medialog

beautiful world, where are you

I forgot what it was like to relate to words and want to highlight passages. Long form distanced communication that takes time and effort feels like a lost art in the age of short content proliferating. The difference in writing between Eileen and Alice frustrates me, with Eileen's consideration for Alice as an afterthought using her emails to Alice like a diary. Not good friend material imo...

fourth wing

I am hesitant to admit that I could not put this book down. The story and premise is exciting and I found myself giggling at character intereactions more than a few times.

I read a foreword for one of Stephen King's novels about poor writing having sentences that take you out of the story because it's poorly written, and this book honestly was the epitome of that idea, which made it hard to enjoy thoroughly. Dragons and telepathy is unarguably intriguing and entertaining, but I don't foresee myself investing in the rest of the series - it's not worth the time.

ted lasso

i've rewatched this show once or twice a year since the second season was coming out and i remain absolutely smitten. of course i have my various qualms with the third season, i know many did, but upon rewatch i think it held up significantly better than i expected. i definitely judged it more harshly when i was watching it as it was airing. my expectations were higher i suppose.

i remain staunch in my keeley loving ways but jamie really grew on me on this time around. my friend jamie :-) just all around delightful. i rewatched it while working on an oil painting of my dead cat so i think i cried harder than i usually do at all the moments that are supposed to make you cry.

platonic

northingburger show full of suburbanites who love to complain. one thing i'm learning about seth rogen is that he is famous for mediocre comedy and being universally hateable. i just could not get behind his character in this one. also for a show thats entire premise is "best friends who make each other worse" they really did not make each other that much worse. i guarantee they were bad all by themselves. can't believe i wasted an evening on this one, not gonna lie.

ghosts

my bi-annual rewatch of ghosts is complete :-) cried as always. i love alison so much she is my goat i'm obsessed with her conniving ways. ill come back and add more to this later.

angelyne

biopic show to disparage its subject of all time. i thought the push/pull of how much information angelyne wanted to share was exhausting and honestly it all came off kind of rude towards her. they don't take her seriously as a subject and yeah maybe she didn't want people to dredge up her past but its not like she killed anyone... there was no REASON to expose her. her backstory literally isn't even interesting and yet all these men went to so much trouble to find out. i guess being alluring for your mystery sometimes works against you. anyway i thought the premise and many of the fictionalized men were very annoying but angelyne herself seemed like such an interesting character. i'm always fascinated when people become part of a city's mythology and her billboard stunt quite literally puts her in the physical history of LA. not my favorite miniseries of the year but also not all that bad. just kind of meh!

amandaland

sister series to motherland following none other than amanda herself. i love these shows because they're so patently british. just the dryest humor possible. amanda is the character of all time, i think she was such a good choice for the continuation. of course i miss paul ready as kevin, the stay at home dad of the group but i was bewitched by mal. saddest dad of all time. chin up little pup!

honestly i liked the characters this time around better than the ones in motherland. julia was mostly pitiable in her frustration around motherhood but amanda is straight up so annoying i'm obsessed with her. her relationship with her work is so entertaining but i also appreciate it as a narrative about her recent divorce. even though it's kind of cloaked in amanda's pride i think it speaks to the ways that women struggle to find stability after becoming financially independent as a result of divorce. johannes as a kind of draw back into that life of luxury but at the cost of having to hang out with literally the most annoying (negative) guy on the planet was such a great device for this series. also gammy vaping it up with the middle schoolers I LAUGHED.

would you believe me if i told that at 1:04 am when i finished this i tried to go to sleep but couldn't and instead wrote 500 words in a google doc detailing my various feelings about this show and when i read it back this morning i realized it's literally still just the tip of the iceberg? yeah i wouldn't either.

this show isn't perfect (i say that every time), and there are lots of things i could complain about (and will, in a longer article), but this show kind of rewired my brain for the better. and this is coming from a guy who thinks dance as an art is stupid. thats how good this show is.

more to come.

overcompensating

title is right on the nose. holy disgusting. i did not realize this was a sex comedy going in #Mybad and well. i was kind of just waiting for the sex jokes to end and then they DIDN'T. i was bamboozled but i'm also truly befuddled by the fact that this is like one of the hottest shows right now because it feels like it encapsulates unironically everything that is wrong with the world (to me) right now? like why are you saying the r slur for fun. please stop. this was so weird and 2000s and i literally gave up on it but then i thought writing the review was going to be really entertaining for me so i finished it. and im glad i finished it because the last 2 episodes were the most tolerable of the entire show.

murderbot

[whimpering] someone get me out of there they put me in the timeline where live action murderbot is a white man who's being misgendered so as to imply personhood [clutches at my head].

im hating it so far. if you even care.

the good place

my every other year rewatch of the good place complete. i cant believe i first watched this show in 2019... how surreal. anyway my friends tahani and eleanor and chidi and jason and janet and michael :-)

never fails to astound me! what a masterpiece of television. there are only a few episodes that don't retain my attention fully and even those are still pretttttyy decent. bawled my eyes out over the finale as per usual!

i stand strong in my chidi-isms to this day be tee dubs. maybe ill come back and write more later but for now this is all ive got. i love them!

timeline of events:

1. i start this on saturday and am enthralled but don't have time to continue. watch 3/4s of ep 2 with my mother.
2. on monday i pass out thrice while getting blood drawn and spend the 7 subsequent miserable hours watching the rest of the show to distract me from a searing headache
3. i make my friend watch the hour and seven minute long finale with zero prior knowledge of the show. she turns to me halfway through and says "you didn't tell me this was GOOD!" i respond: you doubted me?

i loved this show. far be it from me to judge it harshly since i watched most of it nauseated and with only one eye half-open LOL. this hit a lot of boxes for me though. i don't think many of the beginning episodes are perfect or monumental in any way but they're cozy and well constructed/acted and there wasn't a single moment where i was truly annoyed about what i was watching.

the main character is a passionate birder and drives every serious character up the wall which is a win in MY book. i really loved her deeply she will stick with me for the rest of time. cordelia cupp ftw. i was amused by edwin, this is the second time ive seen randall park play a bumbling fbi agent and well he certainly knows how to play them. the way that the whodunit was set up was also fresh in many ways. murder mysteries thrive on subversions of the genre and the residence was no different. it reminded me of the afterparty in the way that each interviewee's point of view was uniquely portrayed. it was very grounded in the reality that our (or most people's) memories are fallible and eyewitness testimony falls prey to that fault.

i loved the quality of the shots as well, it was very vintage murder-mystery-y while maintaining contemporary themes. im a sucker for fancy party media anyway so id say 5/5 stars incredibly enjoyable. another 1 in 1000 netflix win. i hope they don't cancel it because i'll be furious.

ferris bueller's day off

this is one of maybe three or four movies i'm willing to rewatch semi-frequently (the others being: venom, venom 2, and knives out). by god i love this kid. i live my life by perhaps if not his motto, at least a parallel motto that is "no one can make me do anything & i can always quit" which i gotta say has been pretty awesome for me.

recently watched this video on the poly subtext of the movie and really enjoyed it highly recommend watching it and then rewatching the movie. ill add more to this later sniles.

new girl

i never got around to starting this show but now i have and im having a blast. instantly enamoured with nick and his bugeyes unfortunately. and schmidt (worse). definitely a product of its 2010s time but ill look past it. i'm starting to get bored but maybe it's just because i've watched 2 seasons in 2 days... we'll never really know though will we.

read the full review here

the pitt

i liked this show a whole lot more than i expected to! right off the bat, every character is interesting and unique, well written and immediately characterized. you can tell that the built them from archetypical roles but have been formed into more three dimensional people along the way. one of my favorite thing about robby is that he doesn't fall into that "cruel mentor" archetype where every conversation you have with them is just a minefield. he cares and he's nice but also effective. i appreciate that he's not just the cruelest person on the face of the earth and actually a teacher.

langdon and mel obsessed with them. guy who is the worst to everyone else nice to autistic girl and they are pals and buddies my favorite dynamic. i don't want to hate santos but unfortunately i do we would not get along. more to come

the studio

i dont think i've watched much with seth rogen in it but i gotta admit... he's good. what a muppet of a man. luv seeing the big names all over this show everyone is clearly entertained by hating matt vehemently. and the parody kool aid trailer was just so so good man... especially when that episode dropped like a week before the minecraft movie.

update as of finishing s1: what a fun ride... highly recommend. i am so tickled by the manic pace and increasingly intense jazz. almost all of the bits land, matt is somehow sort of sympathetic despite being bottom of the barrel studio exec, and the last two episodes were kind of genius. i rewatched the finale with my mom and her note was "bryan cranston just loves a role where he gets to be in his underwear." also im a quinn diehard i think she should get to legally murder someone 1x per episode. just for fun.

the core group is also really really strong, i hope zoë kravitz sticks around because every episode she was in this season was so so funny. also the adam scott guest star was BANANAS! star studded cast seriously... i cant wait for season 2 ^_^

adolescence

i think that this is another case of a mediocre work being elevated by the salience of its subject (see: careless people). while technically impressive with every episode shot in one take, the story didn't really do very much for me. i get the message and i get that it wasn't really a true crime show but more psychological thriller but also like... you can still tell how out of touch the writers are. the message doesn't feel sincere because of how dramatically teens & the current school climate are portrayed. they clearly did their best but it just didn't really land for me. also i was bored by the fact that it was basically in realtime. i dont want to watch your eight minute car ride to the store sorry. idc.

JOE BENNETT YOUR MIND.... i wasn't planning on watching this because a) it's adult swim and b) the style kind of freaks me out (those tiny faces...) but i had been recommended it by a friend & started randomly watching the first episode for free on youtube and was like man okay.. i could get into this. im obsessssed with the intro, the way it looks is everything ive ever wanted for my weird science art. petri dishes & microscopes ummm yes please. it has a distinctly similar look scavenger's reign, which i adored, so i'm so far really enjoying this.

MARSHELLLLL I WILL DIE FOR YOU!!! I WILL BE YOUR GUINEA PIG. i thought this show was mind blowing. definitely going in my top 10 of the year. lost my mind when there were greenhouses #substratemention #autism. i think it perfectly married so many discrete flavors of storytelling and themes... medical & pharma ethics... mycology... government... lesbian DEA agents... ambitious women... bless. i forgive frances for all of it i understand where u were coming from girl. also i love kiki can we get a round of applause for weird pharma scientists! JUST SOO GOOD i could yap about this show for ever but i dont want to put spoilers here. go watch the first episode free on youtube before SEASON 2 WHICH IT WAS RENEWED FOR ^_^

st. denis medical

as someone in the serialzd reviews said, "close enough, welcome back superstore." another lukewarm attempt by justin spitzer to recreate the magic of superstore. i'm impressed that they managed to get picked up for 18 whole episodes (for their first season!) so i'm feeling optimistic that it'll be able to find its footing a little easier than some of the other new sitcoms currently airing with 8-10 episodes for their first season. it's incredibly impressive that so many episodes got ordered in this tv climate.

i'm annoyed by joyce, her shenanigans are neither charming nor even remotely interesting, and that's my main complaint. my favorite characters that im most looking forward to development for is probably alex, serena, and matthew. justin spitzer always gotta have a naive and conventionally attractive young man at the forefront of his series but mekki lepper is killing it in his role so for once i will not complain.

going dutch

lowkey blatant US military propaganda. not sure how they managed to rope mr. daniel pudi into that one but i would follow that man off of the edge of a cliff so i'm sitting through it. i hate the main guy his face scares me. otherwise not a lot to say about this although i will admit it's a pretty inventive show. community walked so that this show could shuffle but they have very similarly ridiculous sentiments. i will finish watching it so you don't have to!

update as of finishing the finale: kind of so boring but well at least danny pudi is in it. sniles. i think it was a stupid premise with some funny characters. shoutout to the absolutely unselfaware dysfunctional father figure. great representation for disappointed daughters of loser fathers :-) i thought the coalition of ex wives was dope also. good for them.

severance

finally started this show after seeing everybody scream and cry over it for the last 3 years. i will admit, their reaction is 100% warranted. i didn't watch this show when it first came out because i knew it was going to mess with my head and so i decided to wait until i could handle it better. thank god i did because i legitimately trembled through the entire last episode of season one. unbelievable.

irving b & devon & mark s my goats (in 2 ways!).... this is probably one of the more inventive science-fiction shows i've watched in a while and it's uncanny in a way that i really really enjoy. i used to write a lot of fiction that involved animals in office spaces so i'm the target demographic here i think. deeply deeply obsessed with mark and devon's relationship. i can't help but be a siblings-on-tv truther I LOVE YOU SIBLINGS ON TV!!!!!!

100% this show is worth the hype although i can sympathize with the people who say it moves too slowly. i think that suspense is kind of the hinge of the plot and the show wouldn't work without it but even i found myself skipping around sometimes when i would get too bored/stressed. sometimes i stop tolerating those 1 million minute long shots with no dialogue like okay Thank you that's enough.

fallout

ella purnell the actress you are..... i started watching this when it first came out but i just couldn't get into it but i decided to give it another shot and then finished it in like 2 days. i think my favorite part were the sets/environments and the amount of really tangible worldbuilding. i never played the games so i went in pretty blind to the story but very well executed mystery/thriller! i even loved the flashbacks which can bring reviews up by full stars in my mind because a lot of shows make their flashbacks just so unbelievably boring that when they're engaging i'm pretty much sold.

seeing mr. walton goggins in this role made me understand the group of people who like thirst post about him because only having experienced him as baby billy i did naawttt get it. i enjoy his range. also LOL JOHNNY PEMBERTON i cant take him seriously after seeing him in superstore. like sorry that's bo and he can't escape that. ms purnell was so delightful as lucy though oughhh she did such a good job walking that line between lucy's naiveté and having to adjust her values to the reality of the outside world. great sheltered kid representation here.

north of north

a new (currently airing), sitcom i picked up because well i'm the arctic guy of course. kind of trite and hard to take seriously but silly enough that i'm invested.

update as of finishing the finale: i feel for these nascent shows trying to prove themselves in a very limited amount of time! but i also can't really excuse it when it's just kind of weirdly paced. i get that they had 8 episodes and a pragmatic outlook on the possibility of a new season but speeding up a sitcom romance (all of which are famously slowburns) i'm just disappointed. i would've rathered NO declaration of love than a rushed declaration of love. that said, i LOVED the fatherdaughterisms of it all BLESS! it was really sweet in many many aspects and i can tell a lot of love went into portraying a high arctic inuit community.

animal control

this is a generally enjoyable sitcom, i think seasons 1 and 2 knocked it out of the PARK and have some of my favorite episodes of television in the last couple of years, but this season is just not it.

first of all, it's a disservice to a sitcom to cut the episodes by a third each season ordered. like that's just bananas. we're down to 6 episodes this season (seralizd was wrong, it is actually 10 episodes but my point still stands:) which means less exposition, less fun, and less of the sitcom-staple character interactions we deserve. the first episode began with a clumsy embedded advertisement for stanley cups (and it was almost as bad as that one 9-1-1 amazon prime ad. "i don't have to sign for it or anything?" NO BUCK. EVERYONE KNOWS YOU DON'T HAVE TO SIGN FOR AMAZON PACKAGES). the frank/love interest plotline is barely comprehensible (is she stalking him? is it weird? are they even still together? why is he seducing a celebrity when they never broke up? i don't understand), and shred's current girlfriend is barely a person, she's mostly just a weird and annoying cardboard cutout meant to propell along the shred/emily slowburn. it's boring. get over it.

i'll come back and add more notes once i actually finish the season but i have low hopes for the quality getting any better and honestly of it even getting picked up again. disappointing overall.

post s3e4: okay. amazing comeback. what an episode. the only thing that i was confused by is how fiona could seduce both frank and viktoria. like brush your hair girl and then i'll buy it!!!!! anyway victoria is my fave 4ever thank you fox for letting her date women god bless. i believe in frank victoria endgame but i appreciate this nuance.

falsettos

recording: live from lincoln center, PBS

watched: december 2024

twigs seriously ruining my life with musicals i'm so serious. i watched the beginning half of this with my pallls twigsvi and mei ^_^ and then we couldn't find a time to finish it so i just ended up watching act 2 on my own and bawling. like it's literally a musical it should NOT be that serious but oh my god it was that serious it is so serious. my favorite numbers are "breaking down," "year of the child," and "the baseball game."

english teacher

they still make 'em (sitcoms) how they used to and this show is proof of that! i'm such a sucker for shows with latinos in them shoutout to half colombiano mr. marquez. i almost cried real tears of joy when he started screaming at that concerned parent in spanish. they never let my little guys speak spanish on tv. this is one of the biggest beefs i have with hollywood/the tv industry at large. can we please have people speak spanish on tv thank you

merrily we roll along

not a movie by definitition but it was 2 hours long and i watched it on my computer so it's going in the category. my four year cycle of getting invested in a musical has officially come to pass. in 2019 it was the cursed child when i went to see it on broadway (for the record i was never a harry potter fan and also i didn't get a choice) and in 2016 it was a random public access musical i couldn't even tell you the name of. so it goes i suppose... anywho. read the behemoth of a review, now on its on page, here.

venom

as of writing this 7/7/24 I have watched venom and venom: let there be carnage a combined total of 12 times since friday 6/27/24. extenuating circumstances in my life (sick cat) tend to lead to the repeated watching of media but i also chalk it up to what happens when a television girlie gets invested in a movie (i will treat it like a show and just rewatch it over and over again like it's just an episode of something). i am infamous for my ability to watch shows and movies repeatedly over a short period of time and refuse to watch anything else which is essentially what happened here. my streak fell off but i'm still getting cravings so i'll probably rewatch and add to this review in the near future (as of tuesday, july 9th).

june 29th review: eating steak with ketchup and contemplating venom... first of all i love how this one is colorgraded. it feels much more modern than the sequel and man, tom hardy and riz ahmed (one of my new favorite actors i think) pour their whole souls into their roles. literally not a single scene in any other movie more compelling than tom hardy sweating and sitting in a lobstertank. ahmed's knockoff elon musk persona is hilarious and his completely earnest arrogance isn't offset by any other sympathetic qualities which is fascinating. there is no line in this movie that makes you want to root for him once. he is through and through a villain (and on top of it all, he thinks he's god!).

after seeing the end credits scene for the first time since i watched it in theaters probably, i realized that they DID have the whole gothic serial killer sequel at least partially planned out and i don't know... i think it was the wrong direction to go in but again, i do like the sequel. it just feels like stylistic whiplash a little. there's something to be said for the context of eddie's infection with venom being our very real world problems. the fact that the second movie doesn't even touch really on any futuristic science themes or the pressing threat of climate change is annoying at best.

ANNNEEEEE MY BEST FRIEND ANNE!!!!!!!!! i hate how sidelined she is when she's clearly the most competent out of the three of them. she is also explicitly interested in being involved so it feels a little gross how she's treated in this movie. she-venom especially weirds me out. i'm also so confused when the female versions of stronger/superpowered characters are more sexualized and not buff enough. not tall enough. please. i guess its probably because they wanted to make it clear that it was annie kissing eddie and not ... venom... but like... fail either way #tbh. i love her though, and i miss her every day. she should get to beat people up for fun i think. she and dan are super strong side characters. i noticed dan was less prominent in the end of this one compared to the second and tbh sequel win for having him present in the end. he is so funnysilly and has a great chemistry with anne, eddie, AND venom.

july 3rd review: one of my favorite things about this movie is how annie and eddie never get back together. it's refreshing after having most marvel movies follow the same love interest arc and i really like that anne stands up for herself and doesnt get (romantically) re-involved with eddie and his shenanigans. i mean she does in other ways but You Know. smiles

i'm so delighted also by tom hardy's casting as eddie because in the comics eddie is like this jacked blonde dude with a crazy jawline and hardy i guess was conventionally attractive enough to fit the bill but then they just made him the most pathetic they possibly could. he's not very strong (re: that one scene towards the end where he tries to overpower a HITMAN. BY HIMSELF. WITHOUT VENOM. AND FAILS IMMEDIATELY), not blond, always looking a little sickly, a little sweaty and feverish. they could not have done any better. NO NOTES. he's characterized so well by the beginning of the movie too, which, they're supposed to do that but i specifically love how venom does it. here is this man who has blown up his own life, whose only onscreen friends are the 40yrold lady who runs a convenience store he shops at and the homeless woman he gives money to despite being completely broke. he can't do anything about mrs chen being extorted and he doesn't even try but you can tell he cares. he may be a complete loser but he's genuinely compassionate in ways i dont think i've seen in other marvel movies. my only eddie dialogue critique is that i think its kind of canned when anne asks him if [venom] is talking to him and he goes "always." OKAY BUD. he has been in your brain for a day MAX. let's not get dramatic

midnight mass

mind blown lowkey. okay mike flanagan i see how it is. i'm not generally really into heavy religious imagery but this show was so awesome and i learned a lot about the catholic church if i'm being honest. it seemed pretty true to form other than the supernatural aspects. i'm also a wimp and so i don't think i was actually aware this was a horror going in but boy did I enjoy it despite it all. u was impressed at the quality of the show, generally netflix shows have a flavor about them that i don't really enjoy but this show managed to surpass what i usually expect from netflix. i loved the colors and how you could still see things in dark scenes, something that MOST SHOWS suffer from these days (horrible). i thought it was such an interesting dive into isolated communities and their relationship with religion, even setting aside the miracles. i also really loved the conversation around religious diversity, especially with regards to hassan and ali, conversion, the seperation between church and public schools, etc. it all felt very poignant.

i was most taken by the core and hidden story of mildred, john, and sarah. i think this show does an excellent job of portraying characters as human beings and not simply caricatures of their roles in the story. monsignor/father paul being the most striking example in his wanting to be loyal to his status as a priest and serving the community while simultaneously, selfishly, endeavoring to give mildred and sarah eternal life. I am personally of the opinion that he is very well written and i think hamish linklater did a spectacular job playing him. there isn't anything necessarily personal to me about this show, i just really appreciate the craftmanship and philosophical quandries that are subtly introduced in the middle of literal buckets of blood. so awesome. my silly thoughts on paul/monsignor from the discord:

father paul one of the greatest written characters in the world like he's an old beloved man he's a young charismatic faux cult leader he believes he is leading his flock to redemption by turning them into vampires he just wants to have the life he was never allowed to in the priesthood he dies with his daughter in his lap. how could we not love him.

i found erin and riley tiring. i appreciated their relationship at first but once the monologues started it was just excruciating to sit through. i do like that they never really "got together" in the typical sense of television. riley wanted to support erin and did just that. i think he also could be more interesting to me if i thought harder about the fact that he sacrificed himself because he knew what the consequences of his "gift" would be. anyway.

monsignor and sarah definitely tied for my first favorite characters, and i wish that bev had been. not racist! i enjoyed her freakish mannerisms and strange personality and devotion to monsignor but i just cannot write off her treatment of hassan (and ali, by association). but i still enjoyed her as a figurehead for the most bigoted yet somehow biblically-justified behavior that comes out of organized religion/the church. it was crazy to me that someone could memorize so many verses to be honest. and have one for every deranged occassion. monsignor ate someone's brain? something moved through you! monsignor thinks we're the bad guys? never trust priests! ALRIGHT.

back to sarah and mildred I LOVE THEMMMM I LOVE THEM my favorite mother daughter relationship on television ever (they are few and far between). i could write ten million words on sarah but i loved her role on the island as a doctor/nonbeliever witness to the miracles and her explanation for them. i love it when science is present in supernatural stories. i'm a sucker for it i'll admit. i appreciated the representation of her as a caretaker for her mother, her point of view as we witness mildred's revival, her opinion of john. sighs. also her little flannels and vest. i love it. how she spits out the blood. okay. i can't even explain how much i love her. mildred i also found increeeeedibly compelling despite the fact that she's only mentally present for the latter half of the show, arguably the last two episodes. the only monologue i truly enjoyed was john's in the last episode and her response. also i'm just obsessed with the crumbs leading them together, i think i need to rewatch in full to find all the ways the web leads them back to one another. can you believe she shoots him in the head and it's literally just fine. they get it. MY FAVES EVER.

basically i love this show, .5stars off for the insanely long and extremely boring monologues, although i hear that is a mike flanagan habit so oh well. i relate a little too much to father paul's mannerisms. sad. and i thought the angel looked really funny. good stuff, would recommend.

please like me

i watched please like me in may (2024) and felt a truly incomprehensible amount of emotions while doing so, to the point where this review may become its own standalone page because i just can't bear to relegate it to be honest. it is such an important piece of television that i truly believe most people should watch.

please like me is an australian sitcom that came out in 2013. it was made by josh thomas and thomas ward. no streaming sites really offer it anymore (none that don't charge you $1.99/episode anyway, which, no thanks), so i watched it at 480p on dailymotion and i honestly couldn't recommend it any other way. to preface, i feel a quote from josh himself in this new yorker article would be most appropriate:

“as far as a show about an undiagnosed autistic person goes, it is mint.”

the show itself is semi-autobiographical, based on josh's mothers own struggles with depression. i did not know this going in, nor was i aware that josh and his childhood best friend essentially play themselves in the show. what I was immediately struck by in the opening scene though, without even having seen much of josh at all, was how autistic this monologue sounded. it's incredible. only thirty seconds of his distinctly and yet entirely unplaceable accented voice and i had him clocked. i watched the following 54.5 minutes in some kind of wary disbelief that here, in front of me, was an autistic main character. i was confused at whether it was intentional or not (remember, i did not yet know that josh plays himself), but i was utterly transfixed.

while the crux of the show is really about mental health (specifically depression/suicide) and realizing you're queer, there's an overtone of autism that i imagine is not immediately obvious to everyone. i love the core themes of the show. i think they're portrayed brilliantly. josh's hope to destigmatize being queer and having mental health issues was probably revolutionary in 2013 and might even still be now. but what really stuck with me the most was that i had never seen a show do autism so right, even if it was on accident.

here's the thing about autistic representation; when it's purposeful, it more often than not slides into hurtful, harmful stereotypes. because josh was playing himself, an undiagnosed autistic man, it is one of the most sincere depictions of autism i have seen in television maybe ever. although his behaviors are never recognized or really actually even acknowledged, i felt incredibly seen. his way of interacting with the world lended itself to the offbeat humor and uncomfortable but realistic situations. he laughed when people were angry, spoke a bit strangely, didn't understand cues that others might. what i loved most about it was how much his friends seemed to take his behavior in stride. it was almost cathartic to see someone who so clearly struggled in ways he couldn't even yet comprehend be embraced and adored by other people. here are some notes i find relevant to add pulled from my discord and unedited:

im really very curious about this show though because its not explicit but. josh is almost textually autistic. there is nothing subtextual about the way this man moves through the world and i'm interested in whether or not that was intentional
the people around him treat him politely as though.. he's autistic. his boyfriend has to lay out that fact that because his feelings are hurt.. and because josh cares about him... josh should care that his feelings are hurt. and ive never really seen this sort of flowchart emotional dialogue in any other show before

josh thomas would later go on to write and act in everything's gonna be okay, a show about an autistic girl and her family grieving the loss of their father. the second season ends with him realizing that he might be autistic, and getting diagnosed. perhaps my favorite thing about josh thomas and the things he creates are that they are honest, incredibly vulnerable reflections of his own life. most of the intros of please like me are set to cooking scenes. he stated somewhere that he wanted the show to be full of things he loves, so it has a lot of cooking. his dog, john, stars in the show, as himself. the show was produced by josh and john productions. i can't even begin to describe how lovely and important this is to me, i can only provide the context.

josh's writing is also incredibly tactful, he handles the issues he wants to speak on with care. his mother's mental illness is not pathologized (in my estimation) nor are any of the characters needlessly cruel to her about it. she's a quirky woman with a personality outside of her depression and it speaks to how human the characters are. this may partly be a byproduct of the fact that they are basically playing themselves, but, when asked whether we are meant to love tom or hate him, josh responded with something along the lines of, "i hope i gave him enough depth that sometimes you hate him and sometimes you love him, just like real human beings." this philosophy was clearly present in their minds when they were writing the show, and it makes the life part of "slice of life" feel much more realistic. their lives are not "good" or "bad," they are lives, that they are living, for better for worse at any given moment.

see please like me hugs here.

on fragile waves

written by e. lily yu

a book has not made me actually shed tears for a while and i don't think I've ever bawled for 2+ minutes over one ever, so, lot of firsts here. this book made me cry so hard it was crazy. first things first the prose (and occasional poetry) is sooo gorgeous words cannot describe (lol). everything is so incredibly visceral and and beautiful and absolutely horrible. i love all of the imagery i love all of the figuratives i love how it took my tiny little heart and smashed it on a rock a bunch of times. my internal definition of writing that is extremely obvious to everyone else but took me a while to realize is that it's really about stringing together words that can most effectively evoke whatever feeling or message you're trying to convey. on fragile waves is incredibly good at this. it doles out emotion quickly and subtly. i think that the lack of dialogue indicators lends itself to this as well.

the characters are well-defined and easily analogous to people in our own families too, i think. they have strong voices and struggles, especially firuzeh and how she grapples with feeling invisible. she simultaneously experiences the worst any human could possibly experience and still has a coming of age and a sense of earned immaturity. maybe that doesn't make sense but i loved how we see her grow up even in the midst her family's own personal crisis and extenuating circumstances. i also thought her relationship with stories was fascinating and how they permeated her life in a very real way. lots of books like to masquerade as magical realism but this is one that pulled it off well within the margins of the definition.

nasima is a figure i'm just entirely obsessed with. her and firuzeh's relationship is on another level in terms of adolescent attachments good lord. anyway im obsessed with them im obsessed with how nasima walks across the ocean for her im obsessed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nour and firuzeh too. little brotherisms are so real like god what a little annoying freak for ever but actually you love him a lot and dont want him to disappear. i wish we had gotten more of nour's story but i appreciate that the focus is on firuzeh when she historically (within book canon) gets far less attention than he does and is subjected to a lot of insidious double standards. i think the glimpses of his inner life are really sweet though and i can imagine his personality in real life.

anyway this book was heartbreaking and i feel like it expanded my world and it was also so well written and i recommend it to everyone forever and will continue to do so until i DIE.