Good morning! Good afternoon! Good evening! Time is a fallacy and nothing you say can prove otherwise!!

How we do this week? Good? After the busy Monday I had, I thought Tuesday was Thursday! Luckily, there was at least one day between Tuesday and today. Ah, what a week.

Considering this is the Thursday before Halloween, I felt like I had an obligation, nah, a duty to talk about this thought that crossed my mind. Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas is a terrible role model, and Sally deserves so much more praise than what she gets!!* She deserves all the cool merch, not to share it with someone who was willing to steal an entire culture because he felt like it! Also wow! That is a lot of merch!!

(*Unrelated but if you've seen Inception, I have a similar complaint about how Eames deserves credit for the ENTIRE PLOT while Dom Cobb... existed, I guess.)

For those not familiar with The Nightmare Before Christmas, you're in luck. This film works from October 1st until December 31st, so you have some time to watch it within season. But for those who don't know, the plot boils down as this:

Jack Skellington the Pumpkin King and brings the spookiest Halloweens every year to Halloween Town. Everyone loves him. But Jack! Is! Bored! Of all of this!! He goes on a meandering walk and stumbles into a little world called Christmas Town, where he is FASCINATED with everything. The locals. The culture. The... cuisine? (He eats the snow, it counts.) He's like this is AMAZING, I must simply recreate it. But not only does he recreate it, he goes a step further. Screw Halloween! He's doing Christmas this year too, despite the fact that there is an entire town already working on it.

Sally, the best character in the movie, is in love with Jack, but even she's like "Hold up, this isn't right. We can't just steal this whole other holiday that isn't ours! Also I feel like something is going to go terribly wrong." So Jack has Santa Claus kidnapped to give him a vacation (which, honestly, I get. I, too, need a break), but then the EVIL VILLAN OOGIE BOOGIE steps in, and tries to kill Santa. But when Sally goes to save Santa, she also gets kidnapped because this was the early 90s and that's just what happened. 

But Jack, along with the denizens of Halloween Town, throw their own Christmas and it goes as well as you'd expect - badly! The police are called in as the gifts of that Jack has left include man-eating snakes, dolls that try to kill, and even worse! He's shot down and while he laments that it was a failure, he eventually perks up and sings, and I quote, "What the heck, I went and did my best."

Truly, a vibe.

But then he realizes he done GOOFED and races to save Sally and Santa Claus and the day. Once everything is back in its rightful place, everyone is happy, Sally and Jack kiss, and it's a happily ever after.

Except what in the world. 

I cannot believe as I child, I rooted for Jack. Sure, I understand getting tired and frustrated in a situation and maybe wanting to escape. Even as an adult, that feeling is a strong pull. But this man straight up went and stole another culture, uprooted the person who had been ruling the place quite well, thank you, and, despite not meaning to, terrorized the citizens of the local village because he was BORED? It's almost worse because he had an entire town hyping him up, while Sally is over here, sewing a costume he provided a hand-drawn reference to and trying to warn him that maybe this isn't a good idea. And! Even as he was over the world, flying and making kids cry on Christmas, Sally was over doing the damn thing like "hmm, Santa got kidnapped maybe someone should save him because the town idol is too busy being a dumbass."

In the song I reference above, "Poor Jack," he does say that he has done wrong and laments for doing that. But it's also weirdly followed up by the triumphant note that he had fun, and by doing this, he was able to feel more confident about his original role as Pumpkin King. It's just! Weird! That he had to almost destroy Christmas to feel better about himself! And okay, you feel bad, but how bad do you feel, JACK?

Overall, I know it doesn't matter, because this film is an impeccable work of art. But there's always a small part of me who thinks, every time I watch it, it's a little weird that Jack, despite all the terror he has caused (even if it was quickly fixed by someone else) gets little more than a slap on the wrist.

WHILE SALLY AND SANTA CLAUS ALMOST GET SENT INTO A RAGING INFERNO.

It's fine, I'm cool, it's whatever.

Also, did you know Sally is played by Catherine O'Hara, of Schitt's Creek fame?? If not, well now you do.

Anyway, to stay in the spirit of the best holiday, here are some things to get you into the spooky season:
 

• This twitter user photoshops Paddington Bear into movie stills. I'll let you discover some on your own, because they currently seem to have a Halloween ones interspersed but my goodness. This is great. I've always wanted to see Paddington as Darth Vader in Rogue One, in Captain America the First Avenger, or in the greatest love story of our time.  Every one of these is excellent.

• Settle in with a creepy read like Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. I recently reread this classic for the first time since reading it as a kid and whew! You can just tell that this was written in the late 20th century! During the late 1900s, as the kids say! I don't think a woman speaks in this book more than three pages! But despite it being a product of its time, there is really something menacing about this book in such a delightful way. I thought I hadn't remembered much of this book, but the confrontation in the library between Will's father and Mr. Dark still creeped me out. If you haven't read it or you haven't read it in a while, check it out. 
   
• Is this cheating? Probably? Do I care? No! Check out Critical Role again, this time a one-shot called The Nautilus Ark: A Johnson Corp Odyssey where a small group of people trying to transport the last of humanity to a new planet has to deal with a monster that has infiltrated their ship. Too much Critical Role you say? Too long of an episode you say? Well, if you're free this spooky Halloween at 2pm, check out Game Play Radio, where I and my lovely co-host  will be playing another game set upon a creepy ship that might have monsters! If you're not free, check us out the next week wherever you get your podcasts! Oh yeah, did I forget to mention I co-host a radio show? Surprise!!

Y'all, this was a long week, and I'm very grateful for all of you checking out this silly little newsletter. I hope your days are wonderful and less stressful and also that your little bubble is peaceful where you are.

Also yoooo 50% off Halloween candy on MONDAY let's GO.