snoopy of the day
I just saw a post that deeply annoyed me because it went, "Here's a story that's like a Regency romance, but I FIXED it by making the characters sexually liberated and shame-free and polyamorous!"
This is like saying, "Here's a story that's like a thriller, but I FIXED it by having the serial killer go to therapy instead of trapping victims in his evil maze and dismembering them."
.
The thing a lot of people don't seem to get is that the entire appeal of a Regency romance is watching a deeply repressed, perfectly controlled, buttoned up, straight-laced person who has never expressed an emotion before fall so hard for someone that something in them just breaks and they come completely unhinged.
It's a very specific kink that this genre is tapping into.
People who think the characters in a Regency novel are boring are missing the whole point. The characters are supposed to be boring, right up until they fall so madly in love that it drives them insane, at which point they become very interesting. Regency romance novelists are doing the writing equivalent of putting plain white featureless uncooked whole eggs in a microwave and waiting for them to explode.
So I heard good things about the movie Conclave, so as a dutiful little post-Catholic weirdo with lingering baggage, I gave it a watch and was thoroughly entertained. I highly recommend it.
But one of the reasons why it's been getting so much discussion is that people keep comparing it to Drag Race and making it out to be this campy drama full of gossip and machinations. And while those elements are there, and I certainly endorse taking that approach to analysis, I also can't help but wonder. I wonder if the reason why people are clocking it as a glam gossip drama is because they don't have enough lived experience with Catholicism, and its most vociferous adherents that they can't clock the sincerity when they witness it.
There is a mundane hierarchical jockeying aspect to it, and that cannot be denied, but the true fascination in the experience, the creeping horror of it, is to see dudes who have completely convinced themselves of their own self righteousness that they believe Performative Humility is Genuine Submission to God's Will. There's a bit that carries through the film that says "nobody who acts like they WANT to be pope SHOULD be pope", but that unto itself is a form of performance. It's the most insidious kind of grandstanding because it's the kind that can convince the performer themself that it's genuine. It can make them think: "I've eaten enough humble pie to prove I'm a good person, so I don't have to continue the work of self examination."
In my opinion, that sort of performance has less in common with high glam ego-driven drag competition, and more in common, say, with online political posturing, the contest to appear most sociopolitically aware and self-flagellatory. To prove how good one is by being loudest about confessing how bad one is. And maybe some people aren't ready to make that connection because they don't want to believe that old dudes in church are capable of the same kinds of mental gymnastics to pursue their own self-interests as the most liberated, educated, and media savvy online commentator.
hes the lieutenants’ last resort in a difficult boss battle. dry bowser wont know what hit him
The person who subbed the 70s czech cinderella in english added emoticons so the entire movie is like
and this one is making me lose it
rly liking the new update where you can clean the bathroom and have tabitha berate you! rly hope there's a future update where we can do the same with the mold in the fridge bc this is a maid simulator for me
You can already clean the mold in episode one with your mouth