#Kyle Kallgren

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@themousefromfantasyland @the-blue-fairie @themetropoliskonboy @thealmightyemprex

"We can have as many cinematic universes as we want, but at some point we all need to delve into the deep lore of the one universe that we all actually live in: in the Actual Non-Cinematic Universe. That's a terrible acronym. Or maybe it's a perfect acronym.

This universe is filled with people whose faces and bodies and stories will never make it to a big screen.

A universe which is Diverse but in fiction is Uniform. A universe that we want to be Equitable but is everywhere marked by Bias. A universe where all that could be Included, is, by scorn, by mockery, by the constant policing of culture, is Excluded.

Fighting for the integrity of a genre means fighting for Uniformity, Bias and Exclusion.

Fighting for art, fighting for the work that people make, fighting for all the things that an art form can be, means joining the fight for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. (...)

We do not need to meet an arbitrary standard of Fidelity to pre-existing works of Fiction!

We do not need more stories about Power! And we do not need to back another Brand!"

(Kyle Kallgren, Brows Held High: Top 20 Comic Book Movies of All Time)

[queen-paladin]

My Books and other Media: April 2024 Wrap up!!!

Here is what I thought of these! As well as some video essays I LOVED because I eat those up!

The Time I Got Drunk and Saved A Demon by Lemming:

A hilarious romantasy adventure romp! Our Heroine, Cin, has to team up with a demon to go on an adventure when they find out that their goddess possesses demons to attack people and the only way to stop her is to destroy her sacred items. It's laugh-out-loud funny one minute and sweet, romantic, and very spicy the next. I would highly recommend it! 5/5

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Starling

In a Victorian AU world, Jane doesn't want to be stuck as a spinster figure of pity with her adopted family, so she agrees to be in a marriage of convenience with a surgeon named Augustine Lawrence. Things seem to be going great until on her wedding night, she is dropped off at the manor house he lives in...at the haunted manor house he lives in. Since Crimson Peak is one of my favorite movies and this book was inspired by it, I had to pick it up and I was not disappointed! Very much had the same vibes but is distinctly its own thing! I liked Jane and her practicality and I loved Augustine and how much of a pathetic meow meow and simping malewife he was for her. There is plenty of scary, gruesome imagery and I kept being so nervous, thinking "how is Jane gonna deal with this?" Plus there was a pretty darn good twist in the last third and I was genuinely surprised by the ending, without giving anything away The only thing is that sometimes the prose is so poetic that it becomes vague, especially one section right before the very end. But I loved it! 4/5

Bride

Okay, so in a nutshell, this is an arranged marriage story between the vampire Misery and the werewolf Lowe, since the vampires, werewolves, and humans have been in constant conflict. For what I liked, the book was really funny. I enjoyed Misery's sarcasm, snark, and badassery and the romance felt developed and real. This is infamous for the omegaverse elements in the smut, but it wasn't overwhelming for someone who hasn't read a lot and I heard it's TAME compared to fanfiction. I especially liked Misery's friend Serena and I ADORED her relationship with Lowe's kid sister, Ana, who is so adorable and funny. My only qualms are that the romance felt slow to start, there were a lot of bland, forgettable side characters to keep track of, and the climax felt rushed and unclear. 4/5.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Fawcett

My favorite book of the month! This tells of socially awkward, incredibly intelligent professor Emily Wilde in the early 1900's. She is a professor of Fairy studies and is off in a tiny Scandinavian village to study the fairies there. Who else should show up but her charming, rakish rival in academia, Wendell Bambleby. They realize how much the fairies have messed up the local villagers and plan to take action. Okay, I LOVE that the fairies and the fae feel so much like the fairy tales and folklore of yore. The author did her homework! These aren't the hot people with wings and six-packs of Sarah J Maas. They are inhuman, immensely powerful, and can bless you or curse you in a minute's notice if you take the wrong step. I adored Emily and she seemed very much coded as neurodivergent with her passion for fairies her fear of offending others by saying the wrong thing and her lack of reading into social cues. And WENDELL BAMBLEBY! My BambleBook Boyfriend. He is a mix of Prince Hal from The Henriad and Howl from Howl's Moving Castle. He is slutty, constantly inviting his Bambleby Booty Calls, and lazy, having his students do all the work, but he begins to genuinely fall for Emily and is as charming and sweet beneath it all as he can be with a subtle element of "touch her, and you die!" It's dryly hilarious and the third act was incredible. The characters were well-developed and flawed, but still compelling, relatable, and likable. I adored this to death and would HIGHLY recommend it! 5/5

Twisted Love by Huang

In a nutshell, this is a brother's friend and grumpy/sunshine romance. What I love about Ana Huang is that she always knows how to pace and develop a romance between two characters AND her spice is top tier. There are a few funny moments, as well as genuinely sweet ones. However, there are all sorts of elements that veneer into the silly to where I don't take it 100 percent seriously. Like, how our main girl just HAPPENS to be friends with a princess of another country at some public university. And that our main guy is 27 yet a billionaire CEO of a whole company...and he just hangs out with college kids! Like?!?!?!!? I say a good 4/5 just because I always like her.

My Throat an Open Grave by Bovalino

What I expected:

What I got:

Ok, so this teenage girl, Leah, is miserable living in her tiny, religious, conservative town. One night, she is sick of babysitting her baby brother and offers him accidentally to the Lord of the Wood and wouldn't you know it! The Lord of the Wood takes him! So the town tells her she has got to go and get him back, though no girl who runs to the forest for that ever returns. So she gets there and...it's this nice, open minded, cottagecore normal ass village. Other than the premise at the beginning, this isn't Labyrinth but a wholesome Midsomar for kids. Though I do like the middle finger to conservative, small town purity culture, it kind of dragged and wasn't that scary and the stakes weren't high. I expected a scary, folk horror journey, but just got kind of "eh, here's a nice cult that doesn't judge you. You know kid, are you sick of your tiny, repressive town? Here's the answer: join a cult!" There is a really good twist, a scene that got kind of spicy and pushed it for a YA book, and I appreciate that the Jareth in this is around her age instead of some grown ass man offering himself to a minor (sorry, but I am in the minority of Labyrinth who thinks Sarah was right. She made the right choice at the end), it felt like it wasn't the heroes journey I expected and got kind of bland. 3/5

Bonus, My Favorite Video Essays:

The Dark Romance Community is Mad at Me: Okay, this girl, A Model Who Reads, posted a TikTok showing her surprise that the publishing company she works for was releasing a book marked as a Serial Killer Sexual Assault Romance, the dark romance community ATTACKED her in the comments. Here, she explains the problems with it why she isnt' sorry, and her issues with dark romance in full. Insightful, and incredible, and she finally addresses the issue concerning this angry, self-righteous, and unempathetic culture that has emerged recently concerning trigger warnings in media.

Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Video Essay My man, Kyle Kallgren, has done it again! Here, he breaks down Anne Washburn's play Mr Burns, a Post Electric Play, a play that portrays a post-apocalyptic story of a group of survivors recalling a Simpsons episode which then said episode transforms to a staged play to an epic sung through morality opera by the group at the end. He discusses post-apocalyptic media, the evolution of humor, and how humanity always triumphs over adversity. It's funny, deeply human, and chilling and incredibly well researched, in the Kyle KAllgren fashion. Highly recommend it, his channel and all his videos!

[anna-neko]

[eishtmo]

None of the movies you're thinking of is on this list.

[the-uncanny-dag]

How pretentious do you have to be to make trailers for video essays LMAO

[domidextrus]

This is Kyle Kallgren's best video essay to date. Absolutely a must-watch.

I really like how this essay doesn't make the mistake of using the topic to solely dress down right-leaning pundits, but rather presents it in a more universal light by pointing out that nobody on any side of the political spectrum is immune to this. The real tragedy in the aftermath of Howard Beale's famous rant is that it was presented as a cautionary tale against perpetuating the cycle of anger, but real-life society has since taken the wrong lessons from it and did exactly what the film predicted would happen: It has turned outrage into a commodity. We took the first part to heart and became "mad as hell", but only rarely committed to the second part that is "not gonna take it anymore".

Anger should never be the end goal. It should be the starting signal towards taking effective action and pushing for social change.

[tresdem]

Randomly in story beats that bug me:

The end of the Lion King (1994) when Simba 'confesses' that he killed Mufasa and Sarabi, his mother, is like: "Tell me it's not true." Like, lady, he was an infant. An infant. Of course it's not freaking true. What the hell do you think he did? Push him? And aren't you the least bit suspicious that the uncle who is mismanaging the whole thing and being an ass is claiming that this is true? Now, if Simba had been a teenaged lion growing into his mane, that I could see, but otherwise please. Please.

But that was a cheap line made to up the dramatic tension of the scene and to provide a sort of hiccup in Simba regaining his place as King. And it was made because who else was going to act in shock and horror? And also it sets up the reversal for later wherein Simba makes Scar confess.

So does it do the job it sets out to do? Yes. Is it still a cheap line that makes little sense unless we assume some things about Sarabi and/or the ability for cubs to take down full adults? Also yes.

On a somewhat related note, there's an old Kyle Kallgren video wherein he discusses the Lion King's similarities to the Shakespeare play History of Henry IV Part I & II and I kind of dig it.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

"A.N.U. is a perfect acronym. Anu in Sanskrit means the smallest indivisible part of something big. Be it an atom to the matter (primary definition) or an individual part of the human "universe".

"ANU - In hebrew the word "anu" means we... So yeah, that's a perfect acronym."

@thealmightyemprex @themousefromfantasyland @the-blue-fairie @piterelizabethdevries @tamisdava2 @princesssarisa @professorlehnsherr-almashy @gravedangerahead @faintingheroine @grimoireoffolkloreandfairytales

@stickypersonaearthquake @justanotherconfusedman @knivxsanddespair @strawbebehmod

[marsti]

idk how it happened but 2 of my most listened to songs this year were goth takes on genesis songs. kinda weird that it happened twice.

[anna-neko]

internet boiled down [colorized]

for realz tho, what an excellent way to summarize, isn't it: "of course everything seems like a conspiracy if you don't understand how anything works"

PS: and just like with a certain Bo special, there is a certain part of the video that has me concerned. In key of "is he truly that good an actor and this was simply carefully rehearsed for hours.... or am I watching someone quite literally destroying a part of themselves for my entertainment" which ... of course... ties right back into the mesg ... but how much of true pain.... etc etc etc

[studentofetherium]

btw i recommend this video essay about Dead Man. if you've seen the film, it has some really good insights into various aspects, and if you haven't, it's a damn good sell on why you should check it out

[ladyantiheroine]

*insert excellent kyle kallgren video essay about the history of spectacle*

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ZFcx056PQ&pp=ygUTS3lsZSBrYWxsZ3JlbiBob25leQ%3D%3D

the concept of a freakshow never fully went away. nowadays people collect posts/screenshots of disabled/mentally ill people literally just Existing Online and put them on their accounts with the intention of displaying them for people to hurl abuse towards. And they think that this is a Normal and Moral way to behave and carry themselves.

[marklikely]

once again failing to beat the parasocial relationship allegations :/

[the-uncanny-dag]

Shifting into a reality where they let you edit other people's YouTube videos like 2013 Tumblr posts to say whatever you want

[thatiswhy]

*beating youtubers with their own recording paraphernalia* STOP PUTTING THE MIC <30 CM FROM YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH YOU ARE TALKING WAY TOO SOFT THIS IS DEEPLY UNPLEASANT I CAN HEAR YOU BREATHING AT YET YOU ARE TRYING TO ASSUME THE AIR OF AUTHORITY AS IF YOU WERE GIVING A POLITICAL SPEECH OR MAKING A DOCUMENTARY STOP PUTTING THE CAMERA SO CLOSE TO YOUR GODDAMN FACE THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD AND YOUR ARMPITS ARE CUT OFF IT'S NOT ONLY AWKWARD BUT YOU HAVE TO LITERALLY RAISE YOUR HANDS IN FRIONT OF YOUR NECK TO GESTICULATE AND TBQF I DON'T WANT TO BE LOOKING AT YOUR FACE THE WHOLE 45 MINUTES I UNDERSTAND YOU THINK YOU ARE PRETTY OR AT LEAST YOU ARE TRYING TO SELL ME ON THIS BUT CUT AWAY GODDAMN YOU ARE LOOKING INTO THE CAMERA TOO THAT IS PARASOCIAL EYE CONTACT WHERE IS YOUR DECENCY THIS IS UNHEALTHY WHY ARE YOU IN MY PERSONAL SPACE

YOU ARE NOT MY FUCKING FRIEND

I swear there are like five people left on that goddamn platform who understand proper video essay etiquette.

[forthegothicheroine]

One of my favorite types of media criticism is "I don't like this thing, but I went on a journey to figure out what it was going for, and while I still don't like it, I can at least now respect the artistic choices." (Carl Wilson on Celine Dion, Kyle Kallgren on Gerry)