.

this is less of a hot take more like a complaint but something I think isn’t nearly as talked abt is the magic system and how it works in MS/MCD. In McD it’s slightly more explored.

Jess just kinda threw a lot of… stuff at us and expected us to just digest it without further explaining what’s in the dish.

it’s the equivalent of a stranger walking up to you, handing you a plate of somewhat appealing food, and telling you to eat it. Like most people want to know what’s in the food.

there’s two different forms of it, kinda not really, magic and magik’s. With no real meaningful difference between the two.

we know there’s a high magic council, that’s off busy doing god knows what during MS’s climax.

We know that aside from magik’s and magic there’s multiple different classifications of magic. By extension we know most of magic is drawn from emotion (it’s still stated extremely vaguely tho), and healing magic is done through equivalent exchange.

we know there’s demons and other mythical humanoid/animal like creatures.

we know there’s a spirit world.

we know there’s like familiars, and some of those spells that come with it.

And we know there’s other gods besides the divine. (They’re technically not gods, but they’re still treated like it in dialogue so)

and we know that there’s magic laws, colleges, maybe even governments and places that are purely inhabited by magic users alla Harry Potter.

my point being, with all these jumping points you would thing at least would be expanded on, but nope, magic in this world is just, accepted as a factor and treated like a relatively unimpressive spectacle.

which is weird because despite there being lots ways to show off how society, both physically and psychologically would change. There’s so many cool world building you could do, but Jess just- opts to shove goofy ass spells in our face.

at least until season 4 where the really bad forbidden spell is made which, isn’t even investigated by this magic council that put the rule that you can’t make it in place. But if Jess did that then she’d have to do several things we know she wouldn’t want to do like; explain why forever potions are band and love potions aren’t, actually focus on characters and the world bigger than our cast of characters mainly aph and Aaron, come up with actual world building and discuss the conflicts that may arise out of having magic being used so freely in schools and just public areas in general.

like there’s so many deeper topics that you could present with it but no; cat potionsssss, love potion misunderstandings/conflicts that we’ve seen a million other times and done so much better in a handful of them, teleportation which does have a bit of a limit granted, more destructive chaotic potions that multiple characters have not accidentally/purposefully caused 100’s of 1,000 dollars with, but also put people in actual physical danger in both schools and public settings, potions that allow you to swap fantasy races for comedy.

The main problem is that Jess kinda just, pulled out random generic spells as she went along and only put debuffs on it later to nerf it. Again like the teleportation, or forever potion victims just needing to feel a “strong emotion”. It’s not thought out at all, which I’m not surprised by but god, it could’ve been so interesting.

oh i can explain the magic differences sorta ~~

magicks/magics plural is exclusive to mcd. people who use magicks have to be born with an innate connection to the magicks that flows through the world. and your abilities tend to fall into a specific category of spell (ex. kc specializes in animation magicks, zoey has barrier magicks etc.) some magicks users can perform witchcraft in spells related to their field, but witchcraft is for the most part a seperate skill. it is the best explained out of the three.

magic is a mystreet concept and allegedly anyone can use it with a "strong emotion". there are only a couple categories of spell, and specific emotions are required for each one (happy is creation, anger for destruction, sorrow for elemental, and love for healing). only the healing magic is ever used, and its mostly unrelated to witchcraft even through lucinda exposits about it. [imo adding a magic with such a loose requirement and never using it only serves to dampen any emotional scenes after its introduction since (ex. zane couldn't have been THAT sad about aph's death if he didn't become the avatar) but that's a little unrelated lol)

witchcraft is the jack of all trades of magic in both worlds and is characterized by using specific incantations and ingrediants for spells to work. anyone can do it with training or only some people can do it depending on the timeline. it is the most lawless of the three, mostly due to the fact that lucinda is the only important witch and her primary role is plot device. the majority of magic use is witchcraft, including the forever potions.

You're so right about the Will Roland fanart problems. It seems like back when Will Roland was only known for Jared people were way more proWill because he could be their funny meme boi who ate bathbombs but now that he's a lead with all these emotional songs it's like God forbid he's not their "twink bby". Idk it annoys me so much especially when people draw the rest of the Broadway cast and still use WillC or do an animatic with WillRs voice and WillCs character ugh like. Accept the Roland pls

lmao we are all just out here grabbing the mic like “attention all bastards: Look, just because will roland isn’t your ideal fancast for most adorable twink of the year - “

really like, i have never come across any signs of there having been any pattern in the deh fandom of ~taking issue~ with will’s Abilities to sing or play the part of a struggling teen or whatever like what crops up re: him being the lead in bmc.....it also is unsurprising yet disappointing that like, jared and alana are so easily completely ignored, but when they Are acknowledged it’s super flattened interpretations like, either they’re both hypocritical jerks (just based on evan’s gfy accusations basically lol) or if they’re actually viewed in a positive way it’s just like, alana is your friendly local Model Student and jared is memes and neither of them are in the way! :3

you litrally cannot ignore jeremy the Whole Entire Main Character tho and also like. can’t ignore the fact that caring about jeremy as a Romantique Lead is ahhh important to many ppl in the fanbase? so him being regarded as ~less cute~ is more of an Issue b/c the character must be taken seriously and is the sympathetic hero and has a lot more solo material / more of Any material / more focus than jared does in deh.........you Have To Look At Him and care about his actual feelings and not just misinterpret the character as “has no serious emotions b/c he doesn’t say serious things in a serious tone” the way ppl misinterpret jared. there’s the assumption that someone who is good / sympathetic should also be attractive / cute / Personally Appealing To Look At and that wasn’t as much a conflict when ppl didn’t think it was important to sympathize / care about / pay attention to jared too much, and the “conflict” of caring abt jeremy’s capacity for a romantic relationship but that’s less important if he’s not as Cute also not being as much an issue when most people don’t care about jared’s romantic feelings or think that they exist despite jared being in love with evan But Anyways

like it is wild the things people will just make up to “justify” their Dislike for will, which has only manifested as apparent Issues thanks to him playing jeremy rather than jared........there’s the classic “mm idk i don’t think he can sing that well” approach which like. some people are just trying to say they do not like the inherent descriptive qualities of his voice, which is more nasal obviously and don’t anyone come in here with the “Actually the Technical definition of Nasal re Vocals is” b/c we know what i mean, alright? nasal voices are not considered ~serious~ and there’s the kneejerk dumb-annoying-loser-nerd association. god knows that jeremy heere canNot have characteristics that could be automatically judged as irritating and unappealing. then there’s the notion that He doesn’t have the (vocal) range!! which like. do you honestly think they would cast someone who doesn’t have the correct range. you’re aware that will roland was being considered for the part of jeremy in the two river run up to the last round of callbacks. you know that the song that was literally written expressly to suit will roland’s individual voice and singing abilities makes use of his falsetto which people go “omg he can’t hit those high notes” except sometimes when they misattribute his falsetto to other singers they suddenly find it worth complimenting. and then you get people who like, want to subscribe to this softened version of it and get all backhanded like “oh i think will’s vocals are improving whew that’s good” in any random video and always Only single him out apparently like. did you think he gets worse with experience? you don’t wanna talk about any of these other professional singers improving or worsening or anything? only wanna give ur assessment of william’s huh

honestly i for real haven’t seen the 1.0 version b/c i’m here via will roland in the first place & i’ve never gotten the impression that there’s some Essential Content i’m missing out on by having only seen 2.0........but between a) people complaining that will r’s jeremy is Too Frustrated He Shouldn’t Be That Angry It Makes Him Less Sympathetic and b) saying just as a point of comparison betwixt the depictions that will r’s jeremy is more frustrated and c) i haven’t read That much bmc fic but people sure talk about jeremy being like five seconds away from bursting into tears at any given moment which like, okay yeah aren’t we all, but also i presume this stems from will c’s apparently Sadder portrayal of jeremy. i almost forgot where i was going with this one but i think it’s just that yeah people truly take issue with will r’s jeremy being more frustrated and it’s like you realize there’s no Right or Wrong portrayal / interpretation even if you prefer one for whatever reasons......theatre just is Like that.......you have a slightly different portrayal during ever performance even from the same actors, and you’ll often have different actors playing the role........yeah people usually are attached to the first performance they see / have that as their Standard and that’s fine, it’s just like, you don’t have to decide that’s an Objective view and that you have Objective issues with everyone else’s take. 1.0 is still there for you

uhhhh oh yeah and the whole Clout idea lmao......people really putting themselves out there shaking their heads at the supposed fact that will was cast for the off bway run to Boost Popularity b/c he was part of the deh obc......besides the whole thing that it’s hardly likely that would’ve been considered necessary anyhow, there’s the little thing that a) again, will roland had already been very seriously considered for the part even before will connolly was decided on for the original run and b) like.....these people had been collaborating for eons and you really think will roland only popped into their minds thanks to being in deh....and c) joe iconis has repeatedly said they specifically did Not want to cast people based on who was Known enough and whose names would be good for marketing and d) maybe anyone has noticed that the marketing never involved any mention of anyone in the cast? no? cool. and yet people like so truly think they’re Wise to ~real reason~ that they’d go and cast will roland as the lead. like people are making shit up and really just thinking it’s true b/c they Want it to be true b/c they Want to be validated in having actual contempt for will’s casting despite the “issue” being that he doesn’t seem as Likeable (worthy of sympathy...cough...) thanks to his deemed-unattractive looks and sweetly-adenoidal voice and more-frustrated portrayal all seeming less cute or whatever

and i mean i haven’t seen it crop up of late but the one particular Grasping At Straws ~justification~ for will being unworthy of the part thanks to perceived acting/singing incompetence which is soooo wild is when people are like “ough i Hate when he just holds his arms out when he sings” like fmslkdj if anything that’s just an individual quirk and the fact that it was something you noticed means you just latched on to it as potential fodder for “the fact i registered this information abt someone whose existence i Resent means it distracted me which means i hate it and it’s bad”...like another thing he does with his hands while singing is when he makes the loose claws and kind of half crosses his arms in front of his chest! where are the complaints about that?? nowhere, b/c people have not really processed it as a particular thing, so they can’t deem it a Particular Thing To Criticize. people sometimes Notice that his jared talks with his hands a lot, which will says is an acting choice that came from an unconscious tendency, but people really only bring it up to juxtapose will’s jared’s dramatic tendencies and nervous habits with sky’s jared’s more outwardly still and smoothed-over behavior. aka they don’t Complain about it or deem it a weakness / bad thing. and yet people caring about bmc are really jumping on that chance to be like oh ugh there he goes again, having a characteristic i associate with him as an individual, disgusting, can’t believe will connolly was murdered for this..

it’s a bit clearer too with bmc moreso than deh that people aren’t super willing to accept how will roland Looks b/c like, thanks to will connolly’s jeremy having the long hair thing you can Tell The Difference In Which Actor Is Represented when ppl draw the character even if the rest of the features are kind of “generic” (and how even the costuming isn’t a dead giveaway since ppl will draw connolly jeremy in 2.0/3.0′s outfits) and it even serves to specify the actor in writing format too if they mention the hair lol........and honestly?? this fact is one of the most damning things lol in that people the reason so many ppl continue to produce connolly-based jeremys is Not because for whatever reason they can’t / it’s too difficult to draw a will roland lookin jeremy......like a lot of the time The trait which serves to distinguish between the two is the hair thing. people are adopting jeremy’s new costuming and stuff but choosing to make sure we know that jeremy does not Look like will roland and the clearest indicator of this is the longer hair thing......which also means that for many people the main effort they’d need to exert to make it clear they’re drawing wrol jeremy would just be to....shorten the hair. And Yet!!!! it is apparently beyond people to do this

like uh nice on making a lgw animatic but really.........really we’re gonna take the song that is specifically from the 2.0 / 3.0 runs, so it’s obvious we’re Accepting that non-1.0 content, okay......and we’re Accepting will roland’s vocals, which, a person’s voice is a physical trait of theirs too, same as The Existence Of Their Body........and yet jeremy Cannot Look Like How Will Roland Looks, that’s too far, can’t do that. we can take material from the specific versions the actor was cast in, that material being a song written specifically for this individual actor’s voice, in the form of this actor’s actual vocals......but can’t have the depicted image of jeremy be based on this actor’s appearance..............of all the......

really all that it is is that more people find will connolly more attractive than will roland and this makes them feel like will roland Is Worse and then the people who just run with that either just embrace that and are crashing around on public forums saying Lol i hate him cuz he’s ugly lmao....and then you have people who don’t wanna do that but don’t wanna actually examine why they ~take issue~ with will being cast and so they’ve gotta leap on any Other things about him that feel more acceptable / Objective like oh the portrayal is “Wrong” (that’s not how this works) or he can’t sing well enough (yeah he can) or high enough (yeah he can) or he was stunt cast (no he wasn’t) or they wanna label every characteristic / trait they can think up that Isn’t his physical appearance as Annoying And Bad like. maybe stop and ask why you find it SO pressing that this other actor has the part and it Must be objectively inferior if not ruinous for reasons you gotta invent about him being incompetent cuz it’s better to make stuff up about how a professional actor isn’t good enough for a part than to say you don’t think he’s cute enough and are bothered by that

it didn’t matter as much to people when they viewed his character as either Just A Joke or Just A Jerk or flat-out disposable material. being attractive is for serious sympathetic beloved characters, natch

unfortunately jeremy can’t be written off as The Unimportant Meme Friend With No Real Feelings so now there’s a whole problem if an actor is not as cute

like b/c of the way he looks ppl can accept that a character played by will roland can be funny or can be rude or can really not be too important to take seriously / consider complex or sympathetic or likeable beyond being a walking Running Joke, but when it comes to a sympathetic main character whose emotional state is so important it’s practically assigned a character and who’s a romantic lead? now people have a problem with him looking the way will roland does

You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

On the book jacket’s sleeve, Kathleen Alcott (not sure who she is, presumably an impt/well-known figure in contemporary literature) praises this book: “A terrifying and elegant talent you will not soon forget.” In contrast, I do actually want to forget about this book…. and I did, until I remembered that I have not penned down my thoughts abt this book.

I thought the book was weird, maybe you can manage to imply good interpretations - maybe the issues she is trying to raise are impt - body image, the mechanism of a cult, noise caused by an endless tirade of commercials and advertisement, consciousness, a sense of self + belonging, etc… but all of these are drowned in a foggy sea of plain weirdness.

Tbh, I did really like some parts, I did go wow that’s rly well-written. It made me think of tao lin’s taipei, like small revelations of things, things that people dismiss - these things are not a ‘big deal’, nevertheless it makes you think that ok so it’s not just me. Maybe I do have a bit of social anxiety, that’s why I can find traces of me in A, but most of the time this seething, electric sense of connectedness is eclipsed by the extreme alienness of sensations the character is experiencing. I also like parts where the narrative keeps questioning A’s sense of self, sometimes it rubs off on me, especially after reading Sam Harris’ Waking Up

Ok I’m gonna paste its synopsis on goodreads here:

“A woman known only as A lives in an unnamed American city with her roommate, B, and boyfriend, C, who wants her to join him on a reality dating show called That's My Partner! A eats mostly popsicles and oranges, watches endless amounts of television, often just for the commercials— particularly the recurring cartoon escapades of Kandy Kat, the mascot for an entirely chemical dessert—and models herself on a standard of beauty that exists only in such advertising. She fixates on the fifteen minutes of fame a local celebrity named Michael has earned after buying up a Wally's Supermarket's entire, and increasingly ample, supply of veal.

Meanwhile, B is attempting to make herself a twin of A, who in turn hungers for something to give meaning to her life, something aside from C's pornography addiction. Maybe something like what's gotten into her neighbors across the street, the family who's begun "ghosting" themselves beneath white sheets and whose garage door features a strange scrawl of graffiti: he who sits next to me, may we eat as one.”

I was reading it on the sleeve of the book jacket and thought… ummm. Weird. And sometimes it happens when I read a synopsis, so I thought of it as nothing - the impression dissipates as soon as I savor the book and have a good taste of what the book is trying to portray/drive at - replaced by a relief, a sense of familiarity. I thought I would arrive there, so I waited and it never came, not even on the last page. Like… the weirdness did not feel bizarre in a way that makes you wonder (I’d like to think of myself as having a good tolerance for strange things), it felt forced and synthetic… again maybe this is due to the fact that I do not have extreme paranoid tendencies, I think it’ll be good to have real ppl who do experience paranoia to testify whether the scenarios laid out are plausible, if they do, then probably my unfavorable view of this book emerged not out of the book’s lack of merits, but my incapability to absorb something I can’t relate with well enough

I liked this part where A mentions to her boyfriend C about a weird sighting of her neighbors, which C dismisses almost instantly. C is often capable of convincing her effortlessly, perhaps even unintentionally, that everything is fine, normal. I felt that this is done semiconsciously by C out of convenience, he does not want to bother entertaining probable, but seemingly ludicrous possibilities (low-level paranoid thoughts) - and A likes that, because it makes her think less crazy thoughts, nevermind that it leads her into thinking that she is the crazy one, and without her realizing creates an imbalance in their relationship’s dynamic (ie A needs C more than the reverse):

“Okay,” C said thoughtfully, as though he had made a decision. He put his phone in his pocket and pulled himself up to a standing position. “You are a sensitive person, you saw something weird, you feel spooked. No pun intended. There are plenty of reasons why what you saw might have happened, and some of them are weird. But some of them are just boring. You know? That family could have been going to some kind of school pageant. Or a birthday party. So you can ask yourself: Do I live in a weird town, or a boring town?”

I blinked at him.

“I’d say boring,” he added, nodding and then raising both eyebrows expectantly.

I loved his face, his bland white good-looking face. I believed in him and therefore in the boringness of my town. C was good at handling me. He made things suddenly, instantaneously normal, just by explaining them. He was like a magnifying glass, I only had to look through him to see the world in crisp detail. And he had a really nice smile and good teeth.

This is one of those “not a big deal” moments, and how the narrator jumps from C’s ability to his physical appearance, like his positive quality has a halo effect on his physical appearance (or maybe it’s the other way round), this thought process seems very natural, how your mind jumps from one thing to another, following a pattern

I also think this is very well written, how A describes her gaze direction which relies on her boyfriend’s - a subtle hint at the commensalistic tendencies their relationship is developing:

I went over and got under the blanket with him. I tucked my feet in under his things and looked where he was looking.

Also this kind of self-inquiry, the idea that your sense of self is constantly evolving, it assumes and loses its shape constantly - reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, only here told directly and real-time instead of being inferred through a nostalgic rewind:

Think this through, I said to myself. Just because you weren’t the person he thought you were doesn’t mean that you won’t be that person at some other time, someday. It doesn’t mean you’re not you.

And this separation between inner and outer lives, which to some might seem like an act of hypocrisy:

What bothered him, what seemed filthy, was the emotional aspect, the way I had dictated the personal. “You need them not only to be doing something for you but also feeling some specific way about it,” C said. A begging quality had entered C’s voice. C said: “Why can’t you just let people have their own inner lives, as long as they’re doing pretty much what they’re supposed to do with their outer lives?”

Plus substituting your object of desire as a coping mechanism, citing classic sociology studies:

Baby monkeys taken from their mothers will form attachments to fake mothers made of cloth or electrified wire, ducklings with no parents will imprint on a cardboard box with an alarm clock ticking inside of it. Wanting things was a substitute for wanting people, one of the best possible substitutes.

And lastly, what keeps you from going batshit crazy (like in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, it is a very thin thread we are holding on to with all our might):

“Are you one of those people who acts normal, but is secretly about to chuck their lives and disappear?” I asked. If that were the case, I wasn’t going to waste my time getting to know him. I knew that we’d be dating for a while, at least, when he laughed several times, loudly, and kissed me for what was then the third or fourth time ever.

“Yeah, right. No way. Neither are you,” he said. “I’ve seen that on TV, those dads, and it is nuts. No way. Everything’s worked out great for me since whenever, I don’t have any plans to make it complicated. Besides, I’m attached to my material goods.”

What material goods? I wondered. Then I followed the arc of his arm pointing to a location across the room. He had been referring to his collection of DVDs, heaps of horror and comedy and porn, stacked together in a pile the size of a small love seat.

But these parts are more or less detached from the main crux of the story, I found myself slowly growing a particular dislike toward Kandy Kat’s commercials, and the ridiculous (not absurd) appeal of the cult…. Idk, it felt like the narrative invents a problem then attempts to solve it, instead of borrowing one from real life and emphasizing it

So yeah, I’m open to read more of Kleeman’s stuff, she nails interesting observations, and this book is fun to read at times, despite my complaints