#yes i believe its 100% parody

[appri-dot]

I will watch 100 Garten of Banban before I let Rainbowfriends take over my YouTube rec page‼‼💥

[agentnico]

Renfield (2023) Review

Finally we have a sequel to the 1988 masterpiece that is Vampire’s Kiss, that spawned generations worth of meme material and then some, and gave us a Nicolas Cage so unhinged, even for Nicolas Cage! It only took them 35 years, but now we get Cage as the actual vampire. Wonderful. As for those who haven’t seen Vampire’s Kiss - seek it out. It’s an amalgamation of weird, funny, silly, creepy and bat-shit (pardon the pun) crazy, and its about Cage THINKING he’s a vampire. It’s honestly amazing! Anyway, now let’s see him play an actual vamp.

Plot: Renfield, the tortured aide to his narcissistic boss, Dracula, is forced to procure his master's prey and do his every bidding. However, after centuries of servitude, he's ready to see if there's a life outside the shadow of the Prince of Darkness.

Those who know me are probably aware that I have a particular affinity to the man, the myth, the legend that is Nicolas Cage. I truly believe the man is great. With the way he uses German expressionism to deliver performances that to the casual viewer may seem over-the-top ridiculous and unnatural, but in reality is him giving it his absolute all deliver roles that are so unique and unlike anything else one has ever seen. I’m not simply talking about Vampire’s Kiss here. I mean, pick any film from his filmography - you have Face/Off, there’s Mandy, of course Con Air, The Rock...the list goes on. Even when he’s in a blatantly terrible movie such as The Wicker Man remake, he somehow comes out on top at the end with everyone loving him and quoting his lines endlessly. I mean, everyone knows the memorable scene where Cage is being tortured with a wire mesh helmet filled with bees, prompting his oft-parodied line, "Not the bees!" The man is great! He truly cares for the acting craft and is so shamelessly willing to go above and beyond in every role. 

Now the time has come for Nicolas Cage to take on a role that was a long time coming - Count Dracula. Look, I’m not going to waste your time here, Cage is fantastic as Dracula. He obviously steals the show by truly embodying the famous Bram Stoker creation. He is indeed over-acting 100%, but for this version of the character in a horror-action-comedy he is perfect. He’s everything I wanted from Nicolas Cage playing Dracula, and look, if you like Cage’s brand you will love him in this. If you don’t, then maybe just don’t go see Renfield. Easy choice there. But the way he uses mannerisms and maniacal facial movements in this movie make you truly enamoured and entertained whenever he’s on screen. A particular highlight moment is when Dracula visits Renfield in his studio apartment having caught him out on a lie, and his sarcastic delivery of every line is truly some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen all year, and I’ve watched Cocaine Bear! Also shout-out to the make-up department too, as the way the make Cage’s Dracula look in this movie, particularly in the earlier scenes when he is recovering from the burns of sunlight and you see the skin on his face half peeled off, that’s some great practical effects. 

So yes, Nicolas Cage is obviously Renfield’s main selling point. However the titular character himself is played by Nicholas Hoult who too is actually really well realised, with Hoult giving an adorably innocent character performance in his demeanour, all the while also managing to rip people’s heads and arms off left and right, yet still somehow being adorable whilst doing so? Yep, quite the paradox. Speaking of ripping off limbs, there is a hell of a lot of gore in this. I mean proper over the top comic violence where there are literally geysers of the red stuff splattering all over the screen. It’s as if Tarantino walked on set and was like “you guys may not have any feet shots, but boy are you gonna blast some blood!“ Honestly, it’s like Django Unchained all over again. Kind of felt a bit video-game like, with some anime tendencies due to all the madness. 

As for what I didn’t like. Awkwafina - I do apologise for those who are a fan of hers, but I just cannot warm to her in any of her roles. I find her super annoying, and not simply due to her voice, and in here she does the same shtick she always does. And in reality, her entire side-plot in this movie about being a cop fighting against corruption - why was that in the movie? Goodness, I’ve just reminded myself of that Key & Peele sketch about Gremlins 2 where Jordan Peele constantly says “THAT’S BRILLIANT, THAT’S IN THE MOVIE, DONE!!” But yes, all the scenes inn the police precinct felt like they were part of a different movie that had nothing to do with what was going on. All the stuff with Dracula and Renfield’s toxic relationship is great, however all the cop stuff was unneeded. 

Overall Renfield is a silly horror comedy that doesn’t take itself seriously, and simply gives us some stupid entertainment. I had a blast - Nic Cage is great, Nic Hoult was fun, the gore was mental, there were some hilarious moments of dialogue. Ben Schwartz AKA Jean Ralphio plays a mobster/spoiler son brat in this and has some of the funniest lines. Arguably Schwartz is even more over the top than Cage in this movie, and that’s saying something! Renfield is a great time at the movies, as long as you’re willing to embrace its goofy gothic style and lack of seriousness. And Nic Cage fans will have a hoot.

Overall score: 7/10

[nonasuch]

Today I listened to the Rent cast album for the first time in... a number of years, and it sure does hit differently now that I’m an adult and not an extremely sheltered suburban tween.

(the first time I heard any of the songs was at Jewish sleepaway camp in the Poconos. yes, really. we sang it on hikes. the girl who actually owned the cast album was in a different bunk, so I exclusively heard the ‘as sung by 12-14 year old girls’ version until I got home. yes, the lyrics were bowdlerized)

anyway! some notes:

Mark’s mom is still very funny and her voicemail is, perhaps, the most realistic thing in this musical.

I was definitely well into my 20s before I noticed that a Tom Collins is also a cocktail? whoops

wow but Benny looks different to me that he did when I was younger. like. the things his friends are mad at him for are Very Different from the things he does that are actually bad?

actually let me break this down.

Things Benny’s Friends Are Mad At Him For:

leaving them behind to marry a bougie lady

gentrification

‘stealing’ Mimi from Roger

Things Benny Does That Are Genuinely Bad:

cheats on his wife with a 19-year-old HIV+ heroin addict

okay, yeah, gentrification, I’ll grant you that

Things Benny Does That Are Good, Actually:

lets his friends live in the building he owns rent-free for a year

pays for Mimi’s rehab

left what must have been an absolute nightmare of a living situation, to marry a bougie lady

seriously can you imagine what that apartment was like

an unheated squat occupied by Benny, Mark, Roger, Collins, and Maureen? nope, no thank you

also Roger has only been clean for six months at the start of the musical, so he was still a full-blown heroin addict when Benny left

actually I would bet that the sequence of events went: April kills herself (IN THEIR BATHROOM) -> Roger spirals even further -> Benny gets the fuck out of there

and tbh good for him

anyway

I don’t love that they make the same “Maureen is a lesbian now, lol” joke twice in the space of like five minutes

the timeline of “Maureen dumps Mark, keeps him as her production manager for a month, then replaces him two days before her show” is... bad. Mark, you have a noodle for a spine.

Joanne’s parents’ voicemail: also still funny. “and wear a bra!” is perfect.

btw Joanne and Mark are both clearly slumming so idk why it’s only bad when Benny does it

hey it’s actually very fucked up that Angel killed Benny’s dog???

not sure when I first noticed this, but Mark, Roger and Collins all use he/him pronouns for Angel, and Mimi, Joanne and Maureen use she/her. huh.

“I’ll Cover You” is still extremely good.

Collins and Joanne are the only adults in this musical.

“Over the Moon” is a perfect parody of bad performance art, so props for that

oh good, “La Vie Boheme” still slaps

I have a lot more sympathy for the Life Cafe waitstaff than I used to, though

btw please envision 13-year-old me, on a hike in the Pennsylvania woods, with 20 other 13-year-olds who are all word-perfect on “La Vie Boheme” but definitely don’t know what a dildo is and kind of mumble their way through the swears.

god I loved “Take Me Or Leave Me” so much as a kid but WOW Maureen would be a nightmare to date IRL

tbh everyone except Collins and Angel should just like. be single for a while. take some time to work on themselves.

you know what, my decision to skip “Contact” on most play-throughs was both correct and, in retrospect, a Big Ace Mood

unsurprisingly, the reprise of “I’ll Cover You” still makes me tear up.

“What You Own” isn’t bad, as such, but it does make me roll my eyes at both Mark and Roger. Especially Mark. my dude, you have by far the fewest problems of any of your friends, and you need to take it down a notch.

the little moment where Mark corrects “Muffy” to “Alison” is really interesting to me? the implication is that they know her well enough now to feel bad about the nickname. I choose to believe that Alison is actually way too good for Benny and his friends all come to recognize that.

aw, Roger. “Your Eyes” is very heartfelt. it’s not good, but it’s heartfelt.

I still like the finale a lot, but boy, these kids have a LOT of problems, huh.

hm apparently I have extensive opinions about what would happen to the characters over the next 25 years.

okay just right off the bat: I doubt that Mimi lives more than a year. sorry! but her odds are Not Good

I would like to think that Roger makes it a little longer than Mimi -- at least long enough to record an album

does Benny bankroll the album and get him a record deal, out of guilt? probably.

does Roger, when he dies, leave the IP and royalties to Mark anyway? also probably

his album reaches a Jeff Buckleyesque level of posthumous cult fame, which is nice for him

sometimes he is featured in listicles about 12 Artists Who Recorded Their Last Albums As They Died

assuming Alison doesn’t leave his dumb ass, I would like to think that Benny chills the fuck out and learns some empathy once they have kids

regrettably, he probably does manage to become a dot-com billionaire

Joanne is 100% married and living in DC by today, and she and her wife both work on the Hill. I can guarantee that they send their kids to either Sidwell Friends or the Maret School. maybe Duke Ellington for high school

Maureen has joined a cult at least once and has almost no contact with her friends from her New York days 

I bet she’s the only one who actually lives in the Southwest now

she goes to Burning Man every year without fail

Mark has never made a commercially successful film

he still lives in New York, though

mostly because the royalties from Roger’s lone album let him buy into a co-op before he could get priced out of Manhattan

some of his old footage has made its way into various documentaries, most recently on Netflix

in his free time he volunteers at an after-school program where he teaches filmmaking to at-risk youth

they keep trying to get him on tik-tok but he doesn’t understand what that is

Collins is happy, healthy, gainfully employed in meaningful work, and in love.

FIN

[ace-trainer-risu]

what are your fave diana wynne jones books that aren’t howl’s moving castle??

Oh whattt a lovely and fun question which I was definitely not secretly hoping someone would ask!!!! Yay!!

Hm okay so, not specifically in order, probably my top fave Diana Wynne Jones books would be:

Deep Secret! Deep Secret is not just one of my favorite books by DWJ but one of my favorite books full stop! It’s so good. Basically, the premise is that there is an infinite series of interconnected worlds, some of which have magic and some of which don’t, at the center of which is a vast interdimensional magical empire. Magic in the multiverse is overseen by an organization of magicians called Magids and there must always be a specific number of Magids in existence. When Rupert, a young Magid living on Earth, discovers that his mentor has died (ish) he becomes unexpectedly responsible for finding and training the next Magid, which is extremely inconvenient timing for him because the aforementioned magical empire is on the brink of civil war and chaos and its his job to stop it. And also almost all of this takes place at...a science fiction convention. It’s amazing.  I have read this book minimum four (probably more) times and every time it’s absolutely delightful and hilarious. I would like to go to the sci fi convention in this novel more than anything. It’s such a good read and its one of her few novels which is specifically aimed at adults, so I would EXTREMELY recommend it. Plus the romance in it is extremely good...not exactly enemy-to-lovers but more like ‘annoys-the-shit-out-of-each-other’ to lovers.  (**One note about this one...there’s a few very briefly mentioned side characters who are gender noncomforming and even tho they are actually portrayed very positively, it’s not necessarily ideal and 100% respectful (basically the protags comment on them being very beautiful and nice but also keep trying to guess their “real” gender). Additionally there’s a different briefly mentioned side character who is fat who isn’t portrayed very nicely. Both of these are brief incidents, just wanted to provide a warning for them)

Dark Lord of Derkholm - Okay this one is weirdly hard to summarize but it’s about this magical fantasy world which has been taken overy and is being used as a tourist destination by a non-magical world (heavily implied to be Earth) for people who want to role play at being in a classic high fantasy story, including fighting and killing THE DARK LORD...who is really just a random magician pretending to be evil. The inhabitants of the fantasy world do not enjoy this and are trying desperately to stop the tours, but unfortunately according to a magical oracle, their best hope of stopping the tours is this year’s Dark Lord, a hapless farmer magician named Derk, and his, um, eccentric family consisting of his glamorous wife, seven children (of whom five are griffins and one is a bard) and a simply improbable amount of magical animals. And also there is a very good dragon.  I think Derkholm is so great as a novel b/c it’s a very funny, loving but sharp, parody of high fantasy stories...but a lot of the time parodies only function as parodies but not as good stories in their own right, you know? But this novel completely functions as a story too, and in fact the first time I read at maybe age nine or ten, the high fantasy parody went completely over my head...but I still loved it. I also really love that this novel is very accessible to all ages, I think I enjoy reading it as an adult just as much as I did as a kid, which is rare.  For anyone who has read Howl’s Moving Castle but nothing else by DWJ and isn’t sure where to start, I think this is a great place to start. (TW: There’s a brief, non-explicit scene which has implied sexual assault.) 

Fire and Hemlock - This may be the most controversial one since it features a romance with a significant age gap where the two characters meet when one is a child and the other an adult. And I fully agree that that’s :/ and normally that trope is NOT my thing but it doesn’t come off at all creepy in this story imo, and if you think you can deal with that then this is a very weird, atmospheric, cool book about storytelling and fairy tales and growing up. The short summary (this is another hard to summarize one) is that as a child, Polly encounters and strikes up a friendship and correspondence with a young man, Tom, which mainly consists of the two of them jointly making up a silly, ongoing fairy tale type story...but things get weird when parts of their story start to come true in real life.  I’ve only read this one twice but it really stuck with me and in fact just describing it here...really makes me want to read it again!

The Chrestomanci Series - So all of the above are either specifically aimed at adults or a general audience whereas the Chrestomanci series is aimed at children, mainly a middle grade type audience. And tbh I started reading them as a kid (fond memory - I bought an omnibus of the first two with my allowance money...b/c it had a cat on the cover!) so I don’t know what it would be like to first read these as an older teen or an adult. BUT. Honestly they are really good and would be a quick read so I do still recommend them. There’s seven overall, with th seventh being a collection of short stories, and they’re only semi-chronological so the reading order isn’t vital. My recommended order (b/c this the order I read them in, haha) is Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, The Pinhoe Egg, Conrad’s Fate, and then Mixed Magic you can read whenever you want so long as you read it after Charmed Life and The Magicians of Caprona.  So the very core premise of it is not dissimilar to Deep Secret - there’s an infinite series of worlds/universes and there’s a magician, called the Crestomanci in this case, who is responsible for making sure magic isn’t abused across the multiverse. The Chrestomanci is an extremely powerful enchanter who has nine lives, and the novels are various semi-connected stories about the adventures of Chrestomanci as an adult and child. Chrestomanci is a title so it’s not always the same person, but for the majority of the stories it is the same guy and he’s...the best/worst...He’s this extremely handsome, charismatic, powerful enchanter who is very good at his job, loves his wife a lot, wears very beautiful clothes and makes, um, questionable life choices and is very annoying to everyone. I’ve thought about this very hard and I believe that he’s what happens when you take a fundamentally chaotic good person and make him do a fundamentally lawful good job; yes, he’s going to do it and do it well, but he is going to do it in the most chaotic, ridiculous way possible, and he IS going to die at an ALARMING rate, doing things that would not normally kill a person, such as playing cricket and trying to catch stray cats. He also, as previously mentioned, frequently wears very dramatic silk dressing gowns with elaborate embroidery, which the protag of Charmed Life finds deeply alarming.  It’s very odd to me how these books don’t seem to be well known, because the Chrestomanci books were some of my absolute favorite books as a child. I still have my omnibus editions of the first four novels and they are very worn and very beloved. And it’s so WILD to me that I don’t think I have ever talked to someone who also read those as a kid! Like I’m not saying those people don’t exist, I’m sure I just haven’t met them, but that’s so weiiirddddd to me. If I bring up Tamora Pierce or Garth Nix or other authors of weird, eccentric children’s fantasy novels to other avid childhood consumers of fantasy, people usually know what I mean, but Chrestomanci and its just..crickets. Is it b/c she’s British? Anyway all of the Chrestomanci books are very degrees of good, but if I had to pick a favorite, I think, controversial choice here, it would be Conrad’s Fate. Particularly in terms of recommendations to others, Conrad’s Fate works as a standalone and, unlike the other books in the series, it’s aimed more at a YA audience, so if you wanted to read a Chrestomanci novel without getting into the whole series, that’s a good way to go. It’s about a boy, Conrad, who is told that he has a terrible, possibly fatal Fate awaiting him unless he goes to work as a servant at a wealthy, and weird, estate neighboring his town, at which place he encounters things including color changing livery, an extremely annoying teenage Chrestomanci, and the greatest liminal space house EVER. It’s like a combination of an upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey type social drama with bizarre fantasy shenanigans. How could that not be good??

Also as Honorable Mentions - A Sudden and Wild Magic and The Time of the Ghost. A Sudden and Wild Magic is fun b/c it’s one of her few works aimed specifically at adults and it’s (gasp) a little bit NAUGHTY which I was very surprised and delighted by when I read it. (This may seem like an unfair statement considering that Deep Secret fully has an orgy in it, but Rupert is so fundamentally unnaughty of a character that he completely unnaughtifies the whole novel, whereas Sudden and Wild Magic embraces being a (little bit) naughty.)   The Time of the Ghost on the other hand is weird and haunting and creepy and atmospheric. I only read it once but it’s one of those novels you just think about periodically and go “wait what the fuck that was a weird novel” (Also known as the “Garth Nix” effect) 

[fictionadventurer]

Thoughts on "the comedy genius of the first 100 episodes of the pbs' Arthur series"?

I really, truly believe that the early seasons of this children’s show can stand among the great sitcoms of American history. It pains me to see the Internet reduce it to stupid memes, because this show deserves to be recognized for its high-quality humor. It might be aimed at elementary-age children, but it’s full of jokes that would be funny enough for any adult sitcom. The jokes range from sharp to satirical to just plain silly, but they’re never anything that’s inappropriate for the children watching, which takes talent.

Some of my favorite categories of jokes include:

The one-liners. This show is intensely quotable, and to this day, my adult siblings and I will come up with quotes fitting to any given situation. D.W. is an excellent source of these, but the show’s humor, ranging from dry to sassy to just plain silly, provides quotations from all the characters that are useful for all sorts of situations.

The background jokes. The early seasons are filled with visual or audio gags that provide extra hilarity if you take notice of it. One of my favorites was the time that Arthur’s parents watched Extreme Knitting on television, showing two old ladies knitting massive scarves beneath a digital clock keeping time like it’s a sporting event. The other major example is “D.W. Gets Lost”, where the store’s overhead announcements are unfailingly hilarious. (”Books without vowels now half-price.” “Carbonated milk. It’s the drink that puts you to sleep, and burps you, too.” “Chocolate-covered cabbage. The dessert that makes you go, “Blech.”)

The parodies. The early-season writers were masters at writing parodies that were funny even if you didn’t know what they were parodying. One of the prime examples is “Buster Hits the Books”. As Buster tries to find a book he likes, he reads things that are parodies of everything from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Dr. Seuss, which capture the spirit of the story while making a segment where the jokes stand on their own. I had no clue what “The Jolly Jollisters” was a parody of (until about a year ago, when to my great delight, I stumbled upon “The Happy Hollisters”), but that didn’t stop the segment from being funny. The parodies here are funny without being mean-spirited; they poke fun without lazily relying on references. They have heart and intelligence like all good parodies should.

The adult jokes. Not the “we secretly put some innuendo in here” type of adult jokes. I’m talking the types of jokes that fit more adult concerns; they don’t take away from the humor for the kids, but add something extra for the grown-ups watching. One of my favorite examples is the family reunion episode, when all the adults are playing charades. The team fails to guess the clues Arthur’s pseudo-intellectual uncle gives, and he says, “It’s Over the Bridges of Medieval Paris.” “We said pick a popular book.” “Well, all my friends have read it.” 

That’s just jokes. What about stories? My favorite episodes to bring up when I say that Arthur can stand up against any sitcom are two Joe Fallon classics:

“D.W. Goes to Washington”: This episode is great gag after great gag. 

We start out with the hilarity of Arthur remembering all the terrible vacations that D.W. has chosen before, such as “Share a Sundae with Santa”, which turned out to be a guy who put a false-front igloo on his house, comes out in a half-torn-off fake beard and a tank top, and says, “Didn’t you bring a sundae? How can you share a sundae with Santa if you don’t bring a sundae to Santa?”

Then we get D.W. snarking at every single attraction in Washington D.C. (”Oh, look, another closed door. We could have stayed at home and locked each other out of the bathroom. It would have looked just like this.”)

And we finish off with gags coming from the Secret Service. (”Her name is D.W.” “That’s it? Initials? You didn’t give the kid a whole name?”).

Yes, it’s an implausible plot, but I maintain that any sitcom would kill to have jokes this sharp.

“The Rat Who Came to Dinner”: Mr. Ratburn is staying with Arthur’s family. (Oh, the horror!). The classic plot of “Oh, no, the teacher has a life outside of school” is full of hilarity.

We have one liners: “Is it true what Arthur says about you hating all children?” (Strong contender for my favorite line in the entire show).

We have silly imagine spots as Arthur considers what it’ll be like to have the teacher there: “Are you doing homework?” “I’m taking a bath!” “I’m sliding a waterproof pad under the door. Write the names of the continents in order of size.”

We have parodies, like when Arthur desperately turns to educational television: “Today, we watch grass grow, in real time.”

We have character moments: “I couldn’t help overhearing, because D.W. handed me this juice can and told me to listen.” (He says while holding out string-and-can phone.)

It doesn’t matter that this plot is based around an elementary student’s concerns. These jokes are just plain funny.

Like any show, there are weak episodes mixed in with the strong ones, but the early seasons have a relatively high level of quality. It gets a little rockier as the seasons go on, but I’ve long considered the 100th episode to be a decent dividing line between the good and bad eras of the show. The 100th episode two-parter (which is excellent) occurs in the middle of Season 7 (aired in 2002).  Some terrible episodes occur early in that season, and a few classics air after that. Once Season 8 hits, though, there’s a painfully obvious drop in quality. The good episodes stop being the norm and start being exceptions. The characters stop being endearing and start being annoying (do not get me started on the wrong done to Muffy). The parodies become lazy and trite, and the jokes are few and far between. However, the terrible decline of the show does not erase the roughly-seven seasons of high-quality children’s comedy that came before it. This was a smart show, a funny show, that also contained some good lessons for children. It really doesn’t get much better than that.

[natjennie]

🍀🏳️‍🌈✨📌

AHHGHhhhh bestie we are kissing on the mouth ty

🍀 do you have any kins or comfort characters from your hyperfixation?

I never even really understood what it meant to kin someone until richard hendricks. I look at that man and I say. that's me. he simply is me. I love him and he is me. his stupid little face I'm obsessed with him.

🏳️‍🌈 do you have any headcanons (lgbt, race, neuro, etc) that are important to you?

idk if it even counts as a headcanon but its not Explicitly stated so I'll say it. richard hendricks IS autistic. he just is. watch one episode. this lad is nd 100% you can't convince me otherwise. also bi gilfoyle is simply a must. it just doesn't make sense otherwise. look at him.

✨ what draws you towards your hyperfixation? what is interesting about it?

ohh this is a good question.. the things about silicon valley that really and truly get to me is how.. real? the characters are. like obviously they're heightened parodies of tech bros but they are so well fleshed out as characters and their growth is so heartwarming. I care them. also one of the only shows I've ever seen w/ a good series finale. I ADORE the series finale and all the season finales too. no episode feels.. like a waste? like I got exactly as much as the story was meant to have. yknow what I mean?

📌 how did you find your hyperfixation?

OK in my youtube algorithm there was a video that was a compilation of funny moments from middleditch and schwartz, I believe parking lot wedding specifically so I watched it and was like. yes this is what I need. so then a few days later I watched m&s on netflix and wanted More so I'd already seen parks and rec w/ ben so I went to thomas' imdb instead and saw that silicon valley was his Big Thing duh and I was like. I've heard of this. I remember Young Adults talking about this show when I was a kid. let's check it out. and now.. here I am. upwards of 6 fanfic wips in my drafts, countless sketch ideas rattling around and 4 youtube compilations of my own under my belt. I just. love my boys <3 always blue always blue always blue

[aydascomprehendsubtext]

I have roughly 10,000 thoughts about Don't Look Up but in short: everyone is wrong about it and it's because of the two end credits scenes and also because they haven't read enough about comets

That's an exaggeration. Approximately 70% of my feelings about this movie are covered in this Vox article which I encourage anyone who has watched the movie but didn't really love it to read. I'm putting the rest of this under a cut because this is really just for me and it's probably going to get long (edit: its 2500 words. i promise you dont have to read this, it's literally just for me) (also spoilers/references contained for Scream (1996) Cabin in the Woods (2011) "Nobody is Ever Missing", the Season one finale of Succession, and, obviously, the ending of Dont Look Up.)

This movie is best because it's ACTUALLY about... comets.

Adam McKay wants this movie to be about climate change and it's not.

A lot of people have made this point - the process of solving climate change is very different than solving a comet. Reasonable people disagree on things like how much we should invest in nuclear power and whether we should be pursuing carbon capture. If you're not an ardent degrowther or communist, you probably don't believe in one button we can push to immediately get rid of climate change, even if you think its more a question of investing in existing technologies instead of innovating new ones. Climate change's timeframe can be argued about until we all die, but it's definitely longer than 100 days. Climate change may or may not cause extinction of all humans, but what separates the comet from climate change is Don't Look Up tells us we know for certain. 99.9% probability, only because scientists hate saying 100%, but it is going to kill everyone and we know exactly when.

What things will really cause human extinction? What extinction risks have an incredibly short response time? Do we know what to do about these things?

The short answer is, well. Comets and Asteroids. Also other things like that, many of which sound very silly and have a high likelihood of not being real but also a high likelihood of being really bad if they are. Phosphorous depletion, biodiversity tipping points, biological and chemical warfare, our simulation getting shut down, nuclear winter, and more (I am not citing all of these but be assured I could). If you think these are silly, you are the target audience of Don't Look Up. As the article says,

"What it does do incredibly well is serve as an allegory for actual comets, or supervolcanic eruptions, or transformative AI, or engineered pandemics, or for anything else that really might abruptly end humanity — and that might well get you laughed off daytime TV for freaking out about them, as happens to the protagonists in one of Don’t Look Up’s best-crafted scenes."

If it's real life, it isn't a parody

I want you to imagine right now watching a movie with the plot of Dont Look Up but it's about climate change. Is that movie... that funny? Or are you screaming along with the characters every time they overdramatically outburst on national TV when they should know better?

Humor is super subjective and I may be alone here, but if you're a person who already knew things like the real risks of comets to the human race, the methods we're planning to use to stop them, even the fact that comets contain tons of rare earth elements which are, yes currently mainly found and mined in China, something tech companies are obsessed with, this movie isn't a parable for something else. It doesn't include exaggeration - one of the central tenants of satire, parody, or jokes in general. You can argue the edges of specific choices people make in this movie, but it paints a pretty convincing picture of what our actual response to a real existential threat would be.

Why are the last 30 minutes such a bummer? (The secret is: it always already was!)

A LOT of people argue this movie suffers from a "tone shift". Here's a line from a fairly critical Washington Post review:

"All that said, the best things in the movie work against each other. “Dr. Strangelove” had a consistent tone that ran throughout Kubrick’s film. “Don’t Look Up” has Jonah Hill clowning around in some scenes and DiCaprio and Lawrence earnestly screaming at the camera a few minutes later. The last act of “Don’t Look Up” is affecting but also seems imported from a different film given everything that has happened in the two and a half hours that preceded it."

I disagree. This is closer to a slowly-building horror movie than a third-act pirouette. From the first scene, you should feel a sense of growing dread - it feels like something straight out of Scream! Young adults screwing around until something slowly becomes clear and you don't know exactly what it is but you know it's very very bad. "Why do you want to know my name?" "Because I want to know who I'm looking at" reads to me just like "why are the values getting smaller?". When Johannsen's character gets high in an airplane cargo hold, I was reminded of the season one finale of Succession, "Nobody is Ever Missing", where (spoilers) Kendall, having just committed manslaughter, dances with his children at his sister's wedding for an alibi. It's deeply troubling to watch - who does that except someone uniquely monstrous? Except it's not unrealistic - it's about how people, when in horrifying situations, behave as best (or worst and self-interestedly) as we can. You are in the third decade of your life on earth and you just realized you might not live another year but you can't do anything about it, so may as well smoke.

The moment you truly internalize that they will fail, this is a horror movie. If it happens in the first scene (which it did for me), you are watching a different movie than if it happens in the last.

The ticking clock is ever-present. They wait one day for a meeting, and if you know they have around a hundred days left to live, that's one percent of their remaining life gone. Once you start thinking about every scene like that, you can't stop. Kate is in her mid-twenties confronting her own mortality and she doesn't have time to process that because everyone is telling her she's crazy. And it literally just gets worse from there. Everyone complaining about how hysterical this movie is I assume is immune to existential dread or thinks the occasional breakdown is meant as a persuasive device. No one thinks the scream at seeing the masked killer in your house is overdone! It's not a persuasive device! It's for the characters undergoing a deeply traumatic experience to have a moment to feel that, and us to feel the catharsis of watching them.

Now I'm Going to Talk about Cabin in the Woods

If you haven't seen Cabin in the Woods, go watch it. It's really good. Or don't, but be warned there are many spoilers contained below.

Cabin in the Woods is also a horror movie, and it's also about an apocalypse happening, and people deciding (through a combination of incompetence, malice, and something like love, but that's tangential) to let it. But what it SAYS about this apocalypse is twofold: one, that it's caused by human misbehavior, and two, that we deserve it.

Subpoint one it shares with Dont Look Up - if you've seen it, the casually cruel, only occasionally competent tech workers played by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins could absolutely work in the Streep White House. Is the responsibility of the global destruction of the third act theirs? The teens? I go back and forth, but its root is a uniquely human arrogance either way. Both groups see themselves as protagonists, who should be able to control their environment, who deserve to live to the end of the movie. I don't know if there's a more human set of impulses.

Don't Look Up is the same - it's a tragedy because everyone is acting exactly as we would expect them to. Of course the mission is delayed until the best political moment, of course a hysterical TV outburst is turned into a memeable moment. Everyone is acting just like people do, and also acting inexcusably, because people act inexcusably all the time. Here's the difference that I care about, though: I think a perfect version of Dont Look Up is a masterful parry to Cabin in the Woods' subpoint two.

The end of CitW argues that society is fundamentally so corrupt that it's better to allow it all to be destroyed than continue on our current path. The teens, who've undergone horrific torture, decide that any society that could do this, even in the face of an impossible moral dilemma, is so fundamentally broken, it's time to start over. We deserve whatever is coming to us.

Don't Look Up, on the other hand, is constantly in the smallest of ways arguing that we don't. That even humans acting badly are people we can find good in, value in, or even just understand for one fleeting minute. It does this a few ways.

First - the movie would be incomplete without the short, maybe 15 second interludes of... life on Earth. Sometimes people, sometimes animals or the environment. It's a scene break, but it's also there for a reason. It's there to remind you when you've just spent 10 minutes wanting to claw out Jonah Hill's eyes, the stakes are still just as big as you remember them. Even if no one else is treating them that way. If you think that they will fail from the beginning of the movie, it's like a gut punch. "All of this will soon disappear - can you handle it? Can you really? Looking at it?" (this is another reason why the climate change metaphor is strained - while the "planet" will be profoundly changed, it'll adapt much easier than human civilization could)

Second - Many of these characters are more sympathetic than anyone in CitW, or many other versions of this movie. I want to talk about Cate Blanchett, Timothy Chalamet, and *sigh* Jonah Hill. Hot Amoral Newscaster Woman ~actually has a brain~ isn't exactly fourth wave feminism, but you can't deny she makes choices in this movie. Even if they're bad ones. I don't know how strong this one is, but I think if you're facing down the end of the world and just want to talk shit about people, I want you to live to at least make all our lives more interesting. Timothy is actually more interesting and deeply compelling to me personally. He's close to a shithead, last-resort boyfriend who just wants to destroy things and kiss hot girls. But he clearly has an internal life - he found his own religion and seems simultaneously shy about it in front of his friends but also deeply joyous and committed to it. Why does he ask Kate to marry him? Is it just because he's dumb and doesn't realize what's happening, or does he realize on some level this is it and just wants to make her happy, even if he has no idea how? I'll never know, but I sure as fuck will think about it! Finally. Chief of Fuckboy. I PROMISE I am not an irl Don Jr Apologist, but you have to be pretty fucking cold to look at where we leave this character, hoping against hope his mom will come back and save his life instead of literally abandoning him to die, and feel nothing. The TLDR here is that we aren't just furious because our main characters are going to die and we aren't just furious because other people who haven't done anything wrong are going to die. Some people, who are somewhere between annoying and morally bankrupt, are going to die, and it's hard to feel good about it when faced with the truth of that. OH also I want to talk about Kate and the running general joke. Partially because it's one of the most (imo) genuinely independently of the parody funny moments in the movie and also because it's SO beautiful. Anyway have you ever been in some truly terrible circumstances and been unable to do anything but crack bad jokes? Its about the "will there be singing? Yes, about the bad times". IDK how to explain it any better than that.

Third - the moment the comet becomes visible. It's a moment about shared humanity. It's Kate and the doctor talking for the first time since a big falling out, and the beginning of their restored friendship and companionship. It's everyone else leaving their cars around them, as the shot gets wider and wider. Everyone is having the same moment, and everyone is united because it's so easy and simple. Just look up.

Fourth - DiCaprio's character arc. The vox article again:

"The apocalyptic disaster movie — think I Am Legend, Independence Day, 2012, War of the Worlds, The Day After Tomorrow — has its conventions. The hero starts out as an ordinary family man (and yes, it’s almost always a man), but when circumstances demand it, he realizes he has something more than the ordinary inside him... The apocalypse, in this genre convention, is a backdrop for men to realize their mettle, put aside childish things, save their families, save the world, and then choose to live and love in it... Don’t Look Up is pointedly at odds with that tradition. The scheme to break apart the comet headed for Earth fails. With humanity facing its doom, the heroes and their loved ones gather around the dinner table and share memories and prayer and family jokes. DiCaprio wins his wife’s forgiveness and gruffly greets his adult children."

His character is a microcosm of what's happening to everyone on Earth - he screwed up, being human but also being cruel and shortsighted. And you forgive him, because he doesn't deserve to die either, and he definitely doesn't deserve to die alone and without his family.

"Don’t Look Up isn’t about ordinary people who discover inside them the heroism to save the ones they love. It’s about ordinary people who know what’s coming and ultimately aren’t heroes at all. They make a couple of futile attempts to do something, which amount to nothing. And then they die, because that’s what will happen, if we aren’t up to the task ahead of us."

Ordinary people aren't heroes, and their heroic efforts amount to nothing. But it's still a profound tragedy, because you don't have to be a hero to be worth saving - you just have to be alive.

"Let's Lighten the Mood" - I'd rather you Not, McKay

SO with those heartstrings hopefully as torn to shreds as I was when I watched this movie, lets talk about the end credits scenes. And how much I fucking hate them.

The first one - cute callback! Absolutely funny! Except it isn't. Listen, I also don't want fifty billionaires to survive while everyone else dies on Earth. And honestly? I would be fine with everyone on that spaceship dying. But the science/pseudoscience that doesn't actually work imo holds up in the rest of the movie, and the shit in this scene is so far out of 2021 technology it takes me right out. If we have cryochambers and spaceships that can travel across galaxies, why dont we have functioning nanobots again?

Separate from that pet peeve, the point of that scene is to make us feel better. It's a spoonful of sugar. "See? Everyone you know and care about and don't know will die a horrible death and humanity will be gone for good but the billionaires will die awfully too!" Absolutely fuck that noise. Extinction doesn't suck less because the people you hate will die.

The second one is everything wrong with the first one but more. Why does Jonah Hill survive? Literally no fucking reason. No one else does. Why is it better to see him wandering around an apocalyptic wasteland on his phone instead of where we left him? As close to human as he ever gets?

If you watch these two end credits scenes and take them seriously, of course this movie feels like smug liberalism or a failed, "screaming" parody. Because it's not about a complicated, valuable humanity - it's about the libs owning back. Without them, it's very sad and very hopeful at the same time.

[heartfullofpony]

Baby Cakes is a great episode that only gets better as the years go by. For those who don't remember, in this story, we are introduced to Pound and Pumpkin, the twin son and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Cake. Pinkie Pie is called upon to babysit, (after Mr. and Mrs. Cake exhausted every other option), and ends up learning the hard way that playing with small children, and caring for them are two very different things.

Apart from the moral, the driving force of this episode is foalsitting hijinks - well-paced comedy that depicts a gradual escalation from Pinkie simply struggling to keep the twins happy, to her struggle to feed them, change them, physically keep up with them, (and of course it's impossible to forget Pumpkin Cake's burst of unicorn magic, and Pound Cake's walk along the ceiling, which turned the whole episode into a horror movie parody for a few minutes).

This story uses a lot of familiar tropes common in family comedies. One could argue that they have been done to death, but the fact of the matter is: it's an extremely familiar situation, especially for kids with younger siblings. Furthermore, Baby Cakes is a step above its ancestors simply because of how much heart Pinkie Pie brings to the story.

Her determination. Her love. That touching ending where she bursts into tears, and the Cake Twins dump flour on themselves to cheer her up (just like she had done for them countless times when they were upset). The fact that Pumpkin and Pound both say her name in their sleep. [SO SWEET! AHHHH!]

It was powerful.

However, for me, Baby Cakes also has one of the most satisfying, and unintentionally triumphant moments in the entire series. About halfway through the day, Twilight Sparkle stops by to offer her help. At first, Pinkie Pie is relieved and overjoyed to have assistance, but when Twilight says, "I thought you could use the help, not everyone is cut out for responsibility," Pinkie throws Twilight out on the street and slams the door in her face.

When you're something of a goofball, being taken seriously can be a real struggle. This moment - this assertion of pride - is joyous. It is not to be mistaken for hubris, or compared with Applejack's stubbornness in Applebuck Season.

Taking on this level of responsibility is a defining moment for Pinkie Pie. She can do this. She has to. If, in this moment, Pinkie doesn't believe in herself, nopony else will.

***

Given the benefit of hindsight, and having now watched the entire series, I find this moment to be even more powerful than ever. You see, five seasons (107 episodes later), Twilight Sparkle, in A Flurry of Emotions, finds herself in a similar predicament when she is tasked with watching her neice, Flurry Heart.  The difference, however, is that Twilight fails.

Twilight Sparkle is so obsessed with multitasking that she drags the poor kid all over town, (including to a pediatric infectious disease ward in Ponyville General Hospital). She ignores Flurry Heart every step of the way, not because she can't take proper care of her niece, but because she won't.

When you compare these two episodes, Pinkie Pie was actually a lot more responsible. Yes, she struggled to keep up with the twins, (and her new duties were a major crash course in things that she didn't know how to do), but Pinkie still gave the twins 100% of her effort, 100% of her energy, and 100% of her love for the entire time that they were under her care.

As a stepfather, I ended up falling head-first into my children's lives when I was only 22 years old. It was absolutely terrifying - the idea that there was no safety net - that human lives depended on my judgment calls. But that's the only way that anyone ever really learns - by being appropriately terrified of what a high-stakes, high-pressure responsibility childcare can be.

Pinkie Pie nailed it. As unprepared as she may have been for the details of her duties, Pinkie Pie, from the very beginning, deeply understood childcare in a visceral way that Twilight did not.

Pinkie put the kids first.

-Sprocket

If you enjoy essays like these, please consider supporting my work on Patreon. You can also follow Heart Full of Pony on FimFic

[leupagus]

My Stationery Box, or: The Douche Chest, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Being A Terrible Parody Of Myself

So I really love to write letters, and have since i was a kid — when i cleaned out my grandparents’ house I found a few I’d written in grade school, and my parents’ files are chocablock full of the weird collage type things I sent to them in college. 

I’ve also been a huge insufferable fucking snob about stationery since way too young (yes I did have a fountain pen phase, no it did not go well) and have been collecting fancy paper and cute cards and assorted weird writing paraphernalia forever. Up until recently, things were just kind of haphazardly stuffed in various drawers and shelves and I could never actually find any said fancy shit when I wanted it; but a couple of months ago I discovered an adorable little chest of my late mom’s that had previously housed, I think, her knitting and has mostly just been collecting dust since. And voila: The Douche Chest was born:

(Pictured with my elderly laptop and coffee with my coffee warmer, which I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE everyone to buy one day when we’re not under worldwide quarantine, seriously it will change your life.)

Keep Reading for some top tier stationerdery

First off, the stuff that helps me write! I still use my family address book, which was purchased sometime in the early 80s and has the name and address of everyone my parents ever cared enough about to want their name and address, which is actually not that many people. I keep it updated and have added a few people, but mostly rely on my phone’s address book. Mostly I like it because it’s got a lot of my mom’s handwriting.

My planner, which has a whole correspondence section where I keep a record of who I write to regularly, when I write to them, and what kind of stationery they usually get (because there are different types and you don’t want to give a correspondence an inconsistent letter-reading experience! Yes I know, I can’t believe I’m like this either) indicated by the m, s, x, l, b notations. That will be relevant later. Also yes the planner is where I scribble down both story ideas and my gratitude journal. This is what I’m saying in re: yikes.

At my own house, I have a whole huge box of letters I’ve gotten over the years, mostly organized by sender and date. Since I’m at my aunt’s house for quarantine, my correspondence is all being kept in my dad’s old... I dunno what to call it, basically it’s a trapper-keeper type thing that I literally never saw him go to work without. (A running theme of this tour is that a whole lot of this stuff is inherited from/given to me by my parents and grandparents.) Inside is also various labels that have come in handy when addressing packages etc, as well as our local neighborhood directory.

Next up is my pen bag, which is — I mean, it has my pens. I prefer writing with a black .5 tip rollerball type pen, and by “prefer” I mean “I cannot abide writing letters with anything else and will go to Staples and buy a new box rather than use a ballpoint pen except obv not right now, which makes the bag real important for keeping track of all my special pens.” Also pictured: my grandpa’s ancient letter opener that I’m pretty sure he stabbed multiple people with, and my blue Le Pen which I use to annotate my letters when I’m reading them through before sending. I KNOW.

This is my assorted letter-writing stuff storage box (no we’re not even at the cards yet this is TERRIBLE); please note that I sort of jerryrigged this box together myself, which will be another running theme of this tour. Glue, roller whiteout thingies, washi tape (which I don’t really use but people keep sending me?) post-its and my address stamp because no matter what I do, the fuckin’ Audubon Society refuses to send me a single donation request with cute stickers showing my address even though they’ve sent my deceased dad like three THIS YEAR. Anyway. Also please note the incredibly awesome initial stamp thing — I came up with the rough design in college and use it in place of my name a lot, but I went to leoniebunch and they transformed it into this super professional and lovely design that I want to use for the rest of my life. Not pictured: the fucking wax seal I also had made with that design, because yes, I’m like this.

WE’RE STILL NOT DONE WITH THE PARAPHERNALIA: here’s the other misc. stuff that I use on the regular. Cup with sponge because we’re not really licking envelopes these days: tons of weird stickers that I’ve collected, YET MORE PENS, including rainbow ones because one of these days I’m going to write to one of my friends with alternating rainbow colors and they’ll have to murder me. Also pictured: the letter opener which I forgot to put back in the pen bag, as well as my dog’s nail clippers and brush because that’s a handy place to keep them. Also also pictured: my dog, who does not help in any way with letter writing.

OKAY FINALLY ONTO THE STATIONERY, Jesus just writing this all out is making me both proud and ashamed.

I’m sure you noticed in the first pic how everything is meticulously, not to say monomaniacally, labeled. Some stuff might require a little bit of explanation; some stuff is pretty wysiwyg though. For example, BEAR CARDS, which:

(These are sent exclusively to my nephews, who go absolutely apeshit over them every time. Come to think of it, I have a LOT of cards/letter stock/etc that is just for one person or one set of people, which maybe I should talk to my therapist about.)

PUN CARDS are likewise exactly what you think they are; they’re the most recent addition to my hoard, having found them at Powells when I went to Portland in February. They are extremely My Kind Of Thing.

Then you’ve got things like BIRTHDAY CARDS, THANKS, POSTCARDS which like — guess what:

(Please note that of these birthday cards, all but two were actually inherited from my grandmother who passed away in 1986. See if you can guess which two are my purchases.) (Also I’m running out of thank-you cards but to be fair I am rarely grateful so this should last me another few years at least.) (Also shit, I didn’t take a picture of the postcards I don’t think? Whatever, they’re postcards that I’ve either inherited from my parents or collected over the years. There’s also a very odd collection of wolf-themed cards that SOMEONE in my family collected, and that I have been using exclusively for allighater because she’s the only one who could ever appreciate them enough.)

Then there’s the BLANK CARDS and BLANK AND WRITTEN CARDS WITH/WITHOUT ENVELOPES, because sometimes I just need to know what I’m getting into before opening the boxes. I’d say a good 50% of these were inherited from my folks, with the cutsier ones being my own purchases. The cards that these boxes originally contained are looooooooong since used up but they’re nice boxes and that meme about adulthood being an endless debate over whether or not you should keep a box because it’s a really good box is accurate as all hell. 

(There are a lot of cards in here that I bought when I was like, in college — those square ones, for example, were purchased at Faces in Northampton when I was in college and I’m probably never going to actually send them which is kind of ridiculous but see: this entire post.)

And finally, the actual letter-letter stationery! Which I also have an embarrassing amount of! First up is what’s labelled MADOC TREE CARD/LETTER because I honestly had no idea how else to describe it; it was inherited from my grandma who everyone called MaDoc (on account of her being both a ma and a doctor, go figure) and it’s really lovely. I doubt it’s the original intention, but I like to unfold the paper and use both sides of it, because I always have a lot to say. These are used only for family members on MaDoc’s side, and of those, only the ones I really like, which accounts for there still being a lot left.

Then there’s the X-LARGE paper, which isn’t actually that large — it’s just normal computer-sized — but in context is the biggest stuff I’ve got. All of this paper is from my mom, who loved using cute themed paper, and I use this stuff mostly for the friends of hers I keep in touch with (which is actually kind of a lot).

Then there’s the letterhead I use for — okay, so like, we know by now that I’m deeply weird, but this is probably just DEEPLY WEIRD, but whatever, you came this far. So I found a metric shitton of 6 3/4 envelopes in amongst my parents’ office supplies — I have literally zero idea why they had about 5 100-count boxes of these envelopes but I’m one of those people who can never, ever throw shit out, so! I gathered together all the letterhead that they’d also collected over the years from the various universities and hospitals they worked at, cut said letterhead down so that it a) didn’t have University of Tacoma or whatever still on it and b) perfectly fit a 6 3/4 envelope if folded three times. The resulting shape is a little... odd, I’ll admit, but it pleases me greatly and that’s the important thing. In fact this has been my go-to correspondence choice for a couple of months now.

(Also pictured: the cover for this hinky-ass box I made out of a Beekman 1802 box from when we went to their store for their Rose Apothecary popup shop. Zero regrets. Not pictured: the really cute pad of paper I also use for these envelopes that’s a more normal size and shape because where’s the fun in showing you normal stuff?)

And finally, my pride and joy, my Crane Stationery, some of which I have had since I was in high school and my mom bought me a box of it for my birthday (I told you, running theme). It comes in small, medium, and big; yes, I absolutely have rules as to who gets what size of these, too. The medium box kind of fell apart a few years ago so I cobbled a new one together; Crane stationery is notable for not being as exciting as that cover might imply. I’m also kind of pleased that I still have the airmail stationery that I got in college that apparently isn’t sold anymore, which I find baffling because what the fuck is the point of international correspondence if you don’t have to use special stationery? Anyway:

(In re: the lined sheets — I actually have them for every size, because I loathe lined paper but also loathe writing crooked, hence these guides that I put under each sheet as I write. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

So that’s the complete guided tour! If you aspire to have a collection as viscerally unnerving as mine, feel free to send any questions my way. You’re welcome/I’m sorry.

[dcftones]

the dead poets society asks fo today

from this post

where did you hear about dead poets society?

ive known about it for years and have been Meaning to watch it, but i actually got around to it cuz of the parody episode from derry girls abt it😭(ALSO A GREAT SHOW watch derry girls)

have you ever watched it with someone?

ive made most of my friends watch it w me

how many times have you watched it?

at least 10 times? not sure i legit never finish it i just watch up to the play

favorite character?

charlie dalton <3

least favorite character?

mr perry die challenge‼️‼️‼️

favorite quote?

“but poetry, beauty, romance, love, this is what we stay alive for.” and also “who brought half a roll??”

in what ways did the movie inspire you?

to actually take risks and live life😪 not to b corny doe

did the movie make you cry at all?

yes‼️when the gang is comforting todd after hes told neils dead AND when mrs perry is hysterically crying and saying hes ok...everytime it hurts

favorite actor(s) from dead poets society?

robert sean leonard and gale hansen <3

what have you learned from dead poets society?

to take risks!!! life is about living and you gotta take those chances you might miss out on!

have you copied any phrases, mannerisms or personality traits from the movie?

not Really, though for a while my echolalia went wouldn’t stop repeating ‘but room fairy here comes oberon’.

have you ever had a teacher like mr keating?

my choir teacher probably. she was amazing and inspired us all to be better and also she genuinely cared for me when i was at rock bottom and would listen to me. mrs harmon i miss u❤️

have you ever had friends that are the same way as neil, todd, cameron, etc?

sort of? my sophmore year friendgroup was really wacky, but we all fell apart after some serious drama

favorite ship?

neil/charlie 😩 </3

least favorite ship?

ANYTHING with cameron‼️

how do you feel about the scene where nolan paddles charlie?

IT GIVES ME THE WORST SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT i have to skip it everytime😭

do you blame mr perry or mr keating for neil?

mr perry 100%, like even if keating did inspire neil to chase his dreams mr perry still refused to listen to the wants of his son and even after he was gone he refused to change. and while neil never did really stand up for himself to make his wants known his father had still conditioned him to never talk back or speak to himself!

do you think that cameron deserved to get punched by charlie?

TBH LIKE. I get where cameron was coming from about saving his own skin cuz he clearly cares for his own future unlike charlie whos been on the brink of being expelled for ages and says he doesnt care anymore, but his comments about letting keating fry or trying to say theyre all victims of keating like neil? bro shut up i hope charlie AND todd both jump you you narc

would you ever want to go to a school like welton academy and have a secret poetry group?

TBH i see the appeal in a boarding school because you’d be away from your parents, but i am chronically stupid and the curriculum would kill me!

the message of dead poets society is about how education can go beyond what is taught in textbooks, and that’ll education should be taught in a way to enlighten people about the realities of life and how they shouldn’t look at things with a singular perspective. do you agree and believe that?

i do agree with that! its a great message tbh especially in terms of its time period where the rigid academia system didn’t give room for thinking for yourself

[noshitshakespeare]

I'm wondering if the literary James I may have been one of overthink a problem, and to rely on compromise in order to avoid war even though he believed in divine right of Kings. And, much energy was being lost in internal strife. Moreover, his Queen was from the Danish / Norwegian 'tribe'. I can see the themes in Hamlet being very 'stimulating' for them. I was wondering if you have thought about what Shakespeare AVOIDS writing given the what may have passed for Political Correctness in 1609?

Why 1609? Almost all current critical consensus points to Hamlet having been written around 1600-1601, and the Stationer’s Register records ‘A books called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince of Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servantes’ on the 26th of July 1602, with the first Quarto published a year later... So even at latest it’s hard to believe it was written during James’ reign. Of course, Shakespeare may have predicted the succession of James, but that remained very much in doubt until the very end of Elizabeth’s life, so it’s a little bit of a stretch to assume that the play is fundamentally referring the James’ political ideas and beliefs. There’s too much speculation here for my liking. 

I see your point about James’ interests and Anne of Denmark, but topicality is a difficult subject in Shakespeare Studies, because he’s rarely very obvious about it. And if the play is based on ur-Hamlet, or on whatever other stories Shakespeare may have consulted, the location of Denmark is one present in the sources, not an active topical choice (see this post). Yes, one might select a story based on the topicality of its location, but given that the story is already in circulation in Elizabeth’s reign and before Shakespeare takes it on, there are too many possible reasons he could have chosen this story.  

What does Shakespeare avoid writing? Well, he avoids or doesn’t write about a lot of things.  Some of those things maybe he just wasn’t interested in writing about, others, perhaps he felt he couldn’t, but there’s no knowing what interested him and what didn’t. Again, there’s little point in speculation. As a scholar I can only really comment on what he did write. Still, ‘Political Correctness’ in the seventeenth century could be an issue of life or death (or imprisonment and a hefty fine), so the stakes are high. I try not to ascribe too much of a personal biographical reading to the sonnets, but he does write in sonnet 66 that art is ‘tongue-tied by authority’, so presumably he knew what it meant for there to be things you couldn’t write about. And he’s good at it, because unlike many of his contemporaries, he never seems to have been involved in very serious treason or libel cases. 

The question is far too broad to answer in any level of detail, but I think one way Shakespeare avoids writing about things that might get him in trouble is by not going into too much topical detail (and setting his plays abroad). He does have some topical references through which people date the plays, but not as much as a lot of his contemporaries. And in some of his plays Shakespeare does get into a little trouble, so he has to do things like rename Oldcastle Falstaff in the Henry IV plays. There’s a flattering imagined description of Essex returning from Ireland in Henry V, but it’s not present in the Quarto version, maybe because Essex was disgraced by the time that was published. Polonius is often considered to be based on William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s advisor... But here we start to see more how Shakespeare works, because it’s not a direct parallel, nor quite a parody. It’s more that some parts of Polonius draw on things Lord Burghley did. The same goes for Falstaff, in fact, because, whatever the name Shakespeare chose, the original Sir John Oldcastle is nothing more than a point of departure for the character Shakespeare created. Once the name is changed, it’s hard to say Falstaff is a direct parody at all. These characters are seldom 100% nasty or good, and even in instances where people say Shakespeare is flattering a particular figure it’s always ambiguous. So Banquo is presented as the ancestor of James, but while not a co-conspirator of Macbeth’s, he’s not exactly Duncan’s protector either. the Duke in Measure for Measure is widely recognised as sharing many of James’ characteristics, but the resemblance isn’t complete, and there’s no consensus on whether it’s the portrait of a wise ruler or a sinister spying tyrant who controls his people through dubious means. Shakespeare avoids making direct comments by creating ambiguous characters who are not simplistic parallels of existing people. In most cases, if a censor asks ‘is this meant to be so-and-so?’ you could easily say, ‘No, not at all, this is how different my character is’. 

It always seems to me that the way Shakespeare approaches certain themes is much like how he draws on particular characters. He may write a play that could appeal to a king interested in witchcraft, but Macbeth’s witch-like figures are the weird sisters, and never explicitly referred to as witches. The queen was getting old, and the succession crisis was a serious political concern in England when he wrote Hamlet, but Shakespeare explores the question through an old story, and never completely specific to the circumstances of the time. It contains a queen whose marriage and sexual fidelity raise questions about heirs and succession, but Gertrude isn’t Elizabeth. It contains spying as a means of control, but it’s never entirely successful, and Polonius isn’t the prudent Lord Burghley. It shows a foreigner coming in at the end to take over a country left without a successor... A potential outcome of the queen’s childless reign, but brought about by the stock mass death of a revenge tragedy, not because of childlessness. All the circumstances depicted are only laterally related to the issues in England at the time and could easily be dismissed as a chance resemblance, rather than a direct comment, just as Hamlet’s complaint about ‘the law’s delay, / the insolence of office, and the spurns / That patient merit of th’unworthy takes’ (III.i.72-74) could refer to any society.

There are no doubt resonances and thoughts that happen because one lives in a particular time, but frankly, topical references in Shakespeare are not what interests me about his writing. While thinking about his writing in terms of contemporary events and references can reveal new and interesting things about them, that approach can never explain the plays completely. It’s very easy to end up reducing the plays to just another historical document, and losing what makes them so interesting and artistic.  

[rotten-whispers]

Trump Card - short story

This piece was written directly before the 2020 presidential elections, but has no affiliation to any political leaders of any kind. . . Nor was it written out of humorous anxiety or political parody, all of that is simply a coincidence of course.

(Also available on wattpad, link in bio)

The year is 2116, and you have just sat down to watch the news.

Hopefully, of course. Because there hasn't been any good news in a very long time. The world has gone downhill in the past 100 years, people have said. And now it's a caricature of what it used to be, ripened by catastrophe and apocalyptic apathy in every corner of the globe.

You sip your coffee and wait.

The news will come on at 11am and play until 2pm, where, on the dot, it will be shut off. People should not be over encumbered by disaster, the news stations were told. Our country should only have to stomach it for a few hours every day.

You've never cared very much for the news yourself, of course, because it isn't very interesting. All of the suffering is so overdone, honestly, you've seen it all in the past 30 years that you've been around. Plague, war, environmental catastrophe, attempted alien invasion, progress toward time travel – pish, posh, uninteresting! What new disaster could ever hope to capture your attention? They were fighting a losing battle.

But still you watch the news, because there isn't anything else on right now. Plus, the presidential elections are coming up, and perhaps there will be something interesting there.

All sorts of candidates have appeared in the past 100 years, but they've all been eerily similar. All with the same unprofessional, almost childish ignorance. They have all had the same taste in fashion, and the same swirl of golden hair.

How odd, you and the rest of the world thought. I wonder if these people could be related.

Every year, one of these people would win, too, but every year, there was still a fool who would try to run against them. A poor fool, growing ever more desperate, who would rant and pull their hair and emphatically struggle to get the country to just once, god, just once vote for the other party.

Never any dice, of course. And so the clonal line would continue to win, year after year, and the world shrugged its shoulders and said well, you voted for him, cannot help you there, sorry.

The problem was, you don't believe that you did vote for him -- you didn't vote at all in the last election. Or the one before that, or the one before that. And the one before that? Then, you did, but you definitely voted for the other party.

The poor woman, dressed in blue, who turned directly to the cameras and begged your country to vote for somebody else.

"Not even me," She had said. "Just anybody but him again!"

So you had voted for her. And so had all of your friends, and your friends' friends, and their friends, and everybody that you had ever met. All of you voted for the frantic lady in blue, because you felt that she was right.

Those people did win every year, come to think of it. Perhaps it was time for a change.

But still one of them won. And still they laughed, wearing the same triumphant smirk that your country had become accustomed to, as the frantic lady shook her head and shouted: "What is wrong with you people?!"

That was the last year that you or anybody that you knew had voted. Now even the act of signing the ballot was a waste of time, because our fate was sealed long before the numbers would even be counted.

And this strange line of people, all with identical faces, all with identical heads of strange, golden hair – which had to be toupees, of course, because they looked so unbelievably false – they continued to rule.

And you continued to watch the debates, with a shrug for the other side, who never once gave up trying.

But there is always the hope that this year will be different.

You really, genuinely pray that it will be, because things really seem to be getting worse. The amount of caffeine in your "coffee" is negligible at this point -- hell, the amount of coffee in your coffee is negligible at this point! And don't even mention chocolate. You had dreams of chocolate, the forbidden crop from the dying rain forest. Every year, for your birthday, you scrounged up enough money to buy a single square, and by god did you cherish it. It was a bittersweet reminder of how the world used to be, a hundred years ago.

At least now, however, there were plenty of things to watch on Tv. Plenty of drama to keep yourself occupied.

When the news begins, you eagerly settle down into your favorite chair.

Saturday mornings, a wonderful time to catch up on the rest of the world. It was the perfect escape from the dreary office in which you worked, toeing the line hour after hour, trying to reach that sweet 10pm when you would be released. The new work day was 8am – 10pm, or hadn't you heard? We have to break our backs to afford air conditioning, of course, because the globe has gotten so unbelievably hot as of late.

That was the first story that you sat through, bored to tears almost immediately. Bored of the weatherman as he predicted another record high temperature.

"Wow, and we are going to be at triple digits for our record fifth month in a row! This is truly an unbelievable event!" He said, nearly word for word as his announcement last week. You change the channel.

This one is delivering an update on the plague. It has gotten worse, of course, as it does every week.

"In these troubling times we ask that you keep faith in our government, which is taking every possible precaution." The man said. His words were immediately interrupted by a commercial, advertising a new theme park which had opened in Oklahoma, and which promised a 10% discount to anyone who bought a group pass for the new season.

"You won't regret it!" Chittered the tv. "Nobody has ever regretted having fun!"

That's the usual entourage of disaster, you think. The world always ends the same way, and it does so about five times a month. You flip to the next channel.

Don't worry, they always said, we have everything under control. And then there would be an update with more bad news, and so the cycle would repeat. Sometimes the news felt more like a punishment than a privilege, these days.

But still, there is something that keeps you glued to your seat, the remnants of caffeine racing through your veins. You desperately want to find something new, something to distract yourself from the dreary world outside your doors. Because this is your day off, and you feel that you deserve a break.

Eventually, just before 2pm, on a research channel that you or hardly anyone ever watches, you find your distraction.

"A strange new discovery has been made that promises to change the course of history forever!" The woman on screen says, excitedly. "Dr. Dire, an entomologist has come all the way from South America to talk to us today about a strange little bug! Dr. Dire, what do you have for us?"

Coolly, a man appears. "Thank you, Miss Waters. My research crew and I have discovered a very unusual new form of parasitism that we have never quite encountered before. Have you ever heard of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis?"

"No," The announcer says. "No, I can't say that I have."

"Well, it's more commonly known as the zombie ant fungus. It's a parasite that penetrates the exoskeleton of ants, using them as a tool for reproduction. Essentially, this fungus changes the ant's behavior by forcing the host to climb to the top of a leaf or stem and permanently clamp its mandibles on the plant. Then the fungus will develop a stalk from the ant's head, releasing spores and mummifying its prey."

"That sounds horrifying! And this mind control fungus is what you wanted to talk to us about?"

"No, no." Now his cool attitude shatters, for a moment, filled with scientific intrigue. "I am here today to talk to you about Megalopyge opercularis, the southern flannel moth. Because we have just proven that as a caterpillar, this species is capable of the same complex parasitism and mind control as the zombie ant fungus. And from our experiments, depending on the host of the caterpillar, the lifespan may increase severely as well. We're looking at 30, maybe 40 years of parasitism! While an oblivious host is completely overtaken and used for this insect's needs, unable to communicate, cry, or even scream for help."

"Scream?" The woman repeats, with a laugh, but his eyes are serious when they train onto her.

"Yes, scream, because this creature can parasitize humans as well. We had an accident in the lab," He leans in closer to the camera, suddenly very, darkly serious. "One of our researchers, his suit broke. And this caterpillar crawled on top of him, pinning itself to the top of his skull. We heard him scream, from the horrible stinging hairs -- but we weren't able to reach him in time."

"Did he die?" Both you and the woman are completely enthralled.

"Oh, no," Dr. Dire says. "He was perfectly fine. Or so we thought. . . until a week later, when we discovered that his personality had almost completely changed. He had always been very. . . progressive," The scientist looks uncomfortable. "But now he was almost like. . . Like a caricature of himself."

Dr. Dire narrows his eyes. "My friend had become a completely different person overnight, and we could not find a reasonable explanation for his behavior. . . I thought that it might have been stress, or trauma from the incident, until one day when we ran into each other outside of work -- outside of our protective suits. And then I saw the top of his head."

"And?" She leans toward him.

"And the caterpillar was there. All of his hair had fallen out and the beast was in its place, like a wig, like a toupee. It had become him, Miss Waters. I know that it had. This ignorant, sexist fool is not one of my colleagues anymore. He is not one of my friends. He is a monster and the entire world must know what this parasite is capable of."

"I'm afraid that we're running out of time," The host begins to say, with a smile, but Dr. Dire frantically interrupts, forcing the camera back onto him.

"Listen to me, this caterpillar can infect anyone! We have noticed unusually high populations in the wild, with a distribution that has overtaken most of North America. This creature is not suffering from the changing climate, it is thriving. It is almost as though each and every one of our catastrophes has been a benefit to this beast. It thrives as we perish!"

"Dr. Dire, please-"

"No!" He yells, slamming a fist down onto the table. "This thing has taken over our world! Can't you see? Our ruined planet has become the perfect place for this moth to reproduce. Our bodies have become the perfect hosts for its young to inhabit! And all of us are just sitting by and waiting while it makes everything worse!"

"I think that you're overreacting," Miss Waters says. "How could a caterpillar possibly make the world a worse place? Even if it can control its victims, it's just a bug, isn't it?"

"It isn't just a bug," The man says, and he buries his head in his hands, suddenly looking very, very tired, like he had not slept in weeks. "My friend has never expressed an interest in politics before, but do you know the first thing that he said to me, before he left the lab?"

She shakes her head and Dr. Dire gives a dark, desolate laugh.

"He said: "The elections are coming up. I think that I'll run for president this year."

Something about this story has started to deeply unnerve you, and you are grateful when the news finally ends.

Perhaps it was that horrible desperation in the scientist's eyes -- like a man who had given up entirely, because everything was already lost.

You need to distract yourself from the prickling discomfort in the back of your mind, so you scrounge up some rationales. This caterpillar cannot possibly be that bad -- the researcher was only trying to fear monger because it's election season.

In fact, maybe he was crazy – they always say that you can't trust science these days. Maybe this caterpillar doesn't even exist.

With the news ended, the presidential debates would begin soon. But you feel too unnerved to simply wait -- it's time to settle your suspicions once and for all. So you pull up the caterpillar species on your laptop, and start reading, as the Tv flickers behind you.

Megalopyge opercularis, also known as the southern flannel moth, is renowned for its strangely shaped caterpillars, which are covered with stinging golden hairs, resembling a badly made toupee. The species has adapted readily to the changing global climate, and is now very common in all areas of the globe, particularly North America, where it reproduces in swarms every 4 years.

Every four years, you think, checking the date of its last swarm. 4 years ago, almost exactly. Just a month ahead of the presidential debates, just in time for the upcoming election.

The feeling of discomfort has blossomed into full fledged anxiety, now, as you stare at the television, waiting for the debate to begin.

There is something horribly familiar about this caterpillar, you think. Something that very strongly resembles its golden hair.

"Hello everyone," The president says, as he approaches the stage with his usual grin, like fangs locked in a sneer. He knows that this debate is just a formality, because there is no fear of losing, not anymore. Not since the past 100 years, when his party would win, year after year after year.

You and the thousands of other viewers wait for him to speak, anxiously studying his form. Thinking to yourself that he really does resemble the last president -- and the one before that, and the one before that, ad infinitum.

You wait, and you watch, and eventually, you finally start to realize the source of the scientist's desperation.

On the top of your president's head, as with all of the previous ones, is a mop of wispy golden hair, completely and utterly identical to the parasitic caterpillar.

"Let's get on with it then, shall we?" The president says, leering at the camera. "I have a feeling that this year's election is going to be especially interesting."

[diteach]

2020 in review

I was tagged by @apeironaxiomaton to look back at 2020 and pretty much to try and not hate it so much! Thank you!!

Also I’m stealing the idea of putting everything under a cut, which I have never done in my life (and probably should start doing) bc it makes things neat as heck. Almost none of these are in a particular order.

Top 5 movies I saw this year:

Volevo Nascondermi by Giorgio Diritti - this movie is REALLY good AND I have good memories tied to the protagonist for Reasons I’m gonna cry bye (a shame that I’ve only watched this other excellent movie starring Elio Germano tonight bc it should be on this list)

Emma (2020)

The King’s Speech

Spirited Away or Porco Rosso - I had watched the first before and never the second so I think the fairer choice would be Porco Rosso but I’m not entirely convinced of it

The Wolf of Wall Street - look, I simply have a weak spot for stories that are so absurd they can be nothing but real (see “the other Elio Germano movie”)

Top 5 TV shows I watched this year:

Murdoch Mysteries - it will stay engraved in the first place of EVERY chart in saecula saeculorum and NO nothing can take its place I don’t care

Peaky Blinders

Alias Grace - which I was sure was a movie? I was so shocked to discover it isn’t like was it really six hours long what the

The Queen’s Gambit

Suburra: Blood on Rome - “The series was developed by Daniele Cesarano and Barbara Petronio for Netflix, making it its first Italian-language original television series.” I’ll be honest, some bits were a little bit hmm-inducing. Not the best tv series I’ve ever seen, but it managed to be fun and easy to watch. Suspenseful even!

Top 5 Songs:

So there’s a reason why Spotify said I’m an octogenarian this year and for as much as I complain about it... it’s right... Spotify’s right. And it will only get worse, I’m afraid. All the songs are from the same playlist which was my most listened to (and is the most interesting to share imo). I swear I have listened to other, newer things as well.

Shake That Thing by The Abe Lyman’s California Orchestra

Night Hawk Blues by The Coon-Sander’s Nighthawk Original Orchestra

Where the Sweet Forget-Me-Nots Remember by Merle Johnston and His Ceco Couriers (I’ve loved these flowers since I was a kid it was so nice to find a song with them in the title!!)

Dew Dew Dewey Day by Nat Shilkret

The Panic is On by Mezz Mezzrow And His Swing Band

Top 5 Books I Read This Year:

so this is embarrassing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I “bought” an insane amount of books and read a grand total of...like...t w o. It was actually like four and some short stories (which I hated and are therefore banished from the good boy list) so I’m gonna list my silly little titles and make my silly little comments about them all. From “””””best””””” to “worst” we have:

The Adventures of a Modest Man by Robert W. Chambers - I literally cannot shut up about this book and, yes, it is the one tied to this illustration, about which I equally cannot shut up about. It’s so horrible that it makes a 360 and comes back as good, but not before hitting you with a cardboard tube for a laugh and subsequently stabbing you in the kidneys just because it can. I think we can confidently state that we are in the “I didn’t say it was good, I said I liked it” realm. I have so many questions about this book. Why was it written? Was it taking itself seriously? Was it commissioned by someone? Why is it so gay but only if you know that the author is a man? Maybe it’s a parody? Was it an experiment made by the author to test his own skill? I know jack about literature, unfortunately, so grain of salt here but it made me feel strong feels. Not that I could identify any of them if you asked, but they’re definitely there.

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot - I’m counting this in bc what is a book if not a patchwork of silly little paragraphs anyway so yes, we have a collection of poems. Not only do I know jack about literature; as a matter of fact, I know jack about poetry as well! All I’m gonna say is: I like cute things, I like cats, the poems were cute AND about cats. I really liked it! I often find myself going back and reading again specific parts just for the delight it is to read them out loud! I also may or may not have named the cats you can adopt in Stardew Valley after some of Eliot’s cats. The movie Cats (2019) did one good thing: making me read this.

How You Can Keep Fit by Rudolph Valentino - Yes, that is correct. A book on fitness written (in English!) by silent movie superstar Rodolfo Valentino. It is less than 100 pages on real, actual exercises that the reader can replicate in the comfort of their own house with little to no equipment. With a sprinkle of old timey manly manner of speaking, a few anecdotes from the author’s childhood in ye merry Italian countryside, a dusting of precious advice against ice-cream, and a dash of genuine intrigue for these newly discovered “vitamins” everyone is talking about. Overall a fascinating read that I treasure dearly! Valentino also wrote a book of poems, which I am absolutely thrilled to read this year.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway - Hmm.. I have mixed feelings about this one. Whenever the original language of a book is English, I instinctively want to read it in that language. Because I can! And because that way I get to read exactly what the author wrote. If it was another language, I’d get a translation, make peace with the fact that selling my soul to acquire perfect knowledge of all things is morally questionable, and call it a day. Problem: I’m a sucker for old books. And old books I did find indeed. There were three books by Hemingway for sale, very pretty, and for an almost symbolic price too so I bought them. They are Italian translations from the late 50s and my plan was to go through one in Italian, one in English, and after that, decide in which language to read the last one. I believe it was a mistake for me to start with Italian in Hemingway’s case. He’s known for having a very, VERY peculiar style that is integral to how the novels are perceived and I feel like I've robbed myself of literal peace of mind. For as much as I found the story interesting, I could not ignore the voice in the back of my head that kept wondering “was it necessary to render it like this?”. It did make me feel feels and think thoughts, but honestly? It was partially for the wrong reasons imo. It’s one of those books you should read at least once in your life, I guess, so I’m definitely glad I did it! Surprisingly, it captured me more than I expected and trapped me into its little world. I could clearly imagine the scenes in my head, which hadn’t happened in years! I’m really excited to move on to the next two books and finally be able to say if I appreciate his style or not.

Top 5 positive things that happened to me in 2020:

Visited Rome and took a stroll around on my own (sort of) for the first time in my life. I had never seen it at night :) Right after that I celebrated my birthday and got some cute gifts, including sweets that were sent all the way from Australia!!

Managed to buy my mom a gift, which is possibly the only real Accomplishment of 2020.

Took a bizarre trip this summer (I know, guilty) and fell in love with Slovenia

Discovering I like textile arts kinda gave me hope for myself and for the future. I say kinda for I dare not think concretely of anything too positive lest it should be prematurely taken from me. I shan’t elaborate. It is what it is.

Therapy!!!

The last few months of 2020 really hit me hard whereas in the beginning nothing was too bad so it was nice to see the list growing and growing! So many tiny good things happened and it’s worth to cling onto them. I’m tagging @sonicysuchillydog, @nurmilintunen, @alfonzone and anyone else who’d like to participate!! “Tell them I sent you” lol. Guys.............if you don’t feel like going thru your 2020 feel free to ignore bc......I get it............................

[danwhobrowses]

A Personal Rant before Sword and Shield comes out

I’ve sat idly by for months, tried to weather a few negative responses but given that it’s now 6 days from release and I’m hearing that devs are getting literal death threats I’m going to put my foot down

If you’re already shitting on a game that hasn’t been released yet, you are all juvenile bitches, and I’m about to tell you why.

Before we begin, I’m not saying that you’re not allowed to dislike a game, that happens, but usually it happens after you play a game, not before.

You are viewing this game through a keyhole and judging the room and what you’re seeing is not worthy of this much hate. Let’s start with the big one Dexit: Not as Big as You Think Having No National Dex is of course not ideal, but it doesn’t ruin the game. Let’s Go has no National Dex, all it had was Alola forms and nobody whinged about it. Ruby and Sapphire didn’t have a National Dex until FRLG, and nobody whinged about it. Sun and Moon and Ultra Sun and Moon do not have a National Dex And Nobody Whinged About It Do you know why? Because it’s not actually a big deal. People who complain about it are bandwagoning because ‘Dexit’ is a meme, its name literally parodies an event in current Britain that many people don’t actually want to happen.  Now currently, the anger of Dexit is that Bulbasaur and Squirtle are not in it, which frankly is hilarious because the last wave of bitching was ‘Kanto mons are getting all the new stuff’. You wanna know how many main series versions Bulbasaur and Squirtle have not been in? Seven, only way to get them is trade and event. The other complaint is that there’s ‘only 400′ Pokémon. Remember those days where people were fine with 150? 400 is huge, in fact it’s 3 less than USUM and it’s not accounting for the Gigantamax forms Don’t let headlines fool you either, Sun and Moon had 302 Pokémon, it’s far from the ‘lowest dex number since 2003′. Do your own research with these things. Kalos’ regional dex was 151, BW2 was 300, BW 153, Sinnoh 210, RSE has 386 and GSC had 252 Don’t get me wrong, it smarts that some Pokémon isn’t there, but it’s not a dealbreaker, like let’s be honest here. For a good year and a half all your pokémon are gonna do is sit in an unused cartridge or a PC box, you’re literally whining about the fact that you can’t move your perfect IV Pokémon from one box to another. You could simply just let them stay in Let’s Go or USUM, you don’t have to use Bank or Home on continued subscription for that, so your complaints are only set on the foundation that you feel like you have to continually pay to not transfer your Pokémon, Finally, people act like these Pokémon are deleted forever, they’re not, this is for spacing to make sure this game doesn’t break down from the sheer mass of models and textures it has to maintain in a massive open world space, the local and online camping and battles. Just use the Pokémon that are there! There’s new Pokémon don’t you wanna try those? You can also look at FRLG or Emerald and consider that maybe more Pokémon will get patched in once the game proves to be stable. I don’t think you’ve noticed, but the Nintendo Switch isn’t as powerful as the other consoles out there, sometimes it runs like shit. Believe me on that one, Switch is still in a very buggy development phase. Let’s Go was kept small to test it’s capability and Sword and Shield can’t just fly in and give you all 1000 Pokémon just so one of the ones you want can be in there

You have to be much less obtuse with this, I mean this was a long time coming. You’re gonna have to live with the fact that not every Pokémon ever can be supported on one game alone. Disk, Download, Cartridge and Patch Sizes have limits in Compliance, you can’t just throw everything at it. Waah, the New Pokémon Don’t Look Good They do, you’re being petty. It happens every version, the people dislike the starter evolutions or just one in particular. Remember all the Oshawott hate? This all comes and goes because people have simply gone on the first instinct that ‘new and different is scary and should be shunned’ You’re that Simpsons meme when young Homer accuses Grandpa of not being ‘with it’ I won’t spoil to those who haven’t seen it, but I like the new starters, and some of the new Pokémon will need some growing but not every Pokémon looks good at first glance. If Mr Mime, Hypno or Gastly came out nowadays they’d be crapped on so much for lacking creativity or for looking weird. Look at Drampa as well, thing looks like Falkar from The Neverending Story, when I first saw it I thought it look weird but now I like it. You should offer these things time And actually fall back on past experience, you’re reacting like this isn’t the same thing that happens every version; the dex gets leaked, people whine about the evolutions, people get over it and accept that they overreacted. hIgH QuAlItY aNiMaTiOnS I’ve seen that video, 2 clips and you judge a whole game how classy of you? If you don’t see improvement you’re blind. You can’t shit on a game for keeping the battle animations, you can’t expect every Pokémon to move their own unique way to the exact position of the body part the opponent needs to get hit by, that’s just unrealistic. You’re also failing to equate to the new moves and all the new movesets. You have to ensure that each Pokémon is capable of calling this animation as well. The second clip in that video was Hop and Hau having the same rigging, and once again, that’s not abnormal. Rigging is not easy either, do it wrong and it sticks and deforms texture. There’s nothing wrong with Hop having one animation that matches Hau’s, you’ll probably find that many models actually have similar rigging as previous games. Because it’s not that big of a deal and it saves money, as an example look at Disney they copied hand-drawn motion and stuck a different character on them, Robin Hood’s Little John dances just like (animated, for those too young to know otherwise) Jungle Book’s Baloo The thing you’re also ignoring from that clip is the graphical improvement of Hop compared to Hau, Hau looks like a balloon with a smiley face but Hop’s face has depth and his mouth actually moves like a normal person, his clothes have far more contrast and complexity, but no just zero in on one fighting animation and one rigging that’ll surely be worth abusing a game that’s not even out... B-But Charizard I’ve already explained this before but Charizard is Leon’s main, it’s obviously going to have a Gigantamax, ergo it’s also going to be in the Dex. Does Charizard get a lot? Yes, but the reason is because Charizard is popular. One of the rarest cards is a Charizard Hologram Card, Charizard is one of the first version mascots, it is one of the most recognized Pokémon Ash has in the anime Reality of the matter is that like Pikachu, Charizard is a recognized Pokémon for all ages, it appeals to a demographic that’s not playing In Layman’s Terms: that part is not for you A reality you really need to face. Pokémon is a game for all ages, so elements of the game are not always going to be tailored to your age range. The gimmick of Dynamax and Gigantamax is for merch sales and young children because it’s got an audience there, you can’t expect the Biggest Entertainment Brand in the World to simply shut out a large fraction of its demographic just to appeal 100% to you And again, it’s not a big deal, so there’s a Charizard there, just save a Stone Edge and be done with it, if you hate Charizard so much this’ll be catharsis, but in actuality you’re complaining because it’s something to complain about Kanto are getting Everything That went down like a lead balloon didn’t it? Reminder that the first Gigantamax forms were Galar Pokémon, so you can’t really say that anymore. There are Galar forms from non-Gen I Pokémon too I assure you, but the reason Kanto gets a lot of them is because Kanto is the oldest. Let’s not pretend that other gens don’t get love either Or should I remind you of Mega Ampharos, Scizor, Heracross, Houndoom, Tyranitar, Blaziken, Gardevoir, Gallade, Mawile, Aggron, Medicham, Manectric, Banette, Absol, Garchomp, Lucario, Abomasnow, Steelix, Sceptile, Marshtomp, Sableye, Sharpedo, Camerupt, Altaria, Glalie, Salamence, Metagross, Latias, Latios, Rayquaza, Lopunny, Audino and Diancie? It’s true that the Johto starters could use something, but I don’t think they’re being purposefully ignored, perhaps the right design hasn’t come along. Rather it be done right than poorly wouldn’t you agree? The Devs Should’ve Done <Insert Thing Here> People who say this kinda stuff have no idea how a game is made. I have a First Class Bachelor’s degree in Computer Gaming and Animation Technology and I can tell you that none of the stuff you want them to do is easy. Even getting grass right is a complete hassle. You want small insights you should watch Corridor Crew react to Good and Bad VFX, they tell you about the mechanics of CGI a few times on those vids. This is what annoys me with the prior swipe at the Battle animations and rigging, even with 2 years this is a heavily massive workload and Game Freak have only recently expanded the team that work on Pokémon which makes communication much more widespread and difficult to manage, likewise they are working on other games too they are not just Pokémon, currently their next IP is why Toby Fox was able to do a bit of music for Pokémon, because he’s collaborating with them on another game. The work doesn’t stop, most of these people are overworked and still doing overtime, they bring out a good product and all it gets is ‘but it should have this’, and unless it’s a huge part of the game that’s needed to function then that’s really disrespectful Before you start critiquing on what the people making this game ‘should’ve done’ perhaps you should try to make a game yourself, because it is not easy even for pros, I call back to Toby Fox because creating Undertale took 32 Months to create, that’s 2 years and 8 months for those slow with math, it also took 3 years before it could be ported to Switch because the Engine couldn’t support the platform, Pokémon has less time to do that, greater graphical and animation quality to achieve and more characters to battle, attacks to animate and more songs to compose. Conclusion: You’re All Just Bitter I’ve already seen it happen recently but this group of people senselessly bashing something because of ridiculous demands, expectations or arguments based on a lack of understanding all combine into something I’m simply calling the ‘Bitterness Fandom’. It’s people hating for the sake of hating and trying to bring something down just because it’s been a popular force for so long, and it’s not just Pokémon that’s getting it It’s already been happening to Star Wars. The Last Jedi and Solo were great films but the Bitterness sank its fangs in and act like neither are as good as the original trilogy (like killing Snoke without knowing anything about him and Phasma before she could do anything is any different to killing Sidious and Boba Fett in Jedi or Maul in Phantom Menace and Grievous in Revenge of the Sith), a lack of awareness to reality and the desire to complain for the sake of complaining continues to infect Star Wars. We even have a thing called ‘Star Wars Fatigue’ Star Wars can’t release a film every year because of ‘Fatigue’ but Marvel can release 5 MCU films a year and nobody bats an eye. Those frustrations aside, I refuse to let the Bitterness sink in without me calling them out, because you are not Pokémon Fans. If you were you’d know that having no National Dex isn’t new, you’d know that the graphics have improved and leaks of the game happen every time, you’d know why Charizard is popular and that some features are not intended to be targeted at you Shock and Horror to the heavens above but games can’t do everything And if you’re that naive to think so then you’re clearly not doing your homework So let’s throw out an absolutely WILD suggestion shall we? Let’s decide our opinion on a game After playing it? Because shitting on something you don’t even have hands-on experience with it is a fragile pedestal to put yourself on. If we all think it’s bad then, so be it, but I sincerely doubt that is the case When my copy of Pokémon Sword gets delivered to my house I am going to enjoy it because I will not let petty and incorrect statements sway my feelings and I swear to Arceus if you think the Bitterness will bring down Pokémon that easily then you did not see the queue to the London Poké Center that had been amassing since midnight and was forced to stop taking more people when the doors opened What should matter is how you enjoy the game, play it before you judge it And honestly, don’t send death threats, why we need to tell you that is beyond me, the ones who made these games are people who have worked their asses off day in and day out to provide something you aren’t even going to play because one Pokémon isn’t in it, the irony is not lost on me when I say this but deep into the very bottom of my heart: Grow Up. If you don’t like the game, don’t play it, don’t bother people about it, we don’t need your shit here Enjoy the Game People

[whatsyourcolor]

Psycho-Pass 3 - Episode 8 review [SPOILERS]

After going through all the stages of grief yesterday, here are my thoughts on episode 8 of Psycho-Pass 3 and of this season overall if anyone cares to read. If you have been reading my other reviews, you have an idea of what this will be, so read at your own discretion. This last episode manifests the vision for the whole season and what they tried to accomplish and how they failed in doing so. I tried summarizing the episode, but got bored, considering the first 20 minutes or so are random clips thrown together with no coherent transitions between them, so I’ll just deal with the aspects that interest me. 

1. Kei breaking bad and the ills of tokenism

Mao confesses her “sins” to Kei which include a lukewarm sense of revenge and a lack of reasonable online practice (such as not trusting people online.) Her story is clumsily connected to the incident where a PSB inspector died and the other one was institutionalized. It would’ve been mildly interesting if Mao had been the active agent in informing Asuzawa of the investigation because of rightful anger at a perceived injustice, causing the death of someone in Division 1 (Irie, for example) and then having a redemption arc where she helps bring the sucker down. But no, we get the story of a coward who got involved with bad people, got scared, and hasn’t followed any of their instructions since, hoping that they’ll forget about her. 

So the writers have her telling this story to Kei, just so that they can justify his ambivalence later in the episode. What if, he too, could get what he wanted? So many ways to plant the seeds of this internal conflict that we now have to explain to ourselves because the writers didn’t have the time for it. Instead Kei frowns, grunts and punches so that we, the viewers, can see he’s upset. But where’s the chipping away at an inherent sense of morality and at his psyche to the point where he’s abating a congressman in his escape? What’s the switch?  Some people say it’s Maiko, even though just one episode before Kei was telling her that they should believe in Sibyl and that her hue will recover. So which is it? Does he trust the system or does he not? Why do we have to guess? Where was all this ambivalence throughout the season? The writers could’ve set up his internal conflict so much better, tie it with the corrupt ideals of the terrorists, show him tempted to go down that path. He’s the immigrant, he’s the one who can offer the point of view that’s so muddled and lazily written for the other immigrants.  

Time to start cooking meth, Kei. 

To add insult to injury, Kei becomes a Fox not because of a deliberate, motivated decision, but because, like Mao, he clicked the wrong link and now he owes them a favor. What if they hand’t spent the whole season demeaning the power of Sibyl, putting it in the background as an inconvenience, instead of a real system of control with real consequences (the, ummm, whole premise of Psycho-Pass)? Just how the whole terrorist plot was rationalized as a way to make Sibyl “pay for its crimes against immigrants,” even though we don’t see what actual crimes Sibyl committed, why it committed them, we don’t even know what Sibyl’s stance is in regards discrimination and xenophobia. Crap on a cracker, we don’t even know why Sibyl deemed that allowing immigrants in was a good idea. They could’ve set up Maiko and Kei as protagonists of this season, giving us their point of view as conflicted immigrants who survived war and famine, who have to dye their hair, answer “yes ma’am,” endure xenophobic insults and be powerless in order to keep each other. Have them lose each other, their own values, their own morality as power appears in the form of an invitation to be a fox and get back at the system. Have Maiko be deemed a latent criminal who’s beyond all recovery be the switch, but that would only work if Sibyl is still the big, bad guy and Bifrost appears as the preferable bad guy in the eyes of Kei.  Give us flashbacks of Maiko and Kei’s traumas together, show us why he’d make the decision to flip to have her back with him. A reason doesn't not equal a motivation. The latter suggest a process, an acquiring of a view through experience, a lie that the character believes or a truth that they hold. “Maiko’s been in jail for a day, so I accidentally became a fox” would be laughable (and believable) if one didn’t care an ounce for this show. 

It seems like the writers wanted the world of Psycho-Pass to be relevant to today’s issues and so they used the topic of immigration to signal that. It worked in the PP Movie (warlords, refugees, etc) because they had kept the same philosophical thread about human will, power and systems of authority since Season 1. The complexities of that dialogue are lost in this season. They wanted to make some characters neutral, such as Karina or Venerable Auma, or the sister or O’Bryan, have them pass as misunderstood or misjudged and have the whole conflict of immigration be a problem that could be resolved if all these people just got together and sang Kumbaya. 

2. Arata is Jesus and Asuzawa is a troll

When you need other characters to remind you of the importance of the protagonist or the villain, it’s perhaps because those characters are poorly written and can’t stand out on their own. When Toyohisa Senguji smokes from a pipe made from the bones of Rikako Oryo, you know the man is the most sinister psychopath that was spawned upon the earth. You don’t need anyone to tell you that. 

Arata seems to have a destiny imprinted on him that he is special, or so we’re told. Sybil wants to integrate him, Mika wants him to stay a detective, the Bifrost is interested in him, his father appeared to be an important dude, yet I can’t think of a single thing he’s done that’s special or unique. He could’ve also have much more of an internal conflict, but we only get hints (yes, even in the last episode) that his dad was a complete prick. It’s never clear beyond “curiosity for humans” what his deal with Karina is and why he gives her a pass, to the point of snubbing Kei, even when Karina is a total hypocrite who fired her immigrant secretary. Yes, the one who threw herself in front of her kidnappers to protect her. 

It happened right after she donated her kidney to me, true, but she did always put too much sugar in my coffee. I can’t have someone like that in my team! 

With Asuzawa something similar happens. He’s called “clever” and “cunning” and we’re meant to believe it. He’s supposed to be deft, predicting the next bend of the road, being two steps ahead of everyone, but that takes time to write, so instead let’s make both the MWPSB and MOFA look incompetent and let’s have Asuzawa be called a “mastermind” just because. The whole mission to capture him is ridiculous. Asuzawa meets the congressman, says he’s going for smokes and never comes back. Kei meets him, helps him escape. Kogami and Ginoza let the pathfinders escape again. The only new revelation we have about him is that he’s an ex-enforcer who was tortured by Arata’s dad. According to Asuzawa’s secretary, Shindo senior used to manipulate people with his powers. 

Who you callin’ Spookie Boogie? I’m known in the commufield as Growly Grumpy. Credit to @azweidos​ 

3. Locking horns for incompetence

Finally the MOFA and the MWPSB meet to share intel on the Bifrost and they know as much as we know, but this meeting was needed because otherwise they couldn’t have inserted Kogami and Gino in the whole mission to tackle Asuzawa. Mika and Frederica are still competing to see which one of them is more obnoxious, while Asuzawa leaves through the front door of the building as if he hadn’t caused 95 of the 100 traffic accidents in Tokyo that year. 

Well, so much for carrying a gun! Not an obstacle for this octogenarian. 

4. In defense of criticism

There’s this general feeling nowadays that criticizing something means you’re spreading negativity, like we’re supposed to be part of a like-minded cult or a mental hive like Sibyl that’s perpetually content, even when given a mediocre product. The problem with this season is precisely that: it’s not bad. It’s perfectly mediocre. And it’s not because the old Division 1 isn’t there. It’s not because Akane is in jail (and we still don’t know why). It’s because they couldn’t deal with the elements that they themselves created for this season. The idea of the world of Psycho-Pass spreading is brilliant, the idea of an elite that’s exempt from Sibyl's judgement is brilliant, the idea of an outsider point of view is brilliant, but they overestimated their own abilities and underestimated their viewers. There’s only so much disbelief and rationale we can suspend before we realize they’re playing us like a fiddle. There’s only so much a villain can grin to hint at us that they knew what they were doing all along. 

Some argue that this is because the creators want to make Psycho-Pass into a franchise as if that means everything and anything is justified to the point of bastardizing the ideas of the show and reaching the point of absurdity where it parodies itself (you think I didn’t notice those Madeleines?) Is the hope of the creators to bury Psycho-Pass into the ground while they laugh their way to the bank? Why should I care about their money, or how much money they hope to make? I care about the end product and that’s what I base my judgement on. 

5. The Shinkane reunion 

See, the creators aren't dumb. They knew they had to bait us somehow because this season alone won’t stand. Not only that, but they know us so well they saved their budget to keep the best quality for this scene. I’ll just paste what I said about it yesterday.

I thought it was sweet how Akane backpedals against the door with a tinge of pleasure on her face, like she wants to hear his voice and feel that he’s on the other side. I loved the smiles they gave to each other and how he comforts her. I think it’s evident this is not the first time he visits her. 

It was lovely. It would’ve been lovelier if it had been tied to the overarching plot of this season, but that plot barely held itself together. So let’s bask on those few seconds we got until they bait us again to watch the 2020 movie. 

[buzzdixonwriter]

Our Regularly Scheduled Program Vs Binge Watching

Every now and then the little light comes on and I grasp an insight into something that previously stared me in my oblivious face.

I was watching episodes of a popular sit-com* from 35 years ago, not a huge hit but certainly a cult favorite popular enough to stay available on recorded media and now streaming.

Not having seen it in well over two decades, I plopped down and started watching episodes back to back.

I got tired by ep. three.

The problem, I realized, lay in how the material was originally presented.

It used to be we’d have to wait every week for a show to come back at its appointed time, and present us with whatever shenanigans the characters got themselves into that week.

Most episodes were standalones, there was little forward progress in the stories and the tiny bit that did exist was mostly in the backstory, not the main plot.

Every week they gave us the same thing, only slightly different.

Mind you, I can appreciate the diametrically opposed tension facing shows of that era -- I wrote and story edited for TV at that time.

The audience wants the same thing they liked the last time…

…only different.

With daily shows like G.I. Joe and Transformers and Jem, trying to come up with something new enough not to be a dull repeat but not so different to alienate the audience was a challenge.

Luckily, the Sunbow series were awash in Joes and Autobots and pop stars and Little Ponies, so we could always find some underused character to build a novel story around, or to add a fresh twist to our old standards.

But even there, I don’t think one can binge watch too many at a time without feeling a certain sense of sameness.

Modern streaming series take that into consideration, but for me that works against them:  I like my stories done in one.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

I’ll watch a 3 hour epic movie without qualm, but I start balking at 7 - 13 - 26 episode story arcs.

I loved season one of Daredevil, never watched season two.

I loved season one of Luke Cage, never watched season two.

I hear people telling me how great The Mandalorian is and I believe them 100%.

No desire to watch it, however (though this may be more the fault of seeing too many Star Wars features films).

Likewise zero interest in any new Star Trek, or for that matter any of the various Star Trek imitators out there.

One and done ripoffs / parodies excepted, of course.

I have the same problem with old movie serials, a genre and format I adore.

Nowadays I tend to watch serials by viewing the first three and last two chapters.

Everything in between tends to be padding.

The Sopranos seemed to be the exception, but then the show lost Nancy Marchand, who played Mama Soprano, and with it the entire raison d’etre of the series.

I clung with it for several seasons past that before abandoning it long before the final blackout.

The Venture Bros. still grabs my attention, but like the Sunbow shows it has a large enough cast to give it the needed flexibility to keep the stories varied yet part of the same universe as well.

It’s reportedly coming to an end with season eight, and to that I say good:  Better to go out at the top of your game than jump the shark and flounder.

. . .

Modern audiences -- at least modern audiences with cable / satellite / Internet access --  no longer have the tacit sense of an appointed time and often and appointed place to enjoy media.

Prior to the electronic age, few people could be entertained whenever they wished unless they or a family member sang or played music or read aloud or told stories.

There were kings and nobles who kept musicians on tap and theatrical companies close at hand but even they were constrained by time and space.

Today’s audience can just whip out a phone and listen / watch / read whatever they want.

As a result, the sense of being an audience seems vanish.

An audience used to be those who came to a performance of some kind, even if it meant simply showing up in their own living room on Tuesday at 8:30pm (5:30 Pacific) to listen to Fibber McGee and Molly.

Even in one’s home, it meant setting aside a time to come in and listen or watch as a production presented its entertainment.

One may or may not like what one experienced, but the audience placed itself at the disposal of the program.

Transistors started changing that.

Transistors made small cheap radios easily affordable and eminently portable.  

People could take their listening pleasure with them, and that marked the rise of recorded popular music programs instead of live scripted broadcasts.

It proved the first technological step in a long line of dominoes that completely upended the relationship of audience to entertainment.

The audience used to come and absorb patiently.

Now the entertainment needs to break through a thousand and one distractions.

It does so by escalating the sensationalism -- and by sensationalism I mean anything that’s designed to grab an audience’s immediate attention, no matter how well or thoughtfully executed.

It undercuts the lower key / slice of life popular entertainment audiences enjoyed generations ago.

(And, yes, Shakespeare & co. are filled with blood and thunder tales, but again, those were things one committed oneself to experiencing as the performers intended; audiences didn’t walk out en masse and go to a neighboring theater in mid-performance.)

. . . 

The problem with ongoing stories is this:  At any point they can be upended by fiat, negating all that’s come before.

Go ask a comic book fan how many times DC has destroyed the universe.

My reluctance to enjoy open ended fiction is that I like being able to mull over a story once it is completed, teasing out the full measure and meaning of what I’ve just experienced.

I’ll risk a program like The Queen’s Gambit because I know it’s a limited series withn a finite ending.

I wouldn’t watch an open ended series based on Walter Tevis’ book.

My career as a writer and an editor enables me to see the gears turning behind the scenes in a story.

More often than not I’m already several plot beats ahead of any movie or TV episode I’m watching.

I bailed on a highly recommended current program recently just halfway through the first episode.

I got the joke.

I knew where it was going.

Nothing about it enticed me to keep following.

The classic sit-com mentioned above wore thin because it was the same damn joke every time.

It’s a funny joke, mind you.

And when seen the way originally intended, I’d have a week to forget about the details of the previous episode, to be hungry of that particular brand of humor for a bit, and be willing to take a repeat of material a week later.

But back-to-back-to-back?

No.

Legendary writer / producer Stephen Cannel sold the first story he ever pitched to a detective series called Ironside w-a-a-a-y back in 1971.

Cannel began his pitch thusly:  “One morning Ironside wakes up with the worst toothache he’s ever had in his life…”

And instantly everyone in the pitch session paid rapt attention.

Why?

Because they knew that whatever came next, it wasn’t going to be something they’d heard a thousand times before.

I’d rather have one simple thing that grabs me than a million and one fireworks attempting to get my attention.

And I’d rather experience that one thing and be able to process it rather than see another installment that undoes everything set before.

. . .

As I’ve posted elsewhere, there’s a place for comfort food TV.

My wife and I enjoy Emily In Paris.

It reminds us of our trips to France and the stories and characters are just interesting enough to be amusing but not so demanding as to require full attention.

Nothing wrong with comfort food TV.

But the real nutrition is found elsewhere.

And for me, this applies to all modes of art and entertainment.

    © Buzz Dixon

  * No, I’m not going to tell you the title.The point of this post isn’t the particular show, it’s the manner in which televised stories are told now as opposed to how they were told the