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shelobussy · 3 years

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Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

#susan pevensie #the chronicles of narnia #the problem of susan #narnia #meta #narnia meta #susan meta #ash does fandom #ash does meta

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myimaginarywonderland · 4 years

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Okay, so this post will talk about Lance but I will also give my opinion on the Lando situation since I think it is important.

First off, I think it says a lot about Lando that he made an apology. Now, be it because of the backlash he faced, because he actually saw the harm he was causing or because he genuinely regrets it, that is something I don't know. What I do know is that by apologising for it, he acknowledges that his behaviour was wrong and that is really important because it shows that he reflected on himself.

While I do still feel irked by something about the message, be it that he isn't naming Lance or Lewis who he both targeted with his actions in different ways and apologise to them directly which he might have done in person, so I am not able to judge it or be it the weird sorry at the end, I can put aside my feelings and say that this was the right thing to do and is also setting an example for his fans who were one of my main issues with all of this. They then know that saying that was not right and might learn from it themselves.

But this post isn't about Lando. This post is about Lance.

As most of you might have heard, Lance was really affected by what happened on track. He can clearly see that he is anxious and uncomfortable in his post race interview and what happened afterwards tells the story (I don't really want to talk about it because this is something private that he did not share and it is like with the story on Twitter something that was shared by other people who he didn't give the right to share it too so I don't want to spread it any further.)

This is who Lance is.

Someone who is sensitive and takes a lot of things personally.

You want to know why? Because he has, as a person, always been blamed for his dad's wealth. As if he choose to grow up with a billionaire dad. As if he is somehow responsible for it.

And he has always been painted out as someone undeserving, someone that doesn't have talent and totally owns his position to the money of his dad.

Now, let me just give you some data because I want to totally discredit this made up stuff with no roots.

In 2015, he won the Toyota Racing Series. He won by a bit over 100 points. The second finisher was his teammate. You might now some of the other drivers who competed in this series for example one Callum Iliot or Artjom Markelow.

Or in 2016,his first season in Formula 3, he finished fifth. The winner of that year was Felix Rosenquvist (a great driver) who was also Lance teammate and had only one DNF in comparison to Lance 5 and a DSQ. Now, there are two other drivers, one that was the runner up in Antonio Giovinazzi and a fourth who was Charles Leclerc. Pretty competitive field if you ask me and to finish 5th as a rookie,is impressive.

Now, fast forward a year to when he won the F3 championship. He won over his teammate by a margin of over 150 points which is so impressive, even with the two more DNFs his teammate, Maximilian Günther (another great driver) had that is quiet a lot.

Now, if you really want to use the argument that he skipped F2 against him, there is another driver you should be discrediting just as much. You guessed it, M*x V*rstappen. He also went straight into F1 which was a definite mistake but nobody ever likes to say that. I would also like you to remember that Lance did not drive for F1 as a regular driver immediately after he won the championship, no in 2016 he was a test driver, so he could slowly get used to F1. (This is not official but I would guess it's the thought process behind him being a test driver.)

Now, in 2017, his first F1 season, he was teammates of Felipe Massa. Might have heard of him, lost his championship to Lewis by one point, was teammate of Micheal Schumacher and a generally way more experienced driver. Yeah, you wanna know what the difference between him and Lance was in Lance first season? 3 points. And Lance had 2 more DNFs. You know what else he got in his first season? His first podium. In his first season, he became one of the youngest people to ever achieve a podium. With just 7 rounds into his first F1 season, in an okay midfield car with a way more experienced and older driver he was up against, he achieved a podium. And during the entire course of the season, that would remain the only podium for the Williams team that year.

Now, onto 2018. Williams was not as bad as in 2019 but they were still nowhere in terms of pace and he still didn't finish last in the championship (but I don't think we can count this season.)

In 2019, Checo became his teammate. And Checo in my opinion is one of the best midfield drivers, so there was already a lot he had to go up against and he was still so young and had less experience. There is a 30 point difference between them. Make of that what you want but for me, sure it was not Lance greatest season but now you have to think if Racing Point where really that good go be the fifth best car or if maybe, Checo just got more out of the car with his experience and talent. And than, you have to consider that he was still young and only had one season where he was truly competitive (that 2018 Williams was not something you could truly challenge anyone with.) And to then be up to one of the best midfield drivers who is widely appreciated and adored by the paddock, is a lot. Maybe for some of you it was too big of a gap which is alright.

However, don't dismiss his talent. He has had a good junior career and was up to some of the drivers you love and call talented, he even beat some of your faves. Maybe you don't see him as the next great driver but he is not a bad one and truly deserves a seat if you consider his achievements. Maybe he could have proven himself more if he had a season in F2 which is fair but that doesn't take away from anything he has achieved.

And even if you don't see him as talented, that gives you no right to bully him online. He can't change who his dad is.

Now,onto the money. I see a lot of people saying that he is only in F1 because of the money (which I hope you have by now realized is not the case.) But really, let's talk about the money.

Money is something that sadly plays a big role in F1. F1 is above all still a business. And businesses want money. So, why not take someone who has money and talent like Lance? Where are you all saying Michael only got his seat because of money (he is a pay-driver after all or at least he was one when he came to F1.) And now let's talk about his move to Racing Point. Can you truly blame Lawrence for wanting to make his sons dream come true? Wouldn't any father if they had the resources do this? Wouldn't any father want to fufill his son's dream, even if it might be seen as unethical by some or criticized? Would you really care if you saw how happy your kid was? Would you really care if you saw the glow you kid had? I don't think so.

I already said it but he was at Williams before he was at RP. His dad doesn't own that team or have any chairs in it.

Let's forget his profession for a second. Let's say you don't find him talented as a driver or just don't like him, fine. You are entitled to your opinion and sometimes we just don't like people, it happens.

What else would you have against him?

He doesn't post on social media often because people already bully him enough for his family. There is basically nothing you can dislike about him there.

And as a person? He is quiet and basically does nothing to anger people. He is literally just a normal dude. He goes on trips with his friends, he does sports to stay in shape and watches sports. He is not even posting personal stuff because he doesn't want to give people more room to bully him.

If you saw him on the street, would you think he is from a rich family? He does not look like it at all, he looks like that guy from your local sport who is literally just a college student trying to get through life.

And not only was he discredited for all his accomplishments because of something he had no control over but he also saw another driver proudly display a symbol that has been used by people who killed people who belonged to his religion. He saw a driver weat that symbol in cooperation with a company whose boos seems to be a Neo Nazi.

Lance has had to go through to so much shit just because his dad was rich (which Nicky's and Lando's also are, yes I know it's less but it's still more than any of us will probably ever have.)

This boy does nothing wrong.

Did he make a mistake with the maneuvers on Lando? Yes. But he is still so young and also new to F1, he can still learn and is growing as a person and driver. He is expected to perform more just so he proves his worth which he already has because people discredit him for having a rich dad.

Have you seen what he has done this season? He would be in the top 5 had it not been for the last races where none of the DNFs where his fault. Neither was getting Covid or being ill but people literally made fun of him for being in pain, saying stuff like "Did Daddies boy have a little stomach ache?" Yeah, because F1 drivers aren't trainex to perform no matter what, aren't putting their health last when it comes to these things and might have to be really bad if they can't drive and are not even going out of their room.

He has improved so much, he is not blaming other drivers even if they clearly hit him (see Charles) and he stays calm. Because he can't afford to be to emotional since some people would hate him for rightfully calling out others mistakes and just maybe saying that their faves are not flawless and make mistakes (like Charles.)

He has to act a certain way or be a certain way because what would happen if he just showed more of his personality? You call him dull, boring but you don't even try to get to know him. You don't even look up videos where he is more open and comfortable.

He is awkward infront of the press because he has to fear to be discredited or to be questioned about his worth every second.

And all of this pressure, this mask and this pretend eventhough he is just as human as the rest of us. And you see how hard it is, how much he questions himself, how his self-doubt increases and ultimately what happened has happened.

Because while it is just an easy insult for you that you can post anonymously online, it is one of thousands for him.

And you know, he didn't grew up in Europe. Sure he competed with some of the European drivers later one but he didn't have any of them when he started racing and he might already have been an outcast because people would already have seen him as different since his family didn't need to make sacrifices to get him to wear he is now. At least not financially ones. And then, when he came to Europe there were these already formed friend groups and it wasn't easy to get into them. The only friend he had was Esteban and I am so glad. This seems like such an unlikely friendship because they are from totally different backgrounds but that might have been what connected them in the first place. So, with basically only Esteban who liked him from the competitive times, it must have been pretty bad (not to say that the others hated him but I don't think they really cared for him.) I am so glad to see that he now also has Checo and that they get along and I hope that stays this way eventhough all of what has happened (which is also not his fault and I am sure that if he had any say in it, it would have been done differently.) Maybe we can even see their friendship when Checo stays on the grid. And with the potential of Seb next year, that might be the only other friendship or friendly connection he might form.

He is so strong for having to endure the dislike of so many people and he is still so kind and so sweet.

This has been a long post but one that I have wanted to make for a long time. If you got this far, I applaude you.

#f1 #lance stroll

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boxesandrings · 3 years

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Hello! First off, I simply adore your writing. Your characterizations simply feel so... natural! It's lovely! Second, could I request some fluffy Harvey/Elliott at either the Feast of the Winter Star or the Spirit's Eve festival? That would be grand. Thank you!

Teehee sorry this took so long! I had written a story about the two of them at the Feast of the Winter Star and then hated it so much I completely started over 🤪 So I hope you enjoy this now seasonally appropriate Spirit's Eve fluff!

Title: Meet me Halfway

Rating: G

Summary: Harvey is crushing on Elliott, but is more than okay with keeping things the way they are. When Elliott invites him into the maze at the Spirit's Eve festival though, the men get much closer than Harvey ever thought.

Characters: Elliott, Harvey, Sebastion, Marlon, Maru, F!Farmer

Words: 2841

Harvey had been standing by the refreshments table when Elliott passed behind him, his fingertips lightly grazing against the Doctor's shoulders. Harvey jumped, almost spilling his drink but managed to steady himself, cheeks flushed as Elliott laughed.

“A bit on edge, Doctor?” Harvey cleared his throat and set his cup down, his other hand reaching to the back of his neck.

“No! I mean, kinda. I have to say, I think this is probably my least favorite festival.” Elliott nodded. Harvey studied his face, trying to read the man next to him. Was there a slight blush in his face as well?

Even though they had lived in the same town for years now, only a few months ago had it struck Harvey how cute the man living on the beach was. They had talked a bit around town and at festivals, and of course Harvey was Elliott’s doctor. But since the community center had been restored Harvey had begun to spend more time there, reading articles that his colleagues from the city had sent him or using the craft room to work on his model planes. Elliott was there constantly as well, and the two men began to grow more familiar.

Harvey’s feelings surprised him. It wasn’t that he had never had feelings for another man before, but just how suddenly they had developed after getting to know Elliott was strange to him. Harvey had accepted who he was at this point in his life; he was rigid and methodical, overthinking most aspects of his life. But Elliott had somehow swept in and threw his life out of order— Harvey acted impulsively around him, and it scared him.

But what scared Harvey even more was that he couldn’t tell how Elliott felt about him. Elliott was definitely flirty with him, he couldn’t deny it. But Elliott flirted with everyone, or at least seemed to. Elliott was confident, outgoing, and rather touchy with almost everyone in town. There was no way Elliott felt the same way about him, introverted and anxious, but Harvey couldn’t help but feel the hard thumping in his chest everytime Elliott was around.

Beside him Elliott nodded, scooping some of the hot apple cider Gus was providing into his own cup.

“I can understand that. While I’m sure you’ve caught on that I tend to have a certain�� flair for the dramatic,” Elliott regarded Harvey out of the corner of his eye, a coy smile on his lips, “this holiday quite honestly might be overdoing it.”

As if the universe was proving a point, a loud clanging noise rang out behind the men. Elliott’s eyes went wide with fear as he jumped, his body colliding with the Doctor’s as he moved away from the noise. Harvey dropped his drink as he steadied the man in front of him, not sure whether to be disappointed by the loss of his cider or elated by the touch. Once Elliott was no longer falling, Harvey turned to investigate the noise.

Behind him, one of the walking skeletons was at the edge of his cage, a bony arm outstretched and rattling against the bars. Sebastian had fallen back onto the ground and was trying to crawl away from the beast with wide eyes. Marlon stepped in quickly after the skeleton had made its move, pushing the monster further back in with a large stick. Once the skeleton was far enough back, Harvey watched as Marlon offered a hand to Sebastian and pulled the boy up, saying something stern but inaudible from this far away. Harvey turned back to Elliott, who was watching the scene with a grimace.

“You want to move somewhere else? Like, away from this?” Elliott’s gaze snapped back to Harvey, his unsettled look quickly turning into a smile.

“I’d like nothing more, my dear doctor.” Elliott linked his arm through Harvey’s and began to march off, Harvey blushing furiously as he stumbled along.

Elliott led them far away from the refreshments, until Harvey found them standing in front of the maze. Elliott looked toward the entrance, then turned to the Doctor.

“Do you want to go in? I’ve never actually tried the maze before, but with you I’m feeling a little bit more bold.” Elliott winked and Harvey coughed, scratching the back of his neck.

“I’m not sure how much of a help I’d be in there. Honestly, the one time I tried before I barely made it 20 feet.” Elliott laughed.

“Well, maybe with the two of us working together we’d go 30.” Harvey chuckled. Before he could agree, someone called out behind him.

“Hey, Doc! You going in?” Harvey and Elliott turned and saw Maru and the Farmer walking toward them, hand in hand.

“Yes! The two of us are going to try to make it an astonishing 30 feet in.” Elliott had answered before he had gotten the chance to, so Harvey nodded along. Had he really agreed to go in, though? Beside him, he saw Elliott tip an imaginary hat toward the Farmer. “Howdy, partner.”

The Farmer sighed, letting go of Maru’s hand to brush her hand through her hair. “El, just because I live on a farm doesn’t mean I’m a cowboy.” Elliott tilted his head to the side, smiling slightly.

“I mean, you sure ride that horse of yours almost everywhere.” Harvey bit his lip, using the moment to bring himself back to reality. Elliott wasn’t flirting with him, he was like this with everyone. The Farmer sighed again, grabbing Maru’s hand once again.

“Whatever.” She began to pull Maru toward the maze. “Later, losers. We’ve got a maze to finish.” Elliott laughed next to Harvey, and waved the two women off. Maru looked over her shoulder grinning at Harvey, mouthing ‘you got this’ in an animated manner until she disappeared behind the first hedge, trailing after her partner.

Harvey furiously blushed. Maru had figured out his crush weeks ago after the two of them had gone out for drinks after work, when Harvey had been so busy staring at Elliott that he had walked straight into a stool and fallen over it.

“Well, no time like the present, I suppose.” Harvey blinked back to reality. Elliott was standing in front of him, the two men eye to eye. Harvey swallowed.

“I guess.” He put on a weak smile, attempting to feign some kind of confidence. Elliott nodded.

“Then let’s away!” Elliott turned and began to walk toward the maze. Harvey sighed, and followed quickly after.

It wasn’t long until the pair came to the first challenge of the maze. As Elliott and Harvey walked side by side, making pleasant small talk, that green hands began to poke their way out of the ground. Elliott jumped, his body colliding with the Doctor’s.

“Oh, Yoba!” Harvey instinctually grabbed Elliott, pulling him close.

“Oh, no, nope! No. Come on.” Harvey let go of Elliott’s shoulder, his hand grabbing the man around the forearm. He took off down another branch, Elliott running behind him.

Once they no longer saw the hands coming out of the ground, men stopped, panting.

“Okay, I get why you didn’t like to go in here.” Elliott looked up at Harvey, still out of breath. Harvey, unsure of how to react, just began to laugh, dropping to the ground as he tried to regain his composure. Elliott sat beside him, brushing his hair back.

“Yeah! No duh.” Elliott began to laugh as well, the men giggling in the dark. Once composed, Elliott turned to face Harvey.

“You know, I quite like it when you’re more relaxed like this. Not that you’re always stiff, just… you seem like there’s a lot going on in your mind.” Harvey weakly smiled and stood up. He was getting too loose.

“Well, that’s being a doctor, I suppose. Especially being the only one for quite a distance.” He offered his hand to Elliott, who took it and pulled himself up.

“That makes sense. You’re always thinking of others.” Elliott smiled. The two men regarded each other. Harvey found himself getting closer, their bodies almost touching, until he noticed a hedge off in the distance reflecting light. He took a step away.

“Wait, what’s that?” Elliott turned around and tilted his head, searching for what Harvey was referencing. Once spotted, Elliott faced him again.

“I guess we know where to go next.” Harvey nodded, and the two moved toward the light source.

The pair came to a large TV, alternating with static and a series of strange images, weird whispers emanating from the speaker bar attached.

“I mean, it’s not as unsettling as the hands but… I’m not a fan of this either.” Elliott was scanning the TV, frowning.

“I know Lewis is trying to boost tourism, but this seems like a lot,” Harvey added, taking a step closer toward his companion. It was human nature to huddle when scared, right? Elliott surely wouldn’t notice. Harvey thought about how he had held the writer when the hands came out of the ground. As terrifying as that was, he almost wanted to do it again.

“I don’t think Lewis built it. I think the Wizard in the woods said he was doing this,” Elliott suggested. The pair heard a snort and both jumped back, trying to find the source.

Maru stepped out from behind the TV, a funny look on her face. “He’s not a wizard, he’s just some hermit in the woods who likes to play with grass.” Harvey’s shoulders relaxed. It wasn’t a monster, it was his nurse.

“I don’t know. Leah said she’s seen some weird things going on at his tower at night.” Maru snorted again and turned her attention back to the screen.

“He probably has some of those LED strips that change colors on the outside of his home.” Elliott nodded, but didn’t look too convinced.

“Maru, what are you doing just lurking out here? And where’s your girlfriend?” Harvey looked around, making sure the TV was the only horror nearby.

“I wanted to figure out how this is working. There’s no plugs out here, and when I opened the battery compartment it was empty. There has to be some other energy source in here.” Maru held up her pocket knife in one hand, a couple of screws in the other. “And she went on ahead to keep exploring so I could play with this. When I’m done I’ll meet her in the middle point of the maze, it’s just up ahead.” She returned her full attention back to the monitor, walking around it’s backside once again.

Harvey turned to Elliott, who shrugged. “Should we move on?” Harvey smiled.

“Lets.”

From where they were standing, Harvey could see the middle point that Maru had talked about. The pair headed toward the fountain, and paused to watch the water shoot high up into the air.

“Well, I’d venture to say we made it quite a bit farther than 30 feet.” Harvey chuckled as Elliott gently elbowed him.

“Quite a bit farther than I made it last time, for sure.” Harvey smiled at Elliott, then turned his gaze back to the fountain. “I’m surprised it’s already the halfway point. It doesn’t seem like we’ve gone too far.”

“I suppose what this maze lacks in physical size, it makes up for in psychological horror.”

As if on cue, the men heard a yell from beyond the midway, and Abigail ran back in toward them, a blur of purple.

“No way, nuh-uh, nope! I’m out.” She blinked out of her confusion, and looked up at Harvey and Elliott. “Dudes, I’m OUT of here.” Harvey stuck a hand out, trying to stop the teen from bolting past him.

“Woah! Abby, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” He scanned for any obvious signs of injury, his doctor instincts kicking into gear. Abigail was generally fearless, even in regards to her own safety. It took a lot to rattle her.

She looked up at the doctor, her eyes wide with fear. “Dude, I mean Doc, there’s some big spiders back there. Like, me-sized. I’m outta here.” She brushed past Harvey and Elliott, making her way toward the path that the men had just come from. “Good luck!”

Harvey looked toward Elliott, who had noticeably paled. Elliott swallowed, then met the doctor’s gaze. “I mean, making this far was a personal victory anyways? Why push it?”

Harvey stared at Elliott, mouth ajar, before bursting into loud laughter. He sat on the edge of the fountain, trying to take deep breaths to contain his joy.

“Oh thank Yoba, I did NOT want to go in there.” Elliott laughed and sat beside him, his fingertips resting only an inch away from Harvey’s own.

“I think we did very well, though! I mean, halfway is nothing to sneeze at.” Elliott looked toward Harvey and winked. “And you’ve been so brave! Why, the way you rescued me from those hands was quite impressive.” Harvey coughed and stood up, suddenly aware of how close he was to Elliott.

“Yes, well, of course.” Elliott looked up at him, his smile slowly falling. Finally, Elliott sighed.

“I don’t know how much more direct I can be, Harvey.” Elliott’s voice was low, and much more serious than Harvey had ever heard. He turned to Elliott.

“What?” Elliott stood up and crossed his arm over his stomach, nervously rubbing his forearm.

“I mean, I hoped you would have caught on by now, over the past few months, or maybe you have and are just trying to be nice? I don’t…” He trailed off, his gaze lowering toward the ground. “I guess I just like you, Harvey, and I was hoping that by inviting you into the maze with me something would happen, but you keep pulling away and I just… I don’t know.”

Harvey’s jaw dropped. Elliott was flirting with him. Him! And oh Yoba, he had blown it, overthinking each touch, every word, the tone of his voice. Elliott had liked him, and Harvey was too full of fear to do anything. Had Maru known? Is that why she wished him luck?

Harvey sputtered, trying to spit out something, to reassure Elliott. He likes me too. Elliott sighed, meeting Harvey’s eyes again, forcing a smile.

“I’m sorry, that was probably a lot at once. I don’t know why it all came out like that. We can head out if you want.” Elliott took a step back.

Harvey needed to act, to break through his fear. He likes me. Now was not the time to be frozen by indecision, to read far too much into every action. Elliott was there, in front of him now but moving away.

Without thinking, maybe for the first time ever, Harvey reached out and grabbed Elliott’s shoulders, pulling the man in closer to him. Their lips connected, and as Harvey kissed him he could feel his heart beating violently in his chest. Elliott had tensed momentarily when the Doctor had grabbed him, but Harvery could feel him smiling now, melting into the kiss as Elliott placed a hand on the side of his face.

When he pulled back, Harvey was breathless, his hand shaking as he brushed a piece of hair out of Elliott’s face. Elliott was smiling, his cheeks flushed red.

“I like you, a lot, Elliott. I just… I didn’t think you felt the same way.” Elliott laughed quietly, his thumb stroking Harvey’s cheek.

“For such a bright man, you can be awfully dense.” Harvey smiled.

“Yeah.” Harvey moved to kiss Elliott again when he heard something shuffle in the maze behind him.

The men looked toward the path, still holding each other, as the Farmer huffed out of the maze, holding a rather large pumpkin in her hands.

“It’s just a pumpkin! I had to make my way through all that for a pumpkin! And not even a special one like last year, it’s made of foam!” She looked up, her expression softening when she realized what she had walked into. “Oh, um.”

“Maru’s back at the TV still,” Elliot said, his hands not moving from Harvey’s face. The Farmer’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two men’s faces, trying to press her lips together to stop from smiling.

“Thanks. Uh… yeah.” The Farmer walked quickly toward the way back, passing the men with a poorly suppressed smile on her face. Harvey figured she’d break the news to Maru as soon as she saw her.

“Well, where were we?” Harvey turned his attention back toward Elliott, who was smiling warmly at him. Harvey bit his lip, smiling.

“Oh, yeah.” He kissed Elliott again, much calmer than before, enjoying the feeling of their lips touching. Harvey pulled back again. “Want to go back and get a drink? I spilled my cider earlier”

Elliott dropped his hands from Harvey’s face and laced his fingers between the Doctor’s. “I’d love nothing more.” The two men went back into the hedges, hands swinging between them as they made their way back through the maze.

#sdv requests #fic request #sdv elliott #sdv harvey #stardew harvey #stardew elliott #ao3fic #request #requests open #stardew maru #stardew farmer

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weraceasone · 3 years

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hi, just wondering if anyone could maybe sum up this interview with lando? or maybe screenshot it? i’d love to do it myself but given the fact that i don’t live in the uk i can’t access it... thanks

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lando-norris-discovers-importance-of-fitness-hell-need-it-as-daniel-ricciardos-team-mate-bm6lnrdrg

hey Anon! I copied the whole article and put it under the read more!! I hope this helps🧡.

I hope you’re having a good day, Anon! 🧡

McLaren kicked off the 2021 car launches this week alongside their drivers for the season, Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo. The car looks pretty similar to last year, so it was hard to get too excited about it — or any of the other nine launches happening over the coming weeks, for that matter.

Of interest, however, were Norris’s comments about how he plans to approach the physical side of the job: by doing gym work and cutting back on pizza.

“I have tried to be more strict with certain things, whether that is with food and trying not to have a pizza as often,” the 21-year-old said. “I can still have a little treat now and then, but it is also the physical side of it, too. Trying to do more in the gym because I struggle with that part of it.

“I know I am in Formula One and I am in a very privileged position, but that doesn’t matter because I can still struggle to want to go out on a run or go into the gym and lift weights. I struggle to motivate myself, so I have tried more things and pushed myself through moments that I hate because I know that good things come of it.

“I am better prepared physically because of it. I am trying to think outside the box and dedicating more time to work out what is good for me and push myself to the next level.”

The Bristol-born youngster is heading into his third season in Formula One and has been honest in the past about how he does not enjoy the gym — but who does? Three sets of ten squats followed by 20 burpees is no one’s idea of fun. If you want time to go slowly, try doing a plank for a minute.

Yet F1 is extremely physically demanding and there is a reason Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen place great importance on their physical fitness. Hamilton, 36, is also not a fan of the gym, and seems to find new ways to keep fit each year: he has been cross-country skiing to get himself into shape for the new season.

Drivers can be in the car for up to two hours, sometimes in temperatures well above 30C and, aside from the mental toll that takes, their bodies are pushed to the limit physically. If they are not fit enough, performance will decline.

Verstappen collapsed in 2016 after a particularly hot practice session in Malaysia. Drivers can lose between two and three kilograms of weight each race as the demands of hurtling around the track at up to 200mph, putting the body through extreme G-forces, take effect.

If any driver wants to be a world champion, they have to be supremely fit. Michael Schumacher changed the way drivers approached fitness in the Nineties — they were already taking it seriously, but the German upped the ante.

Schumacher would push his body to the extreme during training, building his stamina and strength so that in races, where other drivers might drop off towards the end as they tired, he could continue to push to the limit all the way to the chequered flag. That, coupled with his immense talent, forced the rest of the grid to up their game.

So it is surprising that Norris seems to have only just realised that he needs to increase the physical side of his training, but I suspect that may have something to do with his new team-mate, as well as becoming more mature with age. Norris insists he does not feel any more pressure having Ricciardo in the garage than he did when Carlos Sainz was his team-mate, but he should.

Ricciardo is a seven-times race winner, extremely talented and, at 31, knows that the move to McLaren may be his last chance of a shot at the world title. The Australian is going to be pushing hard. He keeps himself very fit, and also finds novel ways of doing so, including whacking huge tyres in his garden in Perth.

Drivers are always given a bit of leeway in their first years, but Norris no longer has that luxury and he needs to step up and help McLaren challenge at the front of the grid again.

The team’s third-place finish in the constructors’ championship last year shows that the Woking-based outfit are moving in the right direction. Ricciardo is a good hire for the team, bringing with him not only experience but also a fun attitude. Those who worked with him at Red Bull speak highly of his light-hearted personality. That said, his nickname of the “Honey badger” is a nod to his ruthless streak and Norris will know that.

Norris is right to up his game, not only to improve his performance but to help the team and to try to challenge his team-mate. Perhaps they can find new ways to work out together and start a budding bromance to rival the one that Norris had with Sainz.

#elle answers

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theliterateape · 3 years

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I Like to Watch | Zack Snyder’s Justice League

by Don Hall

Mythology is fun.

As a kid I loved reading Edith Hamilton’s book on the Greek gods and the myths. Hercules, Perseus, Apollo, and Hera—this fell completely in line with my love for superhero comics. The strangely petty human traits of envy, greed, and lust combined with the power to level cities make for some great storytelling.

Zeus was basically Harvey Weinstein in the retroactive revision we’re mired in today. If Harvey could’ve changed into a golden animal and boned unsuspecting ladies looking for careers in Hollywood I’m pretty certain he would. The gods and demi-gods of the Greeks dealt with daddy issues, mommy issues, bad relationships, and fighting. Lots of fighting. Sometimes for the good of humanity but more often for the glory of winning.

Zach Snyder is in the business of tackling myths and reframing them with a style all his own. His career has become its own myth.

From Dawn of the Dead (not so much a reboot of Romero's zombie mythology but a philosophical reimagining of the genre that arguably jumpstarted The Hollywood fascination with it), 300 (a borderline homoerotic take on the myth of the Greek underdog), and Watchmen (a ridiculously ambitious attempt to put one of the most iconic takedowns on the potential fascism of the superhero legend machine ever written) to his nearly single-handed hack at answering the Marvel juggernaut with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder is in the artistic business of subverting and re-envisioning the mythologies we embrace without even seeing them as such.

Snyder's style is operatic. It is on a grand scale even in the most mundane moments. The guy loves slow motion like Scorcese loves mobsters and Italian food. When you're tackling big themes with larger than life stories, the epic nature of his vision makes sense and has alienated a good number of audience members. With such excess, there are bound to be missteps but I'd argue that his massive take on these characters he molds from common understanding and popular nomenclature elevates them to god-like stature.

Fans of Moore's Watchmen have much to complain about Snyder's adaptation. The titular graphic novel is almost impossible to put in any other form than the one Moore intended and yet, Snyder jumped in feet-first and created a living, breathing representation of most, if not all, of the source material's intent. Whether you dig on it or not, it's hard to avoid acknowledging that the first five minutes of Watchmen is a mini-masterpiece of style, storytelling, and epic tragedy wrapped up in a music video.

Despite a host of critical backlash for his one fully original take, Sucker Punch is an amazing thing to see. More a commentary on video game enthusiasm with its lust for hot animated chicks and over-the-top violence that a celebration of cleavage and guns, the film is crazily entertaining. For those who hated the ending, he told you in the title what his plan was all along.

The first movie I saw in the theaters that tried to take a superhero mythology and treat it seriously (for the most part) was Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. Never as big a fan of the DC characters as I have been of Marvel, it was still extraordinary to see a character I had only really known in pages to be so fully realized. Then came Burton's Batman movies. The superhero film was still an anomaly but steam was gaining. Things changed with Bryan Singer's X-Men in 2000, then Raimi's Spiderman, and those of us who grew up with our pulpy versions of Athena, Hermes, and Hades were rewarded with Nolan's Batman Begins. A far cry from the tongue-in-cheek camp of the 1966 TV Batman, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne was a serious character and his tale over three films is a tragic commentary filled with the kind of death and betrayal and triumph befitting the grand narrative he deserved.

I loved Singer's Superman Returns in 2006 because it was such a love letter to the 1978 film (down to the opening credits) but by then, the MCU was taking over the world.

Snyder's first of what turns out to be an epic storyline involving perhaps seven or eight movies was Man of Steel. It was fun and, while I had my issues with the broodiness of Kal El, the odd take on Jonathan Kent, and a redheaded Lois Lane, I had no issue with Superman snapping Zod's neck. Darker and more tragic than any other version of the Kryptonian, it was still super entertaining.

Then came Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. By 2016, Marvel had codified their formula of serious characters wrestling with serious issues of power and responsibility peppered with lots of good humor and bright colors. Snyder's desaturated pallete and angst-filled demi-gods was not the obvious road to financial competition.

I'll confess, I hated it. BvS felt half-rendered. Lex Luthor was kind of superficial and played as a kind of Joker. The whole Bruce Wayne wants to kill Superman thing felt undeveloped and the "Martha" moment was just stupid.

When Joss Whedon's version of Snyder's Justice League came out in 2017, I was primed for it to be a turd and I wasn't surprised. So much of it didn't work on any level. I dismissed it as DC trying and failing miserably and was comforted by the coming of Thanos.

Following Thanos and the time heist was COVID. Suddenly, we were internationally sidelined and the movie theater industry caved in. Streaming services started popping up like knock-off smartphones and Hollywood was reeling, doing anything and everything to find a way back. Since Whedon's disastrous helming of Snyder's third act, fans online had been demanding to #ReleasetheSnyderCut but no one was ever really taking them seriously until all movie production was shut down for a year.

The stage was set to remedy a mistake (or at least make some bucks on a do-over of a huge box office failure). Snyder had left the production in part because of the suicide of his daughter and in part due to the constant artistic fights over executives looking for the quippy fun of the MCU but he still had all the original footage. Add to that the broiling accusations that Joss Whedon was "abusive" during the reshoots, the path seemed destined. For an additional $70 million and complete control, Snyder delivered a four hour mega-movie streamed on HBOMax.

Of course, I was going to watch the thing as soon as I could.

The Whedon version opens with an homage to the now dead Superman (including the much maligned digitally erased mustache on Henry Cavill). The SynderCut opens with the death of Superman and the agony of his death scream as it travels across the planet. It's a simple change but exemplifies the very different visions of how this thing is gonna play out.

Snyder doesn't want us to be OK with the power of these beings unleashed. He wants us to feel the damage and pain of death. He wants the results of violence to be as real as he can. When Marvel's Steve Rogers kicks a thug across the room and the thug hits a wall, he crumples and it is effectively over. When Batman does the same thing, we see the broken bones (often in slow motion) and the blood smear on the wall as the thug slides to the ground.

The longer SnyderCut is bloated in some places (like the extended Celtic choir singing Aquaman off to sea or the extended narrations by Wonder Woman which sound slightly like someone trying to explain the plot to Siri). On the other hand, the scene with Barry Allen saving Iris West is both endearing and extraordinary, giving insight to the power of the Flash as well as some essential character-building in contrast to Whedon's comic foil version.

One thing I noticed in this variant is that Zach wants the audience to experience the sequence of every moment as the characters do. An example comes when Diana Prince goes to the crypt to see the very plot she belabors over later. The sequence is simple. She gets a torch and goes down. Most directors which jump cut to the torch. Snyder gives us five beats as she grabs the timber, wraps cloth around the end, soaks it with kerosene, pulls out a box of matches, and lights the torch. Then she goes down the dark passageway.

The gigantic, lush diversity of Snyder’s vision of the DC superhero universe—from the long shots of the sea life in the world of Atlantis to the ancient structures and equipment of Themyscira— is almost painterly. Snyder isn't taking our time; he's taking his time. We are rewarded our patience with a far better backstory for the villain, a beautifully rendered historic battle thwarting Darkseid's initial invasion (including a fucking Green Lantern), and answers to a score of questions set up in both previous films.

Whedon's Bruce Wayne was more Ben Affleck; Snyder's is full-on Frank Miller Batman, the smartest, most brutal fucker in the room. Cyborg, instead of Whedon's sidelined non-character, is now a Frankenstein's monster, grappling with the trade-off between acceptance and enormous power. Wonder Woman is now more in line with the Patty Jenkins version and instead of being told about the loss of Superman, we are forced to live with the anguish of both his mother and Lois Lane in quiet moments of incredible grief.

To be fair to Whedon (something few are willing to do as he is now being castigated not for racism or sexism but for being mean to people) having him come in to throw in some levity and Marvel-esque color to Snyder's Wagnerian pomposity is like hiring Huey Lewis to lighten up Pink Floyd's The Wall or getting Douglas Adams to rewrite Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I loved Snyder's self-indulgent, mythologic DC universe.

So much so that I then re-watched Man of Steel and then watched the director's version of BvS (which Snyder added approximately 32 minutes). The second film is far better at three hours and Eisenberg's Lex Luthor now makes sense. Then I watched Zach Snyder's Justice League a second time.

After nineteen hours of Snyder's re-imagining of these DC heroes and villains, I saw details that, upon first viewing, are ignored or dismissed, but after seeing them in order and complete, are suddenly consistent and relevant. Like Nolan or Fincher, Snyder defies anyone to eliminate even one piece of his narrative no matter how long. With all the pieces, this is an epic story and the pieces left at the extended epilogue play into a grander narrative we will never see.

Or maybe we will. Who knows these days?

#I Like to Watch #Zach Snyder's Justice League

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phantoms-lair · 4 years

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MSA Secret Santa

@accidental-child

Arthur sighed, leaning against the steering wheel of the van. The bus was a little late, but that wasn’t unexpected. Not out here at any rate.

There was a small selfish part of himself that wished he hadn’t picked up the phone that day. It was selfish - and ridiculous. The call had been at the garage, he needed to answer those calls!

It had been some great Aunt, or far removed cousin. He wasn’t quite sure how they were related. Apparently her son was originally going to spend summer break with one of his friends, but their trip had been cut short. The problem was said parents and their daughter had already made other arrangements and wanted to know if the aforementioned son could stay with Lance.

The problem was, Lance wasn’t there and wouldn’t be for a while. He was off on a road trip with some of his old buddies from his days when he absolutely positively was not a wrestler. It was a well overdue vacation and Arthur wasn’t going to call him back from it.

But something stopped him from just turning her down. It wasn’t her, but… it was the idea that their current plans ‘couldn’t be altered’. Lance had planned his trip to originally be last year, but he’d dropped everything after Arthur had turned up in a hospital without an arm. Also that they were reaching out to family that wasn’t that close at all made Arthur wonder if the closer relatives had also had plans that couldn’t be altered. It stank too much of no one wanting this kid, and damned if he was going to add to that

So here he was, waiting for a cousin he’d never met who’d be spending a month with him. He didn’t think it would matter so much if he wasn’t the age he was - 18. Younger would have been easier to slip into a child-guardian relationship and older meant this wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place. But 18 was an age of feeling you were coming into your own authority, and much more likely to take onus with someone a mere five years older than you being in charge.

The bus pulled up and Arthur braced himself. Two figures got off the bus, his cousin and...a dog? A rather large dog at that. Something else Aunt Wendy had forgot to mention. Hopefully it was good with other dogs and hamsters.

Pushing his misgivings aside, Arthur left the van with a big welcoming smile. No need to borrow trouble till it was here. “Hi, you must be Norville, right?”

The teen winced. “Like, call me Shaggy please. I hate Norville.”

“Done and done.” Arthur agreed readily. “The name Norville is thus dead and shall never be spoken from mine lips again.”

“Ri’m Scooby Doo.”

Another talking dog, huh. “Just to make certain, you’re not actually an ancient kitsune with an evil Japanese tree after you?”

“Like, not that we know of?” Shaggy looked confused. So did Scooby so Arthur let it slide.

“Okay, let’s get some food, and we can figure out stuff out.” Apparently he said the right word, because his cousin and dog perked up a lot. “Let me help you with your bags.” “Is your arm metal?” Shaggy asked, surprised.

“Sure is, made it myself.” Arthur wiggled his fingers at him, inwardly bracing himself. “That’s cool.” Shaggy said earnestly, picking up his other suitcase.

No ‘How did that happen?’ or ‘That must be so terrible’? Okay, thus far Arthur was counting this as a win.

“So,” Arthur started as they slid into a booth at Pepper Paradiso, “Let’s go over your options.”

“Options?” Shaggy asked, surprised.

“Yeah, you have two main options, and we can tweak them as need be. The first is what I told your Mom. You come to stay with me and my boyfriend and girlfriend. We’ve set up a spare room for you, and Scooby I guess, sorry no one told us he was coming.” “If you’d prefer not to deal with three people being kinda mushy, or just want more privacy I’d give you a key to Lance’s place. You could stay in my old room and basically have the house to yourself. I’d still be checking in everyday and making sure you had food and stuff, but other than that, you’d be on your own.”

Shaggy seemed to think a moment. “You have a boyfriend and a girlfriend? You can do that?” “Yes.” Arthur answered simply.

“Okay, like if it’s all the same, man, I’d rather stay with you. I don’t think me or Scoob want to be alone.”

Arthur tried not to take it as a warning sign. True, most teens would jump at the first chance to be on their own, but that was hardly universal. There was a small feeling that something was wrong, not just parental negligence. What, he didn’t know. And truthfully it could be nothing. Arthur had a tendency to jump to worst case scenarios (catastrophizing, his therapist had called it), so for now he’d wait and see.

“So is this the mysterious cousin?” Mrs Chef Pepper came over, winking .

“Yeah, this is Shaggy. Shaggy, this is one half of the best cooking team in Tempo, and honestly Texas.”

“Flatterer. My name’s Carmella Pepper. My husband’s running the kitchen, so I have the front end today. I assume the usual, Arthur?” “With no Cayenne additions, please.”

“She’s banned from the kitchen after the last hot sauce-strawberry shake.” Carmella assured him. “What about you, Shaggy?”

Shaggy looked at the menu. “Like, could Scoob and I each get a ‘Vivi Special’ “ he pointed to the menu.

She raised an eyebrow. With the exception of its namesake, the Vivi Special was usually ordered to be shared by a family. She’d never seen an order of two of them. “Do you want the plate of spicy chorizo or pancake poppers?” Scooby and Shaggy looked at each other. “One of each please. And, like separate checks? Mom set up an account for me for food and stuff.” Arthur tried to hide his relief. One extra mouth he could feed. Two more Vivi appetites would have strained his budget beyond feasibility.

~ “Lewis, Vivi— we’re home!” Arthur called, letting himself and his two guests in.

“Welcome home, Arty.” Lewis greeted, pulling his boyfriend in for a kiss. “So this must be Nor-”

“The name is not to be spoken. It has been cast into the abyss and replaced with Shaggy.” Arthur said with a completely straight face. “It has become one with the void.” Lewis rolled his eyes. “Sorry for the melodramatic one, I’m Lewis. Lewis Pepper.”

Shaggy shook his hand while Arthur sputtered over Lewis calling him melodramatic. “Pepper, like the people who run the restaurant?” “My parents.” Lewis explained.

“Wow, like they’re great cooks, man. It’s the first place me and Scooby found that we could be full off one thing on the menu.” “If you can call the ‘Vivi Special’ one thing.” Arthur quipped.

“Someone call me?” Vivi slid into the front room, literally, her socks holding no traction on the hardwood floor, causing her to crash into Lewis. “Arthur’s cousin Shaggy is a fan of your addition to my parents menu.” Lewis said.

“Ooooo Did you get the version with the spicy chorizo or pancake poppers?”

“Like, Scoob and I got one of each. I really liked Aztec Chocolate sauce on the sweet chili!”

“I know! And the smoked gouda filled jalapeño poppers!”

“Arthur, I think our girlfriend just adopted your cousin.” Lewis commented.

Vivi stretched as she got home from her morning shift at the Tome Tomb. Arthur was having a full day at Kingsmen’s, so she figured she’d check in on Shaggy and Scooby before getting in some serious cuddle time with Lewis.

She found them in the living room, Shaggy was looking at a book. Not reading it, but staring at the cover, while Scooby leaned against him comfortingly. “Everything okay boys?” She asked softly.

Shaggy took a moment to answer. “Do you believe in this stuff? Magic and monsters?” “As a matter of fact I do.” She tried to keep the humor out of her voice. Shaggy had no idea he was spending the remainder of his summer with a ghost and a kitsune. “Do you?”

Shaggy didn’t answer. “Doesn’t it scare you?” he asked.

“The supernatural? Not really. Or at least, not more than anything else.” She sat down next to him. “There’s good and bad magic, just like there’s good and bad technology. Some beings are friendly, some just want to be left alone, and some are truly evil, just like people. You always, always, have to be careful. But I’d rather know, you know?” Shaggy shook his head. “Like, I think I’d rather not.” He looked at the book again. “Like, have you ever heard of something called the Chest of Demons?”

“Not off the top of my head, why?”

Shaggy shook his head. “Nothing, like what’s for lunch?” Vivi accepted the topic change, but didn’t forget what she’d heard. This merited some digging into.

Arthur felt dead on his feet (though not quite as much as Lewis, ha!) as he got home that evening. Working in the garage was one thing, but running it was quite another. He couldn’t wait for Lance to get back.

It was Vivi who greeted him at the door, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him. Arthur melted into the embrace, the warmth he felt in his heart giving him back the strength spent on budget balancing and unruly customers.

But as he felt himself relax, he realized she wasn’t easing up. Something was wrong. “What is it, Vi?”

“Your cousin.” She answered, her head still buried in the crook of Arthur’s neck. “He was looking at my books and mentioned something called the Chest of Demons. I hadn’t heard of it, so I sent out some feelers.”

“Bad?” Arthur guessed, as if the name didn’t give that away.

“Not just the chest itself. I still don’t know what it is, because one of the few things I did manage to learn is it’s protected by near total secrecy. It’s not something he could have just randomly heard of.”

Arthur’s mouth set into a grim frown. He could think of a few reasons, but none of them were good.

“And this isn’t some random client messing with something he shouldn’t, he’s your cousin and I like him, but this is serious.”

“I’ll talk to him.” Arthur promised.

“No!” Vivi squeezed him tighter. “I don’t want to think he’s up to anything bad, but-” Honestly with how Shaggy had reacted to ‘Magic and Monsters’ she doubted it, but she couldn’t be sure and she wasn’t willing to put any of her boys in the path of danger.

Arthur laid a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You can have one of the Beats watching over us if it makes you feel better, but we can’t leave this alone and he’s nervous enough I don’t want him to feel like we’re ganging up on him.”

“That still puts you at risk,” Vivi argued.

“There’s always a risk, love. And you can’t take all of them for me. And I think this is a small one. Have you talked to Lewis yet?”

“Talked to be about what?” Lewis popped his head in. “You guys were taking a while. Is everything okay?”

“Shaggy may or may not have gotten mixed up in something supernatural and I want to talk to him about it. I want to do it alone so I don’t overwhelm him, but Vivi doesn’t want me to go talk about an evil artifact with the person who brought it up by myself. I volunteered to take a Beat with me.” “Take Mystery too.” Lewis suggested. “Shaggy likes him, so he wouldn’t feel ganged up on.”

Vivi let out a sigh of relief. “I love your Deadbeats, Lew, but I feel a lot better about that plan.”

“Hey Shaggy,” Arthur sat down. Mystery curled up by his feet, looking innocuous, but keeping a careful eye on Shaggy and Scooby.

“Hey,” Shaggy didn’t look up from the video game he was playing. “Like, how was work?”

“Not too bad. Can we talk about something?”

“Sure, man.” Shaggy paused the game. “What’s up?”

So many questions ran through Arthur’s head. Why do you know about the Chest of Demon? How did you find out about it? How much do you know? But there was one question he felt the need to ask above all the others.

“Are you in any danger?”

Shaggy blinked, caught completely off guard. “Huh?”

“You brought up something called the Chest of Demons to Vivi today. She did some digging. It was bad.” Arthur kept it vague to hide how much he didn’t know. “It’s also not a name you’d just stumble on. So, are you in any danger?” Shaggy deflated. “Like, not right now. Probably later. Thirteen seems to be keeping a low profile, but given the other twelve? At least Boggle and Weird are sealed up.”

Okay, Arthur didn’t understand any of that after ‘Probably later’. “Can you start at the beginning?”

“Okay, so like originally the five us were supposed to spend the summer on a global road trip, but Fred and Velma ended up going to camp, so like it was just me, Scooby, and Daphne. And we kinda sorta got lost. We ended up in the place where the chest was hidden. There were these two ghosts, Boggle and Weird. They wanted the thirteen evil spirits in the chest free, but it can only be opened by the living. So they tricked me and Scoob into opening it.and setting their masters free.”

Shaggy then rolled his eyes. “And of course only the ones who open the chest can return them, so like, suddenly we’re chasing down the nastiest ghoulies this side of the River Styx. We got the first twelve and got Boggle and Weird sucked in for good measure but with no sign of number thirteen Vincent cut us loose till he finds him.”

“Vincent?” Arthur inquired.

“A mystic who knows a lot about the Chest of Demon and it’s prisoners. He’s been helping us.” Shaggy shrugged. “Daphne suggested continuing our vacation while we’re on break, but I just kinda wanted to go home.” “Did you tell your family any of this?” Arthur wondered.

His cousin snorted. “Besides you? Like no one would believe me! And Daphne….” Shaggy trailed off.

“And Daphne?” Arthur prompted.

“It sounds weird to say, but this seemed to be, like, good for her? Before she kinda followed whatever Fred said. This summer though, she was taking charge and becoming more confident in herself. And like, I’m happy for her, but it means-” Shaggy seemed to struggle for his words, Scooby putting a reassuring head on his knee. “I’m a coward. I’d rather run from scary things than fight them. And I know I have to get them back in the box, cause it’s my fault they’re out-”

“Rour fault,” Scooby corrected.

“-but I’m scared all the time and I don’t want to be and no one but Scoob seems to get that.”

“Of course you’re scared,” Arthur scoffed. “You’ve had thirteen evil spirits after you. That’s objectively terrifying. You’d be crazy not to be scared.”

Boy and dog seemed taken aback.

While he couldn’t say he had been expecting those details, at least this lined up with what Arthur suspected, that Shaggy had stumbled into trouble, not sought it out.

“Okay, so first things first, what do you know about Spirit #13? What kind of spirit is it?” Arthur’s voice was all business.

“Not yet, Vincent usually tells us about them as he finds them.” Shaggy explained.

“If you can contact him, see if you can find out what we’re dealing with. It’ll be more effective if we can narrow that down.”

“What will be?” Shaggy asked, confused.

“Protective wards. That reminds me. Lewis, Vivi, Shaggy has a potential evil spirit after him. Brainstorming time.” “Huh?”

Lewis and Vivi showed up a bit too quickly to not have been listening in, but Arthur hoped Shaggy wouldn’t notice.

“There’s already some basic wards against hostile entities on the house, Pepper Paradiso, Lance’s, Kingsmen’s, and the Tome Tomb.” Vivi listed.

“I’ve got a few things around town warning me of anything of any level of power entering.” Mystery put forth. “It’s only weak spot is the lake.”

“Which has a protector of its own.” Arthur had a wry grin. “Nothing coming in from that side.”

Shaggy and Scooby shared a confused look. “You guys had this already set up?”

“You get surprised by a Jubokko once, you take precautions.” Vivi said dryly. “But this is all general stuff. The more specifics we know, the better defenses we can make. We can also figure out what places near your home we need to ward, or come up with something portable.”

Shaggy just looked between the four of them, confused. “Why?”

Lewis took a deep breath ( or at least mimed doing so). “Shaggy, you’re Arthur’s cousin, do you know what that means?”

Shaggy shook his head.

“It means you’re family, you’re our family. And we protect family however we can.” Lewis stated. “And we know monsters exist. We’ll be ready.”

Shaggy seemed at a loss for words. His mouth opened and closed a few times. “Thank you,” he finally whispered, his voice raw with emotion.

Arthur pulled him into a hug. “That’s what family does.”

#Accidental-Child #MSA #Scooby Doo #MSAHolidaySpirits2019

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radio-nano · 5 years

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Queen concerts were also successful beause of those guys!

Scroll if you want to learn who these guys are and what they did. You will also read about a Lord, a henna user, who had best haircut and Queen’s favorite food. (I wrote in bold letters the parts about Queen members and some funny facts.)

1. a"rigger". They assemble the stage (all 6000 square feet of it). Sometimes this can take two days, so there are two stages on this European tour. While one is being taken down at one venue, the other is being assembled at the next.

2 another "rigger".

3 John "Tumbridge" Wells, one of the security men responsible for looking after the members of Queen. "Tumbridge" looks after Brian May, escorts him wherever he goes and keeps the fans from getting too close.

4 Wally Gore group security, he looks after John Deacon

5 Alex Alexandrou, carpenter. There's two of us, and we put up all the stage scenery. I put up the walkways around the back and sides of the stage wich Freddie runs along. He likes to run on carpet, so I have to lay that down everywhere.

6. Chris "Crystal" Taylor, group coordinator. He organises all of the personal Queen crew, roadies, the security men. He makes sure they all know what they have to do and when they have to do it.

7. Jim Deveney, monitor engineer. "I sit out of sight on stage. I have to make things sound good so that the band can hear what they're doing. The sound comes through these speakers called "monitors" wich face onto the stage. The worst act I ever worked for was Rod Stewart. He was really miserable.

8. Joe Fanelli, Freddie's main personal assistant, who cooks for him at his London Home. "He likes anything really exotic, North African food, curries, good French cooking. He hates veal and doesn't eat carrots. Lambs is a bit iffy too. Brian's vegetarian but he eats fish. John likes very simple food, pie and mash and Roger likes anything but lamb.

9. Tony Williams, in charge of Queen's wardrobe. "I have to look after all of the band's stage clothes. That includes lots of details like making sure all the changes of clothes they need are backstage (Freddie changes about three times each performance), labelling the band's stage shoes (because they all wear the same stripey Adidas), and looking after Freddie's special moustache scissors. Also I have to wash all of their clothes in my hotel bedroom. My bath is always full. And Brian May has been using all this red henna do dye his hair and it comes out all over his shirts. It's very hectic".

10. Brandan Hyland, group security

11. One of the 15 "truckers" who each drive a massive 40 feet lorry loaded up with sound and lighting equipment. (For extra money they also operate the spotlights wich "follow" the group around stage).

12. Brian "Jobby" Zellis. one of Queen's personal road crew.

13 Brian May, Queen's guitarist.

14 John "Moxy" Glover, Roger Taylor's personnal roadie. "Basically I have to look after his drum kit and set it up on stage. I have to keep him supllied with drum sticks. He has sticks made with his own name on and he uses about ten sets a show. I got a bit drunk with Status Quo's roadies in Paris earlier this tour, and started throwing all his sticks in the audience.

15. Terry Giddings, group security.

16. Dieter Breit, physiotherapist for the group and crew. He has to look after any sprains and injuries that anybody might suffer, e.g. a sprained guitar-playing finger which needs massaging on Brian May's valuable hand.

17. A lighting assistant.

18. A "rigger"

19. Peter "Ratty" Hince, one of Queen's personal road crew. "I have to look after John Deacon's bass guitars and Freddie's guitar and special radio microphones (the one that don't have a fead) and keyboard instruments. I have to make sure that everything is exactly where it should be on stage, otherwise Freddie particularly will glare and let me know if anything's wrong. He's very particular about things being just right. Personally I don't enjoy these tour as much as the old ones. Nowadays ther's too much equipment, too many hangers-on, and everybody's trying to be important."

20. John "Collie" Collins, one of Queen's personnal road crew. "I'm the spare man, really. I work with Ratty and the piano tuner, help to see that everything is where it should be at the right time. Do you know I got married yesterday! I celebrated the wedding with the band and crew. It had to be squeezed in during the tour.

21. Roger Taylor, Those "shades"! That turned up collar! Must be Queen's drummer.

22. A trucker

23. Another trucker.

24. A rigger.

25. Another rigger

26 John Deacon, youn know , Queen's bass player, the one with the good haircut.

27 Tom "Midget" Foehlinger, sound monitor

28 An unknown person who sneaked in

29 Mickey Conafray, trucker

30 Mick Riddle, caterer

31 A lighting assistant

32 Albert Sutton, truck driver. "I carry the sound system, or some of it. We don't see the band or the road crew most of the time, because we travel ahead of everyone else. We have to get to the site before they do, and although we help with the setting up, we're off for two days while the rest of them are working on the concert. There are 15 "truckers" on this tour, plus the bus wich takes the road crew and sometimes the band. The worst thing about this job is being away from home for a long time when you're on tour. And the best thing is...erm maybe that should be a secret".

33. A caterer

34 Dave Lewis, another Caterer

35 A sound monitor.

36 Stave Benjamins, one of Queen's personal road crew, or "roadies" as they hate to be called. They look after all the instruments, microphones and amplifiers which Queen use on stage, setting them up, tuning them, and keep them clean.

37. another trucker"

38. Dave Thomas, caterer. I've been catering for Queen since 1975, every tour. The band eat the same food as everyone else, but they do have certain favorite foods. After a show they usually like an omelette or sometimes beans on toast or occasionally a steak au poivre. They're also pretty fond of Indonesian cooking".

39. Rex Ray, second sound engineer. He mixes the sound for all the support groups.

40. Spike Edney, keybordist and second guitar player: " My biggest fear is that it might get too damp, which makes the synthesisers cut out. I just pray that I'm out of clouting range of Freddie if that happens. He might not realise why I'm not playing and he'd be very upset if he thought I was daydreaming of something. But Queen on the whole are great to work with and they get drunk a lot too. Champagne every night, it's great!

41. Simon tutchener, lighting director. "I operate the main lighting console during the concert. It took three weeks to rehearse. I have a crew who set all the lights up, and 14 spotlights operators who I control through an intercom system and one man on a "Ver-lite", plus a man on the colour changer computer, plus a man on a computer which controls the up and down movement of the whole lighting rig, and then there are a few bits on stage, including Brian May special spaceship thing which comes down during his solo spot with all the flashing lights and..." (that's quite enought about lighting. Ed)

42 Stage rigger, who helps to set up the 6000 square feet of stage (all carpetted)

43 Sylvia Reed, assistant to the tour manager, Gerry Stickells. She is really a personal secretary.

44. James "Trip" Khalaf, chief sound enginer: "I mix the live sound for Queen, and I'm in overall charge for the half a million watts of PA (ie sound system. pa means Public adress) that we're carting around.

45. Lord Frederick Lucan of Mercury. You know him. Freddie.

46. "Phoebe", one of Freddie's personal assistants. These people help to arrange Sir Frederick's day, making sure he gets to appointments on time, and taking care of all those little details, which keep him happy.

47. A rigger

48. Lyndsey Beckingham, caterer. One of a team of five who feed the crew and the group. The caterers have their own van to transport all the food, cookers and fridges necessary to feed up to 60 people three times a day.

49 Bill Louthe, sound monitor. One of the assistants to the chief sound engineer, who sets up the massive sound system making sure it works perfectly, and run around while Queen are on stage, putting things right ( like tangled wiring) and making sure that there are no problems which could cause any deterioration of the sound quality.

50. Dave Mills, head of backstage and front of stage security. "My job is to stop any skirmishes or fights by pulling people out, people who faint, and putting in the hands of the first aid people. Earlier on this tour, in Dublin, I pulled out a young man whose ear was barely hanging on by a thread, probably because some idiot threw a glass."

51 Gerry Stickells, tout manager. The most important poeple on the tour. He looks after the road crew, from the lighting team to caterers; hiring them, making sure that they're paid and that everyone's alright. (he even remembers every crew member's birthday, making a fuss of them so they get too miserable). The other important thing he does is to go out months before the tour to look at the planned concert sites and to make all the thousands of arrangements that need to be made in advance. He's been working with acts like Rod Steward and Elton John and has organised Queen's road tour for 11 years. "They have to be highly-strung crazy people, they have to in order to ware themselves up to perform. So I admire them, yes. But I wouldn't want to socialise with them. Soon as this tour is over I'll go home and watch television."

52 Mike Weisman, production and stage manager. "I'm in charge of seeing that the stage and scenery is all but together properly. We work all day to get everything right. I have to coordinate all the work of the riggers and carpenters."

#brian may #freddie mercury #queen #queen band #bohemian rhapsody #roger taylor #rogerina #freddie #john deacon #disco deacy #john deacy #deaky #disco deaky

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years

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Bettye Lavette Interview: The Quiet I Can Be

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Bettye Lavette has had, as she calls it, two careers. The Detroit-raised soul singer-songwriter cut her first record at just sixteen, achieving early success with charting singles and touring with Atlantic Records-signed artists like Otis Redding and members of The Drifters. In the music world, initially, she was never front and center for long periods of time, even giving up recording in the mid-70′s for a six-year run on Broadway to star in Bubbling Brown Sugar. For all intents and purposes, her second career--the one that brought her both critical and commercial success as a solo artist--started in 2005 with the Joe Henry-produced I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, a collection of songs written by female artists like Lucinda Williams, Roseanne Cash, and Fiona Apple. (The title is taken from Apple’s “Sleep To Dream”, which appeared on the record.) Hell started a still-going series of albums of songs written by others, each based around a cohesive theme, like 2010′s Interpretations, covers of British rock artists like The Beatles, Elton John, and The Who. But it’s been her fruitful collaboration with drummer and producer Steve Jordan and legendary jazz label Verve Records that’s produced perhaps her two best albums yet: 2018′s Things Have Changed and the upcoming Blackbirds (August 28th, Verve).

Things Have Changed was a collection of Bob Dylan songs, many lesser-known, that Lavette made her own, to say the least. It helped somewhat that Lavette didn’t have much of a longstanding relationship with the tracks. “[Interpretations tracks] and Bob Dylan songs were not played on black radio a lot,” Lavette told me over the phone from her home in New Jersey in April. “They’re just songs. If you can sing, you should be able to sing them, whether they’re gospel songs, or blues songs, or British songs, they started out words on a piece of paper,” she said. The songs on Blackbirds, however, span different eras and genres, and they’re predominantly written by women of color, many of whom were and are Lavette’s peers. And her relationship to these tracks is more complex. Unlike many soul singers from her era, Lavette didn’t start out singing in the church but in her parents’ home, opting to perform R&B and country and western songs instead. When it was suggested to her in the 60′s by her manager Jim Lewis that she learn standards, Lavette was at first reluctant, wanting instead to learn tunes that were popular at the time, and then admittedly intimidated by the prospect of singing songs by such powerful voices. “While Dinah [Washington] would wait for you in the alley and kill you, her voice was just magnificent. And Ella Fitzgerald’s voice was like an instrument,” Lavette said. Years later, Lavette has found a way to make old songs sound personal.

Lavette credits Jordan with a lot of why Things Have Changed and Blackbirds sound so good. For one, he’s one of the only black producers she’s ever worked with, and she describes her experience singing old songs with him behind the boards and the drum kit as discovering what it would be like had she had someone like him when she first started her career. “One thing Steve knows about me that maybe others don’t...most musicians don’t know the quiet that I can be,” Lavette said. Indeed, their working relationship allows Lavette’s voice to shine. Lavette picks and sings the songs and sends her vocals to Jordan, who will arrange with her and their keyboard player, around her voice. At that point, Lavette, having established such a sense of trust with Jordan, doesn’t hear the arrangements until it’s time to record. The results on Blackbirds are astounding. She’s gentle, yet forceful on Nancy Wilson’s “Save Your Love for Me” and upfront on “Book of Lies”. The songs you might expect to sound stern or sad, like Nina Simone’s music industry olive branch “I Hold No Grudge” and “Blues for the Weepers”, are funky and upbeat, while ones you might expect to be somber, like “Strange Fruit”, are slinky and anthemic.

As much as the songs on Blackbirds, often by their very inclusion, are reflective of Lavette’s incredible career and her place, she prefers to look forward and often gets frustrated by fans and journalists stuck in the past or the mundane. Fans, especially overseas, want her to play old material without understanding the importance of it. “The thing that annoys me about fans--and that’s in air quotes--is just the love without the knowledge, or not wanting to know about it or where it came from,” Lavette said. Or interviewers who ask questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” For the author and now Blues Hall of Fame inductee, it’s a shame, because she wants to talk. When I told her how much I loved Things Have Changed, Lavette said, “Well why didn’t you call me? I have never been more accessible in my life!” Indeed, Lavette was careful to toe the line between re-imagining old songs and being faithful to their spirit. “I certainly did not want to be disrespectful in any way to these tunes,” she said. “I didn’t want to do the disco version, unless it was adaptable.”

“Adapt” is the key word here, and not just in describing how Lavette fit the songs to her voice and how Jordan and company subsequently arranged and played. Lavette, with every word and tone, applies her experience as a black woman, a singer-songwriter and performer for over half a century, to tunes that themselves offer a narrative history of important American music. It’s worth noting that when we finished talking, she signed off, “And by the way...my favorite color is black.”

Read my interview with Lavette below.

Since I Left You: Blackbirds is different from Things Have Changed, since you’re singing songs that were written and performed by a wide variety of different artists and songwriters. Do you change your approach when you’re tackling songs from different people and eras than from the same person?

Bettye Lavette: No, I treat them all as songs. I don’t care where they came from. I think the most unusual thing I’ve ever done in my life was when I did Bubbling Brown Sugar. That was totally out of my wheelhouse. I hadn’t done a play or anything, so I had to approach the whole thing theatrically. But I still approached the songs the same way vocally. My attitude at this stage, the theater, if the song is, “ahhh,” they want, “AHHH!” [laughs] The endings are a little unnatural. But the scenes may have to be ended that way.

But doing these songs in Blackbirds, these were songs I heard as a very young girl, most of them, and did not think I would ever sing them. For one thing, when I was younger I didn’t like them. But then as I learned to respect who these people were, I thought, “I will never be able to sing like that.” That was before I learned, “Just sing it how you sing it! Maybe it is like that.”

SILY: What music did you like when you were younger? What did you grow up listening to?

BL: I liked The Drifters. I’m so glad that I’ve gotten the chance to work with many of the people I grew up listening to. The first time I went on the road was with Clyde McPhatter and Ben King who were both lead singers for The Drifters. And you talk about a groupie! They couldn’t come out of their dressing rooms without seeing me! [laughs] But I always liked to dance. The difference between blues and rhythm and blues was that you couldn’t dance to blues, you could just cry. With rhythm and blues, you could cry and dance at the same time. My voice fell into that kind of music.

SILY: And you elude to that when you perform “Blues For The Weepers” on this album. In the liner notes, you talk about how you could perform that song in a number of different places--a bar, a lounge, a big stadium--and everybody can feel it.

BL: Well, I’m not sure everybody understands it as well as you seem to. People seem to want you to do either what you did before or exactly what they expect you to do. I have a great many fans in England, and they like these songs I did from the beginning till about 1975. They’ve just really collected that period of black music. They hated my album of Interpretations. It’s in my contract that I have to do [the older] songs. I joke that if they didn’t love me before, I would not do this show for anybody else. This is what I’m trying to grow to be, not what I’m trying to relive. To do a whole show? It sounds like a grown person singing silly songs. [laughs]

SILY: At the same time, when you sing a song like “I Hold No Grudge”, at this point you’ve come to accept and even embrace certain things about being a singer and musician and about the music industry.

BL: I want you to be my spokesperson! That’s exactly how I feel. The songs I sing now have so little to do with love affairs. They have more to do with what you just said: Where I’ve come to be at this point in my life and my career.

SILY: In general, on Blackbirds, it’s striking to me how different the arrangements and instrumentation are between original versions and your versions. How do you go about, from an instrumental and arrangement perspective, whether to remain faithful or stray from the original?

BL: I don’t have anything to do with that. Here’s what I do. At this point, I call Steve Jordan, the Bettye whisperer, because he understands what I’m saying. This is the first time I’ve had a black producer since early on in my career of any kind of note. I did one album with one black producer, but he was a black producer who had been producing Norah Jones. It was completely different. But Steve Jordan played with James Brown and loves Motown. What he does is take how I feel about the song and arrange the music accordingly. I usually get just the keyboard player...when I choose the tunes, I sing them the way I want to sing them, and [Jordan will] write it in the way that I’m singing them, as opposed to making an arrangement and I adapt to the arrangement. I sing the song, and he fashions the arrangement around what he’s heard me sing. He comes over to the house, and we sit on the floor of the living room, and he listens to the recordings that I’ve made with my keyboard player. He brings, usually, the keyboard player, who I hope for the rest of my life who will [play with me]. You know, there aren’t a lot of black musicians, and black musicians my age, that I can get to. Most of my contemporaries are millionaires, and I don’t have their telephone numbers. [laughs]

SILY: To what extent are you involved in the mixing and production decisions? Like on “Book Of Lies”, the arrangement has you start out a capella, but throughout that song, your vocals are really upfront in the mix.

BL: I appreciate that. That is absolutely a compliment from any sound engineer and producer, that he makes it all about me. Especially someone as arrogant as Steve. [laughs] He pays very close attention to the words that I’m saying because I pay very close attention to fashioning them to make you hear them. The Billie Holiday song [“Strange Fruit”], most of the younger singers I’ve heard approach this tune, they have great regards for what it’s about, and great regards for Billie Holiday, and being almost 75, I have great regards for me. I wanted all the lyrics to be distinct. I wanted you to understand what it is that happened. It’s not a song; it’s a protest. It’s a jazzier protest. I’m a rhythm & blues singer. And because Steve was born and raised in Harlem, he hears James Brown singing these songs. And that’s what you need to hear if you’re producing. In a recording, it has to be fashioned around me.

I’ve had some brilliant producers and loved so much of what they’ve done that I’ve felt completely comfortable with fashioning myself around them. But this one and [Things Have Changed] are quite different. The last one was the first time Steve and I had ever worked together. He understood exactly what I was saying so quickly. He read back to me an arrangement exactly as how I sang it. I didn’t want to lend myself to the lavish arrangements they had on originally. I told Steve on the Bob Dylan album, “I don’t want to recognize any of these songs.” He pretty much knows that’s the way I work now. I say, “You know we have to leave this lavishness out. I’m not lavish, I’m pretty basic!” I thought he did such a wonderful job when I went to the studio and heard what they were going to play. Because after he and I work on it, I don’t hear it any more until we get to the studio. There’s not a whole bunch of rehearsing. I do the whole album in 4-5 days.

SILY: It’s interesting that you said you don’t want the songs to be recognizable. That’s the approach Bob Dylan takes when he plays his own songs live!

BL: [laughs] He didn’t recognize any of the songs until they got to the chorus. I took that as a total compliment!

SILY: [Dylan] said that to you?

BL: No, he said it to my manager.

SILY: As much as these are songs on a single playing field, it’s interesting and meaningful that something like “Strange Fruit” and “Blackbird” are two songs that so many people know, whereas something like “One More Song”, which is pretty recent, is a standout among more-known standards. Why did you feel it was important to include that one on the record?

BL: The answer is so simple and ridiculous: Because we just liked it! [laughs] Sharon Robinson, she wrote [Patti LaBelle’s] “New Attitude” and a song for me called “The High Road”. She was Leonard Cohen’s writing partner. When Leonard died, they did a tribute to him in Toronto, and I went and did one of his songs. His family actually requested that I come and sing. That was the first time I ever met Sharon. I had heard “One More Song”, and I told her, “I’m going to do this tune.” Same thing with “I Hold No Grudge”, when I met Angelo Badalamenti. I thought, “I’m going to do this song,” 10 years before I met him.

We submitted [the list of] songs to the company, and they thought [about “One More Song”], “Oh, this is new,” but I said, “We’re gonna do it because we like it!” I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. You could just be playing the music and it would make me cry. I love this song. She is such a fantastic writer. Listen to the lyrics: Have you heard “The High Road”? She wrote the song for [I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise], and I just thought the lyrics were so great. I thought, “Well, she’s black, and she’s a woman. She’s a blackbird, so...” [laughs] She was so flattered when I called her and said I did it. When I sent it to her, she was just so thrilled with it. And Angelo Badamenti, who is now probably 90, when we sent “I Hold No Grudge” to him, he said, “I can see a big grin coming on Nina’s face.”

SILY: Another thing that seemed to be really meaningful is including “Romance In The Dark”, because it’s known for being performed by Dinah Washington [“Drinking Again”] and Nina Simone, who you also cover on this record. It’s almost like the whole record is coming full circle.

BL: I really did. The manager that made this singer you see before you today is named Jim Lewis, and my book [A Woman Like Me] is dedicated to him. When he first met me, he said, “You’re cute, you got a small waist line, but you got nothing to sing. You may not become a star. If you don’t become a star, and you still want to become a singer, you’ve got to learn to sing!” So he brought me all these songs by Dinah Washington. I have worked for 57 years because I learned to tap dance and sing [songs like] “Sweet Georgia Brown”. Those are songs that none of my contemporaries knew because they weren’t fashionable. Jim made me learn these songs that nobody else knew that I didn’t want to learn because I wanted to be a star. I’ve worked everywhere I imagined working. He told me I could do that. But even when I said, “I’m gonna be a star,” he said, “Calm down, honey, you may not be.” He talked to Norman Granz and the Verve label because they helped so many black musicians. Many black musicians played with the Jimmy Lunceford band. [Lewis] was the 6th trombonist. If he weren’t already dead, this would kill him. Verve, and these songs, and a black producer? This would kill him.

SILY: Looking back at it all, it’s got to be pretty unbelievable.

BL: It is unbelievable. I thought I was going to die broke and obscure, but now I’m just gonna die broke. But everybody knows me! [laughs]

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jorja58144741646-blog · 5 years

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Known Ways Music Affects The Mind

I really like pop music. J-pop is probably the hardest genre of Japanese music to categorize or describe. As is the case for "pop music" in the United States, a great deal of totally different sounds are likely to fall beneath this label. Numerous the bands tend to have a cutesy, "bubble-gum" pop sound whereas others are likely to exhibit a extra edgy dance, r&b, or funk sound. The teenager idols of Japan are just as big (if not larger) because the Britney Spears and Nsync's of the U.S. The members of bands comparable to Morning Musume, Tanpopo, Luna Sea, and Da Pump are worshiped as popular culture icons. The love for these icons is so nice that the loss of life of certain Japanese pop and rock stars in recent years reportedly devestated some younger fans so much that they took their own lives out of despair. In highschool, an in depth friend laid her hand on my shoulder and informed me that my style in music was just like that of a trashy, 12-yr-old girl who lived behind a mall. It used to truly be a supply of embarrassment for me, especially when I got here to NYU, which is basically populated by individuals who satisfaction themselves in having by no means heard the songs on pop radio (how anybody prevented hearing "See You Again" or "Uptown Funk" last yr, I am going to never know). But then I came to phrases with my taste in music, and now I realize that pop music is nowhere close to as dangerous as folks make it out to be.

Russians have all the time loved track contests, so it was no surprise that in 1977 the Soviet Union launched Intervision - a competition broadcast throughout the bloc and meant to rival Eurovision The primary winner was Helena Vondráčková 's Painted Jug - a song that sounds remarkably like an oompah band covering ABBA , showing there was little cultural divide between East and West back then. But the perfect thing about Intervision was its scoring system. If you happen to preferred a music, you turned all of your lights on, in keeping with Chris West's e-book Eurovision! A Historical past of Modern Europe Via the World's Best Track Contest. For those who hated a track, you turned all of your lights off. The winner was the one which precipitated the best electricity surge. The late 90s to early 2000s was when pop-punk completely hit the floor, becoming absolutely huge. Bands corresponding to Sum forty one, New Discovered Glory, and Simple Plan were among the many most performed artists on the radio, and Blink-182 was a serious success and extremely revered with their breakthrough album Enema of the State (1999). Even Avril Lavigne discovered success in the scene, often called the "pop-punk princess" (although lately, she's completely modified her sound and is not considered as such anymore, however it's acknowledged that at one point she was). It was round this time when the theme of friendship started to indicate up increasingly more ceaselessly, but not a lot as it will later on. K-pop is never artist generated. It is dreamed up in board rooms filled with dudes in fits who reek of garlic and soju. The songwriting is farmed out to individuals whose job it is to shit sugary gold. The casting call goes out and the teams are formed based on looks alone. Dancing will be taught; singing will be dubbed or auto-tuned. These children aren't artists, they're barely even performers. They're circus animals who do as they're instructed. Any hassle, any hint of insurrection, and it is the door, kid. The look of the music - particularly for the girls - is sexed-up, but in reality Ok-pop is as conservative because it will get. It dares not offend anybody, and in the process proves itself to be the unoriginal, uninspired, company produced SHIT that it is. Hosted by songwriter Ross Golan, who has penned hits for Ariana Grande, Selana Gomez, Flo Rida and Justin Bieber, And The Writer Is… is a podcast that is all about songwriters. Each episode, Golan, along with one visitor magicaudiotools.com songwriter, talk about what goes on behind the scenes within the music trade and the way each guest made their name in music. It is a candid, insightful and often very revealing look into the people behind the most important hits. Now in its third season, visitors previously have included Nick Jonas, Ryan Tedder, Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter.When asked which decade has the worst music, their responses fanned out in broadly chronological order, with the 2010s getting forty two% of the vote, the 2000s getting 15%, and the Nineteen Nineties, Nineteen Eighties and Seventies coming in pretty equally with 13%, 14% and 12%. This may lead an informal reader to conclude that the individuals polled were all of a sure age, however it appears to be an evenly held opinion. Of individuals aged 18-29, 39% voted for the 2010s, whereas the determine for the over 30s was forty three%, which signifies most of the fun is in digging up outdated songs, slightly than maintaining with the brand new.To the diploma that radio stations would concentrate on playing a certain type of music that appealed to a certain narrow demographic of listeners, the report labels and publishing corporations would oblige by intentionally in search of out and financing musicians who may create music tailored to the needs of those specific radio stations. Thus the assorted sub-genres of pop music, in all places on the earth, had been created in a type of feedback loop between broadcast radio and the file labels. Types and genres of pop music all the time changed and developed, but all the time in response to the market pressures of selling recordings and being profitable.The extra you listen to one thing, the extra tightly connected you might be to what's about to occur subsequent," she says. So you get immersed in it differently than you probably did the first time. You've got this sense of virtual participation, which is what individuals report once they try to describe a strong piece of music. They're going to discuss how the boundaries between themselves and the music seem to dissolve. So by listening to music again and again, you may accelerate that orientation to sound."Rockabilly" often (but not completely) refers to the kind of rock and roll music which was performed and recorded within the mid-Fifties primarily by white singers reminiscent of Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins , Johnny Money , and Jerry Lee Lewis , who drew primarily on the country roots of the music. fifty three fifty four Elvis Presley was vastly influenced and integrated his type of music with some of the greatest African American musicians like BB King, Chuck Berry and Fat Domino. His type of music mixed with black influences created controversy throughout a turbulent time in history however that didn't cease them from creating what we name Rock n Roll. fifty four Many different fashionable rock and roll singers of the time, akin to Fat Domino and Little Richard , fifty five came out of the black rhythm and blues tradition, making the music attractive to white audiences, and will not be often classed as "rockabilly".

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litological-blog · 5 years

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• january book recommendations

This one is for fans of A Court of Thorns and Roses. You know, stories where young girls are either swept away into another magical world or are already in a magical world where they fall into a complicated, longing, totally hit you in the feels and make you cry because you wish you had a boyfriend/girlfriend like their love interest, etc, etc. If you've devoured the entire ACOTAR series and want more books similar to it, just keep reading. We hope we can help you find your next addition to your TBR list:

1. "Dorothy Must Die" by Danielle Paige

A re-telling of The Wizard of Oz with a modern twist, Dorothy Must Die is definitely one of my personal favourites. It's about a teenage girl, Amy Gumm, who is strong and defiant, despite being bullied at school and neglected by her substance-using mother. On a particularly bad stormy night, when she is once again left alone in her trailer, a tornado picks it up and transfers her to Oz. But it is not like the movies, at all; Oz is in turmoil, and it’s all because of the infamous Dorothy Gale, who is sucking all the magic and life out of it. The only way to stop her is to kill her companions; she must remove the tin woodman’s heart, steal the scarecrow’s brain, take the lion’s courage, and then - Dorothy must die.

2. “Stealing Snow” by Danielle Paige

Another marvelous read by Danielle Paige where she dives back into the world of magical lands and dangerous, villainous rulers. This time, it’s about a girl called Snow, who has been locked up in an asylum most of her life for trying to walk through a mirror as a child. Despite her bleak life, Snow falls in love with Bale, a troubled boy with a catastrophic love for flames. One night, Bale is kidnapped, pulled through a portal into a world she’d been dreaming of, and the only way to save him is to escape from Whittaker and journey into a magical world that has been waiting for the day she would return. There she meets many allies and even manages to catch two intriguing boy’s eyes. She must learn to control and harness her magical powers into deadly weapons to fulfill the prophecy and defeat her father, the king. But in a world of treacherous magic, who can Snow really trust?

3. “Red Queen” by Victoria Aveyard

This is more in league with the likes of the Hunger Games in certain ways, but it’s based in a fantasy world and had so many similarities to ACOTAR that I couldn’t not add it to the list. Plus I really love it.

This is a story about Mare Barrow, a girl who has red blood in a world dominated by those who have silver blood. The silvers are royalty, with their powerful abilities they outrank the reds. But Mare is something different, something rare and unheard of: she discovers she is a red with powers. She can summon lightening. To ensure nobody gets wind of this, she is disguised as a long lost Silver princess by the royals and is taught the ways of being a princess. Conflicted by her emotions for two prince brothers, one fiery and passionate, the other calm and collected, Mare struggles to navigate her new life and must be wary of who she can trust; there are deceivers everywhere.

4. “Heartless” by Marissa Meyer

The first book on this list I haven’t actually read yet, but it is definitely on my TBR list, and here’s why it should be on your’s too:

“Heartless” tells the story of the girl Catherine was long before she was known as the cruel, - ironically - heartless Queen of Hearts. She was the most coveted, admired girl in Wonderland, and one certain unmarried king even had his eyes set on her. But Catherine wants nothing to do with becoming queen; she aspires to open a bakery and sell delicious treats. Her mother, however, doesn’t support her dreams and instead forces her into going to a ball where she is supposed to receive a marriage proposal from the king.

Instead, Catherine meets the handsome and mysterious Jest who she feels a strong attraction for. Cautious of offending the king, she enters into a secret relationship with Jest, and is determined to choose her own fate. But it seems there are others who may have different plans for her...

5. “Cinder” by Marissa Meyer

Set in the futuristic city of New Beijing, Cinder - a young cyborg and talented mechanic - is a second class citizen with a past wrapped in mysteries, and a cruel, wicked stepmother who blames her for her stepsister’s illness. Unforeseen circumstances lead her fate to become intertwined with the dashing Prince Kai’s, and she finds herself standing smack dab in the middle of an intergalactic battle and a forbidden blooming love. Uncovering secrets from her past may just be the only way to save the world’s future.

6. “The Cruel Prince” by Holly Black

This is a book I've wanted to get my hands on for a really long time now because it just sounds so intriguing and right up my alley. When their parents were murdered and they were stolen away by the faeries, Jude and her two sisters were brought to live in the High Court of the Fae. Years later when she is seventeen, Jude longs for to belong amongst the fae, but many of them despise humans and want nothing to do with them - especially the wickedest of them all, the youngest son of the King, Prince Carden.

To earn a place at Court, Jude must overcome the most dangerous task of defying Prince Carden, which leads her life to become entangled with palace intrigues and deceptions. But when a war threatens to break out among the Courts of Faerie, Jude is forced to put her own life at risk in the hopes of saving her sisters, and all faeries.

7. "Everless" by Sara Holland

This is one of my honest to God favourite fantasy novels. It's so fresh and unique and a nice change from the usual fantasy stories. In a world where time is used as currency by extracting blood and binding it to iron, and then it is consumed to add to one's lifespan, Jules Ember discovers her father is dying and must journey back to the very place she and her father had fled so many years ago: Everless. Her father needs more time, and despite having been driven out of there many moons ago after witnessing a fateful accident, she knows she must return for his sake. But returning to Everless can only bring danger to Jules, especially when she finds her heart caught between two people she thought she'd never see again.

8. "Ash Princess" by Laura Sebastian

Just six years old when her country was invaded and her mother, the Fire Queen, was killed right in front of her, Theodosia’s family, name and land were all taken by the Kaiser. For a decade she has been held captive in her own palace, having to endure much ridicule and abuse from the Kaiser and his court. So, when rhe Kaiser finally forces her to do the most heinous, unthinkable thing, she decides enough is enough. The Ash Princess has seen the fall of her people and her land - no more. She will fight back with everything she has.

9. “To Kill a Kingdom” by Alexandra Christo

A modern re-take of The Little Mermaid with a darker twist, Princess Lira is the most lethal siren of the sea; she holds the hearts of seventeen princes in her hands. But when a sudden turn of fate forces her to kill one of her own kind, her own mother - the Sea Queen - punishes her daughter by turning her into the one thing they hate most - a human. She is given until the Winter Solstice to retrieve Prince Elian’s heart and deliver it to the Sea Queen, or remain human forever.

Prince Elian finds his calling in hunting and killing sirens like Lira; unknown to him, when he rescues a woman from drowning in the ocean, she is much more dangerous than he could have ever thought. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all sirens for good, but can he really trust her?

10. “Alice In Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

This is the first story on this list that doesn’t have any romance in it, but is instead a fresh, unique story of adventure, courage, friendship, and a little pinch of madness. It tells us about a young girl called Alice, who follows a white rabbit wearing a waist-coat and carrying a pocket watch down a rabbit hole. She finds she’s fallen into a magical, if not a bit bizarre, land called Wonderland, where a cruel Queen of Hearts rules over. Join Alice on an adventure of a lifetime, meeting strange people and animals such as The Mad Hatter, The Chesire Cat, and the Blue Caterpillar. It will only make you curiouser and curiouser...

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askaceattorney · 6 years

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Dear Sinless,

I have no idea where that came from, for one thing. I’m neither almighty nor all-knowing, but I appreciate the praise (even if it’s supposed to be sarcastic -- I can’t really tell).

Dear sinyove,

You look familiar...

Anyway, that’s a good question. Sweating isn’t something you just forget how to do, so I imagine AJ Phoenix still sweats in nervous situations, just not as often since he isn’t involved in courtroom proceedings. Plus he works at a cold restaurant, so that’s probably helped to cool him down a little.

Dear sinyove again,

Sorry, but there’s no way for us to do that without answering it right away, so we’ll probably have to leave it as it was. We’ll change it if we remember, though.

(Song in Letter)

Dear CreatorOfSinyove,

That’s a pretty cool mashup, but I’m a little confused as to why you wanted me to call you by a different name. You can always send letters with whatever name you want if you log out of your account first. (Please forgive me if I’m missing something obvious here.)

Dear Ethan Starbright,

Cute! Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the play, so sorry for not getting the references.

Dear Ethan Starbright,

I'm not sure how I feel about Dahlia being Eliza... But a more important question, does that make Miles Burr? Or maybe Godot?

(Previous Letter)

Dear Anonymous,

I wasn’t sure if this was meant for Phoenix or for us, so I’ll go ahead and answer it. He’s saying he wouldn’t hire Shelly de Killer because he himself would end Kristoph. You’d better hope and pray we never have to see that timeline.

Dear skibot99,

It’s hard to say since I enjoy just about all of them, but my least favorite case is probably Turnabout Big Top. The characters were charming, but the story was slow-going, and the contradictions were way too hard to figure out sometimes.

Incidentally, my favorite case is Turnabout Time Traveler. It delighted me to see that the writers at Capcom still had it in them to make such a fun and imaginative legal adventure for Phoenix and Maya after all these years, and that neither of them had last their edge as clever and quirky crime-solvers. I also happen to be a homeless hopeless romantic, and the idea of a man rescuing his bride from certain death (and the two of them continuing to love each other despite his anterograde amnesia) was incredibly touching for me. In the words of Huey Lewis, “The power of love is a curious thing.”

Dear skibot99,

I honestly don't think I have a least favorite case, because maybe in one case I dislike how the story is proceeding (very slow or confusing), but I may find the characters very interesting, and vice versa.

However, my favorite case would have to be Rise from the ashes or any case from AAI2.

Dear skibot99 again,

I haven’t really seen enough of the anime to judge it as a whole, but from what I’ve seen of it, it’s definitely worth watching. I'd have to say that I prefer the games overall -- though, to be fair, I’d probably say that about any cartoon based on a game -- but the music, voice-acting, and animation are all pretty spectacular, and I love how many extra details it includes that would’ve been practically impossible to fit into the original trilogy games. The adaptation from game to anime is fantastic as well, but I definitely prefer the English dubs over the Japanese ones. Japanese is a lovely language, but hearing the characters speak English, rather than only seeing it, opens the series up to a much wider audience, and you’ve gotta love that.

Speaking of Japan, I’d say the best change to the storyline is having Phoenix and company actually live there instead of America, so we no longer have to wonder where all the Japanese culture is coming from or call it “Japanifornia” -- true, that inconsistency has made for some hilarious jokes, but at least now things make a little more sense.

As for the worst storyline change, it was sort of disappointing for me that Phoenix and Maya’s first encounter was so short -- they didn’t even say anything to each other until he visited her in prison. It was still pretty sweet, but Maya’s introduction of herself to Phoenix was one of my favorite parts of the game, so I was sad to see that cut out of the anime. I’ve never attempted to turn a video game into an anime, though, so I can let it go.

I do have to wonder why they thought they needed more than ten policemen to arrest Frank Sahwit, though...

Dear Bruce Goodman,

Aw, crud... I accidentally smudged an important part of this letter. And it was sent to us over a year ago, wasn’t it? Sheesh, I’m getting clumsy...

In all serious, I prefer not to show the names of real-life politicians on this blog, but I hope you can put that information to good use.

Dear Anonymous,

Let’s see...

Yep, that’s a pretty uncanny resemblance, but I think it’s just coincidence. I can’t imagine his mom letting him take on that sort of role, even if he had a stunt double.

(Picture in the Final Letter)

Dear Anonymous,

I hate to spoil all your hard work, but I’m afraid I don’t know which image link you’re referring to (unless you meant this one). Could you please clarify?

(Previous Letter)

Dear M,

Thanks a bunch, first of all. There’s a lot to be said about the Royal Family of Khura’in (plus I tend to ramble anyway), so I did my best to keep it short.

Secondly, you’ve raised some good points. I sort of snuck in the comparison to the Hawthorne twins at the last minute, so I didn’t give it as much thought as I probably should have. It’d be more accurate for me to say that I thought she was that she was too meek to disobey her sister (in fact, I went ahead and rewrote it that way in the essay).

I'm a huge fan of Iris, by the way, and I agree that she can be strong when the need arises, but there are at least a few things that led me to believe she still has a bad habit of caving in to pressure from others. First, while she never actually obeyed Dahlia, she chose to do whatever was necessary to keep her crimes a secret, rather than making the harder but wiser decision of turning her in to the police. Second, she was willing to cooperate with someone she barely knew (Godot), even to the point of taking a dead body and impaling it with a statue’s sword -- that took some guts, I’ll admit, but it also landed her in prison. And third, she was willing to take the fall for everyone involved in the plan to stop Dahlia in case something went wrong. Whether she decided to do that out of guilt for her past sins, or for some other reason, it was still highly questionable at best. Take the blame for a murder I didn’t commit and let Godot have his way? Sure, why not?

All that being said, I also believe that she managed to forgive herself after everything was out in the open. Most of Iris’s responses were written by someone else (the ones with lowercase tags were written by the Mod), but I guess I have sort of portrayed her as still feeling guilty about her masquerade, and that does seem a bit out of character now that you mention it, so I’ll try to keep that in mind for future letters to her. Thanks for bringing it up.

Also, while we’re on this subject, this comparison reminded me of this letter that I sent back before I was a moderator. It’s sort of heartwarming, isn’t it?

(You were so sweet sometimes, Mod... *sniffle*)

-Co-Mod and Mod Paups

#sinyove #ethan starbright #anonymous #skibot99 #m. artin #bruce goodman #mod post #co mod #mod paups

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dandelionpie · 6 years

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So I’ve been Having Ideas About My Future lately. And right now this one feels like the very beginning of a soap bubble - the part where you’ve started to blow into it but it hasn’t closed around itself yet. And I want to be really cautious with it so it doesn’t just pop before it can even get into the air, so I wasn’t gonna talk about it for a while, but also.

[Click through for a very long post about Maddy’s Career Options - replies are fine but please be gentle with my baby bubble hopes]

Okay, you guys.

So I was on the phone with my mother the other day, and I was having a sort of a panic attack (you know, like you do when you’re on the phone with your mother [kidding this is not normal and should not be trivialized, etc]), and I was trying to conceal this fact from her but it was Not Working. And I was dismayed about where my life was going, my lack of definite plans for a career, etc., and she said, “You know, I was actually gonna tell you - we had a lady come visit our school the other day and she’s an art therapist.”

And...here’s the thing. Usually my mother’s career suggestions kind of go in one ear and out the other. Because my mom’s great! Really! But she isn’t me, and she doesn’t always get what my life is like. So I usually just say “hm, yeah, I’ll look into it,” and then I don’t.

But I had genuinely just forgotten that art therapy existed. I knew about art, and I knew about therapy, and I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that people were putting those two things together, but somehow I’d just sort of filed that info in the General Trivia drawer instead of the Potential Grown-Up Jobs one. And...I’m getting sort of cautiously excited about the idea.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS I HAVE HAD SINCE THAT CONVERSATION

(I Started Writing Them Down and Then They Became Legion)

Every piece of art I like has a strong psychological element. That’s the common thread, dammit. That’s why I’m so picky about song lyrics, that’s why I can’t get into a book unless it’s got some sort of strong interpersonal/intrapersonal thread for me to snag my little English major hooks in. At the end of the day, the narratives that interest me are the ones where people are constantly feeling and processing things and I have to think a lot about why they’re doing that the way they’re doing it.

Not trying to sound like I think I’m super virtuous or whatever, but I tend to see good in most people, which might be an asset in that field? I get along well with a lot of personality types that friends of mine have cited as abrasive. Like, I can find people obnoxious but still notice enough of their good qualities to enjoy their company or at least tolerate it. And that’s a strength that’s served me well on a personal level, and a little on a professional level too (getting along with people helps just about anywhere), but I never thought of it as something I could use to particular effect in an actual career track.

That said, I have NO background in psychology. I had a couple lab rats, but they didn’t really teach me any of their secrets.

On cursory examination I have decided that I Do Not Like neurology. I have a lot of friends who seem to love it and that’s great, but....look, it just freaks me the fuck out. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much of my adulthood (read: all of it) preoccupied with the vulnerability of my physical being to various surgery-requiring problems. But the idea of my mind (that place where I spend so very very much of my time) being subject to the physical limitations of my brain (a part of my corporeal body [which has in the past proven itself to be somewhat unpredictable]) is so fucking terrifying to me that I’d prefer to spend as little time on that as possible please and thank you.

(Aside: I know the phrase “I don’t like the Brain; I just like the Mind) is like peak dualism, but I’m sure you all know what I mean, right? It’s possible to think about and work with the mind without focusing on the physical brain that gives rise to it. I’ve been doing that on the client end of things for years.)

A lot of the art I do is actually pretty therapeutic! To me, I mean. I never did figure out how to translate the whole cancer thing into an autobio comic (I eventually realized I simply didn’t want to and it was one of the most liberating moments of my life). But I have been relying on art for years to process my trauma. Most of my creative projects and ideas for them go back to that in some way, even if it doesn’t come across to the other people who experience them.

That said, I am...not the biggest autobio comic fan. There are so many things about that genre that rub me the wrong way. I’m glad it exists, I just don’t tend to enjoy consuming or creating autobio comics. However, this might be a chance to see autobio comics through a new lens! And it also has the potential to set me apart - there are quite a few art therapists, but I’ll bet there are fewer whose background is in comics specifically.

I could have an office. I could go into private practice and have a place that I could build into a safe space for people to talk about their problems and work on them. I know it’s just a little thing (and I’m not sure yet if private practice would be feasible/right for me, at least right away), but I like the idea of making physical space for that kind of work. (And if I sometimes also used it as a studio for comics, well, I don’t think that’s illegal or anything.)

I could be relatively independent in my career. I could work for an agency (and I think I’d probably have to, at first, but I gotta look into how all that works), but I could also spend at least some of my time in private practice, or working pro bono or on a sliding scale, or doing other stuff that allows me a great deal of flexibility and control over my schedule.

I like the idea of a type of schooling that has experience built into it. Like, you have to get a certain number of internship hours before you can be certified. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but it’s nice to see a field that’s so up-front about the fact that you need experience before you can do your job.

A lot of art therapists work with traumatized kids, and I find that prospect faintly terrifying. But also maybe it would be good to get over that, if I want to Help People and Use My Strengths to Do Good Things In the World. Those kids are gonna be traumatized either way, and if I can handle it, it’d probably be cool if I helped them.

It would be so nice to not be broke literally all the time. Even with student loans, I think this has the potential to help that happen, if I do my research and play my cards right. And I might even be able to work *gasp* less than 40 hours a week, thereby freeing up my time for other projects. Or, you know, kids. Hell, maybe I’d even be able to feed them.

Nobody would be able to make me work Saturdays.

Not sure yet whether it’d be better to get an Actual Art Therapy Degree or do a more general thing and then get a specific art therapy certification after/during that? I’m leaning towards the latter because I’d like more versatility, but I’m getting the sense that the rules for who can call themself an art therapist are slightly stricter in Oregon, so I’m gonna have to talk to the people who run the program.

What with the horse in the hospital and all that, I was thinking about a career in activism. But I’m not sure I have the temperament to be a lawyer, and I hate talking to strangers (I’ll do it if I have to, but damned if I’m gonna go door-to-door every day). But this way, I could maybe help activists balance their lives and their activism. Activists need therapists.

I could help people like me, with medical trauma. I know all about medical trauma! It has literally been a constant since I was 18! And in college and after, I hated feeling like my problems were fake and that my illness affecting my life was the result of some moral defect. Without therapy, I don’t know if I would have kept going to doctors and trying to figure everything out.

Visual art has in many ways been a great avenue leading away from self-harm, for me. The physicality of it is so much more powerful, for me, than almost anything else.

I’ve been so conflicted lately with lots of ideas about art-as-saleable-product vs. art-as-catharsis-and-narrative-control. I kind of thought my interest lay in the former but now I’m wondering if maybe it’s the latter. Like, I still love comics and storytelling and I want to make comics for people to read, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to do advertising. I don’t want to build a brand. I just want to tell stories and draw pretty pictures that make people happy. And I know that’s not what art therapists do, but in some ways it feels like the field still lines up better with my goals than commercial illustration. Does that make sense?

Lewis and Clark has a program. PSU has a program (though not an art therapy one specifically I think). There are online ones and low-residency ones as well, although honestly I think I function best in a classroom. Right now I think I’m leaning towards L&C because I’ve heard really good things about their education grad programs from a couple of people, but: gotta look further into it.

I’m liking the prospect of being a student again. I like going to lectures. I like notebooks and pencils and pens and libraries. And according to one person I talked to, as a therapist you actually have to keep taking courses throughout your career as the field changes. It’s like a condition for licensure or something (at least in some parts of the field). I’d love to be able to keep learning my entire life in such a deliberate way.

And I think I’d be better at being a student now than I was at Reed. I remember realizing waaay too late that you could just...ask your professors for help with stuff. And they could say no! But they weren’t going to, like, set me on fire. So what if I just set up a meeting with someone involved in a program and said, “Hey, look, I have no psych background and an intense interest in therapeutic work; how do I do this?” They could tell me to go away, but that’s probably about it. In a way, I think it might be nice to take another stab at academia - redeem myself.

(I have no idea what my Reed GPA is and should probably figure that out. Pretty sure I got a C in Chem and at least one other class? But maybe they won’t mind.)

My original plan had been to fund my comics habit with a freelance illustration career. Because almost nobody makes a living in comics, at least not just in comics. It happens, but very rarely does it happen with creator-owned work. A lot of indie comics artists freelance or have some other sort of art day job, and I thought that was a lifestyle I could get into.

But the Horrible Deep Dark Secret is...I don’t actually like freelancing that much, at least with my life the way it currently is. I mean, I love drawing and I love not being broke, so please keep sending people my way if they want someone to draw something (please please please I need the money). But the illustration industry is downright exhausting. It’s so hard to switch off, and it’s so much work even convincing people you deserve to get paid, let alone getting them to pay you. Mad kudos to anyone who has the time/energy to do that, but I’m not sure I do, at least at this point in my life.

But if I was planning to supplement my comics with another, art-related career anyway, what if I did this instead? What if it ended up being something I, Maddy, could enjoy and feel good about? Doing this (with my temperament) might actually a) pay better b) offer me more time and c) lend a sense of structure to my days that I definitely need and that freelancing sorely lacks.

Actually, having comics projects might even help with work-life balance in this field. I don’t know yet, but I’ve been told that a lot of therapeutic practice is establishing healthy boundaries between your work and your life, and I think it might help to have somewhere else to pour emotional energy when I’m off the clock.

Having another career wouldn’t mean I couldn’t make comics. Hell, it wouldn’t even mean I couldn’t sell comics. I could still make a website and freelance sometimes. I could still set up a Patreon. I could still publish my stuff on the web and in real life. I could still table at cons. And if things started going better than I’ve been planning for them to go, comics-wise, I wouldn’t have to keep being a therapist full-time. I’d have some flexibility, especially in private practice.

Anyway, I literally just started thinking about this a few days ago, so I have no idea if I’m gonna stay this excited about it. But...I’m enjoying looking into it. I’ve felt so much more hopeful the past few days - like my life might actually go someplace I could like. It’s a nice feeling and I would like to keep it.

I dunno. I’ve talked to some people and I’m gonna talk to some more people. Maybe set up an interview at the college in the next couple months if I can swing it. Prereqs would probably be somewhat hellacious, but that’s what I get for majoring in the humanities.

Okay cool I’m gonna go eat something and clean the kitchen.

#personal #job stuff #self-harm mention #medical trauma #in which maddy begins to consider grad shool

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leah-jeffries · 6 years

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Seventeen-year-old Stella Ainsley wants just one thing: to go somewhere—anywhere—else. Her home is a floundering spaceship that offers few prospects, having been orbiting an ice-encased Earth for two hundred years. When a private ship hires her as a governess, Stella jumps at the chance. The captain of the Rochester, nineteen-year-old Hugo Fairfax, is notorious throughout the fleet for being a moody recluse and a drunk. But with Stella he’s kind. But the Rochester harbors secrets: Stella is certain someone is trying to kill Hugo, and the more she discovers, the more questions she has about his role in a conspiracy threatening the fleet.

Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him. Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them. When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive. What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told. Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of them all? Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now.

These Broken Stars | Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner Type: Companion Series : Starbound (1) Where to Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookDepository | IndieBound

Luxury spaceliner Icarus suddenly plummets from hyperspace into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive – alone. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a cynical war hero. Both journey across the eerie deserted terrain for help. Everything changes when they uncover the truth.

Spinning Starlight | R.C. Lewis Type: Standalone Where to Buy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookDepository | IndieBound

Sixteen-year-old heiress and paparazzi darling Liddi Jantzen hates the spotlight. But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it’s hard to escape it. So when a group of men shows up at her house uninvited, she assumes it’s just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired. Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi’s vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word and her brothers are dead. Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home—a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers’ survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back? Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans strings the heart of the classic with a stunning, imaginative world as a star-crossed family fights for its very survival.

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded. The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit. But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again. BRIEFING NOTE: Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

At the dawn of time, there were 13 Houses in the Zodiac Galaxy. Now only 12 remain…. Rhoma Grace is a 16-year-old student from House Cancer with an unusual way of reading the stars. While her classmates use measurements to make accurate astrological predictions, Rho can’t solve for ‘x’ to save her life—so instead, she looks up at the night sky and makes up stories. When a violent blast strikes the moons of Cancer, sending its ocean planet off-kilter and killing thousands of citizens—including its beloved Guardian—Rho is more surprised than anyone when she is named the House’s new leader. But, a true Cancerian who loves her home fiercely and will protect her people no matter what, Rho accepts. Then, when more Houses fall victim to freak weather catastrophes, Rho starts seeing a pattern in the stars. She suspects Ophiuchus—the exiled 13th Guardian of Zodiac legend—has returned to exact his revenge across the Galaxy. Now Rho—along with Hysan Dax, a young envoy from House Libra, and Mathias, her guide and a member of her Royal Guard—must travel through the Zodiac to warn the other Guardians. But who will believe anything this young novice says? Whom can Rho trust in a universe defined by differences? And how can she convince twelve worlds to unite as one Zodiac?

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filmfreak1994 · 6 years

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Change the Channel

A lot of people have been talking about their experiences with Channel Awesome in the wake of the 60+ page document released by Allison Pregler and several other former content creators for Channel Awesome. I figured I might throw my own experience with the site and its people (mostly Doug) too while the topic is relevant, even considered dusting off the old camera I got for Christmas to film a video but allergy season is upon us and I’m coughing up my lungs so the written word it is.

I was a frequent user of YouTube in the early days of its inception, mostly to look up viral videos and just go on a stream of pointlessness for hours on end with each recommended vid in the sidebar (mostly consisting of parodies to Star Wars, LotR, and entire Simpsons episodes uploaded before the great purge of early 2008). In all that time between 2006 and 2007, reviewers like the Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic eluded me. I saw plenty of the 5 Second Movie clips and thought they were hysterical but didn’t even make the connection that they were made by a “Nostalgia Critic” until around the end of 2009, when a friend of mine at school told me to look up NC’s review of Sonic the Hedgehog (the weird TV show and the futuristic evil Jim Cummings one). I finally gave in which led me to watching some of his other, recent reviews like the “Star Wars Holiday Special” which was freaking hysterical (and still brings a warm smile to my face just thinking about it). By the time the new year rolled around and I had discovered That Guy With The Glasses I was hooked.

For a while I stuck to watching reviews on YouTube when fans would rip them from the main site, but decided to eventually support the site itself where I mostly stuck to NC videos but also watched content from the other producers when it interested me; Spoony and his Final Fantasy reviews, Linkara and any comic with a subject material I was familiar with, Marzgurl and her Don Bluth retrospective, so on and so forth. Like many other people, I wasn’t keeping up with every producer’s videos weekly like I was with NC, but when I decided to watch something else their content was worth it, being funny and informative all at once, even creating new branches of my interest and giving me new perspectives on media criticism.

I watched Nostalgia Critic religiously every week and, sorry to say, started to take his opinion as gospel, and the opinions of other reviewers as well, treating certain movies and shows as bad just because they said so and didn’t have an opinion for myself for the longest time. It was when I started to pay attention to Doug Walker himself and his philosophy that you should like what you like and every movie is a miracle that I started to chill out and even disagree with his opinions at times (I remember his “Little Nemo” review made me seek out that movie and I actually quite enjoyed it).

TGWTG was a formative site for me in my high school years, developing much of my sense of humor and how I look at movies. I watched all the anniversary specials, started to watch a greater portion of producers that included Lindsay and Kyle’s more analytical reviews and Brad Jones’s and Matthew Buck’s mix of cynicism and snark with genuine analytical praise and criticism. I even started to look at music critics like Paw or Todd even though I can’t judge music for shit (if it has a catchy beat I’ll more or less dig it, I’m not picky). I always imagined when I moved out for college (yeah, how’d that work out for ya, younger me) that I would start my own review series in the vein of these online personalities and even be picked up for the site where I too could join in on the anniversary movies and have a swell time and make friends with the people I looked up to and have a good time filming huge crossover events with them (in hindsight I can only imagine what role Doug would have me play in them, if I was even deemed important to be in them at all). Whenever people criticized the anniversary movies I just shrugged it off and said, “Yeah, they’re dumb, but I like em anyway,” and when rumors starting going around about some upside down crucifixion going on I shrugged them off as just rumors (and to be fair it wasn’t upside down but the real thing isn’t much better).

Anyway, around the time when To Boldly Flee came I enjoyed the movie a lot (I only saw it the once and I was eighteen, eighteen-year-old me and present me don’t get on anymore) and thought it was a bittersweet conclusion to The Nostalgia Critic but was excited to see what new projects Doug and the company would do after its conclusion. Plus the other contributors still had their content to keep TGWTG going strong into the foreseeable future. At least I thought.

I didn’t hate Demo Reel, but I didn’t like it all that much either. I only caught around a few episodes before losing interest, saying I’d get back into it eventually but never going out of my way to see them. By accounts they got better as they went along and I was interested in the episode that paid tribute to Elizabeth Hartman (which I think is the same episode that had Mara Wilson and Arin Hanson? I might be wrong (I didn’t even know who Arin was at the time but hindsight is 20/20)), but I just put off watching them until, oh look, NC’s back. At the time I thought this was interesting, there was plenty he could still do with the character given his new ground rules and the emphasis on skits gave the show a different tune that I felt, at the time, kept it fresh from what it was before. I missed the simplicity of the earlier reviews but I happily stuck with the NC again, as well as the same creators I’d happily watched before and plenty more I started to watch like Phelous (around the time he did that weird Aladdin meets Pagemaster movie, I used to rent that from Hollywood Video all the freaking time).

It was around this tumultuous time that Doug actually kinda started to annoy me. Never to the point where I stopped watching NC, but he sort of seemed to forget his whole “Like what you like,” message and outright attacked fans who disagreed with him. Certain jokes in his reviews rubbed me the wrong way (if Irate Gamer can’t get away with blowing up Ubisoft cuz they wouldn’t let him into a conference, you can’t get away with pretending to blow up Happy Madison just because they make shit movies) and he had a general vindictiveness to those who liked movies like “Man of Steel” or “The Lorax” that just seemed mean spirited and not a funny little video meant to entertain (though I guess the signs were always there like when he added in a dig at “Avatar” in his “Conan” review for no reason). But by and by he seemed to mellow out (no doubt dealing with problems letting go of Demo Reel and how big a success he thought it would be) and I still watched his stuff, including the vlogs he did with Rob regarding “Avatar” (the good one, hey I did it too!), “Korra,” “Adventure Time,” and any recent movie that came out. I started to agree with them less and less but they were still entertaining guys and I liked what they were doing.

Some of the shadier stuff going on at the site more or less flew over my head. The game show they did was pretty much “Demo Reel” part two for me in how much interest I had in it and that faded from public consciousness pretty quickly, and it was around the time the site switched from TGWTG to just Channel Awesome that a real shift began to become more noticeable. People were leaving. People I may not have watched all the time, but they were leaving, often times unannounced and seemingly unprovoked (because quite a few of them were). I read about what happened to Allison, aka Obscurus Lupa, who I had watched on and off again and thought that was pretty shitty, and got a general grasp that the management of CA itself wasn’t very good from what she and Lindsay alluded to (or just straight up said, they really should’ve had some NDAs if they cared so much about how they look) in some posts on Tumblr or Twitter but I still carried on watching NC and the other creators on the site mostly because I just figured what every fan figured at the time, Doug was mostly innocent and it was Michaud and Rob who were the real strings behind big decisions like who stays and goes (I liked Rob fine, but even back then I knew he could be kind of an ass).

More and more people from the classic era of TGWTG were leaving or not producing as much for the site as they did and that was a shame. CA was never what TGWTG felt like to me, even if the purpose was to put more focus on the other producers (supposedly (hell, TGWTG did a way better job of featuring producers in my opinion even if it wasn’t perfect)). But whatever, I carried on every Tuesday watching NC, watching other creators when their stuff interested me, but it still wasn’t quite the same as before, and I had become more aware of the general bad experience most people had filming the anniversary movies even if the full extent of that didn’t come until a few days ago.

It was really when Lewis announced that he had left and I found the Change the Channel hashtag that I started to take notice of these stories, finding plenty of them on my own from the links to Twitter conversations many of the former contributors were having before reading them on the Google doc. I was torn, wondering if I should boycott NC with all that I had read and decided to make it a temporary one until the doc came out and to see if he or CA would provide a statement. Well, the doc came out and the apology not long after. And yeah, I moved it to a permanent ban after that bullshit.

I’ve given up watching people I loved before, JonTron and his racist bullshit was the last straw in supporting anything he did, and even with the Me Too movement I’ve given up any kind of support for people like Kevin Spacey who I used to love as an actor (now it’s pretty easy to see how he was able to play such scumbag villains over and over again). I know Doug isn’t a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, and to my knowledge he hasn’t used his position to sexually take advantage of anyone (though he has turned a blind eye to others doing the same and the same can’t be said for taking advantage of people in other ways), but I just couldn’t watch stuff directly made by him and for Channel Awesome with all this information. It wouldn’t be right, even with an adblocker.

I don’t mean to threaten the livelihood of people on his team like Malcolm or Tamara, I like them a great deal and they’re very talented, heck I even enjoyed the skits on NC a lot more than most because of them (and Rachel, she was great too). But I said to myself until an actual apology is listed and some form of action is taken to truly better the site, I wouldn’t watch them. Others have suggested and I have thought the same, that the best thing to do would be to fire Michaud, though I realize this would create a slew of problems given that he owns the IP for NC and is the founder of CA. Still, some form of acknowledgement from the Walkers would go a long way to bettering the public response to all this. More and more contributors have left in the wake of this document, either out of fear for their own image or to show solidarity with the many complaints levied toward the site (and their reasons are completely valid no matter what, they’re trying to make a living), looking at the site today it’s practically a ghost town. I don’t blame those that have stayed for anything, but the reputation of CA is tarnished and at this point, especially with that piss-poor “apology,” it’s going to take several huge leaps to get it back.

I realize the purpose of Change the Channel was never to create a boycott of NC or any of the Walker’s content, at least by the majority of those who contributed to the docs, and those who choose to boycott do so of their own volition. Well, that’s my volition. No matter how much NC shaped my sense of humor in my younger years and inspired me to look at movies critically myself, I can’t deny the damage that Doug and Rob have been complicit in nor turn a blind eye to the shady practices they, Michaud, and past executives on the site have done.

I really do wish that what was seemingly apparent in front of the camera, that this was a site filled of talented people who were also good friends having a good time, was true behind the scenes as well. People have been hurt, assaulted, taken advantage of, and tossed aside when they were no longer useful to the site. It’s not right, and I’m literally changing the channel until actual change is made.

#Channel Awesome #The Nostalgia Critic #Doug Walker #Rob Walker #Mike Michaud #ChangetheChannel #an explanation of my thoughts on NC as a whole #and why I'm boycotting him until further notice

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