#john mulaney and also with you

[simptasticjoe]

A Cry for Help: John Mulaney Baby J

When AI technology copies the voice of John Mulaney, he will be out of work for good, because I can’t imagine a single studio taking a chance on him after seeing his new comedy special, Baby J. Let’s me give a little backstory first before I get into it. Mulaney is a standup comedian who went to rehab in 2021. He is reportedly “clean” now and decided to do a Netflix Special explaining his time…

[corpusdiem-seizethedead]

Angel: *contemplating a fancy bottle* Hey, d'ya think this is alcohol or perfume?

Husk: *grabs bottle. drinks all of it*

Angel:

Husk:

Angel:

Husk: It's perfume

[professor-doc-emeritus]

I love the dichotomy we get between jinshi and the emperor that shows off how the traits that make jinshi a great prince, boss, friend (husband 👀👀👀👀) are the very same traits that will make him a terrible emperor.

His hard working streak that lets him handle his weird assignments with grace and manage the clashing egos of the inner palace is what will get him killed by overwork as emperor since he has no real head for delegation. It took 11 volumes and the intervention of most of his immediate family just to get jinshi to hire a secretary. The emperor always being free to host parties, sleep with the consorts, and bust jinshis balls in-between it all is, much like lakan always being free to annoy maomao, actually a sign of him being god-like at delegation and organizational management.

His lack of ego and willingness to look the fool if it gets the job done is great for avoiding political snafus and getting to the truth of things. It's genuinely the thing that makes all his expeditions to the western capital so wildly successful: he really doesn't gaf about how he's seen by the public, so long as the job gets done and his friends aren't in immediate danger. It's also the exact opposite of what you need from a head of state who's legitimacy is not-insignificantly based on the public perceiving you as an instrument of the will of heaven. The emperor being willing to kill people and their families over slights jinshi (and most sane human beings) would be willing to let slide is cruel and inhuman, but it's also what keeps the populace at large from being able to organize against him and challenge the imperial power.

Jinshis compassionate streak, his urge to save as many people he can and find the best solution for everyone possible, makes him great to work for. He'll give you assignments that match your hyper fixation, work around your crippling social anxiety, give you a post that just-so-happens to involve you staying with the love of your life for a few months. More over, he isn't gonna risk his life and your position over petty ego or greed when he can find a peaceful solution instead. But the hesitation he feels at using people like tools, and his unwillingness to act if it means throwing people under the bus, is what will lead to death and destruction if he's the emperor. Especially in a time of war. The current emperor is willing to ruin lives and crush nations if it reaches a goal, advances an agenda.

Finally, jinshis loyalty, I'd say even more than his looks, is what draws people to him. He loves his toys, can't stand to give them up. It makes him a great romantic figure. But when you're the emperor, and you need to be willing and able to marry someone for political ends, produce as many heirs as possible regardless of who with, and set aside the feelings of those women for your own sake, that loyalty is poison.

Idk, so often in stories with these systems they sorta follow the logic of "if he's a good person he'll be a good leader." I think it's cool to have a series talk about how being a leader involves being EXTREMELY comfortable with being an asshole, for a myriad of reasons, and how someone being pleasant to work for wouldn't make them an effect monarch.

[burntblueberrywaffles]

Lucy Gray: who was the third?

Coriolanus:

[lopposting]

i think about "same voice actor" all the time

also fun: jack HATES pinocchio lol

[stuckwith-harry]

i am handing in my b.a. thesis (on motherhood in gothic fiction) in a few short days and though i have been complaining about having to write it for six months straight, right now i am actually feeling bereft of future opportunities to write academic papers about my silly little interests. for instance right now i really want to research & write about dracula daily & genre & the impacts of the newsletter format on the narrative (the addition of a timeloop)

i think about format and the specifics of narration a lot when i'm writing my own little things and i loooove when the narration - not just the narrator, but the act of telling the story - is part of the narrative. love when the narration is diegetic! love an epistolary novel (like dracula!) for this reason. should read more of them

inventory by carmen maria machado (short story! read it immediately!) is a GREAT example of this. the format of the narration is so integral to the story. does more than elevate it imo, i would argue the story genuinely wouldn't work any other way

g*d. i'm gonna have to become a video essayist

[idk-bruh-20]

Do you think Peter's ever accidentally saved famous people? Not just like superhero famous but regular celebrities.

Like, a lot of people headcanon that Peter is obsessed with Hamilton, and Broadway is literally in NYC. Do you think Peter's ever been in the middle of a supervillain fight and swung down to rescue someone, and once he'd gotten them to safety been like, Lin Manuel Miranda???????

[linuseer]

i'd made a reblog of another post but i might as well make my own because it's truly bizarre the way the internet still behaves

the internet's reaction to john mulaney will be found in psychology books in future years.

this got long. my bad.

tldr: yall have been weird about john mulaney for a long while. yes, even about the dave chappelle thing.

"but he let dave chappelle on stage-" the venue let dave chappelle on stage. Because despite all the bullshit he's been saying venues and platforms still think he's a big name, so if he decides to pop up and drop in, they're going to let him regardless of openers already being there. It's insane how people think john mulaney could dictate what a big venue (and netflix, as i think it was during an event) can and can't do around him.

"but dave chappelle based all his set on transphobic and ableist things-" that's on dave chappelle, not any other comedian who has to share the stage with him. let's repeat this again: john mulaney did not "platform" chappelle, the venue did. john mulaney can't go around dictating what other comedians say the same way other comedians can't dictate what he says, just like it is in any other profession and general aspect of society.

"but he hugged chappelle at the end-" chappelle had talked about an aggression he'd been a victim of in the previous months and john mulaney expressed solidarity for that. Like the testimony of the transphobic and ableist jokes, this was said by other people on the internet that claim to have been present. It's impressive how fast any other recounting has been shut down and ignored, like any possibility of further critical analysis of the situation. I'm not cis myself. I could smell the "something's weirdly missing" from miles away, because when he went to rehab I thought back about all his jokes involving drugs and thought "yeah this checks out", when people started calling him transphobic i thought "this guy?? Horse Loose In A Hospital guy?? I gotta check".

(other testimonies also said the transphobic and ableist jokes were a part of the appearance, not all of it, and that other jokes did get a laugh. Which yes, it is annoying to hear people reward a comedian with laughter after he's been a dick and I would've been mad the whole time too)

"well he shouldn't go around hugging transphobes" on an abstract moral basis, I agree. I'd rather he stick to hugging people like jon stewart.

"he betrayed his lgbt+ fanbase that is the reason he's famous" no it isn't. I find no righteous joy in telling yall that john mulaney is known and respected and gets gigs in the comedy scene because he's good at it on his own from content and technique standpoints, and people recognized his talent and future fame from the start, not because the community made him famous by latching on to him as the Cute Unproblematic White Twink. Him becoming famous would've happened anyway because he's objectively good at his chosen career. Also "betrayed" is objectively wrong because of the previous points mentioned above.

Also let's remember the time period this happened in: john mulaney was recovering from nearly killing himself with drugs, dealing with the fact his friends had to push him into rehab, ending a years-long relationship (where he did not cheat according to the ex herself if yall bother listening to her), finding himself a parent of a clearly unplanned baby and stepping up to it, while facing vitriol and crazy backlash because of it all. I wouldn't take anyone too seriously in the aftermath of this.

yeah while we're here, let's also address the whole divorce fiasco:

"he cheated" no he didn't. The timeline provided and that can be proven by social media interactions and talk show appearances says so. They were separated well before they both went to rehab for different things. She wasn't at the december 2020 intervention, at least. She removed hims from her socials months before. They weren't involved anymore, let it go.

"he never wanted kids" so? people change as he himself says. Or was he meant to be a deadbeat and ignore the baby that was clearly unplanned? It's insane how people are holding this against him.

"he robbed tendler of her childbearing years" this is even more insane. She has repeatedly said she didn't want kids herself, and froze her eggs because of feeling socially pressured, at least twice in instagram comments only. She's got a new boyfriend and can have all the kids she wants with him. But people don't actually care about her as a person, only as her being a means for their weird revenge fantasies against a comedian they thought they knew through a stage persona. Just take a look at the unhinged comments people have been leaving under everyone's social media posts including hers.

"he based his whole shtick on being a wife guy (so i now feel betrayed that they have divorced because ??? but pretend i'm righteously offended as He Has Lied On Stage)" equally insane things to say. Also no, the wife bits make up not even a fourth of his overall material, but one wouldn't know that if they only saw his stuff through memes and the netflix specials.

"well i'm childfree and liked he was also childfree and now i'm disappointed" now this is reasonable. I was weirdly disappointed for a while too and then got over it. Because it's one of the things in life you have to shrug off, because other people can choose to keep children and raise them with an obviously present support net and it's none of our business.

Here's some more things for yall to chew on: john mulaney has expressed support for trans kids being targeted in schools, during the initial monologue when he hosted the Independent Spirit Awards with nick kroll (they did it two years in a row and i can't remember which year it was). john mulaney has also previously supported lgbt+ charities with donations some years ago (i don't remember the name but i remember being happy about confirmation that a comedian i liked was a good person). john mulaney hasn't said or done anything negative towards trans people and lgbt+ in general since the "incident", nor did he ever before. Also he striked with the other writers to support the less famous and wealthy ones.

"but he had jerry seinfield on." Netflix had jerry seinfield on. Because seinfield just made a show with netflix too and he's being made to promote it. Also yes, by several accounts john mulaney looks up to jerry seinfield, in the same way i might look up at a senior in high school when I'm a freshman. Doesn't mean he agrees with him on everything and doesn't mean they both can skirt the obligations of the industry they're in.

Yall want something nice to chew on? When john mulaney went on seinfield's show "comedians in cars getting coffee", seinfield demeaned annamarie tendler's professional abilities and john mulaney immediately and repeatedly contradicted him. "She doesn't know what she's talking about, all women think they're interior designers" vs "Actually she does know what she's talking about" kinda exchange. Seinfield also made a joke about her throwing a rolling pin at john, and john mulaney deemed it a dumb 1950s stereotype.

look, is he perfect? no. he has moments where he lacks some social awareness, because he was born and raised wealthy, but he's never been cruel or obnoxious about it and instead recognizes it every time he mentions (and disparages) his upbringing. it could be seen even before baby j that he grew up insecure of himself, through and under the obvious jokes about anxiety and servility, and he can be an asshole about it (though less now, i suppose thanks to near-death experiences and having a child readjust your whole life). it's the fact that the internet decided to put him on a pedestal as a paragon of neat cuteness, reducing his work to Wife Guy Blorbo and seemingly ignoring all the "hey i've been an alcohol and drug addict willing to commit crimes to get drugs and i'm putting up an extremely clean-cut persona that should have you all worried and suspicious". I used to look at that guy and sense the something that wasn't adding up. I've been observing this whole mess since he first went to rehab with a sense of relief. Parasocial of me, yes I know.

one day the internet will add up the pieces. hopefully. until that day, it's gonna be weird.

[fully-caulked-wagon]

it's meee jooohhnn mulaneyyy

[hannibalismos-jaaneman]

y'all know what? let's talk about the song john mulaney wrote and sang in the beginning of baby j because that broke me.

[codecicle]

Seeing all of my qsmp friends on here talk about the horrors of shipping on englishtwt is so funny to me. I haven't downloaded twitter and only have an account to vote on mcc polls. I don't have the app, I use the website alone and even then it's only to check what place insert creator here is on trending. My consumption of qsmp fanart and fan media is exclusively through tumblr and very niche corners of tik tok. Everyone I've talked to or interacted with are absolutely down for shipping the characters in a gay sex way because they're currently living on gay sex island and have gay sex on stream. The concept that any of what these creators are doing live could even possibly be "against their boundaries" is fuckin absurd to me. Vegeta and Foolish proudly introduce each other to the Brazilian creators as boyfriends. Quackity has canonically never met a woman before Jaiden. Speaking of which, there is one woman on the entire server and shes aro/ace both in game and in real life. Most of the eggs actively ship the creators together and ask for new polycules to form to give them new parents. All of the brazilian creators are in one polycule taking care of one egg. Slime asked "tiktok edit this" while he was having minecraft sex with Mariana. After they broke character and talked about their personal lives yesterday during the egg finale Mariana asked Charlie to break up with his girlfriend and marry him instead so he could get a green card. Then they fucked in Mariana's bed to another song as a fairwell before ending stream. They both admitted to loving the fanart they saw on twitter of them passionately making out and said it was their favorite part of the server. The only person who even mildly dislikes any of the shipping is Grace LMAO

[lady-harrowhark]

It feels extra little shitty if Kiriona hates needles and simultaneously has 12 ear piercing and half a dozen other ones across her face and body

You know, I'm still on my "despite how rad the aesthetic is, there's no way Gideon has a bunch of cool piercings" soapbox BUT this ask actually got me thinking...

Kiriona specifically might have some very interesting and complex feelings about piercings and/or any other version of body mod type stuff. Given how just about everything that's happened to her body since the end of GtN has been entirely out of her control... might be interesting to explore the ways she can control what happens to her body.

[spacedoutwitch]

My shoulder has been fighting me, and I still need to figure out how to make digital sketches that mean things to anyone but me (although I can make them now!! That's something!!), so have a low-effort meme doodle of the possible aftermath of my previous post. (Look, Hooty is long and twisty and comes out of doors, and a post-episode chat with some of the TOH cast and crew implied that a book describing Hooty's ecology would drive people insane. I don't make the rules.)

[cuntylouis]

Watched John Mulaney's new netflix special and though i'm not so fond of him as a person anymore i got to admit that bitch still do be funny as fuck. Also he should do more voice acting

[iamonlyhereforthefreefood]

Got bullied by a couple homophobic middle schoolers at work today

[teaandinanity]

Yep, looks like this is happening. Here’s the first segment of the uh. 17 pages and counting I’ve written going ‘I can make this better worse’ about I Was A Teenage Exocolonist.

[cut]

They wonder, sometimes, if the augment was a response to their nightmares.

They’ve always had them. When they sleep, they remember things that haven’t happened yet, awful things, things that left scars on a psyche significantly more well-equipped to handle them than that of a toddler.

They’re not a toddler anymore. The dreams - the memories - have only gotten worse.

They can’t talk about it. They tried a few times as a little kid. They tried, only to be told they were just dreams. That alone probably wouldn’t have stopped them; what did was the creeping certainty that if they didn’t stop, the adults would decide there was something wrong with them, something that needed fixing.

At eight, they haven’t tried in years. They know that if they’re too strange, the adults will try to fix them, and it would mean everything went wrong again. The dreams aren’t a problem; they’re a warning.

They don’t need to be fixed. Sol doesn’t need to be fixed. What they need is to fix the shields. Which they can’t do until they understand what’s going to go wrong.

They sit on the floor with the engineering manuals they used to demand to be read instead of storybooks and stare at the diagrams, trying to force their developing brain to grasp concepts that were challenging as a teenager, frustrated enough to cry.

They do cry, tears welling up and sliding down their face, but they don’t sob. They don’t make a sound, tucked away in a corner, and that means no one notices. No one but Congruence, but they changed their privacy settings off the infant alerts as soon as they could speak. No one noticed that, either.

The temperament augment doesn’t keep them from feeling desperation or despair or fear, but it means they deal with what’s troubling them quietly, in a way that doesn’t trouble anyone else. So they cry quietly through eyes they don’t let waver from the diagrams, repeating mathematical formulae in their head, making sure they have them memorized.

This time, it’s going to be different.