#I love jeremy bradshaw a LOT

[electromignion]

My Jeremy Bradshaw photo op with Misha Collins 🥹🥺

As I always post my Bridgewater fanarts drawings and doodles over here, here you go finally, my photo op with Misha wearing exactly the jacket I picture Jeremy with and his glasses, with the pins I custom made with help of friends 🥹

I tried to do a little Vipin cosplay following my headcanon so I had pink lace on the hoodie (yes I bought a red hoodie specifically for this picture), and also I had Vipin’s matching pin with Jeremy with the smileys although you can’t see it there and the lil pan pin! And also big up to my bestie @theangelssing for the embroidery work on the hoodie’s sleeve to make it real!! (As in the hc I have Olivia made some embroidery on his hoodie 🥺)

(Close up for the pins!!)

This is truly my dream pic and honestly I’m over the moon 🫶😭

[jetblack4realz]

vanilla - bradley "rooster" bradshaw

okay, i'm just kinda posting drafts right now to get them out of here even though i don't really love them, so enjoy ig

summary - your dates never seem to take you wanting to go slow very well, but bradley is always there to make sure you're okay

inspired by "vanilla" by avery anna

warnings - TW - unwanted touching, harassment

word count - 2.1k

______________________________________________________________

when hangman caught rooster's arm, he instinctively pulled away with a roll of his eyes before spotting the worried look in his eyes. the mustached man furrowed his brows.

"what?"

jake nodded down the bar to where you had entered with a man neither of the two aviators had met before. you had told them you were bringing a guy down to the hard deck after your first deck, hoping to familiarize him with the group. as far as they knew, you really liked him. he was a friend of your brother's who you ran into as you were grabbing the daggers some coffee and supposedly you hit it off.

"i think it's going good," you mumbled to phoenix with a smile as you wrapped an arm around her, leaning back on the pool table with a beer in your free hand. "guys, this is jeremy. jeremy, these are my navy friends."

"you fly with her?" jeremy asked as he came to your side, pulling you away from phoenix and into his own side.

"every day," phoenix said with a smile, brows knitted slightly as she stood and crossed to where bob was standing with rooster and fanboy. "i'm phoenix."

"that's bob," you pointed with a smile. "fanboy, payback, coyote, hangman," you paused, settling your eyes on bradley with a softer smile, "and rooster."

"how long have you known dash?" hangman asked, crossing his arms in the same fashion as bradley and coyote.

"my callsign," you told him with a short laugh. he nodded, humming.

"i've known y/n for a few years. we go back," he answered.

"that's funny, she's never mentioned you before," rooster told him, standing straighter as he stared at the man pointedly.

jeremy met his stare, hand tightening around your waist.

"come on baby, let's go dance," he said, lips by your ear as his hand slid around your waist to your hand in a sultry manner. you stood quickly, stepping away from him slightly.

"i think we're gonna go dance," you said, setting your beer to the side. you threw hangman a teasing look as you continued, "don't change the music."

"no promises," he laughed, his hands up.

"it was good to meet you," bob said politely as jeremy pulled you away to the dance floor.

"yeah, you too," he said shortly, fully aware of the aviators' eyes on him as he dragged you off.

"i don't like him," rooster said as he watched the man's hands wander your body.

"i don't think you've ever liked a guy dash has gone out with," phoenix said.

"i really don't like him," rooster answered.

"can't imagine why," hangman said, standing next to his friend, brows furrowed in a similar fashion. "i don't like him either."

when you reached the dance floor, jeremy's hands were immediately on your waist, sliding up and down your hips as he entered your space again, lips on your ear. "what was that rooster guy going on about?"

"me and rooster grew up together," you told him hesitantly, stepping backward only for him to pull you in tighter. "i've known him my whole life."

"oh," jeremy said, turning to watch the man. bradley's eyes were already on the two of you, arms crossed over his chest. "and the rest of them?"

"went to flight school together and now we're a squad," you answered. "known them since i was twenty-four."

"been a while," he mused.

"yeah," you agreed, eyes flashing around the building as he pressed his lower body into yours, pulling you firmly against him.

"we got a lot to make up for then," he whispered, kissing your neck, then collarbone.

"jeremy," you said sharply, pushing him away. "stop. i thought we were gonna dance."

"oh come on baby," he said, pulling you back. you turned to catch bradley's eyes, but he was already making his way towards you. jeremy's hands were quickly approaching your chest, one hand firmly on your bottom to keep you against him.

"jeremy, stop," you said.

"don't be so vanilla baby."

vanilla.

--

bradley didn't like it when you went on first dates. it wasn't often that you did, which only made it worse. it always worried him - you barely knew the guy and yet you were supposed to spend the evening with him alone? he couldn't wrap his mind around letting you just go off with this guy. but you would always assure him, a sweet smile playing on your lips as you fixed your hair one last time.

"he's nice," you would insist. "monica said so. and monica rarely has anything good to say about guys."

"okay," he would answer with a nod of his head. "whatever. you know you can call me if you need anything, right?"

you always told him yes, laughed, and insisted he wouldn't be receiving a call. and every single time, he didn't. except for tonight.

"can you come get me?" he could hear the shakiness in your voice, the held back sobs in your throat. "can you come get me, bradley?"

"of course darlin', where are you?" he asked, standing quickly as he slipped on shoes and grabbed his keys, not even bothering to grab a jacket in the middle of winter in south carolina.

"i don't know, he just left me here."

"describe it to me." he started his car, driving out onto the main road that led to most of the usual bars and restaurants used for first dates.

"hold on, i think i see a streetsign. i'm on the corner of... roosevelt and broadway." he took a hard left onto roosevelt, waving a hand in apology to the car he just cut off.

"i'll be there in two, don't hang up," he said. "keep talking to me. what happened?"

you gulped, telling him as little as you could as you recalled the events of the night.

he'd pulled over randomly, just a few minutes before midnight.

"what are you doing?" you laughed. "i've got to be home soon."

"here, come here," he said, grabbing your hand as he climbed into the backseat. you followed hesitantly, following his lead. "look."

he pointed up through the sunroof. "i reckon a little stargazing couldn't hurt."

"that's cute," you said with a smile.

"you're cute," he told you. his eyes flicked from your eyes to your lips, hand coming up to cup the back of your neck. he leaned closer before roughly pressing his lips to yours. you weren't too surprised at first, slightly smiling as you kissed him back.

but, he only got more intense and you quickly realized you weren't back here to stare out the sunroof.

his hand climbed your thigh as he pushed you backwards in an attempt to lay you down. you caught yourself with a hand on the seat, pulling back.

"noah, no," you told him. "i-i'm not comfortable with this."

"oh come on baby," he purred, lips close to yours again. "don't be so vanilla. don't say no."

vanilla is what they called the girls who refused sex, who remained abstinent. and while you didn't know exactly where you fell in there, there was one thing you did know: vanilla girls didn't get hot guys like him. they didn't get any guys at all.

and so you let him push you backwards again, trying to enjoy the feeling of his mouth on yours, but you couldn't focus. the only thing you could focus on was the feeling of his freezing fingers slipping under your shirt and making their way towards your bra. one finger brushed the fabric and you sat up quickly, pushing yourself backwards and away from him, shaking your head.

"please, i don't want to do this tonight. can't we just watch the stars, and, and talk?" you asked. "i like you noah, i do, i just don't want this right now. please."

he sighed, sitting back with a nod. he got out of the car and crossed to your side, opening the door for you. you looked up at him with a confused yet relieved smile.

"get out."

"what?" you asked quickly, face falling.

"get out," he said, his expression lost of all the affection from earlier at dinner. when you didn't move he grabbed your arm and dragged you out roughly. you managed to get to your feet, looking at him with wide eyes.

he scoffed, looking you up and down distastefully. "all you carolina girls are the same - too vanilla."

and then he drove off.

"that son of a bitch," bradley muttered.

he spotted you, pulling up and parking on the side of the street before throwing his door open and sprinting in your direction. he threw his arms around you, pulling away with his hands on your cheeks to examine you carefully.

"are you okay?" he asked.

you nodded slowly, but then your pseudo-smile lowered into a watery frown and you were violently shaking your head 'no'. tears slipped onto your cheeks as you thrust yourself into bradley's arms, the man instantly wrapping you in his hold.

he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. "i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry darlin'. i'm never letting this happen again." his voice was a whisper as you cried.

"it was so scary," you whimpered, "i was so scared." his heart broke in that moment, his arms tightening around you.

"i'm so sorry sweetheart," he whispered again, cheek on your head. "i'm so sorry."

--

you pulled him closer to you, earning a smirk, before you effectively kneed him in the groin, causing him to double over in pain.

bradley's hands were on his shoulders holding him upright by the time your fist landed in his jaw. gasps filled the bar as he stumbled back up to his feet, trying to push bradley off but to no avail.

"you bitch!" he cried, earning a punch from bradley this time. he hit the floor again, lip bleeding as he clutched his face.

the bell sounded throughout the bar, penny glaring the man down from behind the counter and waving to the already-advancing aviators. the san diego crowd cheered loudly as hangman and coyote joined bradley's side, grabbing the man under the arms and legs and carrying him out to the door. as they chucked him into the sand, you joined them in the doorway.

"i'm not vanilla, you're just a douchebag!" you yelled after him as he scrambled to his feet.

"if we see you here again, we will personally see to it that you can't be a dick to anyone girl again!" bradley said, coyote snickering next to him.

"'cause he won't have one," he said. jeremy made a quick exit, flipping you off as he tore to his car.

bradley turned to you quickly, hands on your arms as he looked you over. jake and javi took this as their cue to leave, shutting the door behind them on their way back inside.

"are you okay?" he asked before he pulled you into his chest. "i'm so sorry. i promised-"

"nothing happened, you kept your promise," you assured. "thank you for rescuing me."

"i don't think you needed rescuing," he chuckled, holding you snugly  in his arms. "you took care of him."

"i'm a little more capable now," you answered with a shrug and soft smile as you pulled away. your hands found his as you looked up at him. "seriously, thank you. you've always been here and i appreciate you."

"i'd do anything for you darlin," he told you easily. "and i promise you, this won't ever happen again."

"i believe you," you said with a wider smile. "i don't expect you'll be leaving my side anytime soon."

"damn straight. unfortunately for you, that means you're not going on any more dates for a while," he said.

you shrugged. "fine by me. i've come to a rather mind-blowing realization in the last few minutes that makes me have an aversion to dating anymore."

"and what was that realization?" he asked with a breathy laugh, quirking a brow.

"that ever since we met, you've been my standard," you admitted with a shrug and small smile. "and no guy has ever lived up to you."

he didn't know what to say to that, stumbling on his words as he tried to figure out what you'd want to hear.

"you're my best friend, bradley," you said quietly, looking up at him carefully. "and i think over these last fifteen years i've slowly been falling in love with you."

wow. he really didn't know what to do with that. you were in a delicate state, you'd just been molested by your date and he had saved you. maybe this was your way of coping? he didn't know, but he didn't want to take advantage of it.

"are you sure?" he asked carefully. "i mean, a lot just happened y/n. it's okay if-"

"i'm sure," you said resolutely. "it's not just because you threw out the guy groping me. it's because you've always done that. you've always taken care of me and cared for me and made me feel better and i just - it just took to a long time to realize how much that meant to me. how much you mean to me."

"look, you mean the world to me, y/n," he told you. "and that's why i think we should revisit this in a few days. off of the high of things, a bit more sober, and-"

"dammit bradshaw," you muttered, moving forward quickly to grab him by the shirt, dragging him down to meet you lips quickly. you moved one hand to his cheek, giving him a moment to catch up. and he did. he circled a hand around your waist, another in your hair as he kissed you back.

when you pulled away, you grinned at him. "believe me now?"

"i guess," he laughed.

"look, i love that you're responding like this, but please believe me when i tell you that i am in love with you and i have been for years," you said. "and please say it back."

he laughed at your last phrase, thumb brushing you cheek as his smile softened. "of course i'm in love with you too. how could i not?"

"well, apparently i'm pretty vanilla," you laughed.

"taking your sweet time don't make you boring, sweetheart," he told you. "i love it. i love you."

you sighed contentedly as he pulled you into an embrace, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "i love you too, roo."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

thanks for reading! leave a request in the comments or message me privately! i love writing, so if you've got an idea you need fleshed out on paper i'd love to be the one to do that for you

masterlist!!

[hawkland]

Art Masterpost: This Impossible Happiness Story by @friendofcarlotta Art by @hawkland / sidewinder

I'm always happy to get to work with @friendofcarlotta again and I know you are all going to love this story as much as I did! I just had to jump on it during @deancasbigbang claims as I am so keen on stories that reference The Winchesters' universe and explore all that it opened up with alternative worlds in SPN canon. (In fact I'm only bummed I didn't get to do some more art of those specific characters, but time and the extent of one of my other projects for this story got in my way. Maybe if I get the chance this winter when I'm promising myself a little time off from deadlines...)

The first image that immediately called out to me that I had to paint was Cas and Jack talking in Heaven while Jack is creating the skies. I had a really clear image of how to paint it in watercolor, and the biggest challenge was preserving the white of the paper (and I'll admit I threw in the bees to cover a small blemish/accident!) This was a large piece (20"x14") and I had to plan it out really carefully not to mess things up.

I then got the idea in my head that I wanted to try to paint each of the different versions of Cas & Dean in the story in tight close-up, to illustrate how they are the same yet also different. The first is what I called the "Winchesters Universe" versions, where Cas is a professor whom I visualized a lot like Jeremy Bradshaw in Bridgewater. This Dean is younger and has been raised in the hunting life but by supportive parents, so I saw him a lot like young!Dean in SPN but softer, happier.

Then there's " '80s Universe" Cas and Dean, who have had a rougher time of things before reuniting in the story. For Cas I used some reference caps from some tv work he did pre-SPN (particularly CSI: New York) that had a look I felt fit that particular character. For Dean I was thinking about him being of the same age as Winchesters' verse Dean, but having had a harder life. (And maybe a more 80s-style look and hair!)

And then of course there are our Cas and Dean, as we saw them in Season 15 (and for Dean, in The Winchesters finale episode.) There's a particular moment in the story I had in mind for their expressions but I don't want to say too much to spoil the story.

As a final project, I was trying really hard to closely match up these different portraits so I could overlay them and make a gif morphing on into the next. You can find that gif below the cut (or wait to see it when you read the story!)

Thanks as always to @friendofcarlotta for being such a wonderful and supportive bang partner! I loved this story and I know you will, too!

[lanternlit]

smokedanced is now lanternlit

And with this I return, so excited to be writing again! Further changes...

I have moved Castiel and the Thirteenth Doctor here from their previous blogs (waywardfeathered/dochaes). If you were just followed, we were probably mutuals there! Hi! I plan to slowly follow everyone I had ongoing interactions with or asks I planned to reply to, on those blogs. Slowly, because I want to double check people's guidelines pages first. If you follow me back here, I plan to automatically reply to our things on this blog :)

I've rewritten my guidelines. The contents are mostly the same, but a lot has been reworded, and some minor things have been added or deleted, so it'd be awesome if you could give them a read. I guess this is technically optional, since they're mostly the same as before.

A few muses have been dropped. Kenna de Poitiers, Jeremy Bradshaw, Juliet Burke and Tyrion Lannister have been dropped as muses.

New muses have been added. Cas and Thirteen have been moved here from their previous blogs, and I have added Fifteenth Doctor as a muse. Jake, whom I added, um, nearly a year ago... finally has an about page, now, as well. You all get free shots to fire at me about how I had an OC among my muses for a year almost without any kind of an about page.

Some muses' stories have been altered. Namely, Mary Stuart is now a modern AU based muse, and I don't write her in Reign canon at least for the time being. Ella Finnegan has had her story altered, as well, basically the way her psychic abilities work have been changed. The latter will be easy to retcon in any ongoing interactions.

All muses have at least a dossier and a character premise page. This one is something I am proud of myself for, but also fuck, I got so frustrated trying to write the character premise pages that I can see it when I look at them, what with some of them having the most simple sentence structure and all, but I figured... better some information for my characters than none??? Everyone has something, now! Also, no more half the muses only having placeholder images on their pages! PRAISE THE ABSOL... I mean, my self-discipline. Because these past weeks I have just wanted to COME BACK AND WRITE, but I made myself have those tabs for all the characters first.

It is currently nearing 2am so pleaaaaase excuse me if this post is chaotic. Hi dash love you dash.

Lots of muses have been switched between their activity status. Current list goes:

primary muses: cas, hannibal, iris, izzy, jillian, the tardis, thirteen, will

secondary muses: edi, ed, ella, ever, garrus, lucius, mary, tali, ten

tertiary muses: charlie, clara, dean, river

test muses: chloe, eloise, fifteen, hurley, jake

Speaking of, right, Eloise has been released from "I need to rewatch Bridgerton first!" jail, and she's open for interactions sksksksksk

Guys, I don't remember what else I was meant to say.

The blog has had a bit of a makeover. Nobody look at my navigation page, the only thing I edited there so far was the colour scheme, it is outdated. I know me saying not to look is going to make people look but what can I do. Look at my muse directory and guidelines if you want to look at something, you sneaky sneaks.

The interest tracker has been updated. Chloe and Jake have been finally added on it. Cas and Thirteen have also been added on it. Fifteen has- you understand.

The tracker is the same one I've had before, but if you are interested in any of the added muses, please edit your responses. If you haven't done the tracker before, this would also be a very nice time to do it!

Going forward, I am going to go through my unaswered ooc messages and reply to people, I know there are a lot of you who have been on hold with plotting. Thank you so much for your patience. I am also going to start replying to things again, obviously. Now that my muse pages all have at least something on them, I can continue to work on them while my main focus for the blog is generally, well, roleplay. The pages being in such a state of WIP was a huge source of executive dysfunction for me.

I also plan to re-read everyone's guidelines just to make sure neither of us have edited ours so that we don't match anymore, but that'll not be done overnight with all of you.

I hope the url change isn't a huge inconvenience. If you could give this post a like, if you've seen it, that'd be awesome of you, though not at all necessary! I am genuinely very excited to be here again.

[thelaurenshippen]

You mentioned that you got excited to write the shopping montage when you "realized a certain character would be sticking around." Was the initial uncertainty around that because you weren't sure how the story was going to unfold, or because of some of the real life complications around availability and casting? Stories definitely have a life of their own, but do you feel like you've got a fairly firm plan in mind with "Bridgewater?"

bridgewater spoilers below the cut!

a little bit of both! there's always some uncertainty around what's actually going to be possible production-wise and, of course, we did end up getting alan tudyk in as thomas bradshaw because nathan fillion couldn't come back. and we all couldn't be happier about that! nathan and alan are close friends and alan is doing such a wonderful job that it all really worked out well - but there was definitely a little bit of discussion around "well, do we want to recast or do we want to write thomas off" and ultimately decided that thomas was in so little of season 1 that recasting wouldn't be super disruptive.

I tend to only very broadly plan past a first season when I'm building a show, and usually I'm only focused on, like....the themes and vibes and character growth I want. so in bridgewater's case, I didn't have a S2 plan when writing S1 beyond "here's what I want for jeremy and anne to experience", which could manifest in a whole LOT of ways (this is extremely vague I know, but obviously I can't talk about it until the whole season is out). there was a moment where I thought about jeremy and anne hearing thomas' voice at the end being a fakeout and it actually turns out to be some kind of hallucination or weird paranormal trick, but aaron and I, like, BARELY entertained that. we really wanted jeremy to have the chance to get to know his dad and I love "man out of time" stories.

anyway, long story long, I didn't necessarily even have the arc of the plot and lore of S2 mapped out when we figured out how we wanted the season to end, if that makes sense. I had really clear goals in mind for the emotional journeys that each of the characters would go on, and toyed around with a few ways of getting there before I landed on the one I ended up writing. part of why I don't plot out the specific story beats beyond a first season is because a) I'm a very character-forward writer, so whatever is going to enable the characters to have the emotional arcs I want is what I follow and b) when actors are involved you just truly never know how that's going to transform things.

for instance, I've talked about this before, but jeremy didn't swear all that much on the page in S1, but misha threw in so many swears when we were recording that the S2 scripts had way more cursing for Jeremy from the start. I loved it, I loved how misha's perspective on the character and sensibility altered the way jeremy speaks - he's funnier in S2, with a drier wit, because misha is very funny with a dry wit. it's the same thing with anne - melissa plays her hard-nosed nature so well, but she also has this absolutely incredible softness to her, that I actually wrote her calling jeremy "sweetie" or "honey" in S2 a few times (which I have a lot of squishy feelings about, I just have a lot of squishy feelings about them in general bc of the chemistry that misha and melissa have). same thing with misha and karan - they had such a playful chemistry that it was really easy and nice to lean into the real genuine love and care that vipin and jeremy have for each other (this is, like, SUCH a minor spoiler for what's coming up next, but I was just listening to this episode today, and in future episodes people refer to vipin explicitly as jeremy's best friend because like....yeah, he totally is. jeremy is a pretty loner-ish guy and even though vipin is his TA there is a genuine closeness there).

so there's that kind of stuff that can shape the emotional journeys the characters go on which of course can shake up your plot completely (if anyone listened to The Bright Sessions and has heard me talk about this specific thing before, this is exactly what happened with mark/damien - that relationship was not supposed to result in one of them falling in love and the other one, like, kind of falling back a little against his better judgment (I mean, christ, damien was like the one character that when I started writing I was like 'yeah this guy is straight' turns out VERY much no) but it turned into that because the first time andrew and charlie sat down to record together as those characters it was INSTANT sparks. some of the wildest organic chemistry I've ever experienced as a director lol).

but then there's also the fact that sometimes your actors are your direct collaborators on building the story! of course aaron is my partner in crime in building the world of bridgewater, but for S2, because misha was on board before I even started writing it, the two of us had several conversations both as I was outlining and then after all the scripts were written about who jeremy was and what we wanted for him. so I tend to keep all my plans fairly loose because I love the spontaneous collaboration that comes out of working with other people.

YEESH that was such a long winded answer, but thank you for asking!

[bridgewaterpodcast]

I saw your tweet about asks here and bolted over faster than Jeremy Thomas Bradshaw upon spotting an owl in the woods.

OKAY! first of all I just finished episode 10 and H O L Y crap; it's so good. quick question I think relating to season 2; I know it's been mentioned that it's being outlined/scripted and I was curious to know much of the story for s2 was developed already when you wrote s1 -

(not for any speculation purposes whatsoever I am absolutely not going to re-listen multiple times searching for Easter eggs and clues on what to expect next season not at all) (but should we be? are there tidbits in 1 that may have some hints for 2?)

sorry this is so ramble-y; I am still pumped full of adrenaline from that incredible finale!

congrats to you and everyone involved on the conclusion of an epic first season!

Ooooooooooh VERY good question!!! And eep! I'm so glad you loved the finale!

So, I think I can answer this in a non-spoiler-y way. There were no specific episode plot points outlined for Season 2 when I was writing Season 1. But I knew where Season 1 would end, so I knew where Season 2 would jump off from and that....informs a lot.

There are some very, very broad set-ups in Season 1 that will become relevant in Season 2. Not easter eggs per say, but more general Bridgewater Triangle stuff that's going to become relevant. Could I be more vague in answering this ask? Maybe. Maybe not.

[dotthings]

Lore was one of those podcasts I kept meaning to listen to and hadn't gotten to yet and like so many things I am now blaming Misha Collins for me starting to listen to it. I've listened to several episodes of Lore and wondering what was wrong with me I didn't listen to it sooner. It's both spooky and comforting at the same time somehow and exactly the kind of legends, lore, ghost stories I dig. And the latest episode which has the Bridgewater sneak peek is all about legends of the woods and I love spooky woods legends and do a lot of walking in the woods myself.

Anyway the sneak peek of Bridgewater is really good.

I also starting thinking about Misha as an actor and I'm so used to hearing either his Castiel voice or his being himself voice. Hearing him voice act, I'm pondering a) what a beautiful voice he has b) what a great actor he is, how he vanishes into roles.

Hello, Professor of folklore Jeremy Bradshaw.

[electromignion]

Jeremy Bradshaw commission portrait!!

Thank you so much @ailesdusoleil for this for my cat Sheeran 🫶🙏

I think this is by far my best Jeremy Bradshaw artwork representing him 😭💜

Here’s Jeremy as how I fully headcanon him as he meets an owl 💜

Thank you all for the good wishes for Sheeran, he’s finally coming home but we’re still waiting for his liver biopsy analysis to come by, fingers crossed that it’s something treatable 🤞 Once again my comms are still open as he has been hospitalised a second time for a while with transfusions, a biopsy and a lot of things which cost way too much money for two students jdjdjd so don’t hesitate!! 10€ digital or traditional for one character (+5€ per additional character on one drawing) + 7€ of shipping for trad one (4€ for France!)

[moonwest]

Full Ben Whishaw Interview in Sunday Times Magazine

Ben Whishaw, the voice of Paddington, the millennial Q in the Bond films, the next generation of Mr Banks in Disney’s epic Mary Poppins reboot, is fresh off the plane from LA. He is wearing a navy shirt, dark wool trousers and a fluffy knitted hat over his lush curls. It’s a strange combination of quirkiness and elegance. At the start of the year he won a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice award for his captivating portrayal of Norman Scott opposite Hugh Grant’s Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal. Of course he says he didn’t expect to win, and of course he says it feels great, but when I ask if this recognition from Hollywood means he’ll spend more time out there, he says: “No idea. I don’t feel it’s my world. I just sort of dropped in and it was a lovely thing. I would like to drop in more often. Maybe it opens doors. I guess we’ll see.”

For now, it’s back to the day job. Whishaw, 38, is rehearsing a play called Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, in which he plays a man who likes to dress up as Marilyn Monroe. “We just got the costumes,” he says. “I wear a dress that’s a replica of the one she wore in The Seven Year Itch — the white one where the wind comes up. They’ve also given me the bum, hips and breasts. I don’t think they’re as big as Marilyn’s, but they’re proportionate to my body. It’s a strange thing. I’m not playing Marilyn, I’m playing a man who’s infatuated with her. The play is set in the year she died and he’s in mourning for her. Apparently there was a spate of copycat suicides that year.”

To research the role, Whishaw has been reading a book called Fragments. “It’s bits of Marilyn’s diary, notes on hotel paper, poetry,” he says. “She writes beautifully. Arthur Miller was here with her when they were doing the film The Prince and the Showgirl, and she opened his diary and read about how disappointed he was with her, how embarrassed he was being around his intellectual friends with her. Apparently this was devastating to Marilyn. All these men say how difficult she was. It makes you want to strangle them. But she really was amazing. She had a lot going on, a lot of sadness on her plate, poor darling. To be a star in that star system and those men.”

If she had been born 50 years later, does he think she would have been part of the #MeToo movement? “I’m sure she would have. I’ve been listening to interviews with her. She doesn’t seem afraid of anything.”

Fearless and vulnerable. It’s a contradiction that could possibly describe both of them. “Yes,” he smiles.

Almost 15 years have passed since Whishaw, fresh out of Rada, was acclaimed as one of the best ever Hamlets in the Trevor Nunn production at the Old Vic. His portrayal earned him an Olivier nomination and opened the door to film and television roles. He voiced Michael Bond’s Peruvian stowaway bear in the two recent Paddington films and is lined up for a third, as well as an animated TV series for Nickelodeon. Perhaps his best known role is Q in the Bond films Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). As soon as he’s finished his Marilyn, he will begin shooting the next one, though no one in a Bond movie can tell you in advance what it’s going to be like. “I think they’re probably trying to figure out what to do with the storyline,” he says. “At least I know that my character is the same. Someone did tell me there might be a scene with Q’s cats.”

I immediately want to sort out an audition for my cat Roger Moore.

“Does Roger travel?” he asks. “Could he go to Pinewood? And can he cock an eyebrow?”

Yes, he can. That’s why he’s called Roger Moore.

“I’ll get onto Barbara Broccoli about it,” he says.

Whishaw has created an ever-widening niche for himself — he has made room in film, theatre and television for malleable, sensitive male characters that are sometimes described as androgynous, but what they really are is sexually ambiguous.

“Do you think I’m androgynous? I think I’m quite male-looking. Androgyny is different to non-binary, but I hate all these labels. I get mixed up.”

It’s true, there are many labels; nonetheless Whishaw is a 21st-century man. When you think of those macho actors of the last century, men like Rock Hudson, who revealed he was gay only when he was dying of Aids, it seems so different now.

Whishaw entered a civil partnership with the Australian composer Mark Bradshaw in 2012, but for a long time he did not discuss his private life. He would say things like, “An actor shouldn’t reveal their sexuality because it pigeonholes them.” Once he had come to terms with it himself, however, hiding it became difficult in a different way. “People assume there’s some juicy secret,” he says. “But I don’t agree any more with that statement [about being pigeonholed]. I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all, and since revealing my sexuality I haven’t had any negative effects.”

Perhaps that’s because he is such a skilful actor, perhaps the pigeonholes aren’t as rigid as they used to be, or perhaps the revelation has actually helped him. He shrugs. He doesn’t mind talking about it now, it’s just he can’t be conclusive.

At one point, Whishaw was lined up to play Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, although he was never given a contract or confirmed officially. Various versions of the biopic had been on the cards for about 10 years. Sacha Baron Cohen was in the frame first of all, then Whishaw, and ultimately Rami Malek. The film has been accused of not being “gay enough”, but, for all the criticism, Malek’s career-defining role won him an Oscar.

We talk about how hard it was for Mercury to admit that he was gay and how he would refer to himself as bisexual. But then perhaps he was. He certainly had sexual relationships with women. “I think it’s very unfair when people say they’re bisexual and they’re accused of being gay really,” Whishaw says. “If we’re honest about these things, perhaps most people are on a spectrum.”

Whatever the risks he took in revealing his sexuality to the public, Whishaw found it much harder coming out to his family. “I’ve gone through a few difficult things,” he says. “There was a moment in my early twenties when I did not feel very good about myself. It was to do with my sexuality and not knowing how to be myself and hating myself. I did know [my sexuality], I just couldn’t tell anyone.”

When he eventually told his parents, they weren’t surprised, but he still struggled. He sought therapy. “It really did help,” he says.

He carries himself with such a sense of otherness that I am surprised to learn he is a twin. “We were born on the same day and we came out of the same place at the same time, but we are totally unalike,” he says. “Perhaps you can see we are related, but we don’t look alike. He’s blond. He came out first and was very pink and chubby. And I was this squashed, dark thing that popped out a few moments after. We were so different, but we were always dressed the same and taken everywhere together, even to things I was not interested in, like football. So I’ve always defined myself by him, but in opposition to him. I like everything different to him. There’s not a single thing we have in common, except we both liked the scary rides if we were taken to a park.”

Don’t twins normally have a kind of supernatural understanding? “No. No understanding, no telepathy. When I told him [about being gay], he wasn’t surprised, of course, but still.”

He notices a black crystal around my neck and I explain that it was given to me by my hypnotherapist.

“I’d like to try hypnotherapy,” he says. For what? “Smoking,” he says. “It’s so frowned upon. You feel ostracised from the world if you smoke. And there’s the hair twiddling thing.” He starts twiddling his hair. “I’ve probably been doing this for the whole interview.” He hasn’t, but apparently it’s been a lifelong habit. “I’ve done it since I was a baby. I don’t know why I do it.”

I recall the title of a Peter Cook anthology: Tragically, I Was an Only Twin. That’s what Whishaw seems like. I can’t imagine him with a brother. “My dad says if my brother and I were one person we would be an amazing, perfect human,” he replies.

It’s often reported that his father works in IT, but that’s not true. “He lives in the countryside and raises chickens behind a farm. He used to be a footballer and he now works in sports with young people. He’s not an IT person at all,” Whishaw laughs. His mother works in cosmetics. They split up when he was a young boy, but he has good relationships with both of them. He talks about them with love.

The last time we met, Whishaw told me he was afraid of meeting people. “I haven’t got over that,” he says. “I love people, but I’m just shy of meeting new people, especially when they’re famous.”

In particular, he was bashful around Meryl Streep, whom he starred alongside in Mary Poppins. “I’m so completely left speechless when I’m in the same room as her. Do you never feel that speechlessness come on you?” he asks sweetly. “Even though she seemed to be the nicest person, I was very timid and shy around her.”

It’s odd how someone so shy can look so confident — smouldering even — on screen.

He walks off in the furry hat that makes him look part man, part mole. It’s certainly a statement. But perhaps the most curious thing about Whishaw is we’ll never entirely know what that statement is.

Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is showing at the Shed’s Bloomberg Building, New York, April 6-May 19; theshed.org

[bridgewaterpodcast]

Is Jeremy Bradshaw's character supposed to represent rationality towards what we don't understand or is he just a stubborn professor?

I love this question! It's a bit of both - Jeremy is definitely, by his nature, a bit of a stubborn person. But I really wanted to explore the idea that, depending on what we've experienced in our lives, or how we view ourselves and the world, we can be completely blind to stuff that is verifiably, truly happening right in front of us. And, to be honest, it's a little inspired by the way I think myself and a lot of folks might react to a supernatural happening. With a lot of the stuff that happens to Jeremy (with the exception of the HUGE BLACK DOG THAT HE THINKS HE HALLUCINATES (Jer...buddy...)), I could totally see myself rationalizing things that I'd heard or thought I'd seen. Because I don't believe in the supernatural (as much as I want to, I WANNA SEE A GHOST SO BAD), so having that worldview shifted would take something huge.

I'm just really fascinated with the natural of belief and with how to change people's minds. It's very, very hard to change someone's mind when they've built their identity around something (Jeremy, being the child of someone who went missing under mysterious circumstances and became an urban legend of sorts. Jeremy, who has dedicated his life to writing about lore as an academic interest, not something real) and I love that tension in fiction.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Kevin Wozniak on Kevflix: Most Anticipated Movies of 2020

Every year, hundreds of movie are released.  From micro-budget indies to gigantic blockbusters, the year the full of movies of all kinds from all around the world.  There are films that come out of nowhere (seriously, who saw Parasite being the movie of 2019?) which are always fun to see, and movies we have been hearing about for years finally being released.  But of the ones that I know are coming out this year, these are the ones that I am most excited for.

And look, I know we’re already almost a quarter of the way through 2020, but let’s be real, there wasn’t a lot of exciting movies coming out in January and February anyway. The only films from the first couple months that would have made this list would have been Bad Boys for Life, and possibly The Invisible Man. However, starting in March, 2020 gets really exciting, so it seemed like the perfect time to do this list.

Here are my most anticipated movies coming out in 2020.

  *NOTE* – I am excluding any film that I saw at Sundance 2020.

        25. THE LAST DANCE (Jason Hehir, June 26)

Is it cheating to have ESPN’s 10-part docuseries about the Chicago Bulls during their historic 1997-1998 season on this list?  Maybe.  But as a life-long Bulls fan, I cannot wait to see the footage they show, the insight they get, and for them to show just insane and competitive Michael Jordan was.  This should be a real treat to any sports fan.

    24. VENOM 2 (Andy Serkis, October 2)

Venom was pretty silly, but rather fun and Tom Hardy’s performance was something special.  The sequel brings in the great Woody Harrelson to play Cletus Kasady/Carnage and pits Andy Serkis behind the camera, which should add more chaos to an already wild film.

    23. SOUL (Pete Docter, June 19)

Pixar has two original movies coming out this year, Onward and Soul.  Of the two, I am more excited to see Soul, mainly because I think the story sounds more interesting – it’s about a musician who has lost his passion for music is transported out of his body and must find it back – and co-director Pete Docter has yet to have made a bad movie (his previous films include Monster’s Inc., Up, and Inside Out).

    22. GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE (Jason Reitman, July 10)

Though I was a big fan of Paul Feig’s 2016 female-led reboot, bringing back most of the original cast (R.I.P. Harold Ramis) and adding Paul Rudd in the mix could make for a great summer flick.

    21. THE ETERNALS (Chloé Zhao, November 6)

Black Widow is a near sure-thing for Marvel, but The Eternals, a relatively unknown part of Marvel with all new heroes and actors, will set the stage for the future of the MCU following the Endgame finale.

    20. THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (Michael Chaves, September 11)

I love the Conjuring franchise, particularly the Conjuring films, but with James Wan not behind the camera, I have my hesitations.

    19. GODZILLA VS KONG (Adam Wingard, November 20)

This franchise might be incredibly stupid and all over the place, but being able to see King Kong and Godzilla duke it out on the big screen will be ridiculously fun.

    18. COMING 2 AMERICA (Craig Brewer, December 18)

Between Dolemite is My Name and his hosting duties on Saturday Night Live, Eddie Murphy proved that even after a few missteps, he was still the man.  Coming 2 America is the sequel I didn’t know I needed, as Murphy reprises his role as Akeem who finds out he has a long-lost son in the United States.

    17. MULAN (Niki Caro, March 27)

Save for 2019’s The Lion King, I genuinely like the Disney live-action remakes.  Mulan looks gorgeous and epic and given the PG-13 rating (the first of these movies), looks to be a bit more intense than the animated original.

    16. NO TIME TO DIE (Cary Joji Fukunaga, November 25)

Usually I’d be more excited for a James Bond movie, but after the dud that was Spectre, I have my hesitations.  Still, Daniel Craig is one of the best Bonds ever and Fukunaga is an interesting choice for director, so I’m at the very least intrigued.

    15. A QUIET PLACE PART II (John Krasinski, March 20)

I LOVED the first film and thought John Krasinski showed a real talent behind the camera and really am excited to see what he does next in this world.  However, I wish he had focused the movie on another family or person during this bizarre invasion/crises, but we’ll see where he takes this story.

    14. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (Edgar Wright, September 25)

Genre-maestro Edgar Wright dives back into the horror genre in a film about one girl’s mysterious journey into the 1960’s that isn’t what it seems.  Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie lead the cast.

    13. THE SOUVENIR: PART II

Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, a powerful, beautiful look at love, trauma, and memory, was one of my favorite films of 2019 and a film I still think about to this day.  I cannot wait to see what Hogg does with Part II, as this is one of my most anticipated sequels of the year.

    12. MALIGNANT (James Wan, August 14)

The plot is unknown as of yet, but it’s an original James Wan horror movie and that is all I need to see this movie.

    11. DUNE (Denis Villeneuve, December 18)

I love Denis Villeneuve as a director and am always excited for any project he is a part of.  However, with such a big cast, budget, and the general idea of a Dune movie at this scale, is this going to be a “good” movie or just the “most” movie?

    10. THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (Aaron Sorkin, October 2)

Any Aaron Sorkin screenplay gets me excited.  Even though it is the same in every movie, I am a sucker for the pacing and density of his words.  With 2017’s Molly’s Game, Sorkin proved that we was great behind the camera as well.  Having written A Few Good Men (one of the best courtroom dramas ever), The Trial of the Chicago 7 looks to be right up Sorkin’s alley, and with the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Strong, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, and Sacha Baron Cohen, and Mark Rylance reciting his dialog, this seems like it could be a Sorkin classic.

    9. F9 (Justin Lin, May 22)

The Fast and Furious franchise is one of my favorites.  It is an utterly insane franchise that features ridiculous stunts, gigantic set pieces, some racing, and the theme of family.  I don’t know what F9 has in store for us except for Charlize Theron is back as our villain Cipher, John Cena is in the film as Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) brother, and Han (Sung Kang) is back some how.  Whatever.  I’m in.

    8. NOMADLAND (Chloé Zhao, TBD)

The fact that we could get two films from the great Chloe Zhao in 2020 gives us a brief insight as to how great 2020 is going to be.  Though Eternals will arguably be the movie that shapes the MCU for the next decade, I’m more looking forward to Zhao’s look at woman (two-time Oscar winner Francis McDormand) as she embarks across the American West after losing everything in the Great Recession.

    7. THE FRENCH DISPATCH (Wes Anderson, July 24)

Wes Anderson is one of the best and most unique auteurs working today.  All of his movies are wildly original, wonderfully written, gorgeous to look at, and feature a stellar cast and The French Dispatch looks to have all of that and then some.

    6. TOP GUN: MAVERICK (Christopher McQuarrie, June 26)

Tom Cruise is one of my favorite actors and his partnership with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has been one of his best career choices.  Their latest collaboration pits Cruise back in the cockpit (literally) as he reprises his legendary role as Maverick in this sequel to the 80’s classic Top Gun.  Val Kilmer returns as Iceman and we get a slew of new cast members such as Glen Powell, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Miles Teller as Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, the son of Maverick’s late-friend Goose.  I’m most interested in the meta-narrative of the film, as Maverick’s career in the Navy seems to replicate Cruise’s as a movie-star, which has been a fascinating one.

    5. WONDER WOMAN 1984 (Patty Jenkins, June 5)

Does the DCEU still exist?  Who knows and honestly, who care?  But back in 2017 when it was in full swing and doing miserably, Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins came and shook the game up.  Wonder Woman is one of my favorite comic book movies ever  It was a thrilling, funny, action-packed film that features one of the greatest superhero moments ever on camera with the “No Man’s Land” scene.  There has only been one teaser for Wonder Woman 1984 and it already looks incredible.  Gadot looks great, Chris Pine is back, Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal are the villains, and every visual esthetic, from the costumes to the sets to the color pallet look great.  Oh, and did I mention Wonder Woman swings from lightning bolts using her lasso?  No?  Well that, and I’m sure many more exciting moments like that are going to happen in my most anticipated comic book movie and sequel of 2020.

    4. WEST SIDE STORY (Steven Spielberg, December 18)

This is the most interesting and weirdest film on the list, yet it is one I genuinely cannot wait to see.  Everyone knows West Side Story, the legendary Romeo and Juliet reimagining about two lovers from rival gangs that won numerous awards for its stage play and ten Oscars when it was adapted to the big screen.  The fact that this latest adaptation is directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner is what makes it intriguing.  Spielberg has never made a musical and his films of late have been quieter, politically-focused films (save for The BFG and Ready Player One).  How will he fare in an adaptation of one of the most beloved plays of all-time and one of the greatest cinematic musicals ever?  Spielberg is a master director, so this is bound to be interesting.

    3. DA 5 BLOODS (Spike Lee, TBD)

For a while there, I thought Spike Lee had lost it.  Having not made a great movie since 2002’s 25th Hour, it looked like Lee had lost all of his creative spark, making some of the worst movies of his career.  But with 2017’s BlackKklansman, writer/director Spike Lee proved that he still had the goods and that he was just as great as he was in 90’s.  Da 5 Bloods, a title I love, Lee heads to the jungle of Vietnam, as veterans from the Vietnam War return to the jungle to find their lost innocence.  Starring Chadwick Boseman, Paul Walter Hauser, and a slew of great character actors in Delroy Lindo, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Clarke Peters, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jean Reno, let’s see is Lee can keep his streak alive.

    2. MANK (David Fincher, TBD)

It’s been seven years since David Fincher directed a feature film.  The Oscar-nominated director spend that back-half of the 2010’s focusing on producing Netflix shows like Mindhunter, House of Cards, and Love,Death, & Robots, so at least he was staying busy.  Director’s latest cinematic venture follows screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz’s tumultuous development of Orson Welles’ iconic masterpiece Citizen Kane.  The great Gary Oldman stars and Mankiewicz and Tom Burke, who gave one of the great breakout performances of 2019 in The Souvenir, stars as Welles in a performance I cannot wait to see.  It’s one of my favorite directors making a movie about one of the greatest movies ever made.  How can I not be excited?

    1. TENET (Christopher Nolan, July 17)

Is Christopher Nolan the best director working today?  There’s a strong case for it.  After a decade that saw Nolan make films like Inception, Interstellar, and Dunkirk, he’s back with yet another original action epic.  The plot of the film is unknown as of yet, but it has something to do with globe trotting espionage and time travel.  The cast is Nolan’s most impressive since Inception, featuring spectacular actors such as John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, and Nolan’s favorite, Michael Caine.  Nobody makes movies like Christopher Nolan.  Every film he makes is an event and in a year with no Star Wars and a mysterious Marvel slate, Tenet is the cinematic event of 2020 and the perfect way to start the decade.

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[warninggraphiccontent]

17 May 2019

A veritable smorgasbord

A busy week - and now rushing to finish this before helping deliver a full day of data training to new joiners to the IfG (those charts don't appear by magic, you know - and in the unlikely event any government ministers are thinking of resigning, we'd be grateful if you could leave it until next week, thx). So below is a random medley of thoughts:

Strong line-up of sporting visualisation this week. Complementing that is this fantastic piece on how football has changed, which Tom sent me. Lots of numbers, but no charts, but we'll forgive that given how good it is.

Giuseppe was kind enough to include some of my sports viz in his newsletter this week (you've already subscribed, yes?). That was one of two shout-outs - the other was to this chart which I think tells a lot of stories from the brilliant Devolution at 20 report

I had a great, putting-the-data-world-to-rights conversation with Mike. He's since written this retrospective on working on Open Defra, the quest to publish loads of datasets and change the culture of an organisation

Put Tuesday 4 June in your diary for the next Data Bites event (first one here, second here). Invitations going out very soon - it'll be another great evening

Keep in touch with the future technology project I'm working on at the IfG via our weeknotes here.

Also, I can't believe it's been the best part of fifteen years since Jeremy Paxman used the phrase in today's headline. Time flies.

Thanks for reading!

Gavin

Today's links:

Graphic content

A d'Hondting prospect

A really simple guide to the European elections (BBC News)

European Elections (Politico)

European elections: your guide to the vote you never expected (The Guardian)

European Parliament elections in the UK (IfG)

Nothing has changed

Prime ministerial tenure (me for IfG)

Conservative Party leadership contests – how do they work? (Institute for Government)

How do Conservative Party members rank prospective leadership candidates? A small-scale experiment (David Jeffery)

Sport

THE GROWING GAP BETWEEN THE PREMIERSHIP'S TOP SIX AND THE REST (Gwilym Lockwood)

Premier League endgame: the data behind an historic title race (The Guardian)

Why Liverpool and Manchester City have blown away football rivals* (FT)

Tennis star Naomi Osaka: ‘I let it get to my head a little bit’* (FT)

Maps

The essential lies in news maps (Maarten Lambrechts for DataJournalism.com)

I've put together a new visualization of population density in US cities that is really fun to explore (Garrett Dash Nelson)

findmystreet.co.uk (GeoPlace)

We wanted to share the story of #Scotland's land register completion in a different way (Registers of Scotland)

Somewhat obsessed by these two graphics in Andy Haldane's most recent speech (via Peter Thal Larsen, via Maddy)

Surveys

Hello (govt) #dataviz people. Can you recommend good training, tools and resources for making forays into visualising data? (thread started by Prateek Buch)

Data Visualization Community Survey 2019

Everything else

A Staggering Number of Candidates Are Running for U.S. President*(Bloomberg)

Abortion Bans: How State Laws Have Limited the Procedure This Year*(New York Times)

World Population Growth (Our World in Data)

The global population pyramid: How global demography has changed and what we can expect for the 21st century (Our World in Data)

The IFS Deaton Review (IFS)

Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime?(The Marshall Project)

How foreign groups fare in China’s slowing two-track economy* (FT)

Tech's billionaires have take over the world's rich list* (Telegraph)

We'll Have What They're Having: World Diets (National Geographic)

The lifespans of ancient civilisations (BBC Future, via Dan)

Going Critical (Kevin Simler)

Meta data

Digital government

Verify problems highlight four challenges for digital projects (me, for IfG)

Fix the finances, transform the organisation (Public Digital)

Streamlined GDS service standard removes need for ministerial tests (Civil Service World)

Smart waste tracking challenge: are we any closer to solutions? (Defra Digital)

How do you design permissions worth trusting? (Sarah Gold, IF)

Appointments

Leading experts appointed to AI Council to supercharge the UK’s artificial intelligence sector (Office for AI/BEIS/DCMS)

Carly Kind appointed Director of the Ada Lovelace Institute (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Wanted: A new national statistician to restore the public’s faith in data(Hetan Shah for City AM)

Openness

A Belated OpenDefra Retro… (Mike Rose)

UK IRM Researcher Reflects on the UK End-of-Term Report for 2016-18 NAP (Ben Worthy for Open Government Network)

Are you a #journalist reporting on the UK? Please, share your experience with #FOI requests and #government #data (Maria Zuffova, via Dan)

Government response to the ICO's report, Outsourcing Oversight?

Jobs

JOB: Data Insights Manager (Good Things Foundation)

JOBS: Anyone want an exciting opportunity to work across government, transforming how we manage & use information, making government better? (Glyn Jones, Cabinet Office)

Tech

It's not enough to break up Big Tech. We need to imagine a better alternative (Evgeny Morozov for The Guardian)

'It was an experiment': Alexander Nix on Cambridge Analytica, Brexit and Trump* (The Spectator)

Technology Is as Biased as Its Makers (Longreads)

People, Power and Technology: The Tech Workers' View (Doteveryone)

The automation delusion: why robots aren’t the biggest threat to your job(New Statesman America)

SWARMS OF DRONES, PILOTED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, MAY SOON PATROL EUROPE’S BORDERS (The Intercept, via Lewis)

Tech workers organize protest against Palantir on the GitHub coding platform (Fast Company)

Everything else

Data trail* (Tortoise, via Hannah)

Increased demand in the data science job market (ONS Data Science Campus)

‘We’re not leaving this bar until we’ve come up with such a great idea that I can’t sack you” (an old one but a good one - Tony Ageh)

From making data physical to giving journalists confidence (and a few other things too): Data Journalism UK 2019 (Paul Bradshaw)

San Francisco is first US city to ban facial recognition (BBC News)

Exclusive: MPs Step Up Fight Against 'Dodgy Data And Dirty Money' In UK Elections (Huffington Post, via Dan)

What is a ‘data state of mind’? And how you can develop it(DataJournalism.com)

Is data the new oil? (Health Foundation)

And finally...

Eurovision

The Eurosearch Song Contest 2019 (Google News Initiative)

Brits want to leave Eurovision... by [go on, have a guess what the result was] (YouGov)

Food and drink

Walking distance to the nearest pub (r/dataisbeautiful)

America’s avocado supply is set to tighten* (The Economist)

Everything else

Men speaking vs women speaking (Sue Montgomery, via Martin)

This AI 'solves' Super Mario Bros. and other classic NES games (Wired)

I loved @buildbrewtopia's map of parking so much that I've... erm… extended it to the whole... of Great Britain (Tom Forth)

8 things we learned from this map of the highest point in every county in England (CityMetric)

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog (J Wolfgang Goerlich)

Women's heights, worldwide - and also... (@callin_bull, via Dan andMarcus)

Unraveling the JPEG (Parametric Press, via in other news)

[nearmidnightannex]

Parallax views

Black Men Loving Black Men Is A Revolutionary Act ”by Darnell L. Moore (newnownext.com)

...I love black men on purpose because black men like my dad and Dae loved me out of the haze of lovelessness I learned to wade through; they’ve loved me back to life by seeing in me parts of themselves. And that is the type of love that costs the giver something, our relinquishing to the fact of our own worth in a society that tries to bankrupt our spirits before deposits of love are made.           Sometimes I want to ask white gay couples if they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time brushing off the toxic residue left over from daily anti-black racist aggressions, incessant forms of mundane disrespect, everyday demands to be what one is not, daily performances of innocence to keep oneself from being shot dead by law enforcement or racist vigilantes in our hoods, the tight cage of masculinity, and the agile movements one must make when averting the gaze through which black men are viewed before they kiss, hold one another close, whisper beautiful sentiments or fuck each night...           [...] Black men loving black men is, as the deceased black gay writer Joseph Beam opined in the 1980s, a “revolutionary act” because every moment a black man is transgressive enough to love what he has been socialized to hate he commits an act of insurgency.

Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Not Dating Other Black Men Apparently, as a black man, I owe it to myself and to black men everywhere to date inside my race only. by Jeremy Helligar, Contributor (huffingtonpost.com)

...  Of all the things I would change about myself if I could, being gay and being black are not two of them. I consider both to be badges of honor. They’ve made me who I am, and I couldn’t love me more. That said, there are nights when I go to bed and dream of waking up the next morning and experiencing 24 hours in which my race isn’t a factor in pretty much every aspect of my gay life, from who hits on me to who doesn’t...            [...] I’ve been loudly critical of people who adopt hierarchies of skin color and those who banish entire races and ethnicities from their dating and sexing pool. I stand by everything I’ve written. But that’s different from telling people what color their boyfriends should be. Boyfriend shaming wasn’t cool when Carrie Bradshaw’s therapist did it (in the Sex and the City episode where the heroine hooked up with a hunk who looked a lot like Jon Bon Jovi), or when the sister of Samantha Jones’s black beau did it (revisit her tirade in the video below), and it’s even more infuriating when total strangers do it.           For the record, ruling in or ruling out someone based solely on race and putting it in writing on Grindr, or wherever, is racist. So is telling a black man that he’s less of a person and full of self-hatred because he’s not dating other black men....

On Being Black, ‘Woke,’ And Dating White People Does dating a white person really make someone “less black”? By Zeba Blay (huffingtonpost.com)

Once upon a time, Barack Obama dated a white girl. But he didn’t just date her ― he wanted to marry her, and proposed to her, twice, before her disapproving parents reportedly put an end to the relationship.           When details of this story came out last week, some outlets reported it with the thinly-veiled implication that Obama, so beloved for having married an exceptional black woman like Michelle Obama, had some kind of dirty secret. He hadn’t always been Michelle’s ride-or-die.           Indeed, according to the biography Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama written by David Garrow, Obama let go of his white woman (who was  actually a half Dutch and half Japanese woman named Sheila Miyoshi Jagger) for a calculated reason ― he knew that in order to become president one day, to be credibly black, he had to be married to a black woman.           That Obama, the first black president of the United States, allegedly felt that a non-black partner would be a liability to his political career says a lot about the way we view black leaders, activists, public figures and those who they choose to date....

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Jeremy Bradshaw portrait 🫶

I missed drawing him and I had not drawn him this way with alcohol markers yet so here you go, I needed to have him drawn this way, he’s my comfort character after all 😭🫶

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Jeremy, Vipin and Olivia’s pizza night!

I really wanted to draw our favourite squad today so here we go!! I had not drawn like this since a while and I missed it a lot <3

I like to imagine they often do various stuff together as a bestie group and this time Vip and Liv suggested to Jeremy to come over to chill, maybe play some tabletop games and to discuss about whatever they want. So Jeremy decided to bring pizzas!!

Inspired by this reference pic from @draw-the-squad-like-this !!

Tag yourself, I’m Vipin being overjoyed at the sight of pizzas (and probably by the smell of pizzas too jdjdjdj)

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My Little Pony: Bridgewater is Magic

This is what happens when I have my specific interests making crossovers in my mind: you end up with myself asking to myself: what would the Bridgewater characters look like if they were ponies? So here you go with our mane 3: Olivia Hoskins, Vipin Khurana and Jeremy Bradshaw! Nobody asked for them but my own silly brain but here they are 🙏

I spent a good amount of research time for them not gonna lie especially as it is the first time I draw ponies ever!!

After the read more a close up of the ponies and a few explanations:

I forgot to take a pic of Jeremy when I put the white hair of beard on him sorry! So the brown scheme is because I picture him with his brown corduroy coat, the hair going grey, with his glasses. The bag with his usual pins of course, and also his cutie mark is a reminder of him since he was a foal, trying to seek for the truth through research hence the bulb lighting up on the written paperwork! And a unicorn because he kinda believes in magic although he doesn’t so I don’t think he would use much his power at least at first!

Our best earth pony: Vipin!! Red is for his hoodie, my brain is simple, he has a bag too because Jeremy’s TA with the matching pin, and the sunflower cutie mark is because he’s that sunshine person with everybody, happy to help and just here with a lot of joy and optimism! However I do feel like he had unicorn ancestry so as Pinkie Pie he’d have that kind of Pinkie sense which saved the trio quite a lot

Then here’s Olivia!! Purple colour because I think it’s her fave colour, and the hair represents the hair I headcanon her with. The cutie mark is a heart in three parts because it shows how caring and loving she is, the outer heart is for anypony, the second heart is for her family and friends, and the inner heart is for herself because she learnt to love herself <3 and she is a fashion icon hence the piercings and makeup 🫶

I chose her to be a Pegasus because of that thought I had (do not read it if you’re not done with Bridgewater and that you understand MLP ways of pony genetics although it might be off slightly)

I hope you enjoyed!!! Thank you for bearing with my brain <3