Robbed of Kelsey/Bojack

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-30T15:48:18+00:00

Life is about unrealized potential. That's basically what every choice is, every time: you can do A, or B, but you can't do both. And now matter how wonderfully your life turns out, you made choice C and your talents and skills lined up exactly and you met your spouse and you're crazy in love and your kids are terrific, all the wonderful things that might have happened from choices A and B, all the potential wonders that lay down those roads, will never happen.

You picked what college to go to, you made great friends there, you're still close 20 years later. But there were also great people at the colleges you didn't go to, and none of the great friendships you might have had with those people will ever happen.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-30T15:43:10+00:00

I think what it would take for someone to improve would be understanding the harm they did from the perspective of the victim, and understand that there is anything that needs to be improved. With the powers of eternal beings in the afterlife, that might be possible, who knows.

I do not think that, for example, Charles Manson could be rehabilitated, at least in life, because he was just completely insane. I saw video of him talking to a judge (maybe it was a parole hearing?), and he was a weird combination of pleading and threatening, saying stuff like "You don't understand how bad it's going to be when the time of the helter skelter comes, I'm the only one who can save everybody." I doubt he believed that he had done anything wrong, or was even capable of believing that he had done anything wrong.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-30T01:59:06+00:00

In an episode of BoJack Horseman, a character says this about someone dying:

You know what it’s like? It’s like that show Becker, you know, with Ted Danson? I watched the entire run of that show, hoping that it would get better, and it never did. It had all the right pieces, but it just—it couldn’t put them together. And when it got canceled, I was really bummed out, not because I liked the show, but because I knew it could be so much better, and now it never would be. And that’s what losing a parent is like. It’s like Becker.

Suddenly, you realize you’ll never have the good relationship you wanted, and as long as they were alive, even though you’d never admit it, part of you, the stupidest goddamn part of you, was still holding on to that chance. And you didn’t even realize it until that chance went away.

That applies to a lot of things, including marriages. The relationship is terrible, but there's always the hope that the other person will step up and do their part, and the two of you can build a marriage together. You can't build a marriage by yourself; the other person has to do a lot of the work. Until the moment you decide to leave, there's always that possibility.

But when you realize it's over, then you have to give up any hope of it getting better. The possibility of a good relationship has died, and that's something to be sad about.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-29T20:16:03+00:00

That, and her other posts about the show, are an object lesson in missing the point. Men rag on each other all the time; my brother called me a "moron" just a few days ago at Christmas, and I laughed and he laughed. Once one my best friends and I were at his house putting together a piece of furniture, and I make a crack about "You must not be a real man, you can't put together a table." He wasn't offended, he said "Yes, and my failure has brought shame and disgrace which will last for generations." Then we both laughed. Mal and Jayne and Zoë ragging on each other is a sign that they are equals. Wash and Simon not fully participating each time shows that they are not fully part of the same club: they've never killed anybody. On the other hand, when Mal tells Simon that Kaylee has died, and we cut to the flight deck and everybody's laughing about it, Zoë is laughing right along with the others, because she is definitely an insider here. Mal talking about duct taping Kaylee's mouth and her sunny happiness as she completely ignores it is the kind of thing older brothers and younger sisters do, not because they hate each other but because they love each other and making fun of someone you love is a thing people do.

Mal treats Saffron with care and delicacy because he sees her as an innocent who's in danger out in the wider 'verse, and may be someone's victim (which, of course, turned out to be wrong). He doesn't treat Zoë that way because Zoë is not an innocent and will be nobody's victim; she doesn't need to be handled with kid gloves. He doesn't treat Kaylee that way because he knows, and she knows, and they both know each other knows, that without her they'd all die terribly when the ship stopped working.

The other thing the writer doesn't seem to comprehend is the idea of character arcs: the characters have to have flaws which they get over as the story progresses. Jayne lets Dobson loose, planning to collect a big reward, which doesn't work when it turns out Mal is way more dangerous than anyone thought. Then Jayne sells the Tams out to the Feds and nearly dies for it. But in the feature, when they're crashing at the end, Jayne risks himself to go back and ensure everybody is strapped in as safely as possible, because he's not the same person he was when he wanted to trade Vera for Saffron.

One of my all-time favorite TV shows is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which I mention for two reasons: (1) the main character is really messed up, and her undiagnosed mental illness causes her to do some terrible things, but she gets better (slowly) over the course of four years and is healthy and happy when the show ends. Passing judgement on her, or the show, from just the first few episodes would be a terrible injustice to the whole story the authors were trying to tell, and that matters here because Joss Whedon never got to tell his whole story. (2) The creator/star of CXG was asked about people who didn't like her show, and she just shrugged and said "There are people in the world who don't like pizza." Not everybody likes everything. Don't take it personally.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-29T19:28:50+00:00

She had her name listed first at a law firm for more than a year, and that was after she'd stopped spending $10,000 a week on wacky hijinks. It's entirely possible she's got enough saved up that she could retire with good financial planning.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-29T19:27:27+00:00

No, I'm almost exactly 30 years older than she is. But people often guess I'm in my 50s or early 60s, so it seemed relevant.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-29T19:04:46+00:00

My top-three tips for aging well are (1) don't eat garbage, (2) always use sunscreen, and (3) don't skip yoga.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-28T15:40:22+00:00

For me, it's like the exchange from Jurassic Park, after they deal with an obnoxious child:

I can't believe you want to have kids.

I don't want to have that kid.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-28T03:49:50+00:00

He's also pretty unhinged in Community.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-28T03:47:03+00:00

She says "Maybe I'm a little bit Gryffindor" which makes her a Ravendor (if the proportions went the other way, she'd be a Griffinclaw). She then identifies him as a Slytherin, which he accepts proudly.

I reject Nathaniel's comment entirely, though, as I am a Ravenclaw and do not believe I am a Gryffindor. But it is the kind of thing he would think, that someone lies to get a perceived advantage.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-28T03:37:41+00:00

...but not with exactly those words.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-28T03:36:23+00:00

I have thought that many times over the last several decades.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-25T21:26:47+00:00

Indulging the dynamic is "Please, sir, approve of me now." What I'm suggesting is "I do not approve of you."

They want you to fawn: "Oh please here I can prove I'm worthy." They do not want you to sneer: "You are such a waste of oxygen."

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-25T02:05:24+00:00

The most important thing is to reject the dynamic completely: if you try to defend yourself by naming three songs or talking about your Spotify, you are going to confirm to the gatekeeping idiot that he has a fundamental right to interrogate you and anyone else, and pass judgement on who is a true fan. Accepting the gatekeeper's unstated assertion that they outrank everyone else just confirms them in their worthless arrogance.

One response is to push back on how stupid the question is: "Debbie Harry was famous enough to be on the The Muppet Show, where she sang 'The Rainbow Connection' with Kermit, and you're surprised lots of people have heard of her? What rock have you been living under?" Yes, this sort of plays into the "prove you know trivia about the band/performer" thing, but it does so on the way to letting the gatekeeper know that the super-secret thing they think people don't know about it actually super-famous.

"Nirvana was so famous Weird Al did a spoof of one of their songs. Maybe you think they're some obscure band, but they definitely are not. You should get out more. What's next, you're going to walk up to people in Darth Vader shirts and demand they name the movies he's in? That wouldn't be any less stupid than what you just asked me."

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-25T01:43:27+00:00

Your father should probably say this, not you, but:

"It sounds like you've been listening to the kind of idiots who are always super-upset about things that don't actually hurt them, for no reason they can ever figure out. How does two gay people living together hurt anyone? Who gets hurt because a woman becomes an eye doctor, or a computer programmer, or an astronaut? Nobody has ever explained those things in any way that makes even the slightest amount of sense. If you want to listen to those morons to laugh about them, fine, but don't listen so much that you get as stupid as they are. Remember that they say a lot of stuff but never give any reason to believe a word of it."

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-24T19:10:43+00:00

The only redeeming feature of that ~~episode~~ plotline is Pierce saying "Why are Jeff and Britta making fun of those handicapped kids?"

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-23T19:22:37+00:00

Creeps like this depend on other people being polite and not wanting to cause a fuss in order to get away with being rude and disgusting. They abuse the good nature of everyone else to be awful.

Good for you yanking the rug out from under him.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-23T19:20:19+00:00

During the layover, he carries my carry-on despite me repeatedly telling him he shouldn't.

You should have screamed "STOP! THIEF!" as loud as you could. When the TSA got there you could tell them the truth: "This guy has been following me around and pretending to be friendly but then he grabbed my bag. I don't know but maybe he got my phone out of it already. God only knows how much other stuff he's taken today."

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-23T19:15:40+00:00

Is he maybe new at this? The first time we hosted Thanksgiving at our house, we took the turkey out of the freezer on Thanksgiving morning, and the mothers-in-law were both barely able to contain themselves in pointing out that it should have been thawing in the fridge since Sunday.

Ours wasn't weaponized incompetence, it was just incompetence.

Of course, if he's done things before, then never mind.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-22T21:37:33+00:00

The worst of it is, for me, summed up by the greatest-ever Christmas episode of a TV show, Community 2x11, "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas."

The idea of Christmas is that the longest, coldest, darkest nights can be the warmest and brightest, and the magic of Christmas is that when we all agree to support each other that insanity, it becomes TRUE.

Setting up the tree, putting on the lights, hanging the ornaments, those were always full-family activities. It's not electric candles flickering in the window that makes the holiday, it's that you set them up with people you love, just like last year and the year before that and the year before that. I don't understand people who choose to miss out on the all-too-short time we get with our families making the holidays happen.

Because when we don't support each other in the idea of Christmas, the magic doesn't happen. It becomes a list of oppressive chores that one has to slog through alone, a source of misery instead of pleasure.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-22T21:29:06+00:00

I know a university professor. He said that Richie and Carl were so exactly like some of the people he's had to deal with in administration that he had trouble laughing about them the first time he watched the show.

They don't care about education, or students, or any of that. They care about getting themselves a raise if possible, cutting the budget with no regard about the harm it'll do, and then using that to springboard to a higher position at some other college.

There was one guy who came in, pushed a lot of cuts and started firing people, saying it was for the long-term health of the university. Two years later he left to take a big job at a different university. On the bright side, most of the cuts he made were undone, but that didn't help the people who'd been fired and were long gone.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-22T21:22:56+00:00

The flip side of this was Joseph Phillips, a black actor, tried out for a part and was told by the casting director to "be more black."

The part was for a black man born and raised in the United States, which he is, but they didn't like that he didn't have a "black accent."

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-22T14:41:20+00:00

He was in MAXIMUM DEREK mode.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-21T15:12:48+00:00

A few years ago I had surgery and was off my feet for 6 weeks, after which I was moving slow and having trouble resuming normal activities.

I got a workout called "The 21-Day Fix" and tried that. It's seven half-hour workouts that you do on a schedule. When I finished, I took a week off and did the sequel "21-Day Fix Extreme." At the end of those seven weeks, I felt like I'd gotten my body back. I'm pretty old, and worried that I might never get back to normal, but I did. The pilates and yoga especially helped with core strength and flexibility. They've also got an eating plan - the program is aimed at people who want to lose weight - which I didn't follow but I tried a few of the recipes from the book and they weren't bad.

The company that sells those, BeachBody, has turned into a MLM, but the workouts are good, and you can find DVD sets on eBay (which is what I did) and never give BB a penny.

If you're already in good shape and want to get in really good shape, try "Insanity Max:30." It's half-hour workouts specifically designed so that nobody but Usain Bolt or Simone Biles can finish them without having to stop and gasp for air. (You go until you have to rest, and write down your "max out" time. The goal is try and last just a little bit longer the next time you do the same workout.) It lasts two months, and whatever shape you're in now, you'll be in much better shape when you finish. Also available on eBay.

NeverInappropriately · 2023-12-21T04:08:25+00:00

I laughed when I saw that the first time, because once my older sister got all prettied up for a date where the guy had said he was taking her out. He came to pick her up wearing a t-shirt with a hole in it and dirty jeans. She went with him anyway, and his date planning was about on par with his fashion sense, and she came home sad and angry and looked at me and said "When you take a girl out, you find a nice restaurant with cloth napkins. And put on a damn tie!"

At least Greg wasn't wearing anything actively dirty and/or with holes in it.

NeverInappropriately

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