The Levels of Liking a Book

For me there are eight levels of how much I like a book.

One. I can’t read it. I just can’t. I mean, I’ll try if I really have to, but after reading the same paragraph half a dozen times, I’m just going to give up and google my way to a summary. It’s so extraordinary bad that I just can’t read it. My brain goes on a strike as soon as I try. It’s figuratively holding up a small sign saying “What do we want? Entertainment. When do we want it? Now!”

Two. I don’t want to read it. This is the part where my brain and I are sitting at opposite sides of the negotiation table, trying to work something out. My brain is threatening to go on another strike, but I successfully calm her down by promising her entertainment right after this one last job. Sure, neither of us actually wants to read the book, but we’ll struggle our way through it. Teamwork.

A Great Character

A/N: Very light spoiler alert for Lucifer.

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The Great Character is a character, who can save a show. It’s a character, who can take a book, a movie, or a TV-show and make it worth your while. You can, of course, argue that subjectivity plays a vital role in this – as it does in everything regarding the worlds of literature and media. Just because I find a show dull and a character entertaining, doesn’t mean that you do.

But often, we do agree. Quite a few people agree that Game of Thrones is a great show. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have the budget it has today. Sure, taste is subjective but there are certain things that speak to ninety-five percent of us. And ninety-five percent of seven billion is quite a lot of people. If ninety-five percent of people like something you’ve made, you’re set. Or should I say almost set? You do, after all, need to get their attention before you can impress them. But that’s a post for another time.

Right now, I want to talk about characters that impressed me – and then I hope that in this case, I’m part of the ninety-five percent and not the five. Otherwise, feel free to comment and let me know why you might disagree.

For this post, I’ll focus on the characters of the TV-show Lucifer, which is currently airing on Netflix. And why I think the characters are what makes Lucifer worthwhile to watch. Let’s see what we have to work with, shall we?

If I Were a Book…

If I were a book, I don´t think I would be a particularly educating one.

I wouldn´t be able to teach someone how to speak Spanish or how to make the perfect crème brûlée. Hell, I wouldn´t even be able to teach someone how to bake chocolate chip cookies. I couldn´t teach them the difference between a congress man and a senator, or why North and South Korea doesn´t get along.

And I don´t think I would be the next great American novel. I wouldn´t be full of clever comments about our current society. I wouldn´t be the next Gatsby or Animal Farm. I wouldn´t be particularly philosophical or expand your vocabulary all that much. I wouldn´t warn you against where our society might be heading. I wouldn´t be 1984 nor Brave New World.

Irrationally Angry

Warning: Includes cursing.

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Okay, do you guys have something that pisses you off way more than it should?

And I can´t be things where it´s perfectly reasonable to be angry. It can´t be how you hate it when people lie, or when someone calls you ugly names. It´s reasonable to be angry when this happens.

I´m thinking about something that pisses you off, even when it really, really shouldn´t.

For me, it´s when people say that something taste like Christmas.

Immortality

Immortality

And Why You Should Definitely Want It

“You don´t really want to live forever, do you?” she asks me, face horrified as if the mere thought of it was more than she could bear.

You´d think I´d told her I was suicidal. The face would be more appropriate if “live forever” had been replaced with “die”.

“Of course, I do,” I answer. “I would always want one more day.”

And I do. I want one more day, and when that day arrives, I want one more day and one more day and one more day… hopefully forever. Because if the day comes where I don´t want just one more day…

Can you even imagine how miserable that must mean I am?

Choosing Blindly

If we go out from the assumption that there is one true religion, one true God, and one true life after death… then choosing our religion and our God is undoubtedly the most important choice we will ever make.

So how do we go about making it?

For most people, their choice is easy (but not very well thought out). They go with the same choice their parents went with.

This is undoubtedly very flattering to their parents, but hardly how you go about making the most important decision of your life. How are your parents sure that Christianity is the correct choice? Or Islam or Hinduism or whatever religion they might have? How come that´s the choice they made? The most likely answer?

Because that´s the choice their parents made.

People Are Odd

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People are odd.

I mean, people are just really, undeniably incredibly odd.

Human beings are the odd-balls of the animal kingdom. I mean, it´s hard to argue against it when you look at the facts.

What other animal is going to say “ow” when they stump themselves, even if they´re not actually in pain? They just say in, just in case it might have hurt.

It´s adorable, but utterly pointless.

And no other animal has True Fiction. Ever heard about the term? It´s when they take something that´s a lie, and they all just agree that it´s the truth.

Fanfiction

A/N: Spoiler alert on Gone With the Wind and How I Met Your Mother.

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Maybe it starts out with nothing more than a thought.

You find a book, a movie, or a television show you love but the ending was… disappointing. So, inside your own head, you change it. Rhett doesn´t leave Scarlett. Barney and Robin doesn´t get a divorce.

You find that the idea inside your own head isn´t concrete enough, so you write it down.

And maybe the ending of the story wasn´t the problem. Maybe there was a character you didn´t like, a choice you didn´t agree with. Or maybe nothing was wrong. Maybe you just wonder… what if?

Hell, maybe you aren´t even that interested in the story. Maybe it´s the universe you love. Maybe you´re writing a story of the first muggle-born who´s elected Minister of Magic.

You finish your story.

The Fashion of Monsters

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Okay. Fashion. We can’t really avoid it. We can’t avoid the trends that go through society before they finally die out, only to be brought back to life later – fashion, as it turns out, is very Frankenstein.

The most obvious example is, of course, clothes, but even outside the world of designers and haute couture, we find that “fashion” or popular trends exist in everything. Hobbies. Ideologies. Even mythical creatures.

It’s the latter which this essay will focus on.

Some creatures are seemingly doomed to forever be second best. Unknown to most and with very little focus on them. Creatures like banshees, gargoyles, and harpies. It’s not that we haven’t heard about them, but how many of us can honestly name a movie or a book that revolve around one of them? The closest thing might be The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but even then, the gargoyles play only a secular role.

Other creatures, however, are given their time in the limelight. They have movies and television shows revolving around them, comics and books are written with them as the main focus, and everybody knows them. They are fashionable. They are in.

“The Monster I Am” Aka “Pineapples on Pizza”

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I’m crazy.

Let’s just start with getting that one out of the way.

I – Am – Crazy.

Nuts. Weird. An oddball. There’s just something wrong with me.

You see…

I like pineapples on pizza.

I know. Horrible, isn’t it? It’s one of those things where I know that it’s wrong, but I just can’t help myself. I mean, some people like necrophilia. Other people fuck farm animals. And I… I like pineapples on pizza.

Forgive me.

It’s just so delicious. The juiciness and the freshness of the pineapple that keeps the meat and white bread from becoming cloying. It’s the perfect condiment. I can just feel myself starting to drool as I write this post.

I suppose I could stop myself from eating it. Just because I can’t control my liking it, doesn’t mean I can’t control my actually eating it. There are countless of recovering alcoholics out there, and if they can do it, surely, I can as well.

I just don’t want to.

Perhaps I’m weak.

Perhaps I should be ashamed.

…

And perhaps… perhaps it’s just some freaking pineapple on a freaking pizza?

So… why care?

Let the people have their pineapples.

We’re not forcing you to eat it.

That’s step two.