People who have been following me since 2022 will know that I have a bad habit of becoming obsessed with things I haven't actually watched. The Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers film became my new special interest in 2022, but I didn't watch it in full until 2023, when I finally got Disney+.
Well, it's happening again.
Right now, I'm mildly obsessed with Hazbin Hotel.
Now, I haven't seen none of it. I've watched the pilot on YouTube, and I've watched the first episode of the Prime Video series (which is freely available on YouTube). I don't have Prime Video, so I haven't seen the rest of it.
But I have been listening to the songs, browsing Tumblr for talking points, and watching scattered clips and reviews and essays on YouTube - which is basically what I was doing with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
I'm a Christian (awkward!), and it initially bothered me that the show didn't mention God or Jesus at all. Not that I'd have wanted them to poke fun at God or Jesus ... but I'd assumed the series was meant to be a satire of Christianity, pointing out how much it sucks that its believers can be so judgmental and unforgiving when the faith is supposed to be about love and forgiveness. So I was quite surprised by the reveal that the angels don't actually know what gets you into Heaven. What, you don't even have the Ten Commandments? You don't have any rules that you impose? You can't satirise Christianity if you don't understand what you're satirising!
But upon reflection, I guess Hazbin Hotel is meant to be seen more as a cautionary tale about hypocrisy and second chances and redemption - about those concepts in general, rather than how they're (mis)used specifically by Christians. It's about how the people preemptively labelled "bad" who do bad things are clearly proving they're bad, while the people labelled "good" who do bad things are defended and justified because there must have been a good reason for what they did. Even if a good reason isn't apparent. And the settings of Heaven and Hell are just being used as vehicles for that social commentary.
It seems as though Hazbin Hotel is not really about Heaven and Hell, it's about life on Earth. But there are still some things that are interesting to think about from a theological viewpoint.
To close this slightly rambling post, here are some even more scattered thoughts, which may evolve if I actually get to watch the full thing:
EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!
"You Didn't Know" is a banger!
As is "Poison". Kind of reminds me of "All You Wanna Do" from Six: The Musical - in that it's a bop, but the lyrics are dark because they're about sexual abuse.
I really enjoy the "I'm a Disney Princess in a Hellish landscape" thing that Charlie's got going on.
EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!
I hope we get to see more of Emily and more of Heaven in the second season.
I wasn't sure about Vaggie at first, but she's grown on me.
My favourite characters are Charlie, Vaggie, Emily and Angel Dust. I refer to them as Charlie's Angels.
EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!
After a year of basically binge-watching loads of kids' cartoons on Disney+, it's still feels jarring to watch a cartoon where people say the F-word a lot.
Wait, Angel Dust has a twin sister? Molly? And she might be in Heaven? Is that girl with four legs we see in Heaven supposed to be Molly, or is she just a random background character? Why is she in Heaven when Angel Dust isn't? Are they going to be reunited? Is Molly friends with Emily?
EMILY IS PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED!
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Recently I've been seeing a lot of slavery jokes in the OSC (mostly BFDI, but also a few involving II) and I really don't they're funny in the slightest. It's very uncomfortable and borderline racist, especially since videos with these jokes often have darker colored objects depicted as the "slaves". Some of the responses I've seen from people aren't that concerned or find the joking hilarious, but I've also seen many people who were shocked or disturbed by it. I don't know the number of fans engaging in this compared to the general community (specially fans who are a POC) or if any object show creators have spoken about/are aware of these jokes- though I highly doubt they'd be okay with them.
None of this comes from Tumblr, I've only seen an increase in these comments and content mostly on Youtube and a few other social medias. Watching videos containing surprise animations of that stuff or scrolling through a website feed and seeing someone's "satire slavery doodle" is quite disturbing, almost revolting with how nonchalant and flippant some people act towards it. I don't understand why there's suddenly more of it now or why anyone would think it's okay to jokingly portray these characters like that.
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kari! if your requests are still open: could i get a piece where erik has some special interest and charles accidentally brings it up in a conversation and now he's stuck listening to erik ramble about it, and he's in awe? this is kind of a niche request, but i've always seen the trope of erik listening to charles ramble about his interests, and i'd like to see it the other way round :)
anything for you :heart_hands: i asked a friend on what erik could have a bit of an interest in, then i watched too many jewelry videos on youtube, then i reread magneto testament 1. one of those times. rare first class cherik mood?
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A knock on the door startles Erik out of his thoughts.
“Sorry,” Charles announces, peeking his head in. Erik puts the ring he’s found down, looking up at him. Charles’ voice is quiet, like he was scared to ruin whatever moment Erik’s having. “I’ve been looking for you. Dinner was a few hours ago.”
“Oh,” Erik sits up straighter. His back cracks a little. How long has he been at this? “I got—” he holds up the ring again. “I got distracted.”
“What are you working on?” Charles closes the door behind him, inviting himself in. He doesn’t need any invitations, of course—Erik would allow him anywhere. Besides, it is his mansion. “Forgive me for the intrusion, but I got curious.”
“It’s alright,” Erik answers. “It’s your business, regardless. I found this old box of jewelry and I was examining it. I have been fixing a few jewels for the past few hours—probably lost myself in the task, then.”
Charles lights up, like Erik is sharing the secrets of the universe with him. He always does this whenever he learns something about Erik, as if Erik wasn’t on his way to realizing that he’d tell Charles whatever he asked for.
“Are you a jeweler, Erik?” he leans in, smiling. “I had no idea.”
“It’s a hobby,” Erik says. It’d be a hobby if he had time for them. “Or it used to be, once upon a time. As a child, my uncle was very good with jewelry. I tried my best to follow in his footsteps. Never was quite as good as him, but,” he passes the ring to Charles. “I followed his instructions here and there.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one,” Charles turns the ring around, taking a closer look. “You found it in a box, you said? Must have been my mother’s, once upon a time. I try to not think about it too much.”
He doesn’t light up like Charles does, but he also leans in, so curious. He knows so little of Charles' family. Charles knows everything about him—but what does Erik know, truly?
“Either way,” he doesn’t press. Charles will talk if he wishes to do so. “This ring is too big. I’d have to break it around here to resize it. I have yet to find all the right tools to fix this—despite all my powers, I simply haven’t gotten to the point where I can heat up metal.”
“Do you think it could be possible?”
“In due time,” he promises. “However, I can still do this—perhaps an old-fashioned technique. As I said, I’m not my uncle.” Opening up his palm, the ring flattens itself and straightens out. Charles watches, enthralled. “Give me your hand.”
Charles readily hands it. “Are you proposing to me?”
Then why would he give his hand so willingly, if it were to be the case? Erik smiles, not rising to the bait. His hand is so soft as he holds it, focusing on the ring finger. The metal wraps itself around it, the remaining metal—too big for Charles’ finger—hanging off it. If he focuses more…
“As I said, usually, you are meant to cut it to resize it, you need to solder it together accordingly. I can't do it on my own, so…” the ring changes size under his command. It grows smaller, wraps itself around the finger perfectly at last. “There’s a lot of work left on this, you see. It needs polishing. The gem needs to be replaced—it’s quite broken, it’s not complementing it like it used to. This used to be a golden ring, wasn’t it? Perhaps it needs more than polishing.It’s salvageable, either way, as you can see from this little act.”
“How fascinating, to use your gift like this,” Charles looks at the ring in his hand like it weighs heavily on it. “It’s beautiful. Should we make a trip to a hardware store, perhaps? Get you everything to continue fixing jewelry?”
Erik chuckles, “I’m afraid it will have to remain a hobby, for now. Thank you for entertaining my little ramble—perhaps I will take you up on dinner now.”
Charles watches him as he stands up, eyes never leaving him as he makes his way to the door. He remains seated. “I’m serious. We could forget about all of this, dedicate ourselves to jewelry. We can re-purpose every room in this mansion to fit you. Whatever you want. Fixing jewelry, making it, whatever you please.”
It’d be funny if Charles hadn’t always been so transparent. Despite the smile on his face, he can hear it: please stay.
“Perhaps after dinner,” is all Erik manages to compromise. “Let’s keep going.”
Charles doesn’t take off the ring, doesn’t leave it on the table. He follows Erik to eat instead.
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Hi - I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to cultivate community, and would love any advice!
I currently have two friends (one long distance, one who lives nearby) and live with my spouse. All of these people are also socially isolated. I spend most of my day alone in my home; I don't work because my spouse's income can support us both; I don't go out because my spouse is immunocompromised so we generally avoid being around other people; and I don't engage in online spaces very much (mostly following a few authors whose books I like or watching youtube videos about special interests). I'm autistic, adhd, and struggle with ocd, which are all things I learned about in the past two years.
I've tried to become more engaged in hobby-focused online spaces, but have found that I am not great at reading the social rules or am somehow behaving in an inappropriate way due to misunderstanding the way people were communicating. This happens both online and in-person. Over time, I've tried to become more observant, but this has led to a sort of social inertia as observer rather than participant, which excludes me from the connection-making experience so many people seem to have.
Based on some of what you have written, it seems like you put a lot of importance in community building and the work of cultivating friendships. I've seen you suggest seeking out identity-based groups (like autistic support groups or enby support groups) or seeking out hobby-based groups (like going to cons), and these are all things I've tried before but always felt unable to be a part of - like I have an invisible bubble around me that blocks me from really connecting.
I feel really frustrated and a little ashamed about all this. Like I should be trying harder or doing more in order to become more involved with the world around me. I guess, how do I do the work of cultivating community when it feels like most communities won't have me as I am? (not to say that I'm a perfect unchangeable person, but that in some core way I'm rejectable?)
I don't think you need to try "harder," just that you need to keep trying. There are a lot situational reasons why you are so isolated that it sounds like you're very well aware of, so try to keep those factors in mind to check your own feelings of brokenness/rejectability/underservingness when they occur.
You don't leave the house much. You don't participate actively in most online spaces. You don't have many opportunities for organically meeting people. No wonder you have so few connections in your life *and* feel so self-conscious and awkward when you do make an attempt. Anybody would in your situation. You need like hundreds more hours of attempts, potentially, for it to start to feel more natural and less panic inducing. That's a big part of why the first tip in my advice column on the subject is to know that this process takes years, it did for me, and to not take that as a reflection of who you are as a person.
The research on how people form friendships says time and time again that we build relationships by being in proximity to people numerous times and with consistency. That's it, and that's all. There is no magic juice or essential quality that you lack. Among neurotypicals, research shows people are more likely to be friends with people who have last names that are closer to their own in the alphabet, because those people are/were more likely to sit next to one another in class as kids. That's really how arbitrary this shit is.
We befriend the people who are around us a lot, who we interact with a lot. And so, you'll just need to be around the same people a lot (does not have to mean literally physically around, it could be in the same zoom room or discord call), and interact with them a lot. It sounds like a lot of the online spaces you've attempted to be a part of so far are not quite social enough -- I would say do not consider social media to be socializing, it's more like social snacking (tho there are some exceptions).
instead try to identify some online events or groups with meetings / synchronous forms of communicating. Watch parties, online game playing sessions, online writing groups, support groups, meetings, etc -- ones where you have interactions with a handful of the same people, where they get to know your name/handle and become familiar with you and interact with you multiple times.
You can also try asynchronous forms of communication, but they have to again be really specific and personal. Things like exchanging letters or having a pen pal or playing correspondence chess with someone -- not posting on say instagram or reddit or whatever. It has to be a form of interaction where you get to know a specific person, and they get to know you, and you navigate some of those interpersonal conflicts and insecurities that you're talking about.
Maybe you are rubbing people the wrong way sometimes, that's okay, being annoying is not a crime. don't give up. Maybe they are just dropping off the map on you sometimes for their own reasons or not being super enthusiastic and you are reading that in a negative light when it is in fact a neutral cue. Keep at it. That's really the only way to get better at it, i'm afraid.
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Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who still remembers and loves CDs. Vinyl records have made a comeback and are now considered cool among certain varieties of hipster and audiophile, but CDs haven't had the same treatment.
And like, to some extent, I kinda understand that. CDs aren't cool. Records are cool. They're big and textured and elegant and they're objectively old enough to feel vintage rather than dated. They're not exactly durable but they make up for their fragility with their other positive qualities, and you could certainly argue that warping and scratches add exactly the kind of character to a record that we've lost with digital music and therefore crave from physical media. A slightly damaged CD pretty much always just becomes totally unplayable.
So I get it. And I'll readily admit that the biggest reason why I like CDs is simply that I grew up with them and have fond memories of them. But I do also think it's objectively true that there are certain positive features unique to CDs. I will never tire of the experience of giving and receiving mix CDs. You can't do that with a record. (I mean, I don't think you can? Not easily, at any rate.) And it's not the same as a playlist! It's not the same. When you make a mix CD, you not only curate the music for the recipient, you burn the disc, you decorate it, you make the sleeve or pick the jewel case and make the paper insert for it, figure out how to wrap/package it. I mean, obviously you don't have to do all of these things, but the opportunity is there for a lot of creativity and love. And in the end the person gets both the physical object as well as being able to make digital copies of the songs on their computer (which also allows them to use those songs in their future mix CDs, continuing the cycle!).
The mix CD is just so unpretentious, wholesome, and kind. It gave the average person unprecedented power over how music was curated and shared. (I mean, of course mix tapes did something similar, and maybe they deserve more credit than I give them, simply because they're from before my time; but I kind of have to assume that CD mixing is a much simpler and more efficient process.) The mix CD creates a loving context for experiencing music. Here, I made this! Special from me, for you! I think context is one of the things which we most desperately miss in this modern age, where we're fed our newest songs by the goddamn algorithm (whether that's Spotify, TikTok, YouTube, or whatever). The mix CD is personal, human, earnest and sweet.
(And yes, to some extent, playlists do this as well, and they have their own advantages. But I think the shareability of playlists, while making it possible for many more people to experience your creation, has ended up discouraging the intimate act of making something just for one other person and instead promotes the idea that what is most desirable is to have your work seen by the greatest possible number of people.)
I started thinking about this because I saw another post talking about the removal of CD/DVD drives from computers and it really does make me sad thinking that this may be the final nail in the coffin of the mix CD. I've had to depend on external disc drives to make my mixes, and I'm sure that for most people, CDs have passed totally out of their awareness.
I'm not saying the mix CD is the end all be all of sharing music. There are already lots of other ways to share music and I would quite like to think that we will continue to invent new ways. But I do find it very sad that the art of the mix CD is dying, and while the mix CD itself may be doomed, I really hope that we don't forget its virtues, and find a way to keep the spirit of the thing alive. Physical object as well as digital copies that can be shared with others, permanent ownership of the music (rather than just streaming/renting), the burning and reading of this object being cheap and accessible, personal touch/high customizability (not being limited simply to song order, a single cover image, and a short description), intimacy. These are what I don't want to lose.
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Stand-up comedy I've watched/re-watched recently (Inside was a re-watch):
Bo Burnham – Words Words Words (2010), What (2013), Make Happy (2016), Inside (2021)
I’d been meaning to get around to these for ages, and I’m glad I finally did. I did see Inside before, closer to when it first came out. But I re-watched it after watching those other specials, because everything is better in context.
The earlier specials weren’t entirely new to me either, of course. I’m the same age as Bo Burnham (almost exactly, he’s like six weeks older than me), and started getting big on YouTube when he was in high school, and therefore I was also in high school. I was in high school, in 2006, a year when the internet was a weird little thing inhabited only by nerds, and my friends and I were among those nerds, and Bo Burnham was this little teenager who sang songs in his bedroom that got passed around by all the nerds on the internet. My friends and I used to send them to each other over MSN Messenger and then sing them at school. A voice of a generation. Or at least, the voice of one very specific group of underground nerds of that generation.
I followed Bo Burnham fairly loosely in the years that followed, and then eventually that dropped off and I sort of forgot he existed until Inside, which of course made me and the rest of the world say “Jesus Christ, look what happened to that little kid.”
I thought I’d never seen a full Bo Burnham special before Inside, had just watched lots of his individual songs on YouTube. But when I watched Words Words Words, his first special (from 2010, shortly after I finished high school, when he was only nineteen years old), it was all so familiar to me that I think I must have watched that one before. Or at least, I remembered having watched every song in it. Maybe I watched it in separate parts on YouTube when it first came out.
I’d seen a few of the songs from the other specials before too. In particular this one, because I quite enjoyed when he put out a song on a niche issue that happens to be one I’ve been fighting about for years:
I happen to be a big fan of country music and a big anti-fan of pop music that incorrectly markets itself as country, and since I was in high school, my friends have known that if they want to entertain themselves by annoying me, they can play something off country radio and tell me they love this country music. Or even just tell me they feel neutrally about this country music. My issue isn’t that people love it, my issue is calling it country music. I don’t mind if people enjoy this shitty pop music made by Luke Bryan (I mean, I am judging them a bit, but to each their own, sort of, I guess). Just don’t tarnish it by labelling it with the same word that describes a totally different genre of music that I do like.
Anyway, that opinion has been a running theme of my life for many years, and when Bo Burnham’s song Pandering came out, about ten of my friends sent it to me within the first 24 hours. And they were right to do so. Thanks, Robert. Thanks for continuing to be the voice of the very specific niche that I occupy in our generation.
So I’d heard some of Bo Burnham’s songs before. But I hadn’t seen the full specials (expect maybe Words Words Words, as it looked so familiar, but if so then I saw it a very long time ago, I might have watched it when it first came out in 2010). I was a little hesitant about going back and watching Bo Burnham’s old stuff. Inside does have an entire song about how #problematic he used to be.
And I do remember that, I remember 2006 internet culture. (Warning: I'm going to veer wildly off topic there because I think the nerdy internet culture of 2006 is the essence of Bo Burnham's earlier work, and I explain why that culture seemed so imprtant via personal experiences because I was there, I will get back to Bo Burnham eventually.) I’d say that was second-generation internet. The first generation was before my time and I believe mainly involved AOL chatrooms. The second generation was mine, and it was this specific culture the internet created, in the early South Park age, of dank memes, and “edgelord” being a word that people would unironically claim as their identity. This was the “there are no girls on the internet” era. Of nerds meeting each other on the internet and figuring out that they weren’t alone, that others like them faced this same bullying, and therefore they were extremely oppressed people and did not at any point have to examine whether they could ever be perpetrators rather than victims. That’s when little teenage Bo Burham turned up on YouTube, with his song about how his whole family thinks he’s gay.
As a queer white female nerd who came of age in the time, I definitely saw how much misogyny and homophobia existed within that community that was dominated by the straight white male ones. But honestly… sometimes I think we’ve overcorrected a bit, these days. Hear me out – I do not mean we have overcorrected because the pendulum has swung too far in favour of female supremacy and feminism has gone too far. I have not suddenly gotten super into Joe Rogan.
What I mean is, in 2006, there was an agreement within nerd culture that most people in it were straight white boys and there was no need to accommodate anyone else, and asking them to accommodate anyone else was wrong because they were all oppressed for being nerds, and the oppressed nerds can’t be doing anything wrong. At some point, some people rightly pointed out that “straight white male nerd” is not, in fact, a systemically oppressed group, and in fact they'd created a culture where members of actual systemically oppressed groups were not treated well. I am glad there is much more recognition of that now. But sometimes I think it can go a bit far if we forget that… look, in 2006, people definitely were bullied just for being nerds. I was there, I saw it happen. My straight white male friends were bullied for that in the same way as me and my female friends and my brown friends and my queer friends. We were a fairly diverse group of nerds (also I was an athlete, but in a tiny sport that no one at school gave a shit about, popularity-wise it was pretty much like being on the chess team, and every moment that I wasn’t training I was hanging out with my anime-watching D&D-playing friends). Kids really were mean to us for being weird, nerdy, not cool, all things that aren't systemically oppressed but did still ducking suck in school in the 00s (don't know what it's like now, I'm not there). The internet was a refuge from that, and Bo Burnham felt like one of us, the people too steeped I'm edgy internet humour.
I know I can’t speak for everyone, but I feel like my high school friends could be sort of a microcosm of how the sense of “nerd is my identity and it makes me oppressed so therefore I will huddle with people like me and never examine any potential problems in my in-group” culture happened. We needed each other. A lot of us had never had friends before we found each other in high school. I certainly hadn’t.
I recall my elementary school and middle school years as sheer torture. I never spoke at school. No one would speak to me. No one would sit with me. I’ve got some pretty “movie cliché-style bullying” memories of getting cornered on the playground by kids who would ask me questions I didn’t know the answer to and laugh when I was too anxious to answer so I’d stutter or whisper or cry. The only times I ever skipped school were when we had to pick partners for group projects, I have strong memories of hiding under the stairwell to avoid it, terrified that someone would find me and I’d be in more trouble, even more terrified of having to sit there in class while everyone else picked someone and I watched all the partners disappear and then it was just me and everyone would stare at me and I’d hear people mutter the word “loner” and if I was lucky the teacher would let me work alone and if I was unlucky they’d make me join some other group that would look disgusted to have me. I remember trying to find a place where I could sit by myself at recess where no one would see me and make fun of me. Lining up rocks on the playground and not being able to explain when people came by and asked me what I was doing, except that everything in my brain was yelling that I didn’t belong there and shouldn’t be there, and if I could get all the rocks into the right formation then at least the environment would feel right and I could sit by myself next to them and be comfortable (the OCD diagnosis came around this time, as did the generalized anxiety and social phobia ones – Asperger’s was later).
I recall sitting in my bedroom when I wasn’t at school, playing my music and trying to plan out the next day so I could maybe talk to the other kids if I just prepared well enough, going over and over in my head everything I’d seen at school to try to learn from it and follow all the social expectations properly next time, and then I’d go back to school and still get it wrong. And then I’d log onto my Harry Potter message boards on the early internet and talk to some people who didn’t know how worthless I was, and that was the most connected I ever felt to the world.
And some kids were nice to me. Some kids were the “nice kid in the class” who talks to the weird kid in the class, invites them sit with their friends at lunch (for one day, as a favour, it never developed into actual friendship). I have memories of how incredibly grateful I was to every kid who did that for me. And looking back, most kids probably never thought about me one way or the other. But enough kids were mean directly to me, and enough other kids might not talk directly to me but did talk loudly about how gross they found loners and weird kids and girls who didn’t be a girl properly (oh right, this all happened as we were hitting puberty and no one gave me the memo about how we were supposed to start wearing makeup and paying attention to our clothes), so I felt like every moment I was at school, every person hated me all the time, and I didn't belong there.
When I graduated, the school gave me an award for overcoming obstacles, and I remember thinking, You mean you knew? You knew all along that school was torture for me and you didn’t change it? Though of course, looking back, people tried. My parents took me to all kinds of psychologists and other doctors, but nothing helped. My mother’s told me since then that she used to cry when she’d get calls from my teachers saying how anxious I was and how I still wouldn’t talk to anyone and how I got bullied, and she thought about switching schools but knew how strongly I became attached to familiar places and didn’t want to force a change like that on me too.
But the point is that those things didn’t happen to me because I was a girl, or because I was queer, and certainly not because I was oppressed in some other way because I’m not (very white). Some of the bullying definitely came from me being a girl who didn’t conform to gendered female expectations, but that’s the same type of bullying that gets aimed at boys who don’t conform to gendered expectations, which does often happen to nerdy straight boys (hence Bo Burnham’s problematic reclamation of the word “faggot” that used to get thrown at him). That was bullying that happens to any kid who’s not the cool kid in class, no matter where they are on a demographic identity spectrum. So yeah, I can see how male nerds end up saying "I am oppressed for my identity, you can't call me privileged or a bully. And then they'll quote a rape joke that they heard on the internet, because the internet is their sanctuary and nothing there can be wrong, and therein lies the problem.
And then I got to high school, and I met other kids like me. In person, not just the other people on my Harry Potter message boards. Kids who also got bullied in middle school and hadn’t had friends before. I became friends with them, and I joined the sports team where I was good at something for the first time and felt like part of a community for the first time, and those things earned my eternal loyalty, because they saved me. In high school, my new friends and I bonded over all being on the internet in those days when the internet was a weird nerds-only thing. We bonded by sending each other dank memes, which, looking back, were pretty rife with problematic humour. We bonded over videos of Bo Burnham singing offensive songs. And we didn’t stop to question whether the stuff we liked was in some way perpetrating harm, because we were the victims and everyone else was the bullies, and this nerd culture was what made our victimhood better, so how could it be bad?
Like I said, I think we were a microcosm. A microcosm of why toxicity runs so rampant in nerd culture. It’s wonderful that people have started criticizing all the toxicity – I say this as someone who used to be a teenage girl hanging out in 2006 nerd culture and putting up with a lot of misogyny there that doesn’t get tolerated the same way today. Part of the way they’ve addressed that problem is by pointing out that “nerd” is not a systemically oppressed class, it’s just a label that people often use as an excuse to be a bigot. And that’s true, and that’s bad. But it's still a difficult thing to be.
That’s my context for Bo Burham. And I realize I left the point of this post behind fucking ages ago. I'm afraid I am unable to remain on topic when reviewing a comedy show, I am unlikely to be hired by Chortle. But I do feel like it’s relevant context. Because that is the specific niche of my generation that Bo Burnham was the voice of. He was the young, confused, problematic voice of my generation’s nerds who were steeped in internet culture. And we had a deep loyalty to that culture, shaped by how we came to it.
That was Bo Burnham’s thing, at the time. He turned up on YouTube saying “I’m the boy who’s so bad at being a boy that my family thinks I’m gay. I’m the nerd who doesn’t fit in at school but I’m smarter than my bullies. I’m the kid who likes to read and likes to write and is into poetry and is considered uncool for it. I’m the edgelord who will reflect that fucked up internet humour that’s the calling card of the only community that lets weird kids in.” And we loved it. We heard him make his fat jokes and say his slurs, and we loved it.
So like I said… I was a little nervous, going back and watching his old stuff in 2023. I didn’t remember exactly how bad it was, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. And having said all of that, I am very pleased to report… not quite as bad as I thought. There were problems, obviously. But I think the peak of his edgelord days was his high school stuff that only got released as individual songs on YouTube, didn’t get into his proper specials. Once he got into his twenties, he’d moved past the worst of it. He was still a little to quick to throw around some words that seemed less bad then, but were in fact slurs at the time, as well as being slurs now (I hate it when people say “well it was okay back then, it wasn’t a slur back then” – at best it may have seemed by some people to be more okay back then, that doesn’t mean it was actually okay). But no worse than, you know, most comedians in the 00s. I have old Kitson recordings that are probably worse than some old Burnham stuff, in terms of slur count.
Words Words Words was the bridge between his teenage edgelord years and his better later years, the the special he made in 2010 when he was only 19. That was by far the edgelord-iest of all his specials, but still, not quite as bad as I was expecting. I was surprised it only had one actual rape joke in it. Which is, to be unequivocally clear, still far too many rape jokes. But relatively tame compared to a lot of the rape joke-laden humour of 2010. I think I was misremembering Bo Burnham as being at the cuttingly offensive edge of the horrible 00s comedians, when in fact, he was less bad compared to most of them.
Words Words Words had some pretty painful and horrible jokes about fat people and disability. But they took up a smaller percentage of the hour than I was expecting. Way more minutes of that special were dedicated to poetry than to slur usage.
Including one poem about William Shakespeare, that I did hear when it came out and I remember thinking, at the time, that this was a sign that Bo Burnham was some advanced intellectual, that he knew so much about Shakespeare that he could write poetry about the intricacies of it. Now, I’m pretty sure that was just a case of a high school kid learning about Shakespeare in class, then going home and writing poetry that incorporates what he learned in English class. The infuriating thing is it’s fucking good. Everyone wrote poetry in high school. I wrote poetry in high school, including poetry about stuff I’d learned about in school. It was terrible. The only thing that makes me feel okay about that is knowing everyone wrote terrible poetry in high school. I rather resent Bo Burnham for writing good poetry in high school. But it wasn’t intellectual giantism. It wasn't even incredible poetry. It was just, you know, the unusual feat of writing high school poetry that didn’t suck.
There was a surprising amount of poetry in that special. Also, watching Words Words Words this year reminded me that his song Art Is Dead was on there. On Words Words Words, which came out in 2010, when he was only 19 (and much of it was written when he was younger than that, obviously). I'd been thinking of that song as something he made in his twenties, once he'd been around the showbiz industry for a while, and had developed disillusionment with it. But it turns out he'd developed that as a teenager. Apparently, going viral on YouTube in 2006 will fuck you up.
I don't love the idea that we should feel sorry for someone who was incredibly successful and made huge amounts of money, but also, fucking hell. That is a lot of disillusionment for a fucking teenager. I mean, I guess disillusionment is generally associated with teenagers, maybe this is just more high school poetry written by someone with more talent for throwing words around than he knew how to use appropriately. But I've always really liked this song.
Words Words Words ended with that and started with this, which is probably a good example of all the things about early Bo Burnham:
Complicated clever playing with words that maybe didn't always work quite as well as he thought it did. Offensive words dropped with too little examination of whether they're okay to say at all, but they're dropped with irony and mainly to make fun of the people who drop them unironically. Criticism of art and performance, with acknowledgement that he's engaging in the same thing he's making fun of. A jaunty melody that doesn't match the increasingly unhinged and dark lyrics. Relentless introspection, which comes out as more interrogating the nature of performance and art, because that was what he was doing with his life. That's the first song on his first special and it pretty well summarizes early Bo Burnham.
That last theme was one he kept up through his later stuff, up to and very much including Inside. I'd heard a lot of his sort of meta performance songs individually before, but I didn't put together how common they were for him until I watched all his specials at once. Pandering, his anti-fake country music song, wasn't a one-off. He's got a similar one about pop songs (Repeat Stuff). And a lot of songs and some poems about the vapidity of most mainstream media. There was his rant about reality TV coming from people thinking every little thing they do deserves an audience, because no one respects the craft enough to put things together with time or care, and he puts three years of effort into making something complicated with densely packed carefully chosen words (which is true - his specials are 2010, 2013, 2016, 2021). Inside took that same idea to social media, the songs about Instagram and Welcome to the Internet and the reaction video parody and that part where he lies on the floor and talks about the commercialization of teenage emotions.
The pre-Inside years of this cumulate in the end of Make Happy, which is his final pre-Inside special, from 2016 (there were videos on YouTube of the final song, but they didn't include the talking before it, so I cut that out myself and uploaded it here, since it's too long to upload directly to Tumblr):
I'd put together that running theme, realized the majority of his material is meta stuff on the subject of art and music and performance, probably about twenty minutes before I got to this point in his third special, when he stopped the show to overtly lay that out and explain it in plain terms to the audience. And then he builds into one of his most famous songs, his Kanye-style rant. The one that ends with him walking into that little shed or whatever, and then he doesn't make any more comedy specials until Inside, which is entirely filmed in that shed, so it gives the impression that he just walked out there and didn't walk about for five years. Which, according to a few segments from Inside, he seems to suggest is sort of what happened.
I do think that lends legitimacy to his Kanye song. It's always a risk, getting serious and sad and emotionally vulnerable in a comedy show. Because it's been so much that it's a cliche that people make fun of, and it can be hard to watch if it's not done well. It's also hard to make it sound sincere, especially if you're a very successful comedian because everyone knows you make too much money to generate much sympathy. Also, it's hard to make it feel honest. You perform the same show, every night, carefully written and rehearsed beforehand - the audience knows they're not watching someone genuinely lay out their emotions. Maybe you really are feeling these vulnerable emotions, maybe you had award nominations in your eyes. (To be clear, I say this as a fan who has been emotionally moved by plenty of emotionally moving comedy shows - I've just also cringed at some, and I recognize that the harder you double down on it, the harder it is to get right.)
Well, I'd say Bo Burnham has backed this one up pretty well with the fact that he did actually stop performing stand-up for several years after this. He wasn't pretending to have anxiety about his career and his position in life (just) so he could turn his emotions into commercial gain. He gave up quite a lot of potential commercial gain by not performing for a while, and coming back only when the pandemic let him do it with no audience, telling us he'd stopped because he was having panic attacks on stage.
He also makes the deep emotionally vulnerable part of the show work by burying it in irony and humour, starting with the Pringles and burrito stuff as a parody of this type of thing, before doing it for real. Then even fakes us out, making it look like the Real Problem he's been building up to is wanting to have a kid, immediately undercuts that by going back to Pringles, and only then gets into the emotional stuff for real. And auto-tunes the shit out of it to make fun of Kanye West and other grandiose singers, so he is still doing a parody. It adds enough layers of jokes to earn the rest of it. And in my mind, it really works.
The other reason he had to add all that other stuff to justify his right to complain about this problem is that the audience could resent him for complaining about how difficult it is to be rich and famous and successful. So he combats that, like a lot of decent famous comedians do, by being constantly self-aware about that, not just in that song but all the time. That goes back to Art Is Dead, the very beginning of the show he made at only nineteen, expressing guilt about making so much money for pointless songs over other people who deserve it more. There is also a running theme across all his stuff about feeling guilty for not doing something genuinely important.
Weirdly, that's another area where I find Bo Burnham relatable, even though I am not a multi-millionaire entertainer. It's not a problem I had until the last few years. Before then, I always felt this obligation to help others the way I'd been helped when I needed it, to go back and find the kids/teenagers who were struggling and didn't know how to communicate, and I'd communicate to them and give them a community and be the adult they needed, just like my friends and my (good) coaches and teammates had done for me in high school. I did that for years, as a coach of low-income kids, of disabled kids, of weird and nerdy and difficult kids, of kids who had no friends outside the sport, who didn't fit in. I felt like I was helping them and like my life made a difference.
That's been gone, since 2020. And nothing has really replaced it. I had this vague guilt for the last few years, about making money of unimportant editing jobs and not making the world better. Then this year I started working as an autism therapist, and I thought that would make me hate myself less, because surely that's useful. That's the kind of job people like Bo Burnham are talking about, right? When they say they feel guilty for writing silly comedy instead of helping the world, they mean they should be out working with disabled children. But I don't feel any less guilty. I'm not really doing anything useful, I'm just following a plan and getting paid for it. If I weren't doing it, someone else would do the same thing for the same amount of money and the kids would be in the same position. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people around the world have said that Bo Burhnam's songs have helped them to feel better when they needed it - he's done a lot more for the world than I have. And therefore, I do find something relatable in the "I don't contribute anything genuinely important" guilt of a multi-millionaire entertainer. I guess I can say that at least I'm not getting millions of dollars that could otherwise go to the genuinely important people. I'm getting quite a small amount of money for my job.
All right, that's brought me to the subject of people who find Bo Burnham's songs helpful, and that leads to me say this is the point in this post when I want to mention the only two Bo Burnham songs that have actually made me cry. One, obviously, is that song from Inside about how the pandemic caused him to lose all the progress he'd made as an adult on functioning in the world and go back to being a kid stuck in his room (because, you know, same, except that when I went back to hiding in my bedroom on the internet, I found my Harry Potter message boards were gone so I made a Tumblr blog instead). And the other is a borderline indefensible song that I am hoping I have done enough, throughout this entire rambling post, to defend:
It's not in any of his filmed specials. I've heard he used to perform it live at the end of What, but cut it from the filmed version. I definitely remember the first time I heard this song, when I was not long out of high school. It immediately made cry, and also made me cry the second and third times I listened to it, and can still do that today if it catches me in the right (or wrong) mood.
I think until I heard this song I didn't even realize how much resentment I still felt toward everything that let me spend those years as a non-functional drowning primary and middle school kid. I did realize how much imposter syndrome I had, how for years after I started having friends and being on that sports team and in that community, I thought I was just temporarily fooling people. I remember being fifteen and writing in my journal that I'd gone to a tournament and I'd hung out with teammates and competed and even won some matches, I got treated like a person who belonged there and who was made of the same stuff as everyone else and was worth as much as they were, but at any moment I expected someone to come in like Graham Chapman breaking up a Monty Python sketch, say "No, no, there's some mistake, this is the loner from middle school, she's not supposed to be here." I remember sitting with friends in the hallway at lunch time, playing Magic the Gathering and thinking "I'm not supposed to be here" over and over, and being scared I'd get caught.
That's the headspace I was still in the first time I heard this song, and that's enough for me to justify a hell of a lot of what's in it. Like the first couple of words being homophobic and ablist slurs, and the chorus containing another slur, there is some straight-up misogyny right near the beginning where he calls a female bully a whore. It's not great. None of it's great.
Okay. It is my view that if a word counts as a slur against a systemically oppressed group, you should not say that word if you are not a member of that group, regardless of the context. I would not say it, and I don’t think other people should say it. However, that doesn’t mean that if other people do choose to use those words, I’m just going to ignore the context. Some contexts for using those words are much, much better than others. And just reporting speech that other people have said, in order to say you think that speech was wrong – especially if the speech that you’re reporting was directed in an insulting way at you – is pretty much the best context there could be.
To me, this falls under the same clause as Tim Minchin saying “faggot” in one of his more recent songs. It’s an autobiographical song, and the context is that he’s listing things that people have called him because of his music and comedy: “I’ve been a bigot and a faggot, I’ve been smug and ugly.” Yeah, straight people shouldn’t use that word. But also, if you get called a word, you should be allowed to tell people that that’s happened to you. That seems like a fair rule to me. If people call you something, you should at least get one little pass to use that word while telling others that they’ve called you it.
And I have no doubt that Tim Minchin has been called a faggot. I’m thinking of the Paul Foot joke, where he says school is a weird place because it’s where children will be incredibly homophobic to kids who aren’t even gay – they don’t even check. No one checks. Any kid who doesn’t perfectly perform their gendered expectations (or any expectations of popularity, really) gets called homophobic stuff – especially in 2006. I also have no doubt that Bo Burnham got called that word a lot. He did write an entire song as a high school kid about how his whole family thought he was gay.
And this is where I think it sometimes goes too far when people say being a nerd does not make you systemtically oppressed, so you shouldn't be allowed to use the language of systemic oppression to talk about it. That is true, and an important point to make when addressing misogyny in nerd culture. But also, Bo Burnham definitely got called a faggot, and those other slurs in that song that I'm not going to write down because I don't think I have the same pass to use them (even though I have been called those words as well, certainly the R and S ones). Surely he's allowed to talk about that, and write songs in solidarity with other kids who get called those words whether they technically apply to them or not.
...None of that justifies calling the girl a whore, though. I've got no defense for that and neither does he. That's the only time (in this song) he uses a slur against another person, instead of reporting what's been used against him. But I do forgive it, because it made me cry and realize how worried I still was on behalf of the kid I used to be, when I heard the voice of my niche of my generation tell me he had that kid's back.
Look, I tried to find something interesting to say about this next song so I could have an excuse to add it to this post, but I don't have much, so I'm going to add it anyway because I love it:
From a few years after the original Words Words Words show, where he kept doing poetry that played with words, that was densely written and clever and worked way too well for some shit that was done by a teenager, but still, didn't work quite as well as he seemed to think it did. It feels like a few years later he had it figured out.
So, as it clear here, watching those Bo Burnham specials brought up a lot of stuff for me. To the point where I've now written pages and pages about him and haven't actually gotten to whether I thought his stuff was funny, as I've been too busy on 1) the personal emotional stuff from him and what personal stuff it reminds me of from my life, and 2) whether you can justify the #problematic thing. Because Bo Burnham is so overwhelmingly tied to that stuff in my mind, it's hard to separate the art from the rest of it.
If I put both of those things aside for a moment, of course it was fucking funny. The stuff when he was young was shockingly well written for someone so young (the signs of his youth were there, it wasn't perfect, he probably shouldn't have been given such a big platform at that age, but still), and I don't think he had that thing that a lot of young talented people get where they stagnate after their teen years and other people catch up. He kept getting better, you can see it with each show. It helps that there were 3 (or more) years between each show, so much of his stuff is so densely written that you can see it takes him that long to put it together.
The production values were amazing. The little touches like writing the entire text of the show on the wall of Words Words Words (not a little touch, that's a big touch, but there's so much else going on that it feels little). He can play the piano quite well. The thing where he knocks the water over at the beginning of What is really funny. Not every single song or comedy segment of every single special is a smash hit, but almost none of them seem bad (with... a few exceptions in his earlier work). I love how you can watch him get better, as the years go on, at expanding on his ideas and finding creative ways to express them.
This post took me too long to write and I can't be bothered to edit it now. Sorry for the massive number of errors that are definitely in it. The song Welcome to the Internet is a work of genius, not sure if I've mentioned that yet but it seemed worth saying. Since I seem to have decided to cram every thought I've ever had about Bo Burnham into one post (and quite a few thoughts that aren't about Bo Burnham, but have been on my mind lately anyway and were brought up by watching Bo Burnham, and this is one of those posts where it makes me feel better to think all my thoughts about this are written down and put in one place so I can move on from them, it's not really any good to anyone else).
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Transcontinental Hustle: That 70's Show "Pilot" and Days Like These "Batteries Not Included" (Comissioned by WEird Kev 27)
Welcome folks to Trans-Continential Hustle, a new occasional feature on this blog where I take a look at shows and movies and their foreign remake and see how they stack up. It's a great idea my friend, semi-producer and patron Kev cooked up and as for where to start.. that was easy for me as after Jose's deep retrospective on That 70's Show, one of my faviorite sitcoms as a teen that I have a deep love and respect for, I remembered a little show called Days LIke These, an attempt to remake the show for british audiences that failed horribly that i'd always been fascinated by. And since I have peacock for the mother show and youtube has the entirety of Days LIke These, it felt like fate. So come along with me in the vista crusier as I revisit the start of something special and see both how one of my faviorite sitcoms began and how another show attempted to use the same script to start it's own legacy.. and why it instead fell hard off the water tower and like charlie didn't make it.
That 70's Show: That 70's Pilot
That 70's show is as I said a faviorite of mine as a teen both in high school as I watched it in reruns in various places and again in college when it reaired on the N quite a bit. It was just a good comfort show and still is from time to time on Netflix and now Peacock. It's a fun coming of age story that also deviates from a lot of what sitcoms did at the time: while it's still multicam, it wasn't afraid to take breaks from that format wither it was for parodies or for the Circle.. which totally flew over my head for an embarrassing amount of time i'd rather not disclose
It was also deeply funny with a few bits living in my head rent free.. the biggest being...
And of course this classic showdown. and keep in mind both of these bits are from less than the series best seasons. Even when operating at half and later a fourth of it's powers... it was still awesome.
I could do clips all day, and proudly, but i'd rather take you through why the show was so good from the very begining, as the pilot is one of the best i've seen, getting the core of the show down despite a few wrinkles that wouln't be seen again, ala gilmore girls, and showing it off.
The pilot begins in Eric Forman's Basment, one of the most iconic sitcom sets and one of my favorite. It just feels lived in, a home away from home and a little place for hyjinks away from red and kitty's prying eyes.
It's here we meet most of the Gang: Eric himself, a nerdy, self doubting dork with luke skywalker hair (Ironically before he became one with the force later that season), played by Topher Grace, who nicely nails down Eric being awkward but still charasmatic, able to trade barbs with his friends despite mostly being bossed around by them. He also played Venom in his first live action apperance, hence why he left the show. It .. was far from worth it but I still say he did a good job in a messy and pretty bleh movie.
His best friend Hyde is preparing him for a special mission: score them some beers as a party the Formans are hosting upstairs has reached critical mass: it's the fun kind of exageration most tenes did and my friends certainly did, so while I was never one to score beer (In fact I rarely drink, anxiety and depression do not go well with it no sir), I can still relate to having a more charsmatic and sure of himself freind tell me to do something stupid. Hyde is played by Danny Masterson.. aka the elephant in the room when talking about this series. Masterson.. is a monster who raped a woman. There's.. no way around it and having no legal obligation to go "allegedlys", he's a rapist. He only hasn't been charged because the Jury somehow deadlocked. He's a blot on this show and while he made conspiracy theorist and ladie sman burn out hyde work, it's imposssible for me to mention the show and not condem this asshole. It is entirely possible for me to enjoy it as while a large part of it, Danny Masterson was not the only person at the center of this show, nor did he write it and I feel the deepest sympathies for his cast mates who found out a close friend of there's is a rapist and my hopes for a conviction go out to his victims
Encouraging hyde in his plan are Kelso, played by breakout star Ashton Kutcher, star of many a 2000's film of varying quality and the netflix sitcom the ranch, which was "what if that 70's show but right wing?". Thankfully Kutcher himself dosen't appear to me and is a nice dude and easily one of the most talented of the cast, playing a gloriously loud and dumb idiot with a flavor all his own. He feels like the dumbass friend I had in high school and i'm sure he feels like yours too. Well okay mine was a better human being, but he still had the same "dog in a humans body" energy"
Finally there's Donna played by Laura Prepon, who went on to orange is the new black, so she did fine just fine, Erik's other best friend and assertive neighbor. They all encourage him. I also love the punchline of Eric saying his dad will kill him and Hyde gladly syaing I"m willing to take that risk
Eric's mission is filmed mostly from first person, something the series wouldn't really use again, but still a nice way to establish both he layout of the house, and his nervousness. We then meet his mom Kitty , played by underated sitcom legend Debrah Jo Rupp. She was the unsung heroine of this series, with her goofy laugh (which was entirely just an improv that caught on), and her nice blend of being a traditional for the 50's or 60's house wife.. while also having depth, witt and her own agency. She may be , sometimes willingly , oblivous but she's a strong character and I admire her while still being loveablea nd hilarious.
Eric then runs into Bob and Midge Pinciotti, donna's parents, played by character actor Don Stark and the late great Tanya Roberts respectively. Both do a great job, Bob being the goofy affiable dad everyone either knew or ended up having, and Midge being the woman all the guys have a crush on. Stark also dosen't get enough credit being comedy gold in most apperances and brillantly playing off Kurtwood Smith's Red.
As for who Red is.. well most of you know that, but in case you don't he's the man, the myth, the legend, the foot up your ass. He is the hardass dad to end all dad's. In his illustorious career he's easily Kurtwood Smith's finest roll, a dad who willl gladly yell at any dumbass in his vicinity, practice tough love on his son, and of course, put his foot up an ass if needed, but whose also deep down a loving father and not nearly as deep down a wonderful supportive husband who at worst is a bit emotinally dense. He and kitty have one of the best relationships in sitcom history, a mutually loving and active marriage. While the teen cast are far from slouches, Red Forman is easily my faviorite character, and Kurtwood just perfectly delivers his lines and his foot up someone's ass. Sadly he dosen't get to use either of his catchphrases here, but rest assured he was surely thinking about putting his foot up some dumbasses ass.
Red catches Eric with the beers, but thankfully dosen't catch on, though we get a nic ebit of eric raising his hands without thinking. Red is thinking of giving Eric the Vista Crusier, one of my faviorite cars in fiction despite purposfully being a clunker. It looks neat, it's in every episode and it's the centerpiece of one of the best openings of all time. So Erik's naturally excited and comes back triumphant with beer for all.. and finds out from Kelso donna has a crush on him.
The opening to this show is great: it gets all but two of the main and major supporting cast for season 1 down perfect: We see Eric's awkwardness and how he's easily pushed into doing petty crime by his buds, Hyde being the real force behind the group even if Eric is the focus, Kelso being an idiot whose just sorta around and Donna being a strong confident young woman whose into Eric for his vunerablity but brushes off his awkwardness. We also see red be intmidating but fair and find out his hours got cut back (a major part of season 1), Kitty be sweet, bubbly and midwest as hell, Bob be goofy and permed and Midge be.. midge. It's a great opening.. and it's followed up by an even greater one
The opening sequence to that 70's show.. is one of the best opening sequences to a sitcom. It's simple: just having the main cast in the vista crusier, singing along to the theme song "In the Street", a song by the band Big Star that was covered by Todd Griffin, a small time artist i'd honestly forgotten existed whose version is decent, though I will say Cheap Trick who replaced him next season had the better version and being a 70's group, were a better hit. I also like going for a 70's song: while they rerecorded it, the song still feels 70's rock and comes off as something the gang would jam to. Well minus Jackie early on but I can buy her joining in just to feel included. Plus her whining about "this isn't a song I like change it" as she probably would, woudln't make for a great opening.
It really fits the core of the show: a bunch of friends hanging out, finding shit to do in a small town, just singing to a song they all love like the goofuses they are. It tells you what the show is without saying a word as any good theme should.
We then cut to the basment the next day where Eric and Donna have turned the sound off to riff on the brady bunch. I.. I don't know if this is a thing people did. I mean i've also seen it on wings and bobs burgers, so someone probably has enough it's showed up on three diffrent tv shows, but I don't know if it's like.. a thing a LOT of people did or just three diffrent writers had the same experince. It dosen't help it's three diffrent age groups (teenagers, 30 somethings and an adult and his child). While the jokes aren't the funniest, they do feel like real jokes teens would tell and it fits Eric and Donna to not really like the brady bunch... just as it instantly tells us all we need to know about Kelso's girlfriend Jackie that she whines about bein glost and has to be handed earphones
Jackie is played by Mila Kunis, proud ukranian, and a talented comedic actress with a healthy career after this. She got onto the show by faking her age, but it became less of an issue, with them just not showing much of Jackie and Kelso making out on screen, something I hadn't noticed till it was pointed out to me in Jose's retrospective of the series.
Jackie and Kelso have a grossly unhealthy relationship from the get go: Jackie is dismissive and shouty towards Kelso, to the point an annoyed cry of "Micheal!" (Kelso's real name) is essentially her catchphrase. Kelso meanwhile openly eyes other women, and rather than defend her to his friends (who cannot stand her), constantly says he's going to dump her, which no one remotely buys. Neither of them respect each other, they don't really mesh at all intrest wise, and it's only because they find each other purdy that their together at all.
As a result of these hormones Jackie is coming along with the Circle to a Todd Rungren Concert. I hadn't really heard of the guy, but repeated viewngs of the violet have made me love his hit song "Hello It's Me" which is vital to this episode. He's a nice choice of smaller artist for this, and again Hello It's Me, just fits the final scenes too perfect. We'll get to that.
Now their alone Eric brings up what Kelso said and Donna brings up "You could've had me when I was four".. and I've always loved Eric's stammering as a result "All that time I wasted on the hippity hop".
I will say at least barring a rewatch.. I like Eric and Donna. Their not a perfect couple, but Eric's cluleeness mixed with genuine charm nicely mixes with Donna's blunt nature. He dosen't know how to tackle this while she's upfront about what she wants.
Later that day we get a quick bait and switch gag where Eric is talking to the vista cruiser instead of Donna and Bob shows up to both hyptontize Eric and Kelso with his hair and to tell them these are the best days of their lives and it won't get better.... which coming form the man with a failing marriage and a perm may not be the most accurate assement.
Next up we go to the hub at.. some point in time. It has a cowboy theme, which is probably the most jarring change i've seen from pilot to series. In the present and the not too distant future of the 90's, it's a fairly simple restraunt with a pinball table, wooden chairs, the kind of place that's locally owned and cheap enough for a bunch of mostly unemployed teens to eat at every day. It fits better as a secondary hangout for the gang with that aesthetic. Granted the hub isn't one of my faviorite local hangouts in fiction, but it's still far better one than I gave it credit for in the past.
At any rate here we meet the final member of the gang...
BACK BACK I RENOUNCE YOU DEMON. BACK I SAY!
No it's the final member people actually care about, Fez! Played wonderfully by Wilmer Valderama. Fez is a mixed bag of a character even if he's played well. At this point he's fine, being mostly awkward and most of his horniness being clearly not getting american social cues. But the "GET IT HE'S FOREGIEN" stick is cringetastic nowadays, and a lot of his sex pest antics have what i've just dubbed "Barney Stinson Syndrome" That's when a character is intended to be a loveable horndog, but due to standards drifting or just bad writing, ends up being some form of sex monster. HEre though he's fine at worst talking about tremendous breasts. We also get the foundation of Donna and Jackie's friendship.. Jackie barking at her to join her and Donna reluctantly accepting she's stuck with her. Everyone urges kelso to break up with jackie, he says he will in like 10 seconds, no one belivies him and we move on. You might notice the pilot is a small bit free floaty.. but it works, as each scene has some form of purpose and helps really set up these characters, while also selling the shows real main draw: a bunch of teens hanging out down the street same old thing they did last week and getting up to hyjinks.
We then get our first circle aka "How do we show them smoking a bowl without incuring the wrath of censors" The answer.. is a now iconic shot, using them citting in a circle surrounded by smoke and marvel comics (I bought the masterworks edition for brother vodoo because I saw it watching this episode a few months back) and going back and forth> They act a bit more high in this one if realistically, and it honestly helps the jokes really land: Hyde's now iconic "Car that runs on water man" and Eric's response to Kelso just casually saying he'll force his girlfriend to chip in on gas with a chuckinlg "You are such a whore. ". It's why even if the being blazed part got toned down, it's a vital part of the show as the dynamic movement makes it great for gags, exposition and what have you.
Unforutnately that means eric is tripping balls upon balls when his parents call him up and we get a fun sequences of Kitty and Red lecturing him while the room moves before he eventually gets his wheels. This is another part I didn't relate to more because the thought of driving terrifeid me and my anxiety made it impossible to learn. I still want some way to travel besides someone driving me mind you at the tender age of 30, but I still get why this is exciting.
There is one hitch though that saturday as Eric lets Donna call shotgun: Red says to not take it out of town. And as Red puts it "He's god" A GOD I SAY! Donna is able to talk him into doing what HE wants though so the team heads out of town... which turned out to be Red's plan. I love it as an establishing moment: Red may be a hardass and a traditionalist.. but he's not stupid or uncaring either. He gets Eric is a teen and thus is fine with him taking it out of town if it gets him a moment alone with his wife. And him and kitty running up to the bedroom is hilaroius.. but also genuinely sweet, showing the fires are still there and not feeling like it's just there because GET IT MIDDLE AGED SEX like a lot of sitcoms would use.
Problem is our heroes are soon stranded halfway there. Jackie plans to call her dad but the others have to explain they can't as he could tell red, which leads us to our first fantasy.. and one that dosen't quite work. For some reason early ones had the characters dub in lines, with the kids dubbing over for the adults and it not quite working as it feels a bit.. childish. I mean these characters are goofuses, but ther'es a diffrence between a daydream and having your parent outright say their making aribrtrary rules and toruting you on purpose. The show would get way better at this and by the end of the season we got classics like this
It's still neat seeing where something so iconic started. Thankfully our heroes CAN get the battery needed with some barter-y
... I deserved that. Two of the tickets for a fresh battery. Naturally it's an easy choice of who gets to stay behind since the Circle has had to spend the last hour listening to a pre-character development Jackie and Kelso's the reason she's there in the first place, the first of a long line of being punished for his hubris for one Michael "Tater Nuts" Kelso.
So while Kelso and Jackie make out and nearly break up, their relationship in a nutshell, the rest of the gang enjoy the concert, find out the mechanic guy is gay and are cool to be cool with it because it's the 70's and while that's a low bar to clear , way less people actually cleared. The show, having started in the 90's and ended in the early 2000's didn't do hardly any queer representation, so it's nice that it's sequel has at least one gay main character. How Ozzie bears out I can't say as most of this was written before the show streamed and i'll be watching it later today, but I can give them credit for both trying and for in general making the cast more diverse.
The ending is what makes the episode, Eric and Donna atop a car as Rundgrens, Hello It's Me plays, pondering things, as Eric ponders what one act of civil disobeneince will get you and Donna ponders what Eric's lips would taste like, leaving him with a "maybe next time" as we pan out on the car with Eric gazing whistfully. A perfect ending to a perfect pilot... which gets followed by an even better coda of the gang singing in the car to Hello It's Me.
As should be obvious, That 70's Pilot.. is near perfect. What isn't is mostly standard early show rough edges to be sanded out or simply age marks, but it perfectly introduces the characters, what the show is, who these idiots are, and is still really damn funny. Check it out as soon as you can if you haven't.. or if like me you hadn't in a while.
Now we've seen one of the best pilots ever...
Days Like These: Batteries not included
So yeah Days Like These was a brief attempt at trying to remake that 70's show, with a new cast but almost identical scripts, simply swapping out the American references for UK ones. As you can tell by the fact this one only comes up as a fun trivia fact or in refrence to being one of the show's only two spinoffs of a sort before That 90's show the result was not great and it says something that That 80's Show gets brought up more. That 80's Show which not only ruined the name so we never got a proper one but itself is mostly known because it stars Dennis Reynolds
Days Like These first episode follows the same plot as That 70's Show, the only additional scene being one with Jackie and Donna talking in the bathroom about her feelings for Eric.. which feels superflous both because they would in future episodes anyway, and it conveys information we already knew from the episode.
Everything else is on paper the same.. but in practice entirely wrong. The cast does their best and I do not blame them for this as A) the cast of that 70's show is, like most great sitcoms, a lightning in a bottle moment of the right people in the right place, and it's very hard to replicate and B), they were not given the same care and effort. That 70's show was made by creators who were genuinely invested in this. Days LIke These.. hoped to make a quick buck off that and thus didn't really care as much. As a result the direction feels lifeless and the atttempts to mimick the stylistic bits fall very flat. It's very clear the staff for Days Like These had NO idea what they were working with and had no real excuse. I know stremaing wasn't a thing but giving Carsey Warner was credited, someone HAD to have given them a tape of the original episodes.
As a result it's that 70's show with a cast that dosen't know what to do and thus plays the rolls with far less naunce, the only exception being Donna , who while having a diffrent take from US Donna does do well and Jones our Hyde equilvelant played by of all people
Who plays Jones diffrent than steven but still filling the same roll, being likely what a british version of hyde would be. Again everyone else tries and McGuire not Kelso also does okay, they just don't quite.. fit into the characters. For instace Reg, our Red equilvelant has the same aura of "i'm going to kill you" radiating off him.. but without the nuance. Reg comes off like he's going to throttle Eric at any given moment and like a genuinely abusive father. Red... is just a hardasss. He has an aura of "for the love of god don't piss him off" but has more emotions in him than just foot in your ass. It's his factory setting, sure. And again i'm not blaming Reg for this: it's clear that 70's show was tailored for the actors cast and adjusted as they went to fit them.
Days Like These just tries to... do THAT but british without getting the natural, realistic feel of that 70's show, adding in very corny jokes like Kitty having a cheese hedgehog served (which does seem very kitty but pizza rolls was subtler and thus better), and butchering the hipity hop joke: instead of eric just having a little panic attack but keeping it in UK Eric does this
Fez is also white and vaugely..s wedish.. or something? I dunno, he's about as easy to figure out his country as the real fez without that being the joke.. and tha twasn't a good joke to begin with.
Finally we have.. the opening.. which.. I could only find in comparison..
That really sums it up dosen't it. That and the fact the theme is Asia's Days Like These.. from 1990
It's not a shocker this only lasted 10 episodes or was canceled after 6. The actors thankfully would go on to more succesful parts, and Days Like These was thankfully left as an embarassing foot note on their resumes. Check it out if your curious... but do so cautiously. So overall a pretty terrible remake but who knows? Maybe i'll find some good ones. This hustle failed.. but maybe the next at .. some point will be better. At any rate I still got to do the same old thing I did last week at least.. and that's all allright. Hello Wisconson, and thanks for reading.
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Hi!! Nice to meet another Zibell fan and fic writer! I have to admit that my time on Tumblr is a bit sporadic (real life is way too busy), but I'm always glad to talk about Zibell and writing fic for them. I've written a lot of romantic fic for them, but I definitely enjoy the platonic friendship on screen, so I could really go either way with them. Do you ship them romantically at all or just platonically? Any favorite moments?
[Disclaimer: I am only on S3 of the show, so some of my comments might not be (as) applicable anymore. Also, there might be some prime Zibell moments from S4 and S5 that I don’t mention when talking about my favourites because I haven’t seen them yet. Sorry!]
I could go either way with them too! I read (and write…maybe… 👀) romantic fanfic for them, and I’m definitely on the lookout for budding feelings between them when I watch the show. However, when it comes to their canon relationship atm, I only ship them in the sense of “I’m rooting for them”, not in the sense of “I want them to be together”. It’s like you said on another post: I’d like their professional dynamic and platonic intimacy to develop some more before they drop any romantic ILYs (I’d be down for some platonic ones though; tv needs more of those!) or passionate embraces. I think there are some things they can discover about each other more meaningfully (to me) if they aren’t in an exclusive, committed relationship when they learn them.
(I answer the rest of your question below the cut, but it’s looong so be warned lol.)
Like, some things are kind of expected to be shared when you’re dating someone, and the idea of Maggie and OA sharing those things with each other just because they want to instead—just because they feel comfortable turning to each other before any friend or family member or even side character love interest, even though on paper they’re simply colleagues!—is really quite special to me. For example, when OA shows up at Maggie’s place and confides in her: his seeking her out means more in my eyes because, traditionally, he’d be expected to disclose what’s troubling him about his past if Maggie were a romantic partner, but not when she is merely a professional one—at least, not the details, not in such a personal setting, not when their job is already done. Plus, the fact that they don’t always share these kinds of things with each other (e.g., Maggie doesn’t tell OA that she suspects Erin has relapsed and that she is making the big decision to help her move back to a rehab centre) suggests that they aren’t yet at a place to let each other in so completely. That being said, I don’t want to suffer through another Bensler torture method! There is a difference between a tasteful slow burn and a fourth-degree scorch, Dick Wolf! And it’s not just the length of it, either, but the pacing! I could last twenty-four seasons of romantic tension between Zibell as long as it’s not a dragged-along, low-key out-of-character romantic tension, y’know?!
[deep breath] Sorry. Where was I? Right, I ship them platonically and would like them to get a happy ending together romantically at some point, but that should be a decent way off imo. On the show, at least. I’m an impatient, lovesick twat and will absolutely peddle and plead for romantic art, fic, and edits on Tumblr, YouTube, and AO3. :)
As for favourite moments… If you mean scenes that won points for their relationship in my book, I would say any where there was a Thing they had to talk about but were resisting until the crucial instant where they chose to let down their walls to the other. So when a case directly hits close to home, when something personal is bothering them and affecting their job, when the two of them are disagreeing and need to get on the same page… Those moments. Those conversations. I live for those small, subtle relationship development milestones! Also, anytime they back each other up. I’ve said this before, but when one of them gets snarky and the other smirks to themself, or when one of them successfully captures a person of interest and the other smiles in gratitude/pride, or when one of them seconds the other’s hunch against the rest of the JOC… I also live for those small, subtle signs of a healthy, stable foundation, ’cause that’s what any future romance—if there will be any—will be laid upon, y’know?
Now, if you’d prefer my list of scenes that I obsessively re-watch for the Drama and Feels, I can definitely be more precise. ;P
1x01 (their banter about OA’s arachnophobia and drawing; Maggie struggles with Emmett’s death and OA reassures her that her evac order was the right move; when OA goes to take down Bernardo and Maggie runs after him, their conversation was hilarious; their side whispering like the person they’re discussing isn’t right there; OA brings up Maggie’s husband and she shuts him out but also thanks him! OA and Maggie smiling at each other after the case; “All you need is a ride?” “For now”)
1x03 (the “Is it true? One in four women…?” conversation; the fight in the stairwell; “I always got your back, Mags”)
1x04 (Maggie tries to talk down the sniper and OA gives her Concerned Looks in the background)
1x07 (OA talks about his experiences in Iraq and Maggie gives him Concerned Looks in the background; Maggie tells him he can talk to her, and he takes her up on his offer!!)
1x14 (Maggie trusts OA with her suspicion, and OA trusts her instincts—and cares about her concerns—enough to look into it; OA accompanies and comforts Maggie at the hospital; “Wherever this goes, I’m with you”)
1x16 (OA gets shot, and Maggie is like “Don’t do that to me again” but also acknowledges he did a Good Thing)
1x19 (OA insists on hearing Maggie’s opinion about his friend; Maggie gives him Concerned Looks in the background whenever he gets worked up, and she mediates between him and Jubal)
2x01 (OA goes to Maggie for comfort; later, he apologises for not taking her advice but she apologises for offering it)
2x03 (at the end, when OA tells an embarrassing story to cheer Maggie up despite his having warned her about Caldwell, and it works <3)
2x05 (protective!OA when Maggie and Kristen briefly go UC)
2x06 (Maggie meets Mona ahaha, plus OA admits his insecurities about their relationship to Maggie and she reassures the heck out of him)
2x08 (Maggie sympathises with the widow and OA gives her Concerned Looks in the background; Maggie wrestles with one of the Russian spies and OA is worried until he finds her the victor and is subsequently all proud smiles; Maggie tries to persuade Isobel that the widow should know her husband was murdered and OA gives her Concerned Looks in the background)
2x09 (“Don’t touch her” … “Then do your job without putting hands on my partner” … need I say more?)
2x11 (basically all of their scenes this episode; protective!OA is always a win, and Maggie being scared to see Kristen but being supported by OA 100% was just <3)
2x16 (OA immediately knows something is up and wants to know what; OA doesn’t want Maggie to leave, and she knew that he would have been able to dissuade her from taking the UC case so she already accepted it before telling him hwkrhfjs)
3x01 (Maggie returns! HUG!! Maggie is standoffish but eventually confides in OA about what went down on her UC case; OA is impressed with and proud of his partner’s success…as well as her sharp clothes at the end of the ep hehe, though also maybe a little hmmmm when he first meets Nestor; also, Maggie backs OA up against Nestor!)
3x04 (judgemental was not a good look for OA lol, but he made up for it; also, the “I’m gonna be a little overprotective and make sure the guy you’re seeing is a good guy” speech was 10/10, was surprised a tv show had a man actually use the word “overprotective” about himself lol)
3x08 (Maggie backs OA up to outsiders but is upfront with him one-on-one)
3x11 (OA meets Erin; Maggie talks about Erin’s addiction and OA gives her Concerned Looks in the background, plus Maggie touching his arm to signal she’ll take the lead for the interrogation and him understanding; Maggie talks the bomber down and OA cuffs him, the touches and “Good job”s afterwards)
4x09 (Maggie gets shot and OA reacts; “I thought I almost lost you for a second”; Maggie offers herself up as a hostage and OA is…not thrilled)
4x12 (OA repeatedly checks in on Maggie’s state of mind; Maggie drives off with the bomb with OA begging her not to; OA helps her up after the car explodes; the two talk after the paramedics clear her)
4x18 (the hdqkrhcnekfhj breakfast they were having together) (…and ofc the whole sarin gas thing—“I can’t really breathe anymore”, OA’s desperation and continual “It’s going to be okay”s, OA carrying her—and OA’s speech and Maggie’s nod)
5x07 (Maggie returns! HUG!! OA being worried, Maggie confiding in him, the “Count them” confrontation, hooo boy I love me some angst)
Note that I’m only on S3, yet I know about some S4/S5 scenes and have jumped ahead to watch those lmao. I did say I was an impatient, lovesick twat!
Wow, okay, I talk a lot! Thank you so much for the ask—feel free to come back anytime, if you dare risk another rambling answer haha. :) Take care! <3
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I'm pretty much a veteran when talking about Atelier801 games and stuff. Though I don't know their recent plans or games, I have good memories of their past ones. But I have to say I'm surprised this company has lasted for so long because it has been 5-6 years since their games have fell out lol
Anyways, I'm gonna go through their games swiftly and talk about them because why not.
- Transformice (2010)
Oh Transformice... How could everyone forget. I had played this game since 2011 and it was of course the most iconic one of the bunch. Just a couple of mice getting the cheese and going back to the den. The concept is so simple yet it was so fun with the countless of maps created by the community and different rooms that offered special gamemodes. One of my sonas is from this game. I think it's still fun to play these days, although it is very empty and the lack of brand new events doesn't make the game exciting to come back to.
- Bouboum (2013)
It's just an online bomberman. It's very basic but it doesn't make it less fun. Though it's likely my most disliked game of the bunch because of the huge lack of customization and the repetitive gameplay. The game itself is very grindy if you just want to get a pretty skin and I don't like how the obvious way to quickly get them is to pay money. But Atelier801 has always been a bit greedy with their customization options.
- Fortoresse (2014)
A 2D shooting game, but one of the most broken, confusing, and glitchy ones. However I found a lot of fun too. I guess the weird mechanics and completely broken weapons made the game funny to play and that gives you equal amounts of rage and laughter. The game is not quite pay-to-win because it's way more easy to get currency compared to Bouboum, but the weapons and perks you do have get with currency, so it requires you to grind to get better.
- Nekodancer (2014)
MY GOD Nekodancer was my jam. It's just a rythmn game like Friday Night Funkin' and that one Club Penguin game at the disco club, the only difference is that the PLAYERS submit YouTube videos to play in it. The sequence of arrows is generated with the beats of the video/song which was just a great concept at the time, allowing players to send their own music. There were always some weird videos people put in but nothing too bad, the absolute worse though is when someone put a metronome beat video because dear fucking god how do you beat this fucking shit
- Run For Cheese (2014)
Only those who know knows. A mobile game that was just an obstacle race with Transformice characters. It's pretty basic and honestly I can't see the reason for the creation of this game because I don't even remember how they monetize it. Hilariously enough, I had pretty high stats in the game which just shows me I was hooked with it when it still existed lol
- Dead Maze (2018)
Project Zomboid rip-off but easier and visually cuter. It's like a PG version of PZ. To be honest I think I only played this game once and I don't remember shit except there was some kind of story idk, I guess someone hit with a car in the middle of nowhere and you got stranded. Can't say much about the game because I hardly played it.
- Transformice Adventures
Apparently this game hasn't officially released but I did remember playing it...? It's just cute little rats fighting insects and I guess there was some hype to this game when it was announced. It was fun to play with friends. But I don't think there's anything else on it worth saying. It's just a cute game with a concept I've seen in 238 other games.
There were other two games on the wiki list but I've never heard of them before so I never actually played it. There was also Celousco but it was cancelled (I remember when we got the news the game was cancelled, it was a bit sad). But anyways... Well that is it.
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Glee Rewatch 1x15, Faberry and good lighting
Becky deserves a much better haircut, what is this atrocity?
(Are you wondering what's up with this post? Here's an explanation!)
You can see Sue's obsession with Madonna in two ways: the first idea is that it's earnest. She explains it herself: Madonna is an important part of her.
Or you can go the cynical way: "oh. this show is actually popular. we need to sell music and so far we've had quite a few bad numbers for comedy and also a bunch of unremarkable ones. we need to speed up the sales. By the power of Grayskull... Madonna has the power!"
Quinn seems eager to make fun of Rachel, but she also insists on drawing a lot of hearts... Yeah okay that's it, I'm convinced! Faberry shippers, rejoice! You have one more faithful in your ranks!
I completely forgot how much of a jerk Artie could be! That flashback is harrowing.
The cheerleaders's act is incredible but so outlandish that it becomes ridiculous, as I'm sure is the intended reaction. But I've never actually seen IRL cheerleading; do numbers ever get this complicated and audacious?
Loving their outfits (+ Rachel and Tina's faces). Those hearts on Mercedes's shirt? Rachel's tartan and green? Puck's effortlessly fitted shirt? Artie's cardigan? Quinn's bright red with blue/purple outfit? Quinn should wear red more often (note from later: oh boy just you wait!), it fits her skintone and hair color really well I think. And Kurt's odd yet charming getup is a beast of its own.
A scene between Sue and Emma! And this time, Emma looks much more submissive and breedable gosh don't make that joke than previous times, where she seemed ready to fight her. Was it because she felt safe with Will, whereas now they're not together anymore so her insecurities are partying big time?
FINN WHY DID YOU PUSH THOSE BOOKS AND MADE THEM FALL ON THE FLOOR? I understand the Finn hate now.
"Mercedes is Black. I'm gay. We make culture." is such a fun line but I'm biased
"Vogue" is one of the multiple covers I added to my playlist after finishing the show and watching a +2hours Youtube video where somebody ranked every Glee performance. It's a strong performance and the clip is absolutely hypnotizing, very satisfying to watch. It just makes sense.
"Like a Virgin" is also a nice performance and I particularly appreciate the beautiful lighting in the Finn/Santana section. The other two sections are nothing special, but this one? Hypnotizing too. I also like all the couples seem to worship each other's body. It's beautiful to look at. With that said, I find it weird how much importance is given to losing one's virginity. It's very ceremonial in the Gleeverse, apparently! I wouldn't say losing it didn't change anything for me, but it was just... something. It happened. End of story. Finn regrets that it didn't mean anything whereas I rejoyce in the fact that *it doesn't mean anything*.
Meanwhile Emma keeps on cosplaying Daphne from Scooby-Doo and while it's a very fine color scheme, it perplexes me.
I also added "4 Minutes" to my playlist, but the original version. I think if Blaine had replaced Kurt in this song, it would actually be great!
...Damnit, he's still not here yet. At least Mercedes's performance is good. And visually the choreography is nice.
This is a gratuitous screencap of Quinn smiling because she's a ray of sunshine.
Matt's sweat refers to the fact that he only has 48 seconds of screentime left on the show.
Tina absolutely losing her cool when Artie is an asshole to her is one of her finest moments. You go, Tina!
Don't you love it when the local church choir suddenly sings alongside you?
Overall I think it's one of the best episodes of S1. It's a fun watch!
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[Transcript and Video Description:
[The video starts off with Stampy holding the camera and speaking to the audience. Lively music is played throughout the entire video.]
Stampy: Hello! This is Stampy! And just in case you haven't seen me for a while, I thought I'd do a little update just to let you know what I've been up to these days!
[Footage cuts to clips from his Lovely World videos]
I'm still making Lovely World videos in Minecraft and upload a new one every Wednesday. I play on PC now so I have fancy graphics and I've been busy renovating old places, building new structures, and of course, lots of minigames. Hit The Target is still after my dogs and his plans have become increasingly devious. He's even poisoned Barnaby and taken control of my Fun Land!
[Footage cuts to Stampy sitting in a chair typing on a laptop. Papers are falling around him from above.]
I've also been writing a series of Stampy Cat novels! I plan on doing four and have written three of them already.
[The camera is now behind Stampy and we can see what is on his screen. He is looking at drawings of hybrid animals, before he notices the camera and closes his laptop.]
Sadly, none of them are ready to be shared yet, so you're just gonna have to be patient if you have any interest in reading them.
[Footage cuts to clips from his YouTube channel The Bonus Points]
I've also started a new YouTube channel called "The Bonus Points" with Oli, one of my old school friends. We have an ongoing podcast where we discuss and rank a wide variety of games, sometimes with special guests. The channel is also packed full of videos where we compete in challenges playing games in ways they were never intended. The Bonus Points is aimed for an older audience than my Stampy channel, but that doesn't mean I'm any less silly on there.
[Footage cuts to clips of Stampy rock climbing, biking, Spinning on a swing
Finally, I have picked up a few extra hobbies and I'm now more active than I ever have been. It turns out that leaving the house can actually be quite fun! Huh. Wish I knew that sooner.
[Footage cuts to a fireplace, then his three pets Alex, Mae, and Ori respectively.]
Then again, I still do love staying home and having cozy evenings with Sqaishey, my two dogs Alex and Mae, and of course, my cat Ori.
[Footage cuts to a complication of clips from things mentioned above]
Hopefully you now have a better idea of what I've been doing recently. I obviously don't get as many views on YouTube as I used to, but I'm happier now than I ever have been. So, thanks for watching, and I'll see you later. Bye!
End transcript and VD.]
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Hello! I saw on your YouTube you said that there are a lot of videos you haven’t posted because they got taken down. You could try using Vimeo to post those videos because they aren’t strict with copyright and things like that. I would love to see some videos I haven’t seen before on there!
I started to do that last year with a couple videos, but then I took them down because I'm nervous about the legality of that... like if it gets straight up removed from youtube during the uploading process then I don't think I should post the full thing anywhere else. I've tried to add very short clips of the best moments from some of those videos into my longer edits, though! but in some cases even a few seconds of just the audio from an interview gets the whole edit blocked. And that seems silly because all of this content used to be available to download on fan sites like nbd... and I especially don't get why the SNL performance gets blocked when the rest of that episode seems to be on youtube just fine.
But it's not like I'm over here sitting on hundreds of videos that aren't online, sorry. There are only maybe 10-20 that haven't worked to upload. I'm missing a tragic amount of content. I really regret not saving more... I never planned to have an account like this where I'd be trying to recap stuff, and I didn't realize things back then were so temporary either. Blame Viacom. Here’s a list of some of the content I think I’m missing so far.
side tangent that’s slightly relevant:
Youtube wasn't that widely used in 2005 when P!ATD started touring. I remember using it more by spring 2006 (and then it was huge by that summer), but for a while fans were most likely to upload their videos from shows to sites that no longer exist, like buzznet. That's why there are only scraps of random videos from fall 2005 left on youtube... and those were often uploaded later from someone who didn't film them. For example, there are a lot of GroveStBrent's videos from a Chain Reaction show in December 2005 left on youtube because that person lost their original files around the end of the Fever era and asked if anyone had saved their videos. Those got collected, put into a zip file, passed around, and then someone put them on youtube. So the fact that there are way more youtube videos from that one show at Chain Reaction than anything else in late 2005 doesn't mean it had any special significance... those videos were just shared at a point when youtube was more commonly used. I think this is important to point out because it seems like some teens these days are under the impression that P!ATD wasn’t very big yet in fall 2005 since there are barely any videos from that season on youtube. The reality is that P!ATD was already quite popular in fall 2005… but youtube wasn’t.
Anyways, people starting using youtube more as 2006 progressed and there was SO much content shared from shows & interviews during the last half of the Fever era. The problem was that apparently MTV owned a ridiculous amount of the shows/channels that P!ATD was featured on (even stuff like Razer). Viacom sued youtube around the end of the Fever era, which meant a good chunk of the Panic fandom's videos were deleted and some channels were removed for repeatedly trying to re-upload banned content. That's why so many of the Fever-era interviews that are left have an upload date of 2007 or later. And that's why we're left with scraps like that pathetically blurry short clip of Brendon holding Ryan's hand instead of the whole series of those T-Minus Rock episodes.
Basically, I'm trying to share some basic content that the fandom had in 2006-2008, but I'm also trying to not do anything sketchy. The majority of the videos that I'm missing or just can't upload are tied to Viacom in some way... and it's so sad because what is any company even doing with that footage at this point.
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thank you so much @ao3userxnowimnothing for the tag 🖤
rules: list your top 5 favorites of your fics, what they're about, and why you're proud of them, then tag some fic authors to do the same!
I'm tagging @percervall @neverrepent @milirii and @rosalba-robi 🌻
(see my choices under the read-more)
1. Room for one more troubled soul
I’m terribly proud of this fic, mostly because its length and immensity. I worked for it for months and had my ups and downs (e.g. it took me aaaaaages to finish the first friggin’ chapter?!), and while I did have an outline for the full story, there were also lots of plot lines that I improvised as the story developed and ended up working out quite by accident if I’m completely honest 😂 I had previously sort of abandoned a gigantic multi-chapter fic in the ski jumping fandom so I wasn’t sure if I could pull off a work that was this extensive, which is why I’m super proud of myself for having succeeded with this one, because I’m not the most patient of people. Now that I know I can actually finish a longer multi-chapter work, I have faith in myself to do so again 😇
2. But There’s Nothing To Be Afraid Of
Despite the horrifying styling of the title, I’m still proud of my first ever BC fic that I published a year ago (in which the guys go see Måneskin at a festival, in a nutshell). I was soooooo nervous about posting it that I decided to post the first two chapters at one go because nothing much happens in the first chapter and I was desperate to show the readers that hey! hey! this is actually more than Joel being sulky! just wait!! 😅 I don’t ship Joel/Damiano anymore, but this fic still holds a special place in my heart
3. The YouTuber AU, particularly Of rock, roll and dogs
I know I’ve said this at many occasions but I’ll say it again: I loooooove writing from Joel’s point of view, because he’s equal amounts of emo and dramatic, and it’s fun to play with that combo. I’m not afraid to boast my own trumpet here and say that this AU and especially the Joel POVs are funny af, and building the whole alternate universe was so much fun too!
4. You are the sun and I am just the planets
idk man, I’m just really fond of the College/University AU and I’m a sucker for pining, and as heartbreaking as it is, I also enjoy unrequited love as a trope. The mood of the fic changes gradually the more time Olli spends with Joonas, and I kinda like that effect; at this point his whole life wasn’t as consumed by his crush for Joonas (at least not to the extent it is in the main work in this AU), but you can clearly see he’s in too deep already… Plus I love the FOB song in the title/summary 💖
5. A nameless Olli/Aleksi prompt ficlet for my Valentine’s Day Fluff series (also on AO3)
Loosely based on the movie Just Like Heaven, which I've never seen myself but after reading the synopsis I made my own adaption of it in which Olli adopts Rilla when she was put in the shelter because Aleksi is lying in a coma in the hospital. I’m strangely proud of this one because I think it’s a really touching story and I did cry a little when writing it (NOT as in “omg I’m such a great writer” but as in “OMG DOGS!! 😭”) and I must say that I was a tiiiiiiiiiny bit disappointed it didn’t get as many notes as some of the other fics in this series that in my opinion weren’t as good. Yes, the ending is ridiculous and a little unrealistic but hey, it’s magic realism! Aleksi is a half-ghost for most of if, for goodness sake!! So please, if you haven’t read it yet, grab some tissues and do so, because I’m really proud of this one and I’m also very keen on making y’all cry (ohhh just WAIT ‘til you get to read the Gran Hotel AU!)
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hey!! would you happen to have any good recommendations for queer twitch streamers? :O (besides ur lovely streams ofc <3)
hi there!! this was such a nice ask i wanted to spend some time to think on it :) I'm mostly gonna recc smaller streamers (that I talk to/am friends with lol bitta nepotism never hurt anyone) but I'll throw some others in there too!
Fortwas (Facecam) - GHOST HUNTING. CRAFTS. GAME DEV. THEY'VE GOT IT ALL. They're so cool and they always stream when I can't fkin watch >:( Watch in my stead, won't you? Not as common streams, but again, really good vibes when they happen.
AmbaDev (Vtuber) - Chaos. Dev. Games. What more do I need to say? They were on the second episode of Gender Gossip, if you want an introduction to them!
OnyanCronch (Vtuber) - The person behind the Cos model! Really fuckin funny and passionate, their streams feel like hanging out at a cafe :) Art and whatever games they're obsessed with at the time! Check out their Gender Gossip to meet them and their vibes!
Mindez (Facecam) - The literal reason I'm streaming today; she inspired me into content creation. I've watched her stuff since I was a wee babe and she only goes from strength to strength! Currently she's doing a lot of Pokemon Randos and Chill Puzzle Sundays (SO cozy), but she also does a lot of speedrun stuff from time to time! Their Discworld run made it to GDQ, and it's a great watch! They also do special events from time to time; their latest was Dez-cember, a charity month! During this they hosted Mindez Does Taskmaster, which I was a contestant on! Not to be biased, but it's a brilliant watch.
FaerynTheCat (Vtuber) - One of the first mates I made in whilst reaching out in vtubing! They're bloody hilarious and their streams are always a riot. They tend to do a lot of variety games, and they're good for collabs too, so you're likely to discover more people through them!
Eclapricious (No Facecam/Avi) - Listen I said nepotism. And I meant it. This is my sibling, lol. They don't stream quite as often as others on the list (life's life innit), but when they do, they tend to stick to it for a bit and do long serieses(??)! They also have a great youtube channel you can dig into if you're looking for some non-live stuff! Great for analysing media, cause they're a big ol nerd.
Fortwas (Facecam) - GHOST HUNTING. CRAFTS. GAME DEV. THEY'VE GOT IT ALL. They're so cool and they always stream when I can't fkin watch >:( Watch in my stead, won't you? Not as common streams, but again, really good vibes when they happen.
AmbaDev (Vtuber) - Chaos. Dev. Games. What more do I need to say? They were on the second episode of Gender Gossip, if you want an introduction to them!
AmberCyprian (Vtuber) - Slightly more outside my circle, and a little bigger than most of the ones on this list, but a really really cool streamer who does a lot of Sonic speedrun and Pokemon rando content! They're also the host of GDQ Hotfix's Never Before Seen, so you know they know their shit!
TheJenna (Facecam) - Fully outside my circle here, but I love Jenna's streams so much. She's one of the Polygon video team, and she's very funny, her streams are chill as fuck. I'm kinda on the VOD Squad for her stuff but it's nice as background noise :)) She does a lot of more popular games, and some blender art streams! She also has a DND podcast but I haven't had the chance to listen to that yet so I can't say what the vibes are (but they seem powerful)
Mr_Rebecca (Dogcam. The Best.) - Another one outside my circle, and part of the NerdCubed group, but oh their streams are soul healing. They just talk about their pets and do art and play cute games (LOTS of ooblets). Also their voice is so soft like. These are Meditation streams for me.
Okay if I list any more I will be here all night, but I hope this list is great to get you started! If you end up following any of em, tell em I sent ya! ;P <3
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Irregular Daoist
Since we're already in the JZEUniverse after the last two posts, let's stay just a little while longer for our first fig of Dong Fang Yuechu (东方月初), Gong Jun's character from his upcoming xianxia Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Yue Hong (狐妖小红娘月红篇).
Gong Jun is not the titular Fox Fairy of this show, that's his co-lead Yang Mi. He's a human Daoist with magical powers. You can watch a brief intro / filming wrap-up special of Fox Spirit Matchmaker with English subtitles from iQiyi on YouTube here.
So this is the first fig...out of 20. Yep, 20 figs that I know of for Yuechu, and that is based off only a few photos from filming and promotion. I can't even imagine how many we're going to have once the show actually drops!
But it's no wonder. Gong Jun looks outrageously beautiful in this - the filming staff learned from Word of Honor that spending the money to put him in gorgeous costumes and wigs was worth every single bit.
Junjun also took a page from his Zhang Laoshi's filming experience, and just like Zhehan did for Zhou Zishu, he grew his hair out long enough so his real hair could mix in with the hairpieces and wigs for a more natural and beautiful look.
This is the look we're benefiting from for these inspiration pics for this fig:
Yuechu is photographed quite a bit in the few pictures we have holding tanghulu, which is a popular candied fruit snack on skewers. You've seen the bright red hawthorn berries coated in sugar before, as our dear Tanghulu Niuniu is holding them tightly in his cute little hands here.
Our precious little daoist arrived with his tanghulu safely packaged, and his sword a little worse for also being safely packaged! The little wrapper bag that he came sealed in kept him pretty tightly held. I'm pretty sure that unlike Baiyi, Yuechu's sword is not supposed to be bendy.
No problem though! This isn't super uncommon for PVC figs - I just ran the sword under hot water and gently coaxed it back into a straight line. It usually takes a couple instances to get it to stay, since it's been in that bendy space for a while.
His tanghulu stick just slides right into his hand, nice and easy. Thank goodness. There's been one too many cases recently of swords etc not fitting quite right into hands, and it always makes me worry to muscle pieces around.
You can see here that even though the sword is now straightened, it extends pretty far past the plane of the bottom robes. It's not enough to tip the fig off balance, but it definitely is not a smooth standing fig.
This is the part where I give my normal spiel on how the PVC seam molds etc aren't this noticeable in real life - these figs are so small and dainty that they really just blend in. I've taken pics of figs before that look totally normal just sitting on the shelf, but in the harsh light of the camera I'm shocked to see a thin layer of dust. I go back and look at the figs again - is my eyesight going?!?! - but no, it looks perfect. The lens really does pick up any intangible imperfections (a lesson I should take to heart next time I take a selfie!)
You can see how the sword has to bend a bit on it's side to stay straight here. I get why the fig maker didn't shorten it - it would look more like a dagger than a sword if it was shorter.
A little bit more of the bendy sword, along with Yuechu's impressive half ponytail. Fans have commented that in some pics, he looks a lot like A-Xu, and he actually does.
A shot from above so you can see his hairstyle and hairpin, and the sugary shine off the tanghulu.
The robes and nice wide feet make this an extremely stable fig. I wouldn't need to put it on a fig stand at all, except for the sword.
As you can see though, the addition of a fig stand gives his sword the necessary clearance.
An extreme closeup so you can see the detail on the robes, the delicious shiny tanghulu, and his tanghulu-munching mouth. His sword has an inscription on it, which I just noticed. I can see the character for 'moon', but can't make out the rest.
Speaking of moon, 东方月初 Dōngfāng Yuèchū transcribed literally means New Moon of the East / Eastern New Moon, which is beautiful. I do see the moon in his eyes (this is also a CPF fig maker, so of course we know the dual meaning of moon here).
Google translate helpfully tells me that the name of the sign is "Moon Palace".
There's all kinds of stuff going on in this artwork! Not sure what is happening with the sword here, but there is lots of food, and MTL tells me the name on the vertical sign is "Moon Moon Bun Shop". Can't wait for this show to air so I can learn more!
Material: PVC
Fig Count: 185
Scene Count: 14
Rating: The stars and moon shine together
[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]
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For animation asks: 5, 12, 17, and 22
5) What is your favorite animated film?
It's a tough one, and there are many contenders for sure, but I think I'd have to say Spirited Away. I remember first discovering it as a preteen and being absolutely OBSESSED, to the point where I watched it 11 times in a week. Everything I could say about it I'm sure has been said a million times by others, so I don't really think I need to explain why it's my favourite, as I know it's a favourite of many. I think what sets it apart from other Ghibli films would be simply that its environments and soundtrack appeal more to me, personally, than some of the others. There are so many moments that feel like I'm living in someone's distant memories, like nostalgia but not necessarily for the life that I've lived. It's a film I can watch over and over without getting sick of, which is very rare for me, so it must be quite special I suppose haha. Also, there's a dragon, so that's a huge plus.
12) What is the darkest piece of animation you’ve ever seen?
I am positive there have been darker animations that I've seen, but I currently can't recall them or they are popular/frequently talked about. I'd like to use this question to talk about an anime that has a lot of dark themes, but its main draw to me is the unique and raw animation style. The anime is called Kemonozume, and it takes place in a world where there exists man-eating monsters who disguise themselves as humans. It's a story of forbidden love between a human and one of the monsters, which is certainly not a groundbreaking concept, but what really brings it to life is the amazing art direction. It's not a show for everyone, as it does feature a fair amount of gore and sexual scenes, but it may be worth checking out if those things don't bother you too much. It's been many years since I've watched it, so I can't say how the story holds up or if it had any problematic aspects, but the art was so memorable that I had to mention it here! Lots of beautifully disturbing scenes and grotesque imagery. If you're not interested in watching it fully but still curious, I would at least recommend checking out some of the intros, which are often little vignettes separate from the main story (You can find a couple on youtube; I'd recommend Intro 3 and Intro 10 (there is some artistic nudity in 10))
17) Why do you think animation is still largely seen as being “more geared toward children” compared to live action, even though there are many beloved mature films made throughout history?
This is a great question to ask, because I have very personal opinions about this. I think one reason why people dismiss animated works as childish is because they often dip into fantasy. Due to how limitless animation can be, it makes sense for people to want to do things they normally could not do easily with live-action (though this is less true now with the rise in use of CG), like having anthropomorphic characters or fantasy creatures. I think that a lot of people like to dismiss characters that are "not-human" and details that are "not realistic enough" as being bad because…well I don't know why! But my mother was like this to me when I was a kid. I would show her drawings of dragons that I was proud of and I was constantly shot down and told to stop drawing them so I could make more "mature" drawings like portraits of people. I think a lot of people like to believe that fantasy should be only for children, and it shouldn't be entertained or taken seriously by adults. This is asinine to me because it just feels like they're shutting out the wonder and magic in their lives for no real reason other than to posture to other people that they're mature and above having fun I guess. Aside from the fantasy aspect, a lot of animation makes use of bright and eye-catching colours, again, something that is often reserved for children because colourful things are exciting and easily captures their attention. I think a lot of people don't want to give mature animated films a shot because they have only ever considered animation for children since that's what it is most frequently used for. It's a shame because a lot of fantastic films made for children can and should still be enjoyed by adults. Something aimed at children doesn't have to mean that it is vapid and not worth watching as an adult. But I believe that if more adult-geared animated films continue to come out, they will start to break the commonly held conception that animation can only be for kids, but there just needs to be more of it so that they're not seen as just a rare exception in a sea of kids animations. It'll take some time before we get there though. Sadly, the opinion of mature animation is further lowered due to the abundance of adult animated sit-coms, since those are often considered to be crude and immature. shrugs I'm not very good at making much of a point here with this, but those are some of my thoughts in a nutshell.
22) What is your favorite style of animation (hand drawn, computer generated, stop-motion, etc.)?
Hmm, I can't say I have a favourite because it all depends on how it's utilized. I love stop-motion when it's done a certain way, like how it's used in Hylics. It can be absolutely mesmerizing and unsettling in an appealing way. But there's also many stop-motion works that have not been not my cup of tea due to either execution or commonly used subject matter/art direction that just doesn't appeal to my tastes. Computer generated can be fun, but it also runs the risk of being too uniform and optimized to the point where a lot of the character of the animation can get lost. I think the style of animation that appeals most consistently to me would be hand drawn, but I think all of them can shine in their own unique ways.
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