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artpoint420 · 4 years ago

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We Bare Bears Movie Review

🤎🤍🖤

So this is it, other than the Baby Bear spin off, this is most likely the finale to this gem of a Cartoon Network show. The WE BARES MOVIE ! And lemme just say it was a sight to BEAR!

Seriously, my sister and I were hyped to see what big crazy adventure our three bro’s would go on. We LOVED the show itself but didn’t quite know what to expect for a movie. So when I finally remembered it was out yesterday, I rushed to invite her to invade my sleepover at my Nanas house so she could make us some popcorn on the stove and along with some brownies and indulging in my obsession with bubble gum, we layer back and braced ourselves to see the final moments in grown bears story.

So right off I started noticing striking similarities to the Ed, Edd, and Eddy movie I watched exactly a week ago and also gave my thoughts on in a Tumblr post. To avoid giving spoilers for the Edd movie, I might save comparing the two for a separate post. What I will say is, they both have nearly the same theme: the desire for acceptance among their peers.

It also helps that Grizz acts a lot like a more kindhearted version of Eddy, both of them extremely extroverted and always up to a big scheme. Speaking of which, both movies essentially start out with a big scheme going wrong and now the main trio needs to escape to a place that the leader of their group seems to be much better than it actually is. In the Bears case, they want to go to Canada. The only thing that confuses me about this is that Grizz is already Canadian, having been born and raised there until he left the sitcom business. I really thought going in that would play a much larger role in the movie, but it seemed like they completed forgot where Grizz was from when it was time for the bears to go back from whence they came.

Yes, the main plot of this movie is the Bears need to escape a one note villain who wants to separate and send them back to their own country. Not only can you draw your own real life parallel to this, but you know you’ve seen this plot a million times in film. The difference here is how the movie uses this to round out the themes of the show in such a perfect way. I do not want to spoil the ending here, it is so good, it made me smile so hard and wide I looked silly.

The main thing I want to talk about, rather than simply review the movie chronologically, is talk about Grizz, most notably his dream sequences. One of which begins the movie and almost had me thinking this was a baby bear film, which would’ve been fine but yeah. Anyways, it revolves around the bears nearly being hi by a train, and is completed later in the movie when we see that Grizz saved them (using his brain rather than just brute strength) and this establishes how he, before he even knew their names, felt the need to protect his brothers in arms.

Another more abstract dream of Grizz is where he is carrying baby versions of Panda and Ice Bear as Panda repeatedly asks Grizz to help them. This represents how Grizz sees his promise to protect them as a weight on his back that sometimes pulls them down. Confident as he usually is, he, in this situation, lacks confidence that he’ll be able to protect his baby bros.

But seriously, even though Ice is my favorite bear, Grizz was probably my favorite character in the movie, given how is internal struggle balances out the chaos of the external stuggles. As an older sibling myself, I can relate to him feeling inadequate to protect his little bro’s. And yeah, my buff brothers can protect themselves and my sister is a real fighter, I still think there’s a natural, almost paternal or maternal drive in older siblings to protect those closest to them that are young. Yeah, most of the symbolism in this film is about as subtle as the yellow on Mac and cheese, but what matters is that there’s charm to it.

And trust me, this show has always been full of charm, even when they reference memes. And this movie has an entire sequence dedicated to memes. I am so glad the writers of this show seem to have at least some clue as to how Internet culture truly works, and this keeps everything feeling more like a homage to popular meme animals than a sequence thrown in there just to be hip with the kids. I recognized so many of them I felt like a loser, and got so excited when I saw the crabs because yes I still listen to Crab Rave more than I should.

The Meme-nimals are yet another way to represent being an outsider, and, despite not liking the fact the bears crashed the party, eventually sympathized with and helped them, except for pizza rat. He can just leave that pizza be and starve for all I care. And to think he and panda could have been good friends based on they both are hungry for internet fame.

The funniest scene in my opinion was when the bears rode away from the cops and were replaced by hippie versions of themselves. Seriously they have human equivalents and now hippie equivalents? This is great theory material for when I make a theory video on the show in the future. Let’s just say, that was hilarious.

Also, the van they basically run into on the highway was literally the mystery machine from scooby doo. I flipped out because I had literally just noted that their van reminded me of it.

I don’t have much to say about the villain, I don’t even remember his name. I do feel like they’re was plenty of moments were he could’ve been given more character, maybe have him tell some back story that explains why he hates bears so much. But at guess because he’s symbolic of an idea more than a character, this was brushed over.

The other police guy felt had some good development, and I like how he came through in the end, but again not much to say about him.

I do wish we had the other side characters play more of a role, most of them barely got much more than a brief cameo when they could’ve done so much more.

Overall, this was a fantastic movie and though filled with cliches and tropes it has a lot of charm and I plan on watching it again for the pure joy of it. My favorite line I feel like is best to wrap up this review, because they are brothers, they may be different, they may not even look alike but, hey, that’s he best part.

#webarebears #moviereview #we bare bears

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curious-minx · 4 years ago

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Bob’s Burgers most reliable holiday provides another lowkey enjoyable, but messy episode. Whereas the latest Simpsons strikes a really sore vocal node.

The second holiday episode of Bob’s Burgers’ 11th season, much like the previous Halloween episode, this one also fails to live up to the series’ even higher Thanksgiving standard

That’s not to say “Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid” is not a good episode, but it does fall into the category of Bob’s Burgers episode I typically respond to the least: Character-based storytelling vignettes. The writing on these segment driven episodes tend to be looser and playful bending the show’s reality, but much like every time the other Fox family leaves the Springfield plane of reality into a pastiche styled playground for the writers to plug the characters into.

The overall animation and visual-based gags on this episode offers some of the best moments of the season and series in general. Having the Belcher stories revolve around action movie pastiches of 90’s action movie schlock like Air Force Once, Armageddon, and late 80’s Predator are extremely punny and really grasping hard for satire. The walk to Louise’s Breadator is succinct and makes total sense for Louise’s character to tell this kind of story, whereas Tina drawing inspiration from Air Force One for her story sags the episode down. This episode also has the gall to bring in Gayle, a character that usually elevates all of her episodes nothing much to do until the third and best segment told by Bob. Teddie is also frustratingly nowhere to be seen and Teddie is one of those characters that really only needs a small scene explaining away his absence like in the episode “Gayle Makin’ Bob Sled,” which Variety and I consider to be among the best of Bob’s Thanksgiving episodes.

Nitpicks and reminiscing on past glories aside, what’s most impressive about an episode as conceptual and overstuffed as this one, an episode that’s also poopy and gross-out from the very beginning, still manages to pack undeniable heart. Seeing a character as relatable and sad sack-y as Bob Belcher be passionate about his one favorite holiday reminds me of the everlasting and evergreen Ray Bradbury remark about how everyone is capable of writing poetry as long as you ask them to talk about something they are truly passionate about. Seeing how this episode climax revolves around Gene and Bob’s love of food and proves a powerful sentimental moment. Bob’s Burgers sentimentality works because the show’s core is silly absurdism, light and fluffy gross out gags and quirky twee-ness. Introducing the action movie element feels like the series trying to branch out its audience and try to catch some eyeballs of viewers looking for something more like Archer, American Dad, Rick and Morty, or even Treehouse of Horror style genre exercises. Bob’s Burgers and action comedy feels like putting garlic pesto on cinnamon toast, but Ryan Reynolds doesn’t think so.

Yes, that’s right. The biggest news out of the Bob’s Burgers camp…probably ever…is that the Molyneux sisters, the writers of this very action packed episode, have been hand selected by Mr. Detective “VanWilder” Pickachu himself to be head writers on the upcoming third Deadpool movie. Seeing that we live in a post Russo brothers world and how Dan Harmon was conscripted to punch up Doctor Strange scripts none of this should really surprise me, but I am still very much surprised by this development. The Deadpool 3 creative team and Reynolds is still promising to deliver an R-Rated Comedy, a rating and promise that is very much why Deadpool is the sensation that it is.

In the current media landscape the only way a big budget R-Rated comedy can get made is if it’s attached to something like a mega superhero sized brand. At this point in time Deadpool is the closest thing kids have to a Mel or Al Brooks and it is what it is. If anything Ryan Reynolds personally choosing the Molyneux sisters for a project like this makes me like Ryan Reynolds a little bit more. And he’s a man I previously had no real feelings or opinions about. The only other thing about Deadpool I know about is that the franchise has developed a particularly shitty reputation in terms of its treatment of main female characters and literally freezing them out of the plot. The future of comedy is being driven by the significant increase of women gaining these kind of writing gigs and it’s a beautiful thing to finally see witness. Especially when a company like Netflix has been really shitty to both of its own female driven comedies: Glow and Tucca and Bertie.

Sigh. I am thankful for all the sad little boys and girls wearing too much or maybe the right amount of eye shadow that will inherit this flaming Earth.

Three and half pear shaped pals out of an Oedipus Rex Complex.

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Nerds! Nothing but a lousy rotten sniveling dweeb! You dorkus-rex! You body pillow huffing geek get over here and let the Simpsons set some things straight for you: A Comic Book Guy driven episode of the Simpsons is often where the show goes off the rails. The Comic Book Guy marriage episode is was one of those late day Simpsons that feel like a bad piece of dreamed up fan fiction that you found on the cutting room floor. Is the show interested at all with the fact that comics and being nerdy have become as mainstream as the Bible? No? They’re still treating geek culture as some sort of low hanging piñata fruit lousy with cheap references in place of actual jokes? Good! I don’t know why I would ever allow myself to think for a second that the Simpsons would challenge its own status quo 32 seasons in, but I keep coming back.

What I should really do is back up. The title of this episode is “Three Dreams Denied.” Ah, Dream Denial! That’s exactly what anyone watching an animated sitcom hopes for: dreams being crushed. This isn’t some kiddy Davy and Goliath feel good wholesome fable, this is the Simpsons where characters are given dreams, and those dreams get denied. The next part of the title I want to break down is the fact that there are specifically three dreams that being denied. Three! That’s a comedy number! As long as you have three of anything you’re doing comedy. Plain and simple.

During the Robert Zemeicks arc of the Blank Check podcast Griffin Newman, co-host and comedian extraordinaire and someone I generally admire a lot, has been bringing up the fact that he’s been spending a lot of his Quarantine rewatching the entirety of the Simpsons. By the episode of Used Cars Newman has already gotten past the Movie era and is in the 20th seasons. One observation he made about later day Simpsons is that these episodes have a tendency to end abruptly on a pile of unusable and reality bending plots still in the process of tying themselves up. And there’s no better/worse example of this than this episode.

Comic Book Guy goes to a comic book convention. Bart becomes a voice actor after befriending the comic book guy’s temporary replacement. Lisa feuds over her saxophone chair in the school orchestra with a new pretty boy voiced by the underwhelming Ben Platt. One of these plots is not like the other. This used to be the signature of a quality Simpsons episode that managed to tweak and divert expectations from the typical A & B sitcom storylines. This episode fundamentally fails to deliver on any of the three storylines and what makes it worse is that it’s an intentional choice.

Now I know I have spent this review harping on Comic Book Guy, but he’s not even why this episode for me is such an abomination. And it’s not because the cutesy, flimsy Lisa subplot either (although I do find it noxiously amusing that a week after an Yeardely Smith took issue with the Queer Interpretation of Lisa would feature her going moony eyed over a boy voiced by a defiantly queer actor), no, what tips this episode into the territory of the truly terrible for me is the Bart becomes a voice actor subplot.

The only defining quality of season 32 that I can discern is that the flagrant trolling on behalf of the writers. Can you believe we had three vignette driven episodes of the Simpsons in a row? Can you believe we would have meta reality breaking voice actor related moments back to back? When Lisa Simpson’s voice actor Yeardley Smith voiced the real world character of herself in the previous Podcast based episode it was clumsy and awkward as hell. Having Bart become a voice actor that ends up voicing a character of the opposite gender is the sort of kind of a funny thing that resembles a joke that the latter day Simpsons revel in. The characterization of voice acting work in this episode is downright insulting and explains exactly why this show suffers.

The character of Phil that serves as the Comic Book Guy’s replacement is a working voice actor. He let’s Bart know this by doing a series of completely basic, broad and unremarkable impersonations that Bart is seemingly impressed by. All you have to do to become a successful voice actor is do a silly voice and you’re golden. Maybe from the perspective of a series as lazy and indulgent as the Simpsons is when it comes to voice acting. The complete denial of Julie Kavner’s deteriorating voice that at this point sounds like gentle elder abuse. There are times when Kavner is downright incomprehensible at times. The other oldest member of the Simpsons voice talent, Harry Shearer was wrongheadedly trying to defend his right to voice Characters of Colors because in his words, “the job of the voice actor is to play someone who they’re not.” Obviously these words were not spoken by someone that thinks very highly of acting either. There is no one job an actor has to do, because the job of an actor is always changing from job to job. The character of Phil is not even attributed to anyone! I have spent over thirty minutes getting testy with IMDB search engines and reading another website’s recap and no one can tell me who did the voice of the Voice Acting Character on Simpsons. Lovely.

Much like the Comic Book Guy the Simpsons heart is in bad shape. This is a show whose entire existence seems to be made out of spite. Or to garner enough funds for Matt Groening to prevent him from ever having to serve any prison time for his exploits on the Lolita express. Great, see I’m bringing up the Lolita Express at the end of a Simpsons review. This episode really left me in a bad mood, but thankfully that’s what Bob’s Burgers is for.

SKIP. The only people that should watch this are people teaching a screenwriting class that need examples of what happens when you break your episode by haphazardly shoving three plots into one episode. If you can’t tie up one story in a satisfying manner then you really shouldn’t be telling a story at all. There’s also one really magnificent visual joke involving Homer and beer tea that is absolutely wasted on this episode.

#Bob's Burgers #Deadpool #MCU #2021 #TV series #TV review #TV #The Simpsons #voice artist #voice acting #rant

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boydgearloose · 4 years ago

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Hey, you! As a fic writer I’m terribly interested in your fowl sitcom idea. I think it’s got a lot of potential. You wouldn’t be up to sharing details about it would you?

anon you have no idea how thrilled i was when i saw this ask LOL i’ve literally been talking about fowl and how i see their dynamic in my head for AGES! i could fill several pages with thoughts i’ve had involving the group and how they interact with each other, both humorous and serious. but this seems to be asking for the more funny lighthearted approach so allow me to put it into words to my best ability. here’s a rundown of how i see each character:

bradford: the boss who’s done with everyone’s shit. i don’t think about him that much but he’s definitely the most competent, that’s basically canon. idk anything about the other two buzzards though...iirc only one of them has a name so far? lmao

black heron: total mad scientist. i honestly wish this part of her character was utilized more in fan content because it’s so INTERESTING. she canonically did surgery on steelbeak i mean. come on. anyway, she is probably the most competent after bradford and the oldest (minus rockerduck) by quite a bit. sometimes she feels like she has to babysit the other agents. she isn’t entirely wrong to feel that way

steelbeak: there’s not much i can say here that double o duck didn’t already show but he’s definitely the butt of a lot of jokes within the dynamic, a wild card who’s extremely unhinged and impulsive. he definitely likes to do really dumb shit to impress the other agents and almost gets himself killed every time. he does get along begrudgingly well with gandra and possibly others but going into that dynamic is a whole other story that i’ll hopefully tell one day. and we all know how he is with black heron, that’s a fun one

gandra: she’s the youngest ofc. her and steelbeak aren’t too far apart (maybe 4 or 5 years) but he thought she was 13 when they first met and it took him a few months to realize how old she really was. despite this, she's very capable and one of the smartest members. i think she’s a pretty high-ranking agent despite her age and it’s definitely well-deserved. a lot of fowl’s plans would fall apart without gandra...which is funny because she’s definitely not gonna stay there

phantom blot: ok. here we go. so yes i know that we know absolutely nothing about this guy other than he’s funso and whatever frank hinted (yes i do know it all off the top of my head, no i won’t go into it because the fact that i have MEMORIZED this shit is embarrassing) but i have found myself preemptively attached and very much so. i’ve managed to temporarily fill in the blanks by coming up with some pretty sweet lore based on my own thoughts and older blot content that i want to drop in fic-form sometimes before it’s squashed by canon and have absolutely fallen in love with this character while doing so. despite this, i’ll keep my answer here on the shorter side. i don’t think many people in fowl know much about blot? he likes to keep to himself, finding comfort in the air of mystery he puts on to throw everyone off. most of the agents are intimidated by him and rightfully so, for he is rather terrifying and prides himself on it. other than that, he actually doesn’t really HATE his job as funso. despite everything, he’s not bad with kids. plus, he’s probably the only person in the universe who genuinely enjoys funso’s pizza. there’s a lot more i could say here but then it’ll turn into a “saturn’s self-indulgent phantom blot lore” post and not a fowl dynamic post so i’ll end it by saying that i REALLY love the idea of him slowly becoming closer to some of his co-workers :”) i think he’s a really overdramatic and almost silly guy deep down inside (but in an evil and fucked up way) and if he got to know someone, that side of him would really shine!

rockerduck: he expects a lot more respect than he’s gonna get from this crew, i'll just say that. jeeves is really the only one who listens to him and everyone else kind of views him as a small angry old man who they spent hours unthawing from a block of ice. also, he’s hilariously gullible from culture shock and gandra takes advantage of this the most. she kinda has it out for him because he’s a rich bastard and she doesn’t vibe with that. he gets along with jeeves and...not really anyone else. sorry rockerduck. he’s kind of the group loser :(

jeeves: i’ve admittedly thought about him the least. he kinda just interacts with rockerduck i think? he can’t talk or anything so not many of the other fowl agents want to get to know him. but he has a softer side, as we saw at the end of outlaw scrooge mcduck. i do wonder if that might come back into play sometimes in canon. also it’s fun to imagine him doing shit like knitting sweaters with that awful look on his face that he probably can’t even wipe off

and...that’s about it! this got REALLY long and rambly so i apologize for that but hopefully it gave you what you need and if you have any questions, please ask because i cannot describe how much i love talking about these guys!!!

#god i have to start writing fics about fowl don't i?#goddamnit #answered asks #Anonymous

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cloverhighfive · 5 years ago

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Quarantine tag!

tagged by @slytherkins 💖

ARE YOU STAYING HOME FROM WORK OR SCHOOL?

Our employer figured out how to make us all work from home, so doing that. I’m actually more productive at home than in the office.

IF YOU’RE STAYING HOME, WHO IS THERE WITH YOU?

Nobody. Some dust bunnies. My own thoughts.

ARE YOU A HOMEBODY?

By nature, yes. I’ve always said I hate working and I even stopped giving a shit if my boss knows. It’s not about the job, it’s about me hating having to go out and somewhere else to do stuff for someone else. So this work from home situation is grand af. Also, I’d been home 3 weeks and I needed groceries, and believe it or not I had to kick myself to go. I think I succeeded in buying food for 1 month. Fingers crossed.

AN EVENT THAT YOU WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT GOT CANCELLED?

THE REST OF SUPERNATURAL - other than that, a lot of plans were cancelled and I’m actually happy for those. For example, it’s the first Easter in my whole damn life (and I’m a grown-ass adult with a half-paid mortgage) that I can spend all Easter at home, quiet. THE DREAM.

WHAT MOVIES HAVE YOU WATCHED RECENTLY?

Girl (2018). From wikipedia: Girl was inspired by Nora Monsecour, a trans female dancer from Belgium, whom Dhont met when he was 18 and she was 15. While initially praised by critics, the film was criticised by some trans and queer writers for its depiction of gender dysphoria and self-harm. Monsecour, who collaborated with Dhont and Tijssens on the film, has defended the film in response. (by the way, the self-harm is ... I couldn’t watch)

WHAT SHOWS ARE YOU WATCHING?

I’m currently watching Suits. It’s got 9 seasons of 42-min eps, so I’m good for a while, if I don’t bore of the genre. 2 seasons in, I’m good. I’m already playing on my phone at the same time sometimes, and I pick up on plot clichés easier (totally unimpressed by the will they/won’t they), but I’m good. I wonder if Lucifer was all filmed before the quarantine and if we’ll get s5 soon.

I recommend Kim’s Convenience, a cute light Canadian soft sitcom about a family that owns what we call a depanneur (convenience store, corner store). And of course Schitt’s Creek, if you haven’t dwelved into that yet (Canadian too). And if by some incredible turn of events you’re still not into Brooklyn 99, what seriously are you waiting for?

WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO?

Chill mixes mostly. Ambiance stuff. My work requires that I listen to the audio while I proofread the transcript, so I basically listen to ppl talking all day. Non-words music is what I go to nowadays mostly.

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Not much. A bit of fanfic. Adapting to this new quarantine routine used up a lot of spoons (even if I love it), so I haven’t been able to read as much fics as I wanted.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR SELF CARE?

Stick to a routine. I usually hate routine cause an office job has its own routine thrust upon me by force, but by myself at home, establishing one is good for my mental health. Example, every morning I work I get dressed, and do my hair a bit. So when the day is done, I have this marker (take the clips/combs out of my hair/put my pj’s on) that helps me close the day. Also, I refuse to work in pj’s, cause pj’s = me time/leisure time.

But what I wear is totally indulgent. Stuff I’d never wear out of the house: old t-shirts or stuff that’s a bit ill-fitting or the colours are ridiculously mismatched.

I also like to call my mom during the day - work hours! - to get some news, something I wouldn’t do in the office. But at home, who knows? Nobody watches me. And, like I said, I’m more productive at home, so no worries. :D

taggin’ dif peeps this time @jensenackles-ismyreligion @arvit @dawnie1988 @azamatic

#tag game #quarantine #not spn

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peepingtoad · 6 years ago

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💡 What inspires you to write the muse?

Mun talks about the Muse// @pillarofpeace

💡 What inspires you to write the muse?

Here, I’m just gonna bullet a list of reasons and shove it under a read more, because there is the ‘what inspired me to write him’ side and the ‘what do I use to get inspired’ side. Wasn’t sure how to interpret the question when I thought about it.

But first of all the ‘why’ because Oh My Word:

First of all, I’ve simply always loved this man, but my love only increased the older I got and the more I became the disaster adult (which I honestly see and cherish in all of the Sannin). There’s just something incredibly relatable about that heap of bad coping mechanisms and vices that just Vibes with me.

I initially wanted to take him on because I’ve only ever written villains in the past–and Jiraiya, despite his flaws, is a good and lovely boy, my favourite of the good boys. It’s a big challenge and a change for me, which has actually made my own personal outlook a little lighter and brighter, and continues to inspire me to write him.

Well… I never saw him as completely straight. As a weird closeted teen, I looked at that man who loved The Titties and said ‘hmm, not straight, over-compensating, fancies Orochimaru and Tsunade……’, and now that I’ve mostly figured myself out at the wonderfully jaded age of twenty-schlmrfgrble I think I have the experiences to get into the headspace of the older, semi-closeted fellow. I damn well dove into that.

He’s fuckin’ old. He has experiences, and a vast wealth of it. He’s changed from a wild young man to… well, a wild old man, but there are subtle changes in him to explore despite him remaining the same at his core.

There are many parts of his past to explore in terms of negative experiences. Jiraiya didn’t really get a tragic backstory of any kind (and I mean childhood/teens–formative years), which is one of the reasons I feel he is less ‘forgiven’ by many fans. But I remember being young and feeling acutely how tragic the Sannin were as a trio, and how each of them as individuals were. It was a low-key, incredibly long term tragedy filled with miscommunication, abandonment and a healthy dose of under-appreciation on all fronts. I became compelled to find people who muse for the other two members in ways that I am not competent enough to… which I have indeed found.

Lastly, and most importantly, I am a filthy and terrible person. I love bad sex jokes, innuendos, puns, and basically laughing at all things related to sex and relationships. Jiraiya is a muse from heaven.

With all my immediate thoughts expended on that front, my general inspirations when writing him are:

Hedonistic deities. Massively. I only have Dionysus in mind out of real life pantheons, but I used to muse lightly for Sanguine from TES once upon a time, which has carried through to my Jiraiya somewhat, but become less… evil/chaotic. Even though he was the least nasty of the Daedra but oh well. I need to educate myself more on Japanese folklore and deities before I class it among my big inspirations (which is bad, I know… just not an area of great knowledge for me).

Trashy R&B, pop and rock songs, particularly those pertaining to booty and titties and Doin’ It. But also my select few tunes that are absolutely the most romantically depressing for when I’m feeling self-indulgent.

Watching the T-back scene. A LOT. It amuses me no matter how problematic it seems.

Watching a lot of sitcoms and relating a lot of things to him (… mainly Joey of Friends, and an odd combination of Mac and Frank from Always Sunny, among others… basically consuming media with similar enough archetypes to adapt to him)

I cosplay him :’) but I’m too shy to reveal any photos publicly! Maybe this con season I will!

#{ooc}#{fanmail}#pillarofpeace

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sophygurl · 7 years ago

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Okay I am done with the panel write-up posts and I apologize to all my followers who don’t give a fuck about that kinda thing but WisCon is a big part of my life so I get to totally indulge in it once a year so there. [For anyone wondering this amazing con I keep going on about is a feminist Sci-fi/fantasy con right in my home town and I’ve been going for close to ten years now and it’s like HOME to me]

Gonna post some about the panels I was on, my general con experience this year, and some other stuff under this next read more thingum here. It’ll be more of a personal post than the others. Anything else I write now will be more about fandom-ey stuff that I got up in my feels about and need to hash out.

BTW though. Hi new followers!! If you’re coming to me due to WisCon specifically or due to my write-up of THAT panel, feel free to introduce yourselves. I use tumblr the most frequently with twitter and FB being a sort of tie for second and DW much more rarely just as an FYI. I’m sophygurl everywhere but FB which is my real name. I’m easily findable and love talking to people!

So my panels this year were all very different in tone and experience, but all went pretty well? I had fun anyway? I had 4 panels about TV in some way or another and one about Star Wars. Some hinged on serious-ish topics, but I wasn’t on any Serious Business panels this year.

I wrote up a crap-ton of panel ideas and a lot of them got through. So many that panels I wrote up and wanted to go to were often up against one another and I had to make lots of choices. But it feels really good to me to be involved in that way - in writing up panels, and in being on them, and in going to them and taking notes and writing them up after. There is a lot that I CAN’T do for the con due to my disability stuff. But this is stuff I both can do and enjoy doing so it works out well. I also volunteered to a few people to write up panel descriptions from ideas they have but don’t have fleshed out, so that’s an exciting new thing for me to try out. So but yea, all five of the panels I was on were panels I also wrote up.

My first panel was about Women Loving Women on TV. It was me, another panelist, and the moderator. I was a little worried about this panel because the moderator said she was put on the panel by mistake and doesn’t even have a TV (she did fine as a mod - not all mods have to also partake in the talking, they can just ask questions of the panelists), and the other panelist never contacted either of us or showed up for the panel.

Fortunately, I am a well-prepared panelist and felt comfortable talking about this subject for the whole 75 minutes. But then the panel was scheduled against a panel on a similar topic and so anyway - three people showed up for the panel. Fortunately they were kinda fun and engaged people so it became more of a conversational panel than a formal presentation kind and I think it went well? This was my only panel this weekend that I wasn’t the moderator of.

My next panel was about intersectionality on TV. I was also a lil worried about this one because it was just me and one other panelist, although we had some good chats online before the con so I wasn’t too worried. Fortunately, she convinced a friend to come sit on the panel with us so there was three of us - and both of my panelists had lots of awesome things to contribute. We also had a decent size panel for an evening time slot and got the audience involved too. I pulled one of my goofball tricks and made the audience do a lightning round question of a show they think does intersectionality well and everyone was able to come up with something, which was fun.

Right after that was my panel about SFF sitcoms which was a blast. This was even later in the evening, so we were all really punchy! It was me, a good friend, and another panelist I knew casually before. We wanted lots of audience participation and we got it - getting so many more recommendations than any of the 3 of us had even considered. And since it was a panel about comedies, we really just kinda relaxed and had fun with it.

That was all Friday. Big Day for me.

Saturday night, again a late night slot, I had my Bisexual Representation in TV and Film panel. This one I was not too worried about because I was asked to hand-staff it, since I had strongly suggested the panel be filled with Bi+ folks. So most of the panel was people I already knew and had paneled with before but also I snagged a couple of people I hadn’t previously talked to but who were also awesome.

The panel was in a large room and was fairly full, which I thought was really neat. I had a lot of my own notes on the subject, and did go off on a huge bit about the amazingness of Sara Ramirez and her two bisexual characters, but I also knew from previous convos that my fellow panelists had a lot of interesting things to say and they did not disappoint. It seemed like the audience had a lot of fun and the # for the program was pretty lively, so that’s always a good feeling.

Sunday afternoon was the panel I was MOST excited about. It was all about the themes of The Last Jedi. Like how cool is that? A whole panel not just about the movie in general, but specifically about the THEMES of the movie?! I was pumped that this panel even got through, much less that I got to be on it, much less that I got to moderate it.

And let me tell you something. My panelists? Were amazeballs. Like, the email convos we had ahead of time were already so smart and so nuanced and so full of different ideas and perspectives I was like !!!

And the panel went SO WELL. Like, there was such an equal exchange of like flow and information going back and forth. I feel like I really organized my own thoughts and questions for my panelists well and we all spent the whole panel making grabby hands for the mic because we were all so excited to respond to one another’s thoughts.

It was FUN and THINKY and I could tell the audience was really engaged and we all laughed and discussed and disagreed and laughed more and it was probably the best time I have ever had on a panel. The #TLJThemes on twitter is just chock-full of both quotes from my awesome panelists and thinky-thoughts from the very smart audience who I sadly did NOT end up having time to get questions or comments from because literally the moment we finally had a pause of any kind? It was right on the dot time for the panel to end LOL.

So yea, wow, that was just exhilarating? IDK, I am such a nerd.

But yea, so I had everything from 3 audience members to packed rooms and no fellow panelists to crowded tables of excited panelists struggling to get a word in and everything in between and I feel sort of confident that I did well with all of it? So that’s neat.

Last year I didn’t moderate any of my panels and I found I really missed it, which is why I volunteered to do more moderating this year and it was a Good Life Choice and I plan to do more of it in the future. I adore WisCon for being the kind of place that a basic nobody like myself who has done nothing with her life besides watch a crapton of television can sit on panels and moderate panels and contribute to panels and do things like this that I enjoy and feel like am good at and it’s just such a good. *cuddles the general idea of WisCon*

And beyond the panels - both that I attended and sat on - I had a really wonderful con this year. I was very social and decided to get over my awkwardness and just kinda Utilize my awkwardness because, like, we’re all geeks here so just stop worrying and be a dork and have fun and it worked? I talked to so many people, introduced myself to so many people, made so many connections, hung out more specifically with some of my favorite people, and just sort of made sure to hang out in public spaces and smile a lot and that helped? Who knew.

There were really only just the three bumps in my otherwise good experience.

1. The panel. If you didn’t already see about this, I attended a panel that very unfortunately derailed into Nazi apologism and it was super gross and upsetting but lots of people spoke up against the panelist in question and the con acted quickly to ban her and are continuing to discuss if she can ever come back so at least that part is good but UGH UGH UGH that was so gross.

2. My laptop broke on me. Fortunately, I have amazing friends and the one I was rooming with doesn’t use hers a ton so she let me use it a lot so I didn’t have to be off-twitter much because a lot of the con happens in the twitter tags and I would have been very sad to miss out on that. I got home and my other amazing friend and roomie helped me get my laptop into the shop quickly and it’s back now which is a huge relief because as a mostly homebound and frankly mostly sofabound extrovert? I need my laptop. I NEED my Laptop.

3. Life with chronic illness sadly does not stop when you are at an event you love. Even when you save up all your spoons, and spend weeks building up your stamina after a winter of mostly hibernating, and use all of your meds, and allow yourself more caffeine and different foods than usual, and work really hard on self-care. Still, you are chronically ill.

I am able to push myself a LOT at WisCon because of how it fuels me socially and intellectually and creatively and in so many other ways. But that still only goes so far. And especially with having two late nights on panels - I did not make it to any parties or other late night social events this year. Nor did I make any early morning panels - and there were some I really Really wanted to go to.

But that’s life and I still got to cram SO MUCH in and spent lots of time in the hot tub soaking and also having poolcon with some amazing folks and had lobbycon and actually made time to have meal/snack times with people instead of just the usual “we should totally make sure to ...”

There were a lot of people I only saw briefly or missed entirely that I’d have loved to have had more time with, but I guess when we finally invent the time turners I can have all that plus go to ALL the panels.

Oh! And I did go to an amazing reading this year. I often skip readings but I knew a bunch of the people at this one and adore them so I went and it made me feel and think a lot of things and adore these people even more, so there’s that.

And PHEW I think that’s it. I have tons of thoughts about like, found family and female friendships and stuff mostly about my own amazing platonic poly tribe - some of whom come along to WisCon with me and we get to like BE together in shared living space and then go off and have our own adventures and bond with other people and then introduce one another to those people and it just enhances the whole thing and YAY MY PEOPLE. And uh, yea, one of said peoples who sadly no longer lives in the area just came back over to my place from our other friend’s house and is only going to be here for another day and a half so I’m gonna go run off and spend time with her while I can.

#wiscon #wiscon 42 #long post sorry #i don't have a tag for this #extroversion

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loopyhoopywrites · 3 years ago

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I still feel wierd calling myself a comedy writer, despite being one for about 5 years, but my top 3 tips would be:

1) Read books that make you laugh, and figure out why they make you laugh (or not!). For me it was Douglas Adams, Douglas Lindsay, and Catherynne M Valente (among others), and realising that your plot itself and the things that happen don't necessarily have to be funny, but you can make them humerous with the way you describe them. Written humour can be really different from TV/movie humour or stand up, so forget them and take your inspiration from stories.

2) Do some basic research into why jokes work. I'd highly recommend The Sacred Art of Joking by James Carey (this book was the entirety of my 'research', so when I say basic, I mean it!). The author is a sitcom writer (and hilarious guy, I've met him a few times and always ended up in tears of laughter), and his book breaks down the nitty gritty of jokes; their structure and why they work. Knowing what makes a joke funny can help you problem shoot when your own writing isn't quire working, or know what to repeat when it is!

3) Write what makes you laugh, not what you think other people will find funny. One of the scariest things about writing comedy is the pressure of trying to make your audience laugh. Turns out, if you write what you find funny, not only will you have a much more enjoyable time, chances are there'll be people out there who share your sense of humour. Forget about your audience, indulge your wacky/cheesy/insert-appropriate-adjective-here side, and if you end up giggling to yourself in the middle of a coffe shop whilst writing the worst joke in existance, you're doing it right.

Hey! Can you tell me how to write comedy? I'm very good at angst, but I want to write a comedy & mystery fanfic and when I'm brainstorming ideas some end up angsty. My humour is very influenced by my culture and I think it's not mainstream so I wanted suggestions!

My first thought was, “Be funny, but do it in writing.”

That’s not very helpful, though. I’ve been staring at this ask for a week now trying to figure out how to explain what I do when I’m writing that makes a story into a comedy, and I’m horrendously stuck on how to explain it. The problem with explaining comedy is that it makes comedy less funny. Once you know the tricks, you can’t stop seeing how comedians do it.

That said, I don’t want to leave you hanging. Here are some things that I do that work for my comedic style:

Have more dialogue and less description. I find it easier to be funny when characters are talking to each other, or reacting to what other characters have said. As a result, a lot of my stories happen in an empty room with white walls because I don’t describe the surroundings unless I’ll need them later for a funny moment.

Metaphors and similes are excellent opportunities for humour. Unexpected imagery or comparisons are good for a laugh. This is also useful in lists, like you see here on tumblr - several normal items with one strange one thrown in.

The more times you repeat an idea, the more meaning it gives your reader. If you’re writing angst, you can build this up to an emotionally poignant moment. When you’re writing comedy, you’re building up to a moment when that idea either falls apart or gets twisted into a new or unexpected or funny direction.

Because of the relative lack of description, my writing tends to be shorter - even if I’m covering a lot of ground. My style of comedy tends to get to the heart of the matter pretty quickly, so I often find myself needing to go back and add in the descriptions that I didn’t include at first, to add a little flesh to the bones.

Another common tool of comedy is to take something that’s familiar and make it seem strange. Here on tumblr, think about those “humans are weird aliens” posts. In a fic, you might have your characters breaking the fourth wall and commenting on your story or on canon. You might just have your characters discuss something mundane in an incredibly serious way.

I’m going to stop here with one final suggestion. What I think is most helpful is to find a writer or two whose comedy you appreciate and to analyse their writing to see how they do it.

Comedy readers and writers: please help me here? I do the thing all the time but I can’t seem to explain how. XD

#writing advice #writing humor #OP just let go and have fun with it!#turns out if you have fun other people will too!

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iamedgardjoseph-blog · 4 years ago

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Self-preservation in Times of COVID-19

The year 2020 has been a long treacherous hell of a roller coaster ride. It is far-fetched that we have experienced volcanic eruptions, African swine fever outbreak, several earthquakes, and the worst of them all—the global pandemic��COVID-19, in just a year.

I remember the moment when Mayor Moreno announced that there will be a week-long class suspension due the increment of Covid-19 cases in the capital. I was literally jumping up and down from the ecstasy that it brought me, upon hearing the news. Just to the make things clear I was ecstatic for the class suspension and not with increasing cases of Covid-19. I am not that cruel of a person.

Personally, as an introvert—a person who prefers to be alone and not be accompanied by other individuals—I was delighted. This is due to the fact that I am going to have less time interacting with people. Unfortunately, I have to deal with my family, which is the worst. Not that I hate them, but because I hate being with them, just kidding.

As the time pass by, the class suspension turned into a lockdown. Basically, we were in quarantine. The protocols got stricter. From enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) to general community quarantine (GCQ). Cases of Covid-19 continuously increased. During these times, reality hit me, really hard. I did not know what to do. I was anxious of the uncertainties that tomorrow could bring. In other words, I was experiencing the “fear of the unknown”.

I did everything that I can in order to distract myself from the current happenings. I have watched a lot of sitcom series. Read a book series entitled Shatter me by Tahereh Mafi, which is unlikely me because I rarely indulge myself through reading. Also, I took a social media hiatus in order to avoid getting news information about the pandemic. So, basically you can really see that I am really struggling to the point that I was at my rock bottom.

Upon distracting my thoughts, a question popped into my head “why am I doing this to myself?” From that moment forward, I have realized that what I needed was to look for an outlet in order to preserve my sanity. I needed to release these thoughts and feelings. Though, I could only do that through communication. I must reconnect with my families and friends. And that is what I did.

I began expressing myself to my family first. Then gradually, I shared my thoughts and feelings about the current situation which is the pandemic, to my friends. Luckily, we live in this modern day and age, wherein arrays of gadgets are present in order for us to effectively communicate without sacrificing our health.

As a result, I was able to preserve my sanity. I used my privilege in communication by using it effectively. I stayed connected with my families and friends. Therefore, I can say that communication is a solution for self-preservation.

#study #blog #blogger #creative writing

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kentonramsey · 5 years ago

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7 Days of Mirror Selfies and Endless Accompanying Thought Spirals

Putting on clothes has always been the primary vehicle for the expression of my identity—but only because of the dialogue it begets with other people’s eyeballs. I’m consistently eager to put thought into an outfit when I know it’s going to be seen by someone who will understand what I’m trying to say with it. Without that, though, I’m lazier than a squid on dry land, content to swaddle myself in my favorite Mets T-shirt and tattered sweatpants.

Indulging in this laziness has always felt like a luxury–a little reprieve from the impulse to wear things that actually mean something. But when, last week, I found myself staring down the barrel of doing so for an indefinite period, I wondered if what used to feel like a luxury would start to feel like an erosion of my sense of self. So I preemptively intervened, pitching a story wherein I would attempt to put effort into getting dressed every day for a week while quarantining at home and chronicle the experience in real time. Below, my outfit diary and all the accompanying thought spirals it (unsurprisingly) engendered.

WEDNESDAY

Today is my third day of not going to the office and, as fortune would have it, the first day when I actually get excited about the prospect of getting dressed just to sit at my kitchen table. All because Carrie Bradshaw poked her head up from the graveyard of defunct TV shows, tapped me on the shoulder, and basically said, “Hey! Try this!” This being gym shorts styled with a short-sleeve white cotton blouse–simple ingredients I already know I have in my closet. I put them on and I don’t feel like I truly nailed my WFH style (a little more midriff next time, perhaps?), but I do feel glad that I tried. I take a photo and post it to Instagram, just for fun.

Then I sit down at my kitchen table with a bowl of yogurt and a big spoonful of peanut butter and attempt to make eye contact with the back of Austin’s head. He is facing his two computer monitors in another part of the room, typing furiously. Maybe if I stare long enough he will turn around and tell me that he has a little bit of free time and would I like to have a conversation about our thoughts and feelings and, I don’t know, the pleasing symmetry of my face while we sip caffeinated beverages and ease into the day? No dice.

I work work work and work some more. I can’t decide if I’m more productive working from home or less. I definitely look at my phone more often, but I also have fewer distractions and therefore can work for longer stretches uninterrupted, so I’m fairly certain it evens out. I have approximately 1,000,000 Google Hangouts with my colleagues and no one mentions the fact that I am wearing a real shirt that is not pajama-adjacent for the first time this week. I’m mildly offended, but I miss them too much to mention it.

At the end of the day I take off the shirt and put on a sports bra and feel a sense of accomplishment that I am already wearing gym shorts, and therefore this is an honest-to-goodness work-to-workout-out ensemble. I do a quick workout video in my bedroom, but I sort of cheat during the hard parts because no one is there to tell me not to.

THURSDAY

I have to take a photo of my outfit today for Amalie because she’s rounding up our team’s #goingnowherebutfuckitimgettingdressed contributions, so the pressure is on, as they say in this biz. I stand in front of my closet with my hands on my hips like a sitcom mom. I want my outfit to “pop” but all of my “pop” clothes aren’t really things I would want to wear around my apartment all day and nowhere else. Every single pair of pants with a button and a zipper feels wrong. Every dress feels too fancy or too summery. I have a eureka moment when I realize my super cozy sweater pants that I bought long ago at a Rosie Assoulin sample sale perfectly coordinate with my favorite Tory Sport sweater and my striped Entireworld socks. If only I had infinite pairs of patterned sweater pants and corresponding knitwear/socks, I would hack comfortable home clothes that “pop” for eternity. Pop pop pop.

Austin comments on the fact that I’m wearing quote-on-quote real clothes and lest he suspect I’m dressing up just for his personal amusement, I assure him it’s only because I have to take a photo for work.

FRIDAY

Pants with buttons and zippers still feel wrong, so I pull on a pair of legging trousers. When I finish getting dressed, thanks to the addition of an oversized button-down layered over a striped T-shirt and pearls, I am devastated to discover that this is definitely an outfit that would look so much better with shoes. Ballet flats, perhaps. Or rhinestone-encrusted pumps (which I don’t own but now think I probably should). Given that in non-sequestered times I usually have the opposite problem–i.e. a penchant for coming up with outfits that are inevitably ruined as soon as I need to put on shoes–this feels like a particularly rich betrayal. I’ve never been more annoyed at my feet for resembling two hunks of dough, no rhinestones in sight.

I try to psych myself up on the fact that it’s finally Friday, but reading the news about so many New York hospitals running out of protective gear and digesting the uncertainty over how long we will be living like this leaves me feeling more anxious than anything else. I stop reading the news and start scouring the internet for personal essays, which I’ve been craving more and more during this time. Reading about someone else’s interior world seems to function as a quasi-buffer for the jumble of thoughts that have been ricocheting around relentlessly in my own.

After I finish work, I go on a walk. I’m still wearing the same outfit, and as I walk in circles around my neighborhood, I reach up to play with the pearls around my neck. I realize it’s the first accessory I’ve worn all week–strange to think about, since I normally wear jewelry every day.

SATURDAY

I wake up alone in bed and sleepily register that Austin must already be working. I scroll through Instagram until my wrists start to hurt, but at that point I have already come across my outfit inspiration for the day, courtesy of a follower who tagged me in their #stickofbutter ensemble. I go to my closet and put on my favorite yellow sweatshirt from Entireworld. I used to have matching sweatpants, but I can’t find them anywhere, which is a little spooky but mainly annoying. I put on pale yellow vintage Dries van Noten pants that I bought on The RealReal ages ago instead. I really like this outfit. It’s super comfortable and definitely conducive to a lazy Saturday that will inevitably be spent indoors while still looking somewhat intentional.

After I’m finished getting dressed, I peer outside my kitchen window and see people lining up six feet apart to enter the weekly farmer’s market that–to my surprise–is still open, despite everything going on. I’m comforted that customers are respecting the social-distancing rule, and that the local farmers, bakers, and butchers who routinely populate the market’s booths are able to continue selling, at least for now.

SUNDAY

I really don’t feel like wearing actual clothes today, so I change out of the T-shirt and boxer shorts I slept in and put on “fancy” pajamas–a matching floral set from Tanya Taylor. If I was going to put more effort into actually styling myself, I would also put on an oversized navy cardigan, my pearl necklace, and indoor loafers, but the effort of changing at all maxes out my emotional quota on this particular morning.

I receive an invitation to my own wedding in the mail–I sent it to myself just for fun, so I could have the experience of opening it. When I do, it feels bittersweet. One of my best friends just had to postpone her wedding from the first weekend in May, and even though mine isn’t until late June, I’m worried I’ll have to do the same.

I spend hours making chicken and rice soup with garlicky chili oil from scratch while Austin works. I don’t love cooking, but I’ve been doing it quite a lot over the past couple of weeks for obvious reasons. I also don’t love that the task of feeding us has consistently fallen on me, but I recognize this particular division of labor is objectively what makes the most sense for us right now given our respective working hours.

I’m stirring the garlic, still dressed in my fancy pajamas, when I receive a text message from a friend saying some really nice things about my writing–out-of-the-blue in the best kind of way. I read it multiple times and almost burn the garlic.

I wear the fancy pajamas to bed, another transitional outfit victory.

MONDAY

I’m not sure what comes over me, but today I accidentally dress like a creepy Nordic doll you might find in a grandmother’s attic (I concurrently muster the courage to wear pants with a zipper–finally). The silk scarf in my hair is slippery, and I can already tell I’m going to remove it after I take a mirror selfie. Its purpose is fleeting but straightforward: to mask the fact that I haven’t washed my hair in over a week.

With the scarf gone, the rest of the outfit suddenly feels kind of pointless. I gradually peel myself out of it and into other things over the course of the day, exchanging the trousers for sweatpants and the sweater for a fleece. I look like a slob, but at least I’m comfortable and no longer distracted by the literal and figurative friction of an outfit that isn’t quite landing.

I open up my mail and one of the things I receive is a “juror qualification questionnaire” from the city of New York. I’ve never served on a jury before, and I wonder what it would be like to do so when most of the city is shuttered.

Later, Austin sits across from me at the kitchen table to eat a bowl of leftover chicken and rice soup for lunch. It’s piping hot because I heated it up for him on the stove. Each time he bends over to blow on the spoon, he reflexively places his other hand over his heart like he’s holding something there.

TUESDAY

It took me seven whole days to come up with an outfit that actually feels like it encapsulates my WFH style. I’ve accepted the fact that real pants are definitely not part of that equation, so I’ll be living in jogger-type silhouettes like these for the foreseeable future. A graphic T-shirt is perfect because it retains all the properties of… a T-shirt… while still looking somewhat “designed.” I probably won’t wear the jacket all day, but putting it on for a little bit has a grounding effect. The only blight upon this look is my hair, which I still haven’t washed, and I don’t think the ponytail is helping.

I write some copy for Man Repeller’s new text service, Thoughtline. Then I remember I haven’t brushed my teeth yet today, so I go do that and then sit back down at my kitchen table and for 10 seconds I wonder if I subconsciously forgot to brush my teeth when I woke up just so I would have an excuse to go on an excursion later in the day. An excuse to walk from one room of my apartment to another? I’m losing it.

When I’m back at my “desk,” I open up the WordPress link to a story I’m writing about celebrity antics during quarantine, but I keep getting distracted by the feeling of the graphic photo on my T-shirt rubbing up against my braless skin. I realize I have a choice: I can put on a bra, or I can change into a different shirt. I opt for the latter.

See All 17

I lie in bed later that night, reflecting on what it was like to try putting thought into my homebound outfits for the past seven days, and come to the conclusion that although it was an interesting experiment, I’d ultimately rather just wear plaid flannel lounge pants and an oversized sweatshirt on repeat. I’m about to start psychoanalyzing whether that impulse conflicts with certain self-identified characteristics about myself that I have historically cherished–a deep curiosity about the ways in which style and self intersect, a longstanding appreciation for the creative outlet of getting dressed, a dogged desire to comb through photos of Claire Waight Keller’s old Chloe collections for hours–when I feel my inbox ping with an incoming message.

It’s a calendar invite from Gyan reminding me–and a handful of other team members–that tomorrow is the first day we need to submit a photo for the second round of (Out of) Office Apropos (first batch is here if you missed it). In other words, at least one more day of putting thought into my homebound style is ahead of me. I suppose it’s just as the saying goes–when you make plans (to wear plaid flannel lounge pants and an oversized sweatshirt on repeat), God (or at the very least, our editorial calendar) laughs.

The post 7 Days of Mirror Selfies and Endless Accompanying Thought Spirals appeared first on Man Repeller.

7 Days of Mirror Selfies and Endless Accompanying Thought Spirals published first on https://normaltimepiecesshop.tumblr.com/ 7 Days of Mirror Selfies and Endless Accompanying Thought Spirals published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

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spotlightsaga · 7 years ago

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Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... Young Sheldon /S01\/E01\ Pilot Airdate: September 25, 2017 @CBS Ratings: 16.57 Million :: 3.7 18-49 Demo Share Score: 6.75/10 @SpotlightSaga @CulturePit *************SPOILER FREE REVIEW************* Oh, what a shame... Did we miss the party? You know, I’m not really sure who the demographic is that is giving ‘The Big Bang Theory’ all of its monstrous numbers... Ok, well, I have an idea... But I’d hate to get ahead of myself like my other half, Cody Cole. Besides, everyone is allowed a handful of ‘Guilty Pleasures’, right? I sure as hell know that I’ve got mine. Even tho I don’t use the account anymore, I used to have a Spotify Playlist for songs that appeared on the UPN turned CW Series ‘One Tree Hill’. And yes, that’s embarrassing, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s very much true. I love ‘One Tree Hill’ and I cried like a little baby in S9 when (of course, you know I’m not going to reveal any spoilers, right?) the culmination of the main story arc that started the show off, came to one of the most tearful & satisfying conclusions ever on television. Yes, I love that show that fn’ much, ridiculous, I know... I pretend that S8 didn’t happen... But hey, when you run 9 Seasons of 20-25 Episodes, you’re bound to get some bad ideas some of the time. Now’s when you breathe your big sigh of relief... Judging by its pilot, ‘Young Sheldon’ doesn’t appear to fall in the category of ‘Guilty Pleasure’. Quite the opposite, actually. Remember how we all felt after the 1st Season of CBS ’Life In Pieces’. That hopeful, feel-good spirit was attached to something uniquely constructed with a powerhouse cast, something that didn’t normally happen on CBS, at least in such high quality... A Single Camera Sitcom. While ‘Young Sheldon’ may not look completely unique at first glance, its admittedly giving off a ‘Goldbergs-Mature’ vibe, and that’s hard to deny... But what originality it lacks within the walls of its narrative construct, it more than makes up in a fresh, restrained approach. The normal, tv-family chaos is still there, but at the epicenter of the organized madness, we have an observer... He’s not exactly a reliable narrator in theory, but he is in character. You see, Sheldon tells it like it is... And since this is something that pretty much all human children are known for... Famed Co-Creators & Co-Writers Chuck Lorre & Steven Molaro make sure that Little-Man, Iain Armitage (YS), turns up the awkward observations, just like his very own grown version and narrator, Big Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) from TBBT. I’m not so sure Young Sheldon is meant to be abnormally cute, or likable for that matter. The show approaches normal, southwestern families in the 80s with a pragmatic point of view. It’s existential in nature, and feels like a show that could also feel right at home on a Streaming Network like Amazon Prime. Lorre & Armitage also know that since this is from a child’s POV, the world is scary is nature... Even to the smartest, brightest minds around. Rarely do we cover CBS Sitcoms, although we’ve been known to indulge in Bear Claw Heaven with Kevin James on ‘Kevin Can Wait’, and we’re basically almost there with the aforementioned ‘Life In Pieces’... It just had a rough S2. You see, CBS has been gearing up; polishing up the CBS All Access Network, of course TBBT is always a Network Focus, reshooting entire episodes of Star Trek, and making sure Big Brother #768 (or whatever season its on) keeps steady numbers... It’s strange when you think of all the factors that can have some sort of snowball effect on the finished product of a Big 4 Network TV Series. It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that clearly the Network Giant’s focus has also very much been on this show as well. It’s clear, crystal clear, that CBS is very much behind ‘Young Sheldon’. To say this series was handled with care is an understatement. It’s polished, introspective, and brushes off chances to pull cheap laughs... Everything a normal CBS Sitcom doesn’t do. Even the placement of its pilot’s timeslot, garnering such big numbers off of the Season Premiere of its parent show, TBBT, has never really turned results in such spectacular fashion as it did here... Holding all 16.5 Live Million Viewers from the first half hour and keeping the mass majority of its coveted 18-49 demographic too. I guarantee they nurse this bad boy all the way through an ungodly amount of episodes. Why not? Honestly, it works. ‘The Goldbergs’ are growing up, right out of the 80s, and AMC’s ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ is heading into its 4th & final season. There’s a niche and it needs to be filled, and it looks like we have our first guest. Many of us have a deep connection to this era the show is set in, but none of us have seen it through this kind of lens. The big question isn’t the quality... You know CBS, it’s about money and longevity, because longevity not only brings in a steady supply of money, it also gives them something to brand... But that’s kind of why it’s so surprising that ‘Young Sheldon’ isn’t coming right out of the gate trying to push anything other than its own value. I have a strict policy when it comes to Sitcoms, whether they’re multi-cam or single-cam, doesn’t matter... Each series gets a fair shake... And a 21 Minute Episode built off a general idea will not tell you how far a show can go or how good a show will be.... Theres just no way! All kinds of shows out there start slow and then end up turning out relentless bangers on a regular basis, a few episodes, or even a season or 2 down the road... And then there is the exact opposite, where we see a show start out red hot and straight up fizzle out like a fading star right before our very eyes. I think it’s important for everyone to not judge this one too quickly... Maybe ‘Young Sheldon’ isn’t for that same ‘TBBT’ audience, maybe it’s meant to strike a different chord. It sure feels like it. ***************Written By Kevin Cage**************** TVTime/Letterboxd/FB/IG/Path/Pin/Tumblr/Twitter: @SpotlightSaga 📺 TVTime📺 http://www.tvtime.com ✅Spotlight Saga FB Page! Give us a like!✅ http://www.facebook.com/spotlightsaga 🚧Spotlight Saga's Main Page is Under Works🚧 http://www.spotlightsaga.com 🔥The Culture Pit FB Group🔥 http://www.facebook.com/groups/ArtsEntertainment @CulturePit Kevin Cage // Justin O'Malley // Cody Cole // Jerry Wilson // Kat Holiday // Carolyn Holt // Yackarette Borge // Carina Enered //

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confluence-and-drift · 5 years ago

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Ugh...so there was a followup to the last thing and I ended up basically leaving the conversation and telling my sister that I want no part of her shameless self-indulgence after I realised that she didn’t care that the concept of our mother wanting a surprise party was absolutely and completely ludicrous, and she was going to throw one anyway because she liked them.

I did try to explain that adults outside stupid american sitcoms don’t like surprise parties, especially for someone as socailly conscious as our mother. That you can’t just ask her to ‘dress nice’ and then inflict the judgement of her peers on her. Especially as her peers are a viscous pack of nasty old women, neatly filling every stereotype of the vile-minded but smiling middle aged woman, who, if they weren’t all british-pakistani, would be called ‘Karen’ and make a hobby of harassing millennials in retail jobs in between spreading dodgy medical claims on social media that my poor, uneducated, gullible and superstitious old Mum just eats up. My point is that they are not nice people, and I suspect my Mum basically gets bullied by them anyway...

But what really made me snap and just walk out (well, leave the conversation) was when she started making remarks about my other brother’s, the one who was also trying to talk her down, weight, something that he’s extremely self-conscious about. This pissed me off for a number of reasons, foremost amongst them that she took what she knew would hurt him most and went with that. So I basically pointed out that whilst I can’t stop her, the concept of me actually going was fantasy to begin with so she can indulge herself whilst pretending it’s for our mother’s sake away by herself.

I did consider sticking around and trying to mitigate the damage but...fuck, I’m far too old for this idiocy, they can do whatever they want but I’m certainly not lowering myself to participate.

#personal #text post

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curious-minx · 4 years ago

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Heat Lamp vol. [i]

A how-to guide on harnessing the very best light for your under-lit overly priced hovel! In Style!

“Lighting is everything, you goon!” spits Magda Marlene, and, of course, she’s absolutely correct.

“Don’t call me a goon, Magda! I’m trying my best. Have you ever tried shopping around for the best possible lights? Of course not. The challenge of conceiving of wattage and luminosity in the abstract blue light tech etching our basic human retinas will never compete with the likes of you. “ Elroy wipes away the trail of verbiage slipping down his prominent jawline. He attempts to grab at Magda to make her take him seriously, but it was impossible, because after all she is enshrouded in light. She is the kind of bruising overwhelming beauty that is perpetually well lit. Magda has endured a panorama of over stuffed suits of testosterone tossing off a clip of one-liners about her “lighting up a room,” because she had already brightened her entire surrounding vicinity. Light seeping out as far as several stories above and below whatever apartment is lucky enough to grace her presence. You had to alert your local neighboring Vampire’s of someone like Magda coming around. To forget would be akin to a hate crime.

“I do take pity on you sallow beef man. You are close, so close I can nearly taste your success, but this lack of suitable lighting! This will be your ruin. That’s what all the Entertainment and Arts are all about-,”

“Yes, the lighting! The wonderful bright, but not too bright lighting. I know Magda. Ugh! I much prefer if we go back to when you would stick to sending me laymen articles on the anatomy of human eyeballs and the latest breakthroughs in light-based therapy, but now all I hear is your dogmatic barking.”

“You sure do talk a lot for a layman. Why did you want to touch me? Don’t tell me you’re starved for human contact!”

“Of course not! Don’t be foolish! You know I’m not attracted to you. It’s the only reason why you even bother gracing me with your infernal light. Why won’t you sell some of your light source already?”

“Oh no no no, not this this again. I will have no further discussion about the selling off of my light.”

“You won’t share your light, you won’t sell your light, but all I ever hear you go on and on about is the importance of light! Don’t you think you’re being a little selfish?” Elroy tries sizing Magda up and all around with his big soulful hazel brown dopey puppy dog eyes.

“What is this, ‘on and on’ slander? That’s a complete and total falsity! I barely even talk to you! You asked me to come over and help you pick out a new light. Yet here you stand insulting me and everything I represent. I knew all men were trash! I really wanted a reciprocal easy going friendship receptacle. Like the ones you see on flashy American sitcoms, but no! Instead you reek of man boy desperation. You are not Easy Elroy, nor are you sleazy enough to warrant a pass. Good day!” And with that Magda leaves Elroy in his room. A room that is painted a banana baby sick off-scrambled eggs shade of yellow that made Elroy think of himself as a “warmed over Simpson” whenever he looks at himself with his overhead lights on. Magda leaves him behind so that she can go attend a life devoid of preening men devoid of any elevated levels of cognitive stimulus. Magda had a strong feeling deep inside that being eaten out by Elroy would feel either like the confectionary sugar clinging to a beater or a cow pondering the universe with a cud. Magda has bigger prospects to attend such as the purchasing of a new Ultrasonic Television, a television for people too interesting to own a regular television. Now this is a process more grueling than picking out some sort of pathetic LED lights set out to emphasize poor life choices.

Magda’s candles burn ferociously for the scented perfume wick of her occasional beaux Hillary. Oh sweet sister Hillary. Magda flips a dizzy spell as she gets behind the wheel of her space craft. In the driver’s seat she grabs and teases pinching caresses onto her sides, hands running underneath her shirt and imagines Hillary’s hazy visage. Magda turns on The Quick’s Mondo Deco, the album is lodged into the fourth track already, “Hillary.” The porto-phrenetic ASMR zipper crunch! The perfect symmetry of a song making sense for the right woman in the right space and time. Magda wishes she could be some special somebody’s Kim Fowley. She knew she has the making of a Valkyrie companion. Mostly a bottom, but occasionally there’s a switch…a candy striped hypnosis stick being cradled in Magda’s hand turns her space craft into autopilot. The space craft assumes a sensible soaring speed, sharing the sky with all the other avians and sky ships. Magda lands onto the fetid grassless knoll where she finds the manor of Scent Maven Monique. A west coast equivalent of a Hobbit Hole in the Hills. Except instead of a 5,7” English gentleman it is a 5,7” Black American bohemian scientist woman. Magda lights up one of Monique’s Pixie Stix a jolt of nicotine, THC, estrogen, nootropicals, and most importantly caffeine. Cigarettes that don’t make you smell like cigarettes, that don’t make you smell like anything, but a hint, a wink, a whisper, and a prayer of exotic bubblegum.

A Vaping Assassin is prowling on her rooftop. Antonia, The Daycrawler, of course. A woman so intimidating in strength and beauty that all law officers around the country worship at her talon toes. Lines of swat teams, cops, and military official personally see fit the they get their asses beaten by Antonia’s hand each and every year at The National Cop Christmas Party. Monique is constantly alienating, offending and inspiring everyone she works with, but they usually only send soft assassins like Soy Hands Flannigan or the Detangler. Magda believes that this must be the opening salvo of a new killer regime.

“Quit your daydreaming Magda Marlene! Are you really about to let me red rover your special number one gal? I am dropping through the ceiling now! Catch ya later!” Antonia is always narrating her actions to her blind brother Donovan who makes glass sculptures for an assassin’s memento. Some assassins keep locks of hair, some assassins keep emails, some assassins bond and indulge their impotent’s brother pop art. The giant blocky neon green rotary telephone with each notch designed with a mysterious suggestion of a dreary person. A lot of guilt trips about being sent to mental institutions and the occasional rainbow clamshell birth control pill case. All glass blown by the Daycrawler’s blind and naive brother. Monique doesn’t stand a chance!

“Oh no,” mouths Magda. She’s going to be vaporized by that tall Nordic pillar of mayhem. Quentin Tarantino might as well be hanging himself up here on Monique’s roof turning himself into the human satellite, beaming this impeding cyclone of beautiful woman on beautiful woman violence for all of his cronies to see. “Not today,” mouths Magda. With a flick of her wrist, bracelets of light begin forming and overlapping. Discs of light coursing up and down Magda’s forearm. Magda then hides her arms underneath her long and flowing cherry blossom trench coat. Magda’s light does not instantly light up the rest of Monique’s abode. Antonia is hiding her frustration and she looks around Monique’s mostly spacious and poorly lit living quarters. Seeing only a completely stainless steel coated mini-kitchen and a chest level table top. No chairs. No other furniture or trace of personality. Magda hopes that this cat and mouse game will grow less cheesy and the Daycrawler will soon leave irate and hungry.

“Aha! You got me good Light Bright. Of course you knew she wasn’t here and distracted me. For such good work I will personally see to killing you myself. I haven’t murdered anyone in over twelve hours. Do you know how rusty an assassin can get in that time? First, I must take a shower. Surely this lab rat has some sort of hose or bucket and pulley system to wash herself?”Antonia begins sizing up the space, trying to squint a bathroom into existence.

“I believe her bathroom is right next the front door. You must have accidentally passed in when you were getting yourself worked up into this bloodlust.” Magda suddenly feels completely at ease. Yes, she could easily blind and frankly obliterate this toned and blonde killing machine. Doesn’t matter though, because Magda realizes that she has this whole ordeal in her pocket and it’s only a matter of Antonia getting into that shower. Magda goes to raise her fist in conquest but then meets resistance. Antonia’s silent rope snakes! They are giving Magda the world’s most cold blooded group hug. Magda knows she must submit to the plan. She grimaces feeling the ridges of her teeth and wait to unleash her light show.

////

Antonia has been in the shower for over and hour and half. Magda is only now starting to bruise because the rope snakes have grown lethargic and weak ever since the water started. The rope snakes are clinging on to Magda out of obligation and lethargy. The water stops and a shrill elongated sigh is heard from the bathroom. Antonia, the Daycrawler, emerges from heavy plump clouds of perfumed steam. Magda thinks she can detect a hint of Ceylon Cinnamon and gun smoke, but you can never tell with Monique and her smells. Antonia is a lot drier than you would expect for someone who has ostensibly been bathing for the past two hours and she is wearing an oversized clumsy kimono with her hair wrapped up in a towel.

“Alright, where is she?” Antonia asks in a voice that is almost saccharine and faint.

“She’s clearly not here. Let’s revisit the fact that you were going to behead me as a house warming gift. How about instead you rob me of one of my kidneys? They are oozing with glow-stick fluid, but they never stop glowing! Please don’t kill me!” Magda says fully aware that Antonia is not going to kill, at least not while she’s so fresh out of the shower.

“That’s what I need to talk to her about. I suddenly no longer have my urge to kill! Not you, you, or anyone else ever again!”says Antonia breathless like she is hearing her voice for the first time.

“I thought you were killing out of profession?”

Antonia crouches down and is almost blushing as she asks, “Why are you still on the floor like that? Can’t you not fry us up some rope snake snacks? Or wait! Are you like me and need the sunlight to fully operate?” Antonia begins opening up every window and even trying to create new windows in Monique’s house to let the light in.

“Fine! I’ll do it! You made me do it!” Magda unleashes her light that sets off as a retina unfriendly supernova. The light charged specifically around her arms were even still lit up and racing to be shot off as blades of light into the nearest surface.

“See? That’s wasn’t so bad! Why do you get so…so conservative about using your light whenever you’re around me?”

“I don’t want to end up blinding or hurting anyone.” Magda says still on the ground facing onto Monique’s steel plated sterile floors.

“Even someone who was moments ago trying to kill your friend and you for the thrill of murder?”

“Your an easy target Daycrawler,” Magda gathers herself back up into a standing stance,” You are exactly the type that would change your mind if given half a chance. I still feel like you could plunge your famous ribbon blade into my personal generator… ” Magda trails off realizing that Antonia is no longer listening to her. She is still running her reformed(?) killer’s hands through her honey flaxen unwieldy tower of hair that only a towering murderess could support.

“That shampoo it’s, it’s going to help a lot of people. I’m waiting to see the catch. Like with her cancer-free candy cigarettes they’re too good to be true, right?”Antonia takes in another long inhalation of her own hair and takes one lock and flecks her tongue only at the tip of the follicle. The one blank wall inside Monique’s apartment spins around revealing Monique on the other side who steps up and says without missing a beat:

“They’re called Pixie Stix!” Monique fully emerges from her illusion wall hiding the hint of a laboratory. She lights up a Pixie stick of her own which begins flooding the spartan space. Who needs furniture when you bask in a smell this sweet? Magda lets her guard down and lights up the rest of the space turning the formerly drab and empty hovel into a chic and spacious boutique. “Lighting!” Continues Monique, “With the right lights and an overwhelming pungent odor reveals the path to an enveloping inner peace. No matter how small or unfashionable your home or hovel happens to be there could possibly be an outlet for a chosen few people that the three of us could use to build our own society or something?” Monique turns on music by malodorous mall core cyborg nu metal pop band called Neon Betty Degenerates. Antonia goes over to Monique and gently forces Monique’s bangled and gloved clammy hand into a boisterous hand shake. A Kashmir blossom shaped pin attached to Monique’s vegan leather newsboy cap opens up and contracts. The blossom is spraying out a mist invisible to the human eyes, directed into Antonia’s face. Antonia then immediately releases Monique and she turns away from the gangly scientist, she unravels the towel from her hair and starts sprinting outside of Monique’s house. Antonia begins climbing up the lone ancient hundreds of feet tall redwood tree watching over Monique’s property. Antonia climbs up to the tree in record time, she is nothing but a blur of momentum and rustling branches. Antonia, the Daycrawler, jumps out into the sky with the grace of a flying squirrel leaving her nest, and she’s reached enough height so that she can use the heel of her shoe to write, “I’m sorry! <3 I will work on respecting your personal space” in a cloud-based font.

Magda turns to Monique who has completely flipped open her furtive laboratory, revealing the glow of scent analysis technology calling out to Magda begging her to crank up the wattage. Before submerging back into her lab, Monique turns to Magda and tells her, “Antonia is seemingly the only person my Perfumed Personality is working on. Do you think that will be enough?” Monique directs this question more to the ether than to anyone in particular.

“Looks like it’s really working on her though. Oh right, before you leave. I am going through this really tough crush on someone and was hoping that you’d have some-“ Magda stops talking. Monique enters her lab leaving Magda behind in the empty kitchen and the lingering vapors of the ethical strawberry and lavender pacifist shampoo. Magda knows that she probably won’t see Monique emerge back out from her work for another two weeks at the latest. Magda shivers and steps outside and all of her pent up light energy continues bursting forth from her navel, banners of light shooting from her forehead, spotlights dancing out of each of her fingertips. Magda’s light even causes the clouds that Antonia used as calligraphy to break into a sweat. The extreme daylight and the small patch of rain causes a family of foxes to burst forth from out of the ground and carry on a quick and sweet wedding. Magda climbs on top of a dune and watches the wedding ceremony from afar. She remembers Hillary and groans, a sticky and somber sound. Magda has her revery broken by the sound of a voice calling from below the dune.

“cOuld yOu pleeze take Our picha, lamp lady? Da lurvely cOupa wOuld be sO grateful!!” The source of the voice is coming from an approaching silver fox who has a slight wobble in his gait. Magda looks at the silver fox further and notices that he also has two plastic and springy legs. Magda not wanting to seem judgmental, sighs and takes the fox’s hefty Kodiak bridge cam and without even taking time to focus the lens takes the picture. The newly wedded couple and the silver fox open up the camera’s finder and look at the results and start panting in approval. They have never seen themselves look so well lit before.

“Daddy! You must pay this kind lady Beacon mucho ancient coins! I’ve never looked this good!” Magda smiles and shakes her head and puts her hands into her pockets, leaving the foxes behind. She readjusts her trench coat and puts on a large wide-brimmed blackout hat she keeps in a box shaped fanny pack. Even while wearing her light suppression accessories each and every passing streetlamp emits a powerful sphere of light that dims with each of Magda’s passing step. Most of the houses in Magda’s neighborhood are heavily tranquilized and sleeping in deprivation tanks so the dramatic light fluctuations don’t bother most. One overhead apartment pulls back its drapes and an angry shirtless and chiseled man has taken out a mirror and trying to reflect the light back down at the street. The power of the light’s heat creates another pothole into the road, which causes the man to start swearing and yelling incoherently. Magda kneels down onto the empty sidewalk and rubs her palms together causing the street lights to dim back down to their normal level. Magda’s face looks pale and she begins moving at a slower pace.

“Damn…I’m so close. Being mindful of so many people really sucks. I think I’m going to lie down in this pile of moss and maybe I’ll wake up back in my bed.” Magda hums a lullaby to herself and begins folding herself into a ball of fading light. Magda is blacking out.

///

She opens up her eyes as soon as she registers motion. Magda is being carried in somebody’s arms! Magda almost cranks up her internal light furnace but then she smells the tangy coconut cologne of Elroy.

“What did I tell you about picking up tramps?” Asks Magda with a yawn. “Put me down you goon!” Elroy immediately does so and gives Magda her space.

“Of course, I’m sorry Magda. I was out scouting shoot locations for a new headshot this week and saw your abandoned space craft on the side of road. Knowing you as well as I do I had a feeling that you were probably enjoying one of your unnecessary sojourns. Thankfully you left it in one of the bougiest possible neighborhoods so I think you’ll be fine with picking it up tomorrow. I’ll leave you be. Clearly you are wanting some time alone.” Elroy brushes off a twig out of Magda’s hair and starts walking back into his own shabbier Electric Hover Desert Rabbit.

“Any luck with your lamp search?”asks Magda causing Elroy to stop in his tracks and turn around revealing an excitable grin.

“I found this Ponce de Leon Torchier that promises to age and de-age me based on what kind of bulb I put into it. There’s this audition for a movie about a man breastfeeding his own child I got. The role comprises of both the child and the father, it’s a student film but the kid directing is supposed to have a real stash of connections.” Chatters Elroy, clearly trying to regain a sense of joviality between him and Magda.

“I have actually never really bothered playing with light in that way before. How are you so good at online shopping? And here I was about to actually consider giving you a droplet of my very own light” sneers Magda as she enters through the lamp shaded gate of her parent’s compound.

“What?! Really! Wait Magda I’ll gladly take some of your light off of your hands! Come on, come back!” Magda leaves Elroy behind once again and a roving street sweeper pushes him up the current of streaming sidewalk leading deeper into the Energy District. He calls out to Magda yelling her name as he’s being street swept away. Magda turns copper green with regret with even toying around with the idea of sharing any amount of light. Especially with a total goon like Elroy! The family leopard spotted moth, Sapphire, comes whooshing up to Magda giving her a silky kiss. Magda grins and brushes the silk away from her face and picks up a floating torch, lights it with her finger and tosses it as far as she can throw, which due to the pent up hormonal surging emotional cycle Hillary has gotten Mega into, turns out to be quite far. Sapphire flap flap flaps her wings into a column of speed and chases after the floating torch. The outside ladder leading to her room has been rolled up.

“Because of course!” Sighs Magda as she slips off her cycling light up shoes, the tongue of her shoes light up with a balloon showcasing the amount of miles Magda has walked from Monique’s house, nearly fourteen, if only Elroy hadn’t gotten in the way. Inside both of her parents are stationary as always. Wires running from the back of both of their heads so that when they glance over at the door in unison you can see the pulses of light traveling at the same speed from both of their skulls. Magda parents disgust her and she really tries getting up stairs into her room as fast as possible.

“Magpie! Get your cute little grown ass over here and tell me about this nice young man you’re considering giving up your light to!”

“Journey,” Magda says addressing her mom by her proper name which causes her mom to feign a twinge,”Why must you two always insist on watching the security feed whenever I am coming home. Every. Single. Time. Do you two expect me to be still be living here until either one of you finally burn out? Just so you can always have a little show of someone else’s lives to watch? You’re almost as much as a goon as that ‘boy’ you are referring to. You know him already, that’s Elroy, we’re just friends.”

“See Enterprise? What did I say?” Journey says peering directly into her husband Enterprise’s vacant light producing sockets.

“Aw dawlin looks like I owe you thirty pulses! I knew I should have betted on our Magpie giving her light away to some respectable enterprising lesbian. You’re donating your light to science right Magpie? That’s why you left today?”

“I am not donating my light to anyone! I am not anyone’s generator ready to be milked and sapped away for all of my worth.”

“Magda you know your light is strong enough that you could be a really successful crime fighter, or you could even be just another lamp builder like your lil brother and sister.” Coos Magda’s father, Enterprise.

“Or, she can be nothing too! Fine by me! Keep on going missy, I can see how much you are burning to get back into your precious room. All I ask is that at some point tonight please help your siblings make some kind of dinner. Your dad and I are going to be all tied up for the rest of the night running double concurrent shifts. Those damn strikers! We don’t need em! Ow ow ugh I’ve got to be quiet and focus.” Journey rubs her temple which emits a spark.

“Relax my love. This is just a rough patch. Once there is a serum manufactured we’ll be able to import more workers and we can recharge for the next decade. Maybe even more.” Enterprise says this to Journey and they hold each other’s hands not even minding that they are becoming entangled within one another’s connecting wires. Magda hears the quiet scrape scraping of her younger brother and sister’s lamp and neon shop that takes up most of the second floor. Magda ascends up one more floor and reaches her bedroom at the end of a hallway adorned with family portraits. Mainly of her siblings Gidget and Chester selling lamps around the world. See Gidget and Chester in Bali with a lamp made from resurrected coral reefs. There’s a picture of Gidget, Chester and both of her parents soft shoeing on the grave of Thomas Edison. See Gidget defile the Tesla’s tomb. Chester burning an effigy of Musk. There’s one picture of Magda and Sapphire, Magda is only visible as a beam of light. Magda opens up her bedroom and finds Antonia, the Daycrawler waiting for her, suspending herself from the ceiling. Rotating around like a monk’s slimy finger circling around the lip of a singing wine bowl.

“Hiya there Miss Shiney! I brought you a present!” Antonia says this in her persistently chippier and bubblier voice that has not subsided since taking her shower with Monique’s personality shifting scented shampoo. Monique raises her right eyelid causing one of her dimmest overhead lights to come on. The light reveals reveals the sight of a tied up woman sporting a bouncy pompadour sprawling out across Magda’s bed. Soy Hands Flannigan!

“What am I supposed to do with an assassin? All I want to do is curl up and shop. God I sound pathetic.” Magda says attempting to hide the anxiety spiking through the roof of her dome coursing down to her toes.

“She knows how you can find Hillary!”

That’s all it took. All Magda needed to hear was her name. The utterance of Magda’s one and only Hillary causes each and every one of Magda’s three hundred and eighty five lights adorning her bedroom to flare out bright beams of all encompassing light. The kind of light that only glows for a woman once thought lost and dead to the world soon to be rediscovered. Maybe, thinks Magda, having a reformed violent and dangerous assassin as a companion wouldn’t be so bad after all.

#short story #short fiction #surrealism #indoor lighting #science fiction #sci-fantasy #fantasy #power pop #The quick #Kim Fowley

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