Ok now I'll have to competitively agree - I didn't read your comment as advice for me, I was commenting on the benefits of GMing as a creative outlet. I've never roleplayed and don't have much interest either.
I mean if you have a group and you gm, you sorta have a guaranteed audience, whereas I'm pretty sure my current ideas would basically receive none. And instead of being something compelling to read, it would end up as something like Reddit writing prompts and lore tid bits you find in books in computer RPGs. I mean if I gave effort I probably would improve so I'm not fatalistic but still I ain't gonna writing anything lmao.
Also, my real motivation: I so sorely hope to see better for adult animation. It seems like it's only allowed in comedic and satiric form and has to be edgy. R&M probably would be better if it had less gore and burping, it's as if the networks think that an animated show can't survive without pandering to a teen male audience.
I think the reception of Pickle Rick is just so characteristic. The show's fans seem to think it's either about lel random joaks or science and philosophy. The show is honestly a bit deeper than most adult animated series, but not hugely so and apparently independently from Harmon's intentions (which is ok since the author is dead). The show is more about amusing situations, riffing on sci-fi, horror and film tropes and being oddly endeared by the dysfunctional family members.
The end result is that Pickle Rick had a genuinely well done action movie parody that was better than it had any right of being, the Pickle Rick thing was hilarious as it was genuinely absurd how far Rick could go to avoid his responsibilities, the therapist speech was great and seeing the kids develop and gaining insight into Betty was cool.
While these galas are sort of horse shit, I very much hope good things for the new female hires of season three, they made the episodes clearly better and must have held back Harmon's worst tendencies. I don't know what the other nominees are, but Gao did good work.
I think The Empire Strikes Back is a genuinely good movie even if the real intended audience is teen boys. And the rest of the films range from shit to ok. And The prequels are the kind of bad films you wish were better instead of just hating them, science fiction epic on the slide of liberal democracy into fascism with the jedi as the revered yet ultimately harmful milquetoast liberals would have been significant piece of popular culture but nah, apparently. You can see this with the Darth Jar Jar theorizing which hit upon something real (even if fans took it so edgily) too: I genuinely think Jar Jar was meant to represent 'wu wei' (a concept in Chinese philosophy) which could have been really interesting thing to see, but no-one could have gotten that out of the movies.
But I must add that from the viewpoint of optics, it's hella good that the Crewniverse is extremely, almost painfully, obvious with gay romance now. Maybe it's a bit odd that marriage is a big deal now to alien gems, but given the attempts at censorship and they're-just-friendsing, it's megagood that denial just flat out isn't possible.
I felt somewhat that like with Now We're Only Falling Apart, I'm clearly not the target audience, guessing very early on that this is an episode about remaining individual in a relationship (which doesn't really speak to me as an individual) and getting closure. Falling Apart was about Pearl getting insight into what her relationship with Rose was (which I also felt like I knew) and also closure. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the episode, it's just that I didn't get that much more insight into the characters than I already had, but I'm sure kids don't mind and given the awkward scheduling, probably benefit from repetition.
Honestly, I loved that Greg saw some use here and that he has relationships with gems outside of Steven. I think lesser shows would forget about those or make him into a buffoon. Amethyst as a horse was hilarious and the more western comic with more realistic presentation than the show itself was pretty great stuff. But I do wonder what Pearl and Sapphire talked inside.
Also, I've noticed that this show has a genre pastiche for everything. Now it had its own western episode! What's left, honestly?
Very good episode, imo. Hardly any action besides talking, but I think the Crewniverse managed to make it compelling by attention to the manner of delivery. My favorite crystal gem keeps changing and now it's either Pearl or Amethyst, the latter reaffirmed based on this episode. She took real leadership here in a healing manner, which I suppose really is what the show wants to take us from it.
I mean it's basically one of the most obvious aspects of the show, but I love how the set up of three "moms" keeps delivering. Pearl has very teen problems despite being the most conventionally mom like, Amethyst can be mom-like in a cool big sister way or behave like a cool big sister. Garnet feels a bit aunt like to me.
Off topic, but still related: do you remember the strawberry fields back in an early episode when the Crystal Gems went off to investigate the ruins of a temple? It turns out that strawberries flourish in a sandy soil and sand is nothing than fine grained quartz. So basically it's an ancient battle field, it's the Verdun or Somme of the Gems. Fan theory? Very much.
Moonside wrote
Reply to '2 Minute Papers' video on "Gotta Learn Fast: A New Benchmark for Generalization in RL" by twovests
Ha! I knew this would be about Sanic.