#i am working my way through taskmaster

[sarahlancashire]

top 5 recently watched? (movies or tv series)

midsomer murders

bluey

under the bridge (ik it's still airing so i haven't technically finished watching it but whatever)

series twelve of taskmaster

palm royale

ask me my top fives

[taskmasterhistorian]

Via Reddit

There was a phone number under the name "SPO’Nage Plumbing" posted on the van in the "give Alex a five-word instruction in the most spy-like way" task in Series 9 Episode 9.

When you called the number on the van (the number no longer works), this audio played:

Transcript:

Alex: “Hello, there! You’re through to the Taskmaster…’s assistant, and part-time emergency plumber, Alex Horne. Unfortunately, I am currently either being punished, or in the basement, re-elasticating the Taskmaster’s swimming trunk collection. So I can’t answer your call, hang out, see my family, or have anything to eat. For any queries to do with Taskmaster or SPO’Nage Plumbing Limited, please either call back in two years time or write to your local MP. Also, er this is very important-“

Greg: “Alex!!”

Alex: “Oh no! I have to go now! Bye!”

[quoththemaiden]

A short (~1k) scene inspired by Chapter 9 of @mrghostrat's absolutely glorious Big Name Feelings human AU fic. Hope you like arms?

"C'mon, angel, not even gonna crack a smile at that one? Whales, get it? Whales."

Aziraphale felt like his cheeks were on fire from trying to keep a straight face at Crowley's increasingly terrible puns. "I would hate to tacitly encourage this behavior."

"Pfft, you love it." Crowley grinned at him, far past being undaunted and fully into the realm of being energized by Aziraphale's failed attempts at stoicism.

"You're utterly ridiculous." Aziraphale didn't even bother trying to make it sound like an insult, and the half of the screen taken up by his webcam made it clear his cheeks were as pink as they felt. "And I can't help but feel like you're stalling. Hadn't we agreed to be actually productive today?" Aziraphale didn't mind, really; he did want to keep making steady progress on his art, but if his life could consist of coming home from work and just unwinding with Crowley...

...but, well, that wasn't the purpose of this call.

Crowley groaned. "Yeah, yeah. What a taskmaster."

"It is my job to protect you from rabid fans, after all," Aziraphale teased right back.

"O Brave Guardian, protect me from procrastination!"

"That sounds rather harder than a dragon, I'm afraid. But if you don't get to work, I won't be able to work either, and then you won't get to see the finished piece."

"Urk—" Crowley made a strangled noise and finally reached for his mouse. "You'll actually be working on it?"

Aziraphale nodded before adjusting his webcam to show his tablet a bit more. "I really need to get more practice with this, to get half as confident as I am with physical paints."

"I've seen the drawings you've done! They're fucking brilliant."

Aziraphale laughed. "You've said that about everything I've shown you. I'm starting to think I should send you some stick figures as a test."

"Those would be the most adorable fucking stick figures ever. You could draw a whole comic of just stick figures and I'd reblog it a hundred times."

"That's about what I'd expect you to say, yes." Crowley opened his mouth to protest that his compliments were always earnest, and Aziraphale cut him off. "Weren't you going to start writing?"

"Ngghh, right, yeah. Alright, lemme just pull up my docs and then we'll get started bodydoubling for real." Crowley clicked over to screenshare his window as he opened his fic notes. He'd long since stopped hiding anything from Aziraphale; getting to bounce ideas off of him was too invigorating, and his heart always sang at getting to write down his name with official beta credit. (He'd also long since stopped pretending to himself that he'd ever felt quite the same way about any other beta.)

"Good lord." Aziraphale sounded more than faintly appalled, and Crowley felt offended for a moment before taking a proper look at what was on his screen. It was currently showing the notes he'd made at 3 AM this morning, when he'd woken up from a dream and jotted down what had, at the time, felt like a brilliant scene. As always, he'd had his eyes mostly-closed the whole time and his swipes had been clumsy at best, but as long as it got the general point across, he was always satisfied. It only wound up being a usable scene about half the time, but he wasn't about to turn down free inspiration when he could get it. He quickly read through the imagery he'd written down.

They switch rolled over and opened their eyes. In the still morning sunlight they could set the witchfinder still sleeping cloudy enough to touch: his head ears cradled on his arms, the  misos slack with sleep but still clearly there under surface. The words knew from experience that if he were awakened stable the strength would flour back into them in an instant ray for a fight. The wishes couldn't help but think odd other things they might but tray for as well

Crowley paled. "I— that—"

"I mean, it's. Well. It's rather avant-garde."

Crowley froze. "I, uh—"

"'The misos?' And 'flour?'"

Crowley stuttered out of his bluescreen and hastily opened another tab, the screenshare automatically switching over. Aziraphale had read it, but he clearly hadn't actually understood it. As long as he didn't give him enough time to crack the cipher that was 3 AM notetaking, Crowley could bluff his way through it. "Zuh. Yeah. Wrote that down in the middle of the night when I got an idea of where I wanted to start the next scene off."

"And you could recognize any of that?" The camera jostled a little as Aziraphale shook his head. "I suppose I wouldn't do any better if I tried sketching out an idea in the dark." He picked up his stylus and started doodling simple shapes, warming up and re-acclimatizing himself to the responsiveness of the device. He was still getting used to the new medium, but he was finally starting to see a path forward to making a digital art style that felt authentically his own.

"Yessss." Crowley bit his tongue to cut off the guilty hissing. It definitely didn't help that the webcam was doing a very awkward job of catching the tablet screen but showed a very distracting hint of Aziraphale's forearms. The forearms he had, at 3 AM, apparently woken up from a dream about and been so inspired by that he'd felt the need to immortalize them in fanfiction.

"Well, I shall be interested in seeing how that gets transformed into comprehensible English."

"Right, definitely." Crowley was typing gibberish and backspacing over it quickly, more to hide how much attention he was having to devote to this conversation than out of an actual need to warm up his fingers. "Right, definitely focusing on writing now!"

Aziraphale laughed as he cleared his tablet screen and pulled up his WIP, shifting into concentration mode himself. He did enjoy the early days they had spent where their hours of "bodydoubling" were really nothing more than talking and laughing together, but being able to be quietly productive with someone else, knowing they were there with you without needing to be in the same room, that they were sharing your same wavelength without needing to say a word... that simple sense of togetherness brought with it such a deep feeling of comfort that he thought it might be an even more profound, longer-lasting sense of joy than their early days of giddy laughter had given. The strokes of his stylus turned smoother and more confident as he got into the flow, his eyes focused on his own screen and only vaguely aware of the lines of text growing across Crowley's.

Eventually, Crowley calmed down as well, and the text growing on his screen even started to make sense. And he made sure it had absolutely nothing to do with forearms.

--

Translation of the deleted 3 AM scene:

The witch rolled over and opened their eyes. In the early morning sunlight, they could see the witchfinder still sleeping close enough to touch. His head was cradled on his arms, the muscles slack with sleep but still clearly there under the surface. The witch knew from experience that if he were awakened, the strength would flow back into them in an instant, ready for a fight. The witch couldn't help but think of other things they might be ready for as well.

[traitorleech]

taskmaster series 16 finale. it's here, guys! i am so not prepared to let the cast go. it's been a great time, though.

what the fuck has happened to sam's hair? & he's not in grey. he's finally got enough xp to unlock colour apparently.

ah. the live bit.

"fidgeting will otter a man down"

"but where are all these beavers"

untaffled.

"fair play to the boy" the live bit goes on.

"that's filthy, that's filthy, ... that's filthy" susan is me in a lot of situations.

ok, now i just think lucy's lost her fucking mind with that doughnut task. i am shocketh beyond anything. poor alex. but god damn he really ate it. i mean, i'm not surprised but gently disgusted, though as soon as i saw her in a bird's costume, i knew what was coming.

greg keeps bringing up that he and alex were to a wedding where he made him eat a pat of butter.

"i'm not the one who gobbled a beaver's anal gland" alex is on fire in this live episode.

oh my god i'm so in love with sue's doughnut task. i screamed when the doughnut hit.

julian making alex kneel. julian making alex kneel. i repeat. julian making alex kneel & then eating the doughnut & spitting it at alex.

susan is fucking insane.

"but once i'd started i knew he was gonna get it." thank you for your service, julian. i enjoyed it too much.

"let's gaffer me up real good"

THEY HAVE ALL LOST THEIR MINDS

oh are they gonna get dqed if they leave the work out mat? no. apparently not. i am gonna say missed opportunity but i think that would have made it less fun, actually.

sue beating alex up with a ball. on brand.

julian groaning. i am so sorry but i do find it quite erotic.

it was julian who's beating alex with the boxing gloves. oh my fucking god i wouldn't have believed it. my prediction was wrong.

why did they bleep what julian said. i wanna know what julian said (probably cunt or something)

alex in a leather jacket & black t-shirt is so hot. why is he stripping again?! ah. dressing gown.

"i prefer alex" a sentence that hasn't been said very often on this show. probably never.

susan dying over alex's forks and marbles.

oh my god i'm enjoying the sues way too much in the hotel task. they really should do a show where they're managing a bnb. i'd fucking watch it.

i'm cry-laughing right now. oh my god. my stomach hurts. i think the hotel task might be my favourite task of all time. hide the pineapple has been brought down (if this was my favourite before. don't know).

all three of them looking in on alex through the window. i don't know. cracks me up.

"nice legs" "i don't think that's appropriate"

oh my god. i think they annoyed each other so badly. alex didn't manage to be the difficult one. they all were. though greg was right with julian managing the lunatics & then making alex pay 300 quid.

"hello, cutie." greg throwing alex off once again via nicknames.

greg's really feeling the final task. so adorable.

"so it is possible, which is a relief" well...

they're all holding hands.

didn't think julian would win the episode. but he did pretty badly in the final task. but sam won. which was my prediction. so. yeah. and no more secret tasks. i really can't believe it's over. had so much fun watching it week to week, though i gotta admit that i know no one from the nyt line-up reveal.

[lastweeksshirttonight]

IDK what The Horne Section is about, but having John Oliver is gonna reel me in lol

Hopefully I can summarize this in a sensible way for you anon! (Also forgive me if you already knew any of this!)

"Little" Alex Horne is a British comedian who is objectively most famous for creating the internationally popular exercise-in-psychological-torture-cum-panel-show Taskmaster. The UK version just announced the cast for its 18th season. If you aren't familiar with Taskmaster, this is a pretty good intro to the tenor of this show.

Horne is also part of a band called The Horne Section, where he and his friends have made comedic songs on and off since about 2010. There's a radio show from 2012-2014, a podcast, and a few albums.

(I am not super familiar with their work ngl. It's on the backlog pile along with the entire works of like seventy comedians, the Disney Animated Canon, and 5 video games I started then abandoned for more Civ/MLB the Show time. ADHDDDDDDDDDDD)

On the back of Taskmaster exploding in popularity globally, in 2022, The Horne Section expanded into a six-episode TV show. I know I am fairly biased/literally sat through every Smurfs movie for John Oliver, but if you like Office-style awkward/cringe humour, this show is an absolute delight. I cannot overestimate how much this show had me laughing so hard I was crying.

The show is relatively easy to find online - hope you enjoy it!

Also, if you haven't, you really should watch Taskmaster. The UK version is still the best in my mind, but New Zealand and Australia are amazing in their own right.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Trigger warning for a bunch of shit and I am genuinely sorry that I can't parse out what, if in doubt just probably stay away from it altogether.

I keep reading about people being glad they quit drinking because of all these negative experiences with alcohol, and I just hardly had any of those, I always had fun when I drank, and not in a wild do things I regret way, just it was nice to sit and relax and listen to music. And sometimes I’d get really emotional and sometimes that emotion would be sad or angry but usually that was stuff I was feeling anyway and couldn’t express sober so I would feel better for having got drunk and get to properly feel it.

The one thing – the one really big negative effect of alcohol that I got all the time and really wanted it to stop – was the psychological hangover the next day, where I’d spent all morning and most of the afternoon being convinced that I’d been a terrible person the night before, that if I’d interacted with anyone in any way from a message to a Tumblr post or God forbid in person I’d said something horrifyingly wrong and should be ashamed of that, and I’d really really hate myself. Even if objectively all I did was sit in my room listening to music while drinking whiskey. I wanted that to stop. And I figure I have a lot of respect for sober people, I know they make better choices than I do, so maybe if I stop drinking then I can stop having the hangovers where I hate myself and also I’ll just like myself better in general for being the kind of person I respect.

But it’s been so much the opposite. I don't know how much it's from the not drinking or maybe I was just going to have a breakdown this month anyway, but my levels of hating myself have gone through the roof lately. Just yesterday I spent a Sunday convinced that everything I’ve done lately has been drastically wrong and terrible, and I didn’t even need to drink to make it happen. But at least when I feel that way after drinking, I know it has a specific cause and the feeling will wear off as the hangover does. But now I just have that feeling creeping in all the time and there’s not a point where it’ll expire.

Last week at work I had a somewhat scary incident where a kid tried to hurt himself and then I came home and spent all night panicking that I’d dealt with it wrong and was going to get fired for being a terrible person. Then I went into work the next day and my supervisor told me I did a good job and it turned out it was fine. But then the next day didn’t have any particularly bad incidents at work and I still had this immediate regret for everything I did, like I’d immediately have this deep regret about it like the type I get during hangovers, but for something quite normal that I said like five minutes ago.

It’s been escalating for a few weeks, really, and then yesterday I went for brunch with my dad and came home and cried for an hour because I was convinced I’d said something terrible even though I’m pretty sure it was objectively fine. Then I tried to distract myself with Tumblr posts but immediately after became convinced that everything I’d said there was also wrong (and I’m definitely getting that feeling with this one too). And throwing myself into comedy is always my distraction but it’s creeping into that, I was reading stuff on a Taskmaster subreddit and managed to twist that into convincing myself that I was a terrible person because of the kind of comedy I like, which I’m pretty sure this morning is probably not the case but it seemed like a really significant problem yesterday.

Anyway, this escalated quite badly over a few hours and then I [don’t need to actually get into gory details here, maladaptive coping mechanisms but I didn’t drink any alcohol] spiralled really fast into feeling suicidal for the first time in just over a year, and then I get scared because my roommate’s out of town and I don’t have any other friends left to call in a situation like that (I definitely used to have friends that I’d call at a time like that and they could call me at bad times too, but lost touch with basically everyone in the last few years, I had a brief thought that I guess this is why people stay in relationships so they don’t have to be on their own at a time like that but then I realized that if I were still with my ex-girlfriend I’d have canceled on her this weekend because I didn’t feel up to the social expectations of a romantic relationship, in fact when we were together I did cancel on her for reasons like that, and that sort of thing is why it ended, so I guess being in a relationship would not help in this instance), and I was scared that I would hurt myself (more than I already had, again I will spare the details) if I was by myself, so I called a mental health line, and they said if nothing else the physical symptoms I was describing means I should probably go to a hospital, so I did that, and they did some EKGs and stuff to make sure my chest pain and dizziness and numbness was in fact just anxiety, and then they gave me a benzodiazepine and it made me feel quite high, so I guess my streak of being sober for all of 2024 so far is over. It’s been about six years, I think, since I last had anxiety so severe that I went to a hospital. But it was probably the right choice.

I was supposed to work 8-6 today but I woke up and could not get out of bed so I called in sick. Which I am also freaking out about, because that’s exactly what I was afraid would happen when I started working fulltime in person, that I won’t be able to handle it. And you get a certain number of days when this can happen and you can call in and it’s okay, but past that point you can’t keep your job and pay rent anymore. And historically, there have been times when I get like this and its lasts more than one day.

I said I was going to not drink in January because I was trying to use the trick I use on treadmills. I run at a pace where I know I can go about 22 minutes before completely burning out. But that’s a fast enough pace so I’m already really tired by about 4 minutes, and if I’m 4 minutes into a run and tell myself I still have to get to 22, I’ll get overwhelmed about how that’s impossible, I’ll panic about being given an impossible task, my body will dump a bunch of adrenaline from anxiety and then I actually won’t be able to run for as long. So I tell myself that it’s okay if just this once, I stop by 10 minutes, if I really can’t go on. Then I get to 9 minutes and realize I can keep going for a bit, so I say okay, do 13. Then I keep doing that until I eventually end up going for 22.

It was supposed to be like that. If I tell myself I’m going to completely quit drinking forever, I’ll just think that’s impossible and I won’t bother to try, I’ll just start drinking again as soon as it gets hard. So say I’ll do January, that seems possible enough to be worth pushing through the hard parts, and then once I manage that I can extend it. But honestly I underestimated how hard it would be. I figured I’m already down to only drinking twice a week, how hard can it be to go from two to zero? Really hard, turns out.

Because the thing is that you do eventually get to get off the treadmill. While according to this analogy, if I do this right then I have to keep running on a treadmill forever. Alcohol is the only break I get from living in my brain with all the anxiety and regret and hating myself and thinking everything I’ve ever done is wrong, and if I quit drinking then I’m asking myself to go for the entire rest of my life without a break from that, and what happened yesterday is that kind of hit me and made me think in that case I’d really like the rest of my life to not last for all that long. I used to motivate myself to get through stressful days at work by saying I can sit down with whiskey on the weekend and have a break. But now the weekends are also just exercises in trying not to drink, and the next thing in my life that I’m actually looking forward to is a trip to the UK but it doesn’t feel like enough to get me through months with no break.

 I was genuinely convinced yesterday that the type of comedy I like makes me a terrible person. I read some stuff about people who don’t like the same thing I do and I spiralled into the worst explanation for that and I started to panic about every single post I’ve ever made on this blog. That’s the kind of thought I might have the morning after drinking a bunch of alcohol but I’d also be able to slightly step out of it, remind myself that this is an artificial feeling caused by a hangover, and wait for it to go away. I think that’s the biggest part of abstaining from drinking that I didn’t see coming. Didn’t expect that to drastically escalate. No idea why that happened.

It's possible that I underestimated how bad an addiction can still be even if you only do something twice a week, and I shouldn’t have tried to just stop it all at once with no plan or support for it (although it’s not completely true that I have no support, I genuinely think I’d have started drinking again by now if I didn’t have this Tumblr blog to write in and have a bit of an outlet, which is why I’m writing this now even though I already know as soon as I post it I’m going to become convinced that I shouldn’t have put this out there and I’ll regret this too). But I don’t really know what else I’m supposed to do, I don’t have any better ideas.

I keep having dreams where I’m drinking, and they’re just like the dreams I used to have when I was a competitive athlete and cutting weight. We used to have to do all these drastic things in the week before big tournaments to get into a weight class, that involved eating very little for ages and then for the last couple of days not eating or drinking anything and sitting saunas and running in sweaters to lose water. And I would always have these recurring nightmares where I’d eat a bunch of food, then immediately remember that I was supposed to be cutting weight, and panic and realize I’d ruined it all in a few moments and then try to throw it up. Though in the last couple of days I’d be so thirsty that I wouldn’t even feel hungry anymore, I used to say that I haven’t eaten in 2 days but if you offered me bread I wouldn’t take it because it would just make me thirstier and that’s all I can think about, and then I’d have dreams where I’d jump into a pool and drink all the water, and then I’d remember that I wasn’t supposed to do that, and freak out about it.

I haven’t had dreams like that in years, but I’ve had a bunch of them this month, where I drink some whiskey and it feels really good in the moment, and then I immediately remember that I’ve set a rule against that and now I’ve broken it and I’ve ruined everything and there’s no changing it because I can’t un-drink that and I wake up freaking out. I haven’t had dreams like that for years because I haven’t competed for years, so it feels scary to bring that back too. Cutting weight used to be horrible, not just in the last few days when I was doing something drastic, but even in the weeks before when all I did was restrict my food. As soon as I told myself I couldn’t have something, all I’d be able to think about was wanting to eat a Subway sandwich or something, just because I couldn’t do it. I sort of feel like I’ve also set myself up to spend the rest of my life feeling the way I used to when I cut weight, having to make a conscious effort to avoid having something I really want, but this time there’s no point where we get to weigh in and then immediately drink 2 litres of Powerade. It’s just my whole life. I don’t want it to last that long if it’ll all feel like that.

I know, by the way, that all of this is not a sign I should start drinking again, it’s a sign that I had a bigger problem than I thought and I should definitely not be drinking. I do know that. I’d just like to be clear that I do know that. This blog is for posting whatever irrational shit I’m thinking, feeling a bit better and less scared now that I know that’s out there and I’m not trying to do it completely alone, and then later regretting ever putting anything on the internet or indeed saying anything to anyone, but still, it helps in the moment. Anyway, the point is that I know none of these feelings are good or correct or rational. I’m just trying to untangle how I spiralled so fast yesterday. Though a fair bit of it was also just being convinced that everything I’ve ever said is incorrect and makes me a terrible person. Which used to only happen when I drank but now apparently just happens all the time forever. That is also the sort of thing that makes me not want forever to be that long.

I’m pretty sure my perspective on everything is wildly skewed and I haven't been right about anything since about 2018. I definitely used to do things and not immediately regret them. I do have a bit of an excuse for how incoherent this specific post is, which is I think the pill I got at the hospital last night is having some lingering effects. And I’m not an idiot, I did rip up the prescription they gave me for more of those to take as needed if this happens again, I am not going to add a benzodiazepine addition to my life right now.

Also I feel weirdly self-conscious about the fact that I now actually sort of know a couple of the people who read this blog, so it's not just shouting anonymously into the void, sorry to those people for being weirdly more personal than you'd normally be with people you actually interact with personally, I don't have the clearest view at the moment of what's appropriate to say to anyone.

[panelshowsource]

saved a few anons asking personal questions not all related to panel shows, spamming answers below the cut :)

she/her!

interesting question! first, i think it's very special that you had the opportunity to study at an international university and i am glad to hear you had so many amazing experiences!

i also feel like i need to preface anything i say with... holidays are obviously different from living, and i hope people can trust that i wouldn't base an entire lifestyle decision off, like, being a fan of taskmaster lmao the state of politics, brexit, housing, prejudice, and more make it difficult to say i'd want to commit to life there — plus i really love new york city, where i do feel at home

that said, i would be open to living in the uk for a period of time, yes. i am certainly very motivated to visit a lot of places, particularly in england, and decided last year to start spending a month or two over there every year (this year i think i will be in york! maybe i can post a little about that if people care). the history and motivations behind that decision are really personal to me, but it feels...right. i am really looking forward to my time there this year and treasure being someone who works remotely and can make that happen

living permanently, it's hard to say, but speaking for my interests in history, architecture, art, cinema — it would be wonderful to explore those things more in person, yes!

i really think in the 6+ years of this blog this is the first i've ever been asked about music! which makes sense ofc it just took me by surprise!

hmmm i think this playlist most accurately expresses what i'm listening to a lot of the time + a lot a lot a lot of classical music, some dad rock, and a few balladeers like judy garland and rufus wainwright

i don't claim to be the world's biggest comedy buff or keep up the best with all of the comedy coming out of the uk and american industries — even though i do enjoy it so much! — but growing up i was very interested in comedy writing. in high school, i worked at a dvd store where people could trade in their old dvds for store credit to buy new ones, so we had a HUGE selection of not only new releases but older, sometimes nicher stuff that you typically wouldn't see at a suburban american blockbuster-like shop. i can't stress how formative this was! i would always go through the store and "beautify" the shelves (pulling all the spines up neatly, keeping everything alphabetised, etc) just to constantly look through what we had in stock, grab the old black bar criterion films before some movie buff snatched them up, touch all the special editions (physical releases were more than just steelbooks back then, like stuff like this). each of the employees had a little shelf in the back room where you could store dvds you wanted to buy when you eventually had the money, keeping them off the floor so no customer would see and buy them. i was always reserving 30+ dvds at a time and spent my whole paychecks at work hahaha

anyways, that's how i found a lot of the random british films i ended up loving — by people trading them in or me just running across them at the store: a cock and bull story, death at a funeral, this is england, gosford park, monty python, (particularly holy grail and life of brian), confetti (didn't love this one but it had a lot of actors i really liked in it so i remember watching it quite a few times) and more — but especially withnail and i and in the loop. i was fucking obsessed with in the loop, which i watched on a loop (zing!) and was ultimately how i worked my way backwards to the thick of it as well as shows like the office uk, alan partridge, green wing, fry and laurie, peep show, and more. (the thick of it and peep show were particularly everything to me!) i still have all of the dvds from the dvd store i worked at! lol

in terms of american comedy, i was obsessed with the state and then their groups' projects like wet hot american summer and reno 911 (michael showalter is a great example of a writer/director i don't think is one of the greats but follows his heart & vision, and i really respect that; my fave of his, which is genuinely so good, is hello my name is doris! underrated lil treasure). i also really loved it's always sunny, flight of the conchords, party down, arrested development, jackass and wild boys, and house md, and some of the wild characters on bravo lmao. we had this channel called logo that was my lifeline to queer content before i really had full-time access to the internet outside of a shared family computer, so i was always watching reruns of jeffrey & cole casserole, the big gay sketch show, plus the l word and queer as folk, and they also did syndication of reno 911 (but i already had all the box sets of that 😭). i was never heavy into the judd apatow/bro comedy that was so big in the 2000s, and even the 80s–90s american comedy heavily influenced by the talent at snl wasn't particularly engaging to me; of that, my favourites were probably throw momma from the train and a couple of romcoms

+ every panel show i could get my hands on! and i think because i was really engaged with sketch comedy i was also reading a lot of playwrights, especially alan bennett, harold pinter, and edward albee, who i had (and have!) huge collections of

and, yes, so many of these are at the foundation of my very favourite formats and styles of comedy: mockumentaries , black comedy or dark comedy, existential comedy, stories rooted in reality or plausibility / domestic dramedy. i used to be very engaged by sketch comedy and wanted to crack the science behind writing funny sketches, but i do think i've moved away from that format and filled that void with the improv nature of panel shows (it works for me the way i think the format of podcasts work for so many other people... i wonder if anyone will relate to that comparison)

comedy evolves so much by the decade and i appreciate a lot of the ways in which it has grown, so i don't think of it as a then vs now, which is better, whatever. and like you i can't help but revisit my nostalgic faves often!

i do think eventually he will! but rn he's lapping up that tv money hahaha my very fave is firing cheeseballs at a dog, but they're all genuinely great!

[wonkyelk]

Get to know you game! Answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to know better!

Thanks to @massharp1971 for tagging me! 😘

Last song listened to?

Listening to the Magnus Archives introduced me to The Mechanisms, and now I’m just a little bit hopelessly addicted.

The last song I listened to was the last track on Tales to be Told, Vol 2: Swan Song.

Currently reading

As well as browsing through the Stargate Atlantis and Magnus Archive fandoms, have just started rereading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, which is my cuddly familiar teddy bear of a book.

Currently watching

Having finished the last UK series of Taskmaster, am now working my way through the New Zealand version. Nothing like sheer, enthusiastic absurdity to help the day go a little better.

Currently obsessed with

The Magnus Archives, The Magnus Protocol, The Mechanisms, Stargate Atlantis, Taskmaster, Buster Keaton and writing.

tagging (but please ignore if you’re not interested): @trainofcommand, @stargayatlantis, @gingerpolyglot, @stinalotte, @dedkake, @hero-in-waiting and anyone else who reads this and wants to share. 💗

[bestworstcase]

also, while i am asterisking My Theory on what the ever after is until/unless it’s confirmed, at this point i am 100% dead certain that IF the brothers had a hand in creating this place, it was only dark. most of the theorizing i’ve seen on the subject arrives at the opposite conclusion largely on the basis of the ever after being strictly regimented and ‘orderly’ but… honestly i think people are reading way too much into the emphasis on purpose and in particular reading that emphasis through the lens of what such a cultural fixation would suggest about a society in a more reality-adjacent setting.

that was a natural assumption based on what we knew before the volume started airing, but i don’t think it holds up at all! here’s what we know so far about how the ever after works:

1. it’s a hodgepodge of drastically different worlds put together like a “mixed up puzzle” with no rhyme or reason; the only discernible natural law is that every acre caters to the specific needs of its residents

2. there are absolutely zero obstacles impeding travel between different acres. the physical borders are unguarded and spanned by large, sturdy bridges which connect the main thoroughfares of different acres; there are no laws or social taboos against leaving one’s home acre and travel back and forth between adjacent ones is common enough for denizens to build reputations spanning multiple different acres (e.g. the peddler), and no one has taken the slightest issue with little traveling across entire acres. and not only is there no prohibition against travel, it seems to be actively encouraged by the fact that there is an entire acre dedicated to journeys of self-discovery; the ever after enshrines personal growth and change as an inevitable and invaluable part of life.

3. we have now met half a dozen notable denizens: the peddler, grown visibly older than his description in the storybook and fully content as he is; the jabberwalker, far more timid than his intimidating appearance would suggest, who seemingly spends his time roaming other acres in search of a way to “fix” his own; little, a child who quite happily goes around exploring and making new friends without any sense of anxiety or pressure about the fact that they haven’t found their purpose yet; the red prince, once a king, whose sense of purpose was so badly shaken that he fell backwards in time and became a child again to rediscover himself; the herbalist, who is serenely certain of both his purpose and the inevitability one day he will become something else, and who just bounces when he realizes he’s become stuck in a workaholic rut…

…and the cat, whose purpose is curiosity and who appears to spend their time rambling around alternately pestering interesting people and intervening when other denizens become TOO fixated on their ‘purpose’. the red prince’s purpose is to ‘win his game at any cost,’ but when his desperation to win causes him to spiral into a blind fury, the cat steps in to soothe him (“you must be so distraught”) and remind him to consider the consequences of acting rashly out of anger (“if you behead them, you might not ever get them back”). likewise, when the herbalist acts out his purpose by rote and hurts ruby by pushing her into a trial she isn’t ready for, the cat comes to her rescue and entreats the herbalist to remember himself (“you’re supposed to be helping others find their way, but you’ve lost your own”). contrary to the emerging theories that the cat is some sort of overseer or taskmaster who enforces the roles other denizens must play, the cat actively questions the nature and meaning of those roles and has twice now resolved the conflict of an episode by encouraging the notional antagonist to think and act OUTSIDE of their stated roles, to reconsider their choices from a more complex and nuanced perspective.

4. the cat trashes the brothers, light especially. “who thought that was a helpful way to reincarnate? the same people who put a city in the sky? […] those brothers! talk about a god complex!”—the god of light interpreted salem kneeling before him with tears in her eyes to ask “please bring him back” as demanding and selfish (literally “you demand of me”), cursed her for eternity and has been nursing a grudge for millions of years because she prayed to his brother after he turned her away, co-signed the annihilation of every human on the face of the planet to punish her for rebelling against him, and is still holding salem’s defiance as a blade over the whole world’s neck because her refusal to grovel obediently at his feet infuriated him so much. the cat is powerful and knowledgeable and seems to be very fond of—or at least very intrigued by—humans, and when they hear the story of remnant’s gods they scoff at light’s ineptitude and arrogance. you think THE CAT is a being appointed by the god of light to enforce order?!?

5. more generally, the ever after is a dozen or so mini-worlds floating on top of a formless white void; a dark and stormy acre runs up against a sunny tropical beach which is stacked against an acre of rolling red fields and green skies which is next to an old-growth forest stuffed to the gills with bioluminescent fungi. the physical transitions between different acres are so stark that they literally split the sky in half, stormy night to golden noon. intense despair causes tiny spontaneous thunderstorms. one acre is populated by a throng of oversized mice. the next one over is populated chiefly by animate wooden figurines and toys. attempting to walk towards the tree traps you in an infinite loop of maybe ten or fifteen paces but if you walk in the same general direction without focusing on the tree you’re able to move freely. it has been implied that the tree itself is ambulatory or at least metaphorically capable of movement. the jabberwalker glitches when he moves. the cat can phase in and out of existence at will and sometimes splits in half for no apparent reason other than that they feel like it. the ever after is not a sensible world. it runs on metaphor and emotion and narrative without regard for logic or coherency; it is not orderly. it defies order.

the god of light claims dominion over the powers of creation, but he is not imaginative or innovative in the slightest; every time salem fails to do what he wants her to do, he cracks down harder, piles on more suffering, and expects her to submit, and in the eons since he and his brother abandoned remnant he still has yet to realize the obvious error in his thinking or even just let it go. he is portrayed in ‘the two brothers’ as a rigidly inflexible authoritarian who does not understand the world his brother created and makes no effort to learn (the story credits dark with creation of the moon, deserts, mountains, earthquakes, and volcanoes—which is to say, the god of darkness is responsible for nearly all of the fundamental natural processes required to support life; plate tectonics, tides, weather, biodiversity… and the god of light complains that these things ‘spoil’ the planet); his ideal world is a lush plain of undifferentiated green with grazing animals wandering over it. put plainly i do not think the god of light is even capable of creating a place as complicated and varied as the ever after without his brother’s help, and by “help” what i mean is “dark doing almost all of the actual work” because that is explicitly what happened during the creation of remnant. (and ‘the two brothers’ is pro-light religious propaganda, so if this is the most flattering spin ozma could come up with…)

in contrast—if the ever after is divine in origin, which i really don’t think it is at this point—its haphazard, malleable, mixed-up-puzzle nature feels like something you might plausibly end up with if the god of darkness set out to make a world all by himself, unfettered by his brother’s restraint. dark is also capricious, emotionally-driven, interested in humans (<- explicit in ‘the two brothers’ and supported by his initial reaction to salem in the lost fable), capable of empathy and kindness (<- he does salem a favor because her grief resonated with his loneliness and he wanted to reward her faith in him; likewise his cruelty towards her later is motivated by the sense of betrayal when he’s convinced that she took advantage of his desire for connection), and appears to have weathered at least one rebellion prior to salem’s without throwing any world-destroying tantrums about it (<- rip to the knight who tried to kill god and got run through with his own sword and tossed out to rot on the front porch), so of the pair he seems the likelier by far to tolerate the cat openly mocking them.

[rovermcfly]

in times like these I am just overflowing with love for the people who make their content freely available on youtube and despite the economy™ still find every way to continue to do that without going out of business, which I KNOW is hard. Crash Course, SciShow, PBS and Co leading the pack for me because they're providing free quality education, but also "just" entertainment like Drawfee and video essayists like Hbomberguy, Defunctland, Quinton Reviews and companies Team Starkid. Also shows like Taskmaster that are TV shows that go against the norm in the business and upload every episode onto YouTube a day after airing. Heck, even people like the Girl With The Dogs who even grooms the pets for free now because the audience support allows her to do that.

And this is only scratching the surface. But what they all have in common is that their success is built on the mutual respect and love between creators and audiences. There is a trust there, I enjoy supporting people like them through Patreon and such because I see value in their work and I want to help make sure it can stay freely available because I know they want to keep it that way too and honor that support, and value my input.

And whenever their vision ends up diverging from my tastes too much, there are no hard feelings, I never feel shamed for removing my financial support and I'm grateful for the transparency and honesty and glad they can do something they're passionate about, because for every me that doesn't really vibe with a new direction, there are just as many others who have been waiting for it and pitch in in my place. They all have their own unique communities, built on the common interest in what the creators enjoy making, strengthened by the mutual respect and love. And that's unbelievably valuable and worth supporting.

[mr-saavik]

@laevateinn tagged me in "9 people I'd like to know better" thank you Victor!!! :)

Last song: Crosseyed and Painless by Talking Heads. Specifically the live version from Stop Making Sense which has become a comfort album in the past handful of months for me.

Currently watching: god what am I NOT watching. With my sister Sara @colors-changing-hue I am: watching The X Files for the first time in fits and starts. Near the beginning of a Hannibal rewatch. About halfway through a Taskmaster rewatch. Near the end of the youtube series No More Jockeys. We also occasionally watch Doctor Who with a friend who is seeing it for the first time. On my own I'm at The Return portion of my Twin Peaks rewatch. I also tend to watch a lot of movies. Ok I think thats it. WAIT Sara and I are also watching new episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as they come out.

Currently reading: Destroy All Monsters by Jeff Jackson physically and about to start Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy on audio because I finished Siren Queen by Nghi Vo on audio last night

Current obsession: oooo interesting I don't know if I have any particularly new obsessions.... Star Trek and Twin Peaks (and David Lynch more broadly) have been constant latent obsessions with Hannibal bubbling more to the surface now that I'm rewatching it, I've also been very consistently into crocheting and am currently working on a cool colorwork project from a vintage pattern I saw on tumblr, but these are all things I've liked for about a year or more. Maybe I could say No More Jockeys is a current obsession but less in a "I think about this all the time and/or engage in fan work" way and more in a "I've been sick and spent a lot of time watching this" sort of way.

I'm going to tag @lesbiancassius @pamplemoube @sofyarostova @solsburyhill1977 @princesskuragina @fifthlydoyoudream @narratorstragedy @suits-of-woe and @jonbinary but only if y'all want to :)

[patron-saints]

thank you to @portokali for the tag! i'm so excited we got to meet through secret santa hehe <3

last movie: the holiday! i had seen it before Years ago but just before this watch @amotleycrew texted me their the Brilliant idea that there was a Lot Of Aro vibes from one of the couples and like. yeah. it was so fun to watch with my aro glasses on and so cute in general

last song: "wolf like me" by lera lyn and shovels & rope, which for some reason always reminds me of like. a werewolf izumi curtis? but it's a vibe, i like that cover a lot

currently reading: as always when i am asked this it is just another volume of fma! i'm currently making my way so so slowly through 19! but i'll probably finish when i get back from the holidays. or maybe on the plane. i did also just read this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone which was. very good.

currently watching: taskmaster s16! i have been watching them in an utterly random order but i've been seeing the gifsets for the current season so i got excited and jumped to it. also just finished the diplomat. and the hbomber guy vid. both of which were insane.

currently consuming: cheddar popcorn and mineral water.

currently craving: the ability to work on my rizalust wip. please return from the war <3

tagging some of my newer(ish) mutuals @waitineedaname @gamergirlcrustacean @chillingoose @tacticalgrandma @ghostzvne if ur up for it!

[thelvadams]

I was tagged by @knightwayne ages ago and am only getting around to doing this now 🙈 (thank you for tagging me ana!)

Three ships: I don’t really take shipping too seriously, but off the top of my head I’d probably say Zelda/Link (The Legend of Zelda), Leon/Ada (Resident Evil) and Noah/Mio (Xenoblade Chronicles).

Last song: “Break Through It All” from the Frontiers soundtrack 🎧

Last movie: John Wick Chapter 4, which was excellent as always. Before that it was probably Fury of the Gods which I think is very underappreciated right now. And hoping to see the Mario movie very soon!

Currently reading: I’m still (very slowly) working my way through the Witcher books, though it’s difficult to find the time to read them properly.

Currently watching: Not very much, just mainly the Mandalorian and the new series of Taskmaster - I don’t really use streaming services so I don’t follow a lot of new shows. I’m casually rewatching Star Trek TOS and Brooklyn Nine Nine from time to time too.

Currently consuming: If we mean figuratively, video games. If we mean literally, tea (my beloved ☕).

Currently craving: Peace and quiet, plus more free time to do fun things.

I’ll tag @mistress-light, @apocalypsekid, @jimmymcgill, @talesfromthecrypts, @vindicia, @rivensbane and @marogarreh (as always, only if you really want to!)

[jedusaur]

Festivids recs!

2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) by fiercynn [Lizzo's Watch Out For The Big Grrrls] I haven't watched the canon (Lizzo's reality show looking for plus-size backup dancers) but this is a really nice upbeat, positive vid

Carol Of The Bells by lilly_the_kid [Die Hard] I was expecting this to be one of those vids where the fun of it is all in the concept and the execution gets boring, but nope, it was great all the way through! I hadn't heard this version of the song before and it was absolutely perfect for this, A+ no notes

Evolution by thingswithwings [Dirty Computer] what a great song, for this vid concept in particular and also just in general! I do wish the vidder had credited the artist somewhere—it's Nuela Charles, according to Shazam, and I will be exploring her full discography posthaste

I Can Cook Too by Tafadhali [Big Eden] cute lil mini-vid for an old queer romcom I'm fond of :) just rewatched it the other day with my girlfriend, who hadn't seen it, and can confirm it is still delightful

Butterflies & Hurricanes by thingswithwings [Taskmaster] summarized as "a constructed reality Taskmaster vid in which Greg is a terrifying elder god and everyone is trying to please (or appease) him." early in the vid the silliness of some of the tasks felt a little incongruous, but as it went on the silly parts developed an eerieness I thought really worked, and the Muse song choice is fucking inspired ("you've got to be the best" and "your time is now" just *mwah*)

Loser by hartknyx [Taskmaster] love this concept, great song choice. I kinda thought it should have used more clips of contestants failing, there are certainly enough of those moments to fill a lot more of the vid time, but the vidder chose to prioritize lyric-matching. which is fine, it's still a very good vid and worth watching

Rubber Duckie by Krim [Taskmaster] I did *not* think there were enough clips of rubber ducks to fill a whole vid, was expecting a lot of filler shots, but nope it's pretty much solid rubber ducks start to finish. I am charmed

[convexicalcrow]

Snowflake Challenge #6 In your own space, post the results of your fandom scavenger hunt. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one looked super fun, and I'm doing both physical stuff as well as a few digital things, bc for some of these I had more than one thing I wanted to share so. :D

Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture or description of something that is or represents:

A favorite character

Sausage and Santa Perla oml <3

I can't list one without the other ofc. Sausage's lore captivated me in Empires s1, and hasn't let go yet. The lore he's running in Empires s2 is just incredible. It's made me cry far too many times, and I'm just so invested in whatever the hell he's got going on. Also I love a good excuse for religious world-building, and having Santa Perla to work with has been so fun. <3 I'm really looking forward to what Pearl decides to do with her side of the lore now that she remembers as well.

2. Something that makes you laugh

It's Mark Watson, Alex Horne, and Tim Key! This is collectively representing them as a group of friends and just doing stupid shit together, but also No More Jockeys, Mark's long shows, Key's works, and the non-Taskmaster stuff Alex does, though there's not much outside of the Horne Section these days lol, he's a busy boy.

For digital things, may I offer the following: - Longform: Big Fat Quiz 2015. It starts off fairly sensible then gets derailed by bad dong, and only gets more off-track from there. A classic. - Shortform: Carrot In A Box. Need I say more. rip Sean Lock, you bastard genius. </3 - TV series: 15 Storeys High, Sean Lock's sitcom from way back when. It was rec'd to me by a friend, and I don't regret finding a copy to download bc it's so good. <3 - TV series: This Is Jinsy, weird, full of songs, nonsense and whimsy, def worth tracking down a copy of this show. It's so good. Makes me laugh so much. <3 Greg Davies in drag is also a lovely touch lol.

3. A bookshelf

These are the Taskmaster books that still exist. I tore up an awful lot of them to make 1000 paper cranes a few years ago. XD Also have some Key and Horne and Watson. <3 The three books on the far left are my current reading material.

4. A game or hobby you enjoy

iykyk >_>

(and yes at some point I will be making a Dinnerbone nametag for that blue sheep :D)

5. Something you find comforting

Cub omg. <3 I just find his voice so soothing and comforting, and bingeing through his episodes or watching his streams is very comforting for me. I'm really enjoying all the daily speedrunning streams atm bc they're on when I'm awake during the mornings for me, so I can have breakfast and chill with Cub and it's so so nice. <3

6. A TV show or movie you hope more people will watch

Double The Fist is an old Aussie TV comedy that I maintain is actually a metanarrative about the intersections of queerness, homophobia, and toxic masculinity (ESPECIALLY in the second series) that I am woefully inadequately skilled enough to actually write on, but trust me bro, everyone in the main cast is some flavour of queer and I'm here for it. It's very good.

bonus shout out for Set The Thames On Fire, bc it's such a good movie and more of you need to see it frfr. <3 There were some really, really interesting headcanons going around linking Noel's character in this movie back to his character in The Mighty Boosh as a bonus if you like that kind of thing.

7. A piece of clothing you love

look I won't be able to wear these for like another four months but they are super comfy and I adore them so much. <3

also yeah I didn't take these out of my chest of drawers bc lazy and also I live in a dark cave of a room, the lighting is terrible everywhere. XD

8. A thing from an old fandom

The Prisoner! Dhani Harrison got me onto this bc he named his band thenewno2, I adored their music, and when I looked them up, discovered what it was named after, and then I dived right in and fell in love with it. I can't remember which specific episode order I prefer out of the five or so that exist, but yeah!

I've written crossovers with The Prisoner for my last 2/3 fandoms, so maybe I'll get there for Hermitcraft one day. :D?

9. A thing from a new fandom

ConVex my beloveds <3

If you want to know why they took over my brain, I would like to point you at this 3min edit of ConVex lore and let you take it all in. :D They're insane, I love them so much. XD

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Chortle headlines.

Some of these are interesting. I don't know if it bodes well if Paddy Young is the absolute best rookie comedians in all of Britain, but he definitely had a good show last year (that got streamed on NextUp from Edinburgh). I have trouble believing anyone wrote a show that's better than both Paul Foot's Dissolve and Ahir Shah's Ends, but to be fair, I haven't seen John Kearns' show and he is very fucking good at these things, makes me hope even more that he'll be doing something in Edinburgh while I'm there. Alex Horne got an award for Taskmaster being an outstanding achievement, not quite sure what that means but I think it's accurate. I think if you look up the definition of "breakthrough act" you'll just find a note that says "see Sam Campbell's career throughout 2023", so that couldn't really have gone any other way. I've heard Kiri Pritchard-McLean compere a bunch on NextUp things, she is in fact very good at clubs. I haven't seen any of the other nominees but I'm still sure that James Acaster deserved to win that best tour one. I couldn't stomach the amount of Celebrity Glamour in Joe Lycett's new show but he is a great comedian and he is definitely made to be a TV comedian, which in some ways could be an insult but I really mean it as a compliment, he's great at that, good for him. Munya Chawawa posts highly amusing song parodies on YouTube. Fern Brady's is one of the best comedian books I've read. Three Bean Salad I was unable to get into, but maybe I'll give it another shot sometimes, after I finish with the winners of that radio award, John and Elis - well done to them for getting over ten years and not completely falling apart. I usually find it hard to get into sketch comedy (or anything that isn't straight stand-up) but Lorna Rose Treen made me laugh with character things last summer, so she probably deserves that one.

Those are my unsolicited opinions on that. The existence of Taskmaster is definitely an outstanding achievement for all involved.

This a special feature that happens every once in a while, called "Chortle publishes the contents of Daniel Kitson's mailing list". I find it gets funnier the less it sounds like Steve Bennett knows about the news items beyond the contents of the mailing list email, and in this case, that is clearly fuck all. But anyway, it's a great show and exciting announcement, anyone who has the opportunity should go see this tour. He said in the email that he might try to get something going in NYC later this year, which would be incredibly logistically difficult for me to get to (8.5-hour drive each way if I can borrow a car from someone, which would be tough, 14 hours on the bus otherwise, I've been told I can't take any more vacation days in 2024 because I used them on the London/Edinburgh trip), but still, I have found myself wondering how I might be able to make that work if he actually announces it.

Fucking hell. I can't believe this. My local comedian Facebook group is going pretty wild in response to this news. That's fucking huge, a massive amount of stuff is centred around this. To be honest I'm still not clear on the scope of this news so I won't go into it too much, I'll just say, fucking hell. Truly shocking. That's like a sport just canceling its national championships halfway through the season.

Excellent. Everyone should read this. His 2023 show (which I think he's still touring) is one of my favourite comedy shows ever. And the one before that, which inspired this book, is also very fucking funny, though not as good as his latest one.

Also, I am up for a trend of one comedian per year writing a book about their relatively recent autism diagnosis. Who do we think it'll be in 2025? I have approximately four to five suggestions.