Beatrice Lu, Writer of Emotional Violence™

All this talk about Flanagan's CARRIE reminds me of my 100k CARRIE continuation fanfic idea, where we follow Sue's leached life in Rangeley and reckons with the fact, through TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN shenanigans, that a casual wit, blooming confidence, and an ability for cold-blooded violence?

TAMPOPO ERNEST & CELESTINE THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA THE DEVIL'S BATH MEMORIES OF MURDER BLACK COAL, THIN ICE TOKYO DECADENCE THE HANDMAIDEN HARD TO BE A GOD SATANTANGO IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE GOODBYE, DRAGON INN DECISION TO LEAVE ANDREI RUBLEV

Honestly, I do find it a little funny how the mid-2020s revivals for both MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE and SCRUBS both bottom out to at least reasonably good and the OG versions of them are the big winners of that late-1990s/early-2000s era of sitcoms to my eyes. They definitely hold up for the most part.

And yes, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER is pretty awful on the whole rewatching. A few standout episodes, for sure, and you can definitely make a case that it brought some unique narrative tricks and flourishes via the storytelling conceit, but man, did it hate women. And it REALLY hated trans women.

Honestly, I do find it a little funny how the mid-2020s revivals for both MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE and SCRUBS both bottom out to at least reasonably good and the OG versions of them are the big winners of that late-1990s/early-2000s era of sitcoms to my eyes. They definitely hold up for the most part.

God, me and my friend saw ENOUGH interesting direction in it, and Lesley Manville as Cyril Woodcock was unquestionably fantastic in it, but I did not ultimately care for PHANTOM THREAD, despite any acclaim to it.

It's horny, beautifully shot, and Anderson clearly has a steady hand on narrative form and drama, but... almost all the women are so thinly-sketched out and only so in relation to Reynolds and he is, frankly, a bore of a man, whose only saving grace is being good at his craft and accepting no less.

Thinking again about one of my most consistent, idiosyncratic fascinations, fiction-wise: CLONES

(God, put in questions of gender and sexuality and the whole notion of biological copies becomes fraught and so much more fertile to explore. Epigenetics help make unique beings that society and civilization still tries to stratify into little boxes and categories, often reducing them as lesser).

Thinking again about one of my most consistent, idiosyncratic fascinations, fiction-wise: CLONES

I'm partial to the lens of clones looking upon their creators, the way they can be treated as tools or extensions, because that's little different from how biological parents give birth to their children, only to thoroughly USE and push their old wants onto them, as if children don't have their own.

Thinking again about one of my most consistent, idiosyncratic fascinations, fiction-wise: CLONES

People birthed, either to be tools for a creator or extensions of a monster-god's desire, how do you handle the feeling of knowing you were meant to be nothing but as a disposable pawn or knowing you need to live up to the original's identity or your parent's wishes, as if yourself aren't there?

Thinking again about one of my most consistent, idiosyncratic fascinations, fiction-wise: CLONES

TALES OF THE ABYSS kicked that off for me: what if the protagonist was a clone and he (and audience) didn't know it going in? What if mass-cloning was used to defy religion and eschatology? What if it turned into humanitarian crises because no nation wants to take on people with the dead's faces?

Thinking again about one of my most consistent, idiosyncratic fascinations, fiction-wise: CLONES

Robin Hobb is my favorite fantasy author, top three at least (she's not fucking third), and she made sure to swing for brutal emotional swings, complex interpersonality, and heavy melancholy almost every step of the way, and she was doing that longer than most current writers are alive now.

NADIR agrees and I do believe I've written a piece worth clicking on and reading, full of introspection and dragons, complete with author's notes to complement it. Hope you check it out, trust this scheming eunuch face. It belongs in a decadent court, but it has poetry and thought and amusement.