#but I feel like the intensity of what the seller gives the lamb after they complete their mission varies greatly

[daemaid]

Can I just say that I feel it’s a little odd that the Mystic Seller just rips Narinder from whatever afterlife he went to just to give him up as a prize?

I get that game-play wise this was to allow people who chose to kill him post-battle access to a unique follower that would have been unobtainable before, but story-wise it just has me like ??? Why did they do that???

Idk maybe I’m missing something, but was anyone else sorta weirded out by this part of the game?

[nonbinarypastels]

about your post on how liking certain fiction doesnt make you a bad person i really don't get it. if you're not a bad person why like bad things in fiction? how does what you read not show what kind of person you are?

Because life and humanity are not just not that simple. It seems easy to believe something like "person likes horror = person is obviously a horrific human being" until you actually take a closer look at people, until you actually think about the complexity and depth of human thoughts, feelings, and desires, and you realize that to boil all of human personality down to what someone has read in a book or watched in a movie is reductive black and white thinking at it's worst.

Let's talk about popular media for a minute:

The book 'The Silence of the Lambs' and the rest of the Hannibal Lecter book series which feature a cannibal as a main character and shows other such delightful past-times such as loving moths and making trench coats out of people has won multiple awards and sold millions of copies. The show 'Hannibal' that was adapted from the book series (and, it should be noted, was 1000x more gorey than the books) had millions of viewers and continues to have an active fandom who have created thousands of pieces of fanworks based on the show that are just as bloody (if not more) than what is seen on screen. The 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books which are 90% murder and 10% incest have also sold millions of copies, saying nothing of Game of Thrones which everyone should know is also widely popular. On a similar note, the book 'Flowers in the Attic'---everybody and their mother's original problematic fave---has sold over forty million copies worldwide and has been adapted onto screen several times.

These are only a few examples of books---there are millions more. Crime thrillers routinely top best seller lists, as does dark fiction in general, where the more horrifying and devastating the plot twist the more people tend to love the book. This is to say nothing of fanfiction (of which there are millions upon millions out there) which have as much, if not more, variety as published work.

Moving on to shows and movies: new horror movies are released every year because people can't get enough of them. The 'Scream' movie franchise, for example, is one of the most profitable ones out there and has made hundreds of millions of dollars in the United States alone. A new version of the movie 'It', based on Stephen King's highly popular horror book, will be coming out later this year along with over a dozen other horror flicks. Horror shows aren't quite as common but crime dramas are a dime a dozen. See: Criminal Minds which depicts horrible things being done to people in as much detail as you can get on network tv, a show that is going into its 13th season in September and continues to be popular.

Horror is also a rather popular game genre. See: the Silent Hill franchise, Resident Evil, Until Dawn, and many others. It's also a popular genre in comics, such as The Walking Dead which turned into a highly popular tv adaptation. This is all not even getting into music or art, both of which are mediums that can contain content that is just as 'problematic' as anything you'd find in books or on screen, because if I keep going on about this I'll be typing all day.

So

Take allll of that in. Take in all the examples I haven't mentioned, all of the millions of shows and movies and books and songs and comics and whatever else. Take that in and think of how many people those examples translate into. Millions of books sold = millions of people reading them. Millions of viewers = millions of people sitting down to watch these shows every week. Millions of dollars at the box office = millions of people giving their money in order to sit down and watch these movies.

That's millions and millions and millions of people who are consuming content which contains "bad" or "problematic" material. I feel it's completely accurate to state that these people are your family, your friends, your neighbors, probably even yourself because the probability that you've never consumed any of this content or don't know anyone who has is astronomical.

These are millions and millions and millions of people who, according to you, would be bad people simply because they consumed this content. And if you have consumed any of this content---which, again, you probably have at some point---that would make you a bad person too.

Does that honestly make sense to you? Do you honestly think that there are THAT many terrible people in the world? That the millions of people who, for example, sat down and watched Hannibal every week condone cannibalism in real life? That the people who have read the Game of Thrones books and loved them are all on the same level as someone who would screw his sister and push a kid out of a window? That the people who have watched every Scream movie are all a step away from putting on a mask and going on a stabbing spree?

If people were defined by the media they consumed and only the media they consumed with no other factors (such as what they actually believe is moral and ethical IRL, such as how they actually treat other people) then god help us all because the world would be a fucking utterly horrid place to be.

But, people aren't defined only by the media they consume because---again---people are much more complex than that and are so much more than only the kind of books they read or shows they watch.

This then begs the question: why do people consume this content? Why, if you're not condoning something, would you want to read about it or watch a movie about it? What do people get out of consuming fucked up media?

This isn't a new question. It's one that's been asked hundreds upon hundreds of time. If you only google "why do people like horror" you'll get page after page of results of laypeople and psychologists alike trying to explain it. The simple answer is basically that human beings as a whole like to feel intense emotions in a controlled, safe setting and as complex as we are we're also interested in the complexity of other people, even when they're fictional.

Most of us would not want to actually live in a horror movie, we wouldn't want to actually be locked in a closet with a guy on the other side breaking in with an ax and we wouldn't want to live in a haunted house surrounded by ghosts hellbent on murder and property damage. But in the safety of our own homes, a library, a movie theatre? We can sit down and read our books and watch our movies and feel terrified to our heart's blood-pumping content without ever having to actually put ourselves in harm's way. The same situation applies to other emotions: love, sadness, heartbreak, humor. Fiction gives people a chance to feel things as intensely as possible in a way that is, ultimately, safe. It gives people a way to escape and cope and be entertained and in a way live a life and experience things that it wouldn't be safe or practical or even desirable for them to experience in the real world.

And then there are plenty of people who like to consume this kind of media because they're simply fascinated by the psychology of the fictional characters involved. Like you want to know why people would want to consume this 'bad' content, the people who consume this content usually do so because they want to know what motivates these characters---what makes a person into a monster? What makes a monster into a person? And what does it say about us as people that we emphasize so strongly with monsters? There are entire swaths of people who find something almost addictive, almost holy about looking at the absolute darkest aspects of life and humanity and things beyond humanity and finding something in there that they can relate to and understand.

Human beings are, generally, an emotional species. We want to feel things. We want to feel things about people. We want to feel love and pain and fear and every single emotion there is to feel but we don't want to put ourselves in an unsafe position in order to do that. Fiction gives us a happy medium. The kind of fiction we consume doesn't make us bad people, it just makes us people, period, because people are complicated and flawed and messy and to try and apply black and white thinking to people as a whole is an exercise in futility. People aren't either good or evil, moral or immoral, "pure" or impure. It's more complicated than that, people are more complicated than that.

I've said it before and I'll say it a thousand more times: there are better ways to judge a person than by what fiction they like, by what movies or shows or books they prefer. The way people treat others matters. The way people talk about others matters. The way people believe things should be in real life matters. All a person's taste in fiction shows about them is their taste in fiction. You can't make any other assumptions about them based only on that because to do so is to try and apply an overly simple concept (liking fiction that contains bad things = you are a bad person) to something that isn't simple at all. Now, you don't have to like what another person likes or even understand it and you are 100% allowed to be critical of the media itself but if you go throughout life under the idea that people are defined by the media they consume then the world you believe you are in is going to look like a godawful place and every single person you ever meet is going to disappoint you because I think it's safe to say that there's not a single person on this earth who has only ever consumed 'morally pure' media. Everyone has watched a crime show, everyone has watched a horror movie, everyone has read a book or a fanfic with some fucked up things happening in it and anyone who says they haven't is lying their ass off.

The only way to not consume 'problematic' media is to never consume any media at all and if we are all defined by the media we consume, if we are all guilty of everything we have read about or watched on screen, then by that logic we are all bad people - we are all monsters - and that's just...not something that I believe in whatsoever, at all, because I think people are more complex than that and I have more faith in humanity than that.

[scarletrosestolinski1993]

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[newyorktheater]

Paul Rudnick

You’re getting attention for “Coastal Elites,” which was supposed to be a play at the Public Theater, but launches as a film on HBO September 12th, starring Bette Midler, Kaitlyn Dever, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson, and Issa Rae in five separate monologues about coping with the new abnormal. Less heralded is your role as Tweeter of Trump family foibles; some of these Tweets strike me as mini-plays, and others just draw blood. How did you come up with the two enterprises, and do you consider them connected in any way?

Paul Rudnick: As with everybody else, Twitter lets me talk back to the Trump administration. It’s like an anti-anxiety medication, and I’ve been trying to make my tweets mostly funny, instead of just constant howls of anguish. The Twitter community intrigued me, from every side of the political divide; it’s like a global town hall. It’s insane and filled with crackpots, but I like logging on to follow the world’s reactions to unfolding events in real time. Trump has galvanized Twitter and the weirdest part is, he pays attention to it. He’s furious when #TrumpMeltdown or #TrumpIsAnIdiot are trending.

I wanted to capture some of this rawness and frenzy in “Coastal Elites.” Right after the 2016 election I went to see my doctor for a check-up. He’s a very circumspect, ultra-professional guy, and he looked shell-shocked. He said that all of his patients didn’t want to talk about any medical problems – they couldn’t stop talking about the election. I wondered if this obsessiveness would subside, but it’s only expanded. And that’s where “Coastal Elites” came from. I started writing it about a year ago, and I was able to rewrite up until shooting, which ended a little over a month ago. We filmed the show remotely, with every possible Covid protection, and our director, Jay Roach and the amazing cast were incredibly helpful – everyone was hyper-informed about every nuance of politics.

The piece was always a collection of monologues, which also reflects Twitter, where people can pour out their frustrations without getting interrupted.

Neither of these projects are theater in any normal definition of theater, although it feels like there’s a theatrical sensibility at work (whatever that means.) I know you’ve had a varied career as a writer [e.g. films such as  Addams Family Values and In & Out; essay collections such as I Shudder], but many people see you primarily as a playwright [The Collected Plays of Paul Rudnick] Or at least I certainly do, given that I’ve been attending your plays since “Poor Little Lambs.” Do you see yourself that way? Yet now playwrights are focusing online. Do you foresee any lasting effect on the theater of the current period, when “theater” and “online theater” are basically synonymous?

I very much think of myself as first and foremost a playwright. That’s how I started and that’s the world I love. When I started writing “Coastal Elites” it felt theatrical but I wasn’t sure where it would land; I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. I’ve written monologues before and combined them into full evenings – this was the structure of my play “The New Century,” which was produced at Lincoln Center. I knew “Coastal Elites” wanted to be monologues, because I was dealing with characters at peaks of emotion and storytelling; they’re all in crisis. Monologues can be like songs in musicals – they’re outbursts.

We were originally going to stage “Coastal Elites” for a series of performances at the Public Theater in NYC, with a live audience, which Jay Roach would film for HBO. When the pandemic hit this became impossible, but then HBO and the show’s production team, which includes Jeffrey Seller, Scott Chaloff and Flody Suarez, all with extensive backgrounds in theater, wondered if there was another route. Once we knew that our cast and crew could be kept safe, Jay and I talked about how the show could be filmed remotely. Because the pieces are monologues, they lent themselves to the intense focus and intimacy of being filmed for TV. It’s like having a front row seat for performances by an incredible cast.

I never anticipated any of this, but the format ended up feeling like a great match for the material, and thanks to Jay, it doesn’t feel limited.

I’ve watched a lot of online theater, and much of it is amazing, especially because the times we’re living in give the shows such yearning. But with all that, I’m like everybody else: I’m desperate for the live event, to see actors onstage, to react as part of a packed theater, and to be in a rehearsal room. I have a new play called “Guilty Pleasure,” which was scheduled for this Fall at the LaJolla Playhouse, to be directed by my long-time collaborator, Chris Ashley. The production has understandably been postponed to next Fall.

I love how theater people are adapting creatively to the shutdown, and trying to stay economically afloat. And online theater will continue to be a world to explore, but nothing replaces, or will ever replace, live theater. It’s too essential and too joyous.

Ok, but do you think this moment of online theater experimentation will have any kind of effect on live theater itself when live theater returns?

The online experimentation during the pandemic will certainly affect subject matter, in terms of plays or musicals taking place during this period. It’s part of the internet’s and social media’s ongoing effect on theater; artists are inventing ways to include the online world in live events, with regard to everything from dating apps to TikTok. The world lives online, and theater had already begun to reflect that. Also, auditions and meetings were already taking place virtually, but this may become even more commonplace. Zoom readings will probably remain a useful tool for writers, actors and directors, as a shorthand during the development of theater projects. Maybe the pandemic has normalized a new form of rehearsal, especially for performers whose personal lives and schedules don’t always allow everyone to be in the same room.

Even more than the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement is already having a huge and welcome effect on theater. Artists have been using this downtime to examine how theater, at every level, can become truly inclusive. Whenever life returns to something resembling normal, theater may, in many necessary ways, be changed forever.

What was lost in “Coastal Elites” by having it become a film on HBO rather than a play at the Public Theater?

I’m not sure what was lost in transforming Coastal Elites from a theatrical experience to a filmed one. On one hand, comedy benefits enormously from audience response; but I watched our cast navigate this potential obstacle with incredible skill, and the script gained an intensity. Most of our cast has stage and film experience, so they drew on both. Also, on a sheerly practical level, it most likely would have been impossible to assemble this particular group of actors for a stage run, due to their schedule demands and other commitments. So while I miss having a live audience, and the thrill that can provide, I’m so grateful that these performances have been captured on film.

In the monologue The Blonde Cloud in “Coastal Elites,” Issa Rae portrays a former schoolmate of Ivanka, who calls her “Dracula with a blowout!” In your writing (especially in your feed), you focus more attention — more venom and more wit — on Ivanka than Donald. Why? Is there a strategy in that?

Trump has become a hopelessly easy and infuriating target. We know he’s a horrific tyrant. I’ve tried to approach his ongoing damage from an angle. Ivanka, who claims to empower women, has denied all of her father’s sexual assaults, and when asked about his war on women’s reproductive freedom, she smiles brightly, and refuses to answer, claiming such matters aren’t in her “portfolio.” She, along with her family members, have wholeheartedly supported Trump’s bigotry, lies and his many other crimes.

Ivanka has tried to remain in an untouchable bubble, which is insulting to all Americans. She’s constantly retweeting praise for herself, along with hopelessly privileged and out-of-touch advice: in the early days of the pandemic, she posted photos of herself making pillow forts with her kids at her Washington estate, and flew private to her family’s resorts. None of this is okay and a lot of it is ripe for satire. In Coastal Elites, I examined this situation through a character who’s every bit as rich and powerful as Ivanka, but her moral opposite. The brilliant Issa Rae plays Callie, who attended boarding school with Ivanka, but who’s been raised with a sense of responsibility and service. Their reunion, at the White House, raises the stakes for everyone involved.

The five monologues of “Coastal Elites”  each seem to represent different aspects of the new abnormal. Which are you most hopeful about?

I can be as anxious and pessimistic as anyone, but this can be self-defeating. I’ve been inspired by the millions of people, all over the world, who are figuring out work, family, love and basic survival right now. One of the Coastal Elite characters is a young nurse from Wyoming, superbly played by Kaitlyn Dever, who comes to New York to volunteer as a frontline worker, The courage of doctors, nurses and healthcare workers remains astonishing. Even in the early days, without any protective equipment, they worked around the clock, providing care and whenever possible, saving lives. This degree of sacrifice is both staggering and hopeful; these workers are an inspiration to all of us.

In addition, I wanted Coastal Elites to be a tribute to the sense of humor that’s helping everyone cope. Bette Midler plays Miriam, a public school teacher and hardcore New York liberal who’s very much a tribute to my Mom and her sisters. Their passion and wisecracks always gave me hope, and I see their spirit in so many people. Bette Midler herself gives me hope: she’s a legendary performer whose tweets are hilarious and outrageously committed to changing the world for the better. Theater artists always give me hope. No one pursues theater to make a fortune or have an easy life. People work in the theater because they can’t imagine doing anything else. The pandemic has made theater almost impossible, but the theater community has stayed in constant touch, Theater people don’t give up, and that’s hope itself.

Paul Rudnick On Coastal Elites, Trash-Tweeting Ivanka, and How Bette Midler and Theater Give Him Hope You're getting attention for "Coastal Elites," which was supposed to be a play at the Public Theater, but launches as a film on HBO September 12th, starring Bette Midler, Kaitlyn Dever, Dan Levy, Sarah Paulson, and Issa Rae in five separate monologues about coping with the new abnormal.