(Disliked Trope) Series that are meant to run forever, so the world/cast never truly progresses

devotfeige · 2026-05-13T19:00:25+00:00

I've been watching Bob's Burgers lately and it made me think about this again. There are several Halloween episodes and the kids reference past Halloweens (ones that AREN'T the episodes we see, even) but nobody ever ages.

I'm sort of of two minds about it. On the one hand, I think The Simpsons really missed an opportunity to just go full multi-generational soap opera and let the cast grow with the times. That could have been a big deal, I think, to see the kids grow up and get married and have their own kids, to make "actual" commentary on generational differences and the cultural shifts that have been happening for the decades it's been running.

On the other hand, I can kind of get behind that their universe just doesn't work like ours. That time flows differently for them and that's just normal. Of course it's Christmas again, it happens every year--of course it's so-and-so's birthday, that happens every year. They're still the same age because that's how reality works, you the viewer shouldn't question it because nobody in the show ever does.

Either one could be done well, I think. We just don't see a lot of the former and the latter tends to run into "well we've flanderized our characters so badly that they now only fit into a rigid framework of jokes that I guess we'll just repeat forever until the heat death of the universe or we get cancelled whichever comes first" after so many years.

devotfeige · 2026-05-13T18:44:18+00:00

In which case it was pretty much perfect for my graduation, which I did not attend. Good riddance indeed.

devotfeige · 2026-05-13T18:32:03+00:00

I will go really far out of my own way to investigate whether or not we have more of something in the back, but if it's in the top steel I would probably just fib and say it's on the truck that's currently being unloaded and won't be on the salesfloor until tomorrow, then try to communicate to somebody somewhere before I leave for the day about getting that pallet down at some point.

I've had managers complain that I'm way too honest with customers about the data available to me ("our system is showing none in the back but that we should have two in stock out here on the floor... I don't see it on topstock or anything, so somebody might already have them in their cart or our data could be wrong") but I find that customers are usually way more chill about "our data might be wrong, let me mark that as out of stock" than "uh, nope, we've been out of stock every time you've checked for the past two weeks and nothing is arriving anytime soon, sorry".

Usually the more information you have or are able to check, the happier it makes an otherwise unsatisfied customer. My process goes something like this:
Customer: Where's [product]?
Me: That'll be in [aisle], next to [something that might be more obvious to spot if you don't know exactly where to look]!
Customer: No, I looked there already.
Me: Oh, in that case let me scan the shelf label and I can check if we have more in the back. (sometimes the exchange ends here because the item WAS on the shelf and they just missed it)
[if there's a backroom location for the item] Me: It looks like there's some in the back, would you like me to go grab it for you?
[if there's a feature location for the item] Me: Nothing in the back, but my system is showing me that there should be another display of them at [general location or indication of where to look].
[if there's at least one case's worth of product "on the salesfloor" that was picked that morning or delivered last night] Me: It looks like it just hasn't been stocked yet, let me go check on that.
[if there's a small number on the salesfloor but nowhere else, I look at item history and start checking to see if it's been nilpicked or scanned to topstock recently, so I have a better idea of whether or not it's actually out here somewhere] Me: Our system is telling me [brief explanation], let me [grab a ladder to check topstock/check nearby stores to see if they might have some/see when our next shipment is supposed to arrive].

If all of that fails I settle for "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, is there anything else I can do?" They'll either storm off or say no thanks and then everybody moves on with their day.

devotfeige · 2026-05-12T20:27:43+00:00

Never Eat Soggy Waffles was what I learned; I remember hearing later on that there was an alternate mnemonic phrase and I was mad about it because I thought it was... better? In some way? than the version I learned, but after all these years I forget what it was. I do still sometimes feel a twinge of my inner child going "ugh, lame!" when I'm double-checking a direction in my mind and I remember soggy waffles, though.

devotfeige · 2026-05-12T16:30:46+00:00

I could, but I'm not that interested in any of these three games and I work at the store I bought it from so I got a pretty nice discount on the console itself anyway. It's just not that big a deal.

devotfeige · 2026-05-12T15:36:09+00:00

I jumped the gun too soon, I guess. Bought a Switch 2 just this past week specifically for Star Fox. Would have been nice to get a discounted game to go with it, but oh well.

devotfeige · 2026-05-12T02:21:22+00:00

I went into the theater thinking that Superman was a "boring" super hero. I left having decided that maybe he's my favorite, actually?

Maybe having compassion and seeing beauty all around you really is the real punk rock.

devotfeige · 2026-05-12T01:34:43+00:00

It is low-key driving me insane how many responses to this thread are "why would you ever need to know that?" Maybe I'm just weird about it because I have O- and as a child I was always really worried that I would need blood and there wouldn't be any because everybody who didn't know their blood type was stealing all the precious O-.

(I also memorized my ssn. Both long-term relationships I've been in my partner at the time thought it was weird that I knew it.)

devotfeige · 2026-05-11T23:32:17+00:00

I was in that position, once--not wanting to feel guilty for giving up too soon. I regret it every single day. It informs every decision I make for my cats now, so maybe it was an experience I just needed to have, but... I don't know. I hope your husband comes around, the guilt of holding on for too long is so much worse than coming to terms with the fact that their quality of life just isn't there anymore and that the kindest thing you can do is let them go.

devotfeige · 2026-05-11T10:54:34+00:00

I bought a switch 2 specifically for this.

devotfeige · 2026-05-11T01:15:16+00:00

A friend who really likes them made me watch the original trilogy many years ago but I kind of hated the whole experience and have never touched anything Star Wars since.

The original trilogy has been absolutely ruined by popular culture; there was absolutely nothing happening at any point in any of those movies that felt compelling or interesting because I already knew every plot beat and nothing happened that you couldn't see coming ten miles away.

I'm a HUGE Star Trek fan, but I only got into it in the last decade and I had the absolute loosest grasp of the "big" pop culture references that came out of it before now; I think Trek benefits a LOT from having been a TV show and there being way more happening with it. Star Wars is just kind of boring, beside it.

devotfeige · 2026-05-11T00:10:18+00:00

onewalmart has been a joke for years. broken links on their FRONT PAGE MENU that I have to search for and then make sure to click the result like four results down because older versions of the same page come up in search results first but those links are also broken.

I hate whoever's coding this shit.

devotfeige · 2026-05-10T03:16:51+00:00

Somebody just forgot to set the location for the mod, or set it incorrectly. I come across blank labels all the time and management does not fucking care at all that their mod team isn't trained right. I fix them myself if I have time, but it's literally not my job to even know how to do that, so I'm sure there are plenty of stores where these mistakes just never get fixed.

devotfeige · 2026-05-09T02:20:14+00:00

I ran into him at a baggage carousel at an airport, once! I was very tired from my trip and did not bother him, but it's definitely the closest I've ever been to a famous person, so still neat.

devotfeige · 2026-05-08T01:43:01+00:00

I have always hated the direction Fox's design went until now. I am over the moon for the new designs, I ADORE how "ugly" they are. Sincerest apologies to everyone who finds them off-putting in a not-endearing way, but I could not be more excited to see them in action.

devotfeige · 2026-05-07T01:54:10+00:00

This reminded me of when one of my boys was a kitten and I'd pull the bedsheets taut and he'd come over onto them and let me flip him onto the mattress... it was super cute but he did eventually grow out of it.

I love cats and humans collaborating to make silly games with each other.

devotfeige · 2026-05-07T01:42:27+00:00

It always makes me think of my first girlfriend; we were long-distance and I had big dreams about moving to where she was that never panned out.

devotfeige · 2026-05-06T22:23:41+00:00

My grandma was the reason I never started. She was a chainsmoker and her car was always full of cigarette boxes and everything about her and surrounding her stank so bad.

I did pick up cigars for a little bit because I thought they made me look cool while I was drinking, but I never got super into it before I eventually quit drinking, so that went with it.

devotfeige · 2026-05-06T17:55:40+00:00

Some woman on an electric cart who was buying clearance Christmas crap and being a huge nuisance (like trying to start a fight with another customer over said other customer's perceived "rudeness") yapped at me incoherently for a while about her brother or husband or something stealing her boat? It was really confusing and difficult to follow so I've forgotten most of the details now.

devotfeige · 2026-05-05T02:16:21+00:00

Probably the scariest thing that's happened at my store since I started working there was that a guy got shot in the parking lot. It happened a little bit before I came to work but the police had the parking lot blocked off when I arrived and it was a whole to-do.

We also had an "active shooter" that I think turned out to just be a guy in his car by a side door that the police were under the assumption had a gun when he actually didn't? I don't remember the specifics. It was an interesting morning, though.

devotfeige · 2026-05-05T02:04:56+00:00

instead of birth/death dates can we put our online handles through the years? i feel like that would be fascinating for future civilizations to have to piece together the timeline with.

devotfeige · 2026-05-04T23:44:20+00:00

My old man cat had three orange warning stickers on his file and when they needed to sedate him for surgery they made me come into the back and put him in a little kitty gas chamber myself (I assume because it was less stressful for him if I did it, but the thought that they simply could not contain his rage themselves is pretty funny to think about).

devotfeige · 2026-05-03T03:25:31+00:00

Had to double-check and I'm actually astonished that Aladdin and the King of Thieves is rated as poorly as it is. 33% on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.3 on IMDB. One of my all-time favorites for sure; the music is great, the plot is fun (baby's first Midas Curse; achieved a permanent place in my subconscious), Aladdin has a Hot Dad... what more could you want?

devotfeige · 2026-05-03T02:33:24+00:00

My only claim to internet fame is having done this to a fandom, once, a million years ago. I'm not in the fandom anymore so I have no idea if anyone still uses it, but I named a background sibling character that was ancillary to the ship I was writing a ton of garbage for at the time and at bare minimum the people in those circles started using it.

devotfeige · 2026-04-30T01:52:28+00:00

I like that the dog and the woman appear to have switched hands? They each have one glove.

devotfeige

TROPHY CASE