Want To Learn Something New In 2022??

My blog is exclusively for people that didn’t try in PE. The only people that go to heaven are the bad bitches that walked the mile.

Someone on here made a great post about how Cassandra Brand is a clear reference to Greek mythologys Cassandra, a priestess who was doomed to only tell true prophecies but never be believed. Cassandra obviously warns Miles and her friends about what his new miracle fuel will do and is entirely disregarded.

I read this post and was like "oh that's so smart, you're so right." And then like, went on with whatever I was doing.

And then that night I'm laying in bed and my eyes snap open and my brain is like "her sister was HELEN."

Cassandra forsaw the fall of Troy and was not believed.

Helen caused the fall of Troy.

The Goncharov meme is such a fun little spotlight on how people view media. Like, fake academic analysis about a movie that doesn't exist. Cool. But that's only the first level.

Next you have posts recreating a modern tumblr audience "discovering" an older piece of media and engaging with it through the lens of fan culture. Particularly tumblr-specific fan culture. Particularly in a way that feels like it got its blueprint from Dracula Daily. (Shitposts and memes, intense love for the most prominent female character, reads of complex romantic dynamics between characters, etc.)

Then you get fake discourse about the fake fan response to a fake movie that are quietly complaining about real ways real people respond to real media. I.e., America-centric readings, shallow, shipping-based readings, fans lionizing a protagonist not meant to be admired, etc.

(My personal favorite are posts that recreate the experience of being told a piece of media is so gay, you guys, only to watch it and find it isn't even remotely, that fans who wanted queer subtext wrung blood from a stone and thoroughly misled you.)

I also like the extra-meta ones about "this obscure movie being recently re-discovered," fake film history about copyright battles or the original cut being suppressed, etc. And of course, Johnny fucking Truant is here to give his editorial take on it, as he should be.

Pale Fire, House of Leaves, Goncharov. Humanity is such that every now and then we need to get really invested in fake arguments about a piece of media that doesn't exist.

The videos referenced are the video essay about Blade Runner 2049 by @ladyknightthebrave and an interview between Adam Savage and Matt Parker about his book "Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World"

go give them a watch they're super cool!

Here are 10 most interesting quotes from Art Matters, an essay in pictures, by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell, about why our future depends on books and libraries

(via Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell about books and libraries (quotes))

Can we talk about how bizarre our experience with the new pjo series is

A tiny essay on how this series is special.

Like. We're all super hyped because we know this series intrinsically that we forget that we know this show intrinsically

How bizarre is that?? We don't merely get spoilers on our dashes from episodes we haven't watched yet, we know what will happen at the end, at the end of the next season, in eight years

It's hilarious! It's rediculous! It's like Neil Gaiman would start an open Google doc so we could all watch as he wrote the next Good Omens episode! Only EVEN MORE

"aw this scene will look so cute when they are a couple in college" when the show itself has not even HINTED AT A CRUSH

"damn too bad Luke's the bad guy" WE SAY 3 EPISODES ON

Think about it, people! This is a fandom experience with no ship wars! No headcannons we desperately hope don't collide with cannon! We know every. Single. Thing. That will happen.

And we still watch it.

I have a point with this. Remember how Marvel movies would be 👉this close👈 to murdering an actor over spoilers? There's a great post here somewhere on how that's because of the low quality of modern day superhero movies. It's supposed to be a quick hit, a rush of dopamine and special effects and one liners exploding into colour until you walk out of the cinema so dazed you only remember days later that the movie itself wasn't actually that good. These movies aren't built for rewatching, or becoming cult classics. It's fast food. Delicious for the moment, satisfying a certain itch, but not wholesome or precious.

And this. This beautiful series launched with the full knowledge that almost the ENTIRE FANBASE know exactly what was coming, every step. What are premier day spoilers against years of finished arcs.

And still, we watch. We love. We laugh and cry and post about it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is #hopepunk. They think we don't need beautiful, nurturing adaptations? That they've wrecked our mental health so bad we can't concentrate on smth unless the special effects are forcefully grabbing our attention? That older things get forgotten as quickly as Tick Tock trends? They were wrong. We love, and we care. Not everything bows to the rules of fast production capitalism. We aren't a predicted consumer statistic.

We love Percy Jackson.

remember when good omens (2019) came out and neil gaiman made it clear in no uncertain terms that angels and demons were inherently nonbinary, that angels and demons (and crowley in particular) can and Do have a variety of presentations that they choose for themselves, and that the story is a Love Story between two nonbinary entities fighting for their right to love each other openly in the face of religiously charged black and white thinking that’d forced them to hide and deny their love for each other at the threat of punishment.

and then instead of celebrating the openly queer, openly trans, openly fluid and neutral and non-conforming relationships and people presented by the series people were just Legitimately like “Wow, can’t believe neil won’t say that aziraphale and crowley are gay (read: Cis) men, looks like queerbaiting is alive and well 🙄“ and nobody stopped them

The night gardener once asked me if I knew how citrus trees died: when they reach old age, if they are not cut down and they manage to survive drought, disease and innumerable attacks of pests, fungi and plagues, they succumb from overabundance. When they come to the end of their life cycle, they put out a final, massive crop of lemons. In their last spring their flowers bud and blossom in enormous bunches and fill the air with a smell so sweet that it stings your nostrils from two blocks away; then their fruits ripen all at once, whole limbs break off due to their excessive weight, and after a few weeks the ground is covered with rotting lemons. It is a strange sight, he said, to see such exuberance before death.

When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamín Labatut

In the future, children will think our ways are strange. "Why do old people always grow so much milkweed in their gardens?" they'll say. "Why do old people always write down when the first bees and butterflies show up? Why do old people hate lawn grass so much? Why do old people like to sit outside and watch bees?"

We will try to explain to them that when we were young, most people's yards were almost entirely short grass with barely any flowers at all, and it was so commonplace to spray poisons to kill insects and weeds that it was feared monarch butterflies and American bumblebees would soon go extinct. We will show them pictures of sidewalks, shops, and houses surrounded by empty grass without any flowers or vegetables and they will stare at them like we stared at pictures of grimy children working in coal mines