#there's just something about the way he's written (and performed!) in those podcasts that just scratches an itch i didn't know i had | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sizzlingpatrolfox · 1 month

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Thinking about JK and seven's success in the context of Taylor's recent streams bomb is fascinating. Yes her numbers are crazy but let's think about it - everyone on social media is talking about her and the album and they have been for weeks. I was listening to a political podcast and they signed off with the guy saying he's going to listen to the album ahead of time to make sure it's ok for his 5 year old daughter to listen to. She's literally a household name - even in households like mine where my parents do not keep up with with western artists. Yeah a lot of her numbers are stacked because of versions and payola and every platform pushing the hell out of her BUT STILL - there's something behind that push. People are tuned in! Everyone who's tuned into the cultural zeitgeist knew TTPD was coming. Same with Olivia Rodrigo - yes she has an aura of industry plantness - getting pushed right out of the gate and becoming a darling of critics everywhere for your debut album doesn't just happen. But again, her albums are GOOD. The songs are well written and she was clearly deeply involved in every step of the way. Everyone knows driving license and the story behind it. Payola as a concept is annoying especially when so many deserving artists get ignored because they don't have it but it's undeniable that after artists like TS and OR get all this payola, their songs become the moment. Everyone's buzzing about them and listening to their albums.

What is seven? It's numbers are at TS and OR levels right? If you think about it seven debuted with more streams than djo's end of the beginning did and it's charted higher for longer. But which song launched who as a solo artist to the GP that Hybe desperately wants? A song with numbers at that level but what is the ground level reality of its popularity? The most telling thing is that after that completely insane debut seven had, if it was really such a great song that everyone incl the GP had tuned in for, those people should've at least checked golden out. That is the point. That was scooters strategy. Have seven become the next baby or driving license and capture the GP interest so it sustains for the rest of his debut.

The point is that people will compare his numbers to other kpop acts but he didn't get a kpop debut. He got the kind of debut and platform push TS and OR get. So his numbers are good at a kpop level but did it achieve the objective? I have to imagine the objective was that JK became the next JB or the next OR or....as Hybe keeps trying to do, it was for him to become the next BTS. No, Hybe can keep trying to push a particular narrative because JK is their sunk cost fallacy, but inspite of goldens streams and sales eclipsing others, his debut was not successful.

It is irony because people can and will bring up his numbers in relation to Jimin or Tae or lesserafim or whoever and act like JK is doing amazing but I'm telling you now that the reason JK's debut makes me so angry is because if Jimin had had that world cup stage for a solo debut, that humongous deal wouldn't have just been a footnote of cool places BTS have performed at. It would have been a noteworthy performance. We have ten years of his solo stage to prove that. It's this wasted potential that gets me so heated up about JK because of all the opportunities he got. Compare the payola put in versus results gotten and the mediocrity is staggering considering what I mentioned other artists have achieved with that payola level in my first paragraph. The only reason I think about JK is because of this - it drives me mad.

Sorry this got...long and ranty 😭

i must've said this last year already but yes, he had a bigger debut and numbers (after debut) compared to other kpop or korean acts, but he was really nowhere people like Taylor or Harry, to whom everyone compared him to. Let's not even talk about Michael Jackson and how hard they tried that he'd be namedropped alongside Jungkook.

The most important difference to me is that people RESPECT Taylor. They respect Harry, and they respect Michael even so many years after his death. Soloist Jungkook doesn't have that respect. BTS might've gotten really close to have it, but not them as soloists. Part of it might be because he's korean, sure; but more than anything, he doesn't have people's respect because he has not earned it. Period. He hasn't done anything that would gain him people's respect or admiration.

Taylor had a moment where she lost people's respect too - she went completely MIA, didn't show her face in public for years, she was the laugh of the town. Granted, a lot of it was pushed by this insane, psychopathic hate culture and spurred on by Kanye West and Kim Kardashian simply because they're people who just like to get involved in shit. Taylor's never really had a scandal (she's actually a really sweet girl and so incredibly smart too), but because they -the Kardashians/Wests- thought it was fun to hate on her, they did it and everyone jumped on the bandwagon because if there's something people on the internet lack, that's a personality of their own.

Now she's regained all the success and people's affection she had before that, and ten thousands times more. The haters moved on, found jobs probably, Kim Kardashian isn't even that "big" anymore, nobody talks about her and Kanye is an unmedicated man roaming around with seemingly no direction whatsoever. Taylor came out of that being in a great space in her personal life, had spent a couple of years inside her home with someone who loved her, wrote and release lover and everyone flocked to it.

Then came folklore and evermore, which were the albums that really did it for her; those albums are crazy good and so different from everything else everybody was putting out that moment. Many people who'd previously thought she was too bubblegum pop, or that her songs were silly, changed their mind, started taking her seriously as a writer/singer and became fans after listening to folklore and evermore; and those people stayed. Those people are still listening to her music. This isn't something I see on the internet, but I went to her concert last November and everyone I talked to had become a fan in 2019 or after.

But she also knows how fickle it all is, and she's talked about it. Is she wrong for wanting to protect what she's worked all her life to build?

She's a business woman, it's true. And many "stans" on the internet hate that, for some reason that I really don't understand. Because taking the reins in their own careers is the only way people are able to survive in music, literally. I don't remember where she said it, but it was Beyonce precisely who said once that she didn't have a seat at the table, so instead she built her own table. That's Taylor, too. Not because Taylor was underprivileged or anything, and but in the business sense. These women don't become billionaires because they "only do music", there's millions of people out there, doing music on the streets. They become billionaires because they're doing business too.

Most people don't want others to be successful, or at the very least they aren't really hoping and praying you'll do well. Mostly they just don't care. And I've said this a lot of times in relation to BTS too - that all the members were looking out for themselves and their own solo careers and that was it. I've said before that Jimin is not a business man, and I don't expect him to ever be one, but I also wish for him to have at least one person standing by him and his decisions. It'd be great to believe doing arts today is all glitter and parties, but it's a business as much as being a wall street guy is.

Maybe it's so overwhelming to me because I've been a Taylor fan since 2008 right before fearless came out, but people really don't get how unprecedented her career is. I was 13 in 2008, the year my sister was born. Now, it's 2024 my sister is 16 and she's a Taylor fan. Without me even intervening, mind you, because we don't live together. We went to the concert because she wanted to go.

How many people can you say they had a career in music 20 years ago and not only are they still at it, but they're getting bigger with each passing year? Because I honestly couldn't name you one single person apart from Taylor.

Maybe I could say BTS if they were active right now, but that it's yet to be seen because the fandom did go downhill after butter. PTD wasn't as successful as butter or dynamite were, and let me not even mention the group songs that came after because that was embarrassing for them.

Also, another point but men rarely -if ever- bring anything new to the table. Armys, especially those who like Jungkook or Yoongi, are the epitome of hypocrisy because what has Jungkook done that's spectacular? Be shirtless? Please.

His songs were mid, the singing was mid, the dancing was below mid. They really are in no position to speak and shouldn't be taken seriously. And this takes me back to the respect thing and how he really didn't do anything to gain it.

For some reason I'm also thinking of Lana del Rey who was literally BEGGING people to listen to her album, and even said that she'd hoped her album would go viral and not that photo of her working in some fast food place. You have loser gays on twitter going lana this lana that, but they don't really respect her either.

This is something I've said before, too; but time really is the only proof of how "impactful" an artist is. Olivia's had a great run so far, but will people remember her or talk about her 10 years down the line? Is she still gonna be relevant? Is BTS still gonna be revelant? Is Jungkook gonna be relevant? Great debuts are great and all, but in the end it doesn't make an artist, as well as a bad debut doesn't break one either. I've also said this about Jimin before; that if he still wants to have a solo career after military, the only way to go should be up. This Taylor type of career where you get bigger with each release is literally everyone's dream and it actually proves that whatever you've been doing until that moment has worked and people can't get enough of you.

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waitingforminjae · 1 year

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came across this small opinion piece and they just said what i've been thinking so well:

In the episode of the podcast I just posted, one of my guests says that, traditionally, one of the important elements of Kpop was the intertextual relationships. We see group members on variety and dramas and commercials and get to know them through these lenses, adding another dimension to our enjoyment of their songs and performances. These media appearances also bring in new fans to the group. [...] This is a very traditional way for idol groups to become popular.

So, let’s circle back to Cha Eun Woo. He’s not a dance, rap, or vocal ace but he has something equally valuable to Astro--numerous and popular drama roles and brand endorsements. Cha Eun Woo is known the way idols used to be known. His extremely handsome face isn’t just some random idol on a birthday advertisement in the subway, it’s recognizable by normal people. Cha Eun Woo is a huge asset to a group like Astro. His popularity not only brings new fans to Astro but also helps open doors for other members. “Oh, he’s in Cha Eun Woo’s group” is a much more compelling hook for the average viewer than “Oh, he’s in one of the dozens of idol groups I’ve never heard of and have no connection to and whose name goes in one ear and out the other like a puff of smoke.”

I’ve written about this before but views, streams, physical album sales, etc. are transitory measurements. These numerics that the young generation of fans have been trained to see as the ultimate prize are just numbers. It’s understandable that fans are being encouraged to value numerics by the big Kpop companies because it keeps fans engaged on the fandom treadmill, buying and streaming and spending hours voting on music show apps like their lives depended on it. But it’s not all that valuable to the idols themselves--certainly not as valuable as having a member who is known by the general public for his drama roles and handsome face. I don’t know where the idea that every group needs to have attention evenly divided or that one member can’t have solo work if others don’t have solo work entered into fandom but I have my suspicions. While there’s nothing wrong with fans advocating for their favorite member to have more solo work, I do think there’s something wrong with fans advocating to hold a member back as I’ve sensed has been the case from certain corners with Cha Eun Woo. The long term health and success of a male idol group in the mold of SMAP--which is what very much Astro is--depends on the members having strong individual images and brands outside of the group. The idea that the members have to do everything together at all times is unworkable in the long run just as the idea that a group can rely completely on the obsessive streaming and viewing and buying of a core group of fans is unworkable in the long run. This new generation of foreign fans has lost those intertextual connections. “KPop” has increasingly become isolated not just from old subculture spaces where fans mixed with anime and Jpop fans but even from mainstream dramas and variety shows and Korean show business, generally. It’s led to this odd bubble where the most popular groups among stans barely even have name recognition in Korea outside of Kpop fandom. It wasn’t always like this.

#like i hadn't thought of it that way but they're right cew IS known the way idols used to be known #m: kpop

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nokingsonlyfooles · 8 months

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Head-Wigs and Not Even an Inch

Abigail Thorn made me cry last night.

I mean, I knew this was not outside the realm of possibility. I presumed she would produce a work of stunning artistic beauty and overwhelm my jaded brain with some Profound Meaning. Or, fat chance, maybe she’d trip over something I’d written and tear it to pieces like a hamster going to town on a cardboard tube. Or maybe I’d go back to London, and spill my drink on her shoes in a dark club, and she’d thrash me with a riding crop — that’s slightly more likely than someone with a decent platform noticing my writing, at this point.

But, uh, no. That’s not how it went.

We pay money to get the bonus episodes of Kill James Bond. You should too. In fact, if you don’t, you’ll be lacking some context for this. But most of my work goes out into the void without context, so to hell with it. You can watch a theatrical version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch for free, on YouTube. Or you can probably pirate the film version with a clean conscience, I don’t think any of those performers are seeing much compensation from sales at this point.

We haven’t been listening to the bonus episodes in order. We often try to watch something close to the version of whatever-film they’re doing, and then listen to the episode with context. We’ve heard them mention Hedwig, and it seemed to be a profound, emotional experience. I really wanted to see Hedwig first. Well, we found a Hedwig available for free and we watched it. They tried to update it a bit, and I found that off-putting. A lot of the tropes in play are dated — “#problematic” in some ways, and genuinely hurtful in others. If you’re going to update something like that, you can’t just throw in a reference to Harry Potter and Title 42 and call it good. Preserve it in its original messy form for us, or rewrite the whole thing — if they’ll let you.

The way the actor playing Hedwig moved and sat in her (the character uses she/her and I have no idea about the actor) short skirt bothered me too. She had shorts on underneath, but I don’t think we were supposed to know that yet. “Nobody has ever told this person how they’re supposed to sit in a skirt,” I said to the spouse. Like, it wasn’t even as if she knew and had decided to ignore it. If one were transfeminine, or faking it to get out of East Berlin, someone would’ve mentioned it. “Maybe it’s for the character,” he said. Maybe it was. You could read it that way. But there’s a read on this where transness is artifice, and I don’t like that read very much. I hope that wasn’t what they were going for.

The ending could be read that way too. It’s all very surreal and that has the potential to be read a lot of different ways, but a male (or male-presenting) actor winds up bare-chested in shorts and the female one ends in a wig and a dress and they both seem very happy about it. One could say, “Well! Glad all that gender confusion’s cleared up! Now they’ve stopped pretending to be something they’re not!” I don’t like that the possibility is left open like that. It feels slimy and centrist.

But the music was great and there were some excellent moments and I was eager to hear the whole thing get dissected by some trans folks.

About a half hour into it, they were discussing John Cameron Mitchell, who identified as a gay man at the time and has since refined it to nonbinary with he/him pronouns. Hedwig’s gender is messy — she’s a fictional character written by an enby who was still in egg form, from a time before people were expected to define their transness as binary or nonbinary. Abi acknowledged the nonbinary actor/writer/director, and mentioned that there’s a lot of pressure to define your gender neatly these days… And said, “No.” That’s not it. Hedwig is a woman like her. Period.

I had been saying to the spouse (we talk over the podcast; we get excited) that I saw a lot of myself in Hedwig’s disaster gender, and in that way you could read the ending as her deciding to stop splitting herself between her popular, cis-passing, sellout persona, and the real, messy her. And then Abi cut me off, and I said, laughing, “Oh my god, just hip-check my identity right into the orchestra pit! What… What…” And I started to cry.

I didn’t have my guard up. I didn’t expect it. And I’d never taken a hit quite this way before. This wasn’t being denied the validity of my existence, this was the validity of my artistic merit. Abigail Thorn, a demonstrably smart person with a lot of theatre experience who loves writing and acting, will not be requiring me or John Cameron Mitchell for her interpretation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Not even as a possible read. Please, go find yourselves in some other character, enbies. Let the transwomen have her.

…To the point where “Hansel” is treated like a modern-day deadname of a real person, when all we know for sure is that the character got rid of it to get out of East Berlin and she doesn’t use it anymore. It could be like that, but by the end of this, “Hedwig,” another name and gender she did not choose for herself, might be a deadname too. I’m not saying it has to be like that, but it’s not so ridiculous that we need to dismiss it unsaid, is it? Especially given that the goddamn originator of the character has been on a similar journey and decided to keep “John” and he/him for the moment. A person can do that and still kick their assigned gender to the curb, you know?

I didn’t need Hedwig to be about me and only me, I just needed the possibility to be left open and discussed a little bit. Another trans egg movie, but perhaps a nonbinary one this time. Like Speed Racer, it went hard and fell short! That’s all. I didn’t even know I needed that! Until Abi said I couldn’t have it.

The spouse stopped the podcast and comforted my surprised tears. He gave me a nonbinary read — which is not hard to do! — and said I deserve to be seen. I said, “I know why she said it. I do. It’s too close to their (hers and Alice’s) own experience and they don’t want to see anything else. It’s emotion-based. But… But… Nonbinary actor (and writer/director/producer/singer)! …What about Dev?” Dev really took a backseat on this one. They saw themself in Yitzhak, and Yitzhak isn’t the main character, and Abi and Alice were so into Hedwig, and they’re all friends. Yeah. I mean, I understand that too. Back off and let your friends have this one, it’s clearly important to them both.

I wanted to hear the rest of it, because it made Alice and Abi feel seen, and a lot of other trans folks too. Yeah, there’s a lot in it that aged like milk — cringy and outdated even when the film was made — but there’s a lot of valid queer experience in there, too, warts and all. I was surprised as hell that, in the end, Abi supports the “Tommy isn’t real” theory and believes this is a story about uniting one person and making yourself feel whole. And yet, she reiterated, “No.” It’s not about being nonbinary. It’s about reconciling with the male-gendered stuff you try to cut out of you when you transition. Dev and Alice were at least willing to allow that nonbinary was possible, if not quite willing to delve into it, but not Abi. Splitting yourself in two is a binary trans thing! As are many, many other things about Hedwig that I related to.

As an enby who came up with the “splitting yourself in two” metaphor while still in egg form, for a fictional character of my own who is also still in egg form, please let me tell you — please let me tell someone — that that’s not true. I didn’t meet Hedwig until last night, but I know about performing your acceptable, cis-passing, assigned gender and hiding all the “garbage” that doesn’t fit. I know what it is to be crammed into a false persona that gets a lot of love, while the real you, when you let it out, is only worthy of snarling punk lyrics into a mic at a dingy seafood restaurant with a hostile audience.

And, oh my god, do I know what it is to have a piece of you that will not come off, and prevents you from fitting fully into either binary gender. It can feel like a broken piece, like a scar, like a botched surgery you didn’t need that was inflicted on you… But it doesn’t have to be literally that. Hedwig, both the play and the person, doesn’t seem to have much use for physical reality. She’s here to unload her emotional reality, and she doesn’t care about any other real things she might damage along the way.

KJB were rather amazed that Hedwig chose to redefine herself by a (medically impossible) surgical accident. How brave of her to own her trauma like that. But I wonder, is it trauma? Or is it the only path a nonbinary egg in 1998 could see to gain an outside that expressed his inside? This isn’t what any of you wanted me to have, this isn’t even what I want to have, but it’s still me. It’s what I have to work with. (All signs point to “Tommy,” as a character, being at least a closeted gay guy who would’ve been fine if the “front of” Hedwig had been a penis, but it isn’t. It’s not quite anything at all, and he flees because that’s just too much for him to handle. Hedwig already is one of those androgynes she envies; she doesn’t need an Adam, she doesn’t need him. But she loves him/her cis-passing self, and she’s not yet ready to let him go.)

I don’t know what it is to actually try living as the other binary gender, I wasn’t active enough in queer circles to really feel that pressure to conform to the binary before I hatched. But I see it now, and I feel the same instinctive revulsion that Hedwig feels about being a divorced housewife in a trailer in Arizona. That’s not me either! Did I spend all this time and energy escaping one box, only to be trapped in another? Must I content myself with this simply because I don’t want to go back to the way I was? Is this only way I can get a green card that lets me access a queer space? To put on an ugly wig and pretend I’m more palatable?

To me, the revelation about wigs is not “I could be happy as ANY woman!” but, “This is a performance… This is all a fucking performance! This isn’t me, this is a hat someone put on my head. It comes off! I can have another hat! I can have all the hats!” And, selfishly, she denies Yitzhak that same joy, because he wears it better and seems happier. Hedwig clings to her suffering so tightly, it’s such a fundamental part of her identity, that she can’t bear to be around trans joy. No. There is no room for trans joy here, only trans spite. This story is about me. I don’t like transwomen, I don’t like transmen, and I sure as hell don’t like myself (yet)! In the end, after a lot more suffering, she’s willing to let that go.

In the end, Abi says she knows a lot of transwomen who seem to model themselves on Hedwig, and she wants them to know that isn’t how they have to be. They don’t have to choose between being just like a cis woman, or being a monstrous, chaotic, damaged other. You can be… Better than cis! Yes, says the cast of KJB, laughing, we are better than you! We are THE FUTURE! Three friends, having a ball on a podcast, trans joy at its finest — but you don’t find humour in feigning cruelty if you haven’t had some of that cruelty directed at you. This joy formed around a grain of spite. Not only does one often feel they have to be better than cis people, but when you’re still unhatched and stuck on the outside looking in, trans folks really do seem better than you. At least they know what their deal is.

I get it. I do. Because Hedwig fits me too. We all have our reasons to put on that perfectly ridiculous blonde wig and take the form of Hedwig, the Destroyer. Hedwig, the Chaotic. Hedwig, the Liar. Hedwig, the Truth. Hedwig, the Unrepentant Disaster. Hedwig, give me strength! But, it comes off. Look. It is literally a head-wig, a costume for your brain. I know sometimes you find a new wig and you really, really like it, and you become very attached and you want it to be just yours forever and ever, maybe even to the point of calling it your real hair, but… Someone else could still wear that same wig and feel just as happy as you, or maybe even happier. Maybe you’ll find a wig you like even better too. Transitioning isn’t just one and done, and Hedwigs don’t have to be forever. We do know this, don’t we?

Gender is a performance. Gender is a Hedwig. A lot of other things that you consider immutable parts of your identity are Hedwigs too. They are as real as any other social construct, but if you don’t like them or need them, you can just take them off. Sometimes it’s hard and it hurts, but I promise you can. Like Hedwig the character, or whoever that is, does. Inevitably, she must pick some new clothes, maybe new pronouns and a new name, too, but she’s not obligated to do that on camera for us. We can’t force her to say “Aha, see? This identity suited me all along!” No. We’re not entitled to know her or define her. She will be doing that for herself, later, as a whole person. What is so scary about the ending, what makes it look like a detransition instead of a synthesis, is that we insist on gendering her naked body as a male head-wig. Wouldn’t she wear something else if that wasn’t who she was? Well, maybe not. Or maybe so, but it’s her decision, not ours. Self-expression is not the Self, it just helps to define and validate the Self. Hedwigs are extremely fucking important for defining and validating the Self!

So, you know, you have to be willing to share.

#hedwig and the angry inch #kill james bond #nonbinary #transgender #deep dives #long post #abigail thorn #alice caldwell-kelly #devon #messy genders #messy is good - messy leaves rooms for lots of interpretation #yours and mine and theirs #you are valid #just - ya know- ow - the orchestra pit is painful #🐸🧠#🐸✏#🐸🎨

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singofsolace · 1 year

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Taking a minor break from my Ted Lasso spiraling to mention:

I've been listening to the West Wing Weekly Podcast while I clean and do chores, to help my brain actually accomplish said chores, and about 15 minutes into the Two Cathedrals (Part One) episode, I was stopped in my tracks by the discussion I was hearing.

Lawrence O'Donnell is talking about how he basically got accidentally cast as Jed Bartlet's (physically abusive) father, after simply reading the role at the table read one day like he'd done for many guest parts before in his capacity as a producer. Then he says:

"At the end of the read through, the women in the cast start coming up to me--Allison Janney first, followed by Janel Moloney--and saying pretty much the same thing, which is 'Oh my god, that was really scary what you did.' And I didn't know what I had done, because my take on this, being from my kind of tough-guy Boston Irish neighborhood, was: this is the nicest dad I've ever seen. [Josh Malina and Hrishi Hirway, who are listening, laugh]. That's who I was playing...

"You know, first of all, he's this educated man and he only hit the kid once! That is unheard of in St. Brendan's parish, where I grew up. [...] In those days, you know, this was all before any books had been written about child-rearing, and nobody knew you weren't supposed to hit them--nobody knew that...

"So, that's the world I'm from, and so really, I mean it when I say to you, this guy read to me as a guy of real erudition and class and all that stuff, several classes above the class that I grew up in, and so the notion that he just gives the kid a wack in a moment was no big deal to me, and somewhere in that, of course, was the terror that Allison Janney and Janel were seeing. Like, 'oh my god, this guy doesn't even--he does it [hits the kid], and it's second nature to him, it's like nothing.'

"And the other part I didn't know, when Tommy Schlamme saw that, he leaned in to Aaron at the end of the episode and said: 'that's what I want in Bartlet's father.’ Now, he didn't mean me--the actor--not at all. That's just the performance [he wanted] and Aaron said 'yeah, that's what we need.'"

~~~

So I'm listening to Lawrence O'Donnell tell this story while I wash some dishes, and I'm just thinking... can you imagine being Allison or Janel at that table read, thinking it was an “acting choice” that he made, only to come to the sudden realization by talking to him that it wasn't a choice at all?? Like, how chilling is that?

At first I thought: Clearly, since Allison and Janel were so disturbed by his performance at the table read, and then more disturbed by the discovery that it was not his intention to disturb anyone, there was a major cultural shift that must’ve happened between O'Donnell's childhood and theirs, but then I looked it up, and Allison is only seven years younger than Lawrence O'Donnell. They grew up in practically the same time, and were raised by the same generation of parents!

And sure, you could argue that gender might be a major factor here, (that certainly seems to be what Lawrence is suggesting, at least), and that Allison and Lawrence were likely raised by two completely different "types" of parents, but still. Something about the casual way O'Donnell discusses specifically the women being scared by his performance makes my stomach a little queasy. Is he therefore saying none of the men in the cast were disturbed? None of them felt the same way as Allison and Janel? Or is he just highlighting the 'terror' in their reactions specifically because it...what...? Surprised him that the women would be scared by a physically abusive father being portrayed by one of their producers as "the nicest dad [he'd] ever seen"?

I'm not sure I'm effectively communicating my point, or even if I have a point, I'm just feeling a bit sick to my stomach, and wanted to write it all out. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?

#the west wing #Lawrence O'Donnell #allison janney #janel moloney #abuse tw

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intertexts · 5 months

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ok you asked about my sad fish boy i hope u know how much of a mistake that is. holy shit. dude jrwi is so fucking good. if u need a new dnd podcast may i please recommend jrwi..theyre pirates. ohhh my god theyre pirates .

so. uhm. fish boy. his name is gillion tidestrider (champion of the undersea, hero of the deep, etc etc about a billion more titles that he just keeps aquiring as the campaign goes on) and hes a paladin with ohhhhh so much of a hero complex. oh my god. dude. hes so . everything to me . (played by charlie slimecicle btw. that guy is so fucking good at balancing silly goofy moments with heartwrenching voice acting. in one of the most recent episodes he is literally. hanging from a hook through his hands missing chunks of skin on 1hp literally only alive because he happened to cast death ward on himself. and hes wearing those goddamn trout fish sandals that u see on facebook ads or whatever.)

uhm. so. holy shit. where do i even start. he is the chosen one of a prophecy that says its his duty to one day choose who will survive between the undersea (triton, underwater creatures, where he grew up) and the oversea (basically. land.) and the other will be destroyed. so when he was very young (i want to say maybe like..5 or 6? i dont remember im actually searching for that info rn for the thing im writing) he was taken away from his family to begin training with the Elders (basically the. rulers of the undersea) . my boy he was raised to be a weapon. he was raised to be a tool (<< real canon words out of his own mouth). my favorite little child soldier. he wore armor that was too big for him and carried swords that were taller than he was. he was raised to put protecting others over his own safety so he rushes out into danger without even thinking about how it might affect him. he is so passively suicidal and ready to sacrifice himself at any minor inconvenience that when this information is eventually put in front of him his response is "what? no, thats what im Supposed to do." a very important phrase for him in early episodes was "whats one more burden?"

also he has a pet frogtopus (frog + octopus) her name is pretzel and she rides around in a little orb on his belt and also on his shoulders sometimes. i love her

(<- official art. shes so perfect in every way)

I THINK I MIGHT BE RUNNING OUT OF SPACE SOON BUT HE ALSO HAS AN OLDER SISTER AND SHES EVERYTHING TO ME OHMYGOD . her name is Edyn and shes so. uaghghhh if i think about her for too long i start crying. im writing a fic from her pov as we speak. she was the only one who would visit him during his training as a kid she was his best friend she wanted to protect him but she was also just a kid so she couldnt do anything but try her best to comfort him. shes the one who gave him pretzel. ohhh my god. i lvoe you edyn tidestrider youre everything to me. giving you a freshly written unedited at all snippet from the fic im writing because it describes how i feel about their dynamic so much better than i could possibly type out in a tumblr ask::::

uhnmmm what else. im so insane about the tidestrider siblings forever. do not get me wrong the other PCs in this campaign are also excellent and i love them (Jay is the daughter of a navy captain who defected to join a pirate crew to figure out what caused the death of her older sister. Chip is. oh boy. orphan who was taken in by a pirate crew when he was 7. pirate crew in question was swallowed by some sort of magic force that corrupted literally a fourth of the globe. but he somehow survived and is now trying to find out if his old family is still alive. jay and chip are like adopted siblings to me. chip and gillion had to roll a performance check for a kiss one time and they both got nat 20s and its all gone downhill from there for them. i love jay and chip dearly but something abojt gillion just scratches a very specific itch in my brain i love him so much and its only partially because hes a fish and im the fish guy.) ALSO I FORGOT TO MENTION GILLION IS CANONICALLY ASEXUAL and this is a fact that actually has come up within canon and is not just a word of god twitter mention fact. no. my boy is actively asexual and it makes me soooooo happy forever.

uh. sorry for the wall of text. infodump over. im forever crying abojt pirates and fish people . thank u i love u

OUSUGHFGHFJHH................... I LIKE UR FISH BOY MAC. IM A BIG FAN OF UR FISH BOY. i heard paladin with a hero complex & it was immediately a direct hit thats so... ouuhgh. child soldier character type of guy makes me go bonkers!!!! this whole paragraph is like five critical hits in a row... im so curious now.... also ive seen SO much art for these guys jay also looks so cool? her art is always so compelling 2 me... anyway OUHG. i'm currently working my way through friends at the table twilight mirage (meticulously crafted post-utopian cyberpunk/science fiction about mechs and gods and mech gods and more specifically Dead mech gods & living in their husks & humanity & nonhumanity & empire, etc) + tryna catch up on critrole but... hgghhbh. we'll see. we'll see what happens...

#IVE BEEN IN A BIG PIRATES MOOD LATELY. SO.#mac tag!#TYYYYY for telling me ab ur guy i love him i lovelovelove hearing ab ur little guys always & forever.. :]]]

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mermaidsirennikita · 1 year

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Yeah this needs to be talked about more, the amount of articles, podcasts, youtube/tiktok videos or just online comments that I saw after season 1 came out that just assume the Bton books were diverse because the show is? And the fact the new marketing push around the books is not disabusing people about that notion, mainly through the new covers (both regular and the show tie-in ones).

It's a really complicated, thorny issue in some ways and very simple in others. If I look at Just Romance Novels (which is obviously a niche, just zeroing in a genre for the sake of discussion) the genre is still dominated by product from white authors, largely with characters written as white. While it's diversifying (far more slowly than it should be) a lot of the older "proven success" books are written by white people, about white people. I don't think it's wrong to cast diversely if you're adapting those books--and on a practical, "people putting food on the table" level, I want actors of color to have as many solid, well-paying opportunities as possible.

At the same time, there are still so many authors of color neglected. Not all of whom wrote people of color on the page, of course, especially in historical romance--Sherry Thomas and Stacy Reid are two historical romance novelists who write about white characters, and it's no surprise that the potential adaptation of Stacy's works would be cast more diversely. There's a level of tracking how expectations have changed when you look at how Sinful Wallflowers was presented as a book series, and how it could be presented as a show.

And like, I'll allow that we're in the midst of a sort of "boom" (who knows how long it'll last) of period pieces cast more diversely than they would've been even 15 years ago. The approaches are often different and individualized. The Great has people of color playing characters who'd be literal white Russians "in real life", and it's literally never commented on, which I think many would prefer for a show like Bton. BUT, most of the lead characters are white, with Orlo (who I think did not get the strongest writing from jump, though Sascha wanting to leave after s1 didn't help) and Arkady (who I think is hilarious and finally got more screentime in s3, but he could've gotten more from the beginning... so much Velementov screentime should be Arkady screentime) being two of the only truly prominent people of color onscreen.

Then you have something like Sanditon, where Georgiana gets better writing than many people on Bton, but the show obviously never knew how to really confront her background, made the racist old lady the peak comic relief, and never prioritized Georgiana the way her white counterpart Charlotte was prioritized. Georgiana got an afterthought of an ending after being humiliated by the narrative several times.

One of the shows that handled this best was Tom Jones--Sophia is treated as this gem of a girl whose grandfather and aunt love her, but clearly aren't fully sure about how to solidify her safety as a Black woman of means in England. There's a very tender scene where she discusses her father enslaving her and her mother with Tom, and the show doesn't shy away from Sophia's mixed feelings on the entire thing. There's a heavy implication re: her being made to perform whiteness with face powder, etc, but nonetheless this is not dominating Sophia's storyline. She gets to be the swooning girl who falls head over heels and is desired by a good man and upheld as his ideal in every way. She confronts conflict, but she does not SUFFER, and she is not MINIMIZED in favor of white women in the story--Sophia is really pretty explicitly like, The Woman of that piece. Presented as the most beautiful, as not flawless but good and deserving of love, as a true classical heroine whose personal narrative is actively expanded to match Tom's. The only thing I find prominently weird (after one viewing) is that she and Tom never had like, a sweet wedding night scene, as we saw Tom have sex with three different white women onscreen, of of which was like.... the core villain. I would've liked to have seen Sophia get the full physical adoration there, onscreen, and it did stand out a bit that she didn't.

So those are adaptations with growing pains, not getting everything right, but some being better than others (and Bton being the bottom of the barrel, there).

Then there are things that are unequivocally wrong, and not a part of growing pains as adaptations navigate between what sells and what diversifies and what works, and one of those unequivocally wrong things is selling the Bton books as diverse reads. Those books are some of the most conventional Regency romances out there; you don't even get a lot of economic or class diversity, let alone any racial diversity. Almost everyone in that series is upper class. Even Sophie is the daughter of a nobleman. And I'm not saying it's wrong to write about those people, but for the books to now be sold as something they're not, when the author didn't even think people of color could get HEAs in her Historically Accurate World... is the worst kind of capitalism.

That's part of the extra ugliness (on top of all the obvious ugliness) here. Julia Quinn was against what she's now profiting from. It's not just picking a white author's works to be emblematic of diversity they don't represent; it's THAT author's works. And I think that making Queen Charlotte from all this, putting Julia's name on the cover (I am.... 90% sure that book was ghostwritten, with input from Julia and Shonda, but go off) just adds to all of it.

#romance novel blogging #this turned into a lot of musing but basically: agree!#there are things like w tom jones where i'm like you missed an opportunity re: sophia not getting a love scene w tom #and then there are things where actively wrong decisions are being made loudly and proudly #to basically wrench as much money from poc as possible through misleading

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pod-together · 2 years

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Day 7 Reveals!

Till Scurvy Do Us Part [text, audio] (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) written by crowreys_wormstache, performed by Flowerparrish Summary: They were just all being so… nice? Not that they weren’t nice to Jim normally, but there was something in their eyes – this sort of knowing look. Jim couldn’t stand when others clearly knew something they weren’t let in on. And there was still no sign of Oluwande. OR Olu has a surprise for Jim and the crew does a terrible job at keeping it secret. like I didn't walk in willingly (陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)) written by remiges, performed by deepestbluesky Summary: She'd married Qingheng-jun because she didn't want to die, and yet the marriage is also what almost ended up killing her. It's funny, if she thinks about it for too long. Ready to be wrong (Check Please! (Webcomic)) written by DesignatedGrape, performed by Amanita_Fierce and HowOldAreWe Summary: Kent flops onto his bed in his sister's tiny office-slash-guest room and pulls out his phone, his fingers bringing him to Whiskey’s Instagram seemingly of their own accord. Unsurprisingly, there are no updates, and his tags are the usual stale mix of photos from the Leafs’ official account and pictures from random fans trying to get Whiskey’s attention. Kent growls at himself. This is his fucking vacation, and he is not going to spend the entire time moping and hanging out with his sister. He exits Instagram and pulls up Grindr, instead. It only takes a couple minutes of scrolling before his thumb screeches to a halt. The photo is just a faceless torso, but he’d recognize his own tattoo work anywhere. A compass, half of it dissolving into dust. A little less detailed than usual so that it could be finished in a couple of hours. C, 24. 4.2 miles away. --- Or, Kent and Whiskey unexpectedly find themselves in the same city again. Lost and Found (Star Wars Legends - All Media Types) written by Spiraling, performed by Dr_Fumbles_McStupid and litra Summary: When Feemor and Obi-Wan go on an archaeological dig to some Sith ruins, there's more active danger than they were anticipating. a love that won't sit still (Check Please! (Webcomic)) written by vocatives, performed by Aliteralgarbageheap Summary: It must be a boozed-up mistake, because there is simply no universe in which he, William Poindexter, has fallen in love with Derek-fucking-Nurse. The soul mark on Dex's hand, however, tells a different story. Those Who Walk the In-Between Places and See Unseeable Things (Gundam Wing, Addams Family - All Media Types) written by AngelSelene, performed by Hangebokhan Summary: As long as there have been people, there have always been those who are other, who walk in the in-between places, and who see the unseeable things. Those people are often attracted to great events, and so, in the After Colony years, they are once again. You Tick All My Boxes (EXO (Band), VIXX) written by XiuChen4Ever, performed by cheshiretears Summary: Cat hybrid Minseok is grateful for his best friend and his favorite human. Even if one is rather lumpy and the other is rather loud. Wet & Wild (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) written by BardicRaven, performed by Aether Summary: Quark tries another money-making scheme for the Bar. It goes about as well as you'd expect. A.K.A. 'These aren't (quite) the lobes you're looking for, Quark.' Crossroads Bargains (The Magnus Archives (Podcast)) written by Spiraling, performed by Koschei_B Summary: It's over. Jane Prentiss is dead Tim and Jon are injured. All the archive team wants to do is rest and regroup. Tim offers his flat. And that moment of impulsive kindness changes everything. A Real Boy [text, audio] (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) written by trinityofone, performed by SweetPollyOliver Summary: Frenchie convinces Stede to hire the cursebreaker. Stede can see the logic in it: a way to cleanse the ship after all their troubles, clear the air between the reunited crews. “A little vibe adjustment,” Frenchie says. See This Heart Flow (Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)) written by Robin_Fai, performed by riverdaze Summary: Victor was one of the few competitors in the figure skating community who was public about his creature heritage. He was part fae and proud of it. It was different for Yuuri. He knew that his own identity was something that people feared. He had been hiding his whole life. Variations (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, A Stitch in Time: Andrew J. Robinson) created by BardicRaven and RisalSoran Summary: Color, like Truth, comes in an infinite variety of variations, each with its own unique shape and form.

#podfic #fanfic #our flag means death #the untamed #check please!#star wars legends #gundam wing #addams family #exo #vixx #star trek deep space nine #the magnus archives #Yuri on ice #a stitch in time

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 years

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I’d stopped doing these because I’ve been doing a month-long work placement that takes up so much more energy than my normal work-from-home job and it made me want to spend my off time just watching things passively. But at the moment I’m home sick from that, so I have plenty of time. Because of that, here are my thoughts on Taskmaster s13e07, written as I watch it for the first time:

- I’d noticed before her podcast episode that Bridget Christie always has cool outfits in the studio, but I can appreciate them more now that I’ve heard her go on the podcast and say they’re all part of a Western theme. Of course, I didn’t really need to hear her say that to recognize it in the one from this week. It might be my favourite so far.

- I enjoy the trend of them making prize tasks that are meant to open the door to bring in something sexual, and then all five contestants, presumably because they assume everyone else will go that route and they want to be different, avoid doing so. But then they’ll go that way on something that sounds innocuous, like Sophie bringing a vibrator for “most calming thing”. Let’s see what the contestants do with this one: nicest thing to put your finger in. Will any of them take the sexy prize title bait?

- Well, Ardal did not take the bait. I am immediately reminded, of course, of Mel Giedroyc’s Pennyfields. There is nothing more adorable than some who’s 50 or older (Mel might actually have been slightly younger than that in season 4, but close enough) bringing in a doll of some sort to which they have given a name.

- My first thought about Chris Ramsey’s prize is that it’s quite similar to Ardal’s, but to be fair, if you’re not going to go the sexual route, there really aren’t that many options for things that are nice to put your finger in. Toys and Bugles, basically (the chips, not the podcast).

- Okay, Bridget is the first one to bring in something that genuinely fits the remit. Putty is an awesome thing to put your finger in, and good job to Bridget for saying, “I am going to avoid the obvious adult-themed sex joke, and instead make a child-themed fart joke.”

- And she’s accompanied it with a graphic story about childbirth. Great work all around.

- “Sometimes once you put your fingers in, you do want to put your face in.” Judi becomes the first one to even acknowledge the sexual connotations of this prize task with that joke, but she still just brought in custard for her actual prize. It’s not as good as the putty. Much less satisfying.

- All right, Sophie’s prize needs to win. I’d say the same thing about Ardal’s if he’d gone to the trouble to dress up his puppet in the same outfit that he wore to do the tasks. Brilliant amount of prep work by Sophie. Fantastic job.

This does mean we’re five for five on averting the sex stuff. I’m sure next week will be something that sounds completely normal but they’ll all bring in condoms.

- Incorrect scoring, but I understand throwing Ardal the pity point. Putty should have been higher, though. That is actually the best thing to put your finger in.

- I was confused when Alex pulled flowers out of his sleeves to introduce this task, because they’re usually quite good about not reusing tasks. They’ve already done miracles in Champion of Champions and magic tricks in season 10.

Then I saw what the task actually is and I love it. The beautiful simplicity of telling a bunch of television comedians to show off. What do you think they’ve been doing this whole time? Except now they’re being put on the spot and asked to specifically do that thing they’re always doing anyway, and it’s such a great way to fuck with them.

- I love the trepidation on the faces the camera shows us right after those instructions, as they realize that whatever they did during this task is about to be shown. What the fuck did you people get up to?

- Seriously, this is a look of genuine concern... from everyone except Bridget, who is clearly fine with her showing off performance. That, or she’s made peace with it and is serenely accepting what she cannot change.

- “Have you got a gun?” - Bridget Christie

- Bridget Christie: Have you got an axe?

Alex Horne: No.

I’m actually the Taskmaster house might have an axe in it, and Alex just doesn’t want to give it to Bridget.

- Not to brag too much or anything, but I do know exactly what I’d do in this task and it would be so much fun, my brain is itching to participate. The skills I have from my combat sport are rarely translatable to the real world, but occasionally, when I’m outside the context of my sport, it becomes somehow relevant for me to show off the fact that I’m quite good at moving people around. Stuff that’s completely normal for anyone who trains in my sport looks really impressive to outsiders, and I have to admit that my ego really enjoys that. If I were out there I would absolutely put the biggest crew member over my shoulders and run around. Actually, I’d start by putting Alex over my shoulders and running around, because that would make for better comedy. But then I’d find someone bigger than Alex and do it with them too just to prove I can. There are so many possibilities in this season, with its lack of social distancing rules.

- Okay, Chris Ramsey balancing stuff on his chin is genuinely rather impressive. I’m not sure what Bridget’s doing. She said on the podcast that the picture she used for that other task is of her learning to climb a rope for a comedy routine. That’s way more impressive than throwing things into a bucket, why doesn’t she find something to climb?

- The task said “Biggest show-off wins”, not “most impressive thing wins”. So I might be looking at this wrong - maybe Bridget throwing things in buckets would be good if she acted enough like a show-off about it, bragging about how great her skills are. Neither her nor Chris has really brought in that aspect, that showing off could be about the way you sell yourself as much as what you’re doing.

Also, I thought Ardal was supposed to be part of this segment. Why haven’t we seen him yet? Are they hiding him as part of some sort of trick?

- Okay, Chris with that ladder is genuinely fucking cool. I don’t know why his dad chose to teach him that, and I can’t see how it would have served him in life at any point up until this one, but that’s a pretty great use of it.

- I see, they hid Ardal until the end to show that he spent almost the entire time inside the house messing around with what appears to be a spoon and some glitter. Ardal, what the hell did you do?

- Jesus Christ that was funny. Okay, I absolutely see why they edited it that way, that was incredibly funny to see Chris balance increasingly large items, up to a ladder, and then Ardal puts a spoon on this chin. Seeing Ardal in isolation, the bit where he started hitting himself would have been the funniest part. But seeing him contrasted against Chris made the spoon balancing so fucking funny that I barely noticed anything else. Amazing work from everyone, especially the editors there.

I did notice one other thing, though. What the hell was the point of the glitter? I assume they’ll address that in the studio.

- So Ardal’s explanation in the studio was that they don’t show off in Ireland, or at least in his bit of Ireland. Greg mentioned the glitter, and Ardal chose to just not mention it. Or if it did, it didn’t make the edit. I really hope an outtake is released soon with an explanation, because coming out of a house covered in glitter is not the sort of thing that you can just do and then not tell us why.

- How long did it take them to make this one shot that was on the screen for less than a second?

- My immediate thought is that Sophie and Judi understand the assignment better than the first three did. Recognizing that 1) showbiz, the thing they do for a living, is the ultimate way to show off, so just lean into what you already know about that, and 2) showing off is about bragging and forcing all the attention onto yourself, not just about what you’re actually doing. Ardal could have done a perfectly good job of showing off if he’d just told us how he participated in the groundbreakingly important television show Derry Girls (I mean, I know he’s done a lot of other stuff too, just not things I’ve seen, and really, Derry Girls is enough).

- Oh shit, I’ve been wondering since episode 1 when we’re going to see that shot from the opening titles of Sophie in the water. I wondered if there would be a task about how long they could hold their breaths, and I’ve also wondered whether that would create some sort of liability issue in case someone passed out. But no, apparently no one told Sophie she had to hold her breath underwater. She just decided to do that.

- I think Sophie needs to win this task. She perfectly combined the Judi idea of saying something dramatic and attention grabbing, and the Chris Ramsey idea (and, well, the idea that Bridget and Ardal sort of tried to do) of doing something actually impressive. She was being ironic about that Shakespeare monologue, but also showed off the fact that she genuinely does have a Shakespeare monologue memorized and ready to recite. And now she’s nearly drowning herself for the task. You have to fucking reward that.

- “That could have been Judi in any task.” - Sophie Duker, vaulting over many entries by Ardal O’Hanlon to hold the new record for cattiest comment of this season, and I am enjoying it so much

- All right, I do agree with giving Sophie and Chris joint five points there. And I agree with Judi, Ardal, and Bridget, being in order from best to worst after that. But I think they should have gotten 3, 2, and 1 points rather than 4, 3, and 2. Greg just can’t say no to Bridget.

- Genuinely adorable little fist bump here, from by far the two most competitive contestants in this season (I mean “competitive” in both senses of the word, that they want to win the most, and that they have the best chance of winning). I really like this rivalry.

- Some real Jamali Maddix energy here out of Judi, except that Judi’s (probably, mostly) joking while I’m pretty sure Jamali actually didn’t know Greg’s name that one time.

- You know, if I wanted to be pedantic, I could point out that nowhere in the task’s instructions does it say they have to keep those hats on until the end. I guess they could argue that the hat has to be on their head for it to count as a “head pipe” when the ingredients pass through it. But in that case they could take off the hats, gather ingredients, have one person put a hat back on, and have the other(s) put the ingredients through it.

- I love that Bridget is the only person who has not become completely debilitated by the pipe hats. She was the only one to just bend down and pick up the task at the beginning. When Sophie kept trying to get the bottles with the grabber thing, Bridget worked out that the pipe fits int he caravan and it’s not hard to just step in there and pick things up. And now, while they’re doing this:

Bridget has just asked:

I think this is sort of like that season 12 task when they had to hit Alex with a ball, and it said Alex wasn’t allowed to run, and that got in the contestants’ heads so some of them seemed to think they weren’t allowed to run either. I think everyone but Bridget has been so thrown off by the pipe hats and the presence of the grabber things that they’ve forgotten they’re allowed to just do things like normal.

- Love Ardal trying to make a ridiculously difficult shot, throwing what I think was a bit of fruit from almost the ground into a pipe on top of his head, even though the task absolutely did not require him to do that and there is no way he’d have a chance of coming anywhere near it. And he didn’t come anywhere near it, but Chris still politely asked, “Did it go in?” and Ardal didn’t seem bothered by the fact that it did not. Just two guys having a good time.

- Great little moment that summarizes the essential elemnts of both Chris Ramsey and Judi Love here:

Chris’ competitiveness is on display, having the absolute audacity to complain about getting two points for a task that took them three times as long as the other team. In earlier seasons, Greg would have easily scored that 5-0. In the earliest seasons he had the team points always add up to five, but even if the middle seasons, he’d give the winning team five points and the losing team the number of points he thought they deserved for how well they did. And in this case, that should be 5-0 here. Maybe 5-1.

We also have Judi’s bullshit on display, which is hilarious. It’s so funny how often in this season the contestants have turned on each other - Ardal sucking up to Greg to talk shit about everyone else’s efforts, Chris telling Judi that “all the information was on the task” and then winking at Alex, Judi defending Greg’s authority to Chris. They’re like the opposite of season 12, when all the contestants frequently banded together against Greg and Alex. And both dynamics are great fun.

- Alex Horne: We’ve had some drinks, so now, we’ve got the munchies.

Me: Oh shit, on last week’s podcast episode, Bridget said one of her worst moments of this season is part of a cooking task that hasn’t been aired yet. Ed said he thought it would show up in the next episode. I guess this is it.

- Chris Ramsey:

Me: Well, that’s because you didn’t watch season 4, when this was the delivery system for Mel Giedroyc finding out she had to eat that massive tower of bread and candy, and Noel Fielding finding out that he had to eat Alex Horne.

- Little thing, but I’ve been keeping track of signs of Chris Ramsey’s constant vigilance and paranoia throughout this show, and I feel like it counts that he shook the lunch box next to his ear before opening it. Have to try to get a warning beforehand in case they’ve put, I don’t know, a cat or something in there.

- Exactly 150 grams, this is a tough task. If I were them I’d focus on the weight more than anything else, that’s going to be difficult to get right. I’d put my time and effort into make sure I actually made a 150-gram edible statue, whether it’s beautiful or not, and then hope to get more points than other people who focused too much on the beauty and not enough on the specifications.

Remember Jessica Kanppett having a breakdown on the floor, surrounded by shoes, because she couldn’t get things to weight that number that was OLLIE upside down? Exact weights are hard.

- Guys, you’ve broken Chris Ramsey’s brain.

- It’s a recurring theme in this show that Greg can’t say not to Bridget and Alex can’t say no to Judi. I think this is the first time he’s ever let someone go so long without reading “Your time starts now”. Not even Charlotte Ritchie or Katherine Parkinson got away with that, and he basically did half their tasks for them.

- Oh, Chris has a good idea that I didn’t think of. Put ingredients on the scale until it’s exactly 150 grams, and then you can shape them any way you want as long as you don’t add anything or take anything away. That has to be the best way to approach this.

- I wrote, at the beginning of this task, about how that lunchbox reminds me of the time in season 4 when they were told to make something with food, and then surprised at the end by being told they had to eat it. I said that, and it still didn’t occur to me that they might do that in this task. And I’m pretty sure Chris put raw pasta in there. Well, that’s his fault. It said “edible”. I guess he planned to argue that raw pasta can be edible, technically anything can be “edible” if you’re willing to eat it. And now he is being asked to prove his own argument. Well played, Taskmaster.

- Oh, Chris, I’m disappointed in you. The normally hyper-competitive contestant has let me down. Ed Gamble would have eaten that raw pasta, for the sake of the points. That’s why he’s a champion.

- Okay, I guess getting something to weigh an exact amount is not as difficult as I thought. Also, Judi’s sculpture is genuinely quite beautiful, and probably not that difficult to eat. The hardest part about eating that would be destroying something so pretty.

- Ardal’s looks absolutely disgusting. Are there uncooked eggs and soggy bread involved as well as raw tofu? Is he going to eat the eggshell? That one would would be tough physically as well as psychologically, since he also personified the sculpture.

- Okay, so one of Bridget’s least favourite moments in this season is the time she sculpted a baby and two breasts, and then had to eat them. I can see why that would be upsetting.

- That’s Sophie. Brings in something completely innocent for the “best thing to put your finger in” task, but makes a model of the vulva for the one that just asked her build a sculpture.

- Sophie giving the actual answer to the prize task’s question of “What’s the best thing to put your finger in?”, on her vulva model that has licorice surrounding a hole in some butter to represent the vagina.

- Sophie saying she’s concerned that if she can’t eat her entire vulva model it will send out a negative message because she wants to destigmatize that sort of thing - good job, Sophie, you made me choke on my water. Best vagina-based joke in all of Taskmaster.

- Oh shit, I did not realize Bridget was eating uncooked flour. Yeah, I understand why this is a low moment for her. Though it’s worth noting that the task said she had to eat the whole sculpture, but not only the sculpture. This would be much easier if she got a glass of water to wash it down.

- Okay, Sophie forcing herself to get that entire butter-based sculpture in her mouth because she is a competitive contestant who wants to win the task, and also because she is a feminist who wants to destigmatize pussy eating, and being so determined to do this that she forces down enough of it to make her audibly retch as soon as she’s out of the room - what a heroine. Sophie Duker for champion, she’s won me over to believing she should win the whole thing. Chris Ramsey couldn’t even eat some raw spaghetti.

- Wow, that is some terrible scoring on the sculptures’ beauty. Should have been five for Judi, hers was the only one that was unironically beautiful. I’d say Sophie next, then Chris, and the other two are horrifying to look at. Come on, Greg. Don’t you know that beauty is a bunch of strawberries arranged in a nice way and a model of a vulva?

- I like the rivalry behaviour out of Chris and Sophie, the two most competitive contestants. It reminds me of the season 4 live tasks when Noel Fielding and Joe Lycett would do their thing, and as soon as time stopped, they’d immediately look at what the other had done because they knew they were the only two really trying hard to win and they’d want to see whose was better.

Also, I’m pretty sure Sophie’s right about Chris’ tower. I see the idea of making a thin target, but I don’t think it’ll work. You need a base that can take at least one hit. Sophie’s strategy of multiple peaks is a good one, because it would be hard to hit them all with one throw.

- And immediately after I wrote that, we have some more rivalry moments, with Sophie coming out clearly on top. I loved every moment of that. Chris immediately acknowledging Sophie as his biggest competition (it’s actually Bridget who was second in the overall scores going into this episode, but I think Sophie will pull ahead by the end of it, and the actual numbers aside, Chris and Sophie are definitely the ones trying to win), Sophie insisting on staying by her tower to get hit with a shoe, short back-and-forth of trying to psych each other out, and then Sophie’s mind games actually succeeded in throwing Chris off his game. I know Chris can throw things with reasonable accuracy, I’ve seen him do it in other tasks, so I’m pretty sure Sophie just successfully messed him up there. What a fucking legend.

Ladies, gentleman, and all the other lovely people on heaven and Earth, let’s fucking play Taskmaster.

- God damn. Holy shit, Sophie. That was... look, I try to be a bit careful about how often I’m straight-up objectifying on this blog, but Sophie firing her boot directly into the base of the tower for which she was aiming with military-grade precision was, there is no other way to describe it, fucking hot.

Ladies, gentleman, and all the other lovely people on heaven and Earth, we are playing Taskmaster!

- I absolutely see Alex’s point about how it wasn’t a great strategy for Sophie to aim for Chris, since he was a lightning rod drawing fire from her. But I don’t care, that was too cool for me to wish it had gone any other way. Doesn’t even matter whether she wins the tasks now.

- Okay, I said it doesn’t matter if Sophie wins, but that was before Ardal and Bridget both missed her. Well, Bridget missed her. Ardal hit once, but because of what was a genuinely good system, he knocked down a couple of peaks while others stayed up.

It’s now Judi throwing, in a situation where if she knocks down Sophie then Judi wins the episode, and if she doesn’t, then Sophie wins. Sophie’s fortress was weakened by Ardal and one hit will take her down now. It is not hard to hit something like that tower from that distance, but also, and I don’t want to make too many assumptions, I doubt Judi is that great at throwing things. So this could actually go either way. Genuine tension and stakes. I mean, not really, it’s all pretend, even real sports are technically pretend and this is many levels down from real sports, I technically know that, sort of, somewhere deep in the back of my brain I do sort of remember that. But at this moment, these feel like genuine stakes.

- Oh my God. The psychological power play of Sophie giving Judi her shoes. So much confidence. Will she live to regret it?

- AND IT’S ALL OVER!!! Judi has been defeated by... the fact that she isn’t actually all that into the competitive side of this game and hasn’t kept track of what’s going on so she missed the first shoe and threw the second one in the wrong direction. Slightly anticlimactic way for Sophie to win, but enough dramatic shit happened before that for it to still feel exciting.

I love everyone’s reactions. Ardal breaking a little from his normally bemused character a little to shout, “You can’t win if you kill me!” Bridget also breaking her cloudcuckoolander personality to try to explain to Judi why that was so bad. Alex also breaking character to express sheer exasperation that she took this moment of genuine tension in his television show and fucked it up. And Chris being too shocked for words that she would throw it all away like that.

I want to commission a large-scale framed painting of the following screenshot so I can hang it on my wall:

- I’m so glad I found a version of this episode with subtitles. Partly because I like having subtitles on when I watch anything, but it also makes screenshots more fun.

- That was damn near a perfect episode for Sophie. It’s one of the highest scores every in one Taskmaster episode, though that’s hard to judge because most episodes only have five total tasks while this one technically had six, as the beauty of the sculpture and the eating of the sculpture counted as separate tasks with separate opportunities for five points each. So the fact that she got 28 points in total shouldn’t be compared directly to most other episode scores, but the individual task scores speak for themselves. On the six tasks, she scored 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, and then 5. In an episode with no bonus or other extra points and no opportunities to ever score more than five. So it was very, very close to perfect.

It’s also made a change to the overall scoreboard. Chris is still in first place, as he’s been for almost the whole season, except for a brief while when Bridget was a couple of points ahead. But it’s tight at the top. Chris has 119, then Sophie in second with 116, then Bridget at 112, Ardal at 106, Judi at 102. That’ll make things exciting for the last three episodes.

I’m so glad I decided to write shit down during this episode, it was a really good one. Felt classic, in a number of ways. God, this is a great show.

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amoveablejake · 1 year

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20230423

A title inspired by the king of easy going, Mac.

During the lockdowns that were present in 2020 and 2021 I found a little programme called ‘Joe Pera Talks With You’ and it quickly grew to mean the world to me. I have written about Mr Pera before and how that show was such a joy to watch and whilst it is over now, Mr Pera’s voice and very personal brand of comedy still occupies many of my thoughts. It has this space in my mind because of how much Joe Pera fits in with my ideas of hygge, being calm, present and gentle. Yesterday, I traveled up to the big city to watch Mr Pera perform and it was, it was something special. When I first saw that he was coming to the UK I was a little hesitant to book a ticket because I didn’t want to risk ruining the image of him that I have in my mind. It turns out, I needn’t have been hesitant for his stand up last night still revolved his soft spoken, gentle brand of very unique comedy. I wasn’t sure how funny Mr Pera’s standup was going to be, I thought it might be more like a discussion or a lecture more than anything like his programme but what it turned out was to be an absolutely hysterical set that was excellently thought out, which really it was always going to be. After the show, I was even fortunate enough to meet Joe Pera in what was one of the most nerve wracking experiences that comes to mind. Whilst he isn’t the biggest superstar in the world and many people may not know who he is, to me, he is the man and he has a very special place in my heart. Thankfully in the photograph of him and I together you can’t see me shaking with excitement and nerves only one hell of a big smile across my face.

On the train back yesterday, my friend and I were discussing the key podcasts that we listen to and I surprised myself by saying that one of my top three podcasts is the Around the NFL Podcast. Now, I wasn’t surprised that I said it, I know it is one of my favourite podcasts, I mean obviously because I listen to it all the time. What surprised me was that the main reason that it was so far up my list was just because I like to listen to the hosts talk and yes, that perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise as that is why anyone listens to any podcast but in this case, it was a little different. Whilst I do greatly enjoy listening to the gang talk about the NFL, really, when it comes down to it, all I want is to listen to this band of friends talk. To be together and to be enjoying each others company. They could be talking about the Baltimore Ravens or which route they’re taking to get in, I will get as much enjoyment from both as their friendship is one of the greatest sources of comfort for me and I do turn to the podcast when I need to have that feeling of hygge and warmth. For quite some time I have been rather obsessed with American sports radio and the Around the NFL podcast feels like the pinnacle of that for me. Infact, if it wasn’t for the fact that if I had a podcast on as I wrote I would be typing out what the hosts were saying instead of my words I would have the team on now and you better believe I will once I have finished up writing.

As this seems to be a piece that is focused around some sources of comfort and that hygge feeling that I am forever trying to obtain, I should perhaps mention ‘Ted Lasso’ here. The Richmond based football, although that descriptor should be used extremely lightly, is continuing to be one of the best shows around in my eyes and a wonderful source of comfort and joy. Saying that though, not every episode or all parts of an episode are happy go lucky and it isn’t afraid to take a look at some serious matters in a very delicately handled and considered way. It doesn’t hit you over the head with when it does examine those moments but instead gently holds your hand to walk through them. I am repeatedly surprised by just how wonderful it is and really, how special it is. Yesterday, again in the big city, I saw a man sitting outside of a restaurant with his dogs and on his head was an AFC Richmond cap. As I walked by, wearing my AFC Richmond sweatshirt, seeing him sitting in the sun, I felt a weird sense of camaraderie, a bit like when I was at Star Wars Celebration. At STar Wars Celebration it was because everyone was there to celebrate how these stories have impacted their lives and with the man in the AFC Richmond cap, I got the sense that if he had that cap on, he had to at least be an okay human and it was a nice fleeting moment of a temporary connection that we’ll never really know about but just a reminder that there are nice people out there, and people who also respond to the Diamond Dogs call. Because when it comes down to it, its not the world that is needed, it is those little moments on it that fill us with great comfort that we need to keep on feeling the world spinning beneath our feet.

-Jake, a man who will now forever be wearing his Joe Pera tee, 23/04/2023

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towntonki · 2 years

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Shane beamer salary

I’ve made the comment about Spencer and his comments in that Chris Low profile of Spencer Rattler at South Carolina. “It’s so interesting with the comments Spencer Rattler has made to the comments that Shane Beamer made, just from the idea of what were these guys’ true opinions, right? What did these guys really think before everything went down with Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma and USC? I don’t think it’s something that we should necessarily ignore. “Seeing that work the way it did at Oklahoma gave him (Beamer) some confidence to also use that same template at South Carolina” Reneau said. How they perform will shape, albeit in a small way, the still-evolving legacy of Lincoln Riley. On The Riley Files podcast special, Oklahoma insider Kegan Reneau talked about Beamer and Rattler, setting the scene for their collaboration with the Gamecocks this season. More than that, he will play for former Lincoln Riley assistant Shane Beamer with the Gamecocks. Caleb Williams’ story will be written this year, so a final grade can’t yet be assigned to him. Spencer Rattler is the one quarterback Lincoln Riley didn’t succeed with at Oklahoma. USC fans should also study South Carolina football. Hopefully, he gets used to it because this won’t be the last time it happens.Oklahoma fans will definitely pay attention to the South Carolina Gamecocks in 2022. With National Signing Day less than a month away, losing coaches that have been in Columbia for the last year is a tough thing for a new coach. That may not be a bad thing as there are some talented young guys but that also means, they will jump ship at the first chance that they get just like Bobo and Friend did. New head coach Shane Beamer is getting a quick taste of what life will be like as the head coach of South Carolina – last pickings when it comes to recruits and coaches.īeamer is allegedly on the prowl around the SEC trying to poach coaches from other staffs but if he has not already learned, trying to get legit assistants to Columbia will be a tough sell and he more than likely will have to go after young guys at Group 5 schools or FCS schools to fill out his staff. Nothing will change at South Carolina under Beamer. Over their last two coaching searches, there is a reason that South Carolina has had to go with their bottom of the list choice and it is sure isn’t because college football coaches think the world of the upside-down cockroach known as Williams-Bryce Stadium or because of their all-time 9-14 record in bowl games. South Carolina fans are convinced that Beamer is the man to take them all the way back to their glory days – you remember those years, 2011-2013 when they won more than 10 games for three straight years before coming back to earth as the worst program in Power 5 football. Like most sane people, when you give someone an opportunity to leave Columbia both Bobo and Friend have taken it and are heading to “Clemson without a lake”. If you have not heard yet, Beamer’s first offensive coordinator, Mike Bobo, and first offensive line coach, Will Friend, have already jumped ship and are heading to Auburn. South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer may be a good guy and may be a good friend of Clemson football head coach Dabo Swinney but less than a month on the job, he is already finding it is hard to keep coaches in Columbia. Shane Beamer is already having issues in Columbia.

#Shane beamer salary

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klaineownsmysoul · 2 years

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Stil flabbergasted as to y M deserves a shoutout.. she was heading first so she was Bobby first? Can anything he does just be his own? Is that too much to ask? Pretty sure once the baby ja born they're gonna create an IG for the baby so that now D can have two people tagged on his achievements... Coz how can D possibly achieve anything on his own , That talentless ordinary guy... (On the other hand am absolutely loving the positive reviews he's been getting, he deserves it all?

She’s the real star in this relationship - didn’t you know that?! Its so obvious that he’s the one not pulling his weight in their epic power couple romance.

One of life's great mysteries right here. What exactly has she done to warrant even the tiniest bit of praise from anyone, let alone the oodles of attention heaped upon her like she's somehow D's professional equal?

Not a one. And yet for some ungodly reason, if we want to follow D - who has an actual career to speak of - we are also obliged to put up with his “bride” as there is no getting away from her. Remember the tweet after he won his GG back in 2019? The one that congratulated both him and her - tagging both of their accounts - for HIS win? What (and I cannot express this enough) the fuck was that about? Did I miss the part where she had something to do with the show? She wasn’t a cast member. She wasn’t involved in anything bts. She had as much to do with that success of that show as I did. And yet somehow that ridiculous tweet saw the light of day. And heaven help anyone who asked the legitimate question of why she’s being congratulated for his work. Oh my goodness the vitriol those people received; it was like they had asked the most insulting question ever put forth and were nothing more than jealous evil shrews who couldn’t begin to understand their cosmic written in the stars relationship. In actuality, it just made the person who tweeted that look desperate for attention, pathetic, and willing to sink to the bottom to get it. Tagging someone as inconsequential as her in a congrats for someone else’s hard work is such an obvious suck up. But these are the kinds of things we have to tolerate in order to support D. Even now I was scrolling through my dashboard and I saw a post relaying the fact that M was there for the first show of AB and oh how beautiful she looked and how it was sad that we didn’t get pics of her from the recent wedding D went to since she most likely didn’t attend. That’s what we’re focusing on here? Really? Not the fact that he’s opening on Broadway with 2 highly acclaimed actors in a play he’s super excited about. Not the fact that he got to spend a few hours having fun at a wedding during an incredibly emotional and trying time in his life. You’re bummed that - at someone else’s wedding - you didn’t get to see her in some no doubt ridiculous cheap ass costume from Amazon smirking it up for the camera and hanging all over him so he can’t get a moment’s peace? My god. He will never be good enough on his own. His life will never be validated unless he’s dragging the world’s tackiest ball and chain around wherever he goes like the albatross she is.

Thank goodness he has her, though. How boring his life and press would be if it was just him and his career. How uninteresting his interviews would be because who wants to listen to a walking dictionary light up as he talks about his love for music and theater and performing when you can have a flatline is this thing on monotone response when questioned about his wedding or his new roommate moving in. What would he do if she wasn’t there to provide him with public urination stories to share on his podcast? Certainly gives new understanding to his “rolling down the windows in the car” line after hearing that.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she created some sort of IG account and used the baby as a way to cement their epic love story and free promo for her as a mother. Though it would defeat the purpose if she kept it private like her own, I wouldn’t put it past her and his shitty team to do something like that. Nothing in his life or career has been his own for years now and I hate that so much.

#I honestly can't think of any other celeb who's nobody plus one gets as much attention as his does #anonymous

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chloebeale · 3 years

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honestly i couldn’t think of a caption, so there’s a little bechloe drabble under the cut instead. feel free to enjoy the gif set with or without!

(approx. 1k words)

***

Sure, maybe the Bellas are three time collegiate a cappella champions with a surprising amount of glory and notoriety to their name—the a cappella world is...weirdly way more expansive than Beca would’ve ever imagined—and sure, maybe they have found themselves invited to entertain the troops during the USO tour alongside other (way more legit) groups (no, bands. Legit bands.), but even now, even after touching down in their first destination of Cádiz, Beca still...doesn’t really get the hype.

Performing with the Bellas is fun, they really are her family at this point, and Beca enjoys singing alongside each and every one of them, but she really doesn’t understand how this level of acknowledgment has happened—or why in the hell they have the a cappella world’s most annoying podcasters following them across a freaking ocean to keep up with their lives as if they are literal celebrities or something.

Still, over the years, as irritating as they may be, John and Gail have become something of a staple in the Bellas’ lives, two people Beca has kind of just given up on trying to avoid—after being followed to work every morning, it becomes difficult to really give a damn anymore, anyway. They are technically not harming anybody, so it is easier at this point to just do what they ask, which is how Beca now finds herself seated in front of their camera, brows lifting in response to the two excited faces beaming back at her from behind their equipment.

“So, Beca,” Gail begins enthusiastically, “What do you hope to gain from this tour?”

It is a simple question, in reality a pretty broad one, too, but Beca cannot help but find herself momentarily stumped for a response. Honestly, after spontaneously quitting her job and essentially finding herself kind of stuck, she really does not have any expectations. This tour had simply been a distraction for her, something for her to do so as not to find herself crawling back to the office and begging the BFD higher ups to take her back… She cannot very well say that, though. Can she?

Evidently noting a lack of input, Gail adds helpfully, “Any dreams? Fears?”

“Fears,” John echoes. “Of course you have fears, women are scared of everything.”

Although Beca only responds with a neatly arched brow, she notes the immediate look of disdain to pull itself across Gail’s features in response to her co-host. “Uh, I don’t know,” Beca says flatly, “I’m not scared of anything.”

“Really?” John questions curiously, mouth twisting into something of a knowing smirk as he exchanges a brief glance with the blonde seated beside him. Beca can see the same look drawing itself onto her face, too, and finds herself entirely confused. “Not even bear traps?”

The way Beca’s short, black polished nails clamp onto the arm of her seat is something she rectifies quickly, and silently prays has gone unnoticed by the two eager sets of eyes piercing into her from behind the camera. What do bear traps have to do with this, anyway? It is not like they are at Aubrey��s campsite from Hell anymore, after all.

“Bear traps?” Beca echoes with as much nonchalance to both her voice and expression as she can manage. She quickly clears her throat. “No, they’re whatever.”

In response, John and Gail only continue to watch her expectantly, and the amusement painting itself onto John’s weathered face tells her he knows something she doesn’t. Sure, these two show up everywhere, but Beca knows for a fact that they had not been at the retreat, and despite the fact that she’d never explicitly said so, she has always been under the assumption that there is a mutual agreement among the Bellas to never bring up that particular incident again—ever. To anyone.

Beca’s eyes narrow in on his expression, before adding in that same nonchalant tone, “I mean, I don’t, like, love them, but I’m not,” she air-quotes the next word, “scared of them.”

By now, Gail’s subtle smirk has settled into something of an almost sinisterly kind smile, though John looks just as outwardly smug as he had done before. “That’s not what a little red birdy told us,” he muses proudly, and Beca’s nostrils instantly proceed to flare.

A little birdy.

A little red birdy. Fucking Chloe.

“Chloe, yeah?” She says in a blank tone, lips pursing in defeated thought. She stares upward in a half eye roll, head shaking disapprovingly. “Dude, I swear, if she wasn’t my girlfriend…”

The good thing about a John and Gail interview is that the Bellas are under no actual obligation to see it through, so with a scoff and another more obvious roll of her eyes, Beca pushes herself up from the seat, deciding that their pointless interview is effectively over.

While Gail attempts to reel her back in, John says in an amused tone, “Watch where you’re going, little woman. You might run into a… Bear trap!”

The only reason Beca jumps in response is because of his increasing volume and emphasis, not because she cannot even hear the very term since the unfortunate incident at the retreat, duh. Without looking back to even glare in response to the loud, obnoxious laughter echoing from the hosts, Beca grumbles petulantly and tugs open the door, closing it loudly behind her.

“Hey!” Chloe’s voice is the next thing Beca hears, head lifting to take in the sight of those vibrant eyes shining excitedly. Beca only glares in response, though Chloe doesn’t seem to notice. She simply rocks on her heels, meeting Beca with natural Chloe Beale enthusiasm. “That was fast. Their questions are kind of weird, huh?”

Rather than respond to the question, Beca approaches her girlfriend with folded arms, the look of helplessness on her face entirely unintentional. “Dude, you told them about the retreat?” Chloe only stares at her curiously, so Beca adds in a lower tone, “You know… the bear trap thing.”

Chloe’s lips pull inward then, and Beca cannot tell whether she is trying to bite back a grin or if she looks kind of...embarrassed? She does note that no verbal response comes, though, and that serves as confirmation for Beca to release an annoyed groan, shoulders slumping defeatedly.

“I thought we were never bringing that up again?” she half-whines, hand rising to brush her fingers through her straightened hair. As it falls, her palm easily covers her eyes, and Beca releases a long sigh through her nostrils.

Familiar fingers wrap comfortingly around her wrist, and Beca’s lids flutter open to watch Chloe’s apologetic expression as she gently pulls her hand away from her face. She is kind of annoyed, obviously, but as her gaze meets that overwhelmingly calming blue, fingers parting to make room for Chloe’s to naturally slot between them, her own expression melts into something a little less angry, a little more calm.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe pouts, thumb brushing instinctively over the back of Beca’s knuckles. “It just slipped out.”

Despite the look of disdain Beca had been wearing only moments before, there is just something about that look on Chloe’s face, that adorable, apologetic wide-eyed stare that causes Beca to easily melt, for her shoulders to relax and her defenses to fall. Chloe has always had that kind of spell on her, truth be told.

It makes it hard to stay mad at her for long, no matter the circumstance.

She stares for only a moment longer, before easily relenting with a small puff of air through her nostrils. “Whatever.” She doesn’t even know why she does it, but Beca finds herself lifting their connected hands toward her mouth, lips brushing reassuringly over the back of Chloe’s fingers. “Just...don’t tell anybody else, yeah?”

The guilt written all over Chloe’s face begins to melt away at that, and is instead overtaken by a small, soothing smile. She uses the grip she has on Beca’s hand to easily tug her closer, and Beca does not resist as Chloe’s lips, familiar like home, push a delicate peck to her own. “Okay,” Chloe nods, gently nudging the tip of her nose to Beca’s. “Deal.”

#beca mitchell #chloe beale #bechloe #anna kendrick #brittany snow #bechloe drabble #mine #mine:gifs #mine:writing #mine:drabble

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lilydalexf · 3 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Audrey Roget

Audrey Roget has 10 fics at Gossamer, with some different ones at AO3, fanfiction.net, and her website. You might know her from her very good fics or as part of Musea, a collective that all wrote fic and posted X-Files fic recs. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas and The Shirt. Big thanks to Audrey for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? A little, yes. Not so much by folks who were around in those days. I sometimes go hunting for beloved stories from the early years, both those I read and loved, and those I never got around to. I am always delighted to hear that later generations of fans have stumbled across my stuff, especially since I haven’t posted anything new in a number of years. It’s fantastic that both years-long fans and new ones are out there continuing to rec fic from all eras, and to maintain archives for fans yet-to-be born. What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? It may sound corny, but the main thing I think of, and the thing that has ultimately been most valuable and lasting, has been the friendships. The feeling of having found a tribe – not just of TXF fans, but of other people who could be as enthusiastically engaged as I was (if not more so) with fictional stories and characters – was mind-blowing. Since I was a kid, I had often mulled over the books/movies/TV I loved and speculated internally about what happened off the page or off-screen, or created new stories for characters in my head. But, except for an elementary school phase where I and my two BFFs regularly played Charlie’s Angels, I hadn’t engaged in that kind of gleeful immersion in a fictional world with others until TXF fandom. My involvement in fandom followed pretty quickly from getting hooked on the show, so for me, it’s all one big ball of experiences. Even as my interest in/involvement in fandom has waxed and waned over the years, I’ve been lucky to remain friends with wonderful people who I originally connected with as fellow fans.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

My initial entrée to the fandom was through fanfiction. I didn’t get interested in the show until mid-season 5. Around the same time, I read an article in a zine called Might (co-founded by Dave Eggers) about this thing called fanfiction that people would write and publish online. At first I thought it was satire or a joke – the fic cited involved Wilma Flintstone and a polished sabre tooth, as I recall – but then realized this was an actual thing. So I figured that a show then at the peak of pop culture must have fanfiction, and I went looking. Early on, I scrolled atxc on a daily basis and downloaded stories. But I didn’t engage in discussions about the show on Usenet, since I only knew how to access it with my Earthlink email client, and I didn’t want to post using my real name.

Later, I set up a pseud address with Yahoo and subscribed to a couple of email fanfic/discussion lists, and stayed subscribed to those for years. There was also a period in there somewhere – of maybe only a year or so, when I think about it – when I’d often nerd out into the wee hours with other fans via IM chat groups. That was around the time the small writers’ collective Musea was founded, and we were active for several years after the show’s initial run. In the early aughts, I followed many authors to LiveJournal and eventually set up my own account and stayed involved in fandom that way, until it mostly dispersed as well. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? In a word: Chemistry. I had casually watched a couple of episodes during the first four seasons, but I’m not a huge sci-fi/horror fan at heart, and the story lines didn’t immediately grab me. But I happened to tune into The Red and the Black in 1998, and BOOM. For the first time, the intense layers of emotion and attraction between Mulder and Scully really struck me – and then of course, upon further viewing, I realized it was unmissable, an essential element in the fabric of the show. As a wise woman once said, a switch had been flicked. Mulder and Scully’s magnetism was like nothing I’d ever seen, and though I eventually came to appreciate the storytelling, humor, production values, and other components that made the series so successful, watching those characters interact has always been what kept me coming back. Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? I was part of a list-serv discussion group for The West Wing for a while, which was a fun melding of character and plot analysis with political discussion. Later, I got into the House, MD fandom, again mostly as a fanfic reader/writer. I was finding that other fandoms, unlike TXF, were more dispersed, the networks of people structured more loosely, if at all. There were fanfic and discussion communities on LiveJournal, and fanfiction.net was the other main hub for posting and reading, but if there was anything centralized like Gossamer, Ephemeral, or the Haven, I never found it. Within all those fan communities, as in TXF, there were partisans for various characters and pairings, and flame wars erupted over plot developments that outraged this faction or that. One main difference was that those other shows had larger, ensemble casts and more varied subplots. So on one hand, there was more opportunity to explore back stories and multiple perspectives. In House MD in particular, there were several entrenched rival shipper camps, which were about equally grounded in canon, rather than TXF’s central ship. I was less into TWW fic, but my impression was that readers were less militant about their pairing preferences than TXF or House fans. Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

I was deeply fascinated by Greg House for several years. (And the love-hate chemistry between him and Lisa Cuddy was a strong draw for me.) House MD came early in a wave of TV shows centered on anti-heroes, and Hugh Laurie brought amazing complexity and thoughtfulness to the character.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) are a lethal pair of antiheroes. The inherent moral conflict of a sympathetic narrative from their POVs, and the global political conflict they embody was TV catnip for me. The internal struggles at the hearts of those characters were so exquisitely written and performed, they completely fascinate me.

The West Wing felt so much like a show created specifically for me. I’m especially fond of story arcs and scenes that centered on CJ Cregg, Charlie Young, and Josh Lyman. Though I loved Martin Sheen’s human portrayal of Jed Bartlet, the fact that he was the President always made him a little untouchable in my mind. But CJ, Charlie, and Josh were basically hard-working functionaries who were ambitious and idealistic and funny and flawed, and they spoke to me. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I do continue to think about Mulder and Scully and watch episodes somewhat often. I’ll sometimes run a favorite episode as background when I want something comforting on. I read TXF fic pretty regularly, which can inspire me to go back and watch a particular episode or story arc I haven’t thought about in years. Just recently, I started listening to The X-Files Diaries podcast (@XFDPodcast, @admiralty-xfd), and that’s a fun dive into the characters, and how other fans react to and interpret episodes.

Every once in a while, a TV show or movie – and more particularly, the characters – will grab my attention and make me curious about how fanfic writers have interpreted the original material. Random example, I saw Singin’ in the Rain for the first time in a theatre a couple of years ago, and the chemistry of the three leads sent me to AO3 as soon as I got home. I also loved the first season of Mercy Street and found some well-done stories in that fandom. I usually peruse the Yuletide gifts every year and have been amazed by the sheer variety, creativity and cheekiness of the output. There are a bunch of other shows I’ve followed faithfully, and sought out fanfic – Broadchurch, The Killing, Agents of SHIELD, Elementary, The Good Wife. Although I’ve found some well-written stuff in those fandoms, I’ve rarely gotten the same charge from them as reading TXF fic. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

syntax6 (@syntax6) – Universal Invariants/Laws of Motion. I’d also shout out to syn’s Hunter fics, too – well worth reading even for those who have never seen or particularly loved the show itself.

JET – I re-read Small Lives Awake every year around Thanksgiving time. Other annual holiday re-reads: Revely’s The Dreaming Sea and Jordan’s Through the Fire (both set at Halloween).

Amal Nahurriyeh’s Casey universe – the rare post-col fic that felt hopeful, made extra intriguing by a kick-ass original character. [Lilydale note: the series starts with Machines of Freedom and has lots of additional fics and snippets.]

Prufrock’s Love – Finding Rokovoko was genuinely terrifying and tender.

melforbes (@melforbes) – Seaglass Blue is a recent favorite, lyrical and bittersweet.

These are just a few (apologies to those that didn’t come to mind immediately). Fortunately for readers, there’s an astonishing number of authors who have written in TXF fandom whom you can depend on for a good yarn, insightful character study, and/or ingenious “fixes” where 1013 went awry.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Probably the two set in my own (former) backyard of Southern California: Enivrez-vous and Ravenous. I’d first read the Baudelaire poem that was the source of the former’s title back in university days, so I was tickled to be able to use a few lines as an epigraph. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? It’s not out of the realm possibility. I’d meant for “Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas” to be followed up with “And One Time She Did.” In fact, the idea for that never-finished story was what inspired “Three Times” in the first place. I have a couple of scenes sketched out and – unusually for me – even know exactly how to end it. Every year, November rolls around, and I think I should finish and post it…maybe in 2021?

Where do you get ideas for stories? Sometimes it’s from my environment. “Enivrez-vous” and “Ravenous” describe places that I’m fond of, that made me want to place Mulder and Scully there. “What Not to Wear” has that element too – I set it in Memphis as a tribute to a great trip there with a sister Musean. But WNTW was also inspired by a kink challenge in a years-ago LiveJournal thread, so sometimes ideas come from fandom discussions or even other fanfics. In the House MD fandom, a fic by another writer made me want to continue the story, and the author kindly allowed an authorized sequel. What's the story behind your pen name? I wanted my pseudonym to sound like it could be a real person’s name – or at least, maybe like a romance writer’s pen name – rather than an online handle. I also wanted to use a slightly obscure fictional character, to amuse anyone in the know. I had long had a bit of an obsession with Whit Stillman’s 1990s film trilogy, which started with Metropolitan; the 3rd installment, Last Days of Disco, came out the same year I started down the TXF rabbit hole: 1998. The central heroine of Metropolitan – who is mentioned in or makes a cameo in the other two – is Audrey Rouget, a lover of Austen and, eventually, a book editor. I altered the spelling of the last name as a nod to every writer’s companion, Roget’s Thesaurus. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? I have a few close friends – from outside TXF fandom – who know that I’ve written fanfic. I don’t know if they know my pseud; if they do, or if they’ve ready any of the fic, they haven’t said so to me. They are fannish sorts themselves, but not really TXF fans. A smattering of other friends and family members know or could intuit that I’ve been a fangrl on some level for years. My boss, whom I’ve known for about 3 years, recently mentioned off-handedly that she was really obsessed with TXF “back in the day,” and I am DYING to know if she got involved in fandom, but don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to ask.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? Most of the X-Files stuff continues to be generously and steadfastly archived by Forte at The Basement Office. The House MD stories and some TXF things are at fanfiction.net; same for AO3. If ever post anything new, it will probably go to TBO and AO3. I really ought to get it all together in one place, one of these days…

(Posted by Lilydale on April 6, 2021)

#old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #audrey roget

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littlemisslipbalm · 4 years

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“you get me” (famous!y/n x harry)

Famous!y/n x Harry Styles

First Harry fic so please be kind, but feedback is SUPER appreciated

Initially inspired by the picture of Harry leaving the Gucci store with 15 bags but barely has anything to do with that lol

Definitely thought of Ellen for the interview idk why tho - also I struggle with writing Harry’s dialogue because I really want to get it right, but hopefully the more practice I get, the better/more natural it will sound. ALSO i have like no music or music industry background lol. Somewhat proofread, but its 2:30 am so it could be shit

Fluff!

Warnings: maybe some angst over being famous per say, past loneliness

Word Count: 3.7k literally howwww, i’m going to do a pt. 2 though because it was kind of a long set up and feelingsssss

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Interviewer: Please, welcome our next guest, a woman who’s sure to have her name written up beside the music greats someday, Ms. Y/N L/N!

You can’t contain the grin that spreads to your face as you carry yourself out onto the stage and see the audience cheering for you. It was your third big interview since your first album had been released and you’d seen your fame skyrocket over night. This being the third one this week meant you’d gotten comfortable getting asked questions, but you also weren’t bored of it yet. It was exhilarating being the center of attention, especially for something that had been your life’s work up until this point. You always had to fight for whatever you got and the recognition you were starting to have was reassurance that you hadn’t been a fool to risk a safe and certain life for your dreams.

The interview begins as the rest had, a few pleasantries, how you were feeling, and then the introduction of the album. The host asked you what your inspiration was for some of the songs and the album name and cover. You loved to talk about the music, it was the whole reason you were there. The meaning, the sound, the name, it all meant so much to you and you talked about how music can be interpreted differently by everyone and even the shifts in someone’s mood can change a song’s meaning, but what it meant to you at the time of writing was always something specific. You practiced those answers in the mirror before the interviews because they were important to you and you didn’t want your words on your art to ever be misconstrued. The host then complimented your style and you were at the point where you thought your interview should be wrapping up when they asked you one more question, and it threw you for a loop.

Interviewer: So Y/N, we’ve been hearing some rumblings around, about you and another famous musician, Mr. Harry Styles. Anything going on there?

Your face heated up, you hadn’t been expecting a personal question about possible relationships. Nothing like this had been asked of you at your previous interviews. It’s about the music, the art, and who you were, it’s always about that and nothing more. To be honest, you were a bit annoyed the host had chosen to stray from those topics. You didn’t care for the celebrity side of being a famous musician, the lack of privacy, the prying eyes of media and the general public. They saw enough of you through your art, you bore your soul through music why did they want to peak into your heart as well?

Y/N: I don’t know if I’d rather be with Harry Styles or actually be Harry Styles. Like, he’s literally such an icon, I want to be able to walk out of a Gucci store after spending hours there with 15 bags full of my purchases and helpers to carry it all out c’mon… He’s also an amazing songwriter, musician, and performer, of course. Didn’t mean to sound superficial, but I’d also love to own even half of his closet.

You hadn’t really answered the question, but the audience laughed and the host obviously got the hint that you weren’t interested in fanning any flames of romance with Harry Styles or anyone else. For one, you didn’t even know the man, but you had always been a loving fan of his. You cited him as one of your role models when you were first starting to try and break into the music world. Second, if you did know him, that wouldn’t be an appropriate topic for your album press junket going on, even if it meant more publicity because of Harry’s big celebrity status. The host decided to qualify their original question with a final sentiment.

Interviewer: I totally feel the same way! I only ask because the outpouring of support you’ve received seems to be from similar groups who also follow Harry. Many have been comparing your sound to his solo career work.

Y/N: Ah...well that’s very kind of people to say. He’s definitely a big inspiration, his creativity and drive is incredible. I’d love to be as successful as him someday.

The interview ended. You and the host shook hands and you waved and sent kisses to the crowd before retreating backstage. You were exhausted, but happy. You hoped to avoid anymore stressful interview questions that didn’t truly revolve around music. Of course, life is never that simple.

One month later

You had done countless more interviews and talk shows as promo for your album and the buzz around it had continued to grow. Your fame continued to rise as well and that one question you had dodged at your third interview had come back around to bite you, naturally. Daily Mail’s dumb headline read: “Y/N can’t decide! Date Harry Styles or Steal His Closet?” The Sun was also running with your response and miscontruing it completely, something about how you were madly in love with Harry but jealous of his designer partnerships, you couldn’t even stomach reading the garbage. This was your worst nightmare. Not only was it taking away the focus from your album, but you were also sure this dumb gossip had reached the very set of ears that the gossip was allegedly also about.

You had signed with Columbia Records for your first album, the same record label as Harry Styles, so managers had been in contact with one another about the whole fiasco trying to get the actual truth - which was that the two of you didn’t even know each other and there were no problems whatsoever. Your manager also brought along the good news that Harry had actually listened to your album and loved it, “He said ‘Congratulations’ by the way, loved the sound. Said he’d heard you were very music focused and be open to do some mentoring on songwriting and vocal specifics, if you wanted. It’d have to be in private though, obviously.” She had added the last bit, but you understood why. To have the opportunity to discuss your music with one of your longtime role models, heroes even, was beyond anything you could have imagined coming from your album’s success. And it made the drama all the more palatable because now you at least got to talk to Harry like the media was so adamantly saying you were doing already.

You nodded quickly and agreed, while trying to keep your teenage fangirl excitement hidden below your mature now-famous musician facade. Like you said, Harry was your hero, he’d been your hero since you were in middle school and had Up All Night downloaded on your iPod touch, blasting it as loud as possible, sound hitting your poster-filled walls. You weren’t the same girl as you were then, obviously, you had grown up to be a strong, independent, and confident woman. But, you still smiled at the thought of your younger self with your baby face squealing in the nosebleeds at the Take Me Home Tour (where you swore Harry had looked straight at you) and her seeing you now, dressed in a sleek outfit setting up an appointment to meet with Harry to discuss your first album, a success.

The next Thursday evening

You took a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your pursed lips. You were anxious and excited at the exact same time. Your meeting with Harry was tonight, right now actually, and you hadn’t been able to think about much else since your manager had confirmed the meeting last week. She got you the details a couple of days ago, the location: his house in Malibu, the time: 5:45 P.M. You had brought along a copy of your album on vinyl because you thought it sounded best this way, second only to performing it live.

Choosing your outfit for tonight was probably the toughest decision you’d ever made, harder than choosing between an education and following your dreams, harder than choosing your favorite Beatles song. You didn’t want to worry so much, this wasn’t a date you kept reminding yourself, but everything you tried on earlier kept having something wrong with it, too dressy, too boring, too ‘not yourself’. You had settled for these blue high-waisted pants that you’d worn to your first ever podcast interview, a thin black long sleeve, and a brown leather coat that fell below your hips with vans sneakers, casual, simple, yet still true to you and your vibe.

You raised your free arm and formed a fist, hesitant to knock, as if you’d damage Harry’s seemingly perfect Malibu beachfront home by knocking too hard on the wooden front door. You waited a few moments and could here some shuffling behind the door, some incoherent words were seemingly said, but the walls muffled them before they could reach for ears. Soon enough, Harry Styles in the flesh was before you. He beamed down at you, huffing, slightly out of breath as if he had been clear across the house when you knocked. His strong figure towered above your far smaller stature. He was hanging onto the door since he had opened it only slightly. “Hello, Y/N?” he greeted and questioned simultaneously. “Hi,” you responded and extended the same hand that had just rapped against his now open door. He gripped it, ushering you into his home, “Come in, come in, it’s nice to meet you, don’t want you to catch a cold now do we?” He took note of your strong handshake and ring clad fingers.

He walked you into an area between the kitchen and a sitting area. The kitchen was open aside from a bar high top between the two rooms. You sat down at his prompting and made yourself comfortable. “I brought my record on vinyl, sounds best in my opinion, otherwise I’d recommend seeing it live,” you laughed as you handed the vinyl to him and took off your coat. “Technically, y’know, I could hear it live right now, if you were willin’ f’course,” Harry had responded over his shoulder as he placed the vinyl by his idle record player, “Anything to drink?” “Just water for me, please.” His accent was even stronger in person, especially since he had moved back to London and seldomly stayed in California, except for business and quick trips. As far as you knew, he had already been here on business for the week and was able to pencil you in.

You two settled in, with your waters, seated at the bar top beside each other, but swivelling the chairs to face one another more. Again, you were overwhelmed with the reality of the situation, sitting beside Harry Styles as professionals, peers even. He had heard your work and liked it enough to want to discuss it with you. It was a day you never thought would come to pass. He started off not by asking about the music right away, but about how you were doing with the whirlwind that stardom is. “How are you, Y/N? It’s been somewhat of a out of the frying pan into the fire kind of moment for you?” He stared at you intently, caring to hear your answer.

You couldn’t help but chuckle again and contain your smile, “Thank you for asking, Harry. Yeah, its been definitely stressful, but it’s everything I’ve ever wanted and more so the good is still outweighing any bad. Definitely, fucking exhausted though, dunno how many more interviews I can do before my jaw goes completely rigid from talking so much.” It’s Harry’s turn to laugh, his eyes shone with intrigue at what you said and how you said it. You were gorgeous, but it was how your hands helped you through what you were trying to say and the small laughs you tried to keep in while you amused yourself with your words that really made him want to hear you talk all night long.

He agreed about how the promo junket for an album can get tedious and tiresome, but also the absolute fulfillment you get from people loving the music you’ve made. The two of you chatted about surface level personal matters for a little more, but quickly moved to the music. “I took a listen a couple weeks after the album was released. I especially loved the last track. It reminded me so much of a song I never released, actually…” he trailed off.

Your final track had been a ballad, an homage to George Harrison with your use of guitar and sitar, but the lyrics were a story based off of a poem you had written one night in high school. It surrounded a girl never feeling quite good enough for the person she wanted to be with and how it happened everytime, everytime she was ready to giver herself to someone, they were always closed off. Of course it held some truth to your own life and feelings, but you wrote this girl as someone with a seemingly perfect life - when yours was obviously far from any semblance of perfection.

You wondered what Harry’s song would have sounded like, had it been about a seemingly perfect girl or a guy with a seemingly perfect life, always giving himself to the wrong person and getting destroyed by that very fact because he was impatient as the girl in your song had been. “Can I ask, how so? How’d it remind you of your own song, the words or the music?” “Oh, the story, I felt like that for a time in my life and I like to be vulnerable in my songs because it helps me process, but listening to it back has always been too painful. Could never release that or perform it, it’d wreck me.” You nodded, you completely got where he was coming from. You noticed his downcast eyes and his somber tone, you knew not to push it any further.

It was quiet and you decided it’d be okay to take his hand resting between the two of you. “Harry, I understand,” your sincerity spilled into the words, filling the quiet house, “It’s not easy. Feeling that way. Thinking you’re the only goddamn one and why the fuck does it always happen to you? I used to ask my ceiling ‘why me?’ every night of high school” you smiled then. “But you know how it is,” you rubbed your thumb over his large warm hand and he lifted his head, “it gets so much better - c’mon look at us now! It can get hard, too, all this, I’m sure. But our lives? They’re amazing!” He beamed as he had when he had first seen you at his door and when you’d first really spoke. He moved his hand from under your palm to weave your fingers with his, both of your hands with covered in rings and they clinked to fit together, finally resting perfectly fitted. He shook your two hands up and down, “God, you’re so right! That damn song, m’sorry always puts me in a mood,” he shakes his head, “not yours though, f’course, s’lovely, better than my sodding song” he finishes quickly.

After that, the mood lightened right back up. It filled you with such appreciation for Harry that he would trust you so much with such a personal detail since you two had just met. But maybe, he had trusted you because he had felt that same spark between you. It wasn’t necessarily a romantic spark, but it was obvious the two of you were kindred spirits. Besides your album, the two of you talked about everything. You loved the same bands, movies and books, you both loved to cook and had similar fashion taste, you even had the same person type - something you found out late into the night.

At the end of the Side B of your album, Harry switched to a Bill Evans record that had ‘Peace Piece’ on it. You loved that song. So did he. “So...planning to raid my closet?” Harry raised his brows from the record player and walked back to you. You almost sputtered the water in your mouth. Luckily, you got it down. “Pardon?” “All that bad press the two of us have been getting...I watched the interview that kind of ignited the tabloids. You’re obviously not used to those overstepping personal questions.” You nodded. “It’s fine, even if you’d completely shut it down, the tabloids probably would have picked it up still, they snap up anything and everything, true or not.” You softened at his reassurance. You hadn’t expected Harry to bring the interview up, but you were sure he wasn’t happy about it, he was so private, especially about his love life. “Thanks, I’m sorry I tried to laugh it off, kind of made it worse, didn’t I?” “No! Thought it was hilarious and I totally appreciated the sentiment. Little ol’me, an icon? And an amazing artist? All I gotta do is watch that clip and I’ve fed my narcissistic side for the week!” You giggled and replied slyly, “So does that mean I can raid your closet? As compensation, of course.” Harry threw his head back in an all consuming laughter, when he’d composed himself he looked in your eyes again and said, “You just...God, you get me.”

Harry had continued to put records on throughout the night, diligently flipping sides and asking for requests, he of course had an extensive collection. The two of you had moved onto his plush couch that looked out his french doors to the beautiful ocean view. Finally, your exhaustion caught up to you, mid-Harry describing his latest travel fiasco, you glanced up at the clock. You gasped. Harry stopped. “When did it get to be half 12?” you questioned almost incredulously, “I’ve gotta get home, Harry, but this has been truly amazing, more than I could have asked for, so thank you.” Your speech began to rush as you started to get up and gather your things, that had slowly scattered as you’d gotten more comfortable, jacket by the table, shoes around the back of the couch, your phone forgotten somewhere in the couch. You couldn’t believe you’d spent almost seven hours just talking with Harry Styles.

Harry quickly stood up from his relaxed positioned on the couch and asked if you were alright to drive this late. You scoffed, “Oh please, I’ve driven around at 3 am before, I just have to turn up the music and I can cruise.” He smiled, “This was great, Y/N, I know we didn’t really go super in depth into your writing process, but I’d love to write with you sometime or just hang out again f’course. Your seriously talented and obviously a wonderful person.” He didn’t include that he felt like he’d never met anyone like you, never met someone so perfectly matched to himself, in passions but also in work ethic and demeanor - compassionate yet confident. He felt like you got him perfectly and he got you. You had stopped your scramble to gather yourself and now you were both smiling at one another.

This had really been an unforgettable night, you couldn’t believe how well you two had meshed, like childhood friends reconnecting after years apart. “Can I give yeh a hug before you go?” Harry’s voice had grown raspier as the night had progressed. He had grown rather tired an hour ago, but had pushed through because they had been having so much fun and you hadn’t noticed his physical fading or the time, obviously. You stepped toward him and his large tattooed arms enveloped you into his body. His body truly dwarfed yours now as he held you to his chest. You both were warm and soft. He tucked his head on top of yours that rested on his chest. Your arms were loosely resting where his back met his waist because you would have had to strain to get them to encircle him. His arms rested around your small frame. “Love your jacket,” he mumbled into your hair. His rough voice was quiet, but the house was silent otherwise, Tusk Side C had finished around when you had noticed the time. The embrace lasted long, but it felt so amazing you had a hard time pulling yourself away, but you had to get back home.

“G’night Harry” you said softly at the threshold of his home. He had insisted on walking you to the front door at least, since you had declined his offer to walk you out to your car on the street. “G’night. Safe travels.”

You got in your car and headed to your apartment in the city. You didn’t bother digging for your phone so you turned on the radio and drove home singing whatever came on, including your own song at one point. The whole time you drove with a grin. Harry was the nicest person you’d ever met and you were confident that the two of you were friends now. As you pulled into your parking garage it dawned on you why you hadn’t connected your phone immediately when you got in your car. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” you put the car in park and rested your palms in the depressions of your eyesockets, over your closed eyelids, and rubbed hard. “Fuck!” It was far too late to drive back out to Malibu for your phone and you obviously couldn’t text Harry that you’d left your phone at his place, despite the two of you exchanging numbers during the night for future hang outs, so they didn’t have to be arranged through your managers, like playdates. Even if he found your phone between the cushions, he couldn’t drop it at your place in the morning because he didn’t know your address. This was a whole mess, you thought. You’d have to drive over in the morning and hope he was still there or email your manager from your computer. The former meant you got to see Harry sooner and likely your phone, too.

part 2

@berrynarrybanana

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #har #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fan fic #I DID IT #I sat down and wrote it #and it took forever #and I need to write a second part but I made something coherent #one direction fanfiction #not my gifs #my writing #I love you h #you get me #my writings

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heartlandians · 2 years

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Amen to your note about gw. I, too, loved Heartland, the whole TAMY relationship, Jack, the beautiful vistas, the horses. Starting when TAMY married in Season 8, Ty’s character just seemed off, weird, like he didn’t want to be there. His hair was ridiculous. When he left the show, I wasn’t all that bothered. He wasn’t a very good actor at that point. I figured he was ready to move on after 13 years. I get that. I did listen to his podcasts. At first, they were good, he was engaging with his guests, most of whom were Heartland actors. Then he began to branch out into stranger topics. Then Covid hit. And his true self emerged. He is so self absorbed, so anti-vac, so pro-everything I am against. And, those that follow him are either in love with Ty or ignorantly following him because he espouses the same misinformation that they believe. I have written a couple of FanFiction.Net…in the middle of two…all 3 involve TAMY. But, I can’t stand gw. It makes it hard to finish them. I think that Amber deserves way more credit for the success of Heartland. Anyhow. I applaud your stance. Thank you. Submitted by: Anonymous __________________________

This whole thing has been weighing on me ever since covid hit, and we were starting to learn about his stances with masks, safety regulations and eventually with vaccines. It was a concern I voiced when Ty’s death was leaked, and he was starting to “branch out” into this territory with his social media presence. What would happen?

I didn’t know if the leak was real or not, it really could have gone either way, but I feared what would happen if it was fake since he kept attending “freedom marches” without masks and really wanted everyone to know that he was NOT going to be wearing a mask or follow safety protocols, just few days before he was needed on set. We also know, based on Heartland, that he has not had a problem wearing masks before to keep him or others safe, so this was a choice he made for himself (and therefore, others). Not that I have ever had a problem telling people apart from their characters, but it was beginning to become very real to me that he was not Ty Borden when it comes to science and medicine, however I think some people lost that memo - and/or still haven’t gotten it. So I guess I have to disagree with you on his acting; he really made it look like he believes taking precautions in situations where someone’s health is at risk. I bought his performance as Dr. Tyler Borden.

Anyway, back to my blogger perspective.

When he left the show, I could sigh out of a relief to some degree because all the covid related reasons aside, I just didn’t want to imagine what his “activism” would have brought to the set. They were already going through hard times as it was, isolated from their friends and family, working long hours - not to mention Chris had just survived covid himself - and I just didn’t want to imagine them working in an environment where someone’s very vocal about the things he’s passionate about. I feel a little better knowing all his scenes with Amber (and others) were filmed seperately and his body double was used for scenes where we couldn’t see Ty’s face, just because it feels it was the safest way to go both physically and mentally. I really applaud the whole cast and crew for bringing us entertainment in such a scary time. Last year everything was still very fresh, and we are still learning new things every day, but the consideration they put into making sure people would not get the virus is respectable. When it comes to something like that, there’s no room for arrogance; this is literally life and death. It’s better to be safe than sorry as you don’t want anyone’s death on your record. They did their best with what they had, and I think they really made season 14 work despite all the obstacles. Same goes for season 15.

So for a year or so, I was somewhat “fine” because I didn’t have to be so concerned about him anymore since he was not in the show, but at the same time I knew he kept having a platform mostly because he had once been Ty Borden, a character loved by many, and I knew this would affect how people would receive his message. He had earned their trust through Ty, which I feel can be dangerous. I was “keeping an eye” on the situation, trying to figure out how to feel about it, if there was something I should be doing in terms of having this blog (and then eventually having my podcast with Izzy). I thought, well, since he’s not part of the show anymore, I can write him out more easily, but the more everything keeps piling up and the more alarming things get with new cases, the more I’ve felt that I have to do something when it comes to my blog and his part in it. I knew I couldn’t possibly just delete all the posts I had made about him, because they weren’t all about him anyway, and at the same time Ty has such a big presence in the show that it can’t be ignored. And like I mentioned earlier, Ty is the show’s creation (and to some degree Lauren Brooke’s), it’s not him. So in many ways, there’s very little I can do, but at least I don’t have to give his hashtag anymore notes. I know it’s not much, but in terms of having a blog, fading out his name is the least I can do. Based on my own morals and the responsibility I feel for my fellow people, I don’t want to give him, his name or his ideology a platform because he isn’t acting responsibly based on what I feel are the proper things to do right now. I don’t remember who said it, but I’ve seen someone say that Ty Borden wouldn’t like him as a person, and I think that kind of tells something about the situation and why I, as a Heartland blogger, feel like he doesn’t fit into this Heartland narrative anymore.

Last thing I want to say is, I feel bad that the cast and crew has been left to deal with the aftermath of his departure, about the hurtful conspiracies people keep spreading as “truths” (”scoops from the set”) and the harmful attacks the rest of the cast has to endure on a daily basis, but on a more personal level, I also hate that he has torn the fandom apart and I don’t know if this is something we can come back from. It’s a shame that that will be his legacy after 14 years in the show.

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