I agree that making close friendships with people who provide services for you can be awkward, even more so if it is someone who regularly has to touch your body or mind, as in, any sort of therapist. Like, making friends with a local bartender you see often isn’t inherently weird, if you keep in mind that part of…

yeah but there’s also a quiet ‘fuck you i’m 91 and i can still do this, too’ which i also love.

I really loved ‘Gran Torino’. He’s already older here and it’s a great little movie.

Where should the boundaries be between you and people you see in a professional capacity?

Once you become friends (not just friendly), the professional relationship takes a second place and the same rules apply as any other friendship. If you don’t want to ruin a good service, don’t get too close.

I kind of agree. The onus was on both of them not to start a friendly relationship. Yes, he’s the one bound by the code of ethics, but it’s also just bad business to mix friendship with services you pay for and pretty much everyone over the age of 18 should know that by now. That he caught feelings was not the issue…

Letter 1 seems to be missing a lot of important details. “Three years” of massage therapy turns into a “very close” friendship in just 14 words, and he has confessed to “developing feelings” just two sentences later!

I rarely do this, but I’m going to choose victim blaming for LW1 this week. I can see being chummy with someone who you regularly have appointments with, to the point where grabbing drinks once or twice is not out of the question, or even chatting with them during a random meeting at the airport. But what would…

Shout out to this column and Popcorn Champs for being easily the best things on this website. Consistently great insights and writing. Well done again

One of the reasons Cindarella works so well in “Into the Woods” (the stage version) is because Cindarella has a moment of doubt early on - “What’s the good of being kind, if everyone is blind, always nice Cindarella, kind Cindarella, Nice, Good, Kind, Nice-”. And she is literally slapped out of it by a step-sister.…

But English accents are the standard “not US” accent! I love how HBO’s Rome has everyone speak in English accents despite being set before English even existed. But maybe it was the influence of BBC’s I, Claudius from the 1970s?

Definitely avoid all European historical dramas from the 60s.

100% agree. He saw what running did to his old family and when Jet was hurt he saw what it was going to do to his new one. It wasn’t that he couldn’t let go of the past, his past was actively hunting him.

The anime did its job here. There are plenty of episodic villains who are tragic and we are meant to feel bad for, even freaking Mad Pierrot was a victim at one point. But the point of Vicious is just to be a scary dude.

Yeah, I always clocked Spike’s confrontation with Vicious in the finale as being motivated in no small part by him knowing that Jet and Faye were next on Vicious’ kill list. A lot of interpretations I’ve read put it all on Spike being completely unable to live in the present or too broken by the death of Julia, as if…

His thin characterization might be a problem if he was ever the actual focus, but he’s not. He’s only in 5 episodes, and none of them are about him specifically. Jupiter Jazz is more about Gren. The Real Folk Blues and Ballad of Fallen Angels are about Spike confronting his past.

What? Vicious is the weakest part of the anime? Hard disagree. He’s cryptic, to a frustrating degree at times, but those reading Vicious solely within the context of some Vicious-Julia-Spike love triangle are missing the allusions to whatever bond Spike and Vicious must have shared in the past.

My Cowboy Bebop essay:

This isn’t explicitly stated but just about every other Red Dragon character we meet reacts to Spike along the lines of “I wish you hadn’t left” or “things would be different if you were still here” etc. Spike had everyone’s loyalty but didn’t give two shits about the power. Vicious wanted all of the power but had…

Same! I think it’s that he really dislikes Spike and loves Julia but I might be totally wrong about that, it might be just because Spike left the Red Dragons.