thewickedbohemian

[thewickedbohemian]

and now I want to fix that

spoke deeply to me.

[thewickedbohemian]

every time someone says we're x years away from y bad thing my gut reaction is "not if we know it could be coming and can work to prevent/prepare/protect-ourselves"

Saw a post about how halal and kosher meat will likely be the only reliably safe options in the US because their safety and cleanliness standards aren't dictated by what's the barest legal minimum that government food safety regulations demand.

So you're like 5 years away from "ever notice how the musulmans and jews never get sick from bad meat? clearly this is proof that they are poisoning us" right now.

[thewickedbohemian]

i know i shouldnt be suprised but sinners being out for less than a week and already tumblr is fandomifying and 'poor wet pathetic cat'-ifying the main white man villain of the movie is so... disapointing??? like did the fucking point of the movie really go over your heads that badly or are you just willingly ignorant and stupid?

AND BEFORE ANYONE STARTS; im not saying you cant like remmick, he's a very interesting character, a great villain, and jack o'connell gave a great performance playing him, nor do i care if you think hes sexy, I think hes sexy

but i think to come out of a movie where vampires serve as a metaphor for how black american communities have the life sucked out of them by white people via cultural appropriation (remmick wanting to use sammie's gift to summon his own ancestors) and forced assimilation (all the turned vampires singing and dancing along with remmick's irish folk song and dance juxtaposed with the blend of cultures during sammie's song in the juke joint) and for your main take away to be 'aww the main villain is just a misunderstood sadboy' or 'idc abt the atrocities he looked sexy doing them (when the atrocities in question were racism)' then youre just being so disengenuous and antithetical to the whole point of the film?

and dont come at me with the 'let people enjoy things' bullshit, sinners is a movie FUNDAMENTALLY about racism and racial dynamics in the united states, and i do think focusing on your little y/n x [whiteboy of the month] fics and 'hes so babygirl' posts do actually stunt your own critical engagement with the message this movie was trying to convey to its audience

i think its also a disservice to remmick's character; the moral nuance that comes to light when you consider his position as an irish immigrant to the US, a victim of the colonialist british empire just like the black main cast (although in a very different way) and how, whilst his desire to reclaim his ancestry and heritage is understandable and even relatable, his pursuit of sammie and willingness to kill literally everyone else at the juke joint is allegorical for how, regardless of their own marginalisation, white people will prey upon and steal from black culture(s) and destroy/disenfranchise black communities to serve their own interests, and the movie is NOT subtle about this either, delta slim literally lays it out for us "white folks like the blues just fine, they just don't like the people who make them"

idk im yelling into the void here, the ppl im complaining about are never going to give a shit about racism or even just critically engaging with art when theres a new cute whiteboy to write fluff and angst about, but its just soooo annoying to see, yet again, how fandom spaces, which SHOULD be about uplifing and celebrating art in all its diversity and complexity, once again is nothing more than people ignoring anything that actually makes them have to confront reality and filing off the serial numbers to slot characters into pre-determined fanon molds so they can pump out incorrect quotes and coffee shop AUs en masse until the media iliterate heat death of the universe

[thewickedbohemian]

[thewickedbohemian]

everyone was wondering if leverage: redemption would make the ot3 explicitly canon, but i don't think anyone could have predicted that "sophie was in a sextagon in the 80s that apparently also involved david bowie" would be added to the leverage canon in this episode.

[thewickedbohemian]

The most human thing a character can do is contradict themselves.

The cynic who still carries a childhood stuffed animal.

The liar who craves honesty.

The overthinker who makes reckless decisions.

The heartbreaker who believes in soulmates.

The pacifist who holds lifelong grudges.

The tough guy who cries during old movies.

The thrill-seeker who's terrified of commitment.

The grump who’s unfailingly polite to waitstaff.

People aren’t consistent. Your characters shouldn’t be either.

[thewickedbohemian]

You know with rewatching some old shows lately. I take back everything I ever said about not liking when they would split up seasons into 3A and 3B with different plot points cuz I thought some plots deserved a full season of exploration

At least those seasons were still 20-22 episode ones typically. 15 episodes at the least.

I would gladly sit though seasons A and B splits again if it meant no more of this 8 episode only nonsense

[thewickedbohemian]

and now I wonder if there's some way to take advantage of Doctor Who's meta nature to basically fix that as best we could from "inside the story" without, like, doing the thing people hated with The Librarians "un-existing a season" via time travel or erasing Belinda from existence any more than people claimed the Belinda they fell in love with at season's beginning was metaphorically erased by the finale with not just the motherhood but the DNA scanning thing. They both deserve better endings and maybe something that could help them could tie to why we saw who we saw at the end (whether it's the Doctor returning to a rather unexpected old face or something even weirder)

I do not like to consider behind the scenes stuff when talking about Art, but I do think that this episode fully sealed the deal on the 'Millie Gibson left the show unexpectedly for Some Sort of Reason so they had to cast someone else as a new companion on short notice and quickly rewrite completed episodes to compensate' theory.

That whole maternal bit with Belinda? Out of nowhere. Nothing to do with Belinda. Belinda got very little characterization overall, but none of it was that.

But let's say instead that the companion for this season remained Ruby. We get a little timeskip in between the two seasons, in which Ruby dates Conrad. Maybe the Robot Revolution initially featured him. Then we have a whole season in which none of the other stories (except a new version of Lucky Day) center around her, which makes a lot of sense because the previous season was all about her. She doesn't feel undercharacterized, because she had a whole-ass season of characterization already. Most of the season could have her in the place of Belinda with literally nothing changing, which, well.

And then we get to this finale. The Doctor and Ruby get magicked into a world where they have a magic baby, who looks just like a baby they met previously. Despite the fact that the baby and their life isn't real, Ruby can't possibly find it within herself to abandon - or forget - a child. It doesn't matter whether the child is really hers or not. It matters that someone needs to take care of her and that Ruby steps up to do it. That's a core Ruby character value! That's something that would follow up on a previously established theme!

So, the ending in which she raises the child isn't weird, it's the conclusion to Ruby's character arc. There's no extra character who needs to be shoved into a literal box. The UNIT reunion is a reunion of characters who actually know each other, unlike Belinda, who doesn't know any of those guys. Space Babies is retroactively vindicated.

I cannot believe this was not the intended model of the series. We know these two seasons were written and filmed concurrently. There's no reason for the result to be so awkward if there wasn't some bullshit afoot, given that there was ample opportunity to plan it properly. When Belinda was announced, RTD explicitly said that Varada Sethu was cast because they had already filmed 'Boom' and they knew she had good screen chemistry with Ncuti. She herself said that she was just offered the role out of the blue. This was a rush job. I really liked Varada Sethu as Belinda. She did a lot to disguise the patch here, and it's too bad that she couldn't do more. But we shouldn't think of these seasons as something that was designed to be this way. I'm pretty sure they weren't.

[thewickedbohemian]

are there any series of this quality and subgenre that have a similar sort of sorting system that is actually something that could be a personality type system (unlike, say, Charlie Bone just having tracks by art branches or w/e) and (unlike TOH) doesn't make it so the sorting's in-universe a sign of compliance with the enemy or w/e? If a series has a sorting system and any discernable fandom, look for sorting quizzes online to see if it's considered personality-typable-into

"the best way to screw jkr over is by making her characters queer!" actually. The best way to screw jkr over is to stop engaging with the property she still profits off of and read a different fucking book

[thewickedbohemian]

Leverage: Redemption (2021-present) The Polygeist Job (S03E09)

[thewickedbohemian]

Another PBSKids-related show idea poll

Reasons/explanations

My Electric Company idea would be a thing that's just the main story not the other segment-y bits perhaps called something like Electric Company Adventures (it'd be animated so the original cast could continue their roles but in voice-acting) that way the stories and songs could be more in-depth and maybe they could even do (scaled for character ages) romance arcs on the show as PBSKids shows meant for older kids have done them before (basically I want TEC to live up to its full potential as the kind of show this site would love)

Between The Lions would, as I said, have slightly older versions of the kids (Lionel would be a teenager, Leona would be the age Lionel was in the original) as there would be as much emphasis on keeping older kids "wild about reading" and there'd be a new little kid to still keep little-kid appeal (I know I'd want it to be a girl as too often TV families whatever the genre or demographic of the show fall into the trap of "three kids, middle child is different gender" and I want to buck the trend, I just don't know a girls' name that fits the pattern unless Lonnie would work for a girl). And think of the cool musical and pop cultural references they could weave in from since the original aired

why George Shrinks is the one I'd want a full-on reboot of is because of something I never saw addressed in the OG show, he's always talking about school projects and doesn't appear to be homeschooled but we never see him at school. And think of not only the cool episode opportunities that could happen but the disability-related subtext that wouldn't appear too "woke" because this disability isn't one that can happen irl but he still would need hella accommodations (and considering his engineering skill and stuff maybe he's one of those special-needs-at-both-ends-of-the-bell-curve kids by being both disabled and gifted)

[thewickedbohemian]

Assuming for the sake of argument we can save PBS I've got a question regarding something I'd want to pitch for PBSKids

Just asking because there's a book series I'm hoping to adapt if I could get the rights (won't say which as you probably haven't heard but it is something that already has an angle that still teaches kids about something that isn't just life lessons or w/e like Arthur without crowbaring STEM or learning to read in) but my ideas is the first book's story as a TV movie as it's stand-alone enough (iykyk) but then follow it up with the rest of the books' stories adapted into a TV show. However, the only time I've ever really seen PBSKids do TV movies is when they're for an already established show so I'm not sure if a TV movie as show pilot would work

[thewickedbohemian]

ok so what about the 5x5 grid

Theme Songs For Moral Alignments

Lawful Good: Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now-Starship

Neutral Good: Dreams-Van Halen

Chaotic Good: Wake Up-Rage Against The Machine

Lawful Neutral: Mr. Blue Sky-ELO

True Neutral: Shake It Off-Taylor Swift

Chaotic Neutral: Hate To Say I Told You So-The Hives

Lawful Evil: Everybody Wants To Rule The World-Lorde

Neutral Evil: Black On Black II-Heart

Chaotic Evil: Pumped Up Kicks-Foster The People

Feel free to add your own

[thewickedbohemian]

You know, I will endlessly rage on the topic of how BG3 does allow for so many ways to play the game - but not for a fullon pacifist run. You know, speaking as someone who often plays pacifist TTRPG characters. But I do understand that the game does not want to keep like 50% of its game mechanics from you - meaning all the battle mechanics and stuff. I still wish that at least some of the boss battles could be avoided through negotiations, but I understand that a fullon pacifist run is just not something that a video game intends to offer.

However... There really is one combat encounter that I just... It drives me nuts so much. And that is the "rescue Halsin" encounter in the first Act. Like, I get the entire discussion we can have on the topic of "Goblins are evil, and hence killing goblins is fine". It is not a believe that I subscribe to.

But really, my main issue in that encounter is... The goblin kids. I recently tried literally everything in my Durge run to avoid killing the goblin kids. Were they cruel to Halsin? Yes. But they are bloody kids. If you grew up rurally there is a good chance that you have at some point seen some kids throwing rocks at an injured animal. And responsible adults will reprement them, but they will not KILL THEM (hopefully)!

When I did my first Tav run, I had used up my daily charge for mind control, so I was forced into that fight either way. But now with my Durge I mind controlled the goblins and went like: "Hey, I am a True Soul, let that bear go." And they did. Only for Halsin go: "It's murder time!"

And while I can tell my team to use non-lethal damage in that fight... Yeah, Halsin is just gonna murder. And given he is closer to those kids, they will most likely die. After trying for basically ever, I managed to block Halsin from going after those two kids, and let them run. They left the room and are now gone. (No, they did not raise an alarm.)

And I am sitting there: "Halsin, you are supposed to be a good guy. Can we not at the very least agree on not murdering any children, whatever species they might belong to?"

Sure, it kinda makes sense under the idea that Halsin is a werebear. And as a werebear, sure, he might be a bit murdery when angry. But...

[thewickedbohemian]

Are you 🫵 pissed off about the Lilo and Stitch monstrosity remake? Do you want to know how you can actually make a difference in supporting the people and ecosystems of Hawaii?

Tourism is a big issue in Hawaii (which the remake got rid of the original's commentary on because it makes foreigners look bad). I'm not gonna promote it, BUT I know that realistically, thousands of people arrive here every single day by the airplane-ful. And the majority of them aren't educated on the socio-cultural and economic impacts of tourism. SO, I'm making this post in an effort to educate visitors. If you or someone you know is visiting or moving to Hawaii (whether by circumstances in or out of your control), here are some suggestions on how you can give back!

You can donate to the Hawaii Community Foundation, which has been instrumental in giving aid to the displaced community of Lahaina after the Maui wildfires in 2023. They also provide scholarships to students of under-represented communities.

If you're interested in visiting Kualoa Ranch, you can do their M��lama Experience where you get your hands dirty giving back to the ‘āina (land)!

There are other organizations you can join to volunteer with, too, like Kupu and Mālama Maunalua. Check them out; maybe you can help with a beach cleanup or plant native trees! These are both non-profit organizations that accept monetary donations.

Visit the Bishop Museum to learn about Hawaiian history and culture! They also have events focused on sustainability and conservation.

If you're visiting Hilo on the Big Island, go visit the Laulima Nature Center! They're a non-profit aimed at protecting Hawaii's native species, and they even have an online store that ships to the US mainland and internationally! (After I post this, I'm gonna head on over and get myself a manu o Kū pin ♡)

A few other tips I have:

DO: Respect the locals' homes. Several beaches and hiking trails have access points in residential areas. Please be mindful to keep your voices down when passing by, and park ONLY in designated parking areas.

DO: Wear reef-safe sunscreen! Sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate are banned in Hawaii because they are known to damage coral reefs.

DON'T: Approach wildlife, particularly honu (sea turtles) and 'īlio holo i ka uaua (Hawaiian monk seals). Stay at least 10 feet (3 meters) away from turtles and at least 50 feet (15 meters) away from monk seals. If you see someone harassing animals, report them to the statewide NOAA Marine Wildlife Hotline: (888) 256-9840. You can also contact the Hawaii State Department of Land and Natural Resources.

DON'T: Collect sand, rocks, or other natural items to bring home with you. This is to protect the ecosystems and also out of respect for Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians), who have cultural beliefs regarding lava rocks in particular. Taking lava rocks is extremely disrespectful.

DON'T: Litter! Please throw away your waste in proper trash cans. If you see a bin that says "ʻōpala," that's a trash can!

Many Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) are moving to the US mainland because the cost of living in Hawaii has been driven up so high (because of people moving here), they can't afford to live in their ancestral home. So, if you are going to visit or move to Hawaii, please:

- Make the effort to support local businesses, especially those owned by Native Hawaiians!

- Educate yourself and your loved ones about actual Hawaiian culture!

- Try Hawaiian food, like poi!

- Learn some Hawaiian words and don't be afraid to ask how to pronounce words correctly!

- Donate to a food bank!

- Watch films and read books written by Native Hawaiians!

My hope is that whoever sees this post will use it to educate themselves, their friends, and their families who are considering visiting.

My background is in sustainability and the environment, so that's what I know to suggest off the top of my head. If any Kānaka Maoli read this post and have suggestions to add, please do!

[thewickedbohemian]

[thewickedbohemian]

Please, more (gay) Elsbeth fanfiction!