#I haven’t watched the whole podcast yet! but it was really interesting

[tonymarias]

Just watched part of Neal Brennan post cast with Johnny and the way he talks about growing up with an alcoholic father and how it affected him way into his adulthood is genuinely so sad…

His partner that he has now apparently grew up with a healthy family dynamic and it changed the way he viewed communicating with people - women.

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | November 13th-19th 2023 (Part One)

For the first time ever, I have a podcast and podfic recommendations! 😃 The podcast is Dispatch: a 9-1-1 Podcast @dispatchpodcast and specifically the episode with @mistmarauder that inspired me to try podfics!

Complete

🔥 eddie diaz vs the pta agenda by mmtion/ @mmtions (Season 5, Jealous Eddie | 19K | Mature): Really, Eddie doesn’t care that the PTA aren’t his biggest fan. He knows he misses too many meetings, and it’s not like he’s best friends with any of the other parents. But then Buck picks Christopher up from a class trip and it all goes to hell. Like, of course Buck is everyone’s dream guy. He’s responsible with kids, and kind, and funny and interesting and hot to touch. That’s obvious. But now Eddie’s fighting to keep the PTA moms, teachers, and dads, all off an unsuspecting and tempting Buck. Because Eddie is a good friend. Right?

The 118's Secret Book Club by Asplenium, QuietLittleVoices/ @hawkeyefrommash (Post-Season 5 | 15K | Teen): Eddie dropped the book on the counter. “Taylor Kelly wrote a book. I haven’t started it yet. But I was thinking –” “Book club?” Karen asked. Eddie nodded eagerly. “I know I can’t complain about this to Buck, but –” “Say no more,” Hen said, flipping open the book to the introduction. “We’ll get some copies from the library.”

daylight (i can never look away) by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (S4, Quarantine | 3K | Teen): or; a single moment between two almost lovers who don't know where to go next (otherwise known as the buddie quarantine fic nobody asked for)

101 Ways to Say 'What the F#%&' by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Humor | 5K | Teen): The point is, Eddie knows Buck. Or at least he thought he did. Now, Eddie's starting to think the whole relationship has been built on LIES. Because somehow, in some way, it has completely escaped Eddie's vast amounts of knowledge, that Buck is a fucking polyglot.

wait for me to come home by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Season 5, Pining | 3K | Teen): Chris doesn’t take the lego. He keeps staring at Buck with those big, doleful eyes, and says, “Why can’t you be with my dad instead?” His voice is soft and sad, naive and hopeful all at the same time. It’s positively heartbreaking is what it is, especially compounded with the fact that Buck has been asking himself the same question for months now. Buck offers him another smile, softer and tinged with a little of his own sadness, and says, “It’s complicated, buddy.”

spilled milk by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Post-Coma | 4K | Teen): or; In the aftermath of Buck's coma, Eddie can't look at him. (Part 1 of longing tastes like grief and desire)

something familiar by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Post-S6E15 | 1K | Teen): or; Buck and Eddie get burgers after visiting Marie's grave, and Eddie feels too many things. (Part 2 of longing tastes like grief and desire)

standing on the edge (of great) by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Ediie/Ana Break-Up | 5K | Mature): or; eddie says buck's name during sex with ana. it goes about as well as you would expect. and then somehow, it gets a little better

🔥 Love in the Time of TikTok by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Post-S4 | 5K | Teen): It seems kind of dystopian to let millions of people know he’s in love with his best friend before telling said best friend first, doesn’t it? Whatever. Fuck it. It’s not like anyone he knows in real life watches his Tik Toks anyway, so he can be a little freer with the truth even if doesn’t tell his followers everything. He already keeps a tight cinch around his emotions when he’s at work, he can let his guard down a little on here, right?

this life that we've created (or: how silvia rodriguez learned to believe in fairytales again) by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Post-S4E5: Eddie Begins, Outsider POV | 2K | Teen): or; eddie makes buck christopher's legal guardian told from his lawyer's perspective. because why not

hear me now by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Post-S4E5: Eddie Begins | 5K | Teen): or; eddie finds the footage of buck trying to dig to him in Eddie Begins. conversations and feelings ensue

When My Eyes Are Closed (Til Right When They Open) by mintedwitcher (Season 5, Getting Together | 2K | Teen): When Chris has a tantrum, Eddie slips and refers to Buck as Chris's dad. A lot of feelings are revealed and Eddie has a few realisations at his kitchen table. Buck, as always, is right there. 

The First Place I Go (When I'm Trying to Hide) by mintedwitcher (Season 5, Getting Together | 2K | Teen): A companion piece to When My Eyes are Closed, wherein Buck realises he's in love with Eddie because Chris talks with his mouth full.

hungry for your love by evcndiaz/ @evcndiaz (Getting Together | 1,8K | General): prompt: "who’s gonna write a fanfic where chris is not cooperating with buck and eddie accidentally says “listen to your dad”?"

I wanna spend my forever like that by wikiangela/ @wikiangela (Sick Eddie, Getting Together | 8K | General): Eddie catches a cold and stubbornly denies he's sick, while a fondly exasperated Buck is trying to take care of him.

nicknames, supernova similes and the family we make by thewolvesof1998/ @thewolvesof1998 (Established Buddie | <1K | General): Bobby and Athena meet Buck and Eddie's new baby girl.

Nobody Can Do Everything by browney3dgirl6/ @hoodie-buck (Canon Divergence, Teacher Buck | 4K | General): It's parent/teacher night, Eddie having brought Carla along to help him navigate through the vast school. Most of the teachers are unmemorable, save for the pretty English teacher, though she isn't the one that keeps his attention. No, that would be the one with blue eyes, the one his son is always talking about.

if I could see you (once more, to see you) by colonoscopys/ @colonoscopys (Canon Divergent, Coma | 21K | Teen): Or, in the aftermath of a building collapse, Eddie mourns. Buck dreams.

Kiss Me Drunk When You're Sober by giselleslash/ @gigi-gigi (Getting Together | 5K | General): Buck makes a drunken confession and Eddie makes a decision.

Podfics

🔥 [Podfic] Curl Up in My Heart and Let Me Keep You by liketherestofla, MistMarauder / @mistmarauder (Animal Transformation | 1-1.5h | Teen): When an orange tabby cat starts hanging around the Diaz house, Eddie doesn't think anything of it. The little guy's cute and cuddly, and seems to always know when Eddie's having a bad time. Weird how the cat's never around when Buck is, though.

🔥 [Podfic] Love in the Time of TikTok by MistMarauder/ @mistmarauder (Post-S4 | 30-45 min | Teen): It seems kind of dystopian to let millions of people know he’s in love with his best friend before telling said best friend first, doesn’t it? Whatever. Fuck it. It’s not like anyone he knows in real life watches his Tik Toks anyway, so he can be a little freer with the truth even if doesn’t tell his followers everything. He already keeps a tight cinch around his emotions when he’s at work, he can let his guard down a little on here, right?

WIP

🔥 Things We're All Too Young to Know by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon, S1 through S6 | 99/? | 261K | Mature): This is a love story. Even if it doesn’t always look like it. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it. A look back on Eddie and Buck's lives up to now, and what led them to each other, interpreted from the current 9-1-1 canon.

🔥 Both Blade and Branch by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-S6 | 4/13 | 16K | Mature): The chances of being struck by lightning twice are incredibly minute, but Buck still manages to pull it off. During a double date with Marisol and Natalia, nonetheless. Eddie manages to resuscitate him, but as Buck recovers from yet another trauma, Eddie can’t help but notice there’s something very different about him. He’s not quite sure what version of Buck he got back.

🔥 and here, too, am i by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Future fic, Married Buddie | 3/4 | 31K | Teen): Six months into their marriage, Eddie is still struggling to decide whether or not he wants more kids, when he knows Buck does. The universe may not scream, but it certainly talks.

Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know by JJK/ @trenchcoatsandtimetravel (Demon Buck, Canon Divergent | 7/? | 12K | Teen): Buck is a demon with the power to help with pregnancy, childbirth, and infant health. When the Buckleys make a deal asking for someone to help 'save their baby', Buck leaps at the chance as it will give him what he's always wanted: a life on earth. But demon deals are tricky and neither of them gets quite what they're after. This is Buck's journey as he navigates growing up on earth and remembering how to help those in need.

Fractals from the Lightning Bolt by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (One Shots Collection | 38/54 | 73K | Not Rated)

I Haven't Found A Better Title For This Than "Read This In The Six Months Before I Made This Blog And It Somehow Made Its Way To My History Now So I'm Reccing It Post-Facto"

🔥 tomorrow will always and forever now be today (tomorrow is our always and forever) by withmeornotatall (Post-S6, Time Loop | 43K | Mature): eddie gets trapped in a time loop on the day buck marries natalia

[allyheart707]

I haven’t listened to Adventure Zone but I play D&D! So if you wanna rant about it I will most likely understand what’s going on!

:D ^-^

OH YOU HAVE OPENED A CAN OF WORMS YOU CANNOT PUT BACK-

So, it's a comedy podcast of three brothers and their father who all have no idea how to play D&D at the start. It starts off slow, so sadly, if you do not like their sense of humor (all it really has at the very beginning) then you may not be able to stick it through. BUT OH MAN IS IT WORTH IT-

I think this quote fits the story the best: "The Adventure Zone Balance: the story of four idiots who played D&D so hard they made themselves cry." — Justin McElroy

It has one of the biggest plot twists I have ever seen, and the amount of work and effort put into foreshadowing it without giving it away is INSANE- like you go back to the very first few episodes and there are already little hints sprinkled in.

Even crazier is that Griffin (the DM) DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE STORY PLANNED OUT YET- he didn't have the whole story planned out until around halfway through the podcast!

The ending is so heartfelt and the way Griffin can make you feel things is just- UGH-

ANYWAYS in hopes of convincing you to listen to this podcast (I know it's long- BUT IT'S WORTH IT- ITS ALSO FREE TO LISTEN TO--) I have compiled a list of videos you can watch that may peak your interest:

Oh, also it has very explicit language so not for children-

-Spoiler free-

-Spoiler HEAVY HEAVY A LOT OF SPOILERS but these are my favorite Griffin is the best DM moments-

If you ever want any other animatics from TAZ- I'll let you know that I have WAY to many I could share- .... you know... just in case-

[x-on-the-calendar-business]

ryan ross iceberg (tier 4)

tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 5, tier 6, tier 7, tier 8

the middle of the iceberg:

crankthatfrank interview:

crankthatfrank is a youtuber who had his peak of popularity in 2015-2017 making what was described as “bandom crack” content. a lot of yeemo, cheez wiz, frerard, etc. i personally wasn’t a fan of his content (i think i was just too old to be in his demographic (and i thought it was cringey)), but he was fairly successful within that community. i don’t really know how else to describe his content other than you had to be there.

in 2019, he interviewed ryan, which was actually a really good interview! it was very lighthearted without being too silly and off the wall, like bryan stars interviews were. it was such a pleasant surprise, especially considering the way ryan stans are starved for content. throughout the interview, ryan holds z in his arms the whole time while she cosplays as a corpse so that was interesting. also, ryan revealed his favorite song off of afycso is i constantly thank god for esteban. he said 2020 was going to be the year for the comeback.

that was a lie.

frank sadly deleted the original video, but there is a reupload, thankfully. i highly recommend watching the interview if you haven’t yet!

hair in cupcakes:

so it’s unclear if the hair was in cookies or cupcakes because sources differ, but the sentiment is the same either way. in an interview from 2013, brendon said that in the early days of the band, some fans baked them cookies, and brendon and their merch guy ate them [i]. brendon saw a hair in the first cookie, but kept eating them anyway. he says, “i kept pulling hairs out of my mouth and after no.10 i asked the merch guy if he was pulling hairs out of his mouth and he was” [i]. there turned out to be hairs in every single cookie. ryan also talked about in the paige and friends podcast, which is the next entry [ii].

paige and friends podcast:

also in 2019, ryan featured on the paige and friends podcast, run by paige elkington (ryan really had us fooled for a minute there that 2020 WOULD be his year). they talked some about the panic! and the young veins days, dekc, his sobriety, his absence from the internet, hockey, politics, amongst other things. this was another great “interview” and a fun look into some slice of life things from ryan, so i also recommend giving it a listen here [ii].

chuck palahniuk:

this is one of ryan’s favorite authors – definitely his favorite in the early days of panic! (he is also my favorite author, as is the natural course of being a ryan ross stan). some of his works include: invisible monsters, fight club, choke, and survivor. his writing is primarily satirical with a very distinct voice.

his works were referenced a lot in afysco. time to dance is about invisible monsters, and the song title “the only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage” is a quote from survivor. some of ryan’s other songwriting on that album is evidently inspired by palahniuk’s style of writing.

pet salamander:

this was one of ryan’s bands before panic!. spencer and brent were also in this band, along with another member named trevor. they were often called a blink 182 cover band, but spencer stated that this actually isn't true. they just practiced a lot of blink 182 songs when learning how to play [iii].

their website is still up, and it includes some pictures of the band and each member. it also even contains ryan's old email, discussed in tier 3, at the bottom.

since the member bios aren’t on the site anymore, they are documented here [iv].

his other band isn't on the iceberg, but it was called the summer league. it was basically panic! before panic! actually existed. their sound wasn't similar to what panic!'s was, but it was essentially all the same members.

kanye west stan:

stan is a very loosely used term here, but ryan has said that he likes kanye’s music, and he owns some stuff from his clothing line.

taxidermy:

as you can see in some of ryan’s Instagram posts, he has a lot of taxidermy in his house.

hooters:

in 2010, ryan and brendon ran into each other at a hooters. if i’m not mistaken, i think this is the the last picture we have of them together.

rydan:

this refers to ryan and his friend, dan keyes. ryan posted about him a lot in the 2010s, and he was a member of dead end kids as well. i think the mashup of their names mostly refers to their friendship, but there are people who think they genuinely dated. this tweet here, as well as the replies, references that [v]. it’s also discussed in this tumblr post [vi].

club hockey:

ryan plays club hockey. he actually started playing hockey as a child, and he talks about his love for hockey in the paige and friends podcast.

alex greenwald:

i’ve already mentioned him before in this iceberg, but alex is one of ryan’s good friends and the frontman of phantom planet (you may know this band from the OC theme song). he played with the young veins sometimes, and he played with z’s former band, phases. we’ll talk about him some more in later entries as well.

helena vestergaard:

this is another one of ryan’s ex girlfriends. they dated in 2015, and he first posted about her on instagram in july. his last post of her was in december that year. i don’t really have much to say about this relationship besides she seemed like a really nice girl. these days she has 2 kids. she also used to date anthony kiedis from red hot chili peppers, which is very interesting.

coke picture:

so not too long after ryan left panic!, a picture came out of him with cocaine on a tray in front of him. this was very controversial, and he even commented on it explaining himself here [vii]. i don’t really understand why he had to explain himself though. i am no means a drug apologist (i’m literally straight edge) and i know drugs are bad, but i don’t think he did anything wrong. in the post i linked above, he says he didn’t realize the coke was in the picture, which may or not be true, but if it is, then he might not have even done it.

all he did was be surrounded by beautiful women and do cocaine. what is so wrong with that.

myrtle beach:

this is a ryden entry and basically a theory that ryan and brendon hooked up.

on june 24th, 2006 panic! played the house of blues in myrtle beach, south carolina (and i have been to this venue because i’m from sc…). after the show, panic!, the supporting acts, and crew went skinny dipping at the beach.

greta said this in an interview about it [viii]:

Q: Tell us about your craziest touring experience.

On the 2006 Panic Tour, we played the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach [JUNE 24TH]. After the show, most of the bands and crew walked a mile to the beach and, having not brought our swimsuits, decided to swim in underwear or totally nude. Bob and I opted to skinny dip and, at one point, he was trying to get back to the shore but the waves were crashing over him and he was gasping for breath. I yelled to him, 'Bob, are you going to live? As much as I want to help you, we are both naked so I can't.' (Would have been far too awkward). Thankfully, he survived in one glorious piece.

the thing that really led to rydennies thinking that something happened between ryan and brendon was what ryan posted on lj about it [viii]:

6-25-06 01:21:28 PDT - (No Subject)

The moon bred new Atlantic life tonight.the salt burned you right out of my eyes.and secrets we’re not proud of were taken with the tide. We were all newborns with blurred vision and no sense of direction.

Today I saw cancer, cigarettes and shortness of breath.

this is why I walk to the ocean.swim with jellyfish.I may never get this chance again.

this is why if you want to kiss you should kiss.

If you want to cry you should cry, and

if you want to live you should live.

You don’t have to love me. You already did. At least enough to keep me smiling from South Carolina to Virginia.it's for lovers (orjustfriends)

This is why I do it.

this also lead to the idea that summer was a very important motif for ryden; any references to the season in their lyrics or other postings meant they were talking about each other.

another part that people often cite as proof in that in this interview, the interviewer says they claim brendon is a virgin on stage every night, and ryan says “not anymore” at 01:36. so people think brendon lost his virginity to ryan.

and then the night of the show of the dancers on tour with them, dream, posted this on her lj [viii]:

June 24th, 2006

It’s our last night in Florida and let me tell you… this finally turned into a crazy rock tour… lots of shenanigans happened tonight… but I’ll save this story for the memoirs! Every night I stand on stage and tell the crowd that Brendon is a virgin… let’s just put it this way… it ain’t true!!!!

since this was posted the night of the mb show, she was talking about the florida show, which would already debunk that brendon could’ve lost it to ryan after the mb show. she also said in another post the next night that they met some spirited girls at the show and more than 20 of them went to the beach that night [viii].

honestly, there is no true supporting evidence to prove that anything sexual or romantic happened between them. both of them were probably talking about the girls they met at the show, or one of the other 20 people who were there.

seattle:

another ryden theory i fear.

so the story goes that on the night of ryan’s 21st birthday, keltie threw him a party at pete wentz’s bar. brendon couldn’t attend because he was in seattle (people theorized it was because he was too young to drink). after the party was over, ryan left keltie alone in their hotel in the middle of the night to fly out to see brendon. they went to eat at a diner together, and a fan spotted them, giving us this picture.

this was allegedly what ryan wrote northern downpour about, such as the lines, “i missed your skin when you were east. you clicked your heels and wished for me.” also, rainy seattle is in the north.

when i was a ryden truther, i always said that this was the one ryden incident there was not a no homo explanation for. however, that is not true.

panic! was playing a festival in seattle a couple of days later. in fact, there is an interview from august 31, the day after ryan’s birthday and the day before the show, in which they’re wearing the same outfits from that picture.

the northern downpour theory also doesn’t make sense because ryan was in the east, not brendon. and ryan wrote the song.

if you’re interested in a further debunking of this, prettyoddfever details it here [ix].

halsey ryden truther:

when i say that halsey and i are spiritually connected, i mean it.

in 2013, halsey tweeted that ryden is still her otp.

and then in 2015, they responded to a fan saying that she used to write ryden fic.

also in 2015, ryan tweeted at them saying that they should work together. oh what could have been…

slow dance to the killers:

yet another ryden entry.

in a kerrang! article from 2006, it says this [x]:

all i really have to say about this is that automatically assuming this must mean ryden is real plays into why men think they can’t be affectionate with one another without seeming “gay.”

cheated on keltie:

in her book, which we discussed earlier, keltie revealed that ryan cheated on her with a waitress. she found out about it the day after valentine’s day when she was looking through his phone.

she says [xi}:

I honestly can’t and don’t want to remember what I saw that day, but the dates registered with me. I saw the date of my birthday two weeks before, the day I received two huge bundles of flowers while spending time with my family in Canada. He was with her on my birthday. I scrolled back farther and realized he texted her while we were on vacation in Hawaii. He sang me love songs on the beach while also thinking about some girl.

he wrote about his infidelity in the young veins song, the other girl [xii].

this isn’t particularly relevant, but i did want to include one of my favorite tweets about this just because it lives in my head rent free.

next we move on to some of the darker entries.

tier 5

references:

[i] https://gigwise.com/news/85115/

[ii] https://podcasts.apple.com/jm/podcast/my-friend-podcast-with-ryan-ross/id1483514044?i=1000455535330

[iii] https://prettyoddfever.tumblr.com/post/685240468337000448/embed

[iv] https://prettyoddfever.tumblr.com/post/620153208809062400/the-actual-band-bios-on-pet-salamanders-original

[v] https://twitter.com/PwettyOwdd/status/1655280757693186051

[vi] https://pathetic-at-the-disco.tumblr.com/post/171502454686/hey-i-have-a-kinda-legit-question-so-i-see

[vii] http://www.mibba.com/Articles/Entertainment/2788/Ryan-Ross-Talks-About-Cocaine-Picture/

[viii] https://whisperdlullaby.livejournal.com/9051.html

[ix] https://prettyoddfever.tumblr.com/post/627362228538064896/the-seattle-ryden-story-isnt-real-google-the

[x] https://porraryanross.tumblr.com/post/69946624225

[xi] https://archive.org/details/rockettesrocksta0000coll/mode/2up

[xii] https://genius.com/The-young-veins-the-other-girl-lyrics

[sshbpodcast]

Four Score and Seven Lightyears Ago: Historic Figures in Star Trek

By Ames

Between escapades on the holodeck, visits to the past, and general sci-fi shenanigans, Star Trek has been able to present many historic figures to its crews, to varying effects. They’ve been doing it from the very beginning, though newer Trek series somehow haven’t seemed to have picked up on the game yet. Perhaps mentioning Elon Musk in an episode of Discovery soured them on the idea of bringing real people out into the universe: they’ll only find a way to let you down.

So what do the great minds of history have to offer to the weird and advanced worlds of the future? How frequently is the episode awkward, uncomfortable, or just plain annoying? Whose portrayal doesn’t stand up to the test of time? Check out all the ones we here at A Star to Steer Her By could think of below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (discussion starts at 1:11:33). Watch out for falling apples!

[Images © CBS / Paramount]

Jack the Ripper - “Wolf in the Fold”

We forgot to bring this one up on the podcast, but here we remembered to include the alien lifeform that inhabited people throughout history to harvest fear from its victims, at one point using the body of Jack the Ripper. This is absolutely nothing new. The list of Jack the Ripper appearances in modern media is longer than my arm and it’s so overdone that I just gloss over this episode entirely. Redjac is an alien now? Meh. Add it to the Ripper fanfic list.

Wyatt, Morgan, and Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday - “Spectre of the Gun”

By season 3 The Original Series writers had a history book constantly open to look up a whole bunch of figures from the past, starting with an incredibly erroneous telling of the gunfight at the OK Corral. The whole ordeal is through the lens of an alien reading Kirk’s inaccurate memories, so perhaps any falsehoods are to be forgiven. Given the budget for season three, the sets were pretty much plywood, but the actors playing the Earps and Doc Holliday actually looked pretty good!

Flint - “Requiem for Methuselah”

This one’s kind of a strange one, since the character Flint purportedly lived long enough to live out the lives of many famous figures, some actual and some fictional for some reason. The list he gives includes Methuselah, King Solomon, Alexander the Great, Lazarus, Merlin, Leonardo da Vinci, and Johannes Brahms. You’re a strange dude, Flint. I really don’t know what to make of this guy since it’s almost an interesting idea to have such a long-lived character, but once you start throwing wizards into the mix, I’m taken entirely out of it.

Abraham Lincoln - “The Savage Curtain”

When Abe Lincoln appears floating in space, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. The Original Series could get away with campy hijinks the way no other Trek series can anymore, even including Lower Decks. The rest of “The Savage Curtain” is convoluted and pointless as hell (there’s a reason it’s on some of our Bottom Five lists from the whole series), but the parts featuring playing gladiator with Lincoln were a harmless enough romp.

Genghis Khan - “The Savage Curtain”

Also featured alongside Lincoln was Genghis Khan, and let’s just say it was a good thing the character had absolutely no lines or it might have gotten cringey. His inclusion in the first place was borderline as it was, but it wasn’t a good episode in the first place, so what were we really hoping for out of season three of TOS? Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure did all of this better, I’ll leave it at that.

Albert Einstein - “The Nth Degree”

Jump to TNG and a lot of our guest figures from the slate of history appear to us on the holodeck, which is probably a decent venue for them. Better than most, when you think about it, since our Starfleet friends are usually visiting them for a purpose that is substantive to the episode, and also everyone accepts that hologram depictions are going to be fairly superficial. So it goes that Barclay seeking out the program of Albert Einstein makes perfect sense in the episode. This isn’t the last we’ll see of the Einstein holo either, as we’ll see…

Jack London - “Time’s Arrow”

Oh boy, this is one of my least favorite TNG episodes and it’s mostly down to our two guest figures being so caricaturey and plot convenient. The first we come across in our time travel adventure is the young valet Jack, who just seems like a miscreant throughout the two-parter and who rubs your SSHB hosts particularly the wrong way immediately. Then the very very buttony “Remember the name Jack London” happens and everyone watching rolls their eyes so hard that we all topple over from the sheer inanity of it. Ugh!

Samuel Clemens - “Time’s Arrow”

In these two episodes, is Jack London better or worse than Sam Clemens? That may be a matter of how well you can stand the intense overacting and obnoxiousness of the portrayal. In my write up for season 6 of TNG, I screamed “What the hell is Mark Twain doing here” into the void for what felt like days because his character had no motivation for doing any of the things the writers needed him to do in order to stick around. And boy did he ever stick around! He stuck around so much while not contributing anything except someone to deliver exposition at, which could have been some fictional person! So what the hell was Mark Twain doing here!?!?

Stephen Hawking - “Descent”

As we move through TNG episodes, we go from one of my least favorite portrayals to one of my favorites. The late Stephen Hawking remains the only actual person to play themself on Star Trek, and if that ever changes, I’ll feel disappointed because I can’t think of anyone else who is anywhere as deserving. The little joke that Hawking added himself is quite cute, and it just sounds like it was a delightful day to have Einstein, Newton (whom we’ll see again in a second), and Hawking playing poker on the holodeck with Data.

Sigmund Freud - “Phantasms”

Having Data go to a recreation of Freud’s couch when he’s looking for someone to interpret his dreams is a bit of a goofy premise, but it seems in character enough. When holo-Freud starts spewing all the normal Oedipal psychosexual claptrap at him, it’s a bit humorous, if a bit on the nose, but we accept this one because Data’s innocence and naivete are such a good counterbalance. The scene plays a little on the obvious side, but what can you do? The cigar is a penis.

Amelia Earhart - “The 37s”

If you’ve been following along with our watch through Voyager, you’ll know this one struck a rather bad chord with us. Earhart is the only female figure on this list, which is saying enough in and of itself, but for the whole of “The 37s” it felt like her name was getting dragged around through history. It’s not as bad as the Jack the Ripper fanfic parade, but it just strikes me as bad taste to use Earhart’s legacy for a pretty cheap alien abduction gag and to have her navigator Fred Noonan canonically be in love with her. Vom.

Isaac Newton - “Death Wish”

Quinn claims that he’s the one that shook the apple tree that brought about Newton’s gravity epiphany. It’s another bit of an eye-rolling joke, made all the more groanworthy since it was already made clear in Newton’s appearance in “Descent” that the apple story was entirely apocryphal. Sigh. Other than that, Newton’s testimony is part of a very fascinating discussion of what will become of Quinn if he leaves the Q Continuum by killing himself, and who ever knows when the Qs are overembellishing stories for dramatic effect anyway (hint: it’s all the time)?

Socrates, Lord Byron, and Gandhi - “Darkling”

We had pretty mixed feelings of the Doctor going all Mr. Hyde during “Darking” but it does stand to reason that he’d look to various historic figures for personality traits to give himself. Byron and Gandhi’s shallow conversation about men cavorting with women was on the silly side, but this is the holodeck after all, where all the people are pretty much one-note.

The pièce de résistance of the holodeck scenes in this episode is when the characters are all glitching out randomly, Gandhi’s head is spinning, Byron is getting experimented upon, and Socrates is left a hollow hologram. Now that’s a new philosophy.

Leonardo da Vinci - “Concerning Flight” et al

We come to the end of our list with one of the most established minds in history… mostly taking up space. The most his character really gets to do on his number of appearances is allow Janeway to talk exposition at someone other than Seven for a change, and then make a lot of jokes about how the hologram doesn’t understand the real world. I was frankly tired by it. Later on, Lower Decks makes some references to the da Vinci hologram, because of course it does.

—

Computer, end program! Did you spot any other historical figures from our Trek watch? Well, put them in cryo and send them our way because we’re moving on to more blogtivities next week. Keep watching this spot for more, keep up with our voyage through Voyager on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, say hi on Facebook and Twitter, and in the words of Honest Abe: be excellent to each other.

[deepblueeyess]

A Fresh Start

{this is your friendly reminder that the entirety of the post might be just as cliché as the title up there.}

but if you stick around, continue on reading, I love you.

.

.

.

hi everyone, it’s been a while since I last post here in tumblr. I have so many things in mind right now, don’t really know what to discuss first, but, let's start with this :

guys, or maybe friends, or--ya I’ll leave it to you what you prefer to be called, I have changed. 

And why this surely is important to let the readers know, is because if I change, my writing will surely change too.

If I change, I’m probably gonna change the direction of my blog, as in : what topic I will be talking about, my style, my way of talking about it,and it might also impact your satisfaction-enjoyment-interest while reading it, haha. 

But this is a change for good, I promise. And I’ll help you to see why.

If I look back at the tone of my writings here, as well as the whole concept of it, here’s what I've came to realize ; this blog, up until this point, has just been me hosting my own pity party. Has been me, pretty much ‘selling’ my sob story. 

Very questionable, yes. 

Now, did that work out? did my sob story get the attention it wanted? Yes it did. Some people come at me, stating their empathy. I get to be more ‘understood’ by people. A lot more people sympathize with me. Two extra bonuses, I got more attention, and, there are more people who would let my madness slide. Why? Because I’ve got sob stories. Because I have a sad, pitiful background. Be nicer to me, please, love. 

I enjoyed it. Quite a lot. 

While this might be one of the most embarrassing things to ever admit, I’ll admit it anyway. Because I slay like that hehe. I gain attention by selling my sob stories to the world, I enjoy dwelling in my own world of adversity, and, before I know it, I lose all the ability to think good. To have thought of good things. To even feel good. Now, if you feel and think so miserably, how are you going to be able to move at all?

Let me put it this way ; my writings, from now on, wouldn’t revolve around my sufferings anymore. That ain’t the main topic bro. Not again. Not ever. 

Maybe you would wonder about two things such as, woa, okay, where are you going now? what are you gonna be posting about from now on? and, how did the idea that you’re just hosting your pity party the entire time come about? 

The first one, well, it’s a secret, I’m not talking about the things that hasn’t arrived yet--no actually I haven’t thought about it at all lol. But one thing you can expect very soon is a hs review and recap.

About the second one, I was made aware by a lot of things. It’s an accumulation of so many things, like, the book I’ve read, the self-help videos I’ve watched, the podcast and ted talks I’ve ‘consumed’, the series of event going on in my life, people, and just, life, really. Everything going in my life now has been ‘awakening’ me in a way. 

As for everyone who have been with me, in this tumblr, for a little while now, I apologize that you have to witness all that. All the madness I was spitting, all the sob stories--where I manage to pretend that I wasn’t delivering any sob stories at all, I really am sorry. Even so, I’m just gonna let those writings be there. I’m not making it private, not deleting, not editing it, just letting it be there as it is, raw and pure. Now, maybe not many will get what I’m trying to do by doing that, so here’s some justification brief explanation.

I’ve mentioned this before but in case you don’t know, I’ve had some blogs too in the past. I have this habit of deleting everything every five months because you know, I would change, and grow, maybe outgrow a lot of my writings. And I would cringe, obviously. Each time that I cringe, I click the delete button. Each time I find my writing ridiculous, I get rid of it. Until I’m left with absolutely nothing. As if I have no history of blogging, ever. Because it’s blank empty. 

And now, I don't have something to look back. I don't have my old writings to reflect on. And most importantly, I didn't know very well what kind of person I was.

So we're not doing that.

I don’t know how many chapters are there in my life, but at this point, I sure am at the very end of a chapter. A chapter that has been going on for four years now. I’m about to start a new chapter soon Insya Allah, and I’m very excited to share those stories I’ll have in the future. We’ll talk about it in a positive manner, obviously. I really want it to be like, okay, this happened. What did I learn? that kind of tone. That kind of attitude.

Sooo that's that. I think I'm gonna have to wrap it up here, and I hope you’ll stick around. Tschüss!

❤️, Nadia.

24/05/’23

[give-soup-please]

Platonic Prompt!! The reader is a Podcaster and convinces the Narrator to do an episode with them! What happens? :0

Narrator on reader’s podcast

If you give him a mic and tell him there’s an audience listening on the other end, you can bet he’s going to hog it. Doesn’t matter what sort of podcast you’re doing- comedy, horror, news, whatever. He wants as many listeners as possible, so you can bet that he’s going to take over your show.

You’ll be trying to pry the mic out of his hands, or have an additional setup, while he’s on a roll. You thought his rambing was bad before, you haven’t seen anything yet.

“...And that’s why the themes of choice were relevant to my story, and the nature of video games on the whole. It’s quite simple, really, and yet so interlaced with deep meaning-” 

“That’s nice, but I believe the question I asked was, ‘How are you doing today?’

“...I was just getting there, reader. I’ll thank you to not interrupt me again.”

I hope you’ve got a good sense of humor and a lot of patience. 

Whatever your usual podcast is like, this one ends up being an hour and a half of the narrator talking, rambling about whatever comes to mind. 

He gets so excited as you edit your podcast before uploading it. “Oh, just imagine the positive reviews that will come swarming in. Cookie9 will be so impressed!”

You have no idea if Cookie9 listens to your podcasts or not. You hope they don’t, for his sake. 

He watches the number counter tick up as your collaborative episode is released. “Ah, yes. Just what I expected. Except I think there are a few zeros missing. Hmm. Must be a glitch.” You don’t have the heart to tell him that most podcast episodes don’t pass the billion listener mark.

Keep him away from any negative reviews you get, or you’ll end up in a situation where he wants to redo it over and over until he’s got 100% audience adoration. The nature of humanity means this will never be possible, and the situation will devolve until it's just him ranting about not receiving the praise he deserves.

Of course, if you show him too many positive reviews, he’ll want to do several more episodes. “This is what the audience wants, reader. Me, talking to them. How could we not give them more?”

If you want peace of mind, keep him away from your show. If you’re looking for something interesting and entertaining, and don’t care about the consequences, let him have free reign. You’ll have a blast.

[goeie-morgen]

Gossip Guy podcast with Willem De Schryver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYjtRYOGS00

translated by @jackfrostsander @bruisingknees @lblogss @yousmina and me :)

-

E: I do have another present for you.

W: Oei oei oei, presents.

E: I do that every week. I give something to my guest of the week.

W: Oei oei oei. Do I slide it?

E: Here in the front is a flap that you have to fold upwards…

[Intro]

E: Wassup people, welcome to a new episode of the Gossip Guy podcast. My name is Ender Scholtens and today I’m here with Willem De Schryver. Everything ok?

W: Sure sure (In Dutch sure is used as a confirmation to a question).

E: Is this your first podcast?

W: Yes, this is my first podcast.

E: Stress?

W: No, it will be fine, right? Relaxed.

E: I don’t know… (laughing). For the people who don’t recognize you, from where could they know you?

W: Hmmm, probably from the youth series WTFOCK where, in the third season, I play the role of Sander.

E: And we are allowed to talk about it in this podcast.

W: Yeah I also heard that. Yes, it’s over.

E: Was it a difficult chapter of your life to close?

W: Yes, I still clearly remember the last moment… Like really the last last scene at the sea… That was an emotional moment because you went through a lot as a group, you did a lot together, and emotional scenes, intimate scenes. But yes, I think, if I speak for the whole group that it was a goodbye to the series but not a goodbye from each other. We still keep in contact. Mainly through WhatsApp.

E: Yeah, the end of the series was beautiful. I sat next to my girlfriend when it just came online. Because there were a few scenes that we hadn’t seen yet and we were just watching them… And we refreshed and the last episode was online… The last piece was online… So, I thought… I really cried… It caused quite some emotions.

W: For many people… Also under the cast and even the extras that were present for that last scene… Even among them. I can remember that they got emotional because it really was over over. I think that we, WTFOCK, have been able to impact a lot of young people in Belgium. So, it’s beautiful… We closed it beautifully…

E: I don’t doubt that. I really liked the end. What is your favorite memory from your whole WTFOCK experience?

W: Hoh, hmmm. Do I have to choose one? Difficult to choose one… I think that the most enjoyable moments… At the end of each series… Almost… We were at the sea or in the Ardennes, as a group, for a vacation. Away together. And those moments… Away with the whole cast and crew… Being away for a whole weekend. And in the evening, talking late into the night and that creates a special connection and I think that, in general, was the most enjoyable… Yes, it affects me… You share, as a young person, a common dream or something we want to realize as an actor to succeed and everyone who works so hard for that… That’s nice to see.

E: I recently talked to Veerle and I know that if she sees Nora, like somewhere, say at a party… Then they stay together for the whole evening… Do you have that? With who did you have the best connection throughout that whole experience?

W: Yes…

E: That doesn’t mean that the rest is not chill or so…

W: No the rest is all stupid… There’s only one person… I hate you all! (joking) No! Yes, hmmm, I think that I definitely have the best connection with Willem. Just because we have been through a lot… I always compare the WTFOCK crew a bit to my own friend group, aside from the cast. I mean, I know to whom I can go for what. I know I can go to some if I feel sad, to talk and I know who I can go to to have a laugh. And who I can go to to have a general chat. And everyone has their qualities or like their own aura around them… Where I love to hang around. So, it differs from person to person. So, it’s hard to choose one person but Willem then in the sense that, if you jump naked together in a swimming pool and if you have intimate scenes together… That creates a connection, of course. So, yes, if I have to choose one person…

E: Is there a barrier that you have to overcome to play such scenes? Because they are very intimate, indeed. And I, personally, couldn’t imagine… I can’t act… But, to empathize with a role… To play such scenes… Is that difficult for you?

W: Huh, yes, that’s a question I get often. I mean like… Yeah and you have to empathize with that character… But yes, you step into that project with a certain professionalism and you say “okay, we are going to create a story and bring it to the public with certain values and that we want to tell something and show something” …So, yes, you don’t really think about it. So, it’s not like I thought “Ooooo, I am kissing with a boy but I am interested in girls”. That was not a problem for me because it really is about telling the story and making that together and if the story requires that then you just completely go for it.

E: That’s cool. What are your future acting ambitions? You now have played in a series, is that something you want to do more in the future or do you like theatre more or movie or…

W: I find it difficult to choose between theatre and film, for example. After WTFOCK I played in Déjà Vu, which you can see on Streamz and later this year on Channel 4… And I study theatre at KASK. And I notice the difference, due to the recordings, I am really in the field and I am busy and I work, while at school I learn new things about theatre… So, in my opinion I have more experience in television work because I actually have done projects for that and I haven’t yet for theatre, which is still school and learning. So, I think it’s currently hard to choose but I think, maybe it’s a cliché answer, but the combination is maybe ideal, of course. But I am still exploring and I will see how it goes…

7:02

E: What is your favorite food?

W: My favorite food?

E: Yes.

W: Hmmmm, in the past I was really a basic guy… Like spaghetti bolognese or so… But now, generally after my exams, I go to a restaurant with my grandma. She always buys. That’s always amazing. I am a fan. And I always take steak tartare with fries. That remains a bit of a guilty pleasure.

E: How long, do you think, would it take you to eat five full plates of spaghetti bolognese?

W: Hoh, hmmm. The thing is, my stomach is rather small…

E: Small?

W: I think that I would have to schedule in… Okay, after a certain time I would have to throw up and then eating further…

E: You’re allowed to take a break. You’re allowed to say… Okay, I take a few days…

W: No, no, not that…

E: You’re going to do it in a day?

W: Look, two plates… Three if I really push…

E: You get preparation time so you know like a week before… So, you can like…

W: Train yourself?

E: Yes, train…

W: Hoh, alee say about four hours…

E: Four hours?! Five plates, he? Like five really big plates…

W: Yeah but yeah, four minutes… I am exaggerating… Let’s say a day… In a day five plates…

E: Ok, that should work. Then you basically have every meal… Breakfast… Lunch… Dinner… and in between… pasta…

W: Pasta as breakfast…

E: One day should definitely be feasible.

W: Yes, indeed.

8:49

E: What is, according to you, the reason you were placed on this planet?

W: Fuck (laughs).

E: Existential crisis, okay? Have you never thought about what the purpose of life is and what…

W: Yes, certainly… Hmmm, I'm someone who worries a lot. When I'm in bed in the evening I start to think about questions like that and then I think “what am I doing? Willem… where do I want to go to and…” Hmmm, why was I put on this planet? Hmmmm… (speechless followed by laughing). This is really bad… It’s like I don’t value myself…

E: Noooo, but I didn’t expect a deep philosophical answer. Well, if you had one… really good but…

W: Okay I’m going to think about my philosophical answer… but no. If you want… No! Yes, now I'm really going to sound philosophical but… (crosstalk) Everyone who is on earth has a certain reason to be here and everyone… I for example have that… I really feel that… I never liked going to school. Especially, in lower and high school. I… I actually, on purpose, put my fingers in my throat in the morning to throw up…

E: Wow, that’s heavy…

W: And then going downstairs to say “papa I’m ill, can I stay home?” I don’t know why but that whole system… Sitting behind a desk all day… And those classes… that was not for me. And then I discovered my passion for acting and discovered that it really suited me. And that’s the thing… A lot of people often ask me like “how did you start?” and “I also would like to do that and where do I start and I have been rejected does that mean I am not good enough?” but I think that sometimes you shouldn’t rush to find your passion. It can take longer then you would like it to take. I think that if you too intensively search for "what am I good at?" and “I have to find something that I am good at” and… For me that’s happened unexpectedly. I did take acting classes on Wednesday afternoons after school and I kind of got into it like that… I think it differs for everyone and that everyone has their own purpose here on earth.

E: And would you say your purpose is acting?

W: Yeah…

E: There isn’t a right answer but how does it feel for you at the moment? Is that the thing you love doing the most or do you see yourself doing for a long time?

W: The thing is… I’m a person who gets tired of things very quickly. I’ve had a lot of hobbies.

E: So maybe next week you want to garden or something?

W: No, no I wouldn’t say that. No the thing is, with acting that isn’t the case. Since I was twelve… well first on amateur level…

E: How old are you now?

W: 19.

E: Oh wow I thought you were my age. 19… damn bro you’re three years younger than me.

W: 2001 represent.

E: That’s literally… you’re the same age as my brother! What the shit. Alright, no okay.

W: In November so almost 2002. I’m really a latecomer.

E: What?! You look like you’re the same age as me and everything.

12:14

W: But that’s honestly – thank you for saying that! I always used to be the “little guy.” None of the girls wanted to be with me cause they just thought I was cute.

E: I see.

W: And they came to me to talk about their love lives.

E: Oh, okay.

W: So I was always that guy who was like: “I’m in love with you.” “Oh, how cute! You’re so cute!” So I was always like: “Okay then, I’m never going to find anyone, I’m always going to stay… short. I’ll be all alone.” And then all of a sudden I –

E: Do you think height matters in regard to your chances with certain… people?

W: At this age I don’t think it does anymore, but I do think that – I think at – I just remember in high school that the romantic idea of what love was supposed to look like was very: a boy and a girl, and the boy has to be taller and stronger and bigger than the girl. But I think that now it’s more… I mean, at my age I’m convinced it’s more fluid than that, and it doesn’t have to be that way. So it doesn’t have to be an issue anymore.

E: But still, when you go on Twitter, short guys are still –

W: Yeah.

E: Totally annihilated.

W: I have notice – I have noticed – Yeah, it’s still… It’s still this… general thing that people get stuck on. Like: “Oh, a short dude. That’s not okay.” Or whatever.

E: Or like the guy has to be taller. But no, we’re – we’re – not… not all relationships… we’re really generalizing here. But I get what you mean.

W: Yeah.

E: No, it’s – I do think it’s still important. I think that when you’re, and this is really harsh, but that a lot of people look at you differently when you’re taller. I have this dude in my friend group, Louis Ledegen, and he’s close to 2 meters tall, and just some girls look at him and they just think that’s so… attractive or whatever. And I just can’t even imagine.

W: I don’t get that either.

E: That that makes them go like: “Wow!”

W: I was in the train just now and this dude walked by me and he was honestly like 2 meters tall and I was just thinking: “When you’re that tall, and you’re with…” I mean, the girl almost has to get on a stepping stool to reach him for a kiss! And girls are like – I mean, I’ve heard before that girls think it’s attractive when a man is really tall.

E: Yeah.

W: And yeah, I don’t know… I don’t totally get it.

E: No.

W: Maybe it’s cause I’m not that tall myself, that I’m like trying to protect myself and be all: “That’s not necessary!”

E: Yeah! If anybody knows the answer, do we, being shorter guys, have less of a chance?

W: Let us know, please.

14:53

E: Please let us know! We need some answers! Now in the show, wtFOCK, your hair’s a different color.

W: Yeah.

E: Yeah. Is that something… So that was actually – it wasn’t really blonde?

W: It was completely bleached.

E: Bleached.

W: It was more to the… But the thing is that they had to do it twice, cause the first time… I got there, for the first table read with the director and Willem [Herbots] and they were like: “Hey, Willem. We wanted to ask you something. We’d like to bleach your hair for the role.”

E: Yeah.

W: And I was like: “… Okay.”

E: Okay.

W: “And why?” No. “Just for the character and stuff.” So I was like: “Okay. That’s fine.” The thing is I had to be at the hairdresser for 4 hours for this.

E: Oh wow, heavy.

W: It was like this and this product, and it had to sit for a long time. It had to be bleached all over. And I got out of there the first time and I was completely yellow – but yellow like an egg.

E: Oh, shit!

W: And I… My mom dropped me off, and I texted her: “I’m done, will you come get me?” And I saw my mom approach and she just passed me by.

E: Oh wow.

W: She didn’t – she almost didn’t recognize me anymore. Like halfway - she was like – and then she was like: “Oh! Willem!” Like she hadn’t seen –

E: Oh shit.

W: That it was me. That I looked completely different. And then I arrived for another table read and Tom [Goris – director] was like: “Yeah… We’re not gonna go this route… This is too yellow.” So then I spent another 4 hours at the hairdresser. After that I had to be there for four hours almost every month. I did think it was cool to have bleached hair, but… You have to be at the hairdresser for so long, so that really wasn’t… my thing. I mean, I had some really cool moments with Mitch [Fabry – hair & make up wtFOCK]. Thanks, Mitch.

E: Would you ever dye your hair again?

W: Uhm.

E: Maybe another color?

W: Yeah, I don’t think so. I’m quite happy with my hair color, actually, I don’t know.

E: Alright.

W: Now it’s also like… Everyone always asks me: “So this is your natural hair color?”

E: Yeah.

W: And then I have to tell them: “Yeah.” And it’s like: “Oh, okay!” It’s this switch. But no, I’m happy with my hair. It’s fine.

17:03

E: I can also tell that you’ve got an earring? You can’t really tell on camera, but –

W: I’ll come a little closer [to the camera]. Yeah, I only got it recently, four weeks or something.

E: Yeah. Was it an impulsive, drunken decision, or something you wanted… for some time?

W: I’ve wanted it for a long time, but I was a little anxious about it like: “It’s not gonna look good on me,” and then after a while, a couple of months ago, I was like: “Fuck it, I’m just gonna do it.” And if it didn’t look good I could still just take it out, so it doesn’t really matter. But all in all I was pretty happy with it. My father, my parents – my mom: “Oh, so nice!!” And it was like – at first they give you a stud and then after four weeks you can change it to a hoop. And I really wanted a hoop, and I even asked the people in the (piercing) shop: “Can’t I please just get a hoop straight away?” And they were like: “No, sorry, it doesn’t work like that. For hygiene reasons that’s not okay.”

E: Okay.

W: But okay, so I had to wait four weeks and then eventually I could change it to the golden hoop. So I get home and the first thing my father said was: “Wow, you look like a douchebag.” That was the first thing out of his mouth, that I looked like a douchebag.

E: Is that the look you were going for?

W: No, not at all! Not at all!

E: I think it looks cool.

W: Thanks.

E: Cause a little while ago I wanted one, and so I put on my girlfriend’s earring – because even if your ear isn’t pierced it sticks a little –

W: Yeah.

E: And so I just put it on there for a day or something, and then I was like: “Okay, that’s quite enough.” I don’t know if I’d want it for longer than that. Recently I’ve been getting into rings and stuff though.

W: I wore rings for a long time, but I don’t have any anymore. I actually want – I like them too. But I have to –

18:47

E: If I’d known, I would’ve brought you a gift!

W: Go shopping. Goddamn!

E: I did bring you another gift though!

W: Another gift? Oei oei oei, gifts!

E: This is something I do every week,  I give my guest of the week something.

W: Oei oei oei. 

E: It’s just…

W: Do I just slide it –

E: There’s a little hatch over here, that you have to lift, and then you can just lift it like that. There we go.

W: There we go.

E: White hairspray.

W: If I’d want to go back to – there we have it. Too good.

E: It can be washed out really easily as well. So this way you don’t have to be at the hairdresser for like four hours. And then when you’re sick of it, you can just get rid of it again!

W: That was the thing… Thank you, by the way.

E: You’re very welcome.

W: Now I can go back – Now I can go back to my past life. No, that was the thing as well. People who – people who - after wtFOCK came online, people really recognized me with the white hair. I mean, it’s pretty noticeable, when I’m walking through Ghent station – if someone with bleached hair. I mean, if you watch the show, I can imagine that when you see someone with bleached hair, you immediately connect the two and think: “Oh, that could be him.” And then you run in to some people who ask for pictures. After that my hair was really short, cause the people from Déja-Vu were like: “We’re not gonna do this, just go back to your natural hair color.” So I cut it all off, and there was this time where… nobody came to talk to me anymore. I was able to just be myself again. It was as if – looking back on it, it was actually really nice that for wtFOCK I was able to completely get into a different character with different hair. And the first time I got rid of the hair I really noticed that was no longer being associated with the character.

E: Hannah Montana vibes! Your hair changes color and nobody knows who you are anymore.

W: “Who are you?”

E: “Who the fuck are you?!”

W: “Does anybody want to take pictures with me? It’s me! It’s me! I swear!”

E: “I’m that dude from wtFOCK! I’m that dude from wtFOCK!”

W: So if people don’t recognize me anymore I can just… *pshhht* in the morning.

E: Exactly! If you want to take some more pictures, you can just…

W: No, no. That’s fine. No, yeah.

E: It’s kind of crazy, actually. Because, honestly? The very first time I saw a flash of you, with this hair color, I also thought: “I recognize you from somewhere…” But I think I’d already gotten in contact with you through social [media] and I didn’t put two and two together that you…

W: Yeah.

E: “Aaah!”

W: “Aaah! You’re that guy!”

E: Yeah, so…

W: But that’s the whole thing. If someone recognizes me, which doesn’t happen that often by the way, it’s always – I think it’s funny to be like: “No, that’s not me.”

E: No.

W: People really start doubting themselves, it’s very: “Uhm, can I ask you a question? Are you that guy from wtFock?” “Me? No.”

E: “No!”

W: “That’s not me.” And people will often be like: “Oh? What? But I recognize you…” That doubt on their faces is pretty funny but yeah, then I tell them it’s me.

E: Just the reaction of someone being like: “Huh, do I know you from somewhere?” “Do you watch porn?”

W: The confrontation.

E: “Oh… qmdkjg.” And it’d be even better if the parents were right there as well. “Argh!”

W: “Yes, Jürgen, care to explain yourself, young man?”

E: No, it’s just funny to joke about. But you’ve never – Do you just get: “Hey, are you that guy from wtFOCK?” Or have people also asked you: “Do I know you from somewhere?” Or: “What do I know you from?”

W: Yeah, it depends. The thing is – I go to school in Ghent and when the [popular place where college students go out] was still open before Covid-19, not that I went there often because I didn’t really like it there –

E: No.

W: - in the sense that the combination of young people who –

E: Watch wtFOCK.

W: - watch wtFOCK and alcohol – and people who’ve had alcohol to drink –

E: And are horny?

W: - their limits or boundaries are just gone. “Oh my god!!! You’re that dude from wtFOCK!! Can I kiss you??” Things like that!

E: Oh, fuck!

W: And I was really like: “Okay…?” I’m just a regular dude and I’m trying – and I actually thought it was less annoying for myself, but I thought it was more disruptive for my friends. Like even when we were just walking down the street, we got recognized a couple of times, and I was just like: I just want to have fun with my friends, and not have to spend too much time thinking. That’s another thing I was subconsciously thinking about. Imagine I drink way too much.

E: Yeah.

W: And I end up in the gutter somewhere, and people start filming that… So yeah, that made… So because of that I spent more time in friends’ dorm rooms just having dorm parties.

E: And since your bleached hair is gone, have you gone to a party?

W: When my bleached hair was gone corona was already a thing so I haven’t been able to enjoy it. But it’s starting to come back [the parties] so that’s nice. I’m looking forward to… tomorrow I’m going-

E: Are you going as well?

W: Are you going to Plein Air by Fuse?

E: Tomorrow I’m going to Jaimie Lee who-

W: …Is going to DJ at three festivals.

E: Yeah at three festivals and I will be backstage I guess.

W: Okay.

E: One of those festivals?

W: Yeah I don’t know. I have tickets for Fuse Open Air in Brussels.

24:19

E: I honestly have no idea where I’m going. Anyway, I’m excited. And I always asked, what’s the first event you went to ever since it’s allowed? Did you go to We Can Dance festival?

W: No I was studying.

E: Was today your last exam or yesterday?

W: Yesterday was my last exam in the morning. I was stressing so much, because I thought I would fail, but eventually I think it went relatively well. If you’re watching professors, let me pass please. No I think it went well.

E: Are you someone who is stress resistant?

W: Uhh no.

E: No?

W: I let it take over my body.

E: You get physically unwell?

W: I will be laying in bed and I’m tossing and turning and sweating. And I think about how I’m not gonna pass tomorrow. And the combination with my worries is really not good. It makes me stay up really late. The thing is with stress resistant, I for example made my own play at high school about a kid with divorced parents for my final work and the whole audience was filled with my family and my parents. That’s pretty confronting to tell a story that’s also a little bit of their life and is pretty personal. I’m always stressed for things like that. Then it’s weird – from the first word I spoke I had a lot of stress and worries and the first sentence that I said was something like “I don’t know what to do”, and then it’s all of a sudden poofff. The train has left.

E: You said you didn’t really know what to do now.

W: That’s the first sentence of the text that I wrote and the moment I said that sentence I thought in my head “the train has left, there’s no way back now” and then the stress disappears automatically. But before the final rehearsal there was a moment that I was moving around heavily and I was throwing with chairs. And afterwards I had to pack moving boxes, which was okay. But from moving around and the combination of stress it made me almost gag in the box from the stress so I almost puked. So at these moments it gets pretty heavy.

E: Did other people notice or were you hiding it?

W: Yeah the final rehearsal was luckily not with an audience, but my teachers were like “Everything alright?” and I was like “Yeah I’m good. It’s a bit much”. But when it comes to stress, a lot of people always say – I’m even a little stressed right now actually.

E: Really?

W: Podcasts, oh no no.

E: Oh shit. You have to be (stressed)

W: A lot of pressure on my shoulder here. No, but a lot of people say that it doesn’t look like that I’m stressed even though I really am dying from all the stress.

E: Only now you can hide it really well. You should become an actor.

W: A lot of people have said that to me often, but it’s not my interest. Also not much work in the field.

E: That too, fuck. Are you someone who constantly pretends like you’re okay?

W: Yes.

E: Even when you have a lot of shit going on in your head and you’re processing other things?

W: I'm one person. One person?

E: "I'm one person" [laughs]

W: I am one person. No, but I'm someone who often keeps their stuff to themselves, so that I can listen to what others need.

28:15

E: That was my next question. You listen more to other people’s problems and you’re the person people come to with their problems?

W: I think, at least I hope, that a lot of my friends do know that they can always come to me for a talk or a phone call. I'm someone that will shove away their happiness for someone else, which isn’t always positive of course.

E: It is a beautiful characteristic, but it shouldn’t take over indeed.

W: In the past it has happened that I was falling apart, but I kept pushing it away, because I wanted to take care of someone else. I noticed this a lot during the divorce of my parents. My parents had a hard time with the divorce and I remember that I came home as a little boy and I saw my mom sitting and I felt the duty to comfort her and to be there for her, even though I was 8 or 9 years old. That’s not something you expect to do or think from an 8 year old. It really broke me and now I can openly speak about it, because I have had enough conversations with my parents about it, about how it was for me. And I made a play about it, as I told earlier, so it’s been a whole process and that has scarred me till at least my 16th. My parents got divorced when I was 5 or 6 years old. It took me a long time to open up because of that. I notice it a lot in previous relationships, that I walk away from fights, because I would find the confrontation too heavy to get into a fight and to discuss. The divorce and fights with my parents scarred me so hard that I didn’t want that again. I wanted everything to be rainbow and sunshine, but life doesn’t work like that. And that was partly a misconception from me, that I thought that a relationship had to be perfect, if there is a fight, then it’s not going well. Now I realize that fights are part of a relationship. And also part of steps you take into accepting each other, listening to each other and understanding each other. It’s needed for a stronger connection. You can’t, well you can, but in my eyes you can’t be with someone for a long time without ever having had a conflict. Even if it’s a discussion, because then you’re adapting too much to the other, and then you say okay, I’m adapting to the demands of her and I suppress my own things or things I want to do, only to avoid the discussion, and that’s something I learned. And that’s how everyone learns their own things along the way.

E: You still see it in the youth, those romantic movies, where everyone is so in love and it always ends with a kiss or something and it’s always good and then you think, this must be the case in real life. Why can’t I find Gabriella Montez for my Troy Bolton. Even though that was a shitty relationship too, they were constantly fighting. No, but that gives a wrong image about relationships and for other things because of movies. And the reality is just different.

32:16

W: Yes. I recently for the first time -this is kinda embarrassing because it’s a must see- watched The Notebook.

E: Me too! What did you think?

W: It has been a few weeks ago. Or a few weeks, maybe 3 or something.

E: I watched it last weekend.

W: I almost cried.

E: Really?

W: I’m a really emotional person. I can really cry. I can really get lost in a movie. “No not the puppy, why?!” Those things, where I think "Willem, act normal". But no it was a beautiful movie.

E: Yeah I have a different opinion, because I just fell asleep. I fell asleep, because it all went so slow, it started so slow. I didn’t even watch the kiss in the rain scene.

W: The moment. It’s in literally every romantic movie. In the rain, it happens everywhere.

Ender: Yeah mate, it’s such a cliché actually, but yeah.

W: I bet you that they’re just standing there with a garden hose.

E: Definitely.

W: It can’t be that they’re waiting, “is it gonna rain today? We need to do that scene now”.

33:27

E: Checking the rain alarm while everyone is inside. There are definitely sprinklers there. It’s in a lot of romantic movies. Now that we’re talking about it, the filming you did with wtFock, you sometimes had scenes outside. Here we have those (light) spots, I assume that you don’t carry them outside. How do you guys do that?

W: Sometimes we do have spots outside, but as long as the light from the sun is okay – with a binocular (telescope), well it’s not a binocular, it’s a round thing you can look through and with it they can determine the brightness of the sun and if the sun is too bright for the lightning they need, then it gets shielded, the same that is in front of your lamps. With that they can dim the lights. Or when there is not enough they use isomo plates, that’s really weird. Sometimes there are really intimate scenes in a series where it looks like it’s really close to the skin of the actors. There is a camera with a plate on it and a stick for the sound above it, it sometimes made it really hard for me to focus, because everyone is sitting there and the director and I’m like “yeah, okay okay”. So it takes a lot to get it all professional.

E: Was there a crazy moment where you forgot your lines? That you’re laying in bed and you’re like “which sentence do I have to say now?”

W: Yeah we’ve definitely had a lot of bloopers. Yeah forgetting lines or.. the thing is, as long as the director doesn’t say cut, you have to keep going. It’s a matter of "how do I improvise myself around this scene to get to the point we actually have to get to", because you have a scene and you have your lines, but if you forget something, then you do know the main lines of where the scene has to go to. You know the scene will end in a kiss or something and these subjects will be spoken about in the conversation, so when you forget your lines, you try to work your way through it as best as possible. And when the director says it wasn’t good, then we’ll do it again. I’ve had a lot of moments where I forgot my lines and I was laying in bed with Willem and we would look at each other and we’d know that I had to say something, but I was stuck, so there would be a 10 seconds silence, hoping for them to say cut. Yeah so those kinds of moments a lot or moments where I… I also had that with Déjà Vu. I remember… by the way it was amazing to work together with such big names as Natali Broods and Koen De Graeve. And Koen, lovely person, was kind of the father figure on set and we had a scene, next to the bed, a quite emotional scene. And the camera was focused on me, close up on my face. And I still remember that, the sound was going, everything, and Koen had just told a joke, or made a face that made me laugh. So, I had to laugh really hard, but I had to act very sad. It was an intense scene of goodbyes. All the time, starting to laugh about everything. I still remember for wtFock we made a video with bloopers and those are very fun to watch back.

37:03

E: Are those bloopers ever published somewhere online?

W: I don’t think so.

E: I think if you’d be able to release them somewhere that a lot of people would be interested in them.

W: Yes, yes. I don’t know why, indeed. The fans would be happy with those.

E: I think a lot of people- because we were just talking about your biggest fan.

W: My biggest-

E: Your grandma.

W: My grandma, yes. Big shout out to my grandma.

E: Do you think she’s watching right now?

W: She’ll definitely watch, I hope so.

E: What’s your grandma’s name?

W: Micheline.

E: Micheline, thank you very much for watching Micheline.

W: Micheline.

E: I appreciate it.

W: Women in power. She deserves a special place. No really, she follows all the fan accounts of wtFock. And then sometimes, or very often, we call and she gives me an update of what’s being said on the internet. Or yes, I also remember, when scenes come out and there’s things being said and she’s like "Willem, is that true, what are they saying?" And I say "Grandma, it’s nothing, it’s all from the show." "Ah okay, okay." So yes, very sweet grandma. She’s like the grandma where everything was allowed. I think that’s the same for everyone. At home, there are a lot of rules, and then you got to sleepover at your grandma’s and it was like: "Oh, I get to stay up later, and she made pudding for me." Her vanilla pudding-

E: That good?

W: Grandma, if you’re seeing this, please make some vanilla pudding when I visit.

E: Dude, everything’s falling out of my pocket.

W: You’re letting everything fall out of your pocket? Maybe you need to buy another pair of pants.

E: The chair is too comfortable that I’m kind of sinking in it, and now I constantly get-

W: The conversation’s too comfortable-

E: It’s just my phone, it’s vibrating, I think it just vibrated out of my pocket. So, silent, great. Eh, what were we talking about? About your grandma.

W: About my grandma.

38:46

E: Now, totally different subject. If you were a fish, what color fish would you be?

W: A fish?

E: Which color do you identify most with?

W: Eh.

E: And you’re a fish too of course.

W: Identify with which color. The thing is, I’m in the scouts. And in the Jins, that’s the last year before you become a leader, we were given a color totem, and the whole group decided on a color that fits you.

E: All right.

W: And mine was mango orange.

E: Wow, that’s cool.

W: Yeah, I thought it was cool too. And it means, if I have to think back, mango has quite a hard peel, relatively, but the fruit itself is quite soft. And that refers to my personality. I’m someone that lets people in fast, around me, but in the beginning, suspicion is a little strong, but kind of like, testing. Let’s say that. But once- From the outside I might look a bit hard. A lot of people say that when I have my straight face-

E: Resting bitch face.

W: That I’m angry. I was once told on the subway by a dude, and I was just listening to music, staring in the distance, and I think, suddenly a dude comes up to me, in French: "C’est quoi ton problème, heh, tu regardes come ça, c’est quoi ton problème." And I was like: "I’m sorry". Apparently, I was looking in his direction with my-

E: Bitch face.

W: Bitch face. He must have thought I was looking for problems. So yeah, that’s why the mango, a little hard on the outside, but once you get to know me better, a soft, sweet boy. So that’s why, orange. So, an orange fish then.

E: A little bit of Nemo vibes.

W: Yes, Nemo then. But let’s, what’s that theory. Did you hear that?

E: Theory?

W: About Nemo.

E: What’s the theory?

W: Haven’t you heard that? I keep seeing that online. I’m having a crisis. So the thing is, your childhood will get ruined.

E: Fuck man.

W: The thing is-

E: But there really are, no keep going, I have something I want to say afterwards.

W: The thing is, I’ve heard, that Nemo is Latin for nobody, and that the father is imagining that he still has an egg left, but that that fish doesn’t actually exist.

E: Oh fuck.

W: And that Dory joins him, and he sees, we’re actually not looking for anyone, but because he has memory issues, he constantly forgets that they’re not looking for anyone. So, they’re actually looking for nobody. And I saw that online and I was like.

E: Damn, so all the eggs are eaten, but he imagines that someone still has to be there.

W: Yes, something to keep living for.

E: Fuck man, that’s very brutal. That’s very fucked up.

W: Sorry to everyone for who Nemo is ruined now.

E: There’s a similar theory about Phineas and Ferb, and then Candice, their sister, is based on a true story about a girl that lost her brothers and still imagines that they're still doing stuff in the garden. And she keeps telling her mom: "Look, look, they are still here, they’re doing that." And that the mom says: "They’re not there." And that’s why she can never see that. You get it? Brutal right?

W: My whole childhood is ruined. Fucking hell.

E: That’s going to be the title of this podcast.

W: Childhood ruined.

E: We’re ruining your childhood.

42:17

W: We’re ruining your childhood. No but that’s good because, thankfully, I have a half-sister, but I say sister because I think half-sister is an ugly word, of seven years old. She thinks she’s 16. She’s a real diva.

E: Oh wow, okay.

W: She’s very, I’ll tell you a story later, but the thing is, I experience all those things with her again. In the beginning it was like, turning the tv on, Bumba, again. And I could secretly watch with her without feeling guilty. I was like, I’m watching Bumba and secretly I’m enjoying it, but sssh, I’m just watching it with my sister.

E: That exactly.

W: And now it’s Ketnet, like Hoodie, those series that she’s watching. And yes, I notice that because of all the technology today, she has an iPad, she’s on YouTube, she’s watching those self-made crafts.

E: 7 years old?

W: 7 years old, yes.

E: Wow.

W: She watches those- where people are playing with Barbies and they make a little play with them online on YouTube and they do stuff. Yes, a tablet. She has an iPad that’s bigger than her head. That makes me think- well, an iPad is usually bigger than everyone’s head. Or well, almost.

E: Not if you have a mini of course.

W: Her head isn’t that big.

E: Okay.

W: She’s on it a lot though. But she’s a real diva. I think the best story I have, there’s multiple. I remember the story, we were sitting at the table and she was having another moment of "I’m the princess, and everyone can leave because I do what I want and fuck you all". But the thing is, there’s five kids at home. I have a brother and two stepbrothers. So, she has four brothers, and she knows very well that she has four brothers. And that makes her feel even more like she’s the princess at home. So, we were sitting at the table. And she kept staring at my dad like this while throwing her cutlery on the ground. Like "what are you going to do". And my dad was like: "Liv," because her name is Liv by the way, "stop that."

E: That wasn’t nice of Liv. (Liv sounds the same as lief which means nice in Dutch.)

W: No. Not nice of-

E: Haha. Sorry.

W: Badam pam ts. Can’t we put that under here. Yes.

E: No, sorry, keep going.

W: So, he was like: "Liv, stop that, stop that." He started to get annoyed, because she kept going. "Liv, what is so hard to understand about no." And then it got silent at the table so I thought, okay, it’s done. The o.

E: Oh wow.

W: 7 years old and she drops that.

E: Oh wow.

W: And I thought, okay.

E: Damn bro.

W: The o. That she even dares to say that. Yeah, and she has those moments. She was sitting at the table, with her mask on, eating. So, she pulled her mask down to eat, and then she was chewing with her mask on. And then I asked: "Liv, why are you wearing your mask?" "Yes, you came back from Ghent, you’re not in my bubble."

E: Okay, okay.

W: So, then I said: "Okay, that’s fine." It’s crazy how that goes around among young children. Because my sister came back home from school crying once. And I asked her: ‘Liv, what’s wrong?’ "Yes, my friends didn’t let me play with them." So, I was like: "Why?" "Margot says I’m not allowed in her bubble."

E: Oh wow.

W: See, that’s becoming the new- we played with Pokémon cards on the playground and now it’s about playing games in bubbles because it’s so-

E: Damn.

W: Yes, you’re only allowed to have four people in your bubble so we don’t play with more than four.

E: Oh wow.

W: So I found that kind of crazy, or confronting that it made me think like, even at such a young age it has an impact. And I know that the-

E: That it leaves an impression.

W: Yes, and I know that my dad-

E: It’s sad that children have to think about it.

W: Yes, exactly.

E: Well, it’s not that- everyone should think about it of course.

W: Yes, yes, of course. It’s also that I know the way my dad feels about raising, that he tells Liv straight up about things that are happening in the world. He doesn’t make things seem nicer, or saying, eh, yes, no, but that’s- The classic story of how babies are made, with the cauliflowers, and what not.

E: I also just think-

W: How am I going to explain that to my kids?

E: If you don’t make it a taboo to start with, is it that bad? It’s just- it’s just. Oh well, that’s a whole other conversation.

W: Yes, no, definitely.

E: But straight up just telling what’s going on to your kids. I think I would prefer that to making up a story about the flowers and the bees.

W: Yes, yes.

E: Because the story about the flowers and the bees, I don’t even know how you actually- pollinating and stuff, is that what that means?

W: You do it like this, pollinating.

E: Yes, no, exactly.

W: Yes, but well, children, that’s still a long time from now.

E: Do you want kids, you think, later?

W: Yes, please.

E: Do you think you would be a good father?

W: I hope I would be a good father. Despite my parents’ divorce, I really do… I do look up to my parents. I’m proud of the way they raised me. So yeah if I would be a good father… sometimes, but maybe that’s the age, kids frustrate me. I’m a leader in the scouts for the Welpen and Welpen -great guys- but they can also be annoying and say “I’m not participating” and “that’s a stupid game, can we do something else?” and I’m like “we invest so much time in this and so much preparation, please participate” so sometimes that bothers me. But I would prefer not to have just one (child). Certainly more than one because… are you an only child?

E: No I have a little brother.

W: Yeah only child… with all due respect to people who are only children but sometimes I think… for example, I’m very happy that I have a brother. Not that it wouldn’t be fun without a brother per se, but I don’t know, the contact I have with my brother is nice.

E: The thing is, you don’t know what you’re missing so it’s hard to miss it I guess. But I do think that my brother has been a great added value to my life.

W: Yeah, yeah.

E: In the same way, I never really had grandparents. They all died before I was born and the grandfather I did have was quite old when I was actually aware that I had a grandfather. So I’ve never really had the grandparents experience that you see with family gatherings and stuff. But I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything but I still know how much other people benefit from having grandparents. Also what you just said about how often you call each other and stuff. I think that’s the same with being an only child. If you don’t have any brothers or sisters, you don’t know what it’s like to have that, what you’re missing. But if you do have it, it’s an added value I think.

W: Yes, exactly. No that’s true. My brother is very helpful to me now. I know that I can count on him.

E: Older or younger by the way?

W: Older.

E: A lot older?

W: 21.

E: 21.

W: Oh boy I had to think about how old my brother is. Embarrassing. Love you man. No but we had - maybe you had that too – but when we were younger, we really fought.

E: Physical?

W: Real fighting. Yeah, it’s has now gotten much better. I think we understand each other a lot better, but it used to be real… we had Catch WW on the Wii and we reenacted that on the couch so that was… “In the right corner Ramy Stereo” and we were bare-chested and both had one boxing glove on and fighting each other until one of us cried, bled or gave up. Usually it was me.

E: That’s just the fate of the little brother.

W: I always went… I’ve never admitted that actually, [whispers] it’s a confession. I’ve never admitted it, but afterwards I always went to my parents and cried “Kwinten hurt me”.

E: That’s really… that’s the moment, you feel it coming and you think “ah fuck no, if I hit again it’s probably over but I want to…” [cross-talk] “no no no don’t tell mom! Don’t tell mom!” I think I was a pretty nice big brother. We often did shit together. We were at home playing on the couch together and Olaf bumps into a large box that was standing there and the box, bigger than Olaf back then, fell down on his hand.

W: Oh shit.

E: So Olaf broke his hand. And I thought “I made him jump over those chairs” and then you have to say “sorry sorry don’t tell them, don’t tell them!” but yeah if your hand is fucking broken, you’re not gonna stop crying because your big brother says “don’t cry”. Yeah, that are…

W: Yes, but the relationship [between Willem and his brother] has improved. Okay we still have our discussions but... I think moments like when we’ve both been to a pub or something and we come home at the same time and we’re always hungry and standing in the kitchen making sandwiches. Those are great moments. I don’t necessarily need to have emotionally heavy of deep conversations with my brother to know that he’s there and that I can have a good time with him. So I think that’s the added value of having a brother or brothers in general.

E: Do you guys also have a specific sense of humor? Or like those moments when the two of you are laughing and your parents or people around you think “what the fuck is going on?”

W: Yeah we speak some slang to each other for fun. Like “stu stu” and [my slang knowledge is very limited so I have no idea what he’s saying here lol], those kinds of things. Typical slang from Brussels and Leuven. It’s funny because my parents are always like “why are you talking to each other like that?” and recently, I was leaving and my mom said “stu stu!” so they are adopting those words and then my brother and I can’t stop laughing.

E: Also if your mom suddenly says “are we going to chill later?” and I’m like [laughing] “what? Mom!”

W: “Okay??”

E: It’s kind of cute. Yeah it’s fun. And what are… I almost want to go deep like…

W: That’s okay.

E: Is there a particular interaction or experience you’ve had with your brother that sums up your relationship right now? Or are those the moments when you’re laughing and eating at night? It doesn’t have to be a super deep or emotional moment.

W: I think it’s an accumulation of those moments and emotional moments too. For example, after it was over with my ex. I was really down back then, it hit me pretty hard. Those are the moments when I can walk into my brother’s room in the middle of the night and he’s there for me. I know that dude is always going to be there when something’s wrong, no matter how much we argue or how much we shit at each other. I just know, and I hope he does too, that I can call him 24/7, walk into his room 24/7 and he will be there or ready to listen. I think that’s just something… the fact that we know that about each other, that creates that bond. And the thing is, if only he would do his best and go to work, earn real money… because we went on holiday together and he still hasn’t… he still has some work to do but we’ve already planned something. I’m really looking forward to it. We’re planning to go surfing in Portugal together. Those are moments I just know I can go somewhere with him and have the time of my life without-

E: …That you can remember for the rest of your life what you did together.

W: Yeah, absolutely. Those moments that I want to cherish or want to keep or experience.

E: My little brother is also just the most annoying dude on this planet who I love the most.

W: Exactly that combination. Annoying, but you love them.

E: Of course. The cameras are back on. That means we’ve been at it for over 50 minutes.

W: 50 minutes? It feels like we’re chatting for 20 minutes.

E: Exactly.

W: Pleasant.

E: That’s good. If it’s pleasant and the stress is gone.

W: Do you actually like me? “No I hate you. We’re going to finish. It has been good.”

55:29

E: No we’re not going to finish yet, but before we do, is there anything you’d like to send out into the world before we finish? On average there are 10 to 50 people watching. Is there anything you want to say to them?

W: To the 10 to 50 people?

E: Yes.

W: 10 to 50 people, you are awesome. No, what I’m saying… maybe a little deep but it doesn’t matter. Very often in your life you are going to encounter that you run into a wall, that you’re going to have setbacks, that you think “I don’t want to anymore, I can’t to this anymore, life is all one big shit show” but I think that there is a certain… at least I believe that – everyone has their own opinion of course- that a certain path has been mapped out for everyone. Not necessarily that things are set in stone but there is a road that you are going to take and that road is going to have curves, is going to have hills, is going to have valleys, is going to have everything. Maybe it’s a gravel path, maybe rocks you stumble over but -it sounds a bit stupid- put on your best walking shoes and just walk that path the best way you can. Just try to live life with complete joy and euphoria because you’re 100% worth it. No matter what other people say or think about your ideology or style or way of life. Everyone is entitled to it or should be given the opportunity to be appreciated for who they are. I think that’s something we do too little in this society, but yeah.

E: Just don’t be too hard on yourself in the end?

W: Yeah, don’t be too hard on yourself. A lot of people blame themselves too much. Or “oh I’m like that and I don’t fit in because of that” or something. Then I think: so be it.

E: Do you sometimes feel that you should do more or have achieved more at this age? Of course you’re already doing a lot of cool shit but social media, I know there is a highlight reel of all people’s achievements and that sometimes it’s very difficult to filter between what is real and how much is that person actually sitting on the couch doing nothing. Do you sometimes feel that because of social media of because of your environment or I don’t know, that you’re not doing enough?

W: Gosh, sometimes I think my life is too full.

E: Too full?

W: Not that I’m saying “oh I have so many things to do” but I’m like... I’m letting that grow organically or so.

E: Not putting too much pressure on yourself?

W: Not putting too much pressure on yourself. I’m doing a course now that I’d like to finish because I’ve had those two projects and there are friends of mine who say “why are you still studying? You’ve had your opportunity, you’re going to get new opportunities right?” and I say “hey! I’m also only 19”. Sometimes I think “fuck Willem you should have achieved more already” but I also think I’m only 19. There was a conversation at school… I really think that’s one of the added values of the course. We receive an observation report twice a year, 5 pages where the teacher writes about you and how they see you, what they think about you, what your qualities are, what you still need to work on. It’s always spot on. So strange how they can just see right through you, even though I sometimes try to hide it. Yeah, where was I going with this… we had subsequent conversation about it and I said to my teacher “sometimes I feel like I’m too young for this course” that I have too little life experience. There are people in my class who are in their 20s or older, who have already studied something else before this, have read a lot more, seen a lot more than me, a lot more experience and I think “fuck, I don’t have anything”. People talk about certain topics and I don’t follow at all. I mentioned that I felt too young and she [the teacher] said “you’re young, but that also has its advantages. Your youthfulness can actually be an interesting tool in this course and look at it from a different perspective”. So I’m convinced: don’t be too hard on yourself, don’t think “whew, I’m already 20 and I haven’t achieved anything yet” so to speak. I even saw a video recently where… “if you don’t make it in your 20s, you might make it in your 30s and if you don’t make it in your 30s, you might make it in your 40s”. There are so many… there really are a lot of people… people often forget that there are people who only find out what they want to do or discover their passion later in life.

E: And also just… I think it’s so ridiculous that you set certain goals for a certain age or something. That it’s so expected that by 18 you must have completed high school and by 25 you must have had your first job interview, by 28/30 you must have a house and a serious relationship where you’re committed to for the rest of your life and by 40 you must have already had a promotion, that you can provide for yourself and fix your pension. All those fucking predetermined milestones. I think that’s kind of bullshit, you know?

W: Absolutely.

E: If that were the case, then I should graduate in a few years so to speak while I’m clearly not studying here because I have – fuck normally I have a re-exam today. And here we are.

W: Here we are.

E: I knew I was doing this but I mean that’s just… there’s so much time. I’m 22 now and I’m doing some shit, if I go nuts now or people don’t want to listen to this podcast anymore, don’t want to see what I do online, okay then I have to look elsewhere. But I did this and I went for it and I tried. I’m 22. Even if I go nuts now and it’s all gone, I’m only 22. There are still so many ways it could go. A lot of people don’t have a job at 22. If I started looking for a new job or something now, hopefully I’ll have one by 25. Then it’s still okay because I’m only 25. I don’t know, I always find that… I could go on for a long time about this. I think those predetermined milestones/goals of things that you must have achieved by a certain age, I just think it’s bullshit.

W: I sometimes make the comparison that people too often see life as the sports world. Football players who are good until 35 and then they are done. As if you must have already performed before that age. That’s not how it works. You really have all the time and you really don’t have to stress. I also notice that many people… you mentioned re-exams. That people say “fuck I have re-exams, oh no I’m not going to pass, oh no you have extra…” chill. You do your best, but suppose you have to repeat a year, that’s not a disaster either, is it?

E: What I also think is crazy is how many people have studied law and you eventually hear that they ended up in a marketing agency because they found it much more interesting. When I talk to some people who… I was seeing a social media manager recently [laughs] “seeing”, I was talking to him.

W: “seeing” okay [laughs].

E: I was talking to him.

W: [joking] Ender has something to say.

E: And I asked “what did you study?” and he said biochemistry. “How the fuck did you end up here?” Him: “uh yeah that just wasn’t the right fit for me. I have a master’s degree but I started working here because I found it much more interesting”. I thought: why am I pretending that the degree I’m trying to get is going to determine the rest of my life, you know?

W: Absolutely.

E: If there are so many people now… because he was only 28 or something. So I thought “aah okay so you’ve been studying biochemistry for so many years and now you’re here – I don’t know if I’m talking about the correct position – but now you’re just sitting here making content. Cool. But why do I attach so much importance to that one direction I’m studying right now that doesn’t even have anything to do with media or anything. I mean I’m very interested in media, I’m studying economics. Which is also interesting, but that’s not what I see myself doing in the coming years.

W: Yeah, yeah.

E: Anyway enough about me. Do you think you could win in a fight against a cow?

W: [laughs] I really like that. You can switch to totally different shit like that. Like before you suddenly asked what color fish do you want to be. Okay. That’s nice. Win… I’ve heard if you knock over a cow it dies. That it has a heart attack then. We don’t want to kill cows okay!

E: And purely hypothetical, you’re just standing in a kind of meadow so it’s not super big so you can’t go in all directions. There is a limited domain. You come face to face with that cow and you have to begin. No weapons. You’re standing there and the cow stands there and you both know you’re going to fight.

W: It knows that too?

E: It knows that too.

W: [makes mooing noises] okay ca va.

E: It’s not a bull but it does have horns so in fact it would-

W: I would shit my pants. I’d give up already. I would lie on the ground, come on. Really crazy, I saw Jackass recently. Those guys, that Wee Man, who was in that link with the bull and he’s being catapulted, so to speak.

E: I don’t understand how those guys aren’t all dead yet.

W: Yeah they are really crazy.

E: There was also a rumor that Wee Man died from a bowling ball during… but apparently that wasn’t true.

W: I don’t know.

E: Fucked up shit. Would you win against a cow?

W: Would I win against a cow? No, I wouldn’t win against a cow. I don’t think I would win against a cow.

E: I think I would. I think just like with a bull I would try to jump out of the way like that and once you’re on the side it’s just a matter of pushing. If what you said is true, it’s game over when it’s down and you know, that’s your tactic.

W: But the thing is, a cow is heavy, isn’t it?

E: True.

W: You can’t just push it over like that, can you?

E: Sure, but it’s a matter of life or death, isn’t it? The adrenaline rush. You have to image, a cow just comes running towards you. The adrenaline that goes through your body. You shouldn’t underestimate the power you have then.

W: Just find the best patch of grass and when it’s there, sneaky knife in the back. No, now people are going to think I’m that kind of person.

E: That you’re just a snake.

W: Snake. Definitely and I admit it. No, that would be fucked up.

E: I’m going to do one more thing that’s important. I’m going to find a Twitter shout out and in the meantime, I already asked you what your message is to the world and that was a beautiful message. Got something more banal that you’d like to share? Something that you want to share from your social media or something?

W: What do you mean from social media?

E: Where they can follow you. You can say something if you have a really good video that you want to share. “Check me everywhere”.

W: No I don’t have… people should do what they feel like doing. Do you think I’m cool, do you think I’m fun, follow me on Insta. No really doesn’t matter. Doesn’t really matter.

E: Alright, I’m just going to scroll and you say stop. I’ll go back and forth and you have to say “yes that’s the one who gets to have this week’s shout out”.

W: Exciting huh. Stop.

E: [reads twitter account] M. Verschuren.

W: M. Verscheure.

E: Is that…

W: [reads quote] “If you were never sad, you wouldn’t know you could be happy”.

E: Wow. Damn bro.

W: I’m going to edit my quote.

E: “If you were never sad, you wouldn’t know you could be happy”. Wow. If you didn’t have shitty days, you wouldn’t know what the best days of your life were.

W: Exactly. But what if you get stuck in your shitty days for the rest of your life?

E: That won’t happen. That’s my biggest fear.

W: Me too.

E: Looking back at your life and thinking-

W: …Fuck I’ve never been there again.

E: …That’s where I peeked. Hope that doesn’t happen. Anyway M. Verscheure thank you very much for listening, I really appreciate it. You as well, I think?

W: Absolutely, absolutely. How much were you going to pay me?

E: 50 euro.

W: Then I’ll come… awesome. Super cool.

E: Thank you so much to everyone who listened. I appreciate it. If you want to hear more you can always subscribe to this channel. It’s also good for my ego. I’ll just put your Instagram link in the description, for people who are interested. Okay, that was it.

W: Thanks, it was fun.

E: There’s an audio only episode on Spotify every Sunday and the video comes out on Monday. That’s it. See you next Monday. Or Sunday. Peace.

[sheraphic]

Hey! I loved the insta prompt can u make another one but where the reader is a famous singer? ❤️xx

𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭

(𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐬!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◦ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

author's note; hi there anon, sorry for the waiting but here it is your request, hope you like it. Feel free to tell me who you want next, just leave the name or the context you want it to have.

warnings; there can be a few mistakes with the grammar.

◤ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ◥

It would be wonderful If you reblog it, that help me a lot, it inspire me for write more.

// masterlist //

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◦ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Liked by arianagrande, harris_reed, colesprouse and 8,190,644 others

harrystyles Podcast. Nothing else.

View all 60,633 comments

harryfan002 WAIT A DAMN MINUTE

harryfan883 hate when he play the mysterious card

harry_lambert ...

courtneycox Where I can find it?

harryfan340 Don't play with me, Styles. If HS3 is coming i must be prepared

gemmastyles Welcome to this world, are you interested on a collaboration?

harryfan123 can someone call 911? I think I'm having a heart attack

jefeazoff Can I be the next guest?

harryfan081 okay, when harry says is nothing then is everything

madisoncunningham waiting for listen to it

helenepambrun oh boy

harryfan739 and the magician did it again

harryfan661 just recovering from Fine Line and you're telling me that it will be more new music? Are you trying to kill me?

Liked by mileycyrus, shawnmendes, ddlovato and 7,533,982 others

yourinstagram Maths say 1,440 hours of writing are enough

View all 42,621 comments

yourfan931 this mean new music? Please tell me

davendrabenhart maths don't lie

auroramusic i never have enough of your voice

tomholland don't do this to me, hate maths

yourfan832 you just didn't

harrystyles The only science that is exact

⤅harryfan820 yoooo what are you doing here sweetie?

harryfan799 man just give me a minute yo process this information

harryfan682 we learned that everything Harry does is not in vain

phoebebridgers i would stole that book just for be blessed one day

yourfan702 omg you just made my day with your post, i really missed you

yourfan822 get ready, my girlfriend is back

clairo i want that sweater

harryfan892 who else is here bc harry commented?

Liked by yourinstagram, mitchrowland, aliciakeys and 9,632,611 others

harrystyles The trees could hear it too.

View all 63,124 comments

harryfan382 Dear god why am i a human and not that guitar?

annetwist nature always do

harryfan552 the hair, the rings, the fucking legend he is

alexachung The neighborhood is getting a free concert

mitchrowland You need help?

yourinstagram They also whisper if you pay attention

⤅harryfan732 no no no i need help this is not a coincidence

lizzobeeating Lucky trees, wishing to be one and to be planted right next to you

yourfan440 y/n brought me here and i just love this place

yourfan231 now, who is here because of y/n?

stevienicks I can hear it too

harryfan632 these two have the same energy

⤅ yourfan906 ikr I'm loving their interaction

Liked by harrystyles, billieeilish, ladygaga and 8,567,902 others

yourinstagram I did press more than one for special research

View all 39,603 comments

arianagrande want to run my fingers in your hair

⤅yourinstagram dreaming with that

rogerknight I was the research, and i must say that patience is a virttude

⤅kidharpoon my mantra

⤅harryfan800 @kidharpoon omg i can imagine harry being just a pest in the studio

⤅tylersamj not just in the studio

⤅yourfan723 okay but i love y/n and roger's friendship

beaccchhoussse press five at the same time and you will become noise

firstaidkitband this just mean one thing and we are dying for excitement

yourfan339 for sure she have to be a gemini

⤅harryfan720 that explains a lot of things

dollyparton beautiful voice of yours

⤅yourinstagram Miss Parton, will you excuse me for a second? I need to frame this

harryfan223 Harry liking and commenting on her posts, Harry started following her, Harry hanging out with her... People, something big is coming. Save my prediction

hamiltonleithauser for any instance, don't press any of the red ones

selenagomez can't wait!

harryfan802 Is it normal that you start loving her when a couple of days ago you didn't even know who she was?

⤅yourfan672 yes, that's the y/n's effect on people

Liked by yourinstagram, spaceykacey, sza and 12,081,172

harrystyles VHS. OUT NOW. @yourinstagram thank you so much for be part of this.

View all 50,589 comments

yourinstagram thank you for this amazing time, i just learned how to tie my shoelaces in different ways

⤅yourfan781 my little weirdo just living her best life

⤅yourfan903 why do i feel like she and harry became bffs?

⤅yourfan110 put two shy and beautiful creatures together and you will get magic

⤅harryfan672 @yourfan903 bc it's just right

harryfan773 I KNEW IT

sammywitte This is so fucking amazing

harryfan834 HIS HAND HER HAND THEIR HANDS

mollyjane_x Love it, absolutely pure love in this one

⤅harryfan733 wait what does that mean?

harryfan992 Haven't listen it yet and i'd totally fell in love

alessandro_michele ♡♡

harryfan982 first, thank you for this single; second thank you @yourinstagram bc i just find out another incredible singer for my life

harryfan734 I can't believe this man did a whole mv without any of us suspecting

pillowpersonpp Very Harry Styles

⤅harryfan017 NO WAY

⤅harryfan883 Alright but that it's really genious

finneas Amazing song guys!

harryfan783 Neither of us expected collaboration, but we definitely needed it

harryfan723 Can someone tell me how not to ship them? I'm having a hard time here

zachbraff Now is a good year

harryfan339 I've watched this more times that i can count

yourfan170 THIS IS ART

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

ok i agree w/ everything you said about those ladies besides, lwaxana gives s*xual pr*dator vibes and that is why i dont like her.

I can see that reading for sure and all things are subjective. I do strongly disagree, but hey, fandom is a space for that! Super chill.

to go a little more into this though, since it's not really so much about what any of us feel, but more about how we engage with female characters (and I'll use your example of why you don't like her - not to drag you, your dislike is totally fair, she's fictional, she won't mind, but just because it's a single line that kinda puts her in a box. And not a very nice box to be in, that's for sure...)

a little tw for mild references to some of the shadier writings of star trek vis a vis sexual assault and otherwise sexist and/or strange relationship dynamics

okay so you know how Riker has like. two? episodes that're suuuper shady in terms of his treatment of women and the rest of the time it's pretty chill. and he's one of my favourite characters, but I have gotta skip those episodes, because whatever they were trying to do, they Did Not Succeed - and there's a reading of him that incorporates those elements and if you do you've gotta contend with the character being quite probably someone who's assaulted women.

or how Worf at times espouses sexist shit that makes me roll my eyes outta my head and you're either gonna say "I don't fucking like this character" (and again, totally fair, I've seen people who don't Vibe) or you've gotta find a way to make this work for you if you want to explore that character - or both of those things, you can dislike a character and want to write about them

Or some of the weird shit the writers have Geordi do (which, Geordi is my favourite character in TNG, but sometimes ya gotta breathe and go "the writers are fucking dumb, the writers are fucking dumb")

or - the spiritual successor of Geordi, Julian Bashir (my favourite character from DS9 - clearly I have a Type). You've gotta go: This is stupid writing. I can make it work with my own read of the character, but first and foremost The Writing Is Dumb!

Or hell, Q - since we're talking about Lwaxana and I assume her interactions with Picard and Odo, let's not forget to mention Q, both in TNG and on VOY with Janeway - some of the more urgh-inducing scenes between Q and Janeway are, I think, meant to be charming and funny? And I'm a massive QCard shipper here, okay, I actually vibe so hard with him as an alien who doesn't get shit about boundaries (this mostly with Picard, with Janeway I have gone: "Hm. This doesn't feel good" a fair few times).

or how the writers of DS9 had Garak be in a very uncomfortable relationship with Ziyal, who was a teenager, then not a teenager within much too short a span of episodes (and actress changes)

or Quark. Remember the episode in which Quark tries to get Kira's likeness so he can put it in a sex-fantasy roleplay that she did not consent to? or how there are two cold opens where his female employees are told they have to sleep with him to keep their jobs

or like... Neelix (okay, I am not a fan of Neelix anyway, but for people who are fans, there are times when you've gotta wonder what in the heck the writers are thinking - not the character, the writers)

what I'm trying to say with the post I wrote is that this same graciousness isn't offered to female characters - especially female characters of colour, but in the case of Lwaxana

she's older, she's an ongoing female guest star, she's very (sometimes uncomfortably) sexual towards especially Picard and for a short while Odo, before they become really good friends.

she's also in-text several times in positions in which men are trying to control her (the episode where she gets kidnapped, the episode in which the guy who's married her is a misogynist) and she uses or tries to use her "wiles" to escape these situations.

She's really more of a faded beauty who's putting a pressure onto her daughter (in a rare interesting, complex, fraught mother-daughter dynamic that I loooove) and refuses to let go of the past, because (and here we get into my read, but mildly supported by canon) it's the only way she seems to have learned how to be loved and have relevance. She's terrified of letting that go, because where does she go next, without everything that's defined her? which is why her final episode with Odo is actually so powerful to me.

Picard is never threatened by her in-text. He's not massively fond of her (at first, she grows on him... like a mold), he would prefer to avoid her, but he's not in a powerless situation here. She undoubtedly makes him uncomfortable at times in a way that - like some of the above examples have made me go "mmmmokay" but certainly not the worst example of this in the writing.

With Odo I also don't like how some of her interactions with him go in the first episode they're in together. But once they're friends and you see how easily she accepts him ("I can swim" is always going to be one of my favourite little chuckle lines) that no longer applies. He clearly likes her and enjoys her company. There's something incredibly lifelong platonic partners in their easiness with each other.

You can argue in both cases (and argue well) that there are scenes that are kinda sus. But there are lots of scenes that offer you depth of character. She's not one-note. She's got off moments.

Some of these guys (and others - I haven't watched as much TOS and Voyager so I don't want to misrepresent anyone, but I feel sure that Tom Paris has made me squint once or twice + I've not seen Enterprise yet) have whole episodes that make me shudder.

It's really - within this fandom for sure - open how we interpret characters and I'm not saying anyone needs to read Lwaxana like this or change their minds and like her.

The point of the post is not to say you have to like any of these characters. Or even to say you have to engage with them regardless of how you vibe or don't vibe with them. It's just... I have listened to several up-until-then-enjoyable deeply analytical podcasts where at some point one of the (guys... always guys... I'm guessing white) makes a sneering comment completely dismissing their value within the series.

My point is that Lwaxana (since we're on her) has value as a character within the Trek universe. She added something important. She's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a big series, we're not all guaranteed to like everyone.

and in the original post I used "shrill" and "cringy" on purpose, because those are descriptors I've heard. And they are absolutely rooted in misogynist dismissals of female characters no matter what shape they take (Keiko, Lwaxana, Michael, and Ezri are radically different from each other and yet all easily brushed aside regardless of screentime, personality, show, age, role/job).

I'm not making points about having to engage with or like characters. I'm just saying we need to be aware of how easily we specifically look down our noses at female characters (and specifically female characters of colour - apologies, this was just because we were talking about Lwaxana, but some of the shit I've heard about especially Michael and Keiko have made me want to bang my head against a wall... or other peoples heads against walls... you know, for a nice change)

so how much sympathy or analysis of behaviour is afforded to female characters vs their male peers. What judgements are we making and how do they compare to our readings of their male counterparts?

sidenote: I hate using male and female about star trek, my brain is just like "why anyone gender? why do this? you're in space? there are aliens? y'all can't chill with the binary for two fucking seconds?"

different post

[storiesforallfandoms]

we’re too stupid ~ the vlog squad

word count: 1885

request?: yes!

@iawaythrown​  “May I ask for a vlog squad x popular youtube reader

The reader has their own very popular youtube channel/podcast like a scientific/space podcast. (Like a Vsauce\GameTheory channel) The vlog squad and the reader fan base (somehow) always wants them to collab. One day David says "It won't happen because the reader probably doesn't like us." This ends up getting everyone on the podcast.”

description: when their favorite youtubers show interest in being on their podcast, they jump at the chance to invite them on

pairing: vlog squad x gender neutral!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist (one, two)

“You know what I’ve been listening to a lot lately?” Scotty asked David on the newest vlog David had uploaded. You were watching the vlog on your TV while you prepared to upload the newest episode of your podcast. You had a drink half raised to your lips when Scott responded to his own question, “The Spaced Out podcast.”

Your drink nearly slipped from your hand at the mention of your podcast. You were sure you had imagined it, so you went back and repeated the part just to be sure. The name of your podcast slipped from Scott’s lips again and you had to pause the video to scream with excitement.

When you placed the video again, David spoke next. “Oh wait, is that the one about space and shit? You played it for me before.”

“Yeah! Man, it’s so interesting. I could honestly listen to the host talk about space all day,” Scott said.

“He keeps bringing it up during the Scottcast, too,” Jeff commented. “I’m starting to think he’d rather co-host that podcast instead of our own.”

“Man, I’d love to be on that podcast!”

You could hardly contain your excitement. Your favorite YouTubers knew who you were?! They knew your podcast?! You had to be dreaming, you were sure of it.

“There’s no way they’d ever have us on the podcast,” David was saying. “We’re too stupid and immature, they’d probably hate us.”

“Speak for yourself!” Zane, dressed in some weird costume for a bit, called, causing the boys to laugh together.

This gave you an idea. You put your laptop aside and opened Instagram on your phone. You searched the name “David Dobrik” and went to his DMs.

~~~~~~

A week later, your podcasting room was filled with 11 extra people than there normally was. The room was only small with a handful of seats, so a lot of your guests were squeezed in together or basically sat on one another. No one seemed to mind, though. Every single person in the room was super excited to be there.

“What’s up all my space geeks? Welcome back to another episode of The Spaced Out podcast, the podcast where we discuss super nerdy space things,” you started with your usual intro. “Today’s episode is a little different, though, as today I am joined by not one, not two, not even three, but eleven special guests. You heard me right, eleven. Special guests, wanna say hi?”

All eleven of your guests rang out with a chorus of, “Hello!”s at the one time, making it all come out as just a shouting mess. You laughed and waved a hand to silence them.

“In case you had trouble understanding what they were saying,” you said, “my guests today are David, Scotty, Toddy, Zane, Erin, Carly, Natalie, Heath, Mariah, Corinna, and Jeff, better known as a large chunk of YouTube’s biggest vlogging group: The Vlog Squad!”

The Vlog Squad cheered at their introduction as you just clapped your hands.

“Can I just say,” Heath said once the noise started to die down, “that I am impressed with how fast you said our names and how easy it was. You didn’t even stutter once.”

“I’ll be honest, when David told me exactly who was coming I prepared myself for this,” you admitted. “I’ve never had so many guests on the show before. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever had any guests at all. I don’t really know anyone in my real life that’s as interested in space and science as I am.”

“To be fair, none of us are, either,” Jeff joked, causing the room to laugh.

“Yeah, you picked the wrong people to be on your podcast,” Corinna added.

“You don’t have to have any sort of interest to be on the podcast, really. As long as you don’t mind me talking about my nerdy space obsession every now and then anyone is welcome on the podcast.”

Your heart was beating so fast you were sure everyone else could hear it. You were shocked that you were managing to remain so calm in that moment. Your favorite YouTubers were sitting right there in front of you, being guests on your podcast, and somehow you were acting as though they were just friends that you had convinced to come on the podcast.

“Is there any cool space facts you can share with us to get the ball rolling?” David asked.

“Dude, I’ve made over 300 episodes of this podcast that is literally all about space, you gotta narrow down your parameters there,” you told him.

“What’s your favorite space fact then?”

You thought for a moment, going through all the little facts you had in your mind. There was so much you could share with them that you really didn’t know where to start.

“Okay,” you said finally, “I have one. I think David will like this cause we all know he’s made of money: there is a planet that is called 55 Cancri e. It is over twice the size of Earth and it is potentially made of diamonds.”

They all gasped and made comments of astonishment at the same time at this.

“Like, literally made of diamonds?” Corinna asked.

“It’s hard to know for sure. It’s roughly 41 lightyears away so it’s not exactly easy to reach, but they think it’s made of graphite and diamonds,” you explained. “My favorite fact, and one that’s a little scary, is that it’s actually completely silent in space. Like not a single sound, because atmospheres around planets are what contain the soundwaves to make noise.”

“I told you,” David said, turning to face Scott. “We’re too stupid to be on this podcast.”

You all laughed together. “You guys aren’t stupid! I was just fascinated with space as a child and my parents let me feed into that fascination. They always bought me books about space and brought me to visit certain space centers. I was that kid that always said she was gonna grow up and be an astronaut. Instead, I just talk about them on the internet.”

Everything was going so well. You were getting to know your guests and they kept urging you to tell them facts and stories about space. You knew a lot of what you were telling them you had talked about on the podcast before, so devoted listeners probably wouldn’t be too interested in a lot of what you had to say in that episode, but you didn’t mind too much. You just loved to see the looks of astonishment on everyone’s faces as you continued to tell them fact after fact.

When you came to a segment you did in the podcast in which you would read messages from fans, you decided to your guests choose which messages to read and respond to. David took the tablet you used for this first and read through the thousands of messages you received between uploading your most recent episode and recording the current one.

“Are you going to talk about the new 4K pictures of Mars?” he read.

“Oh my God, yes!” you responded. “That will be next episode. I haven’t looked at them all yet because I wanna have a live reaction to them, but I did see one picture and it looks absolutely stunning.”

“It blew my mind how it just looked like a desert here,” Carly commented. “Mars is a lot more like Earth than we think. Sucks that we’ll never be able to live there or anything.”

“I don’t think we’ll never be able to live there, but I don’t think it’ll happen in our lifetimes,” you commented. “But that’s a whole other thing, let’s move on from that.”

“What has been your favorite space related story of the past year?” Natalie read the message she had picked.

“I don’t know if it’s my favorite, but it’s definitely one that I was very interested in reading: a star just vanished in 2020,” you responded. “Apparently that’s something that can just happen, stars can just suddenly disappear and no one knows where they went. This star from the Kinman dwarf galaxy that shined almost brighter than the sun just vanished between 2011 and 2020, and they have no explanation for it. That story stuck with me the most cause I just find it funny that a star that bright just vanished and no one can figure out where it went.”

They continued reading you messages for a while before passing your tablet back to you.

“While I wish I could sit here with you guys and talk about space and your vlogs forever, unfortunately we are running out of time,” you said. “I want to thank the Vlog Squad again for joining me on this episode, and I hope I didn’t bore you guys to death with my stories and facts.”

“Not at all!” David spoke. “I can’t speak for everyone, but I really enjoyed myself. Listening to you talk was really interesting.”

The rest of the group agreed. You tried not to blush from all their kind words.

“I always wanna thank our sponsors again. As always I appreciate them supporting my show, and of course I want you guys, the listeners. Your constant support for the show means so much to me. If you wanna hear more fun facts about space that you’ll never use in live, follow me on my social media. If you’re not already following the podcast, follow the podcast! I upload episodes every Friday, and if you want to be involved in the show be sure to send me your space related messages and maybe I’ll read them out on the next episode. Have a good weekend, little space geek out!”

You ended the recording and the group almost cheered for you. You smiled and stood to thank them again for coming on the show. You were shocked when Corinna pulled you into a hug, which caused the rest of the group to hug you one by one.

“This was the most fun I think I’ve ever had,” Erin commented. “Would you be open to having more guests on the show? I’d love to come back and to just listen to you talk for a full hour.”

The rest of the squad agreed. You really didn’t think you could feel any more excited or on cloud nine, but they kept surprising you.

“I would definitely be open to having guests again,” you replied. “If you guys ever wanna be on the show again, just send me a DM. I’d love to have you!”

“We’d love to have you on the vlogs sometime, too, if you’d be open for that,” David told you.

There they go again, making you feel like you had passed cloud nine and now were on a completely different planet with excitement.

“Y-Yeah!” you managed. “Of course, I’d love that!”

After some more small talk, you showed the group out and thanked them again for coming. Once you were sure they were gone and unable to see you, you began jumping for joy and exclaiming with excitement. You couldn’t believe it! You had just hosted a podcast with your favorite people, and they asked you to join them for filming sometime?!

“This is the best day of my life!”

[the-writers-bookshelf]

This is embarrassing but I am bad at reading. I only read graphic novels sometimes but as a kid I always hated reading since my dad forced me to read those classics. I want to get into reading novels but I want to start easy. I want a book that's for an adult but the writing is for like a 12 year old. I also can't stand anything that's like 100 pages but I don't wanna read kid books since I want adult topics. Is there anything like this?

Hi lovely anon! ♥

Okay I'm THRILLED you asked this question because I get to put on my librarian thinking cap. :)

First, I want to say right off the top there is absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.

People have different ways that they learn and absorb information and that’s perfectly fine! I really wish the publishing industry took into consideration other readers besides a generic population because so many readers are left behind and miss out on some great stories because they can’t access them for whatever reason.

Graphic novels get a bad rap for some reason, but they are FANTASTIC works of art. They connect visual storytelling with action, movement, and dialogue.

When I worked at my local library, it was so, so painful to watch parents ridicule their child for picking up a book that interested them but it didn't *fit this box* (wasn't their exact reading level, wasn't "educational" etc.)

For kids with ADHD or other learning problems, or just the way they interacted with the world...graphics novels were sometimes the ONLY thing that held their attention. They needed different stimulation - the art helped them visualize the story better than pages and pages of text ever could.

If you like something, read it. Enjoy it. That's the point of literature! ♥

Also, I really, really love illustrations with books. I like the visual aspect that adds extra punch to the story and I wish more adult literature had illustrations because I miss that so much. Graphic novels are badass so definitely don't feel bad about enjoying them! :)

I’m going to do my best to recommend some things here. I haven’t read everything on this list so take it with a grain of salt! Because most publishers require a set word count/page count, 100 pages or less might be a bit difficult to pin down. But I’ll see what I can do! :)

Anthologies/Magazines - 

Anthologies and short fiction magazines are great because the stories are short - most of the time around 40 pages or less - and you get a range of authors so you can sample their writing styles. 

Some anthologies/magazines I would recommend include:

Clarkesworld

They post their back issues online so you can read them AND listen to an audio recording of them for FREE.

Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine

I recently picked up a few of their copies and I’m really enjoying the range of author styles they include in each edition. They include poems, short stories, and novelets (longer than a short story, shorter than a novel). The whole thing is roughly 200 pages but you can always stop reading after one story and get a satisfied ending :)

Podcastle (audio)

This is an honorary mention because of the compact storytelling they aim to cultivate. Podcastle (fantasy) and it’s branching publications - EscapePod (science fiction) and Pseudopod (horror) - publish stories via podcast. It’s not quite novels, like what you’re looking for, but they do look for stories that grab your attention and can be read well aloud. If you’re looking to spark an interest in a wide range of fiction, this might be a good resource to browse! :)

Fiction - 

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

I personally haven’t read this one yet - it’s on my to-read list! - but each book is around 150 pages told through the eyes of an increasingly self-aware robot that has nicknamed itself “Murderbot.”

Wayward Children Series by Seanan McGuire

This adult series is about a home for wayward kids who regularly come and go through magic portals to other worlds. Each book is fairly short, a little under 200 pages.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti is the first of the Himba people to go Oomza University - one of the best institutions in the galaxy. But learning comes at a price and her journey won’t be an easy one (96 pages, book 1 of the series)

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

This was 50-50 for me. I liked the concept, the ending was a little...too out there for me to grasp. But it’s 230 pages, a little gritty, a little grimdark, with action.

Honorable Mentions -

I’m not sure what genre of graphic novels you’re reading (humor? dark fantasy? superheroes?) but if you want to venture into some fun fiction that’s a little longer, here are some authors that have taken me on a wild romp across the pages - 

Terry Pratchett

Neil Gaiman (I like some of his stories, others are a miss for me, but he explores a wide range of fiction so you can dabble in lots of different things! :)

Adrian Tchaikovsky (particularly Spiderlight, lots of epic high fantasy adventure)

A.J. Hartley

Jeff VanderMeer (Annihilation)

I hope some of these help a little! Good luck! :)

[skittypenguin]

fuck it. gonna long post about how much i appreciate tommyinnit.

so, i used to be into mcyts back in mid 2019, and by early 2020 i kinda lost interest once smplive ended. i remember seeing wilburs tweet about smpe and i kinda was like. Oh cool, and just completely forgot as i moved on to a different hyperfixation.

then, i started following this “tommyinnit” guy. no clue how i actually got there. watched streams in mid-october during the schlatt era, and i was like oh shit, i know schlatt. had no idea he was still in the minecraft scene. 

(more under the cut - this is a long one boys)

around this time i got broken up with by my partner on our 4 month anniversary. looking back, it seems like such a small amount of time, but it really hurt, ykno? i saw it coming and all, but im kind of an emotional person in the first place yadda yadda.

point being, i tuned into a wilbur soot stream for the first time in a year for mcc 11 a few days after. i was like “oh shit, its like minecraft monday” and then sat down and watched the whole mcc. had no damn idea what was happening,  but i haven’t actually felt that much enjoyment, laughed that hard, in such a long time. i knew of quackity and wilbur beforehand, but the brashness yet motivating energy tommy carried on that stream coupled with his positive reinforcement towards quackity really drew me in.

i started tuning in to tommy’s streams more, loving how easily he played off chat as he pulled energetic and lighthearted bits with his friends. because of him, i’m so invested in minecraft roleplay. because of him, i got to connect with so many people over common interests. on bad days, his streams or even just watching a vod would be the reason i got up and smiled another day.

his insane work ethic, his readiness to always communicate with his friends, the little things he does to make others feel more included, to brighten up the casual viewer’s day, inspired me to do better. he works so fucking hard to put out a video every week, balance school, come up with lore/plans to stream with friends, and popping on a bunch of people’s streams.

“the world isn’t ready for tommyinnit”, wilbur said. “i would be sitting at 400 viewers without tommy”, said tubbo. “tommy deserves everything he’s got”, a whole zoom call of his friends agree. i don’t even know him, but i can’t help but completely agree. tommy’s what got me out of my comfort zone - to be more confident, take those shots at communicating with friends that i normally wouldn’t take. my anxiety has it so i can’t sleep without a podcast or someone speaking play in the background, and for months tommy’s vods have been what i play softly on my phone before i sleep, to calm down.

he’s a legend, tommyinnit is. i can’t thank him enough for being an amazing content creator and someone that, even though i’m older than him, i can’t help but look up to.

so thank you tommy. you’ve done so much for me and so many other people. i hope you had a wonderful day at 17 <3 keep it up!

[ilovejevsjeans]

Daniel Ricciardo on his passion for combat sports, a walkout song and the time he asked Lewis Hamilton to ‘fight’

McLaren Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo, who currently sits seventh in the driver standings heading into this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, is among the world’s best behind a steering wheel. But how would he fare if he swapped his racing gloves for boxing or MMA gloves?

“I’d love to do a charity boxing match or something just to feel that adrenaline of walking to a ring,” Ricciardo said. “It’s on my to-do list for sure. At school I had a few little fights but nothing crazy. Nothing I’d brag about here.”

Ricciardo says he learned the sport of boxing from a friend who fought as an amateur growing up. However in recent years his love of combat shifted more toward mixed martial arts, a sport that is “quite beautiful. It’s an art form and I was just taken by it.”

The Australian — who boasts 4.6 million followers on Instagram — rarely misses a fight night, whether that’s a small card or pay-per-view. Every Monday he gears up for multiple MMA podcasts to hear analysis on what just took place in the cage.

In an exclusive interview with The Athletic, Ricciardo opened up about his love for fighting, which driver would make the best opponent and why Lewis Hamilton turned down an opportunity to get in the ring against him.

You’re an avid fight fan. How did this passion for the sport start?

One of my best friends growing up, when he was growing up, he was doing amateur boxing and got very good at it. I was then doing my racing and he was doing his boxing. We were both on a bit of an unconventional path — both individual sports, not really the typical sports the kids at school were doing. We had that in common. Once I started taking my racing more seriously I began taking my fitness more seriously. So I started going to his gym to just train. I really enjoyed doing it. But the truth is — I don’t want to lie to anyone. I’m not a fighter. As much as I would picture beating the bully up at school, it’s not me. But I just fell in love with not only doing it but also watching it.

I enjoyed watching boxing but it was really when I got exposed to MMA … It just had me. It was back in 2011 when I started properly getting into it. It was the quickest sport I had ever been absorbed by. I was all in.

My whole YouTube feed is just all MMA shows, whether it’s press conferences, interviews, podcasts. It’s just full of MMA stuff. I’m a full nerd now.

Being in Australia and traveling a lot, are you forced to get up at weird times for fights?

The beauty was I was in LA when (Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier 2) was on so it was prime time and I was happy. But normally in Europe, it’s 4 a.m. or 5 a.m., which isn’t as good. Any kind of sporting event that you look forward to, it’s always cool when it’s in the evening because you have all day to get ready and talk about it. If you wake up at 4 a.m. it’s like “ugh,” and then you’re straight into it so there’s not as much of a build-up. But it’s all good.

So do you still train at all?

No. To races, my trainer carries some pads and gloves just to stay a little sharp and change it up. If I’m getting my reflexes with some tennis balls, maybe I throw in a bit of a boxing combination or something. Again, I’m not saying I’m good or anything. But I just enjoy the whole movement part of it.

Boxing was cool and I enjoyed watching it growing up. But there was something with MMA where there’s just so many different disciplines and the matchups … as a contest it was so much more open and for that, exciting. I feel — I know it’s not always the case — you can kind of tell in boxing if someone is getting momentum, the advantage. It’s like “this guy is going to win the fight.” But in MMA, it’s like “this guy is winning standing but if this goes to the ground, it’s back to square one.” So I just loved it. I was really immersed by it all.

Did you have a particular fighter or fight that got you hooked early on?

One of the first events I watched was UFC 116. Chris Leben was on the card and I think he was losing the fight. And then he got a triangle with probably 20 seconds to go in the third round, so that was really exciting. Stephan Bonnar was also on that card and he got a really cool finish on “The Polish Experiment” Krzysztof Soszynski. That was a card for me where I was very taken from that. Then I discovered “The Ultimate Fighter.” I just binge-watched all of those (seasons).

In terms of fighters, Leben was a character, I liked him. Carlos Condit. I’d say Condit and Cub Swanson were two guys I got behind early on. Condit, I love his style and the way he carries himself.

Have you been to a lot of cards in person?

The very first one I did was the best for me personally. To this day, it’s my favorite sporting event I’ve ever been to: (Conor) McGregor-(Chad) Mendes. Vegas in July 2015. Obviously McGregor, but he wasn’t yet a champion and still kind of on the rise. It was the energy and atmosphere. It was just wild.

The whole event too. (Robbie) Lawler-(Rory) MacDonald, which had the fight of the year. Every fight on the main card I think was a finish, so I got very lucky at my first event.

I’ve done (Michael) Bisping-(Anderson) Silva in the UK. That was a great contest as well.

There are a lot of great fighters from Australia and New Zealand like Israel Adesanya, Alexander Volkanovski and Robert Whittaker. Have you had a chance to meet any of them?

I haven’t met them. A couple of them I’ve had interactions with on social media. But I love Whittaker, obviously Volkanovski is killing it. I’m fairly patriotic to the Aussie fighters. If they are fighting, 99 percent of the time I’ll be supporting them. But one of my good buddies is roommates with Luke Rockhold, so I got to know Luke the last couple of years. I was trying to do some training over Christmas with him but it didn’t end up working out.

I know you’re a big shoey guy. What do you think of Tai Tuivasa doing it after wins?

I’ve had a bit of contact with Tuivasa as well. It’s obviously great. But one thing I can’t get behind is spitting. That’s a little extra.

Plus he’ll grab some random fan’s shoe.

He definitely takes it to the next level. It’s cool that — as disgusting as it is — we have some traditions like this.

Shifting a bit to F1, have you ever gotten into any big fights on the track? What was the worst fight you’ve gotten in?

Earlier in go-karting there was a bit more. Unfortunately in F1, I guess because you’re on the world’s stage, even if you push someone you probably are going to get a fine or get penalized. At times it’s a little too clean. But I’m still waiting for the day that someone confronts me and I just lay them out (laughs).

You also just seem a lot more laid back than a lot of other drivers, so you’d probably not be my first choice of someone getting into a fight soon.

I’m all talk, it would be nice obviously to not have to fight anyone. But no one would expect it from me. Even when I tell people I’m a fight fan, people are like “oh really? You’re into that? You seem too nice to like that.”

But to get where I have in the sport, you need a bit of a killer streak in you. I do have it, but don’t always show it.

What other driver would make the best fighter?

I know some guys have done — for fitness — hit some pads. Randomly, he doesn’t have a seat this year, but Daniil Kvyat started doing quite a lot of boxing last year for his training. I saw a few clips and it started to look like he knew what he was doing. I would say he would be the guy who has the most idea. I’d put him and myself up there. The rest I don’t think stand a chance.

So if you had a charity event, you don’t have anyone in particular you’d want to go against?

To be honest, I actually asked Lewis Hamilton. At the beginning of 2016, he posted a video on his Instagram hitting pads. I was as well at the time, so I was like “hey, let’s do a charity fight.” I asked him in person. But he didn’t bite on that one so I was a little sad.

I might re-ask the question.

What about Max Verstappen? For people who watched the first season of the F1 show “Drive to Survive” on Netflix, I’m sure they would love to see you guys throw down at some point.

That would have been cool as well (laughs). Max would be a good competitor in the ring. The way he drives, he’s quite stubborn. He’d be a hard guy to put away. He’s probably the guy that you’d choke him and he’s going to sleep and not tapping. That would make an interesting one.

In contrast, is there an MMA fighter you’d like to race on the track?

An obvious one would be Conor McGregor. To hear in his Irish accent all kinds of things, that would make pretty good television. And he loves his cars. It’s obvious, but that would probably be the best.

How often would you say you watch fights now? Not just PPVs, right?

Unless I have something like work or another commitment, I’m watching it every week. Mondays I’m getting ready for every podcast. I sound like a real nerd but it’s just an addiction. I love it. Anyone doing that for Formula 1, I’d be like “you’re such a nerd,” but here I am doing it with MMA.

Is it hard to follow everything during the race season?

If I can’t see it live, then 100 percent I’m going to watch the replay or buy it later. But it’s also a good escape. If I’m traveling and I’m in between races, to get my mind away from my competition, I like to watch it. I also try to pick up things as well. Whether it’s from a mental point of view … I’ll look at the walkouts and how they are behaving. I try to figure out if they are really as calm and collected as they are portraying or if it’s a bit of a facade. I’m trying to work out what I can use in my events.

Do you have a walkout song prepared if you were to fight?

I’ve thought about it. The short answer is no. You typically have to have something heavy and fast, but I fell in love with Chris Weidman’s “Won’t Back Down.” It’s not typically a song that will pump you up but it’s so iconic and now it’s his, it’s very fitting.

I’d go for something more lyrically powerful as opposed to instrumental. I loved Max Holloway’s, I think it’s called Mount Everest (by Labrinth). (X)

[meimae]

Language Learning Through Immersion: One Year Japanese Update

11/03/2021

I did it, you guys! I’ve successfully reached my very first year of Japanese language immersion! I honestly thought that I would have given up by now, but this really has been a fun and ultimately rewarding endeavor.

Studying the language has been at the back of my mind for years since elementary school, I just never really knew how to go about it before, and I always thought that I could learn it in a classroom setting someday. That someday for me was in two elective courses in university, and while those were fun as well, it did not give me the same gains that I have achieved in this past year.

It’s probably easier to quantify learning a language in a classroom setting, especially when going through a program to earn a language degree. Learning through immersion, however, I had to really consider what my goals should be on my own. Eventually, I stumbled upon an article saying that for an English speaker, Japanese was exceptionally difficult to learn and that at least 2,200 hours must be spent with the language to reach a certain level of proficiency. So I said to myself, “well okay internet, if you say so!”, and set that as my long term goal going forward.

Spoiler Alert: I did not hit that goal in my first year. I am not crazy and will never listen to Japanese in my sleep regardless of what Khatzumoto (the creator of All Japanese All the Time) says. 

I did, however, hit a total 1,226.65 active immersion hours in my first year, so I guess I’m still a bit nuts. That is 874.96 hours of active listening and 351.69 reading hours. I also did 270.59 hours of passive listening, also known as the time in the very beginning of my immersion where I was using Japanese subtitles (therefore not really concentrating on listening alone). That’s a cumulative 1,497.24 hours spent with Japanese. That’s more than halfway towards my goal! 

To further break that down for curious animanga fans out there, that’s 973 episodes from 109 anime, 765 episodes from 33 dramas, 7 movies, and 967 chapters from 107 volumes of manga (21 series). Here’s my anilist and mydramalist to see what I’ve read/watched.

During all this, I was also doing my daily Anki reps and now I have a 530 day SRS streak (includes the time prior starting immersion and only doing RTK and some vocabulary cards) and a total 8,857 sentence cards. I’ve been averaging 406 cards daily (because I’m trying to cure my leeches) and I spend about an hour per day doing reps and learning new cards. I don’t really track my time on Anki, but I do have a set timer that goes off after 1-1:30 hours.

What I haven’t touched upon at all is output. I have not gone out of my way to find a tutor or a language partner. There’s still plenty of input out there to immerse in before I even consider outputting.

Graphs, stats, and more thoughts:

Here's my current card count in my main deck (minus the cards in my new/learning queue and leeches I've been relearning which are in separate decks):

That one day in 2019 where I did not do my cards because I was seriously doubting whether I can actually stick with language learning this time around will forever haunt and inspire me to keep going everyday.

Workflow and Tips

You might be wondering, how do I have a lot of time? I started this whole endeavor in the middle of a pandemic, which eliminated the option of me going to a language school, and a slew of other things I were considering doing last year became impossible (and if anything, very scary to do in a pandemic). All I can say is that, things work out eventually if it is His will, and if I can learn a skill before everything properly settles back down again, then why not? 

I wake up at 5 in the morning everyday to either do my Anki reps or read until the time when I need to get up and I listen to compressed audio throughout the day. The biggest tip is to switch the time you spend watching/reading in your native language to your target language instead. Listen to a podcast during your commute, watch an episode during lunch break, read before going to bed, do your Anki reps in the bathroom if you have to. 

But, if you’re feeling burnt out, there is no reason for you to not take a break! I have been watching a lot of Among Us streams before bed, and I chat with my friends from time to time. Language learning is not a race.

More Stats

Here are a couple of grids of the kanji characters that I have encountered at least once in my immersion and how well I have answered them in my vocabulary/sentence cards.

It's interesting that after almost 9000 words, I have yet to encounter every single character from the Remembering the Kanji 1 (RTK 1) book by James Heisig, which teaches you the most common use characters that are part of the 常用漢字. Which brings me to the question, was writing down every single character being taught in RTK worth it every time it came up in my reviews for the first 3-ish months I was reviewing them? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly removed my anxiety whenever looking at blocks of text in Japanese, but the longer I think about it, the more I feel I should have switched to Recognition RTK earlier. Still, being able to write in proper stroke order is cool I guess, and it also helps me when looking things up in the dictionary.

Here’s the same grid but in JLPT order:

I clearly need to grind those N2 and N1 level cards! Speaking of which, I have apparently almost covered every single character that could possibly appear in the JLPT (except for the N1 which I have only covered half of) in just a year's time. If the JLPT word frequency lists I’m using are accurate, I have about 2,000 words more to go to to cover most vocabulary that could appear in the test. This makes the "10,000 sentences/words to fluency" argument a reasonable milestone to aim for for Japanese learners if said aim is only to pass the test. That said, 10,000 words is just that, a milestone. It's more akin to a comfortable level of comprehension, but not my own concept of fluency which is being able to read with ease, speak articulately, and write comfortably.

READING IMMERSION GRAPHS

My biggest motivation for tracking my stats is for the purpose of seeing whether my reading speed is improving over time. Reading speed is also easier to measure than listening comprehension which is kind of subjective, so I had a lot of fun making these. What I found is that for the first volume or chapter of whatever it is I’m reading, I always take the time to get used to the writing style of the author. My speed really improves whenever I keep reading the same topic over and over again. On the other hand and quite obviously, looking up many new words in a row and trying to parse sentences slows me down.

Manga: Reading Speed Progression per Volume

I clearly love ちはやふる and I am not ashamed to admit it.

I need to start reading longer manga. When I do, I’ll probably split this graph into less than and greater than 20 volumes. Imagine if I start reading something ridiculously long as 名探偵コナン or ワンピース, these graphs will start breaching the bounds of time and space.

Novels: Time Spent Reading per Chapter

#neverforget the time I read chapter six of Norwegian Wood for 9 hours when it took me less than half that time in English RIP. Also, my interest in Kitchen plummeted LOL. Still planning to finish it don’t worry. 

I also need to start branching away from manga and start reading more novels and light novels, too just so I can make more pretty graphs.

Visual Novels: Time Spent Reading and Daily Word Count

Also known as images that clearly show that I’ve already spent several days only reading the prologue of Island. I’m not sweating. 切那 needs to stop using words I don’t know in succession. More thoughts on this VN far into the future.

Thoughts on Immersion

I can’t really say anything else other that that it works for me, and needless to say if you’re considering this method, remember that the SRS is your friend but immersion should be your one true love.

Prior to all this, I couldn’t even read a sample paragraph from Genki without being confused to my very soul. Yes, I know, it’s embarrassing, but that’s the truth. I was way more scared of failing my Japanese classes than my actual thesis for my bachelors degree, I kid you not. I would quite literally spend all my free time in university trying to understand grammar, memorize vocabulary, and answer my workbook exercises with little to no success. 

I tried so hard to get all the grammar “formulas” into my head for 1.5 years and it only brought me more confusion. I’m never going back to traditional classroom study for language learning, but I will still refer to grammar books when I need to, and not because I feel like I need to answer 4783342 different workbook exercises like my life depended on it.

I still can’t believe it, but with immersion this statement is actually true to a point, don’t try shadowing anime/or calling your boss anime language slurs, use your common sense:

study anime to understand Japanese > study Japanese to understand anime 

Future Goals/Plans

2,200 immersion hours was my initial goal, but honestly I feel like that number could be much higher. There’s still a lot of stuff I don’t understand (news, politics, sciences, etc.), so I’ll make attempts to cover more of those things in my immersion. 

I’ll continue reading more, because that’s a natural SRS in itself. Try to read longer manga, more novels, visual novels, and light novels, and maybe news articles. 

I’ll try to mine as much “JLPT vocab” as I can before making any attempts at taking the JLPT. I noticed that a lot of the words I know don’t appear in the JLPT word lists as much, even though they appear a lot in media/daily conversation. 

Continue mining all words I don’t know because all words are useful anyway. There is no such thing as useless words. I never really understood mining only “interesting words” or words that “pop up” in your immersion. As I said in my previous blog post, 美人局 is an interesting word and I certainly caught it being said in my immersion, but in the three languages I know, I wouldn’t know when I would be able to use such a word, as compared to something like ジャガイモ which is a significantly less interesting word, but is certainly useful to know. 

_

I have managed to talk up a storm, but if you have any questions regarding my process or recommendations for new immersion material, please feel free to send an ask/reply to this post. I love hearing about other people’s language learning/immersion journeys. 

See you on my next post!

[elrondsscribe]

Hi! I’ve just always wondered, what got you so into Amrev, as well as George Washington?

Oh my, what got me into the Amrev wormhole …

Well, first of all, there was Hamilton, which I hadn’t ever watched until last November (wow! a whole year ago!). Fell in love with the soundtrack, went to Tumblr and oh my God what a wild waste land!!

Then I saw from some fanart that the historical Hamilton was actually ginger, and that was enough to launch me from the Hamilfandom into the Amrev space; I do love red hair! Then I heard that Washington was also a redhead, and my mind was BLOWN. I had to know more!

I should mention that roughly concurrent to this I was listening to an episode of Musicalsplaining, one of my favorite podcasts btw, that mentioned how George Washington (the only person you can fairly say was really ‘glorified’ in the musical) is actually a very interesting person if you take him as he really was. That piqued my interest!

That was when I started skimming bios, some really good and others not-so-good (there is a special place in hell for Ron Chernow), and started coming across all of Tumblr’s favorite anecdotes: Washington cussing at Lee at Monmouth, Washington getting all Soft with Lafayette, Washington being a nightmare boss to his aides, Washington towering like a foot and a half over his wife — all the greats.

TURN: Washington’s Spies didn’t hurt either! If you haven’t heard of that show, just look up some gifs of it here on Tumblr. Try YouTube too: Ian Kahn has an absolutely sinful voice!

Also … simply observe.

Tldr: through a haphazard convergence of thirst traps and historical curiosity. Aka, the best way to get into historical figures!

Oh also, and this part is very important: I also 100% do not forgive him for owning people. In fact, my fascination with Washington is like 50% pain, cuz Washington is a really good example of an enslaver who had really ambivalent emotions about slavery as an institution and his role in it. Yet he also never stopped owning people, was a fairly cruel enslaver even as enslavers go, shuffled his household staff as President to skirt Pennsylvania’s antislavery laws, and signed the Fugitive Slave Act into law (making it possible for a runaway to be legally recaptured in any state). And I read these quotes from him about how he clearly understands how slavery is a raw deal for the enslaved and I wanna knock him upside his red head and say “dude?? What’s not clicking??” So yeah, there’s also that. 🤷🏾‍♀️