lemondoddle

[lemondoddle]

we popping the BIGGEST bottles when nandermo happens tomorrow

[lemondoddle]

its been A WHILE since i’ve watched a show’s finale so i have a lot of thoughts.

first: i think a near-perfect metatextual ending is nbc’s community, and wwdits essentially tried and failed to be that. i think metatextuality for the sake of it is lazy actually. i think just poking the fourth wall is no longer meaningful or interesting (cough, deadpool), and there needs to be MEANING and REASON for the prolonged fourth wall break. sorry, writers, i’m not going to hail the finale as anything other than the sloppy mess that it is, just because it was So Meta.

this is also part of the larger issue i have with the finale which is that it refuses to be a finale in the sense that it doesn’t give us moments that respect the characters, and it doesn’t offer any of the characters the opportunity to have a satisfying arc. i lowkey felt like it was kind of disrespectful or at the very least super boring.

its almost like they wanted to do something different so bad that they decided they would PURPOSELY leave EVERY SINGLE. plot thread hanging. without realising that maybe finales usually wrap things up so that it feels satisfying and warm and like a living thing that can be put to rest?

it’s that thing abed says in community: tv has to be joyful. effortless. fun. tv defeats its own purpose when its trying to defeat other tv, or is proud or ashamed of itself for existing. its tv. its comfort.

and its sad bec i think it could have been satisfying without wrapping up EVERY plotline but it just refused to wrap ANYTHING up lol and it made it just not fun, not joyful, not effortless. it was just… okay…

although i think it could have worked. like i said last week i think it could have been clever and cool, but it’s the execution that was off. for it to have WORKED i think it would have needed to be more certain about itself. instead of leaning into the meta and having guillermo be obsessed w the fact that it is a finale, i think a far stronger choice would have been to carry on and end the finale like a true regular episode of the show. if they were SO insistent on this framing, I think this would actually bring out the thesis of “these people are Unchanging forever and ever and they will continue on and on into eternity bickering about stupid shit” so much better than having a character panic about the finale occurring despite the lack of resolution to what is ostensibly his arc throughout the entire show, and then just LEAVING THAT ARC UNRESOLVED. actually wild and horrible writing. why bring it up when you cant solve it omg.

i really disliked the stuff where they basically rolled a “best hits” clip. can everybody say LAZY!! together w me bec that is such a cheap and transparent way to try and gain some goodwill for a finale, based entirely on the merits of earlier writing decisions….

i also have things to say about how this finale (and the show more broadly) treats its queer characters and women :(

firstly. i adore nadja but i hated how they made her even more screechy this season. i feel like she had nothing to do and all her plotlines were super ancillary to the actual plot. and she just felt like a side character with no real moments to shine (except the episode w colin at zach woods’ house lol). also her finale thread comes out of nowhere (she starts talking ab how she’s an expert in human psychology and i’m like… was this ever set up…. am i going insane… what is happening right now…)

and the way that the guide was treated the whole season (and her finale “moment” being that the monster wants to cut off her head and tits and attach them to his gf… okay! and her being a vampire maga equivalent… okay!!!!)

and about queer people: the way that no one in this show, across 6 seasons, has ever had a meaningful queer relationship despite EVERY SINGLE MAIN CHARACTER BEING QUEER. yeah… thats not fun…

although i will accept the contention that perhaps the baron and the sire are technically in some kind of queer/ish relationship (technically the sire is some kind of creature but i suppose it is male-coded?? not sure?? much to think about actually) but they are still very much minor recurring characters

and every time they have sexual relations with a person of the same sex its ALWAYS played as a joke, and the joke is that haha isnt it so unexpected that theyre bi hahahahah. and tbh i actually adore the show for this bec i love the casual queerness but like at some point it gets a bit much when you realise that every long term r/s is straight. guillermo’s only r/s is one that disappears within a single episode, and then there’s the singular lesbian in the show whose sexuality is (literally) the punchline. i give the show a lot of grace bec i think that its fair and fun to have these sorts of punchlines but i think when EVERY conversation surrounding queerness devolves into a punchline, its a bit… eh…

that one nandor / guillermo scene in the finale after the nadja hypnosis… is… really idk. like i know some people love it obviously but to me its giving that scene from 2x03 (or maybe 3x01) of bbc sherlock where they make fun of a fangirl for her theory that sherlock and moriarty were a couple. like idk do you need to insult your audience like that in your last episode. i’m not personally a nandermo girl so i actually dont care ab them diminishing the ship, but it just felt like the same problem of using queer people as the punchline over and over and over. and its LITERALLY saying: haha maybe in your dreams nandor and guillermo are canon lol!! and its like okay why did we need to go there ??? why??? and idk i felt like they didnt want to make them canon but they still wanted to get credit for the door remaining open to potential offscreen nandor/guillermo with that last scene… like wow way to just NOT commit to anything.

its just so messy and wouldn’t be a problem if they just WRAPPED UP A SINGLE PLOTLINE ok im done talking lol

[lemondoddle]

never watch a tv series

[lemondoddle]

"Members of the Teamsters union went on strike at Amazon early Thursday in a labor action at seven facilities in four states coast to coast just ahead of the holiday gift-giving rush.

Amazon said that its operations will not be affected by any of the union’s actions. Although the Teamsters claim to represent 7,000 Amazon workers nationwide, that accounts for less than 1% of the company’s US workforce."

"Amazon shows no indication it is willing to reach a deal with the Teamsters or even recognizes that the union speaks for any of its workers, despite the union declaring that employees at numerous Amazon facilities have signed cards asking to join."

source 1

source 2

source 3

[lemondoddle]

The fall stoat is here!

If you'd like this baby as a print, it's part of the rewards of the month on my ko-fi (along with a sword bookmark)

[lemondoddle]

Imagine if you locked Light and Patrick Bateman in a room together. They would be having the most generic conversation but you wouldn’t be able to hear it over the sound of their overlapping internal monologues. There would be a few seconds where their monologues both play in sync to say something misogynistic.

[lemondoddle]

Why do they keep accidentally making him look like the coolest person alive don’t they want us to hate him

[lemondoddle]

[ID: a screenshot of the “Almost Christmas” Ace Attorney meme behind a slightly transparent stock image of an ice cube. End ID.]

it’s defrosting

[lemondoddle]

rb to have a super gay 2023

[lemondoddle]

babe. I know we’re all going thru a lot rn but I just wanna give u the heads up that sesame streets future is in jeopardy. hbo has chosen not to renew it for new episodes (a series that has been going since 1969) and the residents of 123 Sesame Street no longer have a home :(

[lemondoddle]

eat drink sleep play

[lemondoddle]

*tamp tamp*

ah i see youve noticed me tamping down the soft earth

[lemondoddle]

calling the cops on an unhoused person for being weird/rude/"scary" in public is so weird to me on such a fundamental level... like even before you get to political beliefs about jail and homelessness, you are beefing with a dude who has to live on the sidewalk. like sorry if he was rude to you dude sorry if he made you uncomfortable but to be fair he lives and sleeps on the fucking sidewalk. sorry if hes being too mentally unwell on the street late at night but like you gotta understand that he lives on the fucking sidewalk. sorry if he seems a little bit "off" today dude i think maybe its because he lives on the fucking goddamn sidewalk

[lemondoddle]

reminder that cis people can use whatever pronouns they want. a cis person changing their pronouns does not inherently make them trans, they are allowed to express themselves through whatever pronouns they believe suits them best, just as much as any trans person. this of course includes cis intersex people. the freedom to use whatever pronouns you like the best is for everyone

[lemondoddle]

kandinsky girl

[lemondoddle]

[ID. a tweet by jeff! (@ jeffreyyaaron) that reads "posting this on facebook and starting world war 4" attached is an image of two bikes with labels. the first bike with two circular wheels is labeled "homosexual marriage" and the second bike has one circular wheel and one square wheel, labeled "heterosexual marriage". end ID.]

[lemondoddle]

[ID. a photo of a stepping stone path through a flower garden where the stones are shaped like hearts. end ID.]