#i need to put all these rants in the script document instead

[ganondoodle]

i guess in that sense totk really delivered on the botw2 thing

if you see botw2 not as in "direct sequel that builds on the previous one" but as in "this game again but different" (and worse) that is

so much is repeated, or replaced with things functionally the same or worse but with a paintjob, sometimes even just the same thing again (like the luminouas stones and sonanium (zonaite) and the special horses) often times essentially the same thing but worse or without any background or even both (i didnt even like revali, but man having his efforts to create the updraft cheapend by tulin, a waht, 10 year old? doing the same just vertical without even havign to try bc hes jsut that talented tm- not only worse as in its less useful and often annoying with the bad control scheme, but also has basically no background, no struggle, and makes revalis seem kinda stupid)

and in the end, instead of uplifting each other, the games cheapen each other, its not interesting anymore, nothing means anything and there was no intention behind it, any mystery that was intriguing in botw has ceased to have meaning, its either nothing or answered with 'the sonau (zonai) did it actually' which is not jsut boring, but frustrating, and .. sad ... i dont think it will ever not make me sad.

[kumkaniudaku]

Please? Could you make an imagine thats about how work gets Chadwick? Like, as a full time actor, he must be exhausted having to be reading all the time, interviews, projects... and a full time father as well. So, that being said... what if Chadwick lashed out at Micah? I know that’ll never really happen... but what if he did? What if he lashed out at his firstborn and made her not cry... SOB?

A soft huff escaped from Chadwick's nostrils as he tossed his cell phone on the desk in front of him. The pressures of work were attacking him from all angles and he was finally at his wit’s end. If the email he received from his writing partner didn't;t set him off, the text message with the unfortunate news that he'd have to return to Atlanta for a third round of reshoots was the nail in his proverbial coffin.

While he angrily tapped at the keys on his computer in an attempt to write away his frustrations, Micah's giggling in the hallway drew closer. Soon, she was peddling her way into the downstairs office on her hot pink tricycle.

"Daddy, look! I'm riding a bike."

"Mhmm," he grunted, not bothering to look up from his iMac screen.

Sensing that his attention was elsewhere, Micah used her legs to scoot closer to the desk and peer over the edge.

"Whatcha' doin'?"

"Work."

"What kinda work? The dress-up kind or the boring kind?"

"The kind that means that you need to go find your mama until I'm done. Bye."

"But I wanna be with you."

When Chadwick heard the slight quiver in his daughter's voice, he looked up to find her round eyes staring back at him. Though much of her face was hidden below the edge of the desk's surface, he could tell Micah was frowning by the slight furrow in her brown.

Sighing, he rolled away from his desk and motioned her over. "Alright. Come on over here and sit down."

Micah squealed her excitement before running around the desk to jump into her father's lap. As always, having her in the room made him smile through his tough moment as he kissed her forehead.

"I need you to stay still and quiet while I work, okay?"

"Okay! I promise I'll be the best helper ever."

For much of their time together, Micah was the perfect companion. While she busied herself with “office helper work”, Chadwick continued to cross items off of his to-do list. But, instead of feeling the relief of accomplishment, he grew more frustrated. Every email conversation or new set of information opened the door for anger to settle into his body.

“Micah, stay still,” he requested when he felt his daughter wiggle to the point of shaking his body. Her movements stalled for a moment, but ramped up a second time, adding to the mountain of things bothering Chadwick. “Noelle, stop it!”

When he glanced over to see what had Micah so riled up, he couldn’t contain the anger boiling inside of him. Every paper scattered across his desk was now bound together with copious amounts of clear tape. Further exacerbating the situation, the papers she’d unleashed her crafting abilities on were drafts of a script that he was manually revising. There was no option to request the PDF version of the document. He’d have to wait another week for a new copy to arrive in the mail if the current version couldn’t be saved.

Before he could process what was happening, he shot up from the chair and planted Micah on her feet.

“Micah, get out! Why did you do that!”

The corners of her mouth began to droop, “I was trying to put them back together for you and help.”

“You didn’t! Go in there with your mama and don’t come back!”

The volume of his tirade grabbed Tasha’s attention, leading her to round the corner into the office the second Micah’s breakdown started.

Both parents stood frozen as Micah’s whimpers turned into a full-on sob. She stood frozen in place, making her hurt known to anyone within earshot.

“Are you serious right now,” Tasha questioned as she took long strides toward Micah. “What is your problem?”

“Tasha, I didn’t mean to-”

“Nuh uh.” Chadwick’s attempts to explain fell on deaf ears once CoCo made the decision to ignore him and transition into “mommy mode”.

While she worked to calm the distraught child, he stood there experiencing the moment outside of himself. He didn’t understand how he had allowed stress to make him lash out at one of the most precious people in his life. And, though he knew the issue wasn’t beyond repair, he couldn’t imagine the kind of lasting impression he’d left in Micah’s impressionable mind.

He stewed in guilt well into the night, choosing to remain in the office to avoid the wrath of his wife. Tasha paid a visit as midnight approached to drop off a stack of papers with more attitude than he’d seen in a long while.

“Here. The tape came right off because she’s a child and can’t do that much damage.” The thick files hit the desk with a loud smack followed by a death glare from Tasha.

“Just say what you’re gonna say, baby,” Chadwick sighed as he ran his hands down his face. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t get to apologize to me and make it all better. That’s not how this works.”

“I know. You’re right.”

“Stop trying to make me be quiet! I’m not stupid!” Chadwick knew that his intentions were to show that he understood where he went wrong, not to undermine CoCo. But, he also knew that any further attempts to speak while she was upset would only incense her. So, he quietly sat back in his chair to prepare for the verbal storm.

“Look, I know that work has you stressed. I never want to overlook the amount of effort it takes to do what you do. But, I will not allow you to take that anger and spew it toward our child. Send that shit to them, not her! She is four. So what she taped some papers together? Was that worth the way you made her feel by shouting in her face like she’s some random on the street?”

Chadwick watched his wife rant for several minutes while he silently thanked God he had a partner that was hellbent on advocating for their child, even if he was the offending party.

Midway through her speech, he stood and attempted to grab her hand.

“Absolutely not,” she responded as she drew back and created space between them. “You may not touch me or sleep in our room until you apologize to the person whose feelings you hurt. Her bedtime has passed so you’ll have to figure something out for here and now. There is a spare bedroom and blankets in the linen closet in case you decide to devote more time to work. Ya know, since it has you acting a damn fool. Good luck.”

Knowing that the backlash would be severe still didn’t prepare Chadwick for a total shut out. Long after hearing CoCo dramatically shut the door, he quietly transitioned to the upstairs guest bedroom to contemplate his next move before bed. To apologize for such uncharacteristic and unwarranted behavior, he would need to think completely outside of the box.

[escargon]

May I have context for the Doug Walker review?

I’m so sorry to do this to you, but I started typing and accidentally wrote the script for like. A rant. So feel free to just skim but The Nostalgia Critic was a very vital influence and special interest to me when I was starting to view media more critically, as embarrassing as that is to admit now after everything that has happened. Ideally you don’t have to watch his review and give him anymore YouTube clout so, technically, I’m saving you about fifty minutes and keeping you from contributing financially to a scummy channel.

Doug Walker, esteemed Critic and Online Personality for 13 years wrote a little "love letter" to Pink Floyd in the form of his ""review"" of The Wall (1982). I don't know why he thought it was a good idea, maybe because of his Magnum Anuses of reviews of Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge! (Review posted 2011) and Tom Hooper's Les Miserables (review posted 2013), where he rewrote parody songs to diss those movies in collaboration with other members of That Guy With the Glasses or Channel Awesome.

I grew out of that type of content in late 2017, but had no hard feelings other than a little embarrassment for admittedly basing a little bit too much of my epersonality on being a fan of his in middle school, but respect for his work especially since he seemed like an actual critical voice in his more laid-back, less scripted videos. That was of course until the document. The Not So Awesome Document* came out about a lot of workplace harassment, and led to the majority of the creators leaving and going on to do other things awhile ago, and the dust had settled around Doug and Rob Walker, and there are only a handful of creators left at CA. 

Fast forward to September 2019. Doug Walker, The Nostalgia Critic teams up with a 3D animator and the lead singer of Slipknot and his son to produce a critical deconstruction in song of the 1982 animated film The Wall based on the Pink Floyd album of the same name.

And he just. Doesn't. Get it.

[Content Warning for the "Not So Awesome" Document: discussion of abuse and harassment both sexual and not sexual, I can't remember if it's in the document but discussion that occurs around it might make reference to a team member’s suicide. Let me know if there was anything I missed, I went through the document when it first came out and may have forgotten if there was anything else. Viewing the document is not necessary for the context of this post, but is there in case you are interested]

Or maybe he does, but he chooses to not express it because poor ol Doug made some bad decisions during the peak of CA's questionable and harmful business practices, and now he's stuck in a role.

Either way. The review sucks.

He spends the entire video mocking the style of both the music and the visuals, and weaving a weird thread of shallow modernization through visuals like cellphones replacing the iconic marching hammers, for example. There is either a lack of understanding, or deliberate ignorance on his part as to what the piece means both to Roger Waters, but also of what it has gone on to mean for those who love it. There is a reason why The Wall is one of the most iconic rock operas of all time, and its because there is so much soul and meaning put into the songs. But you know what Doug Walker, experienced critic and expert deconstructor of cinema, got out of it?

Like... Doug, if you’re out there. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Pink Floyd’s lyrics were not meant to be subtle.

PINK FLOYD’S LYRICS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE SUBTLE.

The whole entire POINT of The Wall is that it’s angsty music from an angsty place, discussing the issue of self-isolation and bottling up one’s emotions, creating a WALL in between oneself and those around them as a result of various experiences experienced in Roger Water’s life. Doug’s assessment (because at a certain point it is just incorrect to call it a review) of both the visual and lyrics add nothing to the actual work, which wouldn’t be a problem if this were a seven to ten minute video in which he expressed ambivalence, or even dislike for the on the nose lyrics and abstract visuals. Not every review necessarily has to enhance the piece, especially not negative ones.

But Doug is so self-important in his assertion that his musical “”reviews”” are his best works, and he is most proud of those. His works are not reviews, they are recreations and parodies. They offer nothing but a glimpse into the mind of a sad man, out of touch with any critical analysis skills other than “hehe he used a DOUBLE NEGATIVE. He DOES need education because he’s STUPID” (.... he almost got it, I guess.)

There are moments like this, where it seems like he gets it. But then the fact that he is a straight, cis, white gen-X hits you in the head.

Whether or not this is genuinely how Doug thinks, by throwing so much time and money at this project he is endorsing this particular reading of Pink Floyd, and all the bands who have and still are making politically charged music. Doug Walker is presenting himself in a way that is no different to the cishet, white Gen Xs suddenly giving up support for Rage Against the Machine for uh. Raging against the machine.

Did I mention this was a musical review? Because it’s a musical review. Nobody is a good singer, and Doug Walker, Egomanic, really decided that his Pink Floyd parody songs were good enough to put on Spotify, which he gratuitously advertises in the video that you can go stream it on Spotify.

Through his video that’s supposed to be a “Love Letter” to Pink Floyd, the Nostalgia Critic gives us one of the stalest takes on what is one of the most celebrated pieces of classic rock. He critiques the movie for strange visual choices of both abstract and painfully literal imagery to accompany the songs Roger Waters wrote in response to feeling as though his personal relationships, experiences, and family’s stories. I believe he did love Pink Floyd, but his interpretation tells me that he grew up and out of feeling as though society needs to change, and that Water’s music is whiny and entitled because it targets and critiques a society in which he, now a grown man, is at the top of the pecking order.

The worst part is that the only real, solid comment that we get from Doug himself is that he like the movie just fine, and he squeezes it in right at the end. How insulting to the viewers, where instead of giving an actual review until the very end of your nearly hour-long video, you put on musical skits that point out “logically unsound” lyrics or “weird and obvious” imagery as though you think you’re some meta genius.

And he still has the balls to call this a “Love Letter” to Pink Floyd. Great. Incredibly lukewarm and lacking musical talent. 1/5 stars for the effort, however misguided and unnecessary.

Anyway, so that was probably more context than I needed to give RE: Doug Walker’s review of The Wall, but as I said before he was one of my inspirations and I feel like it’s only right that now that I’m older and wiser, and have as a result developed better critical thinking skills through education and otherwise analyzing media for myself I feel it is only right to hold him to the same standard, especially when he thinks he’s making art.

[tessatechaitea]

Kid Eternity #2

This cover says, "Don't look at who wrote it! Just look at how interesting these visuals are! Sucker."

In my review of Kid Eternity #1, I threw out a few theories on why Ann Nocenti's writing is so weird. After reading page one of this issue, I've thrown those theories out again but in a different way. That makes complete sense if you understand English idioms and also understand that everything Ann Nocenti writes is basically pre-trash.

This is page one of Kid Eternity #2 and it will probably get this review banned on Tumblr.

I have a new theory: Ann Nocenti asked what a Vertigo comic book should be and editor Tom Peyer probably joked, "They're mostly tits and profound nonsense." So Ann Nocenti's vagina gobbed in her underwear and she squealed with glee. "That's what I do!" she chortled merrily! I probably shouldn't abuse Ann Nocenti for writing things I don't understand. I have plenty of choices of other people to abuse for it: my elementary school teachers for not calling me out on doing just enough to get by; my junior high school teachers who let me get away with not putting any effort into big year-end projects (In science, we were supposed to make a stone age tool. I rubber glued a carved-to-a-shoddy point stick to another stick (which was worse than my friend Robert who put some pine needles into a split stick, calling the weapon "Ow"); in English, we had one project based on Romeo and Juliet (because all we did that quarter was watch and read various versions of the play) and I refused to do it because the teacher was wasting my time; in Computers, I found Dan Felipe's project, a trivia program, and I just copied it and used it for my own project (changing all the questions and line numbers and other things to make it seem like it wasn't plagiarized but, I mean, come on! In fairness to me, I only did it because the stupid fucking school changed computers halfway through the semester, dropping the TRS-80s for Apples and my project was relying on the Poke images of the TRS-80 to create an animated sequence)); my high school English teacher, Mr. Borror, for reading nearly everything I wrote in front of the class so that I began to think I was the wittiest fucker in Santa Clara High; my college teachers for some reason or another that allows me to not blame my own lack of ability; and probably my parents because if they were any good at their parental jobs, I wouldn't be writing a blog about comic books. In other words, I'm sure Ann Nocenti is a philosophical genius while I'm just a guy who blames everybody else for things I don't understand. Even if I truly felt Ann Nocenti was an underrated genius whose writings I'm incapable of parsing, I would never ask her to explain what she meant by this first page of Kid Eternity #2. I just wouldn't feel comfortable putting her on the spot like that. It's not up to the artist to explain their art to the foolish audience! Only the Christian Messiah bears that responsibility (and, let's face it, he wouldn't have had to explain every fucking parable if he'd been able to convince smarter people of his bullshit). So if it's up to me to interpret this first page gibber gabber, I suppose I should get to business. Or kill myself. I mean, killing myself would be easier and less painful. And I totally would kill myself before reading more Ann Nocenti comic books except I have plans to cut my toenails in a few months. Before I begin trying to understand this hogwash, I'd like to point out that if she'd written it as a sonnet, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'd read it, think, "Yep, that's a sonnet!", nod my head in sage understanding, and then jerk off to the titties. But this is not a sonnet so it is not allowed to be obtuse simply for obtuseness' sake. So this fucking speech. First off, who is speaking? The serpent trying to fuck the naked lady? Is this the speech the serpent used on Eve to get her to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Although if that's the case, how would talking about Buddha convince Eve of anything? I'll assume the serpent is omniscient (because he may or may not be Satan, depending on what holy men or con artists you believe but certainly isn't Satan if you're simply going by the Book of Genesis. I bet the serpent was God doing one of those Zeus things minus the rape. Zeus loved to trick people so he could get laid; Yahweh tricks people to test their faith). I guess since she had yet to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (come on, God! That name is terrible), she wouldn't know what she doesn't know and can't defend against any nonsense the serpent spews at her. Let's assume the art goes with the speech and it's the serpent speaking. So why is "God in repair" and what the fuck does that mean? And why is it followed by the statement, "Why not call the wisest man a freak?" Does the snake only speak in non sequiturs? Was that a stupid question since I already know the snake's dialogue is being written by Ann Nocenti? It is kind of refreshing to see that her dialogue style never changed in thirty years. The shit the serpent says on this page could be nonsense spewed by Coil from Nocenti's New 52 Katana. You know what? I don't have to continue this because, in the end, it's just a carnival barker's pitch to get people to believe in the freaks in his freak show. He's all, "What's the difference between freaks and religion?!" That's not a riddle I have an answer for. The only religious joke I know is "What do Noah's Ark and The Bible have in common?" That might be a joke that was extant before I came up with it but I did come up with it on my own. And I think the answer is so obvious I would be insulting the intelligence of all four people reading this. Oh, and the snake trying to fuck the lady? It's a tattoo on the Tattooed Lady. The reason the comic begins in a circus freak show? Because Kid Eternity is the newest freak on display! The opening sideshow scene is just one of Kid Eternity's dreams. The demon angel babies get into Kid Eternity's dream and when he wakes up, they've tied his hair to the floor which totally has him trapped for like three panels. That was a close one! Kid Eternity decides he can't truly know what he's doing unless he utterly knows himself. So it's time to get his brain probed.

Let me guess: Carl will blather on about synchronicity and dreams while Freud tries to figure out how big Kid Eternity's penis is.

Carl doesn't initially discuss anything. He's just the straight man for Freud saying all the typical things you'd expect Freud to say: penis this, envy that, fuck your mom, kill your dad, more penises, many more penises, everything is penises. But then he comes on fast and furious with his archetypes and collective unconscious and human mythology stuff, all the biggest Carl Jung hits (aside from synchronicity but I'm sure he'll get around to that later. Ann Nocenti isn't going to miss showing the readers all the knowledge nuggets she mined to make her brain big). If only Nocenti would spend as much time writing the story as she spends making sure the readers know she knows a lot of shit then maybe I would have kept reading this comic book. Meanwhile, Zeus wanders around looking for somebody to trick fuck, Madame Blavatsky hunts down the next best burger before she slips back to the past, Beelzebub and Judas wander through Limbo, Jesus gets drunk and falls off a bar stool, and a phone yells at a woman. That all happens on one page to make sure the reader remembers other things are happening. But why does Ann Nocenti spend two panels of that dense page on Madame Blavatsky when she could have updated the reader on the non-X-File FBI agents who will probably hate fuck each other before the story ends? I also wanted an update on the Buddha Christ Trash Child. But no! Instead Nocenti just moves on to more of her proof that she's read all about Freud and Jung and totally understands the shallow top layer of their theories and philosophies. I don't mean to say I know any more than Ann Nocenti! But I understand how little I know of Freud and everything she's had him say are things everybody knows about Freud from all the dirty jokes about him: ids, supermen, parental relations, and phalli!

Oh, that's why we didn't get an update on the dense update page; Nocenti needed a full page to document the hate/fuck.

My new Ann Nocenti writing theory: Ann Nocenti has never had an original thought. She simply reads things, takes copious notes of bits and quotes she likes, and then shoves them sideways into whatever script she's currently writing. No wait. She does have original thoughts but they're almost not worth having. Like "everything in life is a prison" and then proving it by stating a few things about life that can be cell-like. It's profound in that way that things are profound when you're on acid. If you don't think about it, you can find yourself nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything is a prison! Life is a fucking prison!" But if you do stop to think about it, it's like coming down off acid. You start to see how that thought you had about how the number three ties everything else in the universe together because of the way the corners meet didn't wasn't as mind blowing as it was six hours ago. Although the rant you went on about how pressing play on the VCR remote play the show and pressing pause pauses it but then to unpause it you have to hit pause again when you should really hit play was pretty fucking good. Speaking of acid, I'm two-thirds of the way through the acid documentary on Netflix and it's fucking fantastic. I wasn't really thinking a lot about it but I was nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything they're saying about acid is absolutely spot on!" throughout. I actually had to take a break because it was making me too happy listening to all Sting and Carrie Fisher tell their acid stories. I don't know why I didn't just spend five paragraphs discussing why the FBI agents were playing Scrabble while they fucked. It's probably just one of Sean Phillips' kinks. Oh, maybe they were just playing Scrabble and not hate-fucking. It's hard to tell because on the next page, Jerry asks Val if they can finally fuck and Val is all, "You're a nerd!" Then she slits his throat. But then in the next panel, his throat isn't slit and he's all, "You feeling better?" And she's all, "Yeah!" So I don't know what the fuck is going on and I don't really care. I've still got like eight pages of this mess to get through and I'd rather just nod along than try to understand it. And then just like last issue, Ann Nocenti sputters out a bit of writing that I totally agree with because I've said basically the same thing before. About how every day, I fall in love with some person I see on the street because of the smallest of things. And then I love them forever.

My story isn't as good but I once fell in love walking through the airport in Minneapolis. I was passing by an attractive woman and she was gazing off somewhere as I looked at her face. She was coming up on my right and then I glanced down at her breasts and back up at her face. And that was the moment she noticed me, as I glanced from her breasts to her face. And, catching me, she smiled and laughed and kept on walking. And I still love her to this day.

And for this page alone, I forgive all of Ann Nocenti's past (future?) transgressions and find myself eager to read Kid Eternity #3. Oh wait. I still have a few pages left in this piece of crap. I read a lot of books in college that I sometimes still say are my favorite books but I should probably just say they stuck with me because I know which books are almost always in my top five and a lot of the ones in college aren't those. But Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence always stuck with me. It's possible that I completely missed the message of the novel but to me, the book was about how true love only exists when it's unrequited. Archer Day-Lewis doesn't love Ellen Pfeifer more than May Ryder for any other reason than that she was the one he didn't marry. It seemed to me that Wharton was trying to portray how hard love is and true, phenomenal love only exists in the imagination. Only a love we can imagine can remain magical. Only when we love an object, or the imaginary person we've placed on a pedestal, can we evade disappointment in the reality and flaws of another actual human being. Being in love with Ellen Pfeifer was easy because she wasn't there for all those years. There were no fights or disappointments or multiple times accidentally walking in on her taking a huge shit. She was pure and beautiful and imaginary. But then again, maybe that wasn't the point of the book at all. I was young and romantic at the time and I still absolutely loved the women I'd had unrequited crushes on in junior high and high school while my college relationship was slowly circling the drain due to personality conflicts. But not due to sex. The sex was fucking great! Anyway, Freud and Jung decide Kid Eternity is in denial and they leave. Hemlock and Dog spread some new reality across the world via a computer virus. Madame Blavatsky starts making time go backwards, probably so she can vomit up all the Twinkies she ate and eat them again with their delicious creamy filling. And the devil and Judas wind up in a bar in Limbo with Jesus to make plans for Kid Eternity. There's probably a lot more going on but there'd be too much for me to process even if it wasn't confused by Nocenti's writing style. No wonder I gave up on this book after three issues. There's no way by the third issue I could remember anything that was going on, if I even understood it the month prior. Kid Eternity #2 Rating: C-. A confusing mess that's about 90% Ann Nocenti just vomiting out things she's read. Even the things that, with the benefit of the doubt, I want to believe sprang from her own philosophical musings, I can't bring myself to absolutely believe it. I feel like every thought and piece of dialogue she's placed in this story just came from piles of notebooks filled with notes she's made while reading other people's works. It's practically a collage of philosophical ideas and moral musings pulled from myriad sources and shoved into a Kid Eternity framework "written" by Ann Nocenti. Which could explain Nocenti's penchant for stilted dialogue. If she were making up all the character's thoughts, the dialogue would flow from one character to the next. But when each character can only respond with some profound thought Nocenti read elsewhere, it comes across like a ransom note, each word cut from the mind of somebody else and pasted as a reply to another bit cut from some other thinker, no relation existing between the two thoughts except the proximity relationship Nocenti has given them.

[minaminokyoko]

Venom: A Spoilertastic Review (that is mostly just a rant)

When the end credits to the Venom movie started, just as Eminem began his embarrassingly uninspired rapping, I turned my head to one of my two friends and asked her, "What the hell did I just put into my eyeballs?"

To be frank, Venom is one of the most peculiar, bizarre, baffling films I've seen in years.

I want to preface this review by saying I was against this idea when it was announced. I thought it was beyond idiotic to make a film about a supervillain whose entire creation hinges on a certain Webhead, and since Sony lent him out to Marvel Studios (the only smart fucking decision they've made in probably over a decade, imo), they went off half-cocked with the hair-brained idea that they could create an anti-hero solo flick for Venom instead. To some degree, sure, they were warranted because the general audience these days has low fucking standards and if you put the words "comic book movie" in front of them, they're usually going to lap it up no matter how terrible it is. After all, fandom doesn't care about things being accurate anymore, by this point, if you dangle fresh meat like Tom Hardy riding a motorcycle in front of them. As long as there's an attractive person at the helm, fandom will just adopt it as canon and ignore any red flags, as they have already done. That being said, I still think this is one of the most blatantly stupid things done for money and for notoriety from any studio toting around a popular comic book character.

Is Venom as bad as legendary awful comic book movies like Catwoman, The Spirit, Batman & Robin, Daredevil, Green Lantern, or Spawn?

Well, no.

And that's almost the only positive thing I can report about it, personally. 

In short, Venom is inept. That's the word I'd choose, aside from bizarre. It has no fucking clue what it's doing at any given time, from start to finish. It's too wacky to be serious, too serious to be a parody or satire, too mature for kids, too childish for adults, too mainstream for nerds, and too nerdy for mainstream. It's just a piping hot fucking mess.

So let's dive into why. Spoiler alert.

Overall Rating: D

Pros:

-Note: I am being very fucking generous by giving this movie points for anything at all, just so y'all know.

-It's not boring. Other comic book movies that have failed, whether it's the really bad kind or just the mediocre kind, have failed worse than this movie simply because at least there aren't any dead periods. Venom doesn't have awful pacing, even with its sloppy, uneven story. It moves along at a steady rate and you can never accuse it of being a borefest like Superman Returns or something. Even though most of it is incomprehensible from a story standpoint, it keeps your attention throughout.

-The doctor boyfriend surprisingly averted the usual stereotype/archetype for this kind of story. For example, in the first Ant Man, the cop boyfriend who is with Scott's baby mama is a smug, overprotective dickhead who later gets better. Most of the time when a main couple breaks up, the girl picks some douchebag who is either so much better than her former lover that it just feels insulting or it's just a one-dimensional asshole for us to hate so we want the two of them to get back together. Hell, doctor boyfriend was actually TOO nice and understanding and helpful. There is no way in hell I'd have stuck it out after seeing Eddie bite the head off a goddamn lobster. I'd have sent his ass to a mental hospital immediately, fuck the regular hospital. That being said, I like the movie averting the trope. It was a welcome change and was awfully refreshing too.

-Even though this is one of his strangest fucking performances to date, Tom Hardy is doing what he always does and gives 110% to a film that really doesn't even deserve him. I've already been hearing rumors that he's not pleased with the final product and that doesn't surprise me, but he does what he can with that awful script and I appreciate the effort. In fact, the only reason I sat through this turd is for Tom Hardy. He is a dedicated, talented actor and even when he's in tripe, he's still busting his beautiful ass to make the best of it anyway. I like him a lot and I'd go to bat for him any day, which is the only reason I coughed up the money for Venom when I knew damn well it'd be a trainwreck.

-The effects are at least decent. Not always. But Venom and the symbiotes actually feel as if they're really there and it's not just the actors staring at a ball on a stick. I appreciate it, since Sony goes in and out of quality regarding CGI.

-Despite the fucking travesty of a fake clown wig on his head, Woody Harrelson is an excellent choice for Cletus Kasady. Everyone knows that. I just hope they get him a better hairpiece next time, sheesh.

Cons:

-Jesus fucking Christ, where do I fucking start?

-Plotholes. This movie doesn't have plotholes--it has plot canyons. It's plothole Inception, for God's sake, with holes inside of fucking holes. It's so clear that the movie doesn't give a rat's ass about anything because there are some of the most ridiculous moments you're expected to swallow with the power of Willing Suspension of Disbelief. It's why it took me a whole two days to try and write a review/analysis of the film. There is so much wrong with it that I frankly wasn't sure where to start and how to process it all. The best I can try to do considering the overwhelming number of holes in the story is go chronologically. First off, Eddie stealing Blondie's confidential documents (Note: Michelle Williams' character was so bland and unimportant I can't remember her name and I don't care to look it up because we all know she doesn't matter, so she is now Blondie) but then not doing his actual job as a journalist when making wild accusations is the first monumentally dumb thing in the film. Why the hell did he go through the trouble of breaching her personal security and trust if all he was going to do was rant about it to the Bad Guy without proof? What did he think it would accomplish? Why would you just confront the guy instead of looking for more proof? Plus, you stole that information, which means it's inadmissable in court since it was obtained illegally, so you still wouldn't have a case anyhow. Any writer with half a brain cell would simply have it so that Eddie read the document, became curious, and started snooping around Life Foundation himself looking for hard evidence that would stand up in court to get justice for the victims. The way they did it in the film makes no sense, but it's because they wanted to bust up the couple and make Eddie a "loser" to kickstart the rest of the film. Then, the girl who tattled on the Life Foundation 100% did not need Eddie Brock to do that. She had full access to the lab and the trust of her superior. All she had to do was document everything herself, send it to Eddie to pass along to his boss, and then skip town with her fucking kids to avoid being murdered. Hell, she could have given it to the authorities anonymously. Third, why after everything went tits up in the lab did she fucking return to the lab as if they wouldn't immediately know it was her? She was seen outside the lab seconds before Eddie set off the alarms and her palm print is recorded having opened the door to the lab. Why the fuck did she go back after she let Eddie in there with no way to cover her tracks? And then she actually told on herself and Eddie, which led to her death. I can't comprehend that level of stupidity at all. It's staggering. Because I'm trying not to turn this into a seven-page single spaced review, I'm just going to stop here and not try to point out all the other plotholes in detail, like the fact that the cops only get involved one time and are never seen again despite the fact that they'd be all over the explosions and missing people associated with the Life Foundation or Eddie's phone working perfectly after he swam under the fucking bridge or Eddie leaving his phone for his boss instead of just sending him the goddamn pictures or the symbiote magically knowing where Eddie was after they took him from the hospital. We'll be here all day if I keep going. I'll just reblog CinemaSins' eventual video of this movie and feel satisfied that way.

-The movie makes zero attempts at explaining anything about the symbiotes except for "they're vulnerable to fire and sound frequencies, need a host to survive, and eat brains." What is even stranger about the lack of explanation is that this isn't a long film. They could have easily added about ten minutes into the story to give us an overview of where they came from, what their world was like, how they found human contact, and why they were on that comet. All we can do is infer things, which pisses me off because this is YOUR story and YOUR new continuity that you just fucking made up on the fly, so I don't know the rules here and it's shitty of you to just gloss over it all. Why is it called Venom? Is that a translation from whatever the hell the symbiote was called on its own planet? Did it hear that somewhere and decide it liked the word? Why? Why does it get touchy if you call it a parasite when that is literally what it is? Is it like Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective and it's just in denial? We have to guess that it knows whatever Eddie knows, but why does it have any conceptual knowledge of romance and relationships when it attempts to get Eddie to apologize to Blondie or when it says it "likes" her? Or that Eddie "changed its mind" at the end? And how can a symbiote even be a loser? That concept is almost universally human and it's a giant sentient piece of fucking tar? How can it possibly be a loser on its own planet? There is just no damn context for majority of the shit surrounding the symbiotes in the movie and it's all the more frustrating since we spend a great deal of time in the lab with them during the movie and yet we learn almost nothing.

-Eddie and the symbiote don't actually form a proper bond or partnership. This is one of the things that's irritating me about people who seem to have taken to the movie. I was told multiple times by people that the movie is stupid, but the repartee between Eddie and Venom is enjoyable. Not really, no. Are there quips? Yes, there are quips. But quips do not inherently create a bond. Anyone can bounce dialogue off each other. If said dialogue does not change the characters, then it's just lip service. Sadly, though, a lot of people don't notice that absolutely nothing between Eddie and Venom lines up. Venom helps Eddie survive the attacks, but is killing him in the process. It's self-interest alone. The truly confounding part is when they get Venom off of Eddie and find out Venom has basically been consuming Eddie's organs to stay alive inside him, Eddie acts betrayed and storms off, but then when Venom returns wearing Blondie as his guise, he just accepts it and they go off to the badly filmed climax. What the hell changed in between those scenes? Nothing. Eddie still runs the risk of dying being piloted by the symbiote, and while Eddie has motivation to stop Bad Guy (again, another character that is so thin I can't be bothered to learn his name) from bringing the symbiotes to earth, Venom is given zero reason to want that at all. As mentioned above, there's no backstory. Is Venom concerned his race will consume the earth? If so, who cares? There's seven billion people and Venom has already found Eddie, who is a suitable match for him to survive, so why does he care at all? Eddie would survive an invasion anyhow. It makes no damn sense. Films that have dealt with symbiotic relationships always establish a common ground at some point but Venom doesn't for some inexplicable reason. I'm incredibly frustrated that everyone's just going "tee hee, look, they're best friends now, it's cute" when in fact Eddie is just running around committing murder randomly without ever really contemplating how serious it is, even though he claims to only be eating bad people.

-Nitpick: Fridging two different female characters, the homeless lady and the Life Foundation tattletale, rubbed me entirely the wrong way. Both of them were in Eddie's vicinity, both die, and both are never brought up again or shown to have impacted Eddie's motivation or life. They are simply used and discarded, which is another thing that makes this movie feel so hollow.

-The tone is all over the fucking place. It can be argued that Venom never went full serious and is always sort of tongue-in-cheek, but there's just this ridiculous whiplash feeling when you watch it spike from an action scene to "wacky" Brock antics to Venom quips. Eddie's personality even before the symbiote is just confusing as hell. It's like stuffing a bunch of random character traits into one man and all of them are fighting to get out at once like the characters from Split. The most consistent thing is he's sarcastic, but even then his moods range far too widely to get a bead on him. He can be dry one minute and then frantic and excitable the next, and that's before the symbiote. After the symbiote, it's like they gave Tom Hardy cocaine and steroids. The man's acting is simply all over the damn place. He accepts near-impossible things sometimes with a shrug and other times he freaks out. The movie just doesn't know what the hell it's attempting to accomplish, and that's why mood and tone are important to set from the get-go with a film. It just slingshots between a faux-horror film and a snippy action flick over and over again until your head feels pulverized.

-The final action sequences is one of the dumbest, messiest things since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It's an ugly, dark, jumbled up mess. It's so indistinguishable that Godzilla (2014) can take potshots at it. Why in perfect blue hell did they choose two symbiotes with such similar appearances to showdown with each other on top of a rocket at night? It's so hard to see what the two of them are doing, who is winning or losing, or what kind of movement is happening at all. We also are never given the full range of their abilities, so the only real stake is when they pull off their hosts and their bodies are vulnerable, but even then it appears that Venom can raise Eddie from the dead seconds later anyhow. I'm stunned the movie couldn't even do a fake out death properly, which is so fucking easy that even Disney can do it. Eddie dies and is revived in less than fifteen goddamn seconds. The camera doesn't even linger on his body to sell the emotion (not that we'd ever have one, he is just barely a character anyway) before it just takes it right the hell back. That's filmmaking 101, for God's sake, and the movie blows it too.

-The last scene in the movie. In its entirety. I haven't been that exasperated since I stupidly forced myself to watch Pacific Rim: Uprising. There are so many things wrong with it that it's hard to know how to tackle it. I don't care that Eddie stopped that guy from extorting the shop owner--he openly turned into a 10 foot tall alien and ate a guy in front of her, and the movie just laughs and shrugs like it's just totally fine, like that woman isn't about to lose her shit, call the cops, or fuck, the NSA/FBI/CIA/Avengers on Eddie for making her a witness to murder, and endangering pretty much anyone around them. To say nothing of the fact that there is no reason a 10 foot tall alien with a million sharp teeth needs to say a single word to threaten someone. You are the threat, buddy. Your existence is the threat. Why did you need to insist on threatening to bite things off? You're terrifying and nothing you say is going to somehow make you scarier, especially when you just ate the guy anyway. It's like they just made that scene for the final trailer, much like that "I thought she was with you" comment all the way back in Batman v. Superman despite in-canon it made no sense. It's so unnecessary. And don't get me started on the fact that the crook actually asked the giant alien who it is. Fuck you. That was a lazy, transparent attempt to spoonfeed the wretched cliche that Michael Keaton's Batman made famous. (Consequently, all movies ever, please stop doing this cliche. Stop it. Just find another way to announce yourself. It's really tired, y'all, let it go already.) No human would ever look at that thing and ask it who the fuck it is. He'd piss himself and die of fright. Period. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Piss. Die. Period.

-Nitpick: Why was there that weird Godzilla (2014) trailer noise every time Venom attacked someone? Did they just steal it from public domain? They used it almost like the Inception horn cliche that Hollywood was obsessed with for a while and it took me right out of the scene every damn time.

-Nitpick: They really thought we're so stupid that we needed Kasady to actually say his character's name out loud. Look, you fuckers, you know goddamn well that end credits scenes are extras and that people can go home and Google things instead of you literally spelling it out for us. Hell, you know that not that many Average Joes and mainstream people went to this movie anyway since Venom is a second-stringer villain and your main demographic is die-hard Eddie Brock fans anyway. So having Kasady say the damn name “Carnage” in the post credits scene really was the final fart in my general direction. Give us some fucking credit, man. Venom has barely five plotlines to his whole character anyway. Of course we knew you were going to drop Carnage for the Sequel Hook, you condescending twat of a film.

Look, I get it. I'm hypercritical because I write fiction for a living. There are plenty of movies where turning your brain off is required in order to enjoy it, but I think this movie is asking me to get an entire lobotomy to be able to swallow the big-ass pill it's offering. It's just so sloppy and uncaring and yet it's holding its grubby little hands out for your money and your love and I think it's undeserving of it on every last level. It has zero comprehension of what it's trying to accomplish since it's a money grab, and its artistic choices are nothing short of bonkers. It's so strange that it even veers outside of the So Bad It's Good category for me. I can't in good confidence recommend it to anyone even though it's almost like a study in what not to do in both comic book movies and movies in general. It's weird in a distasteful way rather than in a charming way for me, honestly. I know people have rallied around it for being different and out there, but I don't think different and good are the same thing in Venom's case.

[quirkcodes]

Godot Control Nodes Rant

DISCLAIMER: This is a tame rant, nothing harsh or funny here.

I haven't used most of the control nodes until I decided to make an end level screen for my game, and oh my god they are terrible.

Restrictive Workflow

The workflow is awful. The control nodes are so disorienting with how many menus you have to manage. It makes the simplest things so hard to do. Instead of setting properties of containers, you have to add other containers to your current container. Want to change the margins? Put it in a margin container. Want to keep its aspect ratio? Put it in an aspect ratio container. In HTML/CSS, these properties can be standardized and applied in only one line of code per property. Imagine if there were several different types of “<div>” containers just to set a unique margin, padding, aspect ratio, etc for each instance of the container- that’s how it works in godot. And if you change your mind, you’ll have to delete nodes, reparent them, and change any code that references the nonexistent path. How clunky?

Some attributes can only be implemented in the node inspector and some can only be implemented in code; its so inflexible. This leads me to searching through a node’s inspector just to find the right setting that I need to change. As I’ve learned, I’ve found more ways to skip that process and code it in, but there’s still so much I can’t just code in.

I won’t even bother fully explaining how to format strings. Some formatting has to be part of the string text, some can’t. Some have to be entered in code and then replace the default text in the editor. You have to use this random made up mark-down language called BBcode in combination with GD Script. It has the limited in-line attributes just like Reddit's mark down. Oh how I take HTML/CSS for granted in these moments. You could just add properties to the container text so easily.

Redundant Nodes

Often there's several different nodes that could be combined into one node. There's vertical and horizontal scroll bars that could've just been one configurable scroll bar. But there is also a scrollable container which automatically creates a scroll bar, so why would it exist as it's own node? Turns out the game needs to keep track of the node in the scene tree, so it makes sense there, but it could mislead beginner to putting the scroll bar on a container and get confused why it doesn’t work.

I could also bring up the box containers. Horizontal box containers places boxes in order left to right. Vertical box container places boxes top to bottom. There is also a grid container which places boxes top left to bottom right. Why couldn't they just be all part of a grid container where you pick sorting alignment/order and the number of columns and rows? It all seems so bloated and redundant. It reminds me of the obsolete crap in Premiere Pro where there is like 8 clunky ways to do the same thing.

My guess is that they made the control nodes all fragmented like this because they thought it would seem simpler to beginner devs. That way they could see the ui element that they want and just drag and drop it in. "I want my boxes to go vertical so I'll just get the vertical box container". In reality, it actually does the opposite by over-complicating things.

Abysmal Documentation

To make things worse for beginner devs like me, the documentation for control nodes is sparse. Control nodes are visual features of UI and yet most documentation doesn't even have a screen shot of what it looks like, and there are no screen shots of the code it takes to make these things. There was so many times I had no clue what something was because there was just so little documentation on it, specifically tree nodes. Most Youtubers barely touch the control nodes, and for good reason, but it leads to a lack of supplementary tutorials as well.

Other Unnecessarily Difficult Things

List of things I can't do easily with Godot control nodes

Lack of responsive design. You have to cheat Godot’s terrible formatting system by increasing the minimum size targets to default size or your node will collapse its width and height to zero. This happens most often in box containers but can happen in other container types as well.

Changing font size. It requires basically re-importing the font at a different size and making sure it overrides the current theme.

I hope they can fix Godot’s control nodes. It needs to be streamlined. If they don’t want to delete and rework nodes, maybe they could create an alternative system like HTML/CSS that we could use alongside it. Or there could be new nodes like an all purpose “FormatContainer”; that would fix most of my issues with the workflow. It would create more overlap, but it’s already too late for that. If they cared so much about reducing overlap, they would remove and rework control nodes.

[hillbillyoracle]

How To Tell If A Pagan Resource is Reliable (Kinda)

This was originally a script for a video I never got around to making. It’s very rough and not written with tumblr in mind but I wanted to put it up in case others would find it useful. 

Without further ado - “How to Determine if a Pagan Source is Reliable: Or At Least How I Do It”

So I was recently asked about reliable pagan resources and let me just say it’s…complicated.

I think that’s why there’s so many people who just put out lists of resources rather than actually teaching what makes a good one. Well that and I think a lot of people aren’t totally sure why they think a source is good, let alone why and how someone should go about looking for something similar. I’m definitely guilty of that.

So instead of giving answers – I want to give context. Why finding good non-fluffy sources is hard and my personal check list for evaluating sources.

Keep in Mind

First, I want to point a few things out.

When you go to start tracking down sources please keep these four things in mind:

1.      Not everything you read is going to be relevant, but that won’t stop it from being relevant in it’s own context – so don’t be that asshole on tumblr who rants about, I don’t know, the Triple Goddess motif without understanding that a) women’s life experiences and life cycles have historically been subordinated to and defined by men so the Triple Goddess motif can be really spiritually powerful and b) that not everyone’s out here trying to be a reconstructionist. If it bugs you, it’s probably the lack of self awareness people have for their practices but that’s a different video…

2.      Not everything you read is going to be true. Speaks for itself really. There’s room for differences of opinion, different methods and lens but something are going to be flat out wrong. There’s currently no strong archeological evidence for a matriarchal mother goddess worshiping culture in Europe for instance. Which brings me to –

3.      Older isn’t more right. Older isn’t inherently better. I care about facts but I’m also not interested in reconstructionism as a framework for my religion anymore. I find it’s usually pretty theologically incomplete and I prefer mine to be historically informed rather than reconstructed. Again, self awareness is more the issue here than “facts”.

4.      Not everything you read needs to added to your practice. I’m not totally sure why but there seems to be a lot of pressure that new pagans feel to try everything they can get their hands on rather than taking the time to see where they might fit in. It’s okay to start with “well I believe in multiple gods” or “I really want to venerate the earth and it’s cycles” and add the rest in later.

 Why Is It So Hard Though???

So now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about why finding good sources is so hard.

People tend to think that if it’s published in a book that the information is more reliable BUT -

Pagan books are not necessarily more reliable even if they’re put out by a big imprint. Pagan publishing is honestly a bit of a cash grab. New age and alternative spirituality topics have seen a big uptick in interest recently and even bigger mainstream publishers are looking to cash in what they can. There’s a push to publish more books, more quickly, and more varied. And given the decentralized nature of paganism the bar for expertise is…pretty damn low. You’ll see the same authors -cough- Silver Ravenwolf -cough- with a dozen or more books about wildly different topics – which is a very good indication that those books aren’t reliable because let’s be honest who in the world has the time to publish four books on four different topics in a year and research and practice those topics to the point of expertise? They don’t.

Some of the best content I’ve seen is being put out by practitioners who are developing resources they can point their students toward or who are documenting their process of developing their path – and most of that is being done online. Finding them is usually an organic process. You accidentally turn them up when you’re searching for something else, you notice someone on a forum whose posts you like has a blog, they show up on your tumblr dashboard out of nowhere – that’s why it’s honestly hard to go looking for them. You kind of have to commit to looking in general and hope you stumble onto something.

It’s incredibly time consuming but it’s the price you pay for not picking a religion with a Holy Book.

The world is your book now and much like the world not…all of it…is good.

(nerd pushing up glasses) But what about primary sources? Clearly if we’re interested in quality material we should –

I mean primary sources are fantastic and I’ll do a separate post at some point about how to track down those for people who don’t have access to academic libraries – but it’s also completely unnecessary for a lot of people. Primary sources do not a religion make and not everyone is trying to be a reconstructionist. I don’t personally aim to replicate a particular culture’s religion in my practice – and that is okay.

Reconstructionism and using primary sources are also way trickier than most people make it out to be. Do you really think someone writing about the beliefs around Athena in Athens in one century is going to be practicing the same way as someone writing about Athena in Sparta three centuries later? Just because they’re both Hellenic? That’s not really how Greek religions worked – but you have to know quite a bit of history in order to evaluate sources on that level and unless that’s really meaningful for you – it’s probably not worth it AND THAT IS OKAY.

When evaluating sources it really helps to know what role religion plays in your life. Is it your identity? Is it for comfort? Is it to feel connected or grounded? Some people get that from studying academic texts until they go cross eyed. Some people get that from dancing naked in a field. I get it from chilling on a porch and talking to the moon. There are lot of ways to get

Evaluating the source

Who is the author?

This tells you a lot right away. Some folks in the pagan community have a reputation and you’ll have to decide for yourself whether they’re you’re cup of tea.

But assuming they’re not a big name, look for what they say their religious path is and how it lines up with what they’re writing. If you see someone saying they’re a reconstructionist but they’re writings include a lot of wiccan theology and they don’t account for the discrepancy that’s kind of red flag.

How they describe themselves can also be a good thing to watch out for. If they’re putting a lot of emphasis on how they’re a such and such high priestess in a tradition you can’t verify and they keep redirecting you to an ebook you have to pay for – I would run away personally.

Also whether they list a credential as who they are or a credential they have. It’s a slight difference but it can speak volumes.

What are their credentials?

A lot of people rely on how long they’ve been practicing to convey expertise and it’s definitely something to keep in mind. Someone who’s been practicing for 10-20 years is going to have a very different perspective on practice than someone just starting out.

Academic background can play a role too. My partner for instance is super new to paganism but she’s got a Master’s in Germanic Studies so she’s much more knowledgeable on Nordic and Germanic paganism than many people who’ve been practicing for years. If you’re more recon oriented there’s a lot to be said for following people who have an academic background in the culture you’re looking into.

For wiccan folks, knowing whether they’re part of a coven and what training they received there is also helpful. Most organized Wiccan branches can tell you their lineage back pretty far; i.e. 50ish years, anyone saying they’re an ancient practice passed down in secret needs to be heavily fact checked.

Are they factual?

This one can be very tricky when you’re starting out but as you start reading quality sources you’ll be able to spot whether stuff is factual much easier.

Good things to watch out for are people talking about how “old” something is without citing sources, people who conflate personal experience with fact, and white people talking about cultures they don’t belong to.

You can always try to google facts you feel weird about and see how many reputable sources you can pull up to vouch for it.

Are they fluffy?

This one is really hard for me to define. But I suppose the way I’d put it is – are they telling you you can do anything you want or that there’s only one way to do x path and if you deviate you’re a terrible person? Most good writers know the truth is something in the middle – freedom within the bounds of truth. Respect is really a word that stands out to me here. Who do they respect? Do they respect their teachers, their sources, other people, other cultures?

Are they self aware?

This is really what makes or breaks a source for me. Do they own their flaws? Do they admit when they’ve gotten information wrong? Are they public about figuring things out or when their knowledge is incomplete?

Self awareness really is the most important thing to me. We’re all human and we’re better pagans for really owning that.

---

Hope this was somewhat helpful. Let me know if you have any questions!

As always, I do not profess to have the one true way so take what’s useful and leave the rest. <3

[feadae]

Yo so I’m gonna rant a little about the murder mystery dinner theater show I did over the weekend because I’m still in Post-Show Mode, which means that this is all I’ll be talking about for at least a week, if not more, because I miss the show and don’t want it to be over Brace yourself

So the show is called Final Cut and the story is that all the characters are B-list Hollywood stars (3 actors, a director, a casting director, and a makeup artist) and the audience is a bunch of potential backers for the director’s new movie, in which all of the characters are involved. Then murder happens and one of the actors takes it upon himself to solve the case before anyone calls the police, since being witnesses/accessories to a murder would not be good for the careers of anyone present.

It occurs to me that I’m gonna be using names a lot and that you know precisely none of these people and presumably none of these characters so quick key: Me = Cherri Pitt (ba-dum-tss) = Slightly desperate actress new to Hollywood, hellbent on keeping Eddie in line and keeping the lead role, dating Rock because he has connections, pretending to be dumber than she is Nick = Rock Stud = Leading man opposite Cherri, dating Cherri, neither the brightest nor the humblest crayon in the box Jason = Eddie Cheek = Director of the movie, stole the script and claims to have written it himself, Douchebag of the Year (played by the sweetest human being on the planet--gotta love acting), murdered second Faith = Nova DeVoe = Second lead in the movie, One Diva to Rule Them All, known for stealing lead roles from other actresses, murdered first, Rock’s ex-wife and Eddie’s ex-lover, found Eddie and Cherri sealing the movie deal as it were Katherine = Billie Clubb (ba-dum-tss) = Casting director, head of a bankrupt management company, the real author of the script Eddie stole and SPOILER ALERT the killer, the script doesn’t say so but Katherine decided that Billie’s gay--it’ll become relevant later Shannah = Quinnie Winston = Eccentric makeup artist, works on all of Eddie’s movies because Eddie hit her with his car and arranged a deal with her where he’d employ her if she didn’t take him to court, it’s revealed about halfway through that she faked the car accident and that she’s done it before and been arrested for fraud Savannah = director of the show = One of the most amazing people alive

It was a lot of firsts for me, including my first murder mystery dinner theater, and every second of it was So Much Fun

We only had two weeks of rehearsal, and even though there were some bumps along the way (missing people for several rehearsals due to unavoidable schedule schtuff; being told two days before our dress rehearsal that we couldn’t actually pull costumes from the costume closet, etc.), those bumps resulted in really fun things (one night we were missing Faith, Nick, and Jason--half our cast--so Shannah, Katherine, and I did character work with Savannah for nearly three hours, just talking through our characters’ backstories and attitudes toward various things and people and backgrounds with each of the other characters, which was really fun and resulted in us doing the same thing the next day with Faith, Nick, and Jason, which was even more fun, because Faith and Jason did the whole thing in character like they were on a talk show, and their characters are giant divas/asshats, so it was hilarious. Because of the Costume Veto, we had/got to go thrift shopping for our costumes, and Nick, Jason, Shannah, and I all went together, which was super-fun. We talked and joked and it felt really nice to become closer to these people who are all so sweet and so much cooler than me. Jason found a scooter, wheeled around on it like a giant, adorable child, then proceeded to buy it for himself along with the tux he needed for the show. I was looking for a red dress, since my character’s name is Cherri and it Works, and we couldn’t find one that fit that day, so the next day, Jason drove me to another thrift shop and we found a perfect dress nearly straight away and spent the next half-hour or so just browsing the store and chatting and if he weren’t in the most adorable relationship I’ve ever seen with Nick, I’d have the Crush to End All Crushes on him, like the child I am. That being said, I have Friend Crushes on literally this entire cast and just about 90% of the theater department as a whole. Anyway)

Like I said, the show was a lot of firsts for me, and more firsts included the first time I’ve ever worn red lipstick, liquid eyeliner, or fake eyelashes (all very fun to play with but way too much effort to be worth wearing for anything other than theater). I had to have help putting on the eye makeup; otherwise, I would certainly have gone blind. But multiple times, I was told I looked really nice, which you better know I have internalized like there’s no tomorrow (compliment people, folks; you never know, you might just make their day/week/life/etc.). This was also my first role involving sex, bc I am a Smol Bean Child both inside and out. No sex happened during the show (see again the Smol Bean Child point), but it was a big part of my backstory and a big part of why I’m suspicious. It’s established that my character, Cherri, is new to Hollywood and has had so many failed auditions that when she auditioned for Eddie (played by Jason the Adorable) and he proposed a casting-couch deal, she agreed (don’t worry--she got evidence of it so she could blackmail him if he stepped out of line), and now she’s got her first lead role in a movie. Also, Cherri started dating her costar Rock (played by Nick the Tol) at the first readthrough for the movie, and that had really fun implications for our cast because 1) Nick is 6′4″ and I’m 5′2″ and Rock & Cherri were supposed to be all over each other all night and she was supposed to be hanging on his arm a lot of the time so for half the rehearsal process my hands were up by my face, then I got 4-inch heels (which were 3 sizes too big for me--ha!) and during the actual show they were closer to my sternum but it was still funny whenever I cuddled him because it was like “here let me nuzzle your elbow, Rock, dearest” and 2) Remember when I said that Jason and Nick are dating each other? They’re the Cutest Cute to Ever Cute and I will fight you on this I get diabetes every time I see them interact out of character but it was really fun to pretend to have slept with both of them when they’re dating each other irl. I think it was our mutual friend & castmate Jamie (a different Jamie than the one who will turn up later) who called it “living the dream” when I told her, and I was only half-kidding when I agreed (It doesn’t help my juvenile brain that Jason is bi, so me dating him is a “plausible” fantasy--dammit brain knock it off).

I’m really proud of all the character work I did, though, and I loved going really deep into my backstories with everyone and with myself (I have a 12-page Word document of stuff I came up with for Cherri and I could easily have done more if we’d had more than 2 weeks of rehearsal), and I loved the guided-improv style of the show (we had less of a script and more of a sequence of events, with really important Here’s-A-Clue lines being scripted, and in between big important “scenes” we mingled with the guests in character but we had so much character work done that it was less like improv, which terrifies me, and more like a real conversation, which terrifies me slightly less). We’d done so much character work that I felt like Cherri was for the most part a full-fledged human, whom I was temporarily inhabiting, rather than a character I was playing, which I’m told is what acting is supposed to be, and it was a blast. There were hiccups, of course--improv’s not my strong suit, and I did sort of procrastinate on memorizing the scripted lines I did have--but it was all still super fun, and the show went really well! 

More miscellaneous memories:

-The time Faith was helping me fix my hair and just looked me in the face and said “Cali, you’re so pretty” and I Melted -The few times people would tell me I looked great in Cherri’s dress (you better know I internalized that shit) -The lift that wasn’t (at the end of the show, after the killer is revealed and apprehended, I’m supposed to leap into Rock’s arms and proclaim him my hero. Remember, Rock is 6′4″, I’m 5′2″, and I’m in a floor-length, close-to-the-legs dress and 4-inch heels that are 3 sizes too big. That ain’t gonna work. So we changed it to a ballroom-dance lift where I’d be on his hip and he’d spin me around then put me back down instead of me being in his arms and kissing him the way the script says (cue sigh of relief because I’ve never kissed anyone before onstage or off and I didn’t want to subject poor Nick to what I’m sure would Not have been a Good Time). Then we tried it in costume and between me not being able to jump in the Hell Heels and Nick not being able to get a steady hold of me, we decided to just cut the lift altogether and just hug each other instead) -The stage fall that wasn’t (nearer the beginning of the show, a kerfuffle is heard offstage: Rock says, “What are you doing? No!” And screams and you hear an explosion and Rock throws himself into the room as though thrown back by the explosion. He pretend-dies and freaks us all out, then reveals that it was a prank and Eddie threatens to fire him for it. When we started rehearsals, poor Nick was understandably apprehensive about throwing himself onto the hard-wood (or whatever the heck that substance is) floor, since he’s so Tol and he says he wasn’t very good at stage falls in Movement (I refuse to believe there is anything this Angel is not good at, but I digress). So we ended up having him crawl onstage as though mortally wounded, which we decided was funnier anyway, since it took so long and was exactly the kind of extra Nick had decided Rock was) -The dumb names that our audience members wrote on the name cards we gave them and with which we had to address them all night (including but not limited to Captain Schmitty Jones, Two-Tap Shakur, Me No, Schnitzel, and Dr. Dixmal--I had fun appealing to “Dr. Dixmal” when Nova died; I looked right at him and said, “You’re a doctor! Do something!” And he Panicked. “Me No” about died laughing.)   >“Me No” later told me that his name came from when everyone was mingling around before the plot really started and Eddie had come up to him and said, “I like your shirt; who made it?” He responded, “Me,” because he had in fact made it himself, and Eddie went, “What’s Me’s last name?” Jamie (“Me No’s” real name) just looked at him and went, “No...” Eddie walked away, muttering “Me No...” And Jamie put it on his name card and that was that. -The audience’s investment in the show and in messing with us   >They had really vocal reactions to both of the deaths and to everything else.   >I was asked point-blank what was in my purse multiple times during the ten-minute window where there was nothing in it but Cherri didn’t know there was nothing in it, so I panicked and said “just lady things,” and that became a meme for the rest of the night, including when we were lined up along the front for questioning and it was brought up again and I kept insisting it was “just lady things” and Jamie (“Me No”) said “It’s okay, honey, we’ve all seen a tampon before” and started a chant of “Lady things! Lady things! Lady things!” Reacting to that in character was an Adventure.   >Jason’s sister and cousin gave all the characters nicknames, which we didn’t discover until the killer was revealed and Jason’s sister shouted, “Billy Ray Cyrus, no!” (I asked them later what my nickname was and they admitted to calling me Cherri Armpit--I expect nothing less)   >When Eddie died, he had the knife that killed him in his hand (he was stabbed in the back, though; clearly homicide) and Rock took it and later used it to threaten Billie when she was revealed as the killer. He pulled it on her and Jamie shouted “Kill her!” Billie took the knife from Rock and threatened him with it while she monologued and Jamie shouted “Kill him!”   >One person called me over while we mingled to ask what my favorite color was (I said red, because my name is Cherri and it Works) and why my dress was red and why I had “lady things” in my purse (“for...I dunno...blood??”).   >A few people asked what was on my recorder after I’d semi-privately threatened Eddie with it and after he’d stolen it from my purse but before I was scripted to reveal it to everyone, so I had to dodge the question and when they asked if I could play it for them, I ended up saying it depended on how Eddie behaved and walking away as mysteriously as I could before they could ask any more questions.   >There were a few instances during the mingling sessions where Billie called me over to insist that I could do better than Rock and several audience members overheard and agreed with her (it pained both me and Cherri to have to defend Rock).   >When Eddie died, he had my recorder in his hand and it was scripted that I go straight for it, and when I did, Jamie yelled at me, “He’s dead, girl!”   >He also challenged Rock to spell motive when Rock was saying he was going to figure out everyone’s motives for killing Nova and Eddie, and Rock stood there for a second before starting, “E...” and I ended up having to feed it to him.   >During one of the mingling sessions, Rock was talking about how smart he was, and to prove it, he said, “Did you know that there are actually two Himalayas? Yeah. One’s in Africa and one’s in Europe.” Eddie overheard him and mocked him for it, and it came back later and Jamie overheard and yelled, “That’s not even a little bit true!” I ended up having to defend Rock again, leading to me looking Eddie in the eyes and saying, “If there’s only one, why is it called the Himalayas?” Cherri was screaming inside her head; she graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr, and this is what she’s doing?    >My friend Gaston came to watch our dress rehearsal, because we needed humans on whom to practice, and I need you to understand before I tell this story that Gaston is Good and Pure and Must Be Protected. When Nova died, it was revealed that she’d prepared an acceptance speech for when Eddie took the lead role from me and gave it to her, and Quinnie had to read it out loud (it was a Cleverly Disguised summary of everyone’s motives to kill her), and it hammered home just how much of a diva she was. So during the subsequent mingling session, I went over to Gaston and said, “I’m surprised she didn’t write anything about how humble she was” (I was supposed to let how smart I really was show upon occasion so that audience members would suspect me). Gaston the Good and Pure responded, “Well, I’m sure she’s humble wherever she is now.”   >There’s a scene where I lose my recorder and accuse Eddie of stealing it because he knew it would get him blacklisted if I played it for anyone, and Rock comes up and asks me what’s wrong, and I’m supposed to say, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Rock. Eddie promised me the female lead if I, well...if I...you know...well, let’s just say that he’s a strong advocate of the casting couch,” and I keep going. But in those pauses on Saturday, our dear friend Jamie took the opportunity to interject, “It’s okay; you can say blowjob.” This guy made it really hard to stay in character sometimes, let me tell you.   >So when Eddie died, he had a blood pack that was supposed to be in his mouth but was too big for him to reasonably conceal it and still be able to bite down on it, so he held it in his hand and broke it with his hand while coughing to make it look like he was coughing up blood. For both the dress rehearsal and the performance, Jason left that blood pack on the floor with the knife that killed him, which he had also been holding, when Nick and Shannah picked him up and carried his “body” offstage. At the dress rehearsal, our test audience was two people and neither of them said anything about the blood pack, but Rock pointed it out and asked, “Is that a used condom? Such a pervert.” (Our blood packs were indeed condoms filled with stage blood and Scotch-taped shut.) For the performance, while Rock and Quinnie were carrying Eddie away, several people asked, “You’re just gonna leave the knife there?” before Rock was supposed to pick it up, and “Captain Schmitty Jones” asked what the blood pack was, to which Rock responded, “It looks like a used condom. Eddie was always a pervert.” The whole room exploded (led by--you guessed it--Jamie), to the point where I almost didn’t hear Billie comment, “Well, I wouldn’t know.” (See it’s funny because she’s gay and therefore doesn’t use condoms--humor)   >After the remaining suspects were lined up and questioned, we asked everyone to write down who they thought was the killer and why, and then before revealing who the killer was, we went over the solutions so we could give prizes for the most and least correct ones. Three separate people submitted that Billie killed Nova and Eddie because she was in love with me (Katherine had decided that Billie was gay, but hadn’t outright told anyone, because the show was supposed to take place in the 1950s), so snaps to Katherine for Quality Acting and letting her character work shine through.   >One person submitted the solution that I had thought was correct when I first read the play: Quinnie killed Nova because Nova knew about Quinnie’s habit of jumping in front of cars and suing the drivers, and Cherri killed Eddie because he had broken his promise to her and given the lead to Nova and then to a random audience member after Nova’s death (and also I decided that it would have been because she hardcore hates Eddie because he’s a scumbag and she hates that she stooped to the casting-couch level and just Angst) -General fun with my fellow actors   >One rehearsal, we didn’t have Katherine, so Jason stood in for her when we had to run over the end of the show, when and after Billie is revealed as the killer. This scene includes Billie being shoved into a chair, forced into handcuffs, and screaming and kicking in frustration after she’s caught. The sounds and facial expressions Jason made were generally adorable and hilarious (he has one sound in particular that can only be written down as “oh!” but is So Much Cuter and that’s the sound he made when Nick shoved him into the chair it was great)   >The script says that Cherri and Rock are very lovey-dovey with each other almost at all times, and that was an adventure at first because Nick is really only lovey-dovey with Jason and I’ve never had an opportunity to be lovey-dovey with anyone so I Don’t Know How, but as the rehearsals continued, we got more comfortable with cuddling each other, and it got to the point where he booped my nose of his own accord and it was Great (is this what human affection feels like)   >When we entered, we all had a quick introductory spiel to give, and in Rock’s, he mentions that he was the lead on a TV show that was cancelled after 6 episodes. The show was called Sky Fling, Pilot PI, and Nick decided to make it a running gag that Rock could never say it right, even though he was the lead in the damn thing. So I made it a running gag that every time Rock stumbled on it, Cherri would say quietly, “Sky Fling, Pilot PI, dear.” To which Nick/Rock responded by patting me on the head and telling anyone who was listening, “She’s so cute when she tries.” And like it was a dick move for Rock, and Cherri hated it, and I’m not usually a fan of being patted on the head (which has actually happened to me before, very condescendingly, and I hated it), but I kinda liked it when Nick/Rock did it??   >Our introductory spiels weren’t in the script; we had to come up with them, and when I improvised mine the first time we did it, it was a bit of a trainwreck, so that night after rehearsal I wrote a speech up and sent it to the director for editing and she said it was great and didn’t need to be edited, so that was Validating as Heck   >Backstory: there’s a scene before Nova’s death when she says one too many rude things about me and I run up and shove her and say, “I heard the horrible things you said about me!” Then she proceeds to continue to be a terrible human being and says loudly enough for the whole room to hear, “We could have even been friends if I hadn’t found you with Eddie in my bed.” I lose it and try to strangle her, shouting, “Take it back!” because this is the first time it’s revealed for the whole audience to hear that I slept with Eddie (this is after I confront him with the recorder, but that’s quiet and only implies that we slept together). So, during one of the last rehearsals, while Rock is monologuing about how Nova’s body had red marks on her neck, so she must have been strangled, I felt someone’s eyes on me and found Billie staring pointedly at me, which was legitimately terrifying, so of course we had to put it into the actual show.   >During the dress rehearsal on Friday, I had a real live good improv moment! During one of our mingling sessions, Billie got fed up with me and said that I was nothing special, because there had been a thousand new, desperate actresses to whom Eddie had given the casting-couch deal. She said to me, “There are a thousand Cherri Pitts out there.” Without even thinking, I innocently tilted my head and said, “No, I’m the only one called Cherri Pitt.” Savannah told me afterward that she had had to physically restrain herself from cackling when I’d said that, so that felt really good.   >The performance on Saturday night was the first time we’d run the killer reveal with actual (plastic) handcuffs, and it turned out to be an adventure. Quinnie spent at least a whole minute, if not longer, trying to get one of Billie’s hands cuffed, and then was struggling so hard with the other hand that Rock had to help her (I desperately wanted to help, but I was supposed to stay on the other end of the room so I could run to Rock all dramatic-and-romantic-like after Billie was cuffed), and when they finally got her cuffed, there was enough time for the audience to applaud just a little, and then Billie tried resisting and yanked herself right out of the cuffs, so I gave up on my blocking and went over there and ended up just hovering uselessly while Quinnie just held Billie in place while Rock gave his triumphant monologue, ending with “Who’s the moron now, Billie Clubb?” Our dear friend Jamie chimed in with “Still you, dude.” I ended up only crossing a couple of feet to declare Rock my hero instead of the whole room. Dramatic.   >So, by now you know that the recorder on which I recorded Eddie’s arrangement with me is pretty dang important to the plot. Well, for the whole rehearsal process, I’d been using my phone as a stand-in for it, assuming we’d have one in the prop closet which we could pull and I would use and it would be great. Not so--the closest thing the prop closet had to a cassette recorder was this big-ass boombox that must have been two feet across and weighed as much as a small dog. For the performance itself, Faith lent me a cassette player she had, and that fit in my purse and it was fine, but for the dress rehearsal, I got to run and get this behemoth for my big reveal for Eddie, and poor Jason had to drag it in with him when he died, and he had to pretend that Eddie hadn’t seen me recording us with it!   >In the ending scene, when it’s revealed that Billie is the killer, she takes the knife that she used to kill Eddie back from Rock and holds Rock at knifepoint while she monologues and explains that Nova’s death was an accident but she meant to kill Eddie 100% and why she didn’t care that Nova was dead and why she killed Eddie and yada yada yada. Then at the end of all that, Rock rushes her and forces her to stab him, and he “dies,” and it looks real and I rush to him and cry over his “body” while Quinnie tries to keep Billie from escaping, and it’s revealed that Rock isn’t really dead, there’s a callback to his first fake death, it’s great. But this onstage death-by-stabbing means that we need a retractable knife. The only retractable knife we have is at least a decade old and on its last leg. So in Billie and Rock’s struggle for the knife during the dress rehearsal, it breaks before Billie’s had the chance to stab the blood bag Rock’s got in his shirt pocket. This means that Billie, panicking a little bit, starts trying to punch his blood bag open before giving up and sprinting off and the show continues as normally as it can. During the actual performance, we used another fake knife which wasn’t retractable, since the retractable one broke, and I couldn’t see whether or not Rock’s blood bag had broken properly because of where I was standing, so just to be sure, when I threw myself onto his body, I made sure to hit the blood bag. This was when I discovered that it had in fact broken and sprayed blood all over Rock just like it had been supposed to do. So I had fake blood on my dress and hands and arms and in my hair, and when I threw myself onto Nick, I heard the poor guy go “oof,” because he wasn’t expecting me to hurl myself on him with that much force. Sorry, Nick.   >So, it’s been established that Eddie, Douchebag Director of the Year, was played by Jason, the Sweetest and Purest Human Being to Ever Grace the Planet. One of the notes he got from Savannah on Friday after the dress rehearsal was to be even sleazier and grosser than ever before for the performance, because when he died, she hadn’t felt like “Good, Eddie’s dead;” she’d gone “Awh, Jason died.” So on Saturday, while we were waiting for people to show up and starting to get into character and all that, this precious bean came up to me and asked in the politest manner you could possibly ask this question if he could slap my ass just to show how sleazy and gross Eddie is. This precious ray of sunshine and purity couldn’t even say the words “slap your [ass/butt/whatever he says, idk];” he had to mime it and say, “you know...” Now, the most intimate thing I’ve ever done with anyone is a Congratulations-On-Doing-Well-In-Your-Show Hug, so I panicked a little bit on the inside, but what I told him was, “It’ll make both Cherri and me really uncomfortable, but it’s 100% in character for Eddie, so yes. Go for it.” He looked unsure because I’d said that it’d make me uncomfortable (the BEAN), but I reassured him that I’d given him permission, so it was okay, and we agreed that he’d do it. So I was on tenderhooks the whole show waiting for that to happen, and then the grossest thing he did the whole show was get really close to me and tell me I looked “ravishing” (which still had my brain going, “Well, mark me down as scared and horny!”) and hug me mock-protectively when Nova called me “tainted goods” (I wasn’t expecting that, and neither was Cherri, and oh boy was it startling). I asked him about the absent ass-slap after the show, and he told me what had happened: there’s a bit where Eddie’s gone for a few minutes and right when we start to wonder where he is, he comes back in with women’s lingerie on over his shirt and pants, and he explains that he wanted to try it because he saw Ed Wood, Jr. do it and because it helps him relax, but he assures the audience that he’s still “all man, all right.” He had been getting closer and closer to me during this bit, and I had walked away to give him room and because I felt like that’s what Cherri would have done, since, you know, she’s slept with this sleazeball and hardcore regrets it and would rather not be closer to him than necessary. Jason told me that he was getting closer to me so that he could slap my ass on the words “all man, all right,” and I had walked away. So that happened.   >Cherri’s supposed to be pretending to be dumb the whole show, with little bits of how smart she really is leaking through at key points, and I was kind of struggling with the dumb act for a while, especially with physicality and voice (bc my voice is v low & I naturally stand up hecka straight, and neither of those things is true for Cherri’s dumb act), but then I talked with the director about just what kind of voice she wanted from me and as she demoed it my brain went MARY KATE WILES AS ANNABEL LEE, so I gave her my Annabel impression and she said it worked great so Cherri’s dumb act was basically Annabel Lee but a little dumber and on the one hand I’m so sorry, MK, that I used Annabel as my basis for a dumb character, but in her defense she’s only pretending to be dumb, and also I got lots of compliments and was told it worked well, so I’m proud of myself and v excited   >On a related note, while I was getting the note that I needed to be dumber, the director told me straight to my face that I naturally walk “very strong and tall, leading with [my] chest,” and like, it wasn’t explicitly a compliment, but it still felt really nice to know that this was a thing she’d noticed about me, and I considered it a good thing (ofc when I’m not playing a character who’s not supposed to do that), and it’s really nice when people tell you things they notice/think about you. idk   >After the show, it was announced that we’re hoping to make the murder mystery dinner theater an annual thing, which is super-exciting because I freaking adore this and wanna do it more (although at this moment I’m still in post-show mode and specifically want to do this show with this cast and director again)   >There was a lot of just chatting with the folks in the cast like actual friends, which was super-fun and still feels really special to me because Socialization Is Not My Strong Suit, nor is Having Real Live Friends With Whom I Interact Face-to-Face, and this entire theater department is filled with people who are all so much cooler than me, so it’s validating as hell when these people actively include me in their conversations and straight-up tell me nice things to my face and it’s clear that they mean it and it feels like they think I’m cool too which just??? Does not compute???? But feels so nice

Sorry about the big ol’ wall of text, but if I hadn’t done this, I would just rant about it for weeks on end and end up telling the same stories a hundred times because I’ve forgotten who’s heard which stories, so here are all of them.

So... yeah.

[crowdvscritic]

round up // JULY 20

New music is saving 2020! This is one of my most music-and-musical-heavy Round Ups yet, not even counting the Beverly Hills Cop theme I’ve been whistling and dancing to around my apartment this week. (Don’t judge���you’ll do it to if you watch any of those movies.) And speaking of movies, I’ve got three new movies from 2020 to recommend! When theatres reopen I might go every week even if there’s nothing I’m excited to see, but I’m thankful for VOD movies to tide me over in the meantime.

July Crowd-Pleasers

This Twitter Thread

I’ve laughed out loud so many times I don’t care if this thread is made up. An anonymous Frenchman is documenting the “adventures” of a British family with a vacation home next door and no clue what Brexit actually means. This journey is a sardonic roller coaster, but I appreciate this tweeter isn’t devoid of empathy.

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

An insanely satisfying legal thriller that will have you shouting at your TV. Matthew McConaughey is a hot shot lawyer who doesn’t care if his clients are guilty, but he starts to reconsider that position with his newest (Ryan Philippe). What seems like a cut-and-dry defense of a man wrongfully accused escalates into so much more. I’ll stay scant on the details so the twists can surprise you as much as they did me. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Summer Jams

2020 has gotten, um, a bad reputation, but I’d like to give it a shout-out for one of the best years of summer pop music in a long time. The last time I remember jamming to this many songs on the radio was 2013, the summer of “Mirrors,” “Get Lucky,” “Roar,” and “I Love It.” Thanks to Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, the Jonas Brothers, and Doja Cat, I keep flipping through radio stations looking for the next new song that will make me bop. Enjoy a round up of my favorite summer songs of 2020 so far on Spotify above.

Focus (2015)

As noted last month, I love when a heist movie can pull a fast one on me. Focus may not be a creative height of either Will Smith’s or Margot Robbie’s careers, but it’s a romantic and funny story of two con artists with just enough plot twists to keep me guessing. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10

Love Crazy (1941)

William Powell and Myrna Loy appeared in 14 movies together, and their chemistry in this zany romantic comedy shows us why. The premise starts with their married characters planning an eccentric anniversary celebration, but somehow it escalates to a legal declaration of his insanity. (Unlike My Man Godfrey, Powell is the comic instead of the straight man this time.) While how we talk about mental health has changed much in the last 80 years, this comedy is so screwball it can’t be taken seriously as commentary. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star in a musical light on songs but huge on charm, laughs, and diamonds. In a perfect world, we would have gotten more musicals directed by Howard Hawks, but if we could only have one, this is proof we’re not living in the darkest timeline. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Double Feature — Very Silly Spoofs: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) + The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

I’m very late to both of the parties for Monty Python (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) and The Naked Gun (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), so all I need to say about these absurd comedies is the hype didn’t ruin them for me.

Fast & Furious (2009)

In a strange turn of events, I finally succumbed to watching all Fast and Furious flicks. (Blame it on quarantine.) While my favorite remains the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw (maybe because it’s so unlike a normal movie in this franchise, sorry), the fourth movie is another highlight. It features one of the best character team-ups before the stunts become hilariously unrealistic and acknowledges some of the moral complexities of the plot, which is surprisingly uncharacteristic for a movie series about, um, criminals. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

Double Feature — Action Crime Movies Based on True Stories in the ‘70s: Donnie Brasco (1997) + The Bank Job (2008)

In, Donnie Brasco (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), Johnny Depp is an FBI agent undercover in the Mob, keeping an eye on Al Pacino. In The Bank Job (Crowd: 8.5 // Critic: 7.5/10), Jason Statham is caught up in an MI6 plot to save political face by breaking into a London bank. Both are tense, twisty, and somehow true.

Jim Gaffigan: Cinco (2017)

While he’s best known for jokes about food, I’ll always appreciate how his self-deprecating jokes are never really just about his appearance or his many children, though he’s funny enough he could get away with that.

Covers by Switchfoot (2020)

Harry Styles! Vampire Weekend! My music tastes past and present collide in this album of bops Switchfoot covered this year.

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

This is really just a plug to watch all three Beverly Hills Cop movies for Eddie Murphy at his funniest, Judge Reinhold at his most underrated, and a score so catchy you’ll be dancing to it for days. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

July Critic Picks

Hamilton (2020)

Who knew? Listening to the Hamilton soundtrack is not the same as watching it in the room where it happens. I reviewed the filmed production with the original cast for ZekeFilm, which was a treat since my May theatre tickets were cancelled. At least we’re not dealing with formal duels in 2020! Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 10/10

Double Feature — Journalism Films Based on True Stories in the ‘70s: All the President’s Men (1976) + Zodiac (2007)

Maybe it’s just because I have a degree in Journalism, but I appreciate a story about a good story. In All the President’s Men (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10), Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are digging into the Watergate scandal at The Washington Post even when no one else thinks there’s anything to investigate. On the opposite coast in Zodiac (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10), Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. are hunting the Zodiac Killer at the San Francisco Chronicle with the help of police officer Mark Ruffalo. This double feature focuses on reporters so committed to their work it comes at personal cost, but it highlights the need for people who are that committed to the truth to make our society function.

Greyhound (2020)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a studio in possession of a good World War II script must be in want of Tom Hanks, and we can always feel the warmest gratitude for any means of uniting them. I reviewed the film Hanks wrote himself for ZekeFilm. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

Dark Waters (2019)

Mark Ruffalo plays a real-life lawyer who helped investigate DuPont and change legislation on chemicals. A different kind of legal thriller than The Lincoln Lawyer, but yet another movie confirming Mark Ruffalo is a treasure. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

These Pieces on How We Interact With Media

I’m a believer in good journalism (see above), so I appreciate when writers do some self-examination on their own craft. I’ve been on an Instagram break the last few months because it’s been contributing to an anxiety spiral re: world events. It’s easy to talk in hyperbole, to complain, and to dehumanize others on the Internet, and I know I’m guilty of all three, so kudos to these writers for speaking on them.

“The Power of Media and Misinformation in the Age of Coronavirus,” DarlingMagazine.org (April 20)

“My Big Old Rant,” SeanDietrich.com (July 10)

“Kanye West and the Media Are Once Again Playing a Dangerous Game,” Vulture.com (July 13)

Brightest Blue by Ellie Goulding (2020)

You might know Ellie for her electro-pop hits, but I’ve always preferred her ballads that let her unique vocals shine. Brightest Blue is another collection of both styles, and it’s another strong outing from one of my favorite singers.

West Side Story by Richard Barrios (2020)

The making of West Side Story is a classic collision between art and commerce. This new Turner Classic Movies book details the many conflicts between the creative team, cast, and financiers to make one of the most beloved musicals and most Oscar-winning films in history, and you might be surprised it made it to the screen at all after reading it.

The Vast of Night (2020)

The Twilight Zone-esque movie is all about some weird happenings over the airwaves in a small town. Two high school students, one a nighttime radio host and the other a phone operator, team up to investigate a mysterious noise they’re hearing. The filmmaking is unconventional but gripping, and the story has major Stranger Things vibes, which is only helped by the fact that one of the stars looks a lot like Sadie Sink. (FYI, her name is actually Sierra McCormick.) Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

folklore by Taylor Swift (2020)

It’s tricky to put into words what new music from Taylor Swift means to me because her words have been part of my life for over a decade and I admire what she shares of her creative process so much. Her unexpected eighth album is nothing like Lover—instead it’s a sonic and poetic continuation of songs and themes from Fearless and RED, her two most sock-me-in-the-gut-and-how-did-you-get-a-hold-of-my-journal collections. Just 11 months ago she released an album I said was her best yet, but I’m saying it again and even faster than last time.

Bonus: Enjoy this piece about the inspiration for her song “Last Great American Dynasty” from St. Louis Magazine.

Westworld (1973)

Before Jurassic Park, Michael Chrichton wrote and directed another sci-fi adventure set at a theme park with a Hunger Games flair. Here we go to a Western-themed resort where almost-human robots serve patrons’ every whim—that is, until they start rewriting their programming.  At least we aren’t dealing with homicidal robot cowboys in 2020! Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10

Also in July…

I wrote a tribute to Olivia de Havilland after her passing at 104. She’s best known as Melanie in Gone With the Wind, but I’ll argue that’s not the best showcase of her talent.

The Best Picture Project continues with Clark Gable! He starred in 1934’s It Happened One Night and 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty, but I’m only recommending one of them for your viewing pleasure. You can scroll a little further back or read the reviews here:

It Happened One Night – Crowd // Critic

Mutiny on the Bounty – Crowd // Critic

On SO IT’S A SHOW?, our pop culture references spanned 250 years with 1976’s Rocky and the 1726 novel Gulliver’s Travels. We found a crazy number of connections between Gilmore Girls actor Milo Ventimiglia and Sylvester Stallone, and we figured out what the hey the word “brobdingnagian” means. 

You can keep up with everything I’m watching in real time on Letterboxd, where I’ve rounded up my favorite journalism films, including All the President’s Men, It Happened One Night, and Zodiac.

Images: Switchfoot, Media, Ellie Goulding, West Side Story. all others IMDb.com.

[quranreadalong]

Notes before we get started

Here’s some stuff you need to know before we actually get into the Quran itself.

ORDER OF THE QURAN

The Quran isn’t in chronological order. Instead, the longest suwar (chapters, singular=surah) are generally in the first half, and the shorter ones are in the second half. No one knows the exact chronological order, as in which of Mohammed’s “revelations” came first, but the suwar are generally divided into Mecca and Medina suwar.

The Mecca suwar were from Mohammed’s earlier years as a “prophet” (610-622 AD), while the Medina suwar were from many years later, after he had gathered followers and established a Muslim base of power in the city of Yathrib, which he called Medina (622 AD+). Some suwar are a combination of “revelations” from both eras! In a small number of cases, it’s hard to tell where/when the majority of a surah came from, but I’ll point those out along the way. As a general rule, the Medinan suwar contain lists of rules and descriptions of events in Mohammed’s own life, whereas the Meccan ones are mostly just Mohammed yelling at people and telling them to stop being polytheists; most are devoid of rule-and-regulation stuff.

The reason why I tend to use the word surah rather than just “chapter” is because of this--suwar that directly follow one another aren’t necessarily from the same time period or concern the same topic. Each one is pretty self-contained. A surah in the second half of the Quran is usually earlier than one in the first half of the Quran.

The Quran is fairly intolerant and extremely repetitive. I’m serious: it is not laid out like a mythological history book like the Torah is, so if that’s what you’re expecting, then... don’t... expect that! It’s just a long collection of Mohammed’s rants. If you have never read it before, and the only thing you know about it is that Muslims believe it is the most beautiful book of all time, please temper your expectations now.

Mohammed’s early “revelations” (ayat, singular ayah) are noticeably more poetic than the later ones from Medina, which are often tedious lists of rules, Biblical stories, and chastisements of The Disbelievers, which get worse and worse. We’ll see that right away in the second surah. Don’t worry, though, it’s not all tedious crap. There’s plenty of interesting stuff to discuss within the Quran’s pages.

Finally, because there are so many suwar and they come from different points in Mohammed’s lifetime, some parts of the Quran seem to contradict one another. But never fear: the Quran contains a handy-dandy provision in which seeming contradictions are resolved by Allah abrogating older ayat/verses with new and “better” ones: the later verse replaces the earlier one. As we go along, we will keep that in mind.

Wikipedia lists two suggested chronological organizations of the Quran, though as you can see, there’s some variation. I’m going to be reading the Quran in its standard order, but I’ll note whether it is an early, middle, late Mecca or Medina surah at each one’s introduction.

THE AHADITH

While Islam requires one to believe that every word of the Quran is true, there is another element to the religion called the ahadith (“traditions”, singular hadith) which are basically collected sayings about Mohammed and his followers. Essentially, if a subject is not directly addressed in the Quran, Muslims turn to the ahadith collections to figure out what is or is not permissible. Allah forgot to mention a lot of stuff in The Perfect Book, apparently. So occasionally I’ll need to link to some ahadith.

The problem, of course, is that many of the ahadith passages are full of shit and blatantly made up. Early Muslim scholars dedicated their entire lives to figuring out which ahadith were reputable, and when I quote a relevant hadith, it will almost always be from one of the two most reputable collections, called Sahih Muslim and Bukhari. Maybe we’ll read some of the collections later, at least the sahih or “strong”/highly reputable ones. My Big Fat Ahadith Read-Along would be…. an experience.

TAFSIR & SIRA & HISTORY

Some things in the Quran are incomprehensible without consulting outside sources that explain what a particular verse is about and what the historical context of the verse is. There is a genre of Islamic literature called a tafsir that collects ahadith relevant to a certain verse, and sometimes I will link to one of several highly-regarded tafsir collections when a part of the Quran requires it.

Every now and then I’ll also bring in excerpts from a sira (a “biography”/hagiography of Mohammed and his followers; the one I'll quote from is by Ibn Ishaq and was written in the 8th century) or a history book (usually al-Tabari’s) for the same reason. It is impossible to read the Quran without referencing these things at some points, because people, places, and events are mentioned but never explained. Understanding the changing situation and power dynamics between Mohammed and his various enemies is also crucial for understanding why the Quran gets progressively more violent and intolerant chronologically.

The tafsir collections, as well as the history and sira books that I link to, occasionally give more than one explanation for a certain verse/incident. When there is historical disagreement about a situation or reason to doubt any of the sources I listed above, I will be sure to mention that.

CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH SOURCES

Much of the Quran involves rehashed stories from Judaism and Christianity--but often the details are strange and don’t come from the Bible/Torah. This is because Mohammed enjoyed collecting and then copying stories he heard from the sects around him, and not all of those stories had any basis at all in the Bible. Some parts of the Quran are clearly pulled from the Talmudic writings of rabbis, while others are clearly pulled from Christian apocryphal texts. I will link to the sources of those non-Biblical stories when they come up.

TRANSLATIONS

corpus.quran.com is my go-to translation site. It lists seven highly-regarded English translations, all side-by-side. I’ll be using the Pickthall translation. In the event that Pickthall’s translation is noticeably different from the others, I’ll make a note of it and explain the controversy over the word in question. (There are some people who will tell you that you cannot read the Quran in any language other than Arabic or else you won’t understand it. These people are full of shit and you can feel free to ignore them. Hundreds of millions of the world’s Muslims cannot understand Arabic. Any debates over the meaning of a certain word also apply to the original untranslated Arabic word. All the translations on that site are regarded as very well-done and scholarly.)

THE HISTORICAL QURAN

Regarding the historical validity of the Quran itself, the content has remained mostly unchanged since the 7th century. There is a debate about how much of was altered between the time of Mohammed and the last years of the 600s AD, but it is generally agreed that the majority of it has remained the same.

There is, however, evidence that during Mohammed’s lifetime, the Quran was a changing document, and some verses were removed from it on Mohammed’s orders, both in the early and late periods of his prophetic career. Some were once believed to be part of the Quran but were later deemed non-revelatory. This is a form of naskh, or abrogation, a concept that is addressed within the Quran itself. The other form of naskh involves a later verse superseding an earlier one, but both remaining in the Quran. We’ll get to all that.

It is less clear whether anything major was added to the Quran after Mohammed’s time. The first written Quran was compiled only after Mohammed’s death, and it wasn’t fully edited and standardized until the time of the third caliph. The written Quran itself also changed over time, as the Arabic script of early Islam was not the Arabic script we use today. For example, diacritics (little dots above or below Arabic letters: ت/t and  ب/b) were not in use in the early days. Identical letters were used for different sounds, which was, as you might imagine, somewhat of a problem. So eventually they were added in to help people read the damn thing. In general it is believed that the addition of diacritics did not alter the meaning of the Quran in any huge way, as the Quran in its verbal forms (there were multiple different ones, though Mohammed said that was fine as long as the meaning remained the same) had already been memorized by several people, but it really isn't possible to know for sure.

We do not know who was the first to compile the Quran into one book, as there are conflicting ahadith on the matter. We do know that one of the first to compile a written Quran was a scribe named Zayd ibn Thabit, who put it together in the year after Mohammed's death by bringing multiple fragments of text together and supplementing it with the assistance of those who had memorized some verses. The caliph Uthman used Zayd's text a base for the “official Quran” and had variant texts burned (a fragment of one surviving older copy is here; it does have some added words, subtracted words, a missing verse, etc compared to the Uthmanic text). It’s generally believed that this is more or less identical to the Quran that we have now, but the earliest surviving near-complete copy that we have dates to the mid-eighth century at earliest. If any significant material was added to or removed from it in the preceding century+, we have no way of knowing it.

(I finally wrote a post on this whole process that u can read here if you want!!)

So we're just gonna ignore those problems, since neither we nor anyone else can answer the questions they bring up. For the purpose of this read-along I’ll be treating every word of the Quran as something Mohammed actually said. Now settle in and get ready to read the most beautiful book of all time.

Without further ado, I present: How To Burn Your Kafir: The Noble Quran

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[monoshah]

Unconventional Abilities To Possess #4

The ability to be alone.

One of the biggest fears we have is the fear of being alone. And, to some extent, it’s obvious why being alone is looked down upon by the society.  We become weird misunderstood outliers that no one wants to have lunch with.  

And so, the minute we see someone have lunch alone, we automatically assume that something’s wrong with them. But.. just maybe, beyond all the invisible scripts and judgements, there lies some solace in enjoying your own company.

Now, before we dive into the perils of being alone, let’s talk about how, being alone is different from feeling lonely.

Simply put- being alone is being without others, while loneliness is a feeling. Its when one feels misunderstood and disconnected from the society.

And, so often, we look down at people who enjoy their own company because we confuse them with being lonely.

So, to start, here’s a major difference between the two.

You can be alone and not feel lonely, while, at the same time,  feel terribly lonely amongst a group of people.

You can have a hundred friends with you, but, if no one ‘gets’ you, you’d feel pretty lonely. This difference also tells us that the other side is possible, where, you can, at times, enjoy your own company and yet, feel connected and understood by a bunch of people.

So, the question now is- Why in the world would being alone be useful?

Because, unfortunately, we’re all fated to be lonely (but, that’s ok).

 Existential Loneliness

The school of life made an excellent case about this (you can watch their clip about this subject here), highlighting some points that do in fact prove that  we cannot escape loneliness.

Here are some of those harsh truths.

-We’re all different: As much as we’d love everyone to connect one hundred percent, the truth is, we’re all different. We’ve been bought up in different environments, raised by different kinds of people (not to forget- who, were themselves bought up in different environments), and have had different experiences.

Thus, we have different opinions, feelings, and approaches to situations. So, it’s highly unlikely that we will ever find someone who will understand us top to bottom, inside out.

And, sadly, what determines whether or not we find these kind of people is luck. Maybe the person who is completely like you attended that social gathering that you couldn’t go to a couple of years ago.

We convince ourselves that the universe determines things, that, ‘whatever happens, happens for a reason’, but, maybe the universe just is. Maybe it doesn’t do anything that affects our lives.  The point isn’t to start regretting missed opportunities, but, to realize that in reality- luck plays a far bigger role than we can imagine.

And, that’s OK (yes, it’s unfortunate, but, it’s OK).

-We don’t always mean what we say: Why? Because we prefer safety, not honesty.  Think about it- do you tell your friends how you really think about them?  Of course not, why would you, if, that would mean abandonment?

Most often, we try our best to not reveal our true desires and feelings to stay polite, civil, and obedient. And, to a greater extent, that is OK. In fact, it’s essential if we want to live in the republic, that is- if we want to work and live with people.

The Happy Philosopher, writes this in one of his posts,

“Nobody can truly understand what it is to be you; not your parents, best friend, therapist or lover. No one can experience the world in the same way you can. No one can fully understand your pain, joy, sorrow, despair, fear, guilt or shame.”

We come close to telling what we mean, we dance around it, but, we try not to, most of the times.

So, what is the silver lining here? If we’re all fated to be lonely and misunderstood, should we even try?

The Silver Lining

Think about the last time you felt lonely, whenever that was, however recent that was, remember it.

At that moment, what did you do?  Did you reach out to a friend or did you try going inwards and got some meaning from your suffering? Maybe that moment helped you get curious, helped you self-examine and learn something about yourself that you would’ve never learned if it wasn’t for loneliness.

So, the answer to the question “Should we even try?”, is a painful, yet meaningful-yes.

We should aim for intimacy and connection because:

#1 Loneliness helps us go beyond words

A mother describes her love to her children by feeding them.

A lover describes his feelings through love-letters and greeting cards.

We get meaning out of our loneliness when we try to close that gap. And, sometimes, a conversation doesn’t let us to that.  We need more that conversations.

Enter- Art.

All throughout history, loneliness is to be praised for creating life-changing art. In her book, Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, Olivia Laing reflects on a period of intense loneliness she endured in New York, after a break-up. To do so, she studied how loneliness helped some artists like Wojnarowicz and Darger (amongst others), create thought provoking pieces of work.

Simply put- loneliness helps us gain depth, perspective, and understanding. It helps us examine our suffering and question what we, as ‘social animals’ really need. And, ironically, once we put all that into works of art (paintings, books, blogs, etc), it soothes us like a balm, by either helping us be kinder to ourselves or, helping us find an answer to our loneliness.

So, the next time you think you feel lonely, maybe, just maybe, the pain will help create meaningful thought provoking art.

And that, will, indeed, close the gap.

#2 Loneliness helps us examine ourselves

Socrates once said that an unexamined life is a life not worth living.

But, what really is an ‘examined’ or an ‘unexamined’ life?

And, why are Philosophers more likely to lead examined lives?

As I mentioned before, we’re all different. Thus, it’s tough for people to understand one another completely. Our perceptions, choices, and actions (things within our full control) are influenced by our psyche, which, is influenced by our past (childhood, adolescence years, high school, etc).

Thus, living an ‘examined life’ would mean understanding these patterns of thoughts and feelings. It would mean being aware of why we act a certain way, why, for instance, do we prefer order vs mess (or, the other way around).

Loneliness thus, painfully forces us to do that. It’s precisely that moment of painful nothingness (when we’re utterly alone), that makes us think about what is hurting us so much. If you’re going through a breakup for instance, and, it’s tough for you to stay by yourself, that itself should give you some insights.

It’s when we sit by ourselves with a blank piece of paper (or word document) and spend some time reflecting, that will help us become better version of ourselves.

#3 Loneliness helps us become Kinder

Only once we spend some time suffering, will we understand others better. Why? Because we’ve been there. We know what its like.

We know how confusing our thoughts and feelings can get. We know how painful it can be when it’s tough for you to say what you really mean (because, you’re scared of abandonment and/or judgement).

And, that is precisely what will help us connect. That will help us close the gap.

So, the next time someone talks to you about how alone the feel, you will not blindly advise them about what to do (because simply beyond words, we know we can’t really experience their pain). Instead, you will assure them that no matter what, you will be there to listen and comfort them.  

The next time someone rants about how ‘stupid’ they feel for getting upset about something trivial, you will tell them that its okay. That, the ‘size’ of human suffering is absolutely relative and the fact that they’re getting upset about it will give them some insight. It will help them live an examined life.

Ironically, the fact that we’re all lonely (or will be at some point in our lives), is what makes us connect. That is precisely what helps us understand one another better.

How To Be Alone

Apart from the fact that we’re all fated to be lonely and misunderstood at some point in our lives, learning to enjoy one’s own company is necessary for things like self-development, productivity, etc.

Regardless, let’s wrap this up and discuss something we can do whilst, we’re alone.

#1 Know that it’s OK to be alone

Friedrich Nietzsche, a German Philosopher, once wrote,

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. 

The very first thing we need to adjust is our mindset. Today, if you tell someone that you’re going to spend the weekend by yourself, you’re likely to get some raised eyebrows. Our society looks down upon people who do so, labeling them as ‘anti-social’.

But, why is that the case when enjoying one’s own company increases our individuality, and helps us find personal freedom?

Sara Maitland, a British Writer, wrote an entire book about it, where, she goes back in time and explores the different attitudes people had about spending time by yourself. She also offers experiments and strategies for overturning our irrational fears of solitude. I highly recommend checking it out.

Thus, once we’ve acknowledged the fact that not only is it OK to be alone (despite societal beliefs), but, actually pretty beneficial, we can now go ahead and actually turn this solitude into something productive and self-developing.

#2 Self-Develop

We’re aware of the fact that after a certain point, our habits make or break us. Well, guess what? This is you opportunity to start integrating those healthy habits into your life. Whether you want to start exercising again, explore the whole meditation trend, or, learn a new language.

You can do anything you like.

That said, we should also make sure that our passion doesn’t blind us. That is, we have to be smart about integrating such habits.  Here are two ways to do that:

- Focus on one Keystone habit: Making habits a routine takes a lot of time. So, instead of aiming to do everything in one day, pick one keystone habit and focus on making that automatic for your mind.

Some examples of keystone habits: Exercising, Meditation, Reading, etc. These are habits that, if done regularly, have the potential of impacting each and every area of our lives. Eating healthy for instance is not only going to make you healthier, but, help you focus on work and feel better.

In his book Power Of Habit, Charles Duhigg mentions something called the Habit loop. This basically outlines how habits work and how, we can tweak them for our own use. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend giving it a try (in any case, here’s a video summary of the book).

- Set a low bar for success: Too often, when we start an activity in an effort to make it a daily habit, we can’t help but set unrealistic expectations. If you’ve never been to the gym, aiming to go 5 days/week at the start is not only tough, but, pretty irrational. Your mind firstly doesn’t have the cue, trigger or reward (hint- the habit loop described above), to do this.

So, start by going just once. Yup, just once a week.

What this essentially means is- if you go once a week, you’ve won. Obviously, you can go as many times as you want, but, your objective is to just go once. Setting the bar so low helps you stay motivated and consistent.

- Gain Time Clarity: Be aware of what times of the day are fully in your control. Why? Because that is precisely where you can practice forming your habits. So, if you work a regular 9-5, anytime before or after is what is fully in your control. You can either wake up early and practice your habits, or, do them after work.

Just know- when it’s “you time”, you have the control over whether or not you let other people get in the way of that.

Focusing our energy on the inside helps us grow from the outside. It helps us not only understand who we are, what our biases are (stemmed from our past experiences),  but, also helps us grow beyond that. So, we can become who we want to be, instead of being victims of our stories.

#3 Schedule Time with Others

A year ago, I was fortunate enough to be in a phase of my life, where, being alone was beneficial. And, although it hurt a little at first (since I was so used to being around people), after some time, I started loving it.

I didn’t have to tell anyone where I was or what I was doing. I wasn’t waiting on anyone and nor was anyone waiting on me. It was the perfect peaceful escape. I started exercising, reading, writing, & meditating everyday.

All was good, until, I started noticing something whenever I was around people.

Social anxiety.

It was like a natural force that pushed me away whenever I was around someone. As if, without them telling me anything, I started having toxic thoughts about how everyone on that dinner table was judging me and my looks.

In simpler words- I’d gotten so much ‘me’ time that meeting with people was tough.  When I say tough, I mean really really tough. Just going out with someone to get coffee was a huge dreadful task.

And that is when I started intentionally scheduling time with other people. It didn’t matter for what, as long as I spent a couple of hours listening and connecting with someone. This is where I learned the importance of people. I learned that people, well.. need other people. We are social animals and in order to find meaning, we have to connect with others.

The point of this story is to tell you that our goal isn’t to be on ends of the spectrum, instead, it’s to find a good balance. So, schedule time with your friends, and even if it feels like the most daunting task in the world- do it. Go to that dinner party. Get coffee with that friend. Go explore. You’ll feel lighter, I promise.

Over To You

Maybe you’re going through something tough in your life right now, or, maybe you need some time to pause and just.. be. Whatever the case, I hope this helped you.

I’ll leave it to Nietzsche to end this post with his words-

In Loneliness, the lonely one eats himself. In a crowd, the many eat him. Now choose.

[waterbottlegrey-blog]

Rant

So, a few bad things happened. This is a blog, so I’m using it as a makeshift diary.

The first project meeting came and went.

It was a barely salvaged disaster. The boss and the director were the leads. My job here as coordinator was just to get people places, do the advertising bits, gather the documentation and signatures, and to translate. The program was not up to me. At all. 

Firstly, several delegations were late. We started two hours late, and the introductions were way too long. Three people didn’t show, beacuse their delegation had car trouble and had to buy last minute plane tickets, so they could only send two. One delegation had to leave in the middle of the event, because the death of a family member and them all coming by one car. Three left early, before the final evaluation that was in the projec recs. The expert speaker we hired didn’t speak about European Union at all, another requirement unfulfiled.

The program was shitty. Too long, too strict. I spent overtime translating everything and then the boss who was leading them around and talking didn’t stick to the script - She insisted on giving the tour in the native language with simultanious translations. And then the other guide that was supposed to read the translations had to do on the spot translating, taking twice as long since her English was halting. People spent an entire day  having to just listen to her. Everyone was exhausted and bored. In the evening, thank witchever deity intervened, a lady said she was quitting the program rather than be ordered around on how to do the project in own home area. There was backpeddaling, and we could actually sit down and talk  awhile, so some work was actually done, because a huge part of the project is intercultural dialogue i.e. people talking and exchanging opinions, not just listening to someone explain what they should think and feel by someone else.

The educational move was blatanty disrespectful, a feature I tried to raise several times during the making of  - and was shushed down and told it was fine because it was art and it artistic interpretation, you wouldn’t know, you’re not an artist. (actual words: I know what I wanted to say so please just do what I tell you because I have no intention to listen to you and argue) The participants pointed it out, of course. We had two actual persons from the places and cultures mentioned, misrepresented, and insulted, and the boss and the director had to actually listen. I jwanted to die when we sat down watching it. I kept thinking I was an enabler and shared the guilt, because I falied to get the point across.

And today. fucking today. the boss finally ancknowledges the film is problematic  AS IF IT’S NEWS TO ME. LIKE I DIDN’T TRY TO TELL HER THAT AT LEAST ON FIVE DIFFERENT OCCASIONS. 

And she said she knows it’s true because it’s backed by the research done by the camera-man. Who, I’d just like to point out, didn’t have an entire course on migrations and global politics.

And then she denied I ever said anything about it, and implied that I can’t know anything she doesn’t because she has an anthropology and ethnology degree. Also, she said she’d wanted to take the anthropological approach to researching the topic from the beginning. And I’m standing there, literally biting my tongue, screaming on the inside: NO, YOU DIDN’T. YOU WROTE A BAD SCRIPT WITH NO REAL RESOLUTION, NO VERSIMILITUDE, NO RESEARCH ABOUT THE TOPIC, OR INTO THE POLITICAL SITUATION OR ANY FUCKING RESEARCH INTO WHAT ACTUAL REFUGEES SAID ABOUT THE PROCESS OF FLEEING AND IMMIGRATING. YOU PUT WORDS IN THEIR MOUTHS TO MAKE A FUNNY PLAY WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A MOVIE THAT WAS EVEN MORE CULTURALLY MISREPRESENTATIVE AND INSENSITIVE. WE HAVE PEOPLE THAT FLED WAR 20 YEARS AGO A PHONE CALL AWAY. YOU COULD JUST ASK THEM AND YOU DIDN’T BECAUSE YOU KNOW BEST, DON’T YOU? BEACUSE GOOD INTENTIONS AND ARTISTIC LICENSE MEAN IT’S FINE TO MAKE REAL PERSON FICTION LIKE THAT. LIKE THAT’S NOT ENOUGH OF A PROBLEM.

Of coure, since I’m a glutton for pain, I opened my fa mouth and very politely said that wasn’t exactly true. And got shut down again. Cause - ‘We weren’t trying to make a documentary, It didn’t need to be accurate.’ ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? IT WILL BE TAKEN AS SUCH, IT’S PRESENTED AS SUCH, ARE YOU SERIOUS?

...Gaslighting is really the worst thing about this job. 

The shit you’ll swallow for money... and to not argue with the person holding your contract. Even if they display a pathological inability to admit they were right or are willing to learn anything that doesn’t fit their world-view.

But hey, we’re re-filming it, so maybe it will be salvaged as just a shitty short film instead of an insulting one! And the next few events are not in her organization in any shape or form, so I can work something out with the organizers to get the requirements of the project we were supposed to do fulfilled there. And the camera-man actually acknowledges I know what the hell I’m talking about, so he asked for some info on the down-low. At this point the best I can do for this project is to give up on being acknowledged as a (sociologist that knows something more than the boss about this topic) and try to salvage it in that way. 

After all , the hired coordinator is a roadie, not a band-member.

But shit, I thought these were good smart people.  

In slightly lighter news, a co-worker left the terarium for the snakes open just enough that the snake could leverege it open and go eat the gerbils. Yeah. And they were such sweeties, too... Not fully grown and so smol, really tame and cuddly. The’d go and nuzzle and nibble your fingers if you just reached your hand in. So now there’s no gerbils and the snake is too freshly fed to use in the mini-zoo.

And I’m an abbetor to fucking misrepresentation. 

But fuck if I’m letting this lie.

The goal is salvage by subterfuge. Wish me luck.

[vrheadsets]

VR vs. Some Very Stern Words

It’s odd what some people get bent out of shape about. Spending your career (I think I can call it that at this point) in an online role means you see plenty of it – and if you’re involved in social media you’re going to see a heck of a lot of it.  You’re also going to get a lot of it too. Over the last decade or so I sort of fell into social media as it rose to be a marketing tool and I’ve had all sorts slung at me down the years. Threats, abuse, slightly too interested in my personal life girls (and guys), people ringing up the office to ask the legal team personal questions about me. The works. So, if you’re gonna call me an idiot just know that, well, I’ve had worse. In fact, I’ve said worse about me myself, so, there you go.

Recently there was an interesting two and eight in the comments about a post where a virtual reality (VR) videogame was announced and someone was very angry it was listed on the ‘PSVR feed’ when it was not a PlayStation VR title. The reason why it was tagged as PlayStation VR was because the developers expressly said they had plans to bring the title to Sony’s headset. News about PSVR? That’ll be tagged PSVR then. Except, they insisted, that was news “not relevant” to PlayStation VR at all. Any title could come to PlayStation VR, so we shouldn’t tag that. It was an interesting argument, one I couldn’t understand for the life of me. The developers expressly mentioned Sony’s headset but it isn’t news about it? Huh?

In the end I apparently failed to explain to their satisfaction that, well, 1 = 1 and we’ll obviously tag a story with whatever it is about. Instead I was a jackass who didn’t know what they were talking about and I should take my “condescending attitude” and “shove it up your Mod ass”. Rather un-phased by the whole thing I just responded that “my ass is glorious and majestic. Thank you for noticing.”

And it is. Very.

All of this got me to thinking about another set of comments we once got on VRFocus. Which had me heading over to YouTube to ‘relive’ what is quite possibly the most epic and, frankly, unhinged rant a channel I’ve had a hand in has ever received.

Now, YouTube is as YouTube does at this point – am I right? Being a channel owner on YouTube is like spinning the wheel on Wheel of Fortune. Who knows, you may have a big hit. At the same time the way YouTube is setup and ever changing its own rules you know there’s the chance all your had work will ultimately be for naught and your channel lost to the ages. It’s felt for a while that YouTube’s ‘Wheel of Fortune’ has been adding more and more ‘bankrupt’ sections as the years roll on. It has also been on a bit of a redesign kick in recent months and a Beta of YouTube Studio is waiting in the wings to fundamentally change the back-end experience for YouTube channels. To that end I got thinking about whether or not the aforementioned rant was still there as I’d been ‘saving it’ for a special occasion.  In that way Social Media Managers always save messages that prove points or are so outrageous as to be something to discuss at later events, panels or what have you.

This rant was particularly special in that it came, of all things, at the expense of the poor Samsung Gear VR. It’s terrible crime? It launched.

Back on November 23rd 2015 we put up the Gear VR Launch trailer aka “It’s Not A Phone, It’s A Galaxy” as Samsung celebrated the launch of their smartphone-based head mounted display (HMD) and showed both it, and some of the Gear VR experiences that you could enjoy at the time, off.

One man though was very, very angry about this and his name was Chua Neng Lis. I know very little about him. He used to work in a plastics factory in or near Minnesota. He also got very upset about North Korea, America and South Korea once on a CNN video, so I imagine wherever he is now he’s been pretty miffed about the last few months. Lis was not pleased about the situation with the Gear VR at all – especially as he seemed to think he’d come up with the idea in the first place.

I should point out that I’ll be posting the message text as is without changing any punctuation, spelling or presentation.

“thats still not virtual reality. your. just. mocking. and. manipalteing. my. ideas.

and. you. think. its. so. fa faaaanny. cause. the. poor man. can. get. wealthy. off. of. the. poor. mans. idea. so. you. stoled. it. from. him. and. kept. the. poor. man. poor. so. you. can. point. fingers. and. laugh. at. the. poor. man. to. do. something. about. it.”

There is of course something to be said about corporations and capitalism and the ability of the rich and poor to earn a fair living, and on reading the first time I honestly thought up until this point that this is what Lis was trying to convey.

“when. i. take. your. brains. out. youll. understand. how. the. world. goes. round.”

Oh. Okay it wasn’t that at all.

That was just the first of nine messages left on the video by Lis which proceed to get more and more bizarre.

“HOE. WAS TELEPATHY. STEALING MY IDEAS FROM TELEPATHY AND TELEPATHY CHANNEL. OH RIGHT. I CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. BUT WAITE. TO KILL YOU AFTER IM DEAD.

AND NOW YOUR TRYING TO STOP THAT. LOL. NOW ASK YOUR GHOSTS THOUGHTS STEALING FROM. YOU. IS IT EASY OR HARD TO KILL ME AFTER IM DEAD. OR ALIVE.”

Whose ghosts? Ours? Samsung’s? I should point out that no he’s not referring to ghosts as in spooks/spies, but actual ghosts. It seems Lis has a BIG thing about ghosts. Also vampires. According to him America is full of cults and vampires. I blame Buffy. She’s slacking off.

“AND THATS STILL NOT VIRTUAL REALITY. YOUR USEING THAT DEVICE TO STEAL MORE IDEAS. FROM PEOPLES BRAINS AND HEADS. EVEN USEING AND STEALING OLD DATA AND INFORMATION. YOU ALL TOOK PART HACKED. AND STOLED. INTO YOUR OWN MINDS BRAINS AND DATA. TO ACT OUT LIKE ITS YOURS. WHEN YOU KNOW IN YOUR BRAIN AND MIND. ITS NOT YOURS. EVEN IF YOU WOULD. “LIKE”. TO THINK SO.

OH YEAH. ASK YOUR GOVERNMENT. “GHOSTS”.

THEY KNOW I CAN KILL YOU. USEING THAT DEVICE.

NOW HOW ABOUT THAT ARE YOU GOING TO STEAL. AND UPLOAD WHAT I JUST SAY AND SAID. AND MY BRAIN. UP TO THAT DEVICE ALSO TO. CONTROL AND KILL THOSE PEOPLE AND MINDS.”

He can kill ghosts with VR? Literal ghosts working for or with the Government?

“yeah i can kill you with that device of yours. AND IM NOT JOKEING.”

Well, that clears that up at least.

“MISTAKES. ARE MADE. AND PROBLEMS. HAPPEN. AND YOU DONT THINK. I DONT ENJOY OR HAVE FUN. KILLING PEOPLE ON MY OWN. LOLOLOL.

YOU SHOULD LOOK UP YOUR NEWS MEDIA FEEDS. AND HOW MANY DEATH IS OCCUREING. DEFINETLY NOT YOU HOOKING ME UP. ITS YOU HOOKING YOUR SELVES UP. TO. SOMETHING. THATS KILLING YOU. AND WAITEING. WAITEING TO JUST NAB YOU AND KILL YOU RIGHT AFTER. YOUR BRIGHT IDEAS AND SHOWS. ^_^. NOW WHOS WATCHING AND LISTENING TO ME OVER THIER. HRMMMMMMMMMM.”

Yoda’s changed a lot over the years, hasn’t he?

“HONESTLY THOSE GHOSTS GIVEING YOU IDEAS. AINT SAVEING YOU OR YOUR ASS.

YOU CANT CONTROL THEM. THIER CONTROLING YOU.

LOL. CANT HELP YOU THIER BRUHHH. YOU CANT STOP THEM. LOL.”

So if you’re keeping track on this and I can’t blame you if you’re not. Either we, Samsung or the American Government (I assume) are in league with the undead who are stealing minds potentially via VR which isn’t VR and he invented it.

“NOW. WHO CAN STOP THEM. THAT YOU HEARD. YELLING AND TALKING ON TELEPATHY CHANNEL. HRMMMMMM. 2013. was. the. DATE. LOOK IT UP YOUR SELF. I HAVE THE SECRET CODE TO KILL YOU YOUR CULTS RELIGION GOVERNMENT AND RACE OFF. AND YOU THINK. YOUR GOING TO BE RECORDEING MY THOUGHTS ON TELEPATHY.”

Well, no… I mean you’re kind of telling everyone your thoughts via a YouTube comments section. Not really the same thing as telepathy.

Incidentally though reader, those thoughts you’ve been having? Demonetised.

“NOW HRM HRM HRM. WHY WOULD YOU GO AND SAY THAT. YOU CANT EXTRACT THOUGHTS YOUR SELVES. AND WORSHIPING A GHOST TO.

HOW ARE THOSE GAY CULTS. AND GAY VAMPIRES AND VAMPIRES TREATING YOU. HUNTING THEM DOWN VERY WELL. ARENT WE.”

Ah, there are the vampires I mentioned earlier. And yes, he also has something of an issue with homosexuality too. Because clearly we needed some issues with homophobia in the rant as well.

“ALSO YOUR STEALING MY MORES CODE FROM ME. STEALING FROM. TETRIS. AND. ASIANTOWN.NET.

EVEN MY PERSONALITY MORE CODE. WHERE I CREATED MULTIPLE PERSONALITYS. HRMMMM. NOW WHERE AND HOW DID YOU GET THAT FROM. HRMMMMMMMMM. FOR SURE YOU KNOW YOU STOLED. IT. AND FOR SURE. YOUR PLAYING THE BLAME YOUR SELF TO CLAIM GAME. NOT YOURSSSSS. FOOO.”

Yeah, foo. That L block’s got it coming.

“yeah,. to. bad. you. couldnt. kill. me. and. interrupted. my. cause.

AND NOW YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH IT. KNOWING. I WILL KILL YOU ALL OFF. FOR GOOD. AND HUMANITYS SAFETY. BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN RULES AND LAWS. YOU STATED. ON TELEPATHY CHANNEL. AND IN YOUR MOVIE SCRIPTS SCRIPTS. AND DOCUMENTS. ABOUT ME. AND MY KIND. AND PEOPLE.”

Well, er, I think killing us all off because Gear VR launched is a bit over the top. I mean, why can’t you just write a grumpy petition on Change.org?

I won’t go into the next bit too much because he just descends into ranting about whoever his targets are at this point being gay and getting their comeuppance (I guess?) by being violated by the supernatural. Needless to say, it all comes to a universe redefining climax with the inadvertently hilarious phrase-

“SPIRITS. UP THE BUTT HOLE FOR YOUU. FOO;”

And to prove I’m not making this all up…

Yes, these did get reported by the way and I’m very much hoping someone got to speak to them.

But when you get upset with me or us online just bear this in mind: I’m really not that phased, and that’s because honestly you are not in the same league as someone like this guy. Hell, you aren’t even in the same dimension, probably. And here you were thinking people getting bent out of shape over exclusivity periods was over the top.

More FOO you.

from VRFocus http://ift.tt/2EDAmxe

[rastagong-tearoom]

Serving of Tea #3: What’s an epistolary VN anyway?

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the tearoom again! Please enjoy today’s serving, I hope it will warm you up in this cold time!

This serving should have been offered several weeks ago already, but current real-life circumstances haven’t left me with much time to do VN related work.    (Well, in truth, I could have found the time somehow, but… Sometimes it’s wiser to actually relax during free time, instead of spending it on more side work.)

Anyway, here are the latest developments, even though they’re almost a month old now!

I’ve done a small share of scripting on Sylvan Disappearance. The end is not any near yet, but I would say it is in sight? And that’s very uplifting to me.

Though scripting is becoming easier and easier, I’m still trying to pace myself, and not to rush through the process. I'm paying more and more attention to the general atmosphere and coherence of the story, since I’ve got to a point where it all starts to come together. This mostly means that I constantly worry that no scene is any good in the end. It’s not the final editing pass yet, but I feel like the moment to start polishing the edges has come!

It is not on scripting that I spent most of my time, though, but rather on the UI and on the epistolary phase of the story!

I had put off working on both for a long, long while.

The user interface

The UI is usually held to be to be a key part of the presentation of a VN. It can easily set the mood from the very title screen. There’s only one problem: I’m not convinced by the utility of polishing the user interface.

I obviously appreciate beautiful and expressive interfaces as much as anyone, and certain key screens like the textbox, the game menu and the title screen do need to be expressive. However, I worry about the fact that highly polished UIs are becoming a minimum requirement for all visual novels, even free ones. More broadly, I think the increasingly high production values of indie VNs and the drive to “polish” can restrict the range of creative expression in the medium. (You may have seen me ranting about this on another social network. I think I’ll just write another blog post focused on this topic next time.)

But anyway, as of now, customising the UI of a VN matters a great deal, so I finally took some time to improve the UI, and I’m reasonably satisfied with the end result!

I particularly spent time on reworking the splashscreen (not pictured here), and I think you’ll like it!

The title screen and the game menu were already pretty much done, but I'm finally satisfied with them.

The epistolary component

The epistolary component of the story is, well, very much at the core of Sylvan Disappearance. “This is going to be an epistolary visual novel” was among the first things I thought of for this project. When I started to draft the story, I had probably conceived more details about the way the epistolary component would work than specific storyline developments.

As the synopsis explains, Sylvan Disappearance is in part an epistolary novel, because Mirabelle receives letters, and replies to them. A good half of the narrative is contained within those letters, though there are also segments external to them.

Usually, epistolary novels frame the narration as a succession of letters or documents presented linearly. You read the letters from a character to another (Goethe’s Werther), the entire correspondence between a few characters (Les liaisons dangereuses), or even a succession of loosely-related documents (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Call of Cthulhu to a certain extent). When writers reuse this framing in interactive fiction and games, it becomes much more dynamic. Indeed, through interactivity, the player can virtually embody the narrator who explores a set of documents or letters within the setting.

There’s a loosely-defined subgenre of interactive fiction which relies on this framing, because it offers very interesting possibilities to present a narrative, especially mysteries. In the visual novel format, Christine Love's Hateful Days series relies on a virtual databases of letters, diary entries and logs from a futuristic society that the player explores to understand the reasons of its demise. Her work has been hugely influential on a number of other works, like A Normal Lost Phone, where the player navigates around the virtual interface of a lost mobile phone to find its owner, or Her Story, where the players watches hours of recorded interrogation by the police to solve a crime. (Other iterations of a slightly different kind, like Mystic Messenger or Bury Me my Love, put the framing of narrative documents in the present tense through instant messaging, making the player respond to messages in real time.)

All these stories present their set of documents, logs and letters with the same device, a virtual interactive screen, itself contained within the game. This device can be compared to the framing layer of epistolary novels, where the letters are themselves read by characters within the storyline. In the same way, these interactive works have the player explore documents through databases, computers and interfaces which are contained within the setting of the game.

Sylvan Disappearance uses a virtual screen too, but more artificially: the screen is a mere substitute for a more manual process, that of reading and replying to hand-written letters. The goal of this epistolary screen, as I call it, is to embody the process as seamlessly as possible, for the narrative to proceed smoothly.

I had already programmed a functional mockup before starting scripting, but it was not graphically polished yet, and offered no kind of explanation for the player.

I have taken some time to polish it, and it is finally complete! Without waiting any further, here are a few previews:

As you can see, letters are represented by coloured sheets of paper. The colour indicates the status: red letters are still unread, orange letters await a reply, blue letters have been read and replied to. In the end, it looks like a basic webmail interface…

As for the way it works: The story follows Mirabelle through snippets of her life in a seaside city, at work, with her friends, and so on. At the end of any such day, Mirabelle comes home, picks her mail and finds one or several new letters on her desk. This is the epistolary phase. She must then read the letters, and reply (replying being automatically done). It is possible to re-read any previous letter at any time, which will probably come useful at certain points.

I’m honestly very satisfied of the epistolary screen from a technical standpoint! It took…… a lot of time to get it right. Not so much for the screen itself, but rather to organise the way it works within the script in a clean, coherent and readable manner.

Here are a few of the challenges I encountered, if you do not mind technical discussion:

Organising letter data. Each letter has both immutable metadata, which never change, like “who sent it” and “when”, but also a number of status flags like “unread” or “awaiting a reply” which do change in the course of the story. They had to be cleanly separated so that the status flags would be saved by Ren’Py, while the metadata would just be available as constants at any given time. In the end, letters have their own custom class with attributes for the status flags, while metadata are represented by Python namedtuples generated at initialisation, and added as attributes as well.

Compartmenting the narration of each letter into independent Ren’Py labels so that any letter could be re-read. Replies also required independent labels. Smoothly transitioning from the epistolary screen to the narration of a letter and back, handling the status flags, the music… it all required a surprising amount of code.

I had to write a number of short tutorials to introduce certain features of the screen, and to script a hook which could trigger them at the right moment. Also, a help menu to replay the tutorials.

Dealing with rollback and saving during the epistolary phase was hell and I do not believe I could summarise the matter at all in less than 500 words. But now it works as smoothly as intended, phew.

It was not as bad as it sounds! I really enjoyed working on this whole system.

I won’t be writing more in-depth descriptions of it, but I do hope it can be useful to other VN devs. The code of the game will probably be open sourced at release, and I’ve tried to put comments everywhere in the code to make everything readable. I could also make a standalone tutorial detailing everything about the entire screen? Feel free to ask if you would be interested in such a thing!

Thanks for reading this long and technical update. I’m not sure of when I’ll be able to get back to VN dev properly… but the end is getting closer and closer. See you next time!

[junker-town]

THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, where Oklahoma State fans call for Mike Gundy’s mullet’s job

Also in the weekly roundup of post-Saturday internet angst: a dying man wishes for Arkansas to fire Bret Bielema, and Florida State fans want their .800-winning-percentage coach gone.

College football’s Week 4 was busy. It didn’t have any colossal upsets, but it had some surprises and a few brushes with chaos. Here’s how the internet responded, seen through the lens of five defeated fanbases whose online scenes I’ve toured.

Oklahoma State

Lost to TCU, 44-31, in a home upset. Someone proposed drastic consequences: the cleaving of head coach Mike Gundy’s immaculate mullet, a fixture since last year.

Let’s begin at the OrangePower.com message boards.

Thread: Time To Cut The Mullet, Coach

Okay. We get it. The Mullet took started as a joke, then took on a life of it's own.

That's great marketing --- when you're undefeated and riding the crest of a popularity wave.

But now you've gotten you a** kicked on national tv. You were beotch-slapped by a better game day coach that took you and your team to the woodshed.

The score was closer, but the game was a disaster.

But this isn’t strictly punitive. The poster thinks Gundy could stand to focus more on other things more productive to OSU’s mission if he gets rid of the haircut:

So, it's time to take a new focus -- one on the team not on your current media popular hairstyle.

Trim the mullet. Put the attention on improving the defense instead of your hair and lifestyle. The public loves it when you're winning, but when you're losing -- it doesn't care.

It was fun while it lasted, but now it's time to cut the damn thing.

This suggestion was met with widespread agreement. One poster couldn’t believe Gundy had lost to “a stupid visor wearing mf’er” like TCU coach Gary Patterson.

Someone sums it up:

Time to be business in the front, and back.

Another Pokes fan thinks Gundy needs to stop hunting turtles.

We’ve known for a while that Gundy hunts rattlesnakes:

Rattlesnake hunt in Okeene, OK with Todd and Wild Bill. http://pic.twitter.com/0SqWb9LxFk

— Mike Gundy (@CoachGundy) March 17, 2017

But a few weeks back, Gundy said he likes hunting turtles, too.

“They’re really good. When they know you get around them, they jump in the water,” Gundy said. “And so you got to kind of sneak up on them a little bit. At my place, we have quite a few of those off-road vehicles, called Gators. And so they’re accustomed to the sound of the Gator. So if you drive a Gator by, they won’t move. They’ll stay there. But if you walk up on them, you can’t very close to them because they’re too smart. They’ll jump in the water. So we used the Gators as our friend and try to keep as many turtles as we can out of the ponds because they eat your fish.”

Thread: How about a little less turtle hunting

and a lot more team preparation.

I wanna circle back to the mullet thing. So many OSU fans are directly reaching out to Gundy to tell him it’s time to get a haircut.

Cut the mullet @CoachGundy

— Emily Falkenberg (@Emilypfalk) September 23, 2017

Time to cut the mullet @CoachGundy #osuvstcu #ridiculousgame

— Jill Kimbrough (@jillkimbrough) September 23, 2017

Here’s Gundy getting told off by a couple of fans after tweeting appreciation for a group that brings seriously ill children to sporting events:

Cut the mullet

— Shane Wilde (@noShandlebars) September 24, 2017

Time the let the mullet go. Business in the front & back!

— Manscape & Massage (@ManscapeMassage) September 24, 2017

Cut your hair and donate half your salary back to Oklahoma teachers. Be a man. You are over paid

— My Info (@shirlmatlock56) September 24, 2017

“Be a man,” on the 10-year anniversary week of the “I’m a man” rant, no less.

Florida State

Lost 27-21 to NC State, falling to 0-2 and out of the AP Poll while the other team’s best player stopped to drop a loogie on the Noles’ logo.

The loss dropped Jimbo Fisher to a measly 78-19 at FSU, and he still just has one national title in eight-plus seasons, and there might be one, two, or even three coaches in the country slightly better than him.

Let’s see how Noles fans responded!

Here’s a gentleman screaming that Fisher’s overpaid and that his defensive coordinator, Charles Kelly, should be fired:

Can we fire jimbo fisher please! @FSUFootball

— Jonah Pate (@PateJonah) September 23, 2017

Jimbo Fisher is garbage . Fire him @FSUFootball

— Brad Dozier (@b_dozz) September 23, 2017

Let’s scoot on over to the message boards at Noles247.

Thread: Fire them all

Thread: Jimbo is a JOKE

So soft..not a Bowden bone in him.He’s just becoming noise.When u have more talent just play ball.why does he think he can win games 17-14 with this OL,DC and his play calling??...u just get tired watching this.

Thread: Fisher and whole staff need to be fired.

Totally inept and we will never be back to Playoffs with him. Only way to retain him is if he does what Dabo does, go get great coordinators, and then get out if their way and just be a cheerleader and recruiter. But, dumbo is to stubborn to do that,

FSU has made one of the three Playoffs that have ever been played. It’ll miss this year’s, which will drop Fisher to a mere .250 all-time Playoff participation rate.

Some people had a more pensive, chill attitude about everything.

Thread: I Don't know why Everyone's So Pissed Off That We Suck

So we suck. Who cares? Grow up.

Same:

Thread: I'm just here for the meltdown.

Love reading all the meltdown threads. My favorite part is when another team has a meltdown and everyone is so quick to point and laugh like it's beneath them. Who should we fire today fellas??? Maybe even shut program down at this point.

Boise State

Lost at home to Virginia, 42-23. Virginia! 42-23!

How does the commentariat feel about head coach Bryan Harsin, an alum who’s now fallen all the way to 40-16 all-time as the Broncos’ head coach?

To Boise’s Scout.com message board we go.

Thread: What does the buyout look like

Thread: Is this the darkest moment.........

for Boise State football in the 21st century or has it been worse? I am just not accustomed to seeing what I am seeing.

One message board poster, screen name zagco, had a specific demand.

Thread: Fire Brian Harsin!

Zagco is going to start a website!

Merely a half-hour after that plea, zagco said zagco was signing off altogether.

Thread: Goodbye BroncoCountry

Zagco is totally done with Boise State football until Harsin is gone. No more posts.

A short while later, another board poster was offering to buy the domain name firebryanharsin.com (for 25 percent off!) if someone else on the forum agreed to help manage the page. But another poster suggested a simpler solution:

Just create a fire Bryan Harsin Facebook page. It's free

To which the solicitor replied, “Good call.”

The Fire Harsin Facebook page doesn’t appear to be active yet. But!

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.10"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));

Fire Bryan Harsin! Hire Les Miles!! Boise State so not the same

Posted by Nick Olsen on Friday, 22 September 2017

That is, if they can keep Les Miles away from the Nebraska AD job.

Kentucky

Lost 28-27 to Florida when its defense literally forgot to cover a receiver. That made 31 consecutive losses to UF, many of them in painful fashion.

But was this crushing to the program?

On the one hand, there’s a thread on UK’s Rivals board that’s titled, “Last Night Not Crushing to the Program.”

On the other, there’s another thread that’s titled, “Hard to overstate how crushing this is to the program.”

Here’s an exceptionally dark metaphor about Kentucky football in general.

Thread: Kentucky Football Reminds Me Of

The fable of the turtle and the scorpion. The gist of it is the scorpion wanted to ride the turtle across the river and promised he wouldn't sting the turtle if he gave him a ride. The turtle reluctantly agreed to take the scorpion. Halfway across the river the scorpion stings the turtle. The turtle asks, "why did you do that? Now we will both drown." The scorpion replies, "it's just my nature."

The Kentucky football fans are the turtle. The football team is the scorpion. No matter how much you expect something bad to happen, you reluctantly believe everything will be fine. So you go along for the ride and get your hopes up only to have it sting you and you sink to the bottom. That is how Kentucky football feels to me.

Here’s a Reddit thread I just figured I’d drop in full.

Slightly NSFW:

Arkansas

Lost to Texas A&M in overtime, like it does every year.

One fan says his near-death grandfather wants Bret Bielema fired before he dies.

@ClayTravis From Arkansas message board.. Amazing #hogs http://pic.twitter.com/nWzdQioLzM

— Jared Roll (@jroll918) September 23, 2017

Arkansas fans are less than stoked about their head coach and athletic director.

Let’s peruse Hogville.net for a few minutes.

Thread: Economical Solution to Our Problem

Replace AD Jeff Long with Wisconsin’s Barry Alvarez, who has worked nowhere other than Wisconsin since 1990. It’s an airtight plan.

Fire Long. Hire Barry Alvarez. Alvarez is making $1.125 million at Wisconsin. BB can be Alvarez's boy again, do as he is told, and regain his former level of highish mediocrity.

Thread: Go away BB

BB please go away. You are the worst coach we have ever had. Our program and state deserves better and Ws matter.

Also, there are multiple people worried that Arkansas will lose next weekend to New Mexico State. Yet another overtime loss to Aggies?

Is there a GoFundMe to pay Bielema’s massive buyout, currently north of $15 million?

Hell yeah there is.

The fundraiser, Austin Johnson, writes:

It's safe to say that Bret's time here should be over, however, Jeff Long has made this difficult with the lucrative 15.5 mil buyout, let's end this misery ourselves

Does the GoFundMe have any actual donations?

No, of course not.

So, any other solutions to make Arkansas competitive in the SEC West?

None better than this:

@jefflongUA How about Jimmy Johnson! Played for Razorbacks, won National Championship and also Super Bowls.

— Todd Naccarato (@todd_naccarato) September 24, 2017

[oselatra]

The Foilies 2017

Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency. A thick fog is rolling in over Sunshine Week (March 12-18), the annual event when government transparency advocates raise awareness about the importance of access to public records. We are entering an age when officials at the highest levels seek to discredit critical reporting with “alternative facts,” “fake news” slurs, and selective access to press conferences—while making their own claims without providing much in the way to substantiate them. But no matter how much the pundits claim we’re entering a “post-truth” era, it is crucial we defend the idea of proof. Proof is in the bureaucratic paper trails. Proof is in the accounting ledgers, the legal memos, the audits, and the police reports. Proof is in the data. When it comes to government actions, that proof is often obtained by leveraging laws like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state-level public records laws—except when government officials seek to ignore the rules to suppress evidence. At the same time, this is also par for the course. As award-winning investigative reporter Shane Bauer recently posted on Twitter: For the third year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation presents “The Foilies,” our anti-awards identifying the times when access to information has been stymied or when government agencies have responded in the most absurd ways to records requests. Think of it as the Golden Raspberries but for government transparency, where the bad actors are actually going off script to deny the public the right to understand what business is being conducted on their behalf. To compile these awards, EFF solicited nominations from around the country and scoured through news stories and the #FOIAFriday Twitter threads to find the worst, the silliest, and the most ridiculous responses to request for public information.

The Make America Opaque Again Award

President Donald Trump

A commitment to public transparency should start at the top. But from the beginning of his campaign, President Trump has instead committed to opacity by refusing to release his tax returns, citing concerns about an ongoing IRS audit. Now that he's been elected, Trump's critics, ethics experts, and even some allies have called on him to release his tax returns and prove that he has eliminated potential conflicts of interest and sufficiently distanced himself from the businesses in his name that stand to make more money now that he's in office. But the Trump administration has not changed its stance. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, the American public should be outraged that we now have the first sitting president since the 1970s to avoid such a baseline transparency tradition.

The Hypocrisy Award

Former Indiana Governor—and current Vice President—Mike Pence

Vice President Mike Pence cared a lot about transparency and accountability in 2016, especially when it came to email. A campaign appearance couldn't go by without Pence or his running mate criticizing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for using a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. In fact, the Foilies honored Clinton last year for her homebrewed email approach. But Pence seemed much less bothered by those transparency and accountability concerns when he used a private AOL email address to conduct official business as Indiana's governor. The Indiana Star reported in February that Pence used the account to communicate "with top advisors on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe." That means that critical homeland security information was kept in an account likely less secure than government accounts (his account was reportedly hacked too), and Pence's communications were shielded from government records requirements.

The Frogmarch Award

Town of White Castle, Louisiana

The only thing that could’ve made reporter Chris Nakamoto’s public records request in the small town of White Castle, Louisiana a more absurd misadventure is if he’d brought Harold and Kumar along with him. As Chief Investigator for WBRZ in Baton Rouge, Nakamoto filed records requests regarding the White Castle mayor’s salary. But when he turned up with a camera crew at city hall in March 2016 to demand missing documents, he was escorted out in handcuffs, locked in a holding cell for an hour, and charged with a misdemeanor for “remaining after being forbidden.” What’s worse is that Nakamoto was summoned to appear before the “Mayor’s Court,” a judicial proceeding conducted by the very same mayor Nakamoto was investigating. Nakamoto lawyered up and the charges were dropped two months later. “If anything, my arrest showed that if they’ll do that to me, and I have the medium to broadcast and let people know what’s happening to me, think about how they’re treating any citizen in that town,” Nakamoto says. 

The Arts and Crafts Award

Public Health Agency of Canada

Journalists are used to receiving documents covered with cross-outs and huge black boxes. But in May 2016, Associated Press reporters encountered a unique form of redaction from Public Health Agency of Canada when seeking records related to the Ebola outbreak. As journalist Raphael Satter wrote in a letter complaining to the agency: “It appears that PHAC staff botched their attempt to redact the documents, using bits of tape and loose pieces of paper to cover information which they tried to withhold.  By the time it came into my hands much of the tape had worn off and the taped pieces had been torn. Even the wryest transparency advocates were amused when Satter wrote about the redaction art project on Twitter, but the incident did have more serious implications. At least three Sierra Leonean medical patients had their personal information exposed. Lifting up the tape also revealed how the agency redacted information that the reporters believed should’ve been public, such as email signatures.  The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said it would investigate, but Satter says he hasn’t heard anything back for 10 months. 

The Whoa There, Cowboy Award

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke rose to prominence in 2016 as one of then-candidate Donald Trump’s top surrogates, prone to making inflammatory remarks about the Black Lives Matter movement, such as calling them a hate group and linking them to ISIS. But the press has also been a regular target. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Political Watchdog Columnist Daniel Bice filed a series of records requests with the sheriff’s office, demanding everything from calendars, to details about an NRA-funded trip to Israel, to records related to a series of jail deaths. So far, Clarke has been extremely slow to release this information, while being extremely quick to smear the reporter on the sheriff’s official Facebook page. Clarke frequently refers to the publication as the “Urinal Sentinel” and has diagnosed Bice with “Sheriff Clarke Derangement Syndrome.” “I deal with open records requests with local governments and police departments, I do it at the city, county, and state level,” Bice says. “He’s by far the worst for responding to public records.” In May 2016 Clarke published a short essay on Facebook titled, “When Journalism Becomes an Obsession.” Clarke claimed that after he rejected Bice’s request for an interview, Bice retaliated with a series of public records requests, ignoring the fact that these requests are both routine and are often reporter’s only recourse when an official refuses to answer questions. “This lazy man’s way of putting together newspaper columns uses tax-paid, government employees as pseudo-interns to help him gather information to write stories,” Clarke wrote. Memo to Clarke: requesting and reviewing public records is tedious and time-consuming, and certainly not the way to score an easy scoop. If anything, ranting on Facebook, then issuing one-sentence news releases about those Facebook posts, are the lazy man’s way of being accountable to your constituents.

The Longhand Award

Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz

A local citizen in Portland, Ore. filed a records request to find out everyone that City Commissioner Amanda Fritz had blocked or muted from her Twitter account. This should’ve been easy. However, Fritz decided to go the long way, scribbling down each and every handle on a sheet of paper. She then rescanned that list in, and sent it back to the requester. The records did show that Fritz had decided to hush accounts that were trying to affect public policy, such as @DoBetterPDX, which focuses on local efforts to help homeless people, and anonymous self-described urban activist @jegjehPDX. Here’s a tip for officials who receive similar requests: all you need to do is go to your “Settings and Privacy” page, select the “Muted accounts” or “Blocked accounts” tab, and then click “export your list.”

The Wrong Address Award

U.S. Department of Justice

America Rising PAC, a conservative opposition research committee, has been filing FOIA requests on a number of issues, usually targeting Democrats. Following Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing, the PAC sent a FOIA to the Attorney General seeking emails referencing the death. But America Rising never received a response acknowledging the DOJ received the request. That’s because the DOJ sent it to a random federal inmate serving time on child pornography charges. The offender, however, was nice enough to forward the message to the PAC with a note railing against the “malicious incompetence” of the Obama administration.

The Redaction of Interest Award

General Services Administration

One of the threads that reporters have tried to unravel through the Trump campaign is how the prolific businessman would separate himself from his financial interests, especially regarding his 30-year contract with the federal government to build a Trump International Hotel at the location of the federally owned Old Post Office in D.C., a paper airplane’s flight from the White House. BuzzFeed filed a FOIA request with the General Services Administration for a copy of the contract. What they received was a highly redacted document that raised more questions than it answered, including what role Trump’s family plays in the project. “The American taxpayer would have no clue who was getting the lease to the building,” says reporter Aram Roston, who was investigating how Trump failed to uphold promises made when he put in a proposal for the project. “You wouldn’t know who owned this project.” After pushing back, BuzzFeed was able to get certain sections unredacted, including evidence that Trump’s three children—Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric—all received a 7.425% stake through their LLCs, seemingly without injecting any money of their own.

The Fake News Award

Santa Maria Police Department

In 2015, the Santa Maria Police Department in California joined many other agencies in using the online service Nixle to distribute public information in lieu of press releases. The agency told citizens to sign up for “trustworthy information.” Less than a year later, police broke that trust. The Santa Maria Police posted to its Nixle account a report that two individuals had been arrested and deported, which was promptly picked up the local press. Months later, court documents revealed that it had all been a lie to ostensibly help the individuals—who had been targeted for murder by a rival gang—escape the city. Police were fiercely unapologetic. The agency has yet to remove the offending alert from Nixle or offer any kind of addendum, a direct violation of Nixle’s terms of service, which prohibits the transmission of “fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading communications” through the service.

The Stupid Meter Award

Elster Solutions, Landis+Gyr, Ericsson

In May 2016 several smart meter companies sued transparency website MuckRock and one of its users, Phil Mocek, in a failed attempt to permanently remove documents from the website that they claimed contained trade secrets. Some of the companies initially obtained a court order requiring MuckRock to take down public records posted to the site that the City of Seattle had already released to the requester. But in their rush to censor MuckRock and its user, the companies overlooked one small detail: the First Amendment. The Constitution plainly protected MuckRock’s ability to publish public records one of its users lawfully obtained from the City of Seattle, regardless of whether they contained trade secrets. A judge quickly agreed, ruling that the initial order was unconstitutional and allowing the documents to be reposted on MuckRock. The case and several others filed against MuckRock and its user later settled or were dismissed outright. The documents continue to be hosted on MuckRock for all to see. But, uh, great job guys!

The Least Productive Beta Testing Award

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The FBI spent most of 2016 doing what might be charitably described as beta testing a proprietary online FOIA portal that went live in March. But beta testing is probably a misnomer because it implies that the site actually improved after its initial rollout. The FBI’s year of “beta testing” included initially proposing a requirement that requesters submit a copy of their photo ID before submitting a request via the portal and also imposed “operating hours” and limited the number of requests an individual could file per day. Yet even after the FBI walked back from those proposals, the site appears designed to frustrate the public’s ability to make the premiere federal law enforcement agency more transparent. The portal limits the types of requests that can be filed digitally to people seeking information about themselves or others. Requesters cannot use the site to request information about FBI operations or activities, otherwise known as the bread and butter of FOIA requests. Oh, and the portal’s webform is capped at 3,000 characters, so brevity is very much appreciated! Worse, now that the portal is online, the FBI has stopped accepting FOIA requests via email, meaning fax and snail mail are now supposed to be the primary (and frustratingly slow) means of sending requests to the FBI. It almost seems like the FBI is affirmatively trying to make it hard to submit FOIA requests.

The Undermining Openness Award

U.S. Department of Justice

Documents released in 2016 in response to a FOIA lawsuit by the Freedom of the Press Foundation show that the U.S. Department of Justice secretly lobbied Congress in 2014 to kill a FOIA reform bill that had unanimously passed the U.S. House of Representatives 410-0. But the secret axing of an overwhelmingly popular transparency bill wasn’t even the most odious aspect of DOJ’s behavior. In talking points disclosed via the lawsuit, DOJ strongly opposed codifying a “presumption of openness,” a provision that would assume by default that every government record should be disclosed to the public unless an agency could show that its release could result in foreseeable harm. DOJ’s argument: “The proposed amendment is unacceptably damaging to the proper administration of FOIA and of the government as a whole,” which is bureaucratese for something like “What unhinged transparency nut came up with this crazy presumption of openness idea anyway?” That would be Obama, whose FOIA guidance on his first day in office back in 2009 was the blueprint for the presumption of openness language included in the bill. Perhaps DOJ thought it had to save Obama from himself? DOJ’s fearmongering won out and the bill died. Two years later, Congress eventually passed a much weaker FOIA reform bill, but it did include the presumption of openness DOJ had previously fought against. We’re still waiting for the “government as a whole” to collapse.

The Outrageous Fee Award

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services

When public agencies get requests for digital data, officials can usually simply submit a query straight to the relevant database. But not in Missouri apparently, where officials must use handcrafted, shade-grown database queries by public records artisans. At least, that’s the only explanation we can come up with for why the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services estimated that it would take roughly 35,000 hours and $1.5 million to respond to an exceedingly simple request for state birth and death data. Nonprofit Reclaim the Records, whose name pretty eloquently sums up its mission, believed that a simple database query combined with copy and paste was all that was needed to fulfill its request. Missouri officials begged to differ, estimating that it would take them the equivalent of a person working around the clock for more than four years to compile the list by hand. Although the fee estimate is not the highest the Foilies has ever seen—that honor goes to the Pentagon for its $660 million estimate in response to a MuckRock user’s FOIA request last year—Missouri’s estimate was outrageous. Stranger still, the agency later revised their estimated costs down to $5,000 without any real explanation. Reclaim the Records tried negotiating further with officials, but to no avail, as officials ultimately said they could not fulfill the request. Reclaim the Records has since filed a lawsuit for the data.

The Dehumanization Award

New Orleans City Marshall

Public officials often dehumanize the news media to score cheap points, but can the same ploy work when fighting public records requests? That’s the issue in a very strange case between the IND, a New Orleans media outlet, and a city marshal. After the marshal lost his bid to keep records secret in the trial court, he appealed on the grounds that IND had no right to bring the lawsuit in the first place. The marshal, who faced fines, community service, and house arrest for failing to turn over records, argues that Louisiana’s public records law requires that a living, breathing human make a request, not a corporate entity such as IND. Make no mistake: there is no dispute that an actual human filed the request, which sought records relating to a bizarre news conference in which the marshal allegedly used his public office to make baseless allegations against a political opponent, Instead, the dispute centers on a legal formalism of whether IND can sue on its own behalf, rather than suing under the name of the reporter. The marshal’s seemingly ridiculous argument does have some basis in the text of the statute, which defines a requester as a person who is at least 18 years old. That said, it’s an incredibly cynical argument, putting the letter well over the spirit of the law in what appears to be a well-documented effort by the marshal to violate the law and block public access. We hope the learned Louisiana appellate judges see through this blatant attempt to short-circuit the public records law.

The Lethal Redaction Award

States of Texas and Arizona

BuzzFeed Reporters Chris McDaniel and Tasneem Nashrulla have been on a quest to find out where states like Texas and Arizona are obtaining drugs used in lethal injection, as some pharmaceutical suppliers have decided not to participate in the capital punishment machine. But these states are fighting to keep the names of their new suppliers secret, refusing to release anything identifying the companies in response to BuzzFeed’s FOIA requests. At the crux of the investigation is whether the states attempted to obtain the drugs illegally from India. At least one shipment is currently being detained by the FDA. The reason for transparency is obvious if one looks only at one previously botched purchase the reporters uncovered: Texas had tried to source pentobarbital from an Indian company called Provizer Pharma, run by five 20-year-olds. Indian authorities raided their offices for allegedly selling psychotropic drugs and opioids before the order could be fulfilled.

The Poor Note-taker Award

Secretary of the Massachusetts Commonwealth

Updates to Massachusetts’ public records laws were set to take effect in January 2016, with Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin tasked with promulgating new regulations to clear up the vague language of the law. But Galvin didn’t exactly take his duty seriously. Instead he crafted a regulation allowing his office to dodge requirements that public records appeals be handled in a timely fashion. But no regulation could take affect without public hearing. So he went through the motions and dispatched an underling to sit at a table and wait out the public comment – but didn’t keep any kind of record of what was said. A close-up captured by a Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism reporter showed a pen lying on a blank pad of paper. Asked by a reporter about the lack of notes, the underling said, “I was just here to conduct this hearing. That’s all I can say.” The Foilies were compiled by EFF Investigative Researcher Dave Maass, Frank Stanton Legal Fellow Aaron Mackey, and Policy Analyst Kate Tummarello. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that defends civil liberties at the crossroads of technology and the law. Read more about EFF and how to support our work at eff.org. The Foilies 2017