which uh

if you're interested, check out "At The Riding School," it's in The Best of the Best Horror of the Year edited by Ellen Datlow. Along with a bunch of other cool stories, like my favorite Adam Golaski joint.

The idea that you're becoming more complicit in this farmer's work and his world is kinda half-assed and loses steam when you're forced repeatedly into absurd situations. The visuals are fucked up and eerie and the atmosphere's upsetting, but beyond that, Cody Goodfellow wrote this better ages ago.

Again, having played the game, I think it's less that than people actually think, though it's impossible for us to have any of the details. It does seem like without the controversy and the vague spectre of "a small but vocal minority" this thing woulda failed completely.

I suppose that's also the human condition is that we're always hoping things are weirder than they are. It's why we read weird fiction, it's the only place where things are as unusual as we want them to be.

I feel astroturfed. If we'd all gone into it blind, it would be amazing. But we didn't. We had it all spoiled for us.

I think he was more interested in exploring the divine and the value of a human life in an unusual world based on his other work, but it really does take an American or a Brit to hit the right note with reality TV

As I refuse to use Patreon unless I absolutely have to and refuse to pay for Bret Easton Ellis's unfiltered thoughts, this is as far as I'm able to go with this info.

Oh, okay, so for clarification, which none of the eerily not-quite-human clickbait sites picked up on, he did a top 20 on Bret Easton Ellis's podcast. The first ten were full of things like Battle Royale, Big Bad Wolves, and Cabin Fever, and the second were all basic-ass 2000s oscarbait.

Oh. All right, so he somehow released this stuff in two parts on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast and I had to do three searches to find any source on this that had no hint of AI stirring the pot with its dick www.worldofreel.com/blog/2025/12...

Okay, I've seen this list multiple times and I am still confused as to where this was sourced from. It seems like it was capped from someplace, but this doesn't match the list everyone was dragging him for a week ago

This isn't even his real list, I don't think? I know Battle Royale was on there and it's not here

The reviews made it sound interesting while also making it sound like the reviewers were dislocating all their limbs to avoid even the tiniest fucking shred of self-reflection

Yeah, I know, Rival Stars is still completely unbanned.

Also anyone who cites Vincent Bugliosi on conspiracies deserves to be kicked in the taint so hard they can't piss straight without surgery.

I do find it interesting that the longer things have gone on, the more conspiracy theories tend to bolster those in power rather than serving as a warning not to trust the people in public office who do things like put LSD in New Yorkers' water supply.

skill issue. couldn't be me.

I know you were asking if he had a new one, now you know.

The book is better at this, but Princess Bride for me, apart from being one of the most quotable movies of the 20th century to the point that even people who haven't seen it have tossed lines at it at me, is a good example of how to poke fun at something, it has to come from a place of loving it.

This is one of the few movies that sorta gets things right, though. It's a parody of fairy tales that doesn't completely deflate the fairy tale, it's a story about good and evil and love and all those things that also doesn't get lost in the schmalz, and it's cynical without being a shit about it.