Scott Pilgrim is, I think, the best example I can think of for establishing a setting’s Nonsense Limit.
The setting’s Nonsense Limit isn’t quite “How high-fantasy is this”. It’s mostly a question of presentation, to what degree does the audience feel that they know the rules the world operates by, such that they are primed to accept a random new element being introduced.
A setting with a Nonsense Limit of 0 is, like, an everyday story. Something larger than life, but theoretically taking place in our world, like your standard spy thriller action movie has a limit of 1.
Some sort of hidden world urban fantasy with wizards and stuff operating in secret has a nonsense limit around 3 or 4. A Superhero setting, presenting an alternate version of our world, is a 5 or 6. High fantasy comes in around a 7 or so, “Oh yeah, Wizards exist and they can do crazy stuff” is pretty commonly accepted.
Scott Pilgrim comes in at a 10.
If you read the Scott Pilgrim book, it starts off looking like a purely mundane slice of life. The first hint at the fantastical is Ramona appearing repeatedly in Scott’s Dreams, and then later showing up in real life.
When we finally get an explanation, it’s this:
Apparently Subspace Highways are a thing? And they go through people’s heads? And Ramona treats this like it’s obscure, but not secret knowledge. Ramona doesn’t think she’s doing anything weird here.
At this point, it’s not clear if Scott is accepting Ramona’s explanation or not, things kind of move on as mundane as ever until their Date, when Ramona takes Scott through subspace, and he doesn’t act like his world was just blown open or anything, although I guess that could have been a metaphor.
there’s a couple other moments, but everything with Ramona could be a metaphor, or Scott not recognizing what’s going on. Maybe Ramona is uniquely fantastical in this otherwise normal world.
And then, this happens
Suddenly, a fantastical element (A shitty local indie band finishing their set with a song that knocks out most of the audience) is introduced unrelated to Ramona, and undeniably literal. We see the crowd knocked out by Crash and The Boys.
but the story doesn’t linger on the implications of that, the whole point of that sequence is to raise the Nonsense Level, such that you accept it when This happens
Matthew Patel comes flying down onto the stage, Scott, who until this point is presented as a terrible person and a loser, but otherwise is extremely ordinary, proceeds to flawlessly block and counter him before doing a 64-hit air juggle combo.
Scott’s friends treat this like Scott is showing off a mildly interesting party trick, like being really good at darts.
The establish that Scott is the “Best Fighter in the Province”, not only are street-fighter battles a thing, Scott is Very Good at it, but they’re so unimportant that being the best fighter in the province doesn’t make Scott NOT a loser.
So when Matthew Patel shows off his magic powers and then explodes into a pile of coins, we’ve established “Oh, this is how silly the setting gets”.
It’s not about establishing the RULES of the setting so much as it is about establishing a lack of rules. Scott’s skill at street-fighter battles doesn’t translate to any sort of social prestige. Ramona can access Subspace Highways and she uses it to do a basic delivery job. It doesn’t make sense and it’s clear that it’s not supposed to.
So later on, when Todd Ingram starts throwing around telekinesis, and the explanation we’re given is “He’s a Vegan” , you’re already so primed by the mixture of weirdness and mundanity that rather than trying to incorporate this new knowledge into any sort of coherent setting ruleset, you just go “Ah, yeah, Vegans”.
sometimes while i think about that while a lot of adults did not treat me very well as a kid i also get a lot of ‘in hindsight this person was so good to me and i didnt even realize it until now’ as an adult. today i was thinking about how the first anime convention i ever went to was when i was 10 and i asked the man working the manga cafe what manga was/what a good place to start was (because the con was very overstimulating for me and i had gotten lost) and he asked how old i was before recommending yotsuba and asking if i wanted any water or something to eat. its really simple but theres a lot of bad things that couldve happened or he could’ve been careless in his recommendation, but instead yotsuba has remained one of my favorite manga for years, and probably a large portion of why i continue to read manga as an adult… i think adults who try to involve kids in the world safely/kindly even in little ways make so much more of a difference than they ever really know.
important to note that palestinian prisoners in israel can be incarcerated without charge, for crimes raging from murder and terrorism (terrorism being a broad definition) to simply being in israel without a permit. you have to keep this fact in mind when discussing this. israel wants you to think every palestinian in its prisons is a dangerous terrorist. that is simply untrue.
Warner Bros backpedaled so hard on the coyote vs acme situation because apparently after they announced that they weren’t gonna release it, a bunch of creatives called and cancelled their booked meetings and movie pitches with the studio to go other places.
After all, what’s the point of making a movie with Warner Bros when it’s more likely that they’re just gonna use it as a tax write off and never let it see the light of day?
And now an ACTUAL CONGRESSMAN is calling them out, this is ABSOLUTELY glorious!!
i can’t stress it enough how crazy the love triangle situation is. mizu and akemi have a slow motion romcom first glance at each other. mizu and taigen are enemies to lovers. mizu taunts akemi about taigen while wearing his scarf. mizu imagines taigen while seeing a threesome. mizu and akemi have sex scenes juxtaposed with each other. taigen and mizu’s brawl is an obvious parallel to mizu and mikio. “this isn’t over” “i know”. both could happen. neither could happen. all could happen all at once. and i’m watching it all like this
mizu’s quiet private moment of anguish after she kills kinuyo……and then having her go from that to ruthless unfeeling killer who takes singlehandedly down an entire army in the span of a single episode. the way that little glimpse of emotion is forcibly taken away from her. all the hatred and betrayal she’s been subject to her entire life whittling away at her bit by bit until she hardly feels human anymore. and then when she finally Does feel something, feels remorse and pain at the reality of what she’s been forced to do and become…….the hate and betrayal swoops right back in and strips that humanity away again. i feel like i’m going insane…mizu isn’t a monster the rest of the world made her this way!!!! waaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!
taigen is sooooo funny. bitchiest man i’ve ever seen. he fucked and ran. he’s obsessed with honor. he’s the only one allowed to kill his rival. he makes silly little sarcastic jokes. he endured torture because his rival “deserved better” than being killed by the men torturing him. he got a boner from homoerotic wrestling. he’s pathetic and i adore him.
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