#masterclass reporting

[petit-papillion]

Not too shabby, I guess, but it's FP1 - which typically means absolute nothing.

Japanese GP Practice Day | 4 April 2025

📸 Scuderia Ferrari

[shasat-uk]

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A): Navigating the Common Challenges Professionals Face

In the dynamic world of business, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have emerged as pivotal strategic maneuvers for companies looking to thrive in fiercely competitive markets. As deal values soar and enterprises strive to expand their market presence, innovative technologies, and product portfolios, staying ahead of the curve has become imperative. Enter Shasat's M&A Masterclass program, a ground-breaking initiative designed to empower professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in M&A scenarios.

This exclusive program, not affiliated with Shasat, delves deep into the essential requisites 1of international accounting standards, encompassing IFRS 10, 11, 12, and IFRS 3, as well as the intricacies of UK GAAP and US GAAP. A profound understanding of these complex financial reporting frameworks is vital for making informed decisions during the M&A process, ensuring compliance, and maximizing value creation.

Participants in this comprehensive M&A Masterclass will embark on a journey through the intricate world of M&A strategies, meticulous due diligence, and critical execution considerations. Valuable insights into value creation beyond the deal itself and the essential factors that can make or break a successful transaction are provided. Immersive case studies and real-world examples equip attendees with the skills, knowledge, and techniques necessary to navigate the pre-M&A landscape, execute deals flawlessly, and seamlessly integrate post-acquisition.

The program is led by seasoned experts with a wealth of M&A experience, providing an unparalleled opportunity to become a master in M&A. Attendees will acquire the expertise needed to craft their organization's growth strategy, identify ideal acquisition targets, and align them with their corporate vision. Seats for this exclusive Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass are limited, so securing a spot early is highly recommended. This is a chance to learn from industry leaders, transform your approach to M&A, and position yourself at the forefront of deal-making success.

Shasat's M&A Masterclass offers a wide range of key features that make it a valuable program for anyone interested in mergers and acquisitions. The program provides a comprehensive exploration of the entire M&A process, from initial identification to due diligence, acquisition, documentation, and integration. Importantly, it takes into account the intricacies of IFRS, UK GAAP, and US GAAP, ensuring participants understand how these accounting standards impact the process.

Participants in the masterclass will also delve into synergy analysis and accounting, learning how to identify and analyze synergies in M&A deals while adhering to accounting standards. This knowledge ensures accurate recognition and measurement of assets, liabilities, and non-controlling interests. Deal structuring and negotiation techniques are covered extensively, with a focus on meeting reporting and disclosure requirements.

Moreover, the program equips attendees with insights into the strategic decision-making involved in M&A, highlighting both advantages and potential pitfalls across different accounting standards. Finally, participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of measurement principles and valuation, including subsequent measurement principles, identification of the acquirer, recognition and measurement of goodwill, deferred consideration, and bargain purchase. Throughout, the program considers the various valuation models applied under IFRS, UK GAAP, and US GAAP.

Here is the schedule of upcoming programs by Shasat. However, we recommend you continue to visit Shasat's website for the most up-to-date program schedules.

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42002 | London: November 20-21, 2023

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42003 | Frankfurt: December 4-5, 2023

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42007 | New York: October 2-3, 2023

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42009 | Sydney: November 10-11, 2023

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42010 | Toronto: December 14-15, 2023

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42011 | Singapore: October 12-13, 2023

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42013 | Dubai: December 29-30, 2023

Mergers & Acquisitions Masterclass | GID 42000 | Online | Available on request For more details and to enrol in the Mergers & Acquisition (M&A) Masterclass, please visit: https://shasat.co.uk/product-category/mergers-acquisition/

Shasat's M&A Masterclass promises to be a game-changer for professionals seeking to excel in the world of mergers and acquisitions, providing them with the knowledge, skills, and insights needed to thrive in today's competitive business landscape. Secure your spot today and embark on a journey to becoming a master in M&A strategy and execution.

[lizardsfromspace]

There was lots of concern about AI and deepfakes spreading misinformation this election cycle, so let's check in on that!

A lot of right-wing accounts are trying to prove that Kamala Harris' crowds are fake - that all the photos of them are generated with AI. We'll get to that, but let's look at the most...amusing example first.

There's lots of people pointing at an image of a crowd that's obviously been generated with AI, due to extra arms and gibberish writing.

So obviously someone generated this image with AI. Who was it and why? Well, we can actually find the origin pretty easily. It was...

A right-wing satire account. Who put "unexcited Kamala Harris crowd" into a AI image generator to make a "wow, crowds are electric!" joke.

An image their own side generated as satire is now being spread by the right as something Harris/Walz created as proof they're doing the thing they're doing. Incredible. Just a masterclass

Now let's look at the dark stuff.

By and large, AI isn't being used for hoaxes. AI is being used as a excuse: people aren't being tricked by AI images, they're being tricked by accusations real images are AI.

So this hoax went around recently...

This image is old. It spread in 2017, it spread in 2020, and now it's spread in 2024. The Harris/Walz rally wasn't even in the Phoenix Convention Center, or in Phoenix. But it's now a core part of the "no one's attending their rallies!" campaign going on now

This may seem strange if you experience the news by non-conservative media, where you can't escape stories of Kamala Harris filling up massive stadiums & of Trump rallies full of empty seats. All evidence in reality points to Kamala Harris being extremely popular and to Trump's campaign faltering.

But in MAGA land, Kamala Harris' crowds were generated with AI.

Their claims: the crowd isn't in the reflection, and uh, the arms look weird. But also that there "aren't any other images".

But? There are? There was a livestream of that very plane landing (starting at 25)!

They're subjecting what they think is The Only Image of this rally in long Youtube videos and on Twitter and TikTok, and just...don't realize there's full, uncut, commentary-free video of it that was broadcast live. So why don't they realize that?

Well, I did a search for this rally on Fox News' website and guess what? They reported it exactly twice: once a interview with her while leaving that slammed her for "not taking press questions" enough, and a few clips of the Palestinian protestors at it, but not many, bc if you don't follow the far right they're trying to frame Kamala Harris as, like, a radical pro-Palestinian (or, as they say, "pro-Hamas") activist who wants to destroy Israel which, uhhhhhhhh

But another thread I found debunking this, by a former Trump-voting evangelical conservative turned critic of the same, gets at the heart of it

People who said AI and deepfakes would be used to mislead the right were missing how misinformation actually works. Fox News et al don't suppress information by confusing the audience with misinformation; they suppress information by never letting them see it in the first place. They know that they have a captive audience who doesn't watch non-right-wing news (unlike the left, who are constantly aware of what's going on over at Fox).

They can just never mention or show Kamala Harris' rallies, or do so only in close-up, and they can frame Trump to only show shots where a crowd has gathered & make it seem like that's the norm, and their audience just has no chance to find out the truth. They're so propagandized that they just accept that there are no other images of that Kamala Harris rally, because, well, they were told there weren't, and would the news personalities they trust really lie to them?

And if any stray bits of reality float into the bubble, well, it was just AI. You know, how they have AI these days? AI's most important role in all this isn't as a vector for misinformation, it's as a rhetorical device for claiming real images and video are misinformation. You don't have to make images full of people with weird hands if you can get people circling real people's hands in red and pointing at it to prove reality was made in a computer.

These people don't know how popular Kamala Harris is. They don't know she's polling eight points higher than Trump. They don't know Harris is leading in right-wing biased polls. They're being told she's hiring actors at rallies, that her crowd photos are generated by AI, that Trump rallies are popular and hers are desolate.

This only likely to increase as we near the election because, well, Trump '24 is a shitshow. His campaign started out less popular than '16 or even '20, he picked maybe the worst VP pick in history, and he hasn't made a single effective attack on Harris/Walz. They were banking on facing Biden, and then on a chaotic open convention, but instead everyone closed ranks around Harris, and she instantly became the most popular Democratic candidate since 2008. We are cruising towards Trump/Vance not only losing, but losing in the closest thing to a landslide that's possible in our current system.

They're already laying the groundwork for, in the likely case of defeat, playing the "she stole the election!" card. Last time it was ad-hoc, because Trump thought he'd win. This time, they're already making "all her rallies are fake, all of her supporters are AI, they've already rigged it against Trump" a key strategy, and, I have to assume, their primary strategy as it gets closer to election day and the polls get worse. They've always lived in a bubble, but now it's a bubble designed explicitly to cause another January 6th. By claiming real photos have weird hands, and must totally be AI

[vettelsvee]

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO + MAX VERSTAPPEN PLS

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO | Max Verstappen

⋆ PAIRING: Max Verstappen x Ex girlfriend actress Female!Reader ⋆ SUMMARY: After breaking up with Max, your boyfriend of three years, you decide to move forward and show people that you weren't the villain of your story ↳ REQUESTED: Yes! Thanks for requesting and hope you like it anon 💖 Part of REPUTATION in MY TORTURED DRIVERS DEPARTMENT ⋆ WARNINGS: Curse words ⋆ WORD COUNT: 2574 ⋆ VEE'S NOTES: Does university have me mentally draining? Yes. Did my doctor tell me to take a break since I'm on lots of medication and I didn't listen? Also yes ✨ Anyways, hope you like this one, and remember that I'd love to read your comments and feedback, and that reblogs are very much appreciated as well! Thank you so much, and enjoy your reading! <3 ↳ TALK TO ME! | FORMULA 1 MASTERLIST | CITY OF STARS F1 AU

© VETTELSVEE (2025). please, do not steal, copy or translate my works. thanks for reading!

The worst part of the breakup wasn’t losing Max.

It was losing yourself.

Despite being a world-renowned actress with a thriving career long before you started dating the Dutchman, the last three years of your life had revolved around him. 

You weren’t just one of the most admired couples in the paddock, you were also Hollywood’s golden pair. The actress and the Formula 1 world champion, unstoppable together. Rumors of weddings and pregnancies swirled around your seemingly perfect (at least in the public eye) love story.

So when everything ended abruptly, without explanation from either of you to everyone, the world needed a villain.

The headlines spoke for themselves:

"Y/N Y/L/N DUMPS MAX VERSTAPPEN AFTER USING HIM FOR FAME" "DID Y/L/N EVER LOVE VERSTAPPEN?" "FORMULA 1’S GOLDEN BOY, BETRAYED"

The comments from people who once admired you were even worse. If the insults were harsh, the death threats were unbearable. Demands flooded in for you to issue a public apology for a “crime” you hadn’t committed, for nothing more than just a breakup that Max himself had initiated to focus on his career, as he told you and excused himself with. Every interview you gave was twisted, your words manipulated. And instead of staying silent, like your words, the press loudly proclaimed that you were the reason Verstappen's performance had declined last season.

Max knew about it all. After all, he’d been asked about it countless times during press conferences. Reporters bombarded him with headlines starring you both, turning your private lives into international gossip. Yet, all he did was smile politely and dismiss the questions as if they were mere inconveniences.

You had expected at least a call from him to find some way to put an end to it all. But when he never reached out, you decided to call him yourself. All you got was a voicemail telling you to try again later. And when you did, again and again, he ended up blocking your number, showing you how things actually were between you both.

You never got an answer. You never found out why he decided to ignore how the world was painting the woman he had supposedly loved.

That’s when you decided to stop waiting for an answer, a real and proper explanation. 

If they wanted a villain, you’d give them one.

You didn’t just delete your social media and vanish from the public eye, you also returned to the industry in full force, accepting a lead role in a film after years of turning projects down just to support Max race after race. A psychological thriller that intrigued you from the moment you read the script, because the character felt too familiar and close. A woman scorned, reborn from the ashes of her own destruction.

“She gave them everything, and now she’ll take it all back.”

That one line was enough to fuel your performance, turning it into a masterclass in acting. Your director praised you endlessly, your co-stars were in awe, and even the producers—one of whom had once been a key sponsor of Max—were captivated. You convinced them to join the project though you weren’t really sure if they ended up doing so out of pity or as a subtle jab at the driver who had severed ties with them at the peak of his career. 

Either way, the message was clear: a middle finger to the boy in a narrative where you were only ever relevant because of him.

Then came your real return to the public eye. Your rebirth.

The docile girl who once stayed quiet, who barely spoke to the press, who even put her acting career on hold. The girl who lived in Max Verstappen’s shadow, was gone.

Your first public appearance, where you began promoting the film that would mark your resurgence, was at the Cannes Film Festival. You walked the red carpet with a confidence you hadn't felt in years, perhaps ever. The camera flashes were relentless, but you smiled because you knew exactly what they had expected to see: a broken, shattered woman.

Instead, your thirst for revenge made sure you left an impression, one so striking that it became the talk of the town for days.

“Y/N Y/L/N: UNBOTHERED QUEEN OR A POISONOUS SNAKE?”

You couldn't help but smirk when you read the article. In fact, you couldn’t resist making it your first Instagram post in that new era.

“Let them talk,” you thought. Because in a few weeks, everything would become even more interesting.

You had known you’d see Max again the moment you received an invitation to a TAG Heuer event as part of your film’s promotion. Your agent had tried to find a way to decline, suggesting excuses convincing enough to avoid the inevitable encounter.

Your answer?

You told her to find the best designer in the industry to create a dress dripping in subtle, unmistakable messages. A dress that would make it clear just how much you had moved on.

And so, in the heart of Monaco, in a lavish mansion hosting the exclusive party, you finally saw him again.

To no one’s surprise, he was wearing the same suit he always chose for events like this. His hair was styled, though slightly tousled because you knew he hated looking too put-together. A champagne flute rested in his hand as he moved through the room, making conversation with the other guests, effortless as ever.

Then, just as he finished speaking with his team principal, Christian Horner, and his wife, he turned.

And his eyes met yours.

415 days.

That’s how long it had been since the last time he looked at you.

You couldn’t lie, it hit you like a punch to the gut. A searing, burning weight in your chest, making it hard to breathe. Especially when he began walking toward you slowly, deliberately.

And when you saw the flicker of emotion in his gaze, when you felt the sting of tears threatening your own eyes, you reminded yourself why you were there.

You thought of every headline they had written about you. The way the media had twisted your story, painted you as something you weren’t. The way your reputation had plummeted overnight, forcing you to rebuild yourself into someone new, someone unbreakable.

Most of all, you thought about the moment Max chose to cut you out of his life completely when all you ever wanted was just an explanation for the breakup.

Just for him to care enough to silence the world that had made your life a living hell.

That was the moment you realized you were ready to see Max again.

He, however, wasn’t ready to see you.

“Y/N. Long time no see.”

He stood in front of you, avoiding your gaze. His voice was rough, uncertain.

“Max,” you murmured, taking a sip of your champagne, ignoring the way his eyes lingered on your lips. “It’s been a while.”

He didn’t answer, and you didn’t bother to say anything else. Instead, you turned toward the balcony just a few steps away, where the view stretched across most of the principality. The city lights shimmered before you, captivating you, reminding you that this place had once been your safe haven, your refuge… The setting of dreams that never became reality, of a life you once envisioned but that crumbled before it could ever be built.

You tensed at the sound of footsteps behind you, but you didn’t turn around.

You knew it was Max. And you also knew you should have left. Should have walked away, let him drown in his guilt, let the weight of regret eat away at him.

But instead, you drank the last sip of champagne, carelessly let the empty glass slip from your fingers, watching as it shattered into tiny shards against the floor, then turned to face him.

“Are you just going to stand there looking at me like I’m the best thing you’ve ever seen in your fucking life, or are you going to say something that makes sense for once?”

He inhaled sharply. You knew you had hit where it hurt the most: his pride.

“Is this what you wanted?” His voice was low, but his frustration was unmistakable. “To play the vengeful ex? To prove something? To prove something to yourself?”

You let his words settle, rolling them over in your mind, searching for a reply that would cut just as deep.

“Prove something? To someone? To myself?” You tilted your head back and let out a hollow laugh. “That’s funny, Max, because I don’t think I’ve ever needed to prove anything to anyone, including you. Tell me, have I ever needed to prove anything to you?”

Yes, that you loved him with everything you had. And where had that gotten you?

“You’ve turned this into a game, into some kind of performance,” he said coldly, his blue eyes cutting into you like daggers.

“If you want to say so…” you smirked, voice laced with mockery, "Honestly, I wouldn't mind being the actress starring in your bad dreams but, between you and I… I think I already am."

A bitter laugh escaped your lips. Max, however, wasn’t laughing. His irritation was growing, his anger simmering beneath the surface, and for the first time, you felt a flicker of unease at the way he was looking at you, clouded with something dark, something dangerous.

“A game? Seriously, Max?” You spoke again, stepping closer, fingers playing with the fabric of his tie. “Tell me, who was the one who started this game? Was it me, when I heard you say you wanted to focus on your career instead of a relationship? Was it your fans, when they decided I was the villain in our story? Was it when they painted me as the ruthless bitch who left you the moment I got the fame I wanted? Or was it when you stayed silent, letting them believe it, knowing damn well it was all a lie?”

Max flinched. He knew you were right, but his pride, his damn pride, kept him from admitting it.

“I never—”

“Oh, cut the bullshit,” you cut him off, turning away before spinning back to face him. “You never defended me. You let them say whatever the hell they wanted. You let them tear me apart while you laughed at their comments, dodged their questions… feeding into the rumors you knew weren’t true.”

“It wasn’t that simple—”

“No, Max, it really was that simple,” you shot back, raising your voice. “It was as simple as telling the truth. Or saying something, anything, really. Even a lie would’ve been better than leaving me to burn the way you did. You let them think I used you, that I never loved you, that I walked away without a second thought.”

“You did walk away, don’t act like you didn’t—”

You froze. You had heard that accusation before, over and over. But the way he said it now, the coldness in his tone, it was what finally made you snap.

“What the hell was I supposed to do, Max? Follow you around like some desperate puppy after you told me you wanted to focus on your career?” you shouted, not caring who might hear. “Stay with you while every headline called me a gold-digging whore? Let strangers tell me and truly believe that, if I had a career, it was only because of you?”

Your breath was coming faster now, your chest tightening with an anxiety you hadn’t felt in a long time, and you didn’t miss.

“Do you even know what it’s like, Max? To have your entire existence reduced to being someone’s girlfriend and the main character of a series of meaningless scandals?”

Max said nothing.

“You never had to explain yourself, Max. Never. If you won races, they praised you. If you lost, they still worshiped you. If you got into fights or disappeared for weeks, you were still Red Bull’s golden boy, still the one everyone adored. But me?” You shook your head, laughing bitterly. “I had to justify my own success… the success I had built long before you and I were ever a thing.”

“I never wanted that for you—”

“And yet, you let it happen.” Your voice softened, a hint of something almost like pity creeping in. “You let them destroy me just to keep yourself clean. I don’t know if it was your idea, your dad’s, or your PR team’s, and honestly, I don’t even care anymore. I don’t wish the same on you, Max, I really don’t… but I do wish you’d had to live through it, even just for a second, so you’d understand.”

“I…”

Max dragged a hand through his hair, restless. His eyes darted around, unable to meet yours, his whole body tense with unspoken words. And despite everything, despite all the pain, you knew one thing for certain: at the end of your reputation, you were truly feeling alive.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he finally admitted. “I didn’t know how to fix it. How to make it stop—”

“That’s the thing, Max,” you murmured, tilting your head. “You never had to fix anything. You just had to stand by me.”

The weight of those words settled between you both, heavy and inescapable.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. You simply stood there, staring at each other, reliving every second, every memory, every moment you once thought would last forever.

Max thought about how much he wanted to go back to those moments. You simply smiled to yourself, knowing you had walked away from the person who had broken every single promise to protect you.

“Did you ever love me?”

The question caught you completely off guard. A lump formed in your throat.

For a moment, you allowed yourself to remember everything…

The way you looked at him, and he at you, as if nothing else in the world existed. 

The way he held you in his arms every night before bed, only to do it again as you both drifted off to sleep.

The way you cupped his face in your hands and kissed him, in front of everyone, after he won a race, a championship, feeling as if the world around you had vanished.

A year ago, even a few months ago, that question would have been easy to answer. But now?

You remembered how lonely you felt when the world turned against you. How Max seemed to disappear from the face of the earth, only to reappear on TV, in Formula 1, no longer as your ex-boyfriend but as a public figure you had once idolized enough to believe you belonged by his side.

“I don’t think that matters anymore.”

You didn’t say anything else. Wrapping your arms around yourself, seeking comfort, reassurance, trying to convince yourself you were doing the right thing.

"Goodbye, Max."

For the first time, as you walked away from Max Verstappen, you didn’t look back.

He felt lost. For the first time, he truly understood that he had lost the love of his life and regretted not doing anything to stop it.

But you? You simply smiled and kept walking, head held high, feeling better than ever because this time, for the first time ever, you had won.

And also, for the first time ever, you weren’t going to apologize for winning.

If you like my content, and would like to support me, you can do it here <3 Thank you so much for reading until the very end! <3

[limonmelon]

One idea which I think is central to IWTV is the idea that becoming a vampire is the antithesis of improvement - stagnation. Your hair can't change length, your body will never grow, and as we know with Claudia, your hormones don't even change and you can be perpetually stuck in puberty.

But I love how this is reflected even in the vampire's art and creations throughout the show. The first song we see Lestat play on the piano is a jazz interpolation of a Bach song, his other song a piece created just to goad Louis back to him. Louis's photographs are derivative, and he has no patience to wait for his shots in order to actually capture the essence of his subjects, even if he has a good eye for art, and he drops photography quickly after one criticism. Claudia, who can't ever mature out of her teenage body, can't even make another vampire. The Théâtre des Vampires is struggling before Claudia becomes their main attraction, but it's not her acting that brings people - as we see her giving half-hearted performances to a crowd that barely seems to notice - but her exploitation. Armand had been a muse and model for other artists while alive, but he has no real motivation to make art, and he runs plays for 50 years until they're tired to a half-empty audience. He can also recognize good art, but he can't seem to make it himself. And they all have a horrible attitude towards criticism of their creations as well, sometimes even getting violent in their rejection of the words of critics or other vampires.

But you know who does create, and improves over time? Daniel. While he may have been terrible at interviewing Louis the first time, which he acknowledges, part of the reason he comes back to interview Louis again is because he knows he can do better. Over time he has become a great journalist and interviewer, winning Pulitzer prizes, writing books, working for major newspapers, even having his own Masterclass. He doesn't stagnate with technology, we see him using his laptop and talking about how his cell phone has become the great equalizer in the world or reporting. Being human has allowed him to grow and change and improve, to learn how to be better.

So I'm really curious to see how the handle Rockstar and Vampire Lestat next season, how his music is created, how in-universe critics are responding to it, etc. especially after this recent glam rock Rocky Horror-esque song has been released. I also wonder if being a vampire has changed how Daniel works as a journalist, especially now that we know his role in the next season will be him interviewing Lestat in this MTV Behind the Music documentary setting.

[volkswagonblues]

a bibliography for us Daniel Malloy freaks

(a loosely pulled-together reading list about print journalism, New York, the 1970s & 80's, and the AIDS Crisis. Most of the credit goes to @islandbetweenrivers who started this)

On Daniel Molloy, California Boy

The show never explicitly states if Daniel went to college, but since college students were exempt from the Vietnam draft, which ended officially in 1973, it could be interesting to imagine Daniel in Berkeley.

Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion

The White Album by Joan Didion

Berkeley Barb archives (link) -- weekly underground newspaper that ran in Berkeley between '65 to '80

The Daily Cal First 150 Years (link) -- student newspaper at Berkeley

On Journalism

Iphigenia in Forest Hills by Janet Malcolm

From her reporter's seat, Malcolm observes that a trial is merely "a contest between competing narratives". (Guardian review)

The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm

“"Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible," wrote Malcolm in an opening sentence that caused a sensation in the tiny, self-referential world of posh American journalism.” (Guardian review)

The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice by Trisha Romano

“The Voice’s origins were proudly amateurish. One early contributor was a homeless man recruited from a local street; equipment consisted of two battered typewriters, an ink-splattering mimeograph machine and a waste paper basket for rejected submissions. Morale spiked when a staff member discovered that dried pods used in fancy flower arrangements contained opium, which was boiled up in the office when the time came for a coffee break.” (Guardian review)

Note: The Village Voice was THE alt-weekly newspaper and it was run out of Greenwich Village in NYC. Lots of incredible writers start there and then move onto the Times, Vanity Fair, etc. Very much the sort of crowd a young Daniel would be mixed in circa 70's and 80's.

The Night of the Gun, by David Carr

David Carr redefines memoir with the revelatory story of his years as an addict and chronicles his journey from crack-house regular to regular columnist for The New York Times. Built on sixty videotaped interviews, legal and medical records, and three years of reporting, The Night of the Gun is a ferocious tale that uses the tools of journalism to fact-check the past. (amazing rec from @archive-z)

Note: imagine if Daniel did this and then fact-checked his way into remembering that vampires existed

Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe

Keefe can paint complicated portraits of victims and vigilantes alike while covering their lonely pursuit of justice. He intuits why a Dutch woman who has exposed the crimes of her gangster brother might lie about her present whereabouts. He understands why a man who lost his brother in an aeroplane bombing might spend the rest of his life trying to find the culprit. Again and again, Keefe surmises that even the most detailed of investigations can only speculate about human motives. (Guardian review)

Note: the sort of deeply human longform profiles that feels like the sort of writing Daniel does, based on his masterclass clip and what he reveals in his interactions with Louis

On New York, New York (in the 70s)

Notes from Underground, by Eric Bogosian + Perforated Heart, by Eric Bogosian

In four billion years the sun will explode. But before that we'll run out of fresh water and before that we'll all die of some mutation of AIDS that's spread by coughing. It's not my fault anyway. I can't think about this any more today. I'm going to masturbate.

Note: The OG. What else is there to say.

Ladies and Gentleman, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City by Jonathan Mahler

In the long sweep of American history, of course, 1977 is not exactly 1865, 1941, 1968 or 2001. Yet from porn shops to gay bathhouses, from Yankee Stadium to City Hall, from the blackout to Son of Sam, from Rupert Murdoch's New York Post to the rise of SoHo and Studio 54, the city was living through what Mahler convincingly calls "a transformative moment . . . a time of decay but of rehabilitation as well.” (New York Times review)

Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina, by Chris Franz (2020)

Frantz’s account of the early days, when the Heads lived in the pre-gentrified Lower East Side of New York, an almost literal war zone. While searching for a loft to live in, they viewed one building that was on fire. One spring afternoon, Frantz walked over to the now-legendary club CBGB to ask for a gig. The place smelt of “beer, roach spray, dog doo [the owner, Hilly Kristal, had a free-roaming saluki] and Chanel No 5”.

Winter’s Journal, by Paul Auster

Note: To me, Auster is one of the closest real-life Daniel Malloy analogues: born around 1950, literary career in NYC, moved to Paris in the 1970s for a few years, troubled middle-class background. Novelist though, not a journalist. There’s an anecdote in this book about a car crash that feels like a deadass Devil’s Minion fever dream. Crazy stuff. One of my personal favourites

On the AIDS Crisis

And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts

The book chronicles the discovery and spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) with a special emphasis on government indifference and political infighting—specifically in the United States—to what was then perceived as a specifically gay disease

The Journalist of Castro Street: The Life of Randy Shilts, by Andrew E. Stoner

Biography of Randy Shilts that’s very helpful for imagining Daniel in the early 1980s newsrooms covering Karposi’s sarcoma

How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France (2017)

It’s not easy to balance solid journalism with intimate understanding of a subject, and even harder to write eloquently about a disease that’s killing your friends and loved ones. France pulls it off, in his own words (his description of finding a college roommate’s panel in the AIDS Memorial Quilt is heartbreaking) and in letting his articulate sources speak for themselves. (SF Gate review)

Timeline of AIDS (link)

Overview of HIV (link)

And some films, just for fun

The Panic in Needle Park (1971): Drama film directed by Jerry Schatzberg. Al Pacino is a heroin addict and small-time dealer in Manhattan who falls in love with another addict.

Serpico (1973): biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. Al Pacino is a hippie cop (yes, I know, its part of the plot) with one foot in the 1970s bohemian art scene

American Graffiti (1973): teen movie set in 1973 Modesto ("I'm just a shitty kid from Modesto"--Danny Malloy)

The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974): More grimy 1970s NYC stuff

All the President’s Men (1976): THE ABSOLUTE JOURNALISM MOVIE??

Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

Cruising (1980): 1980 crime thriller written and directed by William Friedkin. Al Pacino is a cop (again) but this time he goes undercover in NYC gay leather clubs

Almost Famous (2000): Set in 1973, it chronicles the funny and often poignant coming of age of 15-year-old William, an unabashed music fan who gets the chance to write for Rolling Stone

Spotlight (2015): More journalism movies! The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese

everyone say thank you to @islandbetweenrivers for starting this, I just polished up our google docs and posted it on tumblr.

Also if anyone has something to add please let me know!

[the-quiet-youve-been-longing-for]

I love Danlou, but there is something rattling my brain for a while, and that is the delicious gothic concept of meaning well, but those consequences backfiring in the future and ruining someone in some aspects.

We know Louis gave Daniel that lifeline, that "You're a bright young reporter with a point of view", something Daniel quotes in his book, his masterclass and to Real Rashid like a mantra, to avoid him spiraling again and self destroying. We know Daniel didn't stop being an addict after that night, that he got "his shit together" later on, when he decided to get married.

And the fault of "you're a bright young reporter, there are stories that need to be told" is that Louis knew Daniel since 10 hours that night. What if journalism was a passing fancy for Daniel, would Louis even know that? He didn't care to go deep into his mind about it, I feel. He mostly talked about himself, and then he decided to go the rooftop. Maybe Daniel could have decided to stop journalism and take up volleyballing, I don't know. Or maybe without those words, he could have crashed and burned.

Daniel most likely put in jeopardy some aspects of his life, his wives, his children, for that lifeline that was fed to him by a vampire who wanted to save him in some way. Louis didn't know exactly what to do apart from just pulling the emergency brakes.

What if he heard "There are stories that need to be told" when too overwhelmed by his personal life and deadlines and things to do and the pangs of his addiction, convincing him to put his work as the priority?

What breaks my heart when Daniel starts crying at the "I was never so lost I couldn't hold down a job" is that its in part relief, sure, because he got to his age and he had accomplishments and surely those words play a part.

But there is also a part of... Regret? Of thinking how it would have gone differently if this hadn't happened, just like Louis's what ifs in the stone rock coffin? Would he still be with his wife, his children? Would he have died much sooner, would he have done something different?

Personally I think it's criminal if this aspect isn't explored more in the future, because with a single emotion and a single line Eric Bogosian showed all of this, in my opinion.

[youledmehere]

THE ONES WHO LIVE EPISODE FOUR: WHAT WE

[WRITTEN BY DANAI GURIRA]

-> Vulture: After some tedious lies and deceptions, in Michonne’s words, they needed a time-out. That’s exactly what they get in one of the best stand-alone episodes in all of The Walking Dead. (…) It’s like watching a two-person play, which makes sense, as the episode’s writer, Danai Gurira (Michonne herself), is an acclaimed and Tony-nominated playwright (…..) “What We” is not a bottle episode. Multiple sets in a single location, two characters with an internal conflict, and the special-effects budget make it a “Suitcase” episode. Editors Rating: 5 stars

Bloody-Disgusting: Andrew Lincoln once again showcases a masterclass of acting as Grimes cycles through his damaged psyche, desperately trying to figure out how to connect with Michonne. Gurira matches Lincoln’s emotional performance, evoking Michonne’s desperation and anger with authenticity. Letting Gurira take over writing duties for this specific episode proved extremely beneficial given the emotional legwork the character trudges through in this particular installment. If there’s anyone who can understand Michonne the best, it’s Danai Gurira.

The Hollywood Reporter: As the writer of the episode, Gurira felt she clearly understood Michonne’s arc, but she wanted to make sure her co-star and fellow executive producer Lincoln had enough meat to sink his teeth into, as well. “You want to give an actor like him everything you can,” she says. “Andy’s such a fantastic actor who throws everything into it. I was keen to give him that workout.” Lincoln added to THR, “It was thrilling to do all of this with friends, but Danai had one heck of a role as well as showrunning the fourth episode as an added responsibility. I thought the work she did on that was an astonishing testament to her skills, especially because apparently she only needs two hours a day to sleep.”

Den of Geek: To call it a bottle episode is dismissive. Certainly, there’s one major setting, and most of the episode contains little in the way of special effects (by the standards of the average Walking Dead Televisual Universe show). However, most bottle episodes aren’t this interesting, or this gripping. “What We” feels like The Walking Dead taking a stab at doing a spinoff of the Richard Linklater Before trilogy, not wallowing in the usual zombie action or soap opera frippery. It’s almost certainly going to be polarizing, but it’s one of the most captivating, emotionally-deep episodes of television from this universe, and it’s all down to the powerhouse that is Danai Gurira.

SpoilerTV: “What We” is a captivating exploration of love’s transformative force. Rick and Michonne shed their pretenses, abandoning deceit to forge a profound reconnection. Andrew Lincoln’s performance brilliantly resurrects Rick from the abyss of a living man who is dead inside, courtesy of Danai’s masterful writing.

Bleeding Cool: But it’s Gurira pulling double duty that deserves all of the attention and tons of praise. Proving that she knows this couple and their dynamic better than anyone, Gurira presented us with what felt like a real couple going through the problems with real reactions- even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. I know that reviews can sometimes go to the extremes-positive or negative- but in the case of “What We”, we have an easy contender for one of the best single episodes of the franchises run.

[bradshawed]

NEWTON'S LAWS, Chapter 5

main & series masterlist !

introducing... the lion and his lioness prey pairing: f1!raphael cameron & reporter!reader

An apple fell from a tree and well... you know the rest. Much like Newton's apple, you fell right in his path, the lion's path, and he deemed you his prey. Silly boy. That was his first mistake.

A tale as old as time, Newton & his gravity, faceclaim: HoYeon Jung & various pinterest girls

warnings! fem!reader, use of y/n, mentions of w*rd, f1 terminology

chapter 4, chapter 5...

John B. Routledge just clinches the victory from Rafe Cameron at the Chinese Grand Prix as Cameron storms from P17 on the grid to take P2 ahead of unexpected podium finisher Pierre Gasly.

Rafe Cameron delivered on of the all-time great wet weather drives in the Chinese Grand Prix, going from P17 on the grid to a podium finish, stamping his presence in the title race.

Cameron had been left frustrated after Sunday morning's delayed qualifying session, when a crash for Lance Stroll and subsequent red flag saw him drop out of Q2 along with team mate Cleo Anderson - with Cameron starting a penalised P17 after a five-place grid drop for fitting a new internal combustion engine.

READ MORE: Verstappen P2 at Chinese Grand Prix after stunning recovery from P17 as Alpine score shock podium

But a determined Cameron then overcame a tumultuous and rain-affected Chinese Grand Prix, climbing to P11 on the very first lap before making his way all the way up to P2 behind Ferrari's John B. Routledge when the race was red-flagged on Lap 26 of 56 after Franco Colapinto crashed his Williams - Cameron then handed a free first pit stop by the stoppage.

Routledge then nailed the rolling restart when racing resumed, managing to keep Cameron following the subsequent Lap 43 restart following a Safety Car intervention for Topper Thornton's retirement - Routledge going on to open a gap over Cameron in the remaining laps after a wet weather performance for the ages.

DRIVER OF THE DAY: A Cameron masterclass earns your vote in China

1. John B. Routledge (Ferrari), 2. Rafe Cameron (Red Bull), 3. Pierre Gasly (Alpine)

TRACK INTERVIEWS (Conducted by y/n)

...

Q: Rafe what an incredible race. Yesterday, did you have any thoughts that you might finish on the podium today, with the weather, or it was tough? It was a tough weekend.

Rafe CAMERON: Yeah, I mean, my emotions today have been... a roller coaster, you know, with qualifying being really unlucky with that red flag. You know, starting P17, I knew that it was going to be a very tough race, but we stayed out of trouble. We made the right calls. We stayed calm. And we were flying. So all of these things together, of course, made that result possible. But I mean, we could have done better to win here.

Q: I need to ask you. The first corner, when you went to the inside, you saw there was a lot of grip. And then you started to use that a lot. The overtaking looked fantastic from the outside. Did you know there was a little bit more grip in the inside because you kept on doing fastest laps and using that line?

RC: Yeah, I mean, it's very hard to pass around here with the new tarmac. There’s only one line that you can take. But, yeah, I just knew that I had to go for it. It's, of course, always easy to front lock, just trying to balance that out. And I had confidence on the brakes as well. That helps. And, yeah, Turn 1 is always a great corner to pass.

Q: It was 17 fastest laps, so well done, Rafe. Thank you. You made the crowd stand up all the way.

RC: It wasn't my best performance but I hope they enjoyed it. You don't need to pretend to know a lot about racing, I know what you really want to ask about so go ahead and get it over and done with.

Q: I've got everything I need, thank you. Pierre, it's good to see you. It was nice to see you before the race. Did you look like it could have been on the podium since that moment?

...

If you would like to be added to the taglist, please let me know. And, if you want to remain tagged, you must interact with the posts (credits to Zya).

taglist for f=ma, @dearapril @edwardslvrr @zya8tracks @potatodirectioner @poppysrin @a-beaverhausen @judesgfirl @pogueprincesa @chalametfan

note! credits to zya for her layout xx twitter graphic ft. @judesgfirl and @pogueprincesa! thoughts on rafe? is he under pressure or just an ass?

if there are any f1 girlies which race does this remind u of?

[storkmuffin]

The Mastication Torture Wooyoung Live

Masterclass in Korean Language Nuance,

Masculinity Edition

Liveblogging this Wooyoung Pop because I saw many iterations of the 2 sentence moment where he said he would not be doing that singer's dance challenge, edited with lighting and scary sound effects and spliced with dancing footage providing explanation and so forth. It had the Man About to Break a Bottle To Use As Weapon tone as when he was telling off that stalker that somehow had his actual phone number, so I decided to investigate, and what I got instead was something quite different.

Here goes!

We open with barefaced Wooyoung looking very angular and cute in a black hoodie. I love how he's growing into the bones of his face. He smiles and waves. Ahh the smile. He says he just got to Tokyo, has eaten and washed. It comes out like a recitation of facts.

Having watched a significant number of these now I am aware that the adoring fans really don't always have something meaningful to say, but want to talk, so end up asking Did You Eat, What Did You Eat, Did You Wash, which then the Idol (rather desperately?) ends up trying to circumvent by submitting this almost militaristic situation report on his hygiene and nutrition so he doesn't have to answer the same mind numbing questions every time he does a live broadcast.

He gets up immediately, saying, Wait, but so the Atiny aren't bored, he makes musical mouth noises as he wanders around doing whatever it is, invisible. He returns with a favorite Japanese snack. He angrily rips open the cover. Playing at being 정우역정 which is the fun punny name the 영부인 (Korean Wommys) have given him. (역정 내다 is to have an angry outburst, so they wove that into his name 정우영 by changing the last 영 into 역 to complete the pun. 영부인 are so so clever. I stan the 영부인 collective.) He says he's going to talk a bit while he eats the pudding, and then he'll go to sleep.

Pudding and castella. Ooh, all the Japanese goodies. Yummm. He visibly cheers up with the sugar intake. Someone suggests he needs milk, which he doesn't have, so he says yogurt is made of milk and it's all the same when it's mixed up in his stomach.

Wooyoung is a noisy eater. chomp chomp chomp. He says he doesn't like sweets, particularly chocolate, but he likes this sort of thing - pudding and castella. Immediately with the provocation, his fans ask if he's spilled droplets of pudding, which he denies. He asks about baseball results, which he couldn't watch because of the Fan Meeting in Japan.

He says he watched content on Insta that identified the winning baseball team per the debut year of various idol groups. He mentions Itzy and Riize and I'm so proud to know some of these names because this time last year I would've had no idea. So for his team, whatever it is, Hanhwa maybe? The chat guesses the band was 서태지와 아이들. That's a really ANCIENT band omg lol. That's pre-kpop Korean popular music.

So Wooyoung goes, That's accurate, but actually you're trying to insult me in a roundabout way (돌려까는 거 같은데...)(basically by pointing out that his team hasn't won the... whatever in decades). I'm very sorry for this mumbling about sports- I know nothing about sports on purpose. A young person on the chat goes, Who the heck are 서태지와 아이들? and he goes DON'T SAY THAT, IT IS THEM! And he interrogates the person who 'guessed' - You knew the answer didn't you! The last time his team won the whatever was in 1991 (!!!).

FYI, YG of the company YG founder, that YG, he was a member of the 아이들 of 서태지와 아이들. That's how long ago this band was active.

He keeps eating, and I'm listening to this on earbuds and it's really really grating. I must truly love Wooyoung because he is masticating right into my ears, loudly, on purpose and I'm letting it happen without reaching through the phone and through space time to smack him. I despise and I'm hypersensitive to the sounds of chewing and yet here he is doing it extra loud on purpose (Nyamm chomp chomp) and I'm still fond.

So there is chat about baseball as he munches his castella. He gets to the last bite and hollers something in Japanese. He references some sort of meme involving a toddler trying to give a massage to an adult, double fisted, while asking if it feels good. He really likes babies. That viral content of him being an adoring (and quite competent!) caretaker of little girls must be actually real. He loves babies.

He does an impression of this child a couple times as the chat tries to figure out which variety or reality show this meme and the baby are from. Woo doesn't much care which show, he only cares that it's cute.

He just keeps doing impressions of this toddler. Is there a part of his fandom that notices how Adoring Father Coded Wooyoung Jung is?

And now he's sucking the sugar off his thumb because he has no napkins or wipes. Smack smack. This is torture.

He goes off camera.

When he gets back, someone who is my orientation asks him if he went to wash his hands, apparently, because he smiles and says he didn't, and instead brought back a new snack. This is the 단짠 snacking method - follow up a sweet flavor with a savory /salty one. He asks what people what they think of an Idol who shows himself gnawing on squid legs. He's a 7th Year Idol, soon to be 8th! He can do it now because of this seniority, right? Right?

Sidebar: There are 'seemly' foods and 'unseemly' foods, which exists in any culture, so I wanted to make it clear aobut what he's eating in this video: Squid/ octopus legs are an unseemly food. You would only have these in a situation where you both somewhat intimate with the people (so, more personal friends, not so much coworkers) and in environments where you can let it all hang out (your own living room, maybe a dive bar, definitely not the office or classroom or a nice cafe or restaurant).

Wommys, because they are how they are, suggest that he eat it with beer, which he flatly refuses. "I'll get in trouble if I drink beer on a live," he says, not making eye contact.

The Handwash Atiny, my sister in manners, apparently keeps asking him about the sugar-covered fingers he must have from eating the castella . He says, "I don't wash my hands when they get sticky. I go in search for something with a different kind of stickiness." And then laughs like he obnoxious younger brother he is.

Oh now he's gnawing in earnest. gnaw gnaw gnaw

Atiny ask him about what he's wearing, and he says the pants he has on are not the same as the Fan Sign meeting, but the pants at the airport were. They ask about his hair. He says the hair looks brown because the hair dye has faded. Chew chew chew. He says he's taken off his make up. He keeps gnawing the legs, and then repeats the imitation of the baby giving an adult a back massage. Someone wanted an encore, he says. He explains "Igloo" was not rehearsed - he 'got' the choreo and put it up right away. Gnaw gnaw chew chew. He says there's going to be a concert tomorrow.

Then at 14:09 comes the now (in?)famous moment:

아 라이크 제니는 하지 않습니다. 당신은 에이티니가 아니신가요.

Death glare.

Clear and well researched explications for why he said this and what he meant are available from more knowledgeable people elsewhere.

I was very interested in how he said a very polite seeming sentence in transcript (않습니다, 아니신가요) in an effectively threatening way. Pronunciation on the 아니신가요 was off, just a touch, just a little bit stanky, to sound more like 아이싱가여? accompanied by very belligerent jaw motions. But the transcript is immaculate. All he said was he is not going to do that dance, and he wanted to know if the asker was not actually an Atiny. Nicely done. I LOVE him.

The reason he answered with such chilling finality is demonstrated later on in this same chat (not what he said, but the finality of it) - There's someone who plasters the chat with her one (unrelated) question later. This goes to show that the Lives and Fromm and various fan communications he has to do can mean that he will get potentially thousands of people at a time asking him the exact same question literally tens of thousands of times.

This way, he made it clear This is Not the Place, I Am Not The One and he also made the consequences clear: Wooyoung Will Not Consider You A Fan If You Bring This Up Ever Again. Moreover, he is in a way protecting his teammates from having to deal with being asked about doing the Like Jennie dance.

Mingi, who is also no slouch in the Let You Have It department, which is one of the things I like about him, has also said, flatly, "The issue of plagiarism, the word plagiarism, is a very sensitive one for Ateez" in response to someone using the word as a joke.

He's also imposing a Korean adult social norm, and specifically a Korean male social norm, on what I assume is his mostly international, mostly very young, mostly female audience. Korea is a high-context society, and Korean is a high context language. Lots of things are up to you to know already. If you're not sure what the context is, if you don't know what's going on, you need to approach with great caution. Tread carefully, or you will be smacked. You owe other people due consideration. You must not be an annoyance and impose your ignorance and stupidity on other people. Or you will be smacked. Men tend to be a little bit more violent, a touch harsher, about this than women, but that's just a matter fof degree and gendered communication, and it varies with age. Old ladies will straight up start shouting if you overstep and call you names.

What's interesting is the ways that Wooyoung does a marvelous thing of push-pulling at his specific fandom by using grammar and the intimacy possible with that grammar. Transcripts of the various levels of 존댓말 and 반말 that Wooyoung mixes and weaves during his Lives would be a master class in this aspect of Korean as a language.

Anyway, that moment is gone in a second, and his mood recovers immediately. Instantly. This is why it's kind of important to go back to the source for whatever it is and look at the whole thing. He says nope, and you're a dumbass for asking, smacks the questioner, then moves on right away and never mentions or talks or even thinks about them again. That context was important to me.

But.

The spectacle of watching him eat this squid snack starts to get to me. I'm watching him toss more octopus into his mouth, gnaw gnaw, rub away residue on his fingers (me and the Hygiene Atiny who watched this Live, both going GET A NAPKIN and suffering invisibly, like ghosts), combs his hair with the same sugar-octopus fingers. Gnaw gnaw chew chew.

영부인 come through with another pun. They're so smart. They accuse him of cud-chewing gum, and he shoots back, it's not cud-chewing gum, it's cud-chewing squid. (껌질겅 아니야. 오징어 질겅). Then he starts giggling, because the implication was that it was getting on the viewer's nerves, this chewing. He says, 미안하다.

Ah, the masculinity of that utterance. Not 미안해요. Not 죄송합니다. Not 미안 nor 미안해. 미안.하.다.

Then the 영부인 switch it up and make a pun by switching the 질 of 질겅 into 즐 (similar but distinctly different sound)and then making it 즐겅 (즐거워 is the correct form, and they just bent it to rhyme with 질겅 resulting in 즐겅 which is not a word, but a Wommy neologism and pun).

Wooyoung appreciates this, acknowledging with praise that the Wommy are 'a level above him' (역시 나보다 한 수 더 가는구나!) and does a little dance. He apologizes to someone named  Yeonjun, who must have some sort fo song to do with either gum chewing or feeling joyful enjoyment. He says, Yeonjun is probably in New York. "Yes I was making fun of him. He's my friend. I am teasing my own friend. What?" ("놀린거 맞아요. 제 친구 제가 놀리는데 왜요.")

I think the number of Atiny who cannot stand the chewing is getting to some sort of critical mass, because Wooyoung starts to insist that he is not drunk and he is not drinking, and asking "Do I seem drunk?" and in between all these utterances is chew chew chew chew sounds right into my ear. He says he's not red, the light is reddish, giving face that color. chew chew chew.

And that's actually valid, because we saw him drinking and he didn't get red. Asian Red, by the way, means that the person is actually allergic to alcohol and cannot digest it at all, and therefore should not drink it. Wooyoung didn't seem to get red during that Wanteez episode where they were really drinking.

Referring back to the other famous content where he looked like Smartie Smurf, he says, "This is better than blue point lighting, isn't it?"

And then! UGHHGHGH He lays a length of octopus leg sideways in his mouth and chomps down on it like an actual animal while making direct eye contact with the camera.

He knows the girls hate this aaaaaaa. I am girls. He now has squid all over his faaaaaace.

The Atiny start to run with it, since he's doing that with the squid. He starts to object. Why would I put the squid pieces in my earrings?? he hollers, looking delighted. Don't say things like that. It makes me really wanna do it. Nooooo.

He's sprinkling dried squid residue on the table by rubbing his fingertips together. He says,

난 여러분은 그거 지켜주고 싶어. 이미 깨졌을수도 모르겠지만.

I want to safeguard that for you all. Even though I guess it might already have been destroyed.

The "that" he wants to safeguard for us is our fantasy of the perfect Idol Oppa - beautiful, well mannered, wild on stage and sweet and kind irl.

The 영부인 are not having it. They suggest he shove the squid pieces up his nose. Wooyoung objects loudly again.

"I'm an Idol! I'm not some neighborhood loser!"

He's insisting on this 'Idol Identity" while in a tracksuit while chewing noisily on squid, which is the prototypical 동네 오빠 thing to do.

I am an idol! insists Wooyoung, following up that statement with chew chew chew.

The Atiny are letting it all hang out. Doesn't your jaw hurt?? they ask him. He says no, not at all, but he's really verbose about it: No, it doesn't hurt. But if you say it like that, I feel like my jaw SHOULD hurt. Uh oh? It's a little painful? Nah, it's not painful at all.

CHEW CHEW CHEW CHEW

We're at 19 minutes, and I don't know if i can stand 14 more minutes of this chewing.

Wooyoung says he got the snack at 7/11, and it's 120 calories. The Atiny tell him it's probably 120 calories per piece, which then makes him read the back of the package carefully at the nutritional data. He says, "Why are you giving me a hard time? I was enjoying myself." chew chew chew chew. He changes the topic. " "It's so salty!" he cries, making the face of salty suffering. chew chew chew

He mentions that recently, he talked about Soobin on a Fromm chat, and that Subin texted him on kakaotalk immediately. 귀신같이 카톡 오더라. Unbelievable! (어이가 없어가지고).

Wooyoung is immensely pleased. He says something interesting:

맨날 여상이만 졸졸 따라다니던 애들이 갑자기 나한테 꽂혀가지고. 이 자식.

These kids that used to constantly trail after Yeosang are all suddenly fixated on me! Jackass (affectionate).

The main characteristic of Ateez members, the one thing every single one of the has in common, is competitiveness.

The Atiny now change topic, and use an old Live chestnut of telling Wooyoung that the lens looks foggy or dirty. Wooyoung scoffs.

"I know there's nothing on the lens! Do you just want to see me closer up? Eh? You think you can say that to an eighth year Idol and get me to wipe the lens? Here, lemme wipe it with a piece of squid."

Then he giggles, and comes closer to the lens. Oh he's so good at this whole Live thing. Say no, say no in a lot of words, and then do it anyway. Give the people what they want. Oh he's so handsome. So pretty, so handsome, such a pleasure to look at this face! Killer eyes in a pretty face. Love him. Enduring all the chewing noises was worth it.

Then, he claps his hands, which means he's spraying octopus particulate all over his room and his clothes. I don't even care. His lips are a shade between orange and pink. I am hypnotized by the face.

영부인/wommys are nothing if not enterprising opportunists (admiring), and since he seems to be in an accomodating mood, they go for it. They ask to be called 자기 (baby/ honey). He smacks that down too. "Greed needs to have limits" (욕심이 과하면 안돼).

The me-coded Atiny, probably the one that asked if he'd washed his hands, asks, "How long are you going to eat the squid on this Live?" and Wooyoung shoots back: "Why? Should I stop?" They ask him, passive aggressively I assume, if he's been drinking. He protests that he hasn't been drinking!! But the King of Give and Take says, I suppose the lighting in here can give that impression. As an explanatory note he adds, "They keep asking if I've been drinking!"

Me: Goddamn this boy is haaaandsommmmmme.

Wooyoung keeps insisting that the lighting in this particular room is a bit reddish. Like a butcher's shop?? someone asks. (Korean butchers use red lighting inside the shop FYI). Playfully, Wooyoung starts messing around with lights and filters. Chew chew chew is back. He finds one that he likes enough to go oooh at himself and lean back. Wommy immediately tell him it's no good. LOL They are so merciless. Wooyoung wants to look pretty, so he immediately fixes it and we go from beige to black and white to taupe and blurry before he settles on a final filter.

Annnd we're back to CHEW CHEW CHEW. Seriously. This is very 현타 (reality check) inducing. I hate the sounds of chewing. I actively want to hurt people who eat noisily around me. So what am I doing with my life right now? Why am i watching squid body parts disappear into this boy's mouth?!?

Wooyoung, sounding very put upon but also amused, tells someone, "Yes this is a couple-look I'm wearing with Maddox-Hyung!" He continues, "If I don't answer that one I feel like you're going to ask me for twenty years!" This part, when he's addressing someone he doesn't claim as a Wommy, he speaks in 존댓말 :

"답 안 해 드리면 계속 물어보시네 [redacted] 대답해 드려야지. [redacted] 그렇게 도배를 하시면 [redacted] 맞습니다."

The nuance doesn't come through in English translation no matter how I try: The question keeps getting repeated when I don't answer! I must answer. If they just plaster the chat with this question! Yes, you are correct!

When he's addressing his actual people, his 영부인, his real buddies, he drops into 반말. "매독스랑 커플룩임 한 20번 본사람?? 와 진짜 계속 보여! ... 와 장난 안치고 한 20번 물어보신거 같아!"

Does anyone else see that question being repeated 20 times?? Wow, it's just non stop! Seriously! I think they asked like, 20 times!

Possibly to push the Maddox-Couple-Look questioner off the page, the Wommys come back in force as Wooyoung chew chew chews to ask to be called 자기.

He relents. "자기! 자기!" he says, then he sucks on his fingers. OH MY GOD GET SOME GODDAMN WIPES (Storkmuffin). "Why are you like this? [Sounds of exasperation: 아유~ 진짜. 아유...그냥. 아유~]."

He's so adorable, making these ajumma sounds with his hipster face.

Wooyoung starts singing a very old Trot song, "내 나이가 어때서" I love this about him and San. They just burst into song, and the songs they burst into are such a wide range - Broadway songs, movie musicals, pansori, trot.

And now he's brushing his teeth. Great. Oh great. More mouth sounds. He talks around the toothbrush. He says, "Don't go! I'm going to go to sleep soon. Don't go!" brush brush. 가지마! shicka chiska chika chookchoochook. I'm losing my mind again omg.

He isn't short to me (because to me I'm the right size and it's everyone else who is too tall, all right??) but he's short person coded, because he folds his legs to sit cross legged on an armchair. He puts up a hood and keeps brushing his teeth. I'm seriously reconsidering every choice I've ever made in my life again. Why am I here?

He knows this because he says, "2,466 people are watching me brush my teeth. Wow. I'm successful. Wow." Me: I wasn't even in this original group, so it's going to be a lot more than that, you beautiful little shit. He keeps saying WOW, in English, as he brushes and his mouth is filling with foam.

Seriously. He is sucessful and powerful because I've been in love more than once, in a way that I thought I would die without that person, and yet I've never sat and watched any of them BRUSH THEIR FUCKING TEETH. Kpop is a fucking cult and my brain has been pureed.

He leaves the screen, mercifully.

Save me Japanese hotel painting bird, save me.

He's back, applying lip balm.

Someone wants to see HIM FLOSSING (I started getting ready to scream) and he goes, You think I'd show myself flossing? sounding appalled. Thank you, oh merciful Wooyoung. Misericordia.

In answer to a qustion, Wooyoung gives something to the girlies: No, I sleep with nothing on. I haven't brought my pajamas. I forgot.

Translation note: In Korean what he said was 다 벗고 자는데요 which literally translates with I sleep with everything taken off but in order for it to sound more natural in English you have to go in the opposite direction, and say Sleep With Nothing On. There are so many pieces like this, where our expressions are the exact opposite of what's used in English.

He's clacking his teeth together now. Why. Why did you do that?

He uses Nivea lipbalm, he reveals, before saying he's going to go now. Wooung starts faking nodding off. "Sleep well," he says. He puts up his hoodie. He announces his age and Idol rank like he's reporting to the military. He cinches the hoodie really tight over hies head, then he says, 혹시 이 선물을 풀어줄 사람이 있나? Does anyone want to unwrap this gift?

Groan horror terror - Why are you making Dad Jokes like this, soon-to-be 26- Rising-8th -Year Idol Wooyoung??

Immediately, he apologizes. Wooyoung says things to Minnaaa and i assume good night and sleep well etc in Japanese.

The unflagging Wommys ask him for kisses.

He refuses, but charmingly. (무슨 뽀뽀야! 땡!)

Korean Idols are so drilled on correct behavior expected of Idols that we make jokes about how they have this secondary Idol 'consciousness.' The thing is he has done so much in this chat that is against all of that - the noisy chewing, eating dried squid, smacking the asker of the Jennie question, brushing his teeth - that his Idol Consciousness is starting to poke at him, I think, with rather a sharp stick.

"I'm a pro Idol!" he says.

Then he does a silly little trick of using the hole punched into the top of the package of dried squid for ease of hanging and display at 7/11 to create a 'sniper perspective' of his face. I'm reminded that he likes taking photographs with expensive analog cameras. This is so fun and creative, but he also does really seem drunk.

He ends the Live with, Love you! Gonna sleep now! I have no more battery! Cut!

[angrybubbles]

Conflict Theory for s3

Any establishing scene is going to be fundamentally important for the story, and the establishing scene for IwtV is Daniel Molloy's Masterclass. This gives us an incredible introduction to a pivotal character and their goals for the story, as well as their life outside of the conflict of the interview.

However, there's one particular moment that hasn't had any payoff in the first two seasons.

The phone. The device that makes Daniel's job as a reporter nearly replaceable.

Considering Journalism is more than just recording a thing that has happened, this is insight to how Daniel perceives records and how they connect to journalism (considering his specialty is Investigative, that is some very interesting set-up for the Talamasca).

Armand mentions that vampires are able to kill people on live television, and we are so distracted we don't notice. However, people also don't know to look.

Whether or not Daniel's book is taken as fact or fiction, people will start thinking about Vampires. And when you start thinking about it, you are more likely to notice. And people love recording random shit. This is why Daniel's book is dangerous, and those clips in Mayfair Witches are important. Daniel's book is a threat to the balance of how a normal person may go about their life without regard for the supernatural, and why Armand may have more issues with the book being published than just the threat on Louis' life.

So I expect the Talamasca and S3 to address this detail. We're about to get some interesting dialogue about surveillance.

(Also, Daniel's previous book that didn't do well before the Masterclass was The Internet's Gavel about Human Trafficking and Crypto... No wonder he had ethical issues with these vampires)

[gayofthefae]

Oh also I got Masterclass for Christmas so I'm gonna (at some point) watch The Duffer's lessons on how they write scripts, apply them to the show, and report back

[lizardsfromspace]

Dubious roller coaster accident stories are a great example of the media fearmongering about objectively small numbers, bc they all cite the stats that 1,200 people A YEAR are injured at theme parks. Isn't that scary? Omg, 1,200 is so many!

Anyway over 100 million people went to theme parks in the US during that period. 1,200 injuries per 100 million people...is extremely good actually. Like, almost unbelievably safe. And only a little above 100 of those are serious injuries, so most of that number is bruises and scrapes and the like.

I found a Newsweek article when looking up uses of that stat, and it lists "horrifying theme park tragedies". It maps them even. The map goes from mid-2024 to 1980, bc nothing says "widespread phenomenon that happens all the time" like having to go back forty-four years to find enough examples.

The examples of Horrifying Tragedies at these Unsafe Rides include:

Someone jumping a fence and entering a restricted area that was labeled as a restricted area. Actually, it includes five stories of people injured or killed when they entered a fenced-off area clearly labeled as dangerous and off-limits

People stuck on rides. This gets reported a lot as a terrifying malfunction & a sign the ride's not safe, but a ride stopping is a sign that the safety features are *working*, bc that's a failsafe in case something goes wrong. It's like crumple zones on cars: it may look scary, but the alternative is much, much worse

Injuries incurred when a guest's e-cig exploded on a ride

A death from a pre-existing heart condition. Actually, two

Someone who lost their balance on a ride bc of the actions of another guest

Someone who removed their own restraints on a ride and stood up while it was in motion

A few actual accidents caused by error, mostly at obscure parks and/or decades ago, before states had stricter regulations

Masterclass in framing: using several stories about people who were only injured when they knowingly tried breaking all the safety protocols to claim safety protocols don't work. Theme parks can't psychically detect if someone has an undiagnosed heart defect, how can anyone ever go to one again??? Oddly enough it doesn't include the number of people killed or injured driving to and from the parks, even though the number is surely higher, given there's over a million car accident deaths every year

[foaming-sea]

Austrian Grand Prix a recap:

Father son collision at first lap

Oscar piastri overtake master class (victim 1: Perez)

Charles pitting in the first lap, going down 13 position. The universe never gives this man a break

the Alpine civil war

Gasley saying "ciao" after overtaking Ocon

Oscar said "if I go down I'll take every body with me" and reported lewis.

lewis getting penalty

Alonso pushing Zhou off the track

alonso getting penalty

Penalty penalty penalty

Oscar Piastri overtake masterclass (victim 2: Hamilton)

Red bull's atrocious slow pit stop

Epic battle between Max and Lando, both of them was up at each other's throats

The battle went wild

Lando's tyre flew away in the clash

Max's car damaged and he ended up not finishing in the top 5

Max getting penalty

Lando's car totally fucked and he ended up in DNF

The bros' epic battle ended up in the favour of our man Russell who gained P1

Oscar piastri overtake master class (Victim 3: Sainz)

at last- my chest still hurts from watching that race.

This match made me aware that I made a great decision in making Formula one my new obsession

[brawlingdiscontent]

hey u know ages ago ur post 'On Louis and Armand and photography and portraiture ' do u have any thoughts on daniel and armand's relationship then? because i think it's interesting that the one who seems invested in portraiture the most is daniel

Hi friend, thanks so much for your interest and interesting prompt! Linking to the post you mentioned for reference.

I hadn't thought that much about Daniel in this context, I think because subconsciously I don't group journalism in as an art form (unlike painting or photography). Journalism (at least on the surface) isn't about art, it's about 'truth' -- and yet then I think back to the opening scene of the show, Daniel watching his own cheesy 'masterclass', and what they're saying with it, and it's clearly 1) that journalism is a construction, it's not just about reporting the facts, there's a kind of creation or performance involved (as seen in the clash between the on-screen persona and the Daniel on the couch, watching it), and 2) if journalism itself is not art, then at least there's a kind of art to it -- and as you've rightly pointing out, painting, photography and journalism can all be seen as forms of portraiture!

Going back to the two art forms, painting has a kind of 'idealism' associated with it, particularly within certain traditions it may not portray its subject faithfully or honestly but seek to convey through them a larger idea or ideal of the painter (or donor) - we see this in the shocking whitewashing of Armand. Marius was never really interested in Armand, just in what Armand could do for him.

Photography, Louis' chosen form, is much more interested in realism (and indeed, at its creation served hugely important functions in exposing reality - for example, the poor living conditions and poverty wrought by industrialization). And yet the show has highlighted the form's distance--with Louis literally hiding behind his camera lens (see linked post for more on this). In many ways Louis' relationship with Armand is about distracting him from himself (and Lestat). Photography is also a form that deals with surfaces - a camera can capture Armand's haunting beauty, but not his character or soul (or reveal if he has one) --especially when he's such a master of disguise.

Journalism (the way Daniel does it at least), doesn't care for surfaces at all, it is the least 'aesthetic' of all of the forms. The subjects we hear young Daniel talking about interviewing are not young and glamorous, but ordinary people who offer insights into the gritty, sometimes ugly reality of being human. Rather than projecting an image onto or capturing a subject, journalism peels back their layers to see what's underneath, and in practising his art Daniel picks away at forms of disguise ("Not literally, not some dumb Halloween costume, gloves, contact lenses"), waiting to expose "a flash of truth".

Armand wants someone to tell him who he is -- Daniel does it through his art by cutting him to the bone.

(Note: I'm making vast generalization about these different mediums in terms of the way they might popularly/metaphorically be conceived for the purposes of what the show is trying to say - I'm not at all suggesting that painting or photography can't be sources of truth, etc.)

[queenshelby]

OSCAR SPECIAL (PART THREE OF FOUR)

Given Cillian’s recent success, I decided to jump ahead a little in my fics and give you a little Oscar Special. But don’t worry, I will cover off everything in between in due course and, for some fics, this Oscar part will hopefully get you guessing, while for others it will constitute a happy ending!

The Director (Oscar Special)

18 months later....Media Snippet -  E! News

"Cillian Murphy has just arrived at the red carpet, looking absolutely dazzling in a black suit and bowtie. Simple but exquisite nonetheless," one of the reporters said to another, a microphone hoisted between them.

The other beamed, while staring at the earpiece, where notes were fed to her. "And I can confirm that he arrived with Oppenheimer assistant director Y/N Y/LN as well as close friend Enda Walsh, both of whom he had worked with last year on his most recent movie called "Small Things Like These," she said, equally envious and enthusiastic as she watched the actor stroll down the red carpet.

"There is no sight of his wife Danielle Murphy which has sparked rumors afloat that they might be having marital troubles," her partner chimed in with, positioning a camera and focusing it commendably on Cillian without causing a scene.

"According to sources, it was rumored already last year that Danielle Murphy has moved out of their joint home shortly after filming of 'Small Things Like These' wrapped up, although no official statement has been released confirming it," she responded before the other reporter chimed in, announcing the arrival of yet another actor who was no other than your husband James McKibben. 

"There is James McKibben, dressed in a white tuxedo! He's looking utterly fabulous as well!" the other reporter said, noting James' presence on the red carpet. The camera flashed as he walked down the glossy red surface, charisma and self-confidence emanating from him with ease as security held him back from where you were standing with both, Cillian and Enda. 

"And here is a bit of trivia for you," the same reporter then announced quietly, pressing the microphone against her lips as if she was telling a secret. "Word has it that Murphy took out a restraining order against McKibbin following an incident at Universal in July last year," she paused for dramatic effect before going on. "It's not entirely clear what happened, but my guess is that involved Y/N Y/LN who, just earlier this year, filed for divorce from McKibbin," the reporter stated, feeling a little too much glee for having what seemed like an inside scoop before she went on to assess Cillian's chances of winning. 

"Well, let's just say that everyone in the industry is rooting for Cillian this year. He has been nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Robert Oppenheimer in the film "Oppenheimer", a true masterclass in acting," the other reporter gushed, addressing the first one.

"You've got it. All eyes are on him tonight and whatever the rumors floating around may be, none of them will matter once he holds this statue in his hands," his colleague responded, sounding equally enamored with Cillian's acting range and talent that could very well help him win. 

Hours later, he did, indeed, win the Oscar for Best Actor, and just like the reporter said, all eyes were on him as he accepted the award with grace and humility.

"Oh my god," he stammered almost nervously as he was handed his trophy. "Thank you so much for this great honor. Thank you Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas for giving me the opportunity to play such a monumental role, one that I am still trying to process as the words come out of my mouth, and to all the cast and crew for their unwavering support throughout filming. I wouldn't be here without them," Cillian said with perhaps a slightly trembling voice.

It was not every day you get to be nominated for an Academy Award, let alone win one and, with that, his final thanks went to his adult children who believed in him along the way.

As expected though, Cillian did not mention his wife Danielle, whose absence after almost twelve years of marriage sparked rumors of ongoing troubles between them.

An usher arrived to signal him off the stage and waved to the audience before taking a seat again right next to you. 

"I am so proud of you," you whispered in Cillian's ear, your lips brushing against the delicate outer shell in a way no one noticed. 

"You know I couldn't have done it without you, right?" he then whispered back while, discreetly, taking your hand into his and giving it a firm squeeze, as if he needed you there just as much as you needed him.

The weight of the Oscar in his hand was surreal, the sheer scale of his victory even more so, but with you by his side, the feeling was no longer uncanny, but rather, comforting but what would come next, at the after party, was going to be an utter surprise for you both. 

Timeline Note for my fic:

Filming Oppenheimer - September/October 2022

Filming STLT - January/February 2023

Oppenheimer Release/Press Engagements - July 2023

Award Season 2024 - January/February/March 2024

To be continued...

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