#although I also think it's in-character and a little funny that he seemingly dyed his hair black and is wearing different color suits

[flowerbloom-arts]

Genderswap versions of some characters I think are neat! I do hope to play around with them more, especially Hutz.

(Mark is short for Marcel by the way)

[lari-online]

a rant about sydney, carmy, and claire

i want to do this in parts so it’s easier to digest.

part 1 - claire is your classic textbook male gaze, manic pixie dream girl. she’s quirky and funny. she’s ’nerdy girl takes off her glasses and lets down her hair’ beautiful. she’s mysterious but not too much. she’s not like other girls because she isn’t afraid of a little broken arm (or man). she’s fearless. she calls around to ask for carmy’s real number to confront him about giving her a fake one. she’s bold. she seemingly understands him immediately. she remembers him because, he’s the bear and she remembers him. she already knows his entire family so she fits right in. she takes him to house parties to show him life can be fun. she gets him to open up because he’s safe with her. she’s the dream. she’s perfect…but that also makes her boring. and while people who look like her may be able to see themselves within her, it also makes her less relatable and therefore less likable.

part 2 - carmy needs sydney and by extension so does claire. now wether you have hopes for sydcarmy in a romantic sense or not is your business (i personally don’t want syd touching carmy with a ten-foot pole atp. at least not in that way). what’s evident to me though is that people would not be rooting for claire if it wasn’t for sydney. take sydney out of the picture. make it the claire and carmy show. a tale of childhood friends getting a second chance at love. she’s perfect, he’s fucked up but it’s okay because they love each other…tell me you wouldn’t be screaming at claire through your screen to get away from that man. to run for the fucking hills. you need characters like sydney and even richie (who actually make people like carmy deal with their shit) to be the “bitch”/“asshole”. you need to dislike them because they help drown carmy out. they make you believe that carmy may be bad but he isn’t the worst/only one.

part 3 - the relationship between sydney and carmy seems more organic and real than the relationship between claire and carmy because neither syd nor carmy are perfect. they are two imperfect, complex individuals who share a passion, slowly learning more about each other on a personal level. whereas with claire we as an audience are force fed this supposed connection through other characters. constantly reminded of how good she is for him. she is already perfect and knows everything about carmy, which by extension means he’s fucked but fixable. it is also funny because we’ve learned nothing about him through her, like girl please tell us all that you supposedly know and understand about this man lol.

bonus + sorta spoiler - “she’s peace”. i’m sorry…like was that on purpose or am i missing something? is she who you think of to calm yourself down when you’re having a panic attack? does she literally calm you down and ground you when you’re having a panic attack? is the sound of her voice, a simple “hey”, strong enough to cut through all the noise? this is why i want syd to take that opportunity because although she quite clearly is the backbone to that place and i love seeing her, i am dying to see how he’ll fare without her.

[ferret-does-stuff]

So Rimu (creator of heartless deciet) stole my rights for playing idv and turned me into a brummie so now I must write an essay in return for her giving me my rights back. What shall it be about?? Death predictions for Chapter 1 that's what. This will be like my previous Eden's garden one was, starting with the tier list

I might get canceled for this but whatever.

So I'm gonna start by saying Akira and Izanami are definitely surviving, Akira is the protag and has way too much potential development to be killed off so soon and Izanami is being set up as the antagonist so she'll at least be a late game death, she won't die so soon.

Kou is ruled out for similar reasons, although it would be funny if someone tried to kill him every chapter and he just came back. Plus, he's too cute to die.

Minamoto, Tomoya, Shion, Yumeo and Kyouran all give me late game or survivor vibes. They're all incredibly intelligent and wouldn't be so quick to die or kill (although Minamoto does have a violent streak, I doubt he'll kill someone so early on. At least give him some time for the despair to kick in). Tomoya is seemingly the support and he and Shion are definitely hiding something, which would be disappointing if either of them died so early. Akira needs her emotional support failboy! Yumeo is also very antagonistic, and I see him as a late game death (I stand by my theory of Tomoya or Shion killing him) and Kyouran is just survivor material. He would be besties with Denshi. I can also see him becoming closer to Akira when her second talent is revealed as they both have illegal talents, I can see the reveal happening around Chapter 2 or 3, so he'd at least die in 4 if he doesn't survive and I don't see him as a culprit.

For the "low but possible" these are all characters that don't have the same level as plot armour as others, but I doubt will survive. I think Hideyoshi needs more time to build his friendship with Katsuhiko before dying. Kiyoshi is my son he has lots of room for development, I can see him as a chapter 3 death, although i hope he lives. Satoru has an unhinged sprite, he's not dying soon (unless he's insane??? Watch me be wrong) anyway I think his relationship with the others should be furthered prior to his death. Takeshi definitely has room for development, I want his softer side to be explored a little more before his inevitable demise at least please, Rimu. Have mercy on my poor eepy soul.

As much as I love her, Chiemi's attitude will probably get tiring after a long time. I can see her dying in chapter 2 or 3, but i wonder if she'll get negative character development? That will be interesting. Otome give me culprit vibes, but only after the stress of chapter 1 fully catches up to her.

I'm sorry but Bani, as much as I love her, probably won't live long. I hope she does get some bonding time with Kiyoshi (she likes puppet shows!!) before her death, but it will be tragic and I WILL cry. I think Rei would be an interesting 1st culprit, her talent could be used against the cast to give them false information and who would be suspiscious of the small blind girl??

Chou... I'm sorry but you can't mention her having a bad temper without making me think she'll get angry about the situation in chapter 1 and kill a person in rage. I still love you it's ok.

[problemswithbooks]

002: Hawks

Thank you for sending in a question! I’m happy to answer!

How I feel about this character:

I like him! He’s not my favorite, but I think he’s a really interesting character. His design is also spot on! I think he really brought something new the story, sense before him we didn’t really have anyone in the cast who was even close to being as sneaky as Hawks is. He’s a planner, and although he’s a good guy, it’s still hard to know 100% what he’s up to, or what he’s going to do next. I’m always excited to see him in the story because it means something interesting is about to happen.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

i know his most popular ships are with Dabi and Endeavor. Some people ship him tragically with Twice too. Personally, I’m not a huge shipper, so I’m not super interested in any of his ships. I look at people shipping him and think ‘neat’ and generally keep scrolling. 

 My non-romantic OTP for this character:

I really like him and Endeavor hanging out. Thy have a really fun dynamic of older, grumpy guy, and energetic young guy. It’s fun to watch him tease Endeavor, and have Endeavor react to it. They also seem to understand each other pretty well, sense Hawks was able to get a coded message to him. I’m really hope neither of them die this arc so they I can see how their relationship changes, now that Hawks lost his wings, and was seemingly told Dabi’s true identity. 

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I guess the idea that if the story was trying to paint the Heroes as on the same level as villains, that Hawks would have been the character to drive that message home. If Horikoshi wanted him to be a bad guy, he would have made really apparent. When Endeavor first showed up for example, he wasn’t even subtle about how much of a absolute asshole he was. When i see people say that Hawks is supposed to be a bad guy or that his murder of Twice is presented as horrific by the story I get confused, because it could have been, but it wasn’t. If he was supposed to be a bad Hero character, Horikoshi wouldn’t have put in so many internal monologues about him trying not to kill Twice, or made him so concerned about saving people. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

As I said I want him and Endeavor to live and interact again. I think it’d be kind of nice if Hawks ended up staying with Endeavor for a while, sense he’s alone in his house now. It’d be nice to show both Endeavor and his family having separate lives, without Endeavor just being alone. That would make people feel sorry for him, and sort of give the impression that even if you change you’ll still be miserable. Having him and Hawks be friends and possibly commiserate about loosing their Quirks (if Endeavor takes a Quirk erasing bullet instead of dying) shows that even if his family can’t forgive/ want to be with him, he can still have a life without them. I also just like the idea of them learning how to be regular people together. Both of them value their Hero personas so much, it’s hard to say how either of them would handle being denied that life. I just really want these too to be friends, okay!

my OTP:

None. I don’t really care about shipping.

my cross over ship:

God, I don’t know. I’m not into shipping much as it is so I’ve never thought of a cross over ship at all. I guess maybe Vash from Trigun. They’re both seemingly happy blonds, but they’re also sad deep down and lonely. I think that could work, maybe.

a headcanon fact:

That he still has that Endeavor plush he had as a little kid. I love my stuffed animals and I’m older then Hawks by a couple years so why not let him have a comfort plush to sleep with. I bet it’s beat up and worn. Endeavor seeing it would also be funny because I think he’d be both embarrassed and touched.  

[kenobios]

rotj: my thoughts

positives and negatives. spoilers ahead

so, i wasn’t gonna write one of these but i felt i needed to get some stuff off my chest so i can move on. i was just gonna pretend this movie didn’t happen but i think i can come to eventually accept that it did now that i’ve had time to digest everything.

POSITIVES:

- honestly... from my first viewing there isn’t a lot i like. but i’m sure this will improve the more i watch the film and actually have the chance to form an opinion on more things within such a hectic onslaught of information. - i laughed. c3po and that little fixer dude were genuinely funny (to me). dio (sp?) was super cute too. tbh i never cared much for droids (my obi-wan is coming thru here) but i actually enjoyed them so that’s a win for me - very pretty film. visually spectacular.  - fast-paced. not boring for a second (to me). kept me entertained. - rey’s yellow lightsaber. i actually liked this even tho it doesn’t match up with current canon (yellow being for temple guards). it reminded me of bastila and i was just waiting for her to show it off as a double-sided saber... which i didn’t get but it still looked like it was built for it so i’ll take the win. - the idea of palpatine being powerful again but it would have been cool to see a younger version of himself - rey and ben teaming up and the intimate moment they shared which felt genuinely beautiful and was one of the highlights for me

now here’s the ISSUES i have off the top of my head, some of them having been mentioned on this blog before:

- the trio. everyone else has already said it. forced and uncomfortable. it felt like they were setting up a love triangle for the first half of the movie as well, which was weird. when they had poe and rey have those ‘moments’ or when they bickered with each other i was like ‘they better not be tryna spring up some hanleia dynamic on us for the last film between these two’ especially while also baiting finnrey (which is never touched upon again after the first half of the movie, yikes)

- towards the end of the film, i turned to the person next to me and said “this reminds me of a video game plot” - i couldn’t pinpoint exactly why that was, but it was just a feeling. and not a deep, thorough video game plot either. another reviewer said something similar. it’s just... very shallow, expository and it feels like it’s dragging you and the characters through very railroaded and forced missions/battles. i mean at the start they’re really just looking for something, going to someone, that person says they need to talk to someone else for the thing, they go to another person, etc. which is a type of mission device used in games as well. it also felt to me like one of those japanese otome games where rey is the bland female character that all the male characters fall for (poe, finn, kylo) and she gets her pick of which one she wants to romance, which was cringe.

- i didn’t hear the characters. i only heard what they were forcing the characters to say in order to progress the plot or explain the plot. the characters themselves became faceless inserts for exposition. so many times i heard a character say something and thought... that was a jarring piece of dialogue that seems both out of character and unnatural to say at that point in time.

- although i said being fast-paced could be a positive, it was largely a negative for me. at one point it felt like slide transitions were happening at minute intervals. a major plot point would be revealed and then no time is given to process, it’s onto the next major scene. this left everything feeling very rushed and messy, which i believe is due to half the film being cut for time constraints.

- each character is either twisted into an unrecognisable character, or ignored/not given the time they deserve. rey? blank slate female protag with a famous bloodline and who barely reacts to the things going on around her (leia dying, ben dying, she disregards her ‘friends’ on multiple occasions). like others, i always defended rey’s abilities, but this film is too much. she has been made a mary sue. finn? rendered nothing but the ‘friend’ pining after a girl and only briefly gets time with his own story which is never fully explored in this film by any means. poe? turned into a grumpy, seemingly jealous ‘friend’ with a shady past that felt like they were trying to make him the ‘han solo’ of the trio rather than going with what we already know about his character. leia? now this is hard, and i respect what they tried to do, but i still felt like her death could have been done a bit better rather than the quick ‘shock’ moment it was. also the stuff with luke training her is a no for me. way too shoe-horned and part of what made leia cool to me was that she was a skywalker but didn’t need to be a jedi. her powers were elsewhere. kylo? don’t get me started. rose? who? she may as well not have been in this movie with the way they ignored her character and showed how little the other characters care about her. it broke my heart.

- rey palpatine? though i’m a rey kenobi fan, i was happy with rey nobody. i liked what it stood for. i didn’t mind the idea of rey palpatine in theory, but the way they force-fed this to us in the film rather than building it up left a bad taste in my mouth and i’m going to have to pass on it. if they wanted to have her related to palpatine, they should have just made her a clone imo. it would have matched with what was being built up prior (in tlj with the clones in the cave), it would have explained her ties to the dark side, it would have completed the palpatine/skywalker poetry, and it would have still been congruent with her being a ‘nobody’ since that’s essentially what clones are seen as in star wars. also we wouldn’t have to think about the fact palpatine got laid. laboratories were already set up in jakku by palpatine. cloning itself was shown in rots anyway (snoke) so? 

- although i’ve wanted ben to be redeemed... it still felt too rushed in this film. also, he does display some toxic tendencies as kylo ren towards rey (trying to manipulate her to go with him) which didn’t sit well with me but i didn’t really see ben/kylo ren in his scenes sometimes anyway, since he was also forcibly used to give exposition to us/rey. i did like his scene with his mother and father in the film but i just needed more than that to really feel his redemption rather than the quick switch we got. 

- i originally wasn’t okay with the whole ‘bringing someone back to life through the force’ thing since i always liked the idea palpatine was just saying that to honeypot anakin, but decided i’m willing to accept it as a unique ability they had for each other due to their force bond. but then... ben dies anyway. and it’s done in such a way that leaves you feeling ‘wtf just happened?’. it was random, forced, didn’t feel necessary and it just... happened. no one reacted to it. he wasn’t referred to or mentioned after this. the last skywalker goes out just like that. poof. okay. so was this a shock death or was jj genuinely trying to appease people who didn’t think ben deserved redemption or to live? either way ben lived such a sad, cruel, manipulated life that his death seemed unfair and we’re all supposed to think this movie is hopeful and celebrate a few minutes later? i don’t think so. in fact, everything that happens after that scene feels incredibly uncomfortable because of the massive tonal shift.

- the kiss. ok don’t hate me. i enjoy reylo. but i honestly think the kiss wasn’t exactly... needed? maybe it was just because everything else felt so forced but it felt a little forced in this scene for me. for me, the hug ben gave rey just beforehand spoke more volumes of their intimacy. i did mention their intimate moments above as a positive, so i still like this overall moment (in addition to the moment rey heals him). but the hug spoke enough to me that it would have been nice to keep it more subtle yet obvious enough (thanks to their acting) that they cared deeply for one another. but then again, this is what i felt before i knew ben died, so. idk. i guess it would suck for ben to die without having kissed rey? how about just don’t kill ben off. have them hug instead of kiss and then leave us to fill in the gaps as they both live. how about that.

- the rey skywalker thing is embarrassing. and rey ended up alone in the desert... just how she started. i just can’t. by the time this came on the screen i was ready to leave. i only stayed because i HOPED there would be an after credits showing her on the falcon, or her training finn to be a jedi, or her speaking with any of the force ghosts (luke or ben or anakin).

- speaking of which. why were there no force ghosts in the scene where she fights palpatine? we just get voices? that scene really lacked impact and the whole fight sequence just felt blah. palpatine came back super strong and then he was gone in moments. there should have a) been force ghosts or some kind of visual presence of the jedi to help rey whether physically or just boosting morale and b) ben should have fought palpatine with her.

- why is rey alone in the desert? i honestly didn’t think this meant she was going to be a hermit until i came online and saw that’s what everyone else thought. but just... why? why is she not passing on the jedi ways she fought to keep alive? or the knowledge she has gained/kept in the sacred jedi texts she stole? surely not. surely that is her plan. surely ben saved her not just because he loved her but also because she can carry on the skywalker legacy NOT by dying alone in a desert but by training new jedi. (which, again, SHOULD HAVE BEEN FINN AS THE FIRST NEW JEDI!) or better yet, a new type of jedi that don’t follow toxic ways but that incorporate both the light and dark side of the force like she does? and calling THEM skywalkers? but nope. instead she ended up back where she started. except with less personality this time.

- i can’t talk enough about how cool it would have been to have jedi!finn at the end. talk about coming full circle from the promo baits they had for TFA of finn with the lightsaber. AT LEAST GIVE US THIS.

- the whole movie just felt like a massive disrespect to the previous film. everything rian built was trampled on, retconned or ignored. say what you want about tlj and rian, but this is what happens when you ignore or try to retcon the preceding film whether you like it or not. everything feels messy and the plots get screwed up. this movie would have been largely different (better) had they not tried so hard to pretend tlj didn’t exist. even if you didn’t like it, take the plot and mould it into something you do like. don’t just toss it aside and lose all sense of continuity between the films. i don’t blame jj for this exactly, but rather the disney committee that were too afraid to acknowledge tlj’s existence due to the reception it got from fans and thus felt the need to have jj ‘fix/retcon’ things rather than build upon/improve things.

- oh yeah hux. that happened, i guess. i thought it was weird and it kinda sucked that they did that. who cares about the new guy? general pride or whatever? no one. surely making general hux more menacing couldn’t have been THAT hard. but no. we get a rather silly death instead. alright. at least he can forever be known as the petty king of star wars.

- there’s probably more. i could write an essay but i’m getting tired of complaining already so i’m leaving it here. if you happened to read this far and want to talk about it with me some more, my DMs are open!

overall, i just hope some canon content is going to be released, either in the form of a book or a comic, that explores more of this following the movie. i want to know more about finn’s story. i want to see whether rey does stay on tatooine or whether she trains jedi. i want to see whether she communicates with ben through the force, or just, y’know, any closure on that would be nice. i want to see the director’s cut with the other half of the movie. then, perhaps, i will know peace.

[juistheseminarian]

Eccentric, part 2 : now I’m here

I was planning to be done with this by now - both with this article and with the illness. I can’t believe that it’s been almost 15 years and I still get people congratulating me for acknowledging that I have an issue and going it’s-the-first-step-to-recovery, which they’ve learned was an appropriate thing to say since you don’t want to stand there and be embarrassed like I do with my boyfriend’s mom when she starts crying (which she does a lot). I’ve stirred things and realized things and I intended this to sound like a sort of retrospective from a place of unadulterated success. But guess what! 

I ended the last bit on my return from anorexia and lasting relationship with a psychologist I described as abusive, although that may be excessive and may come from the resentment of a long therapy seemingly not having “worked”. I started seeing them around age 12, before the eating disorder really declared, and i was referred to them at the end of an endless session of musical chairs through which I met many, many ‘emergency’ professionals whose schedules couldn’t accommodate another patient. I had to tell the whole story every time as if I were filing a police complaint or justifying an ailment that had long thinned beyond recognition, losing more of its meaning every time; I worried often, and I still do, about making myself sound ill enough to be considered, knowing I was taking their time when they could be curing people with actual issues. 

Having been sent to therapy after the school phobia I developed as a 5 or 6-year-old, and then again as a 12-year-old, and on and off ever since, means I’ve barely lived without framing my every breath as something to be treated and fixed, analyzed and made normal, insufficient, dependant, bending the wrong way. I entered this longest bout of therapy as a child and left it a decade later as a child. I believe for the first few years the psychologist was reliable if a little too set in her ways: there was no talk of medication outside of an apparent agreement to exclude it, which comforted my irrational fear of treatment with just as little medical basis as I previously had. However, her patient-based approach helped me feel like this time around it wouldn’t be an issue if I wasn’t “really” anything, or that’s how I viewed it at first. I don’t mean to dismiss the entirety of what happened there, only, you know, the bits where a refusal to diagnose me lead to a refusal to treat me, which in turn lead to desperation to fit me into the superstitious ramblings of an unstable person who refused to treat herself. Fuck that person. Call it what it is. 

I resented the amount of information she gave me about herself, the description of her previous marriage leading up to ten years of unhappiness she couldn’t get out of, the description of her current partner’s superior attitude, the way her life was a mess and the way I viewed her as honest instead of genuinely intrusive. She’d offer to pay me to iron her clothes, she’d talk to my teenage self about her finances, about her gynecological health, and I listened, and my mother became concerned. By then she had framed my parents as unable to understand me the way she would, she whose child had run away from home and I had to know all about it, apparently. I defended her. 

After the anorexia bit I grew alright for a while. I went to high school, I had a boyfriend, I neglected my own friends in order to make him my first priority at all costs, in short I was playing my role very well. My writing got noticed, as it should be, and I was exempted from english class, as I should be. I was bad at maths, I was good at history, I enjoyed latin class, I had friends I looked cool to because of the whole having had sex thing. Over one year my boyfriend and I had split up and I saw a few boys from my grade, most notably a wreck of a teen who regularly said he could be doing this with any of my friends and prided himself for using me “as an experiment”. When I broke up with him to go have the world’s least satisfactory sex with a friend of his, he called me crying hundreds of times. He had read somewhere that cool people had open relationships so he wanted one: when I took him up on that he said I disgusted him, turned around cause he “couldn’t look at me”, and masturbated in my bed. It was terrific. I was a sheep in shame’s clothing. 

There were the “can we do this without a condom”s and the “I want to see you shove that shower up your vagina to clean out the danger and I’m watching you”s and the “I can’t believe you cheated on me”s (he was kind!) and the “I’m storming out of your birthday party because you and your friends are little bitches”s. I don’t like how this is taking the same turn my life took - revolving around boys and men the second it got the chance, which is something I still haven’t worked out today as I live under the constant scrutiny of my several imaginary sugar daddy-leaning role models, but I’m keeping that topic for next time. This is, of course, she says in a white girl voice, about me. 

During the last year of high school, the boyfriend and I broke up for good because I had fallen in love with a guy we had met at a music festival and had pursued email after email. I felt glorious cracking the shells of emotionally unstable dudes and making them rely on me for subcontracting introspection: now I take “you’re the closest friend I’ve ever had” as a red flag, poisonous edible paper that dissolves in my water tank and kills me. It seems I do know better now, and it seems no woman ever told me that, and I keep being scared of them, and I keep being gay too, that’s my life’s familiar ghost. I’ve never gone far enough to confront the very real fact of loving women: I saw it as a kid when female nudity made me react, when I didn’t feel any sense of belonging with either boys or girls, when I felt like a monster. That desire is different because I don’t let it exist. Funny i’m only mentioning it now. What’s it like to be out to yourself? 

Do you relate to princesses? To female leads? Sometimes I can’t allow myself to replace fictional characters cause how realistic would it be to have the man of the story want to fuck me when my buttcrack isn’t even shaved? Obviously that would never work. Obviously cinderella’s ass is smooth. I never feel polished enough, or good enough an actor, or intelligible enough: expanding like a red giant, I feel like a stomach with needs, and the picture is grotesque - nothing like those Degas ballerinas. Dripping, eating itself, round but not motherly, the hunchback from Ken Russell’s the Devils is too feminine next to me. Suppose i’m fattening from storing all that shame. 

***

These days I resent the other diseased. Everyone hates my uncle cause he’s got it too and he drinks and he takes medication that people view with contempt; he lets himself die but it never seems to work even though he acts like it. Somehow something is still barely holding his limbs attached, miraculously, precariously. And my friend’s mother too, brain locked in a hamster wheel, hanging on to people like smeagol consumed, no longer in touch: filtering words like a beekeeper, only letting the crazy in. She makes me afraid to give birth. Would my children grow with a devolved being, Lovecraft’s blind cave-dweller, who once was human and is now condemned to live? Avoiding it in hallways, fearing it under their bed? 

By the fourth year of the relationship with festival boy my anxiety had become the decisive factor in every single move I made. I could no longer travel, be spontaneous, laugh, orgasm or breathe. The lump in my throat had grown bigger than I was and my face felt numb, I evaporated, I had emergency doctors drive a camera through my nose only for them to confirm I was choking myself this whole time. It really felt strange: like you’d have tried to swallow turkish delight but it piled up in your throat, invisible. The doctor wrote: patient known for anxiety. I thought: great, now when I die for real they’re gonna think i’m crying wolf and also they’re gonna be right. Fortunately enough, I then was relieved from the constant imminence of choking, you’d never guess how. 

I called a therapist my mom had taken me to when i was about 12 and we both liked her a lot - serious and a little intimidating in just the right way, a little soft yet clearly not one to let me bullshit my way out (my mom liked those). I was in the uni hall with some friends when her assistant called me back and scheduled an appointment for me later this same week: it was a huge deal. She remembered me. I suddenly felt safe, suddenly felt myself slip from my own consciousness like the narrator in Janice Galloway’s depression book when she enters a clinic: she’s no longer her own problem, or so she thinks at first, before realizing care never comes in the shape we expected. 

I started treatment almost immediately and was in shock at the realization that I did not need to suffer any more. I wasn’t aware, I didn’t KNOW of the existence of medication that would prevent me from spending hours and hours in inescapable pain, contorting my body between screams and frantic sobs, persuaded I was about to die a solitary death that’d leave me to witness my loved ones moving on in relief. Everything around me felt temporary and fleeting and treacherous. And most of all, each of these occasions were a trial for my failure to live, and I sat accused as my chrysalis life developed before me, never free, never daring, hidden, waiting. Every time, I realized how much I was missing out on. Every time I was too tired to seize the day after recovering and just dozed, scrutinized always, for a respite I knew would be short. My idea of living was a xanax in front of any distracting tv show: suddenly sleep was warm, and I wasn’t dying, and things lifted by the tornado gently fell back into place, and disappeared. 

(river) Oh, I got plenty of help. Therapists and medications and EMDR and - hypnosis and transcendental meditation. Nothing made me feel better (...) I feel everything. There just wasn’t enough positive emotion to balance me out. (payton: so it wasn’t because of me?) (river) no. you were my only relief. (“the politician” (2019) ep.6) 

My trust in festival boy was broken: I felt that if I was ever overcome with the looming fear and froze, he wouldn’t help. I have no idea if it was true: I’m very prone to blaming others for my feeling abandoned, often with no relation to their behaviour. I never could learn his language (i’m sure I can now) and the required travelling to see him became too much, even though we had met through travelling and didn’t feel at home anywhere. This continent of my life was infected and we steeped in sepsis for months and months, resentful, picturing other people when we touched, searching for admiration elsewhere. It’s the worst thing you can do to a bond, demand things from it when it’s dead, as if it was gonna answer. You know it’s been dead for months but when you try and bury it, you can swear you saw it squirm, and then it’s gone, and you took out the doubt. 

In this case I didn’t, Martin did. Martin was an old friend I knew through my first partner, and he came back into my life with an exact timing, like he was taking up an offer I was about to throw at someone else. It was all i wanted, car rides at night, feeling desired, watching him on stage, not being shamed. Comfort and help and reassurance, feeling small next to him, and knowing for certain that he understood: everything he says I take seriously, because there’s no way he doesn’t know, I could never lie, and I don’t want to. Well - I omit a little bit since that’s what it takes for me to grow guilt-free: I’m a fangirl and have never felt the need to stop, I let the obsession continent drift and crash, and perhaps it will become submerged and perhaps it won’t. Point is, I can defend it now, all the pieces I feel,I’m no one’s moodboard. 

I took a step back and realized I had no way of relying on the trope of a positive ending to this,  since there isn’t one. I see no perspective for myself, and I recently understood why antidepressants were considered a risk factor for suicides. It did make me indifferent to things that used to be matters of life and death: school grades, my weight… I care, and I don’t. I gained over 10 kg that sports don’t affect at all: I run all the time, cycle all the time, and it piles up forever, and I don’t recognize myself. I don’t fit in myself anymore. I don’t want to celebrate this thing i haven’t chosen and that I can’t deal with, and when I start thinking about it I end up in a frenzy. I just pretend it’s not there, but I feel so heavy carrying all that me. 

It’s a good time to be lost, if you’re okay with it. I’m not. I’m not free enough to be lost: I’m merely pulling on my leash and choking myself, looking at the shop displays, window shopping for life, shiny presents in a snowy christmas street, the others singing while I watch. I watch, I drift off, they see me lose focus, we’re too tired to get me back. There’s so much to experience and when I look back, so much I’m glad I’ve done before realizing I was doing it, because clearly it would be too late by now. I’m not a recluse by choice: I’m one of the weak ones, the eternal witness, or a loser, depending on how you see it. I like both. I think taking myself as seriously as i do now is both a symptom and a cause of why I’m such a bore: what’s so bad about looking stupid? I do it all the time while trying to not look anything at all. It’s not that deep, if I do say so myself, and as you’d expect, I never do. Ah the clever girl’s burden, say the adults, and together we mock the monster we’ve created and the monster takes it personally. 

So see, that’s where I’m at: no longer can I lazily bask in the excuse of a shitty partner, this time it’s on me, it’s on being sick, it’s on being sick without an excuse. My parents support me. My partner supports me. My friends would support me if i let them anywhere near me. But I take the crazy and I give it an incubator, I show it films with role models of crazy so it can grow and grow and finally make me special, isn’t this what I do? Look at joaquin phoenix and lose weight, I tell it; you’re not very good at the crazy, looking so plump and healthy. At least show your scars: they’re fading, it’s been over a decade, so now what, we’re just gonna look like someone who should get a makeover without the moving story of why they’re neglecting their appearance? What’s funny is, I’m actually a very ambitious person, mediocre is my rock bottom - listen to me when I tell you. There’s no such thing as effortless when effortless is a mountain.

(payton: i’m scared.) (river) don’t be. There’s more honor in defeat than there is in unused potential. (“the politician” (2019), ep.8) 

My therapist recently told me that if I was catholic I’d be in trouble. Duh, right? Jokes aside, she went: then people would see you as a waste because you do nothing with your force. You wouldn’t be allowed to just have that and not live it. I pondered: don’t you think I know that? Is more guilt really the solution? 

I know i want things. I know I love things, and people, and sounds, and places, and smells, and being alive. But do you see the difference between ‘knowing’ you shouldn’t be doing something, and understanding it in your very flesh, by experience, growing from it with the intimate conviction that it’s something you must stay away from? I know those things, and I don’t feel them really. I’m a fast learner, I’m a semi competent person, I can almost seem okay in a group. But I have shackles for lungs and I have concrete for breath. It’s got brutalist charm and warmth almost doesn’t spread. 

So that’s where I am with the dreams I have and the love I feel and the way it won’t come out. I suppose I’m awake but I’m not quite there. Martin feels it first: the pain on his face when I disconnect is breaking my heart. He’s just trying to bring me back. I’m loved. I’m locked away. And once my arms break I’ll dig my way out with my teeth if I need to.

[cupofsorrows]

Howard Lovecraft 5: Yes, This Is The Last One

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Alright chums, let’s do this, home stretch!

- Alright everybody, welcome back to Eldritch Wipeout!

- We’ve had a pretty uneventful day so far, but that might turn around with our next contestant! Standing three feet tall and hailing from Rhode Island, let’s give it up for Howard “Hard R” Lovecraft! *air horns*

- He’s gonna need to keep a level head for this, Tim.

- That’s for sure, Jack. Always keep your wits about you!

- That is, if you haven’t already lost your mind from revelations no man should bear!

- Looks like he’s already running into some trouble with the first trial- And they’re past it already!

- But let’s see how well they do in the second trial!

- We pulled out all the stops on this one...

...and by “all the stops”, I mean ‘ripped the hell off of Indiana Jones’!

Don’t forget Howard...in the Aklo alphabet, ‘Jehovah’ begins with an ‘I’!

- Pretty straightforward, Bob, just gotta find the right tiles to step on --

- Ooh! Do you think he realizes that the words “my father” in that inscription DON’T refer to his father?

- I’m sure he does, John. If the inscription had meant that, it would have said “your father”!

- Appears he does NOT understand this, Rick.

- You know kids these days, Bill, they just don’t got the grammar too good.

- Wait, looks like he’s got another idea...could it be?

- I think it is!

- Looks like he’s spelling out ‘Azathoth’ which IS the correct answer!

- Terrible animation as always, of course.

- No argument there, Dick.

- Just the worst.

- Anyway, it’s on to the third and final trial! This one’s gonna require a lot of creative thinking...

- Looks like he’s planning on reflecting the light from his glowy blue friend, definitely an unconventional solution!

- I’m not sure that’s how physics works, Fred...

- Well, it’s working, Don!

- Well, fuck me in the ass with a Honda, Paul, so it is!

- Just goes to show you can’t trust physics in a place like this.

- No you can’t, Ron.

- I think our boy Howard might just be home free - OH! LOOK at that! A mob of Deep Ones!

- Copy-pasted, by the looks of it!

- Earl, this might be a pickle they’re in now.

waaait a minute...Deep Ones don’t blink!

- Actually, Mark, it seems like they’re cool! They’re just letting him walk out of there.

- Come to think of it, Ted, I think those might just be some set technicians. They’ve been waiting to start disassembling the course, I think.

- Well then, that’s our cue! We have a winner, ladies gents and assorted entities! Thanks for tuning in!

whew, doing those voices was murder on my throat. Now back to the hostage situation:

Nothing much to say here, badguy seemingly wins, activates the ritual, yadda yadda.

oola ooh couchez avec moi, c’est soi?

You can’t really tell from the screencap, but at the crucial moment the book stops working because...

...yeah. I’m not sure ‘deus ex machina’ is the right term for a situation involving actual elder gods, but it sure is a convenient development that in no way hinged on the protagonist’s actions, isn’t it? (also wow. They...just did not bother to give that book any texture here, did they?) Anyhoo, the evil plan fails, miserably,

(I think this was Pepsi’s slogan back in the ‘90s.)

Abdul has finally Outlived His Usefulness™, although he manages a few more lines after being set on fire so I wonder whether that dorky outfit was actually flame retardant.

And there’s Dagon, just standing there awkwardly because this is his place and he actually has people coming over tomorrow so if you all would please hurry up?

The goodguys actually left before Nyarlahotep had even begun soliloquizing back there, and now they’re back safe and sound (except for Ma Lovecraft who is still dying).

Oh, look who it is! Yeah, they’re safe, no thanks to you. Hope you had a nice cup of tea while everyone else was almost dying.

He binds the three journals together into The Necronomicon, which is the only thing that can save Howard’s mother (apparently that requires a higher level of magic than awakening freaking Cthulhu).

Speaking of Mark Hamill, that new Dark Crystal show has been pretty good so far (he’s one of the skeksis in that). Anyways sorry I called you useless, Doc.

lol that bitch is FADED!

*ding* Turkey’s done!

Howard reads from the book to save her. BUT WILL HE BE IN TIME?

My God, she looks like she’s made of vinyl! SHE’S BACK TO NORMAL, EVERYBODY!

There it is, the ONE GOOD BIT in this whole sordid affair. And I’ve capped and posted it, so now you can safely not watch the movie without missing anything.

So Spot (...is he Cthulhu for real now? I don’t think so but...) Must Go Back To His Home Planet Now, His People Need Him. By the way, I am increasingly sure that this is supposed to be R’lyeh:

(sorry, Ruh-LAY)

So the baddies didn’t kill these guys. Ah, too bad, I guess.

Howard shares some meaningful last words with Armitage:

- And they return (via portal) to their home. Yes, their quiet, peaceful home, with its cozy beds and its tranquil garden and their little cat, Ni-

...why, who could THAT be?

I will say this about the animation: it stayed shitty right up to the end.

...

So...not Nick Fury, then.

Right now, I feel, the joke is very specifically on me.

Roll credits, including this bit here about how this was actually adapted from a graphic novel:

Notice that director/producer/voice of Spot/father or husband of half the cast Sean O’Reilly is there, but notice how many other people there are who seem to have had little or nothing to do with this movie. Wonder what that’s about?

If it’s one of those guys that did this credit art - orders of magnitude better than the animation for most of the actual film - it’s nothing short of a travesty that not only were they not involved with the main project but also that we get to see their stuff now just to taunt us with what might have been.

I mean, LOOK at all that! Damn!

“Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental”, says the movie with the child version of a famous horror author as the main character. SURE, WHY NOT.

WELP THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE - well, all she wrote, maybe, but I still have a bit more to add. So yeah, this was on the whole pretty dismal. Not quite as bad as it could have been, I’ll grant, but it missed most of its major cues. I DID like some things - Doug Bradley played a decent Nyarlahotep, the stuff with Azathoth was neat, and Winfield Lovecraft’s character was actually kind of engaging - even funny - at times. AT TIMES. And I will say that, perversely, Abdul Alhazred’s lackluster character design actually kind of stood out - I don’t think you’ll find very many other depictions of him where he’s Just Some Guy (who happens to be a powerful sorcerer). If nothing else, they pretty diligently avoided racializing him (not even a turban!) - yeah, it’s still true that the one evil human is also the only one with any nonwhite identifiers whatsoever (really just the name, in this case) but considering the source material if that’s the most problematic it gets then we got off SUPER easy.

Bad news is, basically everything else about this blows. The animation only hurts if you have eyes, but even the blind can hold O’Reilly accountable for the decision to cast all his kids. Then there’s the fact that the movie tries to bait us with big names, even though two of the top-billed stars (Plummer and Perlman) have probably less than a minute’s worth of lines between them (and ‘lines’ is a bit charitable in Perlman’s case [no disrespect to Ron, you’ll always be my Hellboy]). Seriously, did you even remember Dr. West until I brought him up just now? Wait, no, don’t actually try to recallAAUGH

AAAAAAAHH!

And now the Nyquil’s kickin’ in so I’m gonna have to bow out - but fortunately I’ve said pretty much everything I could think of to say anyway. Perhaps one day, when the stars are right, I might recap the other movies, including Howard’s Mother Eats A Whole Chicken. The future is full of mysteries!

...OK, bye.

[centaurself]

Unpopular opinions on the Homestuck Epilogue

Two things before I start this rant: I believe that the Homestuck epilogue is good and in character (in a specific way), and while it may not provide total closure as of yet, there is a chance there could be some more. I'm not exactly gonna lose sleep if there isn't more, however. If you didn't like the epilogue, that is your prerogative; however, I implore you to at least consider what I'm about to say.

Secondly: SPOILERS FOR THE EPILOGUE AND THE COMIC. OBVIOUSLY. I won't go too deep into the epilogue itself, however by nature of these things, it's gonna have spoilers. Really, if you haven't read the epilogue yet, you probably shouldn't be in the Homestuck tag.

TL;DR at the bottom, rant after the cut.

So! The Homestuck Epilogue just landed, and Tumblr is pissed. It's vaguely understandable; after wanting to see a closure on the comic that had everything nice and lovely, they got nearly 200k words that showed that it wasn't. Dirk is being a dick on the meat side, Jane is effectively a fascist dictator on the candy side, things are not looking good! What's going on, it's terrible, this isn't Homestuck! ARGH

But let's step back and take a look at things beforehand. The actual comic itself, when it was just kids and fun. What do we see there?

Well, we see many trolls dying in Act 5 Act 2 (in incredibly gruesome ways); Act 6 Act 6 Act 3 is when everything absolutely goes to shit for basically everyone involved; Act 7 ends pretty ambiguously for Vriska and Aradia; and the credits "post-canon content" ends with John smashing his phone screen because Caliborn is being quite the little shit, along with some other things that show he's really not doing particularly well. All in all, while the comic may indeed be just that - comic, comedic, funny - on the surface, if we look any deeper we can see just how dark this could get. It's a defining piece of online literature that has now spanned a smidge over 10 years, and there are incredibly complex scenes in it, screwing around with the very ideas of narration and canon.

The Homestuck Epilogue is very similar. There are funny moments, there are dark moments. The very core of the epilogue revolves around whether John decides to use his retcon powers, once again screwing around with canon. In the Meat half, the very idea of a narrator outside of the fiction's influence is completely and utterly decimated, as we see Dirk, then Calliope, then Dirk, then Calliope take control of the narrative.

This is not unprecedented in Homestuck, nor is it even unexpected. Andrew Hussie messes with this all the time, both in Homestuck and even in Problem Sleuth (though not to the same extent at all). The fact that canon is messed around with is not something that it really makes much sense to complain about, given the provenance of what we're dealing with here. Fortunately, this isn't really something that I've seen many complaints about.

Let's address some of the things I have seen complaints about! For example: Gamzee. In the Candy half, Gamzee's entire deal is his "redemption arc": he gets out of the fridge, and goes on and on about how he's had a lot of time to think and realise he needs redemption. A lot of people go along with this (with the notable exception of John), to the point where it's made quite a cornerstone of the New Crocker Empire (as I have just decided it is now called). This is seen by a lot of people as something ridiculous, and not something that makes any sense given what we're dealing with.

And you're right! It's not! It makes absolutely no sense within his character. This is precisely the point: we, along with John, can see right through just how absolutely fucking ridiculous this is. This is not something we're supposed to take seriously, but many people in the epilogue do. Why are they doing this?

One word: Candy.

This takes place in the Candy half of the story. It never occurs at all in the Meat half; John never once lets him out of the fridge. He barely even thinks about it, and Gamzee is never mentioned again. Candy is a symbol of Trickster: of ridiculousness, of seemingly endless optimism to the point that it could actually be considered dangerous, of characters not thinking straight about their own actions. There are at least three instances I can think of where characters just assume they're going to be ridiculously happy, without actually doing any thinking: when Rose and Kanaya adopt a kid, when Jane and Jake get hitched, and when Roxy and John get hitched. None of them are in any right mind when those decisions are made; they just go "YES OKAY LET'S DO THIS SHIT" without thinking about it.

Now go back to the Trickster arc in the actual comic. While the ridiculous nature of those decisions are certainly nowhere near as exaggerated in the epilogue, it's very much still there. This is the nature of candy in Homestuck: it provides an absurd backdrop on which everything is just supposed to be fine. Gamzee can have a redemption arc, of course! Roxy and John getting married? Absolutely!

It doesn't make sense, and it's not supposed to: those decisions are not made by rational minds, which is clear with our decision of Candy.

Now let's go to the Meat half, see what complaints we have there. Remarkably, I've seen nothing about Roxy and Calliope's pronouns or anything, which is a very nice change of pace for Tumblr. What I have seen occasionally is people complaining that Dirk just isn't acting right. Like he's being a complete and total arse, and #notmydirk etc.

Ask yourself: when has Dirk ever actually been a considerate and caring person? It's happened, sure, but very rarely. It's set up pretty strongly within canon that Dirk is honestly kind of an unemotional piece of shit, who finds it pretty easy to just let go of things as if they weren't anything at all. Apologies to Dirk fans, but that's his character.

So now we see him in control of the narrative, manipulating the flow of the story for his own benefit, seemingly with no thought to what certain characters might actually want as opposed to what he wants. Once control of the narrative is given to Calliope after Dirk takes off with Rose, Kanaya gets absolutely incensed, demanding to know where the hell Rose has gone and what the fuck Dirk did to her. We see in the Candy half that according to Calliope, "the prince of heart has to be stopped.", which is a preeetty direct sign that bad stuff is happening. Dirk himself even admits that he is the villain in this scenario. Once again, after seeing how cold Dirk is in the comic, it's pretty clear that this isn't out of character.

We don't really understand his plan, nor what he needs a Rosebot for, but it's clear he does have some machinations, and they ain't pretty.

Also, it seems like some people are complaining that John isn't a person who should really be depressed. Have you seen the comic? John gets to play a universe creating game on his birthday, and the very first day ends with his dad dead, not being able to talk with some of his friends for a full three years, and a ridiculous amount of bloodshed that no 13 year old should ever have to experience. Later on, he once again ends up having to attempt to save the universe on his 16th birthday, and as time goes on in post-canon content, he gets more and more secluded. He doesn't really want to make a big deal out of his birthday any more, he doesn't go to really see anyone, etc. John is depressed, and quite possibly suffering from some serious trauma.

Whichever path you take (and you should take both to get the full experience), the epilogue ends without much closure. On the Meat path, we have a bunch of characters attempting to get to Dirk before he can do... whatever he's planning on doing; on the Candy path, we have an incredibly oppressive empire preparing for a new world war. It doesn't look pretty, no matter which way you spin it. It's an ending which can leave you pretty unsatisfied. And... that's okay.

It's okay to be unsatisfied with an ending. There is absolutely no way Hussie and co. would be able to create any sort of epilogue which made everyone satisfied: if it was too happy people would complain about unrealism, and if it was too depressing people would still complain about unrealism but for very different reasons. This ending is less of an ending and more of a fade-out, like a song does when the artist couldn't think of a decent way to end it. It's unsatisfying, and it can leave you wanting either more, or proper closure.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm pretty unsatisfied with how the epilogue ends. I don't know if there are plans to put up more to create a proper closure, but I doubt this is the case. I think this is the only legitimate complaint about the epilogue I've seen, but even then people are taking it waaay too far, claiming that it ruins basically everything. Let's stop being so over-dramatic, guys.

Also, to some people complaining that Hussie doesn't care any more: if he didn't care, would he write an epilogue nearly two hundred thousand words long, making it almost exactly as long as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? True, he had help in writing it, but I'd honestly be amazed if he did it himself. It's pretty clear that although he wasn't the sole author, he had more input on how it would go than anyone else involved in writing the epilogue. That's not something you really do if you don't care any more about your magnum opus.

In conclusion: Homestuck is an incredibly complex piece of fiction that demands a lot more than a cursory glance, and the same can be said of the epilogue. If you don't want to accept that it's canon, that's fine! It would seem that the authors won't mind too much either: on the list of MSPA stories on homestuck.com, the epilogues are described as "Tales of dubious authenticity". It's not a crime to not accept something as canon, and it's not a crime to dislike a piece of fiction. In this case, it just seems like a lot of the complaints come from little evidence or are mostly knee-jerk responses.

TL;DR:

[popcultureliterary]

Pop Culture Based on Novels Part 4: The Brave Little Toaster

November is drawing to a close. For those participating in this year’s National Novel Writing Month challenge, this final week is often a huge push as everyone tries to close out their November goals. Hopefully everyone is satisfied with their progress and finishes the month with a bang! At the very least, you should feel proud of yourself for making the effort to set type to page.

In solidarity with those of you taking on this challenge, we’re spending the month taking a look at pop culture narratives based on novels. Last week, we covered the popular TV crime drama, Bones, which came to a satisfying conclusion earlier this year. Today, we’re discussing a pop culture work that has been around since my own childhood, one which I never would never have guessed was based on a novel: The Brave Little Toaster.

A Hard Sell

The 1987 film The Brave Little Toaster was based on a novella written by Thomas M. Disch titled The Brave Little Toaster: A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances, published in 1980. When he first approached publishers with his idea, they were reluctant to publish the story. In an interview with Strange Horizons, Disch states that the publishing companies believed that the notion of talking appliances was simply too farfetched for children to enjoy. Disch found their concerns to be ridiculous, considering the number of talking animal stories on the market. He persisted, and after publishing the story in  The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, he finally managed to get Doubleday to take up the publication through a five-novel contract that they had with him. By then, the film was already being worked on.

Disch was a skilled writer who produced both poetry and prose during his lifetime. His works include The Genocides (his first novel, published in 1965), The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (winner of both the Hugo and Locus awards), and a sequel to The Brave Little Toaster, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, among other works. Disch was also part of the collaborative minds behind the 1987 text-adventure Amnesia released by Electronic Arts. He passed away in 2008, the result of suicide that may have been related to the passing of his partner of three decades, Charles Naylor, in 2005. Although Disch is gone, he lives on through his works.

The Death of a Flower

Near the end of my high school days, I decided to rewatch a few childhood favorites with my younger brother before I left for college. One of the films on the list was The Brave Little Toaster. I remembered it containing a large number of dark themes for a kid’s movie, and was intrigued to see how I felt about it as an adult. The darkest scene was the horrifying junkyard scene where broken down cars sing about their lives before being smashed down by a crusher. Thinking of this scene in particular, we decided to amuse ourselves by counting how many characters in the movie died. By the time we passed 20, the game stopped being as funny.

One of the characters that I remember counting during our morbid game occurred toward the beginning of the movie. The appliances find themselves in a meadow, where they run into some trouble with the local wildlife and get separated. While trying to find the other appliances, Toaster stumbles upon a flower growing alone in a single ray of sunshine. Upon seeing its own reflection in the toaster’s shiny surface, the flower falls in love with its new false companion and tries to get the toaster to stay with it in the clearing. Toaster, feeling uncomfortable and needing to find the other appliances, brushes the flower off and retreats from the clearing. After losing its companion, the flower is seen wilting, seemingly unable to continue living after discovering how lonely it had been. The scene stood out to me due to the symbolism of a flower (often symbolic of innocence) dying after falling in love (with itself?).

I was surprised to learn that this same flower shows up in the novel. In the book, it is a daisy that speaks in verse. When she sees herself in Toaster’s reflection, she imagines the reflection is a male flower and falls in love. I haven’t read the novel myself, so I don’t know if this scene ends with the flower’s death.

Gender Discussions

A notable difference between the book and the movie revolves around gender. In film, it is often difficult to create characters with no genders due to voice acting. Voice actors typically have distinctly gendered voices, and the characters they voice often take on those genders even if the connection is unintended. The same goes for the Brave Little Toaster film. The appliances have distinct genders and pronouns in the film due to the constraints of voice acting.

The novel is not limited by these same constraints. The appliances have no genders in the novel. This is highlighted by a scene that doesn’t make it into the film in its entirety. Fans of the film might remember a scene where Blanket is blown away from the group by a terrible storm after setting up as their tent for the night. After an exhausting night, the appliances find Blanket in a tree and work together to bring him back down. The scene plays out a bit differently in the novel.

When Blanket blows away in the storm, it is a pair of squirrels that find it named Harold and Marjorie. The squirrels help rescue Blanket, and get a chance to meet the rest of the appliances as well. Upon discovering that the appliances have no gender, the squirrels are baffled by the concept. A discussion about having no gender is an interesting concept to find in a kid’s book from the 80’s, but it is not a surprise for Disch’s works. The Poetry Foundation notes that Disch’s work was often known for containing “gender-bending conceits”.

Surprising Moments from the Film

As with any film adaptation of a print-based work, the novel and movie differ significantly from one another. The basic plot, however, is relatively the same: the appliances find themselves separated from their Master and set out to find him so that they can continue to serve him. Their adventures take many twists and turns along the way. I don’t know about the book, but the film offers many startling moments that you won’t find in children’s movies today. Here are a few of my favorites:

Aneurysm. In the beginning of the film, the appliances get into an argument with a grumpy old air conditioner. The oldtimer tells the appliances that they shouldn’t try to find the Master, and continues to berate them with unnecessarily unkind words. When they stand up to the AC-unit, it flies into a rage that causes it to overheat and explode. The appliances feel bad for the now dead unit, but move on with their journey.

The Junkyard scene. This is perhaps one of the most memorable scenes in the film due to its terrifying and dark nature. As mentioned earlier, this scene takes place in a junkyard and features a number of cars singing about their amazing lives before being crushed to death by a scrap machine (you get to watch them as they are crushed). The vehicles all know what is coming, and an unlucky few of them located close to the scrap machine find themselves constantly sprayed by the crushed remnants of their fellow anthropomorphic automobiles. To add darkness to the scene, the cars also sing about how worthless they are. Looking back, I feel like this scene was where a significant portion of my brother’s and my death list came from.

Boobs. I don’t know why I noticed this image the last time that I watched the old static-ridden VHS my family has owned since the 90′s. The picture appears for only a second or two when the Rabbit-ears TV set tries desperately to capture the attention of the Master and his girlfriend. The man in the box rips several photos out of a filing cabinet while ranting about how amazing the junkyard is for used appliances. One of his photos (the one on the top of the stack) features a nude woman with star-shaped pasties over her nipples. In more recent editions, a bikini or bra was added to the photograph.

Sacrifice. In the end of the film, the Master finds himself on a collision-course with the scrap machine that previously spent an entire scene crushing terrified automobiles. He’s trapped, and a crushing seems inevitable until Toaster throws itself into the crusher’s gears in order to save him. It is smashed and twisted between the gears, but ultimately stops the machine and saves the Master, seemingly at the cost of its own life.

The above moments aren’t all of the dark moments in The Brave Little Toaster, and I can’t yet say whether or not the novella carries similarly dark themes. Given that Disch is also known for works that offer dark views of the future, it is possible that his novella contains similarly dark themes. Given this intriguing mystery, I know what I’m reading next.

Do you have a favorite novel that you’d love to see adapted into another medium, or know of any that have already received adaptations? Leave a shout-out in the comments! You can also connect on Twitter at @Popliterary, or send a message. 

Be sure to check out my home Wordpress page for bonus content! 

And as always, if you have a literary device you want to know more about, or a game, comic, show, or movie that you want to see make an appearance on the blog, leave a shout-out in the comments!

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #355

Top Ten Fictional Santas

Hey! It’s Christmas! Well, almost. This is going up on Saturday, which is the day before the day before the day before Christmas. But I won’t be posting another of these bad boys till after we’ve all digested our sprouts and recycled our wrapping paper (you DID buy recyclable wrapping paper didn’t you?), so this officially counts as the David Heslop Weekend Top Ten Christmas Special.

And what could be more Christmassy that Santa Claus? Or Father Christmas, or Saint Nick, or good old Klaus, whatever you wanna call him. He’s a dude that’s been in more movies and TV shows than you can shake a candy cane at. So this week, all festive-like, I want to look at my favourite interpretations of Santa. Top ten guys in beards being all Christmassy and shit. Fictional Father Christmasses (Fathers Christmas?).

Now, these are ten people playing Santa. Just whacking on a red coat don’t count. The actual characters they play are Father Christmas. So there is no Bad Santa, no Rare Exports – in those cases, the actors were playing people dressed up as Santa (which, er, might be a slight spoiler in the case of Rare Exports, I suppose). But we have here a nice mix of live-action and animation, of TV projects and movies, of huge matinee idols and more modest voice actors. We even have a couple of guys who’ve played Santa more than once, across multiple unrelated projects!

So let’s unwrap these presents and bask in the glory of major motion pictures! Yay capitalism!

Oh, and Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

Richard Attenborough (Miracle on 34th Street, 1994): the quintessential Saint Nick: kind, generous, well-spoken, but with a strong moral compass and the steel to back it up, all delivered in Attenborough’s meticulous, mellifluous tone. The dictionary definition of twinkly. Your heart will be warmed forever.

Mel Smith (Father Christmas, 1991): my kind of Santa. He’s grumpy, belligerent, foul-mouthed, and very fond of fine food and copious amounts of booze. Smith gives him oodles of heart and warmth, and makes him probably the funniest Santa on screen. Bloomin’ marvellous.

Brian Blessed (Sooty “Pranks and Presents”, 2013): Blessed has played Santa many, many times, across all manner of programmes, adverts, and (probably) on the top of a mountain somewhere. He looks and sounds the part, all big-boned baritone intonation radiating inner warmth. I feel he should be given his due where he gets to play Father Crimbles in a big movie sometime soon.

David Huddleston (Santa Claus: The Movie, 1985): in a film that begins with Santa literally dying and ends with Jon Lithgow floating into space, Huddleston remains a solid and reliable presence. Exemplifying all the best qualities of Big Santy C, he’s big and earnest but fun too. Perhaps a tiny bit trad, but you need something straight to offset the Dudley Mooreness of it all.

Kurt Russell (The Christmas Chronicles, 2018): the absolute casting triumph of the year, Russell enlivens what is otherwise a fairly conventional film. He’s huge fun as a cooler, sexier Santa who’s prepared to be a little bit naughty in order to be nice. Genuinely, unironically deserving of some kind of Academy recognition. I want his waistcoat, too.

Ed Asner (Elf, 2003): another actor with a slightly deeper reservoir of Santa experience, Asner crops up in Netflix’s Story Bots too. In both cases, he comes across like a soft cross between Attenborough’s twinkling do-gooder and Smith’s soft-centred grumpy buggerlugs: a seemingly stern yet kind-eyed authority figure. I particularly love how aggrieved he is at lending out his coat: “Mrs Claus made this for me!”

Bill Nighy (Arthur Christmas, 2011): Arthur Christmas features a bevy of past, present, and possible Santas, but by far the best is Nighy as the crabby and sarcastic “Grandpa Claus”. He berates his grandson, belittles the current Santa, and generally moans for the old days. But there’s a sense of wonder to him, a hint of magic that’s lost on the fussier, more business-oriented Santas currently in charge.

Nick Frost (Doctor Who “Last Christmas”, 2014): Frost was destined to play Santa. Gregarious, kind-hearted, impeccably bearded, and with the stature to carry it off. His performance in one of Steven Moffat’s best Doctor Who Christmas Specials is a delight; part enigmatic mysterio, part benign saviour. Also contains my favourite description of Father Christmas: “a dream that’s come to save us”. All the same, I feel there’s an even better Santa somewhere in Frost’s future.

Edmund Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street, 1947): the original! The best? Nah, not quite. Whilst I think, on the whole, Forties Miracle is better than Nineties Miracle, the modern update has two things going for it: Mara Wilson and Richard Attenborough. All the same, let’s not discount Gwenn, who gives a terrific, grounding performance as a Santa who seems to encapsulate the ideal of American post-war patriarchy. In the tradition of Atticus Finch or George Bailey, he’s a solid, upright citizen, who represents the best of America (even if, as Santa, he’s not really American). Kind, wise, with a heart of gold and a spine of steel.

Jim Broadbent (Get Santa, 2014): another repeat offender! Broadbent was the “current” Santa in Arthur Christmas, but there he was a lackadaisical pencil-pusher, a figurehead bereft of any sense of magic or duty. Here he has both, although he doesn’t carry it off quite as well as others on the list. In a largely comic performance, he’s very funny as a naïve Santa trying to survive incarceration, but his inner goodness always shines through.

So there we go. Ten top Nicks! I do wish I’d seen one of Leslie Neilsen’s turns as Santa to judge him, too; and also Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. And at times like this it makes me sad we lost Robin Williams before he could play the absolute definitive version of Santa (I reckon Billy Connolly’s got a good one in him, too, although I don’t know if his health’s up to it anymore, sadly).

Oh, and if you’re wondering why Tim Allen and The Santa Clause isn’t on this list, that’s because those films suck and he’s a crap Santa.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[fromtheringapron]

WWF SummerSlam 1994

Date: August 29, 1994

Location: The United Center in Chicago, Illinois

Attendance: 23,000

Commentary: Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler

Results:

1. Bam Bam Bigelow & Irwin R. Schyster (with Ted DiBiase) defeated The Headshrinkers (Fatu & Samu) (with Afa and Capatain Lou Albano) via disqualification.

2. WWF Women’s Championship Match: Alundra Blayze (champion) defeated Bull Nakano (with Luna Vachon).

3. WWF Intercontinental Championship Match: Razor Ramon (with Walter Peyton) defeated Diesel (champion) (with Shawn Michaels) to win the title. 

4. Tatanka defeated Lex Luger. 

5. Jeff Jarrett defeated Mabel (with Oscar). 

6. Steel Cage Match for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship: Bret Hart (champion) defeated Owen Hart. 

7. The Undertaker (with Paul Bearer) defeated The Undertaker (with Ted DiBiase). 

Analysis

SummerSlam 1994 is pretty underrated, although it’s easy to see why it’s never received the praise it deserves. As this show takes place in the mid ‘90s, the wrestling business is stuck in struggle city, and the WWF isn’t an exception. The glory days of the Rock ’n’ Wrestling era are long gone and in their place is the New Generation which, despite putting the spotlight on the likes of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, is churning out a number of one-note characters who fail to catch on with fans. Though this is the first pay-per-view following Vince McMahon’s exoneration on steroid distribution charges, the resulting bad publicity from the scandal has cost the WWF millions of dollars in a time already marked by low revenue. With all that messiness as a backdrop, this show is seemingly fated to not be fondly remembered.

Much like the year’s King of the Ring, a similarly underrated show, this edition of SummerSlam is also known for its notoriously bad main event which pits The Undertaker against, well, The Undertaker. In some ways, the whole fake Undertaker storyline is a classic example of campy ‘90s WWF cheese. Heck, the moment Paul Bearer opens a giant gold urn to summon a ray of white light feels like something straight out of an attraction at Disney World. Unfortunately, the actual match is a total dud, which brings the previously hot Chicago crowd to complete silence. Their indifference is birthed out of confusion more than anything. It’s obvious Ted DiBiase’s Undertaker is the fake, so where’s the fun in watching the real one beating the crap out of him for 12 minutes? You can just tell from the inflection in Vince McMahon’s voice on commentary that he knows this thing is a flop from the opening bell. The build to the match is also hampered by skits featuring Leslie Nielsen trying to track down the real Undertaker, which aren’t even as funny as some of the Zucker brothers’ worst parody films.

Despite these blunders, it’s still a solid show overall. All three title matches here range from fun to fantastic. Though it has its detractors (and I can only suggest they remain in hiding), the steel cage match between Bret and Owen Hart is one of the best ever. I personally love how it puts emphasis on escaping the cage, which you’d think would be the obvious objective but most cage matches don’t play with the idea enough. The flurry of escape attempts by both men is still just as exciting to watch now and even if the match goes over 30 minutes, it’s never boring. The ending is particularly creative, with Owen hanging upside down like a brat stuck on a jungle gym, a poetic end to the character’s story arc over the previous nine months. The Intercontinental and Women’s title matches are forgotten gems, the latter marking one of the brightest moments for the WWF’s sorely underutilized mid ‘90s women’s division. I’d ramble on how Alundra Blayze deserved better, but then I’d just be stating the obvious.

Opinions vary on Tatanka’s heel turn on this show, and it did wind up killing his WWF career in the long-run, but it’s somewhat clever for its time. Of course, we in 2018 would’ve seen the turn coming a mile away the instant Tatanka really started harping on Lex Luger about his alleged involvement with the Million Dollar Corporation. But for 1994? Kinda shocking, and no doubt it pulled the wool over the eyes of the WWF’s younger audience. It’s been argued Luger turning heel instead would’ve been the better result for both the storyline and Luger’s career. I certainly agree but that doesn’t take away the actual turn, which solidifies Tatanka as a heel pretty well. The image of him stuffing money down the throat of an Americana-attired Luger is killer.

There are a couple of interesting bits of trivia unique to this show as well. Firstly, on a sad note, this is the last WWF pay-per-view appearance of Randy Savage, who stands as the last remaining bastion of the previous era. It’s a pretty inconsequential curtain call to one of the biggest and most iconic superstars in the company’s history, as he only makes a brief appearance here. He’ll be in WCW by the end of the year and never truly make his way back into the fold. This also remains the only WWF/E show to take place at the United Center, with the company sticking to the Rosemont Horizon as its Chicago go-to ever since. Fortunately, the change in venue here doesn’t hinder the Chicago fans from being their typically great  selves. Well, except for the main event, of course. But a dull contest between two dead men needs a dead crowd to match, I guess.

My Random Notes

This show sees the debut of The Undertaker’s new purple look, often dubbed as “Purple Taker,” which a lot of people dislike but I personally love. Still don’t know what possessed them to change the color of his attire though. I feel like the mindset in the ‘90s was basically “Mmm, you know what would make this thing look more modern? Purple!”

Even if the fake Undertaker thing was a bust, it’s weird how it didn’t stop them from doing pretty much the same thing with his brother Kane 12 years later.

The dead giveaway to Tatanka’s heel turn is clearly his bangs, am I right?

During the opening match, Vince McMahon translates Afa’s words as “Domino’s delivers!” You can always count on ‘90s Vince to drop some corny dad humor and a shameless tie-in to the sponsors all at once.

Kinda surprised they brought Davey Boy Smith back into the fold immediately following the steroid scandal considering his firing two years before was due to that exact thing. At least he had enough sense to update his look into that of a jacked Eddie Vedder just in time for the show.

Gotta love Diana Hart Smith going into business for herself by flopping over the guard rail along with her husband. Get it, girl.

As if you needed proof of the WWF’s casual racism in the ‘90s, poor Bull Nakano is saddled with the old Orient Express music for her entrance, the same music given to a bunch of other Asian wrestlers around the same time period.

I couldn’t help but notice: 1.) How out-of-touch Men on a Mission feels to the actual rap scene in 1994, which was increasingly leaning towards gangsta rap, and 2.) That there’s little to no evidence here that Mabel will take part in the worst SummerSlam main event ever just a year later.

I’m a bit of an Adam Bomb mark so I’m a little sad his match with Kwang was relegated to pre-show status and that we were robbed of seeing him defeat his blood rival, as I’m sure that’s what the whole world was dying to see.

On the Million Dollar Corporation: For a stable that could’ve been truly great, I don’t think it quite took off as intended. It feels like everyone who joined became this boring, diluted version of themselves and most of the storylines involving them totally dragged. So of course they went on to suck up a large bulk of TV time in the year following this show, including a pivotal role in the main event of WrestleMania 11. Such is the tale of WWF’s creative woes in the mid ‘90s.

[brownstonearmy]

2021-03-20: Court Ordered Appearances (Part 2)

Tuesday Aug 25 (early afternoon, breezy)

After a short rest and some government-provided healing, Disco and Spleenifer are reunited with Lucky and Norm. A "delay in jurisdictional clarification" resulted in Norm arriving after the dirty job had been completed. It seems more like the law was showing favoritism to one of its officers, but who are we to judge the way the wheels of justice move?

Lucky looks quite a bit different today, as the court's summoning magic backfired and sent her into a plane where time runs differently. It's been two years since she last saw her companions, and her hair is now much longer and dyed blueberry blue with exposed roots. The courts gave the pair an emergency travel stipend of 1,000 GP each (with a little extra coin for Lucky on the side, on the condition that she not speak publicly about the government stranding her in another plane of reality for two years.

But before anyone can get too comfortable, court is called into session with the Honorable Drummond Lackman presiding over the case. The party is ushered to the Defense's bench where a Dwarven public defender is writing in a book, seemingly unaware that court has started. The Prosecution takes the floor to make opening statements, and that's when the party notices the Prosecution is not actually a man, but a Satyr named Ander Reedfellow.

The stakes are now apparent. In Swanmark, the penalty for murder is murder in turn. If there is no verdict by the time the bells toll 5, the verdict is death by default.

Ander calls his first witness to the stand: a sheep farmer named Melvil Ulmok. Melvil's testimony concerns a recent transaction involving Anaxilas. Apparently Mr. Ulmok sold a few sheep to Anaxilas, who didn't care what kind of sheep he bought. When Anaxilas was asked his intentions regarding the sheep, his answers to Mr. Ulmok were evasive. Melvil ends his testimony on an explosive accusation: "I say he's a ram-fucker."

The party persuades the public defender, Warden Alebrewer, to call Anaxilas's romantic partner, Norbert Haversham, to the stand to rebut the allegations. Norbert was not scheduled to be a witness in the testimony, but was in the audience watching the proceedings. Judge Lackman allows it, and Norbert reluctantly takes the stand. However, the line of questioning immediately turns to matters of the bedroom and Norbert refuses to answer those questions in public. Not because it's shameful or anything, but because it's generally not anyone else's business.

Ander Reedfellow calls another witness: Gimgen Brawnanvil. Astute readers may recall that Gimgen was a minor NPC who showed up way back in the early days of the campaign. He tried (and failed) to eat The Hole Thing. Ander asks Gimgen if he knows the some of the people defending the Anaxilas.

Gimgen identifies Disco and Lucky as being behind The Hole Thing eating contest. Although Gimgen was not forced to eat, the foul concoction forced him to un-eat (if you catch my drift) and also lose his prized Dwarven accent. If these are the kind of people trying to defend Anaxilas and the dragon, what does that say about Anaxilas's character if he's associating with these people? Clearly Bargulena was justified in eating him as a matter of civic service!

Lucky interrupts the proceedings by shouting "We have never intentionally hurt anyone, except for those who deserved it or for whom it would be funny."

Judge Lackman threatens Lucky with contempt of court and calls for order, while Warden requests a break to strategize their defense with the party since the prosecution is running roughshod over the defense.

In the defense's chambers, Warden explains that he's a public defender who gets a lot of cases and doesn't usually even get his case files until a few minutes before court. The defense packet for the This isn't ideal, but since the party happens to know Anaxilas, maybe they would be willing to take the lead on the defense?

Norm investigates the last known image of Anaxilas recorded on an adventure stone. It features a dragon yawning really wide while Anaxilas is standing at full height with his sword drawn. The image in question was taken by Anaxilas superfan, Gigi Hardcastle. When the party casts Locate Person on Anaxilas, it seems to ping the belt recovered from Bargulena's stomach.

With his experience as a police investigator, Norm is immediately suspicious that Gigi doesn't have a picture of the dragon closing its mouth. Disco has their own suspicions, because Norbert isn't nearly as broken up about the death of Anaxilas they would think.

Gigi and Norbert are requested for additional interrogation by the party, and the bailiff retrieves them. When Disco questions Norbert about his lack of sadness about losing a romantic partner, he divulges that he received a letter from Anaxilas that was dated AFTER his disappearance. The note reads:

"Norbert, my beloved, see you soon."

The conversation with Gigi is not as immediately helpful. She demands the dragon be called as a witness so the dragon can confess and be put to death. Gigi also cryptically mentions that there are things at play here that she cannot divulge and she only knows a piece of the puzzle. But her role is to see Bargulena executed and get near the dragon when it happens.

Once court is back in session, the dragon Bargulena is called as a witness. As the time draws closer to the evening, a floating black shroud of an executioner has appeared in the courtroom. Bargulena takes the stand, or at least her head and neck do, since she doesn't quite fit in the court.

Bargulena is clearly under some powerful sedatives and speaks with a slurred voice that oscillates between belligerence and mirthful honesty. Ander Reedfellow begins the cross-examination. "Did you eat Anaxilas, the celebrity adventurer?"

"Yes," Bargulena answers. "He tasted like cologne and sweat."

Norm asks Bargulena to open her mouth wide. Bargulena's teeth match the teeth featured in Gigi's picture.

Disco begins interrogating Bargulena, still trying to prove the dragon's innocence. Bargulena, however, is not having it. She professes her guilt over and over. Eventually it is decided that the best way to prove the innocence of a dragon who doesn't want to be proven innocent is to forcibly discharge Bargulena's bowels.

Cornelius von Tinkelwasser happens to be present at the court as an expert witness who gave testimony earlier in the case while the party was investigating Bargulena's guts. Spleenifer asks if Cornelius has his portable enema kit (of course he does, duh!), and so Spleenifer and Cornelius work together to pressurize Bargulena's bowels.

Moments later, a flood of magical dragon poop is unleashed. Cornelius is right in the middle of what sanitation professionals call "the splash zone," and he gets covered in partially digested dragon dinners.

Also escaping from the poopy prison are the drow who had been living in Bargulena's stomach as well as Monsignor Gryllz. During the commotion, Cornelius emerges from the splash zone transformed into a Werecorn. It's like a werewolf, but you know... an angry corn monster. Thankfully, Cornelius doesn't appear to be hostile, but there's yet another wrinkle in this courtroom chaos!

Several drow ladies led by a drow named Jenneleth materialize in the courtroom. Jenneleth has been trying to find her brother for the last 200 years, and she intends to make him pay for his insolence and willingness to associate with lesser races. She casts a spell to summon shadowy tentacles, but Lucky counterspells it and triggers a wild magic surge. Lightning appears on the ceiling and a pleasant breeze wafts through the courtroom.

Meanwhile, Disco is arguing against Jenneleth's abhorrent racial perspectives: "Having hooked up with many races, there is no lesser race."

Disco breaks out their lute and gets the party's energy pumping, as well as pumping out a seductive song for Jenneleth in an attempt to get her to consider the "other side." Although a string breaks on Disco's lute, the song is still at least a little bit appreciated by Jenneleth.

Jenneleth briefly considers "debasing herself with an inferior race," but ultimately opts to just keep on trying to destroy the whole courthouse in an attempt to capture or kill her brother.

Lucky notices a suspicious bucket that appears to be poison for the execution. She cast Thunder Step to blink over to the bucket and tosses it into the portable hole in an attempt to control access to it in case someone tries to execute Bargulena. Jenneleth tries to firebolt Gigi, but Gigi manages to get close to Bargulena and Lucky tosses the poison to her, because the party's not going to be the one killing a dragon.

As Gigi administers the poison, the large gem in her spider chair begins to glow as Bargulena's soul flows into it. Monsignor Gryllz also begins glow, but that's because he's absorbing part of the Bargulena's soul. Once he's powered up a bit, Monsignor Gryllz cackles and flies away.

Disco grabs Norbert and demands to know what they're supposed to do next, but right now the most prudent course of action is going to be to get out of this deadly courtroom brawl. Lucky administers some of that good old fashioned magical invisibility on Disco as a swarm of tabloid clerics descend from the spectator area to try to cast speak with dead on the dragon's corpse. The spells of the tabloid clerics are ultimately unsuccessful.

Gigi still needs to escape the pandemonium, and that's when Norm decides to create a diversion for her. He pulls out his folding boat and OH MY GOSH WHAT IS THAT as a big boat appears in the middle of the courtroom. Six seconds of stunned silence follow as Gigi makes her way to the exit.

Once Norm retrieves his folding boat and the rest of the party is free of the courtroom that is rapidly crumbling to the ground from the cacophony of spells being fired within, Gigi gets questioned about what the next step is.

She pats the glowing gemstone in her chair. "The dragon knows where Anaxilas is."

Stay tuned next time for more!

[the-desolated-quill]

Mummy On The Orient Express - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Here I go, stepping into the unknown. I’ve never seen any episodes past Kill The Moon and I really didn’t know what to expect. It couldn’t possibly get any worse than that surely?

So this came as a rather pleasant surprise.

You’d think an episode titled Mummy On The Orient Express would be destined for failure. It just sounds too gimmicky for words. There’s a mummy on the Orient Express... in space! And yet somehow it works. It fact it works better than the majority of Series 8 has done until now. So kudos to Jamie Mathieson for doing such a stellar job.

Okay, so it’s set on the Orient Express... in space, and there’s a mummy onboard called the Foretold that only certain people can see, and when you clap eyes on it, you only have 66 seconds left to live. That’s an immensely creepy idea and they use it to great effect. Whoever designed that mummy deserves a fucking pay rise. It’s without a doubt the scariest thing ever to come out of New Who. When it first showed up, I actually screamed! The attention to detail is extraordinary, from the old bandages to the rotting, decomposing flesh. The gangly height of the actor playing him helps too. A lot of the shots are from a first person perspective, so when it reached out to the camera, I found myself instinctively leaning away from my TV. Even the Orient Express setting contributes to the horror. The tight, claustrophobic corridors of the train really bumps up the fear factor even further.

A lot of Mummy On The Orient Express has quite a classic series vibe to it. Obviously there’s the whole base under siege stuff, which has been a staple of Doctor Who since the beginning of recorded time, but there’s other things too like the mystery angle, the Doctor and the companion splitting up so that the story ends up becoming a two pronged narrative, the Doctor being suspected of being behind the killings (although thankfully it doesn’t last long), and the episode actually jumping straight to the heart of the action rather than wasting time on angsty ruminating like previous episode have done this series. There’s even a moment where the Doctor offers jelly babies. There are a few elements of New Who in here too, most notably the Evil Capitalist villain who wants to control the monster, but this really feels like a well executed homage to Classic Who. I could imagine Tom Baker’s Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith feeling right at home here.

But we don’t have Tom Baker. We have Peter Capaldi. How does he do?

I feel what’s really been letting Capaldi down is the scripts. The writers just can’t seem to make up their minds what direction they want to take this Doctor. Moffat keeps saying he’s darker and more serious, but then we get episodes like Robot Of Sherwood and The Caretaker where they try to incorporate quirky humour that just doesn’t suit this type of Doctor at all. It’s like putting a party hat on top of a skeleton. Thankfully Jamie Mathieson seems to have a better grip on what kind of Doctor he’s writing for here. The humour is a lot better here and while the Doctor is still eccentric, it’s been toned down quite a bit. For instance the way he offers the jelly babies is more casual and nonchalant. It’s noticeably strange, but at the same time it’s not so goofy it’s distracting. And there are some genuinely funny lines, which Capaldi delivers perfectly. My favourite is probably when he confronts the mummy at the end:

“Hello! I’m the Doctor and I’ll be your victim for this evening. Are you my mummy?”

I also got a kick out of the whole mystery shopper scene:

“I could do with an extra pillow and I’m very disappointed with your breakfast bar, and all the dying.”

It’s quirky, but it’s not too quirky. It’s pitched at just the right level so that it works for this particular Doctor.

But what I especially like is the callousness of this Doctor. When characters are being picked off one by one by the mummy, the Doctor is more concerned with getting more information about the Foretold rather than helping or comforting the victims. He’s not in the least bit apologetic like Nine or Ten would be. He just wants to find out as much about the mummy as he can from this death in the hopes that he can prevent the next one. At one point he even goes as far as to get Clara to trick Maisie into coming to the carriage so that he can seemingly sacrifice her to the mummy for more information (later we learn this was just a ruse, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. I could imagine this Doctor doing something like that). It’s very dark indeed and Clara is clearly appalled by this, accusing him of being heartless, but that’s not really true. If the Doctor really was heartless and uncaring, then yeah, this would just be horrible, but the reason it works is because of Peter Capaldi’s performance. Just look at the scene where the kitchen staff are flushed out into space by GUS. The subtle frown on Capaldi’s face speaks volumes I think. The Doctor does care about the deaths. He’s just internalising it, choosing instead to focus on the problem at hand, which comes off as callousness, but as the Doctor himself says, there’s no time to mourn. Standing there wringing your hands isn’t going to do any good. So the Doctor just gets on with what he has to do rather than get bogged down in sentimentality.

Are there any problems with the episode? Well... the ending is a bit of an anti-climax. I suppose it can’t be helped really, but the mummy is sort of thrown away at the end (I read some reviews and people seemed really confused by the ending. Why did the mummy salute the Doctor if he surrendered? How did it die? It seemed perfectly clear to me. The alien tech was controlling the mummy, absorbing the life force of people to keep it alive, the Doctor’s surrender deactivated it and the mummy saluted the Doctor as a way of expressing gratitude before collapsing into dust). The characters are a bit limp too. They’re not bad. They serve their purpose and the actors give decent performances. They’re just not very interesting. The engineer Perkins is probably the weakest. He just felt a bit bland and nothing-y to me and I’ve never been particularly fond of Frank Skinner.

And then there’s Clara. It was a little bit jarring seeing her again and seemingly getting on with the Doctor after Kill The Moon, but the episode quickly explains this is their ‘last hurrah.’ I really have mixed feelings about all of this. I had no problem with Clara calling the Doctor out for his supposed callousness, but it’s the context that bothers me. Clearly she’s still reacting to what happened at the end of Kill The Moon, which as I’ve said before is utter bollocks because the Doctor didn’t actually do anything wrong, and yet Moffat clearly expects you to be on her side... which I’m not... because she’s chatting shit. Later she realises, in a very clunky exchange with Maisie, that she’s not ready to give up her adventures with the Doctor and is prepared to overlook his faults (which begs the question what was the fucking point of the last episode then). But then it gets even weirder toward the end when she not only lies to Danny about ending her travels with the Doctor, but also lies to the Doctor, saying that Danny was the one that said she should give it all up. I’ve never liked Clara and I’ve completely resisted any attempt of Moffat’s to convince me she’s somehow the perfect companion, but here I’m utterly confused by what I’m supposed to think of her at this point. Why is she lying? She’s got no reason to lie as far as I can see. Why can’t she just be upfront and say she wants to keep travelling? It certainly demonstrates how fucking dysfunctional her relationship with Danny is, but is that intentional or is Moffat once again being an utter twit?

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed Mummy On The Orient Express. It’s a great throwback to the classic series with a truly creepy monster at its centre. I’d say this is my favourite episode of the series so far. Please let the rest of Series 8 be as good as this.

[journeysintowebcomics]

Homestuck Liveblog #171

UPDATE 171: Like Punching Your Own Face

Last time Roxy had managed to create the matriorb out of thin air, and Dave and Dirk were finally having a much-needed conversation, Dave unloading everything he had in his head regarding Bro’s way of raising him. It was raw and made me sympathize a lot with Dave, but it’s not over yet. Let’s continue.

The first thing I read in this update is Dirk apologizing. Huh. It wasn’t your fault, Dirk, Dave simply had the bad luck of being raised by a sucky version of you. Then again, as it was pointed to me: Dirk himself admitted long ago that he has no business raising anyone. He’s not wrong, if this was the result. Roxy didn’t do a stellar job, but she wasn’t a complete disaster – the ocean-sized gap that’s the lack of communication between the Lalondes was the problem. All in all, maybe not having to raise them by themselves would have helped.

DAVE: you had a completely different life full of like  DAVE: different choices and actions and stuff 

He’s not wrong about that, environment shapes people a lot. I wonder how alternate Dave would have raised Dirk if there wasn’t the slight problem of Dirk being a few centuries in the future...and also if alternate Dave hadn’t been killed. That can’t have been of help either.

Dirk continues feeling responsible of what Bro did, saying he needs to take responsibility for all the splinters that are him. It’s hard to understand, a bit. I honestly can’t even start saying how complicated it is to feel like that – but somehow I have the feeling that a lot of people in the world would feel responsible for what their alternates do. I don’t know if I would.

DIRK: I've felt...  DIRK: Haunted by them.  DIRK: And what that really means is, I'm perpetually haunted by my own bad qualities. 

You literally made glasses that are filled with some of your own bad qualities, Dirk. You kinda brought that one to yourself, just saying.

Dave appreciates Dirk’s apologies, even though it feels weird to hear it from someone that isn’t the Bro he knew, which in turn makes Dirk confess that he isn’t even happy with his relationships with his peers – especially with Jake. Well yeah, no surprise there, everything is still a fresh wound. It was just a day ago or so that Jake was telling to other people that he felt suffocated. Who knows, maybe in the future that’ll change! Don’t give up, Dirk.

It’s nice to see that Dave and Dirk are trying to give support to each other despite the trouble they have to connect. It’s clumsy, it’s distant, but they’re trying. It’s more akin to pulling teeth than a heartfelt conversation, buuuuuuut it’s the best the Striders can do.

DAVE: you dont actually seem like a bad person to me though  DIRK: No?  DAVE: nah  DIRK: Why not?  DIRK: We did just meet, after all.  DAVE: because  DAVE: i dunno if truly bad people wrestle so much with whether theyre good or bad 

Dirk is not a bad person. He can be extremely difficult to deal with, but he’s not bad. I’m sure hearing it from Dave will make it resonate more than if he had heard it from anyone else, even if everyone else would be more energetic about telling him that he’s a good person. Dirk isn’t even accepting it from Dave at face value, although he is grateful about it. Everyone else idolized him, after all.

DIRK: She meant well, but was so enamored of me, and seemingly everything I did.  DIRK: Which I think was the last thing I needed.  DIRK: To be idolized in some form by other people I respected.  DIRK: I had enough of that feeling coming from within, particularly when I was younger. 

No wonder Bro ended like that. I really don’t think anyone dared to tell him about his flaws. I suppose that maybe this could be interpreted as a sign that Bro respected Dave, but I’m not going to think that’s correct. That relationship was pretty messed up, after all.

Dave sounds genuinely floored to hear everything his alternate self did in Dirk’s universe, including killing clown presidents and somehow managing to make a million Statues of Liberty. I’m still wrapping my head around that one. Could that have been how things would have gone if the world hadn’t ended horribly? Hm...no. The movies and all were a way to give the Condesce a sucker punch, no Condesce means those concrete movies wouldn’t exist. It’s hard to say what would have happened. Maybe Dave really would have gone into the fields that study dead stuff.

Dirk tried to follow Dave’s perceived good traits. Golly, Dave must have never seen that coming.

DIRK: You get to apply all that potential you showed in one reality to something much bigger and more existentially critical.  DIRK: Whatever strength you showed in trying to save a dying planet, the fact is, I think we need that more here.  DIRK: And the trials inherent in being a part of something like this, I think they bring more out of you than a relatively pedestrian life on Earth would. Make you face more things about yourself. At least, that's been true for me. 

Oh hey, I just realized that this alternate Dave pretty much did everything that’s expected of the Dave we know: fight, resist, and pretty much be a cornerstone of the rebellion against the Condesce. He’s everything Dave doesn’t think he can be. Think about that, Dave.

DIRK: I hope it doesn't come off as overly sentimental garbage, but it seems to me like you turned out to be a really good dude.  DIRK: Like, really, a better sort of dude I ever imagined talking to when I pictured meeting the legendary guy I idolized.  DIRK: I pictured him as probably being "too cool" to be the type of guy you are.  DIRK: But you know what, fuck being too cool for that.

Congratulations, you pretty much punched Dave’s hopes from when he was thirteen years old. It’s for the better. Somehow hearing that Dave is not the “cool” person Dave had once hoped Bro would see him as catches him off-guard. Here we go! This’ll be the turning point for Dave, won’t be it? Things are going to change for him – hopefully! Dave certainly had the big character arc in Homestuck, even if he says people don’t have arcs.

And here we go!

DAVE: its really fucked up of me  DAVE: what im presently doing  DAVE: so  DAVE: sorry about that  DIRK: Oh, y-  DIRK: Yeah.  DIRK: Man.  DIRK: This is some fucked up shit alright.  DAVE: i know

This is much more than I expected. Of all things that could happen, a hug wasn’t even close to the top of the list. This is actually a pretty sweet moment, I’m glad it actually happened. Part of me was sure Hussie wouldn’t show them talking, but he did. I’m glad I was proven wrong about it.

So! There’s only one conversation left before things may kick into overdrive straight towards the last part of Homestuck! Roxy is going to meet Kanaya, surely to give her the matriorb. Things are winding down everywhere else, it won’t be long now!

Roxy appears from the skies with a ‘heeeeeey’ and repeats it a few more times, preparing the surprise by telling her to guess what she brought. I can guarantee that the matriorb is not going to be a guess here, hah!

KANAYA: Is It The Thing Behind Your Back  ROXY: yup but u gotta be more specific  KANAYA: Is It A Little Piece Of Paper That Says Hey On It  ROXY: hahahahaha no but that would be SO FUNNY! 

I won’t lie, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it hadn’t been that. Wish you had thought about it before. Maybe there’s still time to write “I.O.U one (1) matriorb” on any random rock and give it to her...or maybe that’d be cruel. Shrug.

Not wasting any more time, Roxy presents the matriorb, much to Kanaya’s astonishment. She’s so surprised she can barely express her surprise while Roxy tries to explain in vague terms. Look at that, Kanaya has tears in her eyes! It must be hard to describe, the feeling of hope in seeing the way the troll race is going to be resurrected. Keep it away from the Condesce and everything should be fine.

Nobody would have thought that the way to revive the trolls would just be given to her like this, but she can’t complain. There’s a lot of work to do, the mother larva isn’t going to raise itself. There’s a life of duty and work ahead of her.

Where’s Karkaroni, asks Roxy? “Meditating”. With his face deep into the dirt. You’re so lucky you’re telling this to someone Roxy doesn’t know very well, nobody else would believe such answer.

Roxy gets into her role of Rose’s mother and tries to know Kanaya better, asking about the meteor tri, where everybody formed small groups and only convened like twice of three times. It wasn’t the social jamboree Roxy imagined. Could have been worse, Roxy. It was worse once. At least now everyone is more or less getting along and Kanaya is aware she needs Karkaroni’s help so trolls aren’t like in Alternia.

...having doubts about fighting? Well I can understand Kanaya would want to protect the matriorb and that she believes her skills are not as good as everyone else’s, but if the Condesce isn’t defeated that matriorb will only be good as a paperweight. Roxy points all that and tries to give Kanaya encouragement about her skills. Well not many things can beat a chainsaw in power. That’s all enough to convince Kanaya to go with her and prepare for the fight.

Now that all the dialogue options are over, the point of view returns to the dream bubble where Vriska has gone to harass herself. Yeah, don’t ask me why she’s bothering to do this.

Okay, I read one page and I’m already feeling a bit sick. I don’t know how Hussie is doing this, managing to make me dislike Vriska after I spent most of her appearances liking her. In just a few hundred pages he’s managing to make me not want to read her anymore. It’s going to be difficult to write something that isn’t constant grumbling. Well, there’s one thing...

VRISKA: Remem8er when you used to care a8out that sort of thing?  VRISKA: No, o8viously not.  VRISKA: All you care a8out now is 8ullshit hipstery fashion trends, feeling "happy", and... whatever the fuck it is you're doing here?  VRISKA: Frolicking with some horses in an ugly field or some shit. VRISKA: Just a8solutely disgraceful.  VRISKA: How could I have 8ecome so selfish??  VRISKA: You do know this is selfish, right?  VRISKA: This isn't having some fucking "epiphany" or like "growing as a person" or whatever self-serving spin you might 8e putting on what's happening here.  VRISKA: It's just plain narcissism, the worst kind you're capa8le of. A total renunci8tion of any responsi8ility for contri8uting to the gr8ter good.  VRISKA: And it makes me FUCKING SICK. 

...I have no words. Yeah, looking for personal happiness is selfish, but there’s nothing wrong with being reasonably selfish. I just...I can’t say anything about this that isn’t some sort of circular argument that in the end isn’t worth typing here. I just can’t say anything.

VRISKA: Contrary to your lazy fakey "happy" shit, I've ACTUALLY GROWN AS A PERSON.  VRISKA: What do you think of THAT, you frivolous, dithering 8ITCH???????? 

Like hell you did!

Just...agh.

Looks like the dead Vriska wasn’t wrong, the horses really is a bad omen for her. Meenah is leaving her and going with the Vriska that is alive. At least Meenah has the decency to be conflicted about what she’s feeling and all, but damn, what a way to punch someone that’s already down, Hussie.

Meenah likes dead Vriska a lot, and she admits it, but she’s bored of having an idyllic life with dead Vriska. She wants to fight Lord English and here’s the chance to do it. Dead Vriska may have changed, but Meenah is the same than before, and that one isn’t content with sitting on the sidelines. That’s why she’s leaving – more or less.

I feel bad for dead Vriska. It’s almost hard to believe that the end for the character I knew for so long is this – or at least this seems like the end. It feels...weird. I feel really bad for her. I wish this hadn’t gone for this. Heck, Meenah deciding to go fight Lord English would have been understandable. I just wish this whole thing hadn’t needed to happen.

Hm. I think I should be stopping here for now.

Next update: next time

[isisdreamweaver]

For the character profile thing: Takashi

Full Name: Takashi Hildur Lund-Yamamoto (she has two first names). I’d like to do a bit more with this/tweak it, but I need to research Japanese and Norwegian naming customs more so I can understand them better and not mess up anymore than I probably already have. She goes by Takashi Lund.Gender and Sexuality: Cis woman, asexual (and aromantic).Pronouns: She/her/hers.Ethnicity/Species: Uhhh I don’t know if there’s a proper term for this/better way to say it (I am learning), but she’s biracial (white and Japanese). Also she’s a normal human, although there might be an Ethereal living in her head, who knows (Firaxis pls confirm).Birthplace and Birthdate: Turin, Italy. 1988, May 3rd.Guilty Pleasures: Red velvet anything (normal cake, cheesecake, cupcake, whatever), a few video games like Sword of the Stars, Master of Orion, Fire Emblem, and for a bit of an in-joke for me, the UFO series (Aftermath/Aftershock/Afterlight). As for how the UFO series exists in a world where XCOM is real… That’s what I find funny fgkdnkfghn. The video games are guilty pleasures because she likes to act as if she’s ‘above’ it.Phobias: She’s scared of death. Deathly afraid of death. Herself dying, I mean. She can’t handle it. If that doesn’t count, she’s always had an intense phobia of heights she’s never stepping into a skyscraper and crossing a bridge like, IDK, the Golden Gate? Don’t ask her to do that.What They Would Be Famous For: Being an utter Jerkass Saving Earth and humanity from the aliens, most likely. What They Would Get Arrested For: Prior to being recruited by XCOM she got arrested for robbing a museum. Why did she do that, you may ask? Boredom. She saw the museum boast about this awesome security they had, and was like “I bet I can beat it,” and got a group of petty criminals to join her in this ill-fated challenge. In case you’re wondering, they managed to steal pretty much everything they could fit into a bag. She was fifteen and to this day no one’s sure how she managed to flawlessly execute her plan. Literally the only reason she and the other kids got arrested was because they tried to return what they stole.OC You Ship Them With: I just can’t ship her with anyone, lol. But if I did… It’d probably be Misora Miyazaki (the UFO-hunting OC, not the XCOM Sniper), because they’re both so similar. ‘Course, I don’t ship Misora with anyone, either. But this is just a fun little what if, so w/e.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: The entirety of XCOM, probably. Especially Romanoff, and especially her during the Enemy Within simulation. Romanoff suffered such intense injuries that the only way to save her was by making her a MEC Trooper. Does she care? Not really, she wants to snap Takashi’s neck for taking her arms and legs.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Thrillers, both movies and books. Specifically, she likes watching and reading the really corny ones and making fun of them.Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: The woman who’s introduced as an expert/really smart yet is nonetheless outclassed by the male protagonist at seemingly every turn. Bonus points of contempt if the woman has been in that field for years while the man only just got into it.Talents and/or Powers: Her talents are her unparalleled tactical genius and being really frickin’ annoying. She also has psionic powers buried deep beneath, but don’t worry, they’ll be found soon enough…Why Someone Might Love Them: Only the gods know. Well, the gods and Bradford, I guess. Bradford’s reasons for liking her are unclear and definitely not romantic, but he does, somehow, see a good person in her? Someone help this man get better at reading people.Why Someone Might Hate Them: …Everything. Her entire personality is generally what sets people off, especially since she doesn’t mince words and will happily insult literally anyone. She once got Russia to almost pull out of the XCOM Project because she told the Russian President, to his face, that his hair looked like a dying ferret and that his skin reminded her of a zombie. Why did she say that, you may ask? She didn’t like him so she went for what seemed easy to insult.How They Change: In a post-XCOM base defense world where ADVENT rules all, she’s learned some damn humility and gradually becomes less of a jerk. Like. She’s at least 3% less of a jerk. It’s a small improvement.Why You Love Them: I think she’s an absolute joy to write, plus it’s fun coming up with all these creative insults.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Dick Miller: 1930-2019

Dick Miller is dead.

If I were to announce this news to a group of people whose lives did not necessarily revolve around the world of film, there is an excellent chance that such news would be regarded with little more than a well-meaning shrug. If I were to accompany that news with a picture of him taken from one of the 182 roles that IMDb credits him with in a screen career that began in 1955, my guess is that most of those people would recognize his face from any number of movies that they had seen and enjoyed over the years and remark “Oh, that guy!” Simply put, Dick Miller was among the greatest “That Guy!” actors in cinema history (When the long-overdue documentary celebrating the man and his work was finally made and released in 2014, it was appropriately entitled “That Guy Dick Miller.”). He rarely got the lead role, he got the leading lady even less, and the vast majority of the titles that he appeared in throughout his career were not of the sort that one might expect to see programmed on TCM or turning up in the Criterion Collection. And yet, he ended up developing a large and loyal cult following over the years from generations of fans (a number of whom would go on to put him in films of their own) who responded to his distinctive look, his quirky manner and his innate ability to steal a scene from practically everyone/thing that he appeared opposite, be they comely starlet, bloodthirsty alien or the Ramones.

Richard Miller was born December 25, 1930 in the Bronx. His early years (chronicled in Caelum Vatnsdal’s exhaustively detailed and fascinating biography You Don’t Know Me, But You Love Me: The Lives of Dick Miller) saw him doing everything from appearing on stage to working at Bellevue to a stint in the Navy. Eventually, he made his way out to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s and eventually made the acquaintance of an up-and-coming producer of low-budget exploitation movies named Roger Corman. At the time, Miller was trying to make it as a writer but Corman was in greater need of actors, and so he came to be cast as an Indian in his very first movie, a ten-day wonder Western named “Apache Woman.” Because actors were apparently really scarce, Miller was recruited to play a second part of one of the locals in the town where it was set and yes, it does lead up to a moment where his local character shoots his Indian character.

That was his first Corman production, but it would be far from his last. The producer-director began to use him regularly, perhaps because he was usually available and perhaps because he brought a real sense of personality to even the most generically written roles. Take “Not of This Earth” (1957), for example. The film itself is pretty silly—something about a human-looking alien charged with harvesting blood from the unsuspecting denizens of Southern California to send back home in an attempt to save the population of his dying planet. In one draft of the screenplay, a brush salesman turns up at the door of the home where the alien has made its base of operations (don’t ask) and meets the inevitable grisly end. Corman gave the part of the salesman to Miller, who proceeded to change the item he was pushing to a vacuum cleaner and ended up ad-libbing all his dialogue to make the character seem more like a hipster on the make. The result was a hilarious scene-stealing turn and was the first real demonstration of the quirky personality that would come to be his signature. Later that year, Corman gave Miller his first lead role in “Rock All Night,” a “The Petrified Forest”-style drama (albeit with music breaks by The Platters), in which he played a short cynical guy who is one of a few people taken hostage at a bar by a couple of criminals, and who manages to save the day and win the girl.

Over the next couple of years, Miller would make a number of films for Corman—“Sorority Girl” (1957), “Carnival Rock” (1957), “Naked Paradise” (1957) and the heroic lead in “War of the Satellites” (1958)—and appeared in brief roles on TV shows like “M Squad,” “Dragnet” and “The Untouchables” before appearing in what would become perhaps his most beloved film amongst his hardcore fan base. “A Bucket of Blood” (1959) is an outrageously funny black comedy in which he played Walter Paisley, an oddball busboy at a beatnik cafe who yearns to one day become a true hepcat artist. Blending together cheerfully gruesome black humor and droll satire of the beatnik culture of the times, this is a film that probably would have stood out among the schlock movies of the era under any circumstances, but Miller’s performance moves it from being merely a great B-movie to a great movie, period. His take on Walter is hilarious and bizarre, of course, but he also gives the character and his failed artistic dreams a genuine sense of pathos that probably would have been ignored in the hands of most actors in order to concentrate on the ghoulishness.

Unfortunately, that would be the last time that Miller would ever really have the lead role in a film, although the next time that Corman came to him with a project, he did offer Miller the lead in that one as well. Alas, Miller read the script, felt that it was largely a rehash of “A Bucket of Blood” and decided to pass on playing the lead in the talking man-eating plant opus “Little Shop of Horrors” (1960). In later years, he would lament passing on that part but as much as I love that movie, I think that he may have made the right decision in the sense that the lead role in that one was maybe a tad too much of a Jerry Lewis-style schnook for him to believably portray. Besides, the part that he did wind up playing, that of a plant-eating man, supplied it with some of its biggest laughs. For the next decade or so, however, his career was a bit of a struggle. There were always appearances to be had in Corman productions—the most notable of which found him kibitzing with Don Rickles as a carnival heckler in “X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes” (1963), desperately attempting to explain the plot of “The Terror” to co-star Jack Nicholson in a fit of wild exposition and squaring off against dirty bikers in “The Wild Angels”—and small roles on the small screen in shows like “Dragnet 1967,” “Combat” and “Mannix.” However, roles in major studio films were few and far between and when he did turn up in something bigger like “The Dirty Dozen” (1967), “The St. Valentines Day Massacre” (1967) or “The Legend of Lylah Clare” (1968), they were in bit parts that received no formal credit.

In the 1970s, Miller still found himself doing the occasional small part for Corman, who had just formed his new production company New World Pictures and who perhaps looked upon Miller as some kind of good luck talisman. As it turned out, a number of the young filmmakers who Corman began hiring to work for him—people like Jonathan Kaplan and Jonathan Demme—were people who recalled seeing and liking Miller’s past work and leaped at the chance to included him in their own films. The most notable of these was Joe Dante, a movie-mad trailer editor who, along with colleague Allan Arkush, made a bet with Corman that they could make the cheapest movie in New World’s history. The film they came up with was “Hollywood Boulevard” (1976), an amiably silly satire of the world of B-movie production in which the comely cast of a low-budget schlock-fest is bumped off one by one by a masked killer. The film, not surprisingly, was filled with in-jokes and perhaps the funniest one of them all came when Miller was cast as the amiably sleazy agent of the lead, a character who was then given the name Walter Paisley. Not only was it a funny joke but it was one that stuck and throughout the rest of his career, he would play additional characters named Walter Paisley a number of times.

“Hollywood Boulevard” marked the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration with Dante, who would go on to include him in practically every single thing he made. In “Piranha” (1978), he was a sleazy water park owner not especially concerned with reports of a pack of deadly piranha heading his way. He turned up as the owner of an occult-themed bookshop dispensing werewolf lore in “The Howling” (1981), a diner counterman in “Twilight Zone: The Movie” (1983), Mr. Futterman, a snowplow driver who meets a seemingly ugly end at the hands of the “Gremlins” (1984), a starry-eyed cop in “Explorers” (1985), a cabbie in “Innerspace” (1987), a ventriloquist stuck with an unfamiliar dummy in a deleted sequence from “Amazon Women on the Moon” (1987), a garbageman in “The Burbs” (1989), the not-so-dead Mr. Futterman in “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” (1990), a for-hire agitator working for a B-movie magnate in “Matinee” (1993), a detective looking for “Runaway Daughters” (1994), a deliveryman in “Small Soldiers” (1998) and a studio security guard in “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” (2003) among them. Some of these parts were bigger than others (his appearances in later Dante films like “The Hole” (2011) and “Burying the Ex” (2014) were barely cameos) but no matter how big or small, they were eagerly anticipated and would often inspire cheers from viewers in the know.

Although Dante would become his most frequent non-Corman collaborator, he was far from the only notable filmmaker to include Miller their work. He worked with Martin Scorsese on “New York, New York” (1977) (opposite Robert De Niro and Liza Minelli, no less) and “After Hours” (1985), where he gets to essentially deliver that film’s mantra (“Different rules apply when it gets this late. You know what I mean? It’s like after hours”), Robert Zemeckis on “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (1978) and “Used Cars” (1980) and Steven Spielberg on “1941” (1979). He had brief but standout scenes in such genre classics as “Rock n Roll High School” (1979) as a police chief trying to come to terms with the Ramones (“They’re ugly. Ugly, ugly people.”) and “The Terminator” (1984), where he played the talkative gun shop owner opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. In addition, there was a steady stream of appearances on television (including episodes of “Police Squad!” and “V”) and cheap B movies, though these were now more likely to turn up on cable and on video than in the local drive-in. He even had a recurring role on the TV series version of “Fame” that lasted for several years in the Eighties. No matter how big or small the project or the part, you never saw him just coasting through things and if he did a project where his presence was not one of the key high points of the endeavor, I do not immediately recall it.

As some of you may have guessed, Dick Miller was a true favorite of mine—in my bio at this site, I even cite him as my all-time favorite actor—and even had the occasion to meet him once. When the “That Guy Dick Miller” documentary was making its way through the festival circuit a few years ago, the Chicago Critics Film Festival, on which I serve as a programmer, not only screened the film but turned it into an event that also featured a showing of “A Bucket of Blood” and an appearance by Miller and his wife, Lainie, at a Q&A that I co-conducted with colleague Steve Prokopy. Now I have met any number of famous people over the years as a result of my choice in career, but this was one of the very few times where I found myself a bit nervous, no doubt recalling that age-old warning about the dangers of meeting one’s heroes. Well, in this particular case, that saying proved to be a load of shit because I met one of my heroes and it was awesome. While I am certain that I probably came across as some kind of overly enthusiastic goofball, he certainly never let it show. After my inevitably rambling intro, he proceeded to charm everyone in the audience, told a ton of great stories and then proceeded to sign autographs for everyone who asked for one even though no one would have begrudged him for begging off after a while. From a journalistic standpoint, my contributions to that day were probably negligible at best but that was hardly the point. That day, I got to tell one of my heroes how much he and his body of work meant to me over the years while he was sitting right there and that made me about as giddy as I am able to get. Now, albeit under much sadder circumstances, I hope I have been able to do the same for you.

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