I guess the thing about Godzilla is that it represents a massive national trauma which eviscerated nature and the human soul, but the USA versions fall somewhere on the spectrum between “vaguely about 9/11 or recent natural disaster” and “giant monster smashy smash.” I think that stems from trying to conceptualize Godzilla as representing a particular and isolated instance of disaster and translate that into something of a similar nature in the USA.
But the real deep down soul death and national trauma in the USA isn’t anything recent, you can’t point out something uniquely bad like an atomic bomb. Really the kaiju for the USA needs to be symbolic of how this whole place is an infinite recursive system of devouring its population, starting from colonization and going right up through to the present day. The crucial difference is that if a kaiju was to represent the deep, unhealed, and still bleeding scar at the heart of the nation, it has to by definition be some ancient dead thing which rises on the anguish of everyone consumed in the name of this country and burns it into the ground. There’s not an easy way to make a USAmerican kaiju because the only way to do so accurately means the kaiju has to be the protagonist, and ultimately has to show how much the people in the USA are unified when the hyperwealthy and our government are destroyed.
Who is gonna make that?
who else?
You get it.
I’ll let Mr. del Toro make the movie. I’ve already got something monstrous cooking in one of the labs so I can make it real; you know, so it’ll really drive home the metaphor after it starts eating folks.
what america needs right now is an even older candidate, and though i have forgotten my name and age i am excited to throw my twisted, spirally hat into the ring
vote Evil Wizard / Whispering Obelisk 2024!
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I really appreciate that you decided to run with the Whispering Obelisk; I think that was a brilliant move to secure the youth and LGBTQ votes.
They whisper on my obelisk till I secure the LGBTQ votes.
maybe this is a swing at a hornets nest but watching people go down the pipeline of ‘reclaiming slurs’ to just calling people the r word as an insult again and bite at the bit for any extra slurpoints they can 'reclaim’ in this manner has been insane to watch as an autistic person i cant lie
you guys recognize the point of reclamation is to hand the power to those abused by the system to define this identity thrust upon them in a positive way or find comradere in it right. like you calling someone online the r-word is not reclamation you are just feeding into the very system a lot of us were harmed by and it feels like if you mention that u get called sensitive. like we have made a full loop of the ouraborus the snake is eating its tail as we speak
It is always to tempting to rhyme potion with commotion when putting together rhyming spells, but I don’t like to be stale. I’ve been workshopping some potions that work with other words like “locomotion”.
So far, I just made a potion that makes you do the locomotion, and there’s already a song that does that, so it’s slow progress so far.
Locomotion potion causes commotion, triggering in the user a great emotion,
As a kid, I was really upset that Bill Watterson wouldn’t license Calvin & Hobbes so I could have plushies or so there would be a Saturday morning cartoon. Now, I realize his resistance is the reason we don’t have a Calvin & Hobbes DreamWorks movie starring Chris Pratt.
Our town (~9,000 people) has a couple garages, but there’s a big one on the main drag. My family has been going there for decades. I drive past it every day.
There used to be a huge pine tree on the corner of their lot, but last year it became a hazard and had to be taken down.
Shortly thereafter I drive by and see they’ve hired a guy to chainsaw sculpt the stump into a bald eagle.
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Birds own my heart, but nationalism makes me twitchy. I withhold outright condemnation of the eagle, but I’m skeptical. (The original owner—an objectively Good Dude—sold the business to a younger couple a few years ago, and I don’t have any knowledge of their whole deal.)
Then it turns out someone on staff is really into making costumes for the eagle. Every holiday. Every month. Stuffed turkey, witch costume, menorah headpiece, bunny ears. These people love to dress their bird.
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The changing of the eagle suit becomes a source of joy every time I drive through town.
Until June, when the eagle is bare.
Now look, maybe I’m expecting too much asking my garage to celebrate Pride. But this is a small town. Every time I drive by that stupid eagle—this thing that has previously brought me so much joy—I feel hurt. I feel reminded that there are plenty of people in my liberal bubble who don’t consider my community worthy of celebration. I drive to work, I feel bad. I drive home, I feel bad. The eagle is mocking me.
Then my A/C quits working.
So I book an appointent to bring my car in—and realize what I have to do.
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I pick all this up at a thrift store for under ten bucks. I print the shirt with some weird heat-transfer fabric crayons I find in a cupboard. I loop gold elastic around the sunglasses and pray they’ll fit on the eagle’s head. (It is also important to draw your attention to the price of the feather boa.)
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(Nice.)
My reasoning is thus: if I show up with a complete costume ready to go, someone will have to look me in the eye and say “We don’t believe in that,” at which point I’ll be finding a new garage. But if they let me dress the eagle, then people in town get to have the joy I’ve been missing since the start of the month.
I listen to a lot of hype-up jams on my way over. I hate confrontation. I also don’t wanna have to find another garage. I want to believe that this decision isn’t actively antagonistic, but I’m not particularly hopeful.
I talk through the A/C issue with the guy at the desk, hand over my keys, then take a deep breath.
“Who’s in charge of the eagle?”
“Oh, that’s all Dylan. Second bay from the end.”
I walk down the row of hydraulic lifts and find a disarmingly smiley middle-aged man pouring fluid through a funnel. I introduce myself and explain that, since the Pride parade is this Sunday and the eagle seems to be missing a costume, I have taken the liberty of making one myself, and can I get his blessing to go put it on?
Dylan grins this absolutely giant grin and goes
“Oh hell yeah.”
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So that’s what’s up now.
Happy Pride.
UPDATE: I called this morning to figure out when the car was gonna be done and the desk guy talked me through it all and then said:
“Hey also: thanks for making that costume for the eagle. People can be touchy about it, but the guys love what you did. And it’s so smart to put "Love is love” on the shirt. Because we’re all for the LGBTQ community, but of course there’s people who come in here who aren’t. And what are they gonna do? Disagree with something like that?“
I admitted I’d been nervous to ask about it, and we had a laugh, and then he told me they actually have a monthly budget for the eagle now. There’s a spreadsheet full of holidays and everything.
Anyway, I’ve still gotta get my wheel bearings replaced.
jigsaw voice in front of you is a delicious yummy. you have to eat the whole thing. you can take a few bites. you aren’t allergic to it. if you eat the whole hting i’ll give you another. i love you.
what if instead of writing a name in the death note you had to draw that person or creature as a drawing before it died but the more sentient and smart something is the more realistic the drawing had to be so you can doodle a fly and it would die but a person would have to be pretty realistic to work but one day you’re messing around and killing seagulls at the beach because you’re a freak i guess but you go to draw one of the seagulls and it doesn’t die so you shrug because maybe its smarter than the other ones so you do it more realistically but it still doesn’t die which is weird because it should have definitely bit the dust by now so you go home and study how to draw seagulls for days and you take pictures of that specific seagull for reference until you finally go back to the beach and you sit there and you draw the most realistic depiction of a seagull anyone’s ever done and its more realistic than your other drawings even of people and as the seagull falls out of the sky, ill gotten fry in its mouth you realize you’ve just killed the smartest and and most sentient creature on the planet. would that be fucked up or what
supreme court just gave Dark Brandon the go to take out whoever he wants and the best were gonna get is a genuine “get well soon ol buddy ol pal” tweet after he wakes up from his nap. You want a blue wave? Cruise Missiles to trump’s current location NOW!!! read the room BOZO
When protesters marched in Washington after the killing of George Floyd, Donald Trump asked General Milley why the troops couldn’t just shoot them, suggesting maybe just “in the leg.”
Milley replied that he could not, because that would be illegal.
The Supreme Court has now ruled that it no longer will be, at least certainly not for the President to order it. And he can pardon the general that carries it out, and fire the ones that refuse.
If that doesn’t scare you, then I guess you can keep talking about stupid things like taking Biden off the ballot. If it does, then maybe focus on making sure it doesn’t happen, pressuring for Supreme Court reform, and saving this fucking country.
I don’t have time to draw it right now but while driving home from the winco I saw a happy mustached man pedaling a bike, towing a cart built to look like a chariot, inside of which stood what I can only imagine was his completely expressionless 13 year old in a makeshift corinthian helmet
like this
People drawing their encounters instead of filming strangers without their knowledge or consent: my beloved
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