#i ought to do the keanu reeves… anyway…

[b0ydyke]

everyone should stop saying the mullet is out in 2024 because i personally love it and it seems i have grown quite fond of it

[celestialcrowley]

Good morning! Good whatever-time-this-post-finds-you!

My phone updated. Thanks, I hate it. Anyway, I had a bio pinned, but I took it down because I wanted my 6,000 years meta to be pinned. I’m currently on the side of procrastination — I should be working on my GO fiction, someone shout at me to write — so here is a little bit more in depth bio about the ghost behind this tumblr.

🥂🪽🐝

Real Name: Sarah.

Nickname(s): There’s a list. Caps, Ghost, Khas, Khasper, Khasper the Spicy Ghost, Pippin, Haands, Crowley, Ginger and Tapeworm.

Nickname Origin(s): Buckle up. Caps is an age old nickname that was given to me because I wear hats all the time. Ghost began with a chat group I used to be in eons ago. The different variants of Khasper were given to me at my very first job, but we collectively agreed to change things up a bit, and Khasper the Spicy Ghost was born. Pippin was given to me when the Lord of the Rings trilogy was first released. Haands was given to me by former coworkers. Their reasoning behind that is I’ve got big hands. Crowley was given to me by my work bestie, and Ginger was given to me by the rest of my coworkers for my only slightly red hair. Or maybe it’s for my fiery personality. Tapeworm is something my uncle calls me presumably because I’m always hungry, but isn’t that the nature of an actual hobbit?

Preferred Name(s): Ghost, Khasper, Crowley, Ginger or Pippin.

Ao3: Beyond_Ineffable.

Social Media(s): I have Facebook and TikTok. My TikTok is actuallyahobbit89 if anyone is curious. I’m hardly on it though. I’ll pop in to post a video and then disappear like a ghost.

State: Born in raised in Floriduha. It’s a state of chaos.

Birthdate: July 25.

Pet(s): I’ve got two dogs. Mycroft is a probably Dutch shepherd Australian cattle dog mix. I’ve never had him DNA tested, but his mother is an Australian cattle dog. Patch is a portly pitbull mix.

Hobbies: Writing, reading, listening to music and true crime podcasts and stand up paddle boarding.

Personality: Here’s the best way I can describe this. I’m a permanently exhausted pigeon who functions on caffeine, anxiety and not enough sleep. I’m shy and socially awkward, but once I’m comfortable with someone and know that I can completely be myself around them, the anxiety disappears.

Favorite Holiday(s): Big spooky fan, me.

Favorite Drink(s): Coffee, Ice sparkling water + caffeine, London fog tea and cranberry juice.

Favorite Food(s): Sushi, tacos, salmon, crepes, lasagna, sweet potatoes and chicken teriyaki.

Favorite Dessert(s): Pumpkin pie.

Favorite Color(s): Turquoise, but any shade of blue, really. It’s pretty.

Favorite Quote(s): “She walks in starlight in another world.” “The world is not in your books and maps. It’s out there.” “Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” “A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest because she should be sure that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.” “I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don’t have names.”

Favorite Book(s): The Inheritance Collection and Neverwhere, which I still need to finish reading.

Favorite TV Show(s): Good Omens, Sherlock, Lucifer, The Exorcist and Hannibal.

Favorite Movie(s): Bad Samaritan, The Hobbit trilogy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Favorite Character(s): Crowley, Aziraphale, Furfur, Hastur, Pippin, Bilbo Baggins, Sherlock, John Watson, Father Marcus and Will Graham.

Favorite Actor(s): David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Martin Freeman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Jason Statham, Keanu Reeves and Mads Mikkelsen. It’s an accent thing and a hair thing.

Favorite Song(s): There’s too many. I’ll just drop this here. Whiplash Radio.

Favorite Music Genre(s): Mostly everything under the sun.

Favorite Podcast(s): Small Town Murder.

Have You Ever Met A Celebrity: Yes. Jimmie Johnson, a NASCAR driver, visited the very first job I had. He brought his daughter. Story time! My former coworkers were being a bit too extra around him — personal space, what personal space? — and he didn’t like it. I had not yet had a chance to speak to him, and I was told not to because he’s rude. I didn’t believe that, so later, I saw Jimmie was standing at the fence with his daughter. I walked over, said hello and asked him if his daughter would like to pet the dog. He said yes, so I moved the dog closer so she could pet him through the fence. She did, he thanked me, and that was our interaction. He was very pleasant.

Have You Ever Been To A Concert: I have not, unfortunately.

Do You Collect Anything: Yes. Coffee cups, gnomes and pocket knives. That’s a weird combination.

Do You Have Any Idols: Yes! Neil Gaiman. He’s a legend and someone I admire, especially when the writer’s block is slaying me.

Is There A Real Life Friend You Can Completely Be Yourself With: Yes! I made a tumblr post about him! We’ve known each other a long time.

What Are Your Interests: All things spooky. Ghosts. Graveyards. Stars. Galaxies. Planets. Everything about the solar system. True crime. History. Metaphysical things.

Where Would You Love To Travel To: Ireland. New Zealand. Scotland.

Is There A Random Fact About Yourself That You’d Like To Share: I like flamingos.

No pressure tags: @phoen1xr0se @ineffabildaddy @peregrintook @sad-chaos-goblin @spot-o-bodysnatchin @apocalypticginger-blog @crowleyscleaninglady @missdeliadilisblog @ritz-writes @ineffablemoist @turquoisedata @azirapalalalala @peachworthy @pretendygood @belladonna413 @jackinistafflower @aziraphalalala @scarecrowcloud @tragic-cosmic-magic @musingsofmaisie

It’s open to everyone, but here is an apology dance in case I missed anyone! 💚

[discountshostakovich]

How to make Be More Chill a good musical

Be More Chill is a show I have a huge soft spot for- it’s a fantastic premise (both the idea of the Squip and the elements of parodying all the shitty tropes we have in stories about youth) and there’s some pretty clever and fun music.

However, in the transition to Broadway, the producers of the show compounded on the flaws of the original, while moving farther away from what made the Two River version likable- most notably, trying to pander to the fans of the show that boosted it into popularity on social media. Not even a bad idea, but they did it really poorly. The way they ought to have gone was to rewrite the leading characters, among other stuff.

But first, I’ll quickly go over what works about Be More Chill that spoke to me when I first stumbled upon it- defining the paradigm of the concept makes it easier to understand why I’d change what I’d change.

Be More Chill, in a lot of ways, is/was a deconstruction of the School Musical- think Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Dear Evan Hansen, and, to an extent, Heathers. That deconstruction is pretty half baked because it focuses too hard on being funny, but all of the pieces are there. For example, Jeremy being the stooge that he is allows for some commentary about the nature of the milquetoast, inherently relatable protagonists we’ve gotten too used to. Michael, the stereotypical best friend who would do anything for the protagonist, is a vessel for the show to ask us to think about the plot-devicey nature of these characters- are they people with feelings, or do they exist for the protagonist to bounce off of? The ever-present trio of popular girls seem to be bratty queen bees, but we get to peek into the dysfunction and insecurities that drive that behavior. (This is the pretty much the only aspect the Broadway show nailed almost perfectly.) You get the idea for the other archetypes- the immaculate Love Interest, Dorky Dad, Jock, Bully, etc.

Keeping that in mind, the way to make this a good show is to reframe Be More Chill as a revision of the cultural staple of those tropes into a modern context. Those rewrites I mentioned start to really fit into a more cohesive and satisfying narrative when you do so.

Character rewrites: Michael and Christine, as they are now, exist as characters that enable Jeremy to develop- realistically, yes, that is the job of every supporting character, but that doesn’t exclude them from having their own arcs and development.

Michael: Michael in The Bathroom is so effective- not only is it a punch in the gut, but it’s a big moment where the archetype is ripped open and the audience realizes that Michael actually matters and how harmful Jeremy’s actions are. However, the show does nothing with that- Michael goes right back to existing solely for Jeremy. For Michael, I’d suggest that his ending isn’t just straight up forgiving Jeremy unconditionally- Michael is willing to take the shot, to come in and save the day, perhaps in a reprise of MITB where he decides that he’ll be brave enough to confront his friend’s stupid actions. After working with Jeremy in the Play, he is reassured that he and Jeremy are good friends who work well, but he makes it clear to Jeremy how hurt he was by his treatment and that Jeremy needs to be a better friend. As such, Michael learns that he is worth being treated well by others and most importantly himself. That gives him an arc- he starts dependent on Jeremy, anxious, and using his love for his friend as an excuse to ignore his own issues, and ends having learned how to healthily give and take in a relationship and to respect himself.

Christine: Christine, on the other hand, is an object on a pedestal for Jeremy to attain and literally almost nothing else. There’s a little bit to her- Christine is afraid of life skipping her by, and wants “things to be easy”. So, instead of being the cardboard cutout she is, Christine should be motivated by finding the easiest way to meet her self-imposed standards of being fulfilled- successful at Theater and in a happy relationship. This characterization displays the problematic nature of the generic love interest for love interest’s sake. Christine dates Jake not because Jeremy needs a motivator to embrace the squip, but because she’s afraid and lonely. “A Guy I’d Be Into” and “Upgrade” would feel disingenuous and artificial, which both explores how wrong Christine’s forcing a relationship is, and the trope-y teeny bopper song. At the end of the show, she fights to break put of the trance, which leads the Squip to bring up Jake, offering Christine the chance to become that fulfilled person she dreams of. Christine refuses, and she becomes the one to deactivate the Squips. That way, both Christine and Michael’s decisions to do the best thing allow them to be heroes alongside Jeremy. (Jeremy’s moment of redemption comes anyway, when he decides to try and break the Squips hold on the school, but fails because of his previous surrendering of control to the machine.) When Jeremy finally gathers the strength to ask her out, she declines, saying that she doesn’t really know Jeremy all that well and that she just isn’t ready for a relationship- but she won’t close the door. So, her arc goes from feeling helpless and needing to meet arbitrary standards to finding the independence she wants for the rest of the world in herself.

Jeremy: Christine and Michael’s new arcs, of course, both define the growth Jeremy needs to undergo perfectly. Jeremy needs to learn how to expect respect from others and for himself, and he needs to learn that dating Christine and being popular aren’t the keys to his happiness. As a result, the supporting cast enables Jeremy’s development by teaching him by example while still being relevant and alive characters. However, Jeremy doesn’t deserve the happy ending he gets. I addressed that he shouldn’t magically become all chummy with Michael and Chrstine already, but Jeremy’s decision to decline the Squip only earns him the chance for redemption. It makes no sense that everything is perfect with his dad and the rest of the school all declaring themselves his unconditional friends. Brooke should be rightfully upset at being used by Jeremy, Mr Heere should be furious at Jeremy for his misbehavior, and so on. Jeremy made the mess, and it will be a lot harder for him to earn forgiveness. At the end of the story, Jeremy should instead come to the conclusion that he has a long way to go to become happy, and begin the climb to self improvement- the current resolution is only half of that. (“Of all the voices in my head, the loudest one is mine/So I guess I’ll start the uphill climb/It might be hard but that’s just fine! [Im no lyricist, but you get the idea.]) So, the story ends on a high note, with the people who did the right thing succeeding, and Jeremy repairing the damage he’s done and to earn his happiness- a modern refinement of the ending of these kinds of stories, thus completing the deconstruction.

Other stuff:

Transitioning away from character fixes, the show has an awful flow from song to song- numbers like Halloween and the Smartphone Hour are vestigial little criticisms of youth culture that jack up the pacing of the thing and rip you out of the story. You know something is wrong when someone burning down a house is irrelevant to the plot. The way I’d fix that is to more closely involve Jeremy in those parts of the plot. Jeremy should immerse himself fully in the party, singing his own lyrics about his transition into the lifestyle the Squip wants for him. The audience can be aware of how dangerous this is- the drugs and alcohol at the party, the gossip loop about rich, Jeremy’s awful treatment of Brooke, and so on, but Jeremy is invested in it and loving it. That makes his decision to fight the Squip after seeing Christine’s disgust at him taking one that much more impactful- it’s the turning point of the show, and yet it is irrelevant in the plot compared to the Play.

The show tries to be too much to be liked by its younger fans- Loser, Geek, Whatever is the worst example of this. Just because a line  makes someone go “SKDKSDSKDJSKDS MICHAEL IS SO GAY I CANT” or “JEREMY IS SUCH A GOOD PORTRAYAL OF G.A.D. OMG” online doesn’t mean it’s good writing. Some other examples where pandering ruins stuff: the “Do you love him?” joke in the Pants Song, “My mothers would be thrilled!”, that god awful ADD joke in Play Rehearsal, Rich coming out as bisexual.

I love the idea that the squip adopts the persona of someone it knows the victim will trust and idolize- it’s great worldbuilding that lets the viewer participate in the story by thinking about who theirs would be. However, that doesn’t mean you go all in on the Keanu Reeves joke! Jason Tam’s quip is so bad! Stop the stupid Keanu/Surfer voice! Please!

[mst3kproject]

Babes in Toyland

This review represents a fairly important milestone for me – back in January I decided to start doing Episodes that Never Were on a schedule, and I've kept it up for a whole year!  I'm hoping I can continue in 2018, since there are a lot of bad movies in the world and it would make me giddy if a few Episodes that Never Were became Episodes that Actually Are.  The closest I've come so far is Reptilicus and its curious accident of timing.

Anyway, it just wouldn't be the holidays on the Satellite of Love without a messed-up acid trip of a Christmas movie.  This is one a lot of people my age remember being traumatized by as children, and is probably the only time you're ever going to see Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves, or Pat Morita on this blog.  Reeves frantically driving a pink bumper car with flowers on it is a sight not soon forgotten, I assure you.

Our heroine Lisa is eleven years old and wants a blender for Christmas, although a sled will do as a consolation prize. She and her sister get in a car accident in the middle of a musical number on their way home, and Lisa hits her head and wakes up not in the ER, but in a magical land of balloon trees and furries.  This is populated, Wizard-of-Oz, style by fairy-tale characters played by the same actors as people in her real life.  Lisa arrives just as the beautiful Mary Q. Contrary is about to be forced to marry evil Mr. Barnaby instead of her true love, Jack B. Nimble.  Obviously only Lisa, with help from Georgie Porgie and the Toymaster, can defeat Barnaby and save the day – but first she has to learn to believe in toys!

This is the kind of movie that actually makes you cringe watching it.  I spent most of it wanting to cover my face so I wouldn't have to see the actors embarrassing themselves.  Everybody came across kind of stagey and uncomfortable in their roles as ordinary people in the real world, and it gets ten times worse when they're dressed up as nursery rhymes.  Every single person looks like they're wondering how they got here and trying to remember how much they're getting paid for this.  The dialogue is bland and obvious, and the characters over-emote at the same time as they have no conviction whatsoever.

I'm even embarrassed for the prop and costume people.  Toyland probably isn't supposed to look real – that would defeat the point – but it shouldn't look like plywood.  And then there's the people in the animal costumes with the immobile faces and empty eyes and visible joins between the head and shoulders.  I've seen better costumes at ComiCon and some of those were in diapers.  Are the silent teddy bear cops supposed to be intimidating?  Because they're less scary than the donut cops from Wreck-It Ralph. Barnaby's army of trolls look like a cross between the Blood Beast and the Killer Shrews.

A large portion of the budget seems to have gone into creating or buying the wonderful wooden toys that fill the ToyMaster's workshop. A few of these are actual works of art, designed to turn the heat rising from a candle into whirling motion.  Too bad they're only onscreen for a few seconds before we move on to half-assed stuffed animals and creepy-eyed tin soldiers.  These impressive toys are way too good for Babes in Toyland, as is Pat Morita as the ToyMaster – I suspect he agreed to be in this movie only on condition of being allowed to hide behind that fake beard.  His helpers are supposed to be elves, I think, played by children who are also wearing fake beards.  This is distressing in ways I cannot quite describe.

The jokes are so terrible that I'm not sure some of them are meant to be jokes.  Lisa tells the Toylanders about Cincinnati and pretends its a magical kingdom ruled by King Pete Rose... is that supposed to be funny?  Georgie Porgie complains that he wasn't cut out to be a hero and Jack says, “they could cut three heroes out of you, old buddy!”  Is that a compliment or a fat joke?  I think Barnaby's bowling ball-shaped house, which he rolls down the street to knock people over whenever he has a tantrum, is a joke, but it's kind of a setup without a punchline.  There's a sequence in which Mother Hubbard is introducing her children and she can't remember the last one's name.  That's not funny, that's horrifying!

I can't even bring myself to write about the musical numbers. Anybody who has a hard time with secondhand embarrassment really shouldn't watch this movie.

The plot of Babes in Toyland is a list of tropes, but this is entirely appropriate for the type of story we're being told.  Barnaby is evil for the sake of being evil, Justice Grimm allows himself to be tricked and locked up in his own jail cell, and various characters show up to reference their fairy tales and then wander off again.  It should work because it's exactly what we expect, but instead of feeling natural, there's a sense of obligation about it. “Yes, we're Jack and Jill.  We have to fall down this stupid hill, so we might as well get on with it.”  The characters never appear comfortable with these situations, so the cliches become awkward instead of seeming like the natural order of the story's universe.

(One of the rules is that, as Mary explains to Lisa, it is always daylight in Toyland.  We're never told when anybody sleeps, although we do see a couple of beds.  We also see a sun, meaning that to have eternal daytime Toyland's planet must be tidally locked.  There ought to be howling winds as the warm air on the day side rises and sucks in cold air from the night side, which would be a frozen wilderness of perpetual night.  But only a nerd would worry about something like that.)

Toyland's tropes are based around characters and situations from Lisa's life in Cincinnati – Mary, for example, is her older sister, who is subject to sexual harrassment by her greedy boss, the tyrant of the toy store where she works.  One would therefore expect that the situations Lisa encounters in Toyland would teach her to deal with what's going on in reality, like how Chihiro learns courage and confidence through her experiences at Yubaba's bathhouse.  In Babes in Toyland, however, it's the other way around.  Lisa has already convinced her sister to tell off her boss and leave the toy store, and it's this she applies to Toyland in stopping the wedding of Mary and Barnaby.  Lisa already enjoys fun things, as evidenced by her happiness at the gift of the sled, and already believes in true love, as her first major act in Toyland is intervening in the wedding.  The lessons the plot is set up to teach her are ones she does not need to learn.

The other characters likewise seem to have their arcs done for them.  Mary insists that she will rescue Jack herself, saying “it's time I did something besides cry!”  We have literally never seen Mary crying – in fact, the only time she's come across as a weeping damsel was at the wedding, and there she thought she was doing what was best for her family.  Georgie is supposed to be a coward who wants to be a hero, and yet he keeps doing brave things from the start.  And what's with the subplot in which Lisa matchmakes between Barnaby and Mrs. Hubbard?  Does she want her mom to marry the creepy toy store owner?  Eww.

Besides the wooden toys, there are a couple of other things in the movie that do work.  Barnaby has three main minions – two of them, called Zak and Mak, are basically the porcupine guys from Highlander 2 (not that I've seen Highlander 2 or anything), and the third is a bird named Trolla.  This beast is played by a little person in some kind of unconvincing shaggy pterodactyl costume, but it does have a single large eye that Barnaby uses as a crystal ball to watch what other characters are doing and stay one step ahead of them.  For some reason, the eye is really quite disturbing and its image tends to stay with you – YouTube comments suggest that it's the thing a lot of people remember best about the movie.  The worst part, however, is that when the ToyMaster wants to subdue Trolla he does so by painting over its eye.  Oh god that must sting!

Then there's the Bottle of Evil.  When Barnaby uncorks it, a green mist comes out to envelop the characters.  It's not a great effect and you don't believe in it any more than you believe in anything else in the movie, but it's a scary idea and realized just well enough to make you worry.  Then they defeat it by singing a song about Cincinnati.  No, really, that happens.  It doesn't come across like a great moral victory, it's just a giant what the fuck. How do the other characters even know the song?

The idea of being knocked out and awakening in a magical land or another time is a very common trope in itself, going back at least as far as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, written in 1889.  I know we're not supposed to worry about it, but when watching or reading such stories I always wonder what's going on in the 'real world'.  One of the things I really liked about Life on Mars was how the storytellers actually devoted time and thought to the fact that Sam is in an ICU hallucinating all this, and things in that outside world can affect the world he's imagining.  We don't get anything like that for Lisa.  At the end she just wakes up on the sofa and everybody's glad she's okay.  Why is nobody calling an ambulance?!  A loss of consciousness of more than a few seconds is a medical emergency!  Call a doctor, for heaven's sake, concussions do not make for a very merry Christmas!

The thing I'm maddest about, though?  Is that Barnaby wasn't defeated by getting crushed by his own bowling ball.  I waited the whole damn movie for that.  How dare it disappoint me!