#people can be so bizarrely eloquent like

[bromblecomble]

i've been a manager at my job for almost a year now and i've dealt with dozens of pissed off customers and been confronted countless times and i feel like i handle most interactions as well as i can given the circumstances but one thing that still sticks with me is these people a few months ago. it was two parents with their like 4 year old kid and their server gave them two regular menus and a kids menu to order from. if your kid orders an entree from the kids menu they can get a scoop of ice cream for 99¢ but they Must get the entree to get the 99 cent scoop, otherwise the scoop is reg price. now personally ill often just charge the 99 cents even if they didn't get the kids entree, especially if we've already sold a lot of food to them, bcuz im not a cop, but the 16 year old server charged a reg price scoop for the little kid because the ice cream was literally all she got and that's what he was trained to do and it's The Rules so like he did everything he was supposed to. MIND YOU the kids menu CLEARLY says at the very top that the single scoop dessert is 99 cents ONLY WITH purchase of entree. okay. its not a secret its right there its there for you to read. okay. well the server comes to me and says hey my table is really upset about their bill and they want to talk to you. i go over and these people are IRATE they're like WHY IS HER SCOOP OF ICE CREAM 3.99 and their table is pre-bussed so there are no context clues about what food was eaten so im like, did she get a meal? and they say no she did not get a meal she just got the KIDS SCOOP OF ICE CREAM. and im like ok. back up. there is no "kids scoop of ice cream" there is a scoop of ice cream that children can get for 99 cents if they also order a kids entree. woman says WELL OUR SERVER DIDNT TELL US THAT. i'm like Well Im Sorry but servers aren't trained to tell you how much shit costs because we expect our customers to be able to readdddd the menu. i didn't say that obviously but i pointed at the kids menu on their table that THEY ordered from and was like Well Ma'am the menu explains the pricing of ice cream right here at the top. she goes WELL we didn't read that. can you take the ice cream off our bill?? and i kinda just look at her and im like. did your kid eat the ice cream? and she says Yeah. and i'm like then obviously no i cannot tske it off your bill. she freaks the fuck out and her husband is like pointing his finger in my face and shit and then when that's all said and done they pay and write some dumbass comment on their signed receipt about how much the shift manager sucks. Guys.

[chiliadhand]

mrs sontag WHAT are u doing, this is total nonsense! people who live in more communal formations tend to be MORE eloquent because they spend more time talking together!

from "the dawn of everything" by david wengrow & david graber:

language was a communal development and is a communal tool!! isolation is what deprives people of the means to communicate!!

As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh, Susan Sontag.

[comicaurora]

Nick Bostrom's "Fable of the Dragon Tyrant," which CGP Grey adapted into a video, left me feeling unsatisfied, and I got a certain unsettling vibe about the entire story.

I don't think it was the dragon's lack of agency, that just makes it an unusually traditional Western dragon.

You're a master at picking narratives apart to figure out why they don't satisfy. Do you have any insight, opinions, or cracktheories about why this story might be unsatisfying to some folks?

Probably because it's a very unsubtle metaphor casting the dragon as death, and death itself as a cruel, malevolent beast devouring and subjugating humanity for its own whims. This is very much intentional on the part of the writer. The paradigm of the story is that the dragon is huge, terrifying and incalculably cruel, and everyone lives their lives in the shadow of its terror or are just too deluded to recognize that it's COMING TO EAT THEM OH GOD

Intrinsic in this metaphorical structure is the idea that the dragon, aka death, is an artificial imposition on the natural order, and if we just got rid of the big ol' mean dragon, everybody would live forever and be fine. Accepting that the dragon exists is framed as a sign of desperation or even cowardice. This is an understandable read when facing a monster that only SEEMS timeless and inevitable (like LeGuin's thoughts comparing the current state of capitalism to the historical acceptance of the divine right of kings) but becomes bizarre when applied to something as legitimately factual as biological death. It's not even framed as unnatural death - the dragon specifically gets sent mostly old people. The metaphor is very explicitly about trying to frame death from old age as a big horrible dragon that everyone only thinks is unstoppable.

I get what they're going for here. The purpose of this story is to make the audience question if death is a true inevitability or if it can be fought, staved off, even defeated. But in the process, the story frames the systems of the world that have formed around death - doctors, pallative caregivers, will executors - as macabre gears in the machine dedicated to the genocidal cruelty of feeding the dragon.

In the dragon tyrant framing, these people only exist to make the rest of the world more okay with flinging themselves down the gullet of the dragon and to streamline the process by which everybody dies. By casting death as the enemy, everybody whose jobs are based on the compassionate act of comforting and aiding people suffering from loss become reframed as collaborators with the incalculably evil enemy, and everyone who's ever accepted their own death becomes a loser. This is a deeply cruel way to frame people who dedicate their lives to helping people through one of the hardest and most tragic aspects of life.

Damn, that's fucked up. Look at this eloquent idiot, explaining why we should be okay with letting a big dragon eat us because it's the natural order. Clearly he is wrong and it's not debasing at all to want to stay alive and not get eaten by a big dragon. This is a fallacy of false analogy: death is like being eaten by a big mean dragon. All his arguments look ridiculous when applied to getting eaten by a big mean dragon, therefore they must be ridiculous when applied to dying when your organs start failing because they've been running nonstop for nine decades and biological systems accumulate wear and tear like literally everything else in the universe.

Entropy increases; systems break down, from DNA to planetary orbits. Successfully shoot down the dragon and you'll end up outliving everything you thought was eternal, even the stars. The goal of immortality isn't really to personally witness the sun exploding, it's to have more good time. It's to make your twenties last into your sixties. It's to keep your back painless and your vision good for longer. We want to postpone the story's end as long as we can, and so we extrapolate "more time" into "I never want to die, I want to be young and healthy and hot forever" even though "forever" doesn't exist. To look to "forever" is to understand that your culture and language will drift, your home will eventually crumble out from under you, your shoreline will erode and change, your climate will transform, your tectonic plate will subduct or shatter, your moon's orbit will slow and tidally lock, and eventually your sun will start burning helium and cook your planet. You don't want "forever" to look like that, you want it to look like your twenties felt. But at that point you aren't fighting the Big Mean Dragon That Eats People, you're fighting the ocean and the biosphere and the earth and the stars, trying to hold them in place against entropy so your immortality can have an equally immortal world to enjoy it in. No, this argument doesn't want true immortality, it wants their twenties to last longer. But it can't admit that.

Back to the story. There's a condescending and spiteful tone in the narration. Death (being eaten by a big mean dragon) is OBVIOUSLY awful and we should all be fighting as hard as we can to make it stop happening. Even a child can see it.

The story even helpfully adds a lengthy moral explanation at the end, in case you didn't understand that the dragon was the inevitability of death and we should dedicate all our resources to figuring out how to make a big rocket and shoot it.

"Nobody should ever die" is generally understood to be a childish dream with extremely obvious and unpleasant consequences that would turn its realization into an unending and waking nightmare, and once out of the confines of easy metaphor, the story tries to act like that wasn't what it was just saying. But its more realistic proposed substitute, "It would be great if people could live longer and have more healthy, youthful years in them," is probably the world's most uncontroversial statement. This story frames it like a bold revelation that the world will attempt to beat down and crush out of a misguided acceptance that Big Mean Dragon comes for us all. It's a morality fable whose conclusion is "I hope science improves the length and quality of our lives, potentially even to the point where we never have to die at all," which has been the number one goal of huge swaths of science since the invention of agriculture. This is not a bold or controversial take. It's just being written as though we're all looking at the naked emperor and pretending he's wearing pants.

[not-a-snowman]

I feel like Order of the Stick’s position as a webcomic that has been running for over 20 years and which has been very open in-story about how much has changed and the mistakes it’s made along the way makes it uniquely well equipped to tell a story about how people change.

One thing about OOTS that I loved when I discovered it years ago and still love today, is that it is a very rational comic. I don’t mean that it’s realistic, it’s obviously very silly and bizarre so much of the time. What I mean is that OOTS is very good at explaining/showing why things are the way they are.

Be it elaborate worldbuilding, or a one-off gag, or even in its own rigorous self-analysis- the gears that make the world turn are very apparent. But the thing is, that these reasons aren’t always GOOD reasons.

My favorite thing that this story does is create stories where smart, talented people with good intentions do the wrong thing. Show us characters who have done and continue to do vile things, but have very eloquent reasons for them.

One of my favorite scenes that I keep coming back to in my head, is Redcloak’s interrogation with O’Chul. Where he outlines all the flaws he sees with the Sapphire Guard and how it wouldn’t make SENSE for O’Chul to not have the information he’s after. It’s a very OOTS scene, like it’s leading up to a twist or retcon that will make Redcloak’s problem make sense. What’s more likely? That an army of loyal paladins ordained by the gods wouldn’t know anything about 4/5 of the locations they are sworn to defend, or that O’Chul has discovered a way to resist his interrogation methods?

And then in true O’Chul fashion he just completely shuts down Redcloak’s clearly very thoroughly thought through argument with a simple change in perspective

What’s more likely? That he has a secret technique that Redcloak has never heard of which resists all of the high level mind reading and divination spells they’ve thrown at him so far… or that he just doesn’t know?

It’s a simple scene that I think really displays the story’s talent for showing how even rational justifications are susceptible to bias and capable of being completely wrong. Redcloak takes a perceived logical failure in how the Sapphire Guard is run and and fixates on it to the point that he ignores the obvious fallacy HE is currently making!

And this philosophy extends to a lot of the story. The gods have reasons for why the world is the way it is, but that doesn’t change unbalanced and cruel it can be. Vaarsuvius had reasons and good intentions when they made that devils deal, but it doesn’t make the consequences feel any less unnecessary. The party had reasons to act terrible to each other, but they still had to recognize that those reasons weren’t good enough to stay their path.

Order of the Stick had reasons for the off color jokes and double standards that plagued its early chapters. It was written 20 years ago and wasn’t always intended to be the grand serial it has become. But that doesn’t make these things good. And it doesn’t mean that there’s no value in looking back at what happened and trying to be better

[cdd-media-share]

Ruth's Story: 'Inside, I Feel Like Screaming'

The Press-Courier - Jun. 23, 1985.

-----------------------------------------

DISCLAIMER:

This is from 1985, so the wording might be quite odd/off/weird/questionable, and it might not reflect current-day understandings of DID.

I am simply sharing this for archival purposes, and to generally share some old, neat things related to CDDs. I'm just sharing for fun and out of interest.

THIS IS NOT AN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE!

-----------------------------------------

To protect her identity, "Ruth," Dr. Neal Kline's patient with multiple personality disorder, did not want to be interviewed. But because she wants to alert people that this damaging condition is directly related to child abuse, Ruth - a woman of obvious intelligence - consented to answer some questions in writing. Follow is her story, and excerpts from her eloquent reply:

By RUTH Copley News Service

". . . My childhood was strewn with hideous, repeated traumatic episodes, but I seemed to be developing normally . . . except that I was constantly accused of (or attributed with) certain actions that I could not recall. . ."

"Bizarre, weird, alien, frightening, hysterical, hurtful, sad, futile, lost. These are all words that would apply to my feelings since childhood . . .

"To. . .ask what it feels like to 'wake up' after a period of being 'gone' seems almost insulting. What do you think I feel like? I usually feel like SCREAMING. I look at the calendar, and the clothes I have used, and my checkbook, and strange photographs on my bureau . . . or I examine the bruised on my body . . . and other things . . . and I feel like SCREAMING. My life is a nightmare (which I must keep hidden from friends and associates) and I go about pretending like nothing is wrong, but inside I feel like SCREAMING."

"Thank God I am an intelligent person. I keep a tenacious hold on my sanity and I function. When I am myself, I am reasonably calm, even happy some days. The rest of the time, I don't know what happens.

"I have learned to cope with waking up in strange beds, strange cities, strange countries. I have learned to reply to questions and situations as though I knew perfectly well what people are talking about. I have learned to smile and chat with perfect strangers who seem to know me very well.

"Actually, until a couple of years ago (and I am now over 50), I refused to admit that there was anything wrong with my life. I thought I simply had a poor memory and none of my friends ever told me anything so bizarre as my displaying a different personality in their presence.

"The comments were usually to the effect that maybe I'd had a drink or two, or perhaps I was in a strange mood yesterday, or whenever. So I was blocking out the multiple personality disorder knowledge on a conscious level. Since being treated by Dr. Kline, I have come to accept my illness for what it is: the result of a sadly twisted childhood and a sensitive nature that could not cope with the horrors of that childhood.

"Looking back, I can recall only two periods when I did not have blackouts: once for four years, and once for five years. These were periods when I was involved or living with one organization or person and I am sure that I remained myself those two periods.

As for describing my various personalities, I can only go by what others tell me. As we continue with analysis, I am becoming aware of them. But generally, they are STRANGERS to me and I do not know how, or why, they think the way they do, act that way, etc. No I am not aware of them in any other form. I cannot control their comings and goings, and I do not know how to 'summon them up' when being treated.

"I am very discouraged about 'integrating' these personalities at this time. It seems as though the pattern repeats and repeats, over and over again. Just as I feel happy and adjusted to my situation, I 'black out' and wake up days, or weeks later . . . where? In Puerto Rico? In Georgia? In New York? In Germany? There is no form of control and I am dejected as to finding a control factor.

"I have no ability to work and live on a disability pension. I have short-term relationships (and many I don't know about, from the evidence). I have become very surefooted with certain neighbors who must wonder at my comings and goings, and I have an excellent doctor who accepts my calls from strange airports, etc. What hope do I have along the lines of a cure? Very little.

"The fear of facing some secret in my childhood? This is, of course, the crux of the matter. Since the very beginning of my mental problems (depressions, suicidal feelings. . . many years ago), I have always been aware that one TREMENDOUSLY BAD THING happened to me in my childhood. I have always felt that, if this could be dug out, that perhaps the MPD would simply fade away.

"That is altogether too optimistic, I am learning. We have attempted several methods of reaching back to that child's brain of mind. So far, each time we have approached anything like those early years, another personality has popped out and prevented the probing from continuing.

"Hypnosis may yet be a viable path to this memory. We are not sure, but are trying many avenues."

"The problem, obviously, is helping the child AT THE TIME TO COPE WITH THESE FEELINGS. But first, a parent has to be present, and aware, and mine were neither.

"A major point I'd like to make about MPD? First of all, that it's REAL (too many people doubt its existence). Second, the care of a child is a serious matter. Parents cannot shirk this responsibility, and if they are not willing to really work at it, they have no right to have children. Today's attitudes are even worse than they were 50 years ago. Does that mean that years from now we will have more and more cases of MPD running around the world? It would be a funny thought if it were not so sad."

[kuwdora]

For the vidding asks: 10, 12, 21!

10 What was the best comment you've received on one of your vids?

Let me tell you about a comment that fundamentally rattled my soul to the core and made me extremely hyper-vigilant, but eventually I got less rattled by it and absorbed it into my creative process because it was so incredibly helpful for me and made me a better vidder.

I made this due South Fraser/RayK vid in 2007, it was my second ever vid I was trying to make. It's called Better Off. If you look at my original vid notes I wrote like 500 words talking about how much I hate I my vid. How much it sucks, how it’s awful. How I was apologizing for it and basically giving up on the vid. The whole self-flagellating nine yards. I got a lot of great feedback on it, like over 20 comments, so despite me hating my own vid of new hobby I was learning to do, people fucking loved it.

HERE is the comment thread that changed my life. Where j-s-cavalcante kindly said the greatest most wonderful things to me but also made me go 👀:

I wish you hadn't waxed eloquent on the subject of how bad this vid is, because now I feel like an idiot posting this comment: I LOVED it. It makes me think, it scares me, it makes me see DS in a slightly different way, and it's fascinating with ALL those action scenes and blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments. And, OMG, Dangerous!Fraser is freaking me out a little, here, and making me want to write, and that's one of the best things I think vids do for me. I find the good ones inspiring. I don't think anyone has quite dealt with this issue in a vid before, certainly not in this depth. But the idea that Fraser is deliberately risking Ray's life in these "wildly bizarre ways" for some unknown, maybe pathological, reason of his own is…scary and believable and intense! The use of so many of their action scenes all cut together so quickly is really, really effective in getting the point across. The song is cool and it inspired shivers up my back. Wow. (It also brings Speranza's "Wildly Dangerous Ways" (http://www.trickster.org/speranza/WDWays.html) to mind--one of my all-time favorite F/K fics.) And you did something so clever that I really loved…I'm not sure if I can express it properly, but there are a few clips that seem very obvious choices for the lyrics in question, such as the shot of Damian Kowalski on the " who's your daddy?" line and the scenes from Ray's messy apartment on the "I'll be hiding in your dirty room" line (there are more---"I'll not wake you," and the airport lines, etc.). And when those scenes show up matched to those lines, they seem like too-facile choices, but then in the very next line+clip combination, you reinterpret them: "I'm your daddy now" has Fraser holding the heavy bag for Ray, and so on. I found that very effective and just…intelligent. I think it's an intelligent vid. But you say it sucks, so I guess I don't know any better. I'll just live in blissful ignorance…and play it for writing inspiration…. :)

Dear asker, friend. @marahsarie. I want you to know that when I made this due South fanvid I was 100% sure in my belief that I was making a happy, intense adventure vid. Wholesome. Action. My beta sapote at the time was trying to say the same things j-s-cavalcante was saying but I was not grasping it. So when I read j-s’s comment I lost my goddamn mind. How could I have failed to understand what the fuck I was making? How other people might see it?? I was embarrassed and confused and and and...then I got it.

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii...didn’t realize that the song I was using was the singer was about a cult leader. But because this song was about a cult leader and that was the reading that people who watched the vid were taking away from it... everyone lost their minds. It was a darker interpretation of Benton Fraser than anyone had ever seen in a vid before. Pathological? Fraser? In my vid? I guess it's more likely than I thought.

I stewed and chewed on this comment and reviewed my 300 emails I exchanged with sapote to understand what the fuck I was thinking when I heard the lyrics and how I made something so different than what I thought I was making. I wrote over 2k words about song choice and what I learned, which you can check out here if you want to see what thinking about song choice was like so early in my vidding experience.

That comment was so full of love, it was supportive, and specific and surprising. It meant the world to me. It made me think about how to intentionally approach a song, try to understand what the song is or might be about based on the song lyrics themselves, the singer’s confirmation of the song meaning, and what other people might interpret a song as. I also started thinking about how and when I will want to vid with or against specific song narratives and how I could make a vid successful in the process depending on what I did to make my case. Whether it was with symbolism or metaphor or technical efforts. Sometimes I still end up with happy accidents (as well as intentional horror, hahh) and there is always the possibility of more unintentional accidents and horrors because my brain is very squishy. I'm still human and I've fucked up before and will probably fuck up again but I will try to do my to know what's going on in what I make.

Truly that was the best comment ever. It really really helped me think critically about my work and how others might approach it even when I do or don't know what they might see. And it was just so kind and nice and reassuring and it really got me excited to make more vids after that, too.

— 12 Most underrated vid that you wished had gotten more views?

My Maya Herrara vid from Heroes! Racist fans were fucking awful about Maya as portrayed by Dania Ramirez. Fuckshit racists. The Heroes writers wrote the most racist shit, too, and did her character a great fucking disservice. It was awful. I���m still fucking pissed about it. You can read my extensive notes about Maya I wrote at the time on the original vidpost.

I loved Maya and wanted to vid her. Even though I wish the show Wasn’t Like That. I wish that she had something better, I wish that actress had something better, too. I loved her so much and I wanted more of her. I love her and I'll probably cry again the next time I rewatch the show. I don’t know if Heroes fandom people ever watched my vid back in the day since it wasn't the main Slash Pairing. I made this vid in 2008 and it has like 18 views on YouTube so here we are. I love Maya. She deserved better.

— 21 How would you describe your vidding style?

My vidding style is passionate, earnest, irreverent. It’s also unhinged, deeply fucked up. I love utilizing internal motion in clips to create a sense of movement and use that energy with the musicality of songs. I’m also inordinately gleeful about vidding fucked up themes and sources and can’t bring myself to be apologetic about it. But I’m equally unhinged with my love and joy for the wholesome characters and shows I make fanvids for, too. I don’t know if I come off as balanced or anything but. I always approach my vids with love (for the show, the characters, the vidding process, the creative catharsis, etc).

Thank you kindly for these lovely asks!!!

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

Interesting, I honestly thought y'all would've had more expressions given how media portrays y'all as very eloquent and having a way with words. Well, here are some more stupid phrases I have heard while living in the south and around people from the midwest, bizarre edition. THERE ARE SO MANY

"It sounds like 2 skeletons fucking on a tin roof" - It's raining really hard and loud.

"The devils beating his wife." - It is raining while sunny (this is an odd one)

"He hasn't got the sense that God gave a goose." - Boy is DUMB

"Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit." - I am surprised and impressed

"You'd call a gator a lizard" - you are so dumb that you can't see the danger in front of you OR you oversimplify things to the point of danger.

"Boy doesn't know the difference between 'Greet em'' and 'Sick em'" - Boy so dumb and impulsive he picks fights with everyone he meets.

There are soooo many more

Honey, take everything the media shows you about brits and ignore it. It mostly portrays the richer south of England, and ignores other places. Like you cannot look at a Scouser and tell me they’re eloquent (no offence to the scouse broskis).

That said, scousers probably have some pretty good phrases themselves.

Brits Are more creative than eloquent is probably the best way to say it. And it’s more about the vibe of what you’re saying than the words.

And most things I can think of are insults, less sayings.

Maybe it’s just bc I’m overly used to British phrases that I can’t pick them out.

[swaps55]

I've been thinking about you a lot today and just hoping things are going okay. I'm still so sorry for your loss.

I really appreciate this. Thank you for the note. <3

It sucks. There's probably something more eloquent I could say, but it just...sucks.

It's so surreal to have your own world rocked and then watch the rest of the world just...continue like everything is normal. And you have to keep doing normal things. I'll think of something and burst into tears at my keyboard while writing up text for a proposal and answering an email from a coworker. Such a bizarre liminal space to be in.

I've lost people in my life, but never one with such a strong digital footprint. It's a gift in a lot of ways. I can read back through her blog. I can scroll back through Discord. I can listen to her Spotify music, read her fic. I'm so grateful I liveblogged a lot of multiplayer adventures, because some of those shenanigans are still there for me to look back on. But right now I'm just so fucking sad that her digital spaces are now a memorial to her, not something living and breathing and changing and...continuing.

One of the songs on her memorial playlist is Vigil from Mass Effect. A while back I saw a post that describes that track as like getting a hug from someone you'll never see again, and I feel that in my bones.

[spammreviews]

The Junji Ito Story Ranking, Worst to Best

Trigger warning:

Suicide, self harm, mentions of body horror, death, animal death, rape, marital abuse, transphobia, and sexism.

This will not include Junji Ito’s adaptations of others' works. There are also some works which couldn’t be put in this story because they simply aren’t available in English.

Also, there are two kinds of Junji Ito stories: one shots and longer stories.

One shots are stories such as Slug Girl and the Enigma of Amigara Fault.

Longer stories include Gyo and Remina.

There are some stories which are kind of on the fence between the two such as Tomie, Souchi, Uzumaki, and the Dissolving Classroom. These are collections of multiple different stories which can work together as one cohesive story. I ranked all of the Tomie chapters as separate stories as I felt like their quality varied, but Uzumaki, Souchi and Dissolving Classroom had more consistent quality (for better or for worse), so they were ranked as one whole work.

Penultimately, some of these stories have multiple titles. I have tried to show both titles when that happens, but there are most likely some times when I have made a mistake.

Lastly, some of my reviews will contain spoilers while others will not. Those with spoilers will contain a (Spoilers) tag.

Worst to best

F:

133. The Bizarre Hikizuri Siblings:

The Seance-

I hate every character in this story.

This story is about a family and they’re all spooky weirdos, like the Addams family if they were all annoying.

There’s the fat guy.

His design is obnoxious, and his entire existence is a never ending stream of stupid, overdone fat jokes. Wait, actually, that’s not fair, there is also a bunch of gross out humor.

There’s the little girl. She’s the “evil little girl” trope. She’s obnoxious and I hate her design.

There’s the little boy. He’s the “evil little boy” trope. He’s obnoxious and I hate his design.

There’s the eldest girl. She’s…she’s there.

There’s the eldest boy. He’s pretending to be mature and he speaks in a weird false-eloquent manner. He is not extremely obnoxious.

There’s Narumi. She’s “normal”, which means she’s boring.

The first half of the story sees us being introduced to our main characters. The eldest boy invites a girl to dinner. At the dinner, ee see the fat guy drooling and eating lots of food in a gross way. 

The family has a fight and I don’t know what emotion I should be feeling in that scene. Is it funny? If so, it fails, because there aren't any actual jokes. Is it supposed to be dramatic? If so, it fails because I don’t care about any of these characters. It’s clear that the family is grieving, but they’re all grieving in these extremely inhuman ways- so I can’t relate to them.

The family decides to have a seance for their dead parents, and that takes up the rest of the story. It’s filled with gross-out humor, inane banter, and extremely repetitive character beats. I think the little girl cries like ten or so times.

The family is also just arguing all of the time. Every page is another argument. I know that families argue with each other, but this is ridiculous. I don’t think this family likes each other.

All of this arguing means that the plot has the pacing of molasses, as none of this arguing moves the plot forward.

Also, family drama isn’t interesting when the family are just annoying caricatures of tired archetypes. 

This story sucks in every way. It’s not even nice to look at because the designs of the family make me want to vomit.

God, I hate this story so much.

132. All of the Souichi Stories-

The Souichi stories are too silly to be scary, too dark to be funny, too down-to-earth to be campy, and too annoying to be likable. 

Souichi is a child who never poses a threat to our main characters, so he’s never scary. 

However, his hijinks are also not fun to watch because they usually involve hurting people.

Fictional characters getting seriously hurt can be funny in a fucked up way, but only if something is added to make it funny. These stories just have someone getting their hand hit with a hammer. People getting hurt can also be fun if they are being injured in an extraordinarily cartoony manner, like in Evil Dead 2, but the injuries characters receive here are stuff like stepping on a nail, which is a very simple and realistic way to injure oneself, meaning that it’s not fun.

Despite being about a child who’s evil, these stories never have much fun with that premise or do anything creative. The only way Souichi being a child barely affects his career as an asshole is that he doesn’t face consequences.

Also, the others characters in this story are blacks of wood with no personalities and no dimensions. As such, the story is extraordinarily boring whenever Souichi isn’t on screen.

Watching a child be annoying to a bunch of boring people gets extremely old extremely quickly, especially with how repetitive these stories are. There are about fourteen of them, and they all have the same plot.

Lastly, Souichi is just annoying. He has all of the most annoying character traits of children: he always repeats things, he screams way too much, he eats really messily, he’s a gleeful asshole, and he never faces any consequences for his actions. 

This kind of character can work, like that prince kid from the Tintin comics, Abdullah or whatever. However, that kid appears in like fifteen pages over the course of two different books. 

However, Souchi is the main focus of these many stories.

Even when Souchi gets what is coming to him, it’s never cathartic because it’s always way too much, like him getting nails through his cheeks. That’s disturbing. 

Essentially, the problem with these stories is that they have no sense of tone. The mix of morbidity and wackiness leads to the stories just being really annoying.

They’re also really repetitive, both in the sense that almost all of these stories follow the same formula with the same beats, but this formula is one where the plot is one continuous cycle of Souchi being a little shit, getting away with it, and then getting angry for some reason. 

131. Fashion Model-

(Spoilers)

Haha it’s funny because the woman is ugly and aaah! it’s also scary because the woman is ugly and haha it’s funny because the ugly woman is going to rape the man as punishment for being slightly paranoid. 

This story is stupid. It’s cruel to every character involved, it’s not funny, the tone is all over the place, the pacing is extremely slow, and its attempts at suspense are laughably pathetic because they’re based on us being scared by a woman for no other reason than her being ugly.

It also has two really annoying tropes being taken to their extreme:

A woman pursuing a man who is clearly not interested in her and

Ugly people are evil/gross/funny.

When this story isn’t being absolutely awful, it’s just boring because every character ranges from bland to just kind of unlikable, like our main character. 

Despite him being kind of a jerk, seeing bad things happen to him isn’t gratifying because they are far worse than what he deserves. 

130. The Bizarre Hikizuri Siblings: 

Narumi’s Boyfriend-

(Spoilers)

This first two pages of this story see a teenage girl, Narumi Hikizuri, about to commit suicide, only to be saved by her boyfriend. You would assume that the rest of the story explores depression. You would not be wrong.

We then meet the other Hikizuri siblings, who, as I mentioned previously, suck, and there are five of them!

Then, we cut back to the teenage girl, Narumi obviously, and her boyfriend. Narumi is depressed and threatening to commit suicide again. Her boyfriend is kind of being an asshole about it, complaining about how hard it is to care for her. 

It’s pretty fucked up that there is really no good support network for Narumi.

Then, Narumi’s family finds her and kidnaps her, and it’s at this point where I can’t help but wonder if Narumi’s siblings are supposed to be scary or funny in this story. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to be scary, as their designs are weird and they talk weirdly, and they’re stupid and silly and wacky and dumb. However, them being funny makes no sense considering the fact that this is a story wich starts with a suicide attempt. Also, it’s hard to laugh because the siblings are so fucking stupid looking. They make me nauseous. Not only that, but the family members are being abusive to Narumi, and that’s not funny, even if their abuse is silly.

Anywhoo, the story randomly swerves in tone when Narumi says she’s going to kill herself, douses herself with gasoline, and flicks a cigarette lighter. You assume she’s on fire and is dying. You would be…uhh…wrong?

After that happens, the family gets Narumi’s boyfriend, takes him to their house, and tortures him by forcing him to lay in a bag with what appears to be the burnt body of Narumi.

It’s kind of disturbing, but it’s also very silly. So, what emotion am I supposed to be feeling?

Then, Narumi shows up, and the boyfriend dies of a heart attack.

As it turns out, the thing that burned was a mannequin, and the family were just messing with the boyfriend.

Narumi only seems a bit angry about her boyfriend dying, and the last panel sees her saying she “Had no intention of actually doing it” meaning she had no intention of setting herself on fire.

Now, I’m going to give the story the benefit of the doubt and say that Narumi was actually going to kill herself. I sure hope that when the family told Narumi she was just doing this for attention, they weren’t right. I sure hope that when Narumi threatened to kill herself in front of her boyfriend, she wasn’t manipulating him.

If that was true, this story would be awful.

I’m going to assume that Narumi is just lying. The story still sucks because we have a depressed character trapped with her abusive family and the story doesn’t seem to care. However, it sucks a little bit less because it’s not insinuating that depressed people are “looking for attention”.

In conclusion, this story is one of the most tonally bizarre things I’ve ever seen. It goes back and forth between silly hijinks and serious drama. 

It also doesn’t help that the silly hijinks aren’t funny, and I don’t even know much about Narumi and her boyfriend, so I don’t care about the drama of their story!

129. Groaning Pipes-

(Spoilers)

This is the story about the people getting stuck in pipes.

To truly understand this story, we need to go in deep.

The story starts off with black haired girl being stalked by, gasp!, a guy who is overweight and ugly. Now, I’d argue that the comic seems to want us to find him gross through the way the panels frame him.

So, we’re not off to a great start.

The pudgy kid asks black haired girl out and black haired girl rebukes him, something we are told has happened many times before. So, this guy sucks. 

However, black haired girl then insults this guy by calling him a “swollen and ugly".

Now, obviously, black haired girl has every right to insult someone who is being a creep. However, she is not insulting him on the grounds of being a creep, but instead focusing on his appearance, something he can’t control. In fact, all of the insults the black haired girl levels against the pudgy kid, and there are many, revolve around his appearance. The pudgy kid isn’t bad because he’s pudgy, he’s bad because he’s being a creep.

A result of this is that I kind of dislike both characters in this situation. Maybe that’s the point. If so, then I can congratulate this story on being rather complex in making the point that the girl had the right to not want to have sex with a guy she doesn’t like. Meanwhile, the guy, however much of a piece of shit he is, has the right to not be belittled for his appearance.

Of course, I’m assuming that’s the point. It’s probably not, because the rest of the story is very stupid. Also, the way both characters act is so extreme, it makes them seem like complete caricatures. The pudgy guy is a gross creepy incel and the black haired girl is a vapid valley girl.

Anywhoo, once that scene happens, black haired girl and her sister go to their house, where they bathe for way too long. At first, I was a bit unsure if these siblings were actually siblings because they look to be the same age and act less like siblings and more like casual work friends.

Then, we learn there is something wrong with the pipes in this house. We also see that the mom of this character is a total neat freak. The story feels the need to tell us this fifty or so times in these ten or so pages, and it quickly gets very annoying. There’s also an agonizingly pointless scene  where the mom yells at a plumber. 

It is also in this part where the two girls hatch a plan to let the pudgy guy go to their house so the neat freak mother can scare him off.

To finish our set up, we also meet the Dad of the family, who is divorced from the Mom and hasn’t seen his kids in a while. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have the time to explore what it’s like to be a child of divorce in any meaningful way. 

So, the story has just been set up. There isn’t even the suggestion of something scary.

The plan of the two sisters goes perfectly, and the mom throws eggs at the pudgy kid.

Anywhoo, then the plot actually kicks off when the mom accidentally kills the Dad because she thinks he’s the fat kid when he sneaks into the house at night. I guess the Dad just really wanted to see his kids again, and IDK, maybe he was drunk or something. None of the members of the family seem concerned about the death of this man.

The mom tells the cops that the husband had a knife, so her killing of him was in self defense. I suppose that makes sense. However, what doesn’t make sense is that the family is just allowed to stay in this house that has become a crime scene. I suppose I’m nitpicking. Whatever.

We then see the Mom obsessing over her husband’s blood being cleaned from the floor, and the harassment causes the maid to quit. Why does the maid even exist in the story? I don’t know.

After these excruciatingly long sequences of nothing, we finally get some suspense when mysterious sounds start coming from the pipes.

This, among many other things, causes the Mom to freaking lose it. This is not the only Junji Ito story where a stressed out mom with a dead husband goes crazy. Another one will be near the top. However, this one doesn’t work because the mom is an annoying caricature of a mom, and her neurosciences are so extreme she becomes unbelievable.

Anywhoo, it turns out that the pudgy kid is in the pipes, which is where the sound is coming from.

The black haired girl suddenly starts acting like an asshole for no reason, and the story ends with the sister getting pulled into the pipes- presumably by the pudgy kid. I should mention that she is wearing a towel, so there is an unsettling subtext to this.

That’s fucked up. What is this story saying? Fat people are rapists?

Also, the mom just disappears from the story.

One kind of wonders why the husband and his death was even included, as he’s absolutely inessential to the actual main plot, which is the incel in the pipes. The mom is also pretty pointless, with her only important action being throwing eggs at the pudgy kid.

This whole story is convoluted, contrived, and nonsensical. Every character in it is a caricature, whether it be of women or of fat people. It also seems uninterested in actually creating an atmosphere of dread and suspense.

Unfortunately, a common theme throughout Ito’s stories (specifically his earlier work) is unattractive people being cast as villains and women going through extremely traumatic events in a way which feels indulgent. This story has these two being taken to the extreme.

128. Nanakuse Kyokumi-

This is the transphobic story.

It follows a woman , Koroketsu, who is obsessed with a writer. She goes to see that writer, Nanakuse, only for Nanakuse to turn out to be evil…and also a trans woman. 

Anywhoo, the main character, Koroketsu, of this story is one of the more colorful main characters because she’s really weird.

This means that the beginning of this story is…interesting with how strange it is.

Then, we meet Nanakuse, the author. She is drawn with a very pronounced chin and nose, and our main character literally thinks “A male!” when she first sees her.

It’s at this point when I stopped wanting to read the story, but I had to because of this fucking list.

After this, the author throws the main character into a dungeon, our main character suffers some body horror, and then the story ends.

If it wasn’t for the transphobia, this story would probably be in C. It is very quickly paced. In fact, it’s too quickly paced, as there’s no time given to creating suspense and atmosphere. We don’t see the author seeming more and more off putting as we get more hints that she is evil. The second the main character shows up, the author acts like an absolute asshole. Then, we get a scene of the two of them drinking which does nothing to build suspense. At the end of that scene, the author randomly reveals themself as evil when they toss the main character in a dungeon. It’s kind of sudden. There’s no buildup with this story.

You know Dracula? That’s a story about a person visiting the house of someone mysterious (Dracula), and we get more and more red flags about Dracula throughout the beginning of the story. It’s fun and suspenseful. If Dracula hypnotized Renfield after one conversation, the story would be very boring.

Moving on, the quick pacing means that the stuff about people having “quirks” doesn’t have time to be fleshed out. It seems interesting, but we barely get to see any of it, or the consequences of it, or why all of these people are obsessed with it.

A bunch of exposition is given, but it's all surface level stuff that doesn’t even help us to genuinely understand what’s going on. We learn how the author bought the house and why she keeps people in the prison, but none of this explores the idea of having quirks. Obviously, horror stories thrive when the horror isn’t explained, but it’s helpful if we at least understand what the horrifying thing even is. Imagine Jaws, but we never learn that it’s a shark.

Not only that, the body horror is a little more silly than scary. It’s also very sudden, much like the rest of this story.

Overall, even without the extreme transphobia, this story is just half-baked, with a half-baked idea that never makes any sense or seems all that scary. 

Also, what was the deal with the old servant lady?

[stabknives]

3 and 9 from the creator one if you feel like it?

Hi I love your blog and your ask memes. Thank you for paying my humble shack (blog) a visit.

3. How do you prefer to portrait your Durge? Do you enjoy them in writing or their visuals more? If you're a writer or artist, would you/have you commissioned someone else before? Would you like to, in case you couldn't yet do it?

I'm a writer, it's a passion of mine and my ideal career choice, but I used to love drawing! I don't as much anymore, thanks to a tremor I developed as a teenager. It makes sketching a hassle… like I can still do it, but it takes forever. I'd love to commission some art of Vykrum when I have more cash on hand, though, because I've grown pretty attached to him, and I love supporting fellow artists! They are my world!!!!!!1

+ Already answered 9, my bad. If I managed to get these answers out faster, this probably wouldn't have happened. So sorry! As a bonus I'll just answer a different number.

5. Are they a plot device or the driving force? Do they exist to enhance Gortash or has Gortash developed to become the accessory wife? Do they compliment or foil each other?

I wanted them to synergize. I really like Gortash as a character, and wanted someone to compliment his level of. Batshit insane, without stepping on his toes too much. That's why Vykrum and Gortash are simultaneously so alike (egotistical, selfish, sadistic, goal-oriented, inquisitive, eloquent, weird sex freaks that only get off on the depraved and bizarre lmao) and also. So different. (Vykrum wants to die and finally get some rest. Gortash wants to live forever in infamy as a self made god. Vykrum wants to help people in their own twisted way. Gortash wants to pretend to help people to further his goals.)

They're both complimentary to one another and narrative foils in a way I find super interesting!

[angelicxi]

also not to to make vague and whining posts...but to make vague and whining posts, since I am actively sick and so dizzy I can barely stand upright for five minutes at a time, ergo sorely lack the required brainpower needed to express this w any of like, grace and precision, much less eloquence.

man oh man I am so fucking done with the way people approach art and media. how all of it is now perceived as "content" and the only metric by which they judge whether or not it is good is how hashtag relatable it is to the consumer, how the point of it is, or should be, as far as these people are concerned, to be Nice and Inoffensive and Digestible and About Me, The Specialest And Most Importantest Little Princeling, actually. how they perceive themselves as a customer, essentially. shopper weighing you, the artist / creative, like a product in his hands and tutting. and more than anything I loathe the incredibly dangerous entitlement bred by this attitude.

also, people have gotten waaaaayyyyyy too comfortable with just wandering into the DMs / inboxes of strangers they encounter at random on the internet with increasingly bizarre grievances. main character syndrome is sosososo real, deranged and common. I want to scream!! I AM screaming!!!!

[scaryspears]

Muggleborn Slytherin

I redid the sorting with my sister and I'm in Slytherin. Thing is, when I did it as a 13 year old I ended up in Ravenclaw. Anyways, my sorting has inspired me to share this original character I've come up with. I can't draw eloquently so I used a dress up game.

Name: Orisha 'Sasha' Nwaeze

Date of Birth: August 31st 1975

Ethnic: Black African British (Nigerian), Muggleborn

Potronous: Wolf

Familiar: Billie-Jean (Barn owl)

Wand: Dragon wing, Maple (I'm not an expert on wands)

Quotes: "That's the thing about wolves. They actually stay away from people, but if the time calls for it then they will attack."

"You'll come to find that I'm not very good at taking care of my socks, sir." - To Snape.

Orisha grew up in a Catholic household, to which she was regarded as the problem child due to her tendency to get in strange predicaments and the many times she was caught doing something bizarre, like turning flower petals into butterflies.

When Orisha's Hogwarts letter arrives her parents go into a frenzy and have her sent to her aunt's house, who is known as the family black sheep. It is then her family refuses to have any contact with her, leaving her entirely in her aunt's care.

Orisha's aunt tries her best with Orisha, and is even willing to spend more than enough on her. When doing supply shopping she meets her familiar, a Barn owl she names Billie-Jean due to having an MJ obsession.

The first person Orisha meets at Hogwarts is Percy, who gives her a rundown on all the houses during their boat ride towards the castle. At the sorting ceremony she watches as Percy and any other potential friend is sent to their houses. When it's her turn the hat shouts "SLYTHERIN" and the table she belongs to is awfully quiet and displeased.

Percy refuses to talk to her, and her housemates refuse to acknowledge her. She constantly questions Jesus about her situation and what this means for herself morally. She is able to make friends with Myrtle Warren, the ghost that hangs in the girls bathrooms.

Her head of house, Professor Snape, introduces her to Marcus Flint and Adrian Pucey who both have reluctantly agreed to look out for her. After a few weeks Percy starts talking to her again but explains why he's been avoiding her. Apparently she's in the 'evil' house, and it's full of people who hate her because of her blood type. She can't be trusted.

Orisha would spend her time borrowing books from the library, learning as many spells as she can and testing her own abilities. Improving her potion brewing, boosting her knowledge on magical creatures, charms, transfiguration, and some herbology. The only thing Orisha hasn't bothered to learn is anything to do with magical history. She isn't very good at flying and tries to create her own flying spells, and is unsuccessful.

One afternoon Snape slips a piece of paper on her desk that reads "Levicorpus". She tries the spell ,and while the results don't end well takes inspiration from it. She finally creates her flying spell, but keeps the knowledge to herself, getting rid of any evidence that she had created it.

As soon as Christmas rolls around she stays with her aunt and confides that she wants to leave Hogwarts. Her aunt discusses this with Dumbledore and they come to the agreement that Orisha would study each year for the first term before going back to the muggle world.

After graduating school she finds out that there's more to her family than she knew. Using her Hogwarts education, she spends her life living normally while being paid to do "small tasks".

She has no clue about the battle of Hogwarts when it goes down, but is unfazed about the events that transpired once she learns of it.

[navree]

Hi, first I wanted to say that I really like your takes and how eloquent you communicate your thoughts. I could never. I aim for a 5 sentence max paragraph and end up with an essay 😅

Anyways, I’m usually not one to dwell on other’s interpretations of a character or scene, especially if I don’t agree because it’s just fiction anyways…but sometimes I just see a bad take have to rant. I came across this take (I’ll copy and paste since I don’t want to @ op. I’ll also omit some filler words just in case): “the exhale, almost like relief. Alicent will finally escape a life she’s never had a say in. She won’t have to deal with the consequences of putting Aegon the throne and the look of horror when she realizes she’s alive” and ma’am. No.

Let’s say Alicent may be suicidal/have suicidal ideation, in that moment I’m pretty sure she was terrified that her sons and daughter were about to be burned alive. Even if she wanted to die, I’m not sure she would leave her children and grandchildren behind unprotected. Also, “deal with the consequences of putting Aegon on the throne”?? I know the show basically went “lol, anyways” in regards to Alicent’s fear that’s been growing for the past 20 years but she should be relieved that Aegon is crowned. They’re all (seemingly) safe. The “only consequences” are cruel, unjustifiable acts of “revenge” aimed at literal babies.

This take annoys me even more because I know that op and co. were the same ones who ran with “Alicent poisons Aegon in the name of retribution” and “Alicent is disgusted by Aegon’s touch during coronation scene when she removes his hand from her side and holds it instead”.

I know that her children were forced on her and loving them can’t be easy, but all Alicent has are her children. Aegon and Aemond were quick and brave enough to face an angry king to spare her, Aegon accepts the crown for her and their family, Aemond wants to gift Luke’s eye to her. Helaena has never done anything wrong. She doesn’t hate them; she loves them the most.

You guys are being so sweet to me today oh my goodness!! You're too kind, thank you <3

And yeah, I saw the exact take you're talking about, and the one about the hand too, and I did have to stop myself from vaguing about it cuz it was early in the morning and I have the capacity to be mean. There's this bizarre idea people have where they decide they're fine with Alicent being more sympathetic, but only as long as she repents the things she's done and realizes that she actually Did A Bad Thing and she's so sorry and regretful guys, really. And listen, interpretation is up to the interpreter and all that, but it's a bad interpretation.

Alicent is not, in fact, semi regretful while smiling at Aegon's coronation, she was under a lot of stress and she's finally seeing her son safe from harm for the first time in his entire life and actually embracing something, she's relieved. No she's not trying to prevent Aegon from touching her during the scene, boy has a sword and is very clearly trying to push her back and behind him so he can try to protect her before she stops him and is the one holding onto his hand to make sure that he doesn't try it again. No she is not "sighing in relief" she's just accepted that there's nothing she can do in the face of a dragon but at least she's with her son, at least her first boy won't die alone, at least she'll be there for him. No she is not horrified to be alive, she's now incredibly stressed once again and also realizing that Rhaenyra's going to find out that Aegon has the crown before Alicent was able to send over a peace delegation with honorable terms to potentially blunt the blow and prevent backlash. Like I'm sorry, but did some of these people need a hospital stay, cuz I'm assuming they pulled some muscles pretty badly with all that reaching.

Alicent did not have much say in how she lived her life. And there might have been times where she might have had some sort of suicidal ideation or something similar. But for one, that is hardcore fanon because there is nothing in the text or subtext or supplementary materials that has ever even attempted to claim that Alicent has any suicidal tendencies. It can make for a good fanfic idea, but fanfiction isn't canon. For two, we don't even know if that's something Alicent would be willing to do. We don't have a clear view on some of the tenants of the Seven, but it's meant to be analogous to Roman Catholicism (similar views on women, marriage, sex, homosexuality, the works) and in Roman Catholicism, suicide's a sin, it's actually a really big sin, so it's entirely possible that Alicent doesn't have any concrete thoughts on suicide and the like because it's against her beliefs and she's kinda big on those. And when it comes to whether or not Alicent would do it when she's got kids, suicide is a complex topic and sometimes you can have the most loving family in the world but if the factors are too stacked against you in other ways, it won't matter, but likely not. Alicent is a person who puts duty over everything, who literally lays her own body on the line in the defense of her children, she's probably not going to think about doing something for herself even if it'll make her happy so long as she's got the kids.

And yes, sorry to some people, but Alicent loves her children. Very, very dearly. I've discussed it many many times so I won't repeat it in detail again for anyone who's sick of it, but Alicent takes an active part in raising these kids, she is their primary parent, they clearly rely on her love and support, and she's very willing to defend them at all costs. She attacks Rhaenyra for Aemond, she demands Criston take Helaena to safety, she literally places herself between Aegon and a dragon. And Alicent's children love her, Aegon clearly does and half of his issues come from feeling that this love might not be reciprocated back, Helaena doesn't seem to mind her mom wanting to engage more in her interests, and the scene in episode 9 where she shies away from her touch is because she's aggravated no one's understanding her prophecy, and Aemond of course adores his mother through and through likely more than anyone else in his entire life (until Alys comes along).

When it comes to Alicent wanting to avoid consequences of putting Aegon on the throne, again, no? Alicent is not stupid. Alicent is very aware that there are going to be consequences to putting Aegon on the throne. That's why she and Otto lock the castle down, that's why she immediately calls a meeting of the Small Council, that's why she wants Aegon found and brought to her first, that's why she makes sure to talk with Aegon in private about Rhaenyra on their way to the Dragonpit. Alicent has been the de-facto ruler for nearly ten years, and she's the one spearheading a lot of this, she is textually aware of the consequences. There are consequences that we know are coming, like Vhagar going off script or Daemon deciding to indulge in some child murder, but those aren't consequences that anyone who isn't the book-reading audience could have ever foreseen. So let's also add "Alicent is not worried about facing the consequences when she's got the King, the King's government, the entire capital city, multiple dragons, and several powerful and influential Great Houses behind her and she's got a clear view on how to deal with the foreseeable consequences of this decision" to the list.

A lot of these takes come from the idea that Alicent can only be likable if she's constantly self-flagellating herself for her choices and is in constant self hatred mode for anything done against the characters they actually do like, or a view that Alicent is, I guess, the dumbest person on the planet who can't see further than two feet in front of her. But Alicent isn't constantly hating herself, she might hate her life but she does view herself in the right more than she does in the wrong, and she's smart and capable, and she's allowed to, you know, have ambition for her son and love her kid and want to stay with her family and protect them to the best of her abilities.

And of course, this was a take found on Twitter. Some of the Team Green side of HOTD Twitter is good, the rest of HOTD Twitter, literally the site is basically a disease at this point. There's a reason I frequently delete the app off my phone and try to limit my use, and I actually need it for work and connections.

[thosearentcrimes]

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a lot better than Dracula. The flow of the text is better, it's more fun to read, the themes are more subtle and interesting. Perhaps a better work to compare to would be The Vampyre, a work which arose from the same impromptu writing circle as Frankenstein, and which apparently introduced the vampire into anglophone literature in a form recognizably similar to that which appears many decades later in Dracula. However, I have read Dracula, and so have many others, and I have not read The Vampyre.

By way of example of the superiority of Frankenstein, consider the use of the epistolary device. Dracula retains it throughout the narrative, in which it interferes constantly, to no appreciable benefit. The rapid shift from narrator to narrator is not accompanied by significant insight into their character and internal world, as the characters are in fact precisely who everyone else takes them to be. By contrast, Frankenstein also begins with an epistolary introduction, but then transitions reasonably cleanly into narrative. The epistolary device is not used to much greater effect, but less of a bad thing is still an improvement.

The writing of these letters is remarkably bad. I understand that tastes change, but the letters (including those cited in the non-epistolary section) consist largely of people telling each other things they clearly already know, for the benefit of the reader. Surely there is no point in writing letters into the story if they're not going to make sense within the narrative? Additionally, both letters and dialogue are all rendered in the same voice.

On this note, while Shelley has gone to great lengths to justify the eloquence of the monster, and this eloquence does in fact serve a worthwhile thematic purpose, the effect of it is reduced somewhat by every other character being bizarrely eloquent as well. Additionally the mechanism by which the monster is rendered eloquent is quite frankly a long series of plot holes. As appropriate as it is for the monster to reference Paradise Lost, it is quite inexplicable for a French-speaking monster in 18th century Germany to have found a copy of it (and some other books) in the first place, let alone been able to read it, for starters.

Some of the character introductions, especially but not exclusively those done by way of letters, are a bit too obviously utilitarian. I rather prefer it when the author either sets up all the characters and plot points in such a way that the reader cannot tell that they serve a specific narrative purpose later, or that they simply introduce them when they come up. A character brought up with no immediate motivation a chapter or two before they become narratively relevant is like a recognizable big-name actor in a police procedural, it gives the game away. I wonder what happens in a couple chapters with this tragic innocent in this gothic horror novel!

Despite all my criticism, I quite liked Frankenstein and I think it is not only worth reading but additionally a good book. The story has relevant themes, ably explored, without letting them get too far in the way of a gripping narrative. The philosophical points it sets out are still valid and relevant today, and not in a facile way. Merely substitute "life" for "intelligence", which in any case is really a substitution of synonyms as far as the general form of the argument goes, and make other minor adjustments as necessary, and you get a more intelligent analysis of AI than almost any I have read in the press or in blogs, though that speaks more to the miserable state of that discourse than anything else.

Easily the most affecting part of the book is the narration by the monster himself, and really the book improves as it approaches this point, and deteriorates as it departs. Some decontextualized quotes that particularly stuck with me: "I, too, can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him", "My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor", and best of all "I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me; for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess."

[qlmb]

Tinie Tempah is fronting a Channel 4 MOTORING show - Is TV this dry?

I'm seeing this man live. Yes, in concert. This year. I am absolutely excited to see him perform because I have been a fan of Tinie Tempah for years now, ever since I was 6 years old and blasting "Frisky" or "Pass Out" as loud as possible.

However, today's news on TVZone is that the "Disturbing London", multi-award winning, chart-topping, international superstar act.... is fronting a Channel 4 show about cars.

Whilst I have no issue with a Top Gear rival from Channel 4... (atleast, im assuming that is the audience they want to try and rival) It is the issue of out of everybody, why Tinie? After Tinie's first few series run of his own.... property show..... that was, also, on Channel 4, wouldn't this be abit jarring? It reminds me of the joke I made in 2021 whilst reviewing Tinie's property programme that it's like if Snoop Dogg started hosting Location Location Location, but let's not put it past them, I don't want to start predicting the future.

Tinie Tempah is a great lad. He's funny, witty and very understanding. Not a single bit of his ego has inflated the man as he is still open and humble... however. After building the rap image, it's tough to see him go from a hardcore rap career, all the way to showing his knowledge about cars and motors, whilst F1 analyst and stunt driver Naomi Schiff looks at the cars from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s making a comeback too. It'll be a tough watch for sure, but I would be very curious on how this all pours out! Tinie, as I've said, is a great host, just abit weird to see the man talk so deeply about cars from a time lonnnngggg ago.

It's made me raise another question too, is TV hosting dying?

As we witness Tinie Tempah seamlessly transition from hardcore rap to vintage car enthusiast, it raises an intriguing question: Is TV hosting on the brink of extinction, desperately gasping for its final breath?

In the golden age of television, we marveled at the art of hosting. The eloquent voices, the impeccable suits, the ability to effortlessly juggle interviews (Davina, we love you for the scandalous "tell us everything" Big Brother UK interviews), and the occasional cheesy joke—these were the qualities we admired in hosts. But now, it seems anyone with a pulse and a Twitter account can call themselves a TV host.

Gone are the days of the erudite and sophisticated master of ceremonies. Instead, we're bombarded with hosts who seem more interested in garnering social media followers than actually, well, hosting. Isn't it abit off how Will Best is now going to be a huge TV face due to his role of Big Brother host? Not to mention, we are now seeing channels comission shows featuring people from social media, admittedly, some YouTubers can pull it off. Daniel Howell's UNTOLD documentary is one you should watch.

But wait, there's more! Brace yourself for the upcoming BBC One show, "The Mundane Chronicles," a riveting program where ordinary people are transformed into hosts overnight. Picture this: a checkout clerk named Steve is thrust into the limelight, hosting a primetime talk show. As he stumbles through interviews, his guests desperately search for an escape route. It's a train wreck you can't look away from, like watching a sloth attempt to perform brain surgery.

If that's not bizarre enough, let's delve into the realm of reality TV. In "Survival of the Fluffiest," contestants compete in a battle of wits and fur as they try to outwit each other in a cuddly showdown. Hosted by an animatronic teddy bear, this show blurs the line between entertainment and sheer lunacy. But hey, who needs substance when you can have stuffed animals battling it out for the crown? Why are you tuning out? No, you don't get it! Listen, steam all the full boxset and the spinoff and the gossip show for free on Channel 4! Stream it first, why aren't you STREAMING?

So, as Tinie Tempah delves into the world of vintage cars, we can't help but wonder: Is TV hosting a dying art? With hosts more interested in viral moments than meaningful conversations, perhaps it's time to bid adieu to the days of genuine talent and welcome the era of unfiltered mediocrity. No more iconic faces in the future, but more random, one-hit wonder TikTokers. After all, who needs a skilled host when you can have a YouTube sensation teaching us how to fold socks?

[tempest-toss]

Little Mister Blurb batch #2

11. Ms. Odd It is absolutely impossible to get even with Ms. Odd. Probably taking the cake for the most weird idea, Ms. Odd is peculiar in the fact of her fascination with odd numbers. She has an odd number of jewelry pieces, an odd number of stripes on her socks, an odd number of collections with an odd amount collected, and even a third eye and arm (although she usually hides them for the sake of whoever she’s assigned to.

12. Mr. Patient Twin brother to Mr. Patience, he’s well known as a wild card. Seen constantly in his straitjacket with oversized sleeves, with spiral eyes and occasionally acting like a dog, he uses his rather bizarre mannerisms and appearance to catch people off guard so he can eat them. The only people that can calm him down to a state where he can communicate clearly and eloquently is Three, Mr. Patience, and his fathers. Despite Dr. Wondertainement wanted to change his design, Mr. Patient has been adamant that he never lose his prized jacket.

13. Mr. Patience Twin brother to Mr. Patient. Dressed in clothes similar to that of a psych ward worker, he was made to help those experiencing emotional duress. His anomalous quirk of emitting a calming feeling helps those he meets to recover, or at least help with the path of recovery. Unfortunately, he hasn’t seen many patients as of late, since his brother is in need of being watched over constantly.

14. Little Mr. Dancer Tap? Check. Tango? Check. Boogie? Bee’s Knees? Popular movie moves? Little Mr. Dancer knows them all! Created to teach the uncoordinated how to put a little groove in their step, he was as fast as his rising fame. Tragedy struck however, in a rare form of chance, when a stagelight came down and crushed him, causing him to be pulled from public use, mainly due to the rainbow blood.

15. Ms. Dream In this anomalous world, nightmares are common and frequent. Sometimes you need a little nudge to get a good nights sleep. Ms. Dream is going to be the one to help you with that. Often found daydreaming, Ms. Dream can emit a mist that when inhaled while sleeping causes the person to enter a calm or happy dreamscape. She might not be the best for fighting or defending, but that wasn’t what she was made for. She was made to help the distressed of the world, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

16. Ms. Smile When told that sadness was overpowering the fun in the world, Dr. Wondertainment knew it must be dealt with at once, and created Ms. Smile. All things considered, Ms. Smile is rather plain to the eyes. Average clothes, blonde hair, fair complexion. What sets her apart from others is that when in proximity to her you may find yourself feeling…happier. Memories from the past of good times pops into your head, and you find yourself realizing that things are gonna be alright.

17. Mx. Guide One of the first gender-neutral Little Misters, Mx. Guide is the friendliest of the Little Misters, and one you should ally yourself with if things go south. Based on a workplace character made to remind people to wear hardhats, Mx. Guide now wanders the factory pointing people in the right direction, seemingly able to know where you wish to go just by looking at you. This was confirmed to not be exclusive to the Factory after some lab tests at Site 32. Compliment their glasses, they try really hard to make them shine.

18. Ms. Twist Some workers wonder if Ms. Twisted was a mistake, and they have to be reminded constantly that no, her signature twist in her body is not an accident. Using her bodily flexibility, Ms. Twist one of the more versatile and flexible Little Misters to exist, although she doesn’t view herself as such, instead taking the ignorant workers’ opinions to heart.

19. Mr. Twisted   Ever heard of the Crooked Man, and are you afraid of him? If so, you might want to avoid Mr. Twisted. Standing at such an abnormal height, Mr. Twisted’s spine had to curve downwards, making him look like a walking candy cane, except his eyes are obscured by messy hair, and his smile looks a bit too sharp. Dr. Wondertainment never told a soul why he was made in the first place.

20. Ms. Knight  Created for the popular fantasy kit, Ms. Knight has chivalry and honor etched into her. She acts as a guardian figure and walking tutorial that only occasionally complains about how stuffy the armor is. Skilled with a sword and striking even though her bangs get in her face, Ms. Knight is one of the strongest defenders when it comes to the Little Misters, especially since she can fortify her body to make it more resistant to any and all attacks.