For the past several weeks, I’ve been overwhelmed by a thought that has been continually gnawing at me. While a number of commentators and pundits haphazardly slap the label of “fascist” on any political activity that they don’t like, I grew curious as to whether or not there was any validity to their use of the word, especially as a pejorative. This, of course, begs a very simple question: what exactly is fascism? And that’s where I hit a stumbling block. The problem with de

I’ve been wanting to write a couple of pieces on the airline industry for a few months, in particular about how small changes in airline policies have had snowball effects on the flying experience more broadly. With the sudden and shocking announcement of Spirit Airlines exiting the market for good, I decided that many of those piecewise tangents could be combined into a more coherent reflection on the industry. With that said, I believe we are ready for takeoff. Part I Spiri

Can Red Letter Media improve the randomness of this Best of the Worst game?

Among the myriad methods that writers use to create fictional characters, one popular technique involves four elements that will define a character’s arc and build themes throughout a story. Those four elements are the Want, the Need, the Ghost, and the Lie. Here are their definitions. Want What the character wants to get out of the journey, or their personal motivation for continuing from one scene to the next. It can be deep (a character who wants to experience a spiritual

Why there's more to gender swapping than gender swapping