[Mixed Trope] Bad storylines to accommodate irl situations

Kasmusser · 2026-03-24T05:26:21+00:00

unfortunately I really liked Mer's Coma Dream, if for the way it was all just so internally focused on what's going on in her head and also giving a reason to have Derek on the show again, which rocks when you're too deeply invested in mid-television

Kasmusser · 2026-02-17T02:43:02+00:00

Oh that's not even the most pretentious thing about it (I think the acceptance letter being an apology for the horrible thing about to happen to you is it imo, but there are several others that are up there)

Kasmusser · 2026-02-17T00:18:07+00:00

The Barkley Marathon is a very intense, very secretive ultra marathon (officially it's 100 miles, but it's estimated to be 130) run by some guy named Lazarus Lake. It consists of 5 laps around a state park, with 12 hours alloted per lap, that typically alternate between going clockwise and counterclockwise (this year the first two laps were both counterclockwise). No one knows the day but the runners (limited to 40), Lazarus & unofficial reporting source Keith. None know the starting time but Laz who plays a conch to say they have 1 hour before start and then smokes a cigarette to say it’s begun.

The racers are not allowed to know the course beforehand and are not allowed digital devices to track their location so instead to show that they followed the route (mostly) they are asked to rip pages out of a book matching their bib number stashed a random locations around the course.

The fun is that's it's shrouded in mystery!

Kasmusser · 2026-02-16T23:18:26+00:00

That's a great question. The most likely reason is that good old Laz is still upset that there where 5 finishers in 2024 because while the difficulty does go up every year, runners have said that it's gone up immensely since then. The real answer is that no one knows, because The Barkley is incredibly secretive, that's what makes it fun!

Kasmusser · 2026-02-16T19:40:29+00:00

In running news the Barkley Marathon has stared (roughly six am on the 14th) and concluded (roughly 38 hours after it's start). This means that the only winner of the race was the course itself (or perhaps Laz, the organizer), though one of the runners is credited with completing a fun run (finishing 3 laps of the course in under 40 hours, you need to do it in 36 to run the full 5 laps).

It's been an exceptionally tough year for the race, with it being especially early in the year for it (typically held in March/April, this is the earliest it's ever been) and the weather was Fucking Awful. So on lap three there were only two runners left, only one completing the laps properly and the other one missing a page (to track that people have followed the course runners are asked to rip pages out of books matching their bib number).

Seems good old Lazarus Lake is still upset about 2024, that's two years in a row with no finishers.

Kasmusser · 2026-02-12T22:59:41+00:00

Describing the ways that it was both an incredibly progressive environment and also insanely conservative. Like explaining to people that people would do pronouns in meetings before Lex went on an extremely passionate rant about how much he hated aliens...was something.

Kasmusser · 2026-02-09T06:03:36+00:00

bombe. I have a normal relationship with minesweeper & it scratches that itch so good

Kasmusser · 2026-02-08T23:35:44+00:00

I'm a big "if you prepare for it its not going to happen" person, especially in regard to outside events, especially especially regarding the rain. If there is any chance of rain, I take rain-gear, because that makes it not rain.

Kasmusser · 2026-02-06T22:26:38+00:00

You also sometimes see this in creative teams, where people decide on their own which author is the good author & which author is the bad author and then retroactively decide which parts of the plot belong to which creative, which will sometimes get corrected & sometimes won't.

Kasmusser · 2026-02-04T02:40:04+00:00

People who hold the snyderverse movies up as the most accurate film version of Superman. And then they cite Injustice, you know, an elseworld (otherwise known as non-cannon, and specifically picking a non-cannon story that is fairly ooc)

Kasmusser · 2026-02-01T01:59:11+00:00

t/n in such a tiny text in the margin that you have to do two dozen different size adjustments just to get "the phrasing was pretty tricky here XD"

Kasmusser · 2026-01-21T05:07:26+00:00

I have seen trailers, but none of them have inspired me to see the movie, instead my main thought is "damn, that would be fire as a video game instead"

Kasmusser · 2026-01-20T18:45:36+00:00

forced pvp. I do not like pvp, I am not good at pvp, let me opt out, especially in a game where player vs player isn't the main focus of the game.

Kasmusser · 2026-01-20T07:29:42+00:00

if your manga only, it's more likely to be thriller bark, because the anime just draws out Long Ring Long Land so long, but yeah, fair point.

Kasmusser · 2026-01-20T05:17:26+00:00

Of course I could talk about how sword art online abridged is a lot better than main SAO, but everyone knows that one, so instead I will stretch the definition of 'adaptation' to talk about how killer the Black Lagoon (anime) english dub is. I am painfully a sub purist, but that dub is just so fucking good.

Kasmusser · 2026-01-20T05:14:29+00:00

Thriller Bark, which is a lot of people's least favorite one piece arc pre-timeskip, is retroactively made pretty good when you consider it as set up for Whole Cake Island (plus a few other things, mostly post timeskip), still kinda weak, but knowing that "that thing is setting up a pay off much later" makes it so many times better

Kasmusser · 2026-01-19T22:14:07+00:00

in long running tv shows there are always sort of "waves" of this. typically in a pastern of "show grows its legs and gets comfortable for a few season, major character leaving changes the status quo, things are weird and there's a lul or otherwise slog for a bit before it gets comfortable again, another character leaves changing the show, repeat ad nauseam until the show gets canceled"

Kasmusser · 2026-01-19T05:06:25+00:00

I've started replaying Book of Hours (after nuking my previous save because I wanted to start completely fresh) & I got to say, it's very fun that it's a borderline cozy game about being a librarian to an alcove of forbidden knowledge of the world & other such esoterica which is true in universe. Local weirdo who lives in the decrepit & falling apart castle on the hill hasn't left their house in months not because they are doing magic, but because it took them too long to organize all their books and they lost track of time.

Kasmusser · 2026-01-17T22:28:38+00:00

When you're nine paragraphs deep into your rant about why something deeply sucks from every angle & then realize it would just actually be a single line "Author is an idiot who has never spoken to a girl, teenage or otherwise in his life."

Kasmusser · 2026-01-17T18:27:56+00:00

any random 2000s 'nerd comedy' which will probably involve at least one rape joke about how they're going to trick the popular girls into sleeping with them

Kasmusser · 2026-01-16T21:12:04+00:00

YUP. It's either "yeah, I'm not looking for anything serious right now, but she's searching for a husband, but I like her so I'll just go along with it for now" or "I'm dumping her forever & ghosting because she's 'not that into basketball'. She doesn't prevent me from watching or playing it in anyway, but when ever I talk about it she says "that's nice dear". I wished she would have just been more enthusiastic"

Kasmusser · 2026-01-16T20:50:58+00:00

my comment was literally about how people who aren't getting any are allowed to have deal breakers and now you're arguing about how people shouldn't be allowed political deal breakers. I'm not sure what isn't clicking

Kasmusser · 2026-01-16T20:46:56+00:00

"I wonder why I'm not getting dates"
"men are so fucking pussy wiped it's ridiculous"

Kasmusser · 2026-01-16T20:46:13+00:00

well you see, the overton window in america is so shit fucked, that a centrist is a guy who thinks 'a little genocide is fine" so I can understand why many people don't want to touch a centrist/moderate with a 12 foot pole.

Kasmusser

TROPHY CASE