#matthew stoller

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What the fuck is a PBM?

TOMORROW (Sept 24), I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Terminal-stage capitalism owes its long senescence to its many defensive mechanisms, and it's only by defeating these that we can put it out of its misery. "The Shield of Boringness" is one of the necrocapitalist's most effective defenses, so it behooves us to attack it head-on.

The Shield of Boringness is Dana Claire's extremely useful term for anything so dull that you simply can't hold any conception of it in your mind for any length of time. In the finance sector, they call this "MEGO," which stands for "My Eyes Glaze Over," a term of art for financial arrangements made so performatively complex that only the most exquisitely melted brain-geniuses can hope to unravel their spaghetti logic. The rest of us are meant to simply heft those thick, dense prospectuses in two hands, shrug, and assume, "a pile of shit this big must have a pony under it."

MEGO and its Shield of Boringness are key to all of terminal-stage capitalism's stupidest scams. Cloaking obvious swindles in a lot of complex language and Byzantine payment schemes can make them seem respectable just long enough for the scammers to relieve you of all your inconvenient cash and assets, though, eventually, you're bound to notice that something is missing.

If you spent the years leading up to the Great Financial Crisis baffled by "CDOs," "synthetic CDOs," "ARMs" and other swindler nonsense, you experienced the Shield of Boringness. If you bet your house and/or your retirement savings on these things, you experienced MEGO. If, after the bubble popped, you finally came to understand that these "exotic financial instruments" were just scams, you experienced Stein's Law ("anything that can't go forever eventually stops"). If today you no longer remember what a CDO is, you are once again experiencing the Shield of Boringness.

As bad as 2008 was, it wasn't even close to the end of terminal stage capitalism. The market has soldiered on, with complex swindles like carbon offset trading, metaverse, cryptocurrency, financialized solar installation, and (of course) AI. In addition to these new swindles, we're still playing the hits, finding new ways to make the worst scams of the 2000s even worse.

That brings me to the American health industry, and the absurdly complex, ridiculously corrupt Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), a pathology that has only metastasized since 2008.

On at least 20 separate occasions, I have taken it upon myself to figure out how the PBM swindle works, and nevertheless, every time they come up, I have to go back and figure it out again, because PBMs have the most powerful Shield of Boringness out of the whole Monster Manual of terminal-stage capitalism's trash mobs.

PBMs are back in the news because the FTC is now suing the largest of these for their role in ripping off diabetics with sky-high insulin prices. This has kicked off a fresh round of "what the fuck is a PBM, anyway?" explainers of extremely variable quality. Unsurprisingly, the best of these comes from Matt Stoller:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-lina-khan-pharma

Stoller starts by pointing out that Americans have a proud tradition of getting phucked by pharma companies. As far back as the 1950s, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver was holding hearings on the scams that pharma companies were using to ensure that Americans paid more for their pills than virtually anyone else in the world.

But since the 2010s, Americans have found themselves paying eye-popping, sky-high, ridiculous drug prices. Eli Lilly's Humolog insulin sold for $21 in 1999; by 2017, the price was $274 – a 1,200% increase! This isn't your grampa's price gouging!

Where do these absurd prices come from? The story starts in the 2000s, when the GW Bush administration encouraged health insurers to create "high deductible" plans, where patients were expected to pay out of pocket for receiving care, until they hit a multi-thousand-dollar threshold, and then their insurance would kick in. Along with "co-pays" and other junk fees, these deductibles were called "cost sharing," and they were sold as a way to prevent the "abuse" of the health care system.

The economists who crafted terminal-stage capitalism's intellectual rationalizations claimed the reason Americans paid so much more for health care than their socialized-medicine using cousins in the rest of the world had nothing to do with the fact that America treats health as a source of profits, while the rest of the world treats health as a human right.

No, the actual root of America's health industry's problems was the moral defects of Americans. Because insured Americans could just go see the doctor whenever they felt like it, they had no incentive to minimize their use of the system. Any time one of these unhinged hypochondriacs got a little sniffle, they could treat themselves to a doctor's visit, enjoying those waiting-room magazines and the pleasure of arranging a sick day with HR, without bearing any of the true costs:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/the-doctrine-of-moral-hazard/

"Cost sharing" was supposed to create "skin in the game" for every insured American, creating a little pain-point that stung you every time you thought about treating yourself to a luxurious doctor's visit. Now, these payments bit hardest on the poorest workers, because if you're making minimum wage, at $10 co-pay hurts a lot more than it does if you're making six figures. What's more, VPs and the C-suite were offered "gold-plated" plans with low/no deductibles or co-pays, because executives understand the value of a dollar in the way that mere working slobs can't ever hope to comprehend. They can be trusted to only use the doctor when it's truly warranted.

So now you have these high-deductible plans creeping into every workplace. Then along comes Obama and the Affordable Care Act, a compromise that maintains health care as a for-profit enterprise (still not a human right!) but seeks to create universal coverage by requiring every American to buy a plan, requiring insurers to offer plans to every American, and uses public money to subsidize the for-profit health industry to glue it together.

Predictably, the cheapest insurance offered on the Obamacare exchanges – and ultimately, by employers – had sky-high deductibles and co-pays. That way, insurers could pocket a fat public subsidy, offer an "insurance" plan that was cheap enough for even the most marginally employed people to afford, but still offer no coverage until their customers had spent thousands of dollars out-of-pocket in a given year.

That's the background: GWB created high-deductible plans, Obama supercharged them. Keep that in your mind as we go through the MEGO procedures of the PBM sector.

Your insurer has a list of drugs they'll cover, called the "formulary." The formulary also specifies how much the insurance company is willing to pay your pharmacist for these drugs. Creating the formulary and paying pharmacies for dispensing drugs is a lot of tedious work, and insurance outsources this to third parties, called – wait for it – Pharmacy Benefits Managers.

The prices in the formulary the PBM prepares for your insurance company are called the "list prices." These are meant to represent the "sticker price" of the drug, what a pharmacist would charge you if you wandered in off the street with no insurance, but somehow in possession of a valid prescription.

But, as Stoller writes, these "list prices" aren't actually ever charged to anyone. The list price is like the "full price" on the pricetags at a discount furniture place where everything is always "on sale" at 50% off – and whose semi-disposable sofas and balsa-wood dining room chairs are never actually sold at full price.

One theoretical advantage of a PBM is that it can get lower prices because it bargains for all the people in a given insurer's plan. If you're the pharma giant Sanofi and you want your Lantus insulin to be available to any of the people who must use OptumRX's formulary, you have to convince OptumRX to include you in that formulary.

OptumRX – like all PBMs – demands "rebates" from pharma companies if they want to be included in the formulary. On its face, this is similar to the practices of, say, NICE – the UK agency that bargains for medicine on behalf of the NHS, which also bargains with pharma companies for access to everyone in the UK and gets very good deals as a result.

But OptumRX doesn't bargain for a lower list price. They bargain for a bigger rebate. That means that the "price" is still very high, but OptumRX ends up paying a tiny fraction of it, thanks to that rebate. In the OptumRX formulary, Lantus insulin lists for $403. But Sanofi, who make Lantus, rebate $339 of that to OptumRX, leaving just $64 for Lantus.

Here's where the scam hits. Your insurer charges you a deductible based on the list price – $404 – not on the $64 that OptumRX actually pays for your insulin. If you're in a high-deductible plan and you haven't met your cap yet, you're going to pay $404 for your insulin, even though the actual price for it is $64.

Now, you'd think that your insurer would put a stop to this. They chose the PBM, the PBM is ripping off their customers, so it's their job to smack the PBM around and make it cut this shit out. So why would the insurers tolerate this nonsense?

Here's why: the PBMs are divisions of the big health insurance companies. Unitedhealth owns OptumRx; Aetna owns Caremark, and Cigna owns Expressscripts. So it's not the PBM that's ripping you off, it's your own insurance company. They're not just making you pay for drugs that you're supposedly covered for – they're pocketing the deductible you pay for those drugs.

Now, there's one more entity with power over the PBM that you'd hope would step in on your behalf: your boss. After all, your employer is the entity that actually chooses the insurer and negotiates with them on your behalf. Your boss is in the driver's seat; you're just along for the ride.

It would be pretty funny if the answer to this was that the health insurance company bought your employer, too, and so your boss, the PBM and the insurer were all the same guy, busily swapping hats, paying for a call center full of tormented drones who each have three phones on their desks: one labeled "insurer"; the second, "PBM" and the final one "HR."

But no, the insurers haven't bought out the company you work for (yet). Rather, they've bought off your boss – they're sharing kickbacks with your employer for all the deductibles and co-pays you're being suckered into paying. There's so much money (your money) sloshing around in the PBM scamoverse that anytime someone might get in the way of you being ripped off, they just get cut in for a share of the loot.

That is how the PBM scam works: they're fronts for health insurers who exploit the existence of high-deductible plans in order to get huge kickbacks from pharma makers, and massive fees from you. They split the loot with your boss, whose payout goes up when you get screwed harder.

But wait, there's more! After all, Big Pharma isn't some kind of easily pushed-around weakling. They're big. Why don't they push back against these massive rebates? Because they can afford to pay bribes and smaller companies making cheaper drugs can't. Whether it's a little biotech upstart with a cheaper molecule, or a generics maker who's producing drugs at a fraction of the list price, they just don't have the giant cash reserves it takes to buy their way into the PBMs' formularies. Doubtless, the Big Pharma companies would prefer to pay smaller kickbacks, but from Big Pharma's perspective, the optimum amount of bribes extracted by a PBM isn't zero – far from it. For Big Pharma, the optimal number is one cent higher than "the maximum amount of bribes that a smaller company can afford."

The purpose of a system is what it does. The PBM system makes sure that Americans only have access to the most expensive drugs, and that they pay the highest possible prices for them, and this enriches both insurance companies and employers, while protecting the Big Pharma cartel from upstarts.

Which is why the FTC is suing the PBMs for price-fixing. As Stoller points out, they're using their powers under Section 5 of the FTC Act here, which allows them to shut down "unfair methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The case will be adjudicated by an administrative law judge, in a process that's much faster than a federal court case. Once the FTC proves that the PBM scam is illegal when applied to insulin, they'll have a much easier time attacking the scam when it comes to every other drug (the insulin scam has just about run its course, with federally mandated $35 insulin coming online, just as a generation of post-insulin diabetes treatments hit the market).

Obviously the PBMs aren't taking this lying down. Cigna/Expressscripts has actually sued the FTC for libel over the market study it conducted, in which the agency described in pitiless, factual detail how Cigna was ripping us all off. The case is being fought by a low-level Reagan-era monster named Rick Rule, whom Stoller characterizes as a guy who "hangs around in bars and picks up lonely multi-national corporations" (!!).

The libel claim is a nonstarter, but it's still wild. It's like one of those movies where they want to show you how bad the cockroaches are, so there's a bit where the exterminator shows up and the roaches form a chorus line and do a kind of Busby Berkeley number:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/news/2024-09-20-the-carlton-report

So here we are: the FTC has set out to euthanize some rentiers, ridding the world of a layer of useless economic middlemen whose sole reason for existing is to make pharmaceuticals as expensive as possible, by colluding with the pharma cartel, the insurance cartel and your boss. This conspiracy exists in plain sight, hidden by the Shield of Boringness. If I've done my job, you now understand how this MEGO scam works – and if you forget all that ten minutes later (as is likely, given the nature of MEGO), that's OK: just remember that this thing is a giant fucking scam, and if you ever need to refresh yourself on the details, you can always re-read this post.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[mariacallous]

Months out of law school, Yosef Weitzman already has a huge courtroom role in the biggest antitrust trial of the century. In a US federal trial that started last week, Google is accused of unlawfully monopolizing online search and search ads. The company’s self-defined mission is to make the world's information universally accessible, yet Google successfully opposed live streaming the trial and keeping the proceedings wholly open to the public. Enter Weitzman.

The fresh law graduate is among a handful of legal or antitrust geeks trying to attend most, if not all, of the public portions of the trial, fearing a historic moment of tech giant accountability will escape public notice. Some have pushed off day jobs or moved near to the Washington, DC, courthouse. All are obsessively documenting their observations through social media and daily email newsletters.

The trial is scheduled to run near-daily through November and few news outlets can dedicate a reporter to a courtroom seat for eight hours a day for the duration. Most reporters focused on Google are based in San Francisco. Legal and regulatory publications that can commit charge hundreds of dollars for content subscriptions. Any antitrust junkie—or frustrated Google Search user—wanting an affordable readout from the sparsely attended, era-defining trial, must rely on Weitzman, or a handful of others firing off tweets, skeets, and Substacks. “Regardless of your view on this trial and Big Tech, it will affect everyone, so it’s important that the public is aware of what’s going on as the trial unfolds and to record what happens,” Weitzman says.

Megan Gray, an attorney who has sparred with Google in various legal proceedings over two decades but isn’t involved in this case, has felt compelled to take the 30-minute train ride to the courthouse to capture nuances that don’t come through in summaries or transcripts. She has attended all but one day of the trial so far, pushing her legal work into the evenings. “We’ll see if I can go the whole 10 weeks,” she says.

Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor and a former tech antitrust policy adviser to president Biden, stopped by the first day of the trial but like other interested scholars is otherwise stuck at his distant day job. “It seems obvious that the trial should be easier for the public to follow,” Wu says. “Unlike, say, the trial of a celebrity, there's no serious danger of something like this becoming a circus.”

Weitzman got his gig after Matthew Stoller, a noted critic of Google's power, decided to hire someone to attend every day of the trial and write about it for his email newsletter Big, which focuses on monopoly issues in tech and beyond and has about 100,000 subscribers. “You can’t cover anti-monopoly politics without recognizing how important this case is,” Stoller says.

A rare combination of experience as a sports section editor of his school paper at the University of Pennsylvania and a fascination with antitrust law helped Weitzman secure the gig. He packed up in Philadelphia and has signed a monthlong sublet within walking distance of the court, but has not figured out where exactly he’ll live for the remainder of the trial. Some new law graduates travel the world in the few months before starting their first job. Weitzman is making a muggy commute to an uncomfortable bench in the courtroom’s public gallery, working up to dozen hours a day. “I’m not complaining at all,” he says.

Weitzman’s write-up is summarized in Big occasionally and sent out in full each day in a temporary offshoot newsletter on Substack, Big Tech on Trial, which had about 2,700 subscribers after the trial’s first week. He is being paid by Stoller and the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonpartisan anti-monopoly advocacy group where Stoller is director of research.

The last major Big Tech antitrust trial, against Microsoft beginning in 1998, helped open the door to Google amassing the power it now holds over online search and ads. In the current trial, Google’s attorneys argue that the company became the dominant search engine because consumers prefer it—not because they are forced to use it by deals in which Google pays to be the default on phones and browsers, as the US Department of Justice alleges. Attorneys general for every state except Alabama are also involved in bringing the case.

Prosecutors and Google chose to forego a jury, so judge Amit Mehta will decide who wins. He denied a request from groups that included Stoller’s American Economic Liberties Project to allow remote public access for the trial after weighing prosecutors’ support for streaming and Google’s opposition. Mehta cited his own “serious concerns” about unauthorized recording of witness testimony. He also worried about accidental leaks from portions of the trial that will be closed to the public to protect the trade secrets of Google and witnesses.

Stoller calls Mehta’s decision elitist. “This judge was persuaded that the risk that Google would have information it doesn’t want made public get out was too high, and so he only allows people who can take two months off and spend that time in DC to actually hear the case,” Stoller says. He argues that closing the courtroom for some testimony to protect Google’s secrets prevents the public from understanding fundamental details in the case.

The Judicial Conference, which oversees federal district court operating rules, just issued a policy permitting “public live audio” of court proceedings, but it doesn’t cover trials. The conference says it’s still studying whether it can extend access without raising the risk of witnesses becoming intimidated or altering their testimony because of the remote audience. Media and civil rights organizations say widespread streaming of cases during the pandemic, including witness testimony and antitrust trials, did not cause problems.

With the Google case limited to in-person viewing, Weitzman mostly watches from Mehta’s courtroom, where use of phones and computers is barred. For variety he can sit and work in a media room at the courthouse where journalists can watch a closed-circuit broadcast. A separate overflow room for non-media doesn’t allow use of laptops or other personal devices but offers perks over the courtroom including cushioned seats, ample space, and better air conditioning.

Weitzman’s daily dispatches recite and explain the significance of each day’s exchanges between attorneys and witnesses as well as the judge and the attorneys. Among the most striking revelations so far is that Google secretly maneuvered to try to increase search ad pricing without informing advertisers when sales were on pace to miss Wall Street expectations in 2019. Google declined to comment for this story. “My main goal has been to just be accurate and report on what’s happening inside in the courtroom … in a fair way that doesn’t distort what actually happened in favor of either side,” Weitzman says.

Weitzman’s reports flag when he couldn’t hear or understand some of the dialog and weave in references to trial exhibits. He’s called out internal Google emails and presentations, some of which the Justice Department was posting on its website until Google told the judge about the links earlier this week. Prosecutors pulled the uploads pending Mehta’s take on the practice.

The debate over the exhibits has featured in posts on X (formerly Twitter) from the courthouse by Gray, the independent lawyer. She also has tracked genders, age, and races of presenting attorneys. Based on her perceptions, the Justice Department has fielded four women and three persons of any gender under 45 years old, while Google’s team has featured none in either category; there have been no racial minorities on either side. “It reinforces how old and entrenched Google is,” Gray says. What she characterizes as the arrogant and obstreperous demeanor of testifying Google employees’ has spurred spirited laughter in the overflow room, she says. “You can’t get that through a 2D transcript,” she says.

Beside Gray, Weitzman and journalists at outlets including MLex and Reuters attending in person have all posted their reflections on X. But as people have decamped from the service during Elon Musk’s ownership, it doesn’t provide the definitive conversation on marquee tech events it once did. A Bloomberg journalist at the trial has been skeeting on Bluesky, and a one at Law360 has shared trial musings on Threads.

The dispersed conversation makes newsletters like Weitzman’s, which also aggregates information from elsewhere, more important. Luther Lowe, senior vice president of public policy at business reviews app Yelp, a long-time Google foe, turned his weekly note on Google antitrust news into a daily operation for the trial. He’s attending when he can, but mostly relying on instant transcripts, which cost $1.20 per page and run over 300 pages per day. “The cost of the transcripts by the end of trial will be in the tens of thousands of dollars,” he says. “I want to know what’s going on in real time.” But taking 10 weeks off to sit on his hands and observe everyday isn’t an option.

Even Google’s search rivals Microsoft and DuckDuckGo, which stand to benefit the most if the government wins, don’t have people watching the trial every day. Nor do advocacy groups such as the Tech Oversight Project or Chamber of Progress.

Closer to the courtroom but also missing are US lawmakers and their aides, who are occupied across the street at the Capitol trying to avert a government funding collapse that could suspend the trial next month. When lawmakers get back to considering how to regulate large tech companies, lessons from the Google trial could prove valuable. Congressman Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican, watched opening arguments from the courtroom to show support for the government’s case. Now, his spokesperson Victoria Marshall says he’s following the action through X—and hoping that future trials have greater access.

[blogjhm]

I'm very sure these are the same thing which is why the plot for Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie was reused for Dora And The Lost City Of Gold. I think Craig Bartlett the creator of Hey Arnold! should sue the story/screenwriters Tom Wheeler Matthew Robinson and Nicholas Stoller for stealing his ideas.

[mypatchworkreflection]

"What is Facebook’s response to the ugly stories on how it tracks and manipulates children? To apologize? To obey the Federal Trade Commission’s order to stop? Nope.

Zuckerberg just asked a court to declare the FTC unconstitutional."

- Matthew Stoller

Actually, I think that the court should find that I have too much money for rules to apply to me, and I can do what I want.

[zwischenstadt]

It is clear from the outset of Goliath that Stoller very evidently wishes for a more just and equal world, and many of his solutions—breaking up and regulating the big banks and tech companies, for example—would be far preferable to the status quo. But he does not explain any of the reasons an anti-monopoly politics might win or achieve any staying power. If all of American history is defined by the struggle between the great heroes of anti-monopoly democracy and the avarice of Mellonism, then why would powerful and greedy men not machinate once more against antitrust laws? Why wouldn’t disdainful intellectuals conspire against the people’s cause yet again? If the prevalence of monopoly, as Stoller insists, bears no relation to the larger social and economic environment and is purely a voluntary choice, then there’s no reason to believe that anti-monopoly can produce a stable resolution to the problem of corporate power. From where might antitrust politics draw social and political power with a mass base of farmers, craftsmen, and small businessmen long gone? What might bind the people as a whole together to confront their overlords? By way of employment in some cases, low prices or convenience in others, the monopolies that he detests have sunk their roots into large sections of society. Come after Amazon, and you come after its tens of millions of users too. The socialism that Stoller dismisses emerged precisely in answer to these problems. It contends that capitalism gives rise—not once but repeatedly—to a potentially coherent and antagonistic social force capable of collective action. This is the working class. Because capitalism produces a larger population over time that cannot survive from its own property and therefore joins many of these people at sites of collective labor, it makes it possible for them to organize and then to exercise leverage and political leadership over other sectors of society. (This is the reason that the most exciting intellectual work in antitrust is being done by scholars who work on market power specifically in employment, such as Sanjukta Paul, Suresh Naidu, and Marshall Steinbaum.) One may criticize the socialist’s faith in the working class as politically naive or empirically inaccurate. But in any case, socialism (and beneath it Marxism as well) contains a theory of politics—a definite account of friends and enemies and why each is what it is—whereas Stoller’s populism does not. This is why socialists have proved to be so much less prone to deviations into jingoism and conspiracy theory than their populist peers.

Gabriel Winant’s new review of Matthew Stoller’s Goliath in The Nation

[sweepsy]

Tech, media e democrazia

Tech, media e democrazia

L’annuncio della separazione dei Daft Punk dopo 28 anni di successi internazionali mi ha un po’ confusa e però mi ha dato il suggerimento adatto per la giusta musica di sottofondo per ragionare sul tema: la colonna sonora di Tron: Legacy.  Sarebbe bello se internet fosse fatto di gatti come vagheggiava una vecchia canzone su youtube, in realtà però è composta di nodi molto più reali, complessi e…

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Dora and the Lost City of Gold

There is a line of thinking which holds that you will enjoy things more if you turn off your adult brain and think like a child. I disdain this argument for two reasons. First, it assumes children cannot appreciate quality in their entertainment. Second, it posits that if you do not enjoy something, it isn’t because that thing was flawed, but because you’re an old grump. Dora and the Lost City of Gold kicks away both of these tired assumptions and delivers an exciting, irreverent, funny, well-made film that could serve as the first great pulp adventure for kids too young for Indiana Jones, while being legitimately interesting to adults. It is proof of my frequent assertion that you can make a good movie out of any subject.

Dora, who debuted as a 7-year-old adventurer educating children on culture and language in one of Nickelodeon’s most successful shows, has grown up. She’s 18, played by Isabela Moner (who also voiced a ten-year-old Dora on a follow-up show). She’s lived all her life in the jungles of Peru, accompanied only by her adventurer parents (Eva Longoria and Michael Pena) and her monkey Boots (voice of Danny Trejo, and yes, you hear him talk through the monkey at one point). Her one human friend her age, her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) moved from the jungle when she was 6. Her parents have spent years on the trail of a lost Incan city named Parapata. Much like when you were a kid and wanted to do whatever it was your parents did, Dora inherits their love for adventure and frequently gets herself in trouble. After endangering herself to a particular degree while thinking she’s found the city, her parents decide she’s not gained enough responsibility to continue the search for Parapata with them, and send her to school in L.A. while they continue the search.

From the off, the movie is spiced with just enough irreverent humor to clue in those of us who have seen dozens of episodes of the cartoon that this is not that. The first few minutes strongly suggest that the entire TV show was actually just the product of Dora and Diego’s imaginations, though it somehow does so in a way that doesn’t feel dismissive of the kids who grew up with it. Once grown, screenwriters Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson provide the still-wide-eyed Dora with more comic fodder riffing on the show; a seconds-long explanation of a dangerous flower (“Can you say severe neurotoxicity?”) had me laughing as hard as anything I can remember this year. The characters poke fun at the show in a way that feels loving rather than insulting (“Who is gonna recognize one specific fox?”). This may be chalked up to the fact that the movie chose to employ at least one bona-fide comedy writer: Stoller’s credits include Forgetting Sarah Marshall, still one of the funniest films of this century, and director James Bobin’s Muppets movies, which also had a successful balance of whimsy and satire.

Moner is the key to the movie’s success. Her Dora is excitable, energetic, and optimistic, but never cloying or insulting to any age of viewer. She may have grown up in the jungle, but she’s not stupid: she understands that some people are mean because they’re damaged, and she knows what sex and dating are (parents, take comfort: her comments about mating practices will, like much of the film’s adult-geared humor, pass by your little ones without notice). She regularly embarrasses the now grown Diego, who just wants to get through the day with as little drama as possible. “This is High School,” he insists. “It’s life or death,” and frankly my own High School experiences incline me to agree. Also attracting Dora’s attention are over-achiever Sammy (Madeleine Madden), who is a toned-down version of Rachel McAdams’ Mean Girls character, and Randy (Nicholas Coombe), a shy nerd who, although the movie never quite goes there with it, would be Dora’s perfect match. These companions, who naturally eventually end up on the search for Parapata, are not given the same emotional or comic development as Dora, but they are supposed to be foils for her, representations of flaws she does not possess who she can play off of, and they are successful at this.

Dora eventually stops receiving messages from her parents, deduces they are in trouble, and enlists her reluctant classmates to rescue them. This comes with the introduction of both a band of mercenaries working with a CG Swiper the Fox (voice of Benicio Del Toro) and a guide, Alejandro (Eugenio Derbez) who is not the clueless, bumbling adult of kids movies, yet also not quite the fearless explorer he would like the kids to believe he is. I particularly appreciated his role, which is developed to an extent adults in these movies rarely are.

The adventures in the jungle have the tone of amusement park rides the way you remember them from childhood, as opposed to the way they actually were. The special effects and sets are deliberately just this side of realistic---gigantic rainbow flowers that spit poison, a throne room that feels like something out of an escape room, and other locations remind you of the mix of unreality and immersion you get wandering a really good man-made park. The film offers extended surprises in the story, too. If you ever wondered why characters in adventure movies never have to use the restroom, this one somehow manages to address that in a way that is both hilarious and does not feel low-brow. Dora’s inevitable moment of doubt in her leadership abilities feels real and true. And there’s an extended callback to the cartoon, which I won’t spoil, that only a truly inspired creative team would ever have thought of, and only a truly trusting studio would ever have signed off on. (As a side note: are there any fans of Don Rosa in the audience? And did you get the sense, during the stunt with the sluice gate, that the writers have read a particular comic of his?). I can only imagine what wonderful ideas the filmmakers didn’t use for this entry. A lot of family films get sequels, but this is one of the only such movies that absolutely needs one.

People ask why I get so tired of all-ages entertainment that panders to what viewers have already decided they want, or that employs cheap use of pop songs and recycled gags instead of real wit. They want to know why I can’t just turn my brain off. It’s because, every so often, you get a movie like this, something in the grand tradition of Holes or The Red Balloon, which knows that if you make a good film, kids and adults will respond. Against, arguably, all odds, a TV show designed to teach young kids about the world has been transmuted into one of the best live-action family films you can get. If anyone else out there would like to take a cue from Bobin and company and start making their all-ages fare with actual brains and heart and risk, I just have this to say: “Swiper, yes swiping.”

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

 You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

 Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

 All images are property of the people what own the movie.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

Paramount Pictures made a huge blunder while advertising Dora and the Lost City of Gold. All the marketing team needed to do to make every inkling of apprehension vanish was show off the film’s star: Isabela Moner. She’s so sweet-natured, enthusiastic, earnest and charismatic you’d follow her on ANY adventure, even one that threatens to trample on your childhood. 

Raised by her parents Cole (Michael Peña) and Elena (Eva Longoria) in the Peruvian jungle, Dora (Moner) has been trying for years to help them find Parapata, the lost Incan city of gold. One day, a break in the search forces Dora's parents to head out on their own while the young explorer goes to live with her cousin, Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) and attend high school. When all contact with them stops, family friend Alejandro Gutierrez (Eugenio Derbez), Dora, Diego and their classmates Sammy (Madeleine Madden) and Randy (Nicholas Coombe) pick up the trail - with rival treasure-seekers right behind them.

Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer contains many elements which would be difficult to translate to a live-action narrative. It frequently breaks the fourth wall, asks the audience to participate, and features a talking backpack and map (among other things). The way these are all incorporated in this story is brilliant. Rather than turn Dora into a badass action heroine with gadgets, give her a funny sidekick to emphasize how grown up she is, or do what so many other failed movie adaptations do, the story retains the feel of the original show. Director James Bobin ratchets up the child-like imagination and wonder of the story. I went in expecting them to drop Swiper, the bandit-mask-wearing fox who steals but he’s here, voiced by Benicio del Toro!

In many scenes, Dora unabashedly goes for it, committing to silliness in a way that’s completely earnest and full of excitement. Under normal circumstances, it would be cringe-worthy. The adult actors are hamming it up, the special effects are a bit dodgy and you can see where the plot's headed from a long distance but then there's Moner. She “takes the role seriously”, by which I mean she understands that if she really puts her all in the character, audiences will accept it. More than just her, we accept every outlandish sight. Anthropomorphic monkey with red boots? I see no problem with that. You forget all outside factors and simply drink in what you see on-screen. It's a lot of fun.

Dora and the Lost City of Gold should've probably crumbled to pieces but an outstanding central performance and a tone that fully embraces the spirit of what a movie like this should be make it a winner. You'll get a lot more out of it if you know what an average episode of the show is like but even without it, it's a breezy, energetic adventure. (Theatrical version on the big screen, August 14, 2019)

[cinemafanatic]

"This is my house."

Night School (2018)

[ninasoden]

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (Movie Review)

#TheRedheadedAuthor reviews Dora and the Lost City of Gold staring Isabela Merced. #MovieReview #Dora #Covid #Quarintine #Movies

Title: Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

Director: James Bobin

Screenplay By: Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson

Stars: Isabela Merced, Eugenio Derbez, Michael Pena, Benicio Del Toro

Genre(s): Adventure | Comedy | Family

Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes | Rating: PG

IMDB STORY LINE:

Having spent most of her life exploring the jungle with her parents, nothing could prepare…

[where-starsland]

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019) screenplay by Nicholas Stoller & Matthew Robinson directed by James Bobin

[andrewmoocow]

Little Homeworld Life chapter 9: To Err Is Human (originally published on October 10, 2022)

AN: As the talented comedic geniuses that made up Monty Python once said, "And now for something completely different." You know how rampant those human Gem AUs are? Well, allow me to present my spin on the concept inspired by the likes of Saved by the Bell and all the Disney sitcoms of old! I started watching the former on Hulu to get some inspiration, just FYI. Considering how the Alternate Future continuity I have created is a bit different from the Steven Universe we're used to, this should be an interesting take. Anyways, school's in session everybody, so strap in!

Synopsis: Welcome to Crystal High, where the quirky new girl in school Whitney Topaz falls for the captain of the football team Jasper Brooks as she helps her new classmates break free from Ruth Black's oppressive control! Wait, something isn't right.

Cast:

Lauren Ash as Whitney Topaz/White Topaz

Kimberly Brooks as Jasper Brooks/Jasper, Jazz Day/Dalmatian Jasper

Noël Wells as Ruth Black/Black Rutile

Estelle as Estelle Garrett/Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amy Thomas/Amethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl Hall/Pearl

Shelby Rabara as Dot Perry/Peridot

Jennifer Paz as Lana Lance/Lapis Lazuli, Zoey Lance/Zuli, Lucy Lance/Laz

Uzo Aduba as Biddie Matthews/Bismuth

Amy Sedaris as Teal Zircon/Thea Zick

Della Saba as Marina Blue/Aquamarine

Christine Pedi as Agatha Holly/Holly Blue Agate

Casey Lee Williams as Catherine "Cat" Eyre/Cat's Eye

Charlyne Yi as Irene Charles/Eyeball

Featuring Avi Roque as Cindy Barr/Cinnabar

Awkwafina as Kylie Newman/Kyanite

Allison Janney as Piper Ryan/Pyrite

Zehra Fazal as Zelda Sullivan/Zoisite

Lena Hall as Blair Stone/Bloodstone

Jodie Whittaker as Xanthe Turner/Xenotime

Marc Diraison as Ash Topaz

April Winchell as Lauren Topaz

Zeno Robinson as Kenny Topaz

And Fred Stoller as Jameson Brooks

--

Little Homestead, Delmarva was much like any other small American town. Everybody knew each other's names, community get-togethers were a frequent affair, and most of its residents have lived there all their lives. However, one family that had just moved to town from the big city would prove to change its youth forever.

The Topaz family, consisting of husband-and-wife Ash and Lauren, their teenage daughter Whitney and young son Kenny, had moved into town from Riverdale, Empire State, over the weekend after Ash got an assignment from his boss Hiram Lodge to expand Lodge Industries' influence across the Mid-Atlantic. This meant Whitney had to leave her wholesome friends behind. Though it was tough to say goodbye, Whitney always knew she'd be a stone's throw away from seeing them again whenever she liked.

--

"Hi-diddly-ho, new neighborino!" the Topazes' new neighbor Ted greeted them on a warm September morning.

"You must be Ted Sanders, I presume." Ash Topaz replied as he shook Ted's hand. "Ash Topaz, my family and I came here from Riverdale last Saturday."

"Oh, my land, Riverdale?" Ted gasped in elation. "Home of Lodge Industries?!"

"Yep, that's the one." Ash smiled. "I moved the fam here under Hiram's orders, which reminds me. I should probably introduce them to you some time."

"Oh, my boys, the missus, and I would love to meet you!" Ted smiled. "Hey, that reminds me, shouldn't your youngins be getting ready for school right now?"

"Shoot, thanks for the heads up!" Ash gasped in realization. "Talk to you later, okay?"

"My door's always open!" Ted replied as Ash raced back inside his house to get his kids ready.

--

"Sis, sis, you gotta wake up." A ten-year-old platinum blonde-haired boy said while poking his older sister in her plump lips. "Sis, sis!" The boy was still wearing some Cookie Cat-themed pajamas, while the girl had on a Mister Universe T-shirt that was a little too big for her, along with some workout shorts.

"Dah, I'm awake, I'm awake!" sixteen-year-old Whitney Topaz yelled as she jolted awake. "Oh, thanks for the lift, Kenny. So, you ready for your first day of school?"

"Uh, I don't know." Kenny Topaz replied nervously. "What if I don't make any friends at my new school? I'm scared, Whitty."

"Hey, don't get so wound up, Ken." Whitney said with a comforting smile at her little brother. "Besides, I'm pretty nervous too. I'm sure my classmates will be nice, but they got nothing on good ol' Archie and pals!"

"Oh, Whitney, you're awake!" Whitney and Kenny's homemaking mother, Lauren Topaz, said delightedly as she peered into her daughter's room. "Hop to it, young lady, don't want to be late!"

"Don't worry, Mom." Whitney said as she got up and did some stretches that Kenny was quick to try imitating. "Aw, I see someone's already ready."

"Haha, Whitty!" Kenny laughed before suddenly falling over, only to be helped up by his big sister, and the two walked out of Whitney's room hand in hand.

--

Meanwhile, in a slightly grungier part of town frequented by purse snatchers, dognappers, and carjackers, a tall, muscular teen girl with stripe tattoos lining her arms and a jasper nose ring started her morning with a few rounds on her prized punching bag. This was Jasper Brooks, a tough-as-nails punk who grew up in the rough parts of Little Homestead and had to rely on her wits and her strength to survive.

"Oy, Jasper, rise and shine!" Jasper's father, Jameson Brooks, yelled from outside. "It's the first day of school; start prepping already!"

"Whatever." Jasper responded nonchalantly to her father as her punching stopped, and she looked fondly at a photo of herself as a baby with her mother. "Hey, Mom, miss you tons, but Dad and I are still pulling through." She said to the picture while trying not to get too emotional. She had a reputation to uphold, after all. "I know you would've been proud of me."

"Hey, what's keepin' ya?!" Jameson yelled again. "These pancakes ain't gonna eat themselves!"

"I'm coming!" Jasper yelled as she tossed a towel over her shoulders and marched out of her room.

--

"Have fun, Whitney!" Lauren called as she dropped Whitney off at her new high school. "Hope you can make at least one friend today!"

"I hope so too. Love you, Mom!" Whitney yelled back as she turned around to gaze at Crystal High, the number one high school in Little Homestead, and all the cliques that came with being a high school.

"Okay, Jasper, try not to get into too much trouble this year." Jameson said to his daughter as his tow truck pulled up right behind Whitney as the latter girl walked towards the building. "There are only so many football accidents I can help you out of."

"See you later, pops." Jasper responded as she prepared to get out, but her father interrupted her with a hand on her brawny shoulder. "Uh, what is it now?"

"Just wanna say I'm proud of ya for keeping it together." Jameson gave his daughter a genuine smile. "Welp, see ya later."

"Bye." Jasper waved goodbye to her crass but goodhearted dad as his tow truck drove away, and she turned on her heel to walk to another year of high school.

"Okay, Whitney, just gotta play it cool." Whitney said to herself as she looked around at all the various cliques surrounding her. "You're just a by-the-books, plain jane new girl in town who will no doubt initially be looked down upon by your peers for the first couple of weeks. Nothing too huge."

"Hey, new girl, over here!" an overeager dark-skinned girl dressed in teal colors yelled as she raced up to Whitney and gave her a welcoming handshake. "My name's Thea Zick. Welcome to Crystal High! You must be new in town. What's your name?!"

"Nice to meet you. I'm Whitney Topaz." Whitney introduced herself to Thea. "My family moved here from Riverdale a few days ago, and this is my first day here."

"I knew you were the new girl in town because I never saw your face before, and I know everyone's faces!" Thea replied happily. "Anyways, welcome to Crystal High, founded in 1987 by Dr. Rebecca Sucrose to further her goal of enriching the education of our youth community." She then began gesturing to each of the cliques. "Here, you can find all the usual cliques you'd see in all the high school movies. Like the cheerleaders, for example."

"They seem happy to be together again." Whitney nodded at the troupe of pink-and-blue uniform-wearing cheerleaders squeeing at seeing each other again after a long summer before taking notice of two in particular. The first had curly blonde hair with blue streaks, and the other had similarly colored hair tied into a ponytail with a golden bow.

"Wanna know a fun fact?" Thea asked. "The co-captains, Lucy and Zoey Lance, are the daughters of our art teacher, Lana Lance."

"Good to know." Whitney agreed before looking at a group of goths. "Those are the goths, right?"

"You bet." Thea proclaimed proudly before gesturing to other cliques. "You also got the nerds, the hipsters, the drama kids, the gamers, the artists, the preps, the delinquents, but our cream of the crop is the sports teams!"

"Yo Jasper, over here!" one of Jasper's fellow football players called for his captain, and they engaged in a secret handshake. "We missed ya, girl!"

"How did working in the old man's garage treat you?" another of Jasper's teammates asked.

"Check it!" Jasper replied as she flexed her muscles, amazing the football team and causing Whitney to gape in adoration.

"Oh yeah, the Crystal High Wildcats. Best football team in the school district!" Thea exclaimed before she noticed that her new friend was stunned. "Uh oh, somebody's got a crush!"

"What? No, I don't!" Whitney fibbed with a laugh. "I mean, she looks really cool and hot, but it's not like I'm going to lie awake at night thinking about her, right?"

"You keep telling yourself that." Thea smiled knowingly before she winced at another student approaching them. "Oh no, hide! It's her!"

"Who are you talking about?" Whitney asked as she saw her new classmates also tremble in fear, cuing the arrival of a tall, distinguished young woman with black hair sticking in an upward point, red-rimmed glasses, a black dress shirt, and matching pants. She was followed by a much smaller girl who could only reach up to her hips wearing a dark blue sweater-vest and pleated skirt, a woman with white high-heeled boots and a blue blouse with her hair in buns, and another cheerleader with a rather catlike face and a dark brown coat & matching hat. "Who are these girls?"

"I'll tell you later; just act natural!" Thea exclaimed as she nervously hid behind Whitney as the four girls approached the new students.

"We know you're hiding behind her, Thea." The lead girl in black announced, forcing Thea out of hiding. "Why didn't you tell us that we were getting a new student?"

"Oh, it's not my fault; she just got here!" Thea sweated in terror, her teeth chattering in fright, while Whitney stared blankly at the four high schoolers before her.

"Welcome to Crystal High, miss…." The lead girl greeted Whitney with a reach of her hand.

"Whitney Topaz." Whitney introduced herself as she shook the other girl's hand. "And you are?"

"My name is of no importance at the moment." The menacing greeter responded. "But since you asked, you may call me Ruth Black. Now, off to homeroom with you. Go on, vamoose!"

"Uhhhh…." Whitney said flatly as Ruth and her posse walked away.

"And the rest of you, get to your classes, or you're all getting a write-up!" Ruth yelled at her classmates, striking fear into their hearts as they scrambled to their homerooms. "That's right, stick to the status quo, everyone!"

"I'm guessing she's the mean girl I have to watch my step around?" Whitney asked Teal as the two blended in with the scrambling students.

"Ruth Black, student council president and effectively the ruler of this school." Thea replied. "We have a principal here, who's really great, by the way, but Ruth basically has everyone under her foot! We don't know why she wakes up in the morning feeling like making everyone's lives a nightmare, but I don't think we wanna know."

"That's terrible, she's terrible!" Whitney yelled loud enough for anyone around her to hear. "Some student council president she is; she's more like a psycho dictator!"

"You said it." Thea responded with a nod. "So many students have wanted to take her down a peg, but they're too scared to pull through with it because she's just that powerful!"

"Well, someone oughta do something about this!" Whitney declared. "In fact, I nominate myself to help everyone make their school year brighter!"

"Good on you for wanting to finish the fight!" Thea responded happily. "Hey, that reminds me, which homeroom teacher do you have?"

"Oh, I got Ms. Thomas." Whitney said. "How about you?"

"No way, me too!" Thea exclaimed. "She's in Room 111; I think you'll really like her!"

As the two girls searched for their homeroom, another girl whose left eye was hidden behind her bangs watched the duo's conversation before scurrying away to warn her superiors about Whitney's plans.

--

"I don't know, Miss Black, aren't these budget cuts a little drastic?" the guidance counselor Pearl Hall asked as she and Principal Estelle Garrett met with Ruth Black in the principal's office. "I mean, I consider music and art classes to be absolutely vital in youth development!"

"Oh please, I'm plenty developed as is." Ruth scoffed with a shrug. "I never required such classes, so why should everyone else?"

"Remember that regardless of your high status, you're just as much of a student here as the other teenagers here." Estelle tried to bring Ruth's egotism down a peg. "You may think that just because you emerged victorious in the student council elections, you'd use that as an excuse to abuse the power that comes with it, but-"

"Yeah, I know. I'm still just a girl at the end of the day!" Ruth unemphatically cut the principal off before she heard a knock at the door. "I'll get that." She opened the office door to find a panicked Irene on the other side, letting her in. "Irene, my trusted eyes and ears of the entire school, any updates?" Unfortunately, Irene was a little too exhausted and nervous to say any whole sentences, so Ruth just translated her panting. "Wait, Dripping Yellow Madness is back? I thought he moved out after the fifth grade!"

"I'm so sorry; I just ran fast because I needed to warn you." Irene replied. "It's that new girl, Whitney Topaz! She says she wants to change how you run this place, or something like that. She even outright called you a psycho dictator!"

"The new girl wants to help everyone?" Pearl exclaimed in delight. "I'm so excited!" An enraged Ruth glared at the guidance counselor. "I mean, I'm so scared!"

"Emergency council meeting at once." Ruth grumbled as she stormed out of Principal Garrett's office. "I will not tolerate this threat to my power!"

"Looks like someone can't tolerate change too." Estelle snarked as Ruth slammed the door on her way out. "Pearl, I suggest we keep an eye out on this Topaz girl. And tell the other teachers to do the same. I have a feeling she really could make a change here."

"I'll call them to your office during transition." Pearl smiled in response. "Ooh, finally, someone who can save us!"

--

Meanwhile, in Room 111, Mrs. Thomas's homeroom students were all sitting at their desks waiting for their teacher to arrive. Whitney and Thea were seated right next to each other, and unbeknownst to them at the moment, Jasper Brooks was sitting not too far away from the duo. Just then, a woman who looked more likely to be a student with an amethyst brooch attached to her black jacket strolled into the room and sat at her desk. "Morning, everyone. My name's Amy Thomas; I hope you had a great summer! Now, before we start rollcall, let's introduce the new student."

"Hi, everyone; my name's Whitney Topaz." Whitney greeted her new classmates with a smile. "I moved here from Riverdale in Empire State just last weekend, so I hope all of you are just as friendly as my old friends from there."

"Thanks for the heads-up, Whitney. Now let's get roll calling!" Mrs. Thomas said as she pulled out an attendance sheet. "Apologies if I'm going in random order; I didn't have enough time to alphabetize everything. Anyways, Tommy Oliver?"

"Here." A muscular man dressed in a green and white jacket said.

"Sue Heck?" Amy continued reading the attendance sheet.

"Present!" a dorky, brown-haired girl wearing braces exclaimed cheerfully.

"Joey Wheeler?"

"Nyeh, here." A blonde man shuffling a deck of cards responded with a Brooklyn accent.

"Candace Flynn?"

"Uh, here." An orange-haired girl with an unusually long neck said with an awkward wave of her hand.

"I think I like her already." Whitney said to Thea about Mrs. Thomas as the roll call continued. "She looks like she'd rather belong with us students, which makes her instantly relatable."

"Whitney Topaz?" Amy asked for Whitney's name.

"Here!" Whitney exclaimed while raising her hand.

"Good to know you're still onboard." Amy smiled at the new girl. "Thea Zick?"

"Ooh, that's me, that's me!" Thea waved her arms eagerly at hearing her name called.

"Chipper as always, TZ." Amy grinned before returning to roll call. "Okay, who's next? Jasper Brooks?"

"Here." Jasper snorted as she gazed out the window all nonchalantly, finally making Whitney realize that she had shared a homeroom with her new crush. Everything about her seemed perfect to the new student, from her big muscles to her punk rock outfit, the stripes on her arms, her wild hair, and that sense of rebellious nonchalance she carried with her.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing right now?!" Whitney muttered in shock to Thea. "That's the girl I had the hots for earlier! What was her name again?"

"Jasper Brooks, you have a crush on the Jasper Brooks!" Thea replied excitedly. "If you date her, maybe we could be in with the cool kids!"

"Okay everyone, that should be it for rollcall!" Amy declared as she finished listing off her homeroom students. "Go ahead and get comfortable until the bell rings." The students then began getting out of their desks to greet each other, talk about their summers, and get introduced to Whitney. But she had her eyes on someone else.

"Hi, my name's Whitney!" Whitney introduced herself to Jasper as she began blushing like no tomorrow. "I'm sure you've already heard my name a couple of dozen times, but I want to get to know you better! You're Jasper Brooks, right?"

"Yep." Jasper said tersely. "You said you were from Riverdale, right? Home of The Archies?"

"Oh yeah, Archie and his gang were all great pals." Whitney replied. "Maybe someday I could introduce you to them all. Speaking of which, you're on the football team, right?"

"Captain of the Crystal High Wildcats, to be precise." Jasper responded. "You want to come watch me practice after school?"

"Oh, I'd love to, but I have to get home so I can help my family unpack all our stuff from the move." Whitney declined sadly. "But if you'd like, maybe I could text you. Want my phone number? It's 1 (212) 867-5309."

"Thanks for the number." Jasper responded after entering Whitney's number into her phone. "I'll, uh, see you around. What classes do you have next?"

"I got art with Mrs. Lance." Whitney answered. "Ooh, I love art! This is gonna be so much fun!"

"What a coincidence, I got that class too." Jasper grinned in realization. "Any other classes we might happen to share?"

"Well, after that is gym with Ms. Matthews, then science with Mrs. Perry, English with Mr. Sanchez, Spanish with Senor Esteban, lunch, and finally math with Mr. Powers." Whitney responded. "You?"

"I got Matthews, Perry, and Powers too, coincidentally." Jasper added. "Wow, we got a lot of classes together. It's almost like we were destined to meet or something."

"Yeah, maybe." Whitney chuckled awkwardly as her blush got even brighter. Before Jasper could catch on, the two were cut off by Thea squealing in delight over their conversation. "Thea!"

"I can't believe it. Only one conversation, and you got her number!" Thea yelled excitedly. "This is going to be so awesome!" But contrary to what Thea said, someone didn't think things were awesome. Ruth Black shared a homeroom with Whitney, Jasper, and Thea, and she was not happy with what she had just watched.

--

As Whitney began getting used to her new routine at Crystal High and becoming closer to Jasper once homeroom ended, they were unwise to the fact that a sinister plot was brewing right beneath their noses.

"If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without being born. We are the chick; the world is our egg." Ruth monologued to herself as the student council assembled in a meeting room under her orders. "If we don't crack the world's shell, we will die without being born. Smash the world's shell."

"For the revolution of the world!" the student council concluded for Ruth as they were seated at their places at the table. Aside from Ruth herself as their leader, there was the secretary Marina Black, one of the highest-scoring students in Crystal High; the hall monitor Agatha Holly, social media expert, treasurer, and cheer squad representative Catherine "Cat" Eyre. In addition, there was the debate team leader and council advisor Cindy Barr; dance squad leader Kylie Newman, class representative Piper Ryan; sports team manager Jazz Day and her girlfriend Zelda Sullivan; extracurricular activity manager Blair Stone; and co-advisor Xanthe Turner.

"Now, you may wonder why I have gathered you all today." Ruth inquired her council.

"Let me guess, is it that new girl everyone's been talking about?" Marina responded.

"Yes, exactly, it is because of the new girl." Ruth answered quietly before she started yelling. "OF COURSE IT'S BECAUSE OF THE NEW GIRL! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SOMEONE BE THIS MUCH OF A THREAT TO MY CONTROL OVER THIS SCHOOL AFTER ONLY A FEW PERIODS?!"

"Pardon me for asking Miss Black, but could anyone tell me who the new girl is?" Cindy asked her superior.

"Whitney Topaz, age 16, born February 4, 2001, in Riverdale, Empire State." Agatha read from Whitney's new records. "She has only just started here after moving out of Riverdale due to a job transfer, but it seems the girl has already made a name for herself."

"Haven't seen a new student become this notorious since that Parker boy from a few years back." Catherine purred as she typed away on her phone with a lollipop in her mouth. "Anyone remember him, the little dweeb who suddenly became on par with an Olympian and started getting all the girls?"

"I actually kinda miss that guy." Kylie replied. "We only went on one date before he had to run off, but he was a pretty sweet guy. I hope he and his aunt are doing well."

"Back on subject, we cannot let Whitney's rebellion continue," Ruth stated. "I didn't win the council election in a landslide and earned myself a full-ride scholarship to Diamond University just to let the mother of all generic awkward new girls try to take my place as the talk of the town! And what's worse? She's apparently had eyes for Jasper Brooks, my ex-girlfriend, might I add!"

The rest of the council gasped in shock before they erupted into chattering. "Am I hearing things, or is Whitney having feelings for Brooks of all people?" Jazz asked Zelda.

"Those two won't last a week!" Zelda rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"I'll give them eleven to twenty-two minutes." Piper added.

"We have to do something about this!" Blair yelled. "What kind of dirt on her family can we expose to the public and permanently tarnish her reputation? That always seems to work!"

"From what I've gathered, the Topazes seem to be your perfectly average upper-middle-class nuclear family." Xanthe answered coldly. "Not a one of them seems to have any criminal history, or at the very least have performed any dirty deeds for dirt cheap."

"Order everyone, order!" Ruth yelled as she commanded silence with a bang of a gavel. "We must act quickly before she does anything out of the ordinary! I have worked day and night, micromanaging this school to fit my expectations! Someone hand me Whitney's schedule!"

"Right here, Miss Black." Irene said as she handed the schedule to Ruth, who began looking it over.

"Well, what a surprise. It seems she and Jasper have some classes together this year." Ruth growled as she adjusted her glasses and was handed Jasper's schedule as well. "Girls, I have a little mission for you all."

--

Outside of the meeting, Whitney and Jasper were now at their next class of the day, which was art with Mrs. Lance, the mother of the cheerleading squad's co-captains Lucy and Zoey, dressed in a blue, short-sleeve sweater with gold cuffs, some blue jeans, and a pair of sandals.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm happy that you all made it today." Lana Lance greeted her students. "Considering that I'm in constant danger of losing my job because apparently, I don't teach any vital skills, I'm just delighted to see that people still want to learn art, or meep-morps as I call them."

"Uh, why do you call them meep-morps, anyways?" Whitney raised her hand with a question.

"I don't know, I just went out with the science teacher one night, and we thought it would be funny." Lana chuckled before she continued. "Anyways, over this school year, we'll be doing art projects together in groups of two, so pick your partner. You two will be stuck together for the whole year."

"I already know who I'm picking!" Whitney said as she looked at Jasper, who just blushed as she looked away.

"Oh, you're picking Jasper?" Lana asked Whitney. "What's your name, kid?"

"My name's Whitney Topaz." Whitney introduced herself to her art teacher. "Why, does Jasper not like working in pairs?"

"No, I just wanted to give you a little fun fact." Lana smirked at Jasper's expense. "Jasper actually had a crush on me the first time she was in my class."

"Mrs. Lance!" Jasper yelled in embarrassment. "I kept telling you, I was a dumb teenager at the time, and I'm over it now!"

"I know. I just find it so funny." Lana laughed. "Anyways, I want all my pairs to partner up and start drawing for the day. I shall hand out your sketchbooks immediately."

"What did Mrs. Lance say about constantly being in danger of joblessness?" Whitney murmured to Jasper as everyone received the sketchbooks they would keep for the year.

"Tyrannical student council thinks art isn't a valuable subject to teach." Jasper responded. "I'm sure you may have heard from Thea, but they rule this school."

"Art isn't valuable?!" Whitney exclaimed while Marina Blue secretly stole one of the sketchbooks to throw out, thus making Lana one book short of giving to a student. "Well, in my opinion, art is very valuable because it allows you to express yourself in infinite ways!"

"Ooh, sorry, Whitney, but I think we suddenly ran out of sketchbooks." Lana said sadly as she handed Jasper her empty sketchbook. "But if you'd like, I have some spares coming next week. Until then, maybe you can share with your partner."

"Sure, why not?" Jasper shrugged in agreement, making Whitney hug her new friend in excitement as Marina cursed herself for not considering the art teacher's quick thinking.

"Okay, now that we all have sketchbooks, let's start with a few basic portraits first." Lana stated as she guided her class through the lesson of the day.

--

Once art was finished, it was time for gym with Biddie Matthews, a powerfully built middle-aged woman easily identified by her dyed rainbow dreadlocks and a star tattoo on her upper arm. "Okay, gang, when you're in the gym with me, expect things to get a little intense! Now, I won't go so hard on you guys, but be warned that trips to the nurse's office will be frequent."

"Like, are you challenging me or something?" a hippie-looking boy with shaggy hair dared the gym teacher.

"Easy, Rogers." Biddie said to the student. "Now, in my gym, I got three rules you should all live by! One, be quick on your feet, because you never know when there's a bad situation where you need to hightail out of there. Two, keep a cool head. Gym can be stressful, but don't get too wound up when you screw up. And three, there's no such thing as "I can't do this." We don't go no time for such negativity. The only words you need are, "Let me give this a shot." Are we clear on that?!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Biddie's students declared obediently.

"That's what I wanna hear out of my class!" Biddie exclaimed proudly. "Now then, first things first, let's indulge in an old classic." She whipped out a dodgeball from behind her back. "Last man standing wins!"

"Oh poo, dodgeball." Jasper groaned in disgust.

"Come on, Jasper, dodgeball is pretty fun." Whitney smiled happily as the madness began.

"Not with Ms. Matthews." Jasper said as she casually punched a dodgeball away from her and Whitney. "She means well, but when she's in the zone, there's no stopping her."

"Watch out!" Whitney yelled as she dove in front of Jasper to protect her from another dodgeball. This one seemed to hit harder than all the rest, as if it was filled with rocks or something. "I'm okay!"

"Thanks, Whitney!" Jasper thanked Whitney while helping her up, the two of them unaware that the rock-filled dodgeball was courtesy of Kylie, who chuckled mischievously as she retreated into the shadows.

"Okay, clods, listen up!" the diminutive science teacher Dot Perry declared harshly while dramatically blowing her green lab-coat back like a cape. "I run a pretty tight ship here, so I won't tolerate any kind of chicanery here!"

"Uh, Mrs. Perry, what will we do here?" Whitney asked while raising her hand.

"Come on, if you ever took science class, you should know what to expect here." Dot answered. "We'll be doing experiments, discussing the scientific method, learning about chemistry, anatomy, genetics, and all sorts of things! But thanks to a certain student council, they won't be as fun and exciting as you'd think science would be."

"Well, that's not very fair." Whitney pouted. "Someone should do something about this, someone like me!"

"Oh, I've heard about you around school lately." Dot proclaimed. "You're the new girl, Whitney Topaz, right? Maybe your free thinking could help make a change around here."

"Oh, thank you, I'd be honored to be your teaching assistant around here!" Whitney yelled excitedly and shook Mrs. Perry's hand. "I think this school needs a little touch of Riverdale friendliness!" Catherine simply rolled her eyes at Whitney's declaration before writing down ideas for sabotage in her notebook.

--

Next up on Whitney's schedule was English, which was the first class she didn't share with Jasper. On the plus side, she finally reunited with Thea at last, and Thea has already begun spreading the good word about Whitney's efforts to overturn Ruth's tyranny, making her the talk of the class as Mr. Sanchez began speaking.

"Okay, guys, if we're done talking about the new girl, then allow me to introduce myself." Mr. Sanchez said after gulping a can of soda and burping. "My name is Mr. Sanchez, and I'll be your English teacher for the year. Let's get some ground rules out of the way first." While the English teacher began his lecture, Cindy spied on Whitney and Thea from the back of the room, noticing how close the two had become today.

--

Another class Whitney and Thea shared together was Spanish with Senor Esteban, and they were in the same class as another student council member. Agatha Holly was recording their interactions and how close they seemed while balancing it with dutifully paying attention to Senor Esteban.

--

Following Spanish, it was time for lunch, but unfortunately for Whitney, the food being served didn't seem all that inviting to her.

"Beef jerky, clams, grape punch." The lunch lady said flatly as she served Whitney precisely that.

"Wait, is this all we're being served for lunch?" Whitney asked about her lunch. "Man, this is pretty boring."

"Student council says it's still good for you, no matter how bland it is." The lunch lady responded. "Clams are good for your heart, beef jerky is filled is protein, minerals, and vitamins, and grape punch has a decent amount of carbs."

"Yeah, but would it kill you to have more variety?" Whitney suggested. "Like, try something new like pizza, nachos, burgers, anything zestier than this!"

"You know, you got a good point." The lunch lady agreed with a smile. "Hey, you're that new kid, right? Thanks for the tip. Now please move. You're holding up the line."

"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!" Whitney apologized as she noticed all her impatient classmates in line to get their meals as she raced towards the nearest open table, which coincidentally was where Thea and Jasper were sitting. "Hey, guys! Did you save a spot for little ol' me?"

"You bet we did!" Thea replied happily and hugged Whitney. "So what took you so long?"

"I just wanted to point out to the lunchlady that she should have some more variety in our lunches." Whitney explained. "I mean seriously, beef jerky, clams, and grape punch every day?"

"Been that way ever since Ruth took power." Jasper revealed before she pulled out a paper bag with her name on it. "Luckily, I had my dad pack my lunch ever since."

"Aw, that's so sweet." Whitney cooed as Jasper pulled out a peanut butter sandwich, some tater tots, a bottle of chocolate milk, and a small pack of ketchup. "Anyone want to share?"

"How could I not?" Whitney laughed and reached for the same tot that Jasper was going to take, causing the two to blush at each other while Thea watched as she drank her grape punch. Meanwhile, some student council members gathered at another table not too far away.

"The others were right. They are close." Xanthe stated while sitting down with Jazz, Zelda, Piper, Blair, and Irene. "Maybe a little too close."

"What if we try breaking them up somehow?" Piper suggested while cracking open a clam. "You all know I love some good romantic drama."

"Unfortunately, as Xanthe said, there's nothing we can do to spoil her reputation." Zelda declared. "Unless one of us perhaps makes her an offer she can't possibly refuse."

"Are you suggesting we get her to join us?" Jazz wondered eagerly. "I love your thinking, honey bear!"

"Ooh, Jazzy, you dog!" Zelda barked seductively, much to the annoyance of Piper, Blair, and Irene.

"Get a room, you two!" Blair yelled at the couple. "Or, in this case, a doghouse."

"I'll do it." Irene nominated herself to make the offer without being prompted and marched over to Whitney, Jasper, and Thea's table. "Hello there, Miss Topaz. Since you are so popular around here, might I suggest an opportunity to join us at the student council?"

Thea was momentarily terrified, but thankfully her concerns were alleviated by Whitney's answer. "Oh, that'd be great, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline for now."

"Rats!" Irene shouted and marched back to her table in shame.

--

While Whitney had lunch with her new best friend and her crush, some of her new teachers had gotten together to discuss the new arrival to Crystal High.

"So, it's great that you all found the time to join us today." Pearl said to Lana, Biddie, Amy, and Dot. "And I suppose you might already know why you're here."

"Whitney." Lana and Dot said in unison.

"Whitney." Biddie added.

"Whitney!" Amy declared. "She really brightened my day the moment I called her name."

"Now, let's not shill Whitney too much, lest her head gets as big as Ruth's." Garrett snickered before looking up at a painting dedicated to their old friend and the school's former principal Rosemary Diamond. "But her kind heart and free-thinking really remind me of Rose back when we attended Diamond University together."

"I miss Rose." Amy replied nostalgically. "Maybe we should get back together for lunch someday."

"Oh, that would be great!" Pearl agreed with the homeroom teacher while trying to hide her blush, indicating that she still held a torch for Rose. "Now, back to Whitney, I find it amazing that she wants to change our student body for the better."

"Yeah, plus I'd no longer have to be in danger of unemployment now." Lana stated. "What do you think? Should I get Lucy and Zoey to put her on the cheer squad?"

"Ooh, I got a better idea!" Dot exclaimed. "Why don't we have her give a big speech at the big game in a few weeks?"

"That would be a great idea!" Biddie concurred with the science teacher's idea. "That way, everyone can do their part in cleaning up this school!"

"Then it's agreed." Estelle smiled. "I'll call her parents at once and see what they think. I'm sure they'll love to hear what we think about their daughter."

--

"Good grief, who had the bright idea of teaching math at the end of the day?" Jasper grumbled as she and Whitney headed to their final class for the day together. "I mean, school is already stressful enough, but putting the most stressful subject you can imagine at the end of the day? It's absurd!"

"Well, don't you worry your pretty little head because you got me to keep you sane till it's time to go." Whitney replied while patting Jasper on the head. "Besides, you got practice later, so that should allow you to vent your frustrations healthily."

"Hey, new girl!" Lucy Lance exclaimed as she and her younger sister Zoey approached Whitney and Jasper. "We've heard that you've been doing wonders for the other students, and personally, I think your positive attitude would be killer for the squad!"

"Yeah, wanna come practice with us?" Zoey added. "We got a spare pair of pom poms with your name on them!"

"Oh, I'd love to join the squad, but I think I'll have to turn you guys down for now." Whitney declined the Lance sisters' offer. "But I'd totally be open to joining later when I have the time. When can I come to tryouts?"

"We'll be holding them in a few weeks." Zoey revealed. "Be there or be square!"

"It's a date!" Whitney responded happily as she took Jasper's hand, and the four girls walked into math class together. Once again, however, not one of them realized that a student council member was watching them. Furious about Whitney possibly being on the same cheerleading team as her, Catherine gritted her teeth so hard that she broke the candy part into pieces.

--

"Hey everyone, I'm home!" Whitney called to her family once she returned home at the end of the day after saying goodbye to Jasper and Thea.

"Welcome back, Whitney!" Lauren replied as she fixed an after-school snack for Kenny. "How was your first day today?"

"It was good." Whitney answered as she sat down at the kitchen table. "I managed to make some new friends, but they were all being oppressed by this really horrible student council, and I saw fit to try and change things, which quickly made me the talk of the town."

"Oh, that reminds me, honey." Ash said as he emerged from another room with a phone in hand. "I got a call from the principal earlier, and apparently, they're so happy with what you're doing; they even said they want you to make a big speech at the big game later this month!"

"Oh my gosh, really?!" Kenny exclaimed in delight. "Whitty, that's awesome!"

"I know, right?!" Whitney replied as the Topaz family got together for a big group hug. "And even better, I think I got a crush on someone!"

"A crush already?" Ash grinned. "And on the first day of school, no less. Back when I was in high school, it only took until the Halloween party for your mother and I to get together."

"That reminds me, you need any help with your speech?" Lauren asked her daughter.

"Naw, I think I already know what to write." Whitney said as she left the kitchen and went to her room to write her speech. "Just wait till everyone back at Riverdale hears about this!" Opening up her laptop and creating a new document to type on, Whitney began jotting down her speech. "Thank you, Crystal High, for making me feel so welcome here."

--

As the weeks progressed, more students and teachers became influenced by Whitney's positive thinking and free spirit the more they got to know her. No longer would they be shackled by Ruth's tyranny. Instead, they'd be free to do whatever they wanted. Dot was able to make science class more interesting, the lunches had more variety, Lana could no longer worry about losing her job, and the student council's authority was being questioned more often by the day. Ruth Black couldn't stand it any longer, Whitney needed to be brought to her level no matter what, and she knew just what to do.

Eventually, it came time for the big football game to kick off the fall sports season between the Little Homestead Wildcats and the Keystone Oxen. Sports fans from across town gathered at the school football stadium, eager to watch the intense action between the rival teams. The two teams were evenly matched by halftime, with the score being 12 to 12.

"We are the Wildcats!" the school's cheerleading team sang, with Lucy and Zoey taking the lead. "We're here to win this game! And if you think we can't, we'll try all the same!" As their cheer concluded, the squad began forming a pyramid. "That's why the students of Little Homestead, will cheer for!"

"Lacey Carruthers!" Desirée Glass exclaimed.

"Toni Paul!" Catherine added.

"And Olivia Snow." Zoey sang.

"And Jasper Brooks!" Lucy concluded, to the rejoicing of their adoring fans as the pyramid came apart and Lucy was handed a megaphone. "Thanks for coming out, everyone! Yes, we're all very beautiful, and our players are the cream of the crop, but tonight, we got a special announcement to make."

"Everyone's favorite new kid in town, Whitney Topaz, is here to give a very special speech!" Zoey exclaimed as she ripped the megaphone from her sister's hands. "Now, let's make some noise!"

As the crowd began chanting for Whitney, Catherine snuck away from her fellow cheerleaders and saw Ruth in the audience before giving her a knowing wink. "Good luck out there, sweetheart!" Catherine purred as she passed by the Topaz family and Thea in the stadium halls, covertly stealing Whitney's speech and replacing it with a fake and more profane copy. "Trust me, word of mouth will spread fast."

"Hey, thanks Cat." Whitney smiled as she walked out to the stadium, blissfully unaware that her life could soon be over.

"Good luck, dear!" Ash called out to Whitney before he saw Jasper passing him by, ready to hit the showers. "Hello there! You must be Jasper, right?" he asked. "My name's Ash; I'm Whitney's father. Meet my wife Lauren and our son Kenny."

"Wow, you're just as big as I'd thought you'd be!" Kenny gasped in awe at Jasper's size.

"Ha, that's what she said!" Jasper cackled and tried giving Kenny a high-five, but he had no idea what she had just said.

"Uh, what did she say?" Kenny asked curiously, his innocent ears trying to comprehend the football player's dirty joke.

"You'll know when you're older." Lauren laughed as she covered her son's ears before she noticed something at her feet. "Hey, what's that paper for?"

"Let me see that." Jasper said as she picked up the paper and began to read it, coming to the slow and horrified realization that she was reading Whitney's speech and had seemingly forgotten it. "Oh no, I have to get this to her, quick!"

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Ash replied. "Go, go, go!" At the father's command, Jasper raced out to the field to help Whitney before she could make a huge mistake.

--

"Everything is going according to plan." Ruth smirked as Whitney walked onto the green field, ready to give her speech. "Thanks to Irene, I learned that the teachers offered Whitney to make a speech about how much she will change the school. But luckily, I was able to forge a fake speech in the nick of time that will no doubt ruin her cred the moment she finishes it! All the profanity, all the prejudiced remarks, seeing the reactions will be so invigorating!"

"Good evening, everyone; thank you so much for having me here tonight." Whitney said to the spectators. "First off, I just want to thank Principal Garrett and all the wonderful teachers of Crystal High for giving me this opportunity to spread my mission of love and change to everyone here tonight." The crowd began cheering for the principal and her employees before Whitney continued. "Anyways, I've worked very hard on this speech for the past couple of weeks, and I'd be pleased as punch to share it with you all."

"Whitney, WAIT!" Jasper yelled as she raced back onto the field with Whitney's real speech in hand. "You forgot this. I found it on the floor."

"Wait, that can't be my speech; this is my speech!" Whitney said before she opened her paper to discover the false and very crude speech written to taint her reputation. And the one thing that indicated who the writer was. "Wait, "Student Council rules, Whitney Topaz drools"?!"

"Oh no, she's onto us!" Ruth exclaimed as the student council attempted to make a break for it, only to be cornered at every turn by their fellow spectators who were not happy with their attempted sabotage. "No, this can't be happening!"

"Oh yes, it is, Miss Black." Estelle said as she and Pearl loomed over Ruth. "Did you seriously forge a speech to ruin Whitney's reputation?"

"Yes, of course I did because I was jealous!" Ruth hurriedly admitted. "Jealous that this new girl who's only been in school for a few weeks, yet everyone loves her and fears me! Why is it always the nice people that get attention instead of the ones who demand your respect?!"

"Well, maybe it's because they actually do unto others as they would do to them." Pearl scoffed. "Honestly, Ruth, I expected better from you. As of today, you will be removed from the student council. And we need to discuss that scholarship of yours too."

This caused all the students to cheer over finally being freed from Ruth's tyranny as Ruth herself curled up into a ball of woe. And then, as if to hammer her despair in even further, her former slaves started singing.

"Finally free, finally free, finally free everyone!" everyone began performing an expertly choreographed musical number to celebrate. "Finally free, finally free, finally free, let's have fun! Finally free to just be me!"

"At long last, it's time for celebration! Let's bring down the house!" Whitney began singing along with the crowd and had her first kiss with Jasper in the process, sealing their romance. "It's meant to be that we can all be free; come on and sing it loud!"

"Did you think you'd have us all under control?! My, you took a real nasty fall!" Jasper tauntingly harmonized in Ruth's face, who was simply not having enough of it and decided to make herself scarce. "If we just loved each other for who we are, then we can-"

"TOPAZ!" Jasper's voice echoed throughout the field of dancing spectators, much to Whitney's surprise. "TOPAZ!"

"Wait, Jasper?" Whitney asked. "I thought we were all singing?"

"Singing?" Jasper replied. "You need to wake up!"

--

"Yo, is she gonna be okay?" Amethyst asked as she, Jasper, Garnet, Pearl, Teal Zircon, Lapis, Peridot, Bismuth, Black Rutile's gang, and the Lapis twins all gazed upon a sleeping White Topaz. "Can I poke her even harder?"

"AGH, FINALLY FREE!" White Topaz yelled as she finally woke up and saw all her friends, and others in her company, surrounding her. "What just happened?"

"You fell asleep binging all those Boarding School Broadway movies," Garnet replied. "Is anything the matter?"

"I had the craziest dream, and everyone I knew was there!" White Topaz exclaimed before pointing to everyone she saw in her dream. "And you were there, and you were there, and you! And we were all humans in high school!"

"High school?" Pearl raised an eyebrow at White Topaz's declaration. "Like in Peridot's fanfictions?"

"Ah yes, the high school AU." Peridot observed with a hand to her chin. "Tell me all the details, White Topaz."

"Well, I was the new girl in town, and Black Rutile was the student council president who ruled the school with an iron fist!" White Topaz explained, earning her a glare from her former superior. "Jasper was the football captain I had a crush on, Teal was my first best friend, my teachers included Amethyst, Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth, and I was about to accidentally ruin my reputation before the situation was resolved in a pretty rushed fashion."

"Okay, I think we need to simmer down on all those weird teen shows and movies for you." Lapis smirked as she turned off the movie. "And I thought chili gave you vivid dreams." The preceding one-liner incited mass laughter from the Gems gathered, but it quickly turned awkward and strained before stopping entirely.

"Now what?" Bismuth asked.

--

Now what indeed, Bismuth. This was certainly an interesting and very long chapter to write, and yes, I do admit I had to rush that ending to get it out on time. But in all seriousness, I think I had fun writing my take on a Human Gems AU and if you've seen my episode list, this won't be the last time the concept will be brought up. But in the meantime, next up is a very special two-parter featuring our favorite parody of the MI6 agent on her majesty's secret service with a license to kill. Ladies and gentlemen, next chapter will reintroduce us to Jones. Bane Jones.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Monopoly so fragile

A big boat stuck in the Suez Canal, catastrophically disrupting global logistics - it wasn't just predictable, it was inevitable. For decades, the shipping industry has consolidated into just a few companies, and ships got bigger - too big to sail.

As Matthew Stoller points out, in 2000 the ten biggest shippers controlled 12% of the market, today, it's more that 82%, and even that number is misleadingly rosy because of alliances among the megashippers that effectively turn them into one company.

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/what-we-can-learn-from-a-big-boat

The Suez crisis illustrates one of the less-appreciated harms of monopoly: all of us are dunderheads at least some of the time. When a single person wields a lot of unchecked power, their follies, errors and blind-spots take on global consequence.

The "efficiencies" of the new class of megaships - the Ever Given weighs 220 kilotons and is as long as the Empire State Building - were always offset by risks, such as the risk of getting stuck in a canal or harbor.

Despite this, a handful of executives were able to green-light their deployment. Either these execs didn't believe the experts, or they didn't care (maybe they thought they'd retire before the crisis) or they thought they could externalize the costs onto the rest of us.

Running a complex system is a game of risk mitigation: not just making a system that works as well as possible, but also making one that fails as well as possible. Build the Titanic if you must, but for the love of God, make sure it has enough life-boats.

Monopolies are brittle. The ideology that underpins them is fundamentally eugenic: that there exists among us superbeings, genetic sports who were born with the extraordinary insights and genius that entitle them to rule over the rest of us.

If we let nature run its course, these benevolent dictators will usher in an era of global prosperity.

This is catastrophically, idiotically, manifestly wrong. First, even people who are very smart about some things are very stupid about other things.

Charles Koch took over his father's hydrocarbon empire and correctly concluded that the industry was being held back by a focus on short-term profits. He made a series of long-term bets on new production technologies and grew the business a thousandfold.

Being patient and farsighted made Koch one of the richest people in world history - and one of the most influential. He pioneered a kind of slow, patient policy entrepreneurship, investing in a network of think-tanks that mainstreamed his extremist ideology over decades.

And yet, this man who became a billionaire and changed the character of global politics with his foresight has managed to convince himself that there is no climate emergency. That patience, foresight, and cool weighing of probabilities have gone out the window completely.

Smart people are often fools (so are regular people). History is full of them. Take William Shockley, the Nobel-winning inventor of silicon transistors who failed in industry because he became obsessed with eugenics and devoted his life to a racist sterilization campaign.

Moreover, fools sometimes succeed. Take Mark Zuckerberg, who justified his self-serving "real names" policy (which makes it easier to target ads by banning pseudonyms) by claiming that any attempt to present yourself in different ways to different people is "two-faced."

That is a genuinely idiotic thing to believe: presenting yourself differently to your lover, your parents, your toddler, your boss and your friends isn't "two-faced," it's human. To do otherwise would be monstrous.

But even when monopolists aren't idiots, they are still dangerous. The problem with Zuck isn't merely that he's uniquely unsuited to being the unaccountable czar of 2.6 billion peoples' social lives - it's that no one should have that job.

Monopolists all have their own cherished idiocies (as do the rest of us), but they share a common pathology: the ideology, popularized by Thomas Friedman and others, that "efficiency" is the highest virtue.

The whole basis for 40 years of tolerating (even encouraging) monopolies is the efficiencies of scale that come from consolidating power into a few hands, and the shared interests that arise from a brittle interdependence.

Who would go to war with the trading partner that controls the world's supply of some essential item?

This was always, predictably, a system that would work well but fail badly. Clustering the world's semiconductor production in Taiwan made chips cheap and plentiful, sure.

But then the 1999 Taiwan quake shut down all the world's computer sales. There are plenty of examples like this that Stoller lists: a single vaccine factory in England shuts down in 2004 and the US loses half of its flu vaccines.

Despite the increasing tempo of supply-chain crises that ripple out across the world, we have allowed monopolists to "take the fat out of the system at every joint," setting up a thousand crises among us and yet to come.

Bedding makers can't make mattress for want of foam. RV manufacturers can't get enough "air conditioners, fridges, furniture" to meet orders. Often, the pivotal items are obscure and utterly critical, like the $1 "flat steel form ties," without which home construction halts.

"For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost." We've understood that tightly coupled systems have cascading failures since the 13th century. "Resiliency" is inefficient - but only if you ignore what happens when brittle systems fail.

Every monopolist *necessarily* shares an ideology that elevates brittleness to a virtue. They must, because monopolies are brittle. One foolish mistake, one ship wedged in a canal, one delusive denial of climate change, and we all suffer.

Every monopolist believes in their own infallibility. They must, because to have someone as fallible as me or you in charge of the world's social media or shipping or flat steel ties is otherwise a recipe for disaster.

Of all the dangerous things monopolists are wrong about, this belief in their own inability to be wrong is the most dangerous.

Image: Copernicus Sentinel (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Container_Ship_%27Ever_Given%27_stuck_in_the_Suez_Canal,_Egypt_-_March_24th,_2021_cropped.jpg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[thatsbelievable]

Psssst...

We’re taking a break from our regularly scheduled nonsense to talk about a project of ours that was recently released. “What is it?” you ask? “Does it have something to do with bees?” (No, it has nothing to do with bees.)

It’s the junior-novel adaptation of DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD!

That’s right, we adapted the upcoming Dora the Explorer live-action film into convenient book form! We had a blast working from the screenplay by Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson, who have created a really fun, bizarre, goofy, and endearing story. And a huge thanks to my editor, Alexandra West, who asked me to write the book in the first place.

A shout out to the AV Club — they wrote about the film and the junior novel under the story, “The Dora the Explorer Movie Sounds Absolutely Bonkers.”

If you like things that are absolutely bonkers, and stories that break the fourth wall A LOT, you can pick up the book here — and see the film when it comes out on August 9!

Thanks for your kind attention. We now return to our usual fare of skeletons, bad advice, and imagined conversations with Edgar Allan Poe.

[luimnigh]

A Review of: Dora And the Lost City of Gold

This is the first film I’ve seen in cinemas since May. Haven’t seen Far From Home, haven’t see Toy Story 4, got invited by my sister and nephew to see this.

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

Directed By: James Bobin

Written By: Nicholas Stoller, Matthew Robinson, and Tom Wheeler. Based on the Characters by Chris Gilford, Valerie Walsh Valdes, Eric Weiner

Starring: Isabela Moner, Eugenio Derbez, Jeff Wahlberg (yes, one of those Wahlbergs), Madeline Madden, Nicholas Coombe, Michael Peña, Eva Longoria, Benicio Del Toro, and Danny Trejo.

Score: 8/10

Watch If You Like: Fun Lighthearted Adventure Movies with fantastic representation

Content Warnings: None.

Spoilers, as always, under the cut.

This movie is just as good as the original trailer made it seem. Better, even. It’s a fun, sometimes even parodical take on the Dora the Explorer series that never actually loses the spirit of the original show. 

I don’t know what I can say, really. It’s a kid-friendly Indiana Jones-style romp through highschool and then the Peruvian Rainforest, where everyone learns some nice life lessons, and rides down the mandatory waterslide. 

It’s hilarious, it’s heartwarming, it’s surprisingly woke.

The Good:

Isabela Moner as Dora. She kills the role. Utterly fantastic.

On the topic of Dora, she was very clearly autistic in this movie. Trouble socializing, special interest in exploring, singing various songs to herself. I’m not the only one who saw this, right?

Hilarious. Loads of jokes, loads of them land, some of them even serve as foreshadowing. Personal Faves are the “We Did It” song at the end, and the kids listing off the various Colonial influences who may have gotten to Arapatta before they did.

Surprisingly woke. Not just a diverse cast, but there’s a anti-colonial attitude running through this movie. Indigenous people are referred to as indigenous, there’s a clear line drawn between peaceful explorers and exploitative treasure hunters, the film makes heavy use of Spanish and Quecha (the indigenous Incan language)...

While most of Dora’s adventures are explained as childhood imagination, there’s just magic in this film. No explanation, magic exists, accept it.

The animated sequence.

Danny Trejo as Boots. He’s in one scene and it is perfect.

The Bad:

Randy can come off as a little creepy at points. He’s clearly interested in Dora, but Dora clearly is not noticing it and sending no such vibes his way.

Diego comes off as a massive dick early on.

The romance subplot. The chemistry is very one-sided, you can see how it develops for Diego but not for Sammi, so in the end it feels pretty rushed.

Overall, though, I’d totally see a sequel. Which is surprising, as I’m of the age demographic who grew up mocking Dora.

[thestageyshelf]

SOLD 🎭 From Here To Eternity @ Shaftesbury Theatre 2013 (#53)

Title: From Here To Eternity

Venue: Shaftesbury Theatre

Year: 2013

Condition: Good condition

Author: Lyrics by Tim Rice. Music by Stuart Brayson. Book by Bill Oakes

Director: Tamara Harvey

Choreographer: Javier de Frutos

Cast: Christine Allado, Julie Armstrong, Darius Campbell, Jessica Ellen, Siubhan Harrison, Dean John-Wilson, Carolyn Maitland, Nuno Quiemado, Warren Sollars, Rebecca Thornhill, Adam Vaughan, Keisha Amponsa Banson, James Ballanger, Abigail Climer, Dale Evans, Kirby Hughes, Joshua Lacey, Martin Marquez, Ryan Sampson, David Stoller, Laura Tyer, Stephen Webb, Marc Antolin, John Brannoch, Brian Doherty, Shimi Goodman, Lauren Ingram, Robert Lonsdale, Yiftach Mizrahi, Lucinda Shaw, Rebecca Sutherland, Lauren Varnham, Matthew Wesley

FIND ON EBAY HERE