Who Pulls Your Strings and Makes You Dance. (SSSS.Gridman)

Commisioned by Fidel Jiron Jr.

A few years back, when I was a freshman in college, I wrote a short story. It’s not that good, all things considered. It’s a bit too crap to actually share with you, but it’s thematically relevant. It was a second person story about someone writing a short story. They were lacking any ideas as to what they were writing, when suddenly someone came into their room. (I think I wrote the story with the assumption that the “you” was a guy, but I never actually provided any pronouns or gendered language to “you.”) After a brief conversation, they proceed to have sex. (Again, Freshman in high school.) After having non-descript sex for many hours, “you” comes to the realization that “you’re” still typing. When you read what you’ve been typing, you notice that that what you’re typing is the words being read in the short story. At first, you laugh it off. But then you look at the person (woman, let me be honest) you had sex with, only to see that you have no idea what they actually look like. Because you (I) didn’t give them any physical descriptions, not even a name. At first, you try to come up with some character designs and names, but you screwed up in the worst way possible (no, I’m not saying how. It was awful and I regret everything about it) and try to revise the description to be less horrible.

But then, the implications dawn on you about creating a fictional real person who exists just to have sex with you. Who has no choice but to have sex with you. Who is forced to have sex with you. And then, all the other implications hit me: what about all the other people in the world? Who are they and what lives do they live? What right did I have to dictate their lives, their stories? So, I broke down and called for my mother. Suddenly, your mother appeared as a comfort to you. And then, a dreadful thought came into our minds: what is our mother’s name? All she says of herself is that she’s our mother, but we can call her mommy. Mortified by the lack of imagination on the part of the writer, you try to figure a way out (just as you look at a conveniently placed mirror and realize that you don’t look like anything at all. Just a vague set of body parts). The ultimate solution I came up to escape: “And then, you woke up from this weird dream.”

SSSS.Gridman is, in many ways, a better expression of this existential dread. If one finds oneself the god of a fictional world, the writer to use the honest phrase, why make nothing bad happen? After all, stories tend to involve some conflict, be it friends moving, people you love dying, or giant monsters attacking the city. If nothing bad happened to people, then the story would be boring. But you’re the writer, so if people actually died, if there was actual damage, then you could simply reset the world and move those deaths to a point prior to the story so none of the characters feel bad. The horror of a monster of the week show with negative continuity writ large.

For that matter, why have empathy for characters who don’t work within the narrative? Those Scrappy Doos, those Wesley Crushers, those bad characters whose stories just aren’t working. Or, for that matter, the characters whose stories feel like they need to end in their deaths. Not because you hate them or anything, but because it’s the right way to go for the story. This isn’t a concern of SSSS.Gridman, but it is on my mind since I read Satoshi Kon’s Opus recently, which also deals in these themes. The point is, aren’t fictional characters, especially the ones we interact with, real. Not in the sense of you or I, but they still have an impact on lives, on other people’s stories. More people know who Spider-Man or Scott Free are than they will Sean Dillon.

SSSS.Gridman is about growing a sense of empathy towards the characters we create. Even the Scrappies. It might seem better to have a story without the characters we don’t like, but it wouldn’t be the story we liked if they weren’t there at all. They’re as much a part of the story as the ones we do like, the quiet scenes of character drama, and the rip-roaring action of Kaiju fights. The world would be something different without the queers, the weirdoes, and me. After all, though it may be a dream to Akane Shinjō, but it’s real to everyone else.

Many writers, myself included, come to the dilemma of what to do when we have empathy for our characters. It becomes hard to do horrible, awful things to them. To have them fight monsters or even create monsters. Of course, what does that say about the writer of our world. Our evil mastermind behind the scenes, the wicked puppeteer who pulls our strings and makes us dance. Who can live with all the horrible things that happen in our world.

The answer, of course is that it’s not real for them. It’s just a story. More than likely, I’m some minor character in the background of someone else’s story. But when Akane was in the dream, they were real in the sense of you or I and not fictional like she is to us. Writers forget that detail when we write ourselves into the narrative. We can forget to have empathy for the people around us and think them as much fictional characters with ticks and repeated tropes as the characters we create.

That’s the metaphor for being a writer in one’s own story after all: how do we treat other people, even the ones we don’t like? Do we see them as not being people, thus acceptable to murder? Do we see them as tools, as a means to an end? Or do we see them as people? Broken people, angry people, cruel people, kind people, happy people, but people nonetheless. We are full of multitudes, even the worst of us. And we can’t stop those who don’t see others as people if we don’t see them as people in the first place. (I mean, you can, but you'd just be treating symptoms rather than the disease.)

I’m Sorry; I Just Don’t Have Much to Say About (True Romance)

Commissioned by Ted Adams

A few months back, I caught some flack by noted critic who’s better than me at literary criticism, Will Brooker, over a political compass I made based on the films of Quentin Tarantino by saying that True Romance was a Quentin Tarantino film. In my defense, True Romance is the only work by Tarantino out at the time that would be considered purely “Authoritarian Right” (other than Kill Bill Vol. 1, but I had to stick the two Kill Bills together) and I was quite cross at Tarantino at the time.

At the time, another critic who’s much better at this than me, Scout Tafoya, did a video examining the film and found it… wanting for a lot of obvious reasons, not the least of which being “it has one of Quentin Tarantino’s most racist monologues in it and it’s extremely uncritical of the guy who’s blatantly supposed to be Quentin Tarantino.” That’s not to say that people haven’t made the case for it. I’m sure another critic better at this than me, like Lindsey Romain, could make the case for it. But I just don’t have the energy to do so.

So instead, let’s talk, briefly, about a song from the Estelle album True Romance: All That Matters. Normally when I talk about music, I take a lyric by lyric analysis of the song with occasional noting of the more musical aspects of it, but the beauty of All That Matters is more in how the song is performed than in its lyrics. Not that the lyrical component isn’t important, but rather that one can’t quite capture the soulful longing of Estelle’s voice through simply talking about the symbolism of the music.

Every aspect of the song goes into the core theme of All That Matters: that of a love that was true and honest, but now is no longer. The instruments low tones and slow beat give the song an air of melancholy and distance. Estelle’s singing is beautiful as ever, but also aches with the absence of her true love. That’s ultimately the sign of a True Romance: the hole it leaves behind when it’s gone. The original ending of the film had the blatant Tarantino stand in die and Alabama, the female lead, reveal that she didn’t actually love him. She was in a bad place and needed a way out. Theirs was not a True Romance.

But then, lies are part of the point for Tarantino. His films, after all, largely deal with the stories we tell ourselves to keep us going, to protect us from those who would do us harm, the lies that shape the world. But there’s a truth lying underneath the lies, the stories, the movies we watch. The Tarantino stand in, in the original script, thought that one date was enough to create a True Romance. But, as Estelle notes, it’s the moments together that make up a True Romance. But, as she also notes, all that matters is the time we’ve spent together. Sometimes, you only get the length of a movie.

What is your favorite Tarantino film?
Reservoir Dogs (Libertarian Left)

True Romance (Authoritarian Right)

Natural Born Killers (Right Axis)

Pulp Fiction (Libertarian Axis)

From Dusk ‘till Dawn (Authoritarian Axis)

Jackie Brown (Libertarian Left)

Kill Bill (Libertarian Right) [Vol. 1- Authoritarian Right; Vol. 2- Libertarian Axis]

Death Proof (Libertarian Left) [Me]

Inglorious Bastards (Left Axis)

Django Unchained (Authoritarian Left)

The Hateful Eight (Authoritarian Left)

Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood (All Four Quadrants)

I don’t like Quentin Tarantino films at all (Libertarian Left or Authoritarian Right)

I think Pulp Fiction is his best, while Jackie Brown, Death Proof, and at least one Kill Bill are his worst (Authoritarian Right)

Run. Run You Clever Little Boy. And Remember Me. (The Clara Trilogy)

Commissioned by Freezing Inferno

Midway writing the original idea for this post, I realized I was approaching it from the wrong angle. Initially, I was going to do a semi sequel to my Faction Paradox/Clara Echo short story “The Eyes of Her Double” that would be structurally akin to the Utena post I wrote a while back, i.e. focusing on three characters from that story in a way that would mirror what happens in the Clara Trilogy (that being Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, and Hell Bent). Some of the lines were somewhat good (the opening to the Face the Raven one would’ve been “It’s 2019 and there are concentration camps in America). However, as I went on writing it, I kinda hit a wall in the process. This happens from time to time, so I did what I always do when I hit a wall: procrastinate and go for a walk.

While on my walk, it occurred to me that I didn’t like what I was writing. The direction I was going with the Face the Raven one required an amount of trust the audience needs to give me that I don’t think I built up (the Clara echo of that story would’ve been a bus driver to the camp, but revealed at the end to be taking them to a refugee town that ties into the psychogeograpic/liminal space themes of Face the Raven, but I felt I wasn’t pulling it off as well as I could. Maybe some other day). I had no idea what I was doing with the Heaven Sent one, and Hell Bent ultimately rejected the premise of “stories about Clara echos” to be a Seventh Doctor story that’s also a sequel to the Rose book. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t happy with what I was writing.

And so, I returned to the drawing board. Fortunately one such idea has been mulling around in my head for a while, arguably since Series 7 of Doctor Who. But first, I must talk briefly about one of the major criticism levied against the Clara Trilogy: Clara should not have survived at the end of the story. One of the first times I saw the argument was in a video wherein the person arguing it claimed that the reasons she should have died was because she took risks in order to emulate the Doctor, who knows what they are doing.

Putting aside that the argument is essentially “girl does something that man does but fails because man know what he’s doing“ (the video was made prior to Jodie Whittaker being cast as the Doctor), to say the Doctor know what the hell they’re doing is complete and utter rubbish. The Doctor explicitly has no idea what they are doing. Even the incarnation typically seen as having the most idea of what they’re doing (that being the one played by Sylvester McCoy) is, upon closer examination, only slightly aware of what he’s doing. Note how practically every single one of his clever schemes from Paradise Towers to Gabriel Chase to the Master’s furry phase has inevitably ended with “Oh crap, it looks like I’ll have to improvise after all.” The Doctor doesn’t even know how to turn off the TARDIS’ brakes for crying out loud.

But there’s also an undercurrent of a critique of the Moffat era as a whole that the Clara Trilogy works wonderfully as a counter towards. That being why aren’t there consequences? To understand the question, we must understand what people mean when they say “Consequences.” After all, the consequence of, say, the Doctor being sent to a space station where the space suits are trying to kill the employees has the consequence of the space suits being fought against. Or, to use a more critical example, the Doctor visiting the Kerblam factory ends with the Doctor scolding the people fighting against the system that did nothing wrong and the employeesget two months off with two weeks paid leave . (Somebody please commission me to write about Kerblam. I have an angle that will be weird, but enlightening.)

However, this is not what people mean by consequences. Perhaps the best summation comes from Mr TARDIS, a YouTuber who I once followed until he said that the problem with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was that the Death of Gwen Stacy was enough of Peter’s fault. In a recent tweet thread about the problems of Steven Moffat (which mostly showed that the only people good at pointing out the problems of Steven Moffat are people who generally like his work and Jack Graham), he mentioned that his big issue with the Moffat era was the lack of consequences. Upon elaborating, he said “Clara returning in S9 rendered her and the Doctor's arc in S8 pointless and in S9 she didn't even die and got to live forever and before Capaldi regenerated it turns out he remembered her.Yes, S8 and S9 are consequence free.”

Let us put aside the issue regarding Clara’s return in Series 9 negating Series 8 as that would require a focus on the whole of Clara that I AM NOT PREPAIRED TO WRITE. Rather, his comments on Clara’s survival at the end of the Clara Trilogy highlight the nature of consequences in regards to this critique: they are static, bad things that happen to the main characters. Once they happen, they can never be contradicted by the consequences of other things. Nor can they cascade into other consequences that contradict the initial ones.

That is, after all, the central storytelling structure of the Moffat era: the farcical cascade of consequences from something rather small. Let us use the Clara Trilogy as our example as that is what this post is ostensibly about. The story begins with the relatively small event of a neighborhood kid named Rigsy being framed for a crime he didn’t commit involving an alien. The consequence of this is that Rigsy has a tattoo on his neck that’s counting down to zero. To prevent this, Clara decides to buy some time by taking the tattoo on herself, which has the consequence of her death. Equally, the consequence of the Doctor trying to solve the mystery of Rigsy’s death is that he gets sent to a torture chamber where he dies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until he escapes into Galifrey, which has the natural consequence most times have of the Doctor entering a corrupt system: the Doctor tears it down. Once the powers that be are removed, the Doctor proceeds to cut Clara out of Face the Raven and into Hell Bent. The consequences of this are time and space being rent asunder, the Doctor’s memories being wiped, and Clara getting her own TARDIS and staring in a book series showrun by Caitlin Smith.

The issue people like Mr TARDIS seem to have is that the consequence of Clara taking the tattoo seems to be undone by the consequence of the Doctor deciding to edit out Clara from Face the Raven. There are two ways to deal with this. The first would be that Clara is probably going to go back to that moment. Though she doesn’t have Amy Pond’s attachment to her memories, Clara still has some level of value of them: “These have been the best years of my life, and they are mine. Tomorrow is promised to no one, Doctor, but I insist upon my past. I am entitled to that. It's mine.” As shown by the character of Me, it is possible for an immortal being to forget their own past. As such, once her memories start to fade beyond recognition, Clara will probably return to the Time Lords to be returned to her moment of death. (That, or do something more interesting, but we’ll get to that later.)

The second issue is that the argument is complete bunk. To put it into real life terms, it’s like saying that because you went to the hospital to get your arm fixed, there were no consequences to the arm breaking in the first place. Some might argue that the time travel aspects of the story negate this, but… look, I’m going to be blunt. The argument of Clara not dying is lame. It’s a lame idea that doesn’t go anywhere beyond “And now, Peter Capaldi’s sad because he had to wipe away Clara’s memories like he did Donna.” This fetishization of static consequences ultimately results in the lamest shit that leads to things like Big Finish doing a story where they kill everyone they can because it’s dark and edgy.

Is it not enough that Clara isn’t on the show anymore? Do we really have to add a female character dying to the mix? And especially one as interesting as Clara. Someone who embraces her vices to make other people’s lives better. A thrill seeking junkie who pushes too far and expects too much. Someone who has a drive that pushes her to become impossible and gradually dislodged from the world. A woman who is never cruel nor cowardly. Who will never give up, and never give in. Whose kindness takes the form of looking for crying children being ignored and making the world a place where the cause of tears has been solved. Who looks at a world with terrible stories and opts to tell better ones. The ending to Clara’s story could never be something as simple and mundane as death or retirement. The consequence of creating a character such as Clara Oswald is that she was inevitably going to steal a TARDIS and run away.

(Since someone is going to ask, no, it does not negate the metaphor. Time travel stories are full of stories about people going back and changing things for the better. That’s literally what Quantum Leap is about. And given that time and space were supposedly being rent asunder when she was out, Clara being returned to her time of death is an inevitability. There’s still her body lying on the street after all. Of course, some other writer could come up with a story wherein a clone of her is put in her place and the tattoo is removed through other means. A lot can happen in a split second after all. The point of the article is that thinking Clara being dead is more interesting than Clara being alive and traveling the universe with her ever growing harem of space bisexuals is a lame way of looking at the story. Plus, you know, The Clara Trilogy is more invested in the relationship between Clara and the Doctor than it is in time travel mechanics.)

The Bomb Was an Idea (DC The New Frontier + JSA The Golden Age)

Commissioned by Clarence Drilling

“Before the bomb was a bomb, the bomb was an idea. Superman, however, was a faster, stronger, better idea.”

-Grant Morrison

Things The Golden Age isn't
interested in: People of Color.
Also silence.

Even if the commission wasn’t for me to contrast these two works, reading The Golden Age brings up so many parallels with The New Frontier. Mainly, that one wishes they were reading Darwin Cooke’s seminal comic book instead. For those who haven’t read either book, a brief explanation: James Robinson and Paul Smith’s The Golden Age tells of an alternate past of the DC universe where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman never existed and instead focused on the superhero team the JSA in a political thriller whose main politics are “McCarthyism is kin to Hitler.” Indeed, there’s not much interest in exploring the implications of “So HUAC was actually part of a secret ploy by the Ultra-Humanite and the brain of Adolf Hitler to take over the world” in the story. The politics are largely background noise that isn’t as developed as it could have been.

Conversely, The New Frontier has Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in the mud of the 50’s. It’s about the softening of the Superhero in the face of the silver age, yes. But there’s also an edge to the story. There’s the famous Wonder Woman leading a group of Vietnamese women to slaughter the men who had enslaved them, but less talked about is Superman’s ultimate character arc of rejecting being an agent of the American government on the grounds that the philosophy of “My country no matter what” is complete bunk. And that’s not even getting into the John Henry subplot.

All of which to say is that The New Frontier is ultimately a better text that The Golden Age because it has a modicum of ambition. Of course, you’d probably expect something more out of a comparison between the two than less than 300 words, and as such let’s look at the most interesting idea The Golden Age has: The connection between the atom bomb and the superhero. Many a writer has discussed the connection between the two, most recently Al Ewing in The Immortal Hulk. But where Ewing ties the bomb specifically to the Hulk due to the nature of his origin, Robinson takes it one step further by claiming the bomb is the natural extension of the superhero.

There is an argument to be made for this. The bomb, much like the superhero, changed the world forever by its mere presence. As David Lynch and Mark Frost argue in the eighth episode of Twin Peaks The Return, dropping the bomb solely as a test to see its capabilities is enough to change the world for the worse. Because the reality of the bomb is such an existential horror of mass genocide sped up to mere seconds that only a monster would think lightly on dropping it once, let alone twice. The bomb is a coercive presence in the American psyche, one that has its tendrils in practically every aspect of the American imagination.

Though the bomb isn’t as prominent in The New Frontier as it is in The Golden Age, its impact certainly is. The obvious one to look at would be McCarthyism. While Superman and Batman aren’t taken to speak at HUAC, the vibe of that era’s paranoia (which The Golden Age apes over all else) is felt throughout the series. It’s in the racist shitheels lynching John Henry and the President advocating Wonder Woman not preach her revolutionary beliefs and the government bringing nukes into space in case the Martians want to start a war.

On that note, the very presence of aliens is another impact of the bomb. While there were cases of alien abductions prior to the bomb, the “threat” of some alien kidnapping you for nefarious purposes increased tenfold after the bomb exploded. In the past, such experiences would be considered contact with a higher power, but the genre shifted after the bomb. Science fiction had a boom in the wake of the bomb, focusing on stories that talk of real science that doesn’t believe in the unknown. Where rationality devoid of “feelings” can defeat any obstacle. Truly, it was a golden age of science fiction, when men were allowed to be men and women were seen, but not heard.

But at the same time as exploring these lurking ideas birthed by the bomb, The New Frontier doesn’t provide a solution to these problems. As with The Golden Age, whose musings on the bomb’s relationship with the superhero are ultimately underdeveloped as the rest of its ideas, The New Frontier lobs solutions to the next age of superheroes, the Silver Age as it were. Superman may not be an agent of the US government, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually going to fight against it in this softer age of camp villains and starfish aliens.

That’s not to say the comic is blind to such problems. Indeed, the ending montage works against the teleological read of “everything is better now” by contrasting the JFK speech that gives the book its title, specifically “Today some would say that those struggles are over—that all the horizons have been explored—that all the battles have been won—that there is no longer an American frontier,” with an image of a black child walking away from a guarded water fountain that says “White Only.” But that still leaves us with the void of a solution. The void of the path forward.

Superhero utopianism is a nice idea. It’s one that more writers should explore. Both The Golden Age and The New Frontier ultimately gesture towards this direction, but their failures ultimately come from assuming the superhero is inherently a good idea. Sure, Superman is a better idea than the bomb, but at the same time all ideas have their limits. Many have made the case for the superhero being a terrible idea that does more harm than good. Some of them have even been good cases that don’t fit into the typical strawman argument that the comics fandom has fashioned out of Seduction of the Innocent.

Ultimately, despite what Grant Morrison might say, Superman isn’t enough to beat the bomb. Because, tragically, we made the bomb up, and it came true anyway. That's the funny part.

Print the Legend (Green Arrow Year One)

Commissioned by Michael. Happy Birthday!

Oliver Queen is a shit in the way that many argue Batman is. On the one hand, he recognizes the injustices of his privilege and how giving a little to charity isn’t the same as actually giving a shit about the less fortunate. On the other hand, he believes in the systems of power that he claims to want to rebel against. He sees the authority of the police as valid enough to send off to do the paper work while he gallivants around the city as a mysterious hero. He’s an addict to various things from death defying feats to opium. Also, Oliver’s kind of a racist in that there’s a running gag about him calling the main baddie, Chein Na-Wei, “China White.”

That isn’t to say that Green Arrow Year One is a bad comic or even unaware of these aspects. It’s good and it does. But it’s perhaps best to open with an acknowledgement that Oliver Queen is not a good person. Nor is his arc in this story that of becoming a good person thanks to the help of some dead foreigners ala Iron Man. As Oliver himself notes, he didn’t do much to stop the slavers running the opium fields. It was the slaves that revolted and did the hard work of overthrowing their masters. But his presence on the island gave them hope that they can succeed in defeating their masters.

The stories that inspire us to be better aren’t always that great. If one were to actually do a close analysis of any number of Star Trek series, one could easily find racism, sexism, homophobia, and imperialist leanings. And yet, many left leaning people have found inspiration in those series, be it to go to the moon or shape their own utopia. The story of a man who is able to rebel against the oppressors, even if his story isn’t enough, is always a useful one to tell.

But equally, it is important to remember that these are stories being told, ones with flaws and problems. If one were to buy into the legend of a mythical white man coming to a foreign land and inspiring the people to rise up, one could miss the flaws in the story. Though Diggle does a lot of work to avoid the obvious white savior pitfalls, there is still a twinge of it lurking under the surface. The Asian baddies are shown to be plotting to use the opium they enslave the villagers to grow to create new generations of addicts in America. And there are times when it’s hard to actually root for Oliver Queen because he’s such a shit.

One could read those statements and see this as destroying other people’s fun and inspiration. And while there is at times a bit of that when it comes to criticism (usually when said fun involves being evil) that is not the purpose of critiquing inspirational texts. Rather, it is to help shape better texts to come in the future, ones not defined by rich white guys who are implausibly good at taking down people who benefit from a system of cruelty without actually dealing with said system. One doesn’t want to be trapped in the utopia of the 1960’s. There weren’t that many gay people in those.

The Legend of the Auu Lanu Lau’ava will be important to the culture of those who survived the wrath of the slavers and who succeeded in overthrowing them. It will, as all legends do, change over time to reflect the time it is being told. Some elements of it may be lost while others will find new relevance. The story of revolution is always necessary in times of cruelty and distress. But the critique of the story is likewise necessary.

Green Arrow Year One is a close look at the defining moment where Oliver Queen decided to change his addiction from Alcohol to Superheroics. The art by Jock is well drawn, in particular the angular way he draws his characters to evoke the crooked nature of the world being presented. Andy Diggle does wonders with the six issues he’s provided and makes the most out of a genuinely unlikable protagonist. The colors are at once muted and poppy. And it’s a quick, well-written read.

But it’s also playing a bit too closely to the white savior tropes and themes that it almost becomes awful. It’s not really about those themes and implications in the way that Gene Luen Yang’s The Shadow Hero is about Fu Manchu. It’s not interested in examining the base assumptions of the genre beyond avoiding the obvious holes. It’s a well-written book that you’ll have a good time reading. It’s just not one with a lot of stimulating implications.

Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly (Tuca & Bertie)

Commisioned by Aleph Null

Trigger warning: sexual assault.

HOT FUZZ (2007)
Cinematography by Jess Hall
Directed by Edgar Wright

Tuca & Berite is a delightful throwback to the nineties animated sitcom. Specifically, the kind of animated sitcom that relied on treating the animated world as a canvas rather than a representation of the real world and also didn’t have the lesson everyone got from South Park that being a giant asshole who hates everyone (but is conveniently softer on conservatives than they are on liberals) is a good substitute for a sense of humor. Which is to say that it’s more in the mold of the rubbier episodes of The Simpsons (Sheri Bobbins, Hank Scorpio, Tomaco) than Brickleberry.

The show focuses on a pair of anthropomorphic birds named Tuca and Bertie who fit into the archetypes of “free spirited party girl” and “repressed career girl.” Together, we see them explore the various highs and lows of friendship, love, and workplace drama. But unlike many a throwback series that’s banking on people knowing what the 90’s felt like, Tuca & Bertie takes the lessons learned since the 90’s and applies them to their new series. Specifically, in regards to serialization and the politics of the show.

Throughout the series, Bertie takes on an apprenticeship with a very famous chef whose training style is very… hands on, a phrase which here means “#MeToo.” While not going as far as depicting an actual rape, the imagery of and framing fits within many a narrative of a sexual assault survivor, specifically one in denial of what has happened to them. It’s sympathetic to Bertie’s situation, exploring the ways in which denial and self loathing made her think such things as sexual assault were ok to happen to her.

Equally, Tuca is dealing with having to live on her own as a disaster who can’t keep a job and is estranged from her family for various sad reasons that involve a history of alcoholism, a feeling that everyone who loves you will just abandon you, and dependency on a rich aunt signing checks. Ultimately, Tucan & Bertie help each other through their various issues and grow as people, a rarity for a sitcom.

Indeed, the show is very much a rarity in the sitcom genre as it’s written from a perspective of women. The head writer and creator of the series, Bojack Horseman alumni Lisa Hanawait, brings a sweetness and humanity to the series’ general rubberiness and cartoony charm that one typically doesn’t see in even modern sitcoms. You wouldn’t think 2 Broke Girls would have a cutaway to the two having a heart to heart about an old flame in the midst of a heated argument.

Overall, Tuca & Bertie is a delightful show that’s worth the five hours it takes to watch. Also it has Steven Yeun, easily the best part of most things he’s in, as the put upon boyfriend who has a picture of his own face and had to eat his own grandmother because she was baked into a cake. That’s just delightfully weird in a way you don’t see in modern sitcoms.

Calvinball: A Guide for Sane People

Originally posted 4/26/15

Portrait of a normal game of Calvinball

Calvinball is a game in which there is a ball. From there things get interesting. For starters, in the infamous game of 2001, the Gophers beat Team Grasshopper by using the penalty stick of doom on the thirtieth ball hole, thereby wining the game and receiving the hockey puck of shame. Conversely, in the game of 1987, the luddites used the same maneuver on the the church of scientology, only to be disqualified for the exact same reason. And then there was that infamous game where there was no ball, so the team had to play with a kettle and some string.

What I'm trying to get at is that Calvinball is a unique game wherein there is no structured set of rules to play it with. Much like Mao, you just make them up as you go along. The experience is... interesting to say the least. For example, unlike in Mao wherein the lack of explanation of the rules can be used for bullying purposes (i.e. to exclude those who don't know what's going on in the simplest of terms), Calvinball seems to be more within a postmodernist view rejecting a singular truth (and newtons sleep, if Blake's your fancy) in favor of multiple contradictory truths that are all fun to play with (which is really why #gamergate is so evil: they have a singular vision of what their culture and the products and influences of it are and (much like any culture dominated by straight white men) will fight any attempt at disproving any contradictory notions like "Women, LGBTQIA, and people of other skin tones have always been playing video games" (even when facts back these contradictory notions) through cruel and violent means. And, much like Thatcher and Whitehouse before them, they're no fun).

Frankly, the only sensible response.

As such, there really isn't any way to cheat the game, so much as alter the shape of the game. But how does one do that? Simple: you just tell the other player that there's a new rule which allows you to win easier and pray they don't come up with a rule that makes your attempts harder (really, the only constant rule in the game is that you can't just say "Behold! I have the Stick of Truth! Therefore, I! AM! VICTORIOUS! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Because, that's just a dull way of playing the game and goes against everything Calvinball and Postmodernism stand for and you should be ashamed of yourself Steve. What? You thought we forgot about you Steve Carlsberg? We'll never forget. NEVER!). In short, after playing the game for a long period of time, I have come to realize that, inna final analysis, the most important part of any game is that you get something out of it. Whether it's the melancholy of The Walking Dead, the philosophical nirvana brought about by The Stanley Parable, the catharsis of Depression Quest, or even the joy of Super Mario World, we all get need something out of the stories we experience.

Also do not make the tiger angry, he will eat you.

(Thank you for joining us for this semester long look at video games and the culture that surrounds them. One of my regrets is that I never talked about any of the blatantly video game inspired shows released over the years. Ah well, c'est la vie. Regardless, I hope you've had as much fun as I've had and wish you all Many Happy Returns.)

(This post was brought to you by The Super Nintendo Project, an analytical look at a selection of video games released on the Super Nintendo. The creator of the series claims it to be a magical ritual to banish #GamerGate out of existence, so you know, business as usual in our mad little world. The first post, on Super Mario World, can be found here.)