#there is another interview...behind a paywall

[marimayscarlett]

Rammstein in German media

I occasionally mention on here how challenging it can be to be a Rammstein fan in Germany, not least because of the media, which often treats the band poorly and dismissively. Today, I have a small example to illustrate this 📰

Alex Markusch, a guitar maker, gave an interview about his general work and cooperation with Richard a while ago - @franwikema thankfully posted this here. 🎸

In this interview, he said the following:

And Richard is someone who is very driven in the technical field. He's detail-obsessed. Collaboration isn't easy because the standards are incredibly high, and the technology is very complex. It's not Richard who makes it complicated, but rather the demands themselves. The challenge lies in having a lot of intricate technology that must be functional in the rough environment of live performances. When you look at a Rammstein stage show or even their open-air festivals, the equipment simply has to work. [...] It's definitely a challenge, but of course, it's also a lot of fun. Sometimes you're racking your brain, trying to find a solution, and then the guitarist says, "There has to be a way to make this work." And you're sitting there thinking, "Yes, but how? That's not even my job." My job is to make sure everything functions in the end. And it's always rewarding when Richard comes back and says, "Yeah, that was great!" Or when the guitar tech, Lutz, points out, "That wasn't quite right, we need to take another look at it today."

The Berliner Zeitung published the following headline following the article:

"Rammstein guitar maker from Friedrichshain: ‘It’s not an easy collaboration.’"

Since the article itself is behind a paywall (here is an accessible link), the content isn’t open for people who don't pay for this newspaper. This means the average reader who stumbles across the headline will likely think: 'Oh, Rammstein is causing trouble again, as always. Didn't expect anything else.'

The text, however, clarifies that the collaboration is not difficult because of Richard himself, and the article is actually quite short. It’s obvious that a single sentence from the interview was intentionally cherry-picked and phrased in a way that could easily be misunderstood. Then, the article is hidden behind a paywall, and voilà – another piece of media content that casts Rammstein in a negative light.

This is most likely not interesting for everyone, but serves as a little example for anyone wondering how the band is portrayed in the media here.

[bcacstuff]

Thanks @bcacstuff for posting all you have tonight it is greatly appreciated. I think no matter what side people are on when it comes to criticizing the show and cast, we now all see that this is it. I personally do not think there will be any promo for next year, the cast are saying goodbye to fans this weekend, next year they will be involved in other projects and have moved on from one another. They say it is good to leave your audience wanting more and I think this has been a good send off!

Thank you! 🧡 Much appreciated! 🧡

I on my part am grateful for all the people sharing their footage and information from all the events. There was a lot today. I also couldn't have done without the help of some friends here helping me to find it all! Thank you all! 🧡

I'm quite sure there's plenty more to come, we still have tomorrow NYCC, which wil stream live so we can all enjoy it live. HSC later on, though behind a paywall (I guess).

And for next year already some cons are planned, The Highlanders 8 con in Birmingham end of February, Landcon Paris in April and another in Edinburgh in September.

I do think S8 will also have a premiere and there will be promo and interviews when it airs. So, still enough to look forward to and of course following them on their next endeavors is interesting as well.

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

David Duchovny: ‘The X-Files took up my life, but it was a miracle’

It's behind a paywall so if somebody has access I would love to read the article

Update : got it, thanks @aimsies-mctaymellburg

David Duchovny: ‘The X-Files took up my life, but it was a miracle’

As Fox Mulder in the hit sci-fi show, the actor and singer peddled fringe conspiracy theories. Now the 63-year-old says Mulder’s paranoia is everywhere.

In hindsight it wasn’t a great idea for me to kick off an interview with David Duchovny by suggesting that he was a musical dilettante. You’re most likely to know Duchovny, of course, as Fox Mulder, the conspiracy-theory-guzzling FBI agent in The X Files, one of the biggest shows of the Nineties, watched at its peak by 30 million in America alone. Perhaps you saw him as the womanising writer Hank Moody in Californication or the 1960s detective Sam Hodiak in Aquarius. You may even have read some of his five books.

Duchovny, a New Yorker living in Los Angeles, is less known for music, although he’s been making rather decent folk-rock for a decade — songwriting, playing guitar and singing in a honeyed drawl. His 2015 songHell or Highwater has been streamed more than a million times while Layin’ on the Tracks, from 2020, has pointed lyrics about a certain politician (“It’s a killing joke that no one laughs at/ A stupid orange man in a cheap red hat”). He has released three albums, with a fourth due next year, and this month plays Latitude festival in Suffolk and the 2,000-capacity Shepherds Bush Empire in London.

So does the 63-year-old feel that he should no longer be seen as just a musical dabbler? “That’s part of a lazy person’s perception,” he says, bristling slightly. “It’s a lens through which people want to see me. I think music is an innocent art form — you listen to it and you have a response. To bring any kind of baggage to bear on it in the beginning seems to me to be dishonest, but that’s the way things go.”

YouTube clips of recent shows suggest people were having a lovely time, I say. This doesn’t have the soothing effect intended. YouTube footage lingers “because of the horror of the cell phone”, Duchovny says. “It’s a pet peeve of mine.” Is he tempted to ban them at his shows, as artists from Prince to Bob Dylan have? “I don’t know that I can enforce that view on anybody.”

For Duchovny, it’s as much about phones limiting his performance as it is about the audience not living in the moment. “To do something unique or for the first time, to reach for a note or play a different melody — all these are chances you might take if you weren’t inhibited by the fact that somebody is [recording] it,” he says. “You’ve got to be able to fail and the ubiquity of cell phones makes failure scarier than it needs to be.”

Failure is the key to another of his jobs: podcasting. In his series Fail Better, he adroitly interviews guests including Bette Midler, Ben Stiller and Sean Penn about their failures. “I feel like I’ve been failing my entire life,” Duchovny said on launching it in May. That may sound strange from a man with English degrees from Princeton and Yale, who has won a Golden Globe for The X Files and another for Californication.

Is he familiar with Elizabeth Day, the British journalist who has hosted a successful podcast called How to Fail since 2018? When Duchovny announced Fail Better, Day tweeted: “I might invite David Duchovny on @howtofail to discuss his failure to be original.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” he says. “If she wants to be rigorous in her thinking, she would investigate what my approach to failure is. I don’t know what her approach to it is. My sense, since failure is universal, is that there’s room out there for more than one discussion.” This is a rather po-faced response to what seemed like a playful comment from Day, and surprising because Duchovny has a wicked sense of humour. He can also afford to be more magnanimous, given that his podcast is at No 12 in the UK chart and hers is at 54.

Gillian Anderson, his X Files co-star, certainly likes his podcast, writing this week on Instagram that she had listened to all of the episodes and found them “intimate and vulnerable … very smart questions, although I wouldn’t expect anything else from you [David]”.

“It’s very sweet,” Duchovny says. “I will email her and thank her. I’m sure somebody running my social media is … I don’t really like to be on social media.” Later that day his Instagram account replies to Anderson’s post: “Thank you for listening, you have an open invite [to appear on his podcast]!”

That encounter would be worth hearing because his relationship with Anderson is fascinating. Despite their chemistry in The X Files there were rumours of friction — although they looked to be getting on swimmingly when they appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show in 2016 to publicise the return of the show, which ran for two more seasons.

When asked by Kimmel about frostiness between her and Duchovny in the Nineties, Anderson collapsed into giggles, laid her head in Duchovny’s lap and put any froideur down to the dampness of Vancouver, where the series was shot. Her hair kept going frizzy, she explained, and “for every single take we’d have to stand there and blow dry my hair again”.

“And I got pissed at that?” Duchovny asked.

“Well, I think it added to the tension,” Anderson said.

“It kinda makes me sound like an asshole,” Duchovny replied.

Anderson had nothing to do with him leaving The X Files in 2002, he says now. “That was just me wanting to have a family, but also to try other things. It had kind of taken up my life. There was no animosity with the actual show and the people that I worked with. I am proud of the show — it was culturally central in a way that it’s very hard to do these days in a fragmented landscape. There’s so many lightning-strike aspects to it that I can’t help but think of it as some kind of a miracle.”

The X Files gave conspiracy theories a kind of nobility — “the truth is out there”, as its tagline ran. Now they are more widespread and pernicious. “Mulder’s way of looking at the world was through conspiracy and that was the fringe at that point,” Duchovny says. “It doesn’t seem to be so fringe any more. It’s really the world that [The X Files creator] Chris Carter foresaw happening almost 30 years ago. He’s almost clairvoyant in that case.” Is Duchovny more evidence-based than Mulder? “Not at all. I’m an artist — I am associative-based and I see poetry as science and science as poetry.” So are there some conspiracy theories that he buys into? “No, I’m talking about art. I think conspiracies are mostly just lazy thinking.”

One failure that has shaped Duchovny is that of his marriage to the actress Téa Leoni, who starred in Bad Boys and Deep Impact. They married in 1997 and have a daughter, West, 25, and a son, Kyd, 22, but divorced in 2014. “That darkness does deepen you. It makes you more empathetic and humble,” Duchovny says. One of the themes of his podcast is “the difference between humiliating and humbling. Often we focus on humiliation in our culture. I don’t see any positives coming from humiliation, but I see a lot of them coming from humility.”

One wonders if the reference to humiliation has something to do with Duchovny checking into rehab for sex addiction in 2008. Could him playing the bed-hopping Hank in Californication be a case of art imitating life? “People never tire of trying to figure that out,” he says with a sigh. “But to me, that’s not what acting is about. I don’t look for things that are mirroring my life in any way.”

Well, there are parallels in Reverse the Curse, the 2023 film that Duchovny directed, starred in and adapted from his book Bucky F***ing Dent. He plays a would-be novelist who has “sacrificed his artistic dream to put food on the table”. His father, a publicist, did the same, publishing his debut at 75, the year before he died. The film has some really funny scenes, including one where Marty and his son have a farting competition in a motel room that ends up smelling like “an aquarium that fed a sock”. That may have come from a line in Aquarius where someone says something similar about a police station. “I might have ripped it off, I’m not sure,” Duchovny says. “ You can ask Elizabeth Day about that.”

David Duchovny will perform at Latitude festival, near Southwold on July 25 and 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, W12 on July 27

[larryliciouslife]

Harry Styles - Two Ghosts // interpretation, analysis, meaning

Please note: Read my profile description. This is MY interpretation. It´s personal. You may have a different opinion and that´s fine with me. If you don´t agree, just move on 😉

I like sharing my interpretation of songs. For Two Ghosts it´s nothing new, but it´s more detailed than stuff I’ve read so far and it´s in my own words 😊  

Let’s start with this: two ghosts in my opinion is not about H*aylor and also not about a breakup.

It is about 2 persons living the struggles of closeting. And the closet doors getting more sealed with each day passing.  

H named 2 different years for when he wrote that song. 2013 and 2015. 

While 2013 seems more like a „we need it to be written shortly after H*aylor because then we could make the song about TS“-promo-thing, the 2015 mention sounds way more like the real thing.  

(Its behind a paywall… but you can still read it 😉) 

H said the song was too personal for him to have it sung by 1D back then. (On a side note: He also co-wrote „Perfect“ for MITAM. Another song „seemingly about H*aylor“ (eh. No. 🤨). Yes, it’s more positive than Two Ghosts, but he had no problem singing this with the band. It’s not confirming anything but still wanted to point this out). 

So back to his interview. While I don’t think in this context a „usual breakup“ which the world watched from front row and which has been addressed in PR moves on and on would be something he would call „too personal“, I do think lyrics about him and his partner suffering from closeting were in fact too personal back then. And too personal to have it sung by the band.  

Read also this tumblr post on this topic.  

https://www.tumblr.com/skepticalarrie/677255085571571712/hi-why-do-people-say-that-two-ghosts-was-written

Now, let’s get into how I interpret the lyrics. 

I’m a Larrie 👋, so the first line for me makes it pretty clear who the other „ghost“ in this song is: Louis.  

The first two lines show that it has been the two of them for a longer time: still the same red lips, blue eyes, white shirt but by now a couple more tattoos. 

While the first line is about L, the second line fits both H&L. 

„But it’s not you, it’s not me“ can be seen as „they are not their authentic selves“, not how they used to be back in the beginning. They needed to change and now they are like actors playing themselves. 

Their feelings haven´t changed - it´s their environment that made them change their "public reality". What they experience in private is real, when they are in public they can’t touch. 

„Sounds like something that I used to feel“ seems to be about the days when closeting wasn’t as heavy as it was in 2015 - or even barely existing in their first days. 

Ghosts are lifeless, pale, shadow like. That’s how they feel while being in public, in the closet. Their hearts are broken and they feel lifeless. But they won’t give up. They try to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat.  

These lines for me are so blatantly obvious about closeting.  

When visualizing closeting, it’s a dark place, no light. Closeted people can only be themselves when it’s night, when they are at home, when they are in private. 

All this we find in these lines.  

A fridge light will only wash a room in white light when the room is dark.  

The moon only shines brightly at night. It dances over „your good side“- the one H sees at night. The real one, not the public ghost one.  

This was enough for them back then. Now they wish for more, for being out in daylight maybe, but they got pushed deeper into the closet.  

They got more restricted in what they are allowed to say publicly through the years. They were even forbidden public interactions while being in the same band (enemy narrative anyone?). 

They keep telling the same stories, the same lies about their fake relationships, because they can’t tell the truth, can’t tell their story. 

This is like above but their desperation and hopeless is underlined by „the glass half empty“ which is a metaphor for pessimism.  

To end this, I would like to share a few things about Two Ghosts. Again, they might not be new for everyone but they fit to this post.

I saw posts and videos saying H introduced the song as it being about „the first time HE broke up with me“ and making this about Larry. It’s (most probably) out of context - the first part of that intro is often cut off. Also, as mentioned above I don´t think the song refers to a breakup.

See this link for the whole intro.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGewnVQm3/

There are also rumors about an unreleased music video for Two Ghosts of which snippets have been leaked. I don’t know about a mv in general. It’s a single without an official one after all. But what people say are leaked snippets would be the visuals shown at Hs tour 2018.

So it´s either they recorded a mv and never released it but used parts of it for tour visuals, or they recorded the visuals for the reason of using them as visuals...

This is an interpretation of the visuals.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGewWu5Fh/

This is a link between the visuals and 369. 

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGewWcR7e/

This is a link between Two Ghosts and Louis´ merch.  

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGewWwgPD/

[thanathicca]

imperare sibi maximum imperium est ramblings: Telman Edition

mostly related to this post (the news from the Pathologic Fest Day 1, From the Other Side)

Okay, okay. (vibrates a little) So, I have seen Telmans who were legitimate professors. I like the headcanon that he is the de jure head of Thanatica, since Daniil was too young to get any respect or legal authority (obviously, Dankovsky is the de facto leader). I also enjoy the headcanon that Telman is an obstructive bureaucrat - making Dankovsky's life harder every damn time, such as having blackmail material about him being trans, inventing HRT, or performing abortions in secret. A Telman being a liaison between the lab and the authorities/TPTB/Inquisitors is also compelling.

Now, for my 22nd century Thanatica AU, I go to another, and very noncanon direction. I present to you a Telman who is just Elongated Muskrat. Vector Tech (or maybe I might rename it Upward Vector, or a variation on that. I am shaking in excitement here.) is a technological company made to realize the sci-fi dreams of its trillionaire "founder" (who bought it from probably legitimate businesspeople and engineers). It is fitting that in a universe where teleporters are a viable transportation method, deepfaked news is commonplace, physical media is almost dead, old movies have to be pirated because the publishers pulled it out of print, and water coolers have timers to prevent workplace chats and unionization, Telman's dreams would 10000% include an invention that has been tried and failed multiple times: mind-uploading. And Thanatica actually did it!

The excerpt from that post reads like so: (this is a rough draft)

Is this the end for Thanatica Labs? THE CAPITAL, 1 OCTOBER 2165 Daniil Dankovsky, founder of Thanatica Laboratories and lead scientist of the first successful mind-uploading device AVA Project, has once again declined an offer of cooperation from a multinational company. The cooperation deal by Vector Tech, which would have netted Dankovsky a record XXX billion, would have Thanatica Labs give away their exclusive rights to the AVA blueprints and let the company build new AVA units with a tiered subscription program. "We regret that the deal couldn’t be done," Mr. Telman, CEO of Vector Tech, has gone on record to say. "It’s a shame that Thanatica hoards all their progress under Dankovsky’s influence. Our company would have brought your AVA to the whole world! What kind of scientist are you?" When requested for an interview, Dr. Dankovsky responded, “Thanatica has, and will always, stand with ethical practices. We are scientists who would not gate one’s life behind paywalls. The deal would have made a version of AVA with proprietary Vector Tech operating system, which has gone on record to sell people’s data to third parties, including intelligence agencies. Would you want data submitted the AVA, which would contain your most vulnerable memories, to be sold to the highest bidder? Would you want targeted advertisements in your brain? Moreover, the deal also mentioned using the subscription programs to access certain memories or even brain functions, which meant you could randomly forget the most important moments in your life, or even forget how to solve a crossword, just because you are a little short on money.” Vector Tech has not responded to an interview request.

Thanatica and Vector Tech might even have beef dating back a few years. Imagine if the whistleblowing incident of 2163 also involved Telman's company (as in, a whistleblower from there) - although, I imagine it would be a different company, since, if Dankovsky has fucked them up before through the incident, why would he try again to get the rights to the Ad Vitam Aeternam (AVA) Project?

Okay, maybe if he is truly based on Elon Musk, maybe he just... doesn't have the good sense to avoid bothering Thanatica again. But, on the other hand, why wouldn't he? I think multiple companies would bother Thanatica about the AVA, actually. Mind-uploading is just nuts. It is probably one of the most idealistic and difficult-to-realize science fiction tropes. As of Chapter 11, the fact that Dankovsky has moved to a robotic chassis has not been publicized yet... but when it does, it has to be done wisely, and probably slowly.

That's going to be part of the story too, of course - if you are interested, you can hop on the ride and see the public relations mayhem Thanatica will be subjected to (and subjecting itself to). There is no need to be afraid about missing things, for now - imperare sibi maximum imperium est is extremely slow-paced for now, with its chapters clocking less than 3k words each (some even less than 2k), and it is only beginning. Act 1 isn't even halfway done, and if our physical ability and time allows, there should be more Acts to follow.

So! What do you all think of this Telman and his company? What are you interested in seeing re: the reveal of Dankovsky's survival from the plague? Or do you think other companies should be made here, perhaps using the names of the Inquisitors? I would be highly interested in hearing all your(&) answers. Feel free to reply to this, DM us, send an ask, or even speak your mind in the tags :>

[incesthemes]

Your jopzier scorbutic nostalgia post goes sooo fucking crazy and just blew a hole in my brain. You’re so real and correct for that one + I’ve never seen that connection before!!

Do you have any other resources on scorbutic nostalgia you could link? It’s very interesting to me. Thank you and have a lovely day :)

hi, thank you! i have not been able to stop thinking about jopzier since i learned about the hallucinations. dear god

(sorry this is late, i posted the horrible thing and then disappeared for half a week to a convention lol)

i had to go down one hell of a rabbit hole to find any information about scurvy beyond the initial symptoms and treatment options because apparently that's the only free information about scurvy on the internet, oh my god. but i found this article about scurvy on national geographic (which i had to relinquish my email address to read so i would argue it's not actually free) which interviews a professor of humanities named jonathan lamb about his book, scurvy: the disease of discovery. his work looks at how scurvy (and other 18th century diseases) shape and influence literature, so rather than being about the science of scurvy, he researches how it's used in literature and the i guess emotional effects of it on culture? he's basically the only modern-day person talking about scurvy, though i was able to find a few research papers (also locked behind paywalls) that seemed to support his research. i wouldn't know though. can't access them </3

i was able to find another paper by lamb on scorbutic nostalgia which talks about thomas trotter's studies on scurvy back in the late 18th century. of course the paper cost $50 to rent (or, as of today, it's not even accessible even with payment, lmfao) so i could only look at the abstract for it.

anyway his book has a whopping 2.6 stars on amazon and scathing reviews about how dense and meandering it is, so i nabbed myself a Convenient Digital Copy instead to scan through. my primary goal was to see if mr. lamb had hard evidence of hallucinations as a symptom of scurvy, since i couldn't find anything (for free, online) that wasn't penned by jonathan lamb about these hallucinations. turns out his meandering, dense writing worked in my favor, because this guy LOVES quotes and about half of the book is just that. so i found the section about scorbutic nostalgia and discovered a veritable trove of contemporary journals and letters from sailors describing their vivid dreams. i marked up a bunch of stuff, so i'll share some of what i read under the cut through so you can avoid having to witness the book proper if you so choose. highlighting is my own, obviously.

hopefully this helps! finding resources about scurvy is actually so frustratingly difficult.

[alone-in-my-home]

Random late night rambling on why personality tests (like Myers’s Briggs and the enneagram) are so pervasive in the evangelical church:

Background— I grew up Catholic, to the point of first communion and then my parents did a hard 180 and decided the evangelical Baptist missionary church was the way to go (they wanted confirmation to be my choice at a later date if I so chose). It’s 2 religious traumas I experienced in one lifetime. I am now no longer religious. I saw someone describe themselves as apatheistic, meaning they literally don’t care about the concept of god and the afterlife, and also felt that was kind of fitting for myself. Overall I have mixed strong feelings about religion from hate the love and accept but it gets so convoluted and mixed up that I’d rather not take an exact stance on “is religion good or bad?”

The evangelical church in the USA however is entirely harmful. That is indeed a hill I’m willing to die on.

But I was thinking about why I’m so jaded with personality tests because I was sitting in a 3 hour meeting for work on a communication styles test— a glorified personality test with 4 different colors. A lot of my coworkers found it super interesting and helpful, but I didn’t learn anything about myself I didn’t already know, and this is due to being entrenched in the evangelical church since I was 10.

When I brought it up to my roommates after getting home, feeling drained from having a 3 hour meeting and then continuing work, they were surprised that I wasn’t hyped about this test especially since it’s one behind a paywall due to corporations using it. Now they’re part of the evangelical church [I have a lot of feelings about this but that’s for me and my besties to bitch about] and said they didn’t start getting into personality tests until they joined said church.

Odd…

As I try to fall asleep, staring into the eyes of my cat who’s laying on my chest with his muzzle two inches from my face, I really started to think about this. The Catholic church didn’t do this, my friends growing up who went to mainline Protestant churches or the Orthodox Church also didn’t participate in this phenomenon. Ultimately, to take part in Christianity is to deeply accept and commit to conformity. And the evangelical church (through the establishment of “non denominational” churches) wants to at least put on the facade that they push against the notion of conformity, that everyone is welcome no matter your walk or state of life, that singing a hymn with an electric slide guitar is leaps and bounds different than singing a hymn with an organ. However, they’re no different. Conformity is what upholds the institution.

Through encouraging and pushing personality tests on youth group and the congregation, they are essentially allowing controlled individuality. By personality types existing there are boxes and boundaries established, which is followed by the praise and admonishment of certain personality types.

Taking Francis Chan’s “love languages” as an example— note this book and test is used to keep failing marriages together and place the blame of a failed marriage on the couple just not trying hard enough, but I digress. When I took this test, gift receiving was supposedly the way I felt most loved. When I told that to my youth group leader when we were sharing he told me “you’re the first person I’ve ever met that openly admits that”. Everyone else in the group was quality time and words of affirmation focused. I was the odd one out. So what was I encouraged to do? Be more like my friends and find joy and love in words and time.

It’s all a load of dog shit.

Another great example that is more recent in terms of the evangelical church co-opting it for control, the enneagram. Oh my god how many times I hear Christians claim “I’m a 2”. This type is the helper and has literally no bad qualities written about them, and the “bad qualities” just sound like answers you give to an interviewer when you’re asked what your greatest weakness is: oh I’m too caring, I always put others needs in front of my own, etc. it describes the “perfect” Christian. What’s worse is the amount of Christians that actively LAMENT not being a 2 when they’re typed not as something else. It got to a point where while I was on the deconstruction journey and I had friends take it, and tell me they were a 2, I’d tell them I didn’t believe them and they had to take it again but actually be honest about their answers (suddenly the friend group had a lot less 2s).

Through the praise of personality and communication types and active disparaging of others the evangelical church maintains conformity while giving their congregations a sense of individuality ”Because think out of all the 16 types I can’t believe our congregation is mostly represented by 3 types”. There’s a sense of vastness in personality types, even if there’s actually only 4, because the church encourages a select few and praises behaviors to keep up obedience and subservience to the church.

TL;DR: personality tests give a sense of individuality because there are many options and the church maintains control by encouraging only a few of said personality types/behaviors.

Yeah personality tests are a load of shit, and the evangelical church can go suck it because the triangle player in your worship band doesn’t make you “not like other churches”; you still uphold hierarchy and conformity. Get fucked.

[kdosemjaz]

Remember when Tom agreed that Mobius and Loki have a paternal/avuncular relationship?

Remember when the writer who created this story said the same thing?

Remember when the director said the same thing?

Remember when Kevin straight up denied Lokius and said they just wanted to portray a healthy dynamic between two male characters?

Remember when Tom Hiddleston said the dynamic between Loki and Mobius is that of a little kid and his teacher? (P.S.: There's another interview where he says something like that but it's behind Josh Horowitz's paywall)

Remember how every time someone asks him about Lokius he denies the ship and says they're just friends? One of many examples below:

Also bugging an actor about an imaginary ship during the con? nASTY. Or when that one shipper brought that banner and then admitted Tom was very confused about it? Or how he was asked about Lokius before and he had no idea what they were talking about?This your captain? How can he be a captain when he doesn't even know what the boat is?

Remember how even the composer had to set things straight and say she didn't name the track Lokius because they were trying to imply anything, but because the characters were sharing a scene and different point of views? Remember when even the main writer Eric Martin was going around liking tweets mocking lokius shippers and liking tweets that described Loki and Mobius' relationship as platonic and fatherly. Even that one "Loki and his grandpa" one? Remember when even the editor Calum Ross was doing the same?

Remember how there hasn't been ONE instance where any cast or crew member working on either seasons described Loki and Mobius' relationship anything but platonic, friendship or even paternal? Remember how even in the show itself no character, no one, ever implied that Loki and Mobius are anything else but friends?

Interesting things.

[kogurazu]

I'm just gonna rant my chest out regarding the recent Watcher's announcement because I'm still trying to process wtf has just happened & it's pretty late at night. (For the record, I'm one of their international viewers from a 3rd world country.)

It sucks that I cannot buy their official merch that is already expensive (due to conversion rates) + not being able to deliver in my country when I've some spare cash. That's fine by me.

It sucks that I cannot go & watch their live shows being available at certain countries that doesn't cost a damn fortune (plane tickets, hotel bookings, converting currency, etc.) + not in a million years they'll stop by SEA to do tours/live shows. That's also fine by me.

However, the way how they hyped up the announcement mentioning big things are coming only to just drop a video saying "Hey, we're leaving Youtube as the money ain't flowing much to cover our 'extravagant' expenses & all future contents will be locked behind a paywall. So if you're unable to watch most of your beloved shows because you can't pay then toodles!" That's NOT fine by me, let alone anyone else in the matter.

Even if I've a fuck ton of money to spare, I'm still not buying their monthly/yearly WatcherTV subscription because it's JUST. NOT. WORTH. IT. Who wants to buy a monthly yet alone yearly subscription just to watch 1-2 episodes of a show I like being put out weekly per season & then waiting for some time before another new season of another show that has a 50-50 chance whether I enjoy it or not pops up to fill the void? Not me, that's for sure. Damn, I rather subscribe to Netflix or buy YouTube premium if I could because the money spent is worth the content I can get on a monthly/yearly basis.

I get putting exclusive contents such as BTS, special interviews/podcasts, early access to episodes, etc. behind a paywall since they're just nice bonuses for fans who're able to support them but locking REGULAR YOUTUBE content that's not being released consistently & have nothing much to offer behind a paywall? I think you're losing your crackers on this one chief.

After watching the announcement video, I feel plainly numb & disappointed that this is the route they're going for. I understand they need the funds to make videos, pay people & also wanting the freedom to make content that you want to make without adhering to the restrictions of advertisers. I get it.

But what I don't get is this mind numbing decision to spit at the faces of people who can't afford to fork out some cash to enjoy their once free favourite shows that helped cheer them up during the tough times. It's even more disgusting what I heard from Coffeezilla's recent video about Watcher mentioning that they don't even give out a free WatcherTV subscription to their Patreon members as a way to say thank you for your patronage is really saying something eh?

_____________________________

4 years ago, I found Shane & Ryan via Buzzfeed Unsolved just like everyone else randomly being recommended to me on Youtube. I binge watched all seasons of Buzzfeed Unsolved exactly at the same time they're announcing their departure from Buzzfeed to go do their own content at Watcher. What's this? A channel where I can watch the ghoul boys do their own thing? Hell yeah, sign me tf up.

It's really nice to see Watcher growing & trying out new different shows. I'm aware not all the shows they put out matches my taste & that's fine by me. Probably there's an audience out there who enjoy these shows that aren't for me.

I remember the time I was excited when they bring in Ghost Files & Mystery Files which can fill in the Buzzfeed Unsolved void. Are You Scared? & Too Many Spirits are the shows I enjoy listening to them as background noise so that I can focus on my work.

Puppet History & Top 5 Beatdown is where I enjoy the chemistry between the talents & guests. Weird, Wonderful, World & Tourist Trapped is where I enjoy seeing cool places run by passionate people & is like a nice, come hangout with me type of video blogs.

4 years later, this is where I'll be hopping off with the knowledge that I can't no longer be able to enjoy all these shows anymore like I used to just because I can't afford to whip out some measly cash to pay for regular content that I can easily find on Youtube for free.

Even if you leave up the old videos on Youtube (after you've backpedalled your decision to remove all the videos entirely in the first place due to the backlash & gaslighting us into thinking we misunderstood but your Variety article says otherwise), the whole ordeal just makes the experience to re-watch all the content that I used to love & enjoy feels awkward & left a sour, bitter taste in my mouth.

With a very heavy heart, I say thank you for the fun shows you have been putting out these past 4 years & farewell to Team Watcher. I don't know how're you going to recover from this but I wish you a best of luck moving forward.

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Interview with Ulrike Grunewald on coming German Doco by u/IngeborgNCC1701

Interview with Ulrike Grunewald on coming German Doco @Miss-she has asked me to post this for her, which I'm happy to do. The actual interview with Ulrike Grunewald was published on June 1, 2024 and is still behind a paywall. Later another magazine reported on this interview. I have summarized this article and translated it into English.German aristocracy expert Ulrike Grunewald is currently making a new documentary about Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry. It seems to be making the two royals nervous.Ulrike Grunewald has been following the life of the prince and his wife for years and was also present at the “Invictus Games 2023” in Duesseldorf – where the idea for the film emerged, which led to intensive research. For the new documentary, she also visited the couple’s current hometown, Montecito, and spoke to people close to the Sussexes. Obviously to Harry and Meghan’s discomfort.The filmmaker, who takes a close look at the “Sussex system” in her work wants to show how this “system” differs from the organization of the Royal Family “and what role money that also comes from Germany plays in it. I think we will then also understand why Harry and Meghan broke up with the family,” she announces.One of the things that struck the journalist during her work was how much the Sussexes isolate themselves: “They both seem to live very isolated lives. Everything takes place in a strictly monitored circle and is not very transparent. There seems to be a lot of fear of losing control, perhaps also of betrayal,” she suspects. Harry, who was once so authentic, now often seems “tense” when he appears with his wife and as if he has slipped into a “different role”.“The number of Harry fans is getting smaller and smaller. In the UK, he is now at the bottom of the Royal Family polls, where he once topped the rankings. America is now rather disinterested because of the lack of visible success of the ‚Sussex system‘, apart from the very private revelations about Harry’s family.” Ulrike Grunewald knows the reason for this: “I think people sense the contradiction between aspiration and reality.”Not a particularly positive conclusion. Is that why Harry and Meghan are looking forward to the release of the documentary as tensely as rumored? The journalist assures: “I’m not harassing or threatening anyone, I’m gathering facts. If Meghan is in a ‚panic‘ about my journalistic work, as they say online, she must know why.” Grunewald is not interested in “yesterday’s dirty laundry”. “I’m more interested in whether she actually has ambitions and opportunities to play a role in American politics and what the issue of racism has to do with it.”Translated with DeepL.com The German source:https://ift.tt/bRXj4E8 post link: https://ift.tt/CA7puMR author: IngeborgNCC1701 submitted: November 25, 2024 at 03:22PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[literatemisfit]

Hi! I don’t have a subscription so I can’t read this full article you posted.

https://www.tumblr.com/literatemisfit/720928934490980352/david-tennant-on-his-wife-georgias-cancer-scare

Could you possibly give a summary or copy/paste what it says (if you’re comfortable with it)? Especially that last part you mentioned as being especially sweet?

Somehow when I went to open it I also got stuck behind a paywall so they must have added one. But I was able to use incognito mode and get access to it anyway. I've copy pasted the entire thing for you so you can see what I mean by sweet ;)

See below:

Georgia Tennant is recalling the moment, at the start of the pandemic, when she realised she was going to be locked down with her husband. ‘David was supposed to be filming in South Africa,’ explains the 38-year-old actor and producer. ‘But then there was a series of phone calls, South Africa shut down, and he turned to me and said: “I’m not going back”.’

Georgia and I share a look that speaks volumes: about the slo-mo dawning experienced by wives all over the world when it became clear they would be trapped with the man they’d promised to love and cherish – but not, crucially, have lunch with every day for weeks on end. About what became more like the premise of a twisted reality TV show when those weeks turned into months

‘I remember having this sudden realisation…’ Glancing at her Scottish stage and screen star husband, Georgia pauses, blue eyes wide, and at this point I’m already smiling because I think I know what’s coming. ‘That, oh my gosh, David’s just going to be here, the whole time.’ I nod compassionately. ‘Which obviously I’d never had before.’ Another nod. We’ve all been there. 

‘And just thinking: that’s really exciting!’

Oh… It’s a needle-across-vinyl moment and I stop mid-nod and stare. Georgia and I are not on the same page. In fact, she seems to be reading an entirely different book: this wife can’t think of anything nicer than being holed up with her husband of 12 years.

‘We just really like each other,’ she says once all three of us have stopped laughing. ‘Even now, we like hanging out with each other more than we like hanging out with anyone else.’ Some might say that’s a pretty good basis for a marriage. ‘Exactly. And when all the kids are around it’s like a commune here, which I love.’

With a semi-apologetic shrug the 52-year-old Doctor Who and Broadchurch star confirms, ‘It’s true.’ There’s no way around it: he too just really likes his wife. ‘In fact, the more time we spend together the more we get on,’ he says. And although I’m not sure I can deal with any more bombshell revelations so early on in an interview, this is probably just as well. Because the Tennants didn’t just end up marooned on the couch together for the duration of the pandemic – with their five children, Ty, 21, Olive, 12, Wilfred, 10, Doris, seven, and Birdie, three – but filming a lockdown TV comedy series, Staged, which became the surprise summer comedy hit of 2020.

The whimsical meta sitcom follows David’s fractious friendship with Welsh actor Michael Sheen as they plan various ill-fated ventures from either side of the world on Zoom. Only this isn’t reality TV, but a hammed-up version. Its two actors forever making a drama out of a crisis, as their partners watch, bemused, occasionally stepping in when things get out of hand.

Georgia and Swedish actress Anna Lundberg’s attitude is probably best described by the bumper sticker quote: ‘Behind every successful man is a woman rolling her eyes’, and audiences liked them so much that their roles get progressively bigger with each series.

Amazingly, Staged outlived the pandemic premise it was built on and I’m here today, in a sleek home office at the back of the couple’s west London home, to talk about the third and final series, which is currently airing on BBC One. Having spent the past 24 hours binge-watching six episodes of the show, I’m slightly thrown by how dialled-down the real David and Georgia are compared with their on-screen personas. He’s far less wild-haired and neurotic in real life – perhaps in part because after a trip to the dental hygienist this morning, he’s not yet been allowed his coffee – and she’s just as beautiful, with the same poise she maintains throughout Staged, but more amused than exasperated, today, by her man.

‘This wasn’t our first project together,’ David reminds me when I ask whether working on the show together over three years didn’t tip this perfect partnership over the edge. ‘After all, Georgia and I did meet on set.’

It’s true that it was while he was playing the Tenth Doctor in 2008 that he met his future wife, who was cast as his genetically engineered daughter in the BBC show. Does Georgia still get endless joy from that? ‘Oh, I’ve had 15 years of joy from that,’ she flings back. ‘Of course, I was already 900 years old at the time,’ David deadpans.

After the Doctor Who years, the pair went on to co-star in the 2017 film, You, Me and Him, which Georgia also produced. Still, when it came to filming Staged, he got ‘incredibly nervous’, he admits. ‘I think we were quite anxious about what that would… do, weren’t we?’

His wife murmurs her agreement, although like her Staged character she seems serene and in control and it’s easy to imagine her talking David down from various ledges in daily life. 

For all their harmony, they seem quite different. Certainly, they come from different backgrounds. As the daughter of actors Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson, Georgia was born into the profession, making her debut at 15 in ITV’s Peak Practice, before going on to appear in shows such as Where the Heart Is, Like Father Like Son and The Last Detective.

Bathgate-born David, meanwhile, is the son of a Presbyterian church minister, who attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and established himself with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre early on. After winning the game-changing role of Doctor Who at 34, he has continued to demonstrate his versatility as an actor, flitting from hard-hitting TV dramas like Des in 2020 (playing serial killer Dennis Nilsen) and Litvinenko in 2022 (as the former Russian spy) to playing a demon in Amazon’s ongoing fantasy series Good Omens. Then there’s his stage work: the recent West End play Good, in which he played a professor drawn into Nazism, and a forthcoming stint as Macbeth at London’s Donmar Warehouse in December.

Despite his success, the actor has suffered from acute anxiety ever since he was a boy, fretting about everything from ‘not being good enough’ and ‘being found out’ (as he told one interviewer in 2019) to the loss of anonymity he knew he’d experience back in 2005, when he was cast as a TV hero he’d idolised from the age of three. ‘Because with a show like Doctor Who,’ he tells me, ‘it’s on a different scale.’ 

As anyone who suffers from anxiety knows, the primary, all-consuming worry is that everything ‘probably will go wrong’ at any given moment. In 2018 something did go very wrong when Georgia was diagnosed with cervical cancer – something she shared in her blog, despite usually being a private person. ‘I thought it was easier than having to phone everyone and tell them,’ she explains today.

‘It was a very weird experience,’ muses David. ‘Because we found out the bad news after it had been dealt with, so we had the relief at the same time as the horror.’ 

Following an abnormal smear test result, Georgia had a biopsy and a cervical excision to remove the tissue causing concern. It was only after that procedure that test results showed the cells had been cancerous. David pauses, looking at his wife. ‘At least we were spared the prospect of living with, “You’ve got this, and can it be caught?” But I still have these flashbacks of “What if you hadn’t…?”’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t think I acknowledged at the time how serious it could have been.’

The couple were too busy ‘just dealing with each stage’, David goes on. ‘The slightly funky test and then going in and having the biopsy.’ 

‘But I did make you answer the phone, when we were waiting to hear [the results],’ Georgia cuts in. ‘I obviously knew there was going to be something, so David got the news first: that it was bad but that they’d got rid of it. And then he made me get on the phone so that I could hear it from the doctor myself, because he knew that was something I needed to do.’

Afterwards, ‘both of us were just numb,’ David murmurs. ‘It was such a Sliding Doors moment. Even a few months later it could have been too late.’ 

‘Which is why now,’ Georgia concludes wryly, ‘I’ll tell everyone with a cervix: go and get yourself checked.’

With the couple’s eldest son Ty now a successful actor – having starred in the TV series War of the Worlds and HBO’s House of the Dragon – and Olive, then 10, making her big-screen debut in Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning film Belfast, two years ago, I’m curious to know how they both feel about their brood following in their footsteps? ‘I just want them to be happy and to be able to survive in the world,’ Georgia says. ‘So if acting is what they want to do…’

It helps that the industry feels fairer now in almost every way, they believe, and we segue into a discussion about inclusivity and ‘real representation’ in acting – meaning, for example, that only LGBTQ actors should play LGBTQ roles. Until we’re all caught up, David maintains, ‘you have to protect those spaces for actors who come from those communities’.

It also helps that the industry is a safer place for women now than it was 10 years ago, says Georgia. ‘Because it 

definitely is,’ she adds. ‘Things happened to me when I was younger that I now realise were not great, but at the time I thought it was all part of it – that I had to laugh them off. I’m talking about situations that made me feel uncomfortable,’ she explains. ‘Now I would be able to say so, but at the time the dialogue just wasn’t there. And I don’t think any of our kids would have to feel like that now. Even if they did, they would have the words and the people behind them to say: “that’s not OK”.’

David is currently filming the Disney+ series Rivals, based on Jilly Cooper’s famous bonkbuster, he tells me. ‘And there’s an “intimacy co-ordinator” on that because there’s quite a lot of shagging, so everyone’s being very appropriate and careful.’ 

But doesn’t it feel strange having your sex scenes ‘co-ordinated’? ‘Oh, it’s ludicrous.’ He grins. ‘Because it means you’re making the most intimate, private moments very compartmentalised and that there’s someone there asking the embarrassing questions nobody did historically – but that’s because you’re not doing these things with your actual partner. So that’s another thing that has got better over the years.’ He tilts his head to one side, narrows his eyes: ‘That said, there are still lots of reasons not to become an actor.’

This seems as good a place to end as any, and as the Tennants take me back through the garden to a side gate, Georgia tells her husband she’s ‘going for a manicure – and you have to come with me’. When I leave they’re still bickering gently, with David asking: ‘Why do I have to come?’ I don’t catch his wife’s reply, but I suspect it’s just because she really likes him.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

We're releasing today another bonus clip from behind the Patreon paywall. This originally was produced by Christina as a bonus clip to follow the early release of S5E5; supporters on Patreon at the Companion tier and higher gain access to bonus content that is either excerpted from episodes or prompted by their content every other week.

Here is the original description: "I didn't have any extra clips from the interview with the organizers of The Solarpunk Conference. Instead, here's me (Christina) reading my contribution to The Solarpunk Conference Journal that was published after last year's conference. Enjoy!

PS- you can catch videos of many of the presentations from the conference on The Solarpunk Conference's YouTube channel (including the presentation/panel that @arielkroon was a part of)."

[asteracaea]

I kinda miss Joe. :( I'm happy he is in a good place.

https://www.reddit.com/r/travisandtaylor/s/cgS5fiquvg

i found a link to the video interview with The Times but it's behind a paywall

my feelings about this man have fluctuated so much over the years. from william bowery and grammygate to the end, i admit i was quite a hater. but almost immediately after the split my feelings changed and even warmed (seeing pap pics of him walking happily with a boy reminded me that i think he's probably also closeted and was also made to play this game for the sake of everything at stake). he looked so unhappy and not well back then, so maybe he wasn't the villain but another victim of the circus. idk.

but now i just want the best for him and i hope he can be authentic and happy, and yeah he does sound very classy here.

and oh my LORDDDD WITH MATTY AND TRAVIS I HAVE BEEN WISHING HE WERE BACK 😭😭😭 didn't know a good beard when we had one

[monsterintheballroom]

The Independent Premium Interview with Penelope Wilton

It´s behind a paywall, so here´s only the first paragraph. But I think it´s quite interesting.

Penelope Wilton is considering the behaviour of theatre audiences, as she prepares to embark on a stint in the West End. “It must be awful when people start being drunk and everything. I can’t think of anything worse,” she tells me, raising both eyebrows. She isn’t fond of the growing craze for standing ovations either. “Everyone getting up at the end seems an odd thing to do, too. I am quite happy sitting there myself. I don’t expect people to get up, but everyone seems to now. It’s another phase everyone is going through.” She laughs. It’s quite likely that Wilton, returning to the stage at the age of 77, will herself be the subject of a standing ovation at the end of her performance as Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother in Backstairs Billy, a new play by Marcelo Dos Santos. But it’s equally typical that she doesn’t anticipate one.

[infintyonhigh]

I am and will continue to be your resident Gaylor follower, popping up at an album release, hi!👋🏻 Here with a scroll as they did in ye olden days lmao

Yeah tons of people are upset at the album prologue, many of them have received hate and threats online, getting doxxed and outed on top of that. Funnily enough they receive those threats from people that only want to see Taylor married off with kids and the whole picket fence spiel. Which is kinda funny. In an ironic way.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, there are shitty fans on both the Swiftie and the Gaylor side. You have one side trying to figure out when she lost her virginity and to whom, and another trying to figure out if one of the dance moves she does on stage is her subconsciously moving her hand in the same way you'd finger someone. So it's obvious that theorizing like that would make her uncomfortable. And those are just surface level, I'm not even gonna try going deeper and explaining every mental gymnastics moves each group makes to come to those conclusions.

You also have infighting inside each of those groups, which is just like, ridiculous? It feels just like the L and G attacking the B in LGBTQ+, like, c'mon?

My point being, this is just a regular release cycle ever since Taylor decided to become the sheriff of Pride Trailer Town back in 2019, with bi flag colored hair and all (it's called You Need to Calm Down lmao), after she liked a +18 wlw gif on this very platform, talked about "dating him or dating her" in an interview, saying "Gay pride makes me, me" and talking about decorating her girlfriend's apartment because she was too busy to do so herself. Just a small collection off the top of my head that's kinda difficult to misinterpret, and there is tons more, without ever going into lyric analysis and the sheer amount of queer flagging, but I digress.

The goal of this long-ass ask isn't really to defend, because I've seen first hand how many shitty people are there on each side. I know it's really fun to make fun of them, I've done it myself, even though I consider myself to be a part of this group of people. I straight up made crack pairings and figured out ways to connect lyrics to those pairings to show how silly some theories sound. But I'll reiterate, only one group has seen its members doxxed and outed which put these kids (yes many of them are kids) in very dangerous situations as it wasn't safe for them to be out. And that's something I'll always hold over the head of regular Swifties, because it's a life threatening act that members of the group have done. Meanwhile their strongest "ammo" is secret Kaylor baby (I strongly don't recommend THAT rabbit hole) which has very socially negative ideas interwoven in the theory, depending on who's your source of info, but has never physically put anyone in harms way.

Sorry for putting this block of text in your ask, it's been a long release day and while it's super easy for me because I'm in a way, a closeted Gaylor and remain anonymous online, some of my friends that received threats and insults today don't have my privilege. Lastly, whoever reads this, please do not fall down the rabbit hole of the monetized Gaylor theories if you ever do decide to look into it. They pretty much take old (and some new) theories people spent time putting together (because it's a really fun time) and put those behind a paywall. Also they don't have "sources", just give it a minute and think, who would provide information to a literal random fan? On tumblr of all places?

Ty for coming to my ted talk, it's now for me to get some shut eye! <3

Einstein was wrong, rpf isnt fine