#tragi-comical

[fanficrocks]

OMG - these are the most tragi-comic parallels imaginable. Really the only thing Ashes to Ashes needed for truly completing the circle was Shaun wearing an operatic costume like the one in IM S4E4 Masonic Mysteries....

Dark Endeavour AU: Ashes to Ashes

I'm convinced that Ashes to Ashes (episode 2.1) featuring both Shaun Evans and Roger Allam is actually a dark Endeavour AU! There are so many parallels.

First up, we have the cop uniform swagger:

Next, we have Morse P.C. Kevin Hales, who was on the take, but his friend and colleague found out and was going to report him. Hales tries to shut him up by getting compromising pictures, but the setup goes wrong and his friend dies. Hales later shoots the hooker that was part of the setup after telling the police his friend was the one on the take. Interestingly, he seems to go in for a bit of a death-by-cop scenario as he is indeed somewhat guilt-ridden, but gives up. Which leads to a forced breathalyser test, not unfamiliar to Endeavour...

Then some police brutality:

And then it's off to prison!

Where things go badly, except just a little worse for Hales...

And then we have Thursday of course, who in this scenario is the shady Detective Superintendent Charlie Mackintosh, who’s trying to cover up his obvious murder of Hales in prison by having it listed as a suicide – because he’s *gasp* a MASON!!! (Taking over from Strange in this scenario!)

So yeah, fascinating to see Thursday have Endeavour murdered in prison! And what a beautiful little disaster!Cop he made too:

And there you have it! Such an interesting dark AU version of Endeavour! Or maybe just Pylon if it had been set in the 80s.

Can't get enough of the Morsetache, though! I'm very grateful to the 70s for that alone. Morsetache forever!

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played Butter Princess ?

By Brian Sago

A tragi-comic game about a daring heist to steal a 90 lb butter sculpture from the Minnesota State Fair, produced in pamphlet form. It spins a narrative rife with betrayal and chaos, amidst the strange, fried-food hostility of the fair.

It's about stealing the butter sculpture. of Princess Kay of the Milky Way (a real thing!) from the Minnesota State Fair. But it's also about what a weird liminal space the fair is with its thick crowds, bizarre foods, and absurd range of exhibits. It's one of those oneshot games where most of the PCs are doomed, and there are light supernatural horror elements. (The Miracle of Birth barn is also real, though.)

[lackadaisycats]

Would you consider Lackadaisy to be 'Noir'?

It has some noir-like elements, and I borrow some of the visual sensibilities of noir for certain comic panels after Volume 1, but not consistently so.

You might say the old guard of characters (Mitzi, Viktor, Zib, Wick, and Mordecai) have been tossed into a noir phase of their lives, what with the murder and fatalism and the 'what's going on here, exactly?' angles. But there's counter-focus on Rocky, Freckle, and Ivy, where the levity and romanticism tend to overshadow the cynicism, enough that I don't think Lackadaisy really qualifies as noir. It's maybe part noir, part screwball, part slapstick, tragi-comic, farcical gangster fare? I don't know. You decide.

[skull-bearer]

Warhammer

Although I don't blog about it, I've been playing warhammer on and off since I was about 12. I'm not currently playing it (money, and models being hard to transport, also money), but I do keep an eye on what's going on with it.

It's been pretty amazing to see just how much warhammer has managed to pervade popular culture. I had my students making blood for the blood god references (I responded with 'skulls for the skull throne, milk for the cornflakes'). But seriously, warhammer in the 90s was very, very niche. D&D had more cultural relevance than it did.

I think if GW play their cards right, warhammer absolutely could become the new D&D. Partially due to Cavill throwing everything he can at getting a warhammer show going, but I think they've got something very very rare with warhammer that's going to make it potentially extremely successful:

A world with insanely deep lore, which you can also completely ignore if it doesn't interest you.

There are people who spend their entire time coming up with deep and lore focused background for their armies, digging deep into the staggering about of warhammer history to craft intricate backstories for all their characters.

You also have people who buy a bunch of models, paint them, put them on the table and have fun because little plastic toys go brrrr.

And both of these people are going to have equal amounts of fun.

Contrast with western comics, and the whole marvel movieverse, where it's getting harder and harder to keep up with whatever the fuck is going on if you haven't read/watch the latest big events, not to mention, for comics, decades of backstory.

I like the warhammer world. I'm still fairly sure that GW stole my dark elves fanfic when I was 17 because the events leading up to Age of Sigmar bear a genuinely uncanny resemblance to the frankly deranged crap I was writing, up to and include Malekith melding with his dragon. But weird mind reading aside, the 40k world alone is full of so much amazing stuff that the problem for Cavill will be choosing what to write about.

Game of Thrones meets Conclave political backstabbing with the Primarchs? Hell yeah.

Mad Max meets Fallout hive world survival crap? Nercomunda fuck yeah (read The Redeemer, it's fucking hilarious).

You could do some blackly funny The Office tragi-comedy about mid level grunts working on a spaceship and running into all sorts of disasters.

Just- so much. And that's not even touching on the alien races, which have entire worlds of their own awesome.

And on top of everything, on the whole GW is one of the better companies out there, so it's actually nice for them to be seeing some success.

[alexandramrobertson]

A modest entry to Canadian Six Degrees

A very small part, basically a cameo.

In Barney's Version (2010), the main character is a television producer for a Mountie soap opera called O'Malley of the North.

Guess who plays the Mountie?

I love Paul's expressions in his second scene.

The film is tragi-comic, with a heartbreaking ending. It's streaming for free on CBC Gem, which you might need to be in Canada to access.

@ds30below

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

Jay Duplass Movie 'See You When I See You' To Star Cooper Raiff

New project !🎉💥✨

EXCLUSIVE: More than a decade after his last feature directorial outing with The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, Jay Duplass is back behind the camera for See You When I See You, a comedic family drama to star Cooper Raiff (Cha Cha Real Smooth), David Duchovny (Californication), Hope Davis (Succession), Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody), and Ariela Barer (How to Blow Up a Pipeline).

An exploration of the intricacies of grief and healing, currently in production in Atlanta, See You When I See You is scripted by actor, comedian and writer Adam Cayton-Holland (Those Who Can’t). The film is inspired by Cayton-Holland’s acclaimed memoir Tragedy Plus Time: A Tragi-Comic Memoir, the winner of the 2019 Colorado Book Award for Creative Non-Fiction, which examines the impact of his younger sister Lydia’s suicide on him and his family.

[mybeingthere]

Travelling Tales

Kalīlah wa-Dimnah and the Animal Fable

By Marina Warner

Influencing numerous later animal tales told around the world, the 8th-century Arabic fables of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s Kalīlah wa-Dimnah also inspired a rich visual tradition of illustration: jackals on trial, airborne turtles, and unlikely alliances between species. Marina Warner follows these stories as they wander and change across time and place, celebrating their sharp political observation and stimulating mix of humour, earnesty, and melancholy.

Kalīlah and Dimnah are two jackals, wily and ambitious, one virtuous and the other rather less so, who give their names to the eponymous cycle of animal fables in Arabic that is framed by the stories of their friendship, adventures, and mishaps.1 The collection bears a family likeness to Aesop’s Fables and to other classics of moral exempla, but the volumes vary one from one another and even when the stories coincide, they aren’t identical. They share certain generic features: animal protagonists above all (lions, wolves, monkeys, asses, mice, magpies); a narrative of braided tales passing between speakers, often imbricating one story inside the other; and a prevailing tone of tragi-comic moralising coupled with world-weary wisdom about the folly and the treachery of humans.

Most of all, the story of the two jackals Kalīlah and Dimnah, and the tales told in the course of their adventures, are travelling tales, which have been travelling for a long while, migrating from language to language, culture to culture, religion to religion. The Arabic stories’ rich history ranges from Benares to Baghdad and Basra and Rome and beyond, appearing in numerous iterations over centuries, moving across borders, carrying the sparkling hope and mordant cynicism, the canniness and the wit of a form of wisdom literature that originated in the Sanskrit Panchatantra (The Five Books, or Five Discourses) and the Mahabharata, sometime in the second century BCE. Two significant branches grew from this trunk: first, a collection often attributed to a legendary Indian sage, known as Bidpay or Pilpay, and second, the Arabic branch, beginning in the eighth century with the work of the scholar Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (d. 139/757), who translated and compiled Kalīlah wa-Dimnah. Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ worked from a lost Pehlevi (Middle Persian) composition by a writer called Barzahwayh, which he treated freely, mixing into the Panchatantra’s original fables four more tales, and a highly circumstantial and persuasive explanation of how the manuscript was obtained; he also added a crucial dramatic chapter about Dimnah’s trial, self-defence, and ultimate punishment.

Read the whole essay https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/travelling-tales/

[agentnico]

The Phoenician Scheme (2025) review

Can we just stop and appreciate the legend that is Bryan Cranston. Within this one week he’s had brief appearances in both this and Apple TV+’s The Studio season finale, and even though in both his roles are so short, he fully commits to the comedy showing everyone again why he is the GOAT! He really is the one that knocks!!

Plot: Wealthy businessman, Zsa-zsa Korda appoints his only daughter, a nun, as sole heir to his estate. As Korda embarks on a new enterprise, they soon become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists, and determined assassins.

The Wes Anderson fan base is a highly divisive one. Though there are some movies in his filmography that are mostly unanimously agreed to be fantastic such as The Grand Budapest Hotel and Rushmore, for the most part the rest of his films are liked/disliked based on individual responses. I sat in a screening of Asteroid City where it was such a baffling experience where others (including my friend) were laughing and I was not. With The French Dispatch I never found Wes Anderson to be more pretentious, and it truly felt like the guy enjoyed the smell of his own farts, but in spite of my own opinions on Letterboxd one user couldn’t stop banging on about being enamoured with one 5-min sequence of Owen Wilson riding his silly little bicycle. So what do I know. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou -  I absolutely adore its zany, messy and crazily melancholic presentation, or Fantastic Mr Fox - one of the most impressive examples of stop motion animation ever put to screen. Nonetheless with both of the latter examples I have also seen negative responses to by others. 

I’d say that Wes Anderson in my eyes is at his best when he’s delving into his tragi-comic sensibilities rather than full blown quirky wackiness. The Royal Tenenbaums works due to, though being really funny, dealing with exploring family relationships, loss, regret, and the complexities of human connection. As such  in my eyes since hitting his peak with The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson has not evolved as a filmmaker. The repetition can feel redundant, where Anderson has gotten so obsessed with his own technique of symmetry and colours, thus his style overtaking any possibility of a fulfilling narrative substance. For me all his recent outings from Isle of Dogs onwards have felt extremely artificial and formulaic. Except for his Netflix Roald Dahl shorts, those are genuinely adorable and I’m still holding out hope that The Criterion Collection boxes those up into one nifty little physical set.

As for his new film The Phoenician Scheme, it is unfortunately in similar vain as recent offerings. At no point any part of the story touched me on an emotional level, and the main plot (as loose as it is) involves the three main characters going to different places and meeting various cartoony characters one after the other in caper fashion. It’s a very mechanical Wes Anderson film, and outside of the fun scheming and a surface level exploration of the absence of religion in a dishonest man’s life, there isn’t much to dig into here. To be fair, even the Anderson visual palette is blander than usual, with most of the set pieces looking really plain and dull. Exception to those B&W afterlife scenes that invoked the surreal mise-en-scene techniques of Luis Buñuel - more of that please Wesley!

It’s great to finally see Benicio del Toro in a lead role, though playing a fairly unliveable character, while Mia Threapleton and especially Michael Cera steal the show from a robust ensemble of terrific actors. Hanks, Johansson, Dafoe, Murray, Wright, Ayoade, Cumberbatch... they’re all here doing a good honest day’s work for that easy pay check. But yes, it’s genuinely baffling how Michael Cera hasn’t appeared in a Wes Anderson picture before, as he fully fits into the pace and delivery of Anderson’s dialogue and absurdist direction.

The Phoenician Scheme is fine. If you enjoy Wes Anderson films you’ll find some level of enjoyment, whilst newcomers most likely won’t be swayed by this one. However I do really miss the old school Wes Anderson, where he still had his signature style, yet managed to deliver genuine and earnest stories with real emotion and tenderness. Now unfortunately it’s all about the style and no substance. This is the cinematic equivalent of a quaint man showing you his stamp collection. Yes sure it looks pretty but please for the love of all can we go outside and have some real fun!? Again though, I’m so here for Michael Cera!

Overall score: 5/10

[tomwaitsvisualdictionary]

Forty years ago, Tom Waits’ transformative creative breakthrough, Swordfishtrombones, was released into the wild, ushering in a new and critically acclaimed era for Waits and his longtime songwriting and production partner, Kathleen Brennan.

To honor this metamorphic period, Waits’ spectacular middle-period albums – released on Island Records between 1983 and 1993 – have been newly remastered from the original tapes for reissue on vinyl and CD via Island/UMe, personally overseen by Waits and Brennan.  Swordfishtrombones (1983), its sprawling and superb sequel, Rain Dogs (1985), and the trilogy-completing, tragi-comic stage musical, Franks Wild Years (1987), kick off the series today with their new vinyl releases.

[avoteforme]

jack in this scene was tragi-comic and phryne rampaging in and trampling all over his newly-discovered broken-up feels--

it's acme cartoon levels of funny- Anvils of Emotions flattening jack and phryne obliviously beep-beeping and merrily speeding away

i love so much that i can call mfmm a comedy show bc when i’m not a whistling and steaming teakettle over it imma giggling at the rampant emotional mayhem frfr

[hostilemuppet]

It was some of the best angst I've read in a while, especially in a fic that's mostly comedy based. 10/10

IM SO GLAD........ the switch from "brief comedic summaries" to "mild prose" wasnt something that we exactly planned it just kinda worked out like that, and im so relieved that people actually like the way it reads 😭 i wouldnt really say im a "writer" but id LIKE to be and im glad im headed in the right direction! weve got a loooooot planned, both tragi and comic, and i hope you all like everything weve got planned!

[5hark-byt3]

Mewing spig bc I forgot to post this @tragi-comical

[readersmagnet]

A Tragic-Comedy Love War Story of love and adventure. Reginald, a British noble, and Vivian, an Austrian countess, meet at the 1908 Paris Air Show, becoming lovers and fighter pilots in WWI. After the war, their thrilling journey continues with a mysterious native tribe, a ghost squadron, and the start of an early airline. Get ready for a wild ride with "Dick and Jane Go to War", filled with love, adventure, and unforgettable moments. Don't miss out—start reading today at https://www.slauslenderarts.com/tragi-comic-love-story-war-story.

[anarchblr]

my boy snapped on this!!!:

"Roy Howard tried to get a little illumination on this point also. What is the state of affairs – he asked Stalin – as to plans and intentions in regard to world revolution?

“We never had any such plans or intentions.” But, well ... “This is the result of a misunderstanding.”

Howard: “A tragic misunderstanding?”

Stalin: “No, comic, or, if you please, tragi-comic.” The quotation is verbatim. “What danger,” Stalin continued, “can the surrounding states see in the ideas of the Soviet people if these states really sit firmly in the saddle?”

Yes, but suppose – the interviewer might ask – they do not sit so firm? Stalin adduced one more quieting argument:

“The idea of exporting a revolution is nonsense. Every country if it wants one will produce its own revolution, and if it doesn’t, there will be no revolution. Thus, for instance, our country wanted to make a revolution and made it ...”

Again, we have quoted verbatim. From the theory of socialism in a single country, it is a natural transition to that of revolution in a single country. For what purpose, then, does the International exist? – the interviewer might have asked. But he evidently knew the limits of legitimate curiosity. The reassuring explanations of Stalin, which are read not only by capitalists but by workers, are full of holes. Before “our country” desired to make a revolution, we imported the idea of Marxism for other countries, and made use of foreign revolutionary experience. For decades we had our émigrés abroad who guided the struggle in Russia. We received moral and material aid from the workers’ organizations of Europe and America. After our victory we organized, in 1919, the Communist International. We more than once announced the duty of the proletariat of countries in which the revolution had conquered to come to the aid of oppressed and insurrectionary classes, and that not only with ideas but if possible with arms. Nor did we limit ourselves to announcements. We in our own time aided the workers of Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Georgia with armed force. We made an attempt to bring aid to the revolting Polish proletariat by the campaign of the Red Army against Warsaw. We sent organizers and commanders to the help of the Chinese in revolution. In 1926, we collected millions of rubles for the aid of the British strikers. At present, this all seems to have been a misunderstanding. A tragic one? No, it is comic. No wonder Stalin has declared that to live, in the Soviet Union, has become “gay.” Even the Communist International has changed from a serious to a comic personage.

Stalin would have made a more convincing impression upon his interviewer if, instead of slandering the past, he had openly contrasted the policy of Thermidor to the policy of October.

“In the eyes of Lenin,” he might have said, “the League of Nations was a machine for the preparation of a new imperialist war. We see in it an instrument of peace. Lenin spoke of the inevitability of revolutionary wars. We consider the idea of exporting revolution nonsense. Lenin denounced the union of the proletariat with the imperialist bourgeoisie as treason. We with all our power impel the international proletariat along this road. Lenin slashed the slogan of disarmament under capitalism as a deceit of the workers. We build our whole policy upon this slogan. Your tragi-comic misunderstand” – Stalin might have concluded – “lies in your taking us for the continuers of Bolshevism, when we are in fact its gravediggers.”"

where's this from?

[lpkorra]

Journaling

List of favorite korean comics available on webtoon

and first season only of:

[writer59january13]

Cri de coeur courtesy thirty something English earl cry baby

the Earl of Yarmouth (William Seymour) a descendant of very late (to the power of Google - ha) Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife currently in a legal battle with his parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Hertford, over the family estate, Ragley Hall located in Alcester, Warwickshire, England, at B49 5NJ constitutes a 17th century Palladian stately home set in 450 acres of parkland in Warwickshire sued his parents for "trauma" after NOT inheriting a 6,000 acre, $105 million estate for his thirtieth birthday contrary to the rule of primogeniture. how cruel, shameless and unspeakable unnecessary psychological suffering ensued, imposed, and ordained

upon talking head of said heir

being royal parentage Livin' on a Prayer (courtesy Jon Bon Jovi) lamented being shortchanged courtesy supposed stingy parents, who did not even bequeath a damned weir. if locked out of a sizable estate yours truly too would fight tooth and nail (no matter I wear dentures) against being denied patrimony (ranking as a worse fate than death), cue marionette strings to pull tight and the listener to pantomime violins to orchestrate voiding any chance at tête-à-tête not deeding a modest fortune to first born male heir, hence forcing eldest son to hire himself (with egg on his face) out as a yokemate. aforementioned tidy fortune linkedin with tragi-comic high drama will inevitably be exhausted courtesy bickering as countless court - battles him of the republic in which it stands... (plagiarizing pledge of allegiance for personal mutinous gain) ensue - forcing prodigal son against father, and holy ghost supposed descendent of Jane Seymour, whose spirit can host the pity party perhaps even reviving the court of King Crimson subtle allusion to King Henry VIII.

yours truly a fluent bloke, which two words forged together to create affluent suddenly becomes only a tabloid fodder for and about proletarian pennsylvanian poet fancy and fantasy of mine

truth be told being born into wealth and unabashedly crying the blues generates no empathy from me, and maybe sympathy for the devil he will evoke,

but of course archaic contractual obligations buried deep in the webbed wide world archives of English law will invoke

paternal obligations reminding twenty first century sophisticates if any questionable breech to stint (once again stretching the legal limits of credulity) concerning the welfare of menfolk

such ridiculous questionable logic,

the supposed traumatized young man

will quicken others infinitesimal chance

of securing riches due to bastard whose imagination, the Earl of Yarmouth (William Seymour) unwittingly did stoke and even the writer of these words woke

to fabricate being linkedin acquiring money and predilection of jaw dropping wealth,

which delusions and illusions of grandeur finds me to swallow my pride, and feel the burden of invisible yoke.