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105ttt · 3 years

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Hi sorry if this was already asked before but could you explain a little further abt the things devsis has done?? I haven’t heard abt a lot of the stuff you mentioned I don’t mean to sound rude or anything I’m just genuinely wondering

I can tell you mean it genuinely, it’s okay! I’m happy to answer because you want to know. I’ll go through everything I said.

The Valentine’s 2021 fanart video, posted on the official CR YouTube channel, is a compilation of fanart drawn for Valentine’s Day that fanartists submitted. Some of the art submitted was chosen BY DEVSISTERS and put in the video, but not all art made it in. Two pedophilic ships, Red Bean x Snow Sugar and Roguefort x Walnut, were featured in the video. Red Bean x Snow Sugar was featured TWICE. Snow Sugar and Walnut are confirmed to be children while Red Bean and Roguefort are HEAVILY implied to be adults. Devsisters allowed the pedophilic ships to be shown in a fanart video for a holiday primarily about romantic love, therefore putting their seal of approval on these pedophilic ships. Despite fans saying it should be taken down, the video is still up as of today.

Related to the video and Devsisters’ promotion of fanart on official Twitter accounts, they are known to promote fanart that whitewashes the Cookies. This applies to not only Cookies like Cocoa and Mint Choco, who are clearly black, but also Cookies that are tan, like Alchemist. This approval of whitewashing has been going on for literal years, and when an artist was called out for a piece that Devsisters promoted, Devsisters sided with the artist and claimed that they should be respected rather than made to understand why whitewashing is bad.

Both the Dreamy Cookie Land event and the 2021 April Fools GingerBrave Trial contain sections that are known to harm photosensitive people by either giving them seizures or seriously hurting their eyes and causing immense discomfort and pain. While Devsisters altered the maps in Dreamy Cookie Land to make them less likely to hurt these people, the 2021 April Fools Trial has not changed. Devsisters should have made sure these maps were safe BEFORE publishing them to thousands of people (or more).

Devsisters misgenders its own characters on official Twitter accounts and in game notifications. Squid Ink Cookie was referred to as “she” on a Puzzle World Twitter post, despite this Cookie never having pronouns anywhere in the game. Mocha Ray Cookie was referred to with “she” in a game notification despite having no pronouns listed anywhere in the game, including cutscenes. Devil Cookie was referred to with “he” in a Twitter post despite the game canonically using only “they/them” for them. In addition, a statement from the Thai branch of the Devsisters team claimed that you can use any pronouns for a Cookie since they are born sexless (and they conflated sex with gender). This gives transphobes the “right” to misgender canonically nonbinary characters. Lastly, before the Guild update and before OvenBreak, Dark Choco and Cinnamon had no pronouns. After the Guild update, Cookies referred to Dark Choco as “he”, and in OvenBreak, Cinnamon’s Story uses “he” for them. This erases two canonically nonbinary characters, as cis people will see “he” being used for them and assume they are male rather than he/they nonbinary people.

Devsisters is not subtle about their homophobia, as well as their goal of appealing to cishets who hate gay people. They show their homophobia in how straight ships are treated compared to gay ships. Firstly, in the Valentine’s fanart video, there were mostly straight ships. I believe I counted only 4 or so gay ships, and 3 of these were either selfcest or pedophilia. Despite the majority of the art being shown being heterosexual, many people who regularly follow the CR tag on Twitter and Instagram claim that there was a lot more gay ship art submitted compared to the proportion shown in the video. The gay ship art shown was also ambiguous enough that cishets who hate gay people wouldn’t get mad at Devsisters, while some of the heterosexual art was blatantly romantic. Secondly, the treatment of ships like RaspRose and PrincessKnight, popular straight ships, is much better than the treatment of popular gay ships by Devsisters. For example, RaspRose got a merchandise item in a set of cups that also featured a cup with Sea Fairy and Moonlight and Orange and Lime. The RaspRose art on the cup is explicitly romantic. The art on the Sea Fairy and Moonlight and Orange and Lime cups are ambiguous or platonic instead, despite both of these ships being historically far more plausible and popular than RaspRose. Finally, Devsisters has been gaybaiting with Madeleine Cookie and Espresso Cookie in Kingdom, but they refuse to make them canon because that would be gay. Gaybaiting is homophobic in itself for using gay people as a way to advertise something without fulfilling the promise of gay representation. It’s also worth mentioning that they once gaybaited with Milk and Purple Yam on Twitter, but the art shown was not romantic at all, and only the caption hinted at a ship (and the caption was vague enough to be interpreted as the Cookies merely appearing in an art piece together).

Multiple black CR fans have spoken out and said that Purple Yam Cookie is a racist caricature of black men, ESPECIALLY when he is juxtaposed with Milk, a white man. Indian and Middle Eastern CR fans have spoken out and said that Yogurt Cream Cookie and Lilac Cookie are caricatures of Indian and Middle Eastern people. These are not debatable. Google the history of the portrayal of black men in non-black media, and you’ll see what I mean for Purple Yam. The evidence that Yogurt Cream is a caricature comes from the very fact that people compare him to Aladdin, specifically Disney’s version of the tale, thereby showing that their only exposure to Indian and Middle Eastern people is stereotypes in white media. Note also that Dark Choco Cookie is the stereotype of a solemn, lonely, strong black person, and this has leaked into the fandom so much that people draw them unrealistically buff and mostly draw them suffering from angst instead of having any actual character.

There was an IRL sex crime in South Korea perpetrated by a club called the Burning Sun, and a certain Guild named itself after that club and changed their usernames to the names of the people who committed these crimes. They were only forced to change their names by Devsisters AFTER people protested. They were NOT forced to disband the Guild or banned from the game. Keep in mind that these people named themselves after a REAL-LIFE SEX CRIME that harmed REAL WOMEN AND GIRLS, and the only punishment they got was a forced name change. Fuck Devsisters.

Lastly, the trigger joke. Back when Ion Cookie Robot and Cyborg Cookie were new, the official CR Twitter account made a Tweet captioned as “triggered”, and below that caption was a GIF of Ion Cookie Robot becoming angry and shifting to their Red Dread Costume, thereby implying that Ion Cookie Robot was “triggered” and became unreasonably angry. This was posted during the time when ableists were using the term “triggered” as a “meme”, which harms people with PTSD. The Tweet was deleted, and another Tweet was made that apologized for the previous Tweet, but this was only after backlash from fans. However, notice that Purple Yam Cookie is also a trigger joke. He has PTSD from being burned alive in the Oven for so long, and as a result he is easily angered (anger is his stress response). The game treats this as a joke and minimizes his suffering just because other Cookies were in the Oven (before coming to life). His anger is treated as unreasonable and unwarranted, and it’s treated as a joke. Does that sound familiar? Now take into account that his anger is juxtaposed with Milk’s “kind”, “gentle” demeanor. Yikes.

BONUS ROUND:

DevSam, a worker at Devsisters, once said that GingerBrave had a Costume in LINE that was a “sexy cat costume”. GingerBrave is a minor, and the Costume was literally not sexy at all. Why did they refer to him as sexy if he’s a minor??

Images from an official CR account showed a person dressed as GingerBrave giving gifts to a person dressed as Pink Choco Cookie, a Cookie associated with romantic love. This can be easily interpreted as romantic and is therefore pedophilic because GingerBrave is a child and Pink Choco Cookie is an adult. Why post this at all??

Buttershell Fox referred to Maple Panda with a word that was VERY close to a slur against black people in the original text of the Secrets of the Hidden City cutscenes. This was only changed when a popular Twitter user let everyone know about it and asked people to email Devsisters about it.

I can provide links and screenshots for proof if needed, but please DM me or send an ask to ask for these. I’m definitely forgetting other things they’ve done that are bad, but this already should be enough to raise eyebrows.

#no stupid asks please!#they will be deleted!#same for stupid replies!#do not defend corporations they are not your friend!#respect minorities and listen to them!

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straighttohellbuddy · 3 years

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📓 !!

Okay im so excited please know I think about How The Light Gets In's world every day still, and so anyways here is a side story I want to write but there's a lot of set up regarding the reader and eef becoming friends again. For context, they were incredibly close around 2014-2017, but people were getting creepy and invasive and demanding about their friendship (think 2012 toxic side of the Phandom, if that makes sense), and a lot of the reader's relationships were strained at that time because while they had been successful before, they were absolutely blowing up after their first album released and they became far more mainstream. They felt like they were bothering the people they had become closest to, both because they're worried that they're a bother, and because gossip rags and paps would harrass their friends looking for a scoop, and so they ended up just completely cutting off contact without warning one day right before they went on their first tour. the start of HTLGI is about 3 years since they'd been in proper contact with any of the creators they were close to at that time.

DON'T LOOK AT ME on their 2017 ep Hyperfocus was a more general song in response to everything that had been happening in their life around that time, with a focus on how they stop associating with anyone for a while, without outright addressing it, but on their latest album n o s t a l g i a, read at 5am ft. Troye was specifically written at the start of quarantine, when the reader was getting back into YouTube, about their feelings regarding how their friendship with ethan ended, as they spent a lot of this time looking back of their YouTube career, and he was the person they were closest to for a very long time, before they iced everyone out.

OKAY SO THERES MORE OF THE BACKGROUND OF THE WHOLE FIC AND THE READER BUT

Werewolf Ethan & Mark. I'm sorry I don't make the rules. They have golden retriever energy you cannot change my mind. But also because this is the HTLGI you know that supernatural characteristics are able to be activated rather than just triggered by the full moon. What I'm trying to say is since this is set in the year of Unus Annus, they film a video together that's like, you know that show where a person has to try and outwit a professional tracker? Except its the reader being tracked by two werewolves at night in a national park. Reader is wearing some sort of night vision camera on themselves so whenever it cuts to them the audience can't actually see how they're using their powers, if that makes sense.

Also the reader agreed to this knowing it would probably be when they ended up telling Mark and Ethan about them being a demon.

Video is titled Hunting Down An Old Friend

A few Moments that the boys edit out:

The reader using their stupidly sharp prehensile tail to swing from tree branches, though they leave in shots where the reader's tail can't be seen.

Knowing that with the werewolves having advanced hearing, the reader would give themselves away by talking to the camera, they take a few minutes having flown up to a high tree branch, to pull out a notebook and do a little sketch of how Mark and Ethan appear in their Demon True Sight, and holding it up to their camera.

Werewolves being one of the animals who can kind of sense demons without being able to identify them, essentially like dogs can sense natural disasters and are often good judges of character, this can be heightened on command for werewolves. There's about 15 minutes of footage cut out of the boys discussing or mentioning how this place has awful vibes and that they should have done this during the day. It gets worse as they get closer to the reader, who didn't realise that the boys hadn't thought to ever use that particular power around them before.

("I say this with so much love and appreciation for you, dude," Ethan yells, looking up at you from the base of the tree they'd finally found you in, "but I- this is making me anxious I feel like something terrible's gonna happen, and we should probably get out of here and film the rest of the video back at Mark's." And behind him, Mark's nodding, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eyes scanning the trees for whatever was most likely the cause of this terrible impending doom.

Oh. It's you. And they don't know its you.

Now or never, you suppose.

"Can you cut the cameras for a second? You're going to be fine I promise," you called back, and though they obligingly did, they both seemed antsy. You cleared your throat awkwardly, "that... that terrible feeling, that's not the park or anything in it- well I mean, it is, but it's just- it's me."

and later

"Dude your wings smell like rotten eggs."

"To YOU Ethan! And no they don't!"

"If it makes you feel better they smell like burning and rotten eggs."

"It does not."

(for reference, when enhancing their sense of smell werewolves can kind of distinguish various supernatural creatures, or parts of supernatural creatures. Some creatures have an inherent scent, but some, like angels and demons, only have distinct scents when they've activated certain attributesor abilities; demon wings smell like fire and brimstone, which unfortunately means burning and rotten eggs. I like to think angels wings are like the love potion in Harry Potter that smells like the things you love the most. Mark and Ethan usually don't enhance it around each other because they smell like wet dog to the other)

This gets about 2k notes on tumblr. The reader likes it:

Ethan finally finding Y/N at the end of Hunting Down An Old Friend (2020) Colourised.

Other things to note regarding all this:

It takes a while to rebuild their friendship to the point where they're comfortable enough to be on camera together (eef and reader specifically).

However, the Unus Annus video is the first thing they properly do together, and the reader, in an effort to connect more and make up for the past, will join in multiplayer gaming streams if asked.

Impromptu duet in proximity Among Us of Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy, which has their respective chats and fandoms losing their minds, except it stops abruptly after the first chorus as they both remember the opening lines of the second verse (make it easy, say I never mattered -- those lyrics hit a little too close to home)

But also the reader convinces him to join him for a proper cover in like, February of 2021, and it's something deeply sappy (I'm thinking Bon Iver by mxmtoon because I think its sweet and fits them well)

Also Ethan being reminded that the reader is kind of a much bigger deal than when they'd been friends before.

designed to hurt (touch me) from their ep Working On It is nominated for a Grammy for Track of the Year, and n o s t a l g i a wins Best Pop Album (because it's my fic and I said so)

FIRST OF ALL designed to hurt (touch me) is a beautifully produced song about Corpse (which people do not know) and the title itself is literally making fun of something he said IMAGINE his reaction to it being Grammy Nominated 😂😂😂 God he'd be proud but lowkey fuming, meanwhile the moment the nominations are announced the reader tweets:

me: here is an album where I processed my entire world view including heartfelt explorations of the trauma of existing and oversharing in the public eye from a young age without the traditional barrier between audience and entertainer

the grammys: that's cute BUT you know the song you wrote to bully your boyfriend and also be horny on main for him before you guys were even dating? THAT deserves its own recognition.

meanwhile Ethan's like..... this is the same person who I filmed a video with playing cards against humanity, and you laughed so hard you almost threw up. I am very proud but deeply confused.

The Hot Meme of Late April 2021 is "2 time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" with a gif, still, or quote from the reader where they're just being an absolute chaos gremlin.

Of course we have "If I bleached my asshole for charity I'd do it tastefully."

2 Time Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N speaking to their actual boyfriend in the year of our lord 2020: You are being executed for Clown Crimes.

ethan posts a short video to twitter simply of his screen where he's renaming a folder from "Never Before Seen Images of Grammy Award Winning Artist Y/N" simply changing it to 2 time Artist. The reader responds specifically to his tweet with a video of themselves asking Google how to hard reset someone else's computer.

So many screenshots from old videos surface that week.

I miss this world. Sorry this is rambly!!

#shut ur pretty mouth #how the light gets in #corpse husband x reader #your local homosexual with no chill #htlgi

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itsfunorwhateva · 3 years

Text

Pink Shoelaces

1**I WANT TO START BY SAYING I KNOW THIS IS A REACH BUT ITS SOMETHING IVE BEEN THINKING AND RESEARCHING SO HERE IT IS***

So by now we have all seen Harry’s crusty vans, but has everyone noticed the one pink shoelace that is in his vans?

(Here’s some pictures below if you don’t know what I’m talking about. )

I know I’ve seen it. This got me thinking, does that pink shoelace mean anything. We know our dear Harold is not new to leaving clues, and hidden messages in things he does. All you need is a listen to his music, a peek at the custom pants from his Vogue shoot, or the multiple custom Louis blue items he seems to have an avidity for. So, the pink shoelace had to be an intentional decision, I mean Harry fans have been buying vans authentics and adding a pink shoelace, but only because of the man himself, so why did Harry do it? I did a quick google search of “symbolism of pink shoelaces” and “do pink shoelaces mean anything” but I came up empty handed, well except one thing, a song on an album, labeled no other than “Pink Shoelaces” by Dodie Stevens. Now there isn’t much there, since I couldn’t draw any set connections between Harry and Dodie, but still there is more to unpack here. The only thing that I’ve been able to sorta of connect Dodie Stevens to Harry is Stevie Nicks as both women were born within two years of each other and were releasing music around the same time(1959-1960 for Dodie, and 1971 and beyond for Stevie). No public meetings between the two unfortunately. Dodie Stevens’ album, Pink Shoelaces, has some very interesting song titles. Some include, “Am I Too Young To Love”, “To Know Him is to Love Him”, “Just A Dream”, “Pink Shoelaces”, and now stay with me “Too Young”. Now even these song titles seem to point in a very specific direction for Harry, erm Louis, but that not even the most shocking thing.

Let’s look into some lyrics of the aforementioned songs. First up is “Just a Dream”.

“Just a dream, just a dream (Just a dream) All our plans and all our schemes (All our schemes) How could I think you'd be mine (You'd be mine) Those lies I'd tell myself each time I know that this could never last (Never last) It didn't seem to in the past (In the past) Just a dream I dream in vain (Dream in vain) With you I'd only live in pain”

I mean some pretty raw emotion here. Wanting to be with someone so bad but it seems it only happens in your dreams, that doesn’t sound familiar at all. Now most of these songs connect to Louis’ discography. And this song especially “Too Young”. The lyrics, “Oh, I can't believe I gave in to the pressure When they said a love like this would never last” wow that sounds really similar to our song by Dodie, now doesn’t it.

Next song “Am I Too Young To Love”

“Am I too young? Too young, too young to love? Someone please help me Someone above”

Now I wonder what I’m going to connect this one too. Maybe a song by one of our favorites, Mr. Louis Tomlinson. I don’t think I need to explain how these two songs connect with each other, since quite literally both mention and discuss being too young for love.

Next Song “To Know Him is to Love Him”

“Everyone says there'll come a day When I'll walk alongside of him“

“To know, know, know him Is to love, love, love him Just to see him smile Makes my life worthwhile“

This song really hurts me if Harry actually has listened to it. Everyone says there’ll come a day when I’ll walk alongside him, those lyrics hurts when they are connect to Harry. Was the intended purpose to discuss closeting, probably not, but the parallels are there and pretty obvious. Next, the smile lines. We know how smiley Louis would get when Harry was simply looking at him. And if you look up creepy love stare I’m sure you’ll find so picture of Larry where they are both so obviously in love that they just have a smile on their faces.

Next Song “Pink Shoelaces”

“He's my guy and I love him truly ... But I'm wild about his crazy clothes”

I see this song more of Louis’ pov about Harry. But nonetheless it can show their relationship and how they both love each other so much. The crazy clothes line I just thought was fitting for Mr. Styles and all the amazing clothes he has in his closet.

Ok, Last Song “Too Young

“They try to tell us we’re too young

too young to really be in love”

if this song and where I’m going with it isn’t obvious omg. Anyways Louis song, Too Young, which we all know is about Harry, because who else, not eleanormegirlfriend, for sure.

Ok, so now I’ve broken down the songs, and explained every lyrics that I think connects Harry and Louis through this pink shoelace. You’re probably not convinced, because a shoelace is a pretty silly hint, and if it took this long to look into it couldn’t be right. Well these next picture might help convince you a bit.

Yeah, you see that little face in the big red circle, that looks awfully similar to the smiely face Louis uses for everything, from concerts, to merch, down to the fact it is tattooed on his body. This new evidence is what really help nail down my theory. Now Harry had gone out in public with a pink shoelace a lot, fans picked up on it but no one talked about if it was a hint, because why would we? So Harry added another message onto those same shoes (I think they are the same pair, just no more pink shoelace) in hope that maybe this time we would pick up on it. Fans have been questioning why Harry would continue to wear gross dirty vans out in public all the time, well maybe it was so we could pick up on his subtle hint that hey this is for Louis even if Harry couldn’t say so.

Ok last part to really support this theory.

Yeah, I think most larries are pretty aware of this tweet. However most people connect it with Louis’ upside down triangle tattoo that he has on his ankle. So my thoughts are what if the pink shoelace, and face on the vans is to tell Harry by his ankles. Harry having something directly on his ankles that references Louis/Larry might be too suspicious, so maybe Harry settled for the next best thing, shoes. I mean shoes are close enough to the ankle to still connect the two.

I really hoped this made sense and once again I’m going to say this is a HUGE reach, which I understand. But it’s something that I thought one day and honestly couldn’t stop thinking about, especially because fans know Harry is one to leave little hints like this throughout what he does. So let me know what you think and TPWK xx

#harry styles #louis tomlinson #louis and harry #larry stylinson #larry is life #theories #pink shoelace #one direction #larry is love #larry is real

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clumsyclifford · 3 years

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bella I would love a directors cut on literally any of the rilex you’ve written, but specifically it’s always her, and you, and me, or for these days you’ve been stuck in my brain 💙

OHHHHHH those are some CHOICESSSSSS lucy. fuck yeah. let’s get into it. ill link them both here but we’ll take em one at a time

it’s always her, and me, you

these days you’ve been stuck in my brain

here’s a cut for convenience cos i KNOW i’m gonna go long here.

okay! let’s start with the rilisex fic.

it’s always her, and me, and you

so like it says in the ao3 notes, this fic came from realizing just how frequently rian and alex kiss each other like, all the time? just? casually? for funsies? this was another one of those situations like i mentioned where the hook aka first line (“Rian's no expert, but he doesn't think normal friends kiss this much.”) just appeared in my head and i was like heyyy that’s a GOOD first line. i have to build from that line. that’s the hook, that’s the summary, that’s the core.

something i discovered upon searching through the editing history of the doc: i had originally sort of intended to go a direction with this where in some other circumstance, rian would see alex giving jack a super casual friendly kiss and he’d get all sad/jealous and be like sure why SHOULDNT alex kiss jack after all its just a thing he does with his FRIENDS. but the fic ended up going a different way and honestly? im glad. i like this way better.

the role of singin in the rain in this fic actually has a HILARIOUS backstory because the night i originally wrote that conversation in the tour bus kitchen, i went into the club and said the following

and then. the next day. rian streamed with ricky, and i asked if he’d ever seen singin in the rain, and he ANSWERED ME and said he hadn’t. so first of all i had already written the scene and i then had to rewrite it to make it so rian wouldn’t have seen it but also!!! i literally asked rian fucking dawson if he’d seen a movie for the sole reason of using that information for fanfiction!!!! and he provided me with the information i needed!!!! whole thing is just fucking hysterical to me. ANYWAY.

ANYWAY, the other reason why sitr has such a big role in the fic is because megs and i watched the movie together while i was in the middle of working on the fic, so it was extremely fresh in my mind. in fact i can probably show you this: i had this comment left for myself when i was kind of trying to figure out if i could make a real metaphor of sorts with the sitr ot3 and the Big Three of this fic. some of this ended up in rian’s wild musings in the hotel scene but i did conclude that it wouldn’t really have worked and that was definitely true but anyway. fuck it, director’s cut, here’s the kind of shit i leave for myself to refer to

so that’s part of the reason why it became such a puzzle piece of this fic, but real talk, it’s also just because i love singin in the rain it’s one of my favorite movies lmao

briefly gonna also touch on lisa and why she’s in this fic because i realize that rian/alex/lisa is an interesting approach to rilex! first of all, i love lisa. i love alex and lisa. and it occurred to me that there was really no reason to split lisex up just to make rilex happen. plus there’s this tweet that really just pushed me over the edge of being like yeah, rilisex is extremely plausible. so that’s that on that.

as for the scene in the hotel room while they’re watching sitr, there is a small piece of that scene - from when alex starts kissing rian’s shoulders etc to “it would defy the laws of nature not to” - that i actually wrote before anything else in that scene. that small piece got stretched out and edited quite a bit from how it started but it did function as a sort of foundation around which i built the rest of the scene, because that small section sort of ~came to me~ absolutely out of nowhere, and i really liked the Vibe it had and i wanted to include it. i THINK that was the only piece of this fic that i wrote Out Of Order - for the most part this was written chronologically.

ALSO!!! omg this is exciting, this fic actually has a deleted scene!!!!!! i hate cutting scenes but i also hate having scenes that are less than 1k and this one didn’t really contribute much to the fic. i can probably share it here right? sure why not ! hopefully you can read this. it originally took place after the scene where alex and rian call lisa for the first time. the question of “what gets left into interview videos and what gets cut” is also just interesting to me as a (fic) concept in general so...eyes emoji, but here’s my mini-exploration that i cut from the original fic. enjoy lol it’s silly <3

oh! also one more thing!! the very final scene was included for two reasons. the first reason being that when i write getting-together fics, i really prefer to add on a scene After they Get Together because i love to write domestic established relationship stuff and i think that’s a satisfying reward for a reader who’s just slogged through all the mutual pining and bullshit to get the characters together. but the OTHER reason is that i got an anon (here it is!) and i read that ask and was immediately like well shit. now i have to fucking include this. for the anon and for myself. so you can thank that anon for that last scene. (also i wanted to include merrikat especially since i had to cut their little moment in the interview scene above.)

so....................whew. i think i’ve bled that fic dry. holy shit that’s a lot of Stuff. OKAY! let’s move on.

these days you’ve been stuck in my brain

so!!! THIS fic was the breakthrough after (what felt like) a long bout of writer’s block. long for me was maybe two weeks, but i am the kind of person who is always writing, and two weeks was a long time to go with little to no inspiration/motivation to write anything. i had also been in a weird narrative headspace because i’d been binge-watching disney shows (jessie > austin and ally > girl meets world) and i don’t know how well i can explain this but the way those shows are written is a lot snappier and cares way less for realistic and consistent character development or plots or relationships, and so i was stuck between caring a lot about including those things in my fics but also being unable to conceptualize them in writing because my brain was in Disney Writing Mode. does that make sense? this is rhetorical so let’s go with yes. so anyway. i was in a slump

actually what i ended up doing was basically googling something like “au prompts tumblr” or something and just scrolling through posts. i saw something about soulmate telepathy and i actually tried to write something totally different before i wrote this one, but the first attempt was a different concept and then the direction i took it was like......it wasn’t quite right and i realized that i was kind of writing dark disney style? there is really no way for me to explain what i mean by that because it seems really obvious to me but that’s just because i’m inside my own head so just take my word.

anyway. attempt #1 of soulmate telepathy rilex went poorly, and this fic was attempt #2. i kinda took the soulmate telepathy thing and changed it as i saw fit and i also went back to skim helen’s telepathy fic because obviously she’s the pro and then i tried not to steal her ideas. and as i was writing it i kinda realized i was doing the whole quirky funny best friend character with jack and also doing the whole “somehow this not-very-dramatic situation with teenagers is treated as The Most Dramatic Thing Ever and that’s totally normal and nobody finds it strange” disney trope with rian and alex being soulmates and i was like (deep sigh) i have to accept that no matter how much i try to fight this, this fic is going to be tainted with disney. and that’s life

on top of that i will add that the real-life rilex were extremely inspiring during the two-day period during which i wrote this fic, because that was when the once in a lifetime video came out and in the brief pre-video livestream rilex were Beyond Married and that definitely helped in the writing of fic rilex!

hmmmm what can i tell you about this fic itself.................honestly, i don’t think there’s much to tell! rian is a band kid because in real life rian was a band kid and he’s staff manager at rita’s just like he was in real life. there is truthfully not a lot to unpack here that i can think of!

oh here’s something i guess: rian and alex go on a date in this fic! that is because watching So Much Disney made me realize that i often forget the fact that people just. go on dates. sometimes. look i clearly do not have an active romantic life but i also really liked the idea of alex and rian going on a date despite not knowing if they’d be soulmates or not and liking each other organically just by getting to know each other, rather than being victim to the whole soulmate thing. like i wanted them to build a connection so that they would want to be soulmates. and then the audience would want that for them too. stakes!! very important.

i can tell you i had a mild crisis over the title of the fic because i am not a fan of the word brain and i didnt wanna use that sticky lyric for the title when it had a word i hated but it was objectively a much better title option than the other one i had, which was “sticky just like the song in my head” but i obviously decided on the former and it has not upset me nearly as much as i expected it to so that was the right decision imo

so! i think that’s all on that! sorry (?) that it got so long although then again i don’t know what’s to be expected in a director’s cut for two long fics but thank you for asking me about these, i love them both so very much rilex is so supremely underrated but so very important

#cashtonasfuck #ask #answered #this is a whole ass multimedia fucking presentation #you asked for the director's cut but like i sure as hell didnt hold back dflkhggj #in fairness you picked two longer fics #though most of my rilex fics are longer ones which is strange #but like good for them #director's cut #this was really fun #thank you lucyyy <3 #these were the good right choices for rilex fics to dissect because the other ones are either shorter or rilex is a background pairing #or like . just aint that deep #i stole the plot of something unpredictable from that other fic by that other person #so ya know #the fact that this response contains an entire deleted scene in a screenshot #this is a lot lmfao

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unofficialkfamtranscripts · 4 years

Text

King Falls AM - Episode 9: Jack in the Box Jesus

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Summary: September 1, 2015 - An alleged sighting of the Lord & Savior at a downtown fast food restaurant has the residents of King Falls ready for deliverance, meanwhile Sammy & Ben try to navigate the flood waters of this revelation.

[podcast intro music]

Mayor Grisham Ladies and gentlemen, I promise you that while it is a terrible inconvenience that our modern electronics are out— this is not the end of the world. It could be a refreshing change of pace! Instead of reading, on your tablet, go down to the King Falls library, and check out the real thing! Instead of texting your BFF, go enjoy some pancake puppies at Rose’s! and have a face-to-face chat. This isn’t as bad as it seems— and it could be a blessing in disguise.

[KFAM intro music]

Sammy Good morning guys and dolls, you’re listening to King Falls AM—

Ben —That’s 660 on the radio dial.

Sammy And this is day 13 of what has been dubbed the King Falls Electrolocaust.

Ben This has easily been the hardest two weeks of my professional career.

Sammy It has been tough, but Ben and I want to thank you, and everyone out there listening, for the continuing support of the show.

Ben We got another doozy of a show for you tonight, King Falls. During hour two, we’ll be interviewing Maria Chandler, manager of the King Falls Apple store, and speaking about the effects the shut down has had on business.

Sammy As well as fielding your calls and talking about whatever’s clever this evening.

Ben I miss computers, Sammy. I miss the schedule. Our automated systems, my alarm clock. I’ve went through three the legal pads in two weeks!

Sammy [sympathetic] I know, buddy.

Ben I would literally watch Channel 13 if given the chance.

Sammy Wow. That’s saying a lot.

Ben [softly] I need my life back.

Sammy King Falls, how are you taking the modern electronic shut down of 2015? Are you refreshed? Reliving the mid-90s? Or— are you falling apart like our dear Ben Arnold?

Ben I’d listen to boy bands, to have a working smartphone. I’d wear, puka shell necklaces and sell my pog collection,[1] if you give me five minutes with my email.

Sammy Look on the bright side, Ben. You’re spending all your free time down at the library, and I haven’t called you out on it!

Ben That’s calling me out on it.

Sammy Eh-Well- and you know it’s nice hearing the birds tweeting instead of @kingfallsam. I’m not saying I don’t miss it but, I’m enjoying this a little bit.

Ben ♫It’s tearing up my heart when I’m with yoouu♫[2]

Sammy The references are not gonna bring back your goods.

Ben [hurt] Dammit Sammy, let’s just take a call from our jury-rigged phone system.

[bg music being provided by Chet’s record player]

Sammy You’re live with Sammy and Ben.

Cynthia Yeeaah, I wanna talk about the outages.

Sammy Cynthia Higgenbaum, ladies and gents. How are you doing during this electronic crisis?

Cynthia [blissful] I feel the warm embrace of the chastity belt that’s been placed on society. I’m relieved, de-stressed, marvelous!

Ben *chuckling* Whoa, heh, that’s- that’s a heck of a change!

Cynthia [suddenly aggressive] What are you trying to say, Ben?

Sammy It’s just you’re usually- you’ve been a little… pessimistic in the past.

Cynthia [mostly calm again] Ohhh, I still have problems; I’m full up with issues. But right now, I don’t have to worry about what websites my husband is perusing, what brain-dead TV my kids are watching— I’m at peace! It’s just me and my harlequin novels. Plus, with Jesus back and all—

Ben [jokingly suggestive] 50 Shades of Cynthia

Cynthia [angrily] Don’t be filthy Ben Arnold! I Know Your Mother!

Sammy I-I’m sorry, Cynthia— did you just say that Jesus is back?

Cynthia [gossipy tone] Have you guys not heard the news?

Ben Is she talking about Jesus Jesus?

Cynthia There’s only one.

Sammy Wellll, I think Mexico would disagree, but please tell us why you think Jesus—

Cynthia [snappy] I don’t think Sammy, I know! [softer] Earlier this evening, he was spotted glowing and speaking in tongues at Jack in the Box.[3]

Ben The one off Main Street or Red Oak Avenue?

Cynthia Ew, nobody does to Red Oak.

Sammy [softly] Jack-in-the-Box-Jesus.

Cynthia Oh, Hell no! I will not participate in that blasphemy. You’re gonna get smited—

Sammy Oh, I- I mean- I wasn’t- I’m sorry, I’m not meaning to, uh—

Cynthia Tell it to Satan! In Hell, Sammy! [hangs up forcefully]

[dial tone]

Ben This is big.

Sammy [slightly reluctant] If you or someone you know has had a sighting of *clears throat, Ben laughs* Jack in the Box Jesus please give us a call. Uh, 424-279-3858

Ben You’re on King Falls AM.

Deputy Troy Now I know what you’re thinking: how could the second coming of God’s only son happen and ol’ Troy here didn’t clue you in.

Ben Not what I was thinking.

Sammy What do you know Troy?

Deputy Troy Well I got a suspicious persons call out at ol’ Yack[sic] in the Box around 9. So, I hit the lights and cruised over to see what the fuss was about. And lo and behold, back by the dumpster with a mess of people looking on— there he was.

Sammy Now, are you really telling us that— [still reluctant] you saw, or, you believe you saw the son of God and the King of Kings bangin around outside the Jack In The Box?

Deputy Troy Well, he was a man. Somebody’s son, no doubt. Bearded. Good lookin’, if-if you’re into that sort of thing. He had a robe on—

Ben [cutting in]We can solve this right now. Was he white or was he black?

Deputy Troy He was more of a greenish color. Like a glow really.

Sammy The man had an aura around him.

Deputy Troy It was shinier than a damn Fukushima foxhound, fellas. Like, I felt a need to put on the old aviators, but I- I didn’t want to be cliché.

Sammy Alright, Troy. So, work with us here; you’re in the back of the Jack in the Box, there’s a uh, a Jesus-type guy—

Deputy Troy Just-a-ramblin’ on.

Ben Speaking in— tongues?

Deputy Troy Speaking in somethin. The last time I heard gibberish like that was comin’ from the back of my Chevy with Shell Snyder’s daughter.

Sammy So what happened next?

Deputy Troy Well a group of looky-loos had descended, as I said, and since it was only me, there was no perimeter set up yet. So I start ta approach this glowing Christ and somebody— Roy Higgins if you gotta know/— hollered out “It’s Jesus!” and the whole parking lot just went bonkers!

Ben Well, di-did you speak to the guy?

Deputy Troy Damn skippy. I told Roy that this was official police biz. And he shouldn’t be squawling around like a little baby.

Ben No, Jack in the Box Jesus.

Deputy Troy Oh, well no. I- I turned around and he was gone. Split right off into the woods, I suspect.

Sammy Did you follow him?

Deputy Troy Sammy. So you’re tellin me that you’d follow a 6-foot-tall and glowing perp into the woods??

Sammy [muttered] Point taken.

Ben So any other sightings?

Deputy Troy Well, not as of yet. But there were so many people they could’a had a revival in that parkin’ lot. So I’m guessin’ that’s how word spread so quickly. And without internet, too? That’s pretty damn impressive.

Sammy Is there an APB out or anything?

Deputy Troy For what, dilly-dallying around with a jumbo jack? He wasn’t doin nothin bad. Just acting a fool— Lord forgive me— where he shouldn’t’a been.

Ben And glowing.

Deputy Troy That’s right.

Sammy Well, please let us know if get any more info on this, Troy. We’d appreciate it.

Deputy Troy You bet. I’ll be sure to keep you boys and the listenin’ public informed. But if you should happen to stumble upon Jesus? Do not approach, bother or pester. You just call up Ol’ Deputy Troy.

[hangs up]

Ben …or your local church. [dial tone]

Sammy Deputy Troy, ladies and gents. Now we’re just going to take a quick break and hear from one of our new sponsors: Carl’s Candy!

Ben Yeah I don- I don’t think we should play this

Sammy What? Ads pay the bills remember?

Ben Folks, as a workaround with all the tech issues, uh, I went out and recorded a few spots of some of our sponsors- uh, new and old. Emphasis on Old, after this one.

Sammy Okay, so the audio is bad.

Ben *sucks in breath* You could say that.

Sammy This company’s paid up! They’re scheduled in one of your many notebooks. Let’s do this. We’ll be right back folks.

[slow, creepy xylophone music]

Carl [voice is soft and creepy, like you expect from a guy who offers kids candy from the back of a van] Do you know why they call it a blow pop? I sure do. And if you come on down to Creepy Carl’s Candy, I’ll fill ya up! I mean in. [whispering] It’ll be our little secret.- A sweet tooth is a terrible thing to waste. Come find a new sugar daddy to butter your fingers at Creepy Carl’s! Come in and grab a sack of Carl’s Boston baked beans while you’re at it. Oops, one fell in my pocket. Free if you can find it! *Ben groaning “oh no”* Every child’s welcome at Creepy Carl’s, big mouths, small mouths, white mouths and brown mouths. We’re equal opportunity! And just cause they shut down the ol’ brick and mortar doe’n’t mean you can’t buy it from my van. Be sure to ask your parents’ permission first, kids. Creepy Carl’s Candy, where the suckers don’t suck themselves. [Police sirens]

Deputy Troy [through megaphone] Carl, turn off your ignition. You are too close to the school zone.

Carl I gotta go! Catch ya later [tires squealing]

Ben [desperate, in bg] The mic!

[sirens fade out]

Sammy … Never again.

Ben I tried to tell you.

Sammy I know. Let’s never speak about this.

Ben [whispering] I need a shower.

Sammy *sigh* …Moving forward, we were just talking about a sighting that happened a few hours ago around the 9 o’clock hour, just off Main Street. It seems quite a few people believe that we may be experiencing a religious phenomenon. Perhaps the second coming of–

Ben [slightly gruff impression] “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years!”[4]

Sammy *chuckles* Right, let’s go to the phone lines.

Ben [happily] That was good though right?

Sammy It was good. Good evening, you’re live on King Falls AM.

Reverend Hawthorne Ask and ye shall receive! King Falls-uh. It is the gooD Reverend Xavier “Right. With. Gaawwd-uh” Hawthorne.

Ben Reverend Hawthorne? Are you back in town?

Reverend Hawthorne [speaking over Ben] The One and Only, and we are turnin’ the wagons arounD as we speaK-uh. And we’re headin’ back to my flocK-uh. How’re y’all feelin’ tonighT, King Falls- I said How are you, Feelin’!

Sammy [softly] We’re feeling alright.

Reverend Hawthorne Praise GoD-uh! Hallelujah! Now a little birdie, uh-just chirp’n on my shoulder, told me there was a SighTing. A Vision. Dare I say it, eyeballs were laid on our Lord and Saviour at a burger joint in our fair city.

Sammy Yeah, about 9 o’clock here.

Reverend Hawthorne Could it Be-uh! that our 5-week-revival worked. Could it Be-uh! that our prayers have been brought forth the lamb of God-uh. Can I get an amen!

Ben Reverend Hawthorne we—

Reverend Hawthorne Amen! This miracle-uh, this sight from our God-uh, perched on a Mountain of Sanctity, says that he is ready to lead-uh, his most Highly Favored, Congregation bacK to the promised land. Gimme some organ, Deacon Reggie [organ music begins playing in bg]

Sammy [aside] Do you think Reggie has to wheel that thing around just in case?

Ben This is getting good.

Reverend Hawthorne Play it dirty, brother. We are going Home-uh. Take us back to Calvary, take us BACK-uh! … Samuel, Benjamin may I ask you gentlemen if you have a relationship-uh with the Author of the E-ternal Sal-vation; [organ goes silent] [softly] are ya saved?

Sammy I’m—

Reverend Hawthorne Then let me tell y’all, [organ starts again] because if you aren’t-uh, I’m coming back to town. One weekend only, the Xavier “Right with GoD-uh” Hawthorne Experience will be wheelin’ bacK into King Falls Fairgrounds this very night-uh. We are hoping to get One- On- One with the Risen Christ and start preparin’ for Kingdom Come. But just like old Xavier, you gotta come on down-uh so we can get you TurnT uP With GoD-uh. [click, dial tone]

Sammy Xavier? Hello?

Ben He’s, gone. Sammy.

Sammy Well, you heard it here first folks. Xavier Hawthorn’s Travelling Roadshow is coming back to town. Will Jack in the Box Jesus make his stage debut?

Ben [muttering] Tch- Jesus.

Sammy Literally.

Ben Do you think we could get an interview? Would it be Mr. Christ? Or-

Sammy Something tells me that there is something more to the story than what we’ve heard so far, Ben.

Ben Tsk. I get that, but this is King Falls, Sammy.

Sammy What a perfect place to make a return: a rinky-dink town with no internet.

Ben Line- [muttered] dammit, there’s only one line. Uh, you’re on with Sammy and Ben.

Archie Good evenin’ fellas!

[small dogs barking in bg]

Sammy Is thi-

Archie It’s Archie Simmons!

Ben He-ey Archie, how’s Princess Von Barktooth?

Archie Well, I do have news concernin’ the princess, and I just want to possibly recant some info from our previous call a few weeks back.

Sammy About the werewolves?

Archie Correct.

Sammy Wow. I mean, you sounded pretty convinced that you saw a werewolf.

Archie And now I’m saying that maybe I was misinformed.

Sammy I think you should probably tell Troy and the Sheriff’s Office, Archie.

Archie *giggles* You silly Sally, Troy’s on his way over now

Ben Why the change of heart, Archie?

Archie Well, new information has come to light boys, I mean with the Divine One making his triumphant, and let’s be honest, dramatic return to King Falls.

Sammy You’re talking about the glowing man at the Jack in the Box?

Archie [softly] Let’s be real here, it’s the J-Man, of course a heavenly carpenter would pick King Falls. So many projects to keep busy with.

Sammy [dryly] Uh-huh.

Archie Plus, with the princess and this new information, we have to believe this.

Ben You keep saying that, what’s going on with the princess Archie?

Archie She’s in a delicate condition.

Sammy Oh, of course. I mean she’s been through a lot.

Archie *giggles* No Sammy, I mean she’s with child. Ch-children. Puppies? There’s a bun in my $2400 oven boys!

Sammy Wait. She’s pregnant? From the werewolf attack?!

Archie [softly again] Well, that’s the thing. While I believed in my heart of hearts that the hillbilly beast from the trailer park had gotten to the princess, I think…

Ben What. What do you think Archie?

Archie I mean it was dark, I know it was a full moon but I was scared and recently awakened, sleep in my eyes etc. and so on.

Sammy You don’t think it was the werewolves.

Archie I’m thinking with this new evidence and the fact that I saw a long-haired, bearded man in a Biblical Act— Yeah I-I- I think- there’s a chance it could have been [whispering] the man upstairs.

Ben [stern] Upstairs from whom?

Archie Mankind! Come on Ben, get with the picture!

Sammy He’s saying that because there’s been a holy sighting tonight- which we should all be a little bit doubtful of- then maybe it wasn’t the werewolves, but the Alpha and the Omega.

Ben No! NO WA- That’s too much, Archie. You saw the werewolf. He looked you in the eye and howled at the moon.

Archie I don’t know what kind of weird things Jesus is into.

Ben No way. This is ludicrous.

Archie You just wait and see Ben! The princess may have lost her Westminster dreams, but it was all part of God’s plan.

Ben We’ve got to go Archie *laughs* you’re crossing a line that we cannot cross at King Falls AM.

Archie Judge Not, lest ye be judged boys. Kardashians[sic] 3:16 or a Psalm or something. I think Troy’s coming around the bend anyways boys, laters!

[click, dial tone]

Sammy You know? When I walk in the door every night I say to myself, “Nothing’s gonna surprise me tonight” And more times than not, I am just Dead Wrong.

Ben Let’s give the phone a rest for a moment, Sammy, the record player is just begging to be used.

Sammy *chuckles* Not a bad idea Ben.

[phone pings]

Ben What? *gasps* My phone! [several pings] OHH it’s back baby!

Sammy Me too! What’s going on?

[pinging continues]

Ben What’s up! Oh my God, I could literally kiss the apparition of Steve Jobs.

Sammy Hey, I’ve got a text here, Unknown Number.

Ben Okay, what does it say?

Sammy “I- I know why this happened. I know how to stop it. We need to talk“

Ben What?

Sammy No, that’s what the text said.

Ben You don’t think this has anything to do with… Thank You, Jesus.

[KFAM outro]

[CREDITS]

References:

[1] Pogs - Pogs, generically called milk caps, is a game that was popular among children during the early-mid 1990s. The name pog originates from POG, a brand of juice made from passionfruit, orange, and guava; the use of POG bottle caps to play the game preceded the game's commercialization.

[2] “It’s tearin’ up my heart when I’m with you” - Lyrics to the song “Tearin’ Up My Heart” by NSYNC, an American boy band from the mid-90s

[3] Jack in the Box - American fast food chain, primarily along the west coast and southern states.

[4] “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years” - lyrics to the song “Mama Said Don’t Knock You Out” by LL COOL J (also came out in the 90s)

#king falls am #king falls #kfam #sammy stevens #ben arnold #kfam transcripts #kfam ep9 #cynthia higgenbaum #mayor grisham #troy krieghauser #archie simmons #jack in the box jesus #reverend hawthorne

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indigoire · 5 years

Text

It Read-through Chapter Three: “Six Phone Calls”

God. One hundred pages into IT and I only just got done with chapter three. This book can and will kill me.

Warning for racism, suicide, blood, gore, abuse, assault, misogyny, and Bill Denbrough’s shitty opinions.

Intro Chapters One and Two

Silly me thought, oh, twenty-four chapters, one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight pages, that’s about fifty pages per chapter, I can crank that out no problem. I was reading full novels over the course of a day when I was in school. Easy peasy.

Real whoppers like this chapter have me doubting myself. I’ll probably have days where I’ll break the chapter in half just so I’m not reading for three straight hours like I was tonight.

Anyways, on to the chapter itself. It’s really more like six chapters crammed into one, all introducing us to an individual Loser with the exception of Mike.

Let me sum up my reaction to these intros with my own tweet, having just finished Bev’s introduction:

And like, I’ve seen the movies, I’ve read the fanworks, I know a lot of the lore. I even read past chapter three as a kid, I remember Bill’s intro so clearly now. I feel like I have my own form of amnesia, but the shitty memories I’m uncovering are of reading this book. So believe me when I say I knew going in that the Losers would be an amalgamation of mommy and daddy issues or just plain issues, anti-Semitism, misogyny, repression, trauma, long-buried PTSD, abuse…like, there’s a reason they’re Losers.

But King feels like he needs to beat us over the head with this information.

For example, let’s start with Stanley. Good old Stanley. Hey, did you know Stan was Jewish??? A simple mention wouldn’t be enough though, let’s throw every anti-Semitic word at the wall, but it’s okay because it’s from the viewpoint of a Jewish character, his wife. The Jewish wife can call herself a kike all day long, why not, let’s just go ahead and do that.

Like. Come on Stephen. My notes say “at SOME point this just feels fuckin’ racist, dude.”

Stan himself is lovely. We get to see him from Patty’s point of view (and, point of order, I just realized that all of the Losers are introduced from the viewpoint of another character, with the exception of Richie and Eddie), and Stan is a level-headed, smart, steady man. He seems to be “preternaturally confident” about his life choices, whether that’s choosing where Patty should apply to for work or starting his own accounting firm, and he always seems to find success.

Stan also finds out about Bill and his books, but before the telephone call from Mike, before the Derry memories are supposed to rush in. Stan is reading Bill’s new book when he gets the call in fact.

He also makes an oblique reference to the Turtle around Patty, “the Turtle couldn’t help us”, and then seems to shake it off without going into it with her.

So. Either Stan remembered more than he let on, or something happened that made him aware. More aware than the rest of the Losers. Like, the Losers all seem to find wild success, supernatural success really, but to them it all seems to happen suddenly, at random. Not so with Stan. When Patty and Stan try to have children but can’t conceive, Stan says he knows the problem lies with him, he just doesn’t know why exactly. He then goes on to say that he’s in the eye of some storm, the calm between something terrible in his past and something terrible in his future.

Of course we soon learn what terrible something is lurking in Stan’s future. One evening he gets a call from Mike Hanlon, telling him to come back to Derry. Stan answers the call, responds to Mike’s questions, then tells Patty he’s going to take a bath. She ends up watching TV a little too long, then realizes something is Off. She finds him locked in the bathroom with slit wrists and the word IT written in his own blood on the wall.

The neighbors call the cops she screams so loud.

We then move from Stan to Richie, whose name I have never been more happy to see in my whole life. Finally, finally, one of my favorite characters. Richie answers Mike’s phone call with nary a hiccup. He puts on a Voice to answer, not something silly but a sort of adult “everything’s going to be okay” Voice. He then arranges things with his travel agent and somewhere along the way he has to go back to his normal voice. “Now he had to go back to being himself, and that was hard–it got harder to do that every year.” Richie is building walls around parts of himself with his Voices, avoiding the real him.

He does a couple of voices for the travel agent, she laughs hysterically, and he arranges his trip to Derry, and calls out of work. After it’s all taken care of, the memories start to rush back, the people, and he thinks of Georgie, with his arm ripped off, and then and only then does Richie vomit. He makes it to the toilet at least, but he empties himself entirely. He then removes his contacts.

A rather short intro, but to me a nice reprieve.

Ben’s intro is a lot better than I remember it being. I think I conflated it with his intro in the miniseries, where he brings home a girl and tells her about him being fat before they have sex. Here, not a whisper of that. There’s actually a bit where a woman asks Ben’s local bartender if Mister Hanscom is gay. “Mister Hanscom ain’t no sissy.” Cool. Thanks, Stephen.

Basically, Ben haunts this one tiny bar in Nebraska in this tiny podunk “town”, where he gets to know the bartender, a Ricky Lee, very well over the years. He comes every Friday and Saturday night, no matter where he is. When he’s working on the BBC Communications Tower in London he still flies back home every Saturday to get his drinks. He never takes anyone home from the bar and he consistently tips well. The bartender enjoys his company.

The night of the phone call, we see Ben head into the bar and there’s a terrible desolation hung over him. He tells Ricky there’s been bad news from home, and Ricky is sympathetic. He goes into some of the memories, of Bowers carving the H into his stomach, and shows Ricky the scar. He then orders a STEIN of whiskey, which Ricky, somewhat foolishly, gives to him, on the house.

Ben then, mentioning an anecdote about the natives in Peru, snorts straight lemon juice and then downs the whiskey like beer. He then gives Ricky Lee three pure silver dollars that his father gave to him before he died. He makes mention of a fourth one that he gave to Bill…and a mysterious reference that Bill or Bev somehow used that silver dollar to save his life at some point. Meanwhile, Ricky is horrified. He keeps thinking of a bar patron that once hung himself after coming to the bar, and how Ben has the same look about him. He’s suddenly struck that Ben is dead, a dead man walking.

But Ben walks out of the bar all the same, drives off, even while the waitress scolds Ricky for letting Ben drive, saying “he’ll kill himself”. And Ricky, who had thought the same thing not five minutes before says no he won’t.

It’s a common through-line, the Losers being dead men (and woman) walking, everyone comments how scared they seem to be, how overwhelmed by fear, with the exception of Richie, who has no one with him, but Richie notes that he’s a dead man walking all the same.

We move on to Eddie. In my notebook I wrote “EDDIE!!!” and immediately felt a renewed zeal to read.

Eddie is introduced not by physical description but by what we find in his medicine cabinet. I couldn’t tell you the purpose of half of the items listed, a lot of them no longer exist, and as much as I’ve been busting out google for this book I wasn’t keen on looking up an entire pharmacy. I did note that one, there’s a lot of products for, as the book puts it, “moving the mail” (I wrote down “get the feeling Eds gets constipated a lot, needs more fiber in his diet”), and then I noted that Eddie also has some serious painkillers, along with some uppers and serious downers. You know a book was written in the eighties when “Quaaludes” gets name-dropped.

I also wrote “Eddie is balding :C”, just so you know where my priorities lie.

Of course we wouldn’t be able to talk about Eddie without mentioning Myra. Right after Eddie basically empties his medicine cabinet into his bag, Myra comes thundering up the stairs. Oh yeah, chalk down some good ol’ fatphobia from King. Literally every shitty character is fat in this book.

Myra gets a bit of an interjection, though Eddie remains the central viewpoint for most of the chapter, and in her interjection she notes that she somewhat wants to trap Eddie (in the closet, jesus, very subtle) until “this madness had passed”.

Eddie presses Myra into taking over for him in his driving business, and she hasn’t driven in years so she’s terrified, all while half trapped in his memories. He remembers his mom laying into his gym teacher for making Eddie take Phys. Ed. with asthma, but the teacher notes there’s nothing physically wrong with him. All the same, Eddie goes for his aspirator, takes a deep puff of it.

He reflects that he knows how fucked up his marriage is, he knows he married his mother. Before he’d taken the plunge he’d placed a photo of Myra on the mantle next to his mother. He noted then that the two of them could be sisters. But he’d been weak and fallen into old habits. The jabs he could take, the jokes about Jack Sprat from his coworkers, but he really does seem ashamed of himself for taking the easier path, the one familiar to him.

He truly cares for Myra if nothing else. He doesn’t want to hurt her in any way. Even semi-harsh words make him feel guilty and remorseful. He contemplates telling her everything, but it would only make her anxiety and distress worse.

Also, two things of note: Eddie mentions that Myra “was really very sweet and had had even less experience with men than he’d had with women.” 👀 This and his pet-name for her, that makes her giggle to hear it, is “Marty.” I feel like this is far more telling of Eddie than the “marrying his mother” thing. He has affection for this woman, to be sure, but far more because she is safe, she doesn’t know much about men, she reminds him of familiar routines, she keeps him medicated and stable. He affectionately calls her a man’s name.

And she? She wants to lock him in a closet to keep him safe and docile to her.

As he leaves he briefly sees her transform (only for him, only mentally) into someone older, his mother back from the grave, “old and fat and crazy”, and a memory of his mother terrifying him in a shoe shop comes to mind. He shakes it off and asks her for a kiss, while saying to himself “if we were in water she’d drown us both.”

And then he flees to his taxi, on his way to the station and Derry.

The next introduction is terrible. It made me so mad to read, I remember it disgusting me when I was kid, but it just infuriates me now.

King’s only female protagonist, the only female in the Losers Club, Bev Marsh, is a walking punching bag.

This part is told from the viewpoint of Tom Rogan, Bev’s husband, and he talks about how he got her under his thumb, how he could sense her vulnerability. And one, it reads like how every man assumes female abuse victims work, secretly wanting the abuse and having the choice to leave at any time but unable to, and two, it is some highly toxic misogynistic shit. And obviously it’s told from the viewpoint of a highly misogynistic character, an abuser through and through (who, by the way, is also fat, so there’s that fatphobia popping up again).

But Tom knows that in times of extreme stress Bev is able to find her inner strength and push through. She becomes manic to do what she needs to do, and in those times Tom knows that his abuse wouldn’t be able to touch her.

I filled up a quarter of a page with the words “FUCK TOM >:C” just so you know where my head was at as I read about him “teaching Bev a lesson” and beating her until she “learned”. He even knows that when he beats her she regresses back to being a child. A *gag* sexy child at that. His disgusting words, not mine.

Of course Tom has parental issues of his own, of course! Match made in heaven. His mom beat him with a belt and he intends to do the same to Bev, put her in her place, give her a “whuppin’” as it’s phrased in the book. But Bev isn’t having any of that tonight. As Tom attempts to beat her for smoking and packing and daring to defy him, she fights back. She throws glass bottles at him and, as he gets more crazed, eventually tips the vanity on him. That isn’t even close to enough to keep him down though, so she snags the belt and whips him, first across the face, and then across the balls. Then and only then does he go down.

She flees, shoeless and penniless into the night, and laughs once she realizes she’s out and probably out for good. My notes read “Tom can and will rot in hell.”

Then my notes segue smoothly into “oh boy it’s Bill :|” and honestly, that could be the mood for the whole segment on Bill.

Bill…Bill is so obviously Stephen King. Any time there’s a writer in a Stephen King novel you can bet that the writer is a stand-in for Stephen King. This is why it was amusing to me to have his cameo in It: Chapter Two roast Bill, his self-insert. I also should note that in the last chapter Adrian is noted to have been working on a long-languishing novel, and being in Derry inspired him, and just reading that made me groan. Not because I have anything against writers, lord knows, but because I know King included that detail to tie Adrian to himself and to Bill. I know it will come up later. I know King has to make every character him before he can empathize with them.

Anyways, Bill gets the call from Mike all the way in England, where he’s staying in a cottage with his wife Audra. Beautiful, statuesque, red-haired Audra. “Why can’t you be the woman I want you to be” indeed. Not a line Bill says in the book by the way. At least not yet.

Audra wants to know why Bill is shaking and why he pours himself a stiff drink before breakfast, so Bill begins filling her in on the details. And as he does we’re treated to memories of Bill in college, in his creative writing class.

Now. Here is where I begin to lose patience with Bill and with King. King is clearly writing from experience. I know he had issues with his own college creative writing class.

Basically, the class is pretentious, concerned with inserting political opinions into everything they write, going on about how war is sold by sexist capitalists and so on and you can just TELL that King is projecting hard. Bill’s works, fun sci-fi stories and mysteries, are given fairly low scores by the professor.

Then one day in class, during a period when another student is talking about her work, filled to the brim with socio-political commentary, Bill stands up and basically says that he doesn’t get what they’re talking about and “can’t you guys just let a story be a story?”

Which like, dude, okay, I get it on some level, this shit sounds pretentious as hell. But it’s COLLEGE. If you can’t get a chance to be pretentious in college then when else can you be? Also, you know for a fact that King is twisting this story to make himself look favorable, because it is clearly a story from his own past. So obviously the students have to be talking about buzzwords that have no meaning, instead of, oh I don’t know, expressing their political beliefs? Everything has politics in it dude! Even your shitty ass story reflects the political landscape of America in the eighties for fuck’s sake!! It, the novel, would not be what it is if it weren’t mired in politics. It has a lot to say about race, gender, and class, and if the message is muddled and directionless it’s only because the author, Mister King, didn’t put any thought into what he was trying to say, but rather wrote a story that was meant to shock.

Anyways, Bill says the story thing, and it’s just the sort of malarky you would expect to see on the front page of r/braincels, with the top comment being “and then everyone clapped” because it is ridiculous. The teacher reprimands Bill, and Bill slinks out of class.

But OH BOY, Bill shows him! Because he writes his first horror story shortly after, and the story damn near pours out of him, and he brings it to class. The professor gives it an F and calls it pure pulp.

Bill sells it for two hundred bucks to a shitty magazine, drops the class, and with the drop out note, well. I’ll let King take over here:

“Bill Denbrough staples the drop card to the assistant fiction editor’s congratulatory note and tacks both to the bulletin board on the creative-writing instructor’s door. In the corner of the bulletin board he sees an anti-war cartoon. And suddenly, as if moving of its own accord, his fingers pluck his pen from his breast pocket and across the cartoon he writes this: If fiction and politics ever really do become interchangeable, I’m going to kill myself, because I won’t know what else to do. You see, politics always change. Stories never do.”

“Bill Denbrough,” my notes read, “kill yourself.”

The rest of the section continues with Bill falling into the lap of success with his stories, meeting Audra while working on a screen adaptation of his novel, the shoot going unnaturally well according to Audra, and his following years of success. He slowly fills Audra in on the blanks. His brother’s murder. His scars, from the Losers’ vow, which have suddenly reappeared on his hand after the phone call. How Stan was the one that cut their hands, before turning the glass on himself. How Stan at first mimes slashing his wrists, as a supposed goof, but Bill almost stops him all the same.

He then realizes he can’t tell Audra everything about what went down in Derry, but makes her promise not to come with him, to stay away from Derry. His stutter, which has slowly crept back in over the course of the conversation, scares her into promising

““And when do I see you again?” she asked softly. He put an arm around her and held her tightly, but he never answered her question.”

With that, thus ends chapter three.

This chapter took it out of me. It was all so familiar and yet all so new and horrible at the same time. I honestly can’t say I’m having a good time, but I’m certainly interested in what I’m reading. It’s like reading about a parasitic wasp, what it does to the host. It’s gruesome and disgusting, but you keep reading because you want to see the end result. But the fun’s only just beginning.

Catch you all tomorrow, bye for now.

#holy shit this was a long one #I spent three hours reading and two writing. So uh...yeah.#IT #Stephen King's IT #It (book)#It (novel)#Stephen King #IT Readthrough #Richie and Eddie are my only joys in reading this #I can't believe how much I hate Bill Denbrough

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csockets · 5 years

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Prompt Challenge With Friends

I invited my friends, @bluemoonfantasiesii and @mahi-does-some-art, to join me in a writing a prompt posted on @write-it-motherfuckers‘s lovely blog~~

WIM, thank you for all your hard work!! I’ve always liked the prompts you’ve posted and sometimes I’d get inspired but I was never crazy inspired, you know? But until I saw “darling really” and there was such a sassiness that I couldn't help but like and I just, really wanted to writing something to go with it!! Low and behold, I did write something and I got to read my friends work in the process!

So, many thanks to Master WIM! Please enjoy my work under the keep reading line!!

The Prompt Used

Note: The characters and the location: Loystin, are of my own creation! Azben Katrina is my OC not actually me! Adalant and Marcie are twin sisters. The Baboon King is a creature; an image I picked up from Google, used for reference then named it such because honestly, the creature looked baboonish lmao. Also, the world just might be it really is im sorry lmao heavily inspired by my sudden obsession with MXTX couples and the Xianxia novel genre. Any other questions can be answered through reblog, reply, or an ask!

Warnings: Minor blood and gore, profanity, possible same sex flirting, violence and probably more but im not too worried so *shrugs*

Adalant swore immediately.

“Why the fuck are we here?”

Azben grinned, tapping her chin with an elongated nail.

“To do a lil fun.”

Adalant growled, glaring heatedly at the huffing warrior.

“But you were sworn to ho--”

“Lalala, I can't hear you, lala--”

“You--”

“LALALA--” She laughed loudly, leaning back to avoid the swipe of Adalant’s bat, nail head plucking at the fabric of her robes. She took a step back and straightened, amused at Adalant’s ruffledness.

“House arrest. I will get in trouble.” She said edgedly, sharp as she turned away and made for the forest ahead of them.

Azben huffed a breath, catching up to Adalant’s side. “Yea, but leave it to me! I have a plan~!” She smiled and winked, bumping their shoulders affectionately. Adalant shied away, hissing angirly, swinging her bat to rest on her shoulder, trudging forward, not making an effort to actually lead her friend back. While Adalant and Azben were on equal footing for almost anything, Azben had her beat in quick wits, her need to make jokes and ruffles feathers and rub them the wrong way, the desperate need to make chaos everywhere, absolutely being the clown was Azben’s job and talent. Adalant sighed and let go of her annoyance at being tricked once more, especially tricked into getting Azben off the estate.

She glanced at her partner, watching her eyes crincial with laughter in the corner, green eyes dark with mirth, looking ahead. Her lips were constantly pulled into a smile, large and bright, yet teasing, maybe a half-smirk if you wanted to look at it that way.

“What are we hunting?” She asked, becoming eager for the fight ahead of them, suddenly excited by the thrill that fluttered fleetingly in her chest.

“The Baboon King.” Azben said idly, like she didn't just suggest that they take on a dragon level disaster that was claimed by Adalant’s sister two days ago. Adalant swallowed and closed her eyes to pray to her sister, asking for forgiveness for her foolish friend. She opened them to a large tree root.

“Okay.” She said quietly, straddling the large tree root to slip onto the other side, rolling her eyes as Azben made a show of flipping into the air and landed into a crouch, back arching as she quickly straightened with the grace of a feline. Azben glanced her way and Adalant could feel the burn of her stare and faintly, Adalant could see Azben raise a brow.

“Not curious--”

“No, not really. You probably promised her a lap dance for later.”

There was a deep breath and Adalant closed her eyes once again as Azben gasped dramatically, an obvious tilt in her voice as she whined, as if she had been wronged.

“How dare you! As if I would stoop that low for- for a beast hunt! You should be ashamed of yourself!” Azben cried and pouted, bottom lip rolling out cutely, all red and wet. Her eyelashes glittered with tears and the way her green eyes sparkled with light and her brows furrowed with gentle lines, Azben gave the image of a kicked puppy, sniffling quietly and blinking rapidly, as if willing the tears away.

Adalant snorted.

Azben crossed her arms tightly across her chest, huching her shoulders. She glared at her yet still completely looked kick. Honestly, Adalant’s chest swelled to offer her a pat on the shoulder and a few words but Adalant also knew it was a way for Azben to get to her, so Adalant could only rub faintly at her chest to dull the ache with a frown.

“You’re my dearest friend, sister!” She huffed, “Yet you accuse me of improper behaviour and breaking regulations!”

“Which you owned up to and even said you’d help me avoid punishment.” Adalant pointed out and maybe, she should have questioned the glint in Azben’s eyes that broke her ‘kicked puppy image’ but Adalant was too focused on balancing on the log across a ravine they had found after a few minutes of walking. She crossed without much thought, Azben’s whole licked-puppy image fading to her nonchalant look, walking across the log without a care, long and loose braid mused in the wind as a draft blew up. She visibly shivered and pressed her robes against her thighs, frowning.

“These things are so long yet I still feel a breeze, what the hell.” She grumbled, dissatisfied with her family’s winter clothing.

They continued on, walking through the underbrush and over roots, Azben animatedly chattering away, poking fun at Adalant and taking an interest in the small fungi and large blooms of winter plants, blue and white petals, purple mushrooms and black vein like roots that wiggled at their boots as they passed. It was as the sun rose to the middle of the cloudy sky that Azben finally hushed, quieting to a seriousness that befitted the beast up ahead, target of their illegal beast hunt.

It was also then that Adalant started to smell the heavy musk of sweat and freshly turned soil, sniffing experimentally at the air for a real scent. Her nose wrinkled as iron flooded her nostrils, salt and green odor with the stale scent of disturbed still water. She felt the air next to her shift, Azben’s nail skittering down her sleeve and making a circle at her elbow. Straight ahead? She glanced back and nodded, pulling her bat from her shoulder and readying herself. She slowed her steps and made her stride longer, shifting forward and squinting ahead. Azben shifted through large leaves, her frame disappearing from sight, her tail a slithering snake as it trailed along.

Adalant waded through thick undergrowth and vines, swinging under a wide and heavy vine that hung low but too high for her to easily cross over. Adalant listened and found the forest devoid of sound, an immediate sign to a disturbance but faintly, she could hear a few birds tweeting away.

The blood from before was way heavy in the air as it clung to her body, probably masking her scent and even Azben’s strange brand of ‘smelling me is like smelling a very fragrant flower in a summer heat’ scent. Maybe it was a deer of sorts? A large animal from the irony yet musky warmed fur smell of a long haired creature.

Sunlight shone heavy upon the clearing she peeked into, blinking blindingly at the sudden touch of brightness. The clearing was small but stretching, medium rocks set into arches that towered over her, and strange statues of sorts, grey and black in colour. White flowers grew, pretty and dainty. Yet, her eyes only fell onto the massive beast sitting, its back to her.

She dared to not breath the curses that waterfalled into her throat, her breath caught at the sheer height of the King. Muscles was the first thing to come to mind, then berry red because its back was probably a brick wall with iron plating, bulging and bright red with white stretch marks. Its arms were thick, a white tail languidly flicking in the grass, white and grey fur a mane with black streaks. Knees poked out from its flanks, knee caps with a crusted look to them. Her eyes widened in bewilderment when hands with talons for fingers threw a bone back, Adalant’s mind now registering the tinged red skull that seemingly looked up at her from her feet. She swallowed her gasp and ducked quickly, feeling the bone sail way past her head, her hair picked up in the wake of the force of its power.

Its hand was wide, large, easily able to crush her head within its palm alone, talons looking like jagged rocks, black with a violet light from the sun above. Its muscles flexed and she was amazed at the sheer fear that gripped her heart tight, lungs painfully cut off from the air she desperately needed. Adalant didn't dare to straighten herself, listening to the King grunt and the cracking of bones as they splintered and the slurping sound that made her stomach flip.

Azben wanted to fight this thing. The thing that could easily crush their skulls, dismember them and eat them. Her heart already sung with fear from its back alone. Imagining its face wasn't the brightest of ideas and she swallowed painfully through the tightness of her throat. Yet, she found herself easing forward. Remembering all the strategies her and Azben had planned for beast’s of this magnitude. Her bat was held tight in her right hand, chest taut as she approached.

She was hiding behind one of the many rock arches when Azben finally appeared again.

And appear she did. Quite literally.

She appeared above the beast, arms crossed and her own talons prepared for an attack, a faint glow of green around them. She was silent as she fell, the sun blinding. Adalant watched the beast look, because he wasn't stupid, quite the intelligent beast, his hand blocking the sun but she was still a dark shadow to him, light flowing past her form and Adalant’s feared dulled to a shallow burn in her stomach.

The thrill of the fight came forward as Azben came down, talons raking through its mane and tearing through its shoulder and half its face, its roar of pain deafening as her body leapt forward into the beginning fray, her bat pulled back and cutting through the air.

She could only grin maniacally as Azben’s snarl of pleasure fitted between them, dark and sadistic in their first attack.

________________________________________________________________

The sun was falling when Marcie bounded out from the tree tops, her growl of anger overshadowing their laughter and they both squaked in indignation, crying out as their arms were twisted behind them and Azben whined as electricity crackled to life in her ankles.

“Adalant Kuygetsa of Loystin and Azben Katrina of the North, you will be sentenced to three months of copying the family rules and attending the stables! Azben, you broke house arre…”

Adalant glared once more at Azben, her cheeky grin too big for a fool in trouble.

Under her sister’s list of broken regulations, Adalant hissed her accusation, “You said you’d help me avoid punishment! I trusted you,” She whispered and could only falter in her anger and betrayal when the dragon woman winked and purred,

“A horrible idea darling, really.”

And how Adalant screamed when she was refused the right to bloody her friends beautiful face.

#prompt challenge #write-it-motherfuckers #original work #xianxia novel #fantasy

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9w1ft · 5 years

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as the lovely @yailgraduate pointed to, i felt something was afoot with this lottery ticket. and how could you not? what’s Tay doing *not* playing her lucky number 13? on a lotto ticket??

🤔 truth be told, my questions started with this:

this gift was handed out on TSL earlier in the week, if you remember, and in the spirit of selectively taking things literal, i very much did not know what to do. that said, it looked enough like a date for me to wait it out until 1/13. maybe something big would appear.

but 1/13 happened over here in my time zone without incident. curious.

and yet, like i have many a morning for the past half year, i got up in the middle of my slumber

to the Irish Sun article about the lottery ticket.

immediately, i knew something was afoot.

straight away, i recognized the first two numbers as being significant as in they marked Karlie’s “wedding day” (see here instagram)— but the second half of the ticket? 20, 25? didn’t make sense to me.

at first.

but, i was reminded again about TSL.

The Swift Life is ending February 1st, and so are my chronicles with it. but despite that signoff message being posted to the main feed and everyone on the app thinking that’d be it, we got another gift in the form of swiftsends, and the biggest number of them in my memory. 113. and... this lotto ticket tweet did happen on 1/13

so... i decided to whip out the old thinking ribbon one more time and do what i “know what to do”

and that is, make crazy connections using these taymoji gifts 😜

so.

in the sequence of gifts given out starting with the yacht in july, there have, in fact, been swiftsend gifts of totals of 20 and 25 respectively, given in that order, with an interesting mix of other taymoji gifts in between.

so what i’m gonna do now is show you what’s in there and see if we can’t make some sense out of it. spoiler alert: no big reveal.

*a disclaimer, seeing as i have gained 50+ followers in the past week or so who are likely about to be bamboozled*

i am by no means under the illusion that what i have experienced on TSL is completely real. as many of my mutuals can attest to, at every juncture, i have been incredibly weirded out and in stitches about every coincidence that has happened to me. i will never have full confidence that any of this business of the app interacting with my account is true until there’s like, a tell all, specifically saying it is true, or like, kimby going on her instagram story saying farewell (mirror, mirror 😭). it is that obscure. and i am fully aware of that.

that being said, i went to high school in the early-mid 2000s and i am very familiar with the concept of the ARG (Alternate Reality Game). i watched my friends participate in I Love Bees, and my sister was super into the Lost ARG. please google what ARG’s are. i approach all this The Swift Life stuff with a conscience that tells me to believe in the possibility of fun: that, despite how cryptic our fandom may be, there is a possibility that we are not only in the right, but that taylor and her team are treating us to a grand scavenger hunt that is a cross-media and cross-platform networked narrative. and as a TS fan i feel it is my duty to try and appreciate this for what it may be, because if even 10% of it is true, it is an incredible feat and deserves praise and excitement from somebody because ARG’s take a ton of work. worse comes to worse? you’re right and i’m blacklisted from ever meeting taylor 😂 and i’m ok with that.

***

okay. here’s what i’ve got.

the taymoji gifts given out in between the 20 and 25, starting 8/31 (so post-engagement announcement) and ending 9/27 (after i made my first really big TSL post) are:

*the order and dates of them being given out can be confirmed on @theyachtinthekitchen . please scroll to the bottom for in-game screencaps.

if you follow my blog you may know that i believe the original point of the yacht in the kitchen event on TSL was to lay out for us (‘warn us’) that the ‘engagement’ between karlie and josh would happen, before it did. that’s not the consensus view but i think there’s room for it.

and now i assume the point of the lottery ticket plant, (assuming it was a plant and assuming it had to do with TSL 😂 if you can’t come along with me on these assumptions this post ain’t getting better), was to reassure us that:

1. the ‘wedding’ was a gamble (lotto ticket. see what i did there?), and

2. was not in the original plans, but that

3. it doesn’t mean we should stop believing because look, they’ve been interacting with us kaylors and why else would they do that?

i think the key taymoji to look at here are the ones before the pixel art heart. look at the language used. it’s always felt ominous to me.

🦰first the paper plane with the 89 i assume is to be interpreted to represent taylor.

🌹the rose, well established in my mind as representing karlie (go through my #taymoji tag on desktop), was given out the day before Carolina Herrera SS19, which karlie did not walk in despite being anticipated to (because that’s what CH’s instagram activity alluded to up til the day of). we get a taymoji saying it’s a “bad sign” if what we want didn’t happen.

so, taylor and karlie. this message is about taylor and karlie.

🚪next, on the morning of, we get this cryptic message along with what i’ve called the “coming out” door. “i want the red door” “i don’t want to wait forever” —language that felt sort of like a tease for us. we all want them to come out. we’re tired of waiting. but the door is saying, if we want that, we have to endure a little more.

🌳🃏the next two taymoji to be given out were given out as a pair— “looking at this now, it all seems so simple” “we had so many dreams [...] happy endings [...] now we know” which to me feels like a signal that original plans for taylor and karlie to come out at the timing they originally planned may have been scrapped. things got complicated. as i have mentioned before, that ripped ace taymoji has always felt so key to me. this idea of part of the heart being torn away as being “out” of its box.

the rest of the taymoji are a mix of times when i had a call and response with the app twice, (please scroll through my #tsl tag) the paul mccartney coincidence, and a slightly unsolved mystery revolving around the I Knew You Were Trouble Pack television. but i think if taylor was retroactively referring to a string of taymoji using numbers, she can’t really select a more narrow grouping of taymoji than by using what she did.

so what i’m saying is taylor intentionally went all the way to ireland to plant-rent a castle for PR for her beard’s movie, and simultaneously visited a local lotto ticket dealer with the intent to intentionally plant a hint for us kaylors?

😂

absolutely nuts of me to suggest. and no, i don’t believe the lotto ticket was pre-meditated and i’m not positive that these taymoji were originally laid out so as to be referenced at this moment, four months later.

but, i would imagine that if someone on her team happened to run in to such an opportunity, our girl wouldn’t miss out on it. it’s the kind of ingenuity and thinking on ones feet that i have come to expect from her and her team, and i would expect from a modern ARG. and if i was on her team, it’s the kind of innovation i’d aspire to deliver 🥰

so my takeaway here is that it’s a nod to us and recognition of our worries. i feel much better seeing how this connects because it says to me that the lines of communication are still open and they’re still watching us ☺️

as always, i think this can be interpreted many different ways and i encourage it. because honestly it’s a crime how much TSL has been flying under the radar. this is my first crack at it :)

ok, crawling back to my deep sea pirate’s den again to hibernate 😊 have a lovely day!

#kaylor #the swift life #taymoji #tsl #📯well😂i hope i got part of it right

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error04notfou · 5 years

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Queer Representation- Why Can’t 2 Men Just Be Friends

All-fucking-right, folks. Let’s sit the fuck down and listen real close for a moment. Don’t worry! I won’t take up tooooo much of your time. I know how busy it is being accidentally an asshole. I’ve been there. I’m gonna be nice, I promise. I just swear a lot.

There are same sex friendships on TV that are healthy and loving. There are a wide variety of relationships that slide themselves along a range of healthfulness and lovingness involving people of similar or same sexes having friendships. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because there would be no writers making stories that queers become interested in that do not wish to create queer representation.

See the wikipedia page for the following categories: Bromance, Womance, Platonic Love, Bromantic Comedy, Buddy Cop. Google Guy Love. You’ll love it.

Merlin. Sherlock. Supernatural. Star Trek. Scrubs. Boy Meets World. Literally Every Children’s Show Featuring Sentient Creatures.

We wouldn’t have stories written that continuously hint at queer stories without providing actual representation. I’m sure none of you want to hear the term queer baiting right now but I promise ye, us queers don’t want to see it either. Fucken. SHIT, my dudes. Unless you are looking for queer representation- unless you have that reflexive search for queerness in life and in media- queer baiting is something you can miss or misinterpret as friendliness. It has to do with framing, lighting, the scoring, the word choice. There’s a lot of flags a writer can throw up that Hint at possible queerness without being explicit enough to sound any alarms for people not keyed to look for queer representation in media.

Hannibal is Not A Good Example because their goal was to redefine intimacy and it is Gay AS FUCK.

Teen Wolf. Sherlock. Supernatural.

Go to youtube. Type in queerbaiting. There’s lots of videos with info on it. Rowen Ellis has some shit. Sarah Z, The Fucking QueerTUBE CHANNEL EQUIVALENT OF DOES THE DOG DIE, Aretheygay, HAS A VIDEO ON IT. Somewhere in Hbomberguy’s FEATURELENGTH FILM on why Sherlock is garbage, he touches on queerbaiting.

Because they got to eat their cake and have it too, shows, movies, and books keep doing the fucken thing. Continuously throwing out flags of possible queerness for main characters while simultaneously being offended at queer audiences for believing them and then asking where the queer representation was. As well, they get to have continuously running jokes about how haha it’s funny that these two men show affection for each other because that’s gay and they’re not they’re just guys being dudes! (Scrubs. Look. You do a great job, I’m not coming for you but I am coming for Every Film of Michael Bay’s featuring two men who are friends. Pain and Gain? Anyone?)

See Teen Wolf banning the signing of ship fan art. Literally any scene in Sherlock where John Watson no homos so hard he accidentally wraps back around to yes homo.

Here’s the skinny, my dudes. My most righteously dudely dudes. The reason why queers ask for queer representation in media is because they Actually Don’t Have Much representation. It is exceedingly rare to find queer representation. And to find queer representation that doesn’t have a tragic end? Even more difficult. Despite the rustled jimmies of people finding a singular queer in their straight salad and exclaiming about the infestation of queers in this restaurant (the health department aught to be called! Think Of The Children!) it IS rare- unlike same sex friendships in films.

This is a capitalistic system. I know right? When is that going to stop being pointed out? Supply and demand is the basic tenant- or so I was taught in high school economics. I, as a fellow queer, will simply feel grateful that I live in a time where we can be considered a consumer base with a loud enough voice to be seen as providing pressure on an industry that has yet to supply for our demand. Especially since it is difficult for me to forget that it was not so long ago that our voices were considered an inconvenience for demanding the right to be able to live.

What you’ve done above is simplify an incredibly complex issue into its most reductive and unhelpful parts. No one can argue that it’s good for people to be able to have friendships on TV or anywhere else. The problem comes in in that this argument ignores the part where Everyone is Arguing That It’s Not OK To Have QUEER Relationships On TV and that These Relationships are Unhealthy. That is the tacit argument here. That’s the dog-whistle you’re accidentally blowing when you say that.

It’s similar to people who say things like: What about the children? How am I going to explain THIS to them? I’m OK with gays but do they have to shove it in my face like this? Gay marriage is alright by me but I don’t want to see them kiss! Why can’t two men just be good friends! They’re just gals being pals. Queers make up less than 4 percent of the population, why do they have to be in everything I watch? I’m not homophobic, I just don’t want to be inconvenienced. I’m all for queer representation but does it have to be in the shows I like? Why can’t they (the queers) be happy with the representation they do have? Like Brokeback (dead gay) and The Imitation Game (Historical dead gay) or Jack from Will and Grace (Gay Stereotype), or like a shit ton of Alfred Hitchcock’s villains (The Evil Queers (Dibs on that as a band name BTW))? Or the Sassy Gay Accessory Friend like in Riverdale, GBF, that weird alien dude from American Dad?

These are dog whistles. They are silencing tactics. They are manipulation. They are used to implicitly say that queerness is not OK.

So no. No one is going to say it’s bad to see two dudes being friends and expressing that closeness in any media. I can understand the feeling like your views and relationships are under attack. I can understand why people feel afraid to express affection. I feel afraid, too. The difference is when straight people say they’re afraid of seeming gay, what they’re saying is they’re afraid they might be mistaken for me. As if that’s somehow embarrassing or dangerous or immoral.

The part you’re missing when you talk about how frustrating it is that queers see queerness in relationships depicted on TV that you like is that you’re afraid they might be just like you. And a part of your brain associates queerness only with sexual acts. That’s why we’re inappropriate. YOU’RE not queer so you don’t like queer sex! Why would you want to see queer sex on TV? You don’t want to see queer kissing! Queer hand holding! You’re not queer!

That’s why it’s difficult for people to consider explaining it to their kids. That’s why it’s difficult to Accept that there are queer children. That’s why I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is PG 13 despite its r*pe jokes, half naked women, and continuous references to sex, but had they included a same sex kiss as they had initially intended it, the MPAA would have made it rated R (Literally just google it. trufax.) Because these are all facets of homophobia. It’s ingrained and sometimes unconscious. You don’t have to actively hate queers to accidentally help those who do silencing them.

So yeah. Long fucking story short. It would be cool for queers not to have to grasp at any same sex relationship on TV for hints of themselves. I agree. I’m getting fucking tired as all hell having to Read Between The Straight Lines to see the gay subtext. I’d like some straight up gay text. We’ll stop having to come for your platonic friendships when Hollywood finally gets around to inventing actual queer people in its media. And no fucking blink and you’ll miss it Le Fou doesn’t count. Neither does well-they-said-in-a-tweet Dumbledoor.

#queer representation #meta #queer baiting

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super8motel · 5 years

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Gillian didn’t say it as ”thankfully I’m not intersex” she was joking she wasn’t a fish and half human because the character is half fish and half human. Human upper part of the body and lower body is a fish. Ya’ll be reaching for something she didn’t even say! It was a direct joke connected to a dumb show that isn’t funny and it’s not ignorant because intersex people are not half fucking fish! They are only 100% human!! And GA’s 2017 book is dedicated to anyone who identify as a woman.

Ok look, first of all, you don't need to come at me with this energy. Calm down. This interaction you're referring to was very inconsequential to me, I was making a brief attempt at an explanation. I was not 'reaching', I literally love Gillian Anderson. Which is why when some random Tumblr user said she is transphobic, I searched for whatever they could possibly be interpreting as such. I Googled the words 'Gillian Anderson transphobic' and was linked to this tweet:

For anyone who doesn't understand, Old Gregg is a half fish, half man creature from an Adult Swim show called The Mighty Boosh (which isn't a 'dumb show that isn't funny'....Like wow, how dare you...it's dumb as hell but it's funny). One of the most notable bits Old Gregg does is offer to show people his 'mangina' under his skirt. It's honestly a pretty stupid bit and I always found it kinda juvenile, but it's a dumb weird show that came on at like 2am, so you can't expect much.

However, your logic about what she actually meant isn't lining up. First of all, Old Gregg is not a mermaid. He doesn't have a 'human upper half' and a fish lower half. He has legs. He's basically a normal human man with fish scales and big lips. His fishiness isn't at all connected to his 'downstairs', whatever you interpret that to mean. It's a loose joke so you can see it however you want, but I really don't think Gillian was like "I look like Old Gregg in this picture, but thankfully I'm not half-fish" but chose to say that as "no mixed-up downstairs" like that makes no fucking sense! She is almost definitely saying "Thankfully I don't have a mangina" because it's one of Old Gregg's main jokes.

That being said! I'm not personally offended by this joke. It's not the funniest joke in the world, I probably wouldn't have said it like that, but it's not like Gillian hates anyone with non-standard genitals. She was just messing around. All I was doing was explaining to someone WHY people are calling her transphobic, I was not taking part in that accusation. I'm sure she doesn't give 2 fucks what's between someone's legs.

The reason I used the word 'ignorant' (which is to LACK knowledge/awareness) is simply because I don't think she considered how an intersex/trans person would perceive this joke. I don't think she realized how many times ambiguous genitalia are made the butt of a joke, and supposed to be funny inherently because they're 'weird'. In a world where intersex people are accurately represented, I don't think she would make this joke, because there wouldn't be any negative connotation to having a 'mixed-up downstairs'. But it's not like I'm saying she actively hates or disrespects non-cis people. I'm just saying it was a little off-color. If you wanna continue to believe she was merely referencing his "fish downstairs" then I cannot stop you. But I think it's a weird take for sure.

Anyways, I feel like you really misinterpreted my feelings towards this woman. Like, you can't even begin to understand the adoration I hold for Gillian Anderson. She's smart, funny, takes no shit, she played one of the most influential women in 90s television, she helped me realize I'm attracted to women, not to mention she's aged like a fine wine. She seems to have done much more good than harm. If I could choose to have dinner with any 5 people, she'd be one of them.

And honestly, I've made much worse jokes in high school than her Old Gregg tweet. I don't expect her to be morally perfect, God knows we live in a confusing world where you can't live without offending somebody. It's always been that way. People live different lives and sometimes don't see how their actions/words look from someone else's perspective. We can help each other be more sensitive without being assholes about it. I think it's kinda stupid to label her as a complete transphobe rather than someone who made a joke in poor taste, but people are obsessed with labels and categorizing people as good and bad.

You don't have to defend her to me. Neither of us actually know her, so all of this is speculation. I just try to keep updated on what my fav celebs are willing to say publicly because it gives me an idea of who they are personally. But we don't know about her life. I'm not one of the people making broad assumptions about her and trying to smear her reputation, I'm a neutral party, so IDK why you came to me with this... I hope this reply offers you some resolution.

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nobszone · 6 years

Text

#ChangeTheChannel: The Decline and Fall of an Empire

(With apologies to UrinatingTree)

After several days on twitter swapping stories, the former producers of Channel Awesome came together to compile a google doc of the experiences they had while working with the website (the doc is rather long so here’s a condensed version for those who don’t have the time or energy to go through it all).

The #ChangeTheChannel hashtag has gained a ton of steam. Tweets, videos, even articles are being written now about the movement. Channel Awesome’s response has been to simply say “We regret you feel that way.”

#ChangeTheChannel symbolizes a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it’s a strike back against privileged white men, for others it’s another instance of the cntrl-left making a mountain out of a molehill and ruining the internet, and for others it’s just a nice fire to watch burn.

But for me? This symbolizes one thing and one thing only: the end of an era.

Because what we’re witnessing is the fall of the once mighty empire that was Channel Awesome.

Make no mistake though, this empire has long been dying. For the past few years Channel Awesome has been desperately trying to keep up the facade of its former glory as opposed to recognizing and attempting to fix its flaws. And with this whole debacle, Channel Awesome is now siphoning whatever reputation it may have had for the sake of its immediate and long term future.

Since 2013 this website has been doing whatever it could to remind itself of its glory days. The constant over reliance on Doug Walker’s character The Nostalgia Critic, trotting him out barely a year removed from his very public retirement of the character to just do the same style of reviews that he’s done in the past, only now for movies that are barely out of theaters.

But not to worry, he’s still forward thinking. After all, he brought on two actors to help him out in Malcolm Ray and Tamara Lynn Chambers who play various supporting characters in his reviews. He also now includes various little skits to break up the monotony of him sitting in front of a wall and talking to a camera, and now he even does reviews that have no clips in order to get around unscrupulous companies that abuse Fair Use laws.

Unfortunately to say that these new reviews suck is a bit of an understatement. About the only thing that people like about them are Tamara and Malcolm, and that’s more to do with their personalities and acting skills as opposed to the material they have to work with.

But surely it’s not just Nostalgia Critic all the time. Channel Awesome said they were trotting out new shows as well. Well most of those shows turned out to either not be very good, stagnated in development, or were so bad that they tried to sweep them under the rug and hope that everyone forgot they spent a hefty sum of money on them.

And now, thanks to these revelations (that were first reported on by folks like Mister Metokur but confirmed through the google doc), the site is literally hemorrhaging talent. CEO Mike Michaud now runs a company with a bleak present and virtually no future.

But still, the question must be asked; where did everything go wrong? How did a website that was the first name in online content creation become such a train wreck? For this, we have to find the precise moment that signaled the beginning of the end of the empire.

If you’ve watched any of the Channel Awesome critics, then you’re probably familiar with the term “Jumping the shark.” It refers to a moment when a franchise begins a sharp decline in quality that it’s never able to recover from. The term specifically refers to an episode of Happy Days when The Fonz literally jumps over a shark, a moment that began the show’s painful spiral into oblivion.

This thinking can be applied elsewhere as well. In sports you have moments like the 49ers firing Jim Harbaugh. In politics, the Republican party nominating Donald Drumpf.

For Channel Awesome, this moment wasn’t when Demo Reel was announced, or even when Noah “Spoony One” Antwiler left the site (he’s a good producer but his behavior had become increasingly erratic, not to mention that as of late his work ethic has been...non existent).

To find out when Channel Awesome jumped the shark, we have to go back a bit farther.

Starting in 2009, Channel Awesome (then under its old name, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses) filmed major crossover events to commemorate the site’s anniversary. The first one was nothing more than an impromptu brawl between The Nostalgia Critic, James Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd, and the other contributors on the site.

The second year movie, Kickassia, was more ambitious. The TGWTG crew traveled to Molossia to take over the micronation. While in many ways the shoot went well, this is where problems started to emerge.

(Just a quick disclaimer, I was originally going to go over in detail about the problems encountered in the anniversary films, but they’re so extensive that I simply don’t have time to fit them all in here. I strongly recommend reading the google doc for all the gory details.)

But it wasn’t until production of the third Anniversary special, Suburban Knights that things really started to become unsustainable. Things got so bad in fact that the entire movie was nearly scrapped. It only was finished at all because the producers were determined to do so.

So you’d think after such a miserable experience, Channel Awesome (or at the very least the Walker brothers) would recognize that they were in over their head. They would have to scale back production considerably for the next film and make it a smaller affair that’s more suited to their skills, or at the very least up their game. In trying to straddle the line between “amateur” and “professional” they were failing spectacularly.

But nothing was done. And Doug Walker proceeded to write To Boldly Flee. A four-hour long epic involving every single producer he could cram into his house and framed as a critique of acts like SOPA and the abuse of Fair Use laws.

Only when the producers actually read the script did they realize the true purpose of the film: the retirement of the Nostalgia Critic as a character. And the way the film was written, it seemed like it was also meant to be the end of just about everyone else on the site.

RIGHT THERE. THAT is the moment Channel Awesome jumped the shark.

But of course, the Critic’s retirement party wasn’t going to be denied. Doug Walker was still adored by the Internet after all. To refuse to let him retire his character on his own terms? The fandom’s jimmies would’ve been ruffled.

And besides, now they had a studio! And Doug was still on the site, now starring in a brand new show called Demo Reel. The empire will continue to live on!

Well, we all know what happened then.

While To Boldly Flee and the decision to retire the Nostalgia Critic may have been the moment that Channel Awesome jumped the shark, the reality is that there were many problems with the site long before. These were issues that the producers repeatedly voiced their concerns about and attempted to fix. Nothing was done.

To go over every single possible offense that was committed would be redundant as the google doc already does that for us. So instead, I shall do my best to list the “highlights” of the issues that were rampant with Channel Awesome.

Tellingly, it seems the problems with the site focused mainly on two individuals. CEO Mike Michaud, and CCO Rob Walker, though Doug Walker doesn’t exactly come off scott-free here.

So what exactly did these individuals do? Let’s break it down:

Mike Michaud:

He is a majority shareholder in the company and owns the rights to the Nostalgia Critic character.

He was very difficult to reach, regularly disappearing for long periods of time.

He was very reluctant to actually be involved with anything when it came to management of the company or daily operations.

The Pop Quiz Hotshot gameshow was his idea. No one wanted to actually do it, and he forced Doug and Rob to upload the pilot episode (which had to be reshot over a dozen times) to avoid an investigation by IndieGoGo.

When Allison Pregler (Obscurus Lupa) added midrolls to her videos in order to generate revenue, Michaud angrily confronted her while she was filming at the studio. He also left up incendiary comments about the midrolls on her videos to goad her into trying to take them down.

Lupa was literally fired for not answering Michaud on Skype within 15 minutes.

Kaylyn Saucedo (MarzGurl)’s videos were frequently mislabeled when Michaud uploaded them and he was very antagonistic towards her over the fact that she was affiliated with ScrewAttack (whom he perceived as Channel Awesome’s rivals).

Lewis Lovhaug (Linkara) requested to use the Channel Awesome studio to film the Atop The Fourth Wall movie. Michaud refused on the grounds that it would interfere with production of the Nostalgia Critic.

He attempted to fire Jacob Chapman (JesuOtaku) for simply criticizing the site.

When Dr. Gonzo inquired about the numbers for his podcast, he was repeatedly told to stop asking because “they suck and no one comes here to listen to you.” When he tried to create a tribute video for Justin Carmichael (JewWario), he was shot down for the same reason.

During the anniversary specials, Michaud asked that any crossover reviews that were filmed be handed over to Channel Awesome to recoup the costs of the production (none of the producers were ever paid for their part in the anniversary movies).

Was aware that Mike Ellis (another founding member of Channel Awesome) was sexually harassing members of the site, but did not act upon this information until nearly a year later.

Overall Mike Michaud has engaged in behavior that could be considered immature, arrogant, unprofessional, and sexist.

Rob Walker:

He is the brother of Doug Walker and Channel Awesome’s CCO. He also frequently assists with the production of Nostalgia Critic episodes.

When producers came to Rob with concerns or complaints, he would call them “children” behind their backs.

Frequently fought with Doug over the script for To Boldly Flee.

When Lupa brought up that Doug should’ve told the other producers beforehand that he was retiring the Critic, Rob laughed it off.

He claimed that producers advertising their personal Patreon accounts was a “slap in the face” to the fans while also justifying their IndieGoGo as “executive authority.”

Topher Ames (Fool Fantastic) took a leave of absence to address the repercussions he was facing in his personal life due to coming out. Despite informing Channel Awesome’s HR rep at the time (Holly Brown) his videos were removed from the site. When he tried to explain what had happened to Rob, he was belittled and mocked.

During the filming of Suburban Knights, Iron Liz suffered a knee injury. Rob pressured her to sign a form that would absolve Channel Awesome of liability for any injuries, and refused to offer treatment until she did.

Doug Walker:

He is the most well known of the producers on the website, the man behind Nostalgia Critic.

Despite the fact that he’s officially considered “talent”, he is frequently involved with business decisions made by the company.

He’s described as being rather incompetent when it comes to the technical side of production, with Lupa claiming that he didn’t even know how to record a Skype conversation.

There are a limited number of slots on the site to feature videos. Doug tends to hog most of them, especially with series such as “Disneycember.”

By and large, the producers felt that Channel Awesome management was more concerned with what Doug wanted and needed rather than the producers as a whole.

The scene in To Boldly Flee where the Nostalgia Chick is assimilated was written in the guise of a sexual act. Both Linkara and Lindsay Ellis (Nostalgia Chick) were very uncomfortable with the scene and did not want to do it. Doug was unable to understand their reluctance.

Doug was legitimately unaware of how miserable the other producers were during the filming of To Boldly Flee. He had to be told later in a private meeting. He discusses this in the commentary track for To Boldly Flee where he expresses guilt over it and explains it’s one of the reasons he’s no longer doing large scale productions.

Phelan Porteous (Phelous) did some of the VFX for To Boldly Flee. Doug expressed his approval of the VFX. Later, Mat Williams (Welshy) was asked to “spy” on Phelous to make sure he wasn’t phoning in the work.

Doug was the deciding vote on whether or not to fire HR Rep Holly Brown (the decision came the day after she had surgery).

The decision to rebrand “ThatGuyWithTheGlasses” to “Channel Awesome” was to make it seem like the site wasn’t entirely focused on Doug’s work.

Doug did not tell anyone ahead of filming To Boldly Flee that he was retiring the Nostalgia Critic character, and the way he wrote the film gave the impression that he expected all the other producers to retire along with him (or at the very least that he no longer needed them)

Again, these are just the highlights that I could pull up in a quick timespan. I once again encourage you to read the google doc linked above.

Not just because it validates and substantiates these claims, but because it paints a clear picture of the decline and fall of a once mighty empire. The senate became complacent, refused to fix the glaring issues, and the barbarians sacked countless cities as a result.

Mike Michaud chose to focus the site on promoting the Walkers and figured that everyone else would be thankful for the “exposure.” This unfortunately doesn’t work when people expect that over time you’ll gradually move towards a more professional outfit, and especially when platforms like YouTube become more viable in terms of earning revenue.

And the sad part? This all could’ve been avoided. And not by just communicating more openly with the producers and treating them with respect.

When Doug Walker announced the sudden retirement of the Critic, the site’s traffic fell off a cliff and to this day has never been able to recover. The fact that it came seemingly out of nowhere was as much as a shock for the producers as it was for the fans.

Imagine if Doug had announced ahead of time that he was ending The Nostalgia Critic. At the very least, fans would’ve been able to prepare themselves for the end, and the producers who were reliant on Doug’s traffic to bring in views would’ve also been able to make plans for what to do in the aftermath.

Going further, imagine if Demo Reel had started up as a side show before the end of the Critic. People would’ve had time to get used to the show’s more serious tone and docu-style format. Instead of having to reshoot the second episode on the fly, Doug would’ve been able to figure out what worked and what didn’t. It would’ve had time to grow a proper audience and flourish.

Just imagine, people knowing ahead of time that Doug was retiring the Critic and trying a different show. The Critic would’ve gotten a proper sendoff that everyone was on board with and didn’t come out of nowhere. Demo Reel would’ve gotten through its early missteps and been able to grow. The traffic would’ve probably taken a hit but still be sustainable. The other producers would’ve at least felt like they weren’t being unceremoniously tossed to the side for the sake of a vanity project.

The empire could still be living on.

This could’ve been Channel Awesome had Doug told people ahead of time what his intentions were. Or even if Mike Michaud had truly tried to expand the site’s brand instead of focusing solely on the content produced by two men. But instead he’s chosen to be stubborn and cling on to what worked in the early days, back when no one would truly complain that the site was very much amateur hour.

That’s the other side of what’s lead to the fall of the empire: the stagnation. The fact that Channel Awesome hasn’t produced any original content worth a damn in nearly a decade, that they still think the show’s they did back in 2009 and 2010 are what people want to see today.

Take Rooster Teeth and Team FourStar. These studio’s have become so diversified in their portfolio’s you’d be forgiven for not knowing they started off as a Halo Machinma and a DBZ Gag Dub. But they do these things for the greater good.

Look at what focusing on one brand gets you:

Hell, this whole #ChangeTheChannel thing is giving CA the first real spike in trends they’ve had in a while, and it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Even worse, there’s no hope of this going away any time soon.

Literally as I was writing this, Channel Awesome put out their “official” response to the aforementioned google doc.

If you haven’t read the google doc by now, I’d like to bring to your attention the fact that, for the most part, all the former producers want is simply an admission that they screwed up. All they ask is for Channel Awesome to apologize for mistakes they’ve made in the past and vow to do better.

But much like their tweeted statement where they said they “regret (the former producers) feel that way.” This is anything but that. I don’t have to link you the comments or tweets to tell you that this is about as tone-deaf as you can get.

What’s more is that producers are claiming that Channel Awesome is flat out lying in their rebuttal. Only time will tell who’s telling the truth, but given that there’s been multiple accounts about how Channel Awesome told producers that they weren’t really going to do the thing they said they were going to do and that the things the producers were mad about was definitely their fault and not Channel Awesome’s, I’m not inclined to believe this statement.

Because at this point who are you going to believe? Mike Michaud, or your lying eyes?

Sadly, it gets even worse.

Consider this photo. This is the cast photo of To Boldly Flee. These were the headliners of Channel Awesome back in 2012.

Fast forward nearly 6 years later. Most of the people in this photo? They’re gone.

And with Angry Joe now leaving as well, the only people in this photo who are still affiliated with the site are Bennett the Sage, Brad Jones, and The Walker Brothers.

Even worse, the people that are still on the site are getting roped into this regardless if they’re involved or not. Malcolm Ray and Tamara Lynn Chambers are both feeling the heat for their continued affiliation with the site, and both have promised their own response will be coming soon.

Let me be clear, no one has the right to attack Malcolm or Tamara or any producers over their decision to stay. As far as we know, they are completely innocent in these ongoing events. All the same though, I would counsel both of them to have a good look at the document so they can see for themselves what “loyalty” got for their predecessors.

In the end this website has done the unthinkable. Channel Awesome has gone from the envy of the Internet to its newest punchline. This is a feat that takes a special kind of incompetence. In all my life I can only recall one other incident like it.

But the reason why this has happened comes from the top down.

Mike Michaud is truly the Dave Brandon of the Internet. He’s the embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and overall just seems to be a terrible person. This is a man who desires to be in charge of everything while at the same time being in charge of nothing. He will chew out producers for doing things that make him look bad. He is a hollow shell filled with nothing but arrogance, immaturity and greed.

Rob Walker doesn’t seem to be much better. While his list of transgressions is not as extensive as Mike Michaud’s, they give off the air of someone who lords an unwarranted superiority over others. A man who lucked into the position he’s in and is determined not to let anyone find out. A man who lied to his own brother about the problems Demo Reel was having, just for the sake of keeping everything running like clockwork.

Channel Awesome deserved caretakers that could nurture and grow the channel into something special. Instead it got two empty suits who are both convinced they’re the smartest one in the room.

And then there’s Doug.

This is where I suspect many of us on the outside looking in are having the biggest ethical dilemma. That someone like this man could do the things he’s accused of doing.

In the past I have come to this man’s defense. It can be no more.

To be honest, I do find him to be something of a tragic figure. This is the kind of stuff that can (and in all honesty probably should) end his career. And while I don’t know what kind of person Doug Walker is, I doubt that when he started off doing movie reviews on YouTube that he had any of this in mind. I doubt he wanted to do anything besides make movies and entertain people.

But at some point in time, we all need to grow up. We all need to understand that what we might have gotten away with in the past we can’t get away with anymore. That there are things expected of us, responsibilities we are expected to uphold.

For better or worse, Doug Walker does not seem to have realized that.

It’s one thing to be described as being “out to lunch” or off in your own little world when you’re in a social setting hanging out with people. Those kinds of traits can be seen as endearing and lovable. But they simply don’t work when you’re expected, fairly or otherwise, to be in charge of other people, or to help people out of a bad situation.

I have no idea if Doug is management, talent, or both. I don’t know what he considers himself to be. But the fact that he’s been allowed to make sweeping decisions that affect Channel Awesome as a whole seem to indicate that he doesn’t have a grasp of what he does or how his actions affect those around him.

And as a result, the things that we loved about him have now become the things we hate.

Remember when we laughed at the opening of Suburban Knights?

That joke isn’t funny anymore.

The thing that’s really disheartening to me, is that Doug is still being the same person he always is, even as all this stuff piles up. Simply parroting Channel Awesome’s response on his Facebook page.

I think many of us just want him to say something about this, something that doesn’t come from a prewritten statement. Snap at a fan at a con who asks him about the doc, say his boss was a total idiot who’s more or less ensured he’s stuck doing the same thing for the rest of his life, just do something, anything at all that’s not the same stuff he’s been doing for the last 5 years.

Whether Doug is naive, callous or a coward is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t know enough about him to say otherwise, except that he seems like exactly the kind of person who would shut down as his dream job becomes a nightmare.

And like I said, I truly believe this is it for him. This is the kind of thing that many people simply don’t come back from. If he thinks that he can simply tune this out, well he also thought that production of To Boldly Flee was a hoot and a half.

At least Malcolm and Tamara came out and said “That’s not us, that’s not what we do or who we are.”

Doug Walker seems content to burn amongst the flames without so much as shaking a fist at the heavens.

In the end, my hope is that if nothing else what happened with Channel Awesome will be seen as a cautionary tale, for there are two very important lessons here that we would all do well to learn.

The first; we all have an expiration date. One day, whether by chance or design, the Internet shall declare us irrelevant. Even if we don’t have a career destroying scandal, the simple truth is that eventually new mediums and ideas will come along. People will try to do what we do, only do it better. And unless we can adapt and evolve, we will die.

The second; no one escapes judgement. In a day and age when even an innocuous tweet made years ago can be dug up and presented to the world, it’s a reality that no one escapes their past and no one escapes judgement. We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of, and someday we will have to answer for them. And the more we try to bury or deflect the truth, the worse it becomes for all of us.

These are two lessons that all of us, no matter who we are or what we do, should always keep in mind. Because no matter how big or important we may think we are, we are all replaceable, especially on the Internet.

What happens when you don’t adapt and try to run from your past?

You become Channel Awesome.

(Damn this might be the most depressing thing I’ve written yet, I suddenly remember why I don’t do this fandom stuff anymore.)

#ChangeTheChannel #Channel Awesome #Doug Walker #Rob Walker #Mike Michaud

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myassbrokethefall · 6 years

Text

All right, I just watched This for the third time, and the first time where I could really pause and rewind and have my attention undivided, since the first time through my brain was just a mess of AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH THIS IS SO GOOD THIS IS SO GOOD and the second time it was so I could follow along with Gillian’s tweets. (I may have learned what a taint was that day, but I did not get much detailed information about the plot.) (Just kidding, I already knew what a taint was, unlike Gillian Anderson who is clearly still enjoying the novelty of having recently found out about it.)

Here are my unedited (except for typos/some cleanup for clarity purposes) thoughts as I watched it, under a cut because anytime anyone says “lol here are my UNEDITED THOUGHTS” it should be under a cut, I feel like. Enjoy! Or don’t.

Phone: MULDER! MULDER! MULDER! MULDER! MULDER! MULDER!

Mulder: *sleeps*

Scully (very quietly): Mulder

Mulder: WHAT I'M UP I'M UP

I hope those assassins had to get out of the car and manually heave the gate out of the way like Scully did in IWTB.

Why is there an antler on the floor? Do Mulder and Scully just have...a single antler

"Accuse your enemies of that which you are guilty"?? I didn't even see that because apparently I didn’t look up either time while the themesong was playing. Also, in the grand tradition of "that with which he can't live without," this is grammatically incoherent. Good proofreading everyone

I look forward to someone less lazy than me examining every single frame of film in which the Unremarkable House appears and itemizing all of Mulder and Scully's possessions. I MAY have the same toaster oven as them?

Scully's badge number is XF072161?? What happened to JTTsomething? @startwreck did you know about this

227700 Wallis Road, Farrs Corner, VA. A real town. Google Map it, click Satellite, zoom out and note with pleasure (if you’re me) how in the exact bullseye middle of a bunch of empty green they are, far from civilization. That’s how I like my Unremarkable House.

Simultaneous thoughts I had as the second wave of bad guys was attacking: How on earth did somebody get upstairs that fast? Did they parachute in? / Look at that beautiful porchlight

Crucial Plot Points That I Missed Entirely While In Raptures Over The Mulder And Scully Goodness Of This Episode, Part 1: Barbara Hershey’s character sent this Russian goon squad. Ah.

russian guy: (mockingly) “I want to believe”?

mulder: it’s not enough this dude is about to kill me, he has to make fun of my nerd poster? insult to injury

skinner: ugh just surrender to them! it's fine

m&s: they tried to assassinate us two times

skinner: ohhhh lol sorry i didn't know they were going to do that MY bad

This order of presidents/32 32nd 34 35...stuff feels so unpolished and ad-libbed even though it's obviously plot-crucial (so I assume scripted), but it's like, they're just kinda bouncing around NEAR the lines, and I love it. And I love when Scully holds out her hand for him to supply the answer of which president FDR is and he has no idea so she supplies “32nd” and he's like “32 yeah I was totally about to say that yup” and then he forgets the number 33 exists, thus missing the clue. You're a mess, Mulder. Thank goodness for your smart wife.

Also it makes me wonder if "now you're just showing off, really" was an ad-lib of David’s because it feels like he interrupts her line; she has just said "FDR" and he says that and then she continues on with the FDR part again. scripted or duchovny? LEAVE MY JOKES IN GLEN

Them just figuring out this cemetery clue like Encyclopedia Brown GIVES ME LIFE

Skinner gave them a Leatherman? Handy/I’m surprised they didn’t trade it for more muffins

“it links to a video of the pet or person” lol

THIS SHOW IS LITERALLY SO DARK I HONESTLY CANNOT SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING; it went to commercial on a lingering shot of something and I don’t know what it was

So we kinda already knew this, but the "I'm gonna open an x-file on this bran muffin" line comes BEFORE the "I opened an x-file on this building in the '90s" line, leading me to believe that the bran muffin x-file line is also an ad-lib (in addition to Gillian’s “alien butt” line directly after, which she confirmed it was) because "opening an x-file” was on David's mind from doing the scene over and over. Scully's "An x-file?" line delivered like that's a new idea doesn't really mesh with her just having heard that term 20 seconds ago in re: bran muffins. DETECTIVE WORK

(also to be clear I’M FINE WITH THAT, leave in all their ad libs, they’re canon now, canon canon canon canon)

scully: walter we need your HELP

skinner: kids, i literally already gave you all the money I have, jesus I am just trying to go to work, can you please handle your shit

scully: we used UP all that money on MUFFINS, and we ATE THEM ALL ok those muffins were GREAT but we are HUNGRY AGAIN we need your HELP GODDAMNIT even though we don’t TRUST YOU, why are you such a JERK, can’t you just go to the ATM? UNTRUSTWORTHY

"if you want to see the x-files you don't have to go to the office" me: I do spend quite a bit of time at the office seeing the x-files though (or at least various secondary references thereto)

Mulder, after two seconds of searching in the proprietary search bar: fuck this it doesn’t work I'll just google it #relatable

Crucial Plot Points That I Missed Entirely While In Raptures Over The Mulder And Scully Goodness Of This Episode, Part 2: that the spank bank thing was a deliberate secret message leading to the Langly's girlfriend lady. (also that they kept that from Skinner)

I also missed all this Sims talk with Langly’s girlfriend, on how they would know it was a simulation. "you wouldn't be able to click on the neighbor's house" "there would be a loading screen every time you went on vacation" "if you had the pets pack installed the same dog would come every day and dig a hole in your yard" "buy mode would be disabled if there was a burglar" "you would only be able to make macaroni and cheese until you had more cooking points" "if story progression was turned on sometimes you'd go to your neighbor's house and there would just be a random baby on the floor" "blurry boxes would appear on you every time you went to the bathroom" i got a million of ’em

Lollllllll at Mulder's awkward cough after “maybe he saw Mulder in his dreams” / “Who hasn't” / Scully’s look

What’s with all the fly imagery? Two acts have opened with closeup shots of insects.

This skanky bar scene...every moment of it is a cinematic masterpiece that I will treasure forever

Scully's hilarious face in reaction to the beer is another thing I didn't notice. like, this is what you ordered for me while I was asleep? gross dude

also I love her smile as she closes her eyes again like, mulder's yappin, all's right with the world, goodnight

Langly simulation: Are you...Fox...Mulder? Something about that name...is familiar to me...as if from another life...I feel compelled to contact you though I don't know why or what it means

Mulder: Yes, it's me, and Scully

Langly simulation: DANA SCULLY?! Omg how are you girl I miss you so much! omg I'm gonna cry I’m so glad to see you how the hell are you

We're digital slaves...they force us to make grilled cheese sandwiches over and over again and every time we try to play videogames they make us study the mechanical skill instead...sometimes they put us in a pool and take the ladder away just for their sick amusement...that's not even getting into the torment that comes from the move_objects on cheat...sure we may have rosebud!;!;!;!; levels of money and I may be the mayor but aging is turned off and I've already bought the fanciest TV and the most comfy bed and I've done all the tomb quests in World Adventures and I don't know what else there is here for me...plus the game lags every time I try to go on the subway...it's hell, Mulder, hell (sorry, done with the Sims jokes now)

Scully, they don't serve mimosas on the bus; believe me, I would know.

Do Gillian's kids get freaked out hearing her speak in an American accent? No more freaked out than seeing her in a red wig i guess

JACOB JARVITS FEDERAL BUILDING #neverforget

What is with the "looking moodily out at the New York skyline at night while sipping a martini in an ’80s movie" soundtrack in this "get us in the tunnel" scene

Mulder's eyebrow raise after "married to the Bureau" *drapes it all over my body*

the clearest and largest STAIRS sign in all of history; sure half the episode is so dark you can't make out what's happening but god forbid we not know that the door Mulder's gesturing to is the S T A I R S

literally why IS mulder yelling out numbers on the stairs at the top of his lungs? he's not even counting the floors, there are 29 floors and he's like 32 34 36 38...he's counting by twos...is he counting the stairs? Why? scripted or duchovny? "glen please leave in my inane stair counting, it's funny!" "david by gum you guys are magic. magic! ok ok, no problem buddy, just keep it flowing"

mulder and scully get in like 12 physical fights in this episode. AMAZING

Ok, now here’s where I really have to pay attention because i legit did not listen to a GODDAMN WORD of this Barbara Hershey scene the other two times.

Why are there SO MANY lamps in here and how is it still so dark

"You're still refusing to answer the question of your father" am I supposed to remember what that is? Show, you greatly overestimate me

Hold on, did Scully jump some guy with a flashlight and beat the shit out of him during this voiceover and I didn't even realize it? GO SCULLY (closed captioning: “blows landing, groaning”)

Crucial Plot Points That I Missed Entirely While In Raptures Over The Mulder And Scully Goodness Of This Episode, Part 3: the entire earth is about to burn down, whoops, did NOT catch that.

"my company advised killing you" okaayyyy

Did barbara hershey ask muldo to kill csm last episode and he said he wouldn't? why the hell not? do it dude do it

"we can upload a mind through any smartphone" sure until Apple releases a new OS and then it starts lagging

“We can take a piece of your mind anytime you make a call” oh good they’ll get like 3 pieces of my mind a year then. It would be much more efficient to take a piece of my mind every time I open Hay Day

Mulder has been handcuffed or fake-handcuffed A LOT this episode. He's going to need to process this through roleplay once he and Scully get home

Is Scully using the Leatherman as a physical key to switch off a top-secret high-security NSA federal computer system in lieu of the actual, presumably very specialized, key manufactured for that purpose? It really can do anything.

I can’t tell what we’re supposed to be seeing in this conference room to indicate that it was abandoned. Barbara Hershey is gone but was there other stuff in there? Like a sign that said “THE CONSPIRACY” or something? The LAMPS are still there, I guess they didn’t have time to pack those up

There's an orange on the floor in the UH. This is a step up, nutrition-wise, from the time Mulder had potato chips on the coffee table in IWTB.

There is a basketball hoop DIRECTLY over a lamp. Really, Mulder?

Scully literally drops off to sleep in 3 seconds. all things continuity. 👏

So, destroy the backup? Does that mean there's a backup to the simulation and they’re just going to restore from it and nothing they did accomplished anything? Except for being the most delightful and satisfying episode of TXF ever filmed? Also what does the curly-haired guy being in there mean? I mean obviously he was uploaded after he died but is he in there like, tormenting Langly now? In the backup? How many backups are there? Can a Leatherman be used to defeat all of them?

I don’t care; Mulder and Scully are asleep on the couch and everything is perfect.

#this #scripted or duchovny?#so much duchovny #this is so long i'm sorry #mine

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protruth-prochoice · 6 years

Text

The Day Gianna Sold Out

I want to clarify before I continue.

Yes, it's probable that Gianna is making enough from her speaking engagements to pay for the medical expenses she will have the rest of her life and getting to see the world, not living in a mansion or driving a Lamborghini.

She has claimed that despite having cerebral palsy and therefore meeting the definition of disability since before age 22, she has not received any public assistance since age 18, even Medicare which she is entitled to. She made this claim while arguing that government healthcare is bad, and I know she has issues with parents being denied the ability to attempt even potentially futile care (truthfully, so do I) on severely disabled infants when another agency besides the government offers to cover it.

But my little brother and sister, grown now, adopted by a wonderful foster family but will be dependent on others forever, can't go on tours to pay for the damage their biological mother's choices while pregnant did to them. They're too damaged.

They will both need Medicare and Medicaid their entire lives. If she is going to claim to advocate for disabled children, why she thinks my little brother and sister don't deserve care is insanity.

So bear in mind that while I don't particularly object to her decision to opt-out of the Medicare/Medicaid she's entitled to, taking decisions away from people who don't have a voice or a choice is kind of what she preaches against. Yet another hopefully unintentional demonstration of the "pro-fetus" but not pro-life mentality.

-----

Gianna didn't necessarily "sell out" by money. She "sold out" when she first allowed someone to lie in her name about the circumstances of her birth in order to "save the unborn". She gave into the pressure to throw whatever might stick at an organization she believes is terrible, instead of sticking to her truth and demanding the correction be made immediately.

And she has still refused to see how this damages her credibility, how this damages the pro-life movement as a whole, or her part in it by letting the rumor continue unchallenged. By pinning Tweets that say it to her social media pages. By giving what readers of Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" would recognize as an "Aes Sedai truth" that deliberately misleads.

In that fantasy series, people who had special powers weren't trusted not to abuse them. They agreed to take three Oaths on a special device that would literally stop them from breaking the Oaths. One was "I shall speak no word that is not true." They were famed manipulators, though, because they could spin the "truth" like a top and give misleading but true answers.

It's possible the Shaver biography is correct, and Tina Holder was referred to Allred by Planned Parenthood. We will never know now, because she is dead. Yet the evidence is clear that Planned Parenthood did not perform any procedures on Tina Holder. They did not attempt to abort Gianna. Especially if it was true that Tina had another abortion after giving birth to a live baby during one, any potential coercive counseling by Planned Parenthood in 1977 didn't override the fact Tina chose to go to Allred, chose to have the abortion, and allegedly chose to have another later. Their role in Gianna's disabilities is so minimal that while it may be true and as such if she's going to say Big Bad Planned Parenthood conned her mom, that's fine.

But it's NOT fine to let people outright say lies in your name, nor is it fine to craft your "truth" in front of Congress to mislead so many news outlets it's impossible to count and the lack of retractions nearly three years later is evident from Google.

Ever since Gianna started letting this lie be said unchallenged routinely and allowing her bookers to sell tickets to her events by claiming Planned Parenthood performed the abortion, she's refrained from showing off her birth certificate.

That's because it directly contradicts the myth.

----

June 16, 2006

Planned Parenthood Celebration Jolted by Abortion Survivor

by Ted Harvey, assistant minority leader, Colorado House

She sings the anthem to applause, then her secret is revealed to stunned silence.

I want to share with you an awesome experience I had in the Colorado House of Representatives on May 8. It is a humbling experience to look back and realize that God used me to play a role in His divine orchestration.

I was leaving the House chambers for the weekend when our Democrat speaker of the House announced that the coming Monday would be the final day of this year's General Assembly. He went on to state that there were still numerous resolutions on the calendar which we would need to be addressed prior to the summer adjournment. Interestingly, he specifically mentioned that one of the resolutions we would be hearing was being carried by the House Majority Leader Alice Madden, honoring the 90th anniversary of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

As a strong pro-life legislator I was disgusted by the idea that we would pass a resolution honoring this 90-year legacy of genocide. I drove home that night wondering what I could say that might pierce the darkness during the debate on this heinous resolution.

On Saturday morning, I took my 8-year-old son up to the mountains to go white-water rafting. The trip lasted all day. As we were driving home, exhausted and hungry, I remembered that I had accepted an invitation to attend a fundraising dinner that night for a local pro-life organization. One of my most respected mentors had personally called me several weeks earlier and asked me to attend, so I knew I'd have to clean up and head over.

After our meal, the executive director of the organization introduced the keynote speaker. I looked up and saw walking to the stage a handicapped young lady being assisted to the microphone by a young man holding a guitar.

Her name was Gianna Jessen.

Gianna said "Hello," welcomed everyone, and then sang three of the most beautiful Christian songs I have ever heard.

She then began to give her testimony. When her biological mother was 17 years old and seven and a half months pregnant, she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to have an abortion. As God would have it, the abortion failed and a beautiful 2-pound baby girl was brought into the world. Unfortunately, she was born with cerebral palsy and the doctors thought that she would never survive. The doctors were wrong.

Imagine the timing! A survivor of a Planned Parenthood abortion arrived in town just days before the Colorado House of Representatives was to celebrate Planned Parenthood's "wonderful" work.

As I listened to Gianna's amazing testimony, the Lord inspired me to ask her if she could stay in Denver until Monday morning so that I could introduce her on the floor of the House and tell her story. Perhaps she could even begin the final day's session by singing our country's national anthem!

To my surprise she said she would seriously consider it. If she were to agree, she wanted her accompanying guitarist to stay as well. A lady standing in line behind me waiting to meet Gianna overheard our conversation and said that she would be willing to pay for the guitarist's room. Gianna then said that she would think about it.

As I was driving home from the banquet, my cell phone rang. It was Gianna, and she immediately said, "I'm in, let's ruin this celebration." Praise God!

When Monday morning came, I awoke at 6 a.m. to write my speech before heading to the Capitol. As I wrote down the words, I could sense God's help and I knew that this was going to be a powerful moment for the pro-life movement.

Following a committee hearing, I rushed into the House chambers just as the opening morning prayer was about to be given. Between the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, I wrote a quick note to the speaker of the House explaining that Gianna is an advocate for cerebral palsy. I took the note to the speaker and asked if I could have my friend open the last day of session by singing the national anthem. Without any hesitation the speaker took the microphone and said, "Before we begin, Representative Harvey has made available for us Gianna Jessen to sing the national anthem."

Gianna sang the most amazing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner that you could possibly imagine. Every person in the entire chamber was completely still, quiet and in awe of this frail young lady's voice.

Due to her cerebral palsy, Gianna often loses her balance, and shortly after starting to sing she grabbed my arm to stabilize herself, and I could tell that she was shaking. Suddenly, midway through the song, she forgot the words and began to hum and then said, "Please forgive me; I am so nervous." She then immediately began singing again and every House member and every guest throughout the chambers began to sing along with her to give her encouragement and to lift her up.

As I looked around the huge hall I listened to the unbelievable melody of Gianna's voice being accompanied by a choir of over 100 voices. I had chills running all over my body, and I knew that I had just witnessed an act of God.

As the song concluded the speaker of the House explained that Gianna has cerebral palsy and is an activist to bring awareness to the disease. "Let us give her a hand not only for her performance today, but also for her advocacy work," he said. The chamber immediately exploded into applause -- she had them all in the palm of her hand.

The speaker then called the House to order, and we proceeded as usual to allow members to make any announcements or introductions of guests. For dramatic effect, I waited until I was the last person remaining before I introduced Gianna.

As I waited for my turn, I nervously paced back and forth praying to God that he would give me the peace, confidence and the courage necessary to pull off what I knew would be one of the most dramatic and controversial moments of my political career.

While I waited, a prominent reporter from one of the major Denver newspapers walked over to Gianna and told her that her rendition captured the spirit of the national anthem more powerfully than any she had ever heard before.

Finally, I was the last person remaining. So, I proceeded to the microphone and began my speech.

"Members, I would like to introduce you to a new friend and hero of mine -- her name is Gianna Jessen. She is visiting us today from Nashville, Tennessee, where she is an accomplished recording artist.

She has cerebral palsy and was raised in foster homes before being adopted at the age of four.

She was born prematurely and weighed only 2 pounds at birth. She remained in the hospital for almost three months. A doctor once said she had a great will to live and that she fought for her life. Eventually she was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care.

Because of her cerebral palsy, her foster mother was told that it was doubtful that she would ever crawl or walk. She could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of her foster mother, she eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. Shortly before her fourth birthday, she began to walk with leg braces and a walker.

She continued in physical therapy and after a total of four surgeries, she was able to walk without assistance.

She still falls sometimes, but she says she has learned how to fall gracefully after falling for 29 years.

Two years ago, she walked into a local health club and said she wanted a private trainer. At the time her legs could not lift 30 pounds. Today she can leg press 200 pounds.

She became so physically fit that she began running marathons to raise money and awareness for cerebral palsy. She just returned last week from England where she ran in the London Marathon. It took her more than eight-and-a-half hours to complete. They were taking down the course by the time she made it to the finish line. But she made it, nonetheless. With bloody feet and aching joints, she finished the race.

Members would you help me recognize a modern-day hero -- Gianna Jessen?"

At this point the chamber exploded into applause which lasted for 15-to-20 seconds. Gianna had touched their souls.

Ironically, Alice Madden, the majority leader and sponsor of the Planned Parenthood resolution, walked over to Gianna and congratulated her.

As the applause began to die down, I raised my hand to be recognized one more time.

"Mr. Speaker, members, if you would allow me just a few more moments I would appreciate your time.

My name is Ted Harvey, not Paul Harvey, but, please, let me tell you the rest of the story.

The cause of Gianna's cerebral palsy is not because of some biological freak of nature, but rather the choice of her mother.

You see when her biological mother was 17-years-old and 7-and-a-half months pregnant, she went to a Planned Parenthood clinic to seek a late-term abortion. The abortionist performed a saline abortion on this 17-year-old girl. This procedure requires the injection of a high concentration of saline into the mother's womb, which the fetus is then bathed in and swallows, which results in the fetus being burned to death, inside and out. Within 24 hours the results are normally an induced, still-born abortion.

As Gianna can testify, the procedure is not always 100 percent effective. Gianna is an aborted late-term fetus who was born alive. The high concentration of saline in the womb for 24 hours resulted in a lack of oxygen to her brain and is the cause of her cerebral palsy.

Members, today, we are going to recognize the 90th anniversary of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood…"

BANG! The gavel came down.

Just as I was finishing the last sentence of my speech -- the climax of the morning -- the speaker of the House gaveled me down and said, "Representative Harvey, I will allow you to continue your introduction, but not for the purposes of debating a measure now pending before the House."

At which point I said, "Mr. Speaker, I understand. I just wanted to put a face to what we are celebrating today."

Silence.

Deafening silence.

I then walked back to my chair shaking like a leaf. The Democrats wouldn't look at me. They were fuming. It was beautiful. I have been in the Legislature for five tough years, and this made it all worthwhile.

The House majority leader wouldn't talk to me the rest of the day.

Was it because I introduced an abortion survivor, or was it because we touched her soul? She could congratulate an inspirational cerebral palsy victim and advocate, but was outraged when she discovered that the person she congratulated was also an abortion survivor.

The headline in The Denver Post the next day read "Abortion Jab Earns Rebuke." The majority leader is quoted as saying, "I think it was amazingly rude to use a human being as an example of his personal politics."

Yes, Representative Madden, Gianna Jessen is a human being. She was when she was in her mother's womb, and she was when she sang the national anthem on the floor of the Colorado House of Representatives.

The paper went on to quote Gianna, stating she was glad I told her story.

"We need to discuss the humanity of it. I'm glad to be able to speak up for children in the womb," she said. "If abortion is about women's rights, where were my rights?"

All I can say is, "Glory to God!" He orchestrated it all, every minute of it, and I was so honored to have been chosen to play a part. May we all continue to be filled with and to fight for the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ!

-----

These are Ted Harvey's actual words. He says over and over "a survivor of a Planned Parenthood abortion".

Gianna hasn't corrected anyone who has said this since.

And for her ministry to bear any good fruit, she must stop this lie.

#gianna jessen #giannajessen #abortion #abortion survivors #edward allred #edward c allred #family planning associates #planned parenthood #pro choice #prochoice

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unofficialkfamtranscripts · 4 years

Text

King Falls AM - Episode 5: Night of the Living Dread

View on Google Docs

Summary: July 1, 2015 - Sammy & Ben learn of some breaking news regarding the Lake Hatchenhaw John Doe, but not everyone is as pleased as the broadcast duo.

[Podcast intro music]

Announcer Dear listeners, please note that the following program may contain views that do not reflect that of King Falls AM, its management, or its subsidiaries. Listener discretion is advised.

[KFAM intro music]

Sammy You’re listening to King Falls AM, that’s 660 on the radio dial. I’m your host, Sammy Stevens, and as always we are joined by producer and co-host extraordinaire, Ben Arnold.

Ben [trying not to be amused] You’re so- you’re so happy, aren’t you? You’re a child. Getting so giddy over that message.

Sammy Listening to a warning before a radio broadcast I’m on has literally been on the bucket list for a long time. Thanks Merv!

Ben *laughter* Ridiculous. A glutton for punishment.

Sammy What can I say? I enjoy a nice game of hard ball! Uh, y’know, but enough about what Merv doesn’t want you to hear, let’s talk about what he does want you to hear. And what do we have cooking tonight, Ben?

Ben Dude, it’s stacked alright? Stacked. We’ve got the- lovely Miss Emily Potter from the King Falls Library giving us her picks for enlightened summer reading.

Sammy Terrific! We always love speaking with Emily!

Ben You and me both.

Sammy I said “we,” Ben.

Ben Uh, I know. I- *breathes in* [stilted] I- We-We-uh, We’ve got some really cool news! here. We-we are announcing the line-up for the first annual King Falls Ambient Music Festival. That’s coming up the second hour.

Sammy Wait a second. The King Falls Ambient Music Festival? Is this town even big enough for a festival?

Ben Oh yeah! It’s like Coachella[1] but for hipsters that just want to relax. It’s all about “setting the mood.”

Sammy You know, I’m wondering if they’re gonna make it to a second annual.

Ben And then, um, [reluctant and slipping into mumbling] opening up the show we-we’ve got the- doctor *mumbling*

Sammy I-I’m sorry, Ben, what was that? You’re trailing off, buddy.

Ben We have that umm, *sniffs, lets out breath* one… guy. You know that- fo- w- talking about that *deep breath* one thing—

Sammy [trying to cut him off] Ben—

Ben —from a month ago or so—?

Sammy What? What are you talking about?

Ben You know— May- maybe we should start it with Uh, callers first! [mildly frantic] Just-uh-Give us a call at 424-279-3858 and let’s talk about… *tsk* anything! Let’s uh, whats your-whats your-whats-whats on your mind King Falls?

Sammy Ladies and gentlemen, put down your phones for a second. What Ben is trying to say is we’ve got a scoop here this evening on King Falls AM. We’re gonna be speaking with—

Ben [cutting Sammy off]Or you can tweet us! @kingfallsam. I-I-I will literally talk about anything right now. Even to Mr. Derschwitz about that weird toenail thing. Let-lets-lets go, people!

Sammy I thought we agreed—

Ben I know. Sammy, I’m sorry it’s just, [slightly more frantic] I’m-I’m not feelin’ the best here. Alright? my stomach, is all… knotted up, just thinking about this.

Sammy That is journalism. That feeling is journalism—

Ben [speaking over Sammy] I think it might actually be an ulcer! It Tastes, like Fear and Feels, like Cancer . It’s way more than anxiety. I-I’m gonna call Dr. Raúl, at break.

Sammy He’s a chiropractor!

Ben Maybe he can refer me?

Sammy Power through it, buddy! Look at this folks, we got somebody dialing into the hotline right now! You ready for this Ben? Come on.

Ben Please, be Reverend Hawthorne so we can talk about the Revival next month.

Sammy Oh stop it. You know he isn’t even scheduled!

Ben I just thought— maybe that’s how prayers work, I don’t know, I’m not a reverend!

Sammy King Falls AM, you’re on the air.

Dr. Rosenblum [Dr. Rosenblum’s voice is measured and monotonous and mildly creepy at all times] Good evening, this is Dr. Jeffery Rosenblum, with the, King Falls County Coroner’s Office.

Ben C-can I please just say—

Sammy Dr. Rosenblum, it is a pleasure to speak with you this evening.

Rosenblum Excited to be here, Sammy. Ecstatic even. We listen on slow nights.

Ben That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard.

Sammy Much appreciated, Doc. Now, as fate would have it, you were the overseeing physician working on the Lake Hatchenhaw John Doe, is that correct?

Ben Doc? Can you just, hold on for- one- moment- please?

Rosenblum Of course, Ben I—

Sammy Don’t start, Ben! We agreed to see this through.

Ben All I’m saying i- lemme finish- a- i-is that maybe it’s not our place *deep breath* to break this kind of news.

Sammy Fine. You know what? You’re right! Let’s just give this to our friends down at Channel 13 and let them be the ones to alert the public about this.

Ben [journalist voice] Doc, Ben Arnold. Tell us about cracking open the mystery body.

Sammy [quietly] Oh.

Rosenblum It’s true that I was the operating physician on that particular John Doe, y-es, irrefutablyy

Sammy Now, as I understand, your official report was released yesterday morning, doctor, but amazingly enough, not one publication or news station in our town- including King Falls AM- reported on it.

Rosenblum You are correct. Busy news day- one would assume.

Ben So, that means, you are— free to talk about it on air.

Rosenblum I would be elated

Sammy First and foremost on everyone’s minds: were there any signs of, uh, y’know, the lake mo- *sighs* I can’t.

Ben Did Kingsie make the body, bite the big one?

Rosenblum There was no evidence that a creature large or small had anything to do with the deceased.

Ben *sigh of relief* That- I knew Kingsie didn’t have it in her.

Sammy Now, Dr. Rosenblum, can you tell us if there was any foul play involved at all?

Rosenblum During our first autopsy we were not able to distinguish with certainty the cause of death. But there were no signs of foul play

Sammy I’m sorry, did you say “first” autopsy?

Ben [confused] Is that normal? Did you- find out the cause of death during the… second autopsy?

Rosenblum Indeed. It was six individual gunshot wounds to the victim’s head. Three shots to the temporal lobe, two to the mendulla oblongata—

Sammy What?! Six gunshot wounds?!

Rosenblum To the cranium, yes. One to the frontal lobe, another to—

Ben So the Lake Hatchenhaw John Doe was, murdered?

Sammy I can’t believe this! This is big! Why didn’t one news outlet report this thing yesterday?!

Rosenblum Well, the cause of death was inconclusive and with no signs of foul play, it was not exactly a juicy story.

Ben and Sammy Wait a second.

Rosenblum …yes?

Sammy I’m sorry, doc. I’m not in the medical orrr criminal fields but, how is six gunshots not foul play?

Rosenblum Well, that was between the first autopsy and the second. The gunshots were self-defense administered via Deputy Kreighauser at my behest.

Sammy Ben, we’re gonna wanna get Troy on the phone and see what he’s got to say about this.

Ben “Things Ben Arnold would never think under ordinary circumstances for 800, Alex.”[2]

Sammy Doc, while we’re getting Deputy Troy on the line, would you mind if we took a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors?

Rosenblum That’s just- Dandy.

[light bg music]

Greg Frickard After a long day’s work or a tough day’s play, you probably just wanna come home and relax. No need to slave over a hot stove for hours on end. Well that’s where we come in! Here at Granny Frickard’s, we know that the less time you spend doing the things you don’t like, is the more time you spend with the ones you love. So come get some of the best frog legs that money can buy. Granny Frickard’s French-fried farm-fresh never-frozen filleted-and-fricasseed fried-and-flambeed frog legs. Mm-mm-mm. So get on down to Granny Frickard’s Froggery at the corner of Main Street and 7th Avenue. We’ll put some pep in your step and some hop in your heart.

[KFAM intro music]

Sammy And we’re back on King Falls AM, here with King Falls County Coroner, Dr. Jeffery Rosenblum.

Rosenblum A Pleasure.

Sammy Do you have Troy, Ben?

Ben He’s booking one of the Williams boys for mooning. He’ll call us in a few.

Sammy I’m a little out of sorts here, doc. Can you explain what happened between the first inconclusive autopsy and the point where Troy filled the cadaver full of lead.

Rosenblum Of course. As I was finishing the initial post-mortem, it came to my attention that the deceased began to emit a hissing sound, fluctuating between the lower thorax and the larynx.

Ben Oh my God.

Rosenblum I called for Deputy Kreighauser and he entered, as I wanted someone else to see this- phenomenon. That’s when the John Doe began a slight, thrashing about the upper torso.

Ben Um… are you saying—

Rosenblum The deputy began to fumble for his sidearm while we both discerned that something was wildly- amiss. The deceased opened its eyes and instantly grabbed for the lapel of my lab coat with voracious tenacity.

Ben Wh- ah- go on.

Rosenblum It gnashed its teeth as I emitted a terrified, albeit, high pitched, scream. And that’s when Troy unholstered his sidearm and administered six lethal shots to the reanimated corpse’s cranium.

Ben A zombie.

Sammy Alright, is there- [fumbling] Let’s just say- is there-

Ben We’ve got Troy on the line.

Deputy Troy [in bg] I don’t care if he was only joshin’. You can’t show your G-D derriere out in public! [car door slams] [pleasantly] Hey boys, what’s goin’ on tonight?

Sammy You tell us, Troy, holy geez! Uh, we’ve got Dr. Rosenblum on the line here and—

Deputy Troy Is this about the zombie?

Ben Yes! So-so you’re confirming this story, Troy?

Deputy Troy Well, hell yeah I’m confirming! I had to do three hours of damn paper work from unloadin’ my pistola into a corpse! Sheriff Gunderson was not the happiest of campers.

Ben [excited and awed] This is amazing… This is unprecedented .

Sammy [skeptical] This is a little unbelievable, Troy.

Rosenblum It is a first in my profession. Believe you me. [still tonelessly] Wowzers.

Deputy Troy Honest engine[3] boys. I capped the all get out of that thing! It had the doc by the face ‘bout to start chewing!

Rosenblum You’re my hero, Deputy Troy.

Deputy Troy Shucks, wasn’t nothin’ special.

Ben [slightly sullen] Except killing the first instance of a zombie in King Falls since—

Sammy Don’t say “since”.

Ben … Well… Since that one time at the mall in the '80s.

Sammy No, that’s not a real thing, Ben. That’s a film.

Ben [worked up] Sammy? How many extraordinary things are gonna have to SLAP you right in the face to make you buy into this? KING FALLS, MAN.

Deputy Troy You know me, Sammy. I always shoot ya straight. But it was the craziest sh[bleep]t I’ve ever seen. I mean it was like my-ex-wife-needs-alimony-money crazy.

Ben See? Even Barney Fife[4] saw it.

Sammy *sighs* I just—

Rosenblum I don’t want to cause an uproar here, but since that exam, there have been, other cases.

Ben Of frickin’ zombies?

Rosenblum Of reanimation among corpses… yes.

Deputy Troy Doc, you just give me a call if you need. I’m more than happy to go Clint Eastwood if the situation arises.

Rosenblum Will do, Deputy. Thank you so much for your- assistance. Without you, there may not have been this- interview.

Deputy Troy [proud] To protect and serve.

Sammy I can’t take all this in right now, Dr. Rosenblum I- e- Thank you so much for your insightful information.

Rosenblum As they say, [still monotone] “you got it, duude.”

[click, dial tone]

Ben You okay, Sammy? You… don’t look so well.

Deputy Troy Ah, hell, boys.[siren whoop] I gotta go. I’ll call you back later tonight! One of the Williams boys is tryin’ ta saw through the bars outside the jailhouse? [sirens in bg] [through megaphone] Jacob Williams put your hands UP and the file DOWN.

[click, dial tone]

Ben Alright King Falls, you’ve heard our story, let’s hear yours. Have you or anyone you know experienced anything like what the doctor spoke of? Reanimation? The walking—

Sammy Don’t.

Ben You know what I mean. Give us a call or tweet us.

Sammy Looks like the board is lighting up!

Ben Um…

Sammy What’s up? Okay, it can’t be any crazier than what we just heard, Ben.

Ben Line One, Sammy.

Sammy Welcome to King Falls AM, you’re on with Sammy and Ben.

Line 1 [female, almost sounds automated] Good evening, Sammy—

Sammy Do I know you ma'am?

Riley — please hold for Mayor Grisham.

Ben He… Probably just wants us to— mark these tapes as, evidence. *nervous laugh* Right, Sammy?

Sammy Or burn them.

Riley Sammy Stevens, Mayor Grisham.

Sammy Mayor?

Mayor Grisham Sammy… Ben.

Sammy You’re on live on King Falls AM, sir.

Mayor Grisham [commanding] Take me off and go to break. We need to chat.

Sammy No can do. Ben says we aren’t scheduled for break for another- uh- at least ten minutes.

Mayor Grisham Ben. Cut. To. Commercial.

Ben Uh- uh- uh- the thing is- I- I- I can’t- do that. Sir.

Mayor Grisham [threateningly pleasant] You boys want to talk live on air? We can talk live on air.

Sammy [challenging] Nothin’ to hide on this end of the phone, Mayor Grisham.

Mayor Grisham I hear your snide remarks, Sammy. I’ve read the transcripts.

Sammy Which! let’s be honest, is pretty weird. We’re a late night AM talk show, why are you bothering with us?

Mayor Grisham Oh, I don’t bother with you. I try to keep up to date with all the local news and entertainment. I gotta say, I was really happy a big city radio guy decided to come play host at our little radio station.

Sammy Well, I’m more than happy to—

Mayor Grisham I wasn’t finished… But I have to say, I’m a little less than thrilled with [accusingly] all the excitement you brought with you.

Sammy I’d hardly call reporting the news “excitement”, sir—

Mayor Grisham It’s interesting to me that I don’t see Channel 13 breaking these crazy stories.

Ben [quickly] No offense, your honor, but those idiots don’t know their a[bleep]holes from their elbows.

Mayor Grisham And you boys being on site when these “events” happen? [softly, still accusing] It’s a little bit of a coincidence don’t you think?

Sammy Are you insinuating that we are staging these events, Mayor?

Mayor Grisham I’m stating facts. I’m sure your ratings are way, way up there since all these sensational events seem to coincide with your broadcast. Why do you think that is? Furthermore, I mean who’s up listening to you at this ungodly hour of the night?!

Sammy Seemingly most of the town, Sir. As well as whomever you’ve hired to keep an ear on us.

Mayor Grisham I’ve tried to be nice about this… And I tried to be civil… but I think it’s about time that you troublemakers changed formats. No more of this funny business. It’s not good for the listeners. It’s not good for the residents. And honestly? it’s not good for me. I don’t appreciated being painted in this light, gentlemen.

Sammy Oh! You mean the light where you as a public service,[sic] try to quell the voice of the people.

Ben It’s not your right to tell us what we can and can’t report on, sir. All due respect.

Mayor Grisham [rudely] All due respect, Ben Arnold. Just a couple of months ago you were digging up old records on eBay for Chet Sebastian to run on about. Now you’re a media star?? That’s worrisome! Seems you fellas have All the reasons in the world to fabricate these issues, and I have to say I’m not gonna sit here and listen to this, while you LIE TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF KING FALLS.

Sammy Well, when we start “fabricating” and “making things up,” you can come throw the book at us. But until then- [click, dial tone] Whoops! Looks like you just got disconnected. I’d wait for you to give us a call back and all, but with it not being an election year I probably shouldn’t hold my breath.

Ben Line One iiis lit up again, Sammy.

Sammy [insincerely] Oh, sorry about that Mayor! I must have fabricated accidentally dumping your call when-

Esther Rollens [heavy metal music in bg] [voice old and wavering] Did you boys fund a lavender ball of yarn in there? Been looking for it all week! [click, dial tone]

Ben [shaken] Sammy, I think that commercial might do us some good right now.

[KFAM outro]

[CREDITS]

References

[1] Coachella - The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (commonly called Coachella or the Coachella Festival) is an annual music and arts festival held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Coachella Valley in the Colorado Desert.

[2] Reference to the TV game show Jeopardy!

[3] I honestly can’t tell if he’s saying “honest engine” or “honest injun” but i’mma go with the one that’s technically incorrect but also not super racist.

[4] Barney Fife - Deputy from the Andy Griffith Show. Calling a police officer or authority figure "Barney Fife" has become an American slang term for gross ineptitude or overzealousness.

#king falls am #king falls #kfam #sammy stevens #ben arnold #troy krieghauser #dr. jeffrey rosenblum #mayor grisham #kfam transcripts #kfam ep5

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

Text

Here’s the Shadow Inc. App That Failed in Iowa Last Night

Jonathan Green said that everything was going well until he had to use the IowaReporterApp.

"On the ground, it went great," Green, the chair of the Democractic presidential primary caucuses in Iowa's Fremont Township and Lone Tree precincts and an IT systems administrator for a financial services firm, said.

"I got pissed off four years ago at how my precinct was run, which is why I volunteered to do it this time around," he said. "We had 113 people and everyone was pleasant. I had to recruit a secretary once we were going—I couldn't find one ahead of time. Everyone was patient and in good cheer. I know that's not likely the case today. My girlfriend, especially, is distraught. She has poured her life and soul into this thing, and for naught."

Green, like many other precinct chairs, faced problems reporting the results of the caucus to Iowa's Democratic Party using the app. Due to a coding error, the app, created by a company called Shadow Inc., wasn't reporting the correct data, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. The error resulted in the Democrats delaying all public reporting of the results of Monday's caucuses, and has sown chaos and confusion in a hotly contested and deeply important primary.

Motherboard has successfully downloaded and installed the app onto two Android phones; it only successfully booted on one of the devices.

The app running on one of Motherboard's phones.

The app wasn't just plagued with data reporting errors, the app didn't work properly on Green's phone. Wayne Hean, chair of the Davenport caucus precinct, told Motherboard that the app didn't work on his wife's iPhone, either.

Do you know anything about the app used to tabulate votes in Iowa? If you were a precinct leader or know anything else about the app, please reach out to Jason Koebler securely on Signal: 202-505-1702. He also has open Twitter DMs @jason_koebler.

Green shared an email with Motherboard that shows that he was first invited to test the app on January 18. The invite was sent via TestFairy, a mobile app testing platform for Android that is similar to Apple's TestFlight, which allows developers to test and share apps before their official release. The email refers to it as IowaReporterApp 1.1 and says that it is 26.43MB. The email also says that the app is being sent by [email protected]. That email address did not respond to a request for comment.

On February 2, Green received an email with general instructions for precinct leaders, including a number for the Caucus Night Communication hotline. On February 3, 1 p.m., he received an email with the subject line "IMPORTANT: Final App Instructions." This email included more detailed instructions on how to use the app, and instructed precinct leaders to call the results in to the same phone number as the hotline in case the app "stalls/freezes/locks up."

"I've got about 150 messages from other precinct chairs in my county asking questions about the app in the lead up to last night," Green said.

Green, who used his personal Samsung S7, explained that in order to report the results, he had to sign in with an email and password, provide a two-factor authentication, and enter a one-time password generated by the Google Authenticator app. After this, he would need to enter his precinct PIN, but he did not get that far—when he entered the one-time password generated by the Google Authenticator app, this is the error message that he saw:

Three cybersecurity experts said it was not possible to determine much about the issue based only on the error message, with one mentioning how generic the error was.

In Davenport, Hean said that he was on a conference call with the Iowa Democratic Party at 6 PM Sunday night. He was told the IDP was worried there would be problems with the app.

"Sunday night at 6 PM, there was a conference call. We were all talking about the caucuses on Monday. One of the things that came up—'If you have a problem with the app, phone it in.' That’s the first time I heard there could have been a problem. We tried to use the app right off the bat and it failed. She had problems using the password and using the pin," he said. "My wife is pretty savvy when it comes to computer and electronics and gizmos … 'anticipating' [problems] was the word."

Once he and his wife, who is the Davenport caucus precinct's secretary, encountered problems, they stopped trying to use the app immediately: "We dropped the app and went right to the call in. We were put on permanent hold," he said.

Ultimately, Hean drove a paper version of the results to the county office.

"We took it to the office, and gave it to the county chairperson," he said. "I feel for all the campaigns, all the people who work so very hard for their candidates and they could not do this to see their successes or failures at the end of the night. It must be horrible for all the people and staffers. I know I’m frustrated with it. Thank God there’s a paper trail. Everything is down on a piece of paper."

Cybersecurity and voting experts said they were not surprised the app failed, and that the rollout of the app was so haphazard and irresponsible that its failure was a “predictable outcome.”

“We were really concerned about the fact there was so much opacity. I said over and over again trust is the product of transparency times communication. The DNC steadfastly refused to offer any transparency. It was hard to know what to expect except the worst,” Gregory Miller, cofounder of the Open Source Election Technology Institute, which publicly warned the IDP against using the app weeks ago, told Motherboard. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but …”

The New York Times reported that the app wasn't tested widely before it was deployed, and Miller said it's obvious that the app was rushed. That Shadow pushed a new build of the app just two days before the caucus seems to suggest the company was tinkering with it until the last minute. Installing an app via TestFairy or TestPilot is nonstandard and usually comes with a warning message from the phone's operating system. Phone users would be right to be skeptical about installing or trusting it.

"When you're vetting an app for something like this, you need to do load testing, regression testing, pen testing," Miller said. "It’s not just the app, it’s the deployment process. No one should ever deploy an app like this and have a popup that says this isn't safe for your phone."

A disaster like this is an unforced error for Democrats, and is sure to undermine American confidence in an electoral system that has been under attack from foreign governments, bots, and disinformation.

"Everyone from bots to Republicans literally devoured this scene and sowed a lot of seeds of confusion and chaos. You don’t deliver an app days before the event and call it good. Not with this much riding on this," Miller said. "In a system, in a world where we are questioning every aspect of elections and whether they can be trusted, why would you do anything to fuel a disinformation attack, and that’s exactly what the Democrats have done. They’ve opened a can of whupass on themselves."

Shadow Inc. apologized for the errors with its app on Tuesday afternoon in a Twitter thread:

The Iowa Democratic Party, and the Democratic National Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Update: This piece has been updated to mention that Motherboard has successfully installed the app, and has been updated to include more information from another precinct chair. This piece has been updated with a tweet thread from Shadow Inc. apologizing for the errors with its app.

Joseph Cox contributed reporting to this piece.

Here’s the Shadow Inc. App That Failed in Iowa Last Night syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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