#I think I consumed a lot of dinosaur media as a child

[curiosityschild]

It's Dippo!

I was going to leave a snarky comment like wow have none of you ever watched Land Before Time because it's clearly the salamander from one of those movies but after extensive study of the Land Before Time Wikipedia page I discovered I was wrong actually! Dippo is from Dink, the Little Dinosaur! Which is a series I had completely forgotten about!

hammerhead salamander

[sophieinwonderland]

Science, and The Lie of Certainty

When you were a child, you probably learned in school what a dinosaur was. You probably learned about their habitats. You probably have seen their pictures in your textbooks.

Not to mention seeing them in movies like Jurassic Park, The Land Before Time, The Good Dinosaur, etc.

Except thinking about what dinosaurs look like, you probably realize that they have changed. Our understanding of what they most likely look like has changed. And in the media that we consume, the dinosaurs look differently today than they did 30 years ago.

Even in media, the dinosaurs depicted in The Good Dinosaur look different from what we saw in Jurassic Park.

As children, you were probably certain about what dinosaurs look like. They're in books, after all!

Maybe you still feel a certainty today. Maybe you think that the new more hairy and feathery dinosaurs that we would see in modern images are what they actually look like and this is going to stay the same and never change.

So allow me to inform you that, unfortunately, your certainty is misplaced.

The truth is, even as much as we know about dinosaurs today, we will probably never know exactly what they looked like. There are some things that just don't fossilize and won't be preserved.

We can guess at their habitats, at their behavior, and scientists can get a whole lot right.

But we will probably never have textbooks that will 100% portray what a dinosaur looked like.

And this is pretty sad to me. Because I like to know the answers to questions. I want to understand the natural world as much as possible. I would love to be able to see what a dinosaur actually looked like, be able to observe one up close... Preferably without getting eaten.

But some things just aren't possible.

There is no fault in admitting that.

But there is fault in clinging to a present idea of what a dinosaur looks like.

To pretend like science has all of the answers. That the popular theories about what dinosaur behavior might have been like is 100% confirmed. When in reality, there's a good chance that our understanding of them might change dramatically in the next 20 years, 50 years, and 100 years. And even a century later, we still won't be able to know everything.

There's a fantastic paleoart book you may have heard of called All Yesterdays that presents alternatives for how dinosaurs may have looked based on recent findings and some creative liberties in some cases.

One example of this is the Leaellynasaura. This is what this dinosaur would have looked like according to Wikipedia:

All Yesterdays presents an alternative possibility though based on the same skeleton.

This is dramatically different from what we see in the first image. But they give pretty solid reasoning for these liberties.

As seen before with Hypsilophodon, many small plant-eating dinosaurs will have their popular images greatly revised thanks to new discoveries of social behaviour and integument. Instead of looking like two-legged iguanas, these animals will have to be re-imagined with the extra possibilities offered by furry bodies and communal living habits. Here is one more small ornithischian re-interpretation, this time featuring Leaellynasaura. This dinosaur was discovered in Australia, where it lived during Early Cretaceous times, about one hundred and ten million years ago. At that time, Australia was located close to the Earth's geographic south pole. Although its climate was possibly not as cold as today's Antarctic, the axial tilt of our planet meant that Cretaceous Australia did not receive direct sunlight for long periods of time, and almost certainly experienced sub-zero temperatures. Aside from being a polar dinosaur, Leaellynasaura was also extraordinary for its immensely long tail, which was almost three times as long as its body. Nobody knows why Leaellynasaura had such a long tail, or what it used it for. Theories range from the tail being used as a climbing aid, a sexual and social display feature, or a long, shaggy “scarf” that the dinosaur wrapped around itself as protection from the cold. It has even been suggested that the tail aided the animal in swimming! Drawing on these facts, we reconstructed Leaellynasaura as a rotund furball that scurried peacefully about in the polar forests of Australia's past. We imagined its long tail as a thin, signalling "flagpole" that helped it identify and keep close to members of its herd. No doubt some people will find this reconstruction preposterous, and perhaps they will be right. However, we felt that not enough dinosaurs were reconstructed as "cute" beasts, whereas in nature, polar animals can look quite pulchritudinous under layers of fat, muscle, fur and other insulation.

Later on in the book is a section entitled All Todays which, to really drive the points home about how little we understand about how dinosaurs may have looked, tries to imagine how future paleo-artists might interpret creatures who exist today based on the same errors we've made.

For example, going with the theme of how fat doesn't fossilize, someone from the future might make this sort of reconstruction of a common modern animal:

Alternatively, perhaps swans could be reconstructed as preadory wingless monsters.

And for the faults of assuming all dinosaurs were scaly in the past, it could be equally dangerous to assume that now that we've discovered some with fur or feathers that we should extrapolate to all dinosaurs.

Such extrapolations could lead to fallacious assumptions, like how a future paleontologist might assume that because rats had fur, the same must be true for iguanas.

There are so many more examples in this book that I would love to share and discuss because it's just fantastic.

But I have to end this post at some point.

So let me just bring this back to the main point. Which is that we know very little. The more you learn, the more you realize how little we actually know for certain.

Certainty of science is often a lie.

As true as this is about paleontology, it's true of a lot of other fields too. It's true of psychology, of history, of neuroscience, of biology, of astronomy. While there is a lot that we do know, there's a lot more that just ends up being our best guesses.

And that's okay.

It's okay to accept that we still have so much more to learn about the world around us.

This is something that should be embraced.

There is safety in the comfort of the lie of certainty. But it is a lie. It's a cozy blanket that was weaved around us when we were children and learning about the world, convincing us that we had all the answers when we don't by covering our heads to the larger world outside the blanket.

And while pulling off that blanket and realizing that we don't know everything is scary, we NEED to pull it off to be able to acknowledge that we have room to learn and grow.

We need to be able to proudly say, "I don't know, and that's okay because it means I have more to learn!"

So please keep learning and keep questioning everything!

[artobotsrollout]

ROASTING REVIEWING KNOCKOFF TRANSFORMERS

Part 1

So it's no secret that I enjoy collecting TF figures. My collection isn't massive but I like to collect my favourite characters! Hasbro figures (at least the first series released at the start of a continuity is. I can't speak to some of the later releases) are usually p decent quality.

Decent faces. Thought out weight distribution so even characters like TfP Starscream can stand. Smooth joints. Basically an all around decent toy.

Of course with any piece of media there are the knockoffs.

Let's get into the first one

DINOSAUR Battle $4

Montoy

I saw these and thought they were cute right? "ooh a bunch of mini transformable dinosaurs"

However, the moment I look a little closer I already found things that bug me.

Review under Readmore

* Please be aware that this entire post is meant to be jokey. I'm not actually angry about any of these things. I'm exaggerating for emphasis and humour. *

The pictures of the dinosaurs to the left of each toy are not the same colours as the actual toys in the packaging. It's possible maybe the colours are random but from what I could see all the packages had the same colours??

Another issue... Maybe it's not as big of a deal to most people but as a paleo-nerd it really bugs me. So they label which dinosaurs they are right?? Well...

CRYPTOCLIOUS IS A PLESIOSAUR (Think long necked swimming dinosaur. Think Loch Ness monster) which if you look at the figure

IT HAS FREAKING FEET

A better name would be diplodocus or brachiosaurus OR Yknow what I'd even accept the outdated term Brontosaurus for this guy. At least it's the long necked land living dinosaur and not the water dwelling sea reptile.

I FEEL LIKE to have put down Cryptocleus you had to google it. So if you had to google you'd have seen that cryptoclious has FREAKING FLIPPERS.

I don't usually get upset about dinosaur mistakes bc like... I don't want to be that person who yells at people for not knowing dinosaurs / extinct creatures. Lord know I have gaps in my own knowledge. It's more just baffling to me that they picked a species that isn't even a dinosaur like the toy is. And it's such a weirdly weirdly specific and not well known species too.

I haven't even opened them yet and for some reason?? I expected every dinosaur to transform but apparently they are just meant to combine?? Into a wholeass dude? And that's it?

Anyways here they are

Despite my misgivings and the definitely cheap plastic used some of the designs are p cute.

Only the tip of the wings flap apparently 😂 the rest of the wing is permanently out oof.

Poor T-Rex. This is as high on his body as his head goes. He is doomed to forever fall flat on his face. 😔 Truly tragic

I appreciate the stegosaurus having constant finger guns 😂

The joints are not great. Some are okay while others are kinda tough to move. The pieces come off too easily as well.

Time to make it into a man.

....

........

...........

How the Frick is this a man?!?

This is so goofy looking help 😂

Amazing.

Now I'm gonna leave the joking mode and be serious for the conclusion.

These are not great quality but they have cute designs. The designs are fun if a bit odd at some parts. Cheap plastic and not super well thought out toy. Then again I didn't expect much for $4CAD

If you're someone who likes painting toys then these could be fun to use as a base.

I don't have children and haven't worked very much with children so take what I say with a grain of salt. For a child who is delicate with their toys and old enough to not eat everything it's not terrible. Could be cute in a gift bag from a birthday party. Wouldn't recommend for young children. There's a lot of easily removable small parts that could be consumed and be a choking hazard. Not to mention idk how toxic the material is. Also wouldn't recommend for children who play very roughly with their toys. Parts will go missing easily and some of the parts are thin and feel like it wouldn't take very much to break them.

The Combiner mode is kinda pathetic so if you are getting the toy, get it for the cute robot dinosaurs and not for the robot they turn into.

[scmsdivinecultists]

What your fave SCM god says about you

I read one psychology article and now I’m all knowing. Hope at least one of these points apply to you simps

If your favourite is Leon, you are one of the following:

Youngest child

Outcast or the “popular” kid

Daddy issues

Your childhood dream was either to be royalty or be rich

You hyperfixate to many things

You might say ur not charismatic but you’ve had at least more than 1 person you rejected a love confession to

“You’re wrong, I’m right, shut up.”

You don’t fall in love easily but once you do, you fall hard

You like smug bastards or you have a bondage fantasy

Your favourite voltage game is one of the following: Kissed by the Baddest Bidder, Court of Darkness, Masquerade’s Kiss, or Kings of Paradise

You have fairy lights in your room filled with pictures or posters

You had a massive friend group but at least 5 people have left from then to now

You cling onto memories like they’re a lifeline

You have the latest phone or more than 3 leisure electronics

If your favourite is Scorpio:

You can’t be any taller than 5′6

You probably listen to bands and can’t go anywhere without your headphones

Really creative

Your favourite Shakespeare play was Hamlet or Macbeth

Have had or is going through an emo phase

Hates writing essays

Have 3 best friends max

You have definitely bought albums, posters, or merch of your faves

ur probably a weeb

you’ve broken a bone or you’re very knowledgeable in the medical field/how to harm the human body for some reason

dark humour is the best humour

Your friends are very concerned for you because of said humour

You like watching people play Monopoly bc of the chaos

into so many fandoms that you know the lore of your faves more than you know the material you learn at school

If your favourite is Teorus:

You are an only or youngest child

Spoiled

Daddy/Mommy issues

Abandonment issues

You feel like you fade into the background/don’t contribute much to the group

You feel like you are often forgotten

You’re close with your cousins

You probably have a pet

Taylor Swift or 1D for life

Have definitely threatened to kill or beat someone up despite you intimidating no one

You want to play an important role but you are so not the leader type

You like Ouran Host Club

You like the outdoors

You probably like To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

Your favourite disney princess is Rapunzel or Cinderella

If your favourite is Huedhaut:

You are definitely a romantic

You’re not an air sign (Gemini, Aquarius, or Libra)

You’re a moron or you make bad decisions and Hue is there to help balance that out

Chances are you read more fanfic than actual books

Your system is 70% caffeine

For some reason you have lots of random trivia

Have you considered therapy for your suppressed trauma?

Dungeons and Dragons fan

You’re really into alcohol or you despise it

Loyalty is the trait you admire most

You want to feel like a sassy and classy bitch but you gave up after 2 days

Your favourite ship trope is enemies to lovers or slow burn

A lot of pent up angst but you hide it 

you put other people > yourself bc you don’t want them to make the same mistakes you did

Why do you have so many memes saved?

Why do you have reaction pictures for everything?

If your favourite is Dui:

You’re probably not into guys

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

Either you’re a precious sunshine child or you are the most fucked up human in your friend circle

You have a choking kink

You either take sides in fights or you’re the middle ground

You make lots of threats but no one is acc taking them seriously

You probably are a massive manipulator

You’re psychotic and have violent tendencies 

Your best friend lives far away from you/ you have an internet friend that gets you more than your IRL ones

You say honesty is the best policy but you lie the most

Everyone comes to you for advice but you think you’re the most mentally unstable

You have identity issues and u change ur mind all the time 

Whatever you were as a kid, you’re probably the opposite of that now

If your favourite is Ichthys:

You are attached to the characters with the most trauma

You must not be a clean freak or your room is equally as messy as Ikky’s

Oldest or middle child (either way u have siblings) 

Never got to go to an amusement park as a kid 

Want attention/didn't get enough attention as a kid

You want Ichthys’ parents to adopt u bc they are the family stability you crave

Unresolved trauma and definitely not mentally stable 

You liked dinosaurs as a kid

You had pet fish as a kid and they all died bc you overfed them

Using anything else to escape ur reality 

Cartoons > real life actors

Probably hate seafood or afraid of the sea (ironic as it is)

Nostalgia is your best friend

Hurt/Comfort is your favourite AO3 tag

You collect random shit or you have a memory box

You are the reason child leashes were invented

You got into real dangerous situations as a kid and you’re wondering how you lived through that

Your comfort characters all got it the worst or are dead

If your favourite is Zyglavis:

How are those high expectations treatin ya? 

You either want to get into medical, sciences, or law

When you were younger you got enrolled in extra classes (swimming, piano, ballet, etc)

Your parents encouraged creativity until you got older and they told you to choose a more “realistic” goal

Good grades = everything and you’ll pull all-nighters to finish tasks or assignments

Former gifted student 

The actual smart kid in class 

YOU HAVE SELF ESTEEM/CONFIDENCE ISSUES

80s are not good enough for you or your parents

Overachiever for any reason 

Sleep? What is sleep?

A dom or a brat

You have strict parents or you have had pretty loose rules growing up

You had a lot of friends in grade school and now you have like 4 friends

You are no longer human, you’re just a walking husk of stress

If your favourite is Krioff:

You want to fuck one of Krioff’s family members

You have siblings

A pyromaniac or deathly afraid of fire

Commitment issues

You watch or ur a sports fan

You own an iPhone 6

You’ve ate forbidden items or you’ve thought about it (the fish tank pebbles, erasers, glass, slime, etc)

Everyone thinks you’re the awkward kid but no you’re just shy

You actually like the ocean waves

Once people get to know you, they got a whole thing coming for them

You either suck at driving or can’t drive

A great listener but you don’t feel like you give good advice

Conflict is a no no for you

You definitely had a glow up

You’ve befriended the seniors growing up

You either don’t like kids or you love them

You have a sweet tooth and everyone questions how you are not diabetic with the amount of sweets you’ve consumed

If your favourite is Aigonorus:

You’re either an insomniac or a hypersomniac. Whichever one, you don’t know how much sleep is enough sleep

You’re probably a sub

Commitment or abandonment issues

Desperate for validation and appreciation

touch/love/attention starved

You have a stuffed animal collection or you still have those childhood stuffed animals

You love the idea of love but you are not ready to deal with breakups

You wish you didn’t care but you care too much

Your aesthetic is cutecore

Probably into maid cat boys

Studio Ghibli or Sanrio stan

Comfort > style anyday

You only own sneakers nothing else

If your favourite is Partheno:

You’re definitely not into just guys 

You’re a drama kid and you are here for the tea whether it involves you or not

you have the receipts for everything

You were the one kid that played “family” or “house” every recess

no one knows where you get all your cute shit but it serves

have been suspected of witchcraft or considered the dark arts

Stole makeup from your fam as a kid and played with it

HIDE THE TRAUMA. HIDE THE PAST.

You already have a senior quote picked out

You’re either really horny or you just want to cry over how much you love so and so

“Why do men-”

You really want to own that Partheno doll in that one CG

Your most used social media app is Instagram or Snapchat

Your favourite demon brother from Obey Me is most likely Asmodeus 

If your favourite is Tauxolouve:

Your favourite KBTBB guy is either Baba or Mamo

You’re into music or theatre

Your ideal date is to go to an opera or a museum

You say you like/dislike something but end up changing ur mind later or when you try it out

In your opinion, the music nowadays is just not it

You recently found a receipt from Walmart for something you bought 5 months ago

Anniversaries are important

When making decisions, you pick the worst possible one

Your most expensive clothing items are your shoes or jewelry

You wish you could attend a ball and marry into royalty, like Cinderella

You like the idea of soulmates or string of fate 

Obviously or secretly insecure/self deprecating but you’ll raise all hell if your loved ones talk shit abt themselves

You want your partner to propose first

You like the underrated characters or your favourite characters are unappreciated

If your favourite is Karno you are:

You have childhood trauma, some of you are just not aware of it

You’re the parent of the group

You enjoy ships that have a mom/dad dynamic

Either you’re banned from the kitchen or you’re the one banning people from the kitchen

You were threated with the slipper or you threaten with the slipper

As a kid, you enjoyed Dora or Ni Hao Kai Lan

Your favourite trope is the found family trope

Either you’re an example to your family or you keep getting compared to other kids

An angel around the family but a chaotic bastard with others

You’re probably into some really kinky shit

You like Dangonronpa

Spiritual or religious

Probably had an imaginary friend 

You decided you were gonna turn your life around after reading/watching something and went back to the hot mess you were in 3 days

[doorbloggr]

Interlude #3 What's on my mind in between blogposts

Hey so there's stuff I definitely want to make full posts about, but I lack the motivation and time set aside to write a full article. That's not to say that there's not stuff to write about, but I need to gather my thoughts.

Part of the idea of these Interlude blogposts is to give a behind the scenes on my mental and creative health, so I'm not gonna hide any of my future writing behind the curtains here.

In terms of Media Recommendations, I've been watching an Anime called Fooly Cooly, more often written as FLCL. And it's a time. The most anime of all time. Absolutely whacky. So I definitely want to recommend it, but I need to finish it first. It's not a long series, but I don't leave myself a lot of spare time to watch it.

Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak has been taking a LOT of my spare time lately, and unfortunately for a creative, it is easier to consume content that contribute it. So while there's stuff I definitely could be drawing or writing about, today for example, I spent most of 4 hours after dinner playing Monster Hunter instead. It's super addictive.

I'm terms of the drawing ideas? Most of that is related to Table Top Role Playing Games with friends. Since our D&D group recently wrapped up a couple of campaigns, we've had opportunities to start thinking about more. The first one to pick up is in a completely different system to D&D 5e, a Pokemon system called Pokemon Table Top Unite.

Artistically, this means that session art would feature our trainers and Pokemon, and although I'm keen to get into it, I'm not as confident in drawing characters with modern designs. D&D art has sort of trained me to enjoy fantasy designs more, but Pokemon trainers are a different breed of character design. Pokemon themselves are a whole other kettle of fish. Not super confident, since if you draw a pokemon even a little off model, it sort of ruins it.

This is literally the only art I've done for the campaign so far.

We've recently finished Session 2 of the Pokemon Campaign, and I still have yet to actually draw even art of the contributing player characters, and I'm really stressed that I'm falling behind.

Further down the road, we play to play an existing D&D module called Princes of the Apocalypse, and I have been obsessing over the design and build of my character for that campaign for months. I plan to play a Tiefling Bard who's Fiendish silver tongue gave them gifted child syndrome, and in their adult life, they have imposter syndrome. This is 100% me projecting my own insecurities onto a character and hoping working through an adventure with this character will help me with my issues.

Various designs I've used for this Tiefling Bard character

Ok finally, the number 1 reason people follow my blog, the dinosaur posts. Recently a new, very whacky dinosaur called Jakopil was described and its very unique. I want to make a short article describing the complexities of this dinosaur and maybe also talk about the bigger group it comes from, the Thyreophorans. I've never talked about Stegosaurs and Ankylosaurs in great detail before, so it'll be something new. But because it's new, and there's a lot to read up on for Jakopil, I'm not super confident in starting writing on this right away.

Here's hoping my mind settles and I find the opportunity to write about all these qualms of mine in proper articles later down the line.

Signing off, Mitch, Doorbashr, @supereffectivemoonblast. Whoever you know me as, the nerd who loves to nerd out.

[devondraws]

Megastar shippers are mad again :o!! big shocker

TW ed // abu$e // Megastar clearly // a$sault  // $elf H@rm

So it’s been made clear to me I was ‘exposed’ on Twitter for hating Megastar here's the main thing. none of yall expose me, I'm open about hating this toxic abusive ship, I don’t hide it and I never once have. You don’t need to censor my name in fact, I prefer you don't. I never said or would ever to say to a victim, I have no regard or sympathy for what they went through especially not as one myself through multiple abusers. What I DONT have sympathy for is disregarding other victims for your arguably coping strategy. I would take away anyone's abuse if I could, but when you choose to ‘cope’ by promoting, fet!shizing, and romanticizing the awful terrible experience that is abuse, I will tell you to your face the damage you do to others. 

I’ll start with the big argument, it’s a coping mechanism, but coping doesn’t mean good and it is VERY dangerous to think so. One of the many I coped with the abuse from my longest abuser was starving myself and not taking my medication. It made me feel strong, and feel like I was in total control, but that did not make it good. Especially being chronically ill, I was quite literally abusing MYSELF. When it comes to a much less physical way, I coped by making fun of others when I was around 13-15 especially ‘SJWs’ I made fun of kids that are autistic (knowing I was myself but not wanting to admit to that mentally) I made fun of people really who just weren’t like me, furries, band kids, scene kids. It was a lot of self-hatred and it did in a way heal me and do what I wanted it to do a coping strategy but it wasn’t okay, it wasn’t good, and importantly it was intensely unhealthy and worsed what I went through in the long run. Heres where Megastar shippers may be shocked I did megastar. Not long, but I did, around the age of 11-12. I idolized it, and I listened to the fandom really, I said it made me feel good and it made me happy hell I even said I wanted a ‘Megatron’ in my life. Boy did I get one. and because of the ship at that. I met a much older girl and we would DM on Insta, she sent things I shouldn’t have seen and audios I shouldn’t have heard. She said outright I was her ‘Starscream’ and that Megatron did ‘he had to’ to keep Starscream as his own and that he did what he did out of pure love and I ate it up. If being abused love I wanted to be abused, I just wanted to belong. But looking back the fandom's idea and admiration for megastar was very bad on my 11-year-old mind. KEEP IN MIND the show is not for adult audiences, I was a targeted consumer and I listened and learned from the adults, from the fandom, as any child does. So when I saw both the fet!ishzation of MLM and of abuse. I learned that to be normal. And from that, I learned that to be how I should COPE when I’m sad, I should be just like them because everyone says they are happy. I'm not the only, though other people's stories aren't my to tell, I can say they mention a$sault, physical abuse, mental, etc. I shouldn’t have to explain to mostly 15-25-year-olds, why that's not true and why just because you cope with something doesn’t make it healthy.

A second big ‘argument’ I see is, ‘fiction doesn’t affect reality’ ‘it’s fictional’ ‘its a cartoon’. I don’t understand this ‘debate’ because we have seen SO. MANY. TIMES. OF. FICTION. AFFECTING. (guess what) R E A L I T Y. Take, for example, finding Nemo and both the mass flushing of pet fish and also the mass abuse of Clownfish because every child wanted a ‘Nemo’. We see this again when we look into dinosaurs actually! In mainstream media the idea of dinosaurs being scaly, reptile-like, etc. that's not true and we’ve known it's not true! Dinos are ‘speculated’ to be feathered and colorful hence why they came to be BIRDS. But that idea, because we saw in movies, stuck. And most people who don’t research (and that's most people) only saw the fictional version, that version is what stands out in their minds, to them that is a dinosaur. After 101 Dalmatians so many, I mean SO MANY, kids wanted a Dalmatian. They are amazing dogs but the thing is they need a little more training, well parents didn’t want a real dog they wanted a movie dog, a cartoon dog, and so they got puppies. When those puppies grew and became ornery and no effort was put in place to train them, they were given away in mass. We KNOW fiction affects reality, we know human brains can’t process some fictional characters (especially in anime) as cartoons. We cry over fiction, we laugh over it, we learn from it, we put morals in it for kids, I don’t get why some people still argue it doesn’t happen and I’m not going to argue with ignorance. 

Essentially here's the points. You CAN cope with Megastar, but you shouldn’t, it provides no actual help it can actually soften you to abusers, it warps the idea of abuse, it romanticizes it, (a big part of it is YOAI which is fet!shizaton of MLM) and it NORMALIZES it by being commonly consumed and a large part of the Transformers, and TFP’s specifically, fandom. Fiction DOES affect reality what you do online, say online, show online, especially to minors, is heavily altering to a mindset and to people in correlation with what's being shown. You can hate me all you want, censor my name all you want, but no one is arguing besides ‘I like it and I said so’ you can say so, I can’t silence you and I wouldn’t, but when you neglect and turn down what is blatant problems and obvious issues in front of you? That is no problem of mine :)

You ship abuse and if you are gonna keep doing it, at least own up <3

(also you guys can ship abuse without it affecting reality but I can’t make a joke hrm hmm)

edit: for context for the last part I made a joke about STARSCREAM killing megastar shippers. I said killing yes but how is that death wish did yall really think i was like. bout to summon the guy I’m confused by you guys make it make sense.

Edit 2: in the future i WILL clarify jokes better ill put that slash thing i think its /j. To me and my friends it was and still is obvious but i understand the concern. Ive gotten multiple ACTUAL threats of being doxed, assulted, etc. so clarifying wasnt a need in my head and ill be better at doing so next time i totally get how to some people specially those with truama it could have been seen as scary and im sorry i didnt clarfiy as i should!

[justfinishedreading]

The Diary of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

Spoilers (Sort of)

Before reading this book I had never read anything by Mark Twain, but I had heard that he was a great comedic writer and I was looking forward to my first experience of his writing. The Diary of Adam and Eve is his somewhat comedic and satirical version of the biblical legend, told in diary entry form, alternating between Adam and Eve. It’s important to explain that The Diary of Adam and Eve is not actually a single work of fiction; during his lifetime Mark Twain wrote seven short texts on the theme of Adam and Eve, published in different literary journals. These texts focus on different ideas within the context of the legend and do not always follow the same storyline or describe the same events in a consistent way.

The first text contains ‘Extracts from Adam’s Diary’ and ‘Eve’s Diary’, we’re first introduced to Adam (of course), he talks about the arrival of a curious and chatty creature who calls herself Eve. Adam is a solemn and territorial recluse; his diary entries are brief and mostly talk about how annoyed he is that Eve keeps hanging around him and thwarting his frequent attempts to run away. It is Eve who introduces the word “We” to Adam, before her, the possibility of the concept of a collective never occurred to him.

Eve’s diary entries are much longer and philosophical, in them she questions the existence of the creatures in the garden of Eden, their nature, and her own existence and feelings. She examines lions and tigers and tells Adam she believes their teeth look like they were designed for killing and consuming flesh, yet these animals currently eat grass and flowers. Adam tells her that animals killing each other would bring Death to the garden, which is something that has not yet happened. Eve’s observation is telling us that if animals were already “designed” this way, to inflict death, then it is with the anticipation of an event the creator already knows will happen. According to the Bible, Disease, Pain and Death were released onto the world once Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit, however if God’s world was already designed and created in preparation for such an event, was it ever Eve and Adam’s fault for disobeying an order given by a being who already knew the order would be disobeyed? With time recluse Adam warms up to Eve, although he doesn’t seem to have many redeeming qualities, one thing I will say for Adam is that I don’t recall him ever even thinking about blaming Eve for their “downfall”.

There are some amusing scenes in this first set of texts, for example Eve gives birth to Abel while Adam is away travelling, when he comes back Eve explains nothing and Adam is perplexed by the baby and keeps trying to conduct experiments on it. He is also obsessed with trying to capture another one from the wild. Twain gives both Adam and Eve a child-like wonder and amazement at the world and entertains us with stories of Eve trying to fetch stars from the night sky and wondering who stole them when day approaches.

Eve is convinced that she is some sort of experiment. The way the story of Adam and Eve is interpreted is usually that Adam was made in God’s image, God then took a rib from Adam and made Eve, therefore Adam is closer to God, and Eve is somewhat inferior because she is a copy of a copy. But if we think about what happens with anything that is created, the first creation is never the best version, usually with each new creation it is better than the last, it is improved. In this light we can view Eve not inferior to Adam but superior.

Eve tells us that she sometimes acts silly, or she conceals things from Adam in order to save him from feeling embarrassment, she realizes that he lacks some of the abilities she has and she does certain things to dumb herself down in order to not hurt his pride. This is something many women can relate to, myself included: needing to tip-toe around some men who have fragile egos and high tempers, this is one of the amazing things about this text, it was written a century ago, and by a man, and yet it is refreshingly feminist. We’re currently going through another feminist revival, and during a time when a lot of machismo and sexual harassment by celebrates is being exposed on social media, and we are losing faith in men in the public eye, it’s hopeful to read a work like The Diaries of Adam and Eve and find a male voice not blinded by ego, not threatened, but with an understanding nature.

Regarding humour, there are certain jokes that aren’t very funny, that are baffling and which I can only presume are related to some event or common joke specific to the time and place Twain was writing in. However there are other amusing scenes, for example interactions with dinosaurs are always funny, in this text and the others we see that Twain has an interest in science and the scientific method, the existence of dinosaurs is proven and Twain is not about to leave them out of Eden, so we get Eve trying to ride a brontosaurus, he “followed her like a pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.” Eve, bright as she is, is also humble, she notices that several animals, particularly the dog and the elephant seem to understand her, and talk, but she does not understand them, and in this case they must be her superiors. In a later text Adam and Eve find a pterodactyl. They name him Terry.

This first section ends on a bit of a sad note, Eve theorizes why she loves Adam, that it is not a product of reasoning, she naively states that she would still love him even if he abused and beat her, words which made me very sad to read. In the end she says she is “only a girl, and the first that examined this matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I have not got it right.” It is a true portrayal of First Love, of thinking that it’s noble to love someone even if they hurt you, and yet Eve has the wisdom to perceive that her understanding of this may change with time. In a later text Eve describes meeting Adam for the first times and thinking he must be some sort of reptile based on how emotionless and inactive he was.

From Adam’s analysis of their love we have simply, and touchingly, these few words written on Eve’s grave: “Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.”

The above points all relate to the first text in this collection, and it was the one I liked most, the one that gave me what I most expected. I would have loved a full novel written in this style, with themes and events expanded upon, but I can understand how it would have been financially and socially damaging for Twain to write such a book in the early 20th century American south, the novel would have ended up banned and part of book-burnings by religious groups across the country, then and now. It’s a shame, there’s are so many good ideas here, surely somewhere someone has written a novel on Adam and Eve – I should do some research on this.

Now regarding the other six texts, they all have differing tones, they were clearly written with specific different themes in mind, written as one-off literary amusements, imagine the opinions section in a newspaper, with articles bouncing off ideas contemporary to the time. I’m just going to mention a few aspects that I found interesting without really describing each individual article.

Eve writes “For we were children without nurses and without instructors. There was no one to tell us anything.” Throughout all these texts by Twain, God is absent, we hear Adam mention once or twice that he was instructed by God to not eat the fruit, but that’s it. Later when Satan appears, Adam and Eve are full of questions. In this imagining of Eden there is no dialogue between God and Adam and Eve, and before those of you who are more religious rush to protest, why should Twain not write their relationship as it currently is for so many of the Christian faith today? Sure there are some who say they speak to God, have a special relationship with him, but for the vast majority there is no clear two-way conversation going on. As Eves says, they were left alone, they discovered, HAD to discover, things by trial and error.

There’s a moment when just before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve have a discussion about what is Good, what is Evil, what is Pain, Disease and Death. Since they have experienced none of these, since they have seen none of these, they have absolutely no concept of what they could mean. How do you explain colours to someone born blind? So, whilst they were warned that eating the fruit would release a bunch of these (completely unknown) concepts, they decide to go right ahead.

Some other humour to note: Eve writes “the ability to spell correctly is a gift; that it is born in a person, and is a sign of intellectual inferiority. By parity of reasoning, its absence is a sign of great mental power.” As someone with a level of dyslexia myself, I welcome this thought. A good story from Adam is when he and Eve asked Noah what happened to all the dinosaurs? “he coloured and changed the subject.” After some persuasion he blames it on his sons for not carrying out their duties correctly, he then says that the dinosaurs and some other animals were left behind because they knew they would be needed for fossils one day… and also there were some miscalculations regarding the ark…

Amongst the jokes and the theological theories, there’s also commentary on the current state of affairs: Eve muses that the human population is too great in number and will consume the earth to devasting effects. This written by Twain a hundred years ago. Wow, what would he think if he saw us now?

There is a truly gut-wrenching and touching moment when Adam and Eve experience Death for the first time; Cain and Abel fight, Abel is hit, but none of them know what death is, they do not recognize or understand the moment he dies, instead they take him to his bed and wait, and wait, for Abel to wake up. All they comprehend is sleep, and therefore they presume that that’s what’s happening. Eve writes of spending hours by Abel’s side, covering his cold body with wool in a futile attempt to warm his body. There’s another diary entry describing her anguish as Eve begins to suspect that this might be what Death is.  

I’d like to end with a small but significant sentence, Adam writes about Eve: “She was never able to keep her composure when she came upon a relative; she would try to kiss every one of these people, black and white and all.” Apart from the fact that all other people of colour are ignored and humanity is basically divided into just white people and black people, and that nowadays the need to specify black and white people in such a sentence almost has the oppose effect and actually sounds racist, but given the time, and the fact that Mark Twain was born in the south, it is a sentence that has good intentions behind it, it is a sentence that is saying: we are all relatives of Adam and Eve, independent of colour. We are all family.

Review by Book Hamster

[neriad13]

Favorite Media of 2020!

There was a large swathe of this year during which I was unable to concentrate on reading (as there probably was for a lot of other typically-frequent readers), so, as a result, I ended up listening to way more podcasts and watching way more TV shows. Not a bad thing, but boy did I read way less books than usual. 

However, for the first time in a while, the amount of fiction I read was about equal with the amount of nonfiction I read. Last year’s reading resolution was to read more fiction, so...success??

I did read a lot of phenomenal fiction when I had the energy to do so this year.

Books - Fiction

The Martian - Andy Weir

This book is the hardest of the hard sci fi I think I’ve ever read. Every single aspect of it is minutely researched and calculated. The author literally wrote equations to write this book. The science is insanely impressive and yet...it never loses its sense of humor or humanity in the mix. In fact, they’re the thing that drives the entire story.

Warlock Holmes - G. S. Denning

Way early in the year I was strolling down the fantasy aisle at the library, when this cover caught my eye. I took one look at it, went “oh, this looks silly” and...proceeded to devour the entire series in a matter of weeks. 

It is very silly. Especially when it’s pointing out something that was silly in the original. There’s something so satisfying about Watson immediately answering Holmes with the correct number of steps in their flat when he’s trying to make his point about how most people don’t pay attention to things like that.

World War Z - Max Brooks

Every single scenario in here could easily support an entire book. A park ranger whose job it is to contain the yearly zombie spring thaw? HECK YES. I’d read tens of thousands of words about that. A Chinese admiral who defaults, steals the government’s premier submarine, loads it up with the families of his underlings and takes to the sea for years to live in the maritime economy that has sprung up in a world where everyone is trying to escape the shore? That could be an entire movie on its own. 

Every chapter was more creative than the last and as a huge worldbuilding fan, this book was so, so fun.

An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon

In which a queer, neurodivergent protagonist solves a mystery on a spaceship which is a microcosm of antebellum era politics! This had a beautiful, mysterious, wonder-inducing writing style and it was a joy to peer into the wildly differing minds of every single character.

Books - Nonfiction

Underland - Robert MacFarlane

In every chapter, the author visits a different hole. Basically.

It’s an exploration of caves, catacombs, mines, nuclear waste facilities and the hidden underbelly of every forest. It was fascinating. And fundamentally changed how I look at time.

Rejected Princesses - Jason Porath

After years of having enjoyed the web entries, I finally got my hands on the first book and was not disappointed. 

There are the more entertaining entries, of course and the art is as charming as always, but what struck me the most were the more difficult stories. The deeper you go into this book, the more horrific it gets. The author does not hold back on the indignities suffered by the historical figures he writes about. It’s terrible...but also very, very illuminating.

The Gift of Fear - Gavin De Becker

This book - while maintaining all the essential information in it - could be pared down to one sentence in a sea of blank pages and that sentence would be: trust your instincts. End of story.

But in a world where instincts are either customarily suppressed or going haywire, it’s not quite that easy, which is why I’m glad there is more to the book.

I picked it up thinking “ha ha, betcha can’t help a person with anxiety who fears all the time already” and...what it actually ended up doing was giving me the tools to differentiate between real fear and unfounded fear. And did help with the anxiety quite a bit.

Fanfiction

Watch Over Me - cakeisatruth

A Bioshock fic from the point of view of a little sister who is learning how to trust and be an ordinary child again. Dark and sweet. An excellent combo.

All That is Visible - Ultima_Thule

An exploration of a minor character in a well researched historical context? That’s my jam! How did they know?? A Tron fic about what it’s like to be a female programmer in the 70s.

Graphic Novels

The Adventure Zone - McElroys + Carey Pietsch

Yesssssssss! It was a running-to-the-library type event whenever my library got a new volume in. The jokes are so good, the art is so lively and the ways in which they added the details that the podcast couldn’t necessarily get across is *mwah*

Trail of Blood - Shuuzou Oshimi

Hoooooooly shit, the art style of this one!! It’s beautifully detailed and expressive, sure, but the real draw for me was how it changes with the emotional state of the main character. There’s this sequence in which he’s consumed with anxiety at school and all of his classmates become blurry and unfocused, until they can’t be recognized as humans at all, that particularly sticks with me.

It’s a horror story about a kid who witnesses his loving mother push his cousin off a cliff for seemingly no reason and is then obligated by her to keep the secret, which is eating him from the inside out. It’s so good, guys, please read it.

Level Up - Gene Lien Yang/Thien Pham

A story about a kid who is haunted by his late father’s desire for him to become a gastroenterologist. It’s funny and touching and the ending gave me what I can only describe as a feeling of exhilaration. Y’know that feeling when something unexpected but not out of left field, perfectly in tune with the narrative arc and gut bustingly funny happens, all in the same panel? That one.

Film

Searching

This is a fairly standard thriller about a dad trying to find out what happened to his missing daughter. It’s also found footage...but not in the usual way, which was what made it so compelling to me. It’s told through the dad’s phone calls, google searches, social media interactions, news footage, security cameras and webcams. It was such a cool way to tell a story.

Train to Busan

There’s a lot that’s already been said about this movie and I don’t think there’s much more I can meaningfully add to that. Suffice to say that ya gotta take care of each other if you’re going to survive a zombie apocalypse!!

TV Series

My Brother’s Husband

As close to a perfect adaptation as a person can get (barring the entire conversation in English which was...oof). I was so happy when they took it a step further and showed Kana and Yaichi actually getting to meet Mike’s family.

Zumbo’s Just Desserts

I watched a lot of baking shows this year. Like...a lot. They were my much-needed comfort viewing for the year and this one was my favorite, even over The Great British Baking Show (which I LOVE). Why? Because the pastry chef for whom it’s named makes such bizarre and wonderful desserts and fosters an environment in which the competitors do the same. I’ve never seen anything like a lot of the desserts that make an appearance on this show. Every single episode was an awesome surprise and so help me, this show had better get a third season.

She-ra and the Princesses of Power

There’s also a lot that’s been said about this one, so I won’t say much more. Suffice to say: DAMN. That’s how you do an 80s toy tie-in cartoon remake.

Infinity Train

This show’s premise is probably the most unique I’ve seen in recent years. Its balance of comedy, horror and existential dread is also *mwah* I also love how much it trusts the viewer to figure things out on their own.

Primal

A late entry sliding in before the year ends! I finally got to watch the second half of the first season last weekend and it was EXCELLENT. The pacing, the brutal fight scenes, the adorable dinosaur antics, the animation, the quiet moments - *mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah*

The most emotional moment for me was the part in which the protagonists watch, with sorrow, as the rabid dinosaur who’s been trying to kill them all night dies an excruciating death.

Also it sets up a fascinating new plotline right before ending in a cliffhanger!! Another one for the ‘had better get a next season’ list.

Games

Night in the Woods

This is one that’s been on my to play list for a few years and I was so glad I finally got my hands on it. It’s like...The Millennial Experience (TM), the game. I felt so seen, playing it. The character writing was fantastic.

Prey

I don’t know why I put off finishing this for so long. I guess I wasn’t in the right alien killing headspace for a while?? Anyway, the setting is gorgeous, the alien biology is weird and cool, the ethics are delightfully murky and the interconnectedness of the station was really cool, especially in the OH SHIT moments at the end. 

Podcasts

The Adventure Zone

I tried to narrow this down to one favorite arc, but found that I couldn’t do it. I love Balance for its comedy and creative energy. I love Amnesty for its drama and acting. I am loving Graduation for the depth of its world and the way in which the real story behind everything that’s happened is slowly unfurling. It’s a good podcast all around.  

The Magnus Archives

Who obsessively listened to every single season while playing Minecraft in about a month? Surely not me, nooooo. Of course not.

There’s also been a lot said on this one, so I’ll keep it brief. I’ve seen things in here that I haven’t really seen elsewhere in horror. My particular favorites were the creepy psychiatric hospital in which the horror comes not from the patients, but from the denial of the doctor to believe them about their mental illnesses and every single thing related to the Anthropocene. The one with the Amazonian village made out of trash - CHILLS.

[lucarioisinthevoid]

Have Simon and Mike ever been on a date?

Well, my sources say that they did indeed have a First Date at some point, made Cinnamon French Toast a while later, and even went out on Halloween calling it a Pick of the Patch! (Okay, but seriously, click these links, support these people, they’re fantastic and you’re sick of my shit, they made their own damn work and they did it AMAZINGLY. Seriously. CLICK THE LINKS. ENJOY THE WORKS. CHECK OUT MORE OF THEIR WORKS. And leave them some love by commenting/kudos, it is always such an amazing gift for a creator! It would be really kind of you guys!) But well, seeing as they now have some more time for this kind of thing…

They had been driving through the desert-esque area for a few hours now, or at least it felt like it. Time was hard to tell right now, but in the good way, in the comforting way. Mike was driving the van at the moment- they tended to switch up, aside from night driving, which Mike always did, as Simon struggled with seeing at night too well due his calibration. Maybe they’d find a way to fix it, but frankly, Mike didn’t care that his boyfriend was a little bit night-blind. The reason he was driving right now though, was because he wanted to reach a certain spot. Simon was reading a book Mike had given him out loud, providing both the pleasure of hearing his comforting voice, as well as him finally getting through it- Mike had been badgering him for weeks to do so. The ending is what made it worth it! Smiling to himself at that memory, Simon flipped a page to a new chapter- taking a short break to look outside. “… Mike, where are we going?” “Motherfucking guess.” The man seemed in a good mood, smiling deviously. “… is that the Grand Canyon?” “Yup!” Excited Mike looked forward, keeping his eyes on the road. “I always wanted to see this stupid place. I bet the sight from above is AMAZING. And the sunset! The sunset will be incredible! Can you imagine being that close to the stars-“ For a moment Simon thought there was some reason visiting the Grand Canyon was a bad idea- That thought however was swept SWIFTLY to the side as he realized something. “Mike…” “Hm?” “… is this a date?” Softly Simon asked. Instantly the generally aggressive guy grew a bright shade of red- like during the date they had been on before. And the one before that. AND the one before that one. It would probably never stop. “I- well- I mean- if you-“ He took a breath. “YES. Yes it fucking IS. Is there a PROBLEM?” Laughing the Phone Guy stretched himself, looking out with newfound interest. “… thank you.” “You- yeah- I mean- again, I always wanted to see it. And just climbing around the Grand Canyon while no one is around? That would be pretty fucking cool, right?!” “You mean while no one- uh- can hear you scream?” “EXACTLY. See, you get it.” Pleased Mike looked shortly at him, then at the road again. Watching him, feeling at peace, Simon leaned back, letting the late summer sun shine onto him. The thing with Mike was that he really loved abandoned places. Deep, dark forests, mountains off the beaten path, a hut in an area that otherwise had only cornfields… when Mike wanted to be romantic, he brought him there. And dear god, he was the only person on this planet who was allowed to ask for something like this without being demanded to step away at least twenty feet and stay put while the police is being informed. No… he was looking forward to this. They had been climbing around, not for long, for a good amount of time though. It was nice- the feeling of the rock under their fingers, the noise of wind and the sun reflecting on the ground far, far below them- reflecting in a river that seemed tiny from up there. Dangerous? Maybe. Maybe it was VERY dangerous, actually. But they were tough- they had been through so much, both of them were completely convinced that if either of them would fall, they would survive it. Somehow. The sight from up here was beautiful, it had been worth it. And finally, the taller of the two seemed to have spotted something. “There! We can sit on there!” “Oh- fuck yeah, that looks pretty sweet!” Getting out a soft outside blanket, they sat down on the little ledge and took out some food, making themselves as comfortable as possible to witness the sunset that was approaching. Both of them were leaning against each other- safe from wind and weather, on the still warm stone radiating heat through the blanket. “… it is beautiful.” Mike mumbled, hiding his face a little in the shoulder and neck of his partner. Being sincere was embarrassing, but- He wanted to be sincere right now. And when nobody was nearby for miles and miles… then it was okay, right? Gently Simon cupped his face, kissing him- to the best of his abilities- with his smooth dial. “That it is, Mike.” Intertwining their fingers, they looked both out at plane that was colored in gold, orange and black by the late and sleepy sun. Silence was between them, the restful kind of silence… Until finally the first few stars started shining above them. Laying down on his lap, Simon was staring up at the sky, trying to see if he could count them, now that there were only so few of them. Mike played with his phone cord, staring up too. “You know… when I was young, I always wanted to be an astronaut.” Mike started. “… I didn’t like thinking about my future, but sometimes, when looking at the sky at night, it felt like there was a place for me. I imagined leaving everything behind and trying to- I don’t know. It was only about being somewhere else. Somewhere, where other things mattered.” Simon snickered, gently. “… it’s always either a dinosaur or a space phase, isn’t it?” “Hey! I had both! They’re just fucking cool, okay?” “Didn’t mean to tease you! Uh- actually, it’s better than my phase.” Curiously the sitting man glanced down. “… how so?” “Oh, I- I had a Greek mythology phase.” Nervous Simon laughed. “And… that in itself wouldn’t actually have been a problem, if I wouldn’t have learned all the things I knew about it from cartoons and comics. Like- the one cartoon where Odysseus was on the ship and had this owl and-“ “Never watched it. Always fucking hated cartoons.” The guy scoffed, before pausing. “Maybe… we should watch it together… someday.” “… I’d really like to.” Enjoying Mike’s touch for a moment, he almost forgot to continue what he wanted to say- wait, right. “Uh- anyhow, so I learned it all from child-friendly media and… when we had the Greek mythology in class, a few years after that, I felt like such an expert. I explained the entire cartoon to my class. The, uh- the teacher seemed- not upset, but it seemed to hurt his soul to have to tell me that the original story wasn’t exactly like that.” For a moment he paused, thinking about it. Then he continued. “… I played with Ian a lot in the garden- on the good days I mean. Yeah, on the good days when I could convince him to come out with me… and we played these myths and gave them our own twists, because we were of course a lot smarter than the greeks. Why didn’t they think of what WE thought of?” Quietly he chuckled. “… morals in stories were always lost on me.” “At least you got SOME parts of the mythology. The closest I ever got to understanding any mythology stuff was with what Rick Riordan spoonfed to me.” “… who?” “Ah fuck- an author. I gotta make you read his work sometimes.” Mike shook his head. “He’s great, I swear- but that’s not the point. I think. What was the point again?” “… was there supposed to be a point to this?” Both looked confused at each other, before Mike facepalmed, hiding a bit of a smile. “Aw fuck, look at us. Terminal dementia. Each day our brains get consumed more.” They laughed a little, the sky having now turned fully into a dark blue, covered in glitter and stripes, dominated by a large full moon. Finally, Simon sat up again, looking down. “… I want to get to the river.” “In the dark?” “In the dark.” Mike grinned. “Madlad.” Turning on the lights inside of his head, Simon lit the way, while Mike checked the route for the safest pathway around. This SEEMED to be at least some sort of semi-normal route- not too safe, certainly not around this time of day, but it wasn’t a straight up wall. Hell, they had useful gear with them too. It was somewhat safe! Kinda, a little, mostly! But it did take a while. No matter, they were moving together, chatting and teasing each other, so it felt like no time was passing at all- the only thing showing the progression of time was the moon above, slowly moving through the sky. When they arrived down at the water, it was wonderful. The gentle sound of it moving along the river’s edge, the wind playing with the surface, coloring patterns into it with the rocks on the ground. Not that this was easy to see- all that was really visible was the silver and black playing with each other. The noise still was reassuring though, enough to make Mike creep up to the edge, ensuring he wouldn’t accidentally drop in, softly pulling Simon behind him, until they arrived at the closet spot they could, sitting down one more time. Playfully Mike splashed at Simon, who raised an arm to shield himself, rolling his eyes- though with a bemused smile. He dipped the tips of his fingers into the water, enjoying how cold and clear it felt. Then he looked up once more, the stars now feeling framed by the walls around them. “… you know- places like these… they feel so much more real.” “Hm?” Mike leaned back, curious. “What is that supposed to mean?” “Oh, uh- y’know. It feels like… this is a place beyond time. I know there’ll be a tomorrow, but while I’m here with you- it feels like- it feels different. As if just we exist and nothing else. I, uh- I kinda like it. I hope that isn’t weird. I- I don’t actually want everything else to disappear, but-” Embarrassed he laughed. “Sorry, I think I ruined the moment-“ “Simon. I love you.” Mike stood there, between shadows and moonlight, his expression was hard to see and even harder to read- but his voice showed it all, every little bit of it. “… I love you too, Mike.” Taking his hands into his own, Simon smiled at him. Feeling… … happy. All good things had to end though. Perking up, Simon frowned, leaning to the side to try and look behind Mike. “Uh- can you hear that?” In the far distance… … ‘yarrrr—rr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!’ Mike DIDN’T turn. “… is it the sound of a pirate Foxy?” “Uh. Yes.” “… on a raft?” “… yeah…” “Coming right towards us?” “Well- uh- yes.” “With violent intentions?” “Most likely.” Slowly Mike sighed, slowly turning around. “… they always find us, don’t they.” The Fox jumped off the raft, his hook shining in the dim light, along with his teeth. “YAA-AA-AR! I AM THE FOXY OF THE CANYON LAKE! I HAVE SPEND DECADES DOWN HERE, GUARDING MY TREASURES! WHO ARE YEEE TO ENTER MY- MY- MY PLACE THING. MY TERRITORY!!” “Buddy, pal, friend, for fuck’s sake, we’re just having a walk. We’re not even on the river. We’re not on your territory.” Foxy’s golden eye shined. “Arrr… is that you? My arch nemesis? FREDDY’S MICHELANGELO?!” Baffled Mike stared at him, before rubbing his face. “That- that is not my name- ah you know what, fuck it.” As Mike rolled up his sleeves and got out a taser, Simon fell back. “You got this honey!” “… yeah, yeah, fuck you too.” He signed at the fox. “Get the fuck over here, filthy pretend-pirate.” “WHAT DID YOU CALL ME, YOU FILTHY! F-FILTHY! URGH- LAND-DWELLER!? I’LL MAKE YEE WALK THE PLANK FOR THAT!” With that the epic fight broke out.

[yourfanvivitran]

It should come as no surprise that John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon were students in the same film class, that they created Dark Star together, and that they both had a great affinity for 1951’s The Thing From Another World. If you put Ridley Scott’s Alien, which O’Bannon wrote, next to Carpenter’s The Thing, the parallels cannot be contended. A group of people, bound together almost exclusively by their careers, are isolated and trapped in their own environment with a murderous monster. One by one, they are picked off by this alien beast and are forced to pull out all the stops just to survive. The tension in both movies is suffocating. The suspense stays well after the credits roll.

So, why did Alien excel and why did The Thing fail?

Alien was heralded as a science fiction-horror masterpiece, raking in over $200 million at the box office. The Thing, although now recognized as one of Carpenter’s best films to rival even the likes of Halloween, barely exceeded its $15 million budget by $4 million. What’s more is that critics panned The Thing almost unanimously after its 1982 release. And to what point?

When you compare the 2 movies, it objectively doesn’t make much sense. When you sit down and watch The Thing, without even thinking of its much more popular predecessor, it still doesn’t quite add up. There is not much I can say about The Thing that hasn’t already been said before. It’s well-known, now - the writing, the acting, the practical effects, the cinematography? Masterfully done. No arguments. So what went wrong?

The most popularly accepted explanation was that it just wasn’t the right year for it. In 1982, The Thing had to contend with the Summer of Spielberg, being critiqued alongside horror giant Poltergeist and science fiction treasure E.T. How could a stark and grim story of distrust and gore stand alongside such beloved classics?

But in tandem with these films and also calling back to the success of Alien, Carpenter cites reception from various focus groups: they hated the ending.

It should be assumed at this point that if you have not yet seen The Thing, you are sorely missing out. All the same, however, be wary of spoilers.

The end of The Thing is bitter, to put it lightly. Childs (Keith David) trudges through Antarctic snow, lit by the burning wreckage of Outpost 31, towards R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russel) who sits alone, already half buried. They observe their inevitable deaths, and drink to the supposed demise of their shapeshifting predator.

A lot is left out to die in the snow.

According to Carpenter, this ending was seen by test audiences as too dismal. And rightfully so, when you take into consideration the other popular releases of 1982. Carol Anne is ultimately saved, along with the rest of her family, at the end of Poltergeist. Elliot embraces E.T. before he finally returns home. And going further back, even Ripley is able to escape the xenomorph by the skin of her teeth and secure herself the title as one of the greatest “Final Girls” ever put to the silver screen.

And what of MacReady and Childs?

Well, that’s up to your imagination, Carpenter told a test audience member who asked who the final host was at the end of the movie.

“Oh, god. I hate that,” they responded.

As a writer, this loose ends style of concluding a story is almost expected from a lot of modern works. It’s written this way in order to haunt the reader, to linger and adhere itself to the real world in the most sardonic of ways. Think Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” or Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” This almost anticlimactic close of the curtain arrived in the literary world long before it found its place in film, but it’s a big point of contention in mainstream criticism.

Dark or incomplete conclusions have been met with the most scathing of responses. Beware the black cutaway of Sopranos fame. Or the near-universal outcry against the third Mass Effect game that grew so much, the developers created a morsel of DLC content that maybe kind of confirmed a more optimistic fate for our dear Shepard.

But even for the horror genre, The Thing seemed unprecedented. The only fate darker to fall upon a mainstream protagonist was Ben’s untimely death in Night of the Living Dead. The tragedy of both movies is palpable - all this trouble to survive against inhuman killers, all this trouble to outlive something gruesome and maybe even make the world a better place, and what was left to show for it?

In short, Carpenter’s science fiction terror was too much of a bummer.

I personally did not take much of a liking to horror until much later in life. My parents didn’t filter the media I consumed as much as they probably should have, and I was scarred early on by movies as cheesy and entertaining as The Lost Boys and Blade. It wasn’t until late adolescence and into college that I set out to catch up.

My roommate at the time of this resolution had been a fan of horror her whole life, her favorites being Halloween, Candyman, and The Thing. Having already known a good deal about the former two, I decided to strap in for The Thing for the first time ever.

These days, I always have several soap boxes on retainer, just waiting for the next unwitting recipient of my usually-beer-induced rants. Brian Jones was killed, Jaws single handedly endangered sharks, banning books is a stupid practice, representation in media is important, etc. Predictably, one of these soap boxes is the general lack of appreciation of The Thing, both at the time of its release and today (it does not even make the top 100 on Rotten Tomatoes’s highest rated horror movies).

And yet, at the same time, if The Thing had achieved the credit it deserved upon release, I may not like it as much as I do today.

I make a point to not read too much about movies I am feverishly anticipating, and revel in the feeling of going into a well-known movie knowing as little as possible. Most of the time, it makes for the best viewing experience, but I’m sure I don’t even have to point this out.

This was my experience seeing The Thing for the first time. I was on winter break, staying at my parents’ house for the holidays. Everyone else had gone to bed, and I stayed up late in the living room, curled up under layers of blankets, content in perfect darkness save for the television.

I had no idea what to expect, as I had not been spoiled by any TV show making any blatant references and had not done any prior reading into the film itself. And I was absolutely delighted from beginning to end.

What stays with me the most is the special effects. It’s true what they say - that practical effects hold up better than CGI alone. And the production team didn’t cut any corners in this department. Stan Winston and his team, who were later responsible for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, helped construct one of the best animatronics in the movie. Rob Bottin, who brought this constantly-morphing creature to life from conception to every last slimy detail, went on to be hailed as a genius in his special effects career. And there is definitely something to be said for the work of cinematographer Dean Cundey whose masterful control of lighting and framing is best seen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The extent of my knowledge of the titular creature was that it was an alien. That it was an alien who could consume multiple life forms and take on their shapes was both exciting and terrifying. There’s creative genius in this premise that thrills the science fiction lover in me, and also fascinates the bookworm in me. I had been a fan of Agatha Christie novels as a teenager, and to see a new and outrageous take on the And Then There Were None structure was incredibly novel to me.

The appeal wasn’t just that there was something out there, lying in wait to torturously pick off it’s victims one-by-one. It was that it could have been anyone.

At its core, horror as we know it has deep roots in whodunnit style murder mystery. With the rise of the giallo and the sensation of the slasher, horror movies of this nature are far from uncommon and can be seen as late as 1996 with the Scream franchise. Carpenter himself spurned a new kind of fear with his breakout success with Halloween by refusing to give a bodily face to its main antagonist. Here, with The Thing, he takes the eponymous killer character to the next level by giving it the genetically inherent function of deceiving its prey. Not knowing the true face of your murderer has proven to be inherently bone-chilling.

Even now, hundreds of horror movies under my belt later and still constantly learning, I keep coming back to The Thing. I really cannot think of another movie in my wide array of favorites that I love more than The Thing, and I truly believe it has everything to do with me not knowing anything about it upon my first viewing. Every other movie I can name on my (similar to the subject) constantly changing top 10 list of most beloved horror flicks was, at some point, spoiled for me in some capacity.

Think of how often the twins in The Shining are referenced in cartoons, of all the head spinning jokes made in reference to The Exorcist. Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal of Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs has become so infamous, that I knew his dialogue (and Buffalo Bill’s) long before I ever saw the movie in full.

I don’t blame these references for ruining these movies. As a super fan, I understand that compulsion to pay tribute. It’s no one’s fault and to their credit that these films take lives of their own. But the repercussions don’t age well in terms of initial viewing experiences.

All that being said, I truly cherish how much I was not exposed to this movie. The unpredictability of the creature and the quiet, looming despair that comes with it create a horror unlike any other.

Although it was a box office flop, The Thing is now a welcome and praised name in both science fiction and horror. Even Quentin Tarantino made it known that The Hateful Eight was primarily inspired on several fronts by Carpenter’s underrated work. However, it has not pervaded pop culture like so many other horror classics have left their indelible mark on film vernacular. And to that end, I hope it remains in that slight shadow of anonymity for all future enthusiasts.

[thehappymessproject]

39/100 - Don’t you dare limit your creativity

It’s 8pm here. One of my favourite times to write. But tonight, I brought something special to the page : my joy. 

Since it’s Monday, my retreat, it’s a very chill day for me, my only priority is to recharge before the week begins. That also means I haven’t checked out my phone since yesterday evening, except to meditate and time myself while journaling. As usual, I feel very grounded when night comes (unlike many days with phone). 

But that’s not what’s special about today. 

Since I am doing this challenge everyday, I need tricks to keep going, as I am not usually a very disciplined person, it’s a fairly new concept to me actually (and I hate quite a lot of it haha).

One of them is to make writing a priority, right after self-care.

I hate what I write if I don’t “clean my mind and body” first.

I hate even more the process of writing when I don’t, writing then becomes a chore.

My mind is foggy, my body is tense, everything is laborious, arduous. 

What’s special about tonight is that I just finished painting.

I have been studying a lot this week, and antiracism and the personal work it demands is quite draining and time consuming.

My mind was pretty anxious all week, revisiting my learnings and reflections.

I needed a lot of rest, reflection time and play to compensate.

I choose to learn a new technique using watercolours and ink.

Beginner’s mind is a magical thing when it comes to art.

It helps us not to overthink everything, since we don’t have a lot to think about when we don’t know what we are doing. 

I took a class, so I felt guided and supported. And I chose a loose technique, since the more realistic I am painting, the more I am going to think about it. But with simple and loose technique, I play with my brush more than anything. 

The results? Quite frankly not my best work at all. And it didn’t matter one bit.

I didn’t paint for any result, I painted for the process today. Knowing fully that even if it was ugly in the end, I could practice more, and no one had to see it if I don’t want to show them. This was just about learning and having fun.

And because I tricked my brain into doing something like I didn’t care about how it leads me, I actually didn’t care. 

My first reaction was an ambivalent “How come it’s that bad and I am so happy about it anyway?” and then I laughed it off and kept going.

The answer is quite easy really : it was mostly play.

And when we play, we get the best of anything we do, but especially anything creative. We connect to joy.

Tonight, not only did I end up with a new technique up my sleeve, and a good hour of play and practice, I got to fill my writing with all that previous joy gained from what Einstein coined as combinatory play.

You see, each time he was stuck or tired about maths and physics, he would take his violin and play.

When he would come back to his board, he would see his problems under a new light, which would help him then figure out new solutions. His music impacted his scientific work. 

This week I talked with patients thrice about their creativity. They were all having different issues about it. (of course, names are changed)

Oliver is learning how to create a Youtube channel to stream live, and was frustrated by how he wanted to do it right. He was having technical issues, and choices to make about what he wanted to stream, and how he wanted to do so. After a few weeks exploring, it got hard to not take it too seriously. 

Diane is having those wonderful strokes of inspiration that we get when we are doing everything we need to be as creative as possible, except creating, and was stuck at that phase, not really knowing where to go from there, scared of the power she could actually feel and probably about the mediocrity we all experience when we actually seat to a table and write too. 

Delilah was having all those wonderful ideas of new things she wanted to try, but felt stuck because they weren’t her usual go-to medium or way to work it. She felt like she needed to choose something and stick to it. She talked about her lack of style and not knowing how to go from there. And how her mind kept ordering her instead of exploring her new wants, to stick to this challenge she did last month and learnt tons from, but didn’t finish.

And with all of them, we planned their next week in a similar fashion, and those words are also the ones I used for myself during the week-end : 

You are a child of the Universe, made of stardust and dinosaur stuff. You wonderful, wonderful thing, yes, you.

Like any human, you are creative and will get more and more creative if you actually do stuff.

You can feel the fear of doing it wrong, messing it up, not knowing where to start, and all the other fears we get AND still do stuff. Find your ways, they exist.

Creativity is all about play and exploration. 

All the boundaries you are talking about are yours to choose. 

You are not doing this for the end result but to become whoever you are when you create. 

There are no real rules, they were made up by very unhappy people trying desperately to control their creativity, most probably eroding it on the way. 

Use containers to help you, not limit you.

Take on challenges to push yourself to your limits (not beyond, just a little push). 

Find a focus and start there, anywhere is fine. Maybe this will be something you want to do everyday for twenty years, maybe it’ll be a fun game for 3 days. Both are very fine. 

Don’t stop only because it’s too hard, that’s your brain afraid to take risks and fail. Find ways to learn more about what is frustrating you, feelings tell us a lot about our wants.

We get frustrated and scared because we care, not because we’re not good enough.

And no matter what you do : cultivate joy and curiosity, over and over, and sit down and MAKE stuff, over and over. 

Make so many things your brain forgets what it feels to win or lose (it doesn’t matter in the end, only for a few moments).

When in doubt, play. Leave the serious stuff aside for a while and do something fun. 

Play with other media or other technique, you are the expert of what makes you feel joy. Just play. 

Never think you have to choose one thing and stick to it forever. Each medium will serve your other media, each new technique will make other techniques a little bit more you, even if you don’t pursue it. 

If it seems fun or you feel like it’s beautiful, it’s already in you, just waiting for you to practice. 

You are loved. 

You deserve good things. 

I believe in you. 

See you tomorrow, 

Love, 

L. 

[yooka-kazooie]

liveblog of me watching the sonic movie courtesy of me yell-typing at my friend on discord

#long post #spoilers 

6:48 PM] Me: well guess I'm gonna rent it on cable [6:50 PM] Me: ok so far the cc works [6:50 PM] Me: which is good news on optimum [6:50 PM] Friend: good [6:50 PM] Me: upp spoke too soon [6:50 PM] Me: where did the cc go [6:51 PM] Me: first the sound didn't work and now the cc goes I keep having to close the movie and resume [6:51 PM] Me: I already dont know this owl character [6:51 PM] Me: like I'm not a HUGE fan of sonic but who is she [6:51 PM] Friend: I don't think she was in the games [6:52 PM] Friend: just an owl who adopted sonic [6:52 PM] Me: oh no is she from the original archie comics [6:52 PM] Me: I've also never seen sonic younger than like 15 [6:52 PM] Friend: no idea [6:52 PM] Me: were those echidnas [6:53 PM] Friend: the old sonic show (the good one) had an episode where sonic goes back in time and meets himself as a kid [6:53 PM] Me: oh good he's a cop good /s [6:53 PM] Me: the urkel one? [6:53 PM] Friend: yeah echidnas [6:53 PM] Friend: yeah [6:53 PM] Friend: there were two urkel ones [6:54 PM] Friend: aired at the same time [6:54 PM] Friend: or same year [6:54 PM] Me: he was in both of them??? [6:54 PM] Friend: yep [6:54 PM] Me: I never watched the "good one" [6:54 PM] Me: sat am? [6:54 PM] Friend: yeah [6:54 PM] Me: yeah I literally never saw it [6:54 PM] Friend: I think [6:54 PM] Me: til Nostalgia Critic [6:57 PM] Me: did crazy carl's drawing look like sanic I can't rewind with ondemand [6:58 PM] Friend: yes it did [7:05 PM] Me: whoops sonic emp [7:07 PM] Me: I assume these old people are describing eggman [7:07 PM] Me: so eggman is human [7:08 PM] friend: yeah [7:10 PM] Me: whos stone [7:10 PM] Me: like did Eggman need a human y.. [7:10 PM] Me: wait is he a robot [7:10 PM] Me: "a human yesman" is what I was going to say [7:10 PM] Me: it seems weird to me that he'd pay a human yesman instead of building a robot yesman [7:11 PM] friend: to be fair he has a human yesman in that old show too [7:11 PM] Me: the show I didnt watch? [7:11 PM] friend: yeah [7:11 PM] Me: I watched the pumpkin show [7:11 PM] Me: and sonic boom cartoon [7:12 PM] Me: and I played sonic adventure 2 [7:12 PM] Me: and sonic 06 [7:13 PM] Me: I'm just letting you know what I know [7:13 PM] Me: what sonic media I've consumed [7:13 PM] Me: I never played the 2D games [7:13 PM] Me: never saw Sonic Sat Am [7:14 PM] Me: uhh meow [7:14 PM] Me: oh neat I didn't know that's how the rings would work [7:14 PM] Friend: lol nice to know where you are in the movie [7:15 PM] Me: donut lord shouldn't be so confused this is at least his second time finding a small talking furry animal-like creature [7:15 PM] Me: I'm sorry but the fact that this dude had the same role in hop is hilarious [7:15 PM] Me: how do you get typecast like that [7:16 PM] Me: "where are the mushrooms and why am I still on earth" is a mood [7:16 PM] Me: his eyes are cool looking [7:16 PM] Me: I can't remember what the old design looked like and I'm scared to look it up [7:17 PM] Me: did I tell you someone proved that it wasn't a stunt and that was the actual real design [7:17 PM] friend: someone told me that [7:17 PM] Me: because they found the merch they were making and they actually made some with the old design [7:17 PM] Me: that was intentional [7:18 PM] Me: oh I like those videogame control gloves [7:18 PM] Me: they need to make those for VR [7:21 PM] Me: raccoons are so cute [7:21 PM] Me: I want one for a pet [7:23 PM] Me: no I'm calling it, Stone is secretly a robot [7:25 PM] Me: the more he says mushroom planet the more I realize it's a nintendo joke [7:25 PM] Me: the mushroom planet has to be the mushroom kingdom [7:25 PM] Me: he doesn't want to go where mario lives [7:26 PM] Me: now I want mushrooms (food) [7:26 PM] Friend: every time he talks about the mushroom planet I want them to make a nintendo cinematic universe [7:26 PM] Me: man Sonic's individual quills look weird? [7:27 PM] Me: whenever I focus on them [7:27 PM] Me: not that bad but it's weird [7:28 PM] Friend: the ones still on his body? I know the one not on his body was never changed [7:28 PM] Me: yeah the ones on him [7:28 PM] Me: it's fine looking when I don't focus on them [7:29 PM] Me: this movie has Antman vibes [7:29 PM] Me: similar humor [7:35 PM] Me: hipsters how do you even convince someone you're not that lol [7:35 PM] Me: oh here we go first standstill [7:36 PM] Me: it's really cool actually, like that one xmen scene [7:36 PM] Me: god that is just ridiculously fast [7:36 PM] Me: so far this movie is better than it looked [7:37 PM] Me: especially before the redesign [7:37 PM] Me: ugh [7:37 PM] friend: I do wonder how much, if any, the story changed with the design [7:37 PM] Me: I'm just guessing that it's the same but there could have been more changes [7:39 PM] Me: ok if mushroom world has no breathable air I'd say that's not a safe place to go [7:39 PM] Me: for sonic??? [7:40 PM] Friend: I do question how a planet full of mushrooms can have enough oxygen in it. there must be something producing more oxygen though [7:41 PM] Me: if Stone isn't a robot that eggman built I hope he's paid well [7:41 PM] Me: he literally just said it doesn't have breathable air [7:41 PM] Friend: I thought he said it did [7:42 PM] Me: ... [7:42 PM] Me: I can't rewind [7:42 PM] Me: a babysitter is infinitely better than a cop tho [7:42 PM] Me: acab [7:44 PM] Me: does he go super sonic in this [7:44 PM] Me: like gold [7:45 PM] Me: aaand he's flossing [7:45 PM] Me: how old is sonic [7:45 PM] Me: is this a child [7:45 PM] friend: idk they should have mentioned it somewhere [7:46 PM] Me: are those children fighting over a switch or a tablet [7:46 PM] Me: jesus sonic just killed eggman [7:46 PM] Me: like I understand but [7:46 PM] Me: oh he waasn't in that one [7:46 PM] Me: I guess [7:49 PM] Me: it seems weird that that exploded [7:49 PM] Me: what if it killed sonic [7:49 PM] Me: what if it damaged the remains [7:49 PM] Me: didnt eggman want to study him [7:50 PM] Me: ok well eggman just called Stone a human being so I hope he's being paid well [7:53 PM] Me: ok how is it fun to be chased by a holographic dinosaur [7:53 PM] Me: I literally have nightmares that are that [7:53 PM] Me: except in nightmares you can feel terror and pain [7:56 PM] Me: are those the shoes that had a deal with sonic adventure 2 [7:57 PM] Me: ah man this is the kinda guy who would either get fired because he's too good to be a cop or be corrupted by getting the job [7:57 PM] Me: I've been reading a lot of stories of what happens to "good cops" lately [7:58 PM] Me: and either they get fired for not being terrible or they become terrible [7:58 PM] Me: remember there are no good cops [7:59 PM] friend: well that is going to change soon [7:59 PM] friend: or it better [7:59 PM] Me: no more cops [7:59 PM] Me: abolish cops [7:59 PM] Me: freedom [8:03 PM] Me: oooo he called him eggman [8:03 PM] Me: took me a second to realize that wasn't just his name [8:03 PM] friend: he is eggman in japan and robotnic in america [8:04 PM] Me: I just think of him as Dr Eggman Robotnic [8:04 PM] Me: like bowser is King Bowser Koopa [8:04 PM] Me: Princess Peach Toadstool [8:04 PM] Me: ... I wasn't paying attention did sonic's speed just fail [8:05 PM] Me: *ring get noise* Me: oh no how many of those rings does he have [8:07 PM] Me: like not an infinite amount [8:07 PM] Me: wait [8:07 PM] Me: aren't the pyramids like [8:07 PM] Me: next to a city [8:08 PM] Me: and not in the middle of endless sand [8:08 PM] friend: yeah [8:09 PM] friend: from pictures there does seem to be a lot of sand around them [8:10 PM] Me: its the angle [8:10 PM] Me: the pyramids are like [8:10 PM] Me: inbetween endless sand and a city [8:10 PM] friend: sure [8:10 PM] Me: well he's going Blue Super Sonic [8:10 PM] Me: still not gold/yellow [8:11 PM] friend: well he does need all the chaos emeralds to go gold [8:12 PM] Me: so what is this form called [8:12 PM] Me: canonically [8:12 PM] friend: idk [8:12 PM] Me: blue lightning sonic [8:13 PM] friend: all that comes up is a truck [8:14 PM] Me: try tvtropes [8:17 PM] Me: well they're treating him like a child? I think? [8:17 PM] Me: like they adopted him [8:17 PM] Me: he's flossing and has a racecar bed [8:17 PM] Me: I think he's a child??? [8:18 PM] Me: hye look its eggman [8:18 PM] Me: he's gonna be so pissed when he gets back [8:18 PM] Me: pff stone isn't a human anymore [8:18 PM] Me: I guess the air is breathable [8:18 PM] Me: how does he get fat on msuhroom world [8:19 PM] Me: are the mushrooms edible [8:19 PM] friend: I would hope at least some of them are [8:19 PM] Me: wait why did he shave [8:19 PM] Me: I saw him do it but it's not explained why [8:19 PM] Me: did he get gum in his hair what did I miss [8:20 PM] friend: well if his mustache is any indication his hair might have gotten... idk weird, so he shaved it [8:21 PM] friend: remember end credit scenes [8:21 PM] Me: ah mood [8:21 PM] Me: I'm watching the credits yes [8:21 PM] Me: I mean I feel like shaving my head would feel infinitely weirder so I just buzz it short but mood [8:21 PM] friend: idr if there was a thing at the very end of the credits [8:21 PM] Me: oh here we go some woods TAILS [8:21 PM] Me: NO [8:21 PM] Me: they had to redesign tails [8:21 PM] Me: too [8:21 PM] Me: wait [8:21 PM] Me: uh [8:21 PM] Me: that was [8:21 PM] Me: really fast for tails [8:22 PM] Me: I guess he's not as fast as sonic but he's not supposed to be that fast [8:22 PM] Me: aaand more credits [8:22 PM] friend: well he can be fast in the games [8:23 PM] Me: he was slow in sonic boom cartoon [8:23 PM] Me: maybe???

[tripstations]

Travel tech: How much is too much?

(CNN) — It was late. I was tired. I needed to feed my nephew fast so we could get some much-needed rest without yet another “outing.”

Having just returned to the hotel room after a full day of travel, we could barely speak.

And when you’re that exhausted, the idea of being able to order food without talking to anyone — well, that’s luxury.

I used the in-room iPad, ordered some seriously pedestrian food that makes teenagers and 40-year-olds feel sated and complete, and marveled at the joys technology can bring.

Then, the phone rang.

“Hello? Miss Fletcher? I’m just calling to confirm your order …”

There were expletives that followed, but I won’t share them here.

Why would you offer the technology to free your guest from the “burden” of calling room service, only to call back to confirm and create an enormous amount of rage in an already volatile (read so very, very tired) guest?

Are ride-sharing apps beneficial to travelers? A big yes. (Most of the time.)

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Riddle me this: What has lots of technological touches and doesn’t actually help anyone solve a problem?

A good deal of consumer-facing travel technology is my answer.

Grab, Lyft, Uber: Thank you (most of the time).

Contactless payments when cash is not on hand: Thank you (most of the time).

Playing my Spotify playlist in the car hire? Thanks, but really, no. I spent a fortune on these headphones and blocking out the world is sometimes only possible in the back of the car for 30 minutes.

iPad in hotel room: No, thank you. (See above.)

Online check-in: Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Text messages from the hotel to check in on me: No, no, no.

Too much technology? Too little?

I understand everyone has a different approach, opinion and expectation around the intersection of travel transactions and technology.

But I’ll say this and stand by it: A smile and a suggestion from a helpful, trustworthy human is greater than an offer to accept the terms of conditions to get a “deal” I probably don’t need.

But occasionally only tech will do.

For example, when I need a last-minute reservation, and a trusted media source (CNN Travel) says, “this spot is one of the best, order this, here are a few top alternatives.”

We’ve come a long way, baby. In the 1950s, inflight entertainment meant checkers and cigarettes.

Frederic Lewis/Archive Photos/Getty Images

Or, I go onto a booking site, and voila, dinner for four at 7 p.m. and yes I’ll invite my guests thank you very much. No, I will not confirm my reservation more than once.

But how much tech is too much? How little is too little?

I do not have the answer, but I think there’s something we all forget. We are living through a technological, digital revolution. I wonder and marvel at all the changes in how we travel since I was a child.

There were smoking sections on planes, everyone was generally picked up and dropped off by family and friends at the airport, or you rented a car — or a car and driver.

Back then there was a movie on the plane. One movie. And chances are, you’d seen it. In a movie theater.

You read books, magazines, newspapers and were weighed down by their girth. (Again, I know plenty of people who still do printed matter for their travels. Except maps. No maps.)

Long before the days of social media, ‘sharing your holiday photos’ often involved using one of these tech relics.

Chaloner Woods/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

There was also smoking in restaurants and bars (and there are still some in the world), coins in the jukebox, writing a check to your travel agent (Jeannie, if you’re out there, thank you for everything before the internet)!

We actually had to endure slide shows (imagine a conference room PowerPoint presentation and sub in your mom, a neighbor named Andy, and a handful of disgruntled friends and relatives, and you’re there).

“This is us at the Trevi fountain.”

“Look, Uncle Jerry rode a camel.”

“This lion almost ate us.”

Missing that human touch

In one — I like to think relatively short — lifetime, we’re talking about a sea change that even the skilled “trend spotters” among us could never have predicted. And there’s so much more to come that we can’t even imagine.

I adore technology. When I want to find out what the best airport lounge is in Mexico City, I text a friend who travels there every few weeks.

I use it to see if I can get a table at Maison Yaki in Brooklyn or Odette in Singapore (computer says no), or if I know anyone who knows anyone who can get me in to Maison Yaki or Odette (kind of, but I hate to impose).

I set reminders, I cross-reference several sites, apps and social media. I search reliable media sources and reach out to friends who love to eat and travel and never do anything shabbily.

The future of travel…dinosaur bellboys? These happy robots greet guests checking into Tokyo’s Henn-na Hotel.

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Imags

I keep and flag emails, bookmark relevant content, track flight prices and play with all the options. Basically, like everyone else on Earth right now: I do all the things.

I stare at my airline app to see which seat is best (cross-referenced with another app). I game my miles, my upgrades, my points, my status, my credit cards, my loyalty. It’s probably taking up the time I should’ve spent writing my novel no one would read anyway.

My credit cards are saved as auto-fill, as are my billing and shipping addresses (yes, machine, they are different.)

We are global citizens grateful for WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, free Wi-Fi, global data plans (it behooves me to mention that CNN is owned by WarnerMedia and AT&T), maps, emails and aggregated lists saved on the “cloud,” recommendations from locals and expats, electronically accessible within seconds.

What is missing, though, in most of these things, is a human person to talk to about it. Planning a trip is one thing, but acting on it, making irreversible, expensive decisions, putting your money down, worrying that you’ll make a mistake or have a bad time or sweat the weather forecast is another.

The perfect alchemy of tech and truth

CNN’s James Williams enjoys a night in Aloft — the smart hotel for the digital age — and also meets a humanoid who helps guests check in to flights.

As a travel editor, and a curious and experienced traveler, my default is as follows: I want to help people the way that Google and Facebook can’t.

I want to be your friend and help you make the best decisions for you based on the most thorough and accurate information available — a dream that’s within reach because of technology.

I believe there’s a real opportunity to serve travelers those personal touches we all appreciate and enjoy with the technology that can solve common problems.

AI can aggregate, assume preferences based on previous purchases and transactions.

Search engines can put the highest bidder or the person with the most followers up top, expecting you not to go full Indiana Jones and dig up the thing to find the other better thing.

But travelers need trust, honesty and no interest other than helping you go somewhere you want to — and to eat and sleep well while you’re there.

Just ask any hotel staff member who has to sift through all the vitriolic comments left by customers or competitors on review sites who are not acting in anyone’s best interest save their own.

Regardless, there’s something about walking into a restaurant or a hotel or an airplane gate and being greeted with a smile. An offer of a small thing.

I’m here to say that the answer to the tech and travel conundrum isn’t another app.

It’s not another list or list of lists or someone sending you a list of lists.

It’s ideas. Supplied by someone who knows you and cares about your happiness (and that may also mean you give up a wee bit of data).

Together, we can figure out the perfect alchemy of tech and truth, personhood and prompt. But human conversations and contact are what will lead the charge.

Or, at least, I hope so.

Brekke Fletcher is Executive Editor of CNN Travel

The post Travel tech: How much is too much? appeared first on Tripstations.

from Tripstations https://ift.tt/2jRnRWR via IFTTT

[pulpoddyssey]

Seridian Multi-Global Lawsuit, Human Dicks, and Fire Asses

In 2810, we published an editorial by a contributing writer, Verr Drin regarding a very serious lawsuit involving Seridian Multi-Global Inc., and the lifespan of their “grow-your-own-pets” product. As a staff, we made a professional decision to  not print this editorial in its entirety for a few reasons. 

We deliberated about our decision and ultimately decided to share the piece in its entirety today. Let’s first go over the 4 major reasons we chose to hold back on most of this piece in 2810, just to be clear:

1. Confusion - This an opinion piece. It is not reporting. We didn’t want to confuse our readers by making them think it is anything but Mr. Drin’s opinion. To do so would be incredibly irresponsible.

2. Unsavory language - While we don’t have any specific rules for the content we publish, we do respect that others may not want to read the word “dick” 11 times or anywhere near the words “shit,” “piss,” and “gooey” alongside their morning coffee. 

2. Human egos - Humans have amazingly enormous egos. Humans reading this are very likely to get offended and may, out of a combination of anger and negligence, destroy yet another important thing needed for their survival. We apologize if this article incites anything like that.

3. Limited space - it’s pretty long and unlike the apparent infinite expanse of Internet newsprint, as a physical newspaper, we do have to limit the amount of words we print. Every ink dot in every letter costs us.  

NOTES ON A DEFECTIVE SPECIES 

Verr Drin, Staff Contributor

I recently learned that Fred (an omnipotent dog-being that isn't god but also isn't not god, you know?) had purchased a packet of "grow-your-own pets" tablets from a prank magazine. It's like those kits kids buy with a couple of shrimps who hatch out of some eggs in a little container, but on a planetary scale. Planet equals container. Life equals shrimps.

Basically you drop them into water and then in a few billion years you get some species. Generally this is how all life in the universe was formed—all life but that of the everlasting, all-powerful Fred—it's just that there are different levels in quality of the beings that grow. The main problem with cheaper kits is that they are extremely fragile. If you forget to feed them, they die. If you overwater them, they die. If you feed them too much, they die. If you drop a rock into their habitat, they die. If you place the habitat too close to the light, they die. If you place it too far, they die. These cheap ones are usually a total rip-off, in my humble opinion.

Fred has filed a lawsuit against the "grow your own pets" manufacturer, Seridian Multi-Global, Inc. for misleading claims of how long their "pets" can live without literally killing themselves. Generally the packaging promotes claims of longevity and quality. If you didn't play with these little life-creation kits as a child, I honestly feel sorry for you but, if you have, you may know that threat species self-extinction should never be an issue. However, this product seems to have gone horribly awry on Earth.

Earth is generally a nice value for $15 (earth readers, we use USD in space too, for some reason). The habitat has plate tectonics so it puts on a nice little show, it fits right into any standard star system, and it has potential for modification (moons, for example). Now, don't get me wrong, earth has a lot of dead pets, e.g. dinosaurs,  dodo, wooly mammoth, and yes, there is often some collateral damage while cleaning out the habitat. But there is a new danger brewing: a recently developed species with minimal space travel technology have been showing signs of potential self-immolation, "humans."

So, why are humans trying to kill themselves? I have done the research and I think I can understand what went wrong in the product's programming. First, let's talk about how they have gotten to this point.

After spending 98% of their existence figuring out how to use fire, humans took their sweet time doing anything worthwhile amidst constant fighting over their dicks, worrying about their dicks, and making big sculptures of their warring, troubled dicks. They wondered why they and their dicks existed and built entire societies around trying to figure that out (joke's on them, it was just Fred). Eventually, they got around to space travel and built some exploding fire dicks that they would use to fuck the sky. Additionally, while handling all of their dick struggles, the humans have been awful roommates. They have managed to find a way to hassle every other species on the planet in one way or another. The other species on Earth are all trying to do their thing while all the humans were like, "fuck you, we're awesome as fuck. Get in this box, I'm drunk."

Additionally, their programming had clearly taken a turn for the worst very early on in human development. For the prior 200,000 years, their own shit and farts had kept them content. They were only content enough to curb the dick fighting for brief moments, but they were doing okay. They consumed some shit, pooped out some shit, consumed some shit, pooped out some shit, etc. There was plenty of shit around to keep everyone going. After some time, some assholes decided it was time to take more shits than they needed to take, thus consuming more shit and shitting more shit than ever before, and at a rapid pace. But that wasn't enough. Enter the most damaging development in their code, and the most damning bit of evidence for the defense: the Fire Asses.

The humans built the Fire Asses, primitive machines which not only consumed shit, but would also provide them with more, smellier shit. Humans would work long days inside of these fire asses in exchange for currency, and continue to work in the fire asses until this day. As they had always known, you can only get as much new shit as you have old shit. The cycle remained relatively closed and safe and the program still seemed relatively stable. This was all until the humans sunk their dicks deep into the planet, discovering flaming pet goo.

Flaming pet goo was a thick liquid made of other dead pets such as the dinosaurs. The humans then discovered something magical, they could set it on fire. It could work with the Fire Asses to produce more shit than they could before, more shit than they could ever need, and more shit than there had been. They could finally take out their dicks and fuck the planet. In a way it was their most ingenious dick nonsense yet.

Then, with their dicks covered in flaming gooey shit, fucking the Earth ad infinitum, the human pets built countless Fire Asses, all farting and shitting to no end. Their dependence on Fire Asses grew until they lived in them, transported themselves in them, and worked tirelessly inside of them in order to make and consume more shit.

This brings us to today: The humans live on Earth surrounded by endless piles of shit and massive fart clouds and not a single one of them is happy (I certainly wouldn't be if I were living in a pile of my own shit). The program is clearly defective at this point, in my opinion, the defense has no case. After all the dicks and assholes, farts and shit, fucking the planet and the sky, the humans are faced with a harsh truth. They are terrible roommates and the planet has told them that it is time for them to go fuck themselves. Firing flaming dicks at each other, they fuck themselves constantly. They've dropped enormous exploding fucking dicks, fucking thousands of humans at once. They've shat and farted so much that their habitat is breaking, the cooling system is fucked, the water is fucked, the dirt is fucked, the shit is fucked, and the humans are fucked.

It is absolutely clear to me the entire "grow-your-own-pets" product is literally a fucking disaster. However, through all of the humans' problems, it seems to all come back to one single problem in the program. The humans should have never tried to get more shit than they needed.

The company who manufactures this "grow-your-own-pet" product have been under fire for quite some time now as the media coverage ramps up. The parent company, Seridian Multi-Global, Inc. is accused of false marketing and for selling a fucked up product. They are due for their first hearing this Friday the 256th on Balkar-Deezy 9. They are lawyered up and ready to fight but, this really seems like a simple case of some cheap, shitty, fucked up sea monkeys to me.

[uselessfuture]

What is the Useless Future?

So I want to preface this by saying that I have absolutely no way of PROVING that what is happening to me is truthful since 100% of these came to me in dreams. So you’ll just have to take me at my word that I am telling the truth.

So we’ve all heard of the concept of Deja vu. it’s the concept that you are living a moment in your life that you feel you have lived before. This is an important distinction I want to make that we will return to later. Deja vu is a feeling and a vague one at that. You feel like you’ve lived this before but you haven't and you aren’t entirely sure your right.

That’s not what the Useless Future is

So let's rewind time a bit to the murky time period of around 2006-2010 (so at the time I was between 8 & 12). Occasionally I would have strange dreams, not in the nonsensical way of normal dreams where you flee from dinosaurs onto a motorized mini carousel with a lifesized doll on it in your bedroom. No these dreams were different. How exactly to quantify “different” is difficult but the best way I can describe it is it felt real, and it felt like there was a fog in my mind. Again, not in the same sense as a normal dream. In a normal dream, your hazy logic is nonsensical, erratic, illogical. This was more primal and yet more logical than that. For an example, if there were people present in these dreams I would see them and vague associations would pop into my head like “friend” or “not friend”. Emotional is how I would describe that information, however, unlike a normal dream, I could also make more logical queries. 

For instance, going back to the same example, if I saw someone I was also lucid enough to think “I don’t recognize that person, What is their name again” and I would try to think of their name. Whenever that would happen however I couldn't draw up the information. Whenever I would try in my head it would feel like a combination of the feeling of grasping at mist, my head filling with a fog, trying to press two magnets together, and the feeling of deciding that after 30 years, your car keys really are lost. It’s this utterly surreal blend of absolute acceptance that I won't find what I'm looking for, and this cloudy, nebulous, soft force that pushes against any of my attempts to anyways. Imagine reaching into a cloud that is elastic. it’s wet and soft and swirls around you, but since it’s elastic when you reach out into it compresses, and gently pushes back with the same force you put into it. It’s both impenetrable, and yet it surrounds you and curves and distorts when you push on it like pushing on a piece of jello. 

For the most part, these dreams consisted of things that made no sense to me. People I didn't know saying words that I both knew were English and that I understood, and yet I couldn't divine any sentences or meaning from what’s said. Rooms, scenery, and other props I don’t recognize. Sometimes it would just be images or a small clip of something. Eventually, they would end just as any normal dream would end.

Fast forward to between around 2011-2012 and the present and every now and again something strange would happen. I would be going about my normal daily life and I’d see something and this jolt would go down my spine and flare out into my body and I’d recognize with perfect clarity and absolute certainty

I’ve seen this before

Going back to earlier, this was NOT in the hazy feelings and manner of deja vu oh no. It was like the moment when you recognize an old, close friend on the street after losing touch for years. You see things and it means nothing, then you recognize them and it's like THAT that suddenly the connection is made between what you saw and what you saw, between the person in front of you and the one you remember. All these associations and emotions and memories flood in and you feel like you’ve been pulled back to that moment. With time this phenomenon in my life has been popping up with greater frequency.

That is the Useless Future.

Thus this blog, which will be a collection of these moments. Now it’s 2017 as of writing this and my memory, funnily enough, isn't actually that great, but as of recently, I've taken to recording these moments in hopes of divining some unifying themes. Since I spend a lot of time on the computer some of them tend to be screenshots from various bits of media I consume, sometimes they are moments that occur outside and thus require me to pull out a camera and photograph the area. Every post will have a caption as to which specific parts of the picture hold more meaning than the others. I’ll also throw in a couple posts now and again on any thoughts, theories or clarification about this. Feel free to send me asks or reblog, like, etc this if you so desire. Also if this also happens to you PLEASE let me know, I’d absolutely love to hear from you.

TLDR; As I child I’d dream of very specific moments in time and present me occasionally lives those moments in time and recognizes it from the past. This blog exists to record that. If this happens to you let me know. It’s not Deja Vu.

[trendingnewsb]

6 Ways Movies Fool You Into Ignoring Bad Reviews

Terrible movies will always exist. They’re one of those unavoidable annoyances, like stubbing your toe or getting picked last during an orgy. Unfortunately, even when knowingly faced with a dud, studios still have to pretend they’re sitting on the Holy Grail of eye-blasting family entertainment — at least for the duration of the marketing.

So how does one polish a brawny turd in an age when resources like Rotten Tomatoes have made the average moviegoer hyper-aware of mediocrity? It’s not easy. And in a way, the ability to spin a piece of terrible entertainment as the next big Star War is an art in itself. Only instead of ink and light, these modern-day Rembrandts (had Rembrandt gone to Emerson and was nicknamed “The Donk”) are painting with beautiful lies.

6

Shitty Films Have Used “Joke” Reviews In Their Ads

Film studios want nothing more than the power to write their own reviews … something Sony actually got caught doing back in 2001, when it was revealed that fake quotes from a nonexistent critic named David Manning were used to praise masterpieces like The Animal and Hollow Man — the latter film featuring invisible gorillas and Kevin Bacon’s CGI dick muscles.

It was a ruse that would end up costing the studio over a million dollars in lawsuits, and so no other studio attempted such a blatant teabagging of the public’s trust. Instead, they did find a way to more gently dab our foreheads with technically-legal jest: They use fake critics under the excuse of “humor.”

Take the recent Lynchian abomination that was Nine Lives, a film about a rich and powerful Kevin Spacey being turned into a cat via Christopher Walken voodoo. The movie features all the things we’ve come to expect from a children’s film, such as existential torture, a cat getting drunk, and a fucking suicide fakeout. Needless to say, critics weren’t on board with it. And so TV spots opted to sprinkle the feline romp with hilarious joke reviews from places like “Vanity Fur,” “Meowsweek,” and the “Catfington Post.”

It’s exactly the kind of incredible wordplay you’d expect from this film about cat possession. And while there’s nothing wrong with including bullshit pun reviews as a joke, when you watch the ad in real time, it becomes apparent that chucklefuckery wasn’t the only motivation.

Read Next

5 Criminals With The Worst Luck In The Entire World

That’s right, each “review” flashed on screen for a nano-second while the voiceover quoted the fake praise without any context. Meaning that unless you paused your television, most people watching had no idea it wasn’t really a quote from Vanity Fair. But if anyone calls them out on their colossal horseshit (like right now), the producers are able to shrug and say it was all in good fun. It must be a coincidence that the only other film to use this technique was the exhausting Vampire’s Suck — a spoof “comedy” which, according to ads, were given standing ovations by such critics as “Hugh Jass” and “Oliver Klozoffe.” Jesus, you guys, could you at least think of bad vampire puns for your terrible film, like David Edelstake or Gene Siskill? It would have only taken a minute.

5

Studios Use (Misquoted) Reviews From Total Randos On The Internet

If incredulously scrolling Rotten Tomatoes fan reviews have taught me anything, it’s that audiences tend to be way more forgiving of shitty movies than critics. You could argue that critics are heartless pedants soured by their own career failures, or maybe accept that it’s possible to enjoy a film that also happens to be garbage. There are no villains here, but the important takeaway is that critics are hired and respected because most of them are able to judge a film from an objective perspective. This is why studios put their quotes on posters and trailers instead of those of some random jerk on Twitter, right?

Oh no. Turns out that’s no longer the case. It seems anyone can be a prestigious movie critic now, even @zoidberg95 talking about the unbridled joy King Arthur brings him. This isn’t an isolated incident by a long shot, as evidenced by the recent pullquote in the trailer for Broken City, a Mark Wahlberg film with a 28 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sure, we can all agree that Mark Wahlberg is “bad ass” in the sense that assaulting a middle-aged Vietnamese man is both “bad” and an “ass” thing to do. And sure, there’s nothing technically wrong with giving the man on the street a voice of support. But here’s the thing: According to the source of that quote, he hadn’t seen the film. The studio used a tweet made about an entirely different Mark Wahlberg performance and used it in their ad. And they are somehow allowed to do this as long as they ask the author of the tweet beforehand. That’s it. There are no qualifications or confirmations beyond a polite message and digital contract.

Thanks to the crowdsourcing power of the internet, you can literally find anyone who is into any crazy thing. Studios know this, and are able to make a film seem like it has word-of-mouth appeal by scraping the bottom of the Twitter barrel to find faceless folks saying the right things. Or failing that, they find faceless folks saying the wrong thing and simply make it seem like they said the right thing.

After Batman v. Superman‘s Twitter account told us about the high praises of @raniaresh, someone pointed out that the now-banned account was only an egg icon with the profile: “I did NOT enjoy Batman v Superman.” The tweet was then pulled and replaced with yet another rando with the same basic praise.

Notice how it’s the same reworded “whoa my mind = blown” quote, only now attributed to someone else? Warner Bros. didn’t care where they were getting the quote; they just wanted some vague sentence calling their disjointed film “mind-blowing.” Chances are they tasked some hungover intern to scour social media for any kind of evidence of exploding brains and slap that shit on a promo shot, regardless of who said those words or what context they were said in.

But if you think this dirty process is safe from critics, you are not correct …

4

Advertising Perpetually Cherry-Picks Critic Quotes To Make Them Seem Positive

Writers write a lot of words, and it’s pretty easy to change what those words mean if you only take a few of them. For example, I earlier described the plot of Nine Lives as “rich and powerful,” if you ignore everything around those two adjectives. In the way Rock Bottom can turn Homer Simpson into a pervert, so too can studios make terrible reviews seem complimentary. For example, this glowing phrase about Rock Of Ages from a Guardian reporter …

… was in truth pulled from a one-star review quote: “It’s a very peculiar show indeed, with an unvarying and unpleasant tone of careless sexualisation. Rock’n’roll debauchery is presented as the pure and innocent way of dreamers.”

Seriously, they fucking did that. And the reviewer in question wasn’t too happy about it at all. And amazingly, this isn’t the only time The Guardian‘s deep disdain was twisted into cheerful praise, like a laughing clown puppet made from a child’s corpse. Check out this poster for Legend and its collection of four-star reviews:

Except that Guardian review in the middle? It’s a two-star review they made to look like four stars that had been obstructed. That’s honestly hilarious and brilliant and hard to be mad at, but the act of taking someone’s out-of-context words and slapping them on your poster or DVD case can go from cute trolling to downright infuriating very fast.

For example, the movie Accidental Love (which has a flatlining 6 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) underwent a horrendous production which resulted in a cobbled-together shitcircus disowned by its director. When reviewing it, The AV Club noted that the original version probably wasn’t all that great either, saying “there’s little reason to believe that the ideal, untroubled version of the material would have been a comedic masterstroke.”

And then this:

Yeah, that’s the back of Accidental Love‘s DVD case using The AV Club’s unfavorable description of a (still better) hypothetical movie as their review quote. You can imagine how that kind of insidious tangle of bull angered the original writer … or you can read his response here.

It comes down to this: Never trust a review quoted on a movie’s promotional material. Ever. The only information you’re getting is that those combination of words were somewhere in the writing, but in no way were they necessarily meant to describe the movie being advertised. Which puts a whole new light on posters like this:

3

TV Networks Will Misspell Their Shows’ Names To Avoid Bad Ratings

In the age of streaming, being a TV executive has the life expectancy of a docile classroom hamster. Their entire job can be summed up by a picture of a stargazing dinosaur on a suspiciously bright night. It’s totally understandable that networks would claw and gouge their way to profit in these uncertain times, and yet their sleazy resourcefulness still manages to surprise even me, an undercover diamond thief working the long con as a internet writer who broadcasts his diabolical intent all across the land.

To quickly set this up, you have to understand the Nielsen ratings. Every show undergoes the same measurement using a sample audience being monitored for what TV shows they watch. That data is calculated into a rating for each show, and the ratings are averaged into monthly or quarterly reports. Advertisers then look at these reports and decide what time slots to buy for their sexy burger or cartoon shitting bear commercials. Therefore, a show with a better average will get more money for advertising. With me still? It’s all a big wet fart of intrigue for your average consumer, which means few people pay attention to Nielsen ratings. But once you start to read daily reports on TV industry sites, you’ll start to notice something bizarre in the footnotes:

That’s right, in what seems like playground-level cheating, television networks can deliberately change or misspell their own shows if they anticipate bad ratings for that night. By doing this, that episode won’t be calculated into the shows’ overall averages, and their quarterly ratings won’t go down. And so shows like NBC Nightly News become “NBC Nitely News,” so that marketers don’t pull that sweet, sweet commercial dough.

How could such obvious semantic trickery go unchallenged? Well, it turns out you can do all sorts of amazing hogwash with human language. Ever heard of the show Bull? It’s a CBS courtroom drama co-created by, and inspired by, the life of Dr. Phil which exists for some unimaginable reason. It also airs something called “encore” episodes every now and then.

That’s not just the wording of the article, but the official CBS classification of a repeat episode of Bull. You see, a show’s ratings are calculated based not only on their first run, but also on (typically lower) rerun ratings. But if you call your rerun an “encore” episode, then it doesn’t get categorized with the original episode, thus avoiding a lower score. Yep, apparently you can change the words of things to completely redefine their importance, like calling bags of Funyuns under a co-worker’s desk “diamonds” and then telling everyone you’re a “jewel thief.”

2

When In Doubt, Simply Block Critics From Reviewing It Ahead Of Time

It’s the perfect crime. Critics can’t say your game or movie sucks if they can’t see it. So studios will simply prevent critics from seeing their work before it comes out. It’s like throwing bleach in your date’s eyes so they won’t know how ugly you are. And while sounding excruciatingly transparent, this technique works way more often than you think. It’s called an embargo, and it’s what Ubisoft did before Assassin’s Creed Unity, which ultimately received lukewarm reviews for being breathtakingly glitch-filled. Like, so glitchy it was a work of sinister art — like something the Joker would conjure up.

Ubisoft “How am I supposed to enjoy a carefree romp of clandestine murder after THIS?!”

Unfortunately for gamers, those reviews only came in after the midnight release — as ordered by Ubisoft when they first sent their early copies out. But it could be worse. You could go a step further, like Wild Games Studios did when they trolled through YouTube sticking copyright violations on any video which spoke badly of their new release. Or Sega, which used the same tactic to shut down bad YouTube reviews that didn’t even contain footage from their games.

In the end, this technique usually causes a huge and understandable backlash, on account of YouTubers being wicked blabbermouths about such injustices. But critic embargoes are so common that they’re considered normal. And most often, this isn’t nefarious at all, but rather a measure against premature spoilers or judgments before a film is locked down in post. Only every once in a while is this tool used to cover up true garbage. Pungent, salty garbage — the kind you can taste through your nose. Like, I’m talking alien-chasing-a-school-bus-driven-by-Judd-Hirsch level of garbage here.

Independence Day: Resurgence is a film I happen to enjoy that is also objectively terrible. And 20th Century Fox knew it was terrible, hence their American critic embargo lasted up until the day it was released — causing most audiences to buy a ticket without knowing its quality. Similar measures, which include completely skipping press screenings altogether, have happened for similarly bad work like Alien Vs. Predator and the G.I. Joe films.

Yes, you could argue that these films “weren’t meant for critics,” as a lot of executives often say. But that’s kind of like saying an apartment complex “isn’t meant for safety inspectors” or that your basement “isn’t meant for homicide detectives.” People deserve to know in advance if something sucks. But that doesn’t mean we won’t still enjoy it or flock to see it. And if all else fails, you can always do what China does and completely circumvent the pesky audience altogether …

1

China Will Hold “Ghost Screenings” To Make Films Look More Popular

As previously mentioned, China is quickly becoming the dominating money-maker for blockbusters. So it stands to reason that the country would also become the industry leader for blatantly fudging a movie’s popularity. But instead of relying on embargoes or misleading ads, Chinese studios have taken a much more direct approach: just buying tickets to the movie they made.

The Wall Street Journal “‘Best thing to ever happen to movies!’ raved one translucent women in a bloodstained Victorian wedding dress.”

It’s as brilliant as it is illegal. Instead of pouring money into television spots and bus stop posters, simply use that marketing money to buy out theater showings, and watch the popularity snowball. And to ensure profit, those purchased tickets can then be resold online to discount ticket retailers. It’s like stealing your own car for the insurance, and then selling that stolen car for a second profit.

Unfortunately for those cheating marketers, I wouldn’t be writing about this if people didn’t figure out it was happening. Ghost screenings were recently brought to light thanks to the film Ip Man 3, a martial arts biopic which bafflingly includes Mike Tyson playing an evil property developer who ends up fighting the hero in an epic battle of kung-fu vs. boxing vs. child endangerment.

Pegasus Motion Pictures Why this movie felt the need to artificially inflate its popularity is beyond me.

After the film’s release, a local news site posted screenshots of theater websites claiming to have sold-out screenings for showings that started within ten minutes of each other … in the same auditorium. Meaning that, save for some kind of multiple-dimension scenario caused by Mike Tyson punching time itself, someone was brazenly cheating in the laziest way possible.

When The Wall Street Journal dug deeper, they found it to be a regular (albeit short-term) strategy for film distributors to buy out fake screenings in the hope that sold-out shows would encourage audiences to assume the film is popular and therefore go see it themselves. It’s not very imaginative, but if studios were more creative, they wouldn’t need to do all the bullshit on this list to begin with.

David is a writer and editor for this very website that you currently read. You can follow him on Twitter.

If you loved this article and want more content like it, please support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page.

Also check out 65 Reasons Good Actors Make Bad Movies (You Never Realized) and 5 Hollywood Secrets That Explain Why So Many Movies Suck.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why Every Movie Trailer Is The Same, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Follow our new Pictofacts Facebook page, and we’ll follow you everywhere.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2ycay5h

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2xNHT6N via Viral News HQ