Meet Lauren Ipsum, comical used book salesperson and eccentric librarian extraordinaire, always seen writing semi-biographical “Fix Fics” on a traditional manual typewriter. Accompanying Lauren on her daily adventures is a friendly and chill fox named Dewey (who sometimes needs a haircut). Follow Lauren and Dewey as they stealthily return overdue ...

We are wandering the bottom, or so it seems
We breath, we live, we gleam
Whatever we’ve seen. We’re waving our dry jokes goodbye
We are conjuring the bottom, or so it seems
We breath, we live, we dream
Wherever we lean. We’re waving our dry hopes ...

On a recent Quackcast episode here on the duck, Ozoneocean made an interesting point about some older raunchy comedies.

The point was that in some of these movies, the female characters were presented a certain way, maybe not as three-dimensional as the male characters, or maybe came across more sexual ...

Photo: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Paul Gauguin. Oil on Canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (1897-98)

A somber recollection carries me back twenty-two years ago on this day when I walked into a class where an inconsolable history teacher delivered a line ...

The sheer power of a good team is so defining that it's a trope. Some of the most iconic characters and beloved personalities have emerged from stories featuring teams of main characters.

Each of them are vital to the story, each of them contribute both in terms of the ...

Redlettermedia, in an old review of Michael Bay's Pain and Gain, contrasted that movie to The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese.

In the Wolf of Wall Street, the RLM guys say, there's a subtext that we're ALL capable of the mistakes the main character ...

Born with clay feet on an earth unsteady
Minds unturned to feed the quagmire
Torn away heat on a dusk already
Bonds untamed to bleed the bonfire
Mourned and prayed bead on a faith non-heady
Cants unsung to free the lost choir


NaaN (Now, always and Never)

During the filming of Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock was unable to be on set one day. His crew filmed the scene for that day (I believe it was where Arbogast, the detective, goes up the stairs where he encounters Mrs. Bates). Hitchcock saw the footage, and said he had to reshoot ...

Facing the Downpour the broken sleeper crashes again
Flowing down its back it gathers for a new fall
Racing the Encore the broken sleeper clashes again
Blowing down its rack it gathers for a new call
Chasing the offshore the broken sleeper bashes again
Rowing down its track it gathers ...

Last time I'd written about gender toxicity and what a trap it can be for creators seeking to write powerful characters. It is not something that only plagues the “strong female character” attempt, but also the “strong male character” and definitely the “strong LGBTQ+ character”.

Too many of these ...