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postmanic

Breezy is not larger than a cranberry grape juice

postmanic

BIG NEWS: Breezy IS NOW bigger than a cranberry juice!!!

reggiemess

Sometimes people think they're dealing with a Torment Nexus but what they actually have is a Jumanji. And sometimes people think something's a Jumanji but oops it's a Torment Nexus.

reggiemess

Now. Sometimes you have a third thing- you'll have yourself a Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And buddy, I can't help you there.

reggiemess

So a Torment Nexus is something that is either a metaphor for a larger societal problem (e.g. The Platform, The Long Walk) or a social issue/trend taken to an exaggerated extreme (e.g. The Purge), with a lot of shades of grey in between (e.g. Squid Game). If it isn't about a larger societal issue/trend/structure it isn't a Torment Nexus.

A Jumanji can be dangerous and high-stakes (to the characters), but it doesn't need to have a metaphor or lesson, it can easily just be a "Would this be fucked up or what?" situation (e.g. a lotta Goosebumps stories). If there IS a lesson/metaphor, it will be on a smaller scale like psychological issues (e.g. Magnus Archives), family/relationship issues (e.g. Zathura), or about a specific topic (e.g. Magic School Bus). Large-scale social issues may be present (after all, Everything Is Political), but they take a definite backseat.

Now. A Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory is a trap based around morality and vices. These can be cultural, religious, or bonkers bullshit like "children shouldn't chew gum." There is generally not discussion or criticism of this morality system. Regardless of the morality system used, if it's not a trap, it's not a Chocolate Factory.

pingintech

examples of a willy wonkas chocolate factory include:

saw

the cabin in the woods

labrynth (1986)

and

hometoursandotherstuff

21st-century-minutiae

A haiku is a type of traditional Japanese poem with strict structural form. Most famously, it is a three line poem, with a 5-7-5 pattern of morae (a unit of phonetic time), one of which must be one of 18 accepted "cutting words", and must refer to a season. Those that fit the morae pattern but are about different topics (and lack the cutting word) are often considered senryū instead. Both haiku and senryū are usually opening lines of a longer poem.

Outside of the Japanese language, the haiku format is defined in a different way: a three line, 5-7-5 syllable format. In the Japanese language, morae are easier to reckon with, as each corresponds with a single character in hiragana or katakana. The length of time to say a word is directly equivalent to the length of the spelling. But in languages like English, both short and long syllables (which have one or two morae respectively) can be represented by the same vowels. So counting syllables is easier. There is no equivalent to "cutting words" outside of Japanese, and seasonal references are not considered vital to the tradition, making a less strict definition. But the word "haiku" is much more recognizable than "senryū." These non-Japanese poems tend to be stand alone, rather than just the opening stanza.

The above is a humorous image of a "Haikubaru," a portmanteau of the Japanese poetry form, "Haiku" and the Japanese automobile "Subaru" (as seen by the seven star logo). The "ku" of haiku, and "Su" of Subaru, rhyme with one another, allowing an easy mashing. The description of the seating arrangement is itself an English haiku, and the seats themselves serve as visual syllables. "Poetry in motion" is a common analogy in the early twenty-first century, claiming that an action is as elegant and beautiful as the height of written word.

This is, of course not a real vehicle. It is an absurd image for the sake of a joke. People in the early twenty-first century would recognize this fact.

covid-safer-hotties

byjove

Not to be a pretentious asshole but yes there is a problem with people no longer reading the classics. A lot of the YA literature romance novel crowd perpetuates the myth that the classics are inherently boring and stuffy and there’s nothing you can relate to or learn by reading them. And they’re not. These beautiful universal things we enjoy, comedy, romance, tragedy, family strife, they’re still so poignant centuries after they’re written.

derinthescarletpescatarian

Also some of them are entertaining trash. Have you ever read Tarzan of the Apes? If you can white-knuckle through the continuous racism (and I do not want to undrsell the racism, it's all through the book and every time you think you're over the racist part they find a new way to add more racism, you will have to white-knuckle through so much racism to read this) it's on par with modern mary sue isekai slop. Like switch out the forest for a fantasy world and it's a low-effort (racist) teenager's first royalroad web serial. And you have to read this stuff (not Tarzan specifically, but older literature, including some classics) if you want to engage with written fiction as a whole, because fiction is a conversation that takes far longer than a single human lifetime to have. Being a reader who never reads older works and never reads outside their favourite genre is like being a visual art enjoyer who looks exclusively at busty anime girls in 45 degree profile on Deviantart. Like what you like, but you're going to be able to like it so much more, and engage with it so much more competently, if you broaden your experience a little.

thelongestway

Story time!

When I was a kid in about... Grade 8, I want to say, we had the Decameron in history of literature class. (For those who don't know, it's a book of short stories framed as "told by people trying to quarantine from the plague". It's mostly horror, humor and sex. Think COVID entertainment, but maybe more terrifying). We had a few stories from it selected in our reader, and the assignment was "pick a Decameron story and do an oral retelling."

At the time, me and another girl had just ceased routinely beating the shit out of each other with chairs, and instead had become friends in one of those delinquent-nerd duos. She taught me street smarts, I taught her weird intellectual shit. It was a beautiful friendship.

So of course when I saw the Decameron on the curriculum, I told her "you realize a lot of stories in that book are basically porn, right? Let me get you the unabridged version from my house."

My friend's eyes lit up. She read the whole thing in a few days.

Class time comes, and for the first and only time in our class one of the class delinquents shoots her hand up. The teacher goes, "oh wow, what just happened? All right, go ahead."

And of course my friend picked one of the pornier tales. If I recall, it was about a monk seducing a nun by telling her that men had devils, and women had hells, and occasionally one must contain a devil by sticking him into hell. The teacher has no choice but to listen because the assignment doesn't specify "pick a pre-selected story from the reader". It just says "pick a Decameron story."

The retelling was fantastic, as hilariously funny as the story itself, (she did voices and gestures!) and my friend got the class listening on the edge of their seats. My friend got her well-deserved A, the teacher got a pedagogical challenge, and it was a win-win all around. :P

Tl;dr: go read the classics, they're a lot of fun.

krakensdottir

Also: they will really increase your tolerance for period-specific uncomfortable topics and terminology.

I don't mean they will make you think racism or sexism are okay. I mean they will get you to a point where you can read something written before the 21st century and not flinch away from it. A literary immune system, if you will. I have seen reviews of sci-fi from the 70s that dismissed entire (good) classics for a single sexist paragraph and it makes me sad. People are missing out on so much. You should be able to read things that were not written with your sensibilities, or most of human history and culture will be closed to you.

dailycatsblog

centers-for-disease-control

Reminder, I am not the actual CDC so any policy changes that happen are not my doing. I am just a very passionate observer

the-worm-in-his-head

They are correct! (Most of) These changes are my doing! I am very busy.

centers-for-disease-control

It is important to give credit where credit is due.

cop-disliker69

critter0139

the vocal minority

todaysbird

I hateeeee to see people shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars for purebred puppies/kittens/literally ANY baby animal, from parrots to hamsters, for the upcoming holiday season….meanwhile, shelters are overflowing and will see a surge again in Jan/Feb when everyone gets sick of their now messy, loud, and behaviorally challenging juvenile animals.

todaysbird

in 2022 may you find many seeds, nuts, berries, etc

mjalti

I didn’t even look at the name I was just like damn I hope so too thanks

todaysbird

it’s 2025 now i hope youve accumulated many seeds, nuts, and berries

ratbugs

i may have eated them all

kagaintheskywithdiamonds

yorhaw

Hi I’m op of the twitter post. I was referencing this tumblr post I saw ages ago. I didnt expect it to blow up.

footlongdingledong

hi I’m the guy that made that post. Yours is funnier

felalalie

Peace and love on planet eart

ms-demeanor

I'm starting to get ready for a spite-based movie watching project and I'm having some realizations.

1. I need a veto for each year. At least one movie where I get to say extremely no.

2. The state of the market is dire. If I issued a blanket ban on marvel that would cut my list in half and improve the quality tenfold.

3. Every indication is that Paddington 2 is just that fucking good.

4. I think we may be past peak sequel. (2011, when every single top 10 highest grossing film in the US was part of a franchise, was likely peak sequel.

5. 2020 is going to be dogshit. Everyone just wrote it off.

6. Comic books were a mistake.

7. Like half of these are only available through Disney plus we specifically broke up a disney monopoly on theaters last century how did we get back to this IP law is a curse

8. Seriously IP law is a curse I'm pretty sure some of these count as lost media and they're less than a decade old (i had to make a rule that no streaming only releases went on the list, you could make the best movie in the world but if it was only available to Apple TV subscribers it's vapor)

9. There are a lot of good movies out there, the dogshit just gets all the airtime.

ms-demeanor

I am also perilously close to deciding that this project needs a podcast.

ms-demeanor

10. Every website that does any kind of categorization wants what Ao3 has.

It should be trivially simple for me to go on RottenTomatoes and look up movies that had a theatrical release in 2011, filter by number of critic reviews, and sort by tomatometer ranking. But it is not!

ms-demeanor

Basically in 2011 I got a 9-5 with an hour long commute and I stopped seeing 50-100 movies a year and now I'm going to go back and catch up.

So from 2011 to now I'm going to watch:

The Box Office Mojo 10 highest grossing films of the year

The 5 highest ranked Metacritic films of the year

The Rotten Tomatoes 10 highest ranked films for the year

Anything of the AFI list for that year that wasn't on the other list and catches my eye

Anything from the Rotten Tomatoes annual best action, scifi, horror, or thriller list that looks good or mad a splash

There are going to be a lot of things that overlap, so I'm guessing that'll get me about 20 movies per year, or about 300 total.

Now. I already know that a lot of these movies are going to suck. I don't want to see Wicked, none of us wants me to see Wicked. But I am going to see it anyway. Because I am commited to the bit (the bit being "get enough experience with the last decade and a half of movies to have some grounding for my criticism so that I can continue yelling about how much movies suck in peace").

I'm making up some arbitrary rules and am being flexible about what goes on the list, but it's important to note that I don't want recs for good movies. Seeing good movies isn't the point (though there are movies that I know are good on the list, and I'll look forward to watching Mandy after the live action Lion King).

ms-demeanor

Bad news: it is more movies than that.

Good news: I'm allowing myself two franchise vetos (if it's star wars and I haven't seen it i don't have to, i have had enough star wars, i am done with the star war, I'm glad you enjoyed Andor but that is not my problem, I am free), an actor veto, and an annual gimme veto. If I don't use a veto in one year, it can be moved to another (2019 and 2022 both deserve to be punished).

Better news: Actually, it turns out that 2022 is the first year where I hadn't seen any of the movies on the list. So I'm about 8% into the pile, I think.

ms-demeanor

I have five vetoes left and eight movies I'd prefer not to watch. Vote to make me suffer. (Beetlejuice and Challengers are on the list because I burned the 2024 veto on Wicked)

Vote for what you think it would be funniest to torture me with:

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

A Star is Born (2018)

The Lion King (2019)

Captain Marvel (2019)

Taylor Swift Eras Tour (2023)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Challengers (2024)

Voting ended onDec 1, 2025

ms-demeanor

It's at Library. It's on Library. It's got a hold on Library. Library has it.

(some people have asked how I'll be watching these and about 200 of the movies on the list are at my local library)

ms-demeanor

I put together my rubric (everything will be represented as a percentage out of 100 to better compare to metacritic and rotten tomatoes scores) and I think part of why I'm so uninterested in a lot of movies these days is because I often like it better when a creator makes a choice that is *interesting* than when they make a choice that is *good* from the audience perspective.

But also fight physics I hate so much fight choreography everything looks like a cartoon you can do goofy fights without making it seem like everyone has the same density as a balloon animal AND you can do fights with fucked up physics if you give me watsonian reasons for it like in the Matrix but BUCKY BARNES DOES NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT MASS TO GRAB AND MOUNT THAT MOTORCYCLE IN THAT WAY EVEN IF HE IS A SUPERHERO THAT DOES NOT LOOK COOL IT LOOKS LIKE THE MOTORCYCLE IS FULL OF HELIUM AND HE IS MADE OF TISSUE PAPER. AUGH.

(And you can say 'oh just suspend disbelief it's a Marvel movie' but it contributes to overall tone problems - it's fine if you have nonsense physics in a cartoon, but if you have goofy cartoon physics in a story about, like, civil liberties and the surveillance state then I think that either the action or the story is going to feel discordant)

Anyway I'm considering calling this project Alli Hates Movies. (The thing is I love movies, I really really love movies, which makes me completely insufferable to talk to about them).

prokopetz

To be totally fair to Willy Wonka, at least a couple of those candy factory casualties involved kids deliberately circumventing reasonable safeguards, sometimes aided and abetted by the parents who were supposed to be supervising them. What happened is at most 60% his fault.