#(since i came down with covid after having 2 of these get togethers in a week)

[clanoffelidae]

also i think i had a hot flash on friday??? idk i was just getting REALLY hot and was having to pull down my mask and mouth breathe just trying to cool down so i didn't throw up, had to steal one of the lab chairs as soon as it was vacated, and was sitting there helping check-in samples really tiredly and when i asked if it was hot one of my coworkers said 'no???' and then said that my face was really flushed, but then i felt better after standing outside in my t-shirt for a while (in the 50s I think) and just kind of cooling off, then wandered around naked in my apartment for a while and then i felt fine so like. hm. interesting experience but i hope i don't repeat it lol

[tooneys-russo]

YOU DECIDED FOR US

Plot: Riley and Alessia have a messy history. Now that Alessia is back in the UK can they work out their issues?

CHAPTER 1

Alessia and Riley had both grown up with a football glued to their feet, they had both gone into the youth teams together and competed with each other in many tournaments. There had always been some tension between the two, with a few kisses exchanged and a drunken night spent together when they were 17 just before Alessia left. Alessia had signed with UNC for her college years to develop her football further. Riley cut off contact during Alessia’s college years and had signed for Arsenal and had become close with Leah Williamson.

As soon as COVID hit Alessia went back to her family’s home in London, she continued training while her agent and brother Luca was talking to Manchester United about a potential contract. She saw an Instagram post from Riley of her in a park not too far from Alessia’s house having a kick, which was allowed with the COVID rules. Alessia watched the girl’s technique and it was flawless, she sent a message to the Arsenal player. ‘Hey Riley its Alessia, I saw you were at Gosche’s Paddock having a kick. I live near there. I was just wondering if you wanted to have a kick sometime?’ Riley was back at Leah’s having dinner when the message came through, she looked at it and showed Leah. “Oh shit, Alessia Russo. Maybe she wants to reconnect.” Leah wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Shut up.” Riley threw a roast potato at her Arsenal teammate. “We made out a few times years ago, we slept together once. Haven’t seen her in ages.” Riley responded and looked at the message again. ‘Yeah sure. I am going down tomorrow at 2. See you then.’ Riley glared at Leah who knew that Riley couldn’t resist the pull of a gorgeous blonde girl. 

The following day Riley showed up at the field in London, she had set up some cones and put out a bunch of footballs ready for Alessia. Riley had also set up some water and gatorade for them while they trained. “Nice set up Riley.” The blonde striker walked over. “Kind of shocked that you pulled all this together for little old me.” Riley turned to the blonde, she looked a little older but still just as gorgeous as the last time she had seen her. “I guess I just had to impress the UNC superstar right?” Alessia laughed. The two went through some drills. It wasn’t an incredibly hot summer in London but the two were sweating after an hour. “Holy shit Riley this is mental.” Alessia sat down by the water and laid back, Riley smirked and grabbed a water, she poured it over her head and it trickled down her body. Alessia stared at her and watched as she took her shirt off. “Take a picture Russo. It’ll last longer.” She threw her Arsenal training shirt at the blonde striker. “Just amazed that you are still standing.” Alessia choked out. “Yeah sure.” She rolled her eyes and offered a hand to Alessia to help her up. Riley pulled her up and they stood starting into each other’s eyes, they were the same height, Riley caught herself and stepped back. “Lets keep going. No WSL side will sign you if you are lazy.” Alessia grabbed Riley’s hand. “Wait, how did you know I am going to join the WSL?” 

Riley laughed at Alessia. “Oh please, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes. You have two fantastic seasons at UNC, then suddenly you are back and your brother was spotted at United a couple weeks ago?” Riley shrugged. “He kind of stands out.” Alessia watched Riley as she set up another drill. “What? Want me to get out some paper to show you how everyone worked it out? Come on Less you went to College it is obvious.” Riley walked back over to Alessia. “You will do great there, you would be better at Arsenal but I guess you don’t always make the best decisions now do you?” The question had a bit of venom that Riley regretted immediately. It had been three years since they had slept together, only for Alessia to tell Riley that she was leaving in a few weeks, meaning that Riley cut off contact and hid from the girl even at Lioness camps. Alessia looked down. “It was the best for me. For my football.” Riley didn’t respond, rather she walked over to their next drill.

Once their session was finished Riley began picking her things up to take to her car. “Riley, I am really sorry.” Riley shrugged. “Don’t be.” She said coldly. “Let me know if you want to do another session. Tomorrow is my recovery day so I won’t be around.” Riley couldn’t look at Alessia as she packed her car. Alessia followed Riley, “So you don’t want to talk about what happened between us?” Riley sighed and turned to face Alessia. “To be honest no. It was hard as shit to get over you Alessia but I did it, alone. All of that is just a memory for me, a great memory but I am different now. I just need to focus on myself and my football. Just like you did. I will see you around Less-Alessia.” Riley corrected herself and closed the boot of her car and drove off leaving the blonde watching her pull away. Alessia messaged Riley a few days later, wanting to meet up for another session. ‘Sorry, heading into club training. Maybe another time.’ There was minimal contact between the two, Alessia being the one to initiate contact. Riley couldn’t bring herself to let the girl back into her life, not like she used to be.

When it was announced that Alessia had signed with Manchester United, Riley had liked the instagram announcement but never reached out to the blonde and Alessia sat with the message box open unable to type out anything to the girl. After a couple celebratory drinks with Ella she messaged Lotte, ‘Hey, Ella and I are in London and we are having a little bit of a party to celebrate me signing and the COVID restrictions easing. Come over and bring some of the girls. If possible, can you bring Riley?’ Lotte showed up at Leah and Riley’s place telling them about the sneaky party. “Nah I am fine thanks.” Riley said not bothering to get off the couch. “Come on please, I will let you wear my vintage Arsenal jumper that you had your eye on.” Riley looked up at Lotte. “Fine.” She trudged upstairs to get changed, she threw on an oversized white t shirt, black skinny jeans, a pair of Nike Jordan’s and a backwards Nike cap. On the way Riley stayed quiet, nervous about seeing Alessia again after their last encounter and the fight. 

Alessia and Ella were already tipsy when they arrived at the house. They both wrapped their arms around Lotte, Leah and Riley. Alessia’s hug lingered on Riley for an extra second before the girl pulled away and looked at the ground, Alessia smiled at the girl. “You liked the post.” She said matter of factly. “Can’t hate me that much.” She sipped her drink. “Just being polite, would be weird if someone who had known you for ten years didn’t like that you were coming to WSL wouldn’t it?” Riley moved past Alessia to grab a drink. Alessia watched Riley closely as they both got slightly more drunk with every passing minute. Riley stumbled out the back into the yard and sat down on a chair by the fire, she was happy no one else was out there so she could have some peace and quiet. It was quickly ruined by a drunk blonde who pulled up a chair next to Riley. “You hate me.” Alessia said and sipped her drink. “Oh shit, how did you work that out?” Riley smirked and leant back on the chair. “I know I fucked up but you also know I had to go.” Alessia put her hand on Riley’s leg. “Yeah I know. But I also know that you could have told me. I would have waited for you. I would have done fucking anything for you Alessia.” She looked into the blonde girl’s eyes. “I am sorry.” Alessia leant towards Riley. “Fuck your sorry.” Riley leant in and spoke against Alessia’s lips before standing up. She felt an empty can hit her back. “Fuck you Riley.” Alessia spat. “Oh princess you already did. Or don’t you remember?” Riley turned and walked quickly to Alessia so they were inches apart. “You think I didn’t miss you? I spent fucking ages trying to get over you. I wanted nothing more than you.” Alessia held back the tears. “You had me. I know for a fact you got with someone two weeks into being at UNC. Good to know two weeks is ages for you. I don’t want anything to do with you Alessia. You are fucking poison. Have fun at United, at least I will only have to put up with your shit for 180 minutes a year.” Riley finished her drink and stormed out of the house. 

Alessia spent the rest of the night drinking more and began talking with Jill Roord, the rest of the night was a blur for Alessia until the next morning. She woke up next to a girl, part of her prayed it was Riley that they maybe had some heated hate sex. But that was quickly dashed when the girl rolled over and it was Jill not Riley. Alessia sat up and rubbed her face, her phone had messages from a few of the girls with pictures of her and Jill dancing together and kissing. She groaned and got up from the bed, she had to head back to Manchester that afternoon and knew she would be feeling a bit poorly the whole time. Jill rubbed her eyes and looked at Alessia. “Well good morning to you.” Alessia smiled at the girl. “Good morning. Sorry to be that girl but I have to leave back to Manchester today.” She grabbed a shirt from the ground and put it on. “Oh no don’t worry. We have a team meeting tonight, maybe next time you are in London you can let me know, we could catch up again.” Alessia didn’t respond, she was putting everything together in her head of who Jill plays for. “Um maybe.” Jill rolled her eyes and got up from the bed. “Okay guess not.” Jill got dressed in silence and left the house without anything else being said. 

Ella and Alessia headed back to Manchester in the afternoon. “So you and Jill.” Ella smirked, Alessia sighed and put her sunglasses on. “I had a fight with Riley then the rest is a blur.” Ella examined Alessia’s face. “What ever happened between you two?” Alessia ran Ella through their stolen kisses at youth camp and everything leading up to their first time. “Oh Less.” Ella said sympathetically, Alessia having a few tears escape her eyes. “I never knew. I am so sorry. Are you okay?” Alessia just nodded and kept looking out the window of the moving train. 

Riley showed up at the Arsenal team meeting with Leah, they were just chatting about the upcoming season. They sat towards the front of the theater as the rest of the team came in. Jill walked in giggling with one of the other players, Riley saw that she had a few hickeys on her neck and Riley laughed and whispered to Leah. “Seems like someone had fun at the party last night.” Leah cleared her throat knowing exactly what had happened, and who gave Jill the hickeys. Katie laughed loud and announced. “Oi Rood, nice neck! Russo sure as shit marked you up.” Riley clenched her jaw and looked down. The meeting and subsequent team dinner was wasted on Riley, she barely paid attention and disappeared without saying bye to any of the girls. She went for a walk after she got home, she walked all the way to the local football field and started running trying to keep her tears from falling. 

They had not spoken since that night and there was no instance where they ran into each other either being in two different cities. The night before they were to play each other both were in London getting ready to play at the Emirates. At the Arsenal and Manchester United game Alessia warmed up with the team and continued glancing at her ex friend. Riley was phenomenal in the midfield, she had a game awareness that most 21 year olds would kill for. Riley had worked her ass off the whole game, there wasn’t much else that she could do when the rest of her team was playing below their best. Alessia watched on in amazement at how far the other members of the good peeps had come. Ella and Lotte were fantastic but Riley was on another level. It was clear how frustrated Riley was as the game got closer to the end, she was starting to make almost reckless tackles leading to Katie Zelem to get in her face, all Riley gave back was a smirk as she took her yellow card. Alessia collected the ball from Ella in the midfield and began heading towards goals, she could hear someone running up beside her but before she could process what had happened she was on her ass and a whistle was blown. Alessia looked up to see that Riley and Katie Zelem were face to face again both pushing each other. “Maybe if she could actually take a tackle and not fall over every second she’d be able to handle herself in this league.” Riley yelled at Katie, she was quickly pulled back by Leah to avoid anything else happening. “Get up Alessia, this is the big leagues now, not some backwater college competition.” Alessia was quick to her feet and storming over to Riley. “What is your issue? Still fucking hung up on me?” Alessia bit back at Riley who tried to lunge at her. The referee gave Riley a red. “Off you go, you need to go to the changerooms.” Riley clenched her jaw and grabbed her shin guards as she walked off the field. 

Riley got back to the change rooms and sat in front of her locker. She kept her head down holding back the tears. She showered and got changed into her training gear. When the girl’s re-entered the changeroom they avoided Riley, even Leah couldn’t speak to Riley because of her actions. Riley was ripped through by her coach, she nodded knowing that she had gone too far. “I will meet you at home.” Riley said coldly to Leah as she walked out to her car. There was a local bar nearby that she would frequent when she had a bad game. She sat at a booth with her beer as she watched the people enjoy themselves. 

Suddenly she saw a bunch of familiar faces, the Manchester United girls were celebrating their last game for the year as well as their win. Riley kept her head down as she got another drink, the United girls were loud and dancing together. Riley sat back in her booth finishing her fifth drink, she decided that them being so joyful was punishment for her behaviour. Alessia recognised the lone figure in the booth and felt the rage from the game rise in her. She stormed over and slammed her drink on the table. “You calmed down yet? Or are you here to start another fight?” Riley didn’t bother raising her head. “Alessia, honestly fuck off. Go call Jill, she probably misses you.” Alessia leant down and said into Riley’s ear. “Don’t pretend you aren’t jealous. We both know you wish it was you that I marked you up.” Riley stood face to face with Alessia. “Oh please. You would have imagined me that night. We have a fight and you need a fuck to get me out of your head.” Riley snapped back at Alessia. The blonde swallowed and looked at the brunette in front of her, Riley grabbed onto Alessia’s shirt, the striker praying that maybe she would kiss her. Instead Riley pushed Alessia back so she could leave, she stumbled past the Manchester United players and turned to Alessia. “It’s not hard to hook up with someone, Russo.” She turned and kissed Ella deeply, Riley pulled back and walked out of the bar towards a cab. Ella stood there stunned as Alessia raced out of the bar following Riley. She grabbed her wrist and turned her around. “You really are an asshole.” Alessia grabbed onto Riley’s shirt. “You are so frustrating! When I saw you in the park it all came back, all the feelings, all the good and the bad.” Alessia was close to tears as she spoke to Riley. “Alessia, I loved you. With everything I had and you still left.” Riley looked at Alessia, she had never been so vulnerable. Alessia pulled Riley against her and kissed her deeply, trying to put as much love as she could in the kiss, but Riley pulled back and almost fell over some bins. She began crying and rushed off to the waiting cab. Alessia stood there watching the cab pull away.

Chapter 2

[icypantherwrites]

It is finished.

Words I wasn't sure I was ever going to be able to write, but at 11:51 pm last night they became reality.

Bottled Ocean is finished.

I am really, really proud of myself for being able to come back to this story. I started writing it in all the way back in May 2020 so it has been almost four years from start to finish and it's been a really long, bumpy road. So much has happened over those four years and the story went from a vibrant, engaged audience when it first published to, if I'm lucky, one or two engaged readers and maybe five reading it total. It's been really hard to put forth the energy into writing such a monster of a story (it is officially over 250,000 words long) knowing that there's no one there really to read it and even now I'll be lucky to have one or two engaged readers for it.

But it is done. My legacy after writing over 400 fanfictions in the last 7 years is not an incomplete story. It's something I can look back on and be proud of that I wrote that and as anyone knows, 250,000 words is not a small undertaking.

I had promised myself that if I went back to writing this I would finish the story before it began publishing again on Patreon (which resumes today) and then life hit. I had Covid the last two weeks and felt really terrible and dizzy and unable to focus. I thought writing fight scenes was hard, bah, writing fight scenes while you're distracted by the word 'sword' because it says 's-word' and going off on a tangent of swear words you think pirates would say while still trying to write a fight scene is hard. I kept going.

I reached yesterday morning and realized that I still had at least four chapters to write and I wasn't sure how I was going to do it and even if my deadline was self-imposed I was going to fail it.

I didn't.

Outside of taking breaks to walk the dog (it reached 42 here in Chicagoland and for this time of the year that's practically tropical) and guzzling down over half of a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper and trying to drink water in there too, I did it. I sat down, wrote my ass off, and a little over 16,000 words of the most pinnacle parts of the story as it all comes together and concludes I did it. I am exhausted and I honestly didn't even recall most of the final chapter so I went back and read it this morning and not to toot my horn but damn I'm a good writer, and I am just so relieved and happy it is done.

I am done too. My writing journey comes to an end with this story (I'll still for sure be posting on Patreon for the rest of 2024 though with my insane backlog and of course Bottled Ocean and some works on AO3 too) and I'm hanging up my keyboard. It has been a long seven years full of the good and the bad, the bright spots and the dark, but I can look back at this chapter of my life and see that I wrote over 3.2 million words worth of stories to share and I feel...

I feel content. And relieved and honestly my wrists are aching from pressing against my laptop all night, but I am happy. Thank you to all who came on this writing journey with me, who have been with me since As Color Fades Away posted in 2017 or stumbled across my works this year. It has been a life-changing seven years of writing.

I'll still be around here posting updates and hopefully, maybe, trying to get a few of y'all to bite at Bottled Ocean and join me in reading my final fanfiction, but this author is finally, finally finished and it is the start of a new adventure.

Thanks everyone ♥

[mamadoc]

1, 2, 11, 20😊

1 - Talk about someone who changed your life.

Okay. I took far too long to think about this. Since we're all in a post 6x6 and TTPD era, here's a vulnerable, tortured answer.

I had a very close friend for several years. My husband and I were very close to her and her husband. Our kids were friends. We went to the same church, all loved to travel, had similar interests and tastes, had all lived internationally, went on double dates, etc. We even considered having them raise our kids if my husband and I both passed away. In sum, we were super close.

Then COVID hit. As a doctor COVID was difficult. I struggled a lot because I was taking care of sick patients. I recall one tearful day of talking to a pregnant mom who was about to be transferred to the ICU and was saying goodbye to her other children. It really wasn't safe or comfortable to go to work for a long time. I wasn't really dealing with it well, especially with the people around me treating it like it didn't matter. I was really depressed for the first time in my life.

This friend didn't understand that or if she did, she didn't care. So, when I said I wasn't interested in going out in public and having any type of birthday celebration for my birthday (who wants to celebrate turning 41 anyway?), she started attacking me on a personal level. I was already in a dark place and instead of being a good friend and supporting me, she just keep sending me hateful messages.

That was the first and only time in my life I considered suicide. I reached out for help and got it. I wasn't in that dark pit for a long time. I'm much better now. I mostly have my sister to thank for that.

I brought her flowers for Valentine's Day with an apology note a few weeks after that. She never apologized. I brought treats to her a few weeks after that with an apology note explaining why I felt so hurt. I tried to call to explain how I felt so that I could heal. She never answered the phone.

I'm still not sure what I have to apologize for or why she never seemed to accept or offer an apology. But that was two years ago. We still don't talk. Our husbands don't talk. Our kids don't play together anymore. For a long time, I didn't like going to church because I knew I'd have to see her.

Most of that is better now. I'm just sad for a lost friendship and for the dark place I had to crawl out of.

I've used a slight modification of her name for a character in one of my stories who betrayed Lucy. I thought that might be therapeutic, but it just brought the situation up to the surface again.

Uhhh... I can't believe I just wrote all of that. I'll try to keep the rest of the answers a bit lighter.

2 - Talk about something you really want to do.

I LOVE to travel. I've been to 47 states and 16 countries. My husband and I had all of our plans in place to get to all 50 states before we turned 40. Then COVID hit and all of our plans were dashed when travel shut down. We're going at a slower pace now, but we're getting close to it. #48 (NM) in October, #49 (HI) July 2025 as a 20th anniversary trip, and #50 (AK) the summer of 2026.

11 - Share something you're proud of.

According to AO3's stats, I've posted over 339k words since I started posting 7 months ago (plus another 9-10k chapter I hope to finish tonight). I know there are those that blow me out of the water (Ahem, ahem @girlintotv and @centralperkchenford) with their numbers, but I'm pretty proud of that as a first-time writer and working mom with 4 young kids.

20 - Share with us a random fact or two.

I'm afraid I've already overshared. *yikes* But here we go.

I'm the oldest of 6 kids. The first 4 of us are all 23 months apart, then 27 months apart, and 25 months apart. So, we're essentially every 2 years for 10 years with all of our birthdays clustered together. 3 boys and 3 girls.

I had the chicken pox for my eighth birthday. My grandparents came to visit for my birthday, but they were afraid of getting shingles. So, I had to stay in my bedroom on the second floor, and they stayed on the first floor for the whole time they were visiting. I still remember standing in the hallway near the dining room while they sang happy birthday. One of my siblings blew out the candles for me and my mom brought me a piece of cake in the hallway. (Man, I'm still rocking those depressing TTPD vibes, aren't I?) I was officially not contagious the day my mom came home from the hospital with baby #5 in our family, and I remember being so excited to be healthy enough to hold my baby brother.

Sheesh. Now you probably won't ever ask me anything again. Between TTPD, 6x6, and the angst I'm supposed to be writing right now, I'm coming up with some strange answers.

Sorry to be the Eeyore in the crowd. Thanks for asking me to play though.

Ask game

[bangtanintotheroom]

Goodbye 2023!

Well well well, it's the end of another year and miraculously, I'm still here on Tumblr writing my silly little smut fics. To think it's been two years since I started this on a whim and have experienced so much on this blog, it's crazy. But this year felt so different compared to the previous one, for multiple reasons that I'll talk about underneath.

To start off on a major personal note, my year didn't start off the best.

I lost my grandmother last December after she struggled with health issues since the pandemic (non-COVID related). She was my last grandparent and although I didn't agree with a lot of her views, she loved me and I loved her. The holidays were rough to get through, to say the least.

Then my great uncle (her brother) passed in February while my family and I were on vacation. We visited and stayed with him last summer, which was the longest I had ever been around him in my life. It was a sudden decline in his health and to have it so soon after his sister was shocking.

Only the people in my personal life know about this as I didn't want to bring this up on here. I make sure to keep certain things separate from my life as a writer, but now I feel comfortable enough to tell you all just what's been going on. I'm doing better now, thankfully. We visited the cemetery recently where my grandmother and grandfather are now laid to rest together with their newly-acquired headstone. It was bittersweet, but it felt good to finally see a marker there after all this time. 💕

Now onto the good notes, which there were plenty of!

This is the first time I have ever went to Trinidad TWICE in one year! We went in February and in May, both for different reasons, but it was a relaxing and fun time. Something about the islands is refreshing, especially when you live in a cooler climate.

And then came April...MUTHAFUCKIN AGUST D TOUR 🗣️🗣️🗣️

This was officially my first K-pop concert and boy, was it an experience. Despite the rain and Prudential staff being shitbags, I had an amazing time and I look back at my videos and pictures with fond memories. Shoutout to @minttangerines @kithtaehyung and @here2bbtstrash for meeting up and listening to me scream drunkenly about nuggets at 2 AM!

I also had some nice weekend and day trips with my irl friends, filled with chaos and conversations that would probably get us committed lmao

I went to Texas for the first time, too! My brother moved down there last year and I already made plans from the jump to go visit him. It's a whole different world down there, but I'm already planning to go back in 2024 (with a checklist of what we have to do)!

Let's see...I did my usual cons and got somewhat back into cosplay, too. My friends and I are planning to return to the last one we visited before the pandemic started, so we're very excited!

Those were the main things in my personal life that occurred, other than work (which is still ass) and the usual daily things.

Now onto my year in writing.

2023 paled in comparison to 2022. My output lessened considerably, due to multiple personal events, exhaustion and stress from work and mental health.

I was writing most of the time, but I was rarely finishing anything to post. My WIPs kept nagging at me on Notion and it got to the point where I recently cleaned up shop. I cancelled some of them, but kept them in a page where I could reuse the concept and scenes for something else. This gave me peace of mind.

But I also have to do some cleaning up for fics that have already been posted.

I know I said I would stretch some of them out, but I am at the point where I have zero desire to still do that. Plus I am getting into new groups and find myself wanting to write for them instead. I will make a separate post on my intentions for my current fics, just so there's no confusion on anyone's end whether it will be continued or not.

It's also been extremely jarring how many people have just...left.

When I compare the end of 2022 to the end of 2023, it's like a ghost town. A majority of the servers I was in have shut down or been abandoned. Many fellow writers have disappeared, deactivated or gone on hiatus (for reasons that are valid and I wish them all the best). And the atmosphere has shifted, but not in a positive direction.

Interactions have lessened, anons are being ruder than ever, people are plagiarizing left and right. It's a mess.

I've had a couple of moments where I debated on stepping away, but I can't right now. Writing gives me an unexpected joy and it's always a treasure to see my mutuals posting their own works that they've put their blood, sweat and tears into. I'm not quite ready to leave that yet.

Although, I do have to take a slight step back, just to focus on personal things. I'm practicing art again to see if I can start selling once I'm comfortable enough to. If things ever get overbearing and I can't juggle the two, I will let you all know as soon as possible. But for now, expect at least one more year of AJ aka bangtanintotheroom!

Wow, this was long 😬 but I've been sitting on these thoughts for months and I had to get it out somehow.

I'll finish this off by saying thank you to everyone who follows me or reads my fics or plans to start reading them. Thank you to my mutuals who are supportive and encourage my crazy ideas. Thank you to everyone.

Happy New Year! 🥳

[ingravinoveritas]

How will you feel if Georgia and Anna turn up in GO2? Or any other assorted family members?

(Grouping all of the GO 2 Anons together since there are quite a few, and in order of take hotness level from Mild to Medium to Habanero Spicy...)

So, to recap the seeming order of events up until now (though I'm sure everyone is probably well aware): Three weeks ago, Neil made this post featuring a behind the scenes photo from GO season 2. Almost immediately, Twitter detectives set to work trying to ascertain the identities of the three people in the photo, and it very quickly came to light that both Peter Davison and Ty Tennant have roles in GO 2 listed on their respective CVs on their shared agent's website:

Shortly after that, the news appeared to be confirmed on the Radio Times website, and was subsequently picked up by a number of other media outlets. Most of these seem to be repeating what was reported by Radio Times, and while (from what I have seen, at least) there has been no official confirmation from either Amazon or Neil, the roles being on Peter and Ty's CVs seem to have convinced most of the fandom that they are in the second season.

I think there are several things we have to consider when talking about all of this. The first season of GO came out in 2019, and since then, the world has, well...I suppose "gone completely tits up" is one way of putting it, but the world has changed dramatically, and the circumstances around filming and production of television have also changed. Thus, when GO season 2 was filmed in Scotland from October of 2021 to March of 2022, the set was extremely locked down tight due to Covid safety protocols.

In all likelihood, it probably would've been very difficult to get actors for smaller roles or as extras, so from a purely logistical/practical standpoint, that is what could have led to the casting of Peter and Ty. There is also no way to know who the characters of Alastair and Ennon are, so for all we know, these could be very brief appearances where the characters are in one scene and then never appear again.

With that in mind, let's turn to the subject of nepotism, which I have seen mentioned quite frequently since the alleged casting was announced. I think what people may not be seeing is that there has been a marked difference in the reaction to Peter/Ty's casting from the hardcore GO fans vs. the wider public on Twitter. With the GO fans, there seems to be this attitude of tiptoeing around the word nepotism and everyone needing to be super happy/thrilled at the prospect of Peter and Ty (and possibly Georgia, but more on that ion a minute) being in GO 2, or otherwise you're a "bad" GO/David fan.

The wider public, however, has no such compunction about saying the word, often repeatedly, and with additional color commentary. What I wish the fans on Twitter understood is that this is something to be genuinely concerned about, because when the second season comes out, it won't be enough for just the hardcore fans to watch it. The show needs to bring in new viewers, and if people are as turned off by perceived nepotism as they seem to be, they won't tune in. Without those viewers, season 2 may not perform well, and if that is the case, Amazon could easily say "Well, GO season 2 didn't perform, so we're not going to greenlight a third season."

That is why it matters. Because even if casting Peter/Ty was done out of necessity/practicality, it ultimately comes down to people's perceptions, and overwhelmingly those perceptions are of nepotism and/or stunt casting.

For me personally, I certainly was and am not thrilled at the idea of Peter and Ty being in GO 2 (let alone Georgia and Anna, which...I might need a stronger drink before I write out my thoughts on that). But this does not in any way have anything to do with me disliking Peter or Ty, and in fact goes back to what I've always been most concerned with, and that's the integrity of the show.

Thinking back to 2020, I'm reminded of the heart-achingly beautiful audio clip that was released just a few months into lockdown, in honor of the 30th anniversary of GO's publication. Neil didn't write a new scene for Shadwell and Madame Tracy or Newt and Anathema...he wrote a scene for Aziraphale and Crowley. It was Michael and David whose performances resonated so strongly with all of us and with him, and he specifically chose to bring them back as Aziraphale and Crowley to mark that occasion.

When Staged came along shortly thereafter, it was created to build on that chemistry and relationship between Michael and David. Staged was meant to remind us of Good Omens, not the other way around. So I do feel that, when it comes to Peter and Ty (and Georgia/AL) being in GO season 2, it would be a distraction to have them there, rather than an enhancement. Not even because of the acting--as Peter is a seasoned actor and Ty/Georgia are decent enough (though AL is the exception, as she categorically cannot act, which we have seen)--but because of the principle.

The reason so many of us have greatly anticipated the second season is the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley. So for me, casting any of these folks in the show (but particularly Georgia and AL) draws attention away from the Husbands, almost as if to say the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley is somehow less/not as worth our attention as their "real" relationships. It also goes back to what I mentioned above about stunt casting, and again, if the viewers the show very much relies on see it that way and are turned off by that/perceived nepotism, it may cause the show itself to suffer overall.

So those are my thoughts on the potential casting of Peter Davison/Ty Tennant and Georgia/AL being in GO 2. I suspect we won't really know the truth about who is or isn't in the show until it's released, but to the Anons who felt they are alone in having feelings of hesitation over these casting decisions: You are very much not the only one who feels as you do, and I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to write in and share your feelings with me. We'll just have to wait and see what happens...

[spectralharvest]

20 Questions for Fic Authors

Thanks for tagging me @sunhatllama although I only have 2 posted fics so this is gonna be kind of sad

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2, although I used to have a lot more that I orphaned because I wrote them when I was 12 and was ashamed of myself lmao

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

2,242

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've posted things for Spy x Family and The Longing, although I've been sporadically working on something for South Park

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I only have two but I'll put them here anyway

1.) Happy Endings - My Spy x Family fic about Twilight's mom that I based off of a fan animation. Ironically, a couple months after I posted this, Chapter 62 came out which basically dealt with the same thing lmao

2.) Counting the Seconds - My fic for The Longing, an idle game that I really really love. It's not very popular fic wise though, so it makes sense why it has less kudos.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I keep meaning to, but I get nervous and then forget and by the time I remember, it's way too late to respond. Or at least it feels like it's not socially acceptable anymore.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

None of mine so far have had angsty endings, but I'd probably go with Happy Endings just because there's some canonical character death.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Counting the Seconds? It's just me going through my favorite ending of the game and what The Shade might have been thinking.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, I don't post enough to get that kind of engagement lol.

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

Nope, I just haven't seen a reason to.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

I have not written crossovers, I like to keep my fandoms separate.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nah, like I said, I haven't done anything notable enough to get my things stolen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

^^^

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but it does sound kind of appealing. I would worry about dragging down someone else's work though since my work ethic is so goddamn terrible.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Creek!! I actually wasn't all that into them the first time I watched South Park, but when I came back to it years later the Post Covid special had come out and the fact that they were still together 40 years later really cemented them in my heart. I <3 old man yaoi.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have a Creek-focused South Park 60's au that I've been trying to write since June, but I went to work one day with a bunch of ideas and then I left my shift feeling so drained and I haven't been able to get that spark back. I also have a Damianya-focused Spy x Family royalty au based on that one line from chapter 88 but I got too carried away with the planning instead of actually writing.

16. What are your writing strengths?

My roommate (@sunhatllama) says that I conveyed emotions pretty well so I guess I can do that

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My work ethic :(

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've certainly tried it before with some of the fics I orphaned, and I feel like it can be fine. Nowadays, I'd just rather have it be like "character said something in a different language". idk i don't feel strongly either way

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Gravity Falls! My ff.net account is still up with them but they're BAD. I wrote them when I was like 10 and I don't remember the account info so I can't go and delete them.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Probably Happy Endings, just because I wasn't expecting a lot of engagement but the creator of the fan animation that I based it off of actually found it and left a comment about it! It made me so happy and I was so goddamn happy when I went to high school the next day lmao.

I'm tagging no one because I have no friends heehee

[kidgetrash]

Monsters and Mana 2 - Save the World, Get the Girl - Chapter 14

Character:  Keith Kogane, Pidge Gunderson/Katie Holt, Lance McClain, Hunk Garrett, Shirogane Takashi, Coran, Princess Allura, Matt Holt

Pairings:  Keith/Pidge

Summary: Shiro still hasn't given up!

A/N:

Hey guys, wow, apologies for how long it has been but I have a seriously good excuse! I really haven't been well. In fact I just came home after four days in the hospital having blood transfusions and a minor procedure! I'm still not quite 100% back up to my usual pain-addled self, but I am definitely better than I was. Basically, and incredibly long story made short, I had been unable to barely move since last week with high heart rate, gasping for breath on moving, called an ambulance Sunday AND Tuesday, was gaslit by paramedics and my doctor, and put my foot down and demanded to be taken to the emergency room. Good thing I did! I had been having bleeding for over five years that the doctor had ignored every single time I brought it up, and my haemoglobin level, well, seriously low is classed as 70-80. Mine was 63! So yeah, 2 emergency transfusions, a minor procedure to stop the bleeding, four days in hospital, a leak in a transfusion, three days on only clear fluids and days where they forgot I could actually eat, that's just the tip of the iceberg! I wondered why my makeup no longer matched my skin tone and it was because I was YELLOW!

Anyway. home again now to recover, what a way to spend my girls' last half term of the school year until they finish in July! To think in the Easter hols I had covid, and now this! I'm no longer making any plans for school breaks because I seem to be getting more ill with each passing one!

‘Blood spurts forth from the wound, spraying the nearest to the corpse, that’s you, Allura, and you Keith.  Luckily you were both standing otherwise it would have been more than your boots that received a new paint job!’  Coran announced cheerily as everyone looked at Shiro in shock.

‘What?  It’s right here on my character sheet!  I’m a bloodthirsty master thief!’  He tapped on the screen a few times to demonstrate.  ‘Of course, if you’d let me reroll…’

‘No!’  Coran, Lance, and Allura yelled as one, not having realised the lengths Shiro was willing to go to to try and be a paladin again.

‘Okay, but I’m not going to pull any punches.’  Shiro leaned back in his seat and folded his arms.

‘Good!  The point in you having a character that contrasts with your own is that you get to act in ways you wouldn’t normally.  Just like Lance being polite to Keith, and Pidge being ladylike.’

‘You are so lucky she can’t hear you.’  Allura shook her head.

‘Well, she’s going to have to now.  It’s time I took the story back to her.’  Coran rapped his knuckles on the bubble surrounding Pidge, who was happily sitting crosslegged finishing off her nachos.

She glanced up with a look Keith recognised, she had zoned out on what was going on around her and zoned in on whatever she was working on on the tablet.  The bubble disappeared with a bloop as she tapped on her wrist computer.  ‘Did we win?’

‘Not yet.  We’re going back to you now.’  Coran scrolled to a hastily put together page on his tablet.

‘Wait.’  Keith said before she activated her bubble again and picked up a napkin.  He carefully wiped the corner of Pidge’s lip where she had a little soured cream.  ‘Now you’re good.’  He smiled at her as the rest of the table watched her cheeks turn brightest red.

‘Thanks.’  She murmured, the bubble popping into existence between them as though it could shield her embarrassment.

‘Now, where were we?’

‘We?  No, me and Keith weren’t anywhere!  Why would you say that?’  She laughed nervously.

‘I mean, where were you in your adventure.  We as in you and me as player and monster master.’  Coran leaned towards her, under the pretence of seeing if she understood that was what he meant but hoping to get a glimpse of her changes.

‘Right!’  Pidge clutched the tablet to her chest protectively.  ‘So, that light I was following was coming closer?’

Masterlist

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

‘Clanlands’: Sam Heughan is the Energizer Bunny to Graham McTavish’s Elder Statesman

'Outlander' star Heughan also talks about the wild journey he went on in getting to New Zealand, and the possibility of Season 3 of 'Men in Kilts.'

BY CHRISTINA RADISH PUBLISHED 9 HOURS AGO

The Starz series Outlander brought actors and Scotsmen Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish into each other’s lives, making them co-stars, friends, and travel partners. Since then, the duo have joined forces for another TV series, Men in Kilts, through which they go on epic adventures while immersing themselves in the landscape, history, and food and drink, first in Scotland for Season 1 and then in New Zealand for Season 2. And then, after they survive their time together in their camper van, they revisit it all for a companion book, which this time is called Clanlands in New Zealand: Kiwis, Kilts, and an Adventure Down Under.

Collider recently got the opportunity to chat 1-on-1 with Heughan about his experiences with McTavish, which are often adrenaline-fueled for him while anxiety-ridden for his travel companion. During the interview, he talked about how fortuitous their meeting was, deciding to do Men In Kilts while sharing a beer together, working in unison for the books (both print and audio), the incredible opportunities Outlander has given him, why doing non-scripted work was initially terrifying for him, how COVID almost derailed the season, letting McTavish take the reins for their time together in New Zealand, being more nervous than he lets on, and why everyone should write their own memoir when they go on holiday.

Collider: I love the Men in Kilts TV show. I love these companion Clanlands books. You and Graham McTavish are great at making everybody feel like they’re there with you, and it’s so much fun to watch and to read your experiences.

SAM HEUGHAN: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, it was such fun to write. It’s yet another romping, roving adventure.

You and Graham did Outlander together, you’ve done two seasons of Men in Kilts, and you have these books. Did you have any idea when you guys met that your partnership would be so successful? It’s one thing to be co-stars, it’s another thing to be friends, and it’s yet another thing to do all of this stuff together. Did you have a sense that you would develop a friendship like the one that you have?

HEUGHAN: No, I don’t think so. You never know who you’re going to get on with. It’s incredible. I think we have similar humor, but I think everyone on the set of Outlander did, and we all got on very well. It was almost fortuitous. I was looking to create a TV show and was talking to Graham about it, over a beer in Santa Monica. He also talked about a desire to do that. So, I thought, “Let’s just do this.” It really was the catalyst of, “Why not? I’ve got all the contacts here. We’ve got the locations. Let’s just give it a go.” The book series, as well, was something that I was toying with, at the time. I spoke to the publisher and they jumped at the chance. It’s been great. Even finding the voices in the dialogue that we had in the books was something that came out of COVID. It was us writing in unison on the same online document. I think that banter is something that we’ve captured, not only in the TV show, but in the books. We lean into it even more in the books, and especially the audiobook. It’s great. It goes back to having the same sense of humor and having a shared experience, as well.

In your dreams of being an actor, had you ever envisioned yourself traveling the world in kilts and making award-winning alcohol? Do you find any of these ventures particularly surprising? Are there people in your life that think you’re just absolutely mad, or would they all be like, “Nope, that totally tracks with what we know of Sam”?

HEUGHAN: God, I don’t know what people would say. They’d be surprised, maybe. I don’t know. Being an actor was never about being an entrepreneur, but Outlander has given me these opportunities. It’s made me realize some of the things I love about Scotland and it’s opened doors to opportunities. It’s made me realize, as a businessman, as an entrepreneur, and as a creative, I have different outlets and different ways that I can express myself. Perhaps it’s blind ignorance or stupidity, but it’s like, “Well, let’s give this a go and see what happens.” So far, touch wood, it’s working out. Maybe it is a naive innocence that I approach things with, and maybe that’s the relationship with Graham, as well. He’s the more elderly statesman, the experienced one, and I play the role of this Energizer bunny.

Do you always want to make sure it stays fun and doesn’t just become something you have to think about for business reasons? Whether it’s the show and the books, or even doing the different alcohol, do you make an effort to keep that balance between fun and business?

HEUGHAN: Yeah. I would say all these things are things I’m just so passionate about, whether it’s the spirits business that I’m in, or even the My Peak Challenge, or going on these adventures. It really is an extension of who I am. I haven’t ever branched out beyond the boundaries of what I enjoy, and I’m very lucky that people do enjoy, or seem to enjoy, our adventures. It would be interesting to do something that’s outside my comfort zone. It’s never about business, per se. It’s certainly not about making money. For me, it’s about sharing what I love and what I’m passionate about, and if people enjoy it, that’s the end goal.

Do you ever feel bad for tormenting Graham, or is there just too much joy in it?

HEUGHAN: Oh, it’s absolute joy. I put together the pilot schedule and amongst that were a couple of things that I thought he would be happy with. There was kayaking, there was going on chairlifts, and we were doing Highland games. I saw that he was reserved in doing that and I’d known that from being on set, as well. So, when we then went to shoot the first season for Men in Kilts, I was like, “I have to put in, as much as possible, things that are going to challenge him.” I think Kilt Rock and him abseiling was the big one, and it made such great viewing for me, personally. I enjoy it. I love it. It just gives me so much satisfaction to put him in precarious situations. And then, New Zealand was a no-brainer. It’s the home of adrenaline country. And I’ll give his dues, he agreed to a couple of things that he then pulled out of, but he agreed in prep to do them. It’s just so fun. I love tormenting him, and there’s still a long way to go.

Do you feel like you let him get away with things that you might not otherwise let him get away with, if you weren’t also participating in tormenting him as you do?

HEUGHAN: I don’t really know if he gets away with anything. He’s a bit lazy. He doesn’t do any driving. He doesn’t really pull his weight in any of those areas. But it means that I’m in control. It means that I have him almost in captivity, really. He has no say in the matter. I pretend that I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s actually all been preplanned and is just an excuse to get him to the highest point, and then push him off.

The work that you do on Outlander is often very physical. Do you find it more challenging to pull off the physical work that you do within the confines of a set and a production like that, or is it more challenging to do these real-life adventures that you participate in, either on your own or with Graham?

HEUGHAN: That’s a good question. I wouldn’t say physically it’s any different, but I actually became an actor to not be myself. I don’t enjoy being myself in front of people. I haven’t found it easy, over the years, but it’s something I’ve learned to do. So, presenting or doing non-scripted for me was terrifying. I really didn’t know if we could do it. We assume these characters. There is a lot of truth to it, but it is a character play between the two of us. That’s the most terrifying, or writing a book, or making a spirit. It’s like, “Well, this is what I like,” and God, it’s so nerve-wracking. Those have been the big ones for me, releasing the gin and the whiskey, which are really expressions of my home and where I’m from and what I love. It’s like, “God, are people gonna like this, or are they gonna pour it down the gutter, and essentially pour me down the gutter, as well?” It is much more challenging, in some ways.

It feels like something was testing you on your journey to even have this experience. You had to give up Christmas with your family to travel to New Zealand only to find yourself with COVID and quarantined. It just all sounds like a crazy story that you couldn’t make up, if you’d tried. When something like that happens, do you worry about what will not only happen to the series, but also then the book?

HEUGHAN: Yeah. Honestly, I wanted the whole thing to be longer. Actually reading the book now, it was very long and arduous before we even get to the adventure, but that was the situation. Around the world, COVID put up many barriers and we were lucky to even have the opportunity. At the time we chose New Zealand, it was free and easy and we were like, “Oh, this is the place to go.” And of course, then I got COVID, I had an accident, and then we were in the lottery system. Landing in quarantine, I was still happy and carefree until I was put into my cell, and I honestly didn’t think I could do it. There were a couple of days there where I thought, “I’m gonna have to pull out.” I knew we had a TV show and a book series, and I was like, “What are we gonna write about in the book series, if I don’t last?” So, there was a pressure on us. But as soon as we got over that hurdle, which was a very big one, we didn’t hold back and had an amazing time. We were lucky. Starz was very supportive in trying to get the TV show made. It was a really tricky process. And the publisher, as well, helped guide us into another book. Everyone was very flexible because our schedules are always changing, Graham and I. It’s hard sometimes to nail everything down. But it’s been great. It’s been a real challenge, but a really rewarding one.

Prior to doing this, what was it about New Zealand that made you want to visit there, and what was it like to do so alongside Graham? How did he guide things, as somebody who is experienced with living there?

HEUGHAN: Season 1 was very much guided, I think, by myself because I had feet on the ground and I knew a lot of the guests and a lot of the locations. And Graham had a good say because he has experience there. But when we finally decided on New Zealand, it was like, “Okay, we’ll let him take the reins here because it’s his home.” It’s fantastic to have this yin and yang, and have these two sides. He really gave us insight, and we met a lot of his friends there. He’s also a great historian. He loves really leaning into that, which I think is really interesting and gives a slightly different view than maybe other travel books or travel writing. We went all over. At first, we were gonna do another Men in Kilts in Scotland, looking at the islands and the Highlands. And then, we were also thinking about Scandinavia. I was really interested in that. And at some point, it was gonna be Men in Kilts in Boats because I really wanted to do everything by boat. But we were struggling with the season. The only time we could shoot would be winter and that’s challenging because we knew that the weather would be bad. The thought of going to New Zealand in the height of summer, where there was no COVID, was a no-brainer. And of course, there’s the Scottish connection, as well. It all fell in place when we realized that it was definitely a natural progression.

It seems like you’re game for just about anything when it comes to adventure. Do you ever question yourself, or is it mostly just Graham that does the questioning?

HEUGHAN: That’s a good question. Honestly, I think I’m game, but I’m actually probably a lot more nervous than I let on. It’s because of his complete fear that makes me more brave. For instance, in the book, we talk about going zip-lining and it was this enormous cliff. I was keeping him distracted the whole time going up, trying not to let him see over the edge. And then, he went first and when I saw over the edge, I got nervous for myself, not for him. I didn’t really care what happened to him, but I was terrified. It makes me braver, when I see how scared he is. There are a great many things that I’m nervous about. The helicopter, for me, was one. I’m not that comfortable in a helicopter, but I could never let him know that.

You do the series, you do the companion book, you do the audiobook, and then you do interviews with people like me to talk about it all. As you relive the experiences, do you get a different appreciation for what you were able to do? Are you able to fully appreciate it while you’re there and in the moment, or does it help to be able to look back on it all?

HEUGHAN: Actually, the book series has been so fun to write. Like all of us, if you go traveling or you’re on holiday, and you have great experiences and you take photos, you tell people, but that’s about the full extent of reliving it or thinking about this amazing time that you had. But for us, getting to go back over the experience we had and to relive it and write about it, you remember small details. Reliving it has just been so rewarding. Writing the books has been a great way to reflect on our experiences. I would suggest to everyone, the next time you go on holiday, write a little memoir about it.

Is there another location that you have in mind? Are you already trying to plan out a Season 3?

HEUGHAN: Yeah, we do have a particular location in mind and we’ve talked at great lengths about it. Obviously, it will come down to timing and schedules. He’s still alive, so there’s still time.

Christina Radish is the Senior Entertainment Reporter at Collider. Having worked at Collider for over a decade (since 2009), her primary focus is on film and television interviews with talent both in front of and behind the camera.

Well, well, that's what we thought. SH had a sudden thought and finally confirmed it. He got COVID-19 and had no choice but to quarantine in Los Angeles before Christmas.

His plans changed, “A Dram with Sam” didn't happen but that didn't mean his flight to New Zealand was cancelled. He showed a lack of common sense those days and when he arrived in New Zealand in January 2022, a new subvariant of the virus, Omicron, was circulating🤷‍♀️

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Last night, I decided to again look up a mystery that I got into during the summer. It was a subset of a larger mystery, the larger one got answered quite substantially but the subset did not.

Here’s what I have so far: I first found this video in the summer, when I decided to dedicate a week to figuring out what the fuck the Chocolate Milk Gang meant. I kept seeing it referred to as the name for a group of comedians from the 00s, and I got that they were grouped together because they were friends and appeared in each other’s shows at times, and I got that the name had something to do with them being seen as the nerdier side of things and chocolate milk being not the coolest drink in the world, but it really got to me that I kept finding little references that just said “Chocolate Milk Gang” like that’s a thing, and would not explain it to me. I eventually ended up finding the answer in David O’Doherty’s episode of the Comedian’s Comedian podcast – it’s because they got chocolate milkshakes together while everyone else was drinking alcohol after late shows at Edinburgh. Thank you, DO’D, that’s all I needed anyone to say.

But there was a while when I did not know this, and that while happened to occur while I did not have much going on at work and was experiencing some insomnia symptoms, so this seemed like a good time to fall hard down a rabbit hole of trying to figure stuff out. It was after an entire day spent going all A Beautiful Mind on the mystery – Googling different combinations of phrases and following all the links in one article like a rigorous student reading all the citations in one journal for an academic paper, getting distracted by little collections of videos of old stand-up nights that I happened to come across along the way, digging up increasingly obscure archived material. I enjoyed the process. That process is what started the hobby I have now, of just going through videos of old comedy festivals in general.

This particular video was one I found at 2 AM, after spending all day and all night up until then deep in the rabbit holes. I kept finding increasingly strange and obscure stuff, until I finally hit upon this one, and realized it was time to go to bed. I made a post at the time that joked that I had clearly already gone to bed and was having a fever dream, because this video does not fucking exist. Come on, this didn’t happen. But I think what I actually believed was that it seemed so weird to me because it was 2 AM and I had been sleep deprived lately and had spent so much time frying my brain with this mystery, and I’d look at it again in the morning and understand what was going on. Well I looked again in the morning, and… I mean you tell me if this makes any sense at any time of day:

So that became the sub-mystery: what the actual fuck are they doing? Not that I object. I sort of think comedy may have peaked on the night of August 26, 2003, and everything anyone has done since then is just trying to live up to that. I’m not sure this can be equaled. It might even be a little like the current storyline in the Night Vale podcast, which is about how the beauty’s in the unknown and the surreal, and explaining a mystery ruins it. Maybe that would be the case with this. But I want to know anyway.

I spent some time on this mystery a few months ago, and then moved on with life. But it came back to me last night, because I’ve finally got back to coaching practices (after contracting COVID at one and being too anxious about going there again for some time, preferring instead to bury myself in this sort of bullshit, videos like this might imitate fever dreams but can’t literally cause them), and last night at practice, Lose Yourself came on. I immediately started giggling and humming “I can’t see at all” under my breath, in honour of the time Adam Hills forgot what Eminem song he’d been singing in the middle of a sequence, and went from Lose Yourself to Stan. Last week, Adam Hills began the 26th season of the popular Channel 4 show he’s been hosting for ten years, and during that opening episode, he showed off his recently received MBE. But to me, he remains first and foremost the guy who switched Eminem songs while rapping about Daniel Kitson, David O’Doherty, Demitri Martin, and John Oliver taking apart a cow. Just like to me, Lose Yourself is now first and foremost the song that played while that occurred, even though it comes on somewhat often at my actual sports practices and tournaments, because this Britcom thing that was supposed to just be a distraction during lockdowns has invaded my real life.

Anyway. This made me decide to revisit the mystery. Here's a recap of what I already knew. This occurred on August 26, the last night of the 2003 Edinburgh Festival. At first, I thought the cow must have been on stage every night, because you also see it in this video, posted by the same channel (a channel that I assume is run by the Gilded Balloon, the venue in Edinburgh where this occurred):

However, I have since learned that both of those videos are from the same night. I learned that because I found another video, posted by a different person, that’s a montage of events from August 26. It includes both another angle on the cow destroying, and the beginning of the Kitson vs. DO’D rap battle that ended with the video above. I remain fucking amazed that this one exists, that the night when comedy peaked has been captured twice in forms that can be found on the internet nearly twenty years later.

By the way, I’m being… like, 90% facetious, maybe? About the whole comedy peaking with that night thing. And that might seem like a high number, but for a claim like that, anything below 100 is pretty bold. Like I am joking but I also genuinely think about all the different aspects that came together in this, a cumulation of things from before and an influence on what came after, that’s a hell of a lot of the good aspects of comedy in one spot. Anyway, here’s the second video:

In this, we see that the cow was there all night, and importantly, that early in the night, Daniel Kitson was on it and was playing the crowd about it. Pointing out that they kept challenging him to do unimpressive things, like jump off it. This suggests that the cow was not there every night, as if it were, the crowd would not be that excited about it by the final night. It was clearly a novelty to them. Also, I know it wasn’t there every night because I’ve found this montage from the same show on August 19, 2003, about a week earlier:

As you can see, no cow in that one. So I’m guessing it was only there on the last night, that’s why the crowd made such a big deal about it. From this, I formed a theory a while ago that maybe the idea to end the show that way came from what you see at the beginning of the August 26 montage. That video shows Kitson complaining that the crowd was giving him insufficiently difficult cow-related challenges – it’s possible that after the video cut off, the crowd challenged him to take the thing apart, and he went with it, making that the end to the night.

The issue is that I’m not sure whether they could do that, if they hadn’t planned it beforehand. I suppose whether you can do that depends on what the hell the cow was. After a comment I got on here from a helpful person, followed by a bit of my own Googling, I think the answer is it was an art installations, possibly as part of the international Cow Parade. The flaw in this theory is that the cow parade was not in Edinburgh in 2003, but it was in London in 2002, and I remember reading something that said the remaining I cannot find again that said the cows may have been distributed around the UK after the London festival ended. I don’t know why I can’t find it again, but I’m almost sure I’ve seen something that said that. So that cow could have been left over from the previous year’s London Cow Parade, sent to Edinburgh to spread art or some shit.

The other flaw in that theory is that the cow says “Metro” on it, which doesn’t seem like what one would expect in an art instillation. A YouTube comment on one of the videos from that night says: “I was there too!  One of the funniest comedic nights ever.  The Metro cow got smashed in two and crowd surfed over everyone out the back door....” That commenter said “the Metro cow”, not “a cow that said Metro on it”, in a way that suggests other people at the time, who were familiar with the Edinburgh Festival, would know what the Metro cow was. So maybe it was just a piece of advertising for Metro, a cow with that word on it moving around the festival. Maybe it was a leftover piece of art from the London Cow Parade that Metro had painted with its logo to display throughout the Edinburgh Festival, and actually, destroying it at the end of the festival was the Chocolate Milk Gang’s way of protesting against art being turned into advertisement (I’m definitely joking about that being a possibility but that would be awesome if it were the case).

My best guess is that it moved around the Edinburgh Festival throughout August, and was at the Gilded Balloon for the last night. This would explain why the crowd was excited about it and why the YouTube commenter called it “the Metro cow” - it was a sort of festival mascot that everyone knew about. But on the night in question, it was still an exciting novelty to see it in that particular location, which is why they were shouting at Daniel Kitson to do things with it. The question is whether it was moved to the Gilded Balloon and then they decided to take it apart, or whether it was moved to the Gilded Balloon because they decided to end the festival by having the Late ‘n’ Live people take apart the de facto mascot.

The origins of the cow matter (I mean... as much as any of this matters, which is quite a lot and I won’t hear otherwise) because how important it is tells us whether they could just decide, between the beginning and the end of a show, to destroy it. I’m thinking that whether it’s an advertisement owned by Metro, or some piece of art, they wouldn’t be allowed to just take it apart without permission. So they probably planned it beforehand, which means the whole thing did not just come from Daniel Kitson agreeing to a challenge from the audience. On the other hand, it’s my understanding that “anything can happen” is the point of the Late ‘n’ Live thing, and maybe that cow was only meant to be there for the festival and they were going to get rid of it anyway after that festival ended, so it wasn’t a big deal to decide to actually take it apart on the final night.

Beyond this, I can look to the video itself for clues as to what the fuck was going on. At the beginning, Adam Hills says they have “three chances”, which suggests it was some sort of challenge, whether one issued by the audience at the beginning of the night or one planned out beforehand. I’m also not sure how they measure those chances, since it’s not like they took only three shots at it. They just went at the cow until it came apart.

One guess is maybe the three chances are John Oliver, David O’Doherty, and Demitri Martin. Maybe the challenge was to see if only three people could get the cow apart. The flaw in that theory is that Kitson ends up jumping in to help, so if those were the parametres then they failed the task. But Kitson jumps in after he sees that they’re getting nowhere, after he gives up on joining Adam’s comedic narration and just starts giving instructions (“combine the chisel and the hammer”), clearly realizing that if they don’t start using a better system, they’ll be there all night. He may just have worked out that parametres be dammed, if he didn’t actually get in and help they would never be able to finish this fucking show and go get their chocolate milkshakes.

Evidence that this was not planned beforehand seems to occur at 1:28, when someone walks in from off stage and hands John Oliver a pipe. If they had planned this better, they’d have all come in with tools, instead of John just going at it with his bare hands and feet until he was given a weapon that looks like it was recently scrounged from a dumpster.

There is this line of Adam Hills’ song (which are a couple of words I can’t write without thinking of Tim Minchin, but that’s a separate thing): “There was a fire at the Gilded Balloon. The police found no one else was to blame. If this season doesn’t go well, this fucking venue’s going up in flames.” This is at true story. In December 2002, about eight months before this video was recorded, there was a huge fire in that area, doing significant damage to the Gilded Balloon, which is the venue where this took place. The Gilded Balloon was rebuilt, obviously, because they still needed a place to host rap battles and cow destroying challenges. But it had, in fact, recently gone up in flames. And I think Adam Hills was implying that if they didn’t make enough money from that year’s festival they’d have to burn it down again, but I’m not quite sure, and I don’t think he was either, he wasn’t even sure what Eminem song he was singing.

But here’s the thing I only learned while looking this up yesterday. Look at this article:

On this day 2002: Cowgate fire devastates Edinburgh's Old Town

I’ve checked, and Cowgate seems to be the name of the street and/or neighbourhood. The Gilded Balloon itself is not on Cowgate Street, but there is a street right next to it called Cowgate street, and I think the whole area around that street is called Cowgate. This is probably a coincidence, but it’s definitely a fun coincidence, given that "Cowgate” would be a pretty good name for the events of that first video. It turns out that Cowgate actually took place in an area called Cowgate. And it’s possible that somewhere along the chain of events, that’s not a coincidence. Maybe Metro advertised there with a cow because it’s Cowgate.

A few months ago when I first found this, I briefly wondered if there was another connection, in one way or another. Maybe they destroyed a cow because they were called the Chocolate Milk Gang and they thought that would be funny, or maybe they named themselves the Chocolate Milk Gang because they’d destroyed a cow together. I formed that theory before finding the actual answer to the CMG’s name meaning, and now that I have found that, I’m quite sure that their milk based name + participation in Cowgate is just a coincidence. Cowgate occurring in a place called Cowgate is probably a coincidence too, but it’s one that I like.

I think that’s all I have, at the moment, in terms of explaining what the fuck they were doing on that night. I do like I found the detail about it taking place in Cowgate, though, because I am absolutely going to refer to that event as Cowgate from now on. Please let me know if you have any information about the events of August 26, 2003, at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh, Scotland, also known as Cowgate.

[munsonlovers]

i love you darling -joseph quinn

you were so in love with everything you did on a daily basis. you were a successful actress and an amazing role model. you have people telling you that you have saved them just by smiling at them when they meet you or your character helped them through their hard times because they related to her so much.

you were casted on stranger things in 2016 and you've been a main character since the start. being dustin's sister but the complete opposite from him.

gaten was lovely to work with. he was such a beautiful actor and you were so incredibly lucky to work with him so close. but there was another actor who caught you by surprise when he showed up at the first table read for season 4.

he was such a beautiful man. he was kind and caring. he was always so gentle when he was passing by you or if he accidentally hit you with his hand or arm. you were so far in love, you thought you'd never get over it.

when you found out he would be your love interest since you haven't had one at all for the past 3 seasons. you guys were together all the time when it came to filming. if you weren't with him, you were with maya or natalia.

right now joe was chasing you around set. he was trying to get his script back that you had stolen because gaten and sadie had written something on it and you wanted to read it.

"y/n get back here with that! i kind of need that to remember my lines?" he said laughing.

you laughed at him and stopped. he almost knocked you over but he caught you. you were face to face with him and your noses knocked together.

"hi!" you said smiling.

"hi love, can i have my script back please." he said rubbing your noses together.

you got out of his grip and ran away from him.

"does this girl ever stop?" he said looking at maya, sadie, joe and gaten.

they all shook their heads no. they knew you long enough to know you don't stop until you get what you want. you were full of smiles and giggles as joe caught up to you and took his script out of your hands.

"i will be taking this now, thank you m'lady." he bowed and walked away.

you looked at him and wanted to tell him how you felt right then and there but you didn't want to ruin your friendship that had blossomed over the 2 years you were filming and practically quarantined with because of covid.

"joe..." you whispered.

he stopped in his tracks and looked at you. he smiled at you softly.

"darling, are you okay?" he smiled at you.

"yeah, i just wanted to talk to you about something." you said looking at the ground.

before he could say anything you took his script from him and ran.

"your so evil, you know that!" he said chasing after you.

you hid in gaten's trailer while he was in the makeup trailer. you read what gaten and sadie had written on the bottom of his script.

joe, you're so unbelievably in love with y/n and you need to tell her before we do. love you! - sadie and gaten

it was sadie's handwritting but definitely something the two of them would plot together. you couldn't believe that he was in love with you or at least that's what you got from the message.

you heard a knock on the door and you waited for whoever was on the other side of the door to speak.

"sweetheart, i know you are in there and i know you read the note..." joe said softly.

you opened the door and looked at him. he was looking down like he was embarrased by what was written.

"you love me?" you questioned him.

he didn't know what to say. of course he loved you, he had since you first met. the way you smiled at him to welcome him to the cast and the way you laughed when something stupid happened like joe and gaten play fighting or when a water balloon fight broke out and you got hit in the face with one.

"of course i do darling. you are the most beautiful girl in the world. your smile lights up the room and you make me nervous every time you and i do a scene together because i don't want to screw up. i get so distracted everytime you walked into a room or if i can see you anywhere." he said smiling.

you walked down the stairs and hugged him. he was so happy and so were you. he hugged you so tight that you felt safe with him. you pulled away from the hug and looked at him in the eyes.

"hi!" you said rubbing your thumb on his cheek.

all he could do was smile at you. you were just so adorable in his eyes.

all of a sudden you heard a bunch of voices saying "just kiss her already!"

"can i kiss you?" he whispered.

you nodded and leaned in. you brushed your noses together and smiled. he put his hands on the back of your neck and pressed his lips to yours.

you were so overjoyed that this was happening but the moment was ruined when you heard whistling and shouting coming from behind you.

you both pulled away, smiling like idiots. you rubbed his cheek with your thumb and held him tight. you knew there was a crowd of people but you couldn't be happier.

he kissed your forehead and you smiled. he felt you smile against him and he couldn't hold back a smile.

everyone was so happy for the two of you, so they ran up and squished you into a group hug. you felt so loved between the group of people hugging you.

"finally! we're so proud of you guys for finally realizing you love each other." they all said smiling.

all you could do is smile. you were so thankful for your friends but they could be annoying sometimes even when they were right. you loved them all very much and wouldn't know life without them.

you put your chin on his chest and looked up at him. you smiled so widely at him that you looked geniunely happy. he smiled at you and kissed you softly.

"i love you darling, so much." he said quietly.

"i love you so much joe." you said smiling.

everyone just smiled at you and were so very happy for the two of you.

he fell in love with you and you fell even harder for him...

[shjayd]

1st post not via iPhone 🤨

ok... i'm typing this from my laptop. i like you enough to download you to my laptop, Tumblr! 😉 i don't think i can even edit any of my font or anything, so that part sucks (if in reality i can't), so i'd say app via iPhone > Windows when it comes to you, #TUMBLR <- idk if that will even tag in the middle of my post/only at the end.

GOTTA START SOMEWHERE.

previous text complaint: taken back

it's time to get this started ⌚ i heard about you from the Netflix true-crime documentary, Hotel Cecil or w/e, & the thought of posting my thoughts like a social journal (among some other things I've ran across or made self - i like to do calligraphy and hand lettering. i've became creative AFTER getting clean AFTER getting pregnant with my daughter. i always was, i guess the drugs took that part of my imagination away? i'm also obsessed with astrology. if you ask me, i'm a professional astrologer 🔮🌙✨..🤥🫤😤

Taurus Sun, Taurus Moon, and Rising Gemini... i know. a SCARY, yet BEAUTIFUL mEsS. ❤️‍🩹 i'm also very educated in mental health. from personally, to genetics, family and friends, to past work experience. i was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (BPD) after my HORRIFYING encounter with Post-Partum Depression, PPD, (although i've most likely suffered from my BPD since a very young age. my mother and brothers who lived with me all of my life would agree). i just never took, nor wanted to take, what my mom and family dr. told me a/b therapists & referrals to psychiatrists anywhere near serious. i honestly thought everyone felt/acted the way i did with both my lowest of lows & highest of highs 🤯… to me, it was always “this is what everyone has to go through. this is life. this is life… everyday”.

i'm a twin, my mother & i are as close as they come (it’s scary b/c I know she won’t be here forever, & both my daughter i I NEED her. forever). her EVER leaving us is another thing I refuse to even think a/b. NEXT SUBJECT;

yes, DADDY ISSUES 🙄 i was the wildest teenager into my late 20s. that was all until i FINALLY realized my self-worth & left my toxic, to say the LEAST, ex-gf, FOR GOOD, & ended up with my life-long best friend's brother, who i've been close, actually very close with, ever since i met his sister when we were ~10-years-old. he saved me. then our daughter came at the most perfect time to save us, as we started to go down that path holding hands. i'm DEF. not going to go into depth, y'all would drown, if you haven’t already.

*the specifics are overrated with no existing relevant meanings here*

i've been on this Earth for ✨almost✨ thirty whole fucking years. yes, i typed out the word, b/c I now have this BURSTING animosity for the number 3, however, 4 is mine. my best best friend is a 2-year-old, teeny chonk, only 2 years old, more dramatic than me, sassy-ass, genius COVID baby. (she was conceived in 2019, so, that was... a.. normal different?) she's 28, ✨ALMOST✨ 29-months-old. her name isn't important, so I'll just refer to her as 'quack'.. 🦆

..............🥰🥰🥰

we live together with her daddy - minez first 🏃🏼‍♀️🥇😂 - my other best friend. (〃￣︶￣)人(￣︶￣〃) •i also enjoy: "adult" coloring books, THC, journaling, Amazon Prime, the little things, elephants, my vape, bullet journaling, bellly laughing, my dishwasher, baby clothes, wood-burning, doodling, Hulu, ACKNOWLEDGMENT, roses WITH sunflowers 🌹🌻, ORCHIDS, my desk, ear-buds, Aaron Hernandez, my little space on earth instead of the internet - my desk & sketchbook, & ANYTHING organizational/cleaning... •i dislike: Scorpios, fantasy movies/series like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones - sorry, not sorry 🤷🏼‍♀️ - shitty parents, mornings, Karens, uppers, Instagram, judgmental humans, my fingernails when they aren't done, & typos. I have a love/hate relationship with Pisces, both male & female 🐠 i'm as blunt & unfiltered as they come. oh, & you can't hurt my feelings (a big s/o to my past traumas). i'm.. an opened, closed book... if that makes any sense to you? now go ahead & try to break down my walls to get to know the real me! i’m the best friend you could ever have! 🤞🏼😸🥳 OKAY! that's enough for now. follow me, & let's get to learn more about e/o & our little spaces on the internet. if you've made it this far 🙂 i'm going to stfu now. (didn’t lie a/b a thing. told you i tend to start rambling. bad.)

• i want to leave you all something pretty to look @ as a preview of what this journey entails💭

[chaletnz]

Three Guides and a Trip to Ometepe Island

Deme and I woke up early for a coffee at The Garden Cafe, since we were going to Ometepe Island next we weren't hopeful about the coffee prospects on an island so wanted to get another good one in. After our coffee, we joined the rest of the group at Cafe de las Sonrisas (Smiles Cafe) for the included trip breakfast. I went for a pineapple pancake and a pineapple juice. When we heard the screeching of the steam wand, Deme and I breathed a sigh of relief that we had gone for juices instead of coffee here! The employees could not hear the screeching noise - this was a cafe staffed by exclusively deaf people to encourage societal integration. The menus and tables included demonstrations of how to sign for common words like please, thank you, bathroom so that we could interact with them. Of course Charlie had his breakfast placed in front of him and said a loud "thank you" without looking at the waiter in his true fashion of being blissfully unaware of his surroundings. This was the final meal with all the original group together, Wout and Boukje even made it out to join us before they went back to the hotel La Estacion to finalise their plans out of Nicaragua and back to Belgium. Walter introduced us to our temporary tour guide Auralina who had dropped everything to come to Granada in time to escort us to Ometepe Island. He saw us onto the bus and we all gave him a tip as we bid him farewell. Auralina was also from Guatemala, she told us about how she worked as an English teacher and occasional tour guide but had been struggling since covid to lead any tours. We arrived in San Jorge port about half an hour before our 2:30pm ferry to the island so we had time to sit around with the stray dogs and wait. We rushed ourselves on among the first wave of passengers and it was lucky we had because then we got good seats and could watch the group of wanky Dutch guys from the Pita Pita restaurant last night try to find seats. It was satisfying to see them have to split up since at dinner they'd had the big table and we'd all had to split up. Auralina distributed our ferry tickets to give to the checker and we were on our way. Once on Ometepe Island we waited for the cars to drive off and then carried our bags over to some awaiting vans that drove us back to our little chalets. We checked in and put our dinner order in with just enough free time for a quick shower before it was time to sit down and eat. I ordered the chicken soup which was bone in and not the greatest! Our new guide Dennis came to introduce himself to us, he was also from Guatemala and had just got off a 30 day Mexico to Costa Rica trip only to immediately fly back to Nicaragua to bring us through to the finish line. Dennis was understandably exhausted so he headed off for an early night after eating while the rest of us stayed up for a few more Nica Libres at the bar and some games of scattergories. Georgi and Emily shared the plan for tomorrow quietly - renting some scooters to ride around the island. The others were all spending $30 to go on the arranged day trip to the beach and mineral pool but we didn't want to. I mentioned I wanted to take the bus around the island and they invited me to rent a scooter with them. We kept it quiet so that all the others didn't try to join us and the man at reception told us he had ordered a third scooter to arrive tomorrow for me at $20 for the day.

Breakfast at Smiles Cafe

[theghostpinesmusic]

Have I mentioned recently how much I love Phish?

I'm biased, of course, but I really feel like since COVID, and especially during the last two years, this band has managed to tap into something really special. I'm sure it has something to do with them playing together for the last forty-one years, but in all seriousness I've been listening at a pretty consistent level of obsession since 2000 or so and I'm confident in saying that they've never sounded as good to me as they do this year.

Their February Mexico run was incredible, the Sphere was amazing to watch even from home because, well, the Sphere, but those were also four of the best shows I've ever heard the band play back-to-back. I just finished my third listen through their new album Evolve, and while Phish is a band that's never been known for the quality of their studio albums, for what it's worth I think this is the best back-to-back album they've ever put out. I haven't watched any full shows from their currently-happening summer tour yet, but all the highlights I've watched on YouTube have been on par with Mexico and the Sphere.

Now with all of that hyperbolic positivity out of the way (or at least only lurking as context from here on), I want to go back to Mexico (2/23, specifically) for (quite) a few paragraphs.

Recently, I wrote about how "A Wave Of Hope" from the band's 2/22 show was an amazing jam and how 2/22 might somehow be The Best Phish Show Ever, and in that post explained how the show had been so good I took a break from watching the Mexico run because I sort of felt like 2/23 and 2/24 were going to be disappointments in comparison after the band had reached such a high-water mark on night two.

Well, during that little "break" I watched some Goose, did some backpacking, went to motherfucking Alaska for awhile, and when I came back I felt ready to finish the Mexico run.

And it turns out that 2/23 and 2/24 were both somehow as good as and maybe even better than 2/22, The Best Phish Show Ever?!

What the fuck.

So my one complaint about 2/22 as an entire show was that it took a little time to get going. That's not the case with 2/23: the band starts off the show with a relatively short but unhinged, jammy take on "Set Your Soul Free" that segues wonderfully into "Ghost." The "Ghost" jam recalls "Unholy Spaceships," according to my setlist notes before moving seamlessly into beloved (by me) old-school ballad "Fast Enough For You" and then new album title track "Evolve."

That whole initial sequence is fantastically played and paced, and while the rest of the first set maybe gets a little too "songy," "Mull" is always a fun Mike tune and "46 Days" and "Kill Devil Falls" both get weird and fun jams added to them (don't look at the timestamps and ignore them, just listen).

As usual, the real meat of the improvisation comes in the second set. A bit unlike 2/22 (and 2/24, which I'll eventually write something brief about despite there being no official highlight videos shared from it), 2/23's second set doesn't spread the jammy goods out across a bunch of songs: the opening "Blaze On" gets way out there in a glorious way, but the second half of the set ("Beneath A Sea Of Stars" > "Backwards Down The Number Line" > "Harry Hood") sort of ends up functioning as a long, well-played breather after this absolute Gods-Of-Chaos-And-Old-NIght version of "Chalkdust Torture."

If 2/22 is, inexplicably, The Best Phish Show Ever, then this "Chalkdust Torture" from 2/23 might well be, equally inexplicably, The Best Phish Jam Ever. Let's see if I can survive watching it a second time! Nothing like tempting fate.

The noise-rock you hear at the beginning of the video is the end of the aforementioned "Blaze On" jam, then about twenty seconds in, Trey starts up the chords to "Chalkdust Torture," which is just a nice, fun, short rock and roll tune, right? RIGHT?!

Well, now, Phish is a fantastic jam band, and might well be the best of all of them there jam bands, but they do have a tendency to ease their way into the weirder jam spaces, taking a few minutes to transition out of the ending of a proper song and into legit Type 2 improvisation. I'm not saying this is either inherently good or bad, just observing that the weirdness tends to seep in gradually, unlike, say, the "Borne" that I wrote about yesterday, where Goose brings the song to a full stop before launching off in a sudden, ninety-degree improvisational turn. Trey and Phish seem to prefer to take their time in comparison.

BUT NOT THIS TIME because after a nice little Trey solo, "Chalkdust Torture" proper ends at the 5:45 mark in the video, and by 5:55, ten seconds later, we're in The Space Robot Factory, manufacturing war droids for the Galactic Empire. I think this transition might in part have been because Trey seems to totally biff the song's usual outro, but who fucking cares?

Around 6:20, Fishman builds up a little shuffle and things take on a "Possum"-like feel, but only for a few seconds, as the beat breaks down again quickly and we're in an almost ambient space by 7:00.

There's a major-key shift at 7:25, and the menace of the early jam is replaced by a nice, peaceful feeling. Everyone's contributing here, but Page's synths are the champ, creating the cloud my brain is floating away on top of.

By 8:15, Trey is asserting himself a bit more, throwing out some reverb-y intergalactic noodling. We're already to the "What the fuck is Jon Fishman?" part of the program (seriously, how is he even playing what he's playing here?!).

By the 9:00 mark, things have become more distinct melodically and the ambient feel has faded a bit, though Page continues to add some dopamine-generating synth washes. I can't hear Mike super-well on my headphones, but when I can...ohhhh buddy.

Trey moves over to his effects pedal at 10:00 to start messing with his octave shifter, but seems to give up on that pretty quickly and instead goes for a whale-call-ish tone that complements Mike's sound really well. Fish moves over to the toms, officially making this the most Phish has sounded like Goose this entire run.

12:45 almost sounds like the band is working their way back into "Chalkdust Torture," but thankfully they do not. Nothing against the song, of course, but we're barely a quarter of the way into this madness at this point! If you're like more structure to your jamming, though, this section feels a bit more like "normal" Phish, though Fishman continues conjuring Percussion Magic throughout, never letting things get too predictable.

By 14:15, Trey and Page have a bit of a call-and-response thing going, which contrasts really nicely with the chaos of the rhythm section.

The band coalesces around a fun shuffle at 15:30 (and I really dig the lights here, too), and they could totally ride this to the end of the jam and this would already be one of 2024's more interesting jams. But that is not where this is going. Instead, the shuffle lasts for about thirty seconds before Trey switches his tone and Page moves to the clav. By 16:30 we're in a completely different space...again. And Mike is driving now. Hold on.

Trey builds on Mike's playing at 17:00 with a grungy tone and then, somehow, we end up in a blues jam by 18:00. What the hell is happening

If nothing else, this bit is a small bus station bench of Sanity for us to sit on in-between rides on Dr. Doom's Toon-Killing Machine.

Someone howls at 19:20? I'm going to guess it was probably Trey, because it seems like something he would do.

The blues jam proper only makes it about two minutes before various band members start injecting sonic chaos into the proceedings. The madness colonizes the jam and, by 23:00 we are once again working our fingers to the bone in The Space Robot Factory.

I am not even sure how to describe what's happening here. The lights, somehow, match the vibe completely. It sounds like if the only instruments Parliament had had access to had been a box of 56k baud modems.

To be clear, I can totally understand why some people - most people - would not only find this uninteresting, they would likely actively hate it. And yet, for my money, it is the weirdest, most fun, most without-a-net music out there, and there's only one band that's ever been able to take the genre this far. And they just keep going.

Fishman takes a more active role in the jam starting at 26:30, and in response Page starts playing something that sounds sort of hopeful and pleasant, briefly. But then Mike and then Trey both turn their instruments' tones to "Monster Eating You Alive In Your Four-Year-Old-Kid Nightmares" and it's like "Oh well."

NOW WE ARE IN HELL AGAIN FOLKS

Again, not totally sure how to describe the music because it literally cannot exist unless Phish specifically decides to make it.

By 28:30, it literally sounds like each member of the band is playing a different song. But not like when the Grateful Dead do it. Like, actually good.

OOOOH HOT TAKE INCOMING

No, I love the Dead (obviously), but I read something once in Long, Strange Trip about the band being a bunch of guys who were all absolute geniuses at their respective instruments but who were all too busy wailing away to listen to each other, and I've never been able to un-read that. This sounds like the opposite of that to me, as weird and unhinged as the music nonetheless is. Your mileage may vary.

Who starts playing the weird, wavy effect at 28:40 because when I was watching this while super-high a week or so ago, I could NOT HANDLE THAT SHIT

Trey bludgeons us with some fiery guitar leads at 29:30, but by this point there are too many fully-assembled Space Robots of The Galactic Empire for it to make much of an impact.

It is hard to imagine that, at 30:30, anyone in the audience is not having the best time they've ever had at a concert. This is, as the kids say, why we Phish.

But what's that?! "More evil!" you say?! Well, you're in fucking luck! Page's piano playing here sounds like something you'd hear at a wake for a ghost that had already died once a hundred years before. Like, I'm pretty sure this is what the Piano Ghost plays at The Haunted Mansion once Disney World shuts down forever in 2073 and everyone goes home and never comes back and the whole theme park just gets rotted by time for a hundred years.

By 32:45, I would not be at all surprised to find that, thousands of years from now and light-years away from Earth, this sound is the thing that finally wakes some super-intelligent alien race from its aeons-long slumber and causes it to turn its dread Eye toward a now-desertified and human-less Earth and mumble through its many mouths in an eldritch language as old as the first galaxies: "What the fuck, dude?"

The chording that Trey pulls out around 34:45 feels like the culmination of this unbelievably strange and alien-waking journey. It's simple playing, technically, compared to much of what's already gone into this jam at this point, but it's incredibly effective at just absolutely smashing you with the core ethos of this forty-minute odyssey.

So, was everyone on the beach just...dead? Like, after this jam? Was everyone dead? I'm going to assume yes.

Like the Fisher King or Neo in The Matrix Revolutions, we continue to stagger forward through bruised time, legs shaking, blindfolded to cover eyes that have been burned away by direct exposure to the Light Of Eternity, hoping to find some peace somewhere on the ravaged land before our own damned end!

Blessedly, the assault finally begins to lessen by 38:00, rolling back like the World Ocean after leaving our ark and the few surviving beings of Earth stranded upon a mountaintop that was, recently, an island.

Page injects a scintilla of levity into the proceedings with some bleeps and boops, but then follows it immediately with a "Shipwreck" sample as Trey continues to play The Evil Chords, albeit in muted form, the dark enchantment lessened now but still puissant.

"Are you too near the shore?" the ghostly voice asks amidst the sonic chaos, mocking we few survivors left high and dry at the conclusion of this plunge into Madness.

Page returns to his synthesizers, wavering between major and minor, survival and destruction, eschewing resolution, as the jam winds to its end.

It's not included in this video, but the jam ultimately segues into "Beneath A Sea Of Stars," the perfect follow-up choice and a great musical tonic for the Lovecraftian horror of this "Chalkdust Torture." If you happened to listen/read this far and enjoyed it, I'd recommend listening to that as a follow up if you're able, because it actually feels like the two songs are intended to be one journey.

Anyway, that was wild, and I had fun being a little wackier in my description of it than usual. There aren't any official band vids on YouTube from 2/24, but it's such a great show and sits in equal company with 2/22 and 2/23 that I'll likely write a little thing about it here soon. Then it'll be back to Goose for a bit!

I think. I mean, I love Goose too, but how do you go back to another jam band after...that? Huh.

[skarletterambles]

Good idea: Re(-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re)-watching Twister before going to see Twisters tomorrow.

Bad idea: Watching when you're PMSing so you get tears in your eyes at Jo's dad getting sucked out of the storm cellar, and then feel bad when you see the late Bill Paxton and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Whoopsie.

Twister is in a three-way tie with The Mummy and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie as my favorite film of all time. I'm sure the new version won't measure up to the original but it looks like a hell of a fun ride and I'm pumped to see it. It's also only the second movie I've seen in a theater since Rise of Skywalker, a.k.a. pre-Covid. (The other was Inside Out 2, which wasn't that big a deal to me but a friend really wanted to see it when she was in town.)

Random thoughts and favorite quotes I typed up while watching...

"Not unless you want to sketch the tornadoes."

"You left her with Dusty? What's the matter with you?"

OMG that late '90s cellphone Melissa has...vintage! LOL! (The laptops and other tech are also fun to see, even if they make me feel old. It was cutting edge then!)

THE SUCK ZONE!!!!!

Dusty's obviously the most fun, but all these storm chasers have so much personality, just from their faces, their road soundtracks, and the few quirks we learn about them. I always wanted to read (or write?) a book that went into their backstories.

The first time I saw this I thought Dorothy was Bill and Jo's daughter, the way they talked about her. "She's here?!" / "Let me take a look at her!"

"I find this kinda interesting. I'm gonna tag along!" Famous last words, Melissa...

"He's in it for the money, not the science." insert bothisgood.gif meme here.

Both Jonas and Melissa have southern accents. Not sure if there's any deeper meaning there. He is a straight-up villain, and she is set up as an antagonist but you just can't hate her because she's actually sweet despite being so far out of her element, and ultimately she bows out of the love triangle with dignity and grace.

GREENAGE!!!!!

"She's a therapist." [long pause] "Yours?"

"Can I drive?" "No." "Then would you?"

High five to the writer(s) who came up with this banter.

"I was just wondering if we were gonna chase this tornado or wait for the next one."

The awed heavenly chorus that takes over the soundtrack when the tornado comes into view is so cheesy but I love it so much. The lion growls it makes are absurd but I can't hate them.

"Where's my truck?" *truck comes out of nowhere to crash in the middle of the road* The comedic timing is so good in this.

Dusty and Melissa should get together. He's infatuated by her ability to almost get crushed by a flying truck, and she needs a rebound after Bill. *insert inappropriate jokes about the Suck Zone*

"Why don't you find your own twister, buddy?" LOL

Every time I see a cow in this movie I grin. We all know why.

The storm chasers I've followed online almost never pre-rate tornados. You don't say it's a F2 or F3 while it's on the ground--especially when it's just churning up fields and not causing any damage that could be used to determine a rating.

OMG the music is so damn epic throughout this sequence.

"I GOTTA GO, JULIA! WE GOT COWS!" "ANOTHER COW!" "ACTUALLY I THINK IT WAS THE SAME ONE!"

"When you used to tell me you chased tornados, deep down I always just thought it was a metaphor!"

Ah, the windchimes. You'd never think such a gentle, whimsical sound could be so ominous...

Aunt Meg always reminded me of one of my aunts, physically at least. R.I.P. Aunt P.

WHAT A MINUTE! What kind of personal Mandela effect B.S. is this? I've always remembered it that Jo left her necklace on in the shower, and thought it was SO cool for some inexplicable reason. But she didn't! My entire life is a life.

"A[n F]4 will relocate your house pretty efficiently."

FINGER OF GOD!!!

Yes, do a nice closeup of the water tower with "WAKITA" on it so the audience remembers the name when it comes up later...

Of course Bill can sense when and where the tornadoes are. He can just follow the dramatic music cues!

"It's like Bob's Road..." I wonder what Rabbit, a.k.a. Map Guy, would think about modern GPS. At least Google Maps doesn't have a crease through Wichita.

See? Melissa is riding in Dusty's car now. OTP! (I've seen crack ships founded on far less.)

That is pretty wimpy hail. Reed Timmer would be unimpressed. It's not a storm chase until you break a windshield or two.

"DEBRIS! WE HAVE DEBRIS!"

Power flashes are a thing. A massive fireball lighting up the funnel, not so much (except for that one time...) Growling like a lion, also not a thing. I love it all anyway, because of and despite the ridiculousness.

"You've never seen it miss this house, and miss that house, and come after you." I think about that line so often when viewing tornado damage. They can be so capricious and seemingly random.

Aww, now Dusty is holding the umbrella over Melissa as she's heartbroken over Bill. I started shipping this as a joke, damn it...

And we get to the drive-in. One iconic scene after the other. I know some screenings were held in drive-ins for the lulz. I wish I could have attended one.

The TV signal dying is one more mundane thing that becomes unspeakably ominous in this movie.

"It's headed right for us!" "It's already here." Cheesier than a Packers game, but still gives me chills.

I always thought it was nice how Jo took the time to warn the girls in the concessions stand.

You know it's a bad situation when the people who cheerfully seek out twisters are cowering in terror.

Cue the creepy windchimes.

"It looks to hit Wakita head-on." That being the first serious line of dialogue Dusty has uttered in the entire movie gives it so much more impact.

The sudden tone change meant I really wasn't sure if Meg was going to survive the first time I saw this. The jokes and goofiness evaporated at the drive-in and by the time they get to Wakita it really does feel like anything can happen.

"How nice you all came over." Meg is a cinnamon roll, too pure for this world.

"I'm going to drive myself." "Honey, your car's in a tree around the corner."

Meg's okay, the dog survived, and the jokes are back!

The weather service doesn't "predict an F5" as blatantly as they do in the movie, but I can forgive them for dramatic license.

Back to the epic traveling music! (And Pepsi product placement.)

I don't think I ever noticed that Meg's dog came with them! Aww.

"Unless you think somebody will hit it." ("It" being Dorothy in the middle of the road in the path of a massive F5.) "Nobody'll be there." Again, it's cheesy, but I don't care. I still get chills.

Somebody was like, "We haven't had enough fiery explosions in the this movie. Fix that."

I love how we've almost forgotten about Jonas by the time the drive-in and Wakita scenes are over, and then suddenly he's back in all his smarmy glory...just in time to die in spectacular fashion.

"DEBRIS! DUSTY, WE HAVE DEBRIS!" *entire tractors start raining from the sky* " 'Debris' ?!?!"

The random teddy bear squeaking as it hits the windshield is way funnier than it probably should be.

Cue that epic music again. Love it. Duh duhduh DUHDUH DUH DUH!

Suddenly the wind chime sound becomes a good thing!

Seeing the tornado rip up corn stalks reminds me of how the recent Greenfield, Iowa, tornado actually planted corn in the town that has since sprouted all over the place.

Wicked-looking scythes and blades clanking all over the barn, and Jo says, "OMG who are these people?" That's funny enough in the moment but later you see the perfectly normal, wholesome looking family who lives there and you wonder if they're secretly serial killers...

We just saw this tornado pulverize a huge barn, but this tiny shed will protect us! (I know, I know, it's the plumbing, but it's still funny before you learn that.)

The lack of impalement and clothes getting ripped off in the wind does stretch willing suspension of disbelief, but...eh, so what? It's cool.

The woman in the checkered pink shirt who comes out of the storm shelter with the kids looks a LOT like one of my friends from grade school. Or how I'd imagine she would look as an adult. I last saw her at 5th grade graduation.

"Mommy, why are there people tied to the pipes where the shed used to be and why are they making out?" "Shut up, Timmy." "And why aren't they impaled by a bunch of corn stalks and wood planks?" "I said shut up, Timmy." "And who are all those other weirdos?" "If you don't shut up I won't let you into the storm shelter the next time a tornado happens. Now go play with a rusty scythe like a good little boy."

This has been another episode of "Katie Rewatches a Favorite Movie and Types Random Stream of Consciousness Crap Onto her Blog."

[thedavesnews]

Didneyland Debut

Disney Resort #3 in the books. Still funny to me California came after Paris. Then again, had Covid not shut the world down it still world have been 3rd as I was training to run the Castle to Chateau (a half-marathon in both Paris and one of the US Disney parks in a calendar year). I guess I was just destined to visit Paris 1st.

Both Paris and Anaheim versions of the Disney Resort have 2 parks built in walking proximity from each other and a central shopping/hotel area. It's a great design if you are staying on property. The transportation within Anaheim on a regular business day was very manageable. Our hotel provided a heads up on the bus system which we didn't use the 1st day opting to walk to the nearest Disney parking lot (Toy Story) and taking that shuttle as many other local non-Disney hotel guests were doing.

The rides themselves for the most part were better in Disneyland except for Big Thunder Mountain and Jungle Cruise. California's Jungle Cruise was short. This doesn't make it bad per say but it makes it not the best version although our skipper was funnier than some I've had in other parks. I was pleasantly surprised for the most part regarding the resort itself. For all the heads up I got that Disneyland was small and both days were half days I really don't know what you're doing in the parks. We missed things and we spent FULL days in both with Genie+ getting us expedited access to rides.

Here's the other part of that...the lines in DL were SHORTER than anything we see in WDW these days. 30 minutes seemed to be the average longest time I saw. Obviously there were outliers but those notwithstanding lines were reasonable, IMO. Had we more time Genie would have been an after thought likewise to WDW where we have AP and can do a single ride here and there as we want.

For all the goods DL has over WDW their app and physical security are just awful, truly and abysmally awful. The scanners at the entrances are most likely from the original opening. Do the parks not share technology updates? I'm legitimately asking. This caused so many issues on run day (that update coming in a different post) and having to take things out of pockets, including my medal, was kind of embarrassing since I know there are better ways.

Also, the app. Why is the app so bad. You can't add friends/family without having to know their ticket numbers which is an incredibly cumbersome way to link your party together. That and you have to scan barcodes instead of tapping the turnstile. DL does at least use Magicbands so that's a plus over Paris. I'm assuming for the app it's a privacy law thing? I can't explain why it's so bad other than it's not allowed to have the connections allowed in other states. Even the race announcers talked about it on the stage. I love the mouse but I'm also fair in pointing out the flaws.

Obviously there we positives from the visit as noted above but let's see what else we enjoyed! The Incredicoaster was so amazing. Perfect theming and the queue video talking about the retheme was 4th wall breaking but also really funny. Violet seemed miffed and Edna was just taking it stride which kind of seems against her don't look back mantra. Honestly, the entire Pixar Pier was gorgeous. I got to see it at night and lit up my words will not do it proper justice but you can find photos online of it I'm sure.

Characters just roam around in DL and that was something that we're not used to seeing. At WDW those handlers are extremely tethered keeping everyone back until the character reaches the proper location for the official line to get their moment. I liked the random encounters we had and the characters just took it in stride. Maybe it's the culture at DL. Maybe it's just a different clientele? I never saw any issues with it in DL like I've seen in WDW. Then again, Photo pass was few and far between in DL as well. Most cast members took personal photos with your own phone/camera for free. Refreshing but also odd. It's not like Disney to miss out on a way to monetize guests. They sure as hell don't miss that in WDW.

Anaheim doesn't allow fireworks during the week. If Orlando tried to enforce we'd riot. DL was dumb enough to have a mug that said "It's all about fireworks" when they don't even have them. So dumb. If they won't do fireworks they should consider going the route of Paris and have drone shows. Honestly, the drone shows in Paris were killer. It was innovative and fit a culture that isn't obsessed with blowing shit up.

All the said I want to see if I can compare the parks I've been to thus far and update once park 4 happens. Which park would be #4? Shanghai is the currently leader. All because of Zootopia. If you didn't know that and you're reading this...you either don't know me or haven't read enough of my entries :P

Best of from my current experiences at 3 Disney Resorts

Big Thunder - Paris Pirates - DL Space Mountain - Paris (did not get to ride Land's version) Security - WDW Shopping - WDW Nighttime Show - WDW (Happily Ever After) Hotel - WDW (Polynesian cause Moana...) Castle - Paris Haunted Mansion - DL with Nightmare overlay Philharmagic - WDW Soarin - WDW (over the world) This is just one person's opinion but I'd like to think it's valid since I've done 3 parks and have seen the various cultures that go with them. In either event I'm going to do a post on the return of RunDisney to Disneyland. Make sure to come back and give it a read!

-Dave

Adventure awaited