John Lees

posting about hellraiser every day until I go to hell

ian huntley is dead. i'll always remember how the british press attempted to incite hatred against the trans community by reporting he was transitioning, then apologised to him for incorrect reporting instead of apologising to trans people

This notinourname.org.uk petition by @nionwomen.bsky.social has almost reached 90,000 names!

If you are a woman who is opposed to transphobic bigotry being deployed in your name, please sign and share…

Better Call Saul is fascinating because it’s one half a refinement of the themes of Breaking Bad with even better, more narratively sophisticated stuff, and half subpar Breaking Bad fanfic, so overall it averages out to being about equal to Breaking Bad when it could have surpassed it.

breaking bad ends with him losing everyone he cares about only to wilt away for a year in hiding with nothing but a barrel of money. Men not getting its a tale of the toxic tragedy of masculinity is their fault not the show’s. They’re just too deep in the self aggrandising Walt was in

As a horror fan, I’ve seen this crop up a lot in online spaces, and not just the obvious “if you like slashers you want to be one” take. “Freddy Krueger fan? So you like child molesters?” “Nice Chucky shirt, so you condone his misogyny?” “Pennywise the child-murdering clown is NOT an LGBTQ+ ally! 😤”

Some basic tenets for media literacy:

1. Depicting something is not automatically glorifying it.
2. Lies written in dialogue should not be taken as objective fact/the creator’s worldview just because it’s the main character saying them.
3. Finding a villain compelling/cool isn’t a moral failing.

Breaking Bad is a fiercely moral show. It is about a man who chooses wickedness and destroys his life and the life of those around him. Walter White is transparently not just a monster, but a pathetic loser. A story’s “failure” should not be tied to how the worst of its audience interprets it.

I’m seeing bad takes about Breaking Bad on the timeline again, so here’s what I had to say on the subject a year ago.

@hackintimseeley.bsky.social

Resident Evil Requiem is so fucking good, man.

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO!

Orla Bard, looking radiant, looks longingly into the eyes of a nervous Gwyn, lips hovering inches apart.

What if we kissed while reading our newly-acquired copy of acclaimed horror romcom graphic novel ORLA! upon its release on 21st April?

Art by @sallycantirino.bsky.social, colours by @dearbhlala.bsky.social.

These are the 4 things AI can do well:

•Clean up your email inbox (badly)
•Give my shittiest neighbor (Alan) something to talk about at a party
•Tell a 12 yr old to kill himself
•Incinerate a school at 10:16 AM on a Tuesday

You can see why we need to base our economy around it

Just checked the pummelling it’s getting on Letterboxd, and apparently the director confirmed it in the Q&A after.

Ugh genAI at FrightFest. 🤢

I wish I could invent a potion that makes me as full of hot ideas and buzzing to write when I’m at the writing desk as I am when I’m out and hours away from getting back home.

Yours or mine?

Shawn, Ashley, Alex and me.

My phone memories flashed up a reminder of this meeting of Team SINK: letterer @robutoid.bsky.social, sometime colourist Ashley Cormack, artist @alexcormack.bsky.social, and me!

They're the dream team! I've loved the work they do together going all the way back to I Walk With Monsters and Human Remains!

ME: At last, after a week of other commitments and interruptions, I have carved out a little 2-hour window to work on this personal project before leaping back into the next thing I need to do.

PHONE: An ideal time to get an app error that will niggle at you until you stop everything and fix it.

Emily knows she’s going to lose her seat next election

Orla Bard, looking radiant, looks longingly into the eyes of a nervous Gwyn, lips hovering inches apart.

What if we kissed while reading our newly-acquired copy of acclaimed horror romcom graphic novel ORLA! upon its release on 21st April?

Art by @sallycantirino.bsky.social, colours by @dearbhlala.bsky.social.

We've just learned that the person at the MHRA whose letter caused Wes 'I follow the clinical evidence' Streeting to cancel the puberty blockers trial is Professor Jacob George, the GC who enjoyed mocking trans people on his social media account.

Why did Wes Streeting cover up his name?

Is it a shame Firefly only got one excellent season? Sure. But it then got a feature film which tied everything up in a rewarding bow and it’s kinda frustrating how some have spent 20 years thinking it was a failed Season 2 pitch and not one of the all-time great cathartic series finales.

So much of the media and political landscape these days seems to be a two-pronged approach of “the young are illiterate and ideologically captured” and “we must do all we can to render the young illiterate and ideologically capture them.”

This ending had me ROARING! I rewatched this bit multiple times, just a beautiful gag pay-off. This might have also been the precise moment that sold me fully on the show.

Also, am giving serious thought to airing this episode between the 2nd and 3rd film at this year’s Halloween party!

I was immediately sold by the ending of the Christmas episode- Kris Kringle flies off on his sleigh only to be eaten by King Kong. But it turns out this was from Glem’s perspective (high off peyote) and it was a fatal car accident instead.

Glorious.

I actually had a pitch lined up for this which would have been set in the early 2000s East Coast indie wrestling scene, but alas there wasn’t sufficient interest in more wrestling Shakespeare!

Favourite tragedy is Macbeth (as you might have guessed!), and favourite comedy is Much Ado About Nothing.