#Professional comedians wished they had what I have

[findingtheperfectcharacter]

It’s way too late or early for me to be the funniest person in this room but here I am.

[ham1lton]

my favourite interviewer.

pairings: lando norris x fellow driver’s sister/reader

warnings: jokes about adoption. mentions of bigotry but in reference to o/s’s experiences.

summary: the one where you interview your sister and your boyfriend. also part of the nepo!sister universe.

author’s note: i love nepo!sis/y/n. expect to see her more. also these interviews are quite short so imagine they’re longer and these are snippets. y/n is a better interviewer than i made her out to be 😔����

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liked by vogue, yourusername and 1,827,668 others.

oldersister: check out my photoshoot for vogue! and my following interview with my younger sister yourusername. it was definitely… interesting. link in bio <3.

view all comments

user1: my favourite sisters made another appearance again!!

yourusername: DON’T! work with o/s! such a DIVA! rude as hell…..

-> oldersister: is this because i said pink wasn’t your colour?

-> yourusername: ALL COLOURS ARE MY COLOUR !! 😡

user2: y/n is so funny throughout this entire interview. a natural comedian.

user5: o/s saying that people don’t take her seriously as a driver is crazy!! she’s a two time champion!! what more does she need to do?

-> user6: it’s nothing that she needs to do. there really isn’t anything she can do to change their minds. it’s bigotry.

user3: o/s is so pretty. full time f1 driver and part-time model.

-> user4: one thing about her, lewis and zhou is that they’re all gonna serve looks and face. holy trinity.

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liked by yourusername, gq and 1,223,378 others.

landonorris: thank u gq for letting me cover ur magazine and thank u to my gorgeous interviewer for taking the time out of her day to interview me. btw… are you single 😍

view all comments

user5: this was so cute!! i love their dynamic.

yourusername: no i’m not single. i have a bf. be professional please.

-> landonorris: ain’t nobody care about him queen. i bet you i could beat his ass 😍

-> user1: i wish i had this confidence.

-> landonorris: leave me alone 😭😭🖕🏼

-> user2: poor lando. getting dragged by his fans, his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s fans and his girlfriend’s sister’s fans😭😭 rip bro 💔😔

-> yourusername: he’s fine y’all. please don’t call paw patrol.

user3: lando saying y/n was his favourite person regardless of what she does 🥺🥺

-> user4: when he cussed out y/n for calling herself boring 😭 he said that’s my gf don’t be disrespectful.

user7: y/n finessing a free lunch and dinner out of her boyfriend and her sister was my favourite part. yass queen 😍 take from the rich.

*liked by yourusername*

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MY NIGHT WITH O/S L/N.

by y/n l/n.

It’s the end of O/S’s Vogue’s shoot. She’s dressed in a black form-fitting silk suit with a pair of pale pink heels. I always knew that my sister was famous but seeing her in the middle of such magnitude truly reinforces that she is not just my older sister anymore. She’s bigger than that. We decide to duck behind the busy shoot into a side room to start our interview.

THURSDAY, PARIS, 11:34PM.

Y/N: Did you expect that I’d be the one interviewing you?

O/S L/N: Honestly? No! I’m happy though to see a familiar face. Pleasant surprise.

Y/N: I’m not gonna hold back on the questions though just because you’re my sister. I need you to know that.

O/S: Wouldn’t expect you to.

Y/N: Just for the record, she’s wearing my lipstick. I told her she’d look cute in it and she refused to listen to me.

O/S: I didn’t expect it to look so cute on me. I don’t wear super bright lipsticks, it’s a orangey-red shade for the people who can’t see it. I got the makeup team to source it for me and tried it on and perhaps… you were right. It’s grown on me.

Y/N: I’m always right.

O/S: Always is an understatement but … you have your moments.

Y/N: So, what would you say it’s like being the only female F1 driver?

O/S: A very unique position to be in. I’m lucky to have such a good support system in place. Y’know? Mom, Dad, my team and you.

Y/N: It’s a lot of pressure isn’t it?

O/S: Yes. As any high profile job is.

Y/N: How do you find the pressure when it comes to being a role model for younger girls?

O/S: It’s a responsibility I take very seriously. I think it’s so important to encourage young children, especially girls, to follow their dreams and help to provide avenues to make them accessible. I would love to see younger generations of drivers that come from a diverse array of backgrounds be in Formula One.

Y/N: Remember when you were younger and you’d go go-karting?

O/S: Yes.

Y/N: Dad would always make me come and watch you. It was so boring but he’d always get us ice cream afterwards if you’d won. That’s why I always rooted for you.

O/S: Says it all really.

Y/N: I was always a tennis fan. Maybe a little basketball or football. Dad used to joke that maybe you were the adopted one because no one else in the family knew about motorsports before you.

O/S: He still does! I found out about F1 at my school library at the age of like nine and begged Dad to take me. I’m very lucky that not only did we have the funds at the time but parents that supported us. He used to drive me everywhere. He still does drive me to the Grand Prix sometimes.

Y/N: Funny how little traditions stick with us, huh? Remember when you started making real money and would take us out for dinner after every win?

O/S: I was so excited that I had the money to treat you all.

Y/N: Definitely. What was the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far in your career?

O/S: It’ll sound trivial but… probably being taken seriously.

Y/N: What do you mean by that?

O/S: As a lot of women in male-dominated spaces might face, it’s hard to overcome the biases against my abilities. People said for a long time that I was only here because of diversity quotas.

Y/N: Even when you won?

O/S: Especially when I won. I like to prove people wrong. I’ve spent my whole career doing just that. I just wish it wasn’t so constant and tiring. I’m just doing my job but because of my womanhood and my blackness, it is immediately viewed as political. Overcoming the preconceptions has become a huge part of my journey.

Y/N: That’s annoying as fuck. I’ve seen it first hand too. You’re an incredible driver. I know I joke around with you and take the piss out of you but genuinely you do inspire me. I might not be racing cars anytime soon but I’ll always be your biggest fan.

O/S: Thanks Y/N. That means so much to me.

Y/N: Now onto the juicier stories. Who are you dating? For the readers who mightn’t know your personal life, I’ll spell it oit for them.

O/S: Oh No…

Y/N: You started off by dating your childhood sweetheart, Clark Jones, and then dated actor Paul Elordi.

O/S: I did. I am single now, as you’re aware.

Y/N: And she won’t let me set her up with anyone!

O/S: Just because you’re happy in monogamous bliss doesn’t mean the rest of us wanna be.

Y/N: Thanks for letting me interview you today O/S, it was definitely the best part of my day.

O/S: You were very good. I enjoyed the questions. Five stars.

Y/N: Wanna go out to eat? Your treat.

O/S: Of course, let me change into something more comfortable. These heels are gorgeous but they are killing me.

END OF INTERVIEW.

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MY MORNING WITH LANDO NORRIS.

by y/n l/n.

TUESDAY, LONDON, 10:34AM.

I was told to pretend to be professional and that I didn’t spend the night with my boyfriend so I left the room at around 7am just so that I could knock on the door again later in my interviewer mode. It’s the night after his photoshoot for an energy drink. Lando opens the door in a plain black tee, a hoodie wrapped around his waist and tracksuit bottoms. He isn’t wearing shoes. He lets me in and I sit on the sofa. We start the interview.

Y/N: Good Morning. Should we start the interview?

LANDO NORRIS: I’m ready whenever you are.

Y/N: I told O/S this but just because we know each other, don’t expect me to hold back on the questions. Don’t expect any special treatment just because I am your girlfriend.

LANDO: Wouldn’t dream of it.

Y/N: Alright, let’s get started. How did you feel about yesterday’s photoshoot?

LANDO: Tried something new and I think it turned out well. Got some cool shots. The energy was great and the team was incredible. It was a fun shoot. Couldn’t complain.

Y/N: Do you think you’re a better racer or model?

LANDO: I’d like to say model but I’d have to say racer.

Y/N: I think you could be a model.

LANDO: Even though you’re biased. I’ll accept that.

Y/N: Not biased at all actually. I’m here as Interviewer Y/N, not as your girlfriend Y/N.

LANDO: Wait. Can I flirt with Interviewer Y/N?

Y/N: No.

LANDO: Boooo!

Y/N: Let’s switch gears, what do you like to do when you’re unwinding?

LANDO: Well, Usually I’d say spending time with you but you’re not my girlfriend soo… I’m going to say streaming with my friends and playing video games. Also watching my girlfriend’s favourite reality shows.

Y/N: You’re a Teen Mom UK fan? And a Real Housewives fan? I thought you didn’t to like them.

LANDO: It’s part of the boyfriend playbook. Pretend you’re bored with those sorts of shows but secretly, you’re incredibly into it. I have to keep up with your interests somehow and I picked the most interesting ones.

Y/N: I don’t blame you. Alright, one more question before I go back to being boring girlfriend Y/N and I have to give back this super cool voice recorder.

LANDO: Girlfriend Y/N isn’t boring to me. She’s actually my favourite person. Don’t talk shit about my girl.

Y/N: Fine. She’s not boring. She’s just less of a technophile.

LANDO: I’ll accept that.

Y/N: My last question is what’s your favourite thing about driving for Formula One?

LANDO: Besides the thrill of racing? And the part where I’m living my childhood dream? Definitely the fans. Their support and energy help fuel me on the track. Plus, I get to travel the world while doing what I love. I think that’s the ideal world for a lot of people. I’m very lucky.

Y/N: I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for letting me ask you those questions. Now, time for me to go back to the girlfriend version of me.

LANDO: Don’t sell yourself short. You’re always my favourite person regardless of what version you are.

Y/N: Flattery will get you everywhere, won’t it?

LANDO: Hey! It’s not flattery if it’s the truth.

Y/N: Guess you’re not just a pretty face huh. Don’t worry, I’ll keep our reality television show marathons a secret between me, you and all the millions of GQ magazine readers.

LANDO: You’re an angel. Lunch?

Y/N: Only if you’re paying.

LANDO: Always.

END OF INTERVIEW.

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[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Hey, you know what it's been a while since I've done? Made a post with pointlessly niche details about the Chocolate Milk Gang-era stand-up circuit! It's been, like, three weeks.

So here's one. I listened today to Steve Hall's episode of the Angel Comedy podcast, which I quite enjoyed. I've wished for some time that he'd done an episode of ComComPod, but since he hasn't, this is pretty much the next best thing. Gave me what I wanted out of Steve Hall on ComComPod - him talking for an hour about how he got into comedy, and how his career took the turns that it did.

I like Steve Hall a weird amount for a guy I don't know that much about, because he did four episodes of Kitson's late-night Melbourne radio show in 2007-2008, and I love those. I love all the Kitson radio shows, especially the ones from the era, but the Steve Hall episodes are among my top favourites. He's so intensely likeable in them, even while frequently being abrasive. His abrasiveness is very likeable.

Last year I watched the entire We Are Klang sitcom just because I wanted to see more Steve Hall, and it was... I mean, some bits were funny. It showcased enough so that I could see why We Are Klang were such a popular live act, if I imagine what it would be like to take that sitcom's energy, and put it in a less constrained environment. As it was, I was rather pleased to hear Steve, in this podcast episode, acknowledge that it wasn't really that good a sitcom. It wasn't. But I still liked watching it.

Steve Hall also mentioned in that podcast, recorded in 2021, that We Are Klang filmed one of their live shows in the mid-00s, but never released it, and he was trying to get it released all these years later. I guess it never happened because there still isn't any full-length recording of a live Klang show, which is quite disappointing. There are a bunch of videos on YouTube of individual songs and sketches that they've done, many of which I find very funny, none of which I want to share on Tumblr due to some of the content. And a bootleg I have from Late 'n' Live in 2007 where Klang did a great set and Andy Zaltzman subbed in for Marek Larwood, and it's one of my favourite recordings of anything, ever.

Anyway, I knew that after that Steve Hall went and wrote for Russell Howard's TV shows for years. And I think I said recently that I thought he doesn't perform anymore, but I don't know why I thought that, and shortly after I wrote that I learned that he's currently opening for Frank Skinner on tour. So he's still performing and doing fine. I mean, I wouldn't want to have to spend that much time with Frank Skinner. Last year I listened to a couple of recent-ish episodes of Frank Skinner's radio show, just because Steve Hall was on them and I wanted more of this strange man on the radio, but I could hardly get through it because I find Frank Skinner so insufferable. But I hope everyone's having a good time.

Anyway. This interview was a Steve Hall who's fairly different from the one on those mid-00s Melbourne radio shows; he doesn't exude quite as much air of intense self-loathing as he did back then, perhaps because this time he wasn't doing the recording right after being left by his girlfriend. Kitson did catch him at an interesting time in those first couple of radio episodes, it's one of the least professional performances I've ever heard in broadcasted media (and fair enough, if the great comedian Psister Psycho had left me, I'd pretty upset about that too).

But in this 2021 interview, he does have the same sort of disarming candour that I liked about him from 2007, even if the stuff he has to be candid about is a bit more reasonable/less intense. He sounds honest, and thoughtful, and analytical, and that's really nice in a podcast like this.

And, obviously I liked hearing a summary of the last couple of decades of British stand-up from Steve Hall's perspective, because there's lots of Chocolate Milk Gang-era stuff in there. I cut out a couple of clips that had specific CMG references in them, the second of which is a story about Rhod Gilbert that I found very funny:

The whole episode's full of stories like that, covering the very specific niche that is my fixation: the CMG-era British stand-up circuit. It's interesting to me what he said about the student gig circuit, because I know that's where most of the CMG comedians go their start/met each other, but I'd not heard someone explain in as much detail as Steve Hall did there, why that circuit mattered.

All right, this has been my extremely niche celebrity gossip post of the day. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[viktheviking1]

Minor Spoilers for Season 2 episode 6 (Mostly it just wouldn't make sense without context)

In the dimly lit corner booth of the bar that stank of lost hopes and dreams.

"What ever happened to your quieves? Were they released into the wild to become sewer rats? Because I don't think those pampered pups would survive-"

"They're fine." Fizz interrupted then chuckled, "When Ozzie and I got back to our room, they were there waiting. Practically tackled us to the floor with kisses."

He scrolled through his phone to show Blitz pictures, "The limo driver scooped them up while we were having our fistfight in the street. And I'm sure glad too, because while most of them are tough, this white one is Precious, and she needs her Daddy most of all."

Blitz was surprised to see Fizz gush proudly over the little creature, but was happy to see this side of his friend again, "D*mn, I wish my daughter needed me. I can't even get her to call me Dad most of the time."

"Dad? You in a kinky relationship or some sh*t?” Fizzarolli raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, right.” Blitz smiled and started his own proud dad rant, “No, I actually adopted a kid!”

He pulled out his phone to show his own pictures and began rambling, “Her name’s Loona, she’s 22, and a bit emo. Or was it goth? Anyway, she’s working with me at the I.M.P. Oh, right. That’s the company I started. It stands for Immediate Murder Professionals. We kill people for sinners who still have revenge to get on the surface. Loona’s also pretty d*mn good at tearing humans to shreds, if I do say so myself. But most of the time she’s our wonderful receptionist who is very good at her job even if she starts fights with half of our clients. Most of them deserve it, anyway.”

“Wow . . . A lot can happen in 15 years, huh?” Fizz said, handing back the phone.

“Uh, yeah . . . I guess it does. And that isn’t even the half of it! I went to prison, and broke out.” Blitz winked. 

“No f**king way! Are you sh*tting me? We were supposed to do that together! I gotta hear this.” Fizz rested his face in his hands, ready to listen.

A couple hours later, stumbling out of the bar came Blitz and Fizz had their arms around each other together as they made their way over to Blitz’s van, tipsy and trying to steady themselves.

“And then I said, ‘What family?’”Blitz said and they both cry-laughed together.

“You absolute little sh*t.” Fizz laughed, “And you said you weren’t a comedian anymore.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a special brand of humor I suppose. Only us circus f**kers really get it.”

“Buckzo would be so ashamed.” Fizz snorted.

Blitz guffawed, “Good!”

Fizz caught his breath and turned to Blitz, "You know, I haven't had such a good time since Ozzie took me to a rock concert with 8 dozen cans of silly string." He wiped a happy tear from his eye, "We should do this again sometime."

Blitz couldn't believe what he was hearing. Only one thing could make this better. He looked around and saw the street was entirely devoid of people.

Too drunk to think clearly, he smirked and pinned Fizz against the side of the van, "Ya know, the night doesn't have to end here. I could take you back to my place, or we could go to yours? I wouldn't mind some quality time with you and the Misses."

Fizzarolli felt a tail curl around his inner thigh, "I- uh- . . ."

"Come on, Fizzy~" Blitz cooed in his ear, "Show me some of what you've learned in the lust ring."

Fizz swallowed and tried not to shudder as he felt Blitz's tongue on his neck, "I'm not sure if-"

Blitz slid his tongue across Fizzarolli's sharp teeth. He felt Fizz melt in his hands and he loosened his grip on the jester's wrists. Fizz's metal arms wrapped around Blitz, pulling him in. Blitz let his hands wander; one found its way to Fizzy's lower back while the other held his chin. He pulled back a little, and looked into Fizzy's eyes. They both stared deeply into each other, intoxicated by the nostalgic scent of an old friend, and the taste of old feelings on their tongues.

"I've missed you so much." Blitz finally let himself say.

"Yeah," Fizz interlocked his mechanical fingers with Blitz's and smiled, "Me too."

Fizz leaned in and kissed him again.

_________________________

Read more here:

[wickedsrest-rp]

Name: Jazmine "Jazz" Markham Species: Human (Non-powered) Occupation: Scribe Age: 29 Years Old Played By: Meek Face Claim: LaKeith Stanfield

"No, I don't take this seriously at all. What’s your point?."

TW: Racism

“Jazz” was born in a small Texas town in the early 90’s to a prizefighter for a father and an accountant for a Mother. His parents divorced as he was still breastfeeding and he lived with his mother. He never knew any different so not having his father around didn’t bother him much.   He is the great-grandson of comedian “Pigmeat” Markham. The legacy of Pigmeat was… “controversial” to say the least. It was a legacy that Jazz wished he could forget about. But how he felt about his great-grandfather wasn’t important to his parents and from an early age it was stressed to him that he ought to be a comedian. He didn’t care too much for being funny and inevitably being compared to his Great-Grandfather. He would rather follow in his father's prizefighting footsteps. His father also had quite the reputation of being a “Ladies man”. “Socializing” with so many women, just like his father, became his main focus; second only to boxing. His main goals in life became as toxic as his father and great-grandfather before him. Dating as many women as possible without regard to their emotions or humanity; and knocking out anyone who stood in his way. It was apparent from an early age that he wasn’t going down the path of a good person. While most kids were playing with trading cards he was doing his best to convince a girl to be his girlfriend. And if she said she had a boyfriend he’d find him and mash his face into the dirt.  As he grew older his toxicity grew with him. His ego grew as big as a mountain. After graduating high school with an undefeated amateur boxing record he decided to forgo the Olympic trials and become a professional fighter. He figured it would be the easiest way to continue meeting more women to date. The money he earned hardly concerned him beyond using it to woo another woman every week. After a string of 1st round KO wins he made the ill-advised decision to accept a fight against an opponent that was far too experienced and more than a couple weight classes above him. He left the ring battered, humiliated, and unconscious on a stretcher. He vowed to fight again however, before he could step into the ring again the news of a broken hand suffered in his last fight not healing properly stopped his career in its tracks.  After a bit of therapy he discovered his knack for being incredibly funny. He had made people laugh before but now it felt different. He began going to open mics and finding spots in vaudeville shows to practice. He was so heavily consumed by comedy that his goals of becoming a prolific ladies man faded into the background. He accepted what he saw as fate and began a career as a comedian and comedy writer. Before long he grew weary of the confines of his home and decided to head out on a road trip to find a new place to call home. He drove all over the country but eventually settled on the town of Wicked’s Rest. A town he had never heard of but the suspiciously low rent of a cottage near some quiet woods made him decide to give it a try. Besides, he figured the place could use a laugh or two and the road trip had very nearly depleted his funds.  The town was a bit eerie and whispers of fairies and monsters made him chuckle. He met a sexy, spooky local at a coffee shop for what he assumed would be a date. They talked to Jazz non-stop about magical creatures and in an attempt to relate Jazz pulled what knowledge he had about fae out of his butt. He was convincing enough that after a few days he was contacted by someone who called themselves a “Scribe”. They wanted Jazz to be a Scribe as well but he wasn’t interested. At least he wasn’t until they told him the salary and benefits. Writing about Halloween monsters as if they were real? Sounded like an easy enough gig he thought. But everyone talking about these creatures as if they were real was a bit off-putting. But hey, it would pay the rent right? He’d lied to get jobs before but being an expert on “pixies” may have been a step too far.

Character Facts:

Personality: Playful, dishonest, insensitive, flirtatious, dysphoric, loquacious, non-committal, lazy

An accomplished amateur boxer but a broken hand derailed his career shortly after turning professional.

Great-Grandson of late comedian "Pigmeat" Markham.

Would rather make someone laugh than have a fight.

Very tough and physically strong (still very much a non-powered human).

[ghostlygardendelusion-blog]

Resubmission - Hi recently got into Vedic astrology literally yesterday and had a reading. She just mentioned my qualities and touched very little about my spouse. If you do not mind would you be able to go over it again and maybe talk more about my souse ? - thank you so much

Hey dear,

Here you go for your vedic d1 and d9 chart interpretation.

You are born in Purva Phalguni Nakshatra. This Nakshatra means 'The Fruit Of Tree'. You may be blessed with hardworking nature. You may be Nature lover.

You may be highly knowledgeable in scientific learning and Arts.

You may go for Advanced studying and Enter teaching field.

In your d1 chart Jupiter and Mercury conjunction in 1st house (Ascendant) in leo sign. Here jupiter and mercury are in friendly sign.

You may be someone who is very learned, knowledgeable. Forever student and always like to collect information.

You may travel different places to gain knowledge. You may be someone very wise or Spiritual way of Communication, Counselors on any life matter. You may gain a lot in Spiritual domain of life.

You have Mars in 7th house in d1 and in 6th house in d9. In both charts Mars is in same sign Aquarius. So mars becomes Navamsa Vargottama.

Your sharp mind combines with right amount of Aggression gets you Massive win over your Enemies.

A surge of determination, fearlessness and a competitive spirit.

Mars in 6th house of d9 will help you Attract a Patner Who is Equally Read and Talented.

Saturn in pieces sits in 11th house in your d1 chart.

You may be interested or working in the field of fun and entertainment such as Mimicry Artist, Singers and also comedian.

This placement basically seen in the charts of people making YouTube videos Related to Fun and Entertainment. Or Writing Blogs and websites Related to Fun and Entertainment such as Game websites, kids websites, sport websites, Art and Crafts websites.

Moon-Venus conjuction in d9 chart. You may have very good voice could be a singer. You may have eye for details, Artistic Abilities, photographic memory, better with faces than name.

Mercury in Libra in d9 chart. You may love communication, intellect,business and speech. The ability to think, learn and express oneself effectively.

Or you may want a person who have this type of qualities. Because your d9 chart Ascendant is virgo ( ruler Mercury).

Mercury related things will help you in making your relationship better with your fs.

You have Mars in Aquarius ( ruler saturn)( in Nakshatra of Rahu) sits in 7th house in d1 chart. 7th house of your d1 chart is ruled by saturn ( in Nakshatra of Rahu). Saturn sits in 11th house in sign pieces ( ruler jupiter) in d1 chart.

Jupiter (in Nakshatra of Ketu) is Dk in d1 chart. 7th house ruler is jupiter(in Nakshatra of venus) in d9 chart. Jupiter sits in 8th house in sign Aries (ruler mars). Sun( in Nakshatra of Mars)is Dk in d9 chart.

Your fs may be someone who may not settle down with Routine Career and Home Activity. Always wish for change.

Impatient and impulsive. May love Activity. More Aggressive personality type.

You may marry someone younger than you but will be wiser.

Police, Military, engineer may be your fs profession or may belong to background related to this.

8th house is called the 'Mangalsthan' or the longevity of fs so if benevolent planet like jupiter placed in 8th house the longevity of marriage increase.

You may meet your fs unexpectedly. When one of you lost something in life.

You and your fs may have crossed path once in your life before you meet.( knowingly or unknowingly).

Have a great weekend.

I am not professional still learning so please take only what resonates with you 🙏

Meditate, do good karma, help who in need and love yourself ❤

[nicklloydnow]

“For most of my life I have been a “high-functioning” depressive — so high-functioning, in fact, that it will seem implausible to many, even to those who know me fairly well, to learn of my long psychiatric record. But another way of saying “high-functioning” is “high-performance”, which is to say that I have generally been all-too-aware of the Goffmanian performative dimensions of social life, and have mastered my own performance in the same way I mastered my GPA and the various standardized tests I have had to take: propelled forward only by the fuel of anxiety, self-hatred, and certainty of my own fraudulence.

The intake questionnaires have never really captured my subjective experience of “what’s eating me” very well. They ask: “Do you have trouble getting out of bed?” No. “Have you lost your appetite?” I wish. “Are you able to complete your work tasks?” Always. Some diagnosticians, amateur and professional alike, have rushed to DSM-splain to me that I seem to suffer only from “anxiety” and not from “depression”, but this is a meaningless distinction to me, and I don’t see any reason why a manual that in any case is always in the course of revision, and only captures one way of dividing up psychiatric kinds in a certain place and time, should trump the first-person phenomenology of the condition under diagnosis. Anxiety is the opposite of a good feeling; it’s bad. In the end it may be that eudaimonia and kakodaimonia, good and bad “vibes”, are really the only two conditions with any ontological robustness to them. And even these two elementary states shade into one another in ways that make it extremely hard for a lucid observer of his own condition to put feelings into language. Sometimes the condition of the soul gets so bad that it starts to feel like a sort of ecstasy, in which one has circled all the way back around to communion with the good daimon: the horseshoe theory of depression and mental health.

All self-presentation is performance, but to remain hyper-aware of this at all times is handicapping, and leads to a sharp sense of one’s own fraudulence. The watered-down way to speak of this sense, much invoked in online grousing about the stresses of academia, is in terms of “impostor syndrome”, but that doesn’t quite capture the pervasiveness of the feeling. Those who have this syndrome feel out of place in a particular line of work; those who are depressed feel out of place in the world. “Fake it till you make it” is the jocular advice given to people suffering from mild impostor syndrome, and it is implied that this sort of fakery is not just morally tolerable, but laudable. Yet such dishonesty, like “pride”, straddles a boundary between two different and wholly incompatible moral orientations that somehow continue to co-exist in our society. This is the same divide that tells us, in the name of being a morally upstanding person, both to give away our money, and to save it. Bourgeois liberal philosophy will gaslight you into thinking you must simply not be smart enough if you fail to understand how this incommensurability can be smoothed out. But every now and then the voice of a Kierkegaard breaks through, strong enough to make itself heard through the bullshit, to tell us in no uncertain terms that it is impossible to live in this world, that whatever form of life you choose, you will be wrong.

The great comedian Mitch Hedberg, dead of an overdose at thirty-seven, said of addiction that it is a disease, but a weird one: “It’s the only disease people yell at you for having”. Our man is piercing here right into the heart of the incommensurability in question. In the end, if we cannot help but blame others for things that are beyond their control, this may be because wretchedness is our basic condition, as inevitable as it is blameworthy, and only an ideology —such as the one that has reigned throughout modernity— that stresses our earthly perfectibility will place the wretched in the earthly purgatories of rehab clinics and “correctional institutions” and psychiatric outpatient clinics, where in each case the purported goal is to purge the wretchedness right out of a person.

Today we find it easy to mock humoral medicine, such as Robert Burton’s explanation in his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) of the condition in question as literally a “surfeit of black bile”. But in truth our facile resort today to the idea that depression is nothing more than “a problem with our brain chemistry” is just as worthy of mockery. It marks nothing more thn a shift in the bodily system held responsible for the psychological state, without any clearer understanding of the social and spiritual dimensions of the state. In fact Burton was vastly more sensitive, in his paramedical reflections on the melancholic life, to all the ways such a life is more than just an imbalance of the humors, than your average prescriber of meds today is sensitive to all the ways in which depression is more than just a matter of serotonin reuptake.

(…)

I will try to describe in a few words what it has been like since then. The most striking thing about this new life is that the whole world looks to me somewhat the way our elementary schools look to us when we revisit them as adults: a place we don’t belong anymore, a place that seems so much smaller and so much more modest than we had once taken it to be, so disenchanted that one is left perplexed as to how it could ever have been the source of such wild flights of the hopeful imagination. Life has a quality now that can only be described as “spectral”. I have sometimes imagined that I must have ended up in one of those refrigerated trucks myself, and everything I’ve experienced since then is just me haunting the old sites of my life, as in the Nicole Kidman vehicle The Others (2001) where she believes her home is infested by poltergeists but slowly comes to realize she and her kids are the ghosts, while the “ghosts” that torment her are just regular human beings.

A second feature of this new “mature” manifestation of depression (as opposed to its “juvenile” expressions in California, New York, Ohio) is what the diagnosticians sometimes call “derealization”. I have moments where I just cannot believe that any of this is real. I used to mock Nick Bostrom’s “simulation hypothesis”; now, most of the time, it seems to me intuitively obvious (if still not for the reasons he thinks) that the world is not at all what we take it to be. This shift manifests itself partly in a collapse of the system of values that had previously enabled me to take seriously all the clamoring after social distinctions —all the prizes and acclaim I used to find it meaningful to seek— that keep our institutions running and our little lives full. But more strongly, at certain moments I find myself literally unable to comprehend how I ever could have taken the social bodies that offer the prizes and acclaim, or indeed the opprobrium and rejection, to be in any sense real.

This derealization surely has something to do with the very real historical process of dematerialization: institutions really are disintegrating as they shift to videoconferencing and e-mail as the primary channels of their endurance. What made universities real for some centuries, for example, were in large part their august edifices. These still exist, generally, but they seem increasingly disconnected from whatever it is we still pretend to be doing under the universitarian banner. Anxiety enables me to keep doing my work under this same banner, but I find myself unable to recall how I once accepted it all, unquestioningly, as real. At its most intense, my incomprehension extends not just to social reality (work, recipes, “sport”, popular entertainments, and most of all politics), but to all reality: I can’t make any sense of what the edifices themselves are supposed to be, or clothes, or utensils. Unlike for Bostrom, most of the time the one thing that does not become “glitchy” for me, does not begin to show signs of its simulated character, is nature. But nature loves to hide, as Heraclitus said, and to have it alone as the one thing that appears real, while suitable for isolated contemplation, is hardly sufficient to provide the experience of community that sustains a properly human life.

A third feature of this mature depression is the way it affects my moral character, no matter how much rhetoric is invested in the idea that it’s “just a disease” like any other. I have already described it as a “disease” that has dishonesty as one of its symptoms. Another symptom is that it makes a person —let’s be frank— a real jerk. In my own case I definitely discern a correlation between the occasional remission of feelings of depression, on the one hand, and my capacity for generosity or big-heartedness on the other. Eric Schwitzgebel has provocatively argued that if you are surrounded by fools, you’re probably a jerk. When I am depressed I tend to conclude from his argument, very much against the grain, that I must be a jerk, because everyone around me is definitely a fool. Schwitzgebel of course means to dispel the idea that others are really fools, by “reducing” their foolishness to a mere effect of the perceiver’s “jerkitude”. But depression militates in favor of a “Copernican revolution” in the new field of jerk theory.

(…)

Here is how the foolishness of humanity manifests itself. We have become familiar in the social-media era with the notion of “copypasta”, where people with no real thoughts of their own simply reproduce the language of others, and attempt to pass this off as political engagement, for example regarding the “problematic” character of Disney princesses. But in deep depression, every human utterance sounds like copypasta; everyone sounds as if they are simply channeling the language of others. Proust thus comes to seem a rare and loyal friend to the isolated depressive, when for example his narrator dissects the new phrases and idiosyncracies in the language of Albertine, to discern, in his own internal Académie Française, exactly who she has been seeing since she returned to Paris from Balbec at the end of summer. She thinks she’s just “being herself”, with all that language; he thinks she’s just delivering so much copypasta.

It is terrifying and alienating to apprehend all language in that way, and the easiest reaction is misanthropy. One is wrong, of course, morally wrong, to react in this way, and the Copernican revolution in this case cannot really succeed. It is, as Schwitzgebel claims, jerkitude that gives rise to the appearance of foolishness, and not foolishness that justifies jerkitude. But depression is a strange disease, and we will never be able to adequately deal with it if we pretend it’s just like diabetes or whatever. Depression makes you a jerk. One should not be a jerk. Ergo, if depression is a disease, it is a disease that it is morally wrong to have.

One of the most peculiar expressions I have learned since moving to France is péter un plomb. This means literally “to fart a lead weight”, and so might seem to suggest a meaning similar to the English “to shit a brick”, but in fact describes something closer to failure, or to an irreversible running out of steam, than to the heroic feat of parturition described by the English idiom. Thus for example if you are sitting outside at a café in Paris, and a rough but still handsome beggar comes to your table and, in perfect classical diction, recites a monologue from Molière, you might say after he has moved on: Il a dû péter un plomb. “He must have farted a chunk of lead”. The idea here is that this mendicant thespian clearly used to “be somebody”, but some bug in his internal program caused him at some point to stray from his path and to take up this new lowly position in the world with only faint vestiges of who he once was. High-functioning depressives might do well to adopt as their mantra Samuel Beckett’s famous line: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on”. But if you have farted your chunk of lead in life, you lose the second half, and are left only with this: “I can’t go on”.”

[smokin-symbiotes]

October Horror Movies #8

'Ghostwatch' (1992) - Dir. Lesley Manning

Summary: The BBC runs a live special covering a real-life haunting in a suburban British home, only to quickly discover the haunting is dangerously real.

'Ghostwatch' is a mockumentary presented as a live BBC broadcast on the Halloween of 1992. It's not just a spooky prank that would trick its viewers, but a tight, 90 minute horror feature with a message.

Much like 'The Blair Witch Project', the conciet of 'Ghostwatch' is that we are watching real documentation of a haunting, which is released to an unsuspecting and unaware public. Whereas 'BWP' had a massive marketing campaign which created a smokescreen for the true nature of the film (including a website which documented fake reports and mythos about the titular witch and its doomed filmmakers), 'Ghostwatch' appears to just have been dropped on the British public without warning. 

A big thing that helped sell 'Ghostwatch's reality was having real BBC presenters and celebrities play themselves; this includes Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, and comedian and actor Craig Charles. Gillian Bevan also stars as parapsychologist Dr. Lin Pascoe. She is investigating the haunting of the Early family, which includes Pamela and her two daughters, Kim and Suzanne. 

Now, I haven't seen a single second of '90s BBC broadcasting in my whole life, so I can't speak to how convincing they were as themselves, but they played their roles very straight and very well. They felt like real broadcasters going into a Halloween special expecting something fun and light-hearted, only for their professional artifice to be peeled back layer by layer. Greene, as the reporter in the house, embodies this degradation perfectly. 

I think 'Ghostwatch's primary concern is the horror of virality, of how the media ecosystem can degrade people and turn them into ghastly spectacles. The constant attention negatively impacts their wellbeing, and can cause them to lash out and behave in ways they normally wouldn't. 

That's the foundation of the movie. The Early family, who's concerns have been dismissed by their local government, turn to the media to get their story out. A great deal of attention is drawn to how, before they appear on BBC, they are made fodder for the tabloids and painted as "crazy." The eldest early child, Suzanne, begins making noises to provide a spectacle for the reporters so that she can keep them there, so they can witness the real paranormal events when they finally happen. The main BBC reporter, Parkinson, begins grilling this child, to which she responds, crying, "It's what you wanted, wasn't it? We just gave you what you wanted!" Shortly after this, the haunting of the poltergeist, "Pipes," shifts into full gear: they get what they wanted, indeed. 

Circling to the ghost of 'Ghostwatch', Pipes' main objective ties into virality. To grow its power, it wishes to manifest itself in the homes of every single person watching the "live" broadcast. Media isn't just for entertaining spectacles, but it can be hijacked by nefarious forces and do tangible harm. 

The movie is effective at building tension before letting itself loose on you. The first hour is all build-up: we are enticed with footage of the ghost wreaking havoc in the girls' bedroom, we're given grisly stories about the history of the town and Early's home, Suzanne's pranks create a perfect misdirect, and we also get flashes of Pipes' bloody, looming figure throughout the entire program. Sometimes it's in a crowd, other times it's up close in the camera for less then a second.  

The last half-hour is when the entire home is thrown into chaos, with the ghost manipulating the girls into staying, keeping the cameras locked on its spectacle. Its evil spreads through the British public, spreading paranoia and violence. The family and crew are eventually evacuated, but not before Suzanne and Greene disappear beneath the crawlspace where pipes resides: the death of a child, and the fact Greene's husband, Mike Smith, is forced to watch his wife vanish is particularly disturbing. 

Out of all the movies I watched so far, I think 'Ghostwatch' has been the most "spooky." Like "A Turn of the Screw," it's a ghost story for the modern age, capitalizing on society's fears of a vast media landscape that can be hijacked—or haunted. 

[monstermaster13]

Corey and Oats VS Tepum’Alah the Putrid.

Everyone’s favorite duo loved going on adventures including imaginary ones, and they always defended their owner Mel whenever she dealt with online problems. One morning Mel was having troubles with a petulant user from a discord server known as Tepum’Alah, who hated Mel and Nathan for no reason apart from the fact that Nathan wrote stories about Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi who he shared a similar interest in.

He was delusional and he thought that Nathan’s stories were fetishizing the two comedians, of course Corey and Oats knew better. They heard Mel crying that morning and decided to comfort her. ‘What’s wrong, mommy?’ Oats asked. ‘It’s Tepum, he is an annoying little tool and I wish he’d go away forever.’ ‘What did he say?’ ‘He said that we shouldn’t write stories that fetishize John and Dan because he thinks it’s gross and that I need professional help.’

“Ugh…I hate people like that.”

“Me too.”

Corey and Oats floated over to Carmela who was on duty that morning, telling her that Mel had been bullied. Carmela sympathized with the duo as Oats explained everything. ‘This person doesn’t like our adventures, what should we do? We have tried everything.’ ‘Blocking works on Discord but we can still see his comments.’ ‘Yeah, he posted a nasty comment on Nathan’s tiktok telling him if he doesn’t stop harassing him he will take action.’ ‘Don’t take him seriously, ignore him, or teach him it is not okay to do such things.’

“How?”

“We can use the wish-granter.”

The duo floated over into the bedroom and pulled out their mystical wish-granting item from the box. ‘Oh wish-granter, we seek your assistance, we are dealing with a bully problem.’ ‘So you want to scare some sense into a pesky adversary, well you’ve come to the right wish-granter, i’ll make sure that he should be wary he’s in for something scary.’

‘We wish to haunt him as ghosts and show him the errors of his ways.’ ‘I can do that for you.’ The wish-granter used his powers to transform Corey and Oats along with Mel into ghosts. ‘Awesome.’ ‘Now tell me who you wish to haunt.’ ‘Tepum’Alah the Putrid.’

A ghost portal materialized in the wall and they went right through it, entering what appeared to be a haunting zone. Corey looked into the viewing screen and saw Tepum in there, he had long blackish hair and looked like a typical scene/emo wannabe, he had a poster of the father from Suicide Shop on his wall as well as a figure of the Childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on his desk.

He was in his bed, no doubt sleeping and having obviously disturbing wet dreams about said characters. That was when Corey and Oats entered through the walls…Corey possessed the Childcatcher figure that was on the desk. ‘Teeeeeepum, Teeeeepum.’ Tepum was awoken from his dream by the ghostly moans.

“Huh? What’s going on? How do you know my name?”

“It is i…the childcatcher, you have been a naughty boy, Tepum.”

‘My husbando is real and is talking to me? Am I dreaming?’ ‘It’s gross that you think of me as your husbando. I am a character made to frighten NOT give you a sexual awakening. Why do you fetishize me?’ ‘I can’t help it…something messed me up as a kid and I thought you were sexy.’ ‘You’re a disgrace to fandoms, you know that, right?’

Tepum panicked as he saw the figure moving on its own along with a doll of Ed Grimley. ‘I must say that you find you detestable.’ The doll’s head spun around in an Exorcist-like manner. ‘No, not you…you’re supposed to like that I love you so much.’

Oats made a poster of Martin Short come to life…’Love you? I could never let someone as disgusting as you be a fan of mine. You bully Nathan and pick on him for no reason other than you dislike his stories, you won’t stop ratting about him to your friends on the Simp Central server.’

“Stop this or i’ll…”

“You’ll what? Threaten to take action? We are not harassing you, we are teaching a lesson.”

‘Exactly..and you cannot use the screenshots you took of Nathan’s comments to back up your claims.’ ‘Well he gave me access to his email so he could look at my Vincent Price headcanons.’ ‘No, he didn’t, you left a fucking link for your doc on your tumblr blog for all to see, it’s your fault and now you are paying for it.’

‘It doesn’t matter, once my mutuals are informed of how much of a creep your friend is.’ ‘I’m sorry but you cannot force your mutuals to agree with everything that you say, they have their own opinions and thoughts and guess what, you are the only one on the server that hates Nathan.’

“He’s creepy and needs therapy, he holds a grudge against me.”

“And you have held a grudge against him since 2021.”

‘DjannA’kro didn’t start hating Nathan until you told him to, you told an admin to do it. He should have kicked YOU instead. I am just saying if you want to be left alone and left out of this. You should have apologized and not carried on like that.’ ‘I’ll just tell the admins.’ ‘They won’t believe you, they’ll just think you’re insane.’

Mel manifested next to the duo…’Oh yes, they’ll definitely think you are insane alright, I mean no sane person would ever admit to having a thing for the Childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. What, was your mother drunkenly saying she had a thing for him when she showed you that movie or something?’

Corey made the curtains sprout vines that dragged Tepum off the bed and onto the floor. ‘You better not whine and you better listen up because we are going to scare you straight.’ Just then Tepum’s boyfriend who was actually just some poor guy he brainwashed into being his boyfriend, because Tepum was actually a lesser knockoff elder god that had been stuck in the form of a whiny human hence why he acted the way he did. ‘Do something about it.’ Tepum whined to his boyfriend.

‘Forget it, I had to put up with your stupidity for years. You took me away form my family, removed my soul, brainwashed me into serving you and just because you had to be a dirty perv, you brainwashed me into being your boyfriend. I’ m straight and I never loved you, ever.’ ‘Nooo, say it isn’t true.’ Tepum’s boyfriend nodded and told him he was through with him, taking down all the things he had given him and leaving the apartment.

‘Tepum…we know the real reason you do this, you do this because you hate all the attention the actual elder gods get as opposed to you. You can’t stand how popular Cthulhu is and you want to be as loved as he is, but the difference is, Cthulhu is a monster who is actually really nice, and you are a monster who pretends to be really nice but is malicious.’ ‘Oh alright, fine…you got me. I am not really this stupid whiny excuse for a human being. I pretend to be like that because i’m stuck in this form.’

“There there, it’s alright.”

“We are just here to scare you into being a better person.”

The duo nodded as Tepum took Oats’s hand, the duo floated off and entered into one of many nightmare-scapes, in this nightmare-scape he saw a group of Dan Aykroyd characters having dinner together. ‘Mmm…that looks delicious. What’s on the menu?’

The salesman from the Bass-O-Matic segment along with J.P Valkenheiser looked at him with evil glares…’You are.’ ‘What?’ A Dan Aykroyd doppelganger in a chef’s outfit revealed what was on the plate, it was a flayed corpse that looked exactly like Tepum’s human form. ‘That’s me? They’re eating me?’ ‘Well yes, of course they are. You have always said that you’d love to have a piece of Dan for yourself, and now Dan’s characters are having a piece of YOU.’

Pa Tex took a piece of the Tepum corpse’s hand and began to lick the finger…’Mmmm, fingerlicking good.’ Tepum threw up and then begged Corey to show him something else. Corey showed him another nightmare-scape which showed him in an asylum being tested by a demented koala therapist played by Mel’s friend Eucalyptus.

‘Is this where I am headed if I don’t stop acting like this?’ ‘Yes, your bad behavior is the cause of this, by putting the blame on Nathan, you ignore that it is your own fault.’ Corey explained, showing him the cell he’d most likely end up in. ‘I am sorry if what I did was horrible. I realized that pretending to be like this all the time wasn’t a good way to deal with my feelings of jealousy.’

Mel smiled, knowing that he had apologized. ‘Very good. There is only one person left to apologize to.’ She explained to him as the ghost of John Belushi appeared. ‘Tepum, Mel told me about what you said and how you treated Nathan. Not only did you disrespect me by calling me Dan’s deceased best friend but you act like you know how me and Dan would react to stories about us. Nobody tells us what to do, we are our own person. You were barely even born yet when I was alive, how do you even know I passed away?’ ‘Sorry John.’ ‘Second..don’t mess with my best friend, nobody messes with my best friend.’

John’s ghost pulled a series of scary faces as he lurched towards Tepum, stretching his face and turning into a demonic monster face with sharp teeth, and also showing him a series of nightmare-scapes like the one he was correctly stuck in, all of which showed what could happen to him if he acted the way he did.

Tepum finally realized he made a mistake, immediately losing his fake whiny fanboy personality and he decided that he wanted a change of heart, as a knockoff elder god he wasn’t satisfied with the form he got stuck into and he wanted a new one. ‘We can give you a new one.’

Corey, Mel and Oats used their powers to transform him into a brand new form, turning Tepum’s human form into a supernatural version of Dan Aykroyd just like how Nathan wrote Aykroyd tfs in his stories. The transformation was one that felt really good to him as well and he felt much better thanks to them and he hugged them.

“There we go.”

“Much better.”

‘I have learned my lesson now.’ Corey and Oats smiled as they floated in the air and took Tepum home back to his apartment which slowly transformed to go with his reformed personality and he looked over at them and appreciated what they had done.

Tepum thanked the duo and told them from now on he wouldn’t bully anyone ever again and he apologized to Nathan, and all of his accounts got removed, and new accounts were set up as a result. ‘We did a good job, don’t you think so?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You have shown me that being horrible to others isn’t the way.’

“That’s right.”

The duo said goodbye to him along with Mel as they floated away, floating through the ghost portal and heading back home, their work was done and the lesson had been learned.

When they arrived home at Nile Road, they decided to have breakfast and they relaxed for a bit and got dressed for the day. They decided to play some games on the computer for a couple of hours, followed by some music jam sessions. Furthermore, they had lunch afterwards followed by afternoon tea, they went on a mini-adventure in the afternoon and watched movies, they chatted to their online friends and had a nice time.

They relaxed and listened to music for a bit, writing some more stories before dinner. When dinner arrived they all gathered at the table, after dinner they emailed Jill about their adventure and relaxed. They had karaoke sessions and hugged and played together.

An hour later after that they relaxed before going into the bedroom and getting ready for bed, Corey put on his bat onesie and Oats put on his pink night-gown as they went into the bathroom to brush their teeth, after that they picked a friend to go to bed with them.

When it was bedtime, they got into bed with Mel and snuggled up and had a nice time, they drifted off to sleep and had sweet dreams. In their dreams they went on a fun musical adventure with their microbial friends/family members.

Our adventure ends here but there are more adventures coming up. But today’s adventure has taught you an important lesson, bullying other people just because you don’t like what they write about or what they like to talk about isn’t nice, if you want the person you hate to leave you alone, maybe you should leave them alone first, or be haunted by your consequences for the rest of your life.

[warningsine]

If you studied art history or another of the humanities in the 1990s or 2000s — say, if you are around the age of the Australian comic Hannah Gadsby, 45 — you may remember the word “problematic” from your long-ago seminar days. Back then it was a voguish noun, borrowed from French, that described the unconscious structure of an ideology or a text. Soon, though, like so many other efforts to think critically, “the problematic” got left behind in this century’s great shift from reading to scrolling. These days we encounter “problematic” exclusively as an adjective: an offhand judgment of moral disapproval, from a speaker who can’t be bothered by precision.

A whole cast of professional art workers — conservators, designers, guards, technicians — has been roped in to produce “It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby,” a small exhibition opening Friday at the Brooklyn Museum. (It is a title so silly that I cannot even type it; I am cutting and pasting.) The show, one of many worldwide timed to the 50th anniversary of the Spanish artist’s death in 1973, is essentially a light amusement following on from “Nanette,” a Netflix special from 2018. In that routine, a sort of blend of stand up and TED Talk, Gadsby riffed on having “barely graduated from an art history degree,” at the bachelor’s level, and attempted a takedown of the Spanish artist: “He’s rotten in the face cavity! I hate Picasso! I hate him!” Now this entertainer has come through the museum doors, but if you thought Gadsby had something to say about Picasso, the joke — the only good joke of the day, in fact — is on you.

Like the noun-turned-adjective “problematic,” this new exhibition backs away from close looking for the affirmative comforts of social-justice-themed pop culture. At the Brooklyn Museum you will find a few (very few) paintings by Picasso, plus two little sculptures and a selection of works on paper, suffixed with tame quips by Gadsby on adjacent labels. Around and nearby are works of art made by women, almost all made after Picasso’s death in 1973; finally, in a vestibule, clips from “Nanette” play on a loop. That’s the whole exhibition, and anyone who was expecting this to be a Netflix declension of the Degenerate Art Show, with poor patriarchal Picasso as ritualized scapegoat, can rest easy. There’s little to see. There’s no catalog to read. The ambitions here are at GIF level, though perhaps that is the point.

So far as it has an argument — a problematic — it goes like this: Pablo Picasso was an important artist. He was also something of a jerk around women. And women are more than “goddesses or doormats,” as Picasso brutally had it; women, too, have stories to tell. I wish there was more to inform you of, but that’s really about the size of it. All the feminist scholarship of the last 50 years — about repressed desire, about phallic instability, or even just about the lives of the women Picasso loved — is put to one side, in favor of what really matters: your feelings. “Admiration and anger can coexist,” a text at the show’s entrance reassures us.

That Picasso, probably the most written about painter in history, was both a great artist and a not-so-great guy is so far from being news as to qualify as climate. What matters is what you do with that friction, and “It’s Pablo-matic” does not do much. For a start, it doesn’t assemble many things to look at. The actual number of paintings by Picasso here is just eight. Seven were borrowed from the Musée Picasso in Paris, which has been supporting shows worldwide for this anniversary; one belongs to the Brooklyn Museum; none is first-rate. There are no other institutional loans besides a few prints brought over the river from MoMA. What you will see here by Picasso are mostly modest etchings, and even these barely display his stylistic breadth; more than two dozen sheets come from a single portfolio, the neoclassical Vollard Suite of the 1930s.

Unsigned texts in each gallery provide basic invocations of gender discrimination in art museums, or the colonial legacy of European modern art, while next to individual works Gadsby offers signed banter. These labels function a bit like bathroom graffiti, or maybe Instagram captions. Beside one classicizing print of Picasso and his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter: “I’m so virile my chest hair just exploded.” Beside a reclining nude: “Is she actually reclining? Or has she just been dropped from a great height?”

There’s a fixation, throughout, on genitals and bodily functions. Each sphincter, each phallus, is called out with adolescent excitement; with adolescent vocabulary, too. What jokes there are (“Meta? Hardly know her!”) remain juvenile enough to leave Picasso unscathed. The adults involved at the Brooklyn Museum (principally its senior curators Lisa Small and Catherine Morris, Gadsby’s collaborators here) really could have reined in this immaturity, though to their credit, they’ve at least fleshed out the show with some context on the cult of male genius or the rise of feminist art history in the 1970s.

The trouble is obvious, and entirely symptomatic of our back-to-front digital lives: For this show the reactions came first, the objects reacted to second. A show that started with pictures might make you come to wonder — following the pioneering feminist art historian Linda Nochlin — why Picasso’s paintings of women are generally lacking in desire, quite unlike the pervy paintings of Balthus, Picabia and other cancelable midcentury gents. A show properly engaged with feminism and the avant-garde might have turned to Lyubov Popova, Natalia Goncharova, Nadezhda Udaltsova or Olga Rozanova: the remarkable Soviet women artists who put Picasso’s breakdown of forms in the service of political revolution. A more serious look at reputation and male genius might have introduced a work by at least one female Cubist: perhaps Alice Bailly, or Marie Vassilieff, or Alice Halicka, or Marie Laurencin, or Jeanne Rij-Rousseau, or María Blanchard, ​ or even Australia’s own Anne Dangar.

Instead, “It’s Pablo-matic” contents itself to stir in works by women from the Brooklyn Museum collection. These seem to have been selected more or less at random, and include a lithograph by Käthe Kollwitz, a photograph by Ana Mendieta, an assemblage by Betye Saar, and Dara Birnbaum’s “Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman,” a video art classic of 1978/79 whose connection to Picasso is beyond me. (At least two paintings here, by Nina Chanel Abney and Mickalene Thomas, draw on the example of Manet, not Picasso.) The artists who made them have been reduced here, in what may be this show’s only true insult, into mere raconteurs of women’s lives. “I want my story to be heard,” reads a quotation from Gadsby in the last gallery; the same label lauds the “entirely new stories” of a new generation.

This elevation of “stories” over art (or at least comedy) was the principal thrust of “Nanette,” a Sydney stand-up routine which became an American viral success during the last presidency, shortly after the wrongdoings of Harvey Weinstein were finally exposed. “Nanette” proposed a therapeutic purpose for culture, rejecting the “trauma” of telling jokes in favor of the three-act resolution of “stories.” It directly analogized Picasso to then-President Trump: “The greatest artist of the twentieth century. Let’s make art great again, guys.” It even averred that Picasso, and by extension all the old masters, suffered from “the mental illness of misogyny.” (Given this pathologization of Picasso, it is very intriguing that Gadsby has described the Brooklyn Museum show as their own deeply desired act of sexual violence against the man from Málaga, telling Variety: “I really, really want to stick one up him.”)

Most bizarrely, the routine rested on a condemnation of art as an elite swindle, and modernism got it particularly hard. “CUUU-bism,” went Gadsby’s mocking refrain, to reliable audience laughter. (As it is, Picasso’s own Cubist art appears at the Brooklyn Museum through a single 6-by-4.5-inch engraving.) The sarcasm, from a comedian with moderate art historical bona fides, had a purpose: It gave Gadsby’s audience permission to believe that avant-garde painting was actually a big scam. “They’re all cut from the same cloth,” Gadsby told the audience in “Nanette”: “Donald Trump, Pablo Picasso, Harvey Weinstein” — and the art you never liked in the first place could be dismissed as the flimflam of a cabal of evil men.

Not long ago, it would have been embarrassing for adults to admit that they found avant-garde painting too difficult and preferred the comforts of story time. What Gadsby did was give the audience permission — moral permission — to turn their backs on what challenged them, and to ennoble a preference for comfort and kitsch.

So who should be most brassed off by this show? Not Picasso, who gets out totally unharmed. But the women artists in the museum’s collection dragooned into this minor prank, and the generations of women and feminist art historians — Rosalind Krauss, Anne Wagner, Mary Ann Caws, hundreds more — who have devoted their careers to thinking seriously about modern art and gender. Especially at the Brooklyn Museum, whose engagement with feminist art is unique in New York, I left sad and embarrassed that this show doesn’t even try to do what it promises: put women artists on equal footing with the big guy.

“My story has value,” Gadsby said in “Nanette”; and then, “I will not allow my story to be destroyed”; and then, “Stories hold our cure.” But Howardena Pindell, on view here, is much more than a storyteller; Cindy Sherman, on view here, is much more than a storyteller. They are artists who, like Picasso before them, put ideas and images into productive tension, with no reassurance of closure or comfort. The function of a public museum (or at least it should be) is to present to all of us these women’s full aesthetic achievements; there is also room for story hour, in the children’s wing.

[uiruu]

i wish i was an artist

[orionsangel86]

I cant express enough how much I LOVE what Strictly Come Dancing has become. Never used to watch it for years cos it was always kinda the same ya know? Celebs and dancers, all opposite gender, you occassionally had a bigger bodied person but they rarely got far, never had any disabled or impaired guests, and usually the older guests were considered "joke acts".

But after last year with Rose and John, this year we've got a m/m couple, Ellie Simmonds who is a person with dwarfism, and this weeks show finished with Jayde Adams, a plus size lesbian comedian who is dancing with a woman professional, doing flashdance. Flashdance!

She did it perfectly imo.

I remember being the fat girl when I used to go to a theatre group as a teenager. Ill never forget the week where we were taught flashdance. As the fat girl, I struggled. I was given no extra support, and I felt like the instructors saw me as a burden they wanted to hide away in the corner. It left a bit of a mark on me tbh.

Seeing Jayde do that dance, and with a female partner no less, got me so choked up. She looked beautiful. She danced brilliantly. She wiggled her hips and owned that dance floor and struck the final pose just like the movie - with the one difference being a plus size silhouette. My god I wish I could have seen that when I was 16 years old.

Strictly Come Dancing is finally worth watching. Its finally actually acting on the message its been preaching for decades. Anyone can dance, with anyone, to anything. Dances can be adapted, can be tweaked to suit the couple, to support those with disabilities and impairments.

Watching Rose and Giovanni dance last year was so meaningful, I can't imagine what it much have felt like for deaf and hard of hearing people to see someone like them go on to win the show. Watching John and Johannes get to the finale and be able to perform sensual and intimate dances together as two men without shame was breathtaking.

Now this year I get to watch a plus size lesbian stick it to naysayers and dance a famously sexy dance with a female partner.

Watching it is such a joyful experience now, its a celebration and its so much fun. If you can watch it, you must. It will leave you feeling uplifted, happy, and inspired. Even if you don't know a single bloody "celebrity" in the line up!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Taskmaster podcast, episode 170:

Kiell Smith-Bynoe: I’ve noticed that from [John Robins’] demeanour in the studio. He’s just quite calm and chill, and is like, “Oh, this is happening. Yep. Oh, that happened, yeah.” Ed Gamble: I think people are surprised by that, with John. Because John’s persona on his radio show, certainly, is quite angry sometimes. You know, short tempered. He’s very funny when he’s in that sort of angry, sort of desperate state. But I think there’s been a bit of a sea change in his personality in the last year or two. So to watch him be calm, especially during some of these tasks, is quite wonderful to see, as a friend. But also, there’s a little devil on my shoulder going, “I wish he was still in a dark place.” You know, overall, we’re very happy for him.

I like it when people who aren't me say the things that I feel vaguely guilty for thinking because it ignores the fact that comedians are human beings and human happiness is more important than art. But it's okay when people who do know them as human beings say it. Also, John Robins has said it himself, in some detail, in his 2014 stand-up show about how he'd found eternal love and this would unfortunately harm his ability to do good comedy (a point that was proven a few years later, because while I thought This Tornado Loves You was a great show, when the relationship ended a few years later, he did write a much better one and got awards accordingly).

John Robins has been great fun on Taskmaster this season, and there is something very funny about watching him keep it together through what's clearly quite a lot of effort, when a couple of years earlier he'd have just failed to keep it together completely. But yes, Farthing-gate-era Robins will always be a "What could have been?" missed opportunity for Taskmaster, not getting him when he was like that.

Although I have to say, I do think we're being cheated on that a little bit. I've mentioned this before, but Nick Mohammed and Sophie Willan both said on the podcast that Steve and John were very competitive, that there were times when they felt uncomfortable in the studio with how much those two went after each other. I think Joanne said something similar too. I found those comments odd, since we don't really see that on TV. But someone I know who was in the audience at one of the recordings has told me about two different arguments in the studio that got cut from the broadcast (didn't even make outtakes), both cases of John picking fights with Steve over task performance. I think John is being at least a bit of his old angry/argumentative self in the studio this season, as people who were there in person have attested, but for whatever reason it's not making the edit.

I think Ed Gamble's been great throughout this season too, all the podcast episodes have been fun. I especially like his takes on John Robins and Nick Mohammed, as he knows those guys personally and professionally. Also, I loved the time he casually mentioned to Nick Mohammed, when talking about John Robins: "I listen to his radio show with Elis James every week, so I know him... well, better than he thinks I do." I liked that, because that is how I conduct all my friendships as well.

I actually have a lot in common with Ed Gamble. Highly competitive, quite liked John Robins when he was furious all the time, really into Taskmaster, and I also bit someone on the arm in 2007. Though I had a better excuse than he did, she was cross-facing me illegally hard in a wrestling dual on the side where the ref couldn't see. Ed just did it because a man from Lancashire told him to. (He probably didn't. I think they were just pretending. It's okay.)

It's fun that we'll get an hour of John and Ed together on the podcast again next week, unless something extremely unexpected happens. Unless Joanne or Steve has the best episode anyone's ever had, and it turns out that Alex Horne thought it would be funny to save all John's absolute worst tasks until the final episode, in an effort to bring back "furious John" for one last hurrah by having his win ripped away at the last moment.

[itscupidsaki]

Astrosology Observations 1 Good fortune theme

Disclaimer: I am not a professional astrologer and I am doing these for fun. This post is based off my own observations and experiences that I’ve had with the signs. They are just my opinions and shouldn’t be taken as a fact.✨

🌸 Capricorn placements as children, might have acted or appeared older and more mature. They might also have had to take on responsibilities from a young age.

🛍 Leo suns want to appear supportive and strong to others. Even though they might be insecure or sensitive, they don’t like showing it or people seeing them as ‘vulnerable’.

🎀 Aquarius placements could have been an outcast or have been bullied for being or looking ‘different’ and ‘weird’.

👛 In their youth, libra placements might have been that friend that chose to be neutral in friend group fights, not favouring one over the other. This might have made them come across as ‘two-faced’, ‘flaky’, or ‘fake’, even though their intentions were to be nice to everyone.

🌸 Virgo placements can be too harsh on themselves, as they prefer the best possible results for outcomes. A lot of Virgo’s I’ve noticed, tend to be well liked among communities, without needing to put the effort in.

🍧 Sagittarius moons are the type of people to crack jokes all the time and effortlessly make people laugh. They could say the most unfunniest thing and still be the funniest people in the room. Virgo moons also like being comedians within their groups.

🍥 Gemini placements are the definition of clowns. They could even have been class clowns.

💝 Cancer moon children are so sensitive. If you say one thing to hurt their feelings they’ll start screaming.

🌸 Cancer placements in public settings can be some of the most mature and calm people.

🛍 Taurus placements give off this energy as if everything is fine. It can be very difficult to tell if they are going through something. You usually won’t know unless they tell you. They’re very good at concealing their emotions.

🎀 Taurus men are so stubborn, they don’t like apologising. They’re very goofy though.

👛 Scorpio sun men like to feel like they’re helping you in some way. They like when you need their support or advice.

🌸 Scorpio placements in general like to give people advice or aid. They like playing therapist too. Almost all Scorpio suns and moons I’ve met have a staring thing. They just like to sit and stare at people.

🍧 Scorpio risings in my opinion don’t come off as intimidating. They’re actually quite friendly and open, but are still quite secretive of what information they tell you.

🍥 Gemini placements have the most unpredictable mood swings. One minute they’re happy, then next minute they’re upset over something and It’s difficult to know what they need, as their mind is often somewhere else.

💝 Aries literally give off warrior vibes. Like people can literally feel their Mars energy and authenticity. Similarly to Leo’s, they don’t like being perceived as ‘vulnerable’ or ‘weak’ to others.

🌸 My art class was literally full of Scorpios, Aquariuses, Pisces and cancers. They’re all very creative and artistic.

✨ All images were taken from Pinterest ✨

I wish the best blessings on you all, free of all negative thoughts and feelings. Become at peace with yourselves. Let’s all become beautiful, wealthy individuals. We don’t just live in luxury, we are the luxury.

Lots of love and luck

ItsCupidSaki 🏹

[cheesy09]

[CN] Kiro's S2 Fledgling Debut Project

🌸 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for content that hasn't been released on the EN server yet! 🌸

[Note: This company project was translated with the help of Google Translate!]

[Stage 1: New to the entertainment industry]

Anna: Boss, the information about the new artists signed this week is on your desk.

MC: Okay, I'll take a look.

Around [Company Name]'s future development, the company held several high-level meetings recently, and finally reached an agreement. This year's goal was to cultivate new recruits so that the company could have more outstanding artists in addition to Kiro.

I opened the artists' information on the table and read them carefully. The spring breeze passed through the panes. The office was brightly lit and filled with the smell of spring vegetation. But suddenly, the tip of my nose breathed in the sweet smell of apple candy.

Without looking up, I flipped through another page of information with my fingertips and smiled lightly.

MC: Why is the big star free to come to the company today? Is the new album finished?

There was a rustling sound above my head. I looked up and met a pair of blue eyes full of smiles.

Kiro: After the recording, Savin said that my recent schedule was completely clear. I was worried about losing my job, so I came to the company to see if the boss could arrange any work for me~

His gaze turned to the artist profile on my desk and I knew he had seen the good-looking photos of the junior in the profile.

The next second, he turned his head to look at me, clearly smiling, but he deliberately prolonged his tone in a false manner.

Kiro: Unexpectedly... the boss is actually signing in new artists. Is it because the benefits I bring to the company are not enough?

He played a young brother in a drama, and recently, he enjoys pulling me into this kind of play-acting.

I also sighed and followed him.

MC: Alas, we have no choice! This family runs a big business, and the company can't just let you support it alone.

MC: Kiro, you have to understand the hardships of being a boss.

I stared at Kiro sincerely, and after three seconds, we couldn't help laughing.

Kiro: HAHAHA! Miss Chips' acting skills are getting better and better. Do you want to consider making a cameo in my movie next time?

MC: Forget it, dealing with the company's affairs is hectic enough. Let professional actors do that kind of magnificent thing~

Kiro picked up the data sheet in front of me, looked at it, and sighed.

Kiro: Their qualifications seem to be pretty good.

MC: Mm, I also think they are all malleable talents.

Looking at Kiro, who was carefully studying the information of the juniors in front of me, I slowly came up with an idea from the bottom of my heart.

MC: Kiro, do you want to instruct a newcomer as a senior?

-

Kiro: I'm Kiro. Starting from today, as your senior, I'll be instructing you for a while.

Kiro: Before this, I read your resumes. Wen Ke's vocal music class scores are very high, Yang Han has six years of classical dance foundation, and Yu Xixi's performance class is the first in his major.

Kiro: But results do not represent wishes. What direction do you want to develop in? I would like to hear your views first.

In the spacious conference room, three nervous young people sat across Kiro and I. This was our first meeting.

Perhaps they met Kiro on the first day they entered the company. Surprise and nervousness alternated on their faces, and it took a long time for someone to break the silence tremblingly.

Yu Xixi: In-instructor Kiro, my name is Yu Xixi. My dream is to become a comedian!

Wen Ke: Instructor Kiro! I want to make a living with my face!

Yang Han: I... I hope to be on variety shows and get exposure quickly!

MC: .....

Kiro: .....

I frowned. My eyes fell on their dazzling data sheet, and I listened to Kiro's doubts.

Kiro: I have read your resumes. You are all very qualified and have achieved enough excellence in your respective fields of expertise. Why don't you want to continue to develop?

They looked at each other, and after a while, three weak voices sounded in the office.

Crowd: ...It's too difficult.

Yang Han glanced at Kiro first, as if he mustered up the courage to speak.

Yang Han: Instructor Kiro, only one superstar has been born over the years. Everyone can see that your talent is unparalleled.

Yang Han: But we... are not you and cannot be you.

Yu Xixi: We are very diligent and hardworking, and we have only achieved excellence. We don't have your outstanding talent, so we won't be able to be popular as soon as we make our debut.

Wen Ke: Our only wish is to become famous as soon as possible in the ruthless entertainment industry... No matter what method is used.

[Stage 2: Tailored plan]

Kiro: MC, am I asking too much of my juniors?

In the snack bar below the company, Kiro bit off a piece of broccoli in one bite, frowning with a stuffed up mouth.

Kiro: Or am I getting old? Is there already a gap between the current generation and the younger one?

It was the first time I heard that Kiro felt that he was getting old, and for that reason, I couldn't help laughing.

MC: Trust me, it's not your fault. There are indeed many ways to become famous in this circle. Those whose light can be seen, those whose light cannot be seen.

MC: But only those who have been working hard to do what they like, and only those who truly love, can have light within themselves.

I put down my chopsticks and looked at Kiro, who was pitiful because he was about to shoot a new MV for his new song, so he could only drink water and eat vegetables.

He swallowed the broccoli and nodded thoughtfully.

Kiro: That being the case, let's work out a new training plan for them. Help them explore that path to the future.

-

Kiro: Boss, this is the training plan I made after I got home yesterday, look at it.

Kiro arrived at the company early in the morning and led me to the conference room. He wore black-rimmed glasses, sat in a chair and looked at me without blinking.

Infected by him, I involuntarily grew solemn and browsed the documents in my hand.

Kiro's plan was very detailed, and there was basically no problem. When I turned to the last page, I suddenly stopped.

I raised my head to look at Kiro, but he looked calm.

MC: Whether from the perspective of the company or from a personal standpoint, I want to say that you don't have to sacrifice so much for the development of newcomers.

MC: You will always come first.

MC: Do you want to think over this last part again?

But he stretched out his hand and pushed his black-rimmed glasses, winking at me.

Kiro: This is the first time that I've been in charge of teaching tasks with MC. I'm looking forward to the final results.

His gaze fell on the last page of the plan. His face was a bit serious and his voice was soft.

Kiro: And as a senior, this is what I should do.

He insisted so much that I had to agree. Just as the door of the conference room was pushed open, the three juniors walked in one after another.

Juniors: Instructor Kiro, good morning! Good morning, Boss!

The three of them looked at each other and bowed ninety degrees to me and Kiro.

MC: ...Well, our company advocates easy office etiquette. No need to be so formal.

Kiro: Mm, you can just call me Brother Kiro.

Wen Ke: Brother Kiro, is it because the company has plans for our development that we were called to a meeting today?

Yu Xixi couldn't wait to whistle.

Yu Xixi: Wow, do we have the resources?!

Kiro: Don't worry about resources. I have developed a training plan based on your personal situation. Take a look at this first.

Kiro handed over the plan, and they got together to study it.

I watched them go from expectant to dazed, to looking up with a sad face.

Wen Ke: Brother Kiro... It's all basic training, and there are no resources. This is not what we want...

Kiro: Who said it was different.

He patrolled around with the demeanor of a senior, and then spoke with a straight face.

Kiro: Whoever reaches the standard first, I'll help him fight for a resource he wants.

The conference room fell into silence for a moment, and then there was a rush of answers.

Yu Xixi: Having said that, even if it is Brother Kiro, it is foolish to regret it! I'm going to the dance studio now!

Wen Ke: I will go too!

Yang Han: You two! Don't leave me behind!

Kiro looked at them with some regret as they rushed out of the conference room.

Kiro: Alas, if I knew they were so active, I would have increased the amount of training.

I suddenly felt that Kiro, as a senior, seemed to be getting more and more proficient.

[Stage 3: Variety Debut in Hong Kong]

MC: Has the show started yet?

Kiro: It's started, it's started. Miss Chips, come and watch it together.

For a month since that day, I could see the three of them in the company's training room every day.

Yang Han was the most diligent of the three, and quickly completed the schedule. Kiro recommended him to a connection as promised. A variety show.

I sat next to Kiro holding cucumber-flavored potato chips. Today was Yang Han's first variety show, and Kiro and I were looking forward to it.

Kiro: Look, the camera is on Yang Han!

Host: So does our new observer Mr. Yang have any love experiences to share?

Yang Han in the camera blushed a little with excitement, clenched the microphone in his hand, and his expression was solemn.

Yang Han: From my experience, the most important thing in a relationship is sincerity. Sincerity is the premise of communication, and then there is a sense of humor.

Yang Han: People I've worked with have praised me for being funny and humorous, but I don't feel it myself. Perhaps it is this unconscious charm that attracts them.

Host: Haha... haha, it seems that our Mr. Yang is really humorous.

Kiro: .....

MC: .....

MC: In any case, his debut is fairly normal, there should be nothing wrong!

But as soon as I finished comforting Kiro, several messages popped up on my phone.

Kiki: Boss, have you seen Weibo? Yang Han's elementary school classmates came out to break the news!

Kiki: They said that he was very shy when he was a child, and he hadn't talked about a relationship since he was a child! He rolled over on his debut, and now all of his topics and exposure are negative...

I hurriedly opened Weibo and clicked on the topic of the variety show. The discussion about Yang Han wasn't high, and even if there was, it was ridiculed. Several comments broke the news that Yang Han was the person that Kiro had recommended to the show team, and that Kiro had put it in through his connections.

I frowned, and when Kiro came over, I hurriedly slid those comments up.

Kiro: What's wrong?

I shook my head and smiled reassuringly at him.

MC: There was a little disturbance in Yang Han's variety show. I'll go to the company to ask him tomorrow.

MC: You have a live broadcast tomorrow, so don't worry.

-

After dealing with this matter, I rushed to Kiro's new song live broadcast room.

Looking through the camera, I saw Kiro's bright smile at a glance, and my originally irritable mood was suddenly calmed down.

He waved at me with an "ok" gesture.

After the live broadcast started, everything was going well, but I suddenly caught sight of an unusual comment.

"Did you force Yang Han into the show? Did you arrange for him to lie?"

I looked up at Kiro. He was livestreaming as usual, and probably hadn't seen this comment.

...I don't want him to see such negative comments.

With such a voice in my heart, I secretly sent a lot of rainbow emojis in the comments, trying to cover up the bad comment.

But just as I was immersed in typing, I suddenly saw Kiro's expression on screen. His eyes became solemn.

As if foreboding, my typing hands slowed down.

Kiro: I think it is still necessary to address the matter regarding Yang Han properly.

The voice that suddenly spoke was solemn and earnest, and I looked at Kiro who appeared so serious in a daze.

Kiro: As his senior, I did recommend him to the program team. He lied on the show because I didn't educate my junior well. Such errors will not appear again in the future.

He said sincerely word by word, and his comments were also filled with positive feedback.

“Why should Kiro bear the mistakes of others? He just did his duty as a senior. "

I breathed a sigh of relief, and when I turned around, I suddenly saw Yang Han standing in a corner of the live broadcast room, holding a mobile phone in his hand.

On the screen was Kiro's live broadcast.

Seeing that I had spotted him, he turned at once, and then hurriedly explained.

Yang Han: Boss, I just wanted to apologize to Brother Kiro, but I didn't expect to see him...

MC: Kiro is your senior. He promised to look after you at that time. It's not just as simple as assigning you training tasks. As a senior, he has to take on a lot.

I looked through the glass at Kiro who was surrounded by people in the live broadcast room.

MC: Just don't let his efforts be in vain.

Yang Han: ...Boss, don't worry. I won't let Brother Kiro be disappointed again.

After he finished speaking, he turned and left. Looking at the direction in which he left, he probably returned to the dance studio.

When Kiro ended the live broadcast, I saw that Yang Han had posted an apology on Weibo.

"I deceived everyone on the show for my first time. I'm very sorry. It's all my own problems, and it has nothing to do with Senior Kiro. There is still a lot to learn in the future."

Kiro: What are you looking at, MC?

Kiro's voice came from behind me. I raised my phone and answered with a smile.

MC: I'm looking at a child who took the initiative to admit his mistakes.

Kiro didn't say anything when he saw Weibo. He just smiled slightly, and then stretched his waist.

Kiro: After an afternoon of work, what should I eat to treat myself?

MC: Superstar Kiro has three announcements next month. He needs to stay in shape. Why don't you mix boiled spinach with broccoli tonight?

Kiro: Ah... I. Don't. Want. To. Eat. Boiled. Vegetables. Anymore..!!

[Stage 4: There are no shortcuts]

Yu Xixi: Tsk tsk tsk, you died even before you left the apprenticeship, Mr. Yang.

Wen Ke: Yes, yes. Brother Kiro, if I were on the show, this problem would have definitely not occurred.

Wen Ke cupped his cheeks and looked at Kiro obediently. Yang Han sat silently in the corner and didn’t refute a word.

Kiro: Could you really have done better than him?

Kiro interrupted their sarcastic comments and took out an invitation letter for a singing show.

Kiro: It just so happens that your assessments are all up to standard, so let’s try this out.

The show wasn’t well know and it invited new comers, so they hoped that Kiro could support the show. However, Kiro didn’t have any free slots in his schedule. After discussing it, we felt that we could recommend Yu Xixi and Wen Ke to them.

Kiro: This is just an invitation letter. Whether you can participate in the show depends on your own interview level.

When the two of them heard that, their faces showed obvious disappointment.

Yu Xixi: Brother Kiro, it’s not me who said that we wanted to go such a show with such little exposure, only to be turned away. Isn’t this the same as wading into a river with our eyes closed, resigned to our fate?

Wen Ke: Boss~ Boss, you’re the best. Can’t you give us another resource?

Seeing that Kiro wouldn’t budge, Wen Ke turned to me and blinked his big bright eyes. It was a pity that I had already seen what the cutest person in the world looked like when he was being coquettish. I answered him with a smile.

MC: As boss, I support any decision made by Kiro.

Wen Ke: Aww--

Amidst their muttering complaints, Kiro suddenly spoke.

Kiro: What do you think is the role of the company? Help you plan all routes, including personal settings, and increase exposure at all costs, even if it is bad exposure?

Under Kiro’s questioning, Yu Xixi and Wen Ke stared blankly, and nodded hesitantly after a while.

Wen Ke: Is that... not it?

Kiro: It’s not. In my eyes, the company is just a platform.

Kiro: No one is forcing you to take this path. Since you have chosen it, you must take responsibility for your own future. The only thing I can do is to help you connect with channels and opportunities as much as possible. As for whether you can go, and how you want to go, that all depends on you.

Kiro: In this program, if you want to be a comedian, you can express yourself in the interviews. And if you want others to see your face, try to find the camera.

Kiro: I believe the audience will see the bright spots in you.

Kiro gave that long speech with a stern face that the meeting room fell into a brief silence.

I looked at the confused Yu Xixi and Wen Ke and broke the silence.

MC: As boss, my expectations of you are actually quite simple. 

MC: That is, to express your most authentic and desired self.

MC: So, take the invitation and go to the audition~

Wen Ke: ...All right.

Yu Xixi: Unexpectedly, we were sent away with a resource that no one wanted.

Before Yu Xixi walked out of the conference room, he murmured with dissatisfaction.

Yu Xixi: Seriously, does brother Kiro think we are a burden and doesn’t want to look after us well?

Kiro remained expressionless, but the moment the door closed, all the strength seemed to leave his body and he laid down on the table in distress.

Kiro: MC, it’s really hard being a senior.

MC: Then do you want to skip the live recording today and go home and rest?

Kiro immediately sat up straight again.

Kiro: That won’t do! They’re the juniors I raised with my own hands, even if I’m tired, I have to see this through! 

[Stage 5: Unintended effect]

There is new mail:

Miss Chips, have you seen the message from the director? The program rankings are out! Yu Xixi and Wen Ke won the first and second place with their solid singing skills. Someone said they wanted to pick them up on another show. It looks like our training plan is on the right track!

[Stage 6: Writing hidden on the last page]

On the day the program was recorded, Kiro and I went to the set. However, the atmosphere at the scene was very desolate and even a little awkward.

Yu Xixi: Hello everyone, I’m Yu Xixi, an artist from [MC’s company name]. The weather is a bit hot today, so let me tell you a cold joke first.

Yu Xixi: Once upon a time, there was a polar bear who stood dazed on the ice. It was bored and began to pluck its fur. One, two, three... and when he finally stripped it all off, he suddenly shouted--

Yu Xixi: So cold!!

Yu Xixi: How was it? Do you feel a lot cooler all of a sudden? Next, please enjoy the song “The Moon Represents Your Heart” with a cool mood.

The auditorium was silent. Kiro and I sat in silence under the stage.

MC: I kind of want to get out of here.

Kiro: [looking uncomfortable] Me too.

MC: Let’s watch Wen Ke’s performance.

When Wen Ke appeared, although he was a little nervous to the naked eye, he performed well overall. When Kiro and I were about to praise him, I suddenly saw him jump, and when the camera turned towards him, he started to wink hard.

At the same time, there were whispers from the audience.

Audience: What a handsome guy, but why are his eyelids twitching?

MC: .....

Kiro: .....

-

MC: Comprehensive analysis of the data gained from the show’s launch show that both of you have gained very good exposure. These positive discussions are all focused on your steady performance. As for what you wanted to show... Look at the comments from the netizens.

Yu Xixi: A singer who likes to tell cold jokes...

Wen Ke: ...Eye candy with not so good eyes.

Yu Xixi And Wen Ke had also seen a lot of comments these days. They looked at Kiro with gratitude and guilt.

Yu Xixi: Thank you, brother Kiro, for letting us concentrate on practicing our basic skills. It was my fault for suspecting you last time. I heard... you and the boss also came to the set that day.

Wen Ke: Brother Kiro, we still want to learn from you to continue solidifying our basic skills, okay~

Yang Han, who hadn’t spoken all this time, also spoke softly.

Yang Han: Me too. I want to continue my studies with brother Kiro.

Hearing them say that, Kiro’s azure blue eyes filled with sparkling light. He blinked, his tone light.

Kiro: Then, when the next assessment is successful, as a senior, I will reward you.

Yu Xixi: What reward?

Kiro smiled mysteriously.

Kiro: I can’t say it now, but it will be revealed on the day your assessment is successful.

Watching them look forward to and make up their minds, I couldn’t help but think back to the writing I saw on the last page of the training manual--

“Sparkling Debut”.

I suddenly remembered what Kiro told me in the conference room the day the performance was announced.

Kiro: MC, I want to participate in the whole process of this performance as a producer.

He looked at me seriously, with clear hope in his eyes.

Kiro: I’ve already thought of a name. It’s called - Fledgling. The road to art is passed down from generation to generation, and I hope this show’s tickets are free for all.

Kiro: Let everyone come to witness the moment when the fledglings take flight.

[Stage 7: Sparkling Debut]

The debugged lights slowly turned on, the curtain opened, and the moment the light poured in, the three stood together in the center of the stage.

Yang Han: Now we announce.

Wen Ke: The Fledgling concert...

Yu Xixi: Officially begins!

On the huge LED screen, white young birds spread their wings and flew by. The bright eyes of the youths in their white suits refracted the starlight.

The auditorium under the stage wasn’t full, and many places were empty, which was very much different from the packed atmosphere at Kiro’s concerts. But the youths standing on the stage didn’t have any disappointment or hesitation in their eyes, and they all sang with enthusiasm. 

When the first song was successfully sung, Kiro and I hid behind the curtain and breathed a sigh of relief.

With the gradually increasing warm atmosphere on stage, Kiro put down the props in his hand and hummed a song in a low voice.

I had heard that melody so many time during rehearsal that it had already been engraved into my memory. At that moment, listening to Kiro’s voice, there was a kind of tranquility that settled upon us.

Kiro hummed and hugged me in the dark.

My shoulders were pressed against his chin, and his warm breath brushed against my ears. I stood stunned for a second, then raised my hand and hugged him back.

MC: What’s wrong?

There was light passing through the gap of the curtains. Kiro’s voice was very light, like a musical note floating in the darkness.

Kiro: Turns out that you had a lot to do backstage whenever I had a concert.

He looked at the erratic light, and his entire body seemed rigid and quiet.

Compared to Kiro, who was always shining on stage, it seemed to be a little different. And it seemed to be the same for everything.

Kiro: On this glamorous road, you can always be with me and understand what I want in my heart.

Kiro: It’s great to arrive at the most splendid place with you.

My heart was touched by his words, and I couldn’t help thinking of the concerts we had held together, big and small, all over the world.

MC: Looking back on it now, we’ve walked such a long way together.

A satisfying and fulfilling sense of accomplishment overflowed in my chest. I held Kiro’s hand and gave him a smile.

MC: Don’t worry, Mr. Superstar.

MC: As your boss, I will accompany you to every grand stage, and I won’t falter for a single moment.

Kiro gripped my hand and his laughter was hidden in my neck.

Kiro: Just as my boss?

I couldn’t help but laugh at the breath that tickled my neck. I tilted my head and whispered in his ear.

MC: Well... and as Miss Chips.

Kiro turned his face to look at me. His eyes were as bright as the stars in the darkness.

Kiro: MC, this is the path we have chosen together. All the honors on this stage will be shared between us.

Kiro: And I will remember each one.

Read the continuation in: Kiro’s Fledgling Date

[levok]

Do you think Edvin takes over sometimes? He has himself stated that he likes to be in the center and likes to be showman. Omar has stated that he can be a bit shy and a bit reseved among new people (not suprising if he is a bit careful based on his history of being bullied and faced /face ? racism being openly unlabeled etc and maybe not take for granted that he is appreciated and welcome) ) Like at Omars birthday when also Omars longterm friends were there but often Edvin in the center or at interviews were Edvin likes to talk alot. Even at the event in Denmark with Rojda and Lisa E was beong quie dramatic, not just with Omar. I know they sre really close and nice and fun for them to be together and they have so much respect for eachother. I just sometimes wish Edvin would chill a bit and not being fully so on the top of things a bit dramatic and take up so much space. Maybe it`s just me overthinking this, everyone seem to love it. And yes I think they are both great and their should be room for differnt personalities. And fun to watch. Maybe a bit protective of Omar though because of the challenges has had to face. Just want good things for them both. What is your reflection?

This was a long ask, so here’s a long answer.

Let me honest, this is not something I’ve thought about before, but…

First of all, I think they both enjoy being in the spotlight, because they both chose this career. Omar might sometimes come of a little shy and lost of words when he’s interviewed, but when he takes the stage he is the absolute opposite. You can clearly see that he loves performing. I would think Omar on paper has more experience in doing interviews than Edvin, due to his former boyband life (there seems to be a lot of old footage, but I haven't watched it), so non of them is new to this game. 

But I think it’s new for both of them to do so many interviews in English. They both speak English very well, but keep in mind that this is their second and third language, and that has something to say as well. Some are more comfortable in this that others - no matter how well you speak English. I enjoy their Swedish interviews more, because you can hear they speak more freely, think less and are more comfortable (again, their English is great, but there will always be some kind of barrier when it’s not their everyday language).

I actually think Edvin’s interview skills are remarkable. He is very reflected and stays on track, even when the interviewer goes off track. And when him an Omar does interview and other stuff together I never have the feeling of him overruling Omar, and I don't have the sense of Omar holding back when interviewed with Edvin - Quite the opposite. I think they compliment each other very well, and make each other more comfortable.

Edvin does have a very energetic personality, but he doesn't go fully goofball, when the situation isn’t there for it. I think he reads the room very well and is very professional - But when he does entertainment shows and stuff like that, they want the light hearted goofy Edvin, and that what he delivers. But when he does more serious things where he talks about stuff like anxiety and such, he doesn't goof at all.

There are actors etc. that always “steal” the interview and speak over the other guests, always have a funny remark and such (If you watch comedians being on Graham Norton for example, which can be really obnoxious), but Edvin is not like that at all.

I was at the event in Denmark you're referring to, and I don’t really see how he was dramatic. Yes he likes being funny, but he always stay on topic, let people speak, answers the questions and so on (even though his memory is terrible).

And about their private relation and dynamic in a friend group. We only see a tiny snippet of what's going on, and could or should not try to conclude anything from that.. It’s not like he jumps in front of the camera to steal the show. 

In conclusion, I don’t think Edvin should chill. I understand your sympathy towards Omar, but I only think they make each other shine more.