#vyvyan would be. vyvyan

[miiiwu]

rip vyvyan basterd you would’ve loved making insanely violent and bloody newgrounds flash animations in the 2000’s

[jemthespud]

Whoever made this I love you

[dwarfedvyv]

Mike who watches F1 for the competitiveness and sport vs Vyvyan who watches F1 and screams "HURRY UP AND CRASH" at the TV

[ro-fromthestars]

Thinking about what happened to Bacon Sandwich (the pig) after the bambi episode. Vyv probably just let her escape, right?

[eyelinerandinsanity]

rivyan lisa frankenstein au but they just straight up do it the moment vyvyan comes out of the grave

[a-a-a-anon]

appreciation post for Lise Mayer!! she co-wrote The Young Ones (and The Bachelor Boys book, additional material like when they did Comic Relief, etc), which is well known. but she also wrote for other things in the alternative comedy scene like Rik Mayall and Ben Elton's comedy tour (source: BBC Breakfast Time interview)! and, something I didn't know until recently: she co-wrote/wrote for Kevin Turvey! she's not credited in his television appearances, but see below for sources.

i really loved the podcast episode she did with Alexei Sayle about TYO, you gain a lot of insight into her perspective! she also mentions misogynistic treatment like being asked to go make tea when they were doing script readings, not getting invited to a big BBC party because it was presumed she'd be Rik's plus-one, and getting groped at the BBC bar. it pissed me off on her behalf and partly prompted this post.

some specific accolades/accreditation/fun facts:

Rik crediting her with writing/conceiving the Kevin Turvey non-joke "All right, biting political satire: What do Lech Walesea and Menachem Begin have in common? They’ve both got foreign names! What do you mean it’s not funny?" (x)

Alexei Sayle in Thatcher Stole My Trousers crediting Lise with co-writing Turvey: "Lise was, like Linda for mine, a vital part of Rik’s career, co-writing both The Young Ones and Rik’s character Kevin Turvey..."

a 1987 source for Lise co-writing Turvey: "The assumption that women do not write comedy scripts was one with which Lise Mayer, co-writer of The Young Ones television series, has also had to contend. She started writing for Rik Mayall’s Kevin Turvey in the television series A Kick Up the Eighties..." (x)

Rowland Rivron (comedian who toured with The Comic Strip gang and lived with Rik and Lise) in What the f*** did I do last night?: "[Lise] also had the unenviable job of standing at the side of the stage when Rik was performing, and jotting down anything he said that was unscripted. If it got a laugh, it would be woven into the next night’s routine."

the only time i've ever seen a Rik Mayall/Ade Edmondson/Lise Mayer writing credit: for a poem called Distance which was collected in this anthology! Rik and Ade seem to have acted it out (or at least a version of it) in this 20th Century Coyote performance

Rik on Lise writing TYO: "‘She discovers different things: the comedy of embarrassment and awkwardness – she draws out the cheating and stealing that goes on in the house.’" (x) (Lise also says her "favorite comedy was always the comedy of embarrassment" in the Alexei Sayle podcast)

Rik: "... Lise Mayer wrote this great scene where I find a tampon in a handbag and it's my birthday party and I think it's a present because my character is Rick, who is such a git, he didn't know." (x)

Helen Lederer in Not That I'm Bitter, writing about being on The Young Ones: "[Lise] was known to be the brains behind it all, particularly the more surreal elements…"

she and Rik chose the bands (x)

Lise: “We’d have a table read at which point we’d discover that the script ran over an hour long, and then I’d have a sleepless night editing it.” Alexei: “You did that?” Lise: “Usually me, yeah…” (she later explains they'd present the script Monday and rehearsals were Tuesday, Wednesday-so she literally had one night to edit!) (x)

facts from the blu-ray commentary tracks:

Rick's yellow dungarees in Interesting were based off a picture of Lise in a similar pair

Lise wrote an essay about the tampon joke in Interesting so that the BBC didn't cut the scene (though they still edited it)

Paul Jackson (producer) credits Lise with arguing "you are seriously telling me that we cannot refer on television to something that happens to 50% of the population for about 30 years of their life? and we're not allowed to even refer to it" to make an executive back off about the tampon joke in a meeting

Lise came up with Neil's flowerpot covering in Nasty

Vyvyan/Vivian's name comes from Lise having lived in Vyvyan Terrace, Bristol

Lise thought of the cast switching costumes in Bambi (one of my favorite moments!!) (/end of commentary track facts)

this is guesswork, but i've seen Ben Elton and Rik Mayall's handwriting and i'm pretty sure the editing/handwriting on the bottom left on this script must be Lise's, which gives insight into what/how she wrote: (x)

i feel like it's easy for people to overlook or minimize Lise's impact, something that happens to female creators far too often. i hate when women's identities are framed around their association to a man-girlfriend to Rik in this case-which was the norm whenever i saw Lise discussed in articles/books/online discussions about TYO. it's important to know she was a writer and co-creator with her own identity and (underappreciated) contributions. The Young Ones (and Kevin Turvey, and things we don't even know she goes uncredited for) would not have been the same—or wouldn't have even existed—without her!

[irenic-raccoon]

Ppl point out the similarities between Richie Richard and Rick Pratt but what abt the similarities between Richie Richard and Neil Pye. THINK ABT IT... They both do all the cooking and cleaning and they both suck at that.

[rat-boots]

i just Know vyvyan would have loved hydraulic press videos

[thatllbethecurryagain]

i dreamt of vyvyan and that penguin from wallace and gromit doing evil things together and somehow it works... i think they would get along

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

wondering what your headcanons are for rivyan in their future (post-scumbag) and also mike and neil respectively :)

Hello there!

What a question. I wish I was better at reeling off headcanon lists. 😂

I like the suggestion that, despite his violent tendencies, Vyvyan ends up as a pediatrician. Kids would like him. He's exciting. He'd also obviously start balding like Ade did. All that orange hair dye was always gonna take its toll. I know it's more in character for Vyv to just not give a fuck about this, especially as it literally happens in Interesting and he doesn't mind, but I kinda like the idea of Rick reassuring a sniffling Vyvyan that he's still very sexy.

Rick's a bit more messy because it's not like he had a specific career trajectory in mind (at least, not one he'd talk about, at the risk of sounding like a sell-out square). I do think if he wasn't with Vyvyan he'd resort back to type: become a middle class Tory, perhaps even working in a bank like Colin from Bad News. But if he's with Vyvyan? Well, his life is going to take a more unusual route. Maybe he's more in and out of jobs - partly because he can't settle, nothing's good enough compared to the life he envisaged for himself, and partly because all his colleagues immediately hate him.

He'd probably try to get his poetry published for a few years, but nowhere will take them - not even the shoestring budget, underground indie mags that have three readers and should be desperate for submissions. Rick can't fathom why not at all. Eventually, he'd stop writing poems - he's not a real creative, just a poseur, after all. 😂 And actually, I'm pretty sure it's only in S1 he even recites poems anyway?

Do they have kiddos? Well, it wasn't until 2002 that same-sex couples were granted the same adoption rights. In the 1980s, adoption agencies would frequently reject people over their sexuality. So maybe they'd become parents in their 40s? They both have a lot of growing up to do first, to be fair. 😂

(As an aside, I do have some headcanon kids for a WIP. All my WIPs are so long and messy that we may very well be in the 22nd century before they're finished. 😂 But anyway, in one of them I'm giving them twins called Edwina Adrienne and Frederick Richard - partly named after Richie and Eddie of Bottom, who I frequently headcanon as Rivyan's uncles.)

As for Mike and Neil - I know I don't pay them as much attention, but I am always fond of a little CoolPye subplot amongst the Rivyan madness. I don't think I've ever come across an actual CoolPye multichapter.

Mike is gonna continue his life of perpetual studenthood without actually studying for as long as he can. There's a real world expiry date on this: student grants were lowered and lowered until they were completely scrapped and replaced by increased maintenance loans in 2016/17. And, of course, tuition fees came in in 1998 and have only gone up since. Once he'd exhausted what he'd be entitled to through that, he's no longer got the money to pay for endless courses. But, in any case, I can't see how Mike could possibly keep the scam going that long. He's blackmailing the Dean, so as soon as that Dean retries? His ammunition is gone.

So, after he quits the student life with his series of ill-earned qualifications, maybe he'd be able to get a job - though I feel employers wouldn't be too keen on his lack of work history, particularly at his age - but ultimately I just don't think he wants one. 😂 This is another reason why putting him with Neil works. I think he would just do as he does at uni and hang around, reading the papers and whatnot, while Neil goes out to earn the bread.

In ABC, I had Neil working in a flower shop and selling weed on the side. I can't imagine him and Mike are that well-off until Neil's parents die and he inherits everything. Then perhaps they move into Neil's childhood home, which would already be paid off, and just have a comfortable little life, earning enough to keep the lights on and food on the table, as well as indulge whatever hobbies and amusements they want. They'd be regarded as eccentrics by all the neighbours. Neil would carry on with his hippieness; Mike would continue being Mike. Maybe their relationship is less defined than Rivyan's, slowly evolving from flatmates to actual partners over time.

I had the thought of Mike coming home one evening with a baby girl - the result of the one and only time he actually managed to sleep with a woman. Neil would probably be better with most of the maintenance side of child rearing. Mike would be way in over his head, so this could provide a nice opportunity for him to actually be the vulnerable one and have Neil show him that it's fine, he's not incapable, it just takes a little patience. And a few clothes pegs on the nose when changing her nappy.

Oh, and of course, the two couples would still meet up. Just because it's more fun that way, right?

I've waffled enough, I'm sure. You should check out some of @frankenbolt's fics for some good post-Scumbag Rivyan. Thanks for the ask!

[justforbooks]

British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked

Exclusive: Pass to be presented to playwright’s grandson after original cancelled over conviction for gross indecency

The British Library is to symbolically reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader pass, 130 years after its trustees cancelled it following his conviction for gross indecency.

A contemporary pass bearing the name of the Irish author and playwright will be officially presented to his grandson, Merlin Holland, at an event in October, it will be announced on Sunday.

Rupert Everett, who wrote, directed and starred as Wilde in The Happy Prince – the acclaimed 2018 film about the writer’s tragic final years in exile – will play a part in the ceremony.

Holland is an expert on Wilde whose publications include The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. Asked how his grandfather might have reacted to the pass being reinstated, he said: “He’d probably say ‘about time too’.”

The decision to revoke the pass is recorded in board minutes in 1895, when homosexuality was illegal: “The Trustees directed that Mr Oscar Wilde, admitted as a reader in 1879 and sentenced at the Central Criminal Court on 25th May to two years��� imprisonment with hard labour, be excluded from future use of the Museum’s Reading Room.”

Wilde’s downfall followed his decision to sue Lord Queensberry, who had accused him of being a “sodomite” after discovering that his son, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, was Wilde’s lover. It led to Wilde being sentenced to two years of hard labour.

Having been the toast of London society, Wilde died in abject poverty in Paris in 1900, aged 46. After his disgrace and imprisonment, his wife, Constance, fled to Europe with their two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, and changed their surname to Holland, an ancestral family name.

Holland said: “Oscar had been in Pentonville prison for three weeks when his [pass] to the British Museum Reading Room [now the British Library] was cancelled, so he wouldn’t have known about it, which was probably as well … It would have just added to his misery to feel that one of the world’s great libraries had banned him from books just as the law had banned him from daily life. But the restitution of his ticket is a lovely gesture of forgiveness and I’m sure his spirit will be touched.”

In 2017, Wilde was assumed to be among more than 50,000 gay and bisexual men who were posthumously pardoned, although the Ministry of Justice said no individuals would be named.

Holland said: “Oscar didn’t think there was anything wrong in same-sex love … I’m not absolutely certain he has been pardoned … If I had to ask for a pardon, I wouldn’t, because all it would do is make the British establishment feel better about itself … History’s history, and you can’t start rewriting it.”

The British Library boasts arguably the world’s most significant collection of Wilde manuscripts, including drafts of his major plays, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Laura Walker, the British Library’s lead curator of modern archives and manuscripts, said this extraordinary collection makes Wilde’s pass all the more meaningful: “We really want to honour Wilde now and acknowledge what happened to him. Section 11 of the law, which related to the criminalisation of homosexuality, was unjust.”

In 1973, the British Library officially separated from the British Museum, although it continued to be housed in the Reading Room until 1997, when the new British Library building opened in St Pancras.

Wilde’s long relationship with the British Museum started while he was still a student and, after moving to London in 1879, he applied for a reader pass. But he was not afraid to criticise the institution. When he published his long poem The Sphinx, he was asked why he had printed only a few copies. He replied: “My first idea was to print only three copies: one for myself, one for the British Museum, and one for Heaven. I had some doubt about the British Museum.”

Holland joked that Wilde was “setting heaven and himself above the British Museum in a teasingly arrogant way” – a “slightly naughty throwaway remark about a very august institute, exactly the sort of thing that he would have regarded as being slightly stuffy and conventional”.

He added: “He probably would [be] obliged now to make an apology … on … his rude remark … once they’d given him his pass back.”

The British Library event – on 16 October, Wilde’s birthday – will include a public talk by Everett and Holland, launching the latter’s new book, After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal, an account of Wilde’s posthumous life.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[miiiwu]

more TYO doodles before I go to bed :3

[maryshelleysgrave]

Now that it's feeling all warm and sunny outside I would like to announce that I have a pair of shorts concerningly similar to the ones Vyvyan wears in summer holiday and they get worn regularly every year and I do actually intend to show up to this year's festivals rocking these bad boys and my battle vest (I'd like to think he'd be proud of his terrible influence)

[dwarfedvyv]

i’m going to see Wicked again today 💗💚 and all i can think of is if Rick Pratt was alive today he would also love Wicked

[ro-fromthestars]

rip rick pratt, you would have loved reposting all those chain political posts and shaming others who don't, and reading poems on tiktok

rip neil pye, you would have loved asmr reiki and guided meditation audios

rip mike thecoolperson, you would have loved dating apps and cryptocurrency

rip vyvyan basterd, you would have loved monster energy drinks and an adhd diagnosis

[could-they-be-a-pro-wrestler]

How successful would Vyvyan "Vyv" Basterd…

Propaganda for the mic skills:

He's loud and passionate.

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Propaganda for the wrestling skills:

Violent, loves to fight. Probably wouldn't abide by the rules but would enjoy the fight.

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