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sp0o0kylights · 1 year

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Adopt a Jock Part One / Part Two / Part Three PART FOUR YOU ARE HERE Part five

As always I own my entire soul to @chalkysgarbagefire

Steve didn't show up to lunch that Monday.

This was a problem, because Gareth and Eddie had carefully prepared the entirety of Hellfire to help make Steve play a D&D one-shot.

(Well, mostly Eddie--and he'd left out the parts about how the entire goal was to acclimate Harrington to hugs and high fives.

Gareth assumed that was a more careful conversation they'd all have later, outside of school grounds.)

"Eds, if you jiggle your legs any harder the table is going to take flight." Gareth complained, scooting away before he got jabbed in the gut.

"Where is he!?" Eddie muttered, glancing at his watch for what had to be the twenty-fifth time. “Are we sure he showed up to class this morning?"

Stewart, the only person to share a class with Harrington, gave their leader an exasperated look. "Yes, I’m sure."

He flicked his spoon, pointing it towards Eddie. "And yes he looked fine, yes, everything seemed normal, no I don't know why he's not here and no, no one fucking abducted him, or threatened him, or any of the other crazy excuses you keep coming up with!”

Eddie’s frown deepened as Gareth and Grant traded concerned glances.

"Maybe he just didn't want to sit with us today." Jeff remarked, approaching the topic with the same care a technician had when approaching a live bomb.

Gareth thought it was a smart move, considering Eddie looked like he was about to rocket into the ceiling.

"He's sat with us everyday, why would he change now?" Eddie argued.

"Maybe there's a basketball thing happening. Or he's saying hi to his jock buddies." Gareth tried, using the same cautious tone Jeff had.

"We’re his friends!" Eddie snapped, looking two seconds away from losing his shit entirely.

Almost unconsciously, Gareth and Jeff both raised a hand almost to try and help calm him.

Like he was a wild horse and they were the preteen girls in the movies determined to establish a bond before he killed their grandpa or some shit.

This was what happened when one deviated from a predetermined Munson-made plan. Not that Steve had known that of course, but then, he wasn’t exactly catching the fallout, was he?

‘I am making Harrington buy lunch after this.’ Gareth thought, as Eddie returned to bouncing both his legs almost frantically. ‘From someplace expensive.’

"Maybe Hargrove ate him." Grant suggested, as if the very thought of Billy Hargrove wouldn’t set Eddie off on a rampage.

"I could see it." Stewart agreed. "Dude has cannibal vibes."

"Not. Helping." Jeff hissed, his palm still in the air and hovering vaguely over Eddie’s shoulder.

Sure enough, Eddie’s entire body tensed at the mere mention of Hawkin High’s new King. "That’s it. We’re going to find him.”

“Have fun.” Tiff said, waving him off.

Eddie glared. “We’re all going.” He practically spat.

With a put upon sigh, Tiff set her food down. "You really want to spend the rest of our lunch period stalking around the hallways looking for Harrington?"

Eddie gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went white.

"Yes Tiff, I do." He said, a manic gleam in his eyes.

He shoved up from the table, striking the kind of pose he often used during his rants. “This is a break in a pattern of behavior. A veer from an established path! This is the very first sign in every horror movie that something is wrong!”

He went to put his foot up on the edge of the table, like a pirate captain looking to the seas ahead, but instead missed it entirely and fell forward.

Eddie flailed for a moment, before managing to catch himself on the edge of the table. Instantly he began acting like he’d intended to fall like that from the start.

“I refuse to let any of us behave like idiotic, stupid, horror movie characters.” He finished dramatically, hair hanging in his face.

“You’ve been watching that Sherlock Holmes show again, haven’t you?.” Jeff asked him flatly.

“Among other things.” Gareth muttered, because as usual, he was the one who’d been watching said shows and movies with Eddie.

Not that it bothered him any, just that it meant he got to watch his best friend adopt new behaviors in real time.

Eddie flew back up, flinging his hair out of his face with a dramatic toss of his head.

“Come on my Watson’s! Let’s go find Harrington. I have a one-shot to pitch dammit!” Eddie outright yelled, flinging his arm skyward once again.

He got several startled glances in the cafeteria for it, but as used to Eddie as they all were, no one bothered to say anything to him.

“Why the fuck would we all be Watson?” Stewart muttered as he stood.

“I agree. Obviously, I’d be Watson.” Gareth said, also getting to his feet. “You’d be Mrs. Hudson.”

“Oh fuck you, I would at least be the other crazy smart dude.”

“Mycroft or Moriarty?”

“Mycroft.” Grant and Jeff chanted as one, the both of them putting their food away.

“Not one of you is any Sherlock Holmes character. Except maybe the dog.” Tiff cut in with an eye roll as she finally gave in and stood herself. "Now come on, let's go take Eddie for a walk."

Said metalhead flipped her the bird, but otherwise didn't protest.

(Probably because this wasn't the first time they'd had to do laps with Eddie.)

xXx

"Maybe he just went home." Gareth said reasonably some fifteen or so minutes later.

They'd made their way through the school, Eddie obnoxiously bursting through all the bathroom doors to loudly (and embarrassingly) yell for Steve.

They hadn't seen hide nor perfectly shaped hair of their wayward jock, and none of them were looking forward to trapezing around the outside of the school to hunt for him.

Thankfully, they didn't have to.

"Wait.” Tiffany asked, as they passed by the small little hallway leading to the art and photography rooms. “Is that Steve?"

Immediately all heads turned towards the direction she had pointed in.

"I think so?" Jeff guessed, eyeing the guy standing in the hallway down from them.

Gareth squinted, trying to get a better look. "Looks like." He agreed. "Also looks like Tiff was right, he is hanging out with other people."

Eddie tensed at that. A true feat, Gareth thought, because he was already wound so tight he looked in danger of snapping in half.

"Fucking useless." Tiff muttered.

Louder, she said; "Let's try that again. Isn't that our idiot jock with his ex-girlfriend and the guy she supposedly cheated on him with?"

The lot of them watched as Steve stood in one of his classic defensive positions (arms tucked into his sides, back rigid and chin down, like he was about to perform some kind of football tackle.)

Nancy Wheeler faced him, her own chin raised and her arms crossed like she was about to give the lecture of a lifetime.

In between them stood Jonathan Byers, though he was angled more towards his girlfriend than Steve. The guy practically radiated discomfort but seemed to be managing.

Even if his shoulders were practically above his ears.

It didn't exactly look like a two on one situation, but then it didn't not look like it either.

"Shit." Gareth said, which summed up the situation rather nicely.

"Should we go save him?" Grant asked, concerned.

Not one person moved.

Instead, all eyes went to their fearless leader--who was uncharacteristically silent.

Gareth took in the narrowed, frantic-turned-furious look upon his friend's face and wondered vaguely if he was going to have to stop a murder today.

Possibly two, depending on Byer’s involvement.

"Defensive position boys!" Tiffany called out, breaking the spell with sheer volume as she made the decision for them. "Eddie, you with us or not?"

Brave words for her, considering Gareth knew damn well that Tiff was often more bark than bite.

Thankfully, it worked.

"Right!" Eddie barked, jerking in place as he came back to himself. "Our Stevie needs us, men and Tiff!"

He pointed forwards, like a war general leading a charge. "Hellfire, move out!"

Fanning out into a triangle behind their club president, the lot of them followed as Eddie marched forward.

"You know I didn't mean it like that." Nancy was saying, and even though Gareth didn't know her he could tell she was frustrated.

"You have people you can talk to. You have m--" she cut herself off when Eddie strode up next to Steve.

Then blinked rapidly, reminding Gareth of a startled cocker spaniel when the rest of Hellfire fanned out around Harrington like wolves guarding their young.

(Or brightly colored and very angry ducks, but wolves sounded cooler.

Plus the last time he'd said something like this aloud; Grant had loudly informed him it was actually Muskox that made protective circles, Stewart brought up that triceratops were cooler, Jeff decided they should be bees and Tiffany had gone off on a tangent about badly done animal behavioral studies.)

"I daresay I agree!" Eddie said, taking a dramatic leap forward and startling Steve and Byers both.

That alone was a cause to worry--Gareth couldn't recall a single time Steve wasn't hyper-aware of his surroundings enough to get properly lost in it.

At least lost enough that he missed an entire group of people approaching.

"Steve is more than welcome to talk to people! His people." Eddie leaned forward a touch, the smirk on his face the one he used when he was playing up his role as the town's satanist cult leader.

To her credit, Nancy recovered remarkably fast. "I take it you believe that's you?"

Eddie reared back, like a cobra rising to strike. "Why Nancy Wheeler, Stevie here is an adult and can choose who he wants to talk to.”

He turned, one hand over his heart and the other held out to Steve. " Ain’t that right, big boy?”

Nancy and Byers both just stared.

Gareth couldn’t blame them, he was staring too.

Apparently deciding Eddie was too ridiculous to deal with, Nancy returned instead to talking to Steve--who, Gareth noted with more than his fair share of pride, looked a bit more grounded now that Hellfire had arrived.

“I understand that we’re in a weird place right now, but you have to know I still care about you, right?” Nancy bit her lip, clearly unhappy to have an audience but plowing ahead anyway.

"I'm fine, Nance.” Steve told her, voice steady, but growing flat.

He was shutting down--shutting her out, if not everyone out. Gareth knew, if only because he’d watched Harrington do it to them more than once.

(Knew because he himself had shut downs just like this. Eddie and Nancy were the kind of people who got loud in their anger, demanding people see and face them.

Gareth on the other hand, even with his more explosive temper, often ended up more like Steve when faced with breakdowns with people he cared about. He didn’t want to hurt them. To say the wrong thing, to lash out when someone was just trying to help.

It was safer to shut up, back away and put some distance between yourself and whoever had pissed you off.)

Either Nancy wasn’t aware of that or was too deep into her own emotions to see it, because she took a half step forward. “I know you’re not fine. I know you, Steve.”

“Not anymore you don’t.” Steve responded, and Gareth wondered if he realized he was leaning away from her--and towards Eddie.

Considering the way Wheeler’s eyes bounced between them, he knew she definitely had.

Quite possible Byers too, from how he had to stop himself from pulling Nancy away.

“I’ve been working hard to become someone else.” Steve added. “So you don’t have to feel responsible for me. I’m not your problem anymore.” He spoke without malice, just with the pure emptiness of someone who completely believed everything he said.

“Steve-” Nancy protested, but Eddie cut her off.

"You heard him." He said, peacocking his little social win in a way only Eddie could. "Now if you don't mind, I have extremely important things to discuss and you have cut drastically into my time."

He flicked his fingers in a shoo gesture, one that made Nancy's eyes spark in a way that quite frankly, terrified Gareth.

"Fine." She grit out through clenched teeth. "You know I’m always available to talk, Steve."

She strode off, passing Steve and the rest of Hellfire without a glance backwards.

"Sorry man." Jonathan muttered apologetically to Steve as he passed, following after his girlfriend.

Steve waved him off.

"Well she's just a delight." Jeff muttered, once Nancy was well out of hearing range.

Steve's entire chest heaved in a sigh, swaying slightly backwards as if the entire confrontation had physically drained him.

"She's trying to help.” Steve muttered softly, scrubbing a hand down his face. “She's just...coming at it wrong."

He turned, seeming to finally notice that all of Hellfire was there. "What are you all doing out here anyway?"

"Rescuing you." Grant informed him.

"From Nancy and Jonathan?" Steve said in disbelief.

Like Byers hadn't supposedly kicked his ass already. Nevermind the moping Wheeler had caused.

(The entire school had witnessed the moping.

It was, after all, part of what had drawn Eddie to Steve.)

"Yes." Tiff replied bluntly. “Also if she corners you like that again, I will make it my personal mission in life to top all her test scores.”

"I--okay." Steve blinked rapidly, clearly unsure of how to process that.

“Not that I needed rescuing,” He continued after a moment, staring at the whole group. “But why were you looking for me in the first place?”

His voice was slowly recovering, coming out of that weird flatness it had scrunched itself into. It was an excellent sign, a sign of trust, and Gareth leapt to keep it before someone could say something stupid and fuck it up.

"Eddie needed you to pitch his next one shot idea and couldn't wait for you to show up." Gareth admitted. “We decided to hunt you down since you were missing lunch.”

“Oh.” Steve blinked again, and though it’d be concerning on anyone else, the guy just looked like a lost puppy. “I’m sorry man.”

“It's alright Stevie. I just thought you'd totally ditched us.” Eddie sniffed dramatically, looking like he was going to wing an arm around Steve’s shoulder but thought better of it. “No biggie.”

He pouted, and made absolutely sure Steve could see him do it.

“Is this you trying to get more of my M&M brownies?” Steve asked after a moment.

“Oh my dear, sweet, athletic friend. Not at all. Instead, you are going to play the one shot I worked so hard on.” Eddie bounced his shoulder into him as he spoke.

It was a weird little compromise the two of them seemed to have, since Gareth had regularly witnessed Eddie ping-ponging off Steve’s shoulders. “Let us break your tabletop cherry.”

“Or what?” Steve asked, the tiniest bit of humor peaking through.

Eddie stared at him, abruptly still and completely serious. “I will cry, Steven. Loudly.”

It brought a small smile to Steve’s face.

“Fine. I’ll play your dumb dweeb game.” He said, and couldn’t seem to stop the smile from overtaking his face when Eddie threw his arms in the air and cheered.

“Come on, I’m pretty sure the bell rang forever ago.” Jeff said, as they began to venture out back to the main hallway.

(“Hey guys?” Steve asked, right before they all split up to go to their various classes. “Thanks. For the save.”

Eddie positively beamed. “Anytime, Steve. Anytime.”)

xXx

“Hey Gareth?” Steve asked a few days later, joining Gareth in the library during his free period.

(Gareth himself was skipping, because if he had to listen to yet another lesson on the Crucible he was going to declare himself a satan worshiping witch and demand to be hanged.)

Gareth hummed to show he heard, as he carefully took stock of the loot he’d gotten from their last game. Eddie had been pretty good about it for once, and he wanted to look things over before the one shot.

“Can I ask kind of a weird question?” Steve rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed.

“Shoot, Stevie.” Gareth replied, finally comfortable enough to use the main nickname Eddie had nailed the poor guy with.

“Did Eddie give me a character with bad eyesight or “night vision” or whatever, because he thinks I have bad eyesight?” Steve’s fingers made sassy little air quotations around “night vision” because he knew damn well it wasn’t called that and didn’t want to get chewed out.

It was appreciated, even if it was cheeky as shit.

Gareth stopped writing. “Why’d you think that?”

“He just keeps acting like I’m my character.” Steve replied with a shrug. “Like all that stuff we planned about how my character gets around and relies on the group since he can’t see that great in the daylight? He does it for me too.”

“It’s Eddie, he’s eccentric.” Gareth struggled to keep a straight face, trying not to give the game away.

Laughing would absolutely clue Steve in to the fact that Eddie was doing it on purpose.

“He just keeps telling me before he touches me. Outside of the game.” Steve continued, utterly baffled.

Of course, Eddie was doing far more than that, in order to keep up the appearance that he was just being a weirdo who was too into his game. (Instead of trying to alert Steve to the fact he was going to lean on him, hug him, or do any other thing involving skin to skin contact that usually made Harrington panic.)

“If you don’t like it you should tell him,” Gareth said. He knew it was the better option, encouraging Steve to communicate. They could come up with something else if this was too weird (as frankly, many of Eddie’s plans could be.

Bless the guy but he had a habit of going for the dramatic over the practical.)

“No!” Steve protested, far too quickly.

He cleared his throat with a cough, and continued in a much calmer voice, “No, I don’t wanna ruin his fun or anything.”

As far as excuses go for letting something happen it was a weak one, but Gareth wasn’t going to call him on it. If Steve wanted to hide behind Eddie and his “fun” then Gareth would happily pretend to buy it.

Would buy whatever excuse Steve needed, to help make the guy feel more comfortable and like himself than the still often vacant ghost that hung around now.

“Just wanted to know if he actually thought my eyesight sucked.” Steve finished in a mumble.

“Well you did trip over the curb that one time.” Gareth teased playfully, and shot a grin at Harrington when that awkward look of his melted into something more offended.

“I was walking backwards!” Steve defended, his normal, almost bitchy tone returning.

“Uh-huh. And what about when you almost ate shit over that garbage can and Eddie had to save you?” Gareth taunted.

He grinned, watching as a blush overtook the older boys face, Steve glancing away frantically and--

Oh.

Oh!

'Oh-ho, ho, ho!' Gareth thought with absolute glee. The entire fucking school knew what Steve looked like when he had a crush, (Steve himself had made sure of that with Nancy) and Gareth recognized the beginning of it happening all over again.

Steve Harrington had a crush.

On Eddie.

Gareth could work with this.

“You know….” He paused, grin turning sly as a sudden idea came to him. “If you want to mess with Eddie a little bit I have an idea.”

Steve stared at him, confused. “Why would we want to mess with him?”

Gareth leaned forward. “Because pranks are fun, Harrington. Legend has it you even used to do them.”

Steve still didn't look convinced, but the nice thing about a man like Steve was that all Gareth had to appeal to was his sense of adventure.

“Now." He clapped his hands together in a move that had very much been stolen years ago from Eddie. "How good are your acting skills?

Meant to post this yesterday but I got surprise laid off last week and that pushed me back a bit, sorries! Absolutely related, I have a Ko-Fi now lmao. It’s https://ko-fi.com/sp0o0kyghosthost

Unemployment should go through just fine so I don’t really think I need to full panic but hey if you wanna throw me a dollar and yell “Dance writer dance!” I’ll do a lil tippy-tap jig.

#fucking jobs #this ones a bit more whumpy #steddie #pre steddie #they gettin there though #hellfire adopts Steve #adopt a jock #eddie munson #steve harrington #gareth emerson #Nancys in this one #she cares theres just a lot of hurt there #Eddie on the other hand is JEALOUS #that is HIS jock thank you!#He is REHABBING that jock!#dont you make his Stevie sad!#Gareth is now playing matchmaker #Lap Wars is coming

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greensolsikke · 6 months

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I love reading all of your concert reports, so I'll have a try myself for Joker Out in Cologne Kantine at 24th of March.

- I had an EE ticket and arrived around 13 o'clock. There was a queue already, but not too wild (got number 59).

- the weather was quite unsteady, with lots of wind and occasional rain. Lots of umbrellas and rain covers.

- the queuing started around 17:30 o'clock, early entry was allowed in around 18:30 o'clock.

- Sound check was lovely. The boys were in a good mood. Bojan explained about what the procedures of soundcheck. And we got a Nace + Jan jamming session. They played two songs - Dopamin and Proti Toku.

- Sector 5 started as an opening band. They played really well and were energetic on stage. Some people started singing along

- JC Stewart was a total contrast to them, being alone on stage with only his acoustic guitar. His songs were really powerful and full of emotions.

- The JO performance was amazing. They were so energetic, cheerful and seemed to have a great time. Kris seemed to take it a bit slower - he might still be sick

- Looots of Jance action, smirks and heart eyes. Jan leaning his head to Nace's chest, them screaming at each other, Nace nearly kissing Jan. That was a 5 star girl (gn) dinner

- Bojan as a fairy with pink wings, taking his job really seriously. Kris wore a tiny crown with a veil, Jan a fluffy tiara

- During Metulji, they both wore butterfly head crowns and Bojan had his fairy wings back on. He cracked up seeing people do the Macarena during the song, but caught himself again.

- Jan's guitar was somehow out of tune. They stopped the song and he tried fixing it by himself. During the second try, he went rushing to Kiki to exchange guitars.

- Umazane Misli "only" had a few people singing. I remember a really well-sung German version, Russian, Dutch (?) and of course Slovene. Bojan was in the crowd with Vita, encouraging the singers. Sector 5 was in the crowd as well, and the singer

- Jan dancing Macarena during UM and taught it to Nace. Bojan parted the sea crowd and made us take turns in singing UM

- Jure was an absolute beast on the drums. It was so intense

- after the concert we waited outside for the boys to come out. Jan eventually came and took pictures. Jure was hanging out with the people from Sector 5

All in all a wonderful concert experience. Can't wait for Munich tomorrow

#gig report #Joker out #joker out cologne #Probably forgot half of the stuff but hei 🙃

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iwanthermidnightz · 9 months

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This was a very good article! I loved hearing Kristen’s (and Jodie Fosters) perspective as a queer trailblazer. Inserting some snippets below 🤍

To get to this point, Stewart’s weathered more than a decade of unrelenting media scrutiny, first about her straight relationships, then about her gay ones, as she figured out her own identity. She leveraged her global stardom from the “Twilight” franchise not to become a superhero or a lifestyle guru, but to fuel an astonishing run of acclaimed independent films, including “Clouds of Sils Maria,” “Still Alice,” “Certain Women,” “Personal Shopper” and the Princess Diana drama “Spencer,” for which she earned an Oscar nomination.

“Whenever I hear that she’s doing something new, I’m so curious to see what it is, because it’s going to be a movie that hasn’t been made before,” says Clea DuVall, who directed Stewart in one of her only Hollywood films during this period, Hulu’s 2020 release “Happiest Season,” the first lesbian Christmas rom-com backed by a major studio. “She really is so herself. And I think that’s why so many people respond to her the way they do — because she is so authentic.”

By the time Stewart stepped on the stage of “Saturday Night Live” in February 2017, she’d spent the previous two years trying to convince the press that it was OK to write about her relationships with women, rather than resort to the vexing practice of referring to her girlfriend as her “gal pal.”

“It wasn’t even like I was hiding,” she says. “I was so openly out with my girlfriend for years at that point. I’m like, ‘I’m a pretty knowable person.’”

But even with that posture, the media’s “gal pal” dog whistle triggered a deeper, more painful history of intrusive curiosity about Stewart’s sexual identity. “For so long, I was like, ‘Why are you trying to skewer me? Why are you trying to ruin my life? I’m a kid, and I don’t really know myself well enough yet,’” she says. “The idea of people going, ‘I knew that you were a little queer kid forever.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, you should honestly have seen me fuck my first boyfriend.’”

It’s worth dwelling on this point: For almost the entire history of Hollywood, queer actors dreaded the public discovering who they really were, and that fear kept the closet door firmly closed. “Because I was gay, I really retreated,” says DuVall, who came out publicly in 2016. “Even doing a teeny tiny movie like [the ’90s lesbian cult favorite] ‘But I’m a Cheerleader,’ people immediately were like, ‘She’s gay, how can we out her?’ I wanted to stay small.”

Stewart, though, went big, with a monologue on “SNL” about how President Donald Trump, in 2012, obsessively tweeted about her relationship with Pattinson. “Donald, if you didn’t like me then, you’re really probably not going to like me now, because I’m hosting ‘SNL’ — and I’m, like, so gay, dude,” she said to wild cheers from the audience.

“It was cool to frame it in a funny context because it could say everything without having to sit down and do an interview,” Stewart says before running through the kind of questions queer actors have had to consider before coming out publicly: “‘So what platform is that going to be on? And who’s going to make money on that? And who’s going to be the person that broke it?’ I broke it, alone.”

A few days later, I mention Stewart’s “SNL” monologue to Foster over the phone, and she lets out a big laugh. “I never knew that,” she says. “What a wonderful, funny, wry, modern way to be honest to the world. That’s just awesome.”

As Stewart talks about her “SNL” experience, I think about how no stars of her age and stature ever came out when I was growing up as a gay kid in the 1980s and ’90s. So to have her professional trajectory not skip a beat feels like real progress.

When I tell her as much, she takes the conversation in an unexpected direction. “Because I’m an actor, I want people to like me, and I want certain parts,” she says. “I have lots of different experiences that shape who I am that are very, very far from binary. But I did get good at the heteronormative quality. I play that role well. It comes from a somewhat real place — it’s not fake. But it’s fucked up that if I was gayer, it wouldn’t be the case.”

I try to clarify what she means: “So your career maybe would have suffered after coming out had you not affected a performative femininity …”

“… that I know works to my advantage,” she admits, nodding. “That’s why I’m fucking stoked about ‘Love Lies Bleeding.’”

Stewart didn’t let that scandal, as intense as it was in the moment, stifle her. Instead, she grew to fully embrace her queerness in her public life — like bringing her girlfriend, screenwriter Dylan Meyer, to the Oscars in 2022. “It’s not that I wasn’t scared,” Stewart says. “It was just that there was no other way to live.”

She’s even started to recognize that the most ostensibly heterosexual thing she’s done, “Twilight,” has its own queer sparkle. “I can only see it now,” she says. “I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating. It’s such a gay movie. I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor [Lautner] and Rob and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK. I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It’s all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you. That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love.”

I ask Stewart if she understands how much her decision to come out has also made her a role model for LGBTQ people. She cackles. “Oh, you have no idea,” she says. “Every single woman that I’ve ever met in my whole life who ever kissed a girl in college is like, ‘Yeah, I mean, me too.’ I’m constantly joking with my girlfriend. I’ll be sitting there and be like” — she whispers — “‘She’s gay too. Everyone’s gay.’”

It can be easy to forget just how rare this still is, a giant movie star living such an openly queer life. “It feels like a generational thing, where I’m watching somebody make the leaps that I didn’t think I could ever do,” Foster says.

After fiercely guarding her privacy for decades, Foster came out publicly at the 2013 Golden Globes, and has just now played her first explicitly gay character in the 2023 biopic “Nyad.” Talking about Stewart has put Foster in a reflective mood. As our call is coming to an end, she offers this unprompted insight: “I get a lot of questions about who I was and what I represented in the industry, and was I — I don’t know …” She exhales. “Was I helpful in terms of representation? I’m sure there’s a 12- or 13- or 14-year-old when I was making movies as a young person who said that I had something to offer to them in their life as a queer person. I had to do it my way. I had pioneers to help the way, who I’m grateful for. And now people can be grateful for Kristen for being the pioneer. I’m just — I’m grateful to her.”

This sense of communion with the wider LGBTQ tribe is why Stewart has dedicated herself to embracing the fullness of who she is as a bro-y, butch-y queer woman in her work as an actor and, come hell or high water, a director.

“I was like, ‘I would like to be on that team because we need each other,’” Stewart says. “I didn’t want to be left out anymore. It was this whole world that I didn’t realize I could explore.”

#loved this!#the queer experience™️

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queer-ragnelle · 3 months

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I'm coming from having fallen in love with the show bbc merlin and then reading roger lancelyn green, then howard pyle. I really loved green's way of presenting balin and balan, and the way they seal their own fates, and the dolorous stroke. (I also loved his gareth/beaumains! best part of the book in imo.) as for pyle, I loved his strange, wild magic adventures and the dialogue between arthur and merlin as merlin is tiredly asking him to please not fight every knight he sees. can you recommend anything with gareth, anything wonderfully tragic about balin and balan, anything that focuses on the magic and setting, or anything that just made you laugh to read?

Hi anon!

Welcome to Arthuriana. I loooove Howard Pyle. Have you read all 4 books? Highly recommend the whole series. Sounds to me as if you’re looking for more retellings, so that’s what I’ll give you.

As always, if the author is out of print or has passed, I’ll share a PDF. But if they’re alive, I link to goodreads so you can learn more about the book and decide if you want to purchase.

Gareth Beaumains

Books

Exiled From Camelot by Cherith Baldry

Hunt of the Hart Royal by Cherith Baldry

Under Camelot's Banner by Sarah Zettel

Gareth and Lynette by Alfred Lord Tennyson

How Gareth Won His Spurs by Reverend James Yeames

The Savage Damsel and The Dwarf by Gerald Morris

Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger

Movies & TV [Watch movies here!] [Watch TV Shows here!]

Knights of the Round Table (1953)

Sword of Lancelot (1963)

Arthur of the Britons (1972-73)

BBC The Legend of King Arthur (1979)

Kaamelott First Installment (2021)

Balin & Balan

Books

Balin and Balan by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Tale of Balen by Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck

The Knight With the Two Swords by Edward M. Erdelac

Magic & Setting

Books

The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, & The Wicked Day by Mary Stewart

The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell

The Book of Mordred & The Last Knight of Albion by Peter Hanratty

Lancelot & Gawain by Gwen Rowley

The Squire's Tales Series by Gerald Morris

Tales From the Mabinogion by Gwyn Thomas, Kevin Crossley-Holland, & Margaret Jones

The Quest for Olwen by Gwyn Thomas, Kevin Crossley-Holland, & Margaret Jones

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight by Selina Hastings

Sir Gawain and The Loathly Lady by Selina Hastings

Movies & TV [Watch movies here!] [Watch TV Shows here!]

The Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949)

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956-57)

Knights of the Round Table (1953)

Prince Valiant (1954)

The Sword in The Stone (1963)

Camelot (1967)

Arthur of the Britons (1972-73)

Gawain and The Green Knight (1973)

Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975)

BBC The Legend of King Arthur (1979)

Excalibur (1981)

Fire and Sword (1981)

Merlin and The Sword (1985)

Merlin (1998)

Kaamelott (2005-09)

Starz Camelot (2011)

Arthur & Merlin (2015)

Arthur & Merlin: Knights of Camelot (2020)

Kaamelott First Installment (2021)

Laugh Out Loud Funny to Read

Lancelot & Gawain by Gwen Rowley

The Squire's Tales Series by Gerald Morris

Muppet King Arthur by Paul Benjamin & Patrick Storick

Modern Arthur Series by Peter David

Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger

Hope that gives you some stuff to chew on, anon. Have a great week!

#arthuriana #arthurian legend #arthurian mythology #arthurian literature #sir gareth #gareth beaumains #sir balan #sir balin #ask #anonymous

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bogusbyron · 4 months

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NOW THAT I'M HOME:

Copy pasting les mis notes from today's matinee (30th may) here instead of posting screenshots from my notes app like last time cause i think thisll be easier to read.... There's 73 points and it's LONG so i'll put it under a read more . Go wild hope you find them somewhat interesting. Ignore any errors puhlease 😭🙏

1) Jordan Simon Pollard was on as Javert and he is. Fucking massive. Very imposing. His silhouette on the top of the boat is crazy good

2) Harry Lake as Marius, saw him on may 14th schools matinée, god his voice is gorgeous. As usual amazing

3) the guitar riff in Work Song kind of gets me lol

4) Valjean (Chris Jacobsen) flinching when Javert lifted his hand to pass him the slip. Additionally he has a GREAT voice. Quite gentle

5) The fight where Valjean gets beaten up was a bit awkward lmfao

6) More valjean flinching when the Bishop goes to touch his shoulder

7) chris spitting "thanked him like i should" interesting delivery, quite liked it.... his "took my flight" wasnt as strong is Milan's but whateverrrrrr

8) WILL ALWAYS BE STUNNED BY ADAM PEARCE'S VOICE🔥 THE LOW NOTE ON "BOUGHT YOUR SOUL FOR GOD" YUMM

9) The "I missed" on "I missed it 20 long years ago" was very harsh, as was "mouthful" in "mouthful of bread. LOOOVE thankyou Chris. "any other" in "treated me like any other" apparently was very gorgeous. I dont remember how but thats what I have written. Then i just wrote "Holy shit". He also was sobbing a little bit between "One word from him" and "offers me my freedom" which was lovely. Then i wrote "Chris ate jesus" so thats a high commendment

10) the bassline in At The End Of The Day is so delicious always

11) I kept seeing tom hext and harry lake in the ensemble (it was, uh, a bit thin male ensemble-wise)

12) synth tones as usual heavenly I LOVE SYNTHESISERS!!!

13) the foreman was northern which was kind of funny #northrepresent

14) i think someone dropped somethijg offstage just before I Dreamed A Dream lmfao

15) Now i know that Fantine's wig cost £4000 i kind of appreciate it more. Doing my part

16) KATIE'S VOICE IS DIVIIIINE the low note she hits on "tear your hope apart" is ssoosooooooo goooode i get goosebumps bro

17) harry lake was the 2nd guy in lovely ladies though thought that was funny. He got his arse slapped on the "if you want to take all year" line . Giggled

18) javert big ass hat with the feather 😭😭😭😭😭

19) he was throwing some bitchy ass glances at the other policeman (who was harry lake. Btw) when fantine was begging whats his problem. His faces were so fun to watch hes so expressive. Hes also delightfully imposing and, as i wrote, "he's kinda fat LOVE"

20) not very homoerotic at the cart although they did get dangerously close on "brand upon his skin".

21) i loved Jordan's performance honestly, he was very curt and harsh in his lines. Makes you want to cower away when he speaks

22) i cant remember when, but Chris spat a lil during Who Am I ans i wrote "spittin a bit there Chris. Hit that shit"

23) Katie was so wonderfully and convincingly weak for Come To Me ouuhhh my heart

24) I liked the little detail of Valjean looking over his shoulder a lot when he was with Fantine... ughhhghhhhhh

25) THE LOW NOTE JORDAN HIT 🤤🤤🤤🤤 different chainn

26) good strangle. Didnt fuck it up! He was stood up rather than knelt or laid like javert usually is but thats probably a Jordan thing since ive seen Stewart thebother times. He stood up quite fast rather than writing around a bit like stewart does and thenWIPED HIS MOUTH cool whagever. Then valjean kneed him in the balls at the tousle at the end lmfao

27) TOMMMM😍😍😍 i love his thenardier withbhis gruff voice lol. He did a little shimmy on "content to be" looove. I love his gay little dance he does with his pointed toes. And he flashed the gentleman guest at the start. As usual he does the bisexual thing. He flashes everyone again after mme thenardier's "whats happened since" someones gotta stop him bro

28) chris was so gentle with cosette i could cry .

29) tom hext thenardier does this thing where he's asleep when valjean comes in until he says "pay" at which he wakes up with a snort. Love

30) cosette runs to valjean when he starts reassuring her when the thenardiers are trying to get him to spend more money snd it warmed my heart

31) tom squeaking "monsieur" in "one of our own monsieur" tickled me hes so funny. Also the jazz hands after "christians must do". I did keep getting blinded by his shiny shoe buckles though

32) chris was delightfully harsh on "too long to Forget" get his ass valjean

33) THE HUG AFTERWARDS WAS SOOOOO CUTE VALJEAN WAS CLEARLY SO TOUCHED UGGHHH IT WAS SO LOVELY I LOVETHAT SCENE SO MUCH

34) LOVE YOU HARRIUS his face when he sees cosette is so nice hes so good bruh

35) JAVERT IS HUUGE ITS CRAZZYZYYYYY especially in that coat and the hat ohmt god dude

36) when thenardier pipes up after valjean runs off from javert he steps forward and gets choked a little itwas great. The way he goes up to javert to lean on him and the slide on his voice on "told you so" as well when he walks backwards lmfaoaoooo

37) stars was GORGEOUS . I mainly made very messy notes on Jordan's inflections during the song because i like the different delivery choices.... "face to face" was quite soft which i liked. The quick slide on "fall in flames" was delish.. hissed "scarce" and "silent" on "silent and sure". HOLY SHIT also his expressions, so good. Stewart is largely kind of deadpan just with a furrowed brow but jordan's face is all over the place its delightful. Also "bars" in "safe behind bars" was SO powerful and low ohhhhh his voice bruh. Bloody hell

38) marius' blank ass stupid ass smile when he offers the money to eponine its so fucking funny

39) i think the foreman is rhe ssame guy as grantaire but i do Not know. He did a silly giggle after "some wine and say what's going on" which i liked

40) i wrote "marius is so [see below image]" which lke ueah he was. Nothing behind his eyes at all. Love you harrius

41) i absolutely LOVE djavan as enjolras hes very engaging and shit i LOVE him . Dont even care about les amis that much but djavan is great at getting me to gaf about enjolras i cant lie. Hes so good

42) i wrote "harmonies. I came" do you hear the people sing getting me good as always

43) cosette was still shaky im so sorry girl i dont like her voice very much😭 great voice very talented her vibrato is just all over im so sorry

44) shamefully, i had to write "cosette your dad fit as fuck" when he appeared for heart full of love lmfao

45) he was quite harsh on "better unsaid" ..😔 contrasted the otherwise gentle deljveries for the rest kf the show

46) marius looks constantly, like, aghast and bewildered and stunned by the fact that cosette is looking at him and i loved that. Bless him. Love you harry

47) babet always cracks me up whats his deal. Also in attack on rue plumet there was a guitar riff after "why's she hanging about you" giggled

48) felt a bit 4th wall-y when valjean was saying his plan to escape idk. Hello vro❤

49) enjolras' bit in one day more will always fuck. I got goosebumps so bad when he came in bruhhhh. FUUUUUUCCCCKKK I LOVE ONE DAY MORE

ACT 2

50) not much exr chemistry surprisingly. Tom hext clearly doing the heavy lifting for the enjoltaire fandom

51) AMENA I LOVEYOUUUUUUU GOD HER VOICE IS SO GORGEOUS I LOVE HEERRRRRR goosebumbppsss

52) never getting over the barricade reveal . As a techie the lighting makes me geek the fuck out bro. Id say it gave me a boner but would that be going too far. Anyway the lights were bright and i could finally see clearly what i was writing for a bit lol

53) i wrote "byron for army general 2025 i dont know why because my voice is nowhere as good as that. I am the biggest fan of those bits though its so catchy i love it. They really went harsh on the Guns or DIE!!!!!! looove

54) the only one taller than javert is enjolras and i find this hilarious

55) JAVERT WITH THE DARK RED RIBBON IN HIS HAIR i said "dorothycore" later in the evening. Also his sideeye to gavroche when he was being ratted out was funny

56) HARRY SO GENTLE IN FALL OF RAIN OHHMY GOD DUDE THEIR DUET WAS SO TENDER AND HIS FACE OF DISBELIEF AND SHOCK WHEN EPONINE DIES WAS SO HEARTBREAKING FUCCKKKKK

57) "javert slutty red waistcoat" he had a deep red waistcoat to match his hair ribbon. Ir was kinda unbuttoned off his shoulder when he was dragged back out okayyyyyyyy

58) chris delightfully harsh when he says "give me the spy" yesssss bro yessss

59) NOT AS HOMOEROTIC AS ID LIKED BUT AGAIN SCHOOLS MATINÉE TUESDAY REALLY SET THE BAR HIGH😭 valjean did grab javert lapels though and hold them until "i'm a man. Held out hope in my soul my psychic mind beams would cause them to kiss like my comic but alas! Also as usual javert very expressive. Yummm.

60) gavroche and grantaire's friendship for evarrrrr. Theyr so fire

61) chris was so lovelyand delightfully soft for bring him home HE ABSOLUTELY HIT THAT SHIT, IF I DIE... BROOO... i thimk i prefer milan still but chris absokutelt did NOT disappoint.

62) did not shit myself this time when gavroche died. Winning

63) djavan's voice as always insanely good its insane dude holee fuck hes so good brugh

64) when grantaire died he qas kinda hanging off the side in a really awkward spot and i think javert stood on him a lil when climbing down the barricade lol. On that note hes still so fucking big its crazy im obsessed. Also Again with the cross over gavroche's body though godbless

65) kind of looked like tom's mic wasnt on his head properly in the sewers but whatever thats just a techie nitpick of mine. He sounded great as usual though no problems just looked a bit odd lol. He kicks marius on "stiffs at my feet" poor guy

66) javert raised his brows and bulged his eyes on "i wont be swayed" i just had to note that because of how good it was. His expressions seriously so enchanting

67) the heavy breathing and kinda growling before soliloquy dude ohhmy gourd. Hell yes brother. His hair was so good too his wig is slightly curly and its like all over his shoulders and shit whenever he brought his chin back it kind of cowled his face and it was delectable . His EYES .............. as a bulging eyes javert truther it was sso good. Great inflection on "i am the law", "valjean", "dominion", "insTEAD"..... soft on "gave me my life" which i LOVED, as well as delivering "heart of stone" in such a deeply sad tone which was so good bro ohhmy god. "Killed me" was very harsh LOVE! he absolutely GROWLED "world of jean valjean" hellooooooooo bruhhh

68) HARRY LAKE WHEN I GET YOU HARRY LAKE. the low notes on "tomorrow never came" get outtttt. "Theres a grief that cant be spoken" whole line got my heart torn apart . He deliverwd it SO emotionally it got me screaminf crying. Also he was kind of harsh on "don't ask me" which i LOOOVED.

69) dont really know how to describe it but chris' valjean i liked himmmm he felt like ? Quite .. mature ? Well duh cause hes like old ass man . He played it wonderfully anguished as he was confessing to marius, got more anguished as he went on until the "who am i" ouuughhhhhhh . He was delightfully desperate and frantic when he was asking marius to keep the secret too, shaking his shoulders a little and all bro ohhhmy

70) HARRY SO HANDSOME IN HIS SUIT 😊😊😊😊🥰 HIS SMILE ALSO i might be a little bit in love with him but what evarrrr lol

71) THE THENARDIERS AS ALWAYS DELIGHTFUL stole the show. Tom's spin when he gets punched by marius omg so good . GAY ASS DANCING .... plus return of the funny little toe dance he does in master of the house. He did a little pose on "paris at my feet" which i loved. The pose:

72) chris' frail voice OUCH. so gentle. He was like muttering into cosette's hair when she kneeled in front of him i was going craaaaaazzzzyyyyyyyyy bro kmsss. The way he delivered the "i will try" was so fucking heartwrenching cause he sounded so earnest and final and like the smile he gave her ohmy god i was tweaking so bad HRURRYUYYGGGHHHHHH he whuspered "its a story" as he handed her the book. Suicide tomorrow gang⁉️

73) nearly cried i cant lie. NEARLY. i didnt but nearly. Goosebumps on that final note ugh OUGH eugghhh. Anyway yeah final verdict this cast fucked amen 🌈🌈 harrius and tomardier on top

#les mis #textposts #show notes

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roguerevieweradl · 13 days

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Heathers Review (Pelican Productions) - 12/09/2024

Stepping into Heathers, I knew we were in for a wild ride, but I wasn’t prepared for the sheer power and presence of this cast.

Tayla Prime as Heather Chandler was an absolute force of nature. She dominated the stage with so much authority that I found myself genuinely intimidated from the audience! I wouldn’t dare cross her Chandler—if I were in Westerberg High, I’d be running for the hills. It was a performance that oozed confidence and power, embodying the iconic ‘mythic b****’ perfectly.

Teagan Garvey as JD had some great moments, especially in the beginning where he played up JD’s charm to a T. His descent into madness was compelling, with Garvey really showcasing the complexity of the role. There were a few moments where his vocals fell a little flat, but overall, he was stellar and brought a lot to the table.

Then there’s Samantha Keough as Veronica—wow. I have never been so in awe of a voice. She didn’t just deliver; she owned the character, adding her unique vocal flair rather than just doing a by-the-numbers version of Veronica. I’d go so far as to say she’s one of the best Veronicas I’ve seen in Adelaide!

Caitlin Laventure as Heather Duke was a standout for me. Talk about a triple threat—the dancing, the singing, the acting, all flawlessly executed. I honestly can’t believe she isn’t already a staple in the professional scene. It was hard to keep my eyes off her whenever she was on stage.

Lily Horton-Stewarts Heather McNamara was another highlight. "Lifeboat" was a real emotional journey, and she took the audience right along with her. I could feel her anxiety bubbling under the surface, and when it broke, it was powerful. A beautifully crafted performance.

And then, Darcie Yelland as Martha—my heart. She brought so much warmth and life to Martha that you just wanted to give her a hug. By the time "Kindergarten Boyfriend" hit, I was a complete mess. It’s a challenging role to pull off, but Yelland absolutely nailed it.

I have to mention my favorite duo of the night: Zach Bartlett and Freddie Windle as Kurt and Ram. These two bounced off each other perfectly, delivering the humor and energy the roles require. They’re an iconic duo, and I truly hope to see them working together in the future!

Hannah Brown as Ms. Fleming brought so much life to the ditzy teacher role. You could really sense how much she cared about her News Crew… which made for a lot of laughs. I thoroughly enjoyed watching her performance!

The song of the night had to be ‘My Dead Gay Son’. The dads, Leo Sage and Hanno de Klerk, absolutely nailed it! The audience couldn’t stop clapping, and we just wanted more. Well done to both actors for a standout performance.

The ensemble deserves massive credit as well. The choreography and vocals were tight and well-constructed, with each piece fitting together like a perfectly synchronized puzzle. You could just feel the joy radiating off the entire cast, which gave the performance an extra spark of magic.

As for the set design, it was nothing short of spectacular. I loved the concept—especially how the brick wall split apart, and the two-story levels made the stage feel dynamic and immersive. I found myself wondering how long it took to build because it was just so beautifully crafted.

The lighting was also brilliantly executed. I loved how they played within the scheme. My favorite moment had to be during the bomb sequence, where the stage transformed into what looked like a disco ball for just a moment, symbolizing the explosion—it was an inventive and effective choice.

Sound was mostly on point. While there were a few minor issues with mics not being turned on in time or some effects coming in late, the sound mix overall was fantastic. Missing a couple of lines didn’t take away from how well everything sounded.

Big shoutout to the creative team. You’ve put on an amazing rendition of Heathers, and I’m excited to see what you all work on next. Overall, this cast for Heathers knocked it out of the park. From powerhouse performances to stellar ensemble work, this show was a treat from start to finish.

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companion-showdown · 9 months

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Showdown 2k24 Nominations!

alright, redoing this post now that I can give a concrete start date of Monday the 15th of January!

Nominations for the tournament are open up until the start date, and you can submit anyone who could reasonable be considered a companion, either by sending me an ask or by filling out

this form.

If you make your nomination via the form you can also submit some propaganda to go alongside the poll. Anyone who was considered a regular at any point in the last year will automatically be included, as well as anyone who was in the original tournament (+/- a couple I might miss or misremember as being a regular because I don't have old lists anywhere). The exception to this is last years winner, Rose Tyler, she will not be getting a place in the main tournament, however after the final I will run a poll to see if our new winner can beat her. (oh and also maybe I'll leave the TARDIS out but not fully decided yet)

The tournament is going to be run in the same way I did @adventure-showdown, meaning I'll keep companions from different periods of the show and different mediums segregated at first so the nicher ones don't immediately get knocked out, and slowly get mingled together. The exact details are going to depend on just how may characters get included.

Errm yeah, so go wild, nominate whoever you like (as long as they are a companion). If they are from teh TV show they have to be on this list to qualify, and for EU companions I'm going with them needing a TARDIS wiki page, and also I will give them a quick proof read to make sure they pass, the bar is low but it is there

if you want to submit an alternate version of the character sorry but main version only unless you can give a really good reason, eg regenerations of a time lord

also, if they are primarily from another franchise that'll be a no

The full list of contestents is under the cut and will be updated as nominations come in. Its sorted by medium and then to be alphabetical by first name. if an eu companion exists in multiple mediums i just sort of picked one or I put them under the other category, people who exist in real life are also sorted into their own category. There are some characters under Classic Who/NuWho who were not companions on TV but were in the EU. Companions who's names are in green have had propaganda submitted for them, if they're not in green then they don't, and just because someone has propaganda doesn't mean i wont accept more

Classic Who

Ace McShane

Adric

Barbara Wright

Ben Jackson

The Brigadier

Chang Lee

Dodo Chaplet

Grace Holloway

Harry Sullivan

Ian Chesterton

Jamie McCrimmon

Jo Grant

Kamelion

Katarina

Leela

Liz Shaw

Mags

Mel Bush

Mike Yates

Nyssa

Peri Brown

Polly Wright

Romana I

Romana II

Sabalom Glitz

Sara Kingdom

Sarah-Jane Smith

Sergeant Benton

Steven Taylor

Susan Foreman

Tegan Jovanka

Turlough

Vicki Pallister

Victoria Waterfield

Zoe Heriot

NuWho

Adam Mitchell

Amy Pond

Bill Potts

Canton Everett Delaware III

Clara Oswald

Dan Lewis

Donna Noble

Graham O'Brien

Grant Gordon aka the Ghost

Handles

Inston-Vee Vindor

Jack Harkness

Karvanista

Kate Stewart

Martha Jones

Mickey Smith

Missy

Nardole

River Song

Rory Williams

Rose Noble

Ruby Sunday

Ryan Sinclair

Wilfred Mott

Yasmin Khan

Audio

Alex Campbell

Anya Kingdom

Bliss

C'rizz

Cass Fermazzi

Charley Pollard

Cousin Eliza: Christine Summerfield: Horus

Dalek Test Subject 2

Erimem

Evelyn Smythe

Helen Sinclair

Hex Schofield

Iris Wildthyme

Liv Chenka

Lucie Miller

Mark Seven

Molly O'Sullivan

Narvin

Oliver Harper

Sheena (The Starship of Theseus)

Tania Bell

Novels

Anji Kapoor

Anna (Good Companions)

Badger

Barusa

Bernice Summerfield

Business woman (Time on a Vine)

Catherine “Cat” Broome

Chris Cwej - have propaganda but in conjunction with another contestant

Cinder

Claudia Marwood

Compassion

Dorothy (The Wonderful Doctor of Oz)

Fitz Kreiner

Guinevere Winchester

Hector (All Flesh is Grass)

Homunculette

Ikalla

Irving Braxiatel

Jack McSpringheel

Larna

Marie (Alien Bodies)

Milena

Patience

Penelope Gate

Peter Summerfield

Rosie Taylor

Roz Forrester - have propaganda but in conjunction with another contestant

Ruth Leonidas

Sam Jones

Serena

Sibling Different aka Mae

The Mortimer Family (Ida, Alan, Helen, George)

Trix MacMillan

V.M.McCrimmion

Wolsey the Cat

Zeleekhà

Comics

Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer

Angus ‘Gus’ Goodman

ARC

Chantir

Child Master (The Then and the Now)

Cindy Wu

Dave Lester

Destrii

Duh

Flanx

Fey Truscott-Sade

Frobisher

Gabby Gonzalez

Gillian & John Who

Grayla

Hattie Munroe

Izzy Sinclair

Jayne Kadett

John Jones

Josie Day

Kroton

Ly Chee the Wise

Majenta Pryce

Maxwell Edison

Olla

Rose-the-cat

Shayde

Ssard

The Squire

Weeping Angel (Origins)

Real Life

Alan Turing

Claudia Winkleman

John Lennon

Jules Verne

Mary Shelley

Peter Cushing

Other

Alison Cheney

Andy Davidson

Antimony (Death Comes to Time)

Brian the Ood

Dormouse (The Red and the Blue)

Emma (curse of fatal death)

Koschie

Romana (Battle for the Universe)

Splinx

Susan Who

Tom Campbell

#doctor who #showdown 2k24

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scotianostra · 4 months

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On June 10th 1688 James Edward Stuart, “the Old Pretender”, Anglo-Scottish prince, was born, Jacobites the world over remember it as White Rose Day.

It’s not easy with these posts at times. For a start does he deserve to take his place in history of the Scots? Well I’ve included many others that were not born here in my posts, and the Stewart/Stuart name will always be synonymous with our Nation.

Well the eighth of the Stuart James’s was born in St Jame Palace, not long before his faither had to flee leaving the throne vacant so he was brought up in in Continental Europe, two of his sisters went on to be crowned, James was ignored by Parliament although he has next in line.

The name Old Pretender is commonly used to describe James ,to me it’s a bit of an insult, the name Pretender came about as such, when James was born, a wild rumour took hold by James’ opponents that a male baby was smuggled into the Queen’s chamber in a warming pan to replace her stillborn child. Witnesses to the birth testified before a Privy Council meeting, but the rumours continued. As far as Protestant England was concerned, the “warming pan baby” was a pretender to the throne.

So James after the death of his Father was the rightful king of Scotland, England and Wales. In December 1688 James’ mother Mary, supposedly disguised as a laundress, escaped Britain taking James over to the relative safety of France. It was here that he was brought up with the French court regarding him and his family as the true monarchs. Of course, by right of birth James was the rightful heir to the throne.

When James’ father died in 1701 King Louis XIV of France along with Spain and the Papal States recognised James as James VII of Scotland and III of England. However, as a result of accepting this title he was at-tainted for treason in London and all his English estates were forfeited. The next twenty years would see James make various attempts to retake the throne which he felt was rightfully his. These have been wrongly called rebellions, but as the rightful King the correct term is uprisings, although most of you will only know of the final Uprising, The “45 they also took place in 1708, 1715 and 1719

In 1708 his first attack was launched. Initially delayed because James had contracted measles he set out from France with almost 30 ships carrying some 5,000 men to reach Scotland. This would be the largest ever French expedition to come within striking distance of Britain in support for James. Unfortunately, as the fleet approached the Royal Navy were ready. James’ measles may have given them the time needed to prepare for James’ attack. The French ships were forced to flee under the strength of the Royal Navy and took flight along the north coast of Scotland, with many ships being destroyed along the rocky coastline. After this James joined the French army for a while before he was asked to leave France in 1713 as part of the conditions of Frances peace agreement with Britain.

In 1715, James tried again. This time he reached mainland and most people suggest that this was the uprising that should have worked. Unfortunately, once again James was denied. Despite winning at the Battle of Sheriffmuir, and in Preston, James ultimately gave up the fight when he heard Government reinforcements were on the way. He fled Scotland and returned to the continent but his apparent abandonment of his men left a poor impression on many and his welcome back was not great.

After the failed 1715 invasion he eventually took up residence in Rome where the pope recognised him as the rightful king and gave him the Palazzo Muti to have as his home. James made one finally attempt on the British throne in 1719 with some Spanish support but this ultimately came to nothing. Then in May 1719 James married Maria Sobieska by proxy and later, in September, they renewed their vows in person. The following year they gave birth to their first son Charles Edward Stuart. This was followed five years later by another son Henry Benedict Stuart.

By 1745 it was Charles who was looking to take the British throne, for it was that prize he was after, make no mistake, and it is said that James and Charles clashed many times over Charles plans to attempt his own rising. As we know the rising did not succeed and Charles returned to the continent. The relationship was further damaged when James helped his son Henry in his goal of becoming a cardinal. As such Henry would have no legitimate children to carry on the Stuart line and Charles was said to be angry that the decision had been made without him being consulted.

James lived in Rome for the rest of his life where he was well treated. He died on 1st January 1766 in his home there. Later he was buried in St Peters basilica in Vatican city and his tomb is marked by a monument to the Stuarts. After James’ death the Pope refused to recognise Charles as the rightful king and finally accepted the Hanoverian succession to the throne.

A couple of wee footnotes, I mentioned about James and the rumours about the bedpan, this led to all future royal births having to be witnessed by The Home Secretary, this practice went on until midway through the 20th century, the first one not to be witnessed was that of the current heir to the throne Charles!!

And White Rose Day, well being a Jacobite in these times was not necessarily something to publicise. The term ‘Jacobite’ stems from the Latin ‘Jacobus’, which in turn means ‘James’, the Jacobite movement was effectively a political crusade to restore the House of Stuart to the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones. Discovery risked accusations of treason and the penalty of death. What they needed, therefore, were hidden signals of camaraderie spottable only by those ‘in the know’.

The white rose, or the white cockade (white ribbon shaped as a rose in a hat), became one of those symbols either during or soon after The Glorious Revolution. And it continued to represent the Jacobites through to Bonnie Prince Charlie until the collapse of the movement after the 1745 Rising.

What did it symbolise? The reason for its choice as a symbol is unclear. However, when you consider that it’s a hardy wee shrub that thrives in poor soil and can tolerate shade and drought,you can get a sense of its subliminal messages.

I am currently "decorating" my Glengarry with pin badges for my wee trip to Germany for the Euros, and found one on the National Trust of Scotland, bt the totall was over £9, they were trying to charge almost a fiver for dlivery, however searching around I got the one in the pics from The 1745 Association web site for only £4 with free shipping, it also has the 1745 on the badge, which the NTS one didn't, distinguishing it from the White rose of Yorkshire, s a much better option.The Stuarts.

#scotland #scottish #history #Jacobite #The Suarts

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maximumwobblerbanditdonut · 3 months

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Origin, origin and more origin: that's what it's all about. The provenance of The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin comes from Crafty Distillery.

Crafty Distillery is located on the outskirts of Newton Stewart, it is a modern grain to glass distillery producing spirits and offering panoramic views of the Galloway Hills. It's a self-distilled approach, making their own spirits with selected botanicals to create their own Hills & Harbour gin, or a fruity Smokey & Citrus liqueur or the limited edition Galloway Gin, SH's approach to his Gin.

The use of local ingredients such as crab apples 🍏 noble fir, and course Scottish water and the transparency of the process to create a gin is Master Distiller Craig Rankin’s little secret at Crafty. An example for the current gin culture in which consumers are often charged with expensive prices, but everything is made with industrial and characterless base alcohol.

An award-winning Galloway gin distillery is a place of The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin. Newton Stewart's Crafty Distillery and his Master Distiller Craig Rankin create Scottish gins, Hills and Harbour Gin and GALLOWAY GIN smooth base spirit, along with local Juniper, Crab Apples, Crafty Estate Elderberry, Pepper Dulse, Damsons & Brambles.

That reflects the local area's botanical garden along with several botanicals and Crab apples 🍏🍎in abundance in Dumfries and Galloway.

Crafty Distillery - Hills & Harbour Gin and GALLOWAY GIN

When you say Scotland, you say whisky, right? Wrong! Because a lot of beautiful GINS are also made in Scotland! Crafty Distillery (Hills & Harbour Gin and GALLOWAY GIN) in Newton Stewart in the south of Scotland is an example to see what makes this small distillery so special.

Craig Rankin is the Gin Distillery Master and also the Distillery Manager at Crafty Distillery. It takes about two hours to drive from Glasgow to get here, so you might be feeling hungry. Luckily, Crafty's tasting room has a full refrigerator stocked with delicious local products from local entrepreneurs. They also offer the Galloway Picnic, which showcases some of the most beautiful products in Scotland. I assure you, it's all delicious! However, if you're not here to eat, you probably want to hear all about Hills & Harbour Gin, Galloway Gin and more.

Craig Rankin, The Master Distiller creates their own recipes. In other cases, they are hired for their experience and expertise to continue the legacy of a recipe.

In 2013, owner Graham Taylor started to get a little itchy. As a lover of good gins, he found it annoying that so many distilleries simply buy their base alcohol from a wholesaler, instead of distilling it themselves. After a lot of planning with his brother Stephen and his father Billy, looking for the perfect location, raising all the money and designing a distillation installation, the first Hills & Harbour Gin flowed from the boilers in 2017.

Vision & Botanicals

Their vision is simple: Craig creates tasty honest spirits for everyone who likes a tipple '. To achieve this, He created more than 90 gin recipes in 14 months to arrive at the final blend that they are today called Hills & Harbour Gin. All five basic flavours 3 are hit with their botanicals. The element of sweet comes from the dried mango, sour from the peel of orange, bitter from the noble fir and salt/umami from the bladderwrack seaweed. He also created a special sensation by using green Sichuan peppercorns and bay leaf. And their last ingredient was also very important: the audience!

While they were still in the testing phase, Graig made and sent 100 packages with miniatures of their first gins, to see what people thought! This is how he created the Hills & Harbour Gin together with gin lovers.

The noble fir, also called red fir is known as a Christmas tree 🌲 You can see in Galloway Forest Park pine trees profiled by distant lakes and peaks.

Origin, origin and more origin

The provenance of Crafty Distillery; that's what it's all about. Not only the use of local ingredients such as noble fir, bladderwrack seaweed and of course Scottish water are important; Transparency of the process to create a gin is also important. There is little secret here at Crafty. An example for the current gin culture in which consumers are often charged with expensive prices, but everything is made with industrial and characterless base alcohol.

Smokey & Citrus Distilled Cocktail

The latest product from the Crafty Distillery stills is the Smokey & Citrus Distilled Cocktail. Made from smoked pineapple and burnt orange. It may not sound very tasty when you read it like this, but trust me , you want to taste this! The fruit is smoked and roasted, then pressed and the juice is distilled. This is then mixed with the Hills & Harbour Gin to form a special cocktail in a bottle.

This is the location for the Wild Scottish Gin blend. The yellow line on the ground, next to the container with rhubarb and blaeberry, marks the interior of the Crafty Distillery responsible for producing SH’s gin. The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin a distilled alcoholic drink flavoured with Scottish juniper, rhubarb, heather, Scots Pine resin, bramble leaf, blaeberry, crab apple and toasted oats,

Crafty Distillery was awarded the Scottish Gin Distillery of the Year 2022 at the Gin Cooperative Awards, where SH was a member of the judging panel. Craig Rankin is the Master Distiller behind SH’s Wild Scottish Gin, he created his gin. The production and distillation process takes place at Crafty Distillery in Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway. The process involves pureeing, macerating, and straining pre-distillation to ensure the notes in SH’s gin.

Master Distiller Graig Rankin plays a multifaceted role at the Crafty Distillery, encompassing expertise in distillation techniques, sensory evaluation, recipe formulation, and quality control. However, he or the Crafty Distillery is rarely mentioned by SH, aiming to give the impression that SH is the sole force behind Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin.

Scottish Gin Award Winner 2022

SH attended the 6th annual Scottish Gin Awards in November 2022 as a judge on the panel. He was especially delighted to sample the wide variety of Scottish gins that were sent for his consideration to his door, especially with the increasing number of gins and distilleries entering the competition across different categories. The same miniature gin samples that carried with him on his trips to America, preparing Gin Tonics in the hotels where he stayed, not behind the hotel bar. A player who appeared to be having fun as he was put through its pace by his new business.

It can be challenging to keep track of all the growing gin distilleries in Scotland, but this event was a great opportunity for him. With the Scottish Gin Cooperative’s help and support, He was able to identify potential future gin and distillery opportunities among the gold medal winners announced on August 29th of the same year. In this way, SH launched 🚀 his Wild Scottish Gin in 2023. It's clear that Sassenach Gin benefited greatly from this event of the Scottish Gin Cooperative and It's all quite not a coincidence when you connect the dots!

The Wild Scottish Gin is a type of London-style gin, and any brand of Distilled Gin follows the London Dry guidelines almost exactly. The Regulations establish the necessary minimum requirements, but producers are free to set the bar higher. The predominant flavour is juniper, and all other flavours must come from natural plants and fruits, so nothing synthetic can be added. Additionally, nothing can be added to the gin after distillation except for water and a small amount of sugar. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 So, The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin isn't particularly innovative, as it follows the same process as a London Dry style.

The range includes London Dry gins from all over Scotland, many of which are made using hand-foraged botanicals which can be found close to the distillery. London Dry gins do not have to be made in London and the term 'London Dry' more refers to the process as opposed to the flavour or the location. To be classed as a 'London Dry', the base spirit must be distilled to a completely neutral spirit of 96% ABV, and all of the flavours must be added through the distillation.

There are excellent distilled gins and truly awful London Dry gins. However, It’s important to mention that if you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong and the sign of sheer incompetence impossible to ignore has been the information at the American Spirit Council of Tasters’ Awards where SH’s brand, and Great Glen Company or The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin are not part of Loch Lomond’s group portfolio.

Anyway….If you have an interest in knowing where SH’s Wild Scottish Gin comes from, Crafty Distillery is open to Visit yourself. The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin is not available for sale or tasting at Crafty Distillery. The distillery offers its brand of Gins, such as GALLOWAY GIN, which serves as the base for SH’s Wild Scottish Gin. You won't notice the difference and will still enjoy your visit.

Posted 12th June 2024

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dweemeister · 10 months

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November 15, 2023

By Jonathan Mahler, James B. Stewart, and Benjamin Mullin

(The New York Times Magazine) — It was April 2022, and David Zaslav had just closed the deal of a lifetime. From the helm of his relatively small and unglamorous cable company, Discovery, he had taken control of a sprawling entertainment conglomerate that included perhaps the most storied movie studio on the planet, Warner Brothers. The longtime New Yorker had always loved movies, and against the advice of several media peers, he had moved to Hollywood and taken over Jack Warner’s historic office, hauling the old mogul’s desk out of storage and topping it off with an old-time handset telephone. So far things were going great. He had met all the stars and players, was widely feted as the next in line to save the eternally struggling industry and was well into the process of renovating a landmark house in Beverly Hills. “You’re the dog that caught the bus,” the billionaire octogenarian cable pioneer John Malone, one of Discovery’s largest shareholders, told him. All he needed to do now was pay back the $56 billion in debt that he piled onto the new company to make the deal happen.

Money is never just lying around Hollywood, and the town was still reeling from the pandemic. But that was OK. Zaslav had set a “synergy target” — cost cuts, essentially — of $3 billion in the next two years, and now, with the clock ticking, he got to work. To help, he had brought along his chief financial officer from Discovery, an amateur pilot and former McKinsey consultant named Gunnar Wiedenfels. As spring turned to summer, they laid off hundreds of workers, shuttered or reorganized divisions and suspended or canceled hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of programming. Anything we don’t think is awesome, Zaslav told executives, stop production right now. Turn the cameras off.

Cuts are the norm after a merger, but Zaslav and Wiedenfels were pushing things hard, and in sometimes unorthodox directions. By shelving several nearly completed projects — including the animated, direct-to-streaming movie “Scoob!: Holiday Haunt,” and the fourth season of the postapocalyptic TV series “Snowpiercer” — they saved millions in postproduction and marketing costs, as well as residuals down the line, and they locked in hefty tax breaks up front. Like so much of what happened in Hollywood, all this was reminiscent of a Hollywood production — in this case, the beloved 1967 Mel Brooks comedy “The Producers.” There, the producers, Max Bialystock and Leopold Bloom, realized that under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than a hit. For Zaslav and Wiedenfels, the money would come from making sure that no one would get to see the shows in the first place.

Then they came for “Batgirl.” The big-ticket streaming project had just finished filming in Scotland when Zaslav took over, and he and Wiedenfels had immediately identified it as a target — a “free ball,” as Zaslav described it to several colleagues. The audience test scores for a very early cut were not encouraging. Still, a number of executives warned him not to shelve it. “Batgirl” was a $90 million entry in a multibillion-dollar universe of movies and television shows based on DC Comics. Michael Keaton was reprising his role as Batman, and sequels were already in the works. Plenty of movies had tested poorly but still earned millions. Killing an all-but-completed movie would alienate the people Zaslav — or at least Hollywood — needed most: the people who made the movies. It was to no avail. On Aug. 2, the word came down: “Batgirl” was dead.

As predicted, the backlash was immediate and emotional. Stunned, the film’s up-and-coming directors, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, tried to look at their footage, but their access to the production server was denied. The head of the DC unit, Walter Hamada, who was not consulted on the decision, asked to be released from his contract and would leave before the end of the year. Courtenay Valenti, one of the most respected development executives at Warner Brothers, was equally devastated and would be gone in a matter of weeks, ending a 33-year run at the studio. The news dominated the Hollywood trades for days. Under fire, Zaslav defended the decision in an earnings call with analysts, saying he shelved “Batgirl” to protect the DC brand. More quietly, Zaslav also sought cover in the authority of Bryan Lourd, the powerful co-chairman of Creative Artists Agency and a leading arbiter of Hollywood mores. As Zaslav told it to several associates, Lourd had supported the decision, observing that it wasn’t in the interest of C.A.A. clients, like the film’s star, Leslie Grace, to be associated with a bad movie. But a C.A.A. spokeswoman denied that. “Bryan Lourd was not consulted in advance of the studio’s move to cancel ‘Batgirl,’” she said.

At Discovery, producers referred to having their budgets slashed as “getting Gunnared,” and Wiedenfels maintains a hard-boiled, McKinsey-esque attitude toward the bottom line. “It’s hard work,” he says. “You don’t make friends.” Zaslav, a born salesman who would prefer to make friends, is more reflective. “You do sometimes get bloodied,” he said in a wide-ranging interview at Warner Brothers Discovery’s corporate headquarters in New York. But business is business. “We have made unpopular decisions because they were necessary.”

That joke about selling to Saudi Arabia in the end. Just... no.

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omg-hellgirl · 6 months

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The three* versions of why Mick Jagger slept with Pat Andrews, the mother of one of Brian Jones' children

*UPDATED: 04/03/2024.

In Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger by Christopher P. Andersen, this occasion is nothing more than a frankly unimaginative but evil plan by Mick to "break" the connection between Keith and Brian that arose when they started living together.

The entire narrative is built based on a timeline in which the three already live together in 102 Edith Grove. Describing that, while Mick was studying and had classes all day, Keith and Brian were alone in the apartment, rehearsing. And when it got cold, Keith and Brian would lie down together to stay warm.

In short, the book says that Brian and Keith were very close, and Mick wanted to break them up (it is also said that Mick realized that Brian was determined to replace him with the singer P. P. Pond). Mick’s attitudes were: He seduced Pat Andrews, the mother of Brian’s son Julian, and Brian himself.

In Keith Richards' biography, Life, there is a short excerpt about the incident that completely changes the narrative of Christopher P. Andersen's book because it differs in essentials: They didn't live in 102 Edith Grove yet. According to Keith:

Mick had come back drunk one night to visit Brian, found he wasn’t there and screwed his old lady. This caused a seismic tremble, upset Brian very badly and resulted in Pat leaving him. Brian also got thrown out of his flat. Mick felt a little responsible, so he found a flat in a dismal bungalow in Beckenham, in a suburban street, and we all went to live there. It was there I went in 1962 when I left home.

In Keith's version of the incident, the three did not live together yet, and Brian was only kicked from the place he lived with Pat after she slept with Mick. Therefore, this invalidates Andersen's entire story about this.

I'm not sure how Keith knew Mick was drunk, did Mick tell him that? Questionable, to say the least.

As far as I've read, over the two beds that were at 102 Edith Grove, Keith said:

There was no fixed rotation between the two beds and a couple of mattresses. And it didn’t really matter much; usually all three of us would wake up on that floor, where we had the enormous radiogram that Brian had brought with him, a great ’50s warm-up number.

So far, there are no explicit descriptions of sharing the bed to keep warm. Although he admits that "To go through that winter of ’62 was rough. It was a cold winter."

Whether this is something he deliberately left out or if this was also an incorrect story, we can only speculate.

The third version of the story, from A. E. Hotchner's 1990 book, Blown Away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties, collaborates with something of Christopher P. Andersen's version.

Hotchner interviewed many people, including Ian Stewart, who was part of the band's original lineup in the 60s and continued working with the Stones until his death. The following excerpt is Ian Stewart's version.

Even though he had moved to Edith Grove, Brian continued to see her and sometimes spent the night with her. Well, one afternoon Jagger came to the flat looking for Brian who wasn’t there. So Mick hung around, eventually got Pat to get into bed with him and knocked her off. Brian found out about it, of course, and from then on it was a thorn in his relationship with Mick — which, I guess, is what Mick intended. There were plenty of ready and willing girls Mick knew from the Ealing Club and the Marquee, so I figure the only reason he balled Pat, who was certainly not very attractive, was to get at Brian.

According to Ian Stewart, Mick, Brian, and Keith already lived together in Edith Grove, and Brian occasionally visited Pat, who lived alone with their son, Julian. This differs from Keith's report that they moved together after the incident between Mick and Pat. There is also no mention of Mick being drunk.

Obviously, the interview was done before Ian Stewart's death in 1985.

"The last time I saw lan Stewart, a few weeks before he died, I asked him [...]"

I'll update this post if I come across other versions.

In the end, everyone chooses what to believe, but as I am bringing excerpts from both books, I feel a bit of responsibility for pointing out the differences between them and letting everyone draw their own conclusions. That doesn't mean I'll make a post for every difference between the books, tho.

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denimbex1986 · 10 months

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'You might expect a season finale to be shrouded in secrecy, with plot points and even the full cast list concealed so as to not to spoil viewers' enjoyment of the climax, but in fact it's the middle instalment of Doctor Who's "mini-season" of 60th anniversary specials that's proving to be the most mysterious.

Even before it aired on Saturday (25th November), we were familiar with the broad strokes of opening episode The Star Beast – an adaptation of the 1980 comic strip of the same name, featuring the cute but not so cuddly Beep the Meep, and reuniting the Doctor (David Tennant) with former companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate).

We've also seen a fair amount come out around the trilogy closer, The Giggle – it'll feature the return of the villainous Toymaker, last seen on television way back in 1966 and now played by Emmy-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris.

Though not officially announced, trailer footage and interview teases have also pointed to appearances from UNIT, their leader Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and their scientist advisor Shirley Anne Bingham (Ruth Madeley).

But we know next to nothing about episode two, Wild Blue Yonder, which airs this Saturday (2nd December) – showrunner Russell T Davies has called it "weird" and "scary", but the brief plot synopsis that's been released is impressively vague: "The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Donna to the furthest edge of adventure. To escape, they must face the most desperate fight of their lives, with the fate of the universe at stake."

Besides Tennant and Tate, only one additional cast member has been confirmed – Susan Twist, who'll play a character named "Mrs Merridew".

The key art for the episode (see above) suggests the inclusion of a robot, though it's unclear whether it'll be friend and foe.

The trailer released shortly after broadcast of The Star Beast, meanwhile, also seems to delight in keeping things ambiguous, revealing only that the Doctor and Donna have landed in a mysterious space-age location, where they encounter "life signs" and are menaced by an unseen threat...

Doctor Who fans, of course, abhor a vacuum, so the lack of information about Wild Blue Yonder has sparked rampant speculation. Why the secrecy? What's being hidden?

Fan theories have included suggestions that the episode is set entirely within a TARDIS – with the Doctor's ship landing inside another time/space machine – or that all this cloak and dagger is concealing a huge surprise return, with names put forth including Carole Ann Ford as the Doctor's granddaughter Susan and Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.

There's also a school of thought that the episode will feature an early appearance from Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor, and even Millie Gibson's new companion Ruby Sunday.

We know for a fact that the events of Flux, the Doctor Who series arc aired in 2021, will be dealt with "very slightly" in the episode, which has led fans to guess at everything from some involvement from The Division to a story set during "the Dark Times" (an age of chaos and monsters that predated the Doctor's reality).

To be clear, all of this is just guesswork at this point. In fact, Tom Kingsley, director on Wild Blue Yonder, has sought to play down the rumours while acknowledging that the plot is "a TOTAL SECRET".

Describing the episode as "weird and exciting", he added: "Fan PSA: the story of Wild Blue Yonder isn’t a secret because there are any surprise returning actors or villains. It’s just because we thought you might find it fun to watch it without knowing what’s going to happen next. Promise!"

Couldn't that rationale apply to any other episode, though? Adventures that weren't/aren't being kept under wraps to the same degree?

Perhaps the biggest clue we have to latch on to comes via David Tennant. Speaking to Total TV Guide, he said: "The second script is unlike any Doctor Who I’ve ever seen.

"I don’t want to give too much away, but I was always aware of the casting that was going to be part of the episode. That was something that Russell was very specific about. I just didn’t imagine it would… manifest itself in the way that it does..."

Could this piece of casting be the cause of all the covertness? If we take director Kingsley at his word that Tennant and Tate will be the only series veterans appearing, then perhaps it's not a returnee we should be expecting but some other familiar face – a big name actor whose casting is yet to be announced? Or just a particular type of performer?

Clearly, whoever it is, or whoever they are, said casting has a significant impact on the plot...

"I love humans," the Eighth Doctor once commented. "Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there," - it does feel, however, as though something is definitely afoot here.

Just three days to wait until the exact nature of that secret is revealed...'

#Doctor Who #60th Anniversary #Wild Blue Yonder #David Tennant #Catherine Tate #Donna Noble #The Star Beast #Beep The Meep #Miriam Margolyes #The Toymaker #Neil Patrick Harris #Tom Kingsley #Susan Twist #Mrs. Merridew #Russell T. Davies

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singemall-stayallnight · 14 days

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Documentary with Led Zeppelin Stories

Sunset Strip is a 2012 documentary that's available for free on the Tubi app. Led Zeppelin is discussed by several people during a section of the film. The Zep portion starts at around 52:12. Everything that was said about LZ in the documentary is transcribed below:

"I stayed with Led Zeppelin there (Hyatt House) a lot, and they had the entire sixth floor. They always rented out the entire sixth floor and, you know, took over." Grins

-Pamela Des Barres

"Everyone knew in Hollywood that Zeppelin were in town, and those guys were so fuckin' wild. They'd abuse the chicks. They liked to push it to see how far they can go. Burning 'em, cuttin' their hair off, handcuffin' 'em. I mean, you know, leaving them handcuffed for a couple of days in the room." (!!!!!!!)

-Sharon Osbourne

"They'd ride motorcycles up and down the hallway at the Continental Hyatt House, and throw these wild, wild parties. You know, up all night, and throwing TV's out the window. All that stuff was true."

-Rodney Bingenheimer

Then, there's an old video shown, presumably from the 70s, in which three unidentified women are talking about LZ.

The clip begins by one woman saying, "Led Zeppelin did lots of stuff. Richard Cole, he took this leather strap and he started beating me, and I didn't even know him. They threw Cynthia in the swimming pool and ruined all her velvet clothes. They were really weird."

"Hostile," one of the other women chimes in.

Cuts back to Sharon

"They were probably the worst, but they were many that abused loads of people on the Strip. But that would never, ever, ever have been tolerated anywhere else but America. In America, they were like, 'Oh, do you wanna hit me some more? Do you wanna burn me? Do you wanna fuck me with a fucking, you know, rod of iron? We'll do it.' And that's, that's how it was."

-Sharon Osbourne

Sharon's recollections corroborate a pattern of behavior described in the book Led Zeppelin by Bob Spitz: p. 190

"Once, during Led Zeppelin's stay at the Chateau Marmont, Peter Grant wandered into one of the empty bungalows they'd rented and found a naked young woman tied to the bed by her wrists and ankles. 'I said, 'Hello, what are you doing here?' She said, 'I don't know, but guys keep coming in and fucking me.' I said, 'Oh okay, well, have a nice day.'

No one gave a thought to whether these girls were well below the age of consent. Some were eighteen, some were sixteen, some were fourteen, occasionally younger--mostly no one bothered to ask."

p. 503

"LA meant it was party time. Swan Song and Atlantic rented a fabulous house in one of the canyons and packed it with a guest list of relatively high-profile friends, everyone from Roger McGuinn, Keith Moon, and Rod Stewart to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It was a glittery champagne-and-cocaine affair that soon devolved into debauchery. The company pulled out all the stops, somehow sensing this might be a send-off, the last time Led Zeppelin performed in LA.

'I brought along a friend unlike Lori, a thirty-five-year-old, successful woman who knew how to take care of herself,' says Betty Iannaci. Later, Peter Grant invited Iannaci's guest to his room. 'He had come into a large quantity of cocaine and was feeling very generous.' Eventually Betty's friend wound up naked and handcuffed to the pipe under Grant's bathroom sink so that, for an entire weekend, she was at the disposal of anyone who came in. Jimmy came across her almost by accident and, in an uncustomary show of gallantry, found a key to unlock the cuffs and helped her to escape."

When I first watched the Sunset Strip documentary, I thought if those girls were restrained and abandoned alone in a hotel room, they were sitting ducks. Any number of terrible things could've been done to them. Zep regularly threw parties at the hotels they stayed in. People would roam from floor to floor and wander into different rooms. Those girls could've been raped.

Then, I read Spitz's book and found out that is what happened. Women and girls were handcuffed or tied up, ditched, and gang raped, sometimes over the course of days. They couldn't consent. They were literally trapped. A man walks into the room and gets to do whatever he wants to whichever girl is there. And she has no choice in the matter.

Ann Wilson wrote in her review of Spitz's book that Led Zeppelin's story was one of, "rape and pillage," (among other things) and it really was. There were occurrences of statutory rape, two instances of attempted forcible rape by John Bonham,* and many women & girls who were physically restrained, then left to anyone in a hotel who decides to "have their way with them." Let's not forget the multiple incidents of violence committed by John Bonham against numerous people, including women, such as the female journalist he punched in the face for smiling at him.

The degeneracy, including rape, is brought up in another review of the book:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/bob-spitz-new-book-led-zeppelin-the-biography.1117692/

"I thought the book was fairly well written. I’ve only read one or two other books on Zep, so a lot of the info was new to me. The best parts of the book were the chapters covering the formation of the band, which really painted a detailed picture of the late 60’s music scene. The parts of the book covering the recording sessions were also very well done. Once the 70s and the drugs kick in, the depravity and excesses were all consuming. Very difficult to come to grips with these parts as a fan. I know the text is unrelenting in its depiction of this period, but I dont think there is any other way to tell it. Unfortunately, the serial stories of drugs and rape weren’t punctuated with a few arrests and prosecutions.

Grant was a small time gangster right from the beginning, so it doesn’t surprise me how he ended up. Page hooked their destiny to a star that was inevitably going to burn out… and in a big way. Grant used force and intimidation to get his way and ended up alienating the press and US promoters.

After Bozo died from his disease, Plant was the only one to carve out a semblance of a solo career. JPJ dropped off of the map and Jimmy adopted a very low profile. I strongly suspect his musical skills were damaged by the 70s lifestyle. It is obvious after reading this book why the band would rather not discuss their history, which is extremely unfortunate. It would be nice if they could educate a new generation about one of the best bands ever. Of course, their feeble archive program doesn’t help."

-johnnyb1964, Jun 28, 2023

Sharon's statement that Led Zeppelin were, "probably the worst" reminds me of the bolded line in this comment:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/i-just-read-richard-coles-book-and-i-may-never-listen-to-zeppelin-again.225428/page-2

"It's interesting to contrast this thread with the controversy about Francisco Rodriguez (K-Rod), the New York Met's star relief pitcher, who was arrested for attacking his girlfriend's father and was charged with third-degree assault.

None of the sports fans I've spoken with have said, 'It doesn't matter if K-Rod punches a 53-year-old man, I enjoy watching him play, he's one of the best in the business, and his private behavior doesn't matter.' Rather, most of them are not only disgusted by his behavior, but they want him off the team.

The members of LZ weren't punching middle-aged men, but their behavior was no less reprehensible. Yes, rock and roll is (or at least used to be) about rebellion and sex and freedom, but it doesn't have to involve doing degrading things to other people. There's a difference between rowdy and mean, between hooking up with groupies and treating women like utter garbage, between being reckless and intentionally destroying other people's expensive things. All those stories about LZ's behavior aren't legendary because they're typical -- it's because they were at the extreme end of rock star behavior. They're lucky that they're not in jail, or that they weren't shot by someone whom they pissed off.

Now, despite my little rant, I'm able to enjoy my Zeppelin CDs without thinking about any of this. But I understand Zack's feelings.

My question for everyone is, is there a degree of behavior that WOULD cause you to feel like Zack? (Other than, say, the artist brickwalling his or her CDs?;)) Someone mentioned Gary Glitter…has anyone stopped listening to him? What if your favorite artist drove drunk into a schoolbus, killing a dozen 6-year-olds? Or killed his wife?"

-Matty, Aug 20, 2010

They were other bands behaving badly at the time, but Zep's bad behavior still stands out. I'm unaware of Bonham ever expressing guilt or apologizing for any of his atrocious actions, but as I said in a previous post, I believe the other three (former) members of LZ see various things differently now and have changed for the better. They certainly have much to feel contrite about, though.

More than one person on here has said they want to maintain a balanced view of Led Zeppelin and not overlook the wrong they've done. Well, here ya go. These are additional glimpses into the foul side of Led Zeppelin's history.

*Ellen Sander went into detail about the attempted gang rape she experienced at the hands of John Bonham and another man. That all four members of the band attacked her is a persistent rumor surrounding Zeppelin, but Bonham was the only LZ band member involved in the attack.

Trips is mostly inspirational — and, as in her chapter on the Plaster Casters of Chicago, iconic groupies known for making casts of various rock legends’ penises — also massively entertaining. But the book doesn’t shy away from the dark side of rock life. One chapter chronicling a 1969 U.S. Led Zeppelin tour starts as a triumphant road movie and ends as a horror film. Sander writes that, when she went to say goodbye to the group and their entourage on the last night of the tour, she ended up in physical peril.

'Two members of the group attacked me, shrieking and grabbing at my clothes, totally over the edge,' she writes. (Sander now specifies that the aggressors were John Bonham and a member of the band’s entourage.) ' I fought them off until [manager] Peter Grant rescued me but not before they managed to tear my dress down the back.'

Reached through a representative, Led Zeppelin declined to comment on the incident. Though in Mick Wall’s 2008 Zeppelin bio When Giants Walked the Earth, when asked about Sander’s account by the author, Page replied, 'That’s not a false picture.'

Sander recently took some time to reflect on that traumatic night, which she calls 'the nadir of that whole arc of experience with Sixties rock & roll.'

So, regarding the Zeppelin incident, I only want to discuss it insofar as you’re comfortable with it.

I’m totally comfortable with any aspect of it, so just go ahead. It was a long time ago. I believe I have healed from that, many times over.

The account in the book is fairly brief. Could you set that scene for me and recall what you remember happening?

You know, we’d been on the road together. I’d been at recording sessions in New York and they had a date at the Fillmore. I had a certain timespan on the tour and I wasn’t going to see them again. I saw the show at the Fillmore. It was splendid, and I went backstage to say goodbye and got attacked.

It was [a member of the band’s entourage] and Bonzo and I don’t know who else. I know it wasn’t Jimmy [Page] or John [Paul Jones] because they were in the corner just flapping their heads. It was only an instant. It couldn’t have been more than 20 seconds, or something like that. Then Peter Grant just sprang up from his seat and just picked them up by the cuff and pulled them off me. They came at me from the front, I crossed my arms over myself, and I turned my back, and I had on this dress, that was tied in the back. The top of it was tied in the back, and they just ripped that down, but I still kept the dress up because I had my arms crossed over my front. And there I stood with the back of my dress torn and Peter said, “Why don’t you take my car home?” So we went downstairs in the back, and he put me in his limousine, and I went home, shaking. I don’t know if I was frightened or if I was angry or both, but I was just shaking. I was terrified.

I just never thought that would happen. I knew about the behavior with the groupies ’cause they would talk about it all the time, and I’d see a little bit of it. What I saw, I wrote about. I was kind of like, 'That’s just with them, but I’m different. I’m a reporter. I’ll do my story for Life magazine. I won’t be vulnerable to that.' And I was.

So just to clarify, this was basically in front of a room full of people?

It was backstage, so it wasn’t all that full. It was the band, the road crew and Peter Grant, maybe a couple other people, but those weren’t very big rooms upstairs backstage at the Fillmore East. I just came in to say goodbye. I wasn’t coming in to hang out. I just wanted to say, “Goodbye. It’s been exhausting but wonderful working with you and best of luck, you’re great, thanks, goodbye.” And I was going to go home and start writing — well, I had a bunch of notes. And that was that.

Would you say that it was John Bonham who was the primary aggressor?

No, it was [the member of their entourage]. And then Bonham was right on it, but it was [the other man] who, I think, started it and then as soon as he encouraged it, then Bonham.

I don’t know where [Robert] Plant was, but I saw Jimmy Page and I saw John Paul Jones. And Jimmy Page was just, like, holding his forehead going, “No.” And John Paul Jones just kind of turned his face to the wall, like he always did. He was always apart from them. He was never into their orgies.

And you said the person who broke it up was …?

Peter Grant. And he was a big guy. Really, he could pick up 220-something guys and just lift them up and put them down. So you know, as it turned out, I was never in any real danger, but I didn’t know that.

So the entire Zeppelin road piece was written after that incident? I think you wrote that you took a year off.

Yes. I decided not to write a piece that would promote them. And plus I was having trouble having any emotional distance from it, which I hope is understandable.

Of course.

My editor was very understanding. I just backed off, and I got busy with a lot of other stuff. And then a year later I was looking at it, looking at my notes and going, “You know what? I’m putting this in the book.”

In terms of getting to that point, was it really just a process of time? Or was there some therapy, or other methods?

Yeah, it was time. You know, it’s been, what, 50 years? It was time and also that I knew that it was an anomalous event. Everybody else I ever worked with treated me very well or better.

Overall, your piece is surprisingly sympathetic to the band, in light of what happened.

Well, I mean it didn’t seem like bitterness to the point of focusing the truth elsewhere. I mean, I loved the story more than I loved them. I just took it from the notes, the way it was. Before that happened, I was very sympathetic. Empathetic maybe.

And their music, I still respect and love. The virtuosity of Jimmy Page still amazes me.

Thinking about what’s happened in so many other industries with the MeToo movement, if something like the Zeppelin attack happened today and it came to light, there would be a huge uproar about it. Do you ever wish that that cultural shift had happened earlier?

I don’t think anybody who ever heard from me or read that story, I don’t remember anybody not being upset and outraged about it. And as I say, it was anomalous. … But men with power always took sexual advantage, and all of a sudden, it’s being called into question, and it’s about time.

I mean, my 50-year-old editor at Saturday Review — my agent put it this way — chased me around the desk. And when I told her about it, I was really upset; she laughed. And I felt very betrayed that she laughed. But then, I felt like, OK, nothing bad happened, it’s just something I have to put up with — I want the gig. And he never did it again, and we never talked about it.

#led zeppelin #jimmy page #robert plant #john paul jones #john bonham #bob spitz #pamela des barres #sharon osbourne

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