am anyway. That's all I really know about myself. It hurts to not know more but these two concepts I can latch unto the most steadily, and use to explain why I exist why I do. I really don't like people- but I do! I do and I don't, its very hard. I have lots of friends, people I care about, and I know that ultimately every person on this planet and beyond is like them but a bit different. I have over 10! I just went back to count! I just can't seem to find *community* within this. I've tried, over and over again, but I ultimately can't find what I'm looking for. I am either made extremely uncomfortable and feel unsafe, or feel as though I am the one making others uncomfortable and unsafe. I like being a freak, there is fun to being part of the counter-culture which the mainstream finds disturbing: but within that I can't find my counter-culture, the freaks who I belong with. I thought I had before, I always think I do- but it always comes down to me realizing I don't feel right around these people, or feeling like they are worse off with me there. It feels like there is no place for me no matter how long I search for it, no matter how much I change, it always seems to stay the same. I don't think its loneliness, something adjacent to that. It sucks to be the freak of freaks; and I know there's many out there, I know I'm not alone in this, but that doesn't really help when I can't find the ones who fit me. Maybe I make it hard on myself, how I modify my behaviour for each person dramatically, how I snap between emotional states to best suit their context, how I desperately crave to understand them because they make me feels things that I think they feel, but I'm wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong always wrong I always misunderstand I can never understand them but my brain always thinks it does. And I know it's not true, on an intellectual level I know this isn't right, but it really does feel that even those 10+ hate something about me. With each and every one it feels like I can say the wrong thing and evoke disgust, make them question why they even speak to me. They've never indicated this but there's a coldness that I just can't escape sometimes, like I've failed them completely and would be better off disappearing. And I can try to hide this and pretend I'm working, I can seek to understand myself through trauma and the classifications of mental disorders, but I feel I am simply lost and trying so hard to find a light in the fog only to snuff each one out as I find it. For a blog no one should read I will entice you by saying I'll explain more of why I think this is the case later, but for now I want to explain the mythomaniac part; Its a bit of a joke but of all the mental disorders and problems I might have, I am most confident in this.

I decided on the term mythomania both because I love learning about ancient myth, religion, the way stories have been passed down, and because pathological lying sounds worse. But that is what I do, I do pathologically lie, to everyone around me and myself. Its frustrating, because sometimes I'll catch the words coming out of my mouth and apologize because what I just said wasn't true-other times it will take days, weeks, months, fucking years to figure it out. Its not on purpose, but there becomes a purpose once they fester long enough: once the concept becomes part of my identity I have to protect it, so new lies pop up over and over again to fill in the dots- and they're boring, I think that's why they work. They tend to be mundane, they're casual, normal, often poorly researched as I frantically google something I *should* know *should* be able to recognize means this isn't a true thing about me- but I think my issues with memory make it difficult to just snap out of it. I believe I have a series of memories that, when spoken aloud, create a narrative for my life which is mostly factual and accurate- but these memories are few and far between. Ever since moving away from the old hellhole they've remained so distant, and while I am fortunate enough that they aren't completely gone like I once worried about, they so easily blend in with anything else I might say about myself. Also throughout my life, I've been told over and over that I'm wrong and just not remembering things correctly-that I've forgotten something crucial, and despite my best attempts I am rarely able to feel satisfied in any of the four conclusions: 1. I have indeed forgotten 2. Both I and my enquirer have forgotten details together 3. I remember correctly and my enquirer has forgotten 4. My enquirer is lying Some people have lied to me in ways which make me consider it for even the most minor of discrepancies: it sounds paranoid because it is, but there is a utility in lying to someone about the most minor details, it makes them unsure of any part of their reality. And that is where I love now!

I mentioned those memories, I have no idea how true they are! They feel true, they feel true in ways others don't, but I can only rely on external evidence to validate them and that can only take me so far. And when I right now am so detached from them. Its not like I try to lie- I never do, I cannot once think of a time I intentionally lied to someone. I've considered it, I've considered going behind people's backs for purposes cruel or altruistic, but I really don't think I've ever gone through with it. Does that even matter when so much of what I do is automated? I can say over and over that I'm not trying to lie, but I don't try to say anything that I do-I will occasionally slow down and try to think through what I'm saying but so rarely does this happen that even now as I type I have paused only *twice* to consciously edit or add things: once to count roughly how many people I consider a friend, twice to add the paragraphs about being a freak of freaks and my friends hating me. But if all that I do and say and think and want is just stream of consciousness, if none of it is planned, does the lying being unplanned make it any different? I don't know how many people I've really hurt, hurt in ways they will remember and impact them forever: I am sorry, I don't know what I can do to fix it, I want to but I just don't know how. Just writing that it sounds like it means nothing, apologizing to no one because I hate myself. I do hate myself, I try to think I've gotten through it but I fucking haven't, I need to stop lying to myself but I can't get a hold on what is true and real. I don't know if I'll ever feel real, if I'll ever feel like a genuine person: that's another lie, often enough I do, but deep down I fear that this question always lingers to rise from my stomach and grab my throat, that when I reflect on everything that's ever happened to me I will always have to ask Was I lying? Was I making it up? Was this really how I felt? Did this even happen? And I don't think I'll ever know, I don't think life can be proven to you and even if it can be I don't know how to prove it.

So welcome to the beginning and end of my blog! I plan on posting more, probably mostly how I feel, I figure once I write those out these will be the endpoint. I don't want to delete any of this I think, even if I come to hate it later I want to look back and understand the times where I felt truly honest with myself. The times where, and say it with me folks, I was a mythomaniac-freak!

[youcallyourselfafilmcritic]

This was easy to ignore when it was some dumb meme but press have reported on it enough for Cameron to respond so let's go over why James Cameron would not be a good choice for the Titan implosion

(let's ignore the fact that his friend was on the sub)

Two things made Cameron uniquely qualified to direct a Titanic movie. First off the sinking is dramatic and chaotic. Passengers freaking out, the scramble for minimal lifeboats, cold water sliding in and pushing debris and disrupting apparatuses on board, it breaking in half, those in the water futilely waiting for rescue while they freeze to death etc. Horrifying stuff but damn exciting viewing that utilises Cameron's distinctive strengths as a genre action director: escalating the stakes and tension with vast scenarios that are naturally occurring but hit you out of nowhere and keep you gripped

The climax of Titanic is up there with Terminator 2 or Aliens: it's the Poseidon Adventure on acid and Jim takes every advantage of this opportunity

The Titan imploded in seconds on the first day according to most experts (the Navy likely knew this on the first day). There's no real rising action or tension unless you want to just make shit up.

The second? Well Jim loved the Titanic long looooong before he ever put pen to paper on the script

Guy's not just a director with a pitch-he's an oceanographic explorer with deep, intimate knowledge of that ship. He's not fascinated with the sinking, he's fascinated by the Titanic. He's been down there 33 times-he's BUILT his own sub! Guy's obsessed.

*HE DIDN'T EVEN WRITE THE FUCKING SCRIPT BECAUSE HE WANTED TO HE CONVINCED HOLLYWOOD TO FUND AN EFFORT TO DIVE DOWN TO THE FUCKING BOAT BECAUSE HE WANTED TO EXPLORE IT*

The Titan was a minor annoyance for him until it got his friend killed. So like he's not gonna have that passion or keen interest and also has a billion and a half Avatar movies to make. If you genuinely want this movie and are not just memeing he ain't your guy.

But also in general it'd make a shit narrative film. You know why there's a love story in Titanic? Because otherwise it's a laborious wait for the iceberg to hit or you have it immediately and forego all tension building. You need something to keep the audiences invested so they decided a love story. Jack and Rose are-of course-fictional but that's alright as there were fucking THOUSANDS of people on that ship it's easy to slot them in. The people on the Titan likely died Day 1 and died immediately. It was an incredibly tightknit space with five people. Not much narrative potential here unless again you entirely break from the story.

(not the picture of those who died sans Stockton Rush but gives you an idea of the size two people are snug in there)

So the meat of the film is on building up or the aftermath. While the aftermath could have some potential that's not the story-and this is something at a glance it DOES have in common with the Titanic: the hubris and utter arrogance of the wealthy.

And this is where I say the lifeboats are short-sighted and the irony of it sinking on its maiden voyage (this wasn't The Titan's first trip) this is more an accepted truism of not only the elite fools who invested in it but the engineers and public: this ship was unsinkable. Everybody thought this.

Nearly the entirety of the deepsea diving community told OceanGate their submersible was heading for disaster.

Stockton Rush was not some prideful but short-sighted man blinded to the risks of his vessel thanks to like-minded peers. He was an arrogant, greedy fool who wanted to create a rich person's tourist trap one of the most famous graveyards in the world via the cheapest resources possible. His Randian-levels of self-righteousness made him fish food and led to the horrific death of a teenager. He fucked around and I doubt he took the nanosecond before his body was eviscerated to contemplate how he found out

And here's the final thing: this all probably works best as a documentary. A deep dive (sorry) into this company and their blowhardy foolish methods to goad rich idiots out of their money. The factors that led to this. But that isn't a narrative story even focusing on the hubris angle. Because there is plenty of hubris in the Titanic-oh is there a lot!-but there's also a romanticisim. Hence why romance stories work so well when adapting it.

The Titanic is a symbol of a bygone era-and a lot of this is rooted in classism but that last gasping sighs of Victorian-era innovation is something to be marveled at feeling like a culmination of the invention of the steam-powered train. It also examines this classism (which the 97 film explores-albeit briefly) in that there were third class passengers and most of them died. It reveals the beauty and elegance of the era but also the abuse and callousness of a time 2 years before World War 1 changed everything. It perfectly encapsulates the majesties and the tragedies of this late 19th/early 20th century culture which I think is why so many people are fascinated by it. Our world just isn't built like this anymore.

Not only were the passengers fucking billionaires (so the class angle at least on the vessel is gone) the hubris is easy to sum up. We know this guy is a jackass-there's nothing as interesting following his jackassahoonery before the sub explodes compared to exploring the societal culture of a time long gone depicted on the Titanic.

So this isn't even a it's too soon thing-the first movie about the Titanic was made 30 days after it sunk and with one of the survivors (this was back when movies were made in five minutes at the budget of a cup of coffee). A narrative feature on the Titan is a boring idea and far far below the skillset of the director who newspapers are now saying should make it all because it exploded visiting a famous ship he made a famous movie about

Also, again, he's a bit busy making a fuckton of Avatar sequels I guess one person wants. That person being James Cameron.

[planned-planethood]

Life updates

I guess this is the place where I write random life updates now on occasional journaling missions.

I finished all my classes for graduate school and have met the minimum req for a master's degree (although I am in the PhD track). So that's a cool accomplishment on my way to bigger and better stuff.

My research is super freaking fun, although I am still far from having results. One step forward, two steps backwards at times.

I really am unsure of my post-school plans. I would be interested in doing a planetary science post doc somewhere but I am *so* so tempted to go into data science. With my experience as a software engineer, and then also as a scientist (I use machine learning techniques too), I think I'll be well-situated to go into the private sector as a data scientist, if that's the way I wind up going.

Alternatively, my advisor has left my university (still my advisor though!) to work for the Smithsonian. All my research collaborators are now Smithsonian employees working on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA. I was told I'd have a good shot at a job there, at least as a graduate level intern, and I would love to do that.

I am currently dating someone from the area I was living in before moving to the South (and it looks like in a few years we may move back up there, fingers crossed). I've been super happy and she seems to have also been very happy with our relationship so far. I really hope things continue to work out! Here is a picture of us at a lake:

I also recently began writing again (fiction). I am writing a collection of connected short stories that build up a greater story line between them while maintaining total narrative independence from one another. I would like to publish one of them sometime (already got a personal rejection and compliments from a magazine editor). I'm keeping details sparse until I can publish something... ;)

Have also been exercising. I am doing some Yin Yoga now! The stretches for my knees have absolutely changed my life and healed my knee injuries up entirely! I have been running as a result and I'm in probably the best shape of my life, to include how I felt in basic training.

Here's me after running through a rain storm:

Other than yoga and running, I've been mostly doing calisthenics for strength training stuff. I'm not really seeking to be a big time weightlifter but mostly want to just feel as comfortable in my own body as humanly possible. It's working!

My gf and I have also gone on a bunch of adventures! We just got back from a trip up north. We feasted on some amazing charcuterie while camping and have come across some pretty awesome wildlife!

Here are some pics of wildlife stuff, as well as some delicious food stuff I have recently had:

Left: Alligator directly beneath boardwalk (only a few inches above the ground).

Right: Bear scratches on a tree trunk near my cabin in Massachusetts

From left to right (+top -> down): a delicious zucchini pasta with prosciutto, a pickled beet salad w vinaigrette (BEST salad I have EVER had!), the charcuterie we ate during a camping trip, Sicilian style pep pizza, oysters, pistachio spread, ratatouille

I fucking looooooooove food

[twistedtummies2]

The Price May Be Right - Number 29

Welcome to “The Price May Be Right!” I’m counting down My Top 31 Favorite Vincent Price Performances & Appearances! The countdown will cover movies, TV productions, and many more forms of media. Today we focus on Number 29: The Phantom, from Phantom Manor.

“Phantom Manor,” for those who don’t know, is the Disneyland Paris rendition of Disney’s Haunted Mansion attraction. The attraction is BASICALLY the same, at least on a superficial level, with a lot of the same favorite scares and a similar story setup, but with its own unique twists. First of all, the premise of the ride is set in the age of the Wild West: the house – called Ravenswood Manor – is the home of a former gold baron, whose spirit, simply known as “The Phantom,” acts as our not-so-benevolent guide, in the same vein as the Ghost Host from other attractions.

Second of all, and perhaps most notably and well-known…the tone is a bit different. The Haunted Mansion in the English-speaking parks (as well as at Tokyo Disneyland) has a blend of both real creepiness and more humorous hauntings. “Phantom Manor,” however, goes for a more overtly horror-themed experience. Humor is still present, but it’s even darker than at the other parks, and the visuals and scenarios presented are particularly nasty and grotesque in comparison. The specters at the Haunted Mansion are typically rather cartoonish in nature, but in Phantom Manor, you encounter hellhounds, decaying zombies, headless men, and other nightmarish creations. So…what does Vincent Price have to do with all this? Well, at the time the ride was being made, Price was at the Disney studios, working on some other projects for the company. Someone on the creative staff had the brilliant idea, “Hey! Why not make Vincent Price the Phantom?” It was a logical idea to have. Who better to play a newer, more evil version of the classic Ghost Host than freaking Ratigan, after all? Price was happy to participate, and so it was done. However, things got a bit complicated when the Imagineers realized that Price’s French was not as fluent as many would believe: he could certainly speak it, but acting through it without stumbling was a lot trickier. This is where the problems arose, and led to the now-infamous saga of Price’s narration for Phantom Manor. Initially, Prices’ vocals guided guests through the experience, but it was quickly realized that the largely French-speaking guests of the park hadn’t a clue what was actually being said. So, after a limited run, Price’s voice as the Phantom was largely eliminated: aside from the Phantom’s own devilish cackle, which can be heard anytime the ghost is encountered physically in the ride (usually in the form of a dapper skeletal figure, as seen in the picture demonstration), Price’s voice was muted, and a new French-speaking narrator was chosen. However, after many years, the decision was made to reach a compromise: nowadays, Phantom Manor has an all new narrative soundtrack, which features TWO different ghosts. One is Vincent Price’s Phantom, and the other is voiced by French actor Bernard Alane. Price’s vocals – and his signature laugh – definitely add an extra layer of novelty to Phantom Manor, and are one of the most well-known parts of its legacy, along with its much darker tone. Ultimately, the only reason I don’t rank this ride any higher is because, as much as I love Vincent Price…well, it’s a bit hard to top the original Ghost Host from Disneyland, in my opinion, and that is, effectively, the role he plays. But hey, if you’re going to get anybody to tackle that part, Price would certainly be the man to do it! Thanks to his voice being forever on loop in this ride, it is perhaps ironic that Price will forever be immortalized…by playing a dead man.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with my pick for Number 28!

[violet-moonstone]

vigdagcup playlist song #7

"You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison" by My Chemical Romance

not gonna lie...this is not really a vigdagcup song but specifically a Dagur song

descriptions and stuff below because theres reference to abuse in prison

So I have this narrative in my head (literally made it up today) about Dagur befriending and then falling in love with an inmate in prison - someone smaller and a bit younger than him who he protects from the abuse that he himself faced during his first year or two before he bulked up and was better able to protect himself.

I imagine this man reminds dagur a lot of hiccup - even if just on a superficial level, and that becomes a large part of his attatchmeent to him...and it kind of freaks the other guy out. Like Dagur may sleepily say "good morning Hiccup" to him before realizing what he's said and then get really embarrassed about it

I keep going back and forth about the nature of their relationship...whether they both have genuine affection or its more one sided or even manipulative on Dagur's part and the other man just wants his protection - I tend to go with the latter option. I imagine them escaping together and the other man leaving Dagur, angry that he still expects them to have any kind of relationship on the outside. And Dagur begs him to stay with him because he's the only source of human connection he currently has...like gets down on his knees and begs and says that he loves him. it doesn't work.

I think the lyrics also reflect some of Dagur's darker thoughts...two of the lines sound like suicide ideation to me

Lyrics : In the middle of a gunfight In the center of a restaurant They say, "Come with your arms raised high"

Well, they're never gonna get me Like a bullet through a flock of doves To wage this war against your faith in me Your life will never be the same On your mother's eyes, say a prayer Say a prayer, yeah

Now, but I can't, and I don't know How we're just two men as God had made us Well, I can't, well, I can, yeah Too much, too late, or just not enough of this Pain in my heart for your dying wish I'll kiss your lips again

They all cheat at cards and the checkers are lost My cellmate's​ a killer, they make me do push-ups in drag But nobody cares if you're losing yourself Am I losing myself? Well, I miss my mom Will they give me the chair? Or lethal injection, or swing from a rope if you dare? Ah, nobody knows All the trouble I've seen

Now, but I can't, and I don't know How we're just two men as God had made us Well, I can't, well, I can, yeah Too much, too late, or just not enough of this Pain in my heart for your dying wish I'll kiss your lips again

To your room What they ask of you will make you want to say, "So long" Well, I don't remember Why remember you?

Do you have the keys to the hotel? 'Cause I'm gonna set this motherfucker on fire Life is but a dream for the dead And well I, I won't go down by myself But I'll go down with my friends, yeah Now, now, now, now (I can't explain) Now, now, now, (I can't complain) Now, now, yeah, yeah Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, haha

the vocals at "I can't explain, I can't complain" at the end send my soul into the atmosphere every time

[canmom]

comics comints 1: The Incal

I’ve been reading a whole buncha comics, let’s talk about them on Tumblr!

In fact I’m gonna talk about a bandes desinée, a manhua, a manga and an american comic book. I need to think of more countries that have comics to read! Anyway since I have a bunch of comics to talk about let’s split it up a bit for the sake of your dash.

First up, The Incal!

The Incal (L’Incal)

(Alexandro Jodorowsky and Jean “Moebius” Giraud, 1981-88, trans.Sasha Watson & Justin Kelly)

Oh Moebius. You know I think he’s the shit [c.f. Animation Night 71], so I won’t spent too long here talking about how great old Jean was.

The Incal is one of Moeb’s best known comics, a collaboration with infamous alchemy freak Alejandro Jodorowsky [Toku Tuesday 27]. The backstory of this comic is basically, after Jodo’s Dune collapsed - leaving Moebius, O’bannon and Giger to go work on Alien - he went to comic books, teaming up with Moebius to make this comic. Knowing a bit about Jodo’s whole deal, and watching The Holy Mountain in particular, definitely made it easier to figure out what the Incal is getting at.

Well, sorta understand. I would probably need to crack open some grimoires to get the whole thing. But I can think like, oh, this is the bit where they were on the mountain getting confronted by their fears.

On one level it’s pretty straightforward! It’s a space opera in which hapless private investigator John DiFool (Tarot symbolism!) gets caught up in a big cosmic conflict to stop d-d-d-d-d-darkness from eating all the stars in the universe. On another it’s a kind of symbolic occult narrative where just about everyone is a tarot card and a lot of stuff that happens you just have to say, ok, alchemy is happening.

Apparently it was first conceived in a lucid dream in which Jodo got the image of two pyramids. He says he would conceive the story in a trance and dictate it to Moebius, who would sketch it out in real time. So it’s not quite so simple as ‘Jodo script, Moebius art’, but directly a collaboration between the two. Jodo is full of praise for Moebius’s subconscious, which he calls a ‘lake of colour’. They worked in this way for about ten years.

The result is... a curious tone. It’s actually generally pretty upbeat and funny, otherwise ‘alchemical acid trip’. Of course, Moeb handles everything with perfect aplomb. This is just the second page. I was lucky enough to be given a paper copy by a friend in America, and read it on the plane back, and it’s a treat to just hold this thing in your hands.

For (I can only assume) alchemical reasons, John Difool has no idea what’s going on and just kind of bumbles his way through the plot, chivvied along by the Incal itself, his pet parrot..lemon...thing, and the various characters who join him along the way like square-jawed Metabaron (who Jodo would later expand into a whole line of hypermasculine Metabarons who replicate through child abuse) and austere sexy space princess sisters Solune and Aminah. Before long they’re doing stuff like sending Difool to do various missions to advance their plan while the rest of them have shrunk their spaceship down to a tiny enough size to fit in his blood vessel.

Meanwhile, there’s a whole bunch of stuff kicking off in the background: a growing planetary rebellion, a decadent noble who adopts a series of bodies, the schemes of the Technos... which tie back in to the main story sooner or later. Big sweeping space opera stuff.

This being a Jodo story there’s a kind of weirdly mechanical hetero relationship in there, though he definitely puts some fun twists on it, like the time that a space bug alien impersonates John DiFool’s love interest (for diplomatic reasons), leading down the line to an entire planet of John DiFool clones. That’s kind of what it’s like: there’s never a huge amount of tension, you’re just along for the ride to see what wild turn the story will take next.

(this isn’t the nicest scan, unfortunately. it looks better on paper! anyway sometimes your page is a spider.)

There’s a curiosity to me in that, while the story involves a lot of rebellion, it’s a rebellion to restore the rightful Emporess (a Perfect Androgyne in the form of conventionally male and female bodies kind of sutured together - the Metabarons series goes a lot more into the galaxy’s iteration through a series of Perfect Androgyne candidates) to power against the schemes of the Technopope.

All in all, it’s easy to see why this comic is so influential. Of Moeb’s work, it’s definitely one of the ones that most ‘actually has a plot’, and Jodo doesn’t do the whole rape fixation thing (not that the weird deranged sex shit doesn’t add a lot to Jodo’s works lmao); it’s just fun.

It’s interesting looking at Moebius’s drawing from a more technical eye. He’s very good at balancing areas of detail with space. Panelling is generally conservative, just boxes of various sizes, and occasionally big full page spash panels - though the composition within each panel is exquisite. And what really blows me away is the amount of complex backgrounds and crowd shots.

Moeb knows exactly how to compose a big geometric form; he can supply his characters a great variety of faces and physiques. And there are so many distinctive outfits and character designs. It’s interesting to see how he shifts the art style to fit the tone of the scene; in a comedic scene John’s nose will be long and pointy, in a dramatic scene his face will get angular and accentuate the cheekbones even more, as in this scene where John meets Animah and spontaneously feels motivated to give her the Black Incal (check out the colouring as well):

In the writing side, Jodo remarks in one of the commentary interludes that he wished to have characters who change a lot over the course of the story, reflecting his beliefs about the mutability of people (unlike such infamously static characters as... Shakespeare’s Hamlet. oh, jodo...). For this reason, he writes...

John Difool, for instance, never stops changing. He metamorphoses, progresses, sometimes regresses. In the second volume, he becomes handsome. Then, he loses his beauty as he loses the Incal, but something different remains inside him. He’ll never be the same after that. In the beginning, John Difool is introduced as someone who is not too bright, but he gradually becomes wiser. He is never a totally moral character, he always remains subject to temptation. He might steal or betray, or do anything, because he is human. His energy is sometimes positive, other times negative, but is never properly channeled. In a way he never benefits from his own energy, because he uses it poorly, and usually for the good of others.

This is true so far as it goes, but honestly I don’t feel like any of the characters in The Incal change all that much - it’s not really about that kind of intense character study, they’re all much larger than life. A lot of the changes that do happen feel like they’re more driven by fate or cosmic forces than internal development of the character. And that isn’t a problem, by any means - it might well bog down this kind of comic. It surprises me though that Jodo writes something like this when to me, the characters seem much more like icons or symbols.

John's role is to be the everyman viewpoint character, a role he fulfills well; at one point he gets split into four elemental mini-selves with different emotional valences but this feels more symbolic of like, the forces of work in all of humanity than like, specificity as a character. Jodo is right to say that he rarely ever acts of his own volition so much as gets pulled along by the whole Incal affair. Which fits, because there’s enough batshit stuff happening at any given time that we, too, are just along for the ride.

The digital version I have only goes up to the end of volume 4, so I can’t post any scans of the later pages. Later things get... quite abstract! It ends on a curious note: instead of our ‘pull back camera’, the darkness egg threat is resolved (by a plan that involves sending everyone in the entire universe to sleep at once), and the universe kind of snaps back to the very beginning with John falling down the shaft. It’s not clear if this means the entire story is going to repeat itself endlessly on a loop, or if this time things will play out differently.

Apparently there’s a whole bunch more Incal stories, such as Before the Incal, After the Incal and Final Incal. As well as other Jodo-authored comic books like The Metabarons, which I really need to finish. I’d love to get my hands on those, this comic is such a treat.

Next up: Solo Levelling!

[fuckyeahelijahwoodfan]

Elijah Wood Thinks You’re Right Not to Trust Walter

By James Grebey

It would be reductive to break Elijah Wood’s vast filmography down into just two different types of roles, but he does frequently find himself playing either an innocent — an impossibly bright-eyed and good soul like Frodo Baggins or any number of his childhood roles — or, well, a weird little freak. Wood agrees that Walter, his character in season two of Yellowjackets, is of the latter category, though the self-proclaimed citizen detective who finds himself investigating a mystery alongside Christina Ricci’s Misty has a certain … odd sense of innocence to him as well.

Walter made his proper debut in last week’s episode of Yellowjackets when the man better known as PuttingTheSickInForensics dropped by Misty’s place of work and offered to help solve the mystery of Natalie’s disappearance. (Never mind that Walter also — correctly — suspects there was something more to Adam Martin’s disappearance despite Misty’s attempts to get him to stop snooping into the murder that she helped cover up.) In episode three, Walter and Misty meet on a boat to interrogate the dim-witted Randy Walsh about what he knows, with Misty feeding Walter questions and Walter pretending to be an FBI agent who slaps the ever-living shit out of Randy. (“It was a camera angle and swiping a hand across the face in the right way to make it look real,” Wood clarifies. “I didn’t hit him.”)

Walter is something of a wild card, seemingly unrelated to whatever force the survivors might not have left behind in the Canadian wilderness, who disrupts Misty’s present-day existence. Yellowjackets’s creators, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, reached out to Wood for the role, which the actor says was “unprecedented” for him because he already loved Yellowjackets and Ricci’s work as Misty. “I’ve never seen a season of a show as a viewer and as a fan and then subsequently been asked to participate in a follow-up season,” he says, explaining that he was all-in on the idea of “this eccentric oddball called Walter.”

What has it been like joining the Yellowjackets cast when you’re playing an outsider who is decidedly not a Yellowjacket?

So much of the storytelling in Yellowjackets is the young cast in the past and what happened to them in the forest and how that past trauma informs the characters as adults. Walter doesn’t have any of that. I got to come into this as a completely stand-alone character that has an adjacent interest that sort of feeds into Misty’s journey but doesn’t have the narrative weight or the darkness of what everyone else has experienced. So much of what I got to do with Christina was almost comic relief. It’s this kind of funny investigation story that ultimately dovetails into the true heart of the narrative of the show but initially is kind of on the side. Walter doesn’t have to bear a lot of that weight, at least initially.

Were you familiar at all with citizen detectives before this? There’s a certain unease about whether they’re trying to actually solve crimes and bring bad guys to justice or just amateurs getting their rocks off with no accountability. What’s Walter’s motivation?

I think both are true: It’s people who truly want to help, maybe, but it’s probably more the thrill of being involved in something and feeling like they’re participating in a larger narrative, fed by a community of similarly like-minded individuals. That’s very true of Walter. My feeling is that Walter probably does not have a lot of field experience, that, heretofore, a lot of what Walter has experienced in the world of the citizen detective is to just contribute ideas to cases. There’s a lot of fun to be had there, but it’s low-level investigative work that gets fed back into this Reddit thread. But with this, Misty presents him with a real opportunity to get out there.

Do you have an idea of who the Yellowjackets survivors are to the general public? Are they thought of as celebrities, and, if so, does Walter have any specific reverence for Misty’s past outside of her citizen-detective work?

It does come up. He makes it very clear that he’s not interested in her for that reason, but it’s baked into the narrative that everyone is aware of these women and what has happened to them. There’s no way he’s not fascinated about the past. In the world of Yellowjackets, that would be a part of pop culture that everybody would know about. Even if it’s not the driving force behind his motivation, there has to be some thrill about being associated with a person who had mysterious things happen to her in the past. It doesn’t really factor into a lot of what they experience on this journey together. But as a background element, it’s undeniable.

Toward the end of episode three, Walter says maybe he’s “a bored Moriarty looking for his Sherlock.” Are we supposed to think of him as a villain, like Sherlock’s most infamous foe?

There are obviously narrative hints that are dropped: She listens to bird songs to fall asleep; he listens to cat noises. There’s all sorts of funny little hints that they could be adversaries. But I don’t believe that’s the motivating factor. It certainly isn’t present — yet — in their relationship. Over the course of the season, that might change.

Look, I’ll say this: We’re not entirely sure of who Walter really is. Both Walter and Misty present a version of who they are to the world who is not entirely their true self or their whole self. Walter presents a version of who he is, but there are still so many things that, over the course of their journey together, start to be revealed. I don’t even know that I’ve learned everything about the character yet. We can rightfully feel a degree of un-trustiness toward him because he’s giving us enough reason to not fully believe his motivation and where he’s coming from. But there’s a version of him that is also true, which is that he’s this dude who came across a fair amount of money, so he doesn’t need to work and can just dive into his passion, which is true crime. I think there is a version of him that is that simple, but there might be something underneath all of that as well.

Even not knowing yet if there’s more to Walter than meets the eye, is it possible he’s in over his head now that he’s with Misty?

He has spent all of his time on the citizen-detective message board, and this opportunity that she has given him is the first to get out into the field and flex what he feels are his skills and everything he’s maybe read about. I don’t know that he’s as savvy on the field as he would like to think he is. What we will see over the course of the season is him kind of jumping headfirst into something that is a lot bigger than him and goes beyond his skill set, maybe, at least in practice. But we will definitely see him do these things for the first time.

You’d worked with Christina Ricci before, on The Ice Storm, which, despite having “a character dying in the snow” in common with Yellowjackets, is pretty different in tone. What was that reunion like? We hadn’t worked together since we were teenagers. There was a lot of life in between. But it was great. It was joyful. She is so excellent. She is like a finely tuned instrument of an actress. I really admired what she crafted with Misty in the first season. And, I mean, we’ve both been doing this for a really long time. She also started very young. I think there’s a connection just because we’ve both been doing this for a long time. We certainly have worked together, but also there was just a comfort and ease to it.

With that sense of comfort and ease, was any of the interrogation improvised?

That was all scripted, and it was wild, too, because her part of it, in the bathroom at the bottom of the boat, that initially was supposed to be shot at a separate location. We were going to do all of my stuff, then all of her stuff, with me coming into the bathroom on a separate day. But for time considerations — and also just because the location with the boat worked — we decided to do it all at once. She was in the bathroom, and I had an earpiece in, and she was telling me what to do as I was doing it. So we were playing it almost like a play. It was happening in real time. Everything she was saying in my ear, I could hear it and repeat it and she could hear me. It was so fun and so thrilling. There was no real time for improvisation because we had a lot of material to get through in a short amount of time, but it felt improvised because there was a sort of electricity because of the fact that it was all really happening in real time.

Walter’s cargo shorts are a great character detail. Were there lots of costume options? Did you have to try on a lot of pairs before finding the perfect cargo shorts?

Amy Parris, our costume designer, brought so many wonderful ideas to the table, and it was very easy to identify Walter pretty fast. We were looking for semi-eccentric pieces of clothing that would allow a read on who he was, without it being too extreme but weird enough to make you go, Who the fuck is this guy? [Laughs.] Just slightly heightened or slightly odd. A lot of it was that he’s wearing these sorts of outdoorsy, functional clothes that aren’t cool and aren’t quite being worn as fashion. That was the big guiding principle.

The cargo shorts came about very early — they were baked into the script, actually. When you first see Walter, when he’s walking through the convalescent home that she works at, it’s in the script that she sees his legs. So shorts became a part of his vibe early on.

Between The Lord of the Rings and Over the Garden Wall, you certainly have experience being lost in the woods. Was it at all odd to join a show about being stranded in the wilderness and have your character not be out in the brush?

Those particular elements didn’t occur to me until you just mentioned it, but yeah, you’re right. [Laughs.] But no — I wasn’t really thinking about it in that context. For me, I was just drawn to the fact that I got to play this character who gets to sort of explore this world that had been previously created but who doesn’t have the narrative weight of dealing with the past in the way that all the other characters had to deal with it. Obviously, it all comes to a head toward the end of the season, but the joy for me about this was that I got to play a character who was adjacent to the primary narrative but didn’t really need to engage with the past in that way. This character is kind of his own thing and not at all informed by what happened in the woods.

While we’re on the subject, do you have any feelings about Warner Bros. plans for a possible Lord of the Rings remake? 

I’ve done a little bit of digging, and no one knows what it’s going to be. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens are being consulted. There’s no plan yet for what the stories will be and what the narrative will be, and there are no filmmakers attached, and there are no scripts. So it’s the earliest, earliest stages. But my understanding is that nobody is making any moves to remake The Lord of the Rings but rather continue telling stories within Middle-earth, of which there are many stories to mine. I don’t think they’re going to remake Lord of the Rings. If that news were true, I feel like all of us would know about it and there would be a lot of strong feelings.

Is there anything more about Walter you want to tease?

His love of musicals may be meaningful. That’s about all I can say about that. But there’s a tease there.

[friesian]

*raises hand* 24, 25, 31-35 from the gw2 asks :Oc - moonlit-grove

HI HI HI!! THANK U SO MUCH!! 24. How many alts do you have?

currently i have i THINK 9. this may change tho in a heartbeat LMAO. listing them; marwyd, canach, antonymph, gyael, tirynan, lochlyne, coylm, caybre, and aiyndreas! 25. How many 80 lvl’s do you have?

out of my 9 alts, 7 are level 80s! canach and antonymph are my only two below it. 31. Your favorite character from personal story?

uhm. trahearne. im generic and i would literally die for him. i think i should keep him in my bookbag for safe keeping and he would also be able to read interesting things in there!!! 32. Your favorite character from ls & hot?

SO. I THINK CANACH OBVIOUSLY TAKES THE CAKE HERE. if i wasn't obvious enough. but my god do i have a lot of narrative ideas since he acts so. different. respectful. sort of desperate??? during HoT and is just very supportive of a sylvari commander it just. MAN!!!! IT GETS MY GOAT SO HARD!!! second runner up would probably be taimi. i love her very very much and i enjoy how strong willed she is and she is a personality to be reckoned with. 33. Your favorite ship?

now if we're talking in the canon of things, kasjory, no stop. if we're talking from the deepest corners of my mind, and will personally run up and down the halls yelling "ITS CANON ITS CANON I SAW IT WITH MY EYES". canach x the commander. canmannder? i think thats what its called. there is nothing more that i love than a begrudged, egotistical man with a crush on someone who is bent on saving the world and never saving themselves <3 34. Have you ever cried because of the story?

ALMOST. it ALMOST got me with soo-won. soo-won reminded me a lot of my grandmother, so it hit a very big personal spot for me. ESPECIALLY doing some of the dragons end things where she talks to aurene afterwards. it very much reminded me of the conversations she used to have with me, laying in bed, very sick. so it was PERSONALLY pretty gut wrenching. but i haven't cried. YET. 35. What was the worst experience in story?

if we're talking about my most begrudged moment. uhm. fighting mordremoth was a pain in my ass. it didn't have the save/checkpoints yet. i also didn't know much about the game yet and was still playing basic engineer with the revolvers. i did not note because i was so freaked out with this being the big boss fight, that he reflects almost all projectiles 24/7. so i kept killing myself and ended up having a panic attack about it LOL. i then found out after slowing down that he reflected projectiles and swapped to scrapper for the first time. would you believe it that because of that experience, i started playing scrapper. and i never went back really LMAO. otherwise if you mean narratively, i'm unsure!! i think my most eh moment was somewhere in icebrood. i feel like the whole thing was kinda rushed compared to the other living world seasons so it felt really weird to go through it so fast and so. oddly. compared to other seasons.

[leannbolesch]

A Curse For True Love (2.75 stars)

What the heck was that?

Stephanie Garber has written some books I gave 5 stars to. (I'd probably nitpick more now that I'm using a site that allows for partial stars, but still.) It kinda hurts to get a book that I hesitate to rate as high as "mid" from her.

Spoilers for the previous books in this series:

Compared to the last two books, where there was a continuous arc and goal and things escalated, I had the sense reading this book that Garber realized she had loose ends to tie up--but not a book's worth of them. So we got a half a book worth of plot to cover how Apollo handled being messed with for two books and what releasing the Valors entails. (Kind of. Sort of. We could have just not given Apollo closure the same way we never revisited most of the other supporting characters whose fates are unknown. The Valors thing also screams "this is set up for future books" rather than bringing any plot about them to a close.)

Evangeline's amnesia plot is just a mistake, narratively, on every level. It was a Diablous ex Machina in the last book that I was willing to overlook because of how fast and loose the magic in this story is, but getting it explained midway through this book grated on me. In this book, it primarily served to stall the plot. Between that and her extremely minimal resistance to Apollo keeping her locked up, coupled with the fact that her 'quest' for half the book is to learn information that the readers already know, it's straight up boring to read about her. There isn't even a sense of tragedy in her forgotten bonds. Jacks was already trying to dump her in the last book, and no other characters who she built up a relationship with in previous books interact with her basically until she regains her memories. Rather than add any emotion to their dynamic, it just denied readers the chance to see them as they'd been built up for most of the book.

Presumably because Evangeline is locked out of the plot for so long, the parts of the plot that she cares about are rushed at the end of the book. Exposition is dumped in a forced manner on the newly introduced villain and major developments with a Jacks happen off page twice. This despite Jacks having POV chapters and the author absolutely having enough weight to throw around with the success of this series to ask for a few extra chapters in her book. If her publisher told her she had to cut back anywhere, the useless amnesia plot would have been a better place to cut than the build up to the climax.

Speaking of climaxes, this book also does that obnoxious thing with one of its villains where it turns out you could have just left them to their own devices and they would self-destruct. Thematically, I understand what the author was going for, but it still makes the protagonist feel like they weren't as relevant in their own adventure.

I still like the way the author writes, and Apollo finally became an interesting character in this book. Watching his downward spiral as he struggled with the trauma the last two books put him through and an implied sketchy upbringing was a delight. My only gripe is that the books never establish why he like Evangeline, aside from possibly as a lingering side effect of when he was enchanted to fall in love with her. That makes it feel kind of mean-spirited on the author's part that he was treated as an outright villain with love for Evangeline as his stated motive. Particularly when other equally morally dubious characters are allowed to seek redemption and happy endings.

As a conclusion to Evangeline and Jacks' story, this book does not justify its existence. As the start of another potential story, it's still too bogged down with Evangeline and Jacks to let all the new elements and characters we've added breath. (And I'm freaking counting Apollo as a new character, since we only see his un-cursed personality for the first time in this book.) We could have wrapped up Evangeline's story in the last book and let her have her happy ending with Jacks then, and started yet another series revolving more around Apollo and the Valors and whoever else without the Broken Heart Duo taking up so much oddly apportioned page space.

It just feels like their story was basically done, and it was uselessly dragged out to milk fans for one more book and advertise new characters to sell in the next series, when this one did well enough without the Caraval series having to be misused in the same way to set Evangeline up. Combine that with the author bragging about store exclusive alternate endings and the whole thing feels icky.

[chronically-ghosted]

I love everything Mike does tbh, even the midnight club lmao! (Which so many people disliked??)

But my favourite has to be Haunting Of Hill House. I’ve watched his movies before and I liked them! But his shows are just so top notch, it’s insane.

So Hill House is my absolute favourite and obviously the famous car jumpscare lmao! (I actually don’t scare easily, most jumpscares don’t get me but that one had me violently flinching 😂) I just love the story and the actors and the characters. Who’s your favourite from hill house?? Mine has always been Luke! Idk why but I just adore him…

Also, the iconic the rest is confetti scene? I still cry about it.

But I do also love Bly Manor and Midnight Mass. I love Rahul Kohli so these two also have a special place in my heart!

Tbh, Owen and Hannah in Bly was so much more emotional to me than the main story. I freaking love them and my heart is absolutely broken, still!

And midnight mass is sooo good too! Rahul is phenomenal in it! And that scene with Erin and Riley on the water with the little boat… holy shit.

Also love Kate Siegel and I love that she’s in everything, like power couple!!! (like tell me that’s not Dieter if he were to ever become a director. He would so cast his wife in everything he possibly can lmao)

I just freaking love everything this guy makes and I love so many of the actors and that he uses them in so many other projects too! I’m so excited to see what’s he gonna do with Amazon (also I love that he’s on tumblr always answering asks, so freaking cool!!)

Haunting of Hill House really is in entire league of its own. When I say I like ghost stories, that's exactly what I mean. Themes of grief, and love, and family, and trauma -- all manifested into a literal haunting. Truly unmatched. How Nell literally haunts the narrative the whole time -- she was dead from page one but that ends up mattering more than anything else to save her family. Destroys me every time!!

As for my favorite Crane child, i think my favorites are definitely Nell and Luke -- the twin connection was unreal and how deep it got as more was revealed -- CHILLS! I also see a lot of overlap between Dieter and Luke, so maybe that's why we like him so much!

Growing up in the south, I had some negative experiences with structured religion and Midnight Mass was a wonderful place to explore those feelings in a healthy way. Plus, vampire priest???? GALAXY LEVEL BRAIN. And as a personal point of joy, I love that they styled Rahul after Joel 😆😆

If my wife was Kate Siegal, I would put her in EVERYTHING. She's so talented -- I love that Flanagan uses a handful of actors every time. My personal opinion is that the mark of a good actor is how versatile their characters are and Kate is fantastic at that! Her performance in Hush is one of my top favorite horror movie performances!

With Twitter X going down as a sinking ship and more people search for an alternative, I'm wondering who else is going to show up on here! 😆 It makes me nervous because I definitely wrote some Midnight Mass fic back in the day and my nightmare is that he or anyone from the show finds it! 😅 I very much appreciate a large space between fandoms and the creators of the initial medium.

alskdfjl;akjd Dieter as love-struck director and his wife, there is no doubt in my mind that he would hype her up for every.single.project! what a good hubbie! 💗

[historyhermann]

Uncle Grandpa and the "terrifying" 12 cent late fee

Uncle Grandpa and Mr. Gus, in a UG-2000 model robotic RV, crash through the bookshelves and into the library. On some level, it made me chuckle because they are making sound in a big way despite the fact there are "be quiet" signs posted. I think this sequence was definitely meant to be comedic, smashing down those "quiet library" tropes/stereotypes you could say

A while back, I watched an episode of the Cartoon Network series, Uncle Grandpa, titled "Back to the Library" where the protagonist's friend tells him to return a book to the library and he does so, but upon learning the fee is 12 cents, he totally freaks out and tries to do what he can to stop himself from checking out the book in the first place, even traveling back in time over and over. Although I wrote an entry for the episode in my page listing animated series with libraries and librarians in animation, I never ended up writing a post on this blog. I'd like to remedy that with this post, which aims to examine the episode as a whole, which is a wild ride.

First, for a summary of the episode. Uncle Grandpa's friend, Mr. Gus, tells him to return a children's book, Lil' Ducky's Farm, annoyed he read the book 300 times in a row, saying there are "plenty of children in the community" who would also like to read the book. Uncle Grandpa ultimately agrees. He ejects from the van, smashes the front door of the library, stunning the patrons (a young White man, a young White woman, and a young Black man), and ends up at the information desk. The old, and unnamed, White female librarian [1] asks if he needs help, he returns the book, and she looks at the book slip, telling him the book is one week overdue. Upon learning the late fee is 12 cents, he spits out his drink, and is shocked, not wanting to pay the fee, finding it outrageous. He freaks out as he doesn't know where he will get the money for this fine.

As a result, Uncle Grandpa does the extreme: he travels back in time, trying to remedy this. However, he still fails, as he gets distracted reading the book with his other self. He takes the book back, but the late fee, is again, 12 cents. So they both travel back in time to convince his previous self to return the book, and try to grab the book from his past self. Unfortunately, the book gets ripped in the process. One of the best scenes is when the bus crashes through the library with and the "please be quiet" sign hangs in front of the vehicle. The librarian sees the damaged book and tells them to pay 12 dollars, leading the Uncle Grandpas to fight with one another, until another one shows up and tells them they need to travel back in time to stop himself from ever checking out the book in the first place. The four Uncle Grandpas see the past Uncle Grandpa and try and take the book from him, leading to a chase in the library, and fights over the book. Ultimately, one of the Uncle Grandpas returns the book in the book drop, saying it belongs "in the trash" while another Uncle Grandpa puts junk into the book drop. As a result, the librarian sighs, dismayed by the whole occurrence, especially having two patrons fight in front of her, and having all the stacks in the library fall over, a patron literally be killed. A library nightmare! To avoid this from happening again, Uncle Grandpa vows to never enter the library ever again, until he is enticed to go back by Uncle Gus.

Librarian sighs after seeing the one Uncle Grandpa stuff a sandwich and shake into the book drop slot. Her expression is definitely a mood, for sure, for how many feel about annoying people in libraries.

There's a LOT to break down here in this 11-minute episode. Apart from books being used as narrative devices through the episode, I loved how there are sections for "Teen vampire," "fiction" and "fanfiction" all next to each other, along with one titled "Books for Bald People." Apart from that, what about the librarian's actions? Even though her voice actor is uncredited, and is likely Grey Griffin according to the listing for the episode in IMDB, I have a lot to say about this librarian.

For one, this librarian clearly embodies the stereotypes of librarians being old, White, wearing glasses, and having grey hair. What she is wearing is relatively conservative, and she is never shown leaving her chair during the whole episode. Even so, despite the signs posted in the library, she is never shown, once, shushing them, unlike the librarian in an episode of another Cartoon Network series, Steven Universe, who was later redeemed. On the other hand, I have to question her imposition of an overdue fee in this instance. The librarian could have had him read in the library or do some volunteer work there to help out, as I remember a library I worked at did. If that was too much work she could have just waived his fee since it is relatively small anyway. I have to ask why a 12 cent fee is even necessary. Is it even worth their while? Why can't this library go fine free? That, of course, won't be answered in this episode.

Furthermore, the librarian is relatively passive in the the face of utter destruction, almost seeming to be chained to her chair. She doesn't do, what the curmudgeon librarian does in an episode of DC Super Hero Girls (another Cartoon Network series): eject Uncle Grandpa (and his time clones) for library destruction. On the other hand, she might feel afraid of all the Uncle Grandpas, wanting them to "fight it out," rather than intervening. This fear is evident from her facial expression at one point:

Librarian starts to get worried when the Uncle Grandpas begin fighting one another

There is one thing that is clear: Uncle Grandpa would easily fit within the definition of what some call a "problem patron," especially when he and his clones fight with each other in the library. This goes above and beyond some snobbishness by Hilda in Hilda, when she leaves a book face down on the copier while she reads the page she photocopied. [2] There are many definitions of so-called "problem patrons," with the articles I looked at for this paragraph linked in a footnote at the end of this paragraph. Some have noted that staff at the circulation desk should be try to be calm and courteous, noting that most patrons should calm down, but for those out of control, there needs to be a policy for such people.

Others have said that "problem patrons" are library users who interrupt "the normal operations of the library," engage in illegal activities, harass staff or other patrons, talk loudly, interfere with work of the staff, deface library property, having public sex (cruising), and removing materials from the library without checking them out. It can also include thieves, hoarders, stalkers, trespassers, squatters, and many others who engage in "problem behavior." However, some have argued, rightly, that the term itself is problematic, as it can be applied in a discriminatory way to the homeless or even those who are gay, trans, and that it is important to distinguish between patrons who are "truly problematic" to homeless people who are a nuisance. [3]

In the case of Uncle Grandpa, he was definitely engaging in some problematic actions. At the beginning of the episode he crashed through the glass door and came into the library, with shattered glass on the ground. In another timeline, he crashed his bus into the library, resulting in even more damage to library property. In yet another timeline (the final one) he fought with his time clones, caused the library stacks to fall over and smash apart, and disgustingly one his time clones stuffed food and drink down the book return slot.

The first time we see the librarian in the episode.

While the smashing of the door and ruining the book return slot is terrible, the fact he fought with other patrons and literally destroyed portions of the library is disruptive and problematic on many levels. He should probably have to either pay the costs of the repairs, or do work in the library alongside the library as a volunteer a la what the librarian, Miss Dickens, told the protagonist, Carl, to do in Carl Squared, to give an example. The latter would probably be the most fair in his case. Although I called her "passive" before, the question remains: was she improperly trained or followed bad service practices? Due to the fact she is a one-off character, we can't answer that question, but we could speculate. I personally don't think she is what some call, according to LISWiki, defunct as of July 2019 [dead link] due to a lack of participation, a "troubled librarian," which refers to librarians with improper training or engaging in "bad service practices." Rather, I believe that she hadn't dealt with this issue before and was unsure of how to handle it. Of course, that is just speculation.

There is something she cannot be considered "passive" on: applying library fines. This applies whether to an overdue fine or fines for a damaged book. She seems relatively adept at that. This is a common theme among librarians throughout animation I have watched so far. Generally librarians are shown as very strict about enforcing rules, often shown in an excessive way. On the whole, I'm not sure whether the librarian in this episode is harmful or helpful, but just is. She is just there and through some of her actions, librarians may find her relatable, while in others they may not. I say that because she does not embody the general stereotypes of librarians, in terms of having their hair tied up in a bun, being strict with patrons, shushing people, etc. That is not shown in this episode. Instead, she seems tired, almost like that librarian in an episode of We Bare Bears, and exhausted. Maybe she deals with people like Uncle Grandpa every day? We will never know.

One more question to answer before I end this post: would the episode work without the stereotypes embodied in this librarian depiction? I think the crux of the episode relies on the fact that Uncle Grandpa doesn't want to pay the fine and the librarian being a bit miserly, so I'm not sure it would completely work in a different form. However, the episode could have been changed so that the librarian was perhaps younger, not White, and more helpful. Unfortunately, that is not a direction that the writers of this episode decided to go.

Librarian expresses her disappointment when she sees that Uncle Grandpa has brought back the book… ripped in half! She was totally right to make him pay for the damaged book.

That's all for this week's post! Until next week! I'm going back through old shows I watched in the past, like Hilda, Cleopatra in Space, and Too Loud. I may write about them or maybe a new series. We shall see what happens. In any case, I will try and make sure there's at least one post on this blog every week about librarian depictions in popular culture.

© 2021 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Notes

[1] There is also a character named Huge Librarian, appearing in "Prank Wars" who punches Mr. Gus after Pizza Steve lied and told him that Mr. Gus was making noise in the library.

[2] This is a line taken out of my post for I Love Libraries reviewing the librarian in Hilda, which I tentatively titled "The importance of libraries in the “Hilda” animated series,"and I described her as a "problem patron." I am actually glad these lines were removed because when I looked into what this term means, Hilda definitely wouldn't fall under this at all, not in the slightest.

[3] Rach, "Basic library procedures: Circulation functions," Living in the library world, Dec. 18, 2008; Rach, "Handling problem situations," Living in the library world, Jan. 11, 2011; "Addressing Challenging and Disruptive Patron Behaviors," Reference and User Services Association, American Library Association, accessed October 10, 2021; Patience L. Simmonds and Jane L. Ingold, "The Difficult Patron in the Academic Library: Problem Issues or Problem Patrons?" [Abstract], The Reference Librarian, Vol. 36 (no. 75-76), 2002; Polly Thistlethwaite, "'The Homosexual' as Problem Patron," The Reference Librarian, Vol. 36 (no. 75-76), 2002; Julie Murphy, "When the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few: the “legitimate” versus the homeless patron in the public library," 1999, Julie's Pages, accessed October 12, 2021; Karen Pundsack, "Customers or Patrons? How You Look at Your Library’s Users Affects Customer Service," Public Libraries Online, Mar. 2, 2015; Susan H. Martin, "Streakers, Stalkers, and Squatters: Dealing with Problem Patrons," Tennessee Libraries, Vol. 56, No. 2, 2006; Ruth Harries, "5 Strategies for Dealing with Problem Behavior," INALJ, Mar. 10, 2015; Michele Frasier-Robinson, "Problem Patrons," INALJ, Feb. 12, 2014; "Problem Patron," LISWiki, Apr. 2, 2018; Kim Hallquist, "Problem Patrons in the Public Library: Can Anything Be Done?," New Hampshire Municipal Association, May 2011. Vol. 36 of The Reference Librarian in 2002 also has many other articles related to this topic, either about "problem patrons" in general, whether you have one in your library, those in public libraries, in British libraries from 1850 to 1919, difficult library patrons in academia, personal safety, patrons with mental illness, difficult patrons, so-called "lessons" from the business world, angry library users, coping with difficult patrons, front-line defense in academic libraries, and partnership with campus police (don't like where this is going).

Reprinted from Pop Culture Library Review and Wayback Machine

[silverfoxlou]

miss silverfox how did you survive seeing the sun in person? does he really shine as bright as what we can see through the cameras? and how would you rate last nights show as compared to the New York one you went to?

He is so so amazing. I’m not sure I survived, maybe I’m writing to you from the afterlife... I was in the first level balcony and I had a good view of the whole stage all night and he was just captivating. I couldn't take my eyes off him, even from where I was I could see his little giggles and smiles and I wanted to die.

(I guess I'll just go into details here)

The place was pretty packed, save for a few seats they had blocked off for some reason? The minute the curtain went up everyone screamed (I think my roommate started to understand what she'd gotten herself into lol)

- We Made It was amazing as always. I want to kiss whoever decided WMI should be the opening song. And added the drums.

- Drag Me Down was probably still the loudest song of the night. Along with Little Black Dress.

- DLIBYH is so pretty live. The harmonies, the music, just everything about it. Even the crowd freaking out after Louis sings the last "break your heart".

- Two Of Us is an emotional song, but it was so uplifting being in the audience, hearing them singing back every line.

- Always You is pop perfection and I haven't fully appreciated just how hard it is to sing, and sing well.. because I'm out of breath half way through the song and Louis just goes on to do his fancy little note changes and crystal clear high notes (yes. I know, one of us is a professional singer and it's not me but it's still so impressive). Even if he sounds a little out of breath talking, you can never tell when he's singing.

- He sounds angelic in Too Young, and everyone was singing along. I maybe blacked it out from NYC because it kind of took me by surprise to hear the audience so loud?

- 7 is sex on legs. The high notes are what you hear when you enter heaven. And Michael doing his thing.... goddamn. I get why Louis tells the fans to look at Michael.

- Fearless. My baby. She's so good live. And the claps sorta happened. At least in the seats.

- Habit... Louis why would you do that to me?? Jk. I honestly don't care about that line anymore. The look on his face (yes, even from my seats) after the fans sang the "I'll always need ya, in front of me" line made up for everything else. There's a reason he gives his little codependency speech before Habit. And I'm not going to ruin my experience of the concert by letting *them* control the narrative about what the song means.

- Copy is by far my favorite song. It's made to be sung live with an audience. It's going to be breathtaking when he moves into the arenas with this song. And the graphics.. I hadn't seen the spiral eye-ball shapes until yesterday and I almost lost my shit. He's just so perfect.

- Just Hold On was really loud. With the drums and his energy, it was just perfect.

- He sounded so soft in Defenceless. Like I felt like crying when he was singing the bridge.

- Beautiful War no words. This is his song now. And the lights are just the perfect touch.

- Little Black Dress... the only reason I allow this song is because he's just having a great time singing it. And the note change adds so much to it. He's just, so effortlessly cool when he sings it.

- Walls (or to quote my roommate "the Oasis one. his classic one" and a quote from two years ago when she first heard the song "ohhhhh so that's where all the talent in 1D came from"). I will never never get over singing "you were my because" to Louis. And I love that he's embraced it and doesn't play coy with a "oh, are you singing this to me??" but he knows and encourages it.

- Legit needed a break and sat down while waiting for the encore lol. And No Control.. *sigh* at least it's only a few lines and not the whole song.

- Only The Brave is amazing as always. My roommate loved it as well, and she pointed out the flags and seemed touched by it.

- Through The Dark I don't care what anyone says. I love this song and I like being able to sing it back to Louis. Oh, and I felt the balcony shake during the song. Feared for my life again.

- And finally... Kill My Mind. He needs more songs like this of his own because he's just in his element. He gets cheeky and does god knows what else during the song but he's just perfect.

I'm so sad that my shows are done... I'm going to feel so empty once it sinks in.

[thedeadhandofseldon]

The Anti-Mercer Effect

On the Accessibility of D&D, Why Unprepared Casters is so Fun, and Why Haley Whipjack is possibly the greatest DM of our generation.

(Apologies to my mutuals who aren’t in this fandom for the length of this, but as you all know I have never in my life shut up about anything so… we’ll call it even for the number of posts about Destiel I see every day.

To fellow UC fans - I haven’t listened to arc 4 yet, I started drafting this in early August, and I promise I will write a nice post about how great Gus the Bard is once I get the chance to listen to more of his DMing).

Structure - Or, “This is not the finale, there will be more podding cast”

So, first of all, let’s just talk about how Unprepared Casters works. Because it’s kind of unusual! Most of the other big-name D&D podcasts favor this long, grand arcs; UC has about 10 hours of podcast per each arc. And that’s a major strength in a lot of ways: it makes it really accessible to new listeners, because you can just start with the current arc and understand what’s going on!

And by starting new arcs every six or seven episodes, they can explore lots of ways to play D&D! Classic dungeon delve arc! Heist arc! Epic heroes save the world arc! Sportsball arc! They can touch on all sorts of things!

And while I’m talking about that: Dragons in Dungeons, the first arc, makes it incredibly accessible as a show - because it lets the unfamiliar listener get a sense of what D&D actually is. (It’s about telling stories and making your friends feel heroic and laugh and cry, for the record). If I had to pick a way to introduce someone to the game without actually playing it with them, that arc would definitely be it.

And I’d be remise not to note one very important thing: Haley Whipjack and Gus the Bard are just very funny, very charismatic people. Look. Episode 0s tend to be about 50%(?) those two just talking to each other about their own podcast. It shouldn’t work. And yet it DOES, its one of my favorite parts, because Haley and Gus are just cool.

And a side note that doesn’t fit anywhere else: I throw my soul at him! I throw a scone at him - that’s it, that’s the vibe. The whole podcast alternates between laughing with your friends and brooding alone in a dark tavern corner - but the laughs never forced and the dark corner is never too dark for too long.

Whipjack the Great - Or, the DM is Also a Player!

I think Haley Whipjack is one of the greatest Dungeon Masters alive. The plots and characters! The mechanical shenanigans! The descriptions!

Actually, let’s start there: with the descriptions. (Both Haley and Gus do this really fucking well). As we know, Episode 0 of each arc sees the DM reading a description - of a small town, or the Up North, or the recent history of a great party. And Haley always strikes this tricky balance - one I think a lot of us who DM struggle with - between giving too much description and  worldbuilding, and not telling us anything at all. She describes people and events in just enough detail to imagine them, but never so much they seem static and unreal - just clear enough to envision, but with enough vagueness left to let your imagination begin to run wild.

While I’m thinking about arc 3’s party, let’s talk about a really bold move she made in that arc: letting the players have ongoing control of their history. Loser Lars! She didn’t try to spell out every detail of this high-level party’s history, or restrict their past to only what she decided to allow - she gave them the broad outlines, and let them embellish it. And that made for a much more alive story than any attempt to create it by herself would have - but I think it takes a lot of courage to let your players have that agency. Most Dungeon Masters (myself included) tend to struggle with being control freaks.

And the plots! Yeah, arc one is built of classic tropes - but she actually uses them, she doesn’t get caught up in subverting everything or laughing at the cliches. And it’s fun! In arc 3, there really isn’t a straight line for the players to follow, either - which makes the game much more interesting and much trickier to run. And her NPCs are fantastic and I will talk about them in the next section.

Above all, though, I think what is really impressive is how Haley balances mechanics, and rules as written, with the narrative and rule of cool - and puts both rules and story in the service of playing a fun game. And the secret to that? She’s the DM, but the DM is a player, and the DM is clearly having fun. Hope Lovejoy mechanically shouldn’t get that spellslot back, but she does, and it’s fun. The changeling merchant in Thymore doesn’t really make some Grand Artistic Narrative better, but wow is it fun. And she never tries to force it one way or the other - the story might be more dramatic if Annie didn’t manage to banish the demon from the vault, but it’s a lot cooler and a lot more fun for the players if Annie gets to be a badass instead - and the rules and the dice say that Annie managed it.

Settings feel like places, NPCs feel like people, and the narrative plot feels like a real villainous plot.

Anyway. I could go on about the various ways in which Whipjack is awesome for quite a while - she’s right, first place in D&D is when your friends laugh and super first place is when they cry - but I’m going to stop here and just. Make another post about it some other time. For now, for the record I hold her opinions about the game in higher esteem than I do several official sourcebooks; that is all.

Characters - Or, Bombyx Mori Is Not an Asshole, And That Matters

Okay, I said I would talk about characters! And I will!

Just a general place to start: the party! All of the first three parties are interesting to me, because they all care about each other. Not even necessarily in a Found Family Trope sort of way, though often that too. But they generally aren’t assholes to each other. The players create characters that actually work together, that are interesting; even when there’s internal divisions like SK-73 v. Sir Mr. Person, they aren’t just unpleasant and antagonistic all the time. Listening to the podcast, we’re “with” these people for a couple hours - and it isn’t unpleasant. That matters a lot. (To take a counter-example: I love Critical Role, but the episode when Vox Machina pranked Scanlan after he died and was resurrected wasn’t fun to listen to, it was just uncomfortable and angering and vaguely cruel).

All of the PCs are amazing, and the players in each arc did a great job. If you disagree with me about that, well, you have the right to be incorrect and I am sorry for your loss. Annie Wintersummer, for one example: tragic and sad and I want to give her a hug, but also Fuck Yeah Wintersummer, and also her familiar Charles the Owl is the cutest and funniest and I love him. And we understand what’s going on with Annie, she isn’t some infinite pool of hidden depths because this arc is 7 episodes and we don’t have time for that, but she also has enough complexity to be interesting. Same with Fey Moss: yeah, a lot of her is a silly pun about fame that carries into how she behaves, but a lot of how she behaves is also down to some good classic half-elven angst about parenthood and wanting to be known and seen and important. (Side note: if your half-elf character doesn’t have angst, well, that’s impressive and also I don’t think I believe you).

There are multiple lesbian cat-people in a 4-person party and they both have requited romantic interests who aren’t each other. This is the future liberals want and I am glad for it.

Sir Mister Person, the human fighter! Thavius, the edge lord! Even when a character is “simple,” they’re interesting, because of how they’re played as people and not action-figures. And that matters a lot.

In the same way: the NPCs. There really aren’t a lot of them! And some of them come from Patreon submissions, so uh good work gang, you’re part of the awesomeness and I’m proud of you! The point being, the NPCs work because enough of them are interesting to matter. It’s not just a servant who opens Count Michael’s door, it’s a character with a name (Oleandra!) and a personality and history. They’re interesting. Penny Lovejoy didn’t need to be interesting, the merchant outside the Laughing Mausoleum didn’t need to be interesting, but they ARE! And Haley and Gus EXCEL at making the NPCs matter, not just to the story but to us as viewers. I agree with Sir Mister Person, actually, I would die for the princesses of the kingdom. I actually care about Gem Lovejoy of all people - that wouldn’t happen in an ordinary campaign! That’s the thing that makes Unprepared Casters spectacular - and, frankly, it’s especially impressive because D&D does not tend to be good at making a lot of interesting compared to a lot of other sorts of stories.

And, just as an exemplar of all this: Bombyx Mori. Immortal, reincarnating(?), and described as the incarnation of the player’s ADHD. I expected to hate Bombyx, because as the mom friend both in and out of my friend-group’s campaigns, the chaos-causer is always exhausting to me. And yeah, Bombyx causes problems on purpose! But! She is not an asshole.

And that’s important. Bombyx goes and sits with the queen and comforts her. Bombyx gives Annie emotional support. Bombyx isn’t just a vehicle to jerk around the DM and other players; Bombyx really is a character we can care about. To compare with another case - in the first couple episodes of The Adventure Zone, the PCs are just dicks. Funny, but dicks. Bombyx holds out an arm “covered in larva” to shake with a count, and robs him of magical items, but she also cares about her friends and other people! She uses a powerful magical gem to save her fertilizer guy from death! Yeah, Bombyx is ridiculous, but she’s not just an asshole the party has to keep around for plot reasons; you can see why her party would keep her around. And one layer of meta up, she’s the perfect example of how to make a chaotic character like that while still being fun for everyone you’re playing with, which is often not the case. And I love her.

The Anti-Mercer Effect - Or, “I think we proved it can be fun, you can have a good time with your friends. And it doesn’t have to be scary, you can just work with what you know”

The Mercer Effect basically constitutes this: Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of Critical Role, is incredible (as are all of his players). They’re all professional story-tellers in a way, remember, and so Critical Role treats D&D like a narrative art-form, and it’s inspiring. Seeing that on Critical Role sets impossible standards - and people go into their own home games imagining that their campaigns will be like Critical Role, and the burden of that expectation tends to fall disproportionately on the DM. And the end result, I think, of the Mercer Effect is that we get discouraged or intimidated, because our game isn’t “as good as” theirs. (And I should note - Matt certainly doesn’t want that to be our reaction).

So the Anti-Mercer Effect is two things: it’s D&D treated like a game, and it’s inspiring but not intimidating. And Unprepared Casters manages both of those really freaking well. Because they play it like a game! A UC arc looks just like a good campaign in anyone’s home game. They have the vibes of 20-somethings and college students playing D&D for fun because that’s who they are (as a 20-something college student who plays a lot of D&D, watching it felt like watching my friends play an especially good campaign). They’re trying to tell a good story, sure, and they always do. But first and foremost, they’re trying to have fun, and it shows, and I love the UC cast for it.

And that’s the other half of it: it’s inspiring! It’s approachable; you can see that Haley and Gus put plenty of work into preparing the game but it also doesn’t make you feel like you need hundreds of pages of worldbuilding to run a game. Sometimes a cleric makes Haley cry and she gives them back a spell-slot from their deity! That’s fantastic! It’s just inspiring - listening to this over the summer, when my last campaign had fallen apart under the strain of graduation, is why I decided to plan and run my new one!

That quote from Haley Whipjack that I used as the title for this section? That’s the whole core of this idea, and really, I think, the core of the podcast.

The Mercer Effect is when you go “that’s really cool, I could never do that.” But Unprepared Casters makes you look at D&D and go “wow, that looks really fun. I bet I can do that!” And I love the show for it.

And I bet a lot of you do too.