I Love His Switch Up So Much. Especially Trents Confusion.

"Once I was told that good men get better with age... We're just gonna skip that stage" - What Would I Do?

I was finally able to finish this painting to go with this one i did of Marvin at sitting by Whizzers headstone

The way I was SO convinced there would be at least the start of Bobby not being dead after all this episode that I spent the whole time waiting for it to the very last seconds and when it didn't come, I could not fathom it😭 the way I'm lowkey still holding out a little tiny bit of hope👀🤭 this episode really crumbled my unwavering confidence though...🥺 Like I might actually have to start accepting he might be dead fr😭💔

ofmd wasn't "profitable" enough but I didn't even get the feeling hbo wanted to make money off of it. They didn't promote it when s1 dropped, and the promo for s2 was erratic at best. They don't sell merch. Or physical copies. There's no bts documentaries other than what actors (shoutout to Samba ilu) make themselves in their spare time.

It took more than a full year for me to be able to watch s1 legally! I still can't access s2 legally anywhere! It's not that ofmd is unprofitable, it's that hbo refuses to profit off of it, because - well, because profiting off of it would mean investing work and money into it.

And like. Of course, when you compare it to the juggernauts hbo holds rights to, like GoT, ofmd is small fishes. But.

How on earth do these clowns think cult classics happen?

A Game of Thrones was first published in 1996 and didn't make it on the NYT beststeller list until 2011. The first edition of the first Harry Potter book was 500 pieces. And yeah, TV shows are different, but if you look at today's media landscape, would things like Star Trek, or Buffy, or Doctor Who stand the slightest chance? These things take time, is my point. A piece of media doesn't become a massively profitable, beloved classic over night. It takes time and effort to build that kind of franchise.

And the thing is! Nobody who makes these decisions even likes stories. I'm convinced that whoever is in charge at hbo, at amazon prime, even at disney, thinks storytelling is dumb and for idiots. They think it's enough to just slap the name of something people love on whatever garbage they spit out, for it to be profitable. They think it's the brand that sells: Look this has "Lord of the Rings" on it! Look, this one has "Game of Thrones", you like Game of Thrones don't you? Watch my show, boy.

But this isn't how this works. It's not the name that sells (unless, I suppose, you're the MCU, and even there one gets the impression the trick is finally stopping to work), especially not when the product is bad. People aren't idiots.

But it's not about making something good. It's not about making a meaningful piece of art, or telling an engaging story. ofmd served its purpose; it drew in all the subscribers it ever would, so there's no point in letting it go on. Even in the s2 that we did get, this is evident: the penny pinching is palpable, it's clear that the studio didn't want to spend any more money than absolutely necessary on it, and then cut the budget by 40%.

It's not about art. It never has been.

And it's not even about profit, because to be profitable eventually, stories have to be allowed to thrive first. You tell a good story first, and success happens later, often much, much later.

And ofmd was incredibly, astonishingly successful. It was the most in-demand series for weeks after the s1 finale. But even that wasn't enough, it's never enough, ofmd could have made record-setting profits and it still would have been cancelled, because -

Well, I don't know. Because we live in a bad time for art. Because Orwell was right, and stories have become commodities, like shoelaces. Because. Well. It's not about telling a story, is it?

What's the point of a story? What's the point of making something for the joy of making it? What's the point of a piece of art, existing, if it cannot be transferred into numbers for the stockholders?

idk how to end this. I hope David Jenkins finishes the story he wanted to tell, even if just for himself. I hope, against all odds, that weird, fun, heartfelt, beautiful little stories like ofmd continue to happen.

But goddammit.

Did anyone else notice on the reading list some of the books repeat? Did they run out of classic literature lol

cant stop thinking about the thematic implications of gabi/sir/lacey's chosen weapons

sir's go-to is poison. it's precise, scientific. you do the math right, & you have exact control over how much you hurt someone. you dont need physical strength, you dont need direct proximity to your target at time of ingestion. it's measured, it's clean. elegant, even. but slimey, too. there's a cowardice inherent to it. it's a weapon that hits hardest when you trust its wielder. & it's also historically a women's weapon. partially because, before the invention of guns, it was one of the only murder methods that didn't require physical strength. partially because women have, historically, had the most consistent access to the food & drink consumed by those who would be their targets. i would not be surprised if there was a reveal at some point that he started using poison as a weapon when he was still too young or small for his current physicality to be of any use.

contrast that against gabi's weapon of choice: brass knuckles. brass knuckles dont require precision or grace, quite the opposite, actually. brass knuckles allow their wielder to do more direct harm to their target without an increase in skill. you have to be physically close for them to do any good. & they allow their wielder less control over the amount of harm they do their target. unless their wielder is a boxer or assassin, of which gabi is neither, those who wield brass knuckles increase their risk of killing their target in exchange for more power in any given hit. but there is no denying the violence done with brass knuckles. to use them is to face, directly, the violence one commits. & gabi is given the brass knuckles to protect herself by gina. gabi is given the role of protector, of soldier.

a knife, though? ohhh

a knife is almost the best of both worlds. lacey takes to knives long before she stabs sir. we see little baby bella clutching to them as child to protect herself against him. a knife is elegant, in a sense. a knife is the closest thing a contemporary series like found will ever come to having a sword. paired with lacey's s1 styling with her big black boots & thick leather jacket, she's almost knight-like. but a knife is not all-noble. "backstabber" as not just literal betrayal, but a metaphor of its own. & not only is lacey not given the knife, both her maternal figures are horrified when she takes it for herself. gina is shocked by it when bella has it hiding under her bed, & gabi takes it from lacey when she tries to kill sir. lacey designates herself as someone capable of violence, but is denied again & again the opportunity to fully protect herself by people who see her as neither knight nor sniveling backstabber, but perpetual helpless little girl.

Welp I guess we're not gonna get a dark romance gonna ship it anyway though not my first ship that isn't cannon

It was queerbait, actually (A repository)

(It's almost three am but I am fuming, I've been collecting these for a while, my evidence, I WILL write a detailed post about this in a few days but I wanted to leave this here in case anyone else wanted to see how fucking deep this goes)

HYPOTESIS: Nandermo is textbook queerbaiting, not in spite the characters being queer but BECAUSE of it. The ship was used deliberately by the writers, the actors and the marketing in order to bring lgbt viewership to the show with NO intention on ever delivering on their promise.

Also the show presented itself as queer, marketed itself as queer and went to win GLAAD awards two years in a row then proceded to have no m/m or f/f couples for SIX seasons. Their queer rep were just jokes.

WHAT'S QUEERBAITING:

(I hate that I have to use wikipedia and dictionary.com but the actual articles about it are behind paywalls and I am poor)

Okay on to WWDITS

Let's talk marketing:

These are from season 3, 4, 5 and 6

Season five:

The show is over, it had six seasons, where were my m/m or f/f couples? Because I sure as hell didn't see one apart from the one episode with Freddie, that's it, that's all we got. Apart from that it was just jokes.

---

But that's not about nandermo, you say, it's just about queerness, then what about this: FUCKING HEAVY HANDED NANDERMO MARKETING FOR YEARS:

OR THIS:

How about what the show's socials were posting, this is from season 3 or 4

Now let's see what the writers were saying (this is before season 5):

The infamous that's his boss moment came from this:

But before that we had:

This is Harvey in 2022:

Here's Harvey today:

And here's Kayvan in 2022

Here's Kayvan last year:

And today:

I feel like the person working with Sir has to be Ethan because so much would make a lot more sense if it is.

i still don't think bobby's dead btw

a true fashion icon