#I'm working on transcripts for some interviews she has done

[genericpuff]

I feel mean criticizing an author's old work that they've deliberately buried, but sheesh the dialogue in Rachel's old stuff is really stilted. As awkward as LO's writing is, it honestly does show some improvement, so like...good for Rachel I guess?

I mean, it hasn't really improved though? Normally no, I wouldn't criticize someone's older work because by the virtue of something being old, it will naturally be improved upon and shouldn't be judged against what's created in the present (trust me, as someone with work from 10 years ago that hasn't aged well, I get it LOL).

But what's in the present... has all the same issues. I think it's easy to convince ourselves LO's writing is "better" because it relies on Greek myth to piece itself together, but when you aren't filling in the blanks for her based on assumptions made from the source material (which you shouldn't have to do) her writing in LO still doesn't have much to offer. Like, can we really call this an improvement?

If anything the writing in LO got even worse over time because it started to feel like ChatGPT was writing the dialogue and the narrative was crumbling under the weight of Rachel's lack of foresight / planning ahead.

I mean, just to get my point across, let me ask you one simple question: What is the actual theme of LO? What is the conclusion it comes to by its end to contribute to that theme?

This isn't me trying to minimize whatever improvements she may have made between the past and present, I just don't see those improvements, and there's a lot more to suggest that she was a lot more prolific 20 years ago as an artist than she is today. All of that stuff about Persephone / herself being a "workaholic" is based on stuff she went through 20 years ago that she doesn't even put on display now because it's all buried in deactivated Tumblrs and LiveJournals. But that's besides the point.

I think at best the "improvement" simply boils down to "at least she finished this one". But that's not necessarily a good thing because it's clear LO went on longer than it ever should have and that the only reason she even made it this far was because she was bound to a contract through WT. I guarantee you if it weren't for the success that WT's gave her through constantly advertising LO everywhere (and the fact that LO fit a very specific niche that was popular at the time) she would have ended LO ages ago, because just about every series she's done up until this point have been passing fancies that she's bounced between while still retaining a lot of the same tropes and crutches she always has.

LO is about a naive valley girl with mommy issues who goes to school to better herself. This is also the plot of The Doctor Foxglove Show. And while comics like Castle Castle, Woman King, and The Maiden don't involve school settings, they do still center around "girlboss" characters who hate their parents. LO isn't really an "improvement" among these tropes, just another rehashing that's hidden way better because 1.) she put it behind the veil of Greek myth and 2.) she's done everything in her power to hide the fact that she's been writing about the same pink-haired girls with mommy issues and trauma from evil men "except for that one guy who's perfect in every way" for 20+ years now.

And that issue of stilted dialogue goes way beyond even the comics. Read transcripts of her interviews or the Q&A from the end of the series that she did in her Discord and you'll see she has a really hard time finishing the thought she started on. I'm sure a lot of this can be chalked up to her ADHD / dyslexia, which is totally valid, but it just goes to show she hasn't done any work to actually improve her work in spite of her hindrances. She doesn't know how to separate Internet trolls from valid criticism and she seems to absorb any and all criticism as "proof" that she's better than everyone else, actually, and it's not her fault that other people are stupid and don't get her "vision". And I'm not pulling this assertion out of thin air, she's displayed this exact behavior before both within the LO fandom as well as her pre-existing fandoms around her other series.

Like, I can totally get the sentiment that "hate mail is a sign of success" and turning a negative into a positive, but there's a difference between deflecting hate mail from trolls and deflecting genuine criticism that's meant to identify your weaknesses and help you grow. That's what makes it all the more telling that she's built an audience around protecting and enabling her weaknesses rather than celebrating her strengths and empowering her to do better. She can't fall back on Webtoons as the only excuse for why the writing in LO is bad, her writing has always been like this and I feel like that's half the reason she's trying to hide it.

[fanhackers]

I interviewed the organizers of the Media Fandom Oral History Project, and they shared about the project and what makes it important! The project collects oral histories (interviews) from fans about their fannish experiences. Oral histories help fans define for ourselves what it means to a fan, and they help preserve our histories for future generations. 

The project needs volunteers! Email oralhistoryfandom (at) gmail (dot) com if you want to get involved. 

The full interview can be found under the cut. 

-Lianne, Fanhackers volunteer

Q: Can you briefly introduce yourself, the project, and its purpose?

Morgan Dawn: I am Morgan Dawn and have been a slash fanfiction fan since the 1990s. I entered fandom during the last years of paper fanfiction and the beginning era of online fandom. 

The Media Fandom Oral History Project’s goal is to capture our history in our own words and with our own voices. The idea came when I was sitting at our kitchen table with my friend Sandy Herrold. We realized that fans talking to other fans in informal settings was the perfect way to showcase our community and our connections. What could be more fannish than talking about and sharing the things we love? We started interviewing fans at conventions, then moved to phone interviews and have finally switched the project into a Do-It-Yourself Mode with fans taking the lead interviewing their friends and choosing what they want to preserve.

The recordings are submitted to the University of Iowa's oral history collection and are available online. We are hoping to provide transcripts for all of the interviews. The University of Iowa has one of the world's largest fanfiction fanzine collections. You can see the list of interviews at Fanlore, one of the OTW’s projects. 

Franzeska Dickson: I am Franzeska Dickson and have also been a slash fan since the 90s. In my case, I started as a 13-year-old screaming about Scully on alt.tv.x-files during the first season. (I was a NoRomo, as I recall, mostly because I thought Mulder wasn't nearly good enough for her.) I remember being floored when I was told about fanfic. I have no memory of being told that slash existed. I guess it didn't seem like a big deal. I spent the late 90s and early 00s in anime fandom before swinging back to oldschool Media Fandom and later to other Asian fandoms.

I ran into Morgan at a con and informed her that her recording plans were all wrong and she needed the type of voice recorder that linguists use in the field… I ended up with the recorder and the bulk of the early interviewing work.

Q: Speaking as if to someone unfamiliar with oral history and your project, why is the Media Fandom Oral History Project important?

MD: The recordings allow us to speak directly to future generations of fans and control the discussion of what it means to be a ‘fan.’ By having fans talk to other fans we bypass the dominant narrative of how fans interact with the TV, movies, books and comics. It is also an opportunity for marginalized members of our community to talk about their experiences. There has been much scholarship surrounding live action and anime fandoms. Some of it has been done by academics who are fans themselves and it has been wonderful to see the growth of Fandom Studies. But oral history offers every fan the ability to use their own words to talk about the things they remember and what matters to them.

FD: The early zine generation is rapidly dropping dead, and even when they aren't, I'm always running into younger fans trying to do research who have zero clue who's still alive or where to find them. If we wait for people to do their secondary academic research, it will be too late. Primary sources now or we won't have them!

The scope of fans who are interested in fandom history is much wider than the people who can make the right connections to talk to someone older. It's particularly true for early zines, but it's even true for something like Livejournal: I could rustle up thirty people in five minutes who'd be able to speak cogently on that fandom history. A lot of would-be history researchers currently in undergrad would not. For the future academics, the meta writers, or merely our curious fellow fans, it behooves us to record our history in our own words.

Q: What has the Media Fandom Oral History Project accomplished so far?

MD: We have completed 57 interviews. The first few years we went to in-person conventions and used a digital recorder to interview anyone who was interested. In 2017, a graduate student named Megan Genovese obtained funding and did 24 interviews over the phone in a single summer. During the pandemic, we moved into a DIY (do it yourself) phase - instead of a single person doing the interviewing, we now invite fans to contact their friends and spend an hour chatting about their fandom history. They can use their smartphones, Zoom/video conference recording or reserve a time slot on our international audio conference system. 

We have recorded the history of some of the earliest slash writers, publishers and artists. We have preserved the memories of the first fan who created the first fanvid using a slide project and cassette audio tape. We have heard from fans who organized conventions and started letter writing campaigns to save shows. The interviews include filk singers, fans whose passion is meta, and fans who created and ran some of the first fiction archives. These fans are creators, organizers, supporters, and devotees and have so many stories to tell.

Q: In what ways do you hope the project will grow in the coming years? Or, what are your hopes for the project's future?

MD: We’re a small project and it is difficult to scale with our current resources. By shifting to the DIY phase we’re hoping to encourage fans to take the reins of their fandom history and never stop telling their personal fannish stories. The DIY project also allows fandom communities to leverage off our existing “infrastructure” - we can offer permission forms, an international recording platform (if needed), and a place to archive the interviews.

FD: All fandom history resources suffer from a strong predilection for the researcher's friends or their part of fandom to be the main focus. I hope people from very different parts of fandom will interview their friends about areas other people haven't found important or accessible enough to record.

Q: What help is needed, and how can people get involved?

MD: We need 2 intake coordinators to answer questions, e-mail and collect permission forms (Participants must sign a permission form allowing their recordings to be archived at the University of Iowa). We also need help with outreach to communities that may not be aware of the project - anime, BL fans, cosplayers, filkers, fans in other countries. This is not just a historical project looking backwards. We want to capture our community as it is today and hear from fans whose experiences differ. The central focus has not changed - fans participating in transformative fandom - reading, writing, creating fanfiction, fanvids, podfic, art, managing discord communities. But it all starts with intake coordinators who can keep track of participants and follow up to get the recordings. Each oral history also has a written transcription, as we want this project to be as accessible to as many people as possible. We’ve tried some automated transcription services, and the results are very uneven. This means there’s another opportunity for volunteers, people to listen to the recordings and to help transcribe the contents. 

Q: Is there anything else you'd like people to know about the Media Fandom Oral History Project?

MD: It's a way for fans to be heard. They can describe their experiences on their own terms, in their own words, and take back some of the power of storytelling, rather than having others tell their stories for them.

It's a way to help preserve and honor fan experiences and fan history.

Envision you and your friends, talking about the things you love, your community, and what they mean to you, and describing and preserving these things for history. 

Plus, it's really fun!

FD: If you don't want 'fandom history' to mean just one kind of fandom history, speak up while you can, whether that's here or in essays or in your own projects!

[z0mbiefrank]

Transcript for Marina Toybina on the Designing Hollywood podcast

I've seen a couple people searching for a transcript of her discussing Gerard Way's stage costumes, so I have made one! Feel free to share/link as a resource. Popular quotes are bolded.

Link to source video. MCR's section starts around 22 minutes in.

The transcript is beneath the cut.

Interviewer: Well now you’ve just finished working with My Chemical Romance, which is a band that I dig. Gerard Way is also a comic book writer and artist, created the Umbrella Academy. So, first of all, how did you get that job? Because there’s a design, I mean the look of that band and what they like to do, what they’re influenced by, they’re not just your typical rock band. So what was it like? How did you get that job? You designed the whole tour right?

Marina: I Collaborated with the lead singer, yes, with Gerard. Uhm, okay everything kinda has it’s place in time. About 15 years ago, 15 to 20 years ago, I was a huge fan. I’m a rock girl at heart, and back then a lot of their music was like music to my soul. It got me through some of the harder times. A lot of my friends were musicians. I never saw them live, never could afford to get to their shows, but knew one day in my heart there probably will be an opportunity, they were in like my top 5 favorite bands. He was an artist I’ve always wanted to work with. This past summer, while I was designing So You Think You Can Dance, I just happened to turn on their music - nope- let me rewind I'm so sorry. So a year ago I was reading a release that they're coming back together on tour and they're playing LA on my birthday. I looked at my team and I was like "I'm gonna be at that show. We're gonna go to the show, we're all gonna go together." And I just jokingly said “I'll probably dress them!” A lot of things in my career have happened to manifestation, I'm a huge believer in that. I think my intentions were so clear into the universe. I believed in it so much. That happened a year ago. Then this past summer, I was driving to work, I was listening to their music and I just happened to text my agent. I'm like “You know I really want to get back into music. It's what I used to do. I used to do a lot of live performances. I used to do a lot of music videos. I need to feel that again, even though I'm surrounded with music all the time and I'm doing all these shows. But there was a disconnect in my career, to where it's like I love live entertainment.” And she’s like “Who do you want? Like are we going after pop stars?” And I'm like “No I've done all that. I want to go back to my roots. I want like Incubus or My Chemical Romance or Red Hot Chili Peppers. Get me back to rock and roll.” And she was like “Well, you know, they're touring, but it's probably… I don’t know, let's put it out there.” Then within two weeks I get an email from her like “Hey their managers want to meet with you, he wants to meet with you.” One of the biggest things about their aesthetic is one of my probably top three costume designers, Colleen Atwood, did their black parade album and it was so incredible. Back then, I was always a step behind. It's like they did The Black Parade and then I met the photographer later. Then I worked on a project with him. So it was always like some better-late-than-never I guess. And I'm like “I'm gonna work with her someday, I love her work. I've been told by many people we're a lot alike.” You know? And I'm like “Why not?” And so we get this email “He would like to take a meeting, see what we can do.” I never expected to do a tour, I just wanted to open this door of opportunity, to just collaborate, maybe do one thing together. And he just showed up in my studio and it was just an amazing artistic energy.

Interviewer: Were you starstruck?

Marina: I was trying to hold it together. I mean before they came in, I can't tell you how much I paced. Usually, there's like 15 - 20 people at my studio. This was the time and day that I was alone. I didn't know what to do. Of course, my expectations were just to present myself and see if I would be a good asset to them because I love their music and I love what he's about. Also, it’s not just the frontman for me, I think he's a brilliant artist. So there's a lot of things. I just wanted our worlds to merge somehow. Within the first five minutes of our conversation, I'm like “Oh I get his brain.” I told them my story. I told him that this is like 20 years in the making. You know, I probably sound like a crazy-fan costume designer. But we share ideas, he walked me through the concepts of things he wants to do on this particular tour and they haven't started doing the US leg of the tour. I didn't know if they had a designer. Then he did mention Colleen was doing something for him and I was like “Okay, how - can this be a triangle? You know? Can I come in in the picture?” It was just a beautiful collaboration. It was a genuine artist to artist conversation. Like “Let's do something interesting.” He walked me through his concepts, his ideas and I'm like “Alright well, let me come up with some creatives, see if we're on the same page.” Again, as much as I wanted to be like “Hey we're doing this tomorrow!” I also felt like it's important now in my career and possibly in his, to make sure the relationship is good, that this is the right artistic match to one another and… it worked! From there it was just amazing fittings, amazing collaboration and some iconic things that went viral!

Interviewer: I love hearing this from you because this is like the joyous experience of 'oh my god I dreamt of working with somebody and you finally get to do it'. But I want to take you back to that because I'm curious. How would that process even begin? You're working with somebody that you already know their music, you already know his vibe. And Colleen Atwood, who I've interviewed by the way, on the show, she's incredible. Our interview had to - she was in the middle of a work day, so it was only it was a short interview. But how does a collaboration like that work with somebody like Gerard Way? How do you guys start working together? How is that process?

Marina: For us, it was just like an initial conversation. I introduced myself, my work. They already did some background checking up to see where I stand, what my aesthetic was like. And I felt I was in a place in my life, in my career, where I was able to bring something new. That's where my confidence I think came from. At the same time I didn't want to change the artist that's in front of me. I think that's always so important for me when working with music. You're dealing with a fan base, and a reputation, an aesthetic approach that's far beyond any artistic reach of anybody new coming in. So for me it was having a conversation, understanding what characters he wanted to bring forward. This was a very playful tour. This wasn't about dressing up the whole band. This was about him being in this world of iconic characters. And how can we bring this to life? What can we do that's still very recognizable to his fans but at the same time a little bit of a shock value? But at the same time, I wanted him to be him, you know? He was in this beautiful place in his life and career where he felt great and felt confident and I just wanted to uplift that. We did our creative decks, went through the conversations of which characters we wanted to go with, these are the shows that he had. I knew which city, we kind of wanted to play off where was the right time. Halloween was right around the corner, what do we do? So it was like very strategic conversations but at the same time so much room to play and be creative. So I just gathered the top 10 characters that we had discussed and kind of started doing my own thing, and keeping him and the music in mind. Had an amazing fitting. I've never worked with an artist that's so clear. It was not just directional and very precise and very distinct on his own style, but it was clear for me when we were doing fittings, this is somebody that knows his body. This is somebody who knows his aesthetic on stage. This is somebody that knows how they're going to perform. So it just made it so much easier for me to be able to fall into his world and do the fittings like “Is this going to come off? Is this piece staying on? Are we going to do options? Is the character going to evolve on stage? Is the character going to come down on stage?” So all those conversations happen in our fittings and then I just packed it all up, with distinct notes, send them off, and then kept checking in, making sure everything was okay.

Interviewer: So when you had a direction for the characters, were you doing sketches first?

Marina: No, not at all. This was something that I felt like needed to have the research. It wasn't just about designing something on paper. When he mentioned to me “I wanted to be a vintage cheerleader” I'm like “Okay, what era are we in? 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 40’s?” and then he was like “Find me something that's within possibly this color scheme.” The image that went viral when he did wear the cheer uniform, it was probably like 10 different vintage stores that we went to. And I'm like “Okay everything's size zero.” or like “What am I gonna do? This stuff doesn't exist anymore. If I get it from Etsy it's not going to come in time.” There's like so much and it happened to be as we were leaving one of the stores I looked on a sale rack and I saw this damaged, weird, vintage cheer dress that had no zipper, that had no hem. And I was like “I love this! I love this because I can reconstruct it. I can go and get the fabrics that we need to still keep it original and authentic. And that's how we start working. I build out a mannequin his size at my studio, put it on, we reshaped it, took the whole thing apart, reconstructed it to be his measurements, and still kept it authentic. After he wore it, the pattern for the actual thing was sold out. Fans loved it so much that we were getting notifications that people actually found the original pattern of this 1940s uniform and were buying it out.

Interviewer: That's crazy, okay!

Marina: Oh it's amazing! I think, to me, that's when things are just meant to be. When not only did my work translate into something beautiful on stage, but then he becomes this incredible persona on stage that then delivers the character and plays it off. We did that throughout every single look. Every single look when it became a fan favorite or craze.

Interviewer: In terms of time, what was the process when you first got the gig and then to the first show that was performing using your work? What was the time frame?

Marina: I think I had about a month to get it all together.

Interviewer: Wow! That’s not much!

Marina: Yeh and at the same time, I had another huge project in the works so it was going back and forth. But I could not tell you, I've had difficult projects in the past, I've had difficult times with artists, or finding our own language, or how to execute some things. This was so easy that time didn't matter to me. It was such a great collaboration, it flowed, like Bruce Lee would say, like water. It just made sense and no matter how difficult my other project was or what was going on at the same time, it was like oh this is the universe showing me this is how it's supposed to be. This is what's inspiring me. And at the end of the day, the one thing I told Gerard was “You made me fall in love with music again. You came into my life as an artist that I've admired and wanted to work with for almost 20 years. There was a big part of my beginning that made me look back at this now and be like “Oh that's what. That was that feeling that I had when I was 16 or 20.”

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Interview transcript

YouTube's transcript services don't include punctuation or indicate who's talking. I did the best I could trying to figure out who was speaking when without having to watch the video.

I'll put it below the cut.

But here's the TL;DR -

Archewell is launching a new website for parents to help them deal with the loss of a child from cyberbullying or social media use, as well as to help them navigate the effect of social media on their children's mental health.

There's a lot of word salad.

Meghan uses her suidical ideation from February 2019 as a way to connect with people. She becomes visibly uncomfortable when the interviewer brings it up, to the point that she asks Meghan about it and Meghan gives some word salad. I wonder if this was the bit that made her start screaming at the producer (per CDAN).

Edit to add: I just watched the snippet when the interviewer is talking about Meghan's suicidal ideation, and HOLY COW BATMAN. She hasn't blinked that fast or that much since royal days. She definitely didn't like that line of questioning. Or she was trying to "one tear, left eye, go."

the Duke and Duchess of Sussex inaugurate a new online site today that most of us will never have occasion to visit a good thing it turns out Jane Paulie talks with Megan and Harry about their undertaking and the reasons behind it.

on a brilliant summer day near Santa Barbara last week a group of friends got together this was not your typical receiving line

hi

the Duke and Duchess of Sussex better known as Harry and Megan are definitely big Huggers it was a meeting of an exclusive Club

 oh it's good to meet you

and one that none of them wanted to join most of the parents here have lost a child directly or indirectly as a result of exposure to online social media Harry and Megan are trying to give them and parents like them some place to turn for help it's called the parents Network in

association with the couple's charitable archwell foundation and officially launches today

oh my gosh I'm so so happy you're here

thank you

Megan herself knows a thing or two about online bullying and how do you do and of course her husband Harry is no Stranger to that either or to unspeakable grief

the central topic is the loss that these families have suffered stories that need to be shared because the parents who are listening who have not suffered a loss think that they couldn't but they could they certainly could and that's I think one of the scariest things that we've learned over the course of the last 15 17 years that social media has been around and more so recently is that that it could happen to absolutely anybody I mean we always talk about in the olden days if your kids were under your roof you knew what they were up to at least they were safe right and now they can be in the next door room on a tablet or on a phone and can be going down these rabbit holes and before you know it within 24 hours they could be taking their life our kids are young they're three and five they're amazing but all you want to do as parents is protect them and so as we can see what's happening in the online space we know that there's a lot of work

to be done there and we're just happy to be able to be a part of well you when your children ask for help someone you know is is there to to give it you know not if you know how to help thank you at this point we've got to the stage where almost every parent needs to be a first

responder and even the best First Responders in the world wouldn't be able to tell the signs of possible suicide like that that is the terrifying piece of this you can't tell this story to everybody people don't understand

it's something Donna and Chris Dolly know all too well they 17-year-old son CJ died from suicide after what they believe was depression fueled by social media use

but your son had a demon in his bedroom

I think so yes we had no idea what happened to our son you know he had a beautiful car he worked and and did that he had a job he liked sisters loved him parents adored him yes and he was happy he was a happy kid

like so many parents in their place the dollies say a factor in their son's depression and death was his smartphone a device designed to be so addictive that he couldn't put it down not even in the minutes before he died he still had it in his hand the phone that's how addicted he was he couldn't even kill himself without posting about it first and like the dollies it's often impossible for parents or anyone else to see that someone was so deep in despair that they'd consider taking their own

life Megan Markle has been there as she told Oprah Winfrey in 2021 look I was really ashamed to say it at the time and a sham to have to admit it to Harry especially um because I know how much loss he suffered mhm but I knew that if I didn't say it that I would do it and I I just didn't I just didn't want to be alive anymore

you had a an an experience that connects you to these these families and I see you touch your husband's hand in just the way I knew uh that you would be looking after each other if I went places but the connection that you have with people is they know you you had suffered too personally contemplating killing yourself is what suicidal ideation was and I'm I'm dancing around this because I see you're uncomfortable

with my even even going there do you I understand why you are though

I wasn't expecting it but I understand why you are because there is a a through line I think and when you've been through any level of pain or trauma I believe part of our healing Journey certainly part of mine is being able to be really open about it and I you know haven't really scraped the surface on my experience but I do think that I would never want someone else to feel that way and I would never want someone else to be making those sort of plans and I would never want someone else to not be believed so if me voicing what I have um overcome will save someone or asks or encourage someone in their life to really genuinely check in on them and not assume that the appearance is good so everything's okay then that's worth it I'll I'll take a hit for that

what does it this inperson Gathering was just for the launch the parents network will meet mostly online but group facilitator Leora wolf prusan says the important thing is what the group will talk about we're going to stop expecting you to be done with your grief in a year we're

going to to stop um telling you that we're tired of hearing the stories of Internet harm like we will say your kids' name over and over again cuz they existed and they mattered and that we know that it wasn't your fault that's it right it wasn't your fault this happened to you and now we as a community get to create something with you knowing that we're helping  thers and and even if that saves one kid and one family's heartache that's enough

these are some of the group's charter members Taj and Seline Swanson Jensen whose son Tanner died from an overdose of drugs pushed online England was the youngest of she was the young as 14 years old Brandy and Tony Roberts who lost their daughter England to suicide after online bullying and pear Mendoza whose son Eli died when a painkiller he bought online was actually a lethal dose of fentanyl

thank you for being here but I have to you know ask why would you do this why would you do this

simple answer so others don't have to live what we've lived and will continue to live I don't expect anything from anyone this is just a Labor of Love in honor of my son and all the other children that have lost their lives to fenel this is for the mother who cannot get out of bed for the dad that won't leave his house I stand here for them too I hope that one day when it's my turn to go home I'll see my son and he'll he'll tell me good job Mama

The idea here is that there is comfort and Power in numbers with the goal as Harry himself once said of turning pain into purpose and the two of you this is um it's a modest beginning you know it's not an army of parents no yet no um but

What are your Ambitions?

I think you have to start somewhere I think the simplest thing that anyone watching this or anyone who's able to make change to look at it through the lens of what if it was my daughter what if it was my son my son or my daughter who comes home who are joyful who I love and one day right under my roof our entire lives change because of something that was completely out of our control and if you look at it through the lens as a parent there is no way to see that any other way than to try to find a solution.

[mirai-desu]

On the MSATD News

I didn't have time to post a knee-jerk reaction (which those of you from the Downton days know I was apt to do - thank you to all my long term mutuals of my side blog for sticking with me through those days), as I saw the news as I was getting ready to head out for work and it's been… a bit of a day.

Suffice it to say… I am devastated. And my initial reaction was (well after cursing), that it should have ended with S4, but with a different (happier) conclusion. It's called Miss Scarlet AND THE DUKE for a reason. And after all that happened in S4… it really feels like… what was it all for?? Especially if they knew WHEN FILMING THIS?? "Goodbye for now" is NOT "goodbye forever." They really, really really fumbled this.

There's a lot of theories going around, and I will admit it's too hard for me to listen to Stuart's new interview, but going off what other's have said and the parts of the transcript I did manage to read… I just cannot feel like this was actually his decision unless there's something else going on with him (either in his personal life or maybe he has some secret role he's got, because supposedly he hasn't worked since he did ADR on S4). He's been the captain of the ship, and he has always been enthusiastic with discussing the show and had just great insight into playing William. It doesn't feel like he himself was ready to move onto other things (and that's not even how it's worded - some BS about how the show needed it him to be gone for ~longevity~ of the show), like I've seen with other actors are on shows (e.g. Dan Stevens). He still promoted S3 (which came out in the UK after they filmed S4), he still even promoted S4! He was an executive producer for S4!!! Nothing makes sense!

So if it's due to RN… why keep having the other characters say William was only going to be gone a year? Why bother to have the flashback? why bother to have him stay at at Eliza's to recover?? hell I'm surprised they just didn't keep in the coma then--

But really, why even bother to have Eliza write to him? Or have Ivy say what she said to her?? The time apart was supposed to be them looking at their options. They literally foreshadowed him joining Eliza at her agency upon his return. So… what happened?

If it was actually for personal reasons that Stuart left, he has a right to his privacy. But then they should have rewritten S4 to be the end then, since they knew all this time. I can't believe we are getting the full story on this, one way or the other. The more and more I think about it... I do think it was RN's doing though.

Just two nights ago I drafted up a whole meta extolling how one of the best things this show has done has been how they developed William and how he grew as a character. The progression he made as he not only accepted Eliza having a career but encouraging her. His mentorship of Fitzroy. How he came from nothing, from a teenager living on the streets, to become an inspector at Scotland Yard. But they have chosen to toss that all out the window.

Who knows, maybe S5 ends with Eliza deciding to go to New York. But it doesn't seem like they are handling this like Babington's absence in Sanditon. They will make Eliza quickly fall for someone else, and slap fans in the face who have been following their friends to lovers slow burn for five years (because we had to wait for S2 in the first place thanks to the pandemic). And what sucks is that we still got promo saying they are in love with each other. From Stuart, from Kate, from Rachael New herself. We have still gotten promo promoting the romance. Why not have them have a big fight then or something, idk. They gave us hope. And you know what Fellowes says about false hope.

So I'm just supposed to believe that William gives up on Eliza and doesn't return…? No, I cannot. As much as we hated the deaths on DA when they wrote out actors, at least those characters still died in love with their spouses. And while I'd still be foaming at the mouth in anger if they killed him off… yeah.

William's last lines of the show is a flashback including him saying "is it all worth it?" And the answer is… no it's not.

[chirpingfromthebox]

Post Game 5 press session with Taylor Heise

You can find the entire interview here! Be sure to go show them some love/views/likes/nice comments/etc for the work they put in making these so accessible for everyone.

I'm putting basically the whole thing in, or I guess I'm putting in all the questions at least. I did cut out all the bits where they were having issues with their mic setup and their occasional banter while doing so. But if you want to see and hear such exciting things as people fiddling with levels while Taylor reties her hair back and people swapping mics around and doing checks, you'll definitely want to check out the full thing.

Transcription under the break.

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[Taylor approaches the table and begins to sit down]

TAYLOR HEISE: I’ve never done this with my skates still on.

REPORTER: It’s a season of firsts.

TAYLOR: It really is. I would agree.

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REPORTER: Taylor Heise, PWHL champion, Walter Cup champion, Ilana Kloss MVP award winner. Just put into words us.

TAYLOR HEISE: It’s hard to. You know, I’ve been honored to be part of such an unreal organization that has had our backs since day one. It’s awesome to know that this is the only pro that I know. Coming out of college and making so many strides with, whether that be the league coming together as one right after I came out of college, not quite sure where I was gonna go. But this league came a part of an amazing time and people like Kendall Coyne, Hilary Knight, anyone that’s put together hours and hours and hours to have this be a thing. And I’m very honored to be a part of it. Because like I said, it’s the only thing I know. And I haven’t had to go through the grunge of, you know, the ice times in the morning and not getting to games, not having a place to play and practice. So I’m honored to be a part of this great group.

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REPORTER: Taylor, you’re the one voted MVP, but certainly a lot of big efforts from teammates tonight. Nicole Hensley, captain Kendall Coyne Schofield. Can we just get a few words about those around you and just how the entire team came together?

TAYLOR: Yeah, I’ve been ecstatic to play with Kendall and [Michela] Cava here the past few games.* Not to say that they’re the only ones that have done things, because we have had so many amazing performances from every single line on our team. And whether that comes from Liz [Scheper]’s first goal that Syd [Brodt] brought, having two really big- a big point and a big assist, big goal the other day. Nic [Hensley] playing a hell of a game- but you gotta look at Maddie Rooney too. She’s one of the ones that got us through to this point too. So both of them. And then we got Kendall, who’s not only the mom of the league, but the mom of the team. She’s someone who does everything and anything and somehow still has a child. Not really sure how she can do it all, but she does and she manages it quite well. And then Cava. I don’t know if everyone knows this but she’s a four-time champion. Back-to-back-to-back-to-back. She’s had MVPs at almost every single level. She coulda had this right now too. It’s our to share. She’s a special player. She’s someone I’ve been very honored to have played with. There’s so many amazing people on our team that deserve so many props. I couldn’t sit here and name everyone on our team, but we’re excited to go and have some fun here.

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REPORTER: Taylor, first of all, congratulations.

TAYLOR HEISE: Thank you.

R: Second thing, after Game 4, you come out of that, you think you’ve won.

TH: Yeah.

R: How do you mentally reset, come back into this one ready to play, ready to go, and then pull off the victory Away in front of a raucous crowd here at Tsongas Center?

TH: Yeah. I think they robbed us in Game 4 and we all felt that very, very much so. I think to have the feeling of being a champion taken from you is one of the worst things ever. I can’t say that that’s happened to me before, other than last time.

So I think we came into today knowing if we weathered the storm the first 10 minutes we were going to come out on top as long as we put the first goal in. You know, that’s what we did. We weathered the storm and we put the first goal in. So you look at both those things and I think we had a full team effort for today. We allowed, I think, 3 shots in an amount of 20 minutes at one point? It’s hard to win a game when you get 3 shots on net like that. We’re excited to continue this with this group, but it’s just a special moment and I’m excited to share it with the girls.

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REPORTER: Whirlwind year for you, Taylor. For you, to put it into perspective, Billie Jean King calling your name first overall pick, first MVP award winner.

TAYLOR: Yeah, you know, I’m not someone to make anything about me. I’ve never been like that. But you know, it’s a special moment. It’s something I’m going to chalk up to- you know, this [taps the MVP trophy] will sit, probably, in my basement somewhere. But I’m more excited about the group. I’m more excited that I get to live this life with this group of girls who has cared about me since day one. And I’ve known that they’ve had confidence in me and everything I can do. I think recently they’ve really stepped up and put their hand on my back, and made sure I knew that I was loved and cared for no matter what happens: points on the board or wins or losses.

But I just feel very loved and cared for by this group. And that’s something that we’re really happy and special to be a part of. And every team has had great years so far, but I think for us we just came out and gave everything we had at the end of the year. That’s playoff hockey. Being the fourth seed and coming in and not knowing where we were going to be at, is special.

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end of interview

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[tremendouskoalachild]

i lightly edited a transcript for this Leslye interview lol. spoilers to episode 5

So, my first question is kind of off the rails already, because I want to know what they tell you, at Lucasfilm. Because I know the dumbest argument that people have had about the show about Ki-Adi-Mundi and, here's the thing – it was deemed not canon anymore, and I know you also love a non-canon bitch, in Mara Jade. What is the deal with Lucasfilm and the stuff that was canon that is now no longer canon? How do they tell you what you can and cannot do with it?

Well, there's Pablo Hidalgo. So Pablo is always the person that I go to and say, “Hey, I'm thinking about doing this thing. I think it works for these narrative reasons, but you let me know – I know that in Legends it's this, and I know that in Canon it's this, but I'm not totally up to date in terms of how you guys feel about it as a studio. So I don't know what went on with Ki-Adi-Mundi, I heard there was some drama…

It’s the dumbest thing ever. It’s about his birthday.

(laughs) Is it really?

Yeah. But I was like, it's not canon anymore. I looked that up and I it was, like, in a card and all this stuff, but and I was like, listen, I know Leslye is like me and we love non-canon characters.

Yeah, non-canon canon is the best kind of canon. (laughs)

Like half of the characters I love, they're not canon anymore.

They're just- they're gone. They're gone. Jacen and Jaina, they're gone. Mara Jade's gone.

My twins… but speaking of twins. Twins are always a theme in Star Wars, which I do think is very cool that the show is like, yep, it's everywhere. Twins are just in Star Wars. When you guys were orchestrating Mae and Osha in the beginning and trying to navigate exactly how those two characters would function as twins, and also represent the light and the dark as the other twins have done in the past – kind of, Luke and Leia are the exception to the twin rule – but how did you guys navigate how that would all work? Because they're not exactly ‘here's the light and here's the dark’, they both kind of have that gray area.

That's so true. And it's definitely not a new trope to have the bad twin and the good twin, the light twin and the dark twin, and then they switch places and then they switch back… that's a pretty reliable way of telling a thematic story, utilizing twin characters. But I will say, to answer your question, so much of that was Amandla. As a writer, you know why you're doing something thematically, you can definitely justify especially a choice like that one, you can also definitely justify it character-wise, narratively wise, personally feeling bifurcated as a person, as a human, as a woman. You can make all of those choices, but somebody has to actually do it (laughs). And I felt like Amandla, when she understood the breadth of what she would be doing, dug so deep into both of the girls, early on deciding their walks, what their sort of animal familiar might be if they had one, deciding who was born first who was born second. Going into a bunch of really granular things that I was very impressed by, and I don't think the whole theme would work if her performance wasn’t as great as it is.

I love in Destiny where you see their differences the most, because when you see them when they're older they're more comfortable in themselves, and they're like, oh my sister is actually alive, that's crazy! And we don't see the tension that exists when we see them as kids. When you guys were working on making sure that those twins did have that energy so it played in. How did you navigate explaining all this to these young girls, being like, okay, eventually you're going to play these two who one thinks they're dead and it's a whole fight… but we have to understand it here in order for it to work when we see them reunited.

We were so lucky to have Leah and Lauren who are just both so gifted and so natural. And obviously whenever you put a kid actor in Star Wars your heart worries for them (laughs). Even as we were doing the auditions I was like, what am I doing to these young women? But I think that we really lucked out. We really needed them more than they needed the job, I think. Because, like you said, we needed natural, brilliant, talented – now I sound like that Lady Gaga meme – not afraid to reference or not reference, vomit on it put it in a blender. So that was how I directed them, by just quoting that lady Gaga- No. K directed them, Kogonada directed them, and he was so wonderful with guiding their performances.

Because they're young girls, but they're also twins, they already have that natural connection with each other and also friction with each other, and then their personalities are so distinct, because I think that's what happens with sisters as well, twins or not. My closest in age sister and I, just over a year is between us, and we almost felt like twins sometimes, because we always shared a room and all that. So, so much of my personality is in reaction to hers. But it's interesting that you asked about that too, because we decided to cast fraternal twins not just because Leah and Lauren were so great, but I actually auditioned several identical twins. I cut them together when making the decision, and with identical twins it was very difficult to tell them apart, to really track those types of performances that you're talking about, the differentiation between the two of them.

So it was one of those things that I was like, okay, we do have this adult actor playing both roles, but if we don't have this differentiation between the two of them, I'm not sure we're going to understand how important the differences between them are. And that's something an adult actor can do, especially if they're a genius like Amandla (laughs), I think it's harder for child actors, to emulate two separate performances. When they're in the same room with each other, and they already have the experience of being twins and they already have the experience of, most twins in Hollywood, they're playing the same character, they're being switched out. They're used to doing exactly what the other twin did.

So, long-winded answer, but that's really all the stuff that went into it. It was very difficult to navigate and it was really hard and I'm really grateful that I had the actors that did, that I had Kogonada, that I had Jen Bryan. I could talk about it forever. So many acting choices were made, but so many character design choices were made as well to differentiate the girls in in their adulthood, as well.

That was my favorite thing about episode five. When Mae cuts her hair and I'm like, girl, you still got that thing on your forehead! You move your hair and-

They could just move your hair! They could just move and they'd be like, huh. It plays out very interestingly in the next episode. I will say I don't know if it was the greatest idea but she was definitely…

She was thinking, I got this. And I'm like, do you though?

We’ll put it this way, she was thinking emotionally.

She was thinking emotionally, Bazil's like, here I come!

Yeah. Bazil's like, I got it.

I got a lot of tweets from episode five, people were just sending me a bunch of screenshots, and one of them was like, I hope Pip comes back! or something. And I was like, he's there! Bazil picked him up! (laughs)

I was well aware, because I was like, well, my favorite character is dead, which is a Wookiee. And so I was like, I'm going to follow the other furry little thing around.

It's not the last time you see him, though. It's not the last time you see Kelnacca, so.

Good! Because I love a Wookiee, they're my favorite characters in all of Star Wars. And I was like, cool, this one's a Jedi. And then he died.

Off-screen death, the worst kind of death.

The first time I watched that episode, I was like, oh great, Kelnacca is coming back the next episode. Because me and my roommate fully had missed that Kelnacca was dead in the chair (Leslye cackles) and then I was like, oh he is gone. I was like, I missed that he was sitting in the chair.

He's not- He's dead. He's dead. He's dead, baby. He's dead. I was so- well, I won't bore you with that story, but yeah.

You did lead up to episode five which, most shows, you have to give them time to grow, and this one really did grow in a way that, like… I sent you this, but my brother called me on the phone after having a baby to talk to me about Manny Jacinto's arms. (Leslye cackles) He was very team ‘the Master’s going to be Manny Jacinto’.

Yes!

And I was like, I think it's gonna be one of their moms, or it's gonna be this, and then he was like, no, I'm 100% Manny Jacinto. And then, as soon as I saw the arms I was like, damn. My brother was correct.

Baby!

The “reveal” of Manny was interesting. Working on the show there were several writers, cast, crew all like, we've got to preserve the surprise. This is a big reveal here. And I was like, I just feel like as a fan, if you announce that cast - which we did back like two years ago or whatever - if I see Manny Jacinto as third on the call sheet, basically I'm like, secret bad guy! I don't even need to know what the log line to the show is. I'm like, oh, right, the secret bad guy. He'll be secret bad guy, and something else will happen, we'll see how it goes down.

But because the central mystery of the show is much more about Sol and Osha's relationship or Sol's relationship to the twins, the reveal of the Master Mae served, to me, was basically a – I don't want to say a red herring, but essentially it was like the ‘sub-mystery’ I guess. So that you would get in this space as a viewer, specifically a Star Wars fan, and think, oh, they want me to care about this for several more episodes. And it's like, no, we're just going to do it now. So he can murder these people. To me, preserving the surprise was not very important. What was important to me was preserving the character design. That was the thing that I was very concerned about getting out, what Manny looked like once you saw him.

Because he's inspired by this character, Drunken Cat in Come Drink With Me, which I think I said in another interview. And in that movie, you know something’s up with this guy. They're not looking for a master so it's a little bit different, but you know what's going on with this guy. There's another story going on with Golden Swallow and all this other stuff, but when he reveals himself, you're like, that's a different fucking person. His role is not a huge surprise, but… that's a different guy. And I didn't realize that Manny was going to be as groundbreaking to me. I knew he was a great actor, I just didn't realize until I watched him play the character the way he did. And he really built that character from the ground up. It's a very mysterious character on paper, so much of him is a secret, even his name is not Qimir. So it wasn't like Amandla, who had the whole season, had all the scripts to really understand, chart this character arc etc. etc. Manny was sort of dropped into the middle of this story and told, okay, now you have to take over the story, good luck!

It's crazy because I saw so many people, and I was one of them, just yelling Bortles! and everyone was talking about how he went from Jason Mendoza to the hot Star Wars baddie. And I love that we do get to still see him. Because the Master was just like, let me say this thing about the Acolyte on a beach, and then I'm going to be here in the woods. But then we see the human that is that kind of darkness, when he's fixing Osha and healing her when she's laying in the woods. I was like, oh, this is very almost Scorpio-y because he's revenge-driven more than just being like, I'm evil in the darkness. When you were working on – not the killings and not Jecki dying in the worst possible way, or a neck break – was it important for you guys to highlight that he's still a dude, very clearly something happened that turned him into this, and it's not evil for evil’s sake?

Absolutely. He always had to feel like he was operating from – I want to say a human place, although that's a strange word to use in Star Wars, but for the sake of the answer from a human place. Meaning that as a human audience member you would be able to follow and relate with, maybe not the murder, but you could definitely relate with what he's saying, you know? When he says ‘I want freedom’ they're like, well, yeah, how can you not want that? When he says ‘the reason I'm doing this is because you say I can't exist’ it's a very almost countercultural idea. I rewrote that scene so many times. When I finally got ‘you brought her here’ I was like, thank you Jesus!

It's so important what first few lines this person says, so that, exactly what you're saying, you just get locked into his point of view as a character, not a bad guy. And I felt him saying ‘you brought her here’ tells you almost everything that you need to know about the character. Which is like, yes I'm brutal, yes I just did something unforgivable, but you brought her here. You recruit children and you train them and you bring them into situations that they shouldn't be in, and now you're mad at me. Just putting it out there that possibly that could be the case. So he ended up being essentially very anti-establishment, which is obviously what the rebels are and the Resistance is in Star Wars normally. But once I locked into like, oh right, he's the voice of the counterculture of this era… which is why it's so important to go through those first four episodes. Because I think if you don't know what this world of Star Wars, the High Republic, is like, which we haven't seen in live action, you have to understand that the Jedi are not the Jedi that they are in the prequels. They're not the Jedi that they are pre- and post-Battle of Yavin. They're just in a different space, where they're operating with less oversight, and they're also operating with, I think, a little more hubris. Like, of course we're doing the right thing, this is how we've always done it and that's the right thing.

Of course, when we’re seeing them on Brendok and seeing how they negotiate the issue with the witches and how children may be recruited by them… if I can sort of unpack it I'm assuming that the idea was that parents give up their children almost as an act of public service. Like, we have a Force-sensitive child, they would be better with you guys, to train etc. etc. But I think if, like mother Aniseya and like Manny's character, they don't align their beliefs with the Jedi – and I'm assuming that there are some Force-users that don't – would they see children going to the Jedi as a good thing? I don't know. Just, to me, it was important that the audience understood all of that. That there's this whole other way of looking at this world that isn't Qui-Gon getting Anakin out of a horrible situation so that he can become a Jedi, so it's a positive-coded transition, to, well, maybe that was a really positive situation, but perhaps there were other ones that were not. And did the Jedi learn from that and when they did learn from that is that why when Anakin shows up they're like, he's too old to train, we can't, we've learned that this doesn't work. I don't know, those were the things that I was interested in. And killing Carrie-Anne off, so much of that was about, just get ready because the Jedi are going to take some Ls and people are going to die. And especially Jedi who have experienced interactions with Sith on this show are going to die, so. Spoiler alert.

People are dying.

People are dead. (laughs)

For my last question I have to ask because we are now set up with two different pairings off on whatever together.

Oh yeah, we flipped mentors.

Because Mae is with Master Sol and Osha is with Qimir. But also, I probably looked way too into it, but I was like, well, something happened with Sol and Qimir, because he said the line, like, you didn't know? And I'm sure he was talking about when they met before, but I'm thinking it's so much deeper than that. What can you tease of all these pairings and what happens in the future, that's not like ‘here's everything happens the next week’?

Well, what I can say about Manny's character and Osha is that he's looking for an acolyte, a pupil. I think it's pretty clear after this episode that he sees potential in Osha, Osha obviously being Force-sensitive, not having trained but, in the Sith world, is there a difference? We don't know much about their policies on training we know a little bit with Tyrannus and Ventress and stuff, we know a little bit but most of the time those are people that started as Jedi, as Osha did. So the question then becomes, is he going to be able to turn her in some way? So I'll tease that. But I don't even think that's a tease, I think it's something that if you're watching just very clear that's the next step. But what I can tease about it is that I was always really hit by Obi-Wan's line in A New Hope when he says Vader was seduced by the dark side. That made me feel weird, because I was a kid, and I didn't really understand what that word meant, and then later when I did I was like, what's he talking about? So with the way that someone has turned to the dark side or someone joins the Sith to me it's all about seduction, it's all about appealing to the part of that person or the thing that person wants the most. With Anakin it was to save his wife, it was to stop the suffering of the person he loved more than anything in the world more than his own self. That's why it's so tragic. He put her over so much stuff that he couldn't see the forest for the trees. And with Mae it was revenge. Manny was definitely feeding into, well, if you want revenge then come with me and you can do that. So Osha is going to be a different tactic, like, what does Osha want? And what would her present moral code crumble under if she was offered? And I think for Osha it's something more emotional, and I think if you've been watching the show close enough, I think you'll know where that's headed. And I think with Mae and Sol it's just- Well, I'll just put it this way. Sol is a very powerful Jedi. I don't think he's totally in the dark about who's on that ship with him, that’s what I’ll say. (laughs)

She thinks she's pulling a fast one. I was like, I don't think you're pulling a fast one.

Let's see how that works out, let's see how that works out for you, baby.

But again, I think nodding your head to something and saying, yeah this is what's gonna happen, like Manny's reveal, it's not the tease as much as it's the execution. How we're going to do that, not what are we going to do. I feel like in a post-spoilers consumption age it becomes, you know… that's where you get the ‘subverting expectations’ and the ‘don't tell me anything’ and ‘blow my mind’. There's so many things that people have sent me who work on the show, so many fan theories where I'm like, yeah, that's exactly correct. I'm not then going to pivot and be like, no no no that's not what happens! People have guessed stuff that I'm like, yeah if we get a season two that is exactly what happens. Yes, you are correct. But to me, I'm like, that's because I did my job, not because I left the secret out. If you're engaging with the story and you're starting to see where it's going and whether you're excited about that direction or not, that's not my business. (laughs)

Quickly, as you’ve said, because now you've teased me and I want to know more, that Kelnacca is not dead. Or he's dead but I'll see him again.

He’s coming back, yeah.

You have all these characters that, you know, we watched Carrie-Anne die but that was not the last time we saw Carrie-Anne Moss, and they do come back. When you were planning the process of killing these characters off, were the flashbacks always where you're going to see where these Jedi really shined and why they were on this mission and powerful together?

Absolutely. I think that there was a big movie that we thought of a lot with Three Kings that we talked about a lot in the writers’ room in terms of building a similar narrative with those Jedi. When you're in an age of proliferation of that many Jedi, and those Jedi are all over the galaxy doing different types of missions, some exciting some not, the idea that there would be constant oversight of all of those missions seemed unlikely to me. Even with very powerful Force-sensitive people it’s just, when something gets that big, how can you really contain it?

So I think that's why you see what you are going to see, that it was always meant to be a season that was about what has happened between Sol and Osha, and what has happened between the Jedi and this coven that they interacted with. Manny's character is a really fun reveal within the midst of all of that but as we were building the season it felt like the real mystery was, again, we know they did something, she's murdering them. So we already know that, so the question is how, what happened? It's not, oh wow, you didn't see that coming!

But as we're going back to your question about the Twins and the theme of that you're going to see two sides of almost every character. Almost every character has two sides, as we know. That's all what all Star Wars is about. There's light and dark in everybody, and it's all about the balance of that. And in my opinion the High Republic is a world that's out of balance. There's just too many Jedi and they may be balanced individually but their power is not. And so it was always the plan to hold as much detail about what had gone on with these Jedi that Mae is hunting, to hold that off for as long as possible. That was always the plan. And I do think it's kind of fun to have people like yourself be like, they killed Kelnacca? and then be like, baby, we got to. We got to.

[help-me-find-a-name-please-lol]

CM HOTCH/REID HEADCANONS

My headcanon about Hotch leaving in Season 12, Reid's reaction, and trying to have it make some kind of sense.

Disclaimers:

This is the first rewatch of the later seasons I've done since it aired on TV, and I've only just finished Season 12 episode 4 (I do, however, know the early seasons ridiculously well).

From LDSK onwards, I only ever really watched it for Hotch, Reid, and the Hotch/Reid dynamic. I didn't really watch it after Hotch left, but caught bits and pieces because my roomates did.

Yes I know why Thomas Gibson left the show and why they had to suddenly wrap up his character. No, I don't condone violence in the workplace. I also never dove deeply into the behind-the-scenes lore of this show, cast and crew interviews, etc etc. This will purely be relating to the show as it was depicted on screen, and my love for the characters as their own entities.

I am not going back to fully source which eps all my observations come from, cos I'm supposed to be working on an assignment rn and CM transcripts are a ducking nightmare. I just wanted to put this idea out there cos I think we all need a bit of self-soothing after the crap they fed us to write Hotch out of the show.

Also fun story I just came back to finish writing this after being interrupted by what I though was someone trying to break into my house at 4am (heard a noise, gate wide open, can't see anyone but damn, scary. My town's big on crime, too). SO my thoughts may now be even more disorganised thanks to the adrenaline crash headache I'm currently experiencing.

So anyway like I said, just finished watching S12E04 Keeper, during which Reid gets a call we don't hear, is visibly upset by it, and takes a bit of prodding to discuss it with JJ and Rossi. He then reveals that he was just told his mother left her care facility on her own and was found wandering confused around a casino. He takes minimal convincing to head back to Quantico and lines himself up another couple of days off to visit his mum (yes I'm Australian, this is how we spell it lol).

MY HEADCANON: This is when Hotch called Reid to tell him that he was going into witness protection and wouldn't be coming back. (Exactly how much was discussed on the phone vs possibly being discussed/explained later in person is of course open to interpretation, but enough for Reid to know Hotch wanted to say goodbye and to not tell the rest of the team).

I know that his mum's issues are an ongoing valid storyline. But this is why it was also a plausible excuse for Reid to come up with on the spot as to why he was upset.

Another thing that makes it entirely plausible that the phone call was about Hotch is the long, significant staring Reid did at Prentiss as she walked away after they discuss what supposedly happened with his mum. To me that could scream that Reid was actually dealing with something team-related, and was already grieving how it would affect the other members of his team that he's keeping it from. He could have gazed down or elsewhere to communicate his worry for his mum to the audience, but he specifically turned and watched Prentiss leave, looking all angsty.

What's a heck of a lot less plausible:

His mum, who has been in care since Reid became a legal adult, suddenly escaping her care facility, despite having been in care for well over a decade and who now needs even more supervision due to Alzheimer's on top of her Schizophrenia. Yeah, escapes happen, but to make it all the way into a casino and being found in a confused state? When this didn't happen before Reid flew up and got her diagnosed her with Alzheimers? Even though she'd been getting some increased freedoms for doing well on her new meds prior to her sudden worsening with the Alzheimer's onset?

Hotch leaving without saying something directly to Reid first. Yeah, I'm a shipper, and I know Hotch has his son to think about, but I call BULLSHIT. Hotch knows all about Reid's abandonment issues and there is no way he'd want to end up on the same mental list Reid keeps alongside Reid's father and Gideon. When Gideon went AWOL, Hotch returned from suspension, despite the fight he knew it would cause with his wife, because "the team" needed him. Then Haley stressed "no, they need Gideon". Fully believe this was all just about Reid (I also kinda low-key believe Haley had an inkling about Hotch's thing for Reid but anyway). Hotch, Reid and Morgan functioned as a team while Gideon was on leave after the bomber case, Morgan didn't even really want Gideon to come back and would not have been that thrown by his absence. Reid however we all know was very emotionally-involved. And it's Reid that Hotch pulls aside to get his head back in the game (and who then gives them a breakthrough in the case shortly after, at Hotch's encouragement). When Gideon had officially left and Hotch addressed the team about it, he mostly directed what he was saying towards Reid, when he said that he couldn't explain why he'd left the way he did, etc. And when Hotch was trying to decide whether he'd take over as section chief after Strauss left, again he was addressing the team but pretty much turned and spoke directly to Reid when he said something along the lines of "if I decide to leave the BAU, you'll be the first to know". He also saw how much it killed Reid to be lied to about Prentiss (and you can see he felt like shit about it during Reid's assessment). This man. Would NOT. Have left Reid without saying goodbye. That's the hill I'm dying on. On top of that, Hotch is always the most emotionally-compromised whenever Reid is in danger, and he knows it (he let Gideon know he was currently a terrible example of "handling things emotionally" while Reid was being held by Hankel, resulting in Gideon's weak reassurance of "We'll get him"; when Reid got on that train with Elle he tried to stop it then immediately went to chat with the sniper; when Reid was in the cult compound he had to hand off negotiations to Rossi; when Reid was protecting Owen Savage; heck he practically yeeted Morgan out of the way when Reid was trying to talk down Maeve's stalker and they heard a gunshot. Etc etc.). And whenever Hotch gets emotionally affected by other things (eg that defence attorney for amnesia/coma guy, or regarding his brother), Reid is the one who can break through that and keep him steady. Reid is VERY IMPORTANT to Hotch and I don't see him hurting Reid in what to him is the worst way someone could do it.

Reid being so chill about Hotch suddenly leaving without saying goodbye. Goes without saying, yeah? But I'll say it. I get that they've been trying to paint him as more emotionally-mature and that he was able to handle Morgan leaving, but it is SO not the same relationship or circumstance and Reid would not have taken Hotch's departure in stride like that. I get that they also wanted the show and its characters to move on as quickly and as apparently unaffected as possible, but it still clearly flies in the face of proper characterisation. Reid is brilliant and back when he was being held by Hankel, I'm sure he could have found any number of ways to communicate with a specific team member at that moment, but he chose Hotch. He knew Hotch would be the only one capable of putting his ego aside at being "picked to die" and to listen properly to the rest of Reid's message. Once he confirmed that his message was correct and that he was in a cemetery, Reid was so sure that Hotch understood his message and would be coming to save him that he let his guard down for the first time. I think he only picked up that gun and shot Hankel with it in the end to just superstitiously make sure that the bullet never did reach Hotch (and to "free" Tobias, or whatever. Either way Hankel wasn't going for the gun or to use Reid as a shield when he turned to face off with the FBI and any of them could have taken him down easily). They've only been getting closer and closer over the years, on-screen and off (Fist-bump anyone? Always standing close together? Plus Reid's been teaching Jack magic tricks and was the one to get him smiling and laughing after Hotch got arrested by SWAT, which you know would make Hotch even more gooey for him). They're 100% an army of 2/hyper-competent power couple (take for instance the way Hotch and Reid were mirrored against Garcia and Kevin when she referred to her own pairing as the President and Vice-President after the bank blew up?) who can probably achieve 90% of the team's success level on their own. That super-serial-killer chick may have talked about Reid losing a "protector" in Morgan, but Hotch has always been the one Reid has come to or looked to. He was pretty distraught about the idea of Hotch leaving to be Section Chief, not that long ago, too. Also, constant super-crush behaviour which I could list but this post is already very long. Reid would not just immediately go "Prentiss is our leader now, this'll be great!". FFS.

Anyway we all know the way they wrote Hotch off was bullshit, hence the suuuper-long monologue to explain everything that's apparently happened off-screen, and yeah he'd totally enter WITSEC without even telling the team (until he decided to resign) when Peter Lewis had already hacked it once and killed the person on it before the team figured out who he was after and got there 🙄. All of it is super implausible. But to me, nothing more so than Reid's poor imitation of shock/surprise and almost total lack of emotional reaction. Him knowing beforehand, because Hotch already said goodbye to him, is the only thing that will ever make me be at peace with this crap from an in-universe POV.

This could all be shot to pieces in the next ep lol, but for now I'm just glad my brain has a way to make sense of it.

[filipinfodump]

I was able to get the story from the woman who works for us who I will call Ka-J. and I had some interesting things come up from similar aswang stories I had read before. Here's some of the highlights of the story while I try to work on the transcript maybe for the next few days:

Aswangs could possess people and would often do so for selfish and even petty reasons. The possessed person was possessed for such a petty and miniscule reason that I'm honestly so perplexed. She possessed the woman because she... smelled good???? Like girl WHAT???? Just ask for her perfume brand or her laundry detergent brand holy shit

They fear holy items like crosses and rosaries. The possessed person from the story was cutting up rosaries and that's what primarily gave the aswang away.

The aswang could make the person's voice change. The possessed person was speaking at a strange tone extremely unfamiliar to her children.

The aswang may speak different languages, maybe unintelligible to the average person. I asked if it was in Latin or whatever stereotypical thing, but Ka-J said she could not determine that.

When the aswang was asked "Where did you come from? Above or below?", the aswang answered that she was "From below." implying that aswang do come from hell at least from this one incident.

The aswang exorcism didn't fully work the first time around so they had to do it twice. After the first instance, she was apparently worse.

They dislike calamansi which is something I've seen in some sources. This was done as an emergency way to freak out the aswang.

Folk healers could exorcise the aswang out of the person. Sometimes they may need the assistance of multiple healers. Ka-J. had told me that there were up to 7 to 8 healers during the final exorcism.

Some other interesting bits from the story that was told to me after or are things that seem just a little interesting to not add in but didn't fit the rest of the list:

The folk healers used an item she called "saway" (Note that Ka-J. is Bisaya but considering this takes place locally here, they probably call it a different name in the Tagalog region). She describes it as a brown (stick?) thing with a thorn attached. She says that there's a bit of gold on the item and when it pricks the aswang, the wound doesn't heal. I don't know what this item is, but it's similar to some stories I read where they would use certain tree branches or the buntot pagi (stingray tail) to injure the aswang.

The aswang was apprently a 50-year-old aswang woman. Very specific thing to have come from the exorcism. Besides that, she also gave her name and her "earth address" but Ka-J has forgotten what these were but it's probably pretty local.

One of the folk healers have a YouTube channel where he uploads the cases he handles. I had the displeasure of finding one of the videos and it is genuinely disturbing. It was just a woman crying but there was something eerie about it. I may not investigate further and I'm not going to link it here not only because of its disturbing nature, but this would essentially probably doxx me and I don't want these poor people's faces floating around because of my post.

I will try to get to actually transcribing + translating the short interview from the recording in maybe a couple of days. I think I may need to take a short break though since I feel a little uneasy after hearing and watching all that.

[harpersplay]

Some key parts of the video (any errors are from my quick transcription):

Cait Corrain did an interview, an exclusive interview, with The Daily Beast and wanted to reiterate that she is not in fact racist at all and she goes into this in-depth explanation of how she is not racist.

I'm going to preface this with a couple of things. As someone who struggles with mental health […] I don't want this video to come off to say that whatever mental health issues Cait has are not real.

The thing that I think I struggled with while reading this—because I did read it trying to be taken in as much good faith as possible—is Cait saying that it was just a mere coincidence (transcriber note: in the article, Cait actually uses the phrases "sheer, awful coincidence” and "unfortunate coincidence") that she picked out books by authors of color. I don't know how that's a mere coincidence based off of how GoodReads already functions.

People are going to look at this and say where she was struggling with her mental health. I respect that. But what I struggle with sometimes as someone who does have mental health issues and is a Black woman. Like, I don't get to weaponize my mental health for being a complete ass to another group of people. I don't have the luxury of doing that and I feel like that's where white women have that advantage.

Just because you know that someone is struggling doesn't mean that you can't do them harm. Just because you yourself are part of a marginalized community does not mean that you cannnot do another marginalized community wrong. We need to get that out of our our heads completely.

The article goes further and states that at one point she woke up the next day and realized that she had created GoodReads accounts but refused to delete them because she didn't want to face the fact that she needed help. So you knew that this was happening because, granted yes, I understand you were having periods of blackouts. But you knew that you had done this. You knew that you were actively harming people. You didn't delete the accounts.

I've been in this position. Sometimes when you do wrong there's not an excuse or an explanation that you can give that's going to justify the behavior. This is one of those situations where it's, "I did wrong. I accept responsibility. And I need to do some self-healing. I need to work on myself." Not continuously try to reframe things, trying to do press control, trying to do damage control, trying to control social media so that you're not seen as the villain in this narrative. You are the villain in this narrative and it happens to all of us. Not at the scale that you are at but all of us have been the villain to someone's story at some point. You have created so much harm to these authors. It doesn't matter what story you put out at this point the damage is done. These authors have had to delete their GoodReads accounts. These authors have been permanently damaged for your action.

I want to emphasize once again I do not deny that Cait has mental health issues. I do not deny that. I can't in good faith do that because I have been in that situation. But there's also a certain sense of lack of accountability in this situation […] Take responsibility and move on and stop trying to flip this in a way that you are getting sympathy for the situation the way that it happened and now you want people to to feel sorry for you because you have mental health struggles and you want people to not perceive you as being racist. You don't want people to perceive you as being bigoted but what you did was a very bigoted and racist thing.

I can't take this as justification. I can't even take this as an explanation. I genuinely can't. I feel like, you know, you can say: "I've had mental health issues. The behavior that I did was wrong and I need time to reflect and get my life together." And that is it. But putting out this whole narrative where it ultimately feels like, you know, "oh I want to tell my side of the story." There is no explaining this away.

PLEASE watch the entire video. It is so good and I honestly would have transcribed the entire thing if I had the time. Weaponised white feminity/fragility is a real issue and we need to talk about it. It is not only antithetical to intersectional feminism. It also keeps white women trapped as these infantile people who will break if they have to take accountability for their actions. The patriarchy wants this idea to thrive because it makes room for the good, brave white men to protect their innocent women from the big scary reality of the world. A gilded cage is still a cage, y'all.

(I came across some contradictory information regarding if Cait Corrain uses she and they pronouns or she or they pronouns. Since this article—that appeared in a publication Cait chose to give an exclusive interview to—consistently uses "she," I have as well. The article has been up about 2 weeks as of this post and I think Cait would have called for a correction by now if unhappy being referred to that way.)

[astrovian]

Interview with Richard Armitage on Obsession in TV Guide

"I had been approached quite late in the day, and, I think, a little nervously, because it was going to be quite a challenging role, emotionally and physically," admits Richard Armitage about starring in this erotic thriller alongside Charlie Murphy and Indira Varma.

"That made it more intriguing. When people go, 'We're not sure whether this is going to be a bit risqué for you,' I'm like, 'Bring it on'."

Full/continued transcript under cut

"I read the scripts and the book [Damage by Josephine Hart, which was adapted for a 1992 movie starring Jeremy Irons] and thought this is a psychological journey that has a kind of human quality to it, which is the thing that you can't imagine yourself doing. Yet if this does happen to you, what choice do you make?

I don't think I ever experienced that kind of intensity that this character is going through. I don't have an answer to how I would respond. So I thought, 'Oh, that's a really interesting role to take on'."

We're meeting Richard at Netflix's London HQ to discuss the four-part series about erotic obsession.

He plays famous paediatric surgeon William Farrow, who's happily married to successful lawyer Ingrid (Indira Varma). But sparks fly when he meets his son Jay's (Rish Shah) fiancée Anna Barton as they embark on a forbidden affair which increasingly involves BDSM (Bondage Dominance Sado-Masochistic) sex. Anna sets the rules and is convinced she can keep both relationships going, while also harbouring a secret from her own past.

"It's a mutual obsession - she's very much in control. Anna's the one who sets up the game. She is the one giving permission for everything that happens between them.She is presenting a roadmap of how to escalate their physical relationship, because it goes on quite an intense journey. She's in control, but he is a willing participant."

Richard didn't know Charlie, who plays Anna, beforehand, and the pair spend time with an intimacy co-ordinator working on their characters' erotic encounters. So were the love scenes some of the toughest in Richard's career?

"I have to say, my fear of water probably peaks everything else. So the underwater scenes in Captain America and the waterboarding in Spooks, they're moments where you are physically terrified.

This was different. Being on a closed set with a screen partner naked, the first time you do it, it feels a little bit unusual, but you become used to each other. And of course, that's the job of the intimacy co-ordinator, to make it all work well and everyone feel comfortable. So after a while, you're just working without clothes on. But making sure you're focusing on the what the two characters are doing and how they're doing it - you're finding a pathway through a complex map, I suppose."

Meanwhile, playing a husband who betrays his family had a lasting effect.

"There was a real overwhelming sense of guilt that I was carrying around with me for quite a long time. After filming, I went to see Indira in a play, The Seagull, and I could hardly look her in the eye when I met her for a drink afterwards. I still felt the shame of what William had done to Ingrid, to the point where I was going red in the face.

It's weird how you can carry that around with you because you've been invested in a character, and you've tried to become them, so I felt as if I was still the person having this illicit affair."

[brown-little-robin]

going to visit parents & adopted uncle & aunt for the weekend. is this a wise decision, given how much work I have to do? NO. Will it be good to see them? YES.

[procrastinatorproject]

Massive Picard Season 2 Spoilers Ahead

So the latest episode of The Ready Room, the Star Trek recap show hosted by Wil Wheaton, had a preview of Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard. It's interviews with all of the main actors and they explain in some detail where they're characters are at at the beginning of season 2.

It puts a lot of shots from the trailers in perspective and I have a lot of thoughts that I want to share, but because this is a very, very explicit spoilery preview, I'm putting both the video and my initial reaction under the cut.

Anyone in the US (or with a decent VPN): You can find the full Ready Room episode on the Paramount+ youtube page, but I'm not going to link it here, because, youk know, tumblr 😋

[The relevant section from the Ready Room. I will upload a transcript once I'm done transcribing the other trailers, but it might be a few more days.]

Hoooooo boy :D That is a lot of information right there.

Right off the bat: Raffi and Picard are back in Starfleet. This isn't a big surprise, we've known this since some of the earliest trailers for season 2. But it's still nice to see. Picard is apparently president of the Academy, which I think is a good role for him. He's always had a teacher-vibe about him, and I think he'll strive in the assignment.

And Raffi being a teacher is going to be very cool to see. I imagine she cares deeply about her students but can get a bit distracted on tangents 🤣

Elnor is now a cadet, which is actually pretty exciting. I'm wondering how that'll play with his issues about not fitting in. He's the first full Romulan cadet, after it came out the Zhat Vash were responsible for the Attack on Mars and had infiltrated Starfleet on really deep levels. I wonder if people are willing to differentiate enough to acknowledge that this plot by the Zhat Vash cost more Romulans than Federation citizens their lives, so the average Romulans really shouldn't be held responsible, or if Elnor is going to face more discrimination and alienation. I really hope he finds his place, the kid deserves a break!

Now, the parts I'm not super sure how to feel about are Seven as captain of La Sirena 😅 I love that she's back with the rangers and that Rios gave her his ship so she can fight pirates. But... it feels so much like Rios's ship! And she deactivated all the holos but Emmet 🙈

Like... I get it, filming Santiago Cabrera in multiples must be exhausting, and I do love me some Emmet action! He's amazing! (And I didn't expect we'd see any of the holos at all in season 2, so getting a glimpse of Emmet right at the start is GLORIOUS!) But it feels weird for Rios not to be on La Sirena somehow. They are just so joined together in my head...

And I know he'll be back as soon as we get to the Q shenanigans, but still. Not sure how I feel about this 😅

Also Seven and Raffi seem to be starting the season in a bit of a rough place... I liked they're dynamic in No Man's Land, how they're both clashing because they're very similar in a lot of ways, they're both strong and stubborn. I wonder how going on this wild adventure together will work out for them. It might be really interesting.

Soji and Agnes on a diplomatic tour sounds like fun, though! It makes sense for them (and Picard, though they might not have advertised his synth-ness?) to be building goodwill for the synths, after everything that has happened. I can't wait to see their dynamic and how they work together to convince the people of their cause.

(I also like that this explains what the Soji shots from the trailer are about. Though it's fascinating to see in the interview that Isa Briones seems to have cut her hair. That makes some things from the trailers even more intriguing XD)

And Rios is captain of the U.S.S. Stargazer. I'm... honestly torn 🙈 On the one hand: he deserves this as a form of... redemption is the wrong word, he didn't do anything wrong. But it seems like an indication that he has forgiven himself and is starting to move on (though I do hope they're not going with "getting an explanation has instantly healed him from ten years of PTSD", because boy is that not how that works 🙈 But I won't worry about that before I see it.)

And Agnes and Rios on the bridge are ADORABLE! Also: Seven and Picard are coming on board the Stargazer. This also explains where all those Starfleet scenes from the trailers are happening - which does not bode well for the ship, actually.

So. In Conclusion.

good grief, I don't know how I feel about this 😅🙈

So many cool things! Agnes and Soji being diplomats! Cadet Elnor! Picard and Raffi teaching at the academy! Emmet!!!

And so many difficult things... Sirena is no longer Rios's ship. The interviews, which I imagine were filmed recently, are staged on Sirena - and she's still painted grey. Which crushes any hope I might have had that she will actually return to her old state post-time travel, and that breaks my heart a little, I'm not going to lie. When I saw the shots of Seven having a fight on the ship and she still had her red paint, I really hoped that was indicative of a return to normal after season 2, but I think I should go back to very carefully not having any expectations...

Ah well. Nothing to do but wait and see, I suppose.

At least a lot of my trailer speculations are now confirmed and I can talk about them in a lot more concrete terms 😋

What are y'all's reactions to all of these revalations?

[godwithwethands]

Wait what's that about Anna-Louise Plowman being the reason for Cliff Simon taking the role on SG1?

Hahaha well I'm kinda exaggerating what Cliff said during that interview.

I transcripted it for you. (I did my best with it, the quality's not the best at all and English is not my first language so sorry if there are any mistakes/things I misunderstood!)

(also have some gifs because he's so cute during that itv)

_______________________

About 05.15 Summit:

Cliff: Who I've met before was the character of Yu.

Interviewer: Vince!

Cliff: Vince. He's a great guy, and um... I watched how he'd been playing Yu, for quite a while. And I thought, that is not how Ba'al can be. He cannot be like that. And... When he first walked into the room and he was talking to Daniel about "this one's done that, this one's done that" and then he got to Ba'al, "and this one's done that".

And then when we all sat down and um.. forgot the character's name now... Ummmumumumumm... The Girl.

Interviewer: Osiris.

Cliff: Osiris! Osiris walked in and then I thought, straight away, I have to start to play the sexual... thing of it, straight away! It just hit me! Because none of the others were doing it!

And I thought, you know what? I-- This is what I have to do! And I just felt it, I just felt it was the character, it was pretty weird! And I played it and I started smiling, started doing my thing... And it came across, completely! I saw it come across!

[...]

Because you know what, you play it as if it's real! A girl walks in. She has legs up to her neck. She's hot. You play it as... that! That's what it is ! And it comes across, y'know.

Interviewer: Was there a bit of... audition competition in the air? You were essentially aiming to please the audience the most to ensure your return. All these different System Lords. Did that come across when you were shooting this?

Cliff: Uh, yeah, in a way, it did. It was actually like being at an audition, a normal audition, where you walk in and people are curious to each other and they're like "hi, how’re you doing?" but... Once you're in, nobody sort of talks to anyone else. 

Y'know what I mean, that kinda thing. It did come across a bit, yep. 'Cause I think they all knew they were looking for new System Lords, all the actors that were in there. So they were all trying their best and doing what they can.

[...]

I think [the producers] saw I had a sense of humor. And why shoudn't an alien have a sense of humor? I think that was the main thing. I think I've put across some sexuality, and I've put across a sense of humor. And that made it in, that made the character interesting. All of a sudden, [the producer] was like "...We can go far, we can do a lot of stories with this guy, we can play on that."

And because of Richard Dean Anderson having that sense of humor, then they put us together in Abyss and it was like...

And it-- it just worked, so well. And from there it just, y'know. Carried on.

________________________

So basically what I get from this is: Cliff Simon made Ba’al the Horny One™ because he thought Anne-Louise Plowman was super hot and the producers loved it so much they kept Ba’al. What else is there to say HAHAHA

I recommend you watch the whole interview if you haven’t, it’s old (I think it was shot just after Cliff shot The Quest with the rest of the team?) but gold!!! ♥

I hope this clears some things up jjkhgf 

[queersatanic]

Lucien Greaves talks Jewish bloodlines and hate crimes with White Aryan Resistance founder Tom Metzger

[Full 24-hour “Might Is Right” Internet radio show transcript for context]

19:34:58 Doug Misicko: Alright, Tom. A book came out about a couple weeks ago called "A Hundred Little Hitlers", about a case that you were indirectly involved in. Where you were sued for supposedly inciting some skinheads to kill an Ethiopian. Have you read it? And what do you think of it?

19:35:12 Tom Metzger: Yeah, yeah, I read it. And that was Eleanor Langer. She spent about 10 years writing that book. And she's been here in Fallbrook, where I live, two or three times, and she's done a million interviews, and it's reasonably fair book. There are some errors, in it and exaggerations, but uh...

19:35:30 Doug Misicko: Like what?

19:35:32 Tom Metzger: Well, she said that I didn't chase the defendants around or I mean, these witnesses around enough like David Rosella and get their deposition. And she seems to forget, I was a working man, I didn't have the money to chase 'em around and Morris Dees was paying the main witness, 5-600 bucks a month. He took him on trips and fishing trips in the Gulf of Mexico. Offered him a part in a movie and then he paid him, got him a house to live in, got him a job and paid him off, all the time up until the Supreme Court refused to hear our case. So, he was hiding these witnesses, so I couldn't oppose them and I just didn't have the money or the expertise to chase him around the country. And I don't remember every little thing, mistake, because some of them are just little errors he made but then towards the end of the book, she says that Dees has access to my PO Box, which she knows better than that, because I took her to the PO Box and let her watch me open it up and take the money out and take- take the letters out and all that kind of stuff. So.

19:36:46 Doug Misicko: So you got along with her generally, the author?

19:36:49 Tom Metzger: Pardon me?

19:36:49 Doug Misicko: You got along with her. The author of the book.

19:36:51 Tom Metzger: Got along with her pretty well, she's Jewish, but she seemed to be pretty fair. Once in a while you run into one like that.

19:36:58 Doug Misicko: So not necessarily being Jewish is something you have against somebody, or is it?

19:37:04 Tom Metzger: Well I-uh I certainly would in a lot of ways, look at them carefully. But if they treated me right, and they were honest with me, then I'd give them respect.

19:37:15 Doug Misicko: So it's the Jewish belief you object to not the bloodline?

19:37:18 Tom Metzger: It's the mindset that many of them had. I mean, what we're dealing with is hybrids, when you talk about Jewry. You have you have aryan Jews, biologically aryan. You've got Chinese Jews, biologically Chinese. And you've got Black- like lots of Jews that are biologically Black, but they're Jewish. So that part of it I think is a mindset.

19:37:49 Doug Misicko: So you mean they're Zionists? They're, they're following a Zionist movement. They're part of an international cabal?

19:37:53 Tom Metzger: This cult has been around for a long time, you know, from the Middle East. And then, of course, a hybrid, mixed-race person who happens to be Jewish, is number one mixed race. Don't accept them anyhow. So I, I'm pretty much of the belief that a person is biologically white and obviously white and European to look at them, that they can, they can quit being Jewish. I mean, many people quit being Baptist and Catholics. So why couldn't they quit being Jewish?

19:38:27 Shane Bugbee: Right, but people of Jewish bloodline can also quit being Jewish.

19:38:29 Tom Metzger: I don't necessarily buy the Jewish bloodline idea. I know that gets me in trouble with some people. But I used to take that track. But I think that may be a mistake. I believe it's a cultural mindset thing. And though they may have lived in one area for a long time and adapted a certain blood connection, they can't be... They can't be really connected to a race. I mean, as a race. As a Jewish race. I think really, that's where there's been some mistakes made. I get in trouble with a lot of right wingers because they want to just push the Jewish race thing.

19:39:14 Doug Misicko: Well, they are a distinct phenotype...

[thosch3i]

Xiao Yuliang Interview [Eng Trans]

[Photo: XYL’s dog]

so remember this post? yeah well i wound up doing a mostly full translation of the entire 6 minute interview on twitter. some parts are paraphrased and a few details were skipped bc he sometimes repeated himself and there were one or two details i wasn’t 100% sure of, but other than that an eng transcript of the full interview is below the cut:

1. Introduce your role in "Ultimate Note"?

XYL: In Ultimate Note I play Zhang Qiling, Xiaoge.

2. What kind of impression does this character leave in your heart?

XYL: Before, I thought he was a really strong, and then a very cool, and then a very cold/detached person. But later, I finished reading the novel and read the script, and I felt like he's someone who lets your heart ache for him. The feeling he gives me--because once I was reading the script in a car, and I almost wanted to cry for him, because he's always searching for the things he's lost. And he's very strong, but he wasn't born strong; he also went through a lot, and he made himself strong. He can bleed, and he can get hurt; it's just that he doesn't say anything, and he doesn't show that he's in pain.

3. Talk about the initial pressure of receiving this role?

XYL: When I got this role, the pressure was really really big, but I also thought I was pretty lucky, because I'd played Zhang Qiling before, and I get to play him again, and I think that's pretty lucky. But the pressure is too big, on set right now, the pressure is very big.

4. Netizens were pretty satisfied with your performance; have you seen these comments?

XYL: When Sha Hai was airing, I saw their comments. Some of them approved, and I was happy, but others--like, saying some suggestions or opinions--I also looked at them. I also looked at the performances of other actors who played Zhang Qiling and comments on their performances. I used them as a reference, and I learned from the experiences/evaluations of others.

5. What was the greatest challenge of playing Zhang Qiling?

XYL: The biggest challenge is that there are too few lines. It's really hard to act! [Xiaoge] has some expressions where it's just, you can't make them too obvious or too "unrestrained" because his actions are also very restrained, but if you're too restrained then everyone just thinks you don't have any reactions. And the editors are also very hardworking, because they'll have 4 pages, and I won't have a single line, just reactions. The others will talk for 10 minutes, and I'll just be reacting. [Xiaoge] is a person with few/no words, but with his whole heart, he wants to go care for others...it's very difficult; this "no lines" is very difficult. Another thing is fight scenes are very difficult, and the weather is too hot.

6. What are some scenes that left the deepest impression on you?

XYL: Like when it's 3am, and we're running through a wild river, the water is all up to our waists, and we don't know what's underground. I was just afraid there were snakes, you know? Nothing we can do, just run. And there's also, because the filming location is at Xishuangbanna, there really are snakes. We've seen snakes etc on set, so we were afraid accidents would happen. Thankfully they didn't. And there was also when we were rubbing mud on our faces during the hot day. Actually, what we were rubbing was chocolate paste. When the chocolate on our faces dried, we spread on more, and it feels like you've become a "chocolate person", not a "mud person". I also tasted it--the BTS side clips recorded it; the taste is okay. [t/n: here is a link to that clip]

7. How did it feel working with the other actors in the crew?

XYL: Liu Yuning-laoshi [t/n: Hei Xiazi] is really nice. He doesn't have a temper, and he's a very calm and tranquil person. I think he's really nice. Xiao Xi [t/n: lit. “Little Xi”, nickname for Zeng Shunxi aka Wu Xie] is a little mischievous. Xiao Xi likes to stir up trouble on set and play around. In any case he plays around with Pangzi and me, but Liu Yuning-laoshi is more tranquil, not quite the same as [his character] in the show.

8. Before you posted a vlog caring for your pet on Weibo, why don't you introduce your pet?

XYL: My dog's name is a character I played once; my mom named him. Because we'd just finished filming that show, and then my mom got a dog, so she just called him my name in the show. Tell me, isn't that annoying? [t/n: drama was called 反骗天下/Fan Pian Tian Xia and his role was called 米若/Mi Ruo; his dog is apparently called 米诺/Mi Nuo.]

9. You've been an actor for awhile now; can you discuss what being an actor feels like?

XYL: Initially, before I became an actor, I thought, "Oh, cool". Everyday you're just, wow, holding weapons, cool! But now I think it's so hard. Especially while shooting this show, I got a sty for a month, and it's still not better even now. [t/n: you can definitely see the swelling under his eye in ep1] I think this sty is from accepting this role, or because of work. In any case, it's still not better. But it's no problem; thankfully, my hair can cover it. You also have to be careful of safety on set; real blades can slice open your hands. Once, I wasn't careful and cut my wrist, but thankfully the doctor's stitching skills were pretty good. When he was still stitching, I even said, "Doctor, you have to stitch it well, okay, I'm an actor, I use this hand to perform", and he said "Okay". After the stitches were done, he asked me, "Are you satisfied with the stitches?" The results were pretty good; it didn't really leave a scar.

10. Finally, promote this show to our fans.

XYL: You all have to watch our "Ultimate Note", because filming was really tough, and we've diligently tried to accomplish these three roles [t/n: the iron triangle, I’m assuming] and later on some of the the details of many of the books. I hope you will see similarities to the novel in some of the show's scenes.

and we are done! so yeah, i think his take on xiaoge’s character was the most important part, but some of the other stuff (listening to him complain about some things lmao) was kinda funny too. im still laughing about the whole ‘im an actor i need this hand to perform’ bit bc dude you literally sliced yourself open w a knife badly enough to need stitches but that’s your first priority???? glad you’re dedicated to your job though i guess but LOL

Quick question/answer:

1. What do you want to say to Zhang Qiling?

XYL: Xiaoge, you've worked hard.

2. Who from the show would you pick to go with you on an adventure?

XYL: I’ll choose...I'll choose Pangzi, because he'll definitely bring food. And he's fat, and he's pretty joyful, oh right, I can also bully him.

3. Describe the level of your cooking skills.

XYL: Cooking skills? The rank of instant noodles. Just boiling instant noodles, then adding the flavor packets, and then tomatoes, eggs...instant noodles.

4. If you're not restricted, what kind of role do you most want to play?

XYL: If I'm not restricted, then I want to play that guy who, in the morning, is just delivering takeout or is really well-behaved and wears glasses, that type, and then at night he pushes his hair back like this [xyl mimes pushing his hair back], and he starts to....different types...in any case, like split personalities, right, split personalities.

5. A sentence to describe your ideal life.

XYL: My family and I are healthy, and I have enough money to go live a normal life, eat/drink whatever I want, travel with my family, and just grow up slowly.

oh right additional note, in zsx's interview, when asked which character he'd take, he said xiaoge without hesitation. and the interviewer asked if he wanted to know who xiaoge picked and zsx was all "he didn't pick me did he...I'll be leaving now, thank you~" 😂