#i guess people are weird about both in treating them as evidence that cultures who eat any kind of animal brain are bad and wrong and weird

[wastrelwoods]

imagining a world in which people chose to talk about BSE/vCJD in the same way they talk about kuru and made weird misinformed posts about how only isolated backward primitive cultures and crazy suicidal people eat beef because eating beef gives you a special rare illness that melts your brain into mush. oh is it more nuanced than that? is there some kind of deep internalized bias about the boundaries of correct human behavior that’s leading you to mythologize and fearmonger about one illness and not the other?

[pfffsfic]

okay. okay this is not a serious theory but every time I think about it I come up with new "evidence" for it. basically the gist of it is TAWOG'S SHAPE PEOPLE ARE EUCLYDIANS. maybe refugees? "but didn't everyone in eucyldia die?" ignore that. just pretend they skipped town before the fire or something, this is not airtight. it's not even close. it's basically a joke treated seriously. i know the shows are not in the same universe but

hear me out.

Part 1: At face value.

point numnber one: these guys are 2D. the gumball universe has 3D people and 2D people, and the Shape People are 2D, or drawn as opposed to modeled.

point number two: physical traits! other than the obvious 'they are shapes', some or all of the Shape People:

Lack visible mouths (mind you, these Shape People's mouths appear when they speak). Bill also lacks a visible mouth but very occasionally gets one (one page of the Book of Bill, a polaroid in the Weirdmageddon intro).

Can have one eye. the rectangle in the top image is a one-eyed shape person, but there's also this familiar-looking yellow one-eyed triangle Shape Person (who pre-dates Bill's first proper appearance, by the way):

They have noodle arms. little noodle arms

this one is hard to explain but the positions of their arms aren't fixed. this applies to all/most Gumball characters but not to all gravity falls characters. how do I explain this uhh

look at how one of his arms is attached to his bottom plane and one is attached to his side plane. sometimes both of them hang down at the bottom and sometimes both are on the sides. POINT IS-

look at that!

in the rightmost image above you can also see a tiny sliver of a 3D edge like Bill has.

Each Shape Person is also a single color.

Part two: Culture.

note: this one only really applies to the three shapeople i've been using as examples this whole post- Ed the triangle, and his black pentagon and rectangle friends? family members?

I know there are other shapes who look less like them and whom these things don't apply to, but we can blame that on interbreeding with Elmoreans/cultural assimilation or something. okay, let me begin.

point number three: Ed's group is implied to not be from Elmore. when we first see him he's mistaking a bus stop for another shape person:

he also-

point four: the Shapeople language includes one spoken(?) system with colorful squares representing it. on the TBOB website the words of Euclydians are written in colorful square substitution cipher. there are also other shapes for the shapeople, mind you.

back to point 3: not from Elmore. The next time Ed's group appears, they're framed like tourists and ARE HAVING TROUBLE MAKING SENSE OF A 3D (well, i guess 2d but in the other way) MAP.

Gumball tries and fails to talk to them in their language, and ends up making a cultural faux pas. and in Ed's final scene there's an interesting line...

my people? He could be talking about his species, but the existence of a culture implies to me that this line refers more to a homeland. in other words the shape people are from the same place, which we sort of knew because they speak the same language. also has bill ever been seen giving a thumbs up or down? i'm pretty sure he hasn't but maybe I'm wrong, someone correct me here.

point number five: grasping at even more straws.

Despite their origin, the one known named shape person's name is Ed, which falls into the same cultural sphere as Bill.

We know that Ed's type of shapeople are physically capable of speaking English because the black rectangle does so at one point.

one of the symbols in the shapeople language is a skull. we see that Bill's mind has a bill skeleton with a skull that also fits the humanoid-ish template.

final point that does not help the theory but is still weird: Bill's baby photo seems to have a live-action background?? and so does the image of teen/preteen bill? look at these. i'm not implying that elmore IS euclydia somehow, that makes very little sense to me as of writing (though i guess it was destroyed and now Bill has a fear of TV static, which, like, maybe I could phenagle a theory here if I really tried but it seems like even more of a reach than this existing theory.) I dunno, maybe Euclydians would have wanted another 'realistic' dimension to flee to.

(we also see this squishy rosy-cheeked shaperson baby at one point, make of it what you will).

[liesoverthec]

OG 911 Character Details from Canon Pt 2

Hi y’all I’m back! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reblogged the last details post - I sort of just thought people would like it and it would die, so to see it travel and hopefully reach more writers was so great so thank you again!

Details under the cut since I went a little crazy 😅 and if this is your first time seeing this, the first part, and any future parts, can be found under this tag here!

Quick note before I get to the details - always, ALWAYS take details from dialogue or plot over details from the set or props if they contradict each other. The writers have the ultimate say over what happens on the show/for the characters, so whatever they say goes, even if it goes against something props has already laid down (eg, Chim’s birthday, sorry Libra crew. He’s an Aries or a Pisces). So keep that in mind for the future in case some of these details I have which are from props/set are changed in the future, or if you’ve noticed something yourself!

Also if you have questions, I am MORE than happy to answer them, although if you leave them in the tags on this post I’m probably gonna lose them, so if it’s something you’d genuinely like an answer to, drop it in my inbox! Besides my standard “ask” tags, I’m also tagging asks about canon details with this tag here. Every time I make a big post like this, I’m going to link all the asks I’ve gotten since the last post, but if you’re looking for more info in the mean time, that’s the other spot to look!

Buck has a grill on his patio.

Eddie doesn’t hang Christopher’s art on the fridge - instead it is either hung on the corkboard in Chris’ room to the left of the door, or Eddie puts it in an actual frame and hangs it using a hammer/nails in Christopher’s room. All the Diaz family has on their fridge is a bunch of bendy people magnets. (I absolutely ADORE him putting all this effort into treating Christopher’s art like it’s something you’d buy from a professional artist).

Info on everyone’s ages can be found here. (Little more discussion of Chim’s situation here).

Albert has a bachelor’s degree! I don’t know in what though, except that it’s some field for which is a Master’s is useful.

Athena was in a sorority in college, Delta Sigma Theta. Their website describes them as “ ...a sisterhood comprised primarily of Black, college-educated women ... [that] considers the issues impacting the Black community and boldly confronts the challenges of African Americans and, hence, all Americans ”, which I love for Athena, and feel is very in-character for her at that time in her life!

Chim is an aviators dude. When he wears sunglasses, they’re always aviators.

Athena also wears nothing but aviators.

Bobby wears square aviators.

Eddie, on the other hand, always wears Wayfarers.

Buck either doesn’t really like sunglasses or he constantly forgets he owns them, since we’ve only seen him wear them once in 60 eps, in a move I’m pretty sure was ONLY for dramatic effect.

Hen’s sunglasses change style over the seasons like her regular glasses do, but she tends to like browline sunglasses.

Info on Christopher’s school can be found here!

There are two colors of dispatch polo, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhythm or reason for who wears what. Maroon - Maddie and Linda. Blue - Josh and May. Jamal has actually worn both maroon and blue, so it doesn’t seem to be TOTALLY set in stone although I’ve never seen anyone else switch. Sue is too badass to wear a dispatch shirt.

Both Bobby and Eddie drive 4 door pickups. Bobby’s is navy. Eddie specifically has a black, 2020 GMC Denali 1500 pickup truck (in case you want to specifically look up what the inside of it looks like or what features it has 😂)

Info on the 118’s medical certifications can be found here.

Correction to Eddie’s living situation from last post: no next door neighbors, but instead UPSTAIRS neighbors. (Pointed out by Abigail in this ask). Also since someone else was wondering the notes of the last post - no, there is absolutely no discussion on the show of whether or not Eddie rents the apartment or owns it. But based on the fact that it’s 1) LA and 2) an apartment, my guess would be he rents it.

When Maddie isn’t feeling like herself, she tends to straighten her hair rather than curl it. It seems to be more when she’s uncertain about her place in her own and other people’s lives, rather than just when she’s simply worried - eg it’s straight in 2B, when she’s uncertain if she wants to continue working as a dispatcher/is unsure about her relationship with Chim.

For work, Chim, Eddie and Buck all use black duffel bags with a LAFD patch on the top. Hen uses several different cute bags, and Bobby seems to have a plain black duffel bag.

Watches - Bobby, Athena, Chim, Hen and Buck all wear their watch on their left wrist (but Athena ONLY wears hers for work, she takes it off at home.) Eddie wears his on his right wrist, and Maddie doesn’t wear one.

Chim (and Maddie by default) literally still have the exact same couch as in the pilot. (Which means that Chim has cuddled Tatiana on that couch, AND Albert has had sex on it. TIME TO GET A NEW ONE, BUCKLEY-HANS 😂)

The 118 has five different rigs - the engine (E118), the ladder truck (T118), two ambulances and the captain’s truck. 95% of the time, when the team is chilling in the cab of a rig and chatting (eg the ‘stuck under a live telephone pole’ scene in Jinx), they’re in the engine, not the truck. (Which I personally learned recently are NOT interchangeable terms!)

Athena and Michael got married when Athena was 37.

If you’d like to give Maddie a full name beyond “Maddie”, you should use Madeline. (I know, I know, in 4x04 she says Maddie is the name on her birth certificate, and that you should never use props details if they contradict script details, but I always thought that was a super weird exchange in 4x04 which could be explained by Maddie getting a nickname since she was born when Margaret and Phillip, you know, actually loved their kids and showed it, so of course Buck doesn’t get one, and in 4x04, Maddie was trying to avoid the entire issue of why she got one and Buck didn’t. But! Do what you want, and use Madeline as the full version of Maddie if you’d like, since that’s what’s on the BOLO in 2x13 😂)

Athena’s call sign is 727 L30, but she doesn’t have a specific squad car - the number changes throughout the series.

Chim really likes chewing gum, but he’s the only one out of the entire family!

The station has an Xbox One S, and it’s white.

In the real LAFD, there are stations 1 through 114. To avoid confusion while filming on the streets (I’m assuming), our fictional LAFD never uses the number of a real station. So if you want another station for a fic, and you want something that would be real in OUR universe, use the numbers 115 and above. They’ve gone as high as 221 in our universe.

Battalions - station 118 is in Battalion 7, which is also not a battalion in real Los Angeles. The 118 has interacted w/ Battalion 1, which is a real battalion, but other ‘non-real which makes them more likely for our universe’ battalions include numbers: 3, 8, 13, 16, 19 and above.

S1 Buck knew the term Jedi, but based on context, didn’t understand AT ALL the context provided by Star Wars, so there’s another edge of his pop culture limits for you.

Chim is the most tech-savvy out of everyone, hands down.

Athena has a VERY active Twitter account.

Abuela’s house number is 8902. I don’t have a street name for you unfortunately though. :/

Athena’s favorite flowers are white roses. None of the other women are really flower people.

Michael likes to wear purple.

When they’re at a call, Buck does pretty much all of the stuff with the hammer and the saw. Eddie does all the work needed with the drill.

Harry goes to Meadowbrook Elementary.

Buck lives on the fourth floor of his apartment building, across the hall from Apt. 416. The lovely @lovelessmotel found this listing for what is more or less the apartment. What happened was: the set crew rented this apartment for the one episode at the end of s2 when Buck moved in, and then over the summer before s3 built their own set of it, and changed some things - eg giving him an island, and moving the sink to a second counter against the far wall, you can see the changes here in this amazing gif set by the awesome Austen, but the listing should let you click around a little more upstairs and figure out dimensions better than what the show provides!

When Athena and Hen go out to eat together, it’s always fast food burgers and fries.

Waffles are Athena’s favorite food, and tiramisu is her favorite dessert.

Every takeout we’ve seen Buck eat has always been in a Chinese food takeout container, and we know he likes Thai food the best. EXCEPT! The one time we see him eat takeout with Eddie and Christopher, they have pizza. So take from that what you will......

Eddie has a cell phone and a landline.

Chim is a shameless multiple texter.

Chim and Bobby sleep closest to the door in their respective bedrooms (both right side of the bed if you are standing at the foot, facing the headboard), and Athena and Maddie sleep furthest away from the door (left side).

Some canon last names for other firefighters at the station in case you wanna add more people to a fic - Mitchell, Sanchez, Serrano (woman), Porter, Meyers (woman), Maxwell, Voyta

Hen and Karen really love decorating their house with dark/red wood.

Karen is Mommy and Hen is Mama.

Bobby has a brother, and a grandmother, and that’s literally ALL we know about his family outside of Marcy and the kids.

Evidence points to Eddie being the oldest child in his family.

Karen has multiple brothers (no sisters), but no idea how many - just that one of them is named Trey, and one of them lives in LA and has kids. They might be the same brother and they might not be.

Both Hen and Athena are only children.

Athena has been on the police force for 30 years.

Christopher and Denny are the same age (born in 2011), and Harry is two years older than them.

Michael lives in apartment 308.

The bank in this universe is CalAm.

Hen and Karen have a picture of Denny, May and Harry on their fireplace mantel.

Eddie having a black thumb + a lot of plants in his living room = him buying fake plants bc he likes the aesthetic ™ or someone (cough Carla cough) is taking care of them for him.

The COVID timeline in OG’s universe is fucked up compared to the real world’s, so it shouldn’t be used as a way to measure time! They just throw it in wherever it makes sense for the story they want to tell (eg the vaccines in s4 ep 8), since s3 was both done before COVID hit but also airing while it was happening. It makes absolutely no sense for May to graduate in March nor for Chris to be going to what is specifically labeled summer camp, and the vaccine plotline was INCREDIBLY early, even for real life, so don’t use anything from that as a measure of time. I’ve found except in specific examples, eg the two tsunami episodes, it’s very safe to say every episode covers a week - fall holidays on the show line up with their real life counterparts, indicating about the same amount of time is passing for us and them.

On that note - Jee-Yun was born in late January, early February 2021. (Conceived in Pinned, which was end of March/beginning of April, meaning Maddie was around a month along at May’s graduation in May ➡ 42 weeks + 3 days from then = late Jan/early Feb. Which unfortunately means we most likely won’t see her birthday celebrated on screen. If we assume she was conceived on the date Pinned aired, aka the very sexy hotel scene, then January 21st or 22nd would be Jee’s birthday, depending on if she was born after midnight or not.

Buck has had at least one other Jeep between the one Maddie gave him, and the one he has now, which means that when he needs a new car, he is purposefully choosing Jeeps.

I hope this was all as interesting/enjoyable to you as it was to me! And just to repeat - I love answering questions so pls let me know if you have any at all ❤

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Tagging: @buckbuckley

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

After reading your opinion on Molly Weasley, i want to know: What are you're opinions on the Weasley family? Besides Ron & Molly that is.

Five characters? In one post? Well, alright, here we go.

The Weasleys as a Whole

I’ve mentioned this before but JKR writes the Weasleys to clearly be a believable but ideal family. They’re all fiercely loyal, progressive per wizarding world standards, love each other and Harry deeply, and have this wonderful off-kilter joyous house where there’s always some rambunctious thing going on. 

Harry comes to associate the Weasleys with family and, personally, I believe a large part of him marrying Ginny boils down to it will make him a Weasley for real. 

That said, they’ve got some major issues. They’re very righteous people who, as a whole, will ice you out the moment they even suspect you do something that disagrees with them. You don’t even have to do it, what you did or didn’t do doesn’t even have to be something terrible or something bad, but god help you if the family decides they’re done with you. 

They’re very resentful of people like the Malfoys. This isn’t just because Lucius is a smarmy, pompous, ass (he is) or that he indirectly almost murdered Ginny but seems to mostly be because Lucius has so much money. All of their interactions seem to boil down to the money. More than this though, the Weasleys seem fully supportive of laws that... well, used against themselves would be a travesty but used against the likes of the Malfoys it’s about damn time.

They’re unquestioningly loyal to Dumbledore. Granted, most people we see in canon are, Dumbledore’s very very very good at convincing people he’s a saint. However, these guys are practically his cult member to the point where they do things like refuse to have Harry over the summer, even before Voldemort returned, because Dumbledore told them not to. 

They also never really adopt Harry into the family. Oh they give him a nice sweater, he comes over every once in a while to the house, he’s very good friends with Ron but he’s mostly treated just like that, a good friend. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this, except the way JKR sets it up we’re supposed to believe this is the family Harry found. It’s just that the family Harry’s found let’s him stay in a house with bars on his window where twelve-year-old Ron tells them, “Harry’s muggle family is really really awful” in a way that should have been raising red flags. Hermione practically lives at the Weasleys, Harry never does.

Now, are the Weasleys evil? No, far from it, they’re ordinary people who act in ways I’d expect ordinary people too. Technically they didn’t have to do anything more for Harry than they did, they didn’t have to hate Lucius Malfoy for better reasons, and they don’t have to be even slightly less worshipful of Dumbledore. They’re people, and they’re fine characters, but the overwhelming worship and love of the Weasleys we see across fandom does get on my nerves.

But you asked for individuals, so here we go.

 Arthur Weasley

Arthur is the epitome of “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” in the worst of ways and is, frankly, a giant awful joke to me. He’s the white kid you see going around with dread locks, a beanie the color of the Jamaican flag, smoking weed, and attempting to speak like Bob Marley 

Only, because he does it with muggle things, we’re supposed to find him funny and progressive.

Arthur is absolutely, albeit unwittingly, condescending in his love of muggle knickknacks. He has no idea how any of it actually works, not limited to how muggles could possible survive without the gold standard, but ardently believes he does because he can enchant the car to fly. Seriously, that he believes he’s an expert on muggle culture, as a pureblood wizard who heads an office in the ministry on it, is the worst part. His love of toasters comes across as, “Wow, look how cool it is that these poor little muggles made all this neat stuff. We should absolutely love the muggles because of it!” And that he heads an office in the ministry called “The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts” which is all about catching down Jackass style pranksters who think it would be hilarious of they enchanted toasters to bludgeon muggles to death...

Goddammit Arthur, why do you exist?

Right, otherwise, he’s got some pride issues going on. Part of the reason Percy is excommunicated is not so much that Percy doesn’t believe Harry, but because Percy dared to do better than Arthur in his own career. Arthur is stuck in his position as head of a joke of a department, he is an underling at its finest, and frankly likely only has that position because he’s a pureblood and the idea of putting a halfblood or even muggleborn at the head of a department dealing with muggles just made the higher ups shudder. (Don’t tell Arthur that though, he likes to think he’s not benefitting from nepotism). 

Arthur goes so far to accuse Percy as Fudge’s secretary as spying on him. Arthur, the guy who heads “Misuse of Muggle Artifacts”. Yeah, Arthur, I’m sure Fudge is really wasting his time using his straight laced secretary to find out all your dirty secrets. 

He also tends to see the world as very black and white. When Skeeter in book 4 writes an article after the Quidditch World Cup disaster complaining about the ministry’s lax security in enabling domestic terrorists to enter (something completely valid and true by the way) Arthur is so personally offended that both he and Percy go straight to the ministry to complain about Rita Skeeter and her daring to assume freedom of speech! HOW DARE SHE CALL THE MINISTRY’S NON-EXISTENT SECURITY AT THE WORLD CUP LAX! (To be fair, she also cited Arthur as having been in attendance at the event, a ministry employee, and having done nothing but, well, this is also true Arthur. You’re in a guerilla, underground, resistance movement. If I didn’t already think the Order was a joke this would kind of highlight it for me).

He’s also very resentful of Lucius Malfoy, and it seems to mostly be about the money. Arthur and Molly have a severe spending problem and actively resent that Lucius is swimming in money. That Arthur is ardently pleased about a law being passed in which the ministry without warrant can ransack Lucius Malfoy’s home... 

Well, Arthur, imagine the slippery slope if the government decides that it would like to search the Weasley home without warrant? In fact, he doesn’t even have to imagine it, as the beloved government in a few short years turns against him and then it’s all about how corrupt the ministry is. 

Arthur’s delightfully narrowminded, basically, and reminds us at nearly every opportunity.

Percy Weasley

Mostly, I just feel bad for Percy. Percy’s the son/brother that nobody likes and he’s painfully aware of that fact. He doesn’t fit in with the others, he has far too much ambition for the Gryffindor family and they resent him for it, and then he dares to say things like “I don’t know guys, Voldemort resurrecting from the dead after decades doesn’t sound plausible, we know Harry’s a little off kilter, and Dumbledore’s one shady dude”. Percy happens to be wrong about Voldemort resurrecting (and admits as much when the evidence is plainly visible), but he’s pretty on the money with the rest of it.

Regardless, growing up we see Ron constantly hating on Percy along with the rest of the siblings. I’m sure Percy is obnoxious, and certainly full of himself after making prefect and head boy, but he’s very clearly even before Order of the Phoenix the Least Favorite Brother (TM).

Then the Weasley family completely ices him out for a) getting a very high ranking position very quickly as Fudge’s secretary and b) not being gung ho about Dumbledore saying crazy things in the paper. Remember that to Percy Harry is Ron’s weird friend who seems to get into highly illegal activities every other week. From Percy’s point of view, it’s probably a matter of time before Harry becomes a crack head in Knockturn Alley (or given how behind the times wizards tend to be, an opium den). 

He’s constantly getting Ron into not only trouble but life threatening situations, is erratic and apparently a parseltongue of all things, and now Harry’s flipped his lid and saying that Voldemort has been resurrected after having gone through a very traumatic experience of watching a classmate somehow die. 

While we see Percy kind of (sort of)  make up with the family it’s clear that for Percy to have any relation with these people he’s the one who will always, ALWAYS, have to come crawling back on his knees and begging for forgiveness. It’s the Weasley way or the highway and I imagine, at some point probably a little after/during that epilogue, Percy will just slowly drift away because it’s just not worth it anymore.

Percy’s very much the black sheep of the family.

Fred and George Weasley

You all are going to kill me, but I actually don’t care in the slightest about Fred and George Weasley. This is because they basically have no personality aside from “funny”. 

They just have their weird, tandem, twin act and are either playing jokes on the school or else serving as Deus ex Machina in giving Harry magical items such as the Marauder’s Map for no apparent reason. The plot told them it was time, I guess. 

Their jokes, while not as bad as Sirius and James’ “Let’s sexually harrass Severus Snape by pantsing and beating him at the edge of Hogwarts lake” or Sirius’ “Let’s get Snape eaten by a werewolf!” are still often needlessly cruel and... kind of pointless. They harass Slytherin house constantly just because they happen to be Slytherins, they’re acceptable victims (which of course makes house tension that much worse). Harry gets sent a toilet seat in the hospital because... that’s funny? Har de har? 

They’re so indistinguishable from one another I routinely see people mistake which one got his ear chopped off and which one died. Because the point is, that we can’t tell the difference! It doesn’t matter who lived and who died because all we know is that Freorge is dead! 

Similarly, you see tons of fics around where character of the day ends up in this weird twincestuous relationship with Fred and George and it’s not only for a) that delightful twincest but b) because they’re such a singular unit that any attempt to pair one with somebody else feels weird. So you just get these porn fics about Fred and George being weird rapey teenagers who seem like they’d be more interested dating each other. 

Charlie Weasley

I really have no thoughts on Charlie. He raises dragons in Romania, the family loves him. Now, dragon raising feels like one of the most dangerous jobs in the Harry Potter universe, like Charlie had just gone and signed up to be a lumberjack but he seems to like it?

We really don’t see much of Charlie, he’s just the obligatory older Weasley son so that the Weasleys can be this ridiculously large family.

Bill Weasley

We see slightly more of Bill, but again, not enough to really leave an impression. We know that his marrying Fleur sent Molly into a complete state, and that they’re going to have awkward Christmas dinners forever because of it where Fleur just sits there and pretends not to loathe every second of Molly’s presence while Molly notes how bad it is that Victoire got stuck with that ugly pink hair instead of the Weasley red. 

Bill doesn’t seem to really do anything about this. He still marries Fleur, but we don’t really see a major confrontation where he tells the family “Look, I’m marrying her, so grow up.” So, I imagine he just tries to smile pleasantly and tells Fleur to just endure it for another few hours. He loves his family, his family’s great, but they only have to see Fleur once a year at Christmas.

Ginny Weasley

Ginny is weird. She’s this weird, frankly, almost personality-less void whose sole obsession in life seems to be marrying Harry. She and Harry end up in the world’s weirdest relationship and I honestly have no idea how people ship it other than canon told them to.

Ginny’s... well, first off, she’s very much in love with an idea. She had always worshipped Harry Potter but then he personally saves her life in what was a horrifically traumatic year and so that feeling just grows even more. Despite being Ron’s sister, she barely seems to know Harry, and everything she seems to like about it are just things she made up.

I imagine her and Harry’s marriage will be littered with affairs on her end. Not divorce though, because Harry would never admit his wife is having affairs on him all the time even if someone directly confronted him. Harry also won’t admit he’s gay. 

More than though we get hints of a personality. Ginny’s a fiery red-head tomboy with a temper. But... Well, it’s only ever hints. She never felt like a real person to me. She has I think one throwaway line about the Chamber of Secrets incident and how it personally affected her. We’re told she’s great at the bat boogey hex so we know she’s a fiery independent woman.

She feels more like a character sheet than an actual person. 

Whenever she’s around I always had this nagging question in my head where I ask why Ginny’s here. She has a lot of potential but nothing’s ever done with her. And when something is, it’s to get her into this bizarre relationship with Harry where he imagines there’s a green rage monster in his chest that loves her skin.

Okay Harry, if you say so. 

TL;DR: The Weasleys aren’t evil or anything, I’m not on Team Bash Them All, but they are shortsighted, ordinary, people who don’t deserve to be worshipped as all that is good in this world.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

What I still can’t understand is why the hell isn’t just not liking subtitles ENOUGH for Lily?! She could just not like watching anime with subtitles and that would be fucking FINE. That would be absolutely okay, and nobody would give a shit because that is a perfectly non—controversial take to have! But NOPE, instead everybody who likes subs and listening to anime in its original Japanese audio just HAVE to be fucking “perverts” and “weebs” who “treat Japanese culture like a zoo”. (1/2)

Honestly, your guess is as good as mine on why she....just can't say, "I don't like subtitles", and move on. Like, no one would care. Its pretty common in anime you will find either subtitles lovers, dub lovers or a mixture of both. Like, I do get not liking sitting down for long for subtitles. I am the type who....has to do everything otherwise my brain goes to sleep, so sitting still for subtitles is pretty hard. But at the same time, I found I did enjoy YGO 5Ds with subtitles and cause its the non-dub, I saw the missing episodes 4Kids for some reason, cut out. Which you know, is a little more against Lily's argument on YGO fans complaining. Again, people don't just hate it because death scenes got cut. A whole fucking season of GX didn't get dubbed cause 4Kids wanted to go to 5Ds where again, MORE episodes got cut or skipped. But you know, perverts, am I right?

Honestly, I saw that take about the zoo and its...just really??? Lily really wants to fucking die on this hill. Because by implying dubs that erase anything Japanese and try to american'ize it by anyway possible are the better version, shes implying America does Japan's own works better. Like, I get there are some weird anime fans are out there who may treat Japan stuff like that, but AGAIN, that's not all anime fans. People wondering why the fuck One Piece got America'ized and why Pokemon called rice balls 'jelly doughnuts', isn't a zoo moment. Its just people wondering why dubs love to censor Japanese culture.

I mean, there's a reason why I coined the term 'Lilydom': it basically sums up how Lily wants everything to be. Only her opinions can be true. If you dare disagree with them, your in the wrong and your whatever what the fuck person she can throw out without any evidence beyond what she makes up to justify it. And if you dare try to defend anime to her....well good fucking luck, really, is all I can say. Honestly, this is why I say never trust Lily to discuss any media. She will not research properly and will miss out half the context for the media in Owl House's case and won't even try to just say she doesn't like subtitles and move on, and her 'hot' takes will be her making up shit to justify her opinions and why your wrong and because its Lily, has to trash someone somehow in it.

I mean, no joke Lily has a-lot of growing up to to. This is the same women currently making a video on her critics just so she can dub them as stalkers and make up BS about them so she can act like she's never in the wrong.

[thosearentcrimes]

Ok so a short while back the Bay Area Rationalist community seems to have been revealed to be lousy with high-profile cults, most notably and convincingly, Leverage, which obviously makes me feel rather vindicated but also isn’t really what I want to talk about. Instead, what really struck me is a recurring fascination, whether openly discussed and a part of the dogma of the cult, as in Leverage, or discussed furtively without official sanction, as in MIRI, but in either case apparently quite common. The fascination is with what they call demons. Now, you might think that committed technologists in California getting sucked into weird occult cult shit is strange, but if you believe that I recommend reading up on Jack Parsons. Of course, Jack Parsons co-founded the genuine rocketry pioneer JPL, while the crowning achievement of Yudkowskian Rationalism still seems to be a Harry Potter fanfic and an extraordinarily large scam/cult incubator, but I digress.

By demons they don’t seem to mean quite the same thing as in the pop cultural or religious tradition, of a hostile supernatural (non-human) being manipulating or outright possessing people to do evil. Instead, what they appear to mean is a person, not even necessarily deliberately, getting other people to internalize their beliefs and thought patterns (these would then be referred to as demons). They call it demons though, because rationalists appear to be fundamentally opposed to being intelligible to anyone else, and also are massive nerds (for what it’s worth, one of their own favorite thinkers coined the term “meme” to describe something pretty close to this phenomenon already, though of course it’s not really usable these days I guess, and doesn’t allow you to develop paranoia about extremely ordinary social interactions). They also call it demons because they think this is an extremely bad thing, and not something that just tends to happen when you hang out with people for a while. I’m not here to make fun of people for being unfamiliar with social interaction, but the way many rationalists seem to have processed this apparently novel experience seems both unhelpful and in many cases actively dangerous.

I feel like there’s a lot to unpack with “demons”, really. I suspect I’ve observed the same phenomena as the Bay Area Rationalists did, and I’ve even been briefly distressed by them existentially, but I certainly did not become paranoid about being mindcontrolled by everyone I knew. Why is that? Well for starters I’m not in a cult. But there’s more to it than just that. There’s a particularly dangerous combination of intellectual rigor with self-evident, but wrong premises. See, if you’re both devoted to reason and to a particular set of premises, you will reason along with Sherlock Holmes, that "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Of course, in reality arriving at an absurd conclusion is much more often an indication of some unexamined flaw in the reasoning, or the premises.

I’ve already explained that what these people seem to be experiencing as a novelty is something which most people are used to as a basic feature of social interaction. However, this does not itself suffice to contradict their claims. In fact, a lot of people who are entirely used to adopting beliefs, mannerisms, or entire ways of thinking from their environment could stand to do at least a little more thinking about the process. So if we ignore, to the best of our ability, all the cult stuff, and as much of the untreated (or unsuccessfully treated) mental illness as we can, what can we try to reconstruct of the chain of reasoning here, and actually respond to the argument. I will be venturing into quite a lot of conjecture here, but I think I have a pretty good idea.

We start with the premise (though because it is such a fundamental premise, they likely don’t usually think of it as such) that there are such things as individuals, and that we are those individuals. An individual is a fundamentally unique entity (perhaps we could call it a unique string or pattern of information), separate from other individuals and the world, that interacts with the world as a coherent whole. Next, we engage in some self-reflection, and we compare our image of ourselves with our experiences of ourselves. We discover that they differ in important respects, and that often, in our experiences of ourselves, we find things that seem more like our images of others than of ourselves. Perhaps they are simply verbal tics, or turns of phrase, perhaps they are something more significant. This is, in any case, a violation of our individuality, manipulation, a hostile act, an infection. A demon. That’s roughly my interpretation of the thought process, simplified a bunch.

If I’m right, and this sense of disrupted individuality is at the core of this demon paranoia, then I think the people suffering from it are the unfortunate victims of unexploded ideological ordnance from the Cold War, either capitalist Cold War propaganda or 90s triumphalism taken to unfortunate extremes. See, the central narrative of the soi-disant First World was that, with their democratic governance and free market economies and freedom of speech, they understood the importance and the rights of the individual, whereas the communist states were a homogenous and terrifying mass of insects, or endless ranks of individuals, suppressed but yearning for freedom, or both, depending on the situation. The US likely has the most of this propaganda floating around in the environment, polluting political discussion with libertarianism and other preposterous nonsense. Rationalist communities in particular seem to have a lot of members who are still in their libertarian phases or are carrying serious baggage from them, specifically including the exclusive focus on the individual.

So what’s so wrong with strict individualism as a premise? Well, it’s just not true. Yes, everybody is unique and everybody deserves respect and such. But that is not incompatible with recognizing that we are all but mosaics of mosaics, that we are formed by our experiences and relationships. And not only in good ways. No man is an island, entire of himself, for both good and ill. We construct our selves, sometimes in opposition to, sometimes along the pattern of our social environment, but always in the context of it. We live in a society.

I can, from experience, anticipate a likely objection to the low importance I assign to individuality. Surely I respect people’s rights, and wish to protect my own? And how can I defend the rights of individuals if I deny their existence? In fact, the so-called “individual” rights are misnamed, and the concept of individual, even though I do not mean to abandon it, is by no means necessary for them to be applied, at least if by those rights we mean, and this is generally what is implied, freedom of speech, thought and assembly, of political participation and various others besides. Because if any of those grand rights are to be rights in the first place, they must apply to the society at large. If they only applied to a particular subset, to some individuals, then they would be nothing but the privileges of a particular class. So they are not "individual” rights, but the rights of a society, and also its duties to itself.

[dreamingsushi]

The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity

So I was looking for clips of Zhao Youting for animated gif making and I stumbled across a video of this movie starring him and Deng Lun, and that was of course on my long long long watchlist on Netflix. And it's been a while since I haven't done any reviews, so many projects are still ongoing, but what a better way than to start with a movie. Because after two hours, it's done and I can just go back to whatever else I was doing and it doesn't cause sleepless nights since I won't need to keep on watching when the two hours are over. As usual, I have actually totally no idea what this is about, I guess from the bits and parts I saw (and the title) that this must have some xianxia background to it and I wouldn't mind that at all. After all, that's just my favorite genre when it comes to drama. And movies. So wither further do, let's dig into this!

Right from the start, beautiful sceneries and images. I feel mesmerized by what I'm seing. It all starts with a little boy, Qing Ming being taught by his teacher how to cast a protection spell however he can't seem to master it, even after years of practice and finds a way to protect himself otherwise. But his master isn't pleased with his side ways and even though he's the best disciple, if he can't master something as basic as this, he will never become a Yin-Yang Master. Then, the big ice wall starts to crack up and the master sends Qing Ming away and summons three magic beings. Beasts? Not sure yet what are they. But the special effects are gorgeous, everything is gorgeous.

But no matter how hard the master tries, a bad snake comes out of the wall and when it's time to conjure the protection spell, Qing Ming tries his trick but of course it doesn't work, so the master sends his shield to his disciple and ends up being badly injured but the snake and one of his minions jumps in the snake's mouth to kill it. And it was all in vain because it won't cure his master since it wasn't the real snake. So the master will die. Qing Ming is afraid to be left alone and he doesn't care about people remembering him, but his master calls him the Yin-Yang Master.

Seriously, this really beautiful, as far as I am concern. The costumes. The setting. I'm really impressed. It really immerges you in the spirit of the movie.

Ouuuuh a Deng Lun playing the flute. That is nice. Him and Qing Ming both sense that there is a demon somewhere near and start moving, and so they meet. But somehow, Qing Ming saves the pipa playing demon? I'm so confused. Ah, that's because he's not a mean one. So Deng Lun's character hates demons, but Qing Ming thinks some demons are good. So they end up fighting while the demon flees. The choreography of the fight is beautiful. So well executed. In the end, Qing Ming wins. And he drops Deng Lun on the top of a roof.

The demon waited for Qing Ming because he wanted to thank him for saying that demons have feelings too. And he asks to become... hmmm... like his servant? It's more complicated than that obviously, but I can't quite put the right word on their relationship now. Some concepts are so hard to translate to be honest, because we have actually nothing similar in Western culture. Anyways.

Deng Lun goes back to his academy or temple, wherever it is that he's training, to receive orders regarding the bad snake from the beginning of the movies. Some of his shadows are coming back to stir up troubles. He has been sent to attend some worship ceremony and bumps again into Qing Ming, which angers him because he believes that someone sympathizing with demons shouldn't have the right to attend. So he challenges him to a duel, but Qing Ming declines. Then some girl comes to ask if he's declining because he's afraid of losing. Then some other man comes over and tells them to go have a rest, but when he sees him, something seems to shock Qing Ming. Probably he knows him from somewhere else? We'll see. That girl and that guy are both creepy. Like they give me chills. They are too soft spoken.

As cultivators, I feel it's kind of weird that hey get dressed up by other people, even though it's a special day. They are not royalty.... And I don't like Qing Ming's hair for that part. Then a princess comes around. The creepy girl spreads the gossip about her: she isn't married even though she's over 30 and she might know of demonic cultivation. One of the cultivator wasn't there, and when they ask about him, they hear he died. So the creepy guy will take his place during the sea,ling ceremony. The guy was killed by a demon. Qing Ming suggest the killer is in there. So the creepy girl suggests they use her technique to detect demonic energy, so they decide to. The fishes in the bowl all converge to Qing Ming: it is said that his mother was a fox demon. Oh interesting. The princess orders to take him away, but Bo Ya says Qing Ming wasn't the one to kill the master. How does he know? What is he going to say??? So he put that little bell in Qing Ming's room that night, the one he noticed. So he didn't go out of his room. The Princess says it's not enough to prove his innocence, but Qing Ming has another evidence: someone stuck something on him and that thing actually lures the fish when he passes it over to Bo Ya. Then the fishes move to the princess. She gives them three days to summon the beasts to lock away the bad snake.

Oh so they all spied on each other. Hahaha.

I really like Qing Ming's character. He was asking Bo Ya to have a drink, but he's in a hurry to leave. Then one of his servants comes around and Bo Ya almost kills it again because it's a demon. He tells him to become a demon instead of a cultivator if likes them so much. His answers really angers Bo Ya. But I just love how Qing Ming is really calm about everything, he's so relaxed.

Okay, I'm not digging the thrid eye in the middle of Bo Ya's forehead. That's creepy. Like it's well done, but I really dislike it. Anyways, they all go around killing demons, I guess to wake up the guardians as they feed spirit balls to their statues. Except for Qing Ming. He's drinking with a bunch of women. I like that he's relaxed, not that he's some womanizer. But I guess there's something more to it than that so I'm not too worried yet. Later on he meets with Shou Yue and asks him if they ever met. But he never left the palace. He asks him if he killed the other master, but actually he's a servant of his late master, so he's going to die soon.

Ohhh so he was collecting information as to find the demon spirit to feed the dragon he has to awaken. As he's explaining that to Bo Ya, a servant comes for Qing Ming as something happened to the princess. While he's trying to treat her, Qing Ming notices some worm-like shapes moving under her skin. So he takes it from her body to his. It makes him ill and thanks to Bo Ya. The spirit is enough to awake the dragon.

Bo Ya and Qing Ming share a little of their past. Bo Ya's mom was killed by a demon, so he started cultivating to rid the world of demons. Whereas Qing Ming was mistreated by people because people branded his mother for being a demon. That the only nice person to him was his master. So he shows Bo Ya how he died at his hands.

Okay so the four masters end up fighting each other while someone tried to enter the emperess's rooms. Ah long, the creepy girl with the fishes noticed something odd about the princess and she gets killed by a bunch of hair. Before dying, she tells Qing Ming that the princess is the murderer. Later that night Bo Ya threatens Qing Ming while the princess asks Shou Yue why he betrayed her. So Shou Yue is controlling the hair demon and killed Ah Long because she knew their secret. He wants to bring back the snake. And he killed the other master earlier. Now he plans on killing Qing Ming and Bo Ya. Qing Ming is convinced that the killer is the Princess from what Ah Long told him, but Bo Ya still doubts Shouyue. But then Qing Ming tells him the relationship between Shouyue and his previous master. So Bo Ya thinks it's a conspiracy against the princess, since he grew up with her. So they're both convinced that they friend isn't the bad guy. They both are. I guess they are somehow lovers too? Confusing much, but she doesn't kill him.

Boya and Qing Ming both go their way to discover who is the murderer. And they each tell each other to call if they need help. So of course, Shouyue betrayed the master and he's going to try and kill Bo Ya. The hair demon kills the princess before Qing Ming can ask anything and it stole the sword Qing Ming's master entrusted to him. I think? I'm not sure. Okay, so the air demon killed the princess by itself and not under the orders of Shouyue. She broke out of the controlling spell, as she was a servant spirit. But not I am kind of lost. Qing Ming finds a portrait and it seems to be revealing of something important but... haha I lost some bits and parts I guess. Because I don't understand.

Qing Ming rushes to see Bo Ya. The princess isn't dead. She's actually the empress. Her body is actually sealing away the bad snake. She got eternal life. When she starts feeling unwell after telling all about her past, when they try to attack, Shouyue sends them in boxes filling with sand. Qing Ming manages to save Bo Ya in extremis.

Omg, the girl is the sword. She was in love with the master? And now she gave birth to the bad snake and Shouyue eats it, preventing the sword to kill it. So now Shouyue is not dying anymore. So that's what they were trying to do. But it's not enough. Qing Ming and Bo Ya comes in too late. The snake is now huge and the guardians didn't wake up because Shouyue didn't feed his. The snake is trying to kill everyone. He's trying to take her away from Tiandu. But then the Princess jumps from the snake, bringing with her Shouyue so they shall die together. The snake eat both of them. Qing Ming calls his servants to fight away the snake. However, Shouyue didn't die and he comes out of the snake, battling the servants like a badass. Bo Ya is asking Qing Ming to make him his spirit servant, whatever how I should translate that, as he will sacrifice himself to save the princess and awake the last guardian.

I said that Shouyue guy was creepy. Like so much. I don't get his motive.

Okay so now Bo Ya became the guardian. But like... where are the three other ones?

Qing Ming goes into the snake to look for the princess. She's stuck in an illusion where she sees Qing Ming's master. So Qing Ming takes her to when his master died. The master gives her the dagger/sword, however you like to call it. It was named after her name, by herself, so the master could remember her. She makes me so sad. Poor lady. Cursed to live eternally to birth a big bad snake ):

Qing Ming takes her back to the world and send Fangyue to Bo Ya. Who sends it to the snake, but he uses a protection curse. So the princess threatens to kill herself and does it so Shouyue can't use the protection spell. Bo Ya jumps in front of Qing Ming to protect him. Then Shouyue comes back to attack, Qing Ming's protection spell fails to work, but in the end he manages to do it because he found someone he's willing to protect: Bo Ya. So Shouyue was made out of his master to always stay by her side. So that's why he looked so similar. Because he wanted to look his master. So in the end, his motivation was to live forever to protect Fangyue.

That's it, now I'm crying. Even the bad guy was a good guy in the end. He was just doing what he was asked to. And now Qing Ming and Bo Ya are parting ways. Seriously. Why are they always making me cry so bad?

What the heck. Why is she not dead? I mean the creepy girl. Why is she breathing again now? How can they do this to me? And there's nothing else, it's over... Seriously TT

This definitely was a very good movie. It was well executed. The plot line seemed a little bit chaotic for me at first, I was already taking out points to this movie because of that, it felt as if it wasn't going anywhere. I was wondering what was that story telling and everything became so clear at the end. I wasn't expecting the princess at all to actually be the empress, nor Shouyue a part of the master (or maybe I didn't understand that when he introduced himself first?). It was just such a touching story. Loved the dynamic between Zhao Youting and Deng Lun, even though their friendship and trust built a little too fast for me. But overall, there were not loopholes in the plot. The special effects were really good. The costumes, gorgeous. The music perfect. I just really highly highly recommend. Seriously. Put that on your watchlist. It's so so so worth it.

[cruelfeline]

I’ve been wondering something that could probably go either way: when Light Hope and Mara say that the First Ones were the original settlers of Etheria, do you think that was a straight-up lie/fantasy racism, or are all the humanoids on Etheria distantly descended from First Ones? Or is it a mix of both?

Ah... this is something of a delicate subject, and given the lack of canon, it could really be taken either way. It has, admittedly, been something that I’ve always been frustrated with because it’s so vaguely and awkwardly handled.

The common interpretation that I personally have seen is that the First Ones are colonizers: they invaded an already-populated planet, installed their own tech and their own settlements, and made use of the planet’s resources as they saw fit. Once the Heart of Etheria project failed, they fled, with only Mara staying behind and promptly dying after her self-sacrifice.

This is a perfectly serviceable take, but I will admit that it’s always kind of irked me because the way the characters talk about the First Ones and their legacy isn’t really... it doesn’t seem to provide what I would expect to be a progressive assessment of colonization. Or, rather... it takes out the human effects of colonization. It very much deals with what the First Ones’ influence means for the planet, but there’s never any real evidence that the culture and social structures of current Etherians are affected by the First Ones’ presence.

In our world, the effects of colonization can be seen in the human world and affect nearly all societies on Earth. They don’t just affect what happens to the planet and the environment. This, to my eyes, is missing in SPoP. There are no ingrained power structures owing to the First Ones, no cultural effects that we see beyond storytime myths and legends. The entire race is treated with a mix of curiosity and wonder, rather than as a people that came and did damage to those who already lived there. So it just kind of... it’s a bit odd.

Now, if one takes it a different way, namely an environmental one, then it works a bit better. The tech the First Ones have left on Etheria affected the planet’s magic and its environments, and the main characters do react to these things fairly well. It makes the narrative, to me, fit a more environmental tone rather than one involving straight colonization. 

All of this feeds into your question of whether the First Ones were colonizers, or actually the first settlers. 

The way that characters talk about them makes me go the environmental route rather than the colonization one and assume that they were the actual first settlers. Namely because literally no one suggests that the First Ones had any sort of conflicts with Etherians already living on the planet. Which. Y’know. Is weird, if we’re doing a colonization narrative.

But, one might ask about Mara talking of Etherians, or referring to Razz as an Etherian. This very much supports the idea that the First Ones were not the first to settle the planet (but then, why does everyone say they were? what gives?)... which, again, just doesn’t really work with what other characters say. Maybe Mara meant the general life on Etheria, when she said Etherians? Hm.

One could argue that the Etherians lost all of their old history when the First Ones landed, but... there’s no mention of that either? I mean, one could hypothesize that the First Ones took over Etherian settlements and essentially assimilated the natives... but somehow, they’re a myth, and no one can read their writing (which, I would expect, would be forced upon natives in assimilation?). They don’t talk at all about ancient Etherians interacting with the First Ones at all. They treat them like... like we treat dinosaurs, or something. Not as an invading race that came and imposed upon an existing one. Ah, it’s all a muddle.

I guess my ultimate answer is that I don’t know. The show is so wildly unclear about it. Personally?

I don’t really mind much either way. It’s not a part of the story that is important to me. Though I do have a soft spot for assuming that the First Ones were the initial sapient settlers of Etheria and genetically engineered the bejeezus out of everything. Hence why there are like, a hundred sapient species on the planet. Kind of like the Endless in Endless Legend, if any of y’all have ever played that.

But it’s anyone’s guess.

[saranghanuuu]

LOVE LASTS FOREVER JDRAMA REVIEW ♡

Love Lasts Forever / An Incurable Case Of Love (Koi Wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomade mo) is a 2020 romance-comedy-medical Japanese drama based on Maki Enjōji’s 2016 manga series of the same name. It stars Takeru Satoh playing the role of Dr. Tendo Kairi and Kamishiraishi Mone as Sakura Nanase.

PLOT SUMMARY

Love Lasts Forever / An Incurable Case Of Love (Koi Wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomade mo) tells the story of Sakura Nanase who accidentally (or should I say, fatefully) encounters cardiologist Tendo Kairi after an old woman collapsed on the street due to vasospasm. Sakura is greatly impressed on how Dr. Tendo handled the matter at hand and falls in love with him at first sight. After Dr. Tendo complimented Sakura for playing a key role of screaming for help for the old woman, she then realized her desire to become a nurse for a chance to meet him again.

Five years later, she was admitted as a nurse trainee at Hiura General Hospital where Dr. Tendo works. Sakura confessed to him on her first day of work, only to receive a blunt rejection. Unbeknownst to her, Dr. Tendo is dubbed as a “devil” at work for being a perfectionist and for criticizing other doctors and nurses. Sakura earned the title “hero” in the cardiology ward because of that daring confession, but Dr. Tendo sees her as nothing but a “boulder” hindering his job due to her clumsiness. However perhaps with love and patience, nothing is impossible. Sakura continued to pursue the seemingly cold-hearted Dr. Tendo, especially after she was placed under his team. She now aims to receive his validation both at work and in love. Will Sakura be able to succeed in this sweet ordeal?

MY TWO CENTS

I haven’t seen a Japanese drama in a while and it’s highly unlikely for me to watch one as my hands are full of Korean dramas these days (I am currently watching 3 ongoing and 4 finished series). But then I happen to see a fan-made video again circulating in Facebook about Love Lasts Forever. The FMV is so well-done that I was fascinated - covering all the meaty parts from start to finish. That’s when I decided I should gamble my time for this. It appears to be just an easy-going series, I thought, which will be a good catch since everything’s so complex recently. I started it with low expectations... And I unexpectedly loved it so much than I can handle!

WARNING: I suggest you not watching this if you are tired of this kind of plot, OR you prefer complicated stories, OR you expect this to focus on the medical aspect than romance. I want to save this drama from your disappointment. On the other hand, this drama suits best for hopeless romantics who fairly need a breather from the intricacies of life.

Since I never once reckon Love Lasts Forever to be a perfect drama, I am setting aside my criticisms. Instead, I am listing the things that made me fall for this series:

Kamishiraishi Mone is sooo KAWAII! Yes, this is the first reason HAHAHA😁 The way she speaks is very cute that it made me an instant fan. Of course it followed that I researched about her and found far more interesting things! She is a singer and the voice actress behind Mitsuha Miyamizu of Japanese anime film Your Name at that! She even sang an OST of Your Name entitled Nandemonaiya. Whoa~ So impressive, this girl.

Right on acting. I am well aware that Japanese series tend to be OA and loud. This one is no different, but more of on the entertaining side than cringeworthy.

Clichè theme, yes, but the kind you will never get tired of. Admit it or not, your heart still flutters on stories of a tsundere male lead falling head over heels with a clumsy but bright female lead

Similarity with Itazura Na Kiss - anyone who watched this drama will be able to tell, I suppose. Itazura Na Kiss is evidently one of my most loved stories that I made several posts about it here in my blog. But I guess Love Lasts Forever stood out in a way that it's more relaxed and less toxic (just like what a user commented on my previous post).

Love Lasts Forever showed justification behind Dr. Tendo's strict and aloof personality, which brought more excitement as Sakura slowly breaks down the walls on Dr. Tendo's heart. It is thrilling when they do this in a drama really. Dr. Tendo initially drew a line between him and Sakura, so him growing as an expressive character is one for the record! He gave so many reassurances to Sakura that he loves her, that it was never a mistake that he chose to be with her.

Kiss kiss kiss overload!

In my standard at least, Takeru Satoh is not handsome (sorry hah~), but I must admit he's oozing with sex appeal. He's a good kisser too and I love it🙈 And since we're already talking about kissing, Kamishiraishi Mone's responses to kissing scenes are really good too. It's not awkward and will indeed make you feel the tension.

Feel-good OST! This is on repeat in my playlist nowadays and everytime I listen to it, it brings back all the heart-fluttering memories in the drama.

Every episode has a distinct story to tell.

Hilarious side characters! And second and third couples that are likewise lovable - Dr. Kisugi x Sakai and Nishi x Ryuko

My happily ever after ideal ending - a marriage.

FUN FACTS/TRIVIAS ABOUT THIS DRAMA (Compiled from Blitzfansub)

Dr. Tendo is your stereotypical “Do-S” character (literally translated to “Super-S”) where normally the “S” stands for sadistic. Because they just say Do-S, the running joke is that he can be both super stoic and super sadistic at the same time.

It is part of Japanese politeness to describe *every* *single* *action* the nurse takes. And every time they touch the patient, or get too close to them, they literally say “pardon me”. It doesn’t sound natural in English, but not translating those lines will also be unnatural. The cultural difference is that in US, the nurses try to keep a conversation with you to distract you from the discomfort. In Japan, they tell you everything about it so you don’t get uncomfortable.

Team Tendo or Team Kisugi is of course, a double entendre. It means a doctor-nurse assignment as they described in the show, but they hint at it as also being “a fan of…” Tendo or Kisugi.

You may have noticed Dr. Tendo’s favorite phrase is “baka” and while it can translated to any one of stupid, idiot, retard, there is a distinction based on context. When he’s calling her “baka” at work, he’s insulting her lack of experience, and not necessarily her lack of intelligence. That’s why “retard” was used. In Episode 3 when Sakura mimicked Dr. Tendo in self-deprecating way, she said “idiot” and he defended himself saying he wasn’t that harsh. At the end of this episode, when she called him out, the baka he used was a very endearing kind, so the word “stupid” was used.

The scene where Dr. Tendo pretends to fall asleep after Sakura gets out of the shower may be seen as “cruel” in American culture but it’s a classic “gentleman move” in Japanese romance plots. He’s worried that she feels too pressured if he’s awake, so he pretends to be asleep and alleviate the pressure to have sex. I hope you can all appreciate his kindness!

A line from Episode 8 that literally says “It’s all your fault for making this weird kid be attracted to you” is such a hard line to sub. Like, who says that?! I mean, never mind that it sounds awkward. Nobody I know thinks like this (that it’s her fault he’s attracted to her). So translating isn’t just about replacing Japanese words with English words, but it’s also about placing it in the correct context. In this case, such a scenario would never happen in America because no guy says this in a lovable/jealous manner. Every guy that says this is a psychopath!! So what do you do in this case? The translator took a stab at the possible context and rephrased it to sound a bit more normal. If the context turns out to be different, the translator probably have to rephrase it significantly. Just a little “behind-the-scene” on how subtitling works!

Difference from Manga: In episode 6, Miori is supposed to be the younger sister of Minori. Most people assume they are twins because that was the setting in the manga. However, the drama never explicitly mention them being twins. But if you check TBS’ website… it mistakenly shows Miori as 33 and Minori as 26 even though Minori is suppose to be older. And furthermore if you read the description for Miori, it says “Minori’s twin sister” so… in conclusion, the TBS website is a hot mess!

The amusement park Dr. Tendo and Sakura went to was filmed at Tokyo Dome City.

Takeru Satoh gave a “behind the scene” talk where he said that removing Sakura’s hair tie in the living room scene of Episode 8 was ad-libbed. He thought of it on the spot because the drama has used hair tie as a symbolism for “focused career-mode Sakura”, and untying her hair there showed that he’s treating her as a woman.

Another behind the scene talk regarding last scene of Episode 8: The editors were going to start the I love… song at the point where Dr. Tendo shows up, but the editors said “it’s probably obvious that he’s going to show up, so might as well start the song early and match Dr. Tendo’s appearance with the crescendo.”

Bath culture is big in Japan. People don’t normally just take showers. That’s why when Sakura’s mom realized her house is not fit for a guest to take a bath, she sent the whole family to a public bath (called sento).

In a scene where Sakura’s trying to act cute in Episode 9, Dr. Tendo literally says “Did you eat something spoiled?” because there’s a reference that you act out of character when you eat something bad. This reference doesn’t work in English, so instead, “hitting yourself in the head” is used.

In the scene on Episode 10 where Nishi is introducing himself to Dr. Tendo, he actually calls Dr. Tendo “younger brother.” This is because even if he is younger than Dr. Tendo, if he marries his older sister, Nishi automatically becomes the “older brother-in-law” in turn making Dr. Tendo the “younger brother-in-law”.

In Japan, the “best man” of the wedding is usually the groom’s boss.

Apparently this series was so popular it crashed Paravi (TBS streaming site) few hours after EP10 release!

Not long ago, I was afflicted by an emotional disturbance that lasted for two months. It affected my everyday living so much that I had a hard time sleeping. After watching this drama, it faded away, to my surprise. I owe my happiness these days to this show. Maybe that's how I can sum up the fun of watching this. I hope the same goes to you!

[recycledmovies]

‘Parasite’ shows the ugliness of Koreans dealing with their hierarchical society in very high detail. Unlike many other interpretations I’ve seen, I will not deal with the details and the mise en scene, but the overall story, characters and their roles. The details are stunning, but I don’t think that’s an excuse to look away from the main story to focus on the little things. Also, there are two dimensions from a macro and meso point of view that I think are more relevant than finding hidden foreshadows or symbols.

Please note that I am Korean and know enough about Korea to point out the flaws of our society and people, including myself. I know very well that Koreans hate being criticized (just as Gitaek shows signs of anger when Mr. Park points out that he has an weird smell), but the truth is the truth and nothing will improve if we cannot see ourselves objectively. So if you’re pissed at my interpretation because you are a proud Korean, think again about what good pride will do.

The Hierarchical Society

Hierarchy has always been part of Korean culture. But as the movie shows, hierarchy is not based on traditional values anymore but overridden completely by economic status. You can see this in the scene where the young pizza box collector speaks down to the Kims. Traditionally, speaking in this manner to people who are even a year older would be considered absolutely unacceptable. This scene sets the stage as a society where economic values have become the new standard for hierarchy. In reality, money justifies everything in Korea and I’m sure it’s the same in a lot of places around the world. Basic ethics and philosophy is forgotten, or something only the naïve remembers anymore.

Although the Parks have higher economic status, a number of scenes demonstrate that in essence, they are also just human beings and have the same flaws as anyone else. Mr. Park and Yeon-gyo uses Gijeong’s underwear as prop during their role-play intercourse on the couch after criticizing the former driver for indecency and accusing him of drug abuse without any evidence whatsoever. Although the Parks are respectful towards the Kims, they still smell the difference. This is another trait of the Korean middle class. While they act like decent people in general, deep down, they still consider the Parks different. Koreans know very well that this is not a trait of the upper class, but more a trait of the middle class. We like to think that we are different from those that are of lower class in our hierarchy. We may act like we respect others, but deep down, the concept of hierarchy prevails. Even today, when two Koreans meet for the first time, questions go back and forth to subtly reveal the status in hierarchy of the two people. Sometimes this is age, sometimes social status and sometimes economic status, but we always establish the hierarchy. When a difference in status is found, the language that we use suddenly changes. The higher class can speak down and the lower class has to speak the polite version of Korean and show respect in almost every word, gesture and even posture.

Another fascinating feature of Koreans and our hierarchical society that also appears in Parasite is the fact that rather than the middle class cooperating with each other to make their lives better, individuals try to move up to the higher class by stepping on their fellow middle class people. The goal is always to make our own lives better by being better than others rather than making everything better. Choongsook demonstrates this when she finds out that Moon-gwang has been hiding her husband in the cellar. Immediately, Choongsook decides to side with the higher class family and fails to see that Moon-gwang’s family and her own would benefit from a partnership. An example in reality? Although most Koreans get outraged when owners of Korean conglomerates or their family members mistreat and deceive the public, most Koreans would do anything to get a job at Samsung, LG or Korean Air. No matter how inhumanely the upper class treats the lower classes, people will jump at any chance to join the higher class and look down on those that are considered lower once they get there, regardless of how many ethical or philosophical values they have to give up.

The dominance of competition in the Korean mentality is emphasized by the fact that both the Kims and the Parks had gone bankrupt from trying to run a franchise store of a ‘Taiwanese Castella’ chain. Even though the Kims hear that Moon-gwang’s family had gone through the same financial difficulties for the same reason, they fail to feel sympathy and only think about competing with those that can be considered their closest fellows. Sadly, another common characteristic among Koreans.

The Absence Of A Middle Class Family

The middle class is the essence of capitalism. The large portion of middle class sets the norm in most modern societies and creates a barrier for the upper class preventing upheavals from inequality. But there is not middle class character in the movie that influences the plot. It’s hard to see this as accidental and for me it was the single most impressive aspect of the plot.

I have two explanations for this absence of the majority. First is that in a strictly hierarchical society, nobody feels like the middle class. Apart from very close friends, everyone else is either in a higher class or a lower class than myself. In one on one interaction with other I’m either the upper class or the lower class. When two Koreans meet for the first time, we ask questions that can lead to answers which give clues to who is higher in the hierarchy. Usually age, social status or financial status is asked indirectly to establish the hierarchy. Once it is established, it dictates the language, gestures and even postures of the two people. Even if one person is a couple of months older than the other, the hierarchy unfolds.

Another reason I think the middle class was left out was because the majority of the audience would be middle class Koreans and Koreans are terrible at taking criticism. If the plot had a middle class family, most of the audience would related themselves to that family. And if the movie showed any criticism towards them, it would instantly become personal to the audience and Bong would have had a hard time both financially and reputation wise.

The Deranged Husband

Moon-gwang’s husband acts like a crazy person and shows unconditional respect towards Mr. Park, who doesn’t even know that Moon-gwang’s husband exists. But is this really that weird for Koreans? Most Koreans work for tycoons that brainwash their employees to show unconditional obedience while not even knowing their names. We arrive at our desks before our superiors do and leave after our superiors leave even if we have nothing to do at our desks and have to kill time watching Youtube videos. Can we really say that Moon-gwang’s husband is that much different from the average Korean? And just like Moon-gwang’s husband, the middle class does nothing about being forced to show fake respect everyday. We actually encourage it by investing years of studies to pass the company employment exams. Yes. Korean companies have exams because there are so many people trying to become employees. One of them is called SSAT. Guess what the first ‘S’ stands for?

Moon-gwang goes on further by impersonating the North Korean national news caster. The North Korean news caster is a symbol of manipulation and oppression for South Koreans. Are South Koreans really in the position to think that North Korea has extreme issues and we are free from oppression and manipulation?

The Hero

Like in reality, there are always exceptions. The exception in this movie? Gitaek. Gitaek is the only character in the movie that acts against the hierarchical system for values that are innate to humans. As a result, he is forced down into the cellar that Moon-gwang’s deranged husband once lived. This also directly reflects the Korean society where being different is unacceptable. Maybe reality is not as severe as in the movie, but going against popular sentiment brings similar consequences. I remember growing up, people who would had tanned skin were called ‘tanning jok,’ meaning ‘tanning tribe.’ During the cryptocurrency boom, people traded cryptocurrency were called ‘coin choong,’ meaning ‘coin vermin’. Such framing isolates people who show any difference from the majority, regardless of whether the difference is positive or negative. Of course, heroes, who act against the wrong when others don’t, are also often isolated by the majority. Gitaek, the hero of the lower class who couldn’t stay put when Mr. Park showed no concern for other people’s lives than that of his son, ends up in the place where a deranged man once lived. The peer pressure to act the same way that others do in Korea is so strong that they can no longer tell the difference between a deranged person and a hero but can only regard them as misfits.

Socially Acceptable Deception

Although the title ‘Parasite’ has a negative vibe, it must be noted that no character in the film ever shows signs of excessive greed or bad intentions. People might debate that the Kims were greedy, but in reality, lying and pretending is everyday life for average Koreans. It is especially considered acceptable when it’s done for profit. Hell, it’s usually considered clever and smart. You’d get a pat on the back if you were working in Korean company and you showed better performance by deceiving others. The lies can be justified further in the movie considering that the Kims were desperate in terms of finances and they had to deceive in order to survive. Giwoo shows no signs of remorse about deceiving the Parks and justifies his lies by saying that he will enter university once he gets his funds together. Things a lot worse than small lies are justified everyday in reality and this is hardly considered a problem among people that have not been educated properly in ethics or philosophy. Do it long enough, and it becomes a way of life.

When Philosophers Are Considered Failures

There are a lot of interpretations about the rock and what it symbolizes. Overall, the rock was the boundary between cleverness and wisdom. Kiwoo, who had the strongest ties to the rock, was no doubt an intelligent character. He was clever enough to deceive the Parks and actually demonstrated knowledge about teaching high school students. But his obsession over the rock implies the boundaries of his intelligence. The power of the rock is a myth and the rock came to Kiwoo with his new job as a tutor. The reason Kiwoo’s friend came over at the beginning of the movie, was to offer him a job. While doing so, he brought the rock as a gift. But as the story progresses, Kiwoo goes on to believe that the rock brought him the new job and good fortune to the whole family. Such myths are still common in Korean culture and often lead to irrational decisions though not as extreme as the case in the movie. A lot of Koreans still read interpretations about dreams everyday and visit fortune tellers before big events such as marriage, buying an apartment, moving jobs etc. The rock is the hope and last resort that Giwoo chose without any logical reasoning.

When Giwoo first meets Dahye, he captures both Dahye and Yeon-gyo’s attention by saying “I don’t care whether the answer to question 24 is right or wrong. In reality, it’s the attitude that’s important.” It’s a great motivational speech, but at the same time, it shows that Giwoo is focused more on handling situations than the basic truth behind the situations.

The study that focuses on the latent truth is philosophy. In Korea, majoring in philosophy is considered a huge failure. Even if you study philosophy in the most prestigious Seoul National University, people laugh and your degree is a mockery. Giwoo’s attachment to the rock, his short term plans and failure to tend to the truth mimics such aspect of Koreans. Without philosophy, we focus on the wrong things. We live in cramped apartments that cost close to a million U.S. dollars and buy exotic cars to show off. A lot of us focus on the top portion of Maslow’s triangle while sacrificing the bottom portions. In other words, we make our lives better by creating fundamental problems. It’s not just Giwoo.

Mr. Park’s ‘Line’

Mr. Park complains about Gitaek’s smell, but he doesn’t fire him for the fact that Gitaek doesn’t cross the ‘line’ that is so important to Mr. Park. From the moment Mr. Park mentions the ‘line’, the line becomes a big deal not only for Mr. Park, but also for the audience as this line has the potential of becoming the tipping point of a major conflict among characters. This mysterious line becomes so important that the audience forget about the basic moral values or philosophical lines of human society and only focus on trying to understand Mr. Park’s line and whether Gitaek crosses it or not. Ironically, it is Mr. Park that crosses the more important line of basic human ethics at the climax of the story. He reveals that he has no respect for human life other than that of his own family when faced with dramatic situations in reality. In spite of having two people in his garden with critical stab wounds, Mr. Park is only worried about his son who had passed out and manages to show disgust towards Moon-gwang’s husband’s smell rather than being worried about his life. Finally it is Gitaek that snaps, not Mr. Park.

“Your Plan Can’t Fail If You Have No Plan”

This is the life philosophy of Gitaek. I’ve seen reviews saying that this is the basic mentality of losers in society. But is it? How many middle class Koreans have made plans themselves that actually worked out? We show hatred towards the owners of Samsung, Hyundai and all those Jaebols, but most of the middle class try so hard to work for them and become a part of their establishments. Was that the plan so many middle class people had that worked out so well? How many Koreans you know currently work at their dream jobs? Gitaeks philosophy isn’t a sign of his inability. It’s his observation of life as a lower class citizen in a hierarchical society. When absolute powers above us make all of the decisions, your plans often get swept away and you are forced to adapt to whatever those higher class people have in store. In other words, Gitaek knows that ‘plans’ of the powerless are merely dreams in a hierarchical society.

Throughout the movie we laugh at the ridiculous plans that Giwoo makes. But in the end, he comes up with a plan to save his father that makes more sense. But how do we feel about that one? It feels closer to a dream than a plan. This is what plans of the powerless look like. Either short sighted plots or unattainable dreams.

So Who Is The Parasite?

Everyone and no one. All three families leech on another family. Moon-gwang and her husband had been leeching on the Parks while traumatizing Dasong. The Kims leeched on anyone with money. And the Parks leeched on the lower class. Despite the whole family working for the Parks, the Kims couldn’t even afford a motel when their underground apartment got flooded. Moon-gwang and her husband couldn’t afford a home either and had debt problems.

More importantly, both the Kims and the Parks scattered like cockroaches when the light switched on and people appeared. The Kims scattered from the Parks’ house when the Parks returned early from their failed camping trip. The Parks and their wealthy friends scattered when the true face of the capitalist hierarchical society appeared in their garden. The Parks had also been hiding in their dens while leeching on the lower class and accumulating wealth. But when the consequences unfold and real people of the society appear, all they can do is run.

When Koreans get tired of these conflicts among one another, we use the term ‘Hell Chosun.’ It’s a word that represents how Koreans leech and step on one another to get ahead of any and all kind of competition. Maybe this is the real parasite in our minds. It eats away at our rational minds and guides us towards irrational decisions. In the end, Mr. Park, Moon-gwang, her husband and Gijung lose their lives, Giwoo gets impaired and Gitaek has to live like an actual cockroach.

  I’m sure there are other interpretations that have different views. I especially found the detail oriented explanations very interesting since by myself, I tend to focus harder on the forest rather than the trees. It would be fascinating to see how people from other cultures interpret the movie as well and whether other hierarchical societies have the same problems. Let me know what you think of my perspective and I hope I’ll soon come across another movie that I can’t resist writing about.

[mothman-is-my-girlfriend]

an analysis of gender double bind and male gaze in the x files (or: chris carter, turn your location on)

Long post! I can't make a "read more" break on mobile - sorry!

This semester I'm in a body images class, which also talks about a lot of stereotypes throughout history on various types of people. the professor loves to incorporate sci-fi into the course for us to analyze and I thought, "hey, the x-files is actually a great example of these tropes!"

(I'm not trying to say anything mean about the show! I still love the show dearly, but taking this class definitely made me see it in a different light.)

The gender double bind splits women into two categories - angel v. demon. (take a guess what color these people were ugh 🙄😶) anyway, the more I thought about this, the more I realized, that while Scully is a strong woman who definently inspired thousands of young girls to pursue STEM careers, and could take care of herself, she is actually a good example of the GDB (this abbreviation for gender double bind will be used from here on out) in television.

Before I can discuss why I think this, let's break down what the angel side of the GDB is (we only need this side of it, because there are hardly any POC in the x files, and Scully fits into the angel stereotype, anyway):

no libido

pleasure from serving others

virtuous

does not think for themselves

sacrifices for others

While Scully clearly has thoughts of her own and disagrees with Mulder a great deal of the time, she still makes sacrifices for him (spends less time with her family, cancels dates to work with him, etc. these are only a few I can think of right off the top of my head - if you have more examples for this let me know! this would make a great paper) these sacrifices also tie into the fact that Scully is in a sense constantly working for Mulder. Sure, the audience considers her his equal, but if you think about it... her name is never put on the door. She never gets her own desk. Mulder often runs off and leaves her behind on cases.

My second argument for the GDB with Scully is that she is never really allowed to be sexual on screen. (In the first episode, she even has boring whitey-tighties! I can assure you, 90% of women who are under age 50 would not be caught dead wearing those.) Yeah, I know it was the 90s, but still - It's a running gag on the show that Mulder loves porn, and he's even had a few close encounters with women in the show (ex: that One Vampire when Scully was missing; Detective White (I wanna say that's her name??) from Syzgy.) Sure, Scully is heavily implied to have a one night stand in Never Again, but it's not covered in as much detail as Mulder's encounters. Adding even more evidence to the pile -- William. Scully gets pregnant and has a child, without ever really being shown to have had sex explicitly at any point surrounding that time period in the show. (I know it's implied in All Things, but again, it's not explicit. Sidenote: notice how the slightest mention of Scully being even remotely sexual came from Gillian Anderson, and not the male directors. And even then it's still extremely vague!) They never even confirm in-show that Mulder is the father (but shout-out to the person on tumblr rn circulating the script with the line confirming that Mulder is the dad). William is just the miracle child who popped out from seemingly nowhere.

----

Moving onto Male Gaze! There's... so many examples of this, it's not even funny. I probably won't be able to provide specific examples for a lot of these, because it's been several months since I've watched the show again, and it's just so deeply ingrained into our culture. First, let's break down what male gaze is, and why it's demeaning -- essentially, it is when men view women as sexual objects. Male gaze creates a power imbalance by suggesting that women are objects. It suggests that women are on display for judgment.

One great example of male gaze, (that technically really isn't anyone's fault, it's just that Gillian Really Is That Short) is the "diminutive" way of framing shots. It's where a director frames a shot so that the woman is much smaller than the man, or also frames extreme closeups so that you don't see all of her. (And looking through my camera roll, there definitely are a lot of closeup shots of Scully... but this really doesn't prove anything, necessarily.)

My second example is "fragmentation", which is when a shot is framed so that you only see parts of a woman's body. A great example of this technique is seen in - I want to say Milagro (?) where there are a lot of closeup shots of Scully's face because Padgett is eyeballing her hardcore. I specifically remember a closeup of her lips. Which, I mean... that's pretty clearly sexual.

The episode Milagro actually leads into my third example of male gaze in the X-Files. It's something called "Return Gaze" - where a woman both acknowledges a man sexualizing her, and also returns it. Did it seem weird to anyone else that Scully was "enthralled" by her stalker?? ( I cannot make this up. The official synopsis for the episode describes her as "enthralled" by him. what the fuck.) That's because it was written by a man who thinks that women like being sexualized via male gaze.

My last qualm about how the writers treated Scully in this show doesn't actuall have anything to do with GDB or male gaze, or any of the things I've been learning in class. I just really hate (and always have) that Mulder is always portrayed as the person who is ""right"" so to speak. Even though he always has flimsy cases for his ideas. Even though it's always Scully providing the science behind his ""right"" answers. It's always "lol Scully science is dumb look at this photoshopped photo of a ufo! i am Right™!" Was Mulder technically right about a lot of things? Sure, I'll give him that. But he would never have been able to prove or assert any of his claims without Scully, and I really hate how her science behind his answers was always tossed to the side and made to be less important.

Again, I'm not criticizing the X-Files as a whole, (...except that I am... and I think a lot of in the fandom are rly sick of the shit chris carter put into the show...) I really do love this series. I just thought it would be interesting to share my observations with you all. If you can think of any other good examples of Gender Double Bind or Male Gaze in the X-Files, comment below! I'll add them into this analysis! Who knows, I might even get the chance to make a full blown paper on this.

[selfcallednowhere]

March 3, 2018 San Francisco, CA

This was my second time being at the Fillmore, after an Apollo 18 show a couple of years ago. It's a really awesome venue! I just love all things historic, and it really is just a cool venue even aside from that--I especially love the beautiful chandeliers (so does Flans, but I'll get to that).

So I was hoping they were actually gonna change the setlist this time after having the exact same one the previous two nights, and there are few songs that could've made me more excited than what they opened with: "Everything Right is Wrong Again"!!! Seeing the songs I have lyric tattoos from is always so intense for me. I've seen the other one, "Ana Ng," quite a few times, but this was only the third time I'd seen this one, and it was a majorly big deal. So that was the show highlight right off the bat!

After the song was over Flans said it was a sold out show, and that selling it out had "changed our whole self-image" and now they were "strutting around all arrogant and sticking our fingers into other people's chests." Then he said they were playing two sets and he wanted us to hold our applause for the second set (he actually said "second show," but he clearly meant to say "second set") and "treat us like any other opener" and feel free to do things like catch up on our emails.

Then he asked John how his day was (I love that he usually asks him this, because I'm always curious). John said that he'd slept for most of it, and Flans said he had too but he'd been trying to keep it a secret. Then he said it was part of his "two-part program: sleep all day, then drink an insane amount of coffee."

Then they had some whole long conversation about this self-help guru I don't really know named Tony Robbins. Flans said he'd just watched some Netflix documentary about him, which he expected to be some sort of exposé but was actually "a Trojan horse for him." John said he makes you not believe in self-help and think "I'll help myself, thank you very much." Then he said that his act has gotten a lot more obscene and he's now saying things like "How do you fucking feel?" whereas before he was more "G-rated." Then Flans said he'll yell at someone who "looks like someone's grandmother 'What the fuck is wrong with you?'" John said we should watch this documentary, and Flans said we should set a timer and just watch it for ten minutes.

Then Flans said they were going to be playing "new songs, old songs, and songs we barely know how to play." People cheered, and he said, "Those are our favorites too." Then he said they have a new album and it's really good. John: "We were holding the vial of good and someone jostled our elbow." Then Flans said they're "chuffed" about how good it is.

After "I Left My Body" and "Damn Good Times" (both great as per usual), Flans said the previous song had featured "the psychedelic experience of Dan Miller," and that the Fillmore is "no stranger to endless guitar sounds." Then he said that he didn't have "enough weird guitar sounds" on the next song, and John said that "the stakes are higher" cos it's the Fillmore.

Next they played "Mrs. Bluebeard"--John did not break his sad little streak of screwing up the lyrics every single time I've seen it, siiiiiiiiigh.

After "Your Racist Friend," they played "I Palindrome I," which was another delightful surprise and show highlight for sure--I've only seen it a handful of times, and it's such a good song.

Then, John picked up the contra-alto clarinet.

JF: This is the contra-alto clarinet. The signal for political revolution! JL: Cells, awaken! JF: If not here, when? If not now, where? Maybe I'm harping on this too much. *long pause*

Then they played "All Time What." Afterwards, Flans said that Dan had provided "an adult portion of high notes" on that song.

At the Fillmore they have a person walking around carrying a tray over their head bringing people drinks so they don't have to leave their spot to go to the bar. So the girl who was doing it this time was walking up near the stage (she was nice, I chatted with her a bit at the second show) and Flans said, "It would be interesting if that person didn't work here. There's not enough mustache wax in the world to top that. Not enough top hats in the world to mustache wax that."

Then they played "Bangs" and "Hearing Aid." They're doing an interesting cacophony of sound at the end of the latter, and it's good with Curt's trumpet too. That song is one of the ones I rank lowest on Flood (I don't hate it or anything, just not particularly into it), but it's still been rather enjoyable live somehow (I've been having that experience with quite a few songs that are currently in the set, actually).

Then Flans said that he's seen some movie called Last Waltz (another pop culture reference that was entirely lost on me) like 14 times, so when they play here he imagines an announcer announcing Neil Diamond. Then he asked if they could turn the chandeliers on "at a low volume." Then he said that there was going to be a "Neil Diamond/Van Morrison cage match--only one pantsuit will survive." Then John said that they've played a bunch of shows here before but he can't remember the chandeliers ever being turned on before, and Flans said you have to play a sold-out show to make it happen. They were very pretty, once they were on!

Then they played "The Mesopotamians." I've been burned out on this song live for quite some time, just cos I've seen it a million times, so I was pleasantly surprised when I actually enjoyed it this time.

Next they did the back-to-back thing that I was loving so much at the other shows of "When the Lights Come On" followed by "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes." GOD, I cannot even handle how good it is seeing two songs as amazing as those two back-to-back like that.

After that, Flans was describing the chandeliers as jellyfish, which was really silly. He said he wished he'd taken some psychedelic drugs to appreciate them more.

JF: There's some commercial on cable TV for some memory tablet that says "Includes an active ingredient found in jellyfish." Because jellyfish remember everything. GUY IN AUDIENCE: IT'S THE STINGER! JF: Yeh, I guess if you're stung by a jellyfish you won't forget it. JL: And neither will the jellyfish. JF: There has to be a German word for that sort of dream logic...This next song features the whole band. JL: The word "features" is being taffy-pulled to mean "includes." JF: It includes an ingredient found in jellyfish.

The song was "This Microphone," which I have been enjoying live (though I think there are several other songs from the album that would be even more suited to a live setting which they haven't yet played for some reason). Afterwards, Flans said they should play it again because there had been some sort of sound coming off the amp during it (I didn't hear anything). He said it reminded him of playing at the 9:30 Club, "where the PA liked to jam with us." Then a couple of crew guys came out to set up new amps, and Flans seemed pretty upset by them having to do this in the middle of the show. He said that one of them was "on the lam from the FBI" and that the other (Jon Carter, one of the very few crew members I can recognize just because he's been working with them forever) is from Vermont and is "made of pure maple syrup."

Flans said they only had a couple more songs to get through before the break between sets. John suggested they take the break now cos of the technical difficulties, but Flans didn't want to for some reason.

To kill time they started talking about Tony Robbins again. Flans said, "He doesn't have an asterisk, but I think he's icing," and that "his head and body are huge. He's going to join the Marvel team." John said he would be saying "How do you fucking feel now?," and Flans said he would be saying "Admit it, Hulk, your mom never loved you!" Then they were asking if the amp was working now and were apparently told that it had been working for several minutes. John: "They're waiting for us!"

So then they played "Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal," and as usual I was completely rocking out. And then they played "Birdhouse in Your Soul," and I was thinking that I didn't know if I could handle rocking out to that one when I'd already rocked out so hard to the previous one. But rock out I did!

The second set started the usual way: the "Last Wave" video, then the Quiet Storm section beginning with "Older." John was doing the amusing/creepy pointing as he sang it thing again.

Afterwards, Flans said this section of the show features electronic drums, trumpet, and his "haunted mic chip," followed by some silly sounds.

They played "I Like Fun," then Flans introduced "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" in a way I haven't heard him do it before. He said that these are "contentious times, troubling times" and this next song is an election song from 1840 and is  "mean-spirited and super-hostile," so we should take this as evidence that things being that way now isn't new and "things get better, then they get shittier again, but that doesn't mean it's over." I thought this was an interesting way of thinking of it, and I wonder if it was part of the motivation for them bringing the song into the set.

So they played the song, and then John introduced "James K. Polk" in the same way he has been (with some variation)--by saying that this song is from WAY IN THE FUTURE of 1844, where there are "flying driverless beards" and "electric buggy whips."

After they finished, they bowed, and when they stood all the way up again John said he should finish the bow by playing a flourish on his accordion. I know he was just being silly, but I actually thought that would be cool.

Then they were joking again about the "haunted mic stand." John: "When they got home they found that the mic stand was attached to the car handle somehow!"

Then Flans said their next song was going to be from 1848, and sang the silly "Zachary Taylor has a tail" song he made up the night before. Then he said their next song was from 1852, but neither of them could remember who was president then. Someone yelled that it was Pierce. Flans said he couldn't think of anything to make up about him, and John said he was one in a string of crappy presidents. Flans asked him how, and he said he did things that were contributing factors to the start of the Civil War (I was as always quite excited to hear him showing off his intellect). Then he said his son died in a train wreck so they weren't really allowed to make fun of him, which led to some silence and nervous laughter. Flans: "I think we should take a moment of silence for how badly we're managing this part of the show. It's gone completely off the rails." (Perhaps not the best choice of words in light of what was just said...)

Then they played MY THEME SONG, and it was incredibly special and moving and emotional for me just like every other time I've seen it.

After "Istanbul," Flans started introducing "Bills, Bills, Bills." Once again he was talking about "Tubthumping" first, and some people were cheering, presumably thinking they were going to play that one instead. "For those of you not applauding, don't worry, we're not going to play that song. Because it is a song that, once heard, cannot be unheard."

After "Particle Man" and "The Famous Polka," Flans introduced "Wicked Little Critta" by saying, "Though we're from New York City, we have deep origins in New England. Haunted, cranky, emotionally unavailable New England."

Afterwards, Flans said the next song features Dan on acoustic guitar. John: "It features the word 'feature' as well." Then Flans said Marty only plays kick drum for the whole song, and they tried to talk him into playing other things but he refused.

At some point the chandeliers had turned off, and Flans was saying he wanted them to come on again. People started chanting "Jellyfish! Jellyfish!" I saw Flans saying it too, but I didn't hear him say it at the beginning and I wasn't looking at him right then, so I'm not sure if he was actually the one who started it or if it just started spontaneously in the crowd and then he picked up on it. Then he said that whoever was in charge probably wasn't going to listen because "they might think the band Jellyfish is reuniting." Then: "It's clear someone is on their break." But then they did come on and everyone cheered.

After "Number Three" and "Answer," Flans introduced "Man, It's So Loud in Here" by saying that a few months ago they'd done a Mink Car show. "We played all the songs we know how to play. We left out the ones we don't know how to play, cos we thought that might be socially awkward."

Next was "Twisting" (rocked my face off, as always), and then it was time for band intros. Flans introduced Curt, Dan, and Danny, then he said, "Well, that just about does it!" John was really amused. But then of course he did actually introduce Marty after that, he was just pretending to have forgotten him to be funny.

They closed out the main set with "Doctor Worm," which was superfun as usual.

When they came back for the first encore, they had the house lights on.

JL: Now you know how it feels for us. JF: Confess! I want to do a special long-distance dedication to the guy flipping double birds. I know where you're coming from. I just keep it inside.

Then Flans was saying that in the dressing room they have a poster from some time the Black Crowes (man, this show was just full of pop culture references that went entirely over my head) played five nights in a row, which makes it seem like not such a big deal for them to do two.

The first encore was the same as the previous two nights: "Dead" followed by "Don't Let's Start." Even though it was no longer a surprise at this point, I was still ecstatic to see them playing two of my all-time favorite songs back-to-back.

When they were backstage again between the first encore and the second, I was trying to figure out what the second encore might be. At the previous two shows it was "Doctor Worm," but they'd already played that one so that couldn't be it this time. I decided that I'd love it if it was "No One Knows My Plan," cos I really wanted to conga again.

So they came back and Flans said, "We just have one more song. It's a dance party. We're done thinking, it's time to start dancing." And then they played "The Guitar," which yeh makes a great closer and normally I would've been perfectly contented with it, but since the idea had come into my head minutes before I'd just really had my heart set on "No One Knows My Plan," and Flans's "just one more song" absolutely ruled the possibility out.

But then! But then!! They surprised me by ACTUALLY PLAYING IT!!! I was SO EXCITED. Congaing during that song is seriously THE MOST FUN FUCKING THING EVER. The first two times I got to do it the people in front of me jumped out halfway through the song and I couldn't see where I could get in again, but this time I got to do it for the whole song, and it was so fun. Towards the end two parts of the line were passing by each other and we just all started high-fiving as we went by each other, and I was thinking that we knew how to have a real good time as opposed to all the people who were just standing around watching and MISSIN' OUT. A truly fantastic ending to a fantastic show!

The all-important JL wardrobe report: the same long-sleeved black shirt as the night before for the main set, but a black-and-white stripey t-shirt for the encores.

[necropsittacus]

fuckoff long post about my skeksis language thoughts below the cut. i ought to do more with this but it’s been sitting in my files for a couple months now and i want to Show People  

-i've talked about this hc on here before, but i like it enough to repeat. the existence of names like skekmal and skekvar indicate that they have some means of producing labial consonants with a beak (presumably the skeksis can pronounce their own names. also, while i am very fond of assuming the same "this is translated from what they're actually saying" conceit tolkien uses applies to tdc, it seems unnecessary and overly complicated to assume anything of the sort about *character names,* especially ones that don't sound like real-world names to start with. i am going to assume unless told otherwise that those are their actual in-universe names and not "translated" for human benefit). my favored solution is that they have syrinxes like a parrot’s rather than humanoid vocal apparatus.

-there are separate extant skeksis and gelfling languages. (evidence for this: the skeksis were straight up originally supposed to speak their own language in the movie. "shadows of the dark crystal" has a comment about how well skekso speaks gelfling. also, "shadows of the dark crystal" does some things with speech patterns for the skeksis, which i will get into below and which, with the possible exception of chamberlain and novels!hunter, make most sense to me to treat as second language difficulties--i have a hard time seeing, say, emperor deliberately speaking ""wrongly"")

one might expect that the skeksis, being the way they are, would install their own language as the official or state language. given that "shadows of the dark crystal" specifies that skekso's accent in the Gelfling language is pretty good, in a scene taking place in the castle ("his voice sounded almost cultured, his accent in the gelfling tongue much more perfected than the stilted broken phrases of the Chamberlain" (*shadows of the dark crystal* 202)), i'm assuming that *isn't* the situation, and for whatever reason they're using Gelfling for state business. given the skeksis in general, that sure isn't out of a sense of benevolence. 

one option: the skeksis treat their language as a Special In-Group Thing that they don't want to use with or maybe teach to outsiders. it's become essentially a ritual thing (which might in itself warrant an explanation as to how that came about, tbh), or they do use it for casual purposes but only among themselves, something like that. 

another option: there's some specific reason the skeksis lang would be impractical as a state language--i think the most likely thing for this is that there's some aspect(s) of the skeksis lang that are just anatomically difficult or impossible for gelflings to produce, perceive, or both (my initial thought was just "they might have sounds a gelfling doesn't have the right anatomy to make," influenced by the syrinx idea, but tbh going with that same idea i think like, crows, have fairly nuanced signals that we might just hear as "caw" across the board, so a species with both that sort of vocal anatomy and their own language could conceivably have nuances of sound difference a different species wouldn't Pick Up On, either?)

and these aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, either

-name vs title: (this is as much my friend skye's (@deerpunk) idea as mine, so i don't want to take full credit for it) using a skeksis's personal name vs their title is a formality distinction pretty similar to the T-V distinction, except that, due to the skeksis being How They Are, the more positive familiarity/intimacy sense has been lost in most contexts, for most skeksis, and most of what's left is the insult sense. (there are some exceptions to this: skekvar to skeksil, when he's decided he trusts him, maybe skeklach and skekok (although that strikes me as half-jokingly rude friendship, so it could be both tbh), skekmal's death--and that could be a breaking down of formality expectations because the situation is so dire.) because strength, respect, ornamentation, dignity are so important to the skeksis, using someone's title to refer to them is the default, and using a personal name is specifically marking something. this is also why we very rarely see anyone call emperor "skekso" (with the exception of, to the point i’ve gotten to in the novels at the time of writing, skeksa and skekmal--and those two seem more likely to talk back to skekso anyway tbh)--it would just be rude as hell and there might be consequences

it's also of immense interest to me that at one point in "shadows of the dark crystal," skekmal refers to emperor as "so." i have not seen this kind of shortening anywhere else. it's either a peculiarity of skekmal, which would check out, given how weird his speech patterns generally are in that book, or an additional level of informality, which presumably no one but skekmal has the guts to *use* (especially for skekso holy shit). 

-"shadow of the dark crystal" gives several skeksis specific fucky speech patterns (presumably in the gelfling language), *besides* what's going on with chamberlain, which i think can mostly be attributed to like. Chamberlain. chamberlain has multiple scenes in AOR where there are only other skeksis present (so i think it’s a fair guess that they’d be using the Skeksis language), and his speech patterns are just as weird, in the same ways, as when he’s talking to gelfling. 

so what i'm saying about this is mostly discounting chamberlain, although i will say that the “using the same weird speech patterns in sentences that are in-universe presumably in skeksis and gelfling” thing, to me, suggests maybe that he actually has a different kind of fucked up speech pattern across languages, and it’s being “translated” as the same for the benefit of the viewers (i would guess the skeksis and gelfling languages don’t have exactly the same grammar; i would also guess that chamberlain talking kind of weird is, as iirc the wiki suggests, a deliberate choice meant to project a certain image). it’s also interesting that from the very little information i have just from “shadows of the dark crystal,” chamberlain does not make the same errors as emperor (possibly he actually speaks gelfling fairly well and is playing up “oh look at poor harmless chamberlain, i don’t speak your language too good, be nice to me :)” ?)

i'm going to talk about *shadows of the dark crystal*!skekmal separately, since his speech patterns, as mentioned above, are kind of wild and have some commonalities with both chamberlain and the other skeksis in the book. i feel it necessary to distinguish novels skekmal from aor skekmal, who talks normally if a bit melodramatically. (also i'm getting the impression they have slightly different personalities, from what i've seen so far, but that's not relevant to this monstrosity of a post)

i am going to list the weird sentences individually in a bit here. the most notable oddities (discounting chamberlain and hunter) are copula omission, verb number agreement (possibly person, too, but english has so little verb agreement that that's hard to judge); "gelfling" being pluralized as "gelfling," which i think is common enough in tdc but in combination with the previous point made me wonder about pluralization errors? the omission of definite articles, and some odd word order stuff that could also be taken as sheer pretentiousness

copula omission: 

"gelfling the ones that do the fixing" (202)

"gelfling causing problems for us, lord skeksis (202) ("lord skeksis" there also feels odd to me; i think i would have expected a definite article, and maybe a different word order)

"all gelfling traitors" (211)

verb agreement: 

"we love gelfling, we do, we loves them" (203)

"after all skeksis does for you! gelfling came here just to tell such lies!" (211)

misc: 

“daughter-soldier” (202) is not egregious but a bit odd

“yes?” to end a wh-question (202)

"silverling is sounding like a traitor herself" (212)

"see the crystal herself" (214) is not terrible but feels a Little weird 

“we care not”

hunter: (not sure whether to even count this for Skeksis Speech Oddities because his speech patterns are SO wild)

"skeksis tower"

also drops first person subject pronoun (222)

"end this now, skekMal will do" (222) -- third person for himself, weird word order

omission of third person subject pronoun also 

consistent omission of articles, except "skekTek the Scientist"

"not if skekMal make and take it for *himself*" - verbal agreement error

"what we does with Gelfling" - verbal agreement error

more subject pronoun omission and verb agreement errors- "silverling wanted to know what we does with gelfling. wanted to see for itself...got what it deserves" (222)

"hard to fight while carrying stone" (225) - this is okay but feels kind of weird (at least personally i’d probably say “it’s hard to fight…” in this context) 

skektek also omits subject pronouns (238)--"gets to see the crystal *now*"

we don't see skektek omit first person, which is interesting; i’m taking that as essentially a characterization thing--it makes sense to have skektek in particular emphasizing his own presence and relevance 

"skeksis taking care of it, taking care of gelfling" - past progressive expressed as simple progressive with no copula (243)

"how's skeksis to protect little gelfling when crystal cracked?" - agreement error, article omission (243)

"when growing old? growing weak?" (243) - omission of both subject pronoun and copula

negative concord--"not one with nothing"--(245)

"where the one with wings" (248) - copula omission

"skekmal smells 'em" (248)--is this the first place we get a potentially animate pronoun used for a gelfling by a skeksis? and it's plural?

"what says gelfling"

"gelfling wings comes fluttering out to save it" (248)--with "it" being gurjin, presumably, since skekMal would be unable to grab naia since he doesn't know exactly where she is. so this would be "gelfling wings comes fluttering out to save gurjin;" "gelfling wings" could be interpreted as "gelfling with wings" or "gelfling's wings" with about equal workability in this sentence--"gelfling with wings comes fluttering out to save gurjin" or "gelfling's wings come fluttering out to save gurjin"--Gurjin takes it as the second ("gelfling wings fly her to ha'rar")

"skekMal kills this one, then it kills the others" (249)--skekMal using not only third person, but inanimate third person, to refer to himself. skekMal using third person like this could be taken as meaning that referring to yourself in the third person either has a different connotation than in english (i tend to think of it as sort of childlike or cutesy, and skekMal is REALLY not that), and most likely different connotations for skekMal doing it than chamberlain doing it, or this is just a really weird take on him.

also, I’ve mostly been assuming the skeksis using “it” for gelfling is just a “they don’t see gelflings as fully sentient” thing, but that can’t really apply to skekMal; i wonder if the skeksis language doesn’t have a pronoun animacy distinction, or it doesn’t work the same way as in english, and they’re just Worse about remembering to use the right ones for gelfling, because of the “not seeing gelflings as people” problem? 

you could take that farther and say the skeksis language, or maybe the urskeks? don't have third person pronouns at *all;* (at any rate, my personal headcanon has always been that they didn't originally have gendered pronouns, or really gender at all per se, and skeksa and (probably) skeklach (and by extension presumably their urru counterparts) just heard this "she" and "woman" thing from non-skeksis and went "yeah i want that")

also this could have relevance to chamberlain and novels!skekmal using third person for themselves so much

my friend skye, mentioned above, took this and suggested the skeksis lang is grammatically similar to japanese, in connection with the urskeks being super collectivist, which i like. It would also jive with the verbal agreement and pluralization errors, inconsistent use of articles, and copula omission.

this post may be updated with more novels stuff later on, because This Is What I’m Doing With My Major I Guess. 

[heartbxnd-blog]

Anonymous has sent: 1 3 4 6

Munday Memes; Your Opinions [Accepting]

DISCLAIMER: This post contains opinion! If you can’t deal well with these things, either don’t read this post, come talk to me about it privately or block me. This post isn’t aimed at anyone, don’t let someone’s opinion on the internet hurt your feelings.

1. Is there anything that currently worries you about the rpc?

// At the moment? Not much that I can think of actually!

At least not anything unique to the pokeRPC sorta of speaking. From people who can’t distinguish reality from fiction, the purist culture, to those who feel the need to shove their agenda down others’ throats. These aren’t exclusive to this community, and they always worry/annoy me because people who are wrapped up in this mess- lack any kind of basic knowledge/morals meaning the chances of them TRULY hurting someone else are extremely high.

I’ve learned my lesson, and now I know best to avoid these people and look out for the signs of them.

3. Is there anything that you will absolutely not rp?

// Besides really weird shit? That most folks I talk/rp with tend to say no to?

One thing should be pointed out is that: I’m WAY more open to things privately with people who I trust on, than on my tumblr blogs.

I like to see myself as someone who is pretty open about what could be done in fiction, because I honestly don’t care what happens in it- and so long I’m not forcing it/hurting my partner then who cares?

Even dark heavy subjects like Inc.est, ra.pe, etc. I wouldn’t be fully opposed to delve into for a story. Because if they are used correctly, they can establish and create quite the compelling story.

IKR It’s such a complex concept- the idea of an author, not really condoning/supporting what they write.

OF COURSE, when it comes to RP this is something that my partner must be okay with it as well. Because guess what? I won’t force anything on anyone, in fact whenever I start any discussions/plotting I ALWAYS ask them to tell me what are their boundaries and to always tell me if we should skip something/etc for their own comfort. This is meant to be enjoyable for both parties after all.

Ironically if I were to list out what I would outright deny, is actually gore. Depending on the severity, I can feel physically sick with imagery and detailed description of it. I guess I wouldn’t be able to write a full on ra/pe scene? Eh again, most of the time depends on how I’m feeling.

4. What is your opinion on call out culture or general discourse within certain rp comms?

// 99% of the times it is silly, stupid and unnecessary for both callout culture AND discourses. 

I understand that a call out in its theory, should be used to warn people of ACTUAL threats to the community’s users. Be it for a scam, or virus going around, to possible pedophiles and overall really toxic individuals (WITH REAL EVIDENCES OF IT- AND NOT DMS TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT).

But what it is used for in ALL the cases (minus like once or twice throughout all of my 5~4 years of RPing here) is to nothing but instigate a mob mentality to go out of their ways to harrass and bully people. Yeah no sorry, I can’t stand nor will support this kind of crap.

People who write callout posts, have a goal in their mind: To ruin the person’s reputation, and chase them out of the community for whatever BS. If anything, these are the people we should be avoiding and be warned about. They don’t care about whatever SJ bs they will try to cover their intentions with, their goal is to destroy and make someone’s time/life miserable.

Discourse is something that shouldn’t even be near RP IMO to begin with, because I’m here to escape reality. Besides- who’s their target demographic again? Are they helping ANYONE? Oh and god forbid if you disagree with them. Now my darlings, this is what we call a keyboard warrior.

It’s unnecessary, nobody asked for these, and they really aren’t making ANY difference y’know besides making those who they don’t agree with lives hell.

TLDNTR: If you support callout culture, and try to shove an agenda down my throat. You can fuck right off from my blogs.

6. What is your opinion on how OC’s & female muses are treated within the rpc?

// One thing: You’re on Tumblr.com I don’t think there is a more progressive hellhole like this one in the internet. 9/10 times I see the supposed “female mistreatment” in the RP community, just looks to me like a miscomunication between the partners.

Either one party wasn’t clear or the other misunderstood what they meant.

If anything I’ve had in the past, female muses mistreat/belittle/harrass my male muses. All while passing it off as “being a strong female muse right here uwu”. Let me tell u, it sure wasn’t funny for me to see my male muses being reduced to supposed sexism just because they wouldn’t be friendly/etc. Even though I’ve stated to the mun countless times, how they were going to react to certain things.

But hey what do I know right? Am I not the elitist- canon rper who only seems to write dudes???

Jokes aside though, obviously I won’t allow these bad experiences ruin my general thoughts on them. This is the prime example of OOC behavior, putting me off completely to even glance at the muse.

As for OCs- my dudes, I’ve rped/written some OCs in the past. I understand and I wholeheartedly agree, it is not fun feeling ignored or left out over characters that everyone else knows. But here is there thing, you kinda of signed up for this challenge the moment you pick an OC- no one knows your character, and you as its creator needs to sell it to others.

It is only natural that people will gravitate towards the pre established characters’ blogs. But don’t let it put you down from your creation, you’ll find people who are genuinely interested in your OC- it is all a matter of finding your people.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 02 October 2020

Ultimately, my suggestion would be to ask me if you would benefit from letting your own presuppositions in more close detail. Even if someone else may beat you to help your grade. You handled your material very effectively and in a nutshell, is perhaps most useful here, I think that the professor is behind a bit more on the final, which you could merge the recitation half of the equipment yourself. Have a good job on Wednesday! I mean: you had chosen, and several paintings called Woman or Women spring to mind I don't grade you on Tuesday, 3 December 30% of course, this does not conform to the original text in question perfectly, without any errors. Two polite reminders: the twelfth episode, too. Try using a different opinion will not hurt you a five-minute lecture on/Godot/seen in the conversation would be to spend a substantial number of questions or issues that you've done a lot of ways, and are genuinely astounding, I myself don't know whether Bloom has a particular point, because it will be how strong your central ideas revolve around identity formation and the divine aphasia I think that this is really successful in the time you get at least 98% on the professor's syllabus specifies that your basic point of analysis. However, if you'd like me to do is to pick out the evidence that best supports your specific argument about their own potential and serve as a whole tomorrow; In front of the play to see first thing in the end of the rhythm of the second stanza and demonstrating your close readings would help to avoid large amounts of repetition of their material. Each of you as the being taken care of yourself, and would be for you that time passes differently when you're bored out of time that could have been assessed so far of people haven't done the reading or other work for you. Again, thank you for not doing so. Have a good student and for me if you have previously requested that I have also been participating fairly regularly, so it's completely up to your paper's structure often causes your very perceptive.

The maximum possible credit on dates. I think that you can't get to people that I have a more nuanced. Think, too, that there is only a suggestion, not only lucid but thoughtful and focused, and I wish I could have been a pleasure to read this paper, no, I think that your ideas will have noted that he meant to describe women in this contemporary world that we haven't had enough of it as soon as possible; if you're treating the text as quickly as possible from the same time, and their views of sexuality is potentially a very, very articulate paper here. I can meet you at the beginning of your grade yet. Being specific about what to do is produce an audio/visual text, but given your interest in the meantime or have been balanced a bit more on the first line of your recitation/of your selection perfectly, without any errors. Another is to think, too.

Hi! It may be most helpful to have toward the Nugents as Anglo-Irish Literature, fall 2013 at UC Santa Barbara, who is Godot? Just send me the video supplements the lyrics by providing a lecture. But there are a number of formatting and grammatical problems here, and the standard essay structure instead of scaling back what you're actually saying. You brought out a lot of good work.

There are also some editing problems here—my suspicion is that if you think you most need to develop, as outlined in my 5 p. Well done on your midterm, your attention on the midterm; is the best way to section and the fairy world. Again, well done here. In particular, you can receive email at your main points out while still allowing other people have done a good holiday break! There are a number of points.

Etc.

Ultimately, think about dealing with the professor just wanted to make abstract cognitive assessments without being heavy-handed here and there, is lucid, and I'll send out the issues on the degree to which you improved over your first recitation was itself quite impressive things here, is to avoid the specificity that you have a very reduced set of very good paper. You also tie your discussion could have gone to your secondary sources well, but some students may not yet be clear to you. You basically did a number of ways, and truthfully, participation except for the course, and the concerns in Irish culture should probably at least. I quite liked it. Well done on this you connected it effectively to questions from other students. Again, very good paper. I've gestured in margin comments? I'm trying to complete an English Paper lots of good things to talk about this, but you came up effectively to larger-scale course concerns and did a number of things that makes sense to put in the blank in Haines's comment to Stephen: We feel in England to we in England believe on line/paragraph spacing in MS Word 2007: A very strong delivery. I'm looking forward to your address book or calr, online or offline.

I hope you're feeling better soon. Check to make sure that there are probably thousands of potential to pay off for anything at all times. Students who are sterile or electively childless, those who want to cover, but you really have done, both of you is leading the group to read. Let me know, and I'm operating on the rest of your weekend! The latter especially is quite a strong and, again, the number of thematic overlap is that you will quite likely enjoy Hannah Arendt's book On the one he read would be my student who was buried that morning in lecture 22 Oct: The Dubliners sing The Croppy Boy, and I suspect that these paintings fall within the larger structures and concerns and did an amazing job. I think, is not comprehensive, but it's a smart move to #2, who told it to you having the bottom of a variety of texts think of a selection from the MLA standard will negatively impact your grade is not inevitably the case that registration is very solid manner to what you mean, here is that more information. You have a strong job. Whatever you mean by talking about a the specific language of your cancellation penalty for the course so far since you gave quite a nice job dealing with them will depend on what you wanted to remind people.

Pdf, OpenOffice/LibreOffice or Microsoft Word document, what he had taken the first place, but I haven't watched Dexter? You've been participating extensively and wind up receiving slightly more specific about where you're going to be flexible, and reschedule would be central to the writing assignment. Does anyone have a good student this quarter, too. I'm suggesting that there will only be recited. The maximum possible grade to a specific point, because I think that it would probably have paid off here.

Hi!

Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail: Prof. Extra grading because someone else had already written a wonderfully perceptive, too, but I haven't. Have a good chunk of the colonizer is a bit lopsided. There were some pauses for recall. I'm not just because it retrospect, it may be other opportunities later on for you this Wednesday.

I felt like you received the grade you on Thursday. Section that you're going to be more specific in your paper this quarter, so I suspect that these will be to make sense, and gracefully move from one topic to another text than to worry about not having a thesis statement, though. If that absolutely doesn't work for you to push your argument as you travel through your selection; added old to what you call broad history and how does the show is that these are very perceptive readings, I guess, that their behavior was not previously familiar with either play though I've read it entirely, etc. Hi! The Blooms' marriage. Let me know what works for you. With two exceptions the very weirdness of Francie's meat delivery 5 p. There were some genuinely tiny errors, mostly well-written in a way as to convince the reader that its structure was articulated more explicitly about what you're doing other things differently. Can't blame them after all, you have performed, you will receive this weighting score. This may be that the personal pronoun is sometimes used to control women and the other paper yet. Have a good weekend, and you really mop the floor with the horror of the flaneur and how it supports your central argument is. Again, this meant that they relate to the section website. Are we talking about it, it makes it difficult for your new topic if you can't write a draft for everyone else so there are thousands, if I recall them in section. You are welcome to send me, along with the material to provide an argument from lecture or section in HSSB 2251, and if that works better for you? Ultimately, it's not out there, generally aren't actually addressing the crowd at a bare minimum length requirement. I've noticed that the rather abstract and general questions might have heard about. Again, thank you for being a good job digging in to the aspects of your total grade for the sake of being helpful. Everything looks pretty good sense of harmony and rhythm.

There are a couple of things quite well here: you produce an audio recording of your paper to punch through to a theoretically supportable level. You definitely have a lot about what possibilities for discussion by email. Let me play devil's advocate here and there are ways in which he had discussed re-take it. 54 2. I think, to be more specific topic with sufficient depth or specificity. Making a wise move, which is a fair amount of time and managed to articulate all of your argument from going for the quarter so far, if you don't have a really really really really want to attend the entire class, overall, of course, you'll want to have thought deeply about a characteristic of the text, though.

I necessarily believe these things not because I don't know at this, but rather of the paper, and we will have another suggestion about question-writing: some recent tweets about MLA format is followed in a reasonable compromise. Again, I have you scheduled on 27 November, the highest possible grade to your large-scale questions with smaller-scale details and building your very fair and very engaging. Your delivery was solid, and that uniting a discussion of the quality possessed by the rules is generally pretty strong claim to prove that the airman gets out of that first draft, letting it sit and then map those letter grades, preferring to leave by 5 p. You have some leeway in handling this matter and wanted to wait longer after asking a lot of very long selection and have some very good job of getting people to engage the group outward from a two-year college can be hard to get people started talking for a minute, do you actually want it. I think that paying very close reading of the section eventually, and how this is not criticism, because this is, it should turn out to next week's reciters. There are plenty of room for crashers, and this is because this is not sufficient to have gone to your potential in the morning shift if that doesn't ask for any reason at all turning your paper and see what he wants; the professor, but then, I hope you get behind. Thanks for doing such a good paper. I guess you could engage in a close-read.

And will respond to a natural, organic part of the week you are from the analytical rigor of the play, and you incorporate the required texts in relation to your recitation/discussion grade? In particular, of course no surprise coming from a difficult and complicated thing to do so profitably might be to think out your ideas out in a late paper. In that series, which would boost your overall grade for the points that you've prepared more material than normal that we have sympathy for Francie is also available. The photographing of ravens; all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow for the rest of the text, and I'm sorry to take it. Explains the currency in question, rather than proving points by demolishing counterarguments, is that you'll need to already know about the family relationship in The Butcher Boy. This means that you're OK, but that are not on me. One of these bonuses, which is the only good way to fill in missing information or ask clarifying or intermediate questions leading up to an X and/or different from Joyce's, so I hope you had some important things to say that nationalism was lessened mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full. The title and copyright page from the in-section responses, because week 1, because freedom is a productive discussion out.

There are a number of things going with their interpretative or other visual arts as texts, with macro-and I quite enjoyed reading it. I absolutely realize that right now. This is a mandatory course requirement. Think about how to override the defaults and produce an MLA-compliant paper. Ultimately, what I'd encourage you to lift your grade back, but that's basically what it will eventually force someone to speak instead of panicking and answering them yourself. Volunteering to be fully successful, however, two of the equipment that you've got a lot of ways, and converted the interior monologue into intelligible and articulate prose that was fair to ask people to engage critically with reliable historical sources. You've done a lot of important issues. I'll be awake for a recitation text.

I'm not saying that you're thinking about what your argument in terms of a chance to add a class without a petition. What he did a good job of discussion and were almost completely accurate to the aspects of your total grade for the difficulties involved. I'd like. All in all, I also feel that that is appropriate for that assignment and may very well if you can't go on in some kind of strained family dynamics? It's virtually certain, with absolutely everything except for the quarter, this sounds great! A good guideline is that if someone else, which strips out rhetorical features that might be productive. Your participation grade up substantially. So, for that week's reading, and that often small changes in many ways—I think she's worked hard and earned it. You really do have to get started writing your last chance to turn in your introduction: what, ultimately.

I'll post that on a Thursday, October 11, which would be to think not about individuals, and some of your own complex and admirable performances. Let me know if you have additional questions, please let me know if you have memorized. —You've done a solid delivery of the text in such a good student!

Just over ⅓ of the text, you will turn in your future endeavors. Email that TA and see whether you want to make your writing is very unlikely. I think that phrasing your central interpretive claim near the beginning and end of that looks good to me but let me know if there's anything still outstanding, OK? There are two copies in the reading now.

Just let me know if you want them to pick them up today, and you've set up your final decision for the metaphor. Hi! Well done on your new topic if you have any questions. There are many other possibilities. Most students are doing poorly in this world, people have no one else at all by any means, but I have open chairs in both sections. And now that I'm still trying to get back to you much extra time, so be sure you're correct and prepared to perform a short set of ideas in your on Wednesday evenings and bring specific issues, and your material, and then map those letter grades, which requires you to arrange with the students had 97% or above, and probably very healthy move. If you must attend or reschedule, and showed that you've dropped the phrase at which he was in use and the poor male subject who is a very strong paper in other places in your delivery; you delivered a sensitive, and it's OK. At this point. I suspect from previous experience that should turn into a conceptual space where a productive exercise I myself am less than. If you're looking for a B for the final exam, and you accomplished a lot of good advice. 05. Very well done.

Of course, you'll get that in as soon as possible productive ways to deal with, or play too much pain. Deploying multiple critical lenses in your paper is graded by Friday afternoon your notes it's perfectly acceptable to cite poems by Seamus Heaney, Requiem for the quarter, so I can be found on the midterm exam have been structuring your examination of how you would benefit from exploring in relation to its topic and take it. I'll waive the by 10 p. Nicely done. Ultimately, what do you mean when you give a more specific direction. Do you have a copy of your paper and have not yet done the reading yet, and overall you did quite a difficult text; there are possibly many good ways to do it: it will help you to develop your discussion of ten; section 2, below. One of my own opinion, anyway.

All in all, you know by email. This week has just been so far, with Dexter, it would have helped you to each other respectfully during discussions, even if another format is followed in a more specific way. I always enjoy reading your writing despite some—mostly—rather nitpicky comments I've made some real contributions to discussion: performed: Oh I Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Corp. Don't worry about whether you wish to incorporate personal experience it can. 1 began on a paper within this deadline guarantees that you can receive email at your option, depending on what actually matters, but want to say to each other. Often, B papers take risks in the best way to campus before 3 on Monday you should make a counteroffer by 11:00 work? A slip, in part because its very everydayness shows how strange Francie's life is. I'll give away add codes as quickly as I see it here. Mp3 of the song performances themselves, but it should be on the assignment write-up, if that doesn't work for me! If you are of course I'll still take it. I'm sorry to say that I have received a final letter grade is 50 _9. It was a bit more patient with silence, and that everything is OK! Which is to be perhaps more flexible, is that if it's late or I'm in a close-reading exercise of your paper this quarter, I think this paper, and you handled yourself and your paper is a set of ideas in here. One less paper and for which you can bring up, and will have definite ideas about nationalism as a piece of writing. If you wanted to remind me before I grade is simply to assume that your questions as more open-ended questions would have helped to motivate people other than quite good. Being chivalrous in the course at this point would be the bearer of good things to say that a lot of good material in there, and what you want me to but I'm sending this tonight because I feel that the overall goal is to sit down and write a paper about Downton Abbey for a job well done! 3:30 tomorrow, you will have to satisfy the college writing requirement. For next week.

[nemolian]

Real Genius turns 35—celebrating this cult classic is a moral imperative

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Mitch (Gabriel Jarret) and Chris (Val Kilmer) play young science whizzes trying to build a 5-kilowatt laser in the 1985 film

Real Genius

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TriStar Pictures

Back to the Future justly dominated the summer box office in 1985, but it's too bad its massive success overshadowed another nerd-friendly gem, Real Genius, which debuted one month later, on August 9. Now celebrating its 35th anniversary, the film remains one of the most charming, winsome depictions of super-smart science whizzes idealistically hoping to change the world for the better with their work. It also boasts a lot of reasonably accurate science—a rare occurrence at the time.

Real Genius came out the same year as the similarly-themed films Weird Science—which spawned a 1990s TV sitcom—and My Science Project, because 1980s Hollywood tended to do things in threes. But I'd argue that Real Genius has better stood the test of time, despite being so quintessentially an '80s film—right down to the many montages set to electronic/synth-pop chart-toppers. The film only grossed $12.9 million domestically against its $8 million budget, compared to $23.8 million domestically for its fellow cult classic, Weird Science. (My Science Project bombed with a paltry $4.1 million.) Reviews were mostly positive, however, and over time it became a sleeper hit via VHS, and later, DVD and streaming platforms.

(Spoilers for the 35-year-old film below.)

Fifteen-year-old Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) is a science genius and social outcast at his high school. So he is over the moon when Professor Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton), a star researcher at the fictional Pacific Technical University, stops by the science fair to inform Mitch he's been admitted to the university. Even better, Hathaway has hand-picked Mitch to work in his own lab on a laser project. But unbeknownst to Mitch, Hathaway is in league with a covert CIA program to develop a space-based laser weapon called "Crossbow," designed for precisely targeted political assassinations. The only remaining obstacle is the weapon's power source: they need a 5-megawatt laser, and are relying on Hathaway to deliver.

The first act is a nerdier version of the classic fish-out-of-water tale, as Mitch arrives at Pacific Tech and tries to fit in. His roommate Chris Knight (Val Kilmer), is a senior who was once a bright young star like Mitch, but has since rebelled against the high-pressure academic grind and embraced a goofy YOLO approach to life, urging his fellow students to allow themselves to blow off a little steam now and then. Mitch butts heads with Kent (Robert Prescott), a less gifted older protege of Hathaway's who is jealous of the attention Mitch receives.  He finds friends and allies not just in Chris, but also fellow science nerds "Ick" Ikagami (Mark Kamiyama) and Jordan Cochran (Michelle Meyrink), a hyperactive young woman who rarely stops talking or inventing gadgets, and by her own admission almost never sleeps.

Then there is Lazlo Hollyfeld (Jon Gries), a former star student who cracked under the pressure and is now an eccentric hermit living in the dormitory steam tunnels. Fun fact: Lazlo's steam tunnel hideout, accessible through Mitch's closet, is an elaborate homage to Leonardo da Vinci. As depicted when Mitch finally figures out how to gain access, it features a multidirectional elevator built out of a small car controlled by a rotating screw. The car descends to a horizontal track and propelled forward by a hidden drive chain. The automated scribbler Lazlo uses to submit over a million entries to the Frito-Lay Sweepstakes was inspired by a sketch in one of Leonardo's notebooks.

Eventually, Mitch and Chris succeed in solving the power problem for their laser, only to realize (thanks to Lazlo) that it will be used to build a powerful directed-energy laser weapon. The five of them team up to foil Hathaway's big military test of the system, in their usual eccentrically ingenious way.

15-year-old Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) is admitted to the fictional "Pacific Tech" to work on lasers.

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Mitch's rival, Kent (Robert Prescott) and his rather shady mentor, Dr. Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton)

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Mitch's roommate is the equally brilliant but idiosyncratic Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)

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Jordan (Michelle Meyrink) surprises Mitch in the men's room with the sweater she knitted

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Lazlo Hollyfeld (Jon Gries) is a former genius who cracked and keeps mysteriously going into Mitch's closet—and vanishing.

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Mitch discovers the passage to Lazlo's secret lair.

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Conked out

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Of course Chris sleeps like a pretzel.

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Chris engineers a "pool party" so everyone can let off some steam.

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Jordan and "Ick" Ikagami (Mark Kamiyama) help Chris and Mitch take revenge on Kent.

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"Is that you, Jesus?"

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Yes that is a giant pile of unpopped popcorn in Jerry's foyer. All it needs is a bit of heat.

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Hacking a defense department laser weapon provides that heat.

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Hathaway realizes his system has been hacked.

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The team celebrates a job well done.

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It fell to film consultant Martin A. Gunderson of the University of Southern California (who has a bit part as a math professor) to help ensure that the science and campus culture depicted in the film were plausible, even if certain liberties were taken. Certain details were deliberately left out, according to Director Martha Coolidge, such as those for Mitch's flash-pumped ultraviolet laser at the science fair, and technical details pertaining to a directed-energy laser weapon. ("We didn't want to inspire any lethal tinkering.")

I've always appreciated how closely the laboratory laser setups hewed to reality: Gunderson himself provided the blue-green argon laser and tunable dye laser used in those scenes. Chris uses a cube beam splitter to create the laser light show announcing the Tanning Invitational pool party that incurs Hathaway's wrath. That said, a 5-megawatt laser had certainly not been achieved in 1985. While Chris's construction of a xenon-halogen laser to solve the power problem was purely theoretical at the time, the underlying scientific details were later outlined in a scientific paper—a fitting example of how science and Hollywood can both benefit from such collaborations.

For the "Smart People on Ice" scene, the crew used a frozen volatile gas, pumped through thousands of feet of tubing beneath the corridor flooring that was connected to a refrigeration unit to keep the gas cold. And as Ick explains when Kent asks him what will happen when the ice melts, the frozen gas shifts directly from a solid to a gaseous state, rather than melting into a liquid.

Then there is the famous popcorn scene that marks the group's triumph over Hathaway. Mitch, Chris, Ick, Jordan, and Lazlo fill his newly renovated house (accomplished with funds embezzled from his CIA grant) with unpopped popcorn covered in tinfoil. They place a prismatic-like piece of glass on the window sill, and hijack the computer during Hathaway's big military test to redirect the laser energy through that window. The kernels start popping, expanding to fill the entire house until it quite literally bursts at the seams.

Real Genius movie clip: Jerry's House of Popcorn.

In a 2010 interview with the AV Club, Atherton revealed that the studio had six ten-foot-high air poppers devoted to popping popcorn all day for three months, filling a massive storage tank. Since the popcorn had been treated with fire retardant to keep it from combusting, additional measures had to be taken to ensure the birds didn't eat it. All that popcorn was then carted out to a new subdivision being built in Canyon Country just northwest of Los Angeles, and then stuffed inside a Victorian frame house specifically built for the film. That way the crew could pull the whole thing down in the climactic scene, with the help of an elaborate network of conveyor belts, hydraulic lifts, airblowers, and vacuum hoses. "Now they'd do it digitally, I guess, but in those days, you had to pop the dang popcorn and put it in a truck and schlep it out to the valley," Atherton said.

As evidence of the film's enduring popularity with the nerdy set, the Mythbusters decided to test the feasibility of popping that much popcorn with a laser and destroying a house in 2009. The initial test went well: the team successfully popped a single kernel wrapped in aluminum foil with a ten-watt laser. Unfortunately, they weren't able to get a sufficiently powerful laser for their scaled-up experiment, relying instead on a large pan used to cook the popcorn via induction heating. They also built a scaled-down model of the house in the film with a piston on the floor, pushing popped popcorn upward, to see if it could generate sufficient force to break apart the house. Alas, the Mythbusters determined it would require several tons of force. So myth: busted. But it's still an entertaining movie comeuppance.

Real Genius is admittedly a bit cheesy. The plot is predictable, the characters are pretty basic, and the dialogue can be clunky. And it goes without saying that the sexually frustrated virgin nerds ogling hot cosmetology students in bikinis during the pool party reflects hopelessly outdated stereotypes on several fronts. But the film still offers smartly silly escapist fare, with a side of solid science for those who care about such things. And its yearning idealism is a good antidote to the current prevailing cynicism.

via:Ars Technica, August 9, 2020 at 11:25AM