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thestarsarecool · 2 years

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John Lennon: Please, Your Majesty, Can Our John Have A Free Pardon?

Andrew Tyler, New Musical Express, 19 January 1974

Heavy breathing over the phone as ANDREW TYLER gets the lowdown from LENNON in L.A. Genius is police harassment, says the Walrus

DEAR QUEEN:

I don't know if you ever read the New Improved NME – if not, maybe some hepcat of the Royal Household will pass on the word.

Now that you've seen young Anne married off to her heartthrob cavalier, and what with Charles playing googlies with Lady Jane all around, maybe you'll have time to reflect on the dilemma of one John Lennon, a Liverpool slum-kid genius who used to play in The Beatles and who, at the peak of his career, committed a kind of revolutionary hara-kiri when he returned your MBE medal.

It was a far out medal, your majesty, ace Organic and nice on the chest, but it wasn't actually you as a mum and companion of the horses he was getting at. It was all that Services To Exports/Build A Better Britain/Screw the Man On The Factory Floor bit that brought a lump to his shaving bowl.

Anyway, after the medal-dumping ceremony he kept getting visited at queer hours by squadrons of policemen and, before you could say cold turkey John was being court-martialled for possession of marijuana – a substance he swears was absent from his life around this time.

He now lives in New York City but because of his record the authorities over there won't give him a Green residents' card, which means if he leaves the country he'll never be allowed back in.

So now, our Queen, it's all down to you. All you have to do is say "OK, you nurds, enough's enough. I pardon thee John Lennon, on your feet and have a nice new year", and everything's back to normal.

John's not one to beg and grovel at your Royal appendages, but on the phone recently he did say it would be a great way out. So what do you think? There's a whole bunch of us who'd love to see John over here again for the odd visit.

And you know something, it's the only thing preventing John. Paul, George and Ringo working together again. Paul, you see, also got busted for substances and he's not allowed into the States any more. Ironic, isn't it?

Love, etc.

"I WOULD HAVE thought I've done more good for Britain than harm, wouldn't you?" John enquired over a faint line from Los Angeles.

Yes, I would have thought so.

"Did I tell you about the commerical we've done for the new album? Hah. It's great. We have the Queen plugging the record for us. It starts inside the house with a gate swinging open, over a red carpet and then inside. It's all done in very good taste, Your Majesty. It's a friend of mine in drag, as it were.

"There's 'Land Of Hope And Glory' and someone says" (in a plummy warbling voice) "'I've been asked to do this commerical. It relates to a gramophone record...' and it goes on like that. I'm hoping her Majesty will be able to laugh at it."

He won't say who the friend is but here's a clue. He works for Apple and he's a real queen. The correct answer is not Allen Klein.

"A few vodkas and it was all over." John reports. "His identity will be revealed by himself. I'm not sure how much he wants people to know about it."

Did he see the bonding of Mark and Anne and was he profoundly moved?

"Who?"

Young Mark and Anne.

"Oh yes."

What was your reaction to that?

"I didn't really have one."

Did they show it over there?

"Yeah. They had it on from two o'clock till dawn, or something. So we had the single. We didn't get to see the album though. I thought they looked all right. But I didn't really feel that much about it. I thought Anne's figure looked nice. They should have held it in Belfast, though.

"I was thinking of writing to the Queen, you know. I hope she reads NME. Yeah. I was after a pardon for being planted by the cops and being hassled for three years and everything that happened. That's one way to solve the problem.

"That so-called bust I was involved in has left me with a criminal-record. That's the legal reason they're trying to throw me out. If that was taken away there'd be nothing they could do."

Now here's a weird twist to the murky affair. The cop who starred in the Lennon bust has, himself, been incarcerated for four years for perjury relating to a drug bust case.

Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher has has just been put down for four years. At the trial all sorts of stuff came up. Conspiracy and the like.

But Lennon suspects the case of the malfunctioning blue meanie is unlikely to directly affect his own case...

"The thing is, that in those days we were clean. We didn't have any stuff. But they kept on hassling and hassling and bothering Yoko and the deal was that if they left Yoko alone – and she was pregnant at the time – I'd cop a plea.

"And now the real answer is for me to get a pardon...but because I'm a naughty boy I don't suppose they want to give me one."

What he's still trying to figure out all these years later is what those gloating reporters and photographers were doing outside his place when he and Yoko were being escorted to their cells. Jack Warner and Edgar Lustgarten had always intimated that an arrest was a reasonably private business...restricted to the "guilty parties" and the officers concerned. Why the jamboree?

Lennon has an explanation: "A friend of mine from Fleet Street gave me a call after he'd overheard a cop in a pub saying how he was going to get The Beatles. Yeah, was was gonna get The Beatles. Which meant me. I mean, he's not about to bust Ringo or Paul. I was really up for grabs what with Two Virgins and living in sin with a foreigner and all."

Is our Queen about to be sympathetic to Lennon's plight? Can she relate to her stone-turning expatriot? They'd hardly make suitable tango partners but they do have at least one common point of interest: The Goons.

Yessir. Like Prince Charlie, Sister Margie and Tony Legsstrong-Jones, the Queen is alleged to have chuckled along with the Goons after her Sunday joint...not unlike Lennon who recently reviewed The Goon Show Scripts for the New York Times.

"It was a bit like doing a school essay." he say. "But like all my generation I was really drawn to The Goons. In many ways they influenced The Beatles as much as rock 'n' roll – Elvis and Little Richard. They were, to my generation, what we were to the next.

"I admire them all – but I've always reckoned Spike was the real lunatic."

WHAT ABOUT the trench-coat warfare. Is he still being visited and molested by the American gendarmerie?

"A year or so back they were following me around everywhere I went But I suppose they must have got bored going to the studio and hanging around for hours at a time. And they were tapping my phone. I think they wanted me to know they were doing it too because I kept hearing heavy breathing. It scared me at first but now it's a bot of a joke.

"No, I wasn't on Nixon's list of unfriendlies but I was on somebody's list, that's for sure."

There's a pattern to it all, he suggests. Not necessarily a coordinated conspiracy but a series of connected happenings that have numbered all the leading 60's cult figures.

Lennon's marooned in America, McCartney outside of it. The Stones are having to tread very lightly indeed, and Hendrix, Morrison and Joplin are dead.

"If they can separate all the big names in pop they effectively cut off the, quotes, "revolution" at its source. No more Woodstocks. No more mass gatherings. The real changes aren't gonna come from politicians. It's going to come from the artists and musicians.

"Even Bowie is a threat in a way."

Explain yourself, sir.

"Well, if you get Bowie on TV and somebody switches on in Ohio or Bradford and they see this person looking out at them, it's going to affect their whole way of life. He doesn't have to say Power To The People Right On. He is the message in himself. It's like holding a mirror up to society. It makes people react in a specific way that's better than having them half dead listening to Sandy McPherson.

"I just think it's all great. I'm not saying I'd do it but people like Bowie are an extension of rock 'n' roll. He still rocks like shit and keeps us going until the next phenomenon, ho ho, which is going to be this year, isn't it?"

Maybe the very next sensation will be curvaceous Ringo whose single is hot stuff in the States and whose album leapt into the Billboard charts at 4 – two better than John's Mind Games.

"I sent him a telegram last week saying: 'Congratulations. How dare you. Write me a hit song.'

"It's the first real pop album he's made and it's a good album. He deserves it. He's going to need all the royalties he can get to paper Ascot" (The home he just bought from Lennon). "He's going to need that hit just to keep up the garden."

JOHN'S OWN album didn't receive quite the same dazzling response, although it's nowhere near the bunch of horselicks Tony Tyler suggested in his review a few weeks back. Tracks like 'Out The Blue', 'I Know (I Know)' and 'Bring On The Lucie' are sumptuous groovers that fairly parallel his work on Imagine. Honest.

Was he after the grumbling T. Tyler's noodles?

"I'm going to send 'im a deaf aid and a book of instructions on How to Write. Obviously I'd prefer it if he, or whoever it is, liked it – but I'm not about to cut my throat, if that's what you mean.

"A lot of times you get critics reviewing themselves, so if they do slag you off it doesn't mean anything or, if they overdo the praise bit, that means nothing either.

"Praise is never satisfactory unless you can be sure the person has actually listened to your work and knows it inside out. I'm not saying people should spend their lives making in-depth appraisals of me albums – but praise, or the other thing, doesn't count for much unless they've take the time to understand what you're doing."

Right On.

Actually John was due for a critical trampling. After the suffocating Best Album In The Universe stuff tipped over Imagine and The Plastic Ono Band LP, coupled with the knifings Paul has had to deflect since The Split. Lennon only had to put one foot wrong – as he did with Sometime In New York City – for the blades to be turned on him.

Critics were feeling remorse at the way they growled at McCartney and Lennon was the obvious target upon which to assuage their embarrassment.

"I would say New York City stands as a piece of work. It sold 200,000 instead of half a million. The whole thing's relative. If I'd been a smaller artist I'd have been pleased to get that amount of sales. I have no regrets...only that it didn't get a lot of airplay on the so-called FM stations of the Left.

"The only one that really got into it was Pacifica which has heavy programmes on politics, lesbians and things like that – anything people want to do. It's a pretty good station. Nationwide. They've even got tapes of Yoko and me from the Sixties singing Japanese folk songs."

Talking of oldies, he is now well into his Oldies Mouldies album, currently being waxed at A & M in Los Angeles with a spellbinding cast of several millions. On the guest list so far are, among others: Steve Cropper, Jim Keltner. Hal Blaine, Jose Felciano, Leon Russell, Jeff Barry, Barry Mann, and Jesse Ed Davies.

We called George the other day and said he was having a great time and wish you were here. George said he was on his way and hasn't been heard of since. Paul, of course, won't be able to make it.

"Yeah, I miss Paul a lot. It's been a year since I've seen him. He came over with Linda to me place in New York. Course I'd like to see him again. He's an old friend, isn't he?"

He says he can move around a bit more freely now...for meals and odd visit to the movvies.

"I still get recognised though. I think it's me nose. But I can generally go to the movies. The last film I saw was Behind The Green Door. (An extraordinarily rude film.)

How was it?

"The first 45 minutes were interesting, then it got a bit boring. When you've seen one cock you've seen them all."

#my articles #I have been asked to upload the full article #here ‘tis #'I thought Anne's figure looked nice'#John and Paul once again united #this time in their lusting for British royalty #literally what's wrong with them #also I thought the telegram to Ringo was nice #john lennon #the beatles #my quotes #full article

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therecordconnection · 1 year

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Ranting and Raving: "Telephone Line" by Electric Light Orchestra

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In the early seventies, when the breakup of the Beatles was still fresh and still being mourned, many people asked who (or what) could ever replace them. Asking which group was the second coming of the Beatles is like asking for a definitive answer on what the Great American Novel is. You’ll get possible answers, but you’ll never get the answer. Of the various options I’ve heard in my lifetime, only two answers make sense. The first is everything Paul McCartney did with Wings in the seventies.

The second answer is Electric Light Orchestra.

Jeff Lynne is the Beatles fanboy to end them all. He’s made it no secret. He’s lived out the fantasies that every Beatles lover could imagine. He’s played songs with three of them (never got to jam with John Lennon), he’s produced for George Harrison (the album Cloud Nine in 1987) and got to be in a band with him (Traveling Wilburys), he’s produced for Paul McCartney (songs on Flaming Pie in 1997), hell, he even got to produce the Beatles themselves when they reunited and brought John’s final demos to life (“Real Love” and “Free as a Bird” for Anthology in 1995). John even called ELO “Son of Beatles” during a radio interview in 1974. Lynne’s dream with ELO was to pick up where the Beatles left off with “I Am the Walrus” and he absolutely did.

There is no ELO without the Beatles, but I do think there are several ways Lynne stands out from the Lennon/McCartney model of songwriting. For starters, Lennon/McCartney started the Beatles with silly love songs like “Love Me Do,” “Please Please Me,” and “All My Loving.” It was only during the second half that they started writing about stranger things and getting weird with it. Lynne did the reverse. He started ELO with weird science-fiction and fantasy concepts. “Kuiama” is a song about a soldier trying to comfort an orphan girl while also having to be the one to explain he killed her parents. “From the Sun to the World” might be about the apocalypse. “Bluebird is Dead” is about somebody learning about and coming to terms with death because their bluebird is no longer moving. The entire Eldorado album tells a story of someone lost in dreams, going from dream world to dream world a la Quantum Leap in the hopes that they will find the mythical city of Eldorado. In short, the first few ELO albums are strange progressive rock that’s more in line with the sound of the Moody Blues, not the Beatles-inspired pop rock that would define their golden years.

The reason for all of this preamble is because “Telephone Line” is a pivotal moment in ELO’s story, both for their success and for Lynne as a songwriter. It’s when Lynne turned into a full on pop songwriter and his songs started focusing more on ordinary situations for ordinary people as opposed to the strange, almost otherworldly ideas that dominated the first ELO albums. It started with the album Face the Music in 1975, it was perfected the year after with A New World Record and “Telephone Line,” which might be one of Lynne’s best.

Jeff Lynne is a strange entity, both as a songwriter and as a guy. I wrote about his love for the Beatles and his connection to them because as a songwriter, he defies the Lennon/McCartney model because none of the songs are about him. At all. He would get inspired by things that happened in his real life, but he himself is never the subject of the song. No trace of the man is left on the page of his biggest hits. Like McCartney, he writes melodic, catchy, heartfelt songs and delivers them with love and sincerity. It’s a big reason why people still love the band so many years later. He’s good at what he does. However, McCartney also wears his heart on his sleeve and plenty of songs are about him. “Let It Be” famously came to him after he had a dream of his mother giving him advice while he was knee-deep in the rough final days of the Beatles. “Hey Jude” was famously written as a way to comfort Julian Lennon when his dad left his first wife for Yoko Ono. “Silly Love Songs” was a response to Lennon saying that silly love songs are the only kind of song he writes, with McCartney famously asking, “What’s wrong with that?” In short, a lot of lyrics to McCartney’s songs are personal to him in one way or another. John Lennon, on the other hand, rejected that. Words only mattered in the context of fitting into a song or what he was thinking about in a certain moment. It could be complete nonsense for all he cared. He once famously told a fan outside his door, “You just take words, and you stick them together and see if they have any meaning. Some of them do, some of them don't.” Lynne takes the best qualities of both Beatles. The words sound like they could be personal to him, but they’re just words to a song he wrote and they just happened to make a good song idea. Lynne himself talks about it in a radio show interview from 2001:

“Telephone Line” was like a song that was-- You know, I knew somebody, I knew a girl in America and I would phone her. But it was an imaginary story. I pictured a guy who phoned up this girl. And all he ever got was a ring tone, just rang out for days, y'know. And obviously he couldn't do that now. Somebody... some electronic thing would answer it and tell you to clear off or something. But this was just the loneliness of the long distance telephone call.

Whenever we fall in love with a song, we have a hunger to learn what the inspiration for it was. When lyrics to a song really resonate, we often want to learn what caused them to be written. People always wonder what Uncle Joey on Full House did to warrant Alanis Morrisette to write a song like “You Oughta Know.” People debated like Ancient Greek philosophers trying to figure out who Carly Simon wrote “You’re So Vain” about. We care about the performer behind the song, whether it matters or not. Tina Turner didn’t write “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”, but she may as well have, due to the way she performs it and the details of her abusive marriage to Ike Turner fitting the lyrics so well. ELO remains lyrically interesting due to Jeff Lynne remaining a sort of mystery man. We’re talking about a guy who hasn’t been seen in public or on stage without sunglasses on for close to forty years! The reason being that if you ever saw Jeff Lynne’s eyes you would probably start seeing those colors that only shrimp can see. He also has a habit of explaining his songs much in the way that Paul McCartney does, which is to say that he says something about how the song got written, but what he says usually doesn’t explain a hell of a lot.

I talk about the impersonalness of Lynne because I think that helps to illustrate what a great performer he is. “Telephone Line” is fantastic. Every note of it. I can’t think of another song where loneliness has been expressed in a more melancholic, wistful, and almost desperate manner. There’s so many little moments that make this song so wonderful. That keyboard in the beginning that’s mimicking a phone being dialed. Those sad, glittery keyboard notes that lead into the verses. The way the first verse sounds like Lynne is singing from an answering machine. The way the drum beat comes in after Lynne says “Hey” and begins the second verse. The way those gorgeous strings fill the empty spaces between Lynne’s lyrics and follow the lead of his vocal melody. It’s all so wonderful. There’s a reason Lynne got inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. A New World Record is also around the time he really perfected the production side of ELO. This song still sounds fantastic even now. That vocal harmony and blending of Lynne and bassist/vocalist Kelly Groucutt during the chorus is just wonderful. Lynne gets a lot of credit for ELO, but I think he still needs a nod on his production work. You don’t get to produce for the likes of the Beatles, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and Del Shannon unless you know what you’re doing. Compare this to the first couple ELO albums, where Lynne was just stacking layers of instruments on top of each other, to this and the difference is night and day. This entire song is a musical treasure from one of the best that was just entering the top of his game.

Similar songs on this topic, like New Edition’s “Mr. Telephone Man” and “Misunderstanding” by Genesis, don’t work the same way. It’s mostly because they’re too poppy and you immediately know why the girl isn’t answering. For New Edition, it’s because she’s cheating and in the case of Genesis, it’s because the person trying to be reached isn’t dating the narrator. Lynne keeps the nature of the relationship ambiguous and the song is better for it. It’s clear that he’s singing to a person he was dating or at least romantically involved with (“Don’t you realize the things we did we did / Were all for real? Not a dream”) but this phone call could be coming from a one night stand or an ex he hasn’t spoken to in months. Up to you to decide. Whatever the case, Lynne delivers those first lines with such longing, such care, sadness, and desperation that you can’t help but want to root for him. It’s such an earnest way to start.

Hello, how are you? Have you been alright through all those lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely Lonely nights? That's what I'd say I'd tell you everything if you'd pick up that telephone

You don’t know what happened between these two people, but you know that he’s at least trying to make an effort to fix it. It’s unclear whether he’s singing this song to an answering machine, or he’s just holding the phone to his ear and hearing a telephone ring endlessly. Either way, it’s tragic. It’s also a place all of us have been at one time or another. Things happen and we try desperately to call (or text, in the modern world) and fix things but the person on the other side of the line just lets it ring (or ignores it or blocks you). A lesser song would pick anger as the driving emotion for the song or just make the whole thing sad and have it revolve around a relationship that has ended. Instead, Lynne goes for a scenario where two people are separated, but the relationship can still be saved if they both work together and talk it out. This is highlighted in the chorus when he sings, “I’m living in twilight.”

“Telephone Line” isn’t a love song, but it isn’t a break up song either. It’s something much worse: an inbetween song. It’s a song that represents the worst moments that come with the end of a relationship: the ones where you know things aren’t looking good and it’ll probably end in despair and heartbreak, but something inside you still wants to fight for it. Something inside you wants things to work out and you don’t care how sad and desperate you might sound trying to save it because it’s the only thing that matters in that moment. The ringing of the telephone represents those moments in time where you’re trying to save something, but the other person has given up. The endless ringing is “the hint,” that (hopefully) clear sign that you should give up and accept that things are over. There’s genuine melancholy to “Telephone Line” and I think Lynne strikes that wonderful balance between “someone who desperately wants to fix a broken relationship they still see hope for” and “pathetic loser who won’t take a hint and looks foolish for continuing to try.” The final verse of the song illustrates this balance wonderfully.

Okay, so no one's answering Well, can't you just let it ring a little longer, longer, longer? I'll just sit tight, in shadows of the night Let it ring forevermore

He accepts that this isn’t working, but he’s still not ready to give up because the hope that maybe the other person will answer is still driving him to try. One of the reasons I think this song has lasted is due to how we all have stories of losing friends, loved ones, romantic partners, etc. because they simply stopped talking to us. Sometimes it’s because we’re in the wrong, sometimes we’re given no reason and we’re left to figure out what happened. Regardless, Lynne took that relatable situation and he spun it into ELO’s first single that went Gold.

Whatever the outcome of this song is, we’ll never know. The song ends with the chorus repeated until fade out. We end up living in twilight the same way that the narrator is. The song will always be stuck in that inbetween. If we’re lucky, we’ll hear it ring forever more.

#original post #ranting and raving #electric light orchestra #elo #music criticism

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listen-to-the-inner-walrus · 1 year

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tagged by @ragnarokhound <3

name: kai (yes im a trans man named kai, its a good name, okay?)

pronouns: he/they

where do you call home: eh the general answer is west of england, midlands and up. theres a sentimental answer but its a pretty small area so im not gonna potentially dox myself in a tag game dhdjsjs

favourite animal: walrus all the way, baby! although my url is actually unrelated to my love of walruses. theyre just the best animals, theyre big old chunky boys with two big front teeth that can grow to over 3ft in length. when on land, they huddle together in cuddle piles. AND mama walruses can use their flippers to pick up their babies and cuddle them to their chest; tell me thats not the cutest thing youve heard today.

cereal of choice: im not really a cereal person or like a breakfast person at all, but if im having it, golden nuggets or nothin'

visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner: ...all of them? idk, it depends on what im learning. auditory probably less so than the others just because my auditory processing isnt just trash, its trash the binmen wont take.

first pet: my parents had four cats before they had me and my brother so i guess them? they were thomas, alfred, cally and misty. my uncle, who incidentally doesnt believe in seatbelts, named alfred.

favourite scent:

no but seriously i have a very strong scent of smell which is part of why im such a picky eater like im yet to meet a food that smelt bad and tasted good, but i just,,,, dont have a favourite scent?

my brother gave me a lynx body spray of his he didnt want pretty soon after i came out the third time, as trans this time, and its definitely a he got the spirit moment so i guess that.

do you believe in astrology: nah, its not my thing really. all the more to you if its yours as long as you dont try to ascribe my behaviour to me being a taurus, thats the mental illness or the autism or the adhd or the neurological disorder thats pushing my eyes out of my skull very slowly.

how many playlists on spotify/apple music: 28 which is more than i thought i had. right now, theres only like 3 im cycling through named dead reckoning, the old swan, and dutch angle / danish pastry.

sharpies or highlighters: yeah so like, we could never afford sharpies in my house so its highlighters my default. sharpies are like mega expensive in the uk and by mega expensive, i mean unaffordable for a child of a working class single parent.

songs that make you cry: hmm. thats kinda difficult because whether i cry depends almost entirely on my mood. if i had to name some, i guess id go with:

a little fall of rain, turning and empty chairs at empty tables from the london cast recording of les mis (its vital to specify this, okay?); george blagdens secret? recording of drink with me; breathe from in the heights; flowers, doubt comes in, promises, gone im gone, and we raise our cups from hadestown (are you sensing a theme yet?); unruly heart from the prom; here i go again specifically from the rock of ages musical (and NOT the tom cruise movie, i saw this musical live and i cried); i know where ive been by queen latifah, and also from pretty much any hairspray cast recording; if i met myself again, ugly in this ugly world and hes my boy from everybodys talking about jaime and i have sobbed at all three of these songs.

and finally: grandmas song, deep into the ground, he could be a star and once we were kids from billy elliot, and yes i cry at most of act 2, i was raised working class in a working class area that was once revered for its industry and has since been forgotten and left to drown in poverty, how am i meant to not cry at it?

songs that make you happy: hmm again. throw the entirety of the first mamma mia soundtrack onto the list. then welcome to paradise & coming clean by green day (when i was a very depressed teenager, listening to green day always made me feel better, both about the world and about myself); the irony of choking of a lifesaver by all time low because its moms favourite song of theirs and weve gone to see them live five times together; merry christmas maggie thatcher from billy elliot because fuck that bitch; legend of coco chanel from everybodys talking about jaime; sexy from the mean girls musical; do it for your lover by manel navarro; strangers & i dont want to talk about me by stereo jane (the strangers music video is so fucking bisexual yall); king of my heart by sub-radio; ghost ship of cannibal rats by billy talent; carpe diem by joker out; who the hell is edgar by teya and salena; let me entertain you by robbie williams because i sang it in karaoke as a 7 year old who did not know the words and then proceeded to get obsessed with robbie fucking williams for a while; slipping away by materia; and 68 guns by the alarm which is a funny little one because it reminds me of my dad but i still enjoy the song and ive made a conscious choice not to limit my music taste just because some asshole whos not even a good hobby ghost hunter likes it too, you know?

do you write/draw/create: all three! granted i havent done much of the first two in a while, but on my defense, losing 7-8 months worth of your memories kind of fucks you up and its oddly time consuming. also developing fainting attacks and spending a week in hospital while they fail to figure out whats wrong with you other than weirdly low blood pressure does not help. but i do have a drawing planned out to do and while i went a little too much detail on one small detail (i will justify it as soon as i actually finish it), im going to finish it. i also do origami pretty often as well as baking, and i am currently building a wooden replica of the titanic AND LISTEN, i started before the titan submersible stuff happened and i havent touched it yet because it just feels weird to, you know? also, i didnt even want to do the titanic, but like, good luck finding any starter kits that arent a) titanic and b) upwards of a £100. i would love to do a ss malolo or a mts stockholm but that aint happening and while i might be able to find an ss normandy or ss united states, im not gonna be able to afford. its titanic or bust which sucks.

tagging but no pressure: @bottlesandbarricades @vaellusvitutus @rad-roach

#tag games #ragnarokhound #big thank for tag <33

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 2 years

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Another Long-Running Panel Show Friday (January 27, 2023)

The Last Leg: Really good start to the new season. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed this show when it was off, until this episode. The Last Leg has its times when the quality dips, and maybe a bit more in recent years than in older ones, but they always seem to start new seasons strong, like they rejuvenated their enthusiasm while they were away and are excited to be back. I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that I laughed out loud at Alex Brooker’s opening joke, about his own hands being at least as good as a walrus’s fins for… I’m trying to think of what euphemism I want to use here, and all I can think of is how I recently heard Steve Hall call it “getting at myself”, which was such a strikingly strange term that I don’t think I’ll be able to call it anything else anymore. Anyway, the quite juvenile jokes about that made me laugh, and then they pretty much kept the energy from there. It was a loose episode, with Adam Hills letting things go off script a little more than usual before bringing it back, and it was fun all the way through.

Great guests, too. Obviously, Richard Ayoade is always funny on panel shows. He paired very well with Lucy Beaumont – that’s a contrast in styles I hadn’t realized would work so well until I saw it. Also, every time I see Lucy Beaumont I remember how perfect she is. Her whole schtick revolving around being comically earnest, literally leaning forward and not quite following but trying really hard, is consistently engaging. She had Adam just about breaking down a couple of times, it was great.

Having Angela Rayner on is a little dicey; politicians using comedy shows to whitewash their image is not great, even if it’s a politician who seems generally all right. But at this point, compared to everything else all the politicians are doing, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition going on a comedy show to answer silly questions and play some silly games is not the main thing plaguing the system. She came across quite well, anyway.

WILTY: Another good episode this week. I thought Jayde Adams was the highlight, in her WILTY debut. She took over many parts, particularly the mystery guest round, and it was funny every time. I just wish she’d gotten a better card of her own, she could have done more with it. Ellie Simmonds was very entertaining too, seemed to be genuinely vaguely baffled but having a good time.

Not such a good episode for me – I went 3-2 in the guessing, and only finished with a winning record due to the completely free point I got from Lee Mack’s obvious lie at the end. But I did enjoy that, a bit of old school WILTY with making Lee Mack defend something absolutely ludicrous. There’s an argument, and maybe a good argument, that that bit is getting rather old by now. I still find it funny every time, though.

QI: This was a good one too, mostly. I thought Tom Allen was the star of this one, he fits in really well on shows like this. I was hoping for more from Cariad Lloyd, as she has a history of really shining on QI (particularly some of her interactions with Sandi Toksvig), but she was relatively quiet this time (or just didn’t make the edit much). She had a couple of good stories, though. Everyone did. And Sandi seemed even more likeable than usual this week.

I like Jamie MacDonald too, I know him only a little bit from The Now Show. He has the same name as my favourite character on my favourite TV show ever (Jamie MacDonald from The Thick of It), so I mostly just remember him for that, but on this episode I think he said enough funny stuff so I’ll start remembering him for that instead.

The News Quiz: I skipped this one again this week. It had Geoff Norcott on again, and even though the rest of the lineup looked fine, I just can’t be bothered that right now. That’s not normally the case – I’ve listened to and watched plenty of episodes of The News Quiz and other things with Geoff Norcott, and just been mildly to moderately annoyed with him. But at this moment I have such low tolerance for that shit. I do “listen to the other side”, every day, on my CBC news podcasts. I do my civic duty of being informed about what all sides of the issues are saying. Don’t need to hear it in my comedy as well, when I’m just trying to be entertained.

Next week, however, looks great.

That’s an absolutely stellar QI lineup, across the board. Jo Brand never disappoints on WILTY. I’ve just checked and am surprised to see Joe Wilkinson’s never been on WILTY before, but I’m glad they’re fixing that now. I always enjoy when people who have particularly odd TV personas go on that show and we try to guess what’s real about them.

And Frankie Boyle, obviously, is a rare, unexpected treat on The News Quiz. Susie McCabe’s also always great, and pairs well with Frankie when she’s on New World Order. I guess that lineup is to discuss the potential independence referendum, since Ashley Storrie and Alex Massie are also Scottish. So that’ll be fun. An exciting episode of Andy Zaltzman And The Scots.

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dreamescapeswriting · 4 years

Text

The Professor ~ JHS [M] [Request]

↬↬↬Word Count: 4.2K

↬↬↬Genre: College Au!, Tutor!Hoseok, Student!Reader, smut,

↬↬↬Warnings: praise kink, smut, swearing, Cunnilingus, blow job, unprotected sex.

↬↬↬A/N: I lost the anon that requested this but it was asking for Hoseok and a praise kink. I wanted to make it different from the cliche ‘’You’re so quiet so I noticed you’’ aspect so I tried something a little different. Hope this is okay for you and yes Hosoek is a literacy tutor for this…don’t question me

Your unusually bright hair was what made you stand out in a crowd and in class, you were the girl that was well known and liked because you told people how it was and you didn't care if it made them hate you. If it was the truth it had to be told, it was how you were raised and how you were going to continue living. Besides from being the confident, loud and loving one of your friendship group - if you could call it a group, everyone on your side of college campus seemed to love and know who you were - you were also the smartest. Always passing your classes with flying colours and the one class you did your very best in was Literacy with Professor Hoseok. You had no idea why you always did so well in his class but there was never a change in grade in that one, A's throughout your first and second year, even now in your final year you were getting A's across the board.

"Lewis Carroll was a novelist and a poet! I want you all to take some time getting to know this author over your weekend!" Hoseok said as he knew the final bell was coming, it was a Friday afternoon and his Friday afternoon classes were nice and relaxing, he'd give you all an assignment to work on but nothing major to stress you all out over since it was the weekend.

"I know a lot of you will choose Alice's Adventures in Wonderland but I want you to think more outside of the box and branch into his other works." You began packing up everything into your bag, you had to collect some results from other classes before your weekend could begin. You'd planned a whole weekend away with two of your roommates, going to a spa to relax after the mock exams you'd taken.

"Y/n! Are you ready to get your pamper on?" Hoseok looked up as he heard Jihoo talking to you from her seat, he looked over at you. You were sitting there with your bright coloured hair thrown up into a messy ponytail, black jeans with a band shirt on. He noticed every student in his class but he noticed you the most, the way you stood out of the crowd but not in a disrespectful way. You stood out because you were smart - always answering questions that Hoseok had asked, doing your 100% best on the assignments he would set though he wasn't supposed to have favourites you were his.

"I'm so ready, I'll meet you back at the apartment. I have to get my grades from Professor Bang and Professor Sana," Your friends all left the classroom and you got up from the desk, flicking through your folder as you walked to the front of the classroom.

"Professor Hoseok?" Hoseok looked away from his laptop screen, he was grading last week's papers that were long overdue and he was going to be far behind for the weekend.

"Yes Miss Y/l/n?" You smiled softly at him, the way your name rolled off his tongue like that sent shivers down your spine but you would never act on it. There was no rule against dating a college professor on your campus but sleeping with someone who graded your papers wasn't the best way to live the college life.

"I just wanted to hand this in, it was due Yesterday but Kyle was in the hospital." Kyle was another one of your classmates who'd been involved in a skateboard accident breaking one of his legs and his arm.

"You went to see him to get this to me?" You nodded and put the folder into your side bag,

"He was texting the group chat about how hard he'd worked on it and so I figured I could just hand it in." Hoseok thanked you and you left the room. He watched as you walked away from him, just by looking at you no one would expect you to be this kind and considerate towards others but Hoseok had looked into your school record. Not only did you excel in all of your classes your extracurriculars were just as impressive from volunteering at hospitals, nursing homes and tutoring others he wondered how you ever made time for yourself and it made him more interested in knowing you.

The weekend came and went for Hoseok, he'd spent his time closed up in his office hunched over papers trying to read through desperate attempts to pass his class. Your weekend, however, was spent hunched over your desk in your dorm instead of the relaxing it was supposed to be.

"Where's Y/n?" Josh asked as he walked into Hoseok's classroom, no one had seen you all day. Hoseok's ear picked up when he heard people mumbling your name, he could have sworn he'd seen you in the library earlier in the day when he went for a lunch break. He noticed the big glasses on your face as well as you bright hair before he noticed anything else, you were reading something so he didn't go to talk to you only now he wished he had.

"She didn't come on the spa trip, I called her and she said something came up." Jihoo sighed looking at Josh and laying her head on his shoulder, any excuse to flirt with someone but you were there. You were juts hunched up in the back of the class, hoodie pulled up over your head to hide your hair which was normally your favourite feature but right now it was the one thing that would give you away.

"Is she okay? She never misses classes." Hoseok scanned the classroom and he noticed you, your head was in a book, glasses pushed up against your face and head downcast trying to go unnoticed but you didn't go unnoticed by him. He could tell you didn't want to talk to anyone though so he started his class,

"I trust you all had a great weekend and are ready to learn." There were low mumbles about how excited they were and so he started lecturing them more on Lewis Carroll, giving them facts about his lifestyle and his upbringing.

"Aren't all his books and poems just children's play?" Josh screamed out making the whole class erupt into laughter, this was usually where you would step in to correct him but Hoseok was going to have to do that for you today.

"Not necessarily Mr Quarbeck, there are many meanings behind the things he wrote." He picked up his favourite copy of a Lewis Carol poem and showed everyone,

"The Walrus and the Carpenter, can anyone tell me what it's about?" He looked at you, you were dying to answer him since it was what your assignment was about. You'd chosen it because it happened to be one of your favourites.

"It's the one where the man goes under the sea and lures the oysters away. I watched a Disney movie." Jihoo said proudly, flicking her hair over her shoulder and smirking.

"I suppose so yes but there's a deeper meaning to the story than that. Have I taught you nothing over my years of teaching, you guys?" They all stared at him blankly and he could tell that this was a lost cause.

"Go. Take the class off, I want you all to go and reread your assignments and then come back when you find the deeper meaning." He clapped his hands together and the whole class began to rush around trying to beat everyone out of the class, you stayed behind to slowly pack up.

"Miss Y/l/n?" You glanced over at Hoseok who was leaning against his desk and gesturing for you to go over to him.

"Yes Professor Hoseok?" He smiled at you and then saw that you had bloodshot eyes and looked like you'd been crying,

"Sit down." He pointed at the seat beside his desk in the hall and then went to get you some tissues he kept on the desk.

"Everything okay?" It was a simple question that should have just had one answer 'yes' and then you should have left but as soon as he asked it was like the flood gates opened once again and you started crying and sobbing about something he couldn't quite understand. He didn't know how to comfort you about it since he didn't know what you were actually saying,

"What's the Walrus and the Carpenter about?" He asked and it was as if a switch went off in your head, the tears stopped and you spoke out facts to him.

"It has themes of death and betrayal within, it talks about tricking young oysters and eating them after a long walk together." He smiled as you started to calm down, he handed you the tissue and sat down.

"We won't have long until another professor comes to use this room. Do you want to come to my office and talk about it?" You nodded, it would be nice to talk to someone about what got you so upset. No one else would understand it except for him.

"Sit, do you want a hot drink?" He questioned, the inside of his office was huge. It had a wooden desk at the back wall and in front of it sat a brown fabric sofa covered with pillows and a throw. He caught you staring at the sofa before sitting down on it,

"I sometimes sleep here on the weekends when I'm behind, it's a lot easier than travelling home in the mornings." You nodded in understanding and he offered you a hot chocolate, he had a small kettle in his office along with a set of coffee, tea and hot chocolate sitting upon a mini-fridge.

"You practically live here Professor Hoseok," Your voice cracked as you tried to speak, you felt open with him and it was nice to have that feeling around someone.

"What's bothering you?" He asked sitting down on the sofa but leaving a gap between you.

"It seems so stupid looking back on it but I erm, I failed both Professor Bang and Sana's classes and I have to resit the whole exam again." He stared at you as he walked over to finish the drinks he was making. He placed them down on his desk instead of handing it to you, it was far too hot to drink right away.

"Are you struggling a lot in their classes?" You nodded your head,

"I don't understand it. It's just everyone's classes except yours I seem to be failing this year." You hid your face in your hands as you thought about it, maybe this was a huge mistake. Complaining to another professor that you were failing,

"You're always such a good girl, I doubt it won't take you long to pass them. How about I help you study? I took music production in college and Sana's class isn't that far away from my own. I can help." Your eyes shot up to stare at him as you heard him mention it,

"You'd do that?" Your voice was shaky and he could tell that you needed the help,

"Sure. How about we meet here on Friday?" You nodded eager to get to work with him,

"Thank you so much, Professor, I'll pay you back in any way I can. I'll tutor the other students more, or I can help you grade." He chuckled and shook his head at you,

"No need, just pass your glass and that's the only thanks I need." You smiled at him and nodded getting up from the sofa and leaving. He stared out of the small window that looked out into the hall at you and smiled to himself. The look on your face when he told you he'd help you was enough to make his week and he wanted to see it again.

Weeks had passed and you were doing better than ever in both of your classes thanks to Hoseok who had started insisting you called him Hobi when you were alone together. He didn't want everything to be formal since you were both spending so much time together and it was a lot of time. Once you'd even fallen asleep on the sofa and he'd tucked you in and left you there with a note about where his key was if you needed to get out and the door was locked. You'd gotten your grades back from both tutors this morning and you were excited to show the results to Hobi you practically sprinted to his office after your classes had finished that Friday.

"Ahh Y/n, how did it go?" He asked watching as you shut the door and turned the papers around to reveal a C on the front of each of them. It wasn't an A but it was a move up from the F you'd gotten before and that was all you cared about.

"A 'C'!? That's brilliant!" He called out coming out from his desk and taking the paper into your hand, you threw your arms around his neck and hugged him without thinking but the second you realised you pulled away and cleared your throat.

"Sorry Professor, I just got a little excited." He shook his head and handed you the papers back,

"You should be excited. I'm so proud of you." He placed his hand on your shoulder and you felt a spark run through your body. Over the weeks with meeting up with him, you'd grown quite close and you'd started to notice an attraction towards him. He was handsome, he was incredibly smart and nice to you but he was also your tutor.

"I still don't know why I was struggling so much but thank your Professor,"

"I told you to call me Hobi," He sat down on the sofa and you sat down beside him, no gap between you. Your thigh against his thigh and he stared at you nervously thinking of how to approach the subject,

"I know why you do better with me." You hummed at him to continue and he sighed loosening his tie before taking it off and throwing it onto the desk. Images of the tie being wrapped around your hands filled your head but you ignored them trying to remain professional.

"In class whenever you answered something for me I would respond by praising you." You nodded to let him know you understood what he was saying,

"When you're in their class I'm assuming they don't do the same." You shook your head and it only proved to Hoseok what he thought in the first place.

"I think you have something that-" He stopped himself, it wasn't exactly teacher-student appropriate talk,

"This is me talking strictly as someone who knows you, not as Professor Hoseok. It came to my attention that you have a praise kink." You felt your cheeks begin to get hot and your ears start to burn as he brought it up. It was true but you thought it only applied in the bedroom not outside of it where you could benefit from it educationally.

"I'm assuming I'm right by the way you've gone silent and are staring at the floor." You nodded but it didn't feel uncomfortable to admit this to him it felt natural.

"I do have that but I never knew it would affect me out of the bedroom." He chuckled at you and nodded,

"I assumed that why you did so well," You smiled and thanked him for helping you again. He shook his head and you stared up into his eyes feeling your heart begin to flutter as he stared down at you. Ever since he'd mentioned the praise kink you'd gotten needy and he'd be lying to himself if he wasn't turned on by the thought of taking you in his office. Without either of you thinking about it you began leaning in until your lips touched and it was a spark to a fire. Everything became heated quickly, his hands were on your waist and you were moving to sit on his lap rather than next to him. His other hand ran up and cupped your face as you made out on the sofa, his tongue running along your bottom lip. You parted your lips allowing him access and he smirked sucking on your tongue a little and hearing you moan.

"Professor Hoseok," You whined as you felt him growing beneath you, you needed him and you needed the praise from making him feel good. You ground your hips down to create some friction and he groaned out holding onto your hip tightly as you continued to swirl your hips.

"You really are a good girl." He chuckled looking at you as you smiled at him, your eyes were filled with lust for him. You wanted to hear him moan out your name and call you a good girl all night. He tapped your ass gently,

"Lock the door, I don't want anyone walking in." He chuckled as you rushed over to lock the door, he walked to the small window and drew the curtains closed looking at you as he returned to the sofa. He'd expected you to get back onto his lap but you surprised him by dropping to your knees in front of him and reaching up to palm him through the jeans he was wearing.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked as he stared down at you, growing harder underneath your touch as you continued to palm him through the rough fabric.

"Yes Professor," He shook his head at you and you started to unbuckle his belt and unzip his jeans.

"Call me Hobi or Hoseok," You hummed and sprung him free from his boxers. He was covered in precum and it made your mouth water at the thought of taking him into your mouth,

"E-Easy... That's it, good girl." He praised as you slowly licked stripes along the tip of his cock before licking from the base to the tip and taking him all the way into your mouth, he grunted as he hit the back of your throat. You swirled your tongue around his head whenever you'd come back up his length letting him moan out your name loudly before placing his hand in your hair.

"F-fuck." He grunted loving the feeling of being inside of your mouth he was weak for you, he'd imagined this a thousand times but nothing he could imagine would come close to how you were making him feel right now. He held your face as he bucked his hips into your mouth breathing heavily as he felt himself getting closer to his release,

"You're such a good fucking girl taking my cock like this," You hummed around him and he whimpered softly as he felt the vibrations rush through his body.

"I-I can't...I'm g-gonna cum. Stop," You pulled off him a little disappointed that you didn't get to taste him and as if he could read your mind he ran his thumb along your bottom lip.

"You can taste me another time baby girl, right now I want to taste you," He pulled you up from the floor, kicking off his trousers before stripping you of your own clothes, he kissed your lips and you whined out as you felt his fingers trace your body. You were now fully naked and under his beck and call,

"Sit down on the sofa like a good girl." You did as you were told and he pulled you towards the edge of the sofa spreading your legs and smirking as he looked at your dripping pussy,

"All this for me?" He questioned running one finger between the wetness of your folds and chuckling as you let out another breathy whimper.

"All for you Hobi," He chuckled and kissed your lips before dropping to his knees in front of you,

"Good girl." You seemed to grow wetter and he noticed, kissing up your thighs until he reached your core. You tensed up a little, you'd only ever been eaten out once and you'd never done it again,

"Relax baby. Let me take care of you for being such a good girl." Your legs relaxed and he chuckled before kissing your sensitive clit replacing his lips with his thumb rubbing in small circles while he slipped in tongue into you sucking and licking.

"A-Ah fuck!" You cried out your back arching off the sofa as he continued to suck on your womanhood, making unholy sounds as you moaned out above him. He switched - his mouth returning to your clit and pumping two fingers inside of you. Your head was spinning as you felt every hair on your body stand up. You'd never felt like this with anyone and he chuckled feeling you clench around his fingers.

"Are you going to be a good girl and ask to cum?" Your legs lifted from the floor and wrapped around his shoulders unconsciously holding him closer to your cunt as you felt your orgasm approaching. He hummed and you moaned out his name nodding desperately,

"Y-Yes! Fuck! Please can I cum Professor Hobi?!" He chuckled once again hearing the same fall from your lips as you came undone above him.

"You've been so good, go on princess. Cum." His fingers began to pick up the pace and everything around you started to go white as he continued to eat you out like this.

"Hoseok!" You screamed out hands clinging onto the sofa as you tried to steady your bucking hips, your orgasm hitting you like a truck and making you moan out his name loudly.

"Good girl, look at that." He chuckled as you tiredly watched him take your arousal and cover his cock in it. It only made you needier for him and he got up from the floor and lined himself up at your entrance.

"Ready?" You nodded and he slowly eased himself inside of you not wanting to go too rough, you whined at his size and he held himself in place giving you time to adjust to him. He kissed your lips lovingly,

"Good girl, you okay?" You smiled drunkenly at him as he called you a good girl again.

"You can move." He slowly began to thrust in and out of you while you adjusted to him being there.

"You're so fucking tight and warm around me." You smiled again as you heard his praise and then you moaned finally getting pleasure now you were adjusted to him.

"H-harder." You begged him and he chuckled lifting one of your legs over his shoulder to angle himself deeper into you and you were already a mess crying out his name as he began to pound into you the sound of skin slapping together filled the air along with heavy panting.

"R-Right there!" You cried out loudly as he hit your sweet spot with ease, he began slamming into you as he felt you clenching around him. He grunted as he felt himself getting closer to his release once again, your mouth and cunt had made him needier than he'd ever been before.

"Fuck, you're so fucking good aren't you?" You nodded and he continued to fuck into you holding you in place with one hand as he pace got quicker and stronger each time he pulled out. It was intoxicating to be with you and you felt the same with him. He began kissing you as he felt himself getting closer,

"Feels so good professor," You whimpered moving your hips to meet with his every time he slammed into you making your head spin.

His pace got quicker and quicker and he began to moan out as you shook around him from the pleasure he was giving you. His hand reached down between you and began to rub your clit, it was like your body was on fire.

"Fuck! Fuck! Hobi I'm- I'm cumming!" You cried out as your orgasm ripped through your body sending waves through you.

"Me too baby," He continued to fuck you through both of your highs only pulling out of you when you both came down from your highs.

You were both panting heavily as he sat down beside you on the sofa, he turned to look at you with a lazy smile and you smiled back at him.

"I hope you know I don't plan on that being a one-time thing." You smiled back at him and nodded moving over to him and giving him a kiss.

"Good, I don't think I'll ever get enough of you." You whispered to him. Both of you far too tired to leave the office but knowing you had to soon.

"I'll take you home tonight,"

"My dorm is under construction, I need a ride to the train station. I'm staying out of town for the weekend." He looked at you,

"Are you staying with anyone?" You shook your head explaining that you were going to a small motel since it was the only place you could afford.

"You can stay at mine, take the bedroom and I'll have the sofa." You smirked at him,

"Why don't we both take the bedroom." He smirked back at you and nodded.

"I wanted to at least act like a gentleman first." You giggled at him and kissed him once again on the lips.

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ladyvader23 · 4 years

Text

The School Play

For @slx99, who inspired me to write this little Dad Vader piece! I also have no idea if walrus’ exist in the Star Wars universe, but THEY DO NOW!

I also take requests!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vader stared in horror at the announcement slip his children had brought home from preschool.

Apparently, the children would be putting on a play--or, rather, a presentation, if the description was anything to go by. The school had the children research a topic, and the children would be putting on a dramatic retelling of what they’d learned. It actually sounded terribly boring, but he’d read in that parenting book the children’s pediatrician had given him that supporting their interests, including school activities, helped foster confidence in children. An important quality in the two most important children in the galaxy, even if his presence would terrify everyone else in the room.

The problem wasn’t the boring play. It was what his son was signed up to be.

A walrus.

Leia had a stormtrooper, which was normal enough. But Luke had a walrus? How in the galaxy had he even had the misfortune of getting such an unfortunate aquatic creature?!

He looked up at Miss Laena, who’d handed him the announcement slip in the first place. “My son will not play a walrus in front of a crowd of people!”

The school the children went to was full of senator’s children, as well as other important Imperial figures, such as Grand Moffs, generals, and the like. Vader doubted most of those important figures would actually be at the play; most likely, their partners or nannies would go. But it did not matter. Word would spread fast that the son of Darth Vader had played a walrus.

“Luke is very excited about the play, my lord.” Miss Laena said carefully. “It’s all he’s been talking about for weeks, now. I even helped him make the costume.”

His stomach dropped. “There’s a costume?”

It just got worse and worse.

“Yes, my lord. I might be able to pull together another one in time, but it will break his heart.”

Vader gritted his teeth. If this was any other assignment, he’d tell the boy to deal with whatever he chose for him, but he also didn’t need him crying on stage in front of everyone because he was unhappy.

He would need to convince him.

“Summon my son. I will speak with him.”

Miss Laena hurried to do so, and soon the tiny form of his son came running into his office, immediately climbing (uninvited) into his lap. Vader had no change to stop him before his little arms wrapped around his neck with a hug.

Despite the dire situation, he couldn’t help but melt a little under the embrace.

“Hi daddy!” Luke said, pulling away after a moment, settling in comfortably on his leg. “Am I in trouble?”

Perhaps that was the reason for the immediate hug. He would need to discourage such behavior in the future.

“No, my son.” He reached up and ruffled his hair. “I just wanted to know why you were assigned to be a walrus in this play.”

Luke brightened. “Oh! I’m going to be a walrus, daddy!”

“Yes, but why?” Perhaps he hadn’t understood the phrasing of his first question. He struggled to speak on a level the twins would understand, at times.

“Because I like them.”

Vader winced. That would make it harder to convince him to change topics.

“But why?”

Luke shrugged. “They look funny.”

And that was precisely why he didn’t want him to play a walrus in the first place. “Why don’t I help you choose something diff--” he cut off as Luke’s expression immediately began to fall, his eyes watering.

“No, daddy, I wanna be a walrus!”

Damn.

Already, just from his presence alone, Vader could tell it would be far more of a fight to force him to choose something else than to just do the walrus.

“...I will need to have a word with the school. But fine.”

Immediately the tears were gone, and Luke threw his arms around him again before climbing off and running to find his sister. Vader watched after him, wondering how his children had so thoroughly wrapped him around their fingers, before he pulled up his datapad to send a message to the school principal to order that no footage be allowed at the play.

If Luke insisted, he could at least make sure the incident was nothing more than a strange, unconfirmed rumor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night of the play, he’d debated on pretending his schedule was too full to attend. That way, perhaps no one would notice that the son of Darth Vader was dressed as a walrus. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of things to do instead anyway, but every time he thought about not showing up, the imagined disappointment in his children’s faces when they returned home was enough to guilt him into keeping the time reserved for the play.

That didn’t mean he didn’t show up at the last possible second before they closed the doors for the performance.

Naturally, the moment he walked in, a hush fell over the crowd of nannies and parents. He made a face when he recognized a few important officials there who were also apparently trying to be good parents despite their schedules. Normally he could respect that, but today of all days, he wished they’d remained at work.

The principal, a short, portly man, came rushing over not long after he’d found a corner to stand in. “I have issued a strict no recording policy as you wished, Lord Vader.”

“Good.” Vader crossed his arms, looking over his head to the curtained stage. “Because if there is any recording of my children distributed, I will personally pay you a visit.”

The man paled, gulped, and nodded. “Understood, my lord.” Then he turned and rushed off.

Moments later, the lights dimmed, and an announcement was made over a microphone to remind everyone of the very fact that no recording was allowed. He half expected them to use him as an excuse, but they mentioned nothing of the rule being a direct order from him.

Hm. He might have mentioned it just to make sure, but if he had to dispose of the principal, he would not lose sleep over it. His children barely knew the man and wouldn’t notice if he disappeared. Perhaps he’d do it anyway just for the fact that someone in his staff showed the boy a picture of the infernal animal in the first place.

Once the announcement was made, the “play” began. Sure enough, it was less of a play and more of various small children of different species in costumes reciting facts about whatever they’d researched for the parents. This was followed up by polite clapping, which he did not participate in. They were not his children, after all. He did not care, and he thought most of them were terribly boring anyway.

He was also certain that none of these children had actually done their own research. What a complete waste of time and resources.

But then came Leia. Somehow, Miss Laena had managed to help her construct an almost perfect replica of a stormtrooper armor set, fit perfectly to her petite size. The only thing that he could tell was real was the helmet, which she carried in her arms as more of a prop than anything else.

When she walked onto the stage...as he suspected she would, she immediately acted as though the entire room was there for her. She squared her shoulders, looking over the audience with as high and mighty of a look that an almost five year old could muster.

“Stormtroopers are soldiers who help protect the Empire.” She spoke clearly into the microphone. It was...well, as natural as a four year old could get, and a pang went through his chest at the thought of her suddenly looking very much like a mini version of her mother. “They serve over the whole Empire. They can be foot soldiers, or fly TIE fighters, like my daddy does.”

He wondered if that was something she was supposed to say, or if she said it just because she was proud of what he did for a living. Not that she knew the full extent of that, but...he offered a rare, unseen smile nonetheless.

“This is a real stormtrooper helmet. My friend let me use it tonight.” Friend? What friend? “Stormtroopers are not like clone troopers. They’re normal people like you and me.”

He refrained from snorting at that. In his opinion, Clone Troops were far superior, but the Emperor did not seem to care for that opinion.

“There’s also lots of types of stormtroopers. You can tell what they are because of their uniform. In conclusion, stormtroopers are pretty cool and I like them. They keep us safe, and are friends to all.”

That...didn’t really make sense. But she was four, and again, probably had her lines written by someone else. Still, when she finished and did a little curtsy, he clapped proudly for the first time the entire show, then watched as she practically skipped off stage.

Then...it was Luke’s turn.

It was an experience to have one child give a basic but Imperial pride-supporting speech, then directly afterwards have another child walk out wearing a walrus costume to talk about an animal he’d never even personally seen before. He was sure that anyone who knew Luke was his son probably had a lot of questions he’d never answer right about now.

But there Luke was, walking out wearing a well made, but monstrosity of a costume. He wore a dark gray, long-sleeved tunic that reached his knees, except that the sleeves ended well past where he knew Luke’s hands to be, and the end was in the shape of walrus flippers. A tail flopped around with each step Luke took, and his head was almost completely engulfed by a walrus-face hood. The face opening was framed by two giant tusks, what he supposed were whiskers, and at the top of the hood, giant eyes that Vader could swear were staring into his soul.

And underneath, Luke had obviously painted his face. Probably the same color as the tunic.

Half of Vader wanted to have the ground open up and swallow him whole. The other half was admittedly impressed with the lengths his son had put his nanny up to in making this costume. He was also dead certain that if Luke looked back on this costume as an adult, he’d be embarrassed beyond all reason.

“Walruses are water animals who live on water worlds like Mon Cala.” Luke began, just as confidently as Leia. It was also obvious he was very proud of the whole thing; he was bouncing a bit in excitement, causing the tail to flop around constantly. Nearby, Vader heard a few parents coo adoringly at the display.

He wondered if it would be noticeable if he used the Force to hold his son in place.

“They can dive deep in the water, but they like to stay near land. They are really, really fat. Also, both the girls and the boy walruses have tusks, like this!” He reached up and tugged on the tusks, earning chuckles from the crowd.

Well. Both of his children definitely liked to use visual aids. It was interesting to know, at least.

“They also live for a super long time. Forty years!” Luke lifted his flipper-hands up in excitement. “They also can live in the cold because they’re fat. They like to eat fish. And they make these really funny noises, like--” then Luke proceeded to demonstrate, and more laughter erupted around the room.

As well as Luke was doing, Vader couldn’t help but curse whoever had even shown the cursed animal to his son. He would definitely be finding a replacement for the principal after he was through with him.

What had he done to encourage such a fascination with the animal? He was from the desert, so this had to be something from his mother’s side of the family, he was sure of it.

But Luke seemed pleased by the audience’s reaction. He himself would have to ensure this incident never left this room, but at least his son was happy.

“So yeah, I like walruses. They’re funny looking, and that’s why I chose to tell you about them.” Then, with that said, Luke made a bow, and the audience erupted in far more clapping than had been heard the entire night. Luke straightened, grinned, then ran off stage, his tail and flippers flapping wildly behind him.

Well. It was certainly the most interesting part of the night, he thought as he clapped for his son. And despite being a walrus, his son was perfect. Just...had some odd interests that he sincerely hoped he grew out of.

When the show ended, Vader waited uncomfortably by the doors for his children. Plenty of parents and their costumed kids walked by, all giving him a wide berth. He ignored them all, scanning the crowd for his children. He could sense them coming, but for whatever reason, they kept stopping.

Finally, he saw the small figures of Luke and Leia pushing their way through their crowd, beaming smiles on their faces when they saw him.

“Daddy!” Leia crowed, and he quickly reached out to place his hands on their shoulders before they could try to hug him. He had grown used to their hugs in private, but they were still learning that it was not permitted in public. “Did you like my play?”

“You did well.” He confirmed, patting her head, which caused her to make a face and pull away.

“Don’t mess up my hair.” She muttered.

Luke had pulled the hood down and his painted face looked up at him. “What about mine, daddy? Lots of people told me they liked it.” He paused, frowning. “Did you?”

Vader paused, deciding how to phrase it. He did not like that he was parading around in a ridiculous walrus costume, but the whole point of him coming to this ridiculous excuse for a play was to support his children and build their confidence. He could not ruin it by telling his son that he hated the animal he was portraying. “You played your performance well, my son. I am proud of you both.”

Yes. That seemed safe. And to his satisfaction, the twins beamed up at him. But the moment was ruined when Luke asked, “Can we go to Mon Cala to see the walruses?”

“Yeah! Let’s go, daddy!” Leia added.

He paused for a few breaths of the respirator. “Mon Cala...is not safe for humans.”

Luke frowned. “But my friend said he went, and--”

“Why don’t I take you to a zoo, instead?” Then maybe Luke would see a different, less embarrassing animal to portray next time. Or maybe he’d lose interest in animals completely.

Luke considered for a moment, then nodded. “Okay daddy.” He paused. “Can I be a walrus for Trick Or Treat?”

Again, he paused, trying to come up with an answer that would not hurt his son’s feelings. “Why don’t you wait until after we go to the zoo?”

Luke also seemed to accept this answer, and Vader took his children's hands in his own, and led them from the theater.

Vader made sure to give pointed glares at anyone who dared look their way.

#Dad vader #dad vader series #luke skywalker #leia organa #luke loves animals #vader is not pleased #he probably got an A on his performance though #do they even grade preschoolers?#i don't know how preschool works

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thecoleopterawithana · 4 years

Text

Songwriting is like psychiatry

[Dear @eppysboys, your wish is my command.]

There are bound to be thickheads who will wonder why some of it doesn't make sense, and others who will search for hidden meanings.

'What's a Brummer?'

‘There's more to "dubb owld boot" than meets the eye.'

None of it has to make sense and if it seems funny then that's enough.

— Paul McCartney, in the Introduction to John Lennon's In His Own Write (1964).

When we had a party in the States to celebrate having finished the album, someone came up to us and said 'Hello, Venus. Hello, Mars.' I thought, 'Oh. no.'' When I write songs, I'm not necessarily talking about me, although psychoanalysts would say "Yes, you are, mate." But as far as I'm concerned, I'm not.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for the promotion of Venus and Mars (1975). In Paul Gambaccini's Paul McCartney: In His Own Words (1976).

I don’t examine myself that way. I just am. I just go through it. I just wake in the morning and go to bed at night and whatever happens during the day just happens. I don’t really know how I am.

— Paul McCartney, in Music Express: ‘Paul McCartney Wings It Alone’ (April/May 1982).

I’m not a great reader into moods: I don’t naturally say that if I wrote a sad song then I was sad that day, or if I wrote a happy song I was happy. I compose songs like playwrights write a play. They don’t have to know everyone in the play, they don’t have to know anyone in the play, it’s just a product of their imagination.

— Paul McCartney, speaking of ‘Somedays’, interviewed for Club Sandwich n°82 (Summer of 1997).

“There are a lot of mindsets when you’re writing a song – and one of them is commercial,” he admits. “It’s like any job, where if you do a certain thing you’ll progress in that job. In songwriting it’s an unspoken thing, but I recognise it. I remember hearing somewhere that people like sad songs, so I thought, ‘OK, I’ll write a sad song.’ I knew what I was getting into…” So, in a way, you were acting when you wrote [Yesterday]? “Yes. I wrote from the point of view of someone who was sad. But when you’re taking on a part, it’s usually you you’re writing about. Your psychiatrist would say it’s you.” Later, someone suggested that lyrics such as, “Why she had to go, I don’t know” were about McCartney’s mother who’d died when he was 14. “I certainly felt that way when she died. So when I sing Yesterday now, it does make me think about my mum. It’s more personal than I realised it was.” You sense that the older he gets, perhaps the more McCartney is prone to analysing his gift.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul (May 2015).

This series – I just woke up one morning and I had a germ of an idea, which is all I want really. I don’t want too formed an idea, it’s just not who I am. [...] I woke up with this thing and I thought it would be just a black canvas and these three-fingered scratches, like someone in prison and they’re either trying to get out or they’re trying to mark the dates. [...] But then a shape emerged with this blue, and I still don’t know what it is. It looks vaguely phallic, or somebody’s ass bending away from you. But that’s what started to fascinate me. It’s probably an accident, but also what I like about that is the inner content, that I have no idea what my dreams are about. I’ve no idea, yet they’re every bit as real as sitting here with you. But my interior world, I think it’s not a bad idea to try and tap it.

My view is that these things are there whether you want them or not, in your interior. You don’t call up dreams, they happen, often the exact opposite of what you want. You can be heterosexual and be having a homosexual dream and wake up, and think, “Shit, am I gay?” I like that you don’t have control over it. But there is some control – it is you dreaming, it is your mind it’s all happening in. In a way my equation would be that my computer is fully loaded by now. Maybe in younger people there’s a little bit of loading to go, but mine’s loaded pretty much, so what I try and do is allow it to print out unbeknown to me. And I’m interested to hear what it’s got in there.

I think we must be interested as musicians as often our music arrives that way. I dreamed the song Yesterday. It was just in a dream, I woke up one morning and had a melody in my head. So I have to believe in that.

— Paul McCartney, in “Luigi’s Alcove” by Karen Wright, for Modern Painters (August 2000).

I think a lot of these songs like 'Tell Me Why’ may have been based in real experiences or affairs John was having or arguments with Cynthia or whatever, but it never occurred to us until later to put that slant on it all.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Mile’s Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (1997).

I was standing at the door and he was in bed, and we were talking about the lyrics of 'I Am the Walrus’, and I remember feeling he was a little frail at that time, maybe not going through one of the best periods in life, probably breaking up with his wife. He was going through a very fragile period. You’ve only got to look at his lyrics - 'sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come’. They were very disturbed lyrics.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

I remember giggling with John as we wrote the lines ‘What do you see when you turn out the light? I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine.’ It could have been him playing with his willie under the covers, or it could have been taken on a deeper level; this was what it meant but it was a nice way to say it, a very non-specific way to say it. I always liked that.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

"Sex is something I prefer to do, rather than sing about. Hi Hi Hi was from a period when everybody was getting stoned and having sex… I suppose singing about sex is not really in my genre. [...] It’s the same with trying to write angry songs,” he continues. “I can’t do it.” Really? “Yes. I wrote a song called Angry. Recorded it here with Phil Collins and Pete Townshend. At the time I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve really slammed this…’ I can be angry but I can’t find a natural way to put it into a song. It’s the same with sex."

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul. (May, 2015)

McCartney has written some of the world’s most famous love songs, but has he ever worried about revealing too much of himself? “Yes, but you’ve got to get over that feeling quickly, because that’s the game.”

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul (May 2015).

It’s funny because just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not give too much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, their innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that I like about songs.

— Paul McCartney, on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful and truthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

[McCartney (1970)] was kind of… therapy through hell.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for the Q magazine (2007).

GILBERT: Do you find it easier to write good records in a darker period of your life than in happier periods? You’ve lived through more than a few bad episodes…

PAUL: That’s a good question, I’m not sure. I think the answer is neither and both. I think it’s good when you’re in a dark period, the good is [the song’s] your psychiatrist, it’s your therapy, and you know we have many tales – anyone who writes has. Going away when you’re really upset about something and putting it in your song – you come out of that cupboard, toilet or basement and go, “I really feel better.” You’ve actually exorcised the demon. So it is one of the great joys of songwriting.

GILBERT: What would be an example of a song you wrote in a very angry or dark mood?

PAUL: I think the words of ‘Yesterday’, when I see them now I think there were quite a few of my songs like that, you know, bad moods made better. More recently ‘Calico Skies’ [evoking memories of Linda]; ‘Little Willow’ [for Maureen Starkey] was one I wrote about a friend when she was dying and, in fact, she did die, so those kind of things can help. With ‘Yesterday’, singing it now, I think without realising it I was singing about my mum who died five or six years previously, or whatever the timing was. Because I think now, “Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say, I said something wrong…” I think the psychiatrist would have a field day with that one. (Sings) “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away / Now it looks as though they’re here to say” – there’s a lot of those songs, that’s just three where I can remember going into a hiding place with a guitar, purposely to exorcise your demons. It’s like writing your dream out or something, and it’s a physical effect where you come back out and you’ve created that magic again, pulling the rabbit out of the hat. “Where did that come from? Wahey!” It’s a great feeling.

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Pat Gilbert for MOJO: Don’t look back in anger. (November, 2013)

Q: Do you have a song that you put on if you’re ever having a hard time or a bad day, and it instantly makes you feel better?

PAUL: There’s a track [’I Don’t Know’] on Egypt Station that came out of a hard time I think would fit the bill now! […] it’s funny what inspires you to write songs. For instance, John started writing ‘Help!’during a crisis at that time in his life, which is often a good motivator ‘cause there’s a therapy aspect to writing songs sometimes - but not all songs! It’s almost as if you’re telling your guitar your troubles and a lot of composure can be found through that. So you sort of say what you might say to a therapist, but you put it into a song and you might feel better afterwards. You don’t have to be going through terrible times, just something that’s frustrating.

— Paul McCartney, in You Gave Me The Answer (28 March 2019)

Q: ‘I Don’t Know’ opens with the lyric, “Crows at my window, dogs at my door, I don’t think I can take it anymore.” This imagery does seem pretty bleak for a comeback.

PAUL: Well, I was in a bleak mood. It’s a well-known fact, you talk to a lot of songwriters, that they write good songs from being in a bad mood. It can often be a really good motivating factor, because you don’t care. You can’t just go out to your friends or your relatives, and just start going, 'I’ve got crows on my window.’ You don’t necessarily want to just go and complain about everything, but you can complain to your piano, in this case, or your guitar… It’s a great therapy.

Q: Doubt and regret [hardly] seem to be things that people associate with you.

PAUL: It’s funny, isn’t it? People think that about me, that well, when you reach my position… you end up with no problems at all. But that’s unrealistic, because you’re in life. And if like me you’ve got a big family, there’s gonna be some sort of problem, even if it’s just someone’s ill. So realistically speaking, you have to think that it’s very likely that most people you know can have problems. Even President Obama. Even John Lennon. Even Taylor Swift. We’ve all got problems, and that’s what makes us all so human.

— Paul McCartney, interview for BBC 6 (20 June 2018).

The idea is that what I’ll leave behind me will be music, and I may not be able to tell you everything I feel, but you’ll be able to feel it when you listen to my music. I won’t have the time or the articulation to be able to say it all, but if you enjoy composing you say it through the notes.

— Paul McCartney, regarding Ecce Cor Meum, which premiered in 2001.

I have to leave And when I'm gone I'll leave my message In my song

Tangents

The Walrus | A case study for John’s struggles with meaning in song

The Surrealist | Meaning and Magritte

I Can’t Tell You How I Feel | Expressing emotions and feelings [statements in songs]

This One | A case study for Paul’s struggles with expressing feelings

I’m Scared To Say I Love You | Paul’s struggle with saying ‘I love you’

#Paul McCartney #John Lennon #the beatles #songwriting is like psychiatry #I don't examine myself that way #The Surrealist #A very non-specific way to say it. I always liked that.#Did I ever open up my heart and let you look inside?#I'll leave my message in my song #but the saving grace was as usual music #compilation #macca #johnny #linda #my stuff

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houseofhalation · 4 years

Text

Am I attempting to write slice of life comedy because I’m depressed and having a hard time writing the three billion other things I have going on, despite never having written slice of life comedy ever at all in my entire life? Yeah.

Am I sticking my entire middle finger up at the canon as it stands and doing whatever I want? Also yeah.

Anyway enjoy the first part of this so far untitled thing. Lots of swearing, currently genderless MC, let’s all ignore the canon for a minute okay?

Monday mornings are extremely, unrelentingly, unquestionably cursed. Nothing good ever happens on a Monday. That’s how you know you’re utterly boned when your boss asks you to come in early for a private meeting. On a Monday.

Fuck.

You haul yourself out of bed and wonder how much effort you should put into your appearance if you’re getting fired. Eventually you settle on not too much and crawl your way into the office, a prompt forty-five minutes before it’s actually meant to open. Most things are still dark. Your desk looks cold and neglected, and you wish you could have neglected it for just a bit longer.

The bushy facial hair on your boss’s lips twitches in what is either a smile or a grimace when he sees you, and while you’re not sure which would be best to see at the moment, you think that it’s maybe not a grimace. You heave a sigh and follow him into his office, staring out his window into the still-sleeping city.

He sits down behind his desk.

You sit across from him, wondering if you should have brought a box or if your tote bag is big enough to carry everything out in. Regardless, it’s going to be a bitch to haul the contents of your desk home on the subway.

He stares at you long enough that you start to wonder if you called the meeting. Then you remember that’s absurd. Isn’t it? It’s becoming abundantly clear that you shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine before going to bed.

“We have a new client,” your boss says, and because you’re too busy wondering if your LinkedIn profile is up to date and considering his similarities to a walrus, you don’t immediately hear his words. They hit you like a brick wall.

“Okay,” you say because you’re not sure what else there is to say.

“They’re out of the country,” he continues, looking more and more nervous. The last time he’s looked this nervous a prominent client went on a week-long bender and livestreamed most of it. Christ, that had been a mess to clean up and almost made you go on a bender of your own.

“You noted on your application that you wouldn’t mind relocating,” he says as if he can read your thoughts. “And you’re the only one in the firm without a family, so…”

It doesn’t sound like you’re being fired.

“I’m not being fired?” You ask because you just have to be sure. Your boss blinks down at you and cements the walrus imagery in your mind forever.

“Of course not,” he tells you. “They’ve requested someone to handle all of their online presence, and the firm determined that you would be the best fit.”

Most likely because as the newest hire, you’re lowest on the totem pole. Ugh.

“Now, you’ll be living on campus, so all of your accommodations will be taken care of. Nothing to worry about, really. The contract is indeterminate, so you’ll be there for…” your boss’s tongue peeks out to lick his lips and oh, shit, he’s super nervous. Not a good sign. “You’ll be there for as long as they need you to be,” he finally finishes. He slides a suspiciously slim manilla folder across his desk at you, narrowly missing one of his goofy little desk decorations as he does so. You flip it open and find a single page inside.

Welcome to the Royal Academy of Diavolo! It proclaims proudly, right beside poorly-framed, blurry photographs of what you assume is a student, dressed up either for a theatre production or for a halloween event. Either way, not a super awesome first impression. You can’t even tell how old the student is supposed to be.

“Is this it?” You wave the single paper beside your head as if waiting for it to multiply magically. Your boss has the decency to look ashamed. “Can you tell me anything else about it?”

“It’s a school,” he says.

“Right, but… College? University? Primary education? Public? ...Private?” Probably private, you determine with another glance at the name, and christ, is that comic sans? Your boss coughs lightly.

“It’s a school,” he says again, as if that in any way answers any of your questions.

Fucking fantastic.

---

If you didn’t need the money so bad, you’d have tossed the sad excuse for a client profile in the trash. What the hell is your boss thinking, taking on this client? But you do need the money, so you go home and pack a few bags and look at your sad, shitty little apartment you sublet from your college roommate. They’ll be able to find someone new no problem, and you’re honestly not too sad to be saying goodbye to the shoebox.

Sayo-fucking-nara.

At least room and board is covered at your new gig at the mystery school.

---

You agreed to meet at the train station because that’s a public place with plenty of security cameras and witnesses, and honestly, if you’re going to get murdered for this job you want your kidnapping to be recorded, at the very least. You don’t know if your chauffeur is going to be holding a little sign with your name on it like in the movies or not, but you think probably not. You scan the crowd for someone who looks like they're from the Royal Academy of Whevever-the-hell and give up after an hour of sitting on the hard wooden bench provided for poor schmucks like you.

The whole thing is probably a joke. Ha, ha. Very fucking funny, let’s haze the new employee. A lawsuit sounds like the perfect way to round out your Monday morning.

Irritated at a brand new level, you haul your bags into the bathroom after you, fully intending to splash some water on your face. If you didn’t think they’d get stolen, you’d have left them behind on the bench. But seeing as how just about every earthly possession you have is within them, you’re not too keen on the idea.

So they follow you into the pitch-black void that is meant to be the restroom, which really, is just another cherry on the shit sundae that has become your morning. You’re tired, in the last place you want to be right now, chasing after some stupid-sounding client that probably doesn’t exist, and now the electricity is on the fritz.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

You swallow a growl and fling out your arm, fully intending to find the wall and, hopefully, the lightswitch. You don’t find anything at all, just more black void, and why the hell aren’t your eyes adjusting so you take a mincing step forward. And then another.

And another, just for good measure, which turns out to be the wrong decision, all things considered. You go hurtling forward and just before you make impact, all you can think is they’d better have cleaned this godforsaken floor sometime this decade before you smash against flagstone.

Not the tile you’d been expecting.

What?

Your phone skitters out of your hands and you hear something on it snap with a sick, twisting feeling in your stomach. That sounded expensive and you don’t relish trying to get it fixed on a budget. Not to mention that you’re… somewhere and without a means of communication.

“Oh!” Someone exclaims from above you just as you become aware that you can see. Kind of. The lights are still dim, but the moon gleaming in from the huge windows provides at least a little light to see by.

Wait.

Windows?

“You’re early,” the voice says, interrupting your stalled-out train of thought. Hands reach down and pick up your bags, and then help you to your feet. You allow them to because this has to be a dream. You’ve not woken up just yet, surely, and any minute now you will, and you’re going to get fired like you thought you were going to be. This is just a stress dream. A weird one.

“Sorry about that; we didn’t expect you for a few more minutes. Things were still being prepared.”

Or you’re dead. You’ve died in your sleep of an aneurysm or something and this is your brain’s last dying gasps as it tries to make sense of all your misfiring neurons or whatever. It’s been a long time since freshman biology class.

“Either way, let me be the first to introduce you to both the Royal Academy of Diavolo and the Devildom!”

You stare dumbly up at the huge mountain of a man, dressed in what looks absurdly like a red military uniform. He smiles widely at you, eyes crinkled up in expressions of pure joy like you’re not dying or stuck in a fever dream. You pinch yourself hard on your arm.

Son of a bitch, it hurts.

Which means it’s high time your brain catches up and tries to process all of the words that have been spoken at you. A herculean task, really, because they don’t make a lick of sense and now that you think about it, maybe you hit your head when you tripped in the dark. Yeah. That would make sense. You’ve got a concussion, probably. Those come with hallucinations, right? You have no idea how concussions work, but that doesn’t stop you from deciding you have one.

“This… is not the bathroom,” you announce.

#obey me #obey me!#obey me! fanfic #when i have a title i'll post it properly to ao3 #gladly welcoming suggestions #mc isn't a student but is a struggling young professional who just wants to take a depression nap

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queer-crusader · 4 years

Note

4, 5, 8, 12, 16, 22, 26, 31, 34 :3

4: Are there any writers that inspire you?

I am TERRIBLE with remembering fic writer's tbh! Real life writers that inspire me are Terry Pratchett and VE Schwab. In fanfiction, the first fic I ever read was by Goddamhella, who I believe has by now orphaned their works, but they still inspire me. The crack of Off The Record and the dynamic of the avengers (and of Tony and Loki) definitely still inspires me years later, and the atmosphere and slow character development of Winterheart does too. @bakedapplesauce inspires me with how they build up tension between characters, like a storm rolling in. I also love how they write this focus on little things that build up the image of a whole; someone's hands, their smell. It makes it feel like the character is observing the other in detail, and reminds me of close-up shots in films in a way that I prefer over those films xD I aspire to be able to build that same atmosphere and tension ❤️

5: What's the fic you're most proud of?

OOH boy that's a tough one!! Umm, I really like how In The Deep was going? Even tho it's on hiatus right now. I feel like I was actually throwing my writing skills at that one, really trying hard to make it a proper piece of writing. (I'll get back to it I swear.)

8: Which character(s) do you find easiest to write?

Funnily enough I think maybe Miranda? Even tho I've written very little of her so far! Flint goes pretty well too

12: Tell us about a WIP you're excited about.

Oh probably my Miranda fic!! (I seem to be in a Miranda loving mood today lmao) I started writing a fic that delves into her life, which barely gets spoken of in Black Sails. I just want to give her a background, play with the story of how she became who she is today, make her more than a lover and a mother figure. More than the slightly more interesting version of your typical love interest, I want her to have her own story. So yeah that's a thing I'm slowly working on in the background 😅

16: Any guilty pleasure tropes?

This question insinuates that I feel guilt about anything (I do lmao, so the answer is probably some smut trope that I won't be too public about 😂)

22: Do you listen to anything while you write?

I have a pirate playlist full of bops that is my go-to thing to listen to right now!

26: Is there anything you've wanted to write, but you've been too scared to try?

There's another WIP I've started for a fic that I was debating on making an original work! But that would mean writing a book about a lesbian romance at the Russian court during the time of the fall of the empire and the last czars. And as rad as that would be, I literally fear for my life to do that 😂😂 Russia will COME FOR ME I KNOW IT

31: Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

I mean I literally have so many original fiction works in my brain so you'd have to be more specific if you wanna know anything about them 😅 in fanfics I think I've only written one OC called Gwen. She's in my The Expanse fic, Anwyn. She's a sex worker who trains other sex workers and teaches them to be safe and good enough at their job to easily build up a bit of money and give them a chance at escaping the life if they should wish so. She's a character from Amos' past (Amos is an actual character from the show), and she's just very boisterous and free. Writing her scared me a lot bc OCs usually aren't much-loved but she got a pretty good reception 😊

34: Copy and paste an excerpt you're particularly fond of.

"Fellas," John says as he walks into the Walrus kitchen, "is it gag to spend almost every morning with a guy in domestic bliss as he gets ready for work while you get ready for bed?"

Ben drops a serving tray laden with dirty dishes, shattering several plated. His eyes are wide on John, though, unaware of the carnage around his feet.

"Wow, thanks for that, Ben," John winces. "Not quite the answer I was hoping for."

Billy is staring too, while Max is about to piss herself with laughter. John narrows his eyes at them all.

"I've missed something, haven't I."

DeGroot walks in then, checking on the source of the crash. John turns to him with a radiant smile.

"Ah, Mr DeGroot, surely you know the answer to this," he says. "Spending near every morning with a guy in domestic bliss, gay or nay?"

DeGroot stares at him. He looks at Ben, who looks white, then at the shards at his feet, then back at John.

He turns around and exists the kitchen again without a word.

"Okay, seriously, don't tell me you're all homophobic," John complains. "What's going on?"

"Please," Ben begs him, his voice shaky, "please tell me you're not fucking Randall."

Ask me more of these!

#anne speaks #questions answered #my writing #ask game #rileylefae

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erictmason · 5 years

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INKTOBER DAT TWENTY ONE AND TWENTY TWO: Freedom Is The Greatest Treasure (And We Even Have A Ghost On Our Side!)

No matter how many seas will separate us I'll always be there for you Without any fear, heading straight Don't ever forget We fight together

So I might have gone a bit crazy on this one?

For context: recently @thankskenpenders’ ongoing retrospective of the Archie “Sonic the Hedgehog” came across something very rare: a story I didn’t just not remember but in fact had never read before. Said story, “Fairy Tale (Or The Adventures of Pirate Sally)”, is, to be clear, Not Very Good? But the premise was just so 1000% Up My Alley that it lodged itself into my brain anyway, and before I knew it I had in fact dreamed up a whole-hog Pirate Alternate Universe for the Archie “Sonic” crew (with ideas for others not even seen here!). And this is the result! If you want to know the details of these takes on the characters (which I have written at length because again this idea just took me like fire), feel free to check under the Read More.

SALLY ACORN (Captain)

Once, Sally was the Princess of the powerful kingdom of Mobotropolis…until the day, not long after her eighth birthday, the evil Baron Robotnik came to her home. With his mechanized army he ravaged the land and attempted to hunt Sally and all her family down. The King attempted to evacuate Sally, her family, and her closest friends out of the city safely…but the ship meant to take them all to safety was sunk, and all aboard were taken for dead. In truth, however, Sally and her lady-in-waiting, Bunnie, had survived (though Sally had lost an eye in the attack), drifting through the ocean on wreckage from the ship…until they were found by the Dread Pirate Shadow and his young boatswain Sonic. Though Shadow was no friend of the Crown, he ultimately took pity on the lost children and took them under his wing and onto his crew. Years passed; Sally excelled in her duties aboard Shadow’s ship (the Dark Rider), proving herself exceptionally intelligent, fierce in a fight, and able to shape the most effective plans…but always she dreamed of the home she’d lost, and the monster she’d lost it to. Ten years later, having risen through the ranks, Sally was made Captain of the ship when Shadow, for reasons he chose to keep secret, decided to step down and leave for parts unknown. Re-christening the ship The Freedom Stormer, Sally dedicates herself and her crew toward a new mission: acquire enough wealth and forge enough alliances to mount a full-scale attack against Baron Robotnik and reclaim her fallen kingdom.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (Gunner)

Sonic has never known his parents or his home; the only memories he has of either are about being on the run. From who? Why? He doesn’t really know the answer to that either. But as a young boy, gifted with supernaturally incredible speed, his aimless travels led him out to sea (an irony, as the hedgehog could not swim), where his tenacity earned him the respect of the Dread Pirate Shadow, who chose to take him aboard his ship as a junior member of his crew. Thus was Sonic there when Shadow took two other children onto his ship, the young Princess Sally and her lady in waiting Bunnie. Sonic had never shared Shadow’s distaste for the crown (indeed he barely understood what that even really meant) so he bonded with Sally very quickly, and the two became nearly inseparable from that point forwards; as time passed, and their bond deepened, the two learned well how they could always depend and lean on each other in times of need, and it helped both to manage the struggles they held in their hearts. When Shadow chose to step down as Captain and handed the mantle over to Sally, Sonic held no jealousy; he’d never desired the role of leadership anyway, and was only too happy when Sally named him the ship’s chief Gunner, allowing him to be at the front lines of the action he so craved. He still doesn’t have that strong an understanding of the politics and conflicts of Sally’s homeland, but he also feels he doesn’t NEED to understand that much: he believes in freedom, and he believes in Sally, and that is motive enough to make him a fiery fighter for the cause he now works so strongly towards.

BUNNIE RABBOT (Quartermaster)

It was a quirk of fate that led Bunnie to become Sally’s lady in waiting: her parents, wealthy land-owners of the long-lived Rabbaeux family, often attended parties at the palace, and every single time they did, Bunnie and Sally managed to find each other, becoming fast friends who could spend hours at a time playing together. Bunnie’s parents and Sally’s thus agreed to make Bunnie Sally’s lady in waiting so that the two could spend even more time playing together, which they did happily until the day of Baron Robotnik’s invasion. Though she and Sally managed to escape the sinking of the ship meant to evacuate them, the attack severely wounded Bunnie’s arm and leg; after the Dread Pirate Shadow took her and Sally aboard his ship, both limbs had to be amputated, and ever since, Bunnie has been outfitted with special multi-functioning prosthetics (upgraded over time as she grew older and thus bigger). Her friendship with Sally has never wavered; the two remain close confidants who place a great deal of trust in each other and it was thus only natural that upon becoming Captain Sally named Bunnie her quartermaster, a role she has fulfilled with her bright spirit, strong fighting skills, and reliable courage. As well, she’s able to keep the ship one step ahead of the Baron’s fleet, as she has formed a secret relationship with the captain of the fleet’s flagship, Antoine D’Coolette.

TAILS (Boatswain)

Not long after Sally was made captain of the Freedom Stormer, a mysterious item crossed the ship’s path: a small life boat, a woven basket the only thing to be found on it. How the boat had managed so long without anyone to steer it was a mystery but even more mysterious was what the basket contained: an infant fox with two tails. There was no indication of where he had come from or why he was adrift at sea, but Sally and the rest of the crew all agreed: as Shadow had done for many of them, so too would they take this child onto their ship and raise him as their own. Sonic and Sally especially took a key role in taking care of the young boy, who they named Miles for the long journey they knew he must have had on that boat, and he in turn grew up to idolize them both, hoping to one day be a great Pirate just like them. For now, though, he helps around the ship as best he can (in particular acting as look-out, since he absolutely loves being high up in the ship’s crow’s nest) helped by his unique ability to fly with his twin tails; indeed he has begun insisting that he be called Tails, following advice from Sonic that he should not be ashamed of his second tail, but instead take pride in it and the special things it allows him to do that others can’t.

ROTOR WALRUS (Navigator, Medical Officer)

Hailing from the far arctic, Rotor set out from home as a teenager with the intent of learning everything he could about the world: every discipline, every fact, every skill. His travelling studies thus enabled him to become a talented medical doctor, cartographer, and even engineer. That great collection of talents eventually brought him to the attention of Baron Robotnik, who attempted to use his mechanical agents to forcibly recruit Rotor into his service; not desiring to work under the baron, Rotor attempted to flee and was only successful because of the intervention of the Dread Pirate Shadow. Realizing he would be safest from the Baron aboard Shadow’s ship, Rotor thus offered to work for him instead, acting as the ship’s doctor and navigator. Impressed with Rotor’s show of skills, Shadow accepted, and thus did Rotor enter the position he has retained even now that Sally is Captain. Sally’s new mission, however, has meant the walrus has also begun having to make more use of his mechanical skills to not only maintain and repair the ship’s existing weapons (and Bunnie’s prosthetics for that matter), but to begin experimenting with and designing entirely new weapons to give them an edge against Robotnik’s forces.

ANTOINE D’COOLETTE (Royal Captain)

In days of old, Antoine’s father, Armand D’Coolette, served as the Fleet Commander for the Royal House of Acorn…but when the Acorn Family was deposed and Mobotropolis fell under the control of Baron Robotnik, Armand chose to save his family by offering to serve under Robotnik. The Baron accepted his terms, and the agreement held until Armand’s death several years later. Hoping to protect his mother and younger siblings, Antoine chose to continue to uphold the agreement, and became Captain of the Baron’s Flagship, the Dragoon. Eventually, the Dragoon was assigned to deal with the Freedom Stormer, which had begun to interfere with Robotnik’s activities more and more. It was during the pursuit of the Stormer and the many battles the two ships fell into that Antoine came to meet Bunnie Rabbot; impressed not only by her skill in battle but by her strong spirit. Over time she too came to respect his abilities and realized he served the Baron not out of loyalty but because he wanted to keep his loved ones safe; she thus decided to convince him to act as a kind of Inside Man for the crew of the Freedom Stormer, passing along secret information that could help them counter Robotnik’s moves and keep them safe. Antoine agreed, and has been helping the Pirates ever since, as well as gradually growing closer and closer to Bunnie via the letters they exchange as part of the agreement.

NICOLE (Ghost)

Before Bunnie and Sally met, the princess’ closest friend was a young girl named Nicole, the daughter of renowned inventor Doctor Ellidy. But alas, only a year prior to the invasion of Baron Robotnik, Nicole was struck with a deathly illness. Her father tried everything to save her, but no medicine or science on record seemed effective, and so he resorted to drastic measures, turning to the arcane and occult: through the Ritual of Ixis, he sought to transfer Nicole’s soul into an enchanted gem stone, believing it would cause her original body to fall into a kind of coma that would keep it preserved until such time as a proper cure could be found. However, the ritual seemingly failed, and Nicole’s body finally gave out. Heartbroken at his failure, Ellidy chose to leave the Kingdom of Mobotropolis, but he gave the stone he had used in the ritual to Sally in honor of her and Nicole’s friendship. Many years later, however, upon becoming Captain of the Freedom Stormer, Sally, who had taken to wearing the stone as a necklace, would learn the ritual HAD succeeded: Nicole’s spirit lived on within the stone and, through the connection she shared with Sally, she could even emerge in a ghostly form (which for reasons neither Sally nor Nicole fully understands has somehow “aged” the way Nicole would have if she were still alive)! She cannot retain this state for long as it drains both her and Sally of a great amount of energy to do so, but even so Nicole now uses her ghostly powers to aid Sally and the others in their quest, and Sally has vowed to one day find a way to create a new body for Nicole to inhabit and live anew.

#sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #thankskenpenders #Inktober #sally acorn #Bunnie Rabbot #tails #rotor Walrus #nicole #Antoine D'Coolette #fan art #ericthemason #inktober2019 #my art

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internetremix · 5 years

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If you guys could be any non Legendary Pokemon, what would you be and why?

2This one ended up VERY LONG so discussion below the cut:

Kristen: Um. Oh no this is hard. My kneejerk reaction to these is always Mew because Mew is my favorite Pokemon. Smol kickass pink cat, excellent.Phill: Bidoof. Easy. Hands down objectively best PokemonKristen: I'm just imagining Bidoof with a Phill beard now. Amazing. BUT I CANNOT PICK A LEGENDARY POKEMON SO. Uh. Um. I mean Charizard is super cool and then I could be a big badass dragon but like I CAN'T BE A BIG?? THAT WOULD BE HARD I'd probably be super clumsy and burn shit. ...So I also can't be Fletchling cause then I'm also gonna burn shit on accident. Dragonair is super neat but like THEY LONG I feel like I'd get tangled up. Espeon and Umbreon are cool?? Uh maybe an Espeon?? They seem too cool for me. I'm bad at this, I haven't played Pokemon in like a million years and I get self conscious every time I pick something cool cause I'm like "no I'd fuck up being cool". Slyveon maybe?? My fiance just said I'd be a Plusle but I don't accept it.

...fuck it Espeon. Espeon is neat but also it cute fuck it live ur dreams to be kinda cool.Atwas: It's okay Kristen. Charizard is only 5'7". But I guess even that would be a massive jump in height. :^)Kristen: ListenAtwas: :^)Kristen: RudeUprising: idk what i would BE, i know my favorite pokemon but thats chepap. my brother said shiny alolan ninetails bc it is pink, white, and has flowy hair so that sounds accurate.Alex: My favorite pokemon is magikarp but i would probably be exploudKristen: And now I'm just imagining Magikarp with Alex's hair.Jojo: ugh. why do you have to ask me this. now I have to get out my list of literally every pokemon... Either Eevee, Dratini, or Chatot. OR RIOLU! riolu is a goodie. I have a feeling Scott would be a Buneary but that's not my place to say.Kristen: Good choices JoojJojo: /);w;(\Split: Kristens a torchic that never evolves lmaoKristen: NO ...maybe.Jojo: I actually thought about it. I have the perfect pokemon for youKristen: ...alright, hit me.Alex: Ok.

Kristen: OW! Alex why? ;A;Alex: You said hit me.Split: PffffhahahaJojo: #742, Cutiefly.

Kristen: ...I mean. It is smol and blonde, which I currently am.Split: Yep. It you. Congrats.Kristen: SIGH I mean. It’s very cute.Jojo: By the way I think that’s it’s actual size.Split: LMAOJojo: OH MY GOD IT’S LITERALLY KRISTEN

Kristen: NOSplit: I call being the trainer of this band of misfitsKristen: I’M SMOL BUT NOT THAT SMOL!Jojo: You are that smol.Split: Joj shes like an inch or two shorter than youJojo: NO?? SHE’S LIKEKristen: HA!Jojo: SHH! THAT’S NOT TRUEKristen: IT’S TOTALLY TRUEAlex: "The wild Kristen eats approximately ten times her body weight each day"Split: If only.Jojo: ohmygodkristenI found your other one

Kristen: NOSplit: Joj that ones youKristen: He's right it's smol and blueAlex: yeah that's youJojo: NO IM A RIOLUSplit: Which one was thatAlex: babby lucarioJojo: That boy

Split: But are you sureJojo: YES THAT'S MEKristen: Why do you get to be the cool oneAlex: i still think dratini is best choice for jojKristen: I agree.Split: Are you baby martial artist or baby huggy bearJojo: I AM STRONG YOU FUCKAlex: huggy bear it isSplit: But do you fightJojo: YESSplit: BullshitJojo: DUKE UP YOU CHEEKY POPPETSplit: AightKristen: I can't believe Jooj is a huggy bearJojo: NoOooOo IM DRATINISplit: Thats the snake one right? The long blue dragon snake.Alex:

Jojo: yeSplit: Oh yuh thats also joj. I still think huggy bear but ill settle for dratini.Jojo: even looks like my fursona holy shitSplit: Secrets outJojo: MOTHERFUCKER YOU HUUGGY BEAR. it's not really a secret anymoreSplit: It never wasssssKristen: I can't believe Jojo gets to be a fucking dragon and I'm a tiny fly that eats 10 times its bodyweight. Oh it's bug/fairy. I guess that's interesting.Jojo: hehehefairyAlex: real talk i based it on the math that an average human eats 2.5 kg of cooked food per dayKristen: Huh, interestingSplit: We gave you so many options other than the .4 inch bug thing kristenKristen: ....I mean I can see Cutiefly, Fletching or Torchick tbhJojo: OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS ABSOLUTE UNIT

HIS NAME. IS BUZZSWOLE.Kristen: lmao that looks like a Digimon. Is that real?Walrus: He is real. And he will punch your spirit.Kristen: SOUNDS FAKE BUT OKAlex: you question the might of our lord and savior buzzwoleJojo: no he'll punch everything and then literally use your spirit as a sweat rag! LOOK AT THIS FUCKIN JOJO ASS CHARACTER!Split: It took me a whole 2 seconds to realize you meant the anime and not yourself(edited)Alex: our joj does have bizarre adventures to be fairSplit: You right you rightJojo: :,)Split: I could just hear your soul crackJojo: I'm glad. anyway look at this other kristen pokemon.

Kristen: No, I am drawing the line, no. You can't keep googling "what's the most harmless looking dust mote of a pokemon" and then say IT'S KRISTENJojo: NOO THAT'S NOT TRUE I'll tell you what. if you were a legendary pokemon you'd be Jirachi. that mf is p o w e r f u lKristen: Aw gosh. Wait didn’t we say MG would be edgy jirachi?Alex: her original character a jirachi-darkrai fusionJojo: I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT DARKRAI or a very smol GiratinaKristen: I do not know enough about this pokemon to comment.Alex: Giratina is Pokemon Satan.Kristen: Ah. Okay. Of course. Of course Pokemon Satan is a thing.Alex:

Kristen: ...Oh it’s MG.Split: I distinctly remember pokemon satan ending up being a good guyJojo: so was darkraiKristen: I can't believe you just spoiled DMP and now I gotta cancel it.Alex: Satan: He's An Alright Guy!Split: P sure darkrai killed kidsKristen: ...it's fine don't worry about itAlex: Movie Darkrai was alright I thought? There are a whole lot of child murderin' pokemon out there to be fair.Split: Oh movie darkrai was futily attempting to stop the collapse of the universeIf i remember rightJojo: he also became attached to a childSplit: Big shrug on that sub plot its been yearsAlex: we have one hundred percent abandoned the original question. welcome to internet remixKristen: Yeeeep. Getting back on topic, I think Split would be Absol or Houndoom.Jojo: OOOOHHH I didn’t even think of AbsolSplit: Nah im the trainer

Alex: but consider: girafarigSplit: What isAlex: mostly i chose it because "aesthetic"

Kristen: PFFFT HAHAHASplit: Nah. Meanwhile, Kristen callin out my favorite pokemon as a kid. Regardless ive already grabbed a hat, tell tale sign of any trainer. Ive started walking the path every 13 year old must walk in their livesKristen: Pretty sure trainers start at 10?Split: Nah i mean im leaving my region for new boundsKristen: So brave. Anyway I’m trying to think of others. I'm trying to think of others. My brain keeps telling me that Alex is Entei. Tol and floofy and can burn things. But that's a legendary.Jojo: oooo I think he had a good pick of exploud. Buuut I also think he'd be an Ursaring.

Dawn: For me I tried to think of literally any water pokemon for me but lets be real here

Alex: I mean.Dawn: b0rfJuno: If I could be any nonlegendary mon it would be Golurk1) Giant Robot2) Can fly with rocket boosters3) Causes earthquakesTex: Umm. Hm. Something that was a mix of fire, dragon, and psychic. Like I know u can't get three. But listen.Walrus: w-walrein exists. so i meanJuno: MY TIME HAS COME

Walrus: HAHHhhhhWHEN THE FUCKHUHWHATI FORGOT OR DIDN'T SEE THISHONAtwas: YO that's so fucking cool! To answer the prompt, I'd probably be a Zoroark.Kristen: Good choices.Scott: Could BE a non-legendary?Jojo: Hold on wait. let me guess: bunearyScott: No, that's what I would want to HAVE. Hm. This is actually tough. Maybe Altaria? It's a flying Pokemon that sings beautiful melodies and has a relatively average speed.I don't know. I'd want to be a Pokemon that was kind and graceful with musical qualities, if at all possible. So yeah, I guess AltariaKristen: I can see that.Juno: Also you're fluffyShyner: Hooooly shit there's a lot of stuff hereI feel bad about adding to this massive wall of content but I'm just putting down for the record that I would definitely be basic bitch eevee. I'll change my form for you, just please love me :,)Kristen: ;A; I LOVE EEVEE JUST THE WAY EEVEE ISJuno: eevee... babey

#whole crew #ask the ir crew #JESUS THIS IS LONG #Anonymous

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cozcat · 5 years

Text

His Dark Materials at the National Theatre

There’s no publicly available video* of the National Theatre production of His Dark Materials, but the script is pretty easy to find, as Nick Hern Books released it.

They condensed the three books into one two-part play - the same style as Cursed Child. Two plays, so four acts, with regular intervals and a prolonged break between the second and third acts.

Under the cut, I’ve got some general information about the show, and a list of notes about changes, as well as anything I’ve found interesting as I’ve been reading. At some point, I may do a full summary of what actually happens in the script, rather than contrasting it with the books.

If you have any questions about the script, I’m happy to answer!

* Unless you go to the NT archive in London, and you can watch it there, but as it’s an archive copy, it’s apparently pretty mediocre quality, so more of a reference for the staging than an actual viewing experience. And you can’t watch it unless you’re in the actual building.

For general staging and information:

The National Theatre has a drum revolve, and most shows use it when staged there. As His Dark Materials was specifically written for that theatre, the revolve is used very liberally throughout, and an example of its use can be seen here

A handful of photos can be found here, and lower quality ones can be found from a bit of a hunt online.

Lists of both casts can be found here.

National Theatre Archive pages for part 1 and part 2

Act One

Opens with Lyra and Will as adults on the bench in Oxford - their conversations don’t line up, but work in tandem, and Mrs Lonsdale appears towards the end to indicate they’re going back in time as a flashback - Will disappears, and Lyra is twelve again

Roger and Lyra only meet for the first time before the Retiring Room, and Roger goes with her, though he’s just a tagalong - Lyra still does everything of importance

Jopari is alive, and brought up by Asriel in the meeting - there’s no head

Billy's dæmon is Ratter and he takes the Tony role of being the severed child

Mrs Coulter openly wants Lyra working for the General Oblation Board, and wants to tell her about it after the cocktail party

"Lyra the liar!” is said by both Pan and Roger at different points

Lyra is picked up by the Gyptians who are already en route north - they go straight to Trollesund, and Ma Costa doesn’t appear at all

Lyra: "Haven't you got any self respect?" Iorek: "None."

Farder Coram and Serafina Pekkala are "long lost friend[s] of my [his] youth-time days", and they communicate sometimes still

Lyra sees Billy post-intercision in a Tartar camp and is kidnapped from there - rather than seeking him out

Lyra is grabbed to be intercised when she frees the severed dæmons, and the intercision begins because they want to shock Lyra into submission before Mrs Coulter arrives - she arrives just before the intercision

They make the human-dæmon bond visible in the intercision machine - presumably so that the audience knows what happens when we see it severed later

Mrs Coulter gets the Parent Reveal, and she claims that it was distress because of everything that happened before and during the trial that meant she couldn't look after Lyra, and that's when Lyra was taken away to Jordan

Serafina's first appearance is at the end of act one, when she rescues Lyra and Roger to take them to Svalbard

Mrs Coulter and the monkey have a wound in the same place from the spy fly

Act one ends with Mrs Coulter reaching and yelling for "Lyra!"

Act Two

also opens on the bench in Oxford, with Will recounting how he wound up in Ci’gazze, but goes back to Lyra and co in the balloon

Jopari gave the amber spyglass to Serafina, and she shows it to Lee - and shows him Dust

there is a bear in the script called “Stupid Bear”, and he keeps calling the Chief Bear “Sarge”

another bear is Disgruntled Bear, and he complains that Mrs Coulter is “making us cook our food”, and they all miss raw walrus

there isn’t a delay on Iorek arriving at Svalbard - he turns up with Roger not long after Lyra

Asriel: “I refuse to be preached at by a sanctimonious ten-year-old.” Lyra: “I’m twelve! I’m twelve!” Asriel: “Well, you would know.”

the witch is interrogated at Bolvangar - where Mrs Coulter is also told that the General Oblation Board has been closed down, its records expunged, and her Geneva bank account has been terminated

Mrs Coulter also tells Lord Asriel that she wants to stay in their world to find and protect Lyra from the Church

we see Asriel holding Salcilia - as though daemons don’t vanish when their humans die (which may just be so that they don’t have to make a daemon vanish onstage)

Lyra and Pan take Asriel’s explanation of “heads in one world, tails in another” to mean that Roger might be alive in another world, and that’s why they leave

Lyra’s secret name (ie Eve) is a Big Deal - with Mrs Coulter, the Church, and the witches

Ruta Skadi is intent on war, but she’s also intent on killing Jopari, taking that particular role from Juta Kamainen - however, there are multiple witches named in the script, none of whom have a name from the books, and none of whom are named onstage

Lyra on her parents: “Wasn’t it awful when they kissed like that?”

Lyra lists off friends they’ve made (”Iorek... Serafina... Mr Scoresby...”) and Pan matches with their daemons (”...Kaisa... Hester...”)

“Boys can’t cook.” “Well, this boy’s had to.” “In my world, servants do the cooking.” “In my world, the Coke is brown.” Lyra and Will get right to snarking at each other, and Ci’gazze Coke is green.

Lyra and Will exchange the alethiometer and the green writing case as a show of trust

Lord Boreal shows up to Will in the library while he is looking for papers on his father, gives him a cutting about the window his father left through, and steals the alethiometer while Will is distracted

Boreal steals the alethiometer because he assumes it’s the case with the letters in it

Part 1 ends with Will getting the knife, then a montage - the witches see the angels, Asriel appears in his fortress, Mrs Coulter is looking for Lyra, Will calls for his father, and Brother Jasper gives the President a piece of paper with “Lyra Belacqua’s secret name”

Act Three

Opens with a montage - Lyra and Pan running; the gap between the worlds, Asriel trying to convince Marisa to go with him, then Lyra holding Roger as he dies; Serafina addressing the witches; Lyra meeting Will; Mrs Coulter talking to the President; Will talking about his father to Lyra; Jopari and Lee Scoresby; the knife fight; Serafina and Ruta; the President summoning the Council after finding out Lyra’s secret name

in the next scene, it’s various clerics talking about Lyra being Eve as well as Asriel’s plans

Boreal: “I’ve asked my manservant to make up the guest room for you.” Mrs Coulter: “The guest room? Well, we mustn’t upset him. I must remember to rumple the sheets in the morning. You really are the most delightfully old-fashioned host.” MARISA

Boreal cultivates orchids

Marzipan becomes blackberries, told with Serafina and Farder Coram - and their son is born nine months later, after the blackberry incident, and dies soon after

Chevalier Tialys and Lady Salmakia are married in this - they’re introduced with her as his spouse

Mrs Coulter brings Giacomo Paradisi to the Spectres and has them eat his soul - Boreal is terrified; the children pickpocket Giacomo and tell Mrs Coulter where Lyra and Will went

Ruta Skadi says “I’ve seen those eyes before” about Will and it carries an awkward weight when she was in love with Jopari and is intent on killing him

Mrs Coulter uses the Spectres to kill Boreal, rather than poisoning him

we actually see the Spectres attack the witches, rather than just hearing about it - and Mrs Coulter tries to be nice to Lyra shortly before the murdering

Ruta Skadi calls for Yambe-Akka to take her before she kills herself - which is odd, as the witch that Serafina kills calls specifically for Serafina to kill her

a mid-act flash of Oxford - Lyra afraid she’d never wake up from the world of the dead, and Will remembering finding out that taking this journey was his mantle

Lord Asriel: “Her mother? Stuck in a cave? I don’t believe it. This is a woman who has her hair done twice a week at six in the morning.” I’m just going to question how Asriel knows this, assuming it isn’t decade-old knowledge.

Stelmaria: “You’d have killed her yourself, at Svalbard.” Lord Asriel: “No, I would not! I thought I’d have to kill her, for the sake of my experiment. When the boy walked in, I was vastly relieved and I let her go.”

Asriel decides to care about Lyra because he realises that’s where his enemy is focusing

Asriel appears in the fight at the cave, and there’s a brief and angry family reunion

Will shatters the knife because Lord Asriel tells him to think of his father - but in the cover of the fighting, pulls Lyra away

Act three ends with Lord Asriel yelling “Lyra! Lyra!”

Act Four

Opens in Asriel’s fortress, with him getting information from Tialys and Salmakia

Marisa and Asriel have a (very angry) conversation about how they’ve both grown to care for Lyra - Marisa, because Lyra somehow changed her; Asriel, because he’s finally clocked that she’s important and in danger (and is trying to manipulate Marisa because he wants the knife)

Rather than talking, the monkey makes stabbing gestures in the air to indicate the knife

it turns out Asriel did actually take Lyra away because “You were raving mad! You’d have throttled her in her cradle!”

Mrs Coulter: “Then you ignored her, you neglected her, year after yearm she had no decent company, no education...” they’re really just sat here going, “no, you’re the shittier parent!” and arguing for five full pages

The actor playing Pantalaimon appears as Lyra’s Death. That’s an actual, heartbreaking stage direction.

Tialys and Salmakia don’t go to the world of the dead - they report back to Asriel that Lyra and Will escaped

Brother Jasper: “Father President, let me speak. I have sinned. I had evil thoughts.” President: “You are not the first young man to have been corrupted by Mrs Coulter. Make up for it on the battlefield.”

Lyra and Will help the Authority to die, and he smiles the whole time

Mrs Coulter and Lord Asriel see Brother Jasper about to kill Lyra, and throw themselves onto him to drag him into the Abyss - somehow, it takes two people to do that, rather than just kicking him, but anyway, this is what happens when we cut out Metatron

Pan and Kirjava both appear as cats, but they’ve both settled, and there’s nothing indicating he changes into a pine marten over the course of the conversation

“On Midsummer night at midnight... and talk til dawn, just like now, as though we were together again. Because we will be.”

The final line is Lyra saying “The republic of heaven”, after which two clocks are heard striking. Lyra picks up Pan, and she and Will pass each other, and walk out of sight.

So the changes are pretty inevitable when they’re trying to condense 1000 pages into five hours. As with reading any script, it feels ridiculously fast paced - but when a brawl between bears is reduced to a few lines of sparse stage directions, of course it feels fast.

One change that I actually quite like is the exchange of the letters and the alethiometer. It makes it a bit more believable - there’s no need for Lyra to not recognise Boreal, and the slimy bastard is obviously going to be able to distract Will with information about his father, given that’s what Will is in the library searching for. Parts of The Subtle Knife honestly make Lyra out to be a bit of an idiot - making it a case of Will being forcibly distracted makes it a lot more understandable than “Lyra gets in a car with a stranger”. And it makes his determination to get the alethiometer back while he’s still bleeding all over the place make a bit more sense. But the initial exchange of letters and alethiometer is honestly quite sweet, and it’s something I’d actually really like to see in the series, if I’m honest.

As much as I hate Mary and the Mulefa being cut, I get it. That’d be a fucker to put onstage - and there’s already a ridiculous amount going on, so they do need to streamline somewhere. I know that it’s missing, but it doesn’t feel like it’s missing, as so much is going on anyway.

The removal of Metatron has me livid. I know that they needed to streamline, but they could have pushed Brother Jasper into the abyss, it wasn’t a two person effort. Come on. Come on.

The characterisation of Marisa is interesting, too - they start hammering in her switch to being uncharacteristically maternal fairly early, and the fact that they change it so that Lyra was pretty much stolen from her makes it somewhat believable that she’d make that switch so easily. It’s obviously something that has been changed so that it seems like a natural character progression, but it’s really damn weird.

But to summarise - a few good changes, a few that I don’t like but which I understand, and a few that I neither like nor understand. And that’s always going to happen with adaptations. If I do a full summary, I’ll link it here... providing I remember. And again, if you’re curious about anything from the script, I’m happy to answer, and if it’s something else about the play, I’m happy to try to find out.

#his dark materials #hdm #national theatre #myhdm

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beatlebrainiacs-blog · 6 years

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Issue Number 33

Ringo enjoying a nice cuppa covered issue 33 of the Beatles Book. The issue came out in April of 1966.

Inside, readers were treated to this oh-so-glam shot of George, cigarette in hand, furry coat blowing in the breeze.

We begin, as always, with a look at the letter from editor Johnny Dean, the first section in each magazine.

Dean explained the Beatles were working on their next LP and that they had actually gotten a later start than they had planned. They began work in March 1966.

Dean told fans they were in for a treat with the “Beatles Talk” section of the magazine in this issue, because John and Paul talked about their song writing process.

Finally, Dean told readers to be on the look out for a new Beatles tour that summer, which was supposed to take them to Germany, Japan and back to America.

In the above shot we get a nice, relaxed look at Georgie and Johnny.

A new article called “Neil’s Column,” made an appearance in issue 33. The author was Beatles road manager (and future head of the band’s company Apple Corps), Neil Aspinall.

Aspinall gave readers a glimpse into the lives of the fab four during their time off.

According to Aspinall, the lads would get up around 11:00 a.m., or noon most days. He said Paul was obsessed with tape recording during those off hours. Aspinall explained that Paul would record bits of ambient sound and pieces of electronic music to experiment with in later song writing.

Just a nice, handsome close up of John, for your enjoyment!

According to Aspinall, Paul was the first of the lads to experiment with recording different tracks to combine them later. For example, Paul recorded himself singing, playing bass, playing guitar and playing drums to later add to Ringo’s song “What Goes On.”

The band was always listening to music in their off time, Aspinall wrote, saying they had a particular interest in the popular hits coming out of America.

A relaxed George with cheekbones on full display!

Aspinall told the world that John, George and Ringo would spend a lot of their downtime together, since they all lived very close to one another.

The road manager said Paul, in particular, liked going out at night, always having dinners planned; George loved to entertain, you would often find 10-12 people at his house just hanging out; and Ringo, oddly enough, spent a lot of free time adding to his collection of antique weaponry (...interesting!). Aspinall didn’t say what John enjoyed.

As per usual, issue 33 gave readers some excellent, cute shots of Paulie!

We know you’ve all been waiting for it, issue 33 had Part 4 of the look at the Liverpool Fan Club and the boss lady of the club, Ms. Freda Kelly.

Kelly starts off her section talking about how she got in a bit of trouble with the law for being one of a few hundred people who barricaded themselves inside the Cavern Club to keep it from being closed and torn down.

They did not succeed, sadly and the club was closed in 1966. A bit of history on the Cavern Club, real quick here...the club opened in 1957. It closed in early 1966, but reopened at a new location just a few months later in July of 1966. That location closed in 1973. Eventually there was an effort to excavate part of the original club and reopen that. Fast forward today, there is a Cavern Club in operation in Liverpool and it is one of the city’s top tourist attractions each and every year.

Here’s another adorable shot of the Walrus!

Getting back to Freda Kelly, she described her day to fans. Kelly would get to the fan club office early in the morning and start her work by going through letters. Next, Kelly would work on writing individual responses, answering questions about each Beatle down to the most minute detail.

Kelly had a lot of help from assistants in her endeavors. She trusted one assistant, in particular, a 14-year-old lad by the name of John McCartney. Yes, John was related to the one and only Paul, although the article does not specify how.

Alright! The McLennon fans out there will be particularly excited about this next section of the magazine...it’s “Beatles Talk” with John and Paul.

The famed twosome described their song writing process to fans.

It would start on an individual level with Paul and John coming up with ideas on their own. John said it was incredibly important to get something down as soon as an idea came. So, they would write out lyrics and even start recording with bare bones instrumentals. (John was very quick to say Paul was much better at the recording process. Paul would make more sophisticated recordings with multiple tracks, a call back to the fact that he loved recording in his free time!).

After they got their individual work together, John and Paul would schedule days and times to get together. They would listen to each other’s recordings and start to build the actual songs. After listening, they would grab their instruments and make magic!

The “Letters to Beatle People” section holds one of our favorite letters yet.

The one we’ve chosen is a poem dedicated to “old” Beatles fans. Eileen D’Angelo of North Haledon in New Jersey (hey! The good, old USA!) write a cute poem encouraging older Beatle fans to express their love for the fab four loud and proud.

The twist, in our opinion, is that Ms. D’Angelo was but a child herself at 19-years-old! Ha! It’s hilarious to think that people in their late teens and early twenties considered themselves old, or that anyone would think they were too old to like the Beatles.

Here’s a great shot of Ringo, looking very suave, rings on full display.

We’ve hit the last article of issue 33, which is the ever popular “Behind the Spotlight.”

Editor Johnny Dean gave readers a look at the Beatles progress two years prior to this issue, back in April of 1964.

According to Dean the band was ecstatic as their singles and LPs hit the top of the British charts and climbed to the top of America’s Billboard Charts.

The Beatles had a top single at the time, followed by singles from the Rolling Stones, the Bachelors, Larry and the Pacemakers, Gene Pitney, Swinging Blue Jeans, Searchers, Dusty Springfield and the Hollies.

George, goofing around with a record and what appears to be a Grammy? Or just a mini gramophone? Oh, those silly lads!

The band was also deep into shooting their first film, “A Hard Day’s Night.” Although, John was anxious to getting back to touring Britain, playing one night gigs.

Here’s a shot of Paul on set of “A Hard Day’s Night” with his co star Willfrid Brambell, who played Paul’s grandfather in the film.

At this stage in the band’s career, they were being sought out by other big stars. Roy Orbison, for one, tracked Ringo down to get his autograph for a young, American fan.

Life was full of excitement and more was to come!

Issue 33 ended with a shot of George on the back cover.

#the beatles #Beatles #beatle brainiacs #thebeatlesbook #The Beatles Book #George Harrison #John Lennon #paul mccartney #Ringo Starr

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exo-trashbean · 5 years

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In Honor of the Summer Ending

I heard some pretty wacky stuff while working at my summer job as an intern in an I.T. Department. Here is a some banter I recorded.

Sidenote - there are two Brians in my office (��Brian”, or “B″ is my boss, respectively, and “Other Brian″ is the jackass that stops over to roast me and the other intern), as well as two Dereks ("Derek " (”D”) is the other intern, and "Other Derek" is the one that sits a cube over -- all of the stuff he says is always heard from over the wall). [Also, when I refer to a “cube” it means a group cubicle with 4 people in it]

The chats/quotes separated by return spaces are all from different conversations, to clarify.

Enjoy!

"That is a lovely Shade of booger" "Try again" beep. beep. *beeps get more impatient* beepbeepbeep “Ok stOP-”

loud bang heard from across the department. “Are You having fun yet?” “Nope”

“I- I can’t” “What is it?” “A sandwich with no bread”

Clinking of change. “It’s crazy that there are 50 year-old quarters... just chillin”

“Think fast.” *Sound of can hitting the ground* *Deep sigh*

“I support equal robot rights”

Brian: *making whistle noises like bombs dropping whilst pelting interns w/root beer barrels*

Not exactly a quote, but I stand up to stretch in the morning and on the board in the cube next to me says “Cheese life! Go Cheese!”

[Testing workflow website for company] Wes: Just make sure when you comment something, you submit an attachment. It can be anything. Brian + me: Anything? *Wes nods* *Entire cube goes onto DevHumor for memes*

Ezra sneezes. Brian sneezes 2 seconds later, but with the Dad Sneeze™. Brian turns to me [2 hrs after learning what “boneless” means]: “See, his sneeze was boneless, mine was not.”

Brian: Do you know what the use of a GoTo() [Statement] is? *leans forward* THERE IS NONE Coworker walking by: GoTo the unemployment line Brian: If I find a GoTo() statement in your code, there is gonna be a coffee mug-shaped dent in your forehead

[Cube next to me after debugging] Other Derek: Thanks for solving the mystery Lucas. do you want to be part of the scooby doo club? Thomas: *offhandedly* The mystery gang? Lucas: What kind of snacks do you got? Other Derek: uh, combos- *Sound of footsteps fading away*

[Other Cube] “Is that jam?” “Yeah it’s Derek’s” “Do you want some? You can have some only if you eat all of it right now” “You’re nuts!” “No I have Jam”

Derek: We got state fair corn dogs and my brother eats like 2 or 3 for breakfast- Brian: He eats 3 corn dogs for breakfast?! Other Brian: My kinda guy

“I don’t eat things I can’t pronounce”

“Password is DonutsRgood”

“I’m trying to separate it into two columns [on ms word] but it keeps wrapping weird” “Then tell it you don’t want to listen to its music” “The exit door is right there Derek”

[Derek making checklist for supervisor on dry erase board] “NOT GARISH” written @ bottom Me: you know what you gotta do is *starts to point* Derek: YES DIFFERENT COLORS *grabs all the markers*

D: ah ye scallywag B: what D: nabbed me pen ye did B: Ah, ye see it looks a bit like mine D: it’s fine I already got another one B: arrr D: thief of the seas

Me: did you play clue or clue junior? Derek: uh... I have *giggles* no clue

Kathy, older woman that could kick anybody’s ass, total savage, etc. goes to open door - all I hear is a thud as she kicks it(?) and an “OW”: *Walking back to cubicle* “well I WAS having a good day”

“your positive attitude just sucks”

B: *Messes something up* Nergh [Unknown from other cube]: argh B: ugh

B: did you just call Dairy Queen unhealthy? D: Blasphemy. They have salads.

[Talking about hot pockets Brian made] me: why’d you put swiss cheese on it? B: swiss cheese has no lactose- D: does it at least have feet? because it lacks toes? Other Derek, from over the cube wall, before I can even sigh: Is that why swiss cheese has holes? B: oh so when HE makes the joke-

Other Derek: I need new friends. A guy I know is listening to a spotify playlist called “White Trash Bash”

[other cube mocking a caller that had a webpage problem] Zach: I REfrEsHEd Other Derek: you refreshed? I want a refresh *sound of repeated banging on keyboard* is it working?

D: it smells like pickles over here *gesturing to fridge* B: *goes over to fridge to inspect* That’s Wes’s Pickle (Referring to Wes’s lunch). *giggles* B: *turns to me and holds up 4 fingers* I’m this many.

Ezra: *Excitedly* I did a thing. There’s code! *waving arms at computer*

Nicole: [to Brian] “I’m supposed to ask if you could be any dog what you would be” Other Derek [from over the wall]: Hot dog. Say Hot Dog.

Ezra, who sits 5 whole feet away from me: *messages me over skype* “How are you holding up? :)”

“Do you know what day it is?” “No I wanna go to lunch, you guys stink” “do you know what day it is?” “... it’s hump day?”

[other cube after returning from lunch] Thomas: Yee, and I cannot stress this enough, HAW

B: don’t buy a house you can afford childless. *Very seriously* because childs happen. Me + Derek: childs happen??

Brian, my 46 y/o boss: *Opens 2 cheese sticks and sticks them in his mouth like a walrus*

[Cube over] “Could you sip your tea any louder man?” *sound of obnoxious tea sipping* *sound of choking on hot water*

“It’s not that you broke it, it’s that I had it not-fixed in the first place”

D:*cups hands over mouth to amplify sound* I WILL CONSUME YOUR DATA

5 minute conversation about pronunciation of “Worcestershire”

Aavery, the other intern besides Derek: “Teaspoons you use to stir tea. Table spoons you use to stir tables”

[talking about Spanish] B: I can order a cold beer, count to 10, and say “socks”. I can older a cold pair of socks!

Kathy: I can’t wait to retire so I can smoke weed.

[about testing] D: Aavery and Autumn did some testing for the help desk and broke a bunch of stuff [sidenote: breaking stuff is a good thing when it comes to testing] Me: I only broke like one thing, Aavery did the rest D: Well, one thing is... *trailing off* better than... none things...

Brian tells Derek to answer the phone if Mr. Duemann (one of the managers in the plant) calls. [Derek & I talking about how to answer the phone] D: *hewwo rp voice* Misteww Doowman, Bwian says to come heyuw :3

B: $1400 worth of cheese Me: jeez B: no, CHEESE

Derek, proudly after testing: There will no be bug. [yes, that’s typed correctly]

Other Derek, from over cube [talking to somebody else]: I knew it! you always smell like Jumbalaya B: WHAT

[backlog refinement, which is basically planning work stuff] B: we’re gonna have to give Autumn the password to the Service Account, and *turns to me* you’re gonna swear to use all your brain cells that day

“INventory stuf on servers” written as the title of a scheduled work task

[heard from across the office] “It’s NOT a dad joke, I thought it was cool!”

“The person that IS an alcoholic isn’t here today”

[free nacho day] Ezra: “if you taste each individual item you’re not using enough cheese”

#my entire office is a shitpost generator #like seriously this stuff is word for word #summer job #intern #IT #funny #shitpost #quotes #banter #this better not flop istg #lmk if you want a part 2 #because i have plenty of shitty quotes #lmao yeet

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