Which isn't "damning", I think he could own up to that failure, own up to his failure to use those lucid spirals constructively. He just didn't do it here. And his lack of condemnation for the people he's cozied up to lately does unfortunately lend credence to "this is a business strategy".
I think what troubles me--as someone who always wants a reason to forgive--is how heavily he leans on the mania as the sole cause of his actions. Yes, he probably just saw the symbols as tools for destruction, but failing to value them as more than that was part of the problem.
greyscale doodle of a chibi eskie looking up at the viewer with gigantic pleading bug eyes
looks at you like this
I genuinely cannot recommend Eskie's services enough as an editor, a game designer, or an artist of little guys.
Yeah. "Humanizing" doesn't have to mean excusing. It's simply useful to remember that most people, even bad people, are still people. Evil isn't magically any less messy or flawed or banal than Good so often is. I think that's something @dicknixon.bsky.social does his best to remind us.
I think the idea that a man would feel less able to spend a year fighting for one of the most competitive positions in the world after his son just died feels pretty believable to me.
I believe this joke was what they call a "fumble". 😔
It's always baseball with you, sir... never a word about foosball.
and on the first day, god created the partridge in the
Yeah, an ogre union, "onion" for short
This and that embarrassing podcast are cut from the same cloth. It's "mockery" that does nothing to wound Trump. Clinton mocked him at the debates, too.
I don't like quoting people to "dunk" on them, but I also feel exhausted by those who'd go to such lengths to fight for someone who wouldn't pick a fight with a termite for them.
The reason Newsom's strategy "doesn't work" is that he's not fighting Trump, he's fighting the primary. People can tell.
I think Newsom may be aesthetically too far-left--too far-left in a geographical, cardinal-direction-on-the-globe sense. He clearly knows this and hopes to compensate by choosing "safe enemies" on the Left.
I don't know if Democrats care about that, but I do think it makes him look untrustworthy.
The "Thankfully," at the end is what gets me. They really do see two classes of human. It makes me feel nauseous.
He changed a lot after the union fight. All the men like him did. Animation studio heads. He made the wrong friends, got into the hard-right media, and never really clawed his way out.
To be clear, this is a good thing. The reason modern fantasy is bad is half because they've lost the Bombadil Spark and half because they don't have entire chapters arguing about logistics or raving about pretty horses anymore.
Fellowship of the Ring is the template basically half of 2000s fantasy copied off of, and you can tell because every single one of them has at least three Tom Bombadil moments. Eragon has an extended sequence where the author's sister shows up and talks about magic cats.
A screenshot from p157 of Fellowship of the Ring: ...dancing along the path, there appeared above the reeds an old battered hat with a tall crown and a long blue feather stuck in the band. With another hop and a bound there came into view a man, or so it seemed. At any rate he was too large and heavy for a hobbit, if not quite tall enough for one of the Big People, though he made noise enough for one, stumping along with great yellow boots on his thick legs, and charging through grass and rushes like a cow going down to drink. He had a blue coat and a long brown beard; his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. In his hands he carried on a large leaf as on a tray a small pile of white water-lilies. ‘Help!’ cried Frodo and Sam running towards him with their hands stretched out. Whoa! Whoa! steady there!’ cried the old man, holding up one hand, and they stopped short, as if they had been struck stiff. ‘Now, my little fellows, where be you a-going to, puffing like a bellows? What’s the matter here then? Do you know who I am? I’m Tom Bombadil. Tell me what’s your trouble! Tom’s in a hurry now. Don’t you crush my lilies!’ ‘My friends are caught in the willow-tree,’ cried Frodo breathlessly.
imagine if midway through Babadook, the scatman shows up and starts singing to banish the monsters.
the next 30m are a goofy frolic of him scatting about facing your fears.
Then he leaves and the Babadook immediately comes back, more pissed than ever, bc it has no idea what all That was about.
it's really messed up that a ritalin crash doesn't also make you sleepy when it sends your crankiness levels to 100. at least knock me out before I can start shit, man.
I love how millers were always the villains back then. It's my favorite old-timey bigotry. Millers were landlords but for wheat.
Gaffer isn't totally comfortable with The Gays and lowkey worries Bilbo is gonna corrupt his son with all this book learning, but y'know what? Bilbo's always been nice to him, he's good to get a beer with, and Gaffer's not gonna stand for any asshole miller's rumormongering. Maybe the gays are okay.
is he... you know... *mimes going on a life-changing adventure and acquiring an ancient forbidden treasure that will destroy his life*
Excerpt from Fellowship of the Ring, p31: ‘Ah, but he has likely enough been adding to what he brought at first,’ argued the miller, voicing common opinion. ‘He’s often away from home. And look at the outlandish folk that visit him: dwarves coming at night, and that old wandering conjuror, Gandalf, and all. You can say what you like, Gaffer, but Bag End’s a queer place, and its folk are queerer.’ ‘And you can say what you like, about what you know no more of than you do of boating, Mr. Sandyman,’ retorted the Gaffer, disliking the miller even more than usual. ‘If that’s being queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in these parts. There’s some not far away that wouldn’t offer a pint of beer to a friend, if they lived in a hole with golden walls. But they do things proper at Bag End.
The miller complaining about how that nice eccentric old writer is always having men visit after dark, how he's corrupting the young hobbits with his tales of scandalous, indecorous adventure,
wait this kinda blew up. wait! come back! I need to tell everyone how heavily Bilbo and Frodo are coded as old gay confirmed bachelors and how Gaffer Gamgee is the kind of allyship we need right n
Screenshot of text from Fellowship of the Ring: 'Are the stories about it true?’ asked Pippin. ‘I don’t know what stories you mean,’ Merry answered. ‘If you mean the old bogey-stories Fatty’s nurses used to tell him, about goblins and wolves and things of that sort, I should say no. At any rate I don’t believe them. But the Forest is queer. Everything in it is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on, so to speak, than things are in the Shire. And the trees do not like strangers. They watch
"queer just meant 'weird' back then" um hi then explain this flawless summary of the queer mindset
Oh my gosh. I still reference Baman Piderman as my favorite animated webseries, or among my favorites (there are so many new competitors nowadays). I quote it endlessly and nobody knows what I'm talking about. This is amazing. Congratulations on getting it recovered!
After years of behind the scenes effort we have LICENSED Baman Piderman lmao. It'll be coming home to our channel in august. This is literally the best I could do and took me about 7 years!! I HOPE THIS WILL MEAN SOMETHING TO SOMEONE!!
Yeah, in my mind, that's a "cozy location" that just doesn't have anything going on! You always need hooks and potential rivals and stuff.
I'd say a great example of a "cozy location" is Pathfinder's Sandpoint, a quaint coastal town with ethical leadership and lovable bartenders. The key is to give the location an overall cozy vibe and then lace it with horrifying problems underneath.
