Murdercoaster.
That’s a name that had I run across it as a misanthropic teen on one of my many trips to the video store in the 80s would have peaked my interest. Had Murdercoaster been hanging on the wall of Video World in 1987, collecting dust and the ire of every parent walking in that back room in search of The Neverending Story for their little Johnny or Jane, I would have taken it home for…
anyway while i'm thinking about it i will never understand people who are like "why would you ever watch a movie/read a book/play the same game/etc. more than one when there are always new media to experience, it's just a waste of time" because like. how else are you supposed to fully appreciate the themes and narratives, the artistic choices made, your personal feelings and interpretations and the creator's intentions, the nuances of the story and the characters? every time i revisit a story i already know, i realize there's something i missed last time. i always discover there's more to learn if i'm willing to keep looking for it. there's nothing more exciting to me than searching the same cave for more hidden treasure.
There's something so fun about the idea of Sydney and Richie getting closer in season 3 and Carmy just losing his entire mind because Sydney was his. She was his hire, his business partner, the only person who saw him separate from the history with Mikey. His little mind-meld, sentence-completing, unison-speaking cooking twin and why the fuck is she giving Richie samples for her menu ideas before talking to him?!
And I really don't mean this in a shipping way - the logical end result of the s2 finale is Carmy throwing himself headfirst into work and being like "HELLO SYDNEY I'M READY TO WORK NOW" but there's no way she'll be able to trust him because she basically had that trust shattered repeatedly for 3 months straight. But somehow, in the midst of their friends and family fiasco, Richie, WHO SHE STABBED, had her back? He brought her down from her panic and gave her the encouragement to pull it together and complete service.
Syd obviously has a wonderful relationship with Tina but Richie being really good at Expo, the thing that literally makes Sydney throw up, means they'll have something to work on together next season.
something something guy who is so so unhealthily dependent on these very specific formalized roles & narratives they've been cast into to maintain an ultimately broken relationship & can't handle it when the people around him increasingly start going off script
Hey you 308k(!!!) people who have watched Nerdy Prudes in less than three days:
First of all I love you! I love you, I love your excitement for this show, I love all of the love going around. I'm so proud and excited by how well this show our little fandom's been obsessed with for months is doing.
ANYWAYS.
Did you love it? Do you want more? Do you wanna maybe watch Steph and Pete fall for each other again, or see Grace be unhinged in a completely different context? Do you want to know who the hell most of those random people in "Hatchet Town" even were, or learn about the Lords in Black (why was the yellow one so excited about Pete being a Spankoffski?), the Black Book, and the Cult of the Starry Children? Do you want to meet two of the coolest people in all of Hatchetfield (who, believe it or not, haven't been in a stage show yet)? Do you want MORE BOPS written by Jeff and MORE KILLER STORIES AND BRILLIANT DIALOGUE written by the Langs, all of it delivered by the Hatchetfield musicals cast you know and love?
Then the (roughly) 230k of you who haven't watched all of Nightmare Time should check it out!
"But Brooke," you might say, "I tried to start with Episode 1 (available under the livestream tab on Starkid's youtube account) but the low quality of a zoom-call video really put me off!"
Okay, understandable. It didn't personally bother me, but I totally get it not being other people's jam. But I will say that the episodes get better in production quality as they go along, and I would try each one before giving up and moving onto the next. Nightmare Time 2, especially, is a completely different viewing experience from Hatchetfield Ape Man.
And here's the kicker: IF ENOUGH PEOPLE WATCH NIGHTMARE TIME 2, WE GET MORE OF THE NERDY PRUDES CHARACTERS!! We get more of Grace, Ruth, Richie, the Lords in Black, and the Black Book. And that's just the stuff that's been confirmed (the planned Grace episode of NMT 3 sounds like the completion of the teen slasher trilogy, so I imagine Steph and Pete will probably be in it as well).
So please, 230k Nerdy Prudes fans who have not watched Nightmare Time, do yourself and all of us a favor and get your Nightmare Time on!!
It's been a while since I read a jjk article that actually makes me happy
And for the description of Choso which is so very right
Choso is such a deep, multi-layered character that sometimes it's very sad I rarely find any fanworks that feature and dig him thoroughly and do him justice with his phenomenal characterization and narrative.