#Whooping Goldberg

[bob-the-movie-man-film-reviews]

Till (12): "And the Oscar goes to... Danielle Deadwyler".

Till (12): “And the Oscar goes to… Danielle Deadwyler”.

A One Mann’s Movies review of “Till” (2023). OH. MY. WORD. “Till” was an emotional ride I was really not expecting, but seldom has the success of a film rested so firmly on the back of its leading lady. Bob the Movie Man Rating(s): Plot Summary: Marnie Till-Bradley (Danielle Deadwyler) is living a good life in Chicago. She has a job, a nice house, parents living nearby and a fine boy by the…

[maretriarch]

i think i want to get a playhouse idk what id use it for but there has to be some fun diys you can do....i want to sleep in a racecar bed. alone.

[xh1dos]

Whoopi Goldberg defends Mel Brooks movie 'Blazing Saddles'

[whileiamdying]

“Till,” Reviewed: A Work of Mighty Cinematic Portraiture

In Chinonye Chukwu’s ardent film, the bonds of love have an inescapably political power.

By Richard Brody October 13, 2022

In “Till,” the director Chinonye Chukwu dramatizes the life and death of Emmett Till, a Black fourteen-year-old from Chicago, who was lynched in a small Mississippi town, in 1955. The movie reveals the story’s many hidden, deep-rooted, and wide-ranging dimensions beneath the specifics of family tragedy and local crime. It shows how the scope of the crime expanded to the center of national news and politics, sparking outrage and galvanizing the civil-rights movement—namely, through the courageous determination of Emmett’s mother, Mamie Bradley (Danielle Deadwyler). The movie (written by Chukwu, Michael Reilly, and Keith Beauchamp) looks in exacting detail at the specific and surprising nature of that commitment, and how she brought her personal experience into history in the present tense. What’s more, Chukwu develops a specific aesthetic, of analytical ardor, to embody the story in images—because the movie’s story is, essentially, one of images, of sight.

Emmett (Jalyn Hall) is a lively, good-humored teen with a sense of flair and style—a good dancer, an eye for clothes—and a warm smile. He’s looking forward to his trip to Mississippi, where he’ll stay with his aunt and uncle and visit with his cousins. But Mamie is apprehensive, because she knows well that white people there expect and demand Black people to be deferential and submissive, on pain of death, and she urges Emmett to conform to the behavior of his relatives; he agrees, but Mamie is desperately worried nonetheless. Emmett heads down South by train with his uncle Mose (John Douglas Thompson), called Preacher, and discovers the nature of Jim Crow en route when the train approaches the Mason-Dixon Line and all Black passengers are required to head to the rear of the train.

The movie depicts Emmett’s fateful interaction with a white shopkeeper, Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett), in all its innocent triviality, and the immediate recognition by Emmett’s cousins and other local Black people that it’s likely the cause of terrible trouble. Emmett is seized at gunpoint by white men who break into Preacher’s house. The murder of Emmett isn’t shown, just suggested, from a great distance, outside the house where it happened, with brief and vague sounds of violence and horrific screams. Mamie is informed that Emmett has been kidnapped, and his disappearance quickly moves into the political sphere: her parents, John Carthan (Frankie Faison) and Alma Carthan (Whoopi Goldberg), who were divorced, introduce her to a cousin, Rayfield Mooty (Kevin Carroll), who works with the N.A.A.C.P. and affirms that the organization will contact high officials, including the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois, to help Emmett. His kidnapping becomes news; politicians take an interest in finding Emmett. Then Mamie is told of Emmett’s death, of his body being identified by his ring (that belonged to his late father), and of Mississippi’s plan to bury Emmett there.

That official scheme, to get Emmett’s body quickly and permanently out of sight, provides the movie with its fulcrum, and it’s Mamie who discovers the power of leverage that results. The film’s great shift occurs in her meeting, on a porch, with Rayfield, in which she utters one of the movie’s key lines: “I need to see him.” (Chukwu films the meeting in a poised wide shot that lends it the grandeur of a history painting.) She demands that Emmett’s body be brought back to Chicago. Rayfield protests, wanting her to put her personal emotion aside in order to bring pressure, instead, for a federal anti-lynching bill. But Mamie vehemently insists that the N.A.A.C.P. first bring Emmett home.

To Rayfield and other organizers, Mamie’s intransigence seems shortsighted, even unduly personal. But her position is guided by an unerring sensibility and principle—an immediate and primordial fidelity to personal experience, to the bonds of love—that prove to be overarchingly political, and the very basis of solidarity and collective action. Emmett’s body is placed on a slab in a Chicago mortuary, where Mamie, her fiancé, Gene Mobley (Sean Patrick Thomas), and the coroner observe it. Only when Mamie orders the two men out of the room, so that she can have private time with her son, does “Till” show the horrific mutilation of Emmett’s body, suggesting the monstrous violence to which he was subjected. (Chukwu makes the point conspicuous, even emphatic, by interposing a table between the camera and the body until the men leave.) The movie shows the body from Mamie’s perspective, not just visually but, above all, emotionally, because that proves to be exactly how, and why, the world at large came to see Emmett’s body, too.

Mamie insists that Emmett’s funeral be open-casket, and that his body be unadorned by the mortician’s cosmetics. Her reasons are as literal as they are emotional: his condition is so appalling that people won’t believe it unless they see it, and she knows that the emotional power of the sheer fact of his mutilation will prove to be of crucial political power. Outside the church where the funeral is being held, she gives a brief, remarkable speech to the press and assembled mourners: “That smell is my son’s body, reeking of racial hatred. Now I want America to bear witness.” She invites a Black news photographer (Noel Sampson) into the church, where he creates images, published in Jet magazine, that quickly became historic.

In response to the outcry over Emmett’s killing, two white men were indicted for his murder, and “Till” dramatizes in great detail the proceedings in the kangaroo court, composed entirely of white male officials and jurors, that acquitted them. Here, too, the movie follows the events from Mamie’s perspective. Defying death threats, she heads to rural Mississippi to testify at the trial, because the killers’ attorney makes the cruel defense that the body, mutilated unrecognizably, was in fact not Emmett’s—even that the lynching was a hoax, meant to advance the cause of the N.A.A.C.P., and that Emmett was still alive but hidden away.

Chukwu presents an analytical panorama of Jim Crow, of the legal system that perpetuates racist policies overtly and covertly, and of the social system that extends beyond it; these systems operate by means of explicit and implicit threats of violence that come from white people who do so in the confidence that the law will stand behind them. (There’s another majestic cinematic history-painting, of Mamie and Preacher, in which he details Black Mississippians’ endurance of official and unofficial racism that is, as he puts it metaphorically, a matter of the very air they breathe.) The movie shows, movingly, the daring and dangerous organization required of Black people to insist on their rights (including the elaborate evasive measures that Mamie needed to take en route to the trial). The presence of Medgar Evers (Tosin Cole) among Mamie’s associates and supporters is a shocking reminder of the violence that civil-rights activists faced. There’s a suggestion of the essentially gendered, sexualized nature of racist violence in the apparent naïveté of a sign near the town of Sumner, where the trial was held: “A great place to raise a boy.” And there’s a crucial reminder of the essential connection between endemic gun ownership and the enforcement of white supremacy.

But, above all, “Till” is a work of mighty cinematic portraiture, with a range of closeups of Mamie that infuse the film with an overwhelming combination of subjective depth and an outward sense of purpose. These images depend for that vast spectrum of feeling upon Deadwyler’s performance, one of the most radiantly, resonantly expressive to grace the screen this year. As the star of a film about the power and principle of vision, Deadwyler says more in a glance than other actors might in a soliloquy, and her discourse—as in Mamie’s calmly outraged testimony at trial, done in a single extended take—conveys the authoritative strength of prophecy. What’s more, her performance, for all its concentrated energy, extends to the realm of the vitally physical in a moment of ecstatic silence, after she addresses a crowd in Harlem on behalf of the N.A.A.C.P., when her upper lip trembles. Mamie, having had her life transformed against her will, having been forced to take on a public role that she’d never have wanted, has come to recognize that the life of a Black person in the United States is essentially and inescapably political, and demands her ongoing and unrelenting action. ♦

[hammerbonk]

My Gender/Sexuality Headcanons For Reverse 1999 Characters

Except nearly all of them are aroace-spec 💀

No character is safe from my aroace beam

Vertin

Lesbian

Demigirl or nonbinary or agender? Idk I keep flipflopping between the three in my head. Either way I don’t think she’s that attached to her gender

She/they but also really doesn’t give a shit

Vertin is literally this image to me

Sonetto

Demiromantic/demisexual lesbian

This is mainly so I can project the aroace-spec experience of not understanding why your peers are so focused on crushes, dating and all that while the thing youre the most stressed about are your studies

Though I don’t think she’d ever properly label herself

Maybe not until muchmuchmuch later perhaps

Schneider

Lesbian

Underground gay culture was really big in 1920s Chicago apparently so she probably had her gay awakening at some point over there

Regulus

*looks around*

aroace regulus.

Whoops i tripped and fell and accidentally projected onto one of my faves again

Also she says “This Pirate will not be so easily labelled!”(?) in Chapter 5 so there’s probably some sort of gender fuckery going on w her

^ Yes i know that was in the context of soul numbers

Im gonna say genderqueer

Fucks with literally any pronoun

X

*looks around x2*

Aroace X.

Romance? Would you like to test out his latest rehash of the Goldberg Machine instead?

He/they

Medicine Pocket

*looks around x3*

You guessed it. Aroace MedPoc. i headcanon the entire irrational number trio as aroace 💀💀💀

They’re canonically intersex right?

Like with their pronouns I don’t think they label themself as any specific gender identity. But I’m pretty sure that’s canon too

[kimkimberhelen]

Gene Cousineau: “Little Sally Reed from Joplin, Missouri. What do you want?”

Sally Reed: “To be an actress … it’s all I ever wanted in the whole world.”

This quick exchange introduces Barry’s audience to Sally (Sarah Goldberg) in the series premiere. Her passionate, teary plea rings normally at first glance; she’s a small-town girl with wide-eyed Hollywood dreams. Aw, shucks. Over four seasons, HBO’s grim comedy ingeniously peels back layers to unveil Sally’s discombobulating, deeply human personality. Her unlikable traits—selfish, gravely insecure, a knack for walking over people (including seemingly naive aspiring actor Barry Block)—remain intact as the show nears its end.

By now, though, we know these qualities stem from a marred past: a rotten home life, previous spousal abuse, and a gnawing lack of confidence she desperately wants to cover up. Barry rarely excuses her entitled behavior but slowly sheds light on how her illusory front is a coping mechanism. No wonder she makes the short-lived Joplin as an outlet to process her tragedies. What’s worse? She barely gets time to exist in the world she creates after working hard to achieve it. As it turns out, Sally is the ultimate portrait of trauma in Bill Hader and Alec Berg’s stellar series, which wraps on May 28.

Sally Reed was probably never going to have a happy ending. It’s not because she prioritizes her lofty career ambitions, pushing away anything that gets in the way. Goldberg plays Sally’s goals with such enthusiasm it usually borders on mania, even when she’s sympathetic. It’s a shame she hasn’t won an Emmy for her wrenching yet funny performance. Remember her season two monologue when Barry (Hader) auditions for Jay Roach? Or her season three “entitled fucking cunt” breakdown in the elevator that Natalie (D’Arcy Carden) shares with the world, leading to her downfall? But the professional blinders Sally’s had on for most of Barry’s run is what limits her in the end.

As if her traumatic history wasn’t enough, her entanglement with Barry Berkman worsens everything. He breezes into her life one fine day, drawn into her safe space, when he catches her rehearsing outside Gene’s (Henry Winkler) studio while on a mission. Barry finds solace in it, attracted to the idea of shedding his skin to inhabit somebody who doesn’t have PTSD or a laundry list of crimes. It’s enough to get him hoping for a fresh start. That’s also what Sally hoped for when she moved to Los Angeles after finally leaving her abusive husband, Sam (Joe Massingill).

Season four delves into why Sally deserved to leave her Joplin jail. Sam isn’t the only reason. Her mother is dismissive, flat-out refusing to believe her ex abused Sally, nor does she care that her daughter’s boyfriend is arrested for murder in L.A. “Big whoop” isn’t exactly the expected maternal reaction, and her nice-guy father doesn’t have anything valuable to add, either. It’s clear from the final season’s early episodes that Sally doesn’t have anyone—anyone except for an imprisoned Barry. Her admittance to him in this season’s “bestest place on earth,” that she feels safest with him, is a devastating reality chec

Hader and Goldberg, sitting feet away, separated by a glass barrier, deliver a potent performance in a scene that sells their toxic attachment. She can write all the one-act plays and TV shows she wants, but Barry’s grievously absorbed her identity just when you (and everyone around her) thought she was free of it. Their confrontation in jail is a turning point for the show’s final installments. Her shaky confession sets Barry’s brain aflame. He teams up with the FBI, makes an enemy out of NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan), and escapes prison during a shootout. Ultimately, it launches a new life for the duo in the middle of a barren landscape where they don new identities and shed their skins. Just like the dream, huh?

Barry’s final season jumps eight years ahead with a full picture in episode five, “tricky legacies.” It glimpses into the dreary monotony of Barry and Sally, who go by Clark and Emily now. They shield their child from the real world. It doesn’t mean Sally’s not seething under Emily’s mask. Her pain follows her because she chose to give up the one thing that mattered: her acting dream. Having experienced a shitty upbringing, she passes along the intergenerational trauma to John by parenting similarly to her mom—indifferent, indignant, and inebriated. She doesn’t know where to start nurturing.

It’s not like Barry’s childhood was a prize, so neither of them is good at this, but Sally is on a whole other level. She drops alcohol in his juice to put him to sleep, serves up burnt lunches, and generally wrestles with how to love this human being she gave birth to. In Sally’s expressions, Goldberg displays a tangible aversion to motherhood, a full-bodied disdain for the life they’re responsible for creating. So yes, in a twisted way, she’s a copy of her parent now. It’s a full circle.

Everyone on Barry is haunted by their actions, especially with the time jump, so Sally isn’t an exception, of course. Barry wreaked absolute havoc. Gene lost Janice Moss (Paula Newsome), ruined his legacy, and now reappears to chase fame again. As seen in episode six, “the wizard,” Hank has grown a successful business, but had to kill the love of his life to do it. Fuches’ (Stephen Root) friendship with Barry turns sour as he morphs into the Raven. Yet, Sally’s regression is agonizing because she was a lick away from gaining everything she wanted. Instead, she ponders torturing her network boss, kills a man in self-defense, and runs back home, only for everything to crumble again. All this while witnessing Oscar winner Sian Heder work with her mentee, Kristen (Ellyn Jameson), and watching Natalie soar.

Now, she’s drunk and being tortured (note Hader’s prolific direction in “the wizard”) as a man in a ski mask figure shakes up their trailer home. She’s permanently haunted. Janice’s father has captured her partner, and all she can do is call him repeatedly, begging him to come back. With two episodes of Barry remaining, Sally is left alone in her cage to care for John. Does she head back to her hometown to complete the cycle? Or will she return to the city of dreams to find Barry and maybe accomplish the only thing she wants to be in this world? Either way, Sally might not realize it, but she’s already played the role of a lifetime now. It’s wish fulfillment in the worst and most tragic possible way.

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Guinan

By Ames

Guinan gives The Next Generation the closest thing the show gets to a wizard: just some kind of supernatural being whose unquestioned wisdom gets the heroes out of scrape after scrape but whose true powers are never entirely explained. Oh, and she wears baller hats.

Sure, she may play into that “bartender, here to listen to your problems and guide you on your path” trope (which frankly Deanna should be doing but rarely does), but Guinan is so much more than that. We’re going to get into the good number of moments this week on A Star to Steer Her By, so get ready for your personal epiphany as you read on below and listen to our chatter on the podcast (pull up a stool at 1:02:25). El-Aurians are always listening.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Whole generations of disposable people Simultaneously one of Picard’s best scenes, the peptalk Guinan gives to Jean-Luc when he’s being thoroughly whooped by Riker’s prosecution in “The Measure of a Man” feels like a turning point in the show. Whoopi Goldberg’s calm presence as a Black woman in a scene about creating androids as slaves imbues their discussion with meaning, weight, and stakes that are both personal and universal.

Every time you feel love it’ll will be different The perpetual sounding board, Guinan helps Wesley parse his feelings at the end of “The Dauphin” in a scene we really give the both of them credit for. Guinan doesn’t speak down to the kid or just tell him everything will be okay while he’s broken hearted after watching Salia leave. She tells it like it is: love is deeply subjective and his feelings are valid.

A warrior’s drink Guinan introducing Worf to prune juice in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” is such a perfect microcosmic scene depicting her character in a lot of ways. She just knows people. Worf is a tough nut to crack, but she reads people in such a way that she figures out just what he’d like in a drink, just as she does later in the episode on a much greater scale…

I look at things, I look at people, and they just don’t feel right …when she figures out the parallel dimension problem at the heart of “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” In that slightly fantastical wizard way she has, Guinan can feel that something is wrong with the timeline when the Enterprise-C shows up out of some rift or other and suddenly her once familiar crewmates are denizens of a warship. And even better, she gets Picard to believe her.

You have to let go of Picard Whenever anyone on the crew needs a little guidance, that seems to come from a really great scene with the ship’s bartender, and who could possibly need it more than Riker at the top of “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2”? She gives him the confidence he needs to keep going in the absence of Picard, whom she insists she’s super close to for reasons we don’t know yet.

Job opening in the Empath field Another crisis, another peptalk from Guinan. We all know Troi handles losing her empath powers in “The Loss” pretty terribly, but you know who handled it great? This El-Aurian bartender I know who swoops in and reverse psychologizes Troi with such stealth that even if she had all her senses at the time, Deanna wouldn’t have known what hit her!

You saw exactly what you wanted to see in the holodeck It is downright glorious how Guinan puts Geordi in his place in “Galaxy’s Child” when he’s unironically whining about how Leah Brahms is nothing like the hologram he created of her (vom!). “She's probably done the most horrific thing one person can do to another,” she says, “not live up to your expectations,” and I can’t help but stand up and applaud.

I’ve heard some Klingon belly laughs that would curl your hair Guinan’s advice to crewmembers isn’t limited to the human ones! In “Redemption,” she not only schools Worf in holodeck target practice (and left-landed, to boot!), but she also makes him consider what it means to be Klingon, as his experiences are atypical from most of his people. We have no doubt that her chat with him inspired him to get involved in Kurn’s war.

You ain’t never had a friend like me When Guinan sees other officers like La Forge pointedly avoiding Ro Laren, she makes it a point to befriend her in “Ensign Ro.” That in and of itself is very Guinan-like behavior, but it also comes with some of her copyrighted motivational chats when she is able to convince Ro to come clean to Picard about the secret mission she was tasked with for Admiral Kennelly.

I tell you, that razorbeast was a good friend All throughout “Imaginary Friend,” while the other officers not only infantilize Clara Sutter for having an imaginary friend, but they entirely ignore the signs that something isn’t right. Everyone except Guinan. Guinan talks to Clara as an equal, even if she’s a child, and imparts the story of her own imaginary friend: a Tarkassian razor beast, which somehow seems fitting.

We are also lonely Despite being conflicted about Hugh being on board in “I, Borg,” Guinan goes and meets with him and it’s such a cute little scene. You forget that someone as old and wizened as Guinan still has things to learn, and to find some common ground with a Borg was unexpected for her. And she even convinces Picard to see him too, giving us yet another great scene from this great episode.

Why are you still sitting here? Let’s see, is there a single member of the crew Guinan hasn’t peptalked yet… ah right, Dr. Crusher. Now we have a full BINGO card! Our final tete-a-tete from Guinan comes in “Suspicions” when Bev is doubting her decisions to look into Dr. Reyga’s murder and Guinan cheers her on until the good doctor solves the mystery, kills the baddy, and flies in a sun like a badass! Truly so many of our Best Moments from other character spotlights are initiated by Guinan!

—

Worst moments

Give yourself permission to be selfish Guinan’s first significant scene in the series is in “The Child,” and of course she’s doing better counseling than Troi. However, your hosts here at SSHB can’t help but cringe because, while the show got rid of Beverly Crusher for a season, it means we were still stuck with Wesley because Guinan convinced him to stay, especially after a season in which we were so annoyed by his character all the time! Guinan, how could you?

You’re a ‘droid and I'm a ‘noid You saw above all the times Guinan helped all the other characters with a little self introspection to find their way through a problem, and the one character whom I’d say she fails with is Data in “The Outrageous Okona.” It’s probably because encouraging Data to consult Joe Pesci on how to do comedy led to the events of my least favorite TNG episode, and it’s all Guinan’s fault!

Tell me more about my eyes While the scene in which Riker flirts with Guinan when Wesley asks for dating advice in “The Dauphin” is hot as hell and inspired a little bit of shipping, we’ve got to admit that it’s not at all helpful to Wesley. Usually Guinan scenes are much more beneficial to the crewmember who is struggling, and in this one, none of this is what Wes asked for. I’m still totally into it though.

Let me introduce you to the Borg We learn in “Q Who?” that the El-Aurians were almost wiped out by Borg… because apparently Guinan and her people never told Starfleet this before? Think about it: she clues Picard in after Q has flung them into the Delta Quadrant about who the Borg are, and it is news to him! Starfleet spends every other interaction with Borg playing catch up because they don’t have any info on them!

That’s what you get, Charlie! You get fork stabbed! Pardon the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia quote, but I couldn’t help myself. And Guinan seems to me no better than a McPoyle when she stabs the suddenly human Q with a fork in “Déjà Q” and generally mocks him. It just seems petty and violent for a character who is usually so stoic and reserved. So much for the tolerant Alpha Quadrant.

But I know it was an empty death, a death without purpose While Guinan had a lot of instances from our Best Moments list above from “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” we’re still troubled by her nudging Tasha Yar to go sacrifice herself on the Enterprise-C to make up for her waste of a death in “Skin of Evil.” Even if you consider it a better death than a tarpit, then you get freakin’ Sela in “Redemption,” which Guinan somehow blames Picard for when she’s the one who compelled Yar to go!

That was setting number one While some might give credit to Guinan for quelling a riot before it could get out of control when everyone was on edge due to sleep deprivation in “Night Terrors,” I’m not one of them. As I said in “Déjà Q,” violence doesn’t seem the answer for Guinan, and this scene escalated so quickly (partly because the bar scenes in this episode feel like afterthoughts), it makes me wonder how she let things get that bad.

A Yankee in Captain Picard’s Court Oh boy, I’ve got to question some of Guinan’s standards when we see her hanging out with Samuel Clemens in “Time’s Arrow” (and a terribly acted Sam Clemens at that!) after Picard had claimed in “Ensign Ro” that she’s very picky about her friends. Her cohorting with the author led to some of the most obnoxious scenes from The Next Generation that I’ve ever seen.

Our relationship is beyond friendship, beyond family There are several instances of Guinan hinting at her and Picard’s established kinship before we get to the story of the bald man who was kind to her in “Time’s Arrow” and my reaction was… that’s it? We say sometimes that leaving something unexplained is better than giving it a stupid explanation, and oh boy, Picard just sitting with Guinan in a cave once was totally fizzled what had been built up for so long.

Were you this much fun when you were a kid? Some of this is the overall child acting being bad in “Rascals” and Guinan’s child actor had it especially stacked against her since her voice had to get dubbed (resulting in her just sounding super smug all the time), but boy was she insufferable as a child! It was cute for adult Guinan to befriend adult Ro in “Ensign Ro,” but we felt bad that little Laren had to put up with this! Let this girl mope by herself, lady!

Forty to love Though Guinan helps boost Beverly’s confidence in “Suspicions,” she does it by tricking her with this lie about playing tennis that just seemed unnecessary. Guinan always finds ways to converse with people who need it, but this whole tacked-on frame story had some weirdness to it because it forced both Guinan and the episode to be indirect when it really didn’t have to.

Think of me as an echo of the person you know I’ll take every opportunity I get to shit on the Nexus in Generations. It’s just such a confusing device they used to get Picard and Kirk together that really makes no sense if you think about it for more time that it’s actually onscreen, which isn’t a lot. And there’s an echo of Guinan in there, feeding Picard exposition and generally complicating what this place is supposed to be, and I’m just done with it.

—

That’s enough from Guinan’s advice column this week! We’ve got a really special DOUBLE spotlight next week, in which Tasha Yar and Ro Laren are going to go head to head for the title of Baddest Bitch on the Enterprise-D. Place your bets now and be sure to come back for that! Also keep coming back for more of our series watch of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, order a drink with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and enjoy your prune juice.

[thechaseofspades]

3 characters that inspire you?

Did that thing again where I turned a fun little ask into a whole essay. Whoops haha.

1. Libby Stein-Torres

I love "Mazel Tov, Libby!" so much. Everything about it was great, but it really felt like a coming out party for the Libster. How anxious she was when the party started going against her plans, especially at the Hora scene. Her moment with Molly at the end where she admits all she wanted to do was spend time with her best friend. The freaking turtle races!!! Such a great episode.

Libby gors through the "first friend" arc as I call it. We all know how it goes. Shy character meets somebody and becomes friends but they don't really know how to be friends with somebody yet so they have to figure it out as they go but it all works out because they're perfect for each other and 100% supportive of one another. And now she's in the title sequence too! Go Libby!

(Honorable mentions for this category: Webby Vanderquack and Casey Goldberg-Calderon, who both also went through the "first friend" arc and I just couldn't go without mentioning them. Libby gets the edge because Mazel Tov was so good)

2. Luz Noceda

I think I made a post about how sometimes I don't understand the blatant messaging of media until I see an hour long video essay about it. That was in reference to Luz. I had the pleasure of finding a lengthy video taking about her as ADHD/neurodivergent rep and had that in mind watching S3 and wow yeah it's definitely there.

In many ways, I'm not like Luz. We have different diagnoses and different traits. So obviously it's not 1:1. But in my time watching The Owl House, I've had my own (unrelated) journey about learning to accept myself and embrace who I am. Seeing it all culminate for Luz these past six months made me feel really good. Too good to describe because I wouldn't be able to do it justice.

3. Huey Duck

Oh hey what's this how'd my favorite show end up on this list that's crazy.

I talked about this during Huey hours earlier this week but I'll repeat it here. I really appreciated how Ducktales handled Huey's autistic traits for the most part. Astro-B.O.Y.D.! being the obvious example, but I want to focus on examples like the Terra-firmians episode or Timephoon!, times where Huey was "wrong". Sure, his reliance on order and structure and his strict adherence to the JWG led him to inaccurate conclusions, but he was never *wrong* for doing it that way. The lesson was never "stop being who you are and doing what you're doing".

Compare that to the seemingly countless examples where Huey bailed the family out of a situation because of his knowledge in certain subjects or recalling rules from the guidebook. With a success rate like that, it's great that the show let him flex that strength whenever it could.

The lesson of this whole thing seems to just be to never stop being who you are. Even though sometimes it might set you apart and make you different, or might be difficult to navigate, or might send you in the wrong direction on occasion, it's still worth it to be true to yourself and do what you love. Do what works. Do what makes you you.

That's the lesson I've learned in the past few years. And maybe it's not a coincidence that I learned that lesson at the same time that I watched these shows. Whether I noticed it or not, I might have been inspired by them more than I think.

Thanks for the ask!

[common-grackle]

sister act

ily for this but i'll warn you it's been about a year since i last saw sister act so thsi might be not correct

all right so deloris is this singer and through a chain of events she's put in witness protection, which lands her in a convent (wow! because it's called sister act! funny!). she does not want to be there

also deloris was played by whoopi goldberg in the film (icon)

anyway she disguises herself as a nun and is struggling but she befriends a few girls named mary and also becomes the choir director!! she leads them in a traditional hymn and its like okay and then shes like LETS MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING and they do, like, combined gospel + rock and roll music and it's super vibey

deloris accidentally gets herself on national tv! whoops! the choir sounds really great now though

this guy is like NOOOO KEEP A LOW PROFILE so she promises that she will but she's not very . good at that

uhhhh the pope says hes gonna come watch their music and then some stuf fhappens and there's like? a fight scene? and some near-death experiences

anyway it ends with the choir singing 'i will follow him' (banger)

[quiveringdeer]

Porco once did a presentation on whooping cough for high school and he opened the Powerpoint with a photo of Whoppi Goldberg coughing. He and Pieck were the only people who laughed at it and he couldn't start the presentation for five minutes because Pock was laughing too hard at his own joke.

Pock believing he's showcasing how relatable and a great sense of humor he has with this joke:

[moonieshinesims]

✨GEN 1 SUMMARY✨

It only took me... a year and a half to finish the first gen? Hopefully in the upcoming generations, I won't take so long. I will be through with grad school soon and will finally have my free time back! Either way, in this post, we will look back at the accomplishments made by our Generation 1 founder - River Smoke.

Making It In The World

This was... an interesting ride. I love River, I actually based her off of myself back when I was in high school for the Teen-A-Day Challenge back when High School Years first came out. A lot of her friends (who survived my save file purge) were also created by me from this challenge - Havarti Camambert (found on this post), Malibu Waterson (who eventually became Havarti's step-sister), Opal Berry, Koshari Mombar, Hildegard Germaine (all found on this post), Meyer Berry (Opal's brother), Rowan Giles (Rohan, our villain's twin sister) (all found on this post), and of course Ichiban Kasuga (found on this post) who isn't an original character, but is, instead, my favorite character from the Yakuza series.

I had no intention for River to actually start out being friends with, or liking/disliking any of these characters. I wanted her to come across as an unpopular loner, but upon starting the game she immediately became best friends with Havarti and pretty good friends with Malibu, two of the more "popular" trope characters that I'd created! She also had a big crush on Rohan, and didn't like Joe Goldberg (also not an original character, and he's not mentioned previously because he dies pretty early on) and Opal.

After being spurned by Rohan, she went out to the pier and Ichiban came up to her and began yapping, even though I have the Language Barriers mod downloaded and they didn't speak the same language. River asked him to teach her Komorebigo, and they became friends, started flirting, and eventually he spontaneously asked her out! It was so cute I just had to go with it!

It was fun watching her consistently fail at things though...

For kind of a loser character, she had a lot of spirit, and kept a good attitude! Maybe that's why the other Sims liked her so much?

I had started the story with her narrating her life through the social media app SocialBunny, but I gave up on that after a while. I kinda forgot it was thing I was doing (whoops!)...

The story did get wild after a while! I tried to let it go its own direction most of the time, but I steered it to fit a narrative with the main plot.

Some of the wild and wacky happenings of the generation were due to mods. The craziest being the Life's Tragedies mod and the Extreme Violence mod both from Sacrificial Mods. While I actually was wanting something weird and creepy to happen to River via Joe and Rohan, I hadn't planned on him kidnapping her when he did(!!) and then him getting shot was definitely spontaneous. I was actually freaking out when it happened, so I had to write that into the story.

Everything that happened with the other characters was solely due to their own decision-making... although eventually I got so attached to Havarti and Cassandra Goth being River's best friends, that I had to take control of them somehow and made them all roommates from college onward into adulthood... The decision to make Havarti into a cyborg and Cassandra into a somewhat alien was just for fun. It adds a bit of fantasy to the story!

The Goals

The packs that were supposed to be used most in this generation were - High School Years, Discover University, Industrial Loft Kit.

I honestly think I forgot I was supposed to use Industrial Loft Kit, so maybe I'll be able to fit that into the next generation. I also tried to utilize the two school packs, but I think I got so wrapped up in River's story that I didn't do everything I could with them. High School Years glitched out on me a lot, so I can't say that that's my own fault. And Discover University is HARD. I DID use cheats to help River get her degree, because no matter how much homework she did, or how much studying she consistently made Cs and Ds. It was so frustrating!

The three required locations for her to live at were - Evergreen Harbor, Copperdale, Britechester which River did succeed at, living at each of them in order.

While her required trait was Loner, she actually eventually dropped that on her own and gained the outgoing trait, so that was an interesting twist! She still got nervous around a lot of people though, so I'm not sure what caused that.

And she did join the Secret Agent career and work her way up to level 10! So, that was also a success!

Ending Traits

Potential Superparent

Good Manners

Gifted Gamer (which is funny since she doesn't like video games)

Painting & Photography: Dull Eye

Programming: Not A Native Speaker of Machine

Domestic

Dastardly

Quick Learner

I ended up getting rid of a lot of her fears with the fear-be-gone potion BUT they just kept coming back! By the end of her saga, she had these fears:

Ghosts

Failing Tests

Being Judged

Fire

Unfulfilled Dreams

Crowded Places

Dark

Death

At this point I don't even remember which ones she'd had earlier that I got rid of. I bet some of the ones I got rid of were the same ones that came back...!

Relationship Trees

Before Gen 2, this is River's family tree... Her mom's cousin Logan moved into the family home with her since he'd never had his own place, and he has remained living there since.

Logan's related to Bee (and River) by way of Garrett (River's grandpa). Garrett's brother was Logan's father. Logan has a brother named Henry, who is married to Diana and has three daughters. Cortney is the closest in age to River.

Ichiban's family just consists of his father (knowingly at least). He has a mom who was supposed to be from Sulani, but he doesn't know her.

River's first other "found family" outside of her biological one was Sim Alpha Sigma, the sorority she was forced into by Havarti when they went to college.

Then, when she went off to Mt. Komorebi, she gained two other "found families" - her one with Arakawa Corp. (under the guidance of Ichiban's dad Masumi) and NITCA.

The Next Generation

Now that Ichiban and River are gone but not forgotten... Their daughter Michiko (named after River's coworker / roommate in Mt. Komorebi) has a turn in the spotlight! What sort of wild and wacky adventures will she have? Knowing her parents and their lives... probably a lot! But we'll have to see!

[kermitjay]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎂🎂🎂 WHOOP I GOLDBERG CELEBRATING 68, NOVEMBER 13TH

[the-firebird69]

Watch "Styx - Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" on YouTube

You want to make me into a blue collar man all of them actually these people are cheap and chintzy and stupid it's like one guy who has a plan and involves code is bad for our people the whole thing is sour as hell and I do need funding for my project which is all of our projects everybody is involved in this. Frank Castle Hardcastle chiming and say they're doing what they can but they need assistance it's like pulling teeth to get a dollar out of them when they're worth a trillion dollars a minute if I'm doing anything and I'm sick of it. It's repulsive it's motivational though and it should be sharing that these people are so damn cheap that they squeak and you can hear it all the way out to Mars. We're going to go and start this race and I'm going to offer free beer four beers they're on 6 oz it's a small plastic cup for each Patriot that's of legal age and every patroness of legal age unless you come in like Dan and your steaming drunk or Trump who's steam and drunk all the time if you're drunk can you come up to the window you're going to be removed you don't want stupid drunk people there and you definitely won't be allowed to race these are real races. What I know is they probably come to the race drunk and try and do their own race and threaten the Ferrari and do stupid stunts that don't work and it's what the movie looks like so they probably exclude themselves from the race. And women are welcome to the same race we're not discriminating we don't tell you what to wear and stuff except for the safety equipment which kind of limits you but we are accepting women's applications equally and we do encourage you to try but midler and she wants to race and she is accepted and we will if you would expect the car Whoopi Goldberg wants to race and we expect the car just like any car they bring down and we're going to send it out to them where and when and yes they'll be patrons plenty of patrons all of them but a lot of them are some are Lamborghini people and you can imagine what that's like here comes some rich people say you can't do that and it probably is Tommy f and just because he took the original design doesn't mean that he can take a copy of it.

Zues

I had a lot to do with the above too and he's saying it too meant daddy runs around tries to make it look like nobody can get him anything if they do they're in trouble and all this stuff and it doesn't happen and it's happening to these two next door because they're messing around with everybody and threatening my husband but he's doing that and a lot of people fall for it it's very annoying it's not helping matters and you don't understand basic human psychology you really don't even ask whooping soon cuz you're stupid attitude it looks like Tommy is going to do it for real and you're not our leader and you're in the way lots of times you just mobilizing your people barely cuz that's reality and you can look at it that way cuz that is what it is. We're moving on and forwards and we bought tons of his stuff too so max not happy and took it. And we are going forwards with this race

And this lady is a b**** she comes off as a b**** and she sounds like when it looks like one so you don't like the car or anything don't go to the race we don't need you there. And whooping Goldberg says he designed it and he wants to have the race it says it's revenge but it's not really it's like a parallel and has purpose and the purpose is supposed to help underprivileged people get cars that they can escape with they can do jobs with and they can stand up to Tommy f with and there's a lot of people like that even Max. But they're so cheap and they lost their whole round bitching and complaining and they're still doing it and Tommy f is right at the door he's going to try for Mars that's a very big problem that's the purpose Mars is earth size it has huge diamonds

Thor Freya

If if these ladies show up he wants to do a special intro for them for them getting in the cars ahead of time in the pit Cruise area and picture ops and and other things like that and again I'm a big huge like fruit basket and buffet thing and champagne at the end and limo rides home and stuff so they like it and even if it's a big mouth shows up. But I guess they're major enemies of Tommy f and they can't stand it and don't know what to do and they're in a lot of trouble when they opened it up we're going to Publix now

Thor Freya

Olympus

[whatevssatan]

I've seen Rat Race at least 10 times and it will forever be an unbeaten movie. The concept? Amazing. I would totally both bet on one, and be in one. The actors? Stunning. The characters are also stunning. There are so many individual scenes that are just spectacular, too many for me to pick and choose. The dodgy effects from 2001 only help the movie on its way to greatness. I sincerely recommend every human watches this movie, because it is *chef's kiss*, truly. Also, the soundtrack?? Yes please. Smash mouth is still smashing, as always. A very genuine 10/10

[kendricksendrick]

Yo wheres that post someone made a long time ago about how they were giving a presentation in class about whooping cough and put a picture of Whoopi Goldberg on the first slide and couldnt stop laughing at it and couldn’t even give the presentation

I just thought about it and snorted i need to see it RIGHT NOW

[everythingisterrible]

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The View is getting WEIRD!

(By Commodore Gilgamesh)