Your Obedient Serpent

The good news: He Will Not attack me when I'm looking at him

Grace has a warped self-perception. He insists he's not a "people person" but gets along with majority of the crew, is a literal middle school teacher who the kids love

he's so sassy bro. "I seem friendly only bcuz I stood next to Stratt"

also establishes why so many ppl thought Grace was second-in-command, like he's usually always standing next to Stratt

Like Grace is sitting there going "man it's kinda crazy the Eridians are being so nice to me. I know Rocky probably bullied them into helping the weird human but I still appreciate it. Hope they don't think the effort is a waste when I die in 40 years! :)"

So when it turns out astrophage does need water, he crashes out, like he did when he was younger—throws things, shouts, deflates, and hides. Stratt assumes that’s all she can get out of him, and prepares to leave.

But then—he begs her to let him help anyway. For the world. For his kids. Even if he’s just one of hundreds of scientists, with no audience left. Even if it does nothing for his pride. That’s when we and Stratt realize that there is more to this guy than ego.

What We Do In The Shadows :(

The show was really good for the first few seasons, but then the writers... got too high on their own supply, as it were. They stopped making interesting changes to the story, they made staler and staler jokes, and they started making decisions that seemed tailored to increase fan engagement without actually pushing the plot or characters forward. A lot of people, myself included, felt the narrative dragging pretty badly.

The core relationship of the show (without a doubt) is Nandor and Guillermo. They are the heart and soul of the show, the driving force of a good 80% of all major narrative beats. The majority of the fandom shipped them, and for good reason— the writers intentionally wrote them homoerotically and baited the ship quite a bit, and both characters are canonically queer (Guillermo is gay, Nandor is interested in both men and women but was born in the 1300s so he doesn't really label himself with a modern sexuality). Their relationship's evolution was the driving force behind the show for the first few seasons, as Guillermo's character development kept the plot moving and forced the other characters into interesting situations.

Then, that all just... stopped. The writers got upset that people were shipping the two queer characters they wrote into a homoerotic relationship, so they just axed like a huge chunk of Guillermo's character development and completely stopped having anything interesting change at all in the show. It became a stagnant sitcom. But there was still hope. The show had gotten worse, sure, but hey, at least maybe the slow-burn will-they-won't-they they've been teasing for FIVE YEARS might finally get together in the finale!

That was the only reason I tuned into the finale at all; the show had gotten so bad that I had given up on it, but I wanted to see if they would make good on their promises. But no, they spent the entire runtime making fake-out gay confession jokes, making fun of the concept of fandom, and then most egregiously, having a "hypnosis ending" wherein Nadja hypnotizes the camera to "give the fans the ending they want." This fake ending is Guillermo and Nandor in a 90s-style sitcom apartment in bed together, set to a laugh track, basically pointing and laughing at the concept of fans wanting these two characters to be together.

fantastic resource to share with people you know who may not be masking anymore!

if you have stopped masking - please take a look at this, so you can make an informed decision on whether to continue not masking or to start again. it doesn't need to be all or nothing; you can start with the big three - doctor's appointments, work, and public transit. any masking is better than no masking!

if you need resources on where to get free, low cost, sensory friendly, durable, etc masks: check out my post below for lots of links, or check out world mask bloc directly or search "mask bloc (your city/county/region)" to find a mask bloc near you

oh wow the glass-tower office buildings we constructed when we thought air conditioning and central heating would never have downsides...have downsides?

and we're still building them?

while the Victorian house museum where I work, with thick walls and small windows and big wooden shutters stays ~10 degrees above (winter) or below (summer) the outside temperature for days on end with no help at all?

uh. okay then