fools-and-knaves

[fools-and-knaves]

more people need to give themselves permission to write and draw pornography

[fools-and-knaves]

Chronic pain things😎

[fools-and-knaves]

Being an actor keeps me sane. Yeah I have to work a day job but know what? When my day job is stressful and I want to scream I get to go hey wait. I have a scream scheduled at 7:30 tonight. Gotta save up. And then I go back to what I was doing.

[fools-and-knaves]

But what’s happened now is that this has happened so often with so many shows, that Netflix has created a self-fulfilling loop with many series that probably could have gone on to become valuable catalogue additions otherwise.

The idea is that since you know that Netflix cancels so many shows after one or two seasons, ending them on cliffhangers and leaving their storylines unfinished, it’s almost not worth investing in a show until it’s already ended, and you know it’s going to have a coherent ending and finished arc.

So you hold off watching new shows, even ones you might otherwise be interested in, because you’re afraid Netflix will cancel them. Enough people do this and surprise, viewership is low! And the show ends up cancelled. The loop is closed, and reinforced, because now there’s yet another example cited, causing even more people to be cautious the next time around. And now we’ve reached a point where unless a series is some sort of record-breaking fluke megahit (Wednesday) or established super franchise (Stranger Things), a second or third season feels like not even a coinflip, but more like 10-20% shot, at best.

Netflix’s cancelation policies have informed its viewers that if you want a show you like renewed, you need to watch it immediately, you need to tell all your friends to watch it immediately, and you need to finish all episodes in a short period of time. Anything less than that will result in likely cancelation, with the problem being, of course, that this runs contrary to the entire promise of a streaming service like Netflix in the first place. The core concept of “on demand” streaming was that ability to watch what you wanted, when you wanted to. But now binging a series in its opening weekend isn’t just an option to have, it feels almost mandatory, lest the negative data reflect poorly on a show you might otherwise like.

Something has broken with this model. It’s now created a system where creators should be afraid to make a series that dares to end on a cliffhanger or save anything for future seasons, lest their story forever be left unfinished. And viewers are afraid to commit to any show that isn’t a completely aired package lest they spend 10-30 hours on something that ends up unresolved, which has happened dozens and dozens of times, creating a vast “show graveyard” within Netflix, full of landmines viewers are going to be discovering for years.

More at the link.

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I've wondered if it's driving creators to their competitors too.

[fools-and-knaves]

''trans men wont suffer as much if you forcefully out them'' could you say that to an actual trans mans face though or can you only say it online? could you say any of this hateful shit if you had to actually articulate it face to face with a real person or are you only comfortable when its wrapped up in comfy internet discourse buzzwords?

[fools-and-knaves]

Eight girls from Beita, Nablus, carrying a hand-sewn outlawed Palestinian flag and singing Palestinian songs during the First Intifada, after Israeli soldiers dynamited 15 homes, killed a 16-year-old boy, and arrested all the village’s male adult residents. By George Azar.

[fools-and-knaves]

Actress, Miriam Margolyes: When you know your worth, you know your worth.

[fools-and-knaves]

November 2019 - Protesters in Chile bring a bard to their riot. [video]

[fools-and-knaves]

Quick what are you doing RIGHT now (besides scrolling Tumblr)

[fools-and-knaves]

once i beat the depression and the burnout and the anxiety and the loneliness and the exhaustion and the guilt and the awkwardness and the apathy and the low income and the chronic illness and the impatience and the vulnerability and the creative block and the capitalism and the cruelty THEN you'll see

[fools-and-knaves]

Not enough talk about how the show’s set in Dubai. Like, Dubai is this intensely class segregated society populated primarily by wealthy expatriates, that’s in the middle of the desert. They have a ski resort and the tallest building in the world and the deepest pool. No one actually lives there (the locals live in Abu Dhabi); it’s a ghost town populated by people who come for money, tourists, immigrant labor, models and sex workers. It’s beautiful and shiny and a giant playground and it’s got everything and nothing. There’s no income tax. It’s got a legal system so punishing cheating is technically still illegal. They import water and they import workers and they build this beautiful sparkling city. It’s vampiric. Louis doesn’t even seem to leave the house, he just stays inside and gets deliveries from the blood farm and plays in his fake little garden. Armand leaves to “hunt,” and sometimes he watches the ships come home. Dubai primarily exists to attract tourism and as a vanity project, like, come here, we’ve got cool stuff! It’s not really an interesting place to live. It’s interesting to visit, but it doesn’t have much of a local culture (because of the expatriate population and tourism focus), and it’s really not that big. It feels like a place Louis and Armand are hiding in, so they can be away from the big bad world and all its problems, exemplified by their very limited interactions with the outside world. Then Daniel brings the outside with him and all its problems.

I’m kind of talking around the problem, but I’m not super enthused to go into detail. But I think the setting is really important to the story, and it tells us a lot about who Louis and Armand are in 2022, for all their moralizing, narrativizing, and editorializing. And Dubai is beautiful. It’s beautiful and empty and a little fake. They don’t even have sewage.

[fools-and-knaves]

First ever recorded snowball fight (1897)

Happy Holidays And Merry Christmas To All!

[fools-and-knaves]

immortality as theft (you have to steal life from something else) immortality as parasitism (there is something else inside You that is keeping you alive and you become less of yourself more and more the longer it stays in you) immortality as violence (everything is trying to kill you because everything is supposed to die and the universe will always try to find a way to right the wrong that is You) you understand

[fools-and-knaves]

Incredibly rude that I have to teach myself how to have positive feelings. Those neural pathways are extremely rough terrain, compared to the well-worn paths of negativity and self-loathing.

What do you mean I have to do a productive thing and coach myself on how to feel accomplished from it?

What do you mean I have to do a fun activity and forcefully allow myself to enjoy it?

What do you mean I have to do relaxing things and coax myself to actually relax?

What do you mean all this comes naturally to some people as simple cause and effect and I'm out here fighting tooth and nail to feel good???

[fools-and-knaves]

If u want to write a story about a character that’s just you but hotter with a dark twisted backstory and magical powers and a pet falcon or something, I think u should just go ahead and do that. Who’s gonna stop you? The government?? Fuck the police.

[fools-and-knaves]

I think Brokeback Mountain made the general public mad in a way a lot of other gay movies before it hadn’t because it made people uncomfortable to think of gay men in careers associated with traditional masculinity. It’s okay if the gay guy on screen is a lisping effeminate theatre performer or troubled artist, that’s comfortable, they’re used to that stereotype, it’s okay if they exist in a world separated from them. The idea that there are gay men out there working rugged blue collar jobs in fields like construction, mining and animal agriculture makes them angry. We need to keep telling these stories.