#YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID SAM REICH

[how-queerious]

SAMUEL

A new Make Some Noise is out now on Dropout - with Izzy, Brennan, and Erika!

[witherbythesword]

if the theory of sam reich being replaced by .. evil wizard dalton reich (and i cant believe i am partaking in this discurse) is true..

i've seen some people asking the question about what those childhood tapes mean. Well i am one of the ancient ones that owned vhs tapes and you know you could replace whats stored on those tapes with overwriting it with new material but it would slowly degrade the quality as the magnetic tape the information is stored on isn't necessarly made to be re-recorded on indefinetly which would also explain the degrading quality of the gamechanger episode.

So my theory is that dalton reich wants to erase sam from history and to do this he is slowly erasing any proof that could hint on sam and dalton being two different people. One thing he appearantly needed to do is overwrite these old vhs tapes of sams childhood.

[judaismandsuch]

An Open Letter to Dropout

@dropoutdottv I am disappointed in you.

I know that this will not change your policy, nor will you make a folloe up statement, as proportion wise the number of people you have lost from your last post, vs. the number of people you will lose should you make an apology and walk back the statement are not in any way the comparable.

But you have failed your Jewish audience.

A group of your viewers accused an openly and actively Jewish guest on one of your shows of being Zionist. Despite him not making any statements since the few days after October 7th.

So you made a statement, saying that no one you have had on identifies themselves as such. And that even if anyone did you would give them the room to grow, and learn, and repent from such a horrific view.

That you condemn the genocide. Which hasn't been found to be a genocide by the international court. Which has a death toll of combatants-to-civilians far less than even just the bombing of Dresden of WWII. An event can be horrific without being genocide. But calling it 'monstrous' or 'horrific' wouldn't have placated people.

Though I noticed that you haven't spoken about the genocide (or at least, wide spread persecution and inhumane treatment) of Uyghurs in China. But that may lead to you becoming completely banned in China. Which could impact your bottom line.

You will give more money to PCRF, and you encourage people to donate to UNRWA.

What is wrong with you?

What is it, that an accusation of 'Zionist', which can mean anything from "Israel exists now, and it no longer existing is bad" to the Kahanist definition, requires an immediate response and excuse?

You continue to recommend supporting UNRWA, despite documented proof that UNRWA members took part in October 7th.

In your first milque-toast response to your Discord's meltdown on the subject you supported JVP, and mentioned that there are several equally horrific events going on around the world.

But you haven't supported any of the other causes.

Several of them are far worse than what is happening in Gaza, but you haven't raised a cent for them.

You continue to tacitly support JVP, despite any affiliated Jew saying that they are clearly not Jewish. There practices show that they don't understand Judaism, and their founders and board of directors is mainly non-Jews. They have a page on ADL describing all the Antisemitic acts that they have done. But you still keep a pinned post in support of them.

Why aren't you fundraising for WCK? They do good work in Gaza, and unlike the rest of the groups you platformed, they haven't had a single accusation of association with Hamas.

But, you treat a baseless call of 'Zionist' as if it were a nearly credible call of 'Nazi'.

You make a post on this, the day before the American Election, but haven't even done a single 'go out to vote' post?

What is wrong with you?

Are you afraid that because @samreich is Jewish, if you don't get in front of demands that all obvious Jews you have on demonstrate their alliance with 'the cause', people will start to ask if Sam Reich is 'one of the good ones'?

To be clear, this isn't antisemitism.

This is performing for an audience that doesn't realise that a witch hunt for Jews, demanding that the Jews show that they are 'good jews' is in fact antisemitism.

This is focusing on one conflict to the exclusion of all others. Perhaps Myanmar and Sudan just aren't that important. Afterall, no one is talking about them.

Feeling the need to address baseless accusations thrown on obvious Jews that haven't performed well enough.

You have sent your message.

I am unwelcome.

I hope it was worth it

[iimr3]

reasons why (in my opinion) the try guys hit the nail on the head with forming a subscription service where watcher fumbled:

try guys has already been making TV-caliber content for a while. without a recipe and phoning it in both feel like professional cooking shows, and the fact that they have actual celebrity guests adds to that. their audience is extremely familiar with them having this huge set and a ton of employees working to produce the videos they love. on top of that, they've been around longer. they mention at the beginning of the announcement they've been on YouTube for ten years, & dropout/CH similarly had been around for a while when it's streaming service dropped. try guys just always felt more professional & as a fan you immediately understand why they would need more money

(edit) also, they have formed an emotional connection between the audience and their employees! people love rachel & know how hard she works & want to see her get paid well for that work. not that the watcher team don't deserve that, but their audience is way less emotionally invested in their employees' wellbeings than with the try guys audience & their non-talent team (& I say this as a fan & regular viewer of both channels).

try guys already had experience with paid content that went over really well with their audience. their live shows proved that their audience was willing to pay a decent amount every once in a while for something cool, and they proved that they would actually provide something cool for that money. people pointed out how watcher neglected their patreon; the try guys made very good use of their live shows imo. and as a result, they are able to say "you'll get free tickets to the live shows!" which is a really good perk if you are someone who enjoys those. instead of paying $20 every once in a while for one live show, you can pay 5$ for free live shows and early content and exclusive new content.

plus, they also reveal their expanded cast, which is something all of their fans have been wondering about for over a year. it's not just keith and zach you get to see, but all of these people their audience now loves and is always talking about wanting to join the try guys officially. collectively the try guys announcement feels more positive in multiple senses, both in emotional vibe and in what the audience is getting out of this.

also: no one can say for certain whether or not they decided to keep posting on YT after the watcher debacle, but I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt & believe that they always intended to stay on YouTube. it makes sense as a business decision & it's clear they've been working on this for some time (despite what some people seem to think??). tbh I don't think they were trying to be cruel to watcher in their announcement, I think they just saw that shitstorm and understood they needed to make it clear to their audience that they are not making the same mistakes. EDIT: in the most recent trypod, zach confirmed that they have been planning to 1) create a streaming service 2) keep posting content free on YouTube since 2023. so, no, they did not create 2nd Try or decide to stay on YouTube because of Watcher. stop trying to manufacture drama.

also also: they have, especially in the trypod, been very candid about their struggles with the algorithm and appealing to youtube's demands for content. in one episode I remember them talking about how they wanted to reject the "constant expansion" mindset, placing more focus on what their existing audience wants rather than trying to constantly get new people. they have been open about how certain things they want to do are not viable because of monetization issues; smoke show is a recent example of this.

another edit: also in the recent episode of the trypod, Zach says that they reached out to Sam Reich of Dropout for tips on starting a streaming service & things to avoid. we have no way of telling if Watcher did this, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was also key in why they turned out differently.

tl;dr i think it comes down to what was presented (not leaving youtube, new content that wouldn't be allowed on youtube, free live shows, new cast), how it was presented (shorter video, focus on the excitement & positives, show of respect to those who can't afford the price), and the context surrounding it (being older, a reputation for more professional content, having prepared their audience for a big shift, having previously discussed issues with youtube and their content)

[audible301]

Sam Reich knows what he’s doing because every time I rewatch the finale teaser to try to look for clues I get immediately distracted by how hot everyone looks in it.

Sam you smart son of a bitch I know you did that on purpose.

[taiyyna]

I think that comparing Dropout to Watcher TV is insulting and delusional. Dropout, a former CH, did so much and had so much before they moved to a streaming service. It was never out of the blue, and they prepared for and announced every step of the way, and they still do it. If you think that I will pay for an unexpected subscription to see Steven eat some more expensive food and to watch "TV quality content" of people who I was always happy to see just hanging around, I don't know what you are smoking. It even costs 99 cents more than Dropout! Yeah, the same Dropout, who gained success over time, who had more than five talents to start with and has around a hundred now, who proved their integrity and heart again and again and who is putting out new content five days a week. Also, just saying, Sam Reich or anyone else from Dropout was never rude or boastful about the transition.

[clarionglass]

gang,,,,, gang. i am honestly still reeling from The game changer account reblogging the comic,,,, my god. my god.

for newcomers: welcome! thank you for being here!! for those who may have only seen the part of the fic linked to the comic, this is part 6 in the series (because truly i cannot stop myself). all the other parts are linked in the lil game master cinematic universe blurb i've got down the bottom of the post, and the whole thing is now on ao3!

and speaking of my lil blurby thing, if anyone else wants to play around in the game master cinematic universe, tag me so i don't miss it and i'll add whatever you make to the list!! and if you just want to chat about the crossover, hit me up! truly i am so happy to have as many people playing in this sandbox as want to be here :D

but anyway, without further ado:

a selection of correspondence (game master cinematic universe, part 6) | read on ao3

From: Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) To: Group <Dropout cast and crew> Subject: Announcements and info

Hi all,

Just a quick announcement that we have a new member of the team joining us at Dropout! Some of you have met him already, although you may not have realised it—he worked on A Game Most Changed and Escape the Greenroom in season 5, and Bingo, Deja Vu, Beat the Buzzer and Sam Says 4 in season 6, doing some of the hosting in my place.

And before you ask how that can be, this man is my exact doppelganger! He’s a time traveling alien who, for the moment, we are calling Other Sam, because we’ve agreed that the name he’s chosen is not exactly appropriate in a workplace setting. He’s here on a kind of rehabilitation program, as shows like Game Changer provide the sort of enrichment that he needs, without him having to resort to things like planetary conquest and murder. We also have him to thank for our new studio—he has kindly allowed us to use his (currently grounded) spacetime machine to record in, seeing as he did blow up our original studio. On an operational basis, nothing should have changed with the studio, but I do recommend you don’t go poking around in cupboards, just in case.

I promise on everything dear to me that this is not a joke.

I hope you’ll all make Other Sam feel welcome! So there’s minimal confusion between the two of us, he and I will be taking care to differentiate ourselves (he says he will try and look, in his words, “more evil”, although I’ll admit I’m not quite sure how that will work).

Series leads and producers, if you would like to include Other Sam in one of your shows, please let me know. He’s a lot of fun to work with, and he’s promised us his best behaviour, so I can guarantee there will be none of the aforementioned planetary conquest and murder. Of course, the wellbeing of all Dropout cast and crew is my highest priority, so if any of you are not comfortable working with him, please let me know as well, and production and I will ensure you are not cast in the same episodes. In future seasons of Game Changer, we will be sharing the hosting duties, so if you’re on an episode, it’ll be made clear which of us you’ll be working with.

On a related note, you know I hate being the bearer of bad news about mandatory seminars, but there is a training seminar next Monday on psychic defence techniques. This seminar is a requirement if you’re going to be working with him, and even if you’re not planning on that, I’d strongly advise coming along anyway.

As always, if you’ve got any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Cheers, Sam

---

[Note: many responses with the general sentiment of “what the fuck?!” have not been included in the selection of return correspondence.]

---

From: Brennan Lee Mulligan (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

I need this man in the dome immediately. 

---

From: Siobhan Thompson (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Hi Sam,

Many thanks for your email, and for letting us know about Other Sam. You don’t need to confirm or deny this, but I’m assuming he did something to us during the Deja Vu recording. I haven’t felt entirely comfortable around you since then, and until now I haven’t been able to find a logical reason why. You mentioned psychic defence techniques in your email, so I take it that there was some kind of mental fuckery involved—perhaps a memory wipe? 

I don’t know what he did, and I’m not sure I want to know, but whatever it is, I don’t think it’s good. I would very much appreciate it if I don’t have to work with him.

Best wishes, Siobhan

---

From: Grant O’Brien (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Hey Sam,

I’m already digging up info for a Breaking News segment. There’s someone on reddit called scarfytwin who says they might be able to give us some good info, but I might need to sign a few things first? Looks like it’s tangled up in some British government stuff, which is wild. Sounds juicy, whatever it is, and I reckon it would be good payback…

Best, Grant

---

From: Lou Wilson (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Man, are you telling me that Samuel Dalton was kind of a real fucking thing?? No way. If you let me punch him *hard* one time I’ll go on any show with him.

Cheers, Lou

---

From: Brian David Gilbert (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Hi Sam,

This explains a lot about the weird feelings I’ve been having since Deja Vu! I know something terrible probably happened during that recording, but I’d love to just sit down with Other Sam and have a chat. Do you recommend we just meet in a professional context, or would that be something you’re able to organize?

Thanks, Brian

---

From: Zac Oyama (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Cool.

---

From: Ally Beardsley (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Absolute freak behavior and i love this for you, sign me up for anything!

---

From: Mike Trapp (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Hi Sam,

Huh, that sure explains some things. This will probably be cool in future, but for right now, I think I need to do a bit of processing. I’ll let you know!

Cheers, Trapp

---

From: Vic Michaelis (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Hi Sam,

Intriguing! If you think he’d be up for the prosthetics, I’d love to have either of you on Very Important People next season. Both of you together would be even better!

Vic

---

From: Lily Du (@gmail.com) To: Sam Reich (@droput.tv) Subject: Re: Announcements and info

Hey Sam,

I’ve had a chat to Grant, and I would love to put this guy on Dirty Laundry. Grant says he’ll share what he finds out from the reddit person with me, and we might be able to make a good episode happen.

Cheers, Lily

---

From: Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) To: Other Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) Subject: Fwd: Announcements and info

Well, most people seem to have taken it well! Looks like we’ll be having some fun…

---

From: Other Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) To: Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) Subject: Re: Fwd: Announcements and info

“Not exactly appropriate in a workplace setting”?

---

From: Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) To: Other Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) Subject: Re: Re: Fwd: Announcements and info

We discussed this. You agreed.

---

From: Other Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) To: Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Fwd: Announcements and info

I most certainly did not. I said “hm”. “Hm” does not count as agreement.

---

From: Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) To: Other Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fwd: Announcements and info

You do know this is a group of people who I can guarantee, on hearing the word “Master”, would react the exact same way Grant did?

---

From: Other Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) To: Sam Reich (@dropout.tv) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fwd: Announcements and info

Fine. “Other Sam” it is.

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x escape the death beam: x

by @bloopdydooooo drawing collection: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): x part four (you think you know someone): x part five (point and counterpoint): x part six (a selection of correspondence): you are here!

[adamsmasher]

Okay it's after 1am and I've had a lot of wine so obviously it's time for a late night wall-of-text post, but this time it's less likely to piss off your weird uncle or whatever because once again, I gotta talk about the best $4.99 a month I've ever spent.

Please, if you haven't yet, I'm begging you to look into all of the incredible content available on the Dropout.tv streaming service (formerly known as College Humor) . Not only did Whose Line Is It Anyway's Wayne Brady say that the Dropout crew are the only ones doing improv comedy on the same level as Whose Line, but they were also one of the only studios/streaming services allowed to work during the writers' strike because their contracts went above and beyond industry standards. (And, from my own observations, Dropout LOVES hiring queer, trans/nonbinary, and BIPOC performers + crew. Obviously I don't know much about the industry, but they seem like one of the most inclusive companies in Hollywood.)

"Alex, thanks for the recommendation! What shows do they have that you think I'll like?" Oh, you're asking me to gush about my favorite tv shows? Don't mind if I do!!!

Are you D&D curious, but took one look at actual play shows like Critical Role and thought "6 hours an episode? and there's like 750 episodes or whatever? oh baby not my adhd ass..." Don't worry, me too (sorry CR I love you I promise). But Dropout has a show called "Dimension 20" where comedians play Dungeons and Dragons with emotional, immersive storytelling, gut-busting laughs, and spectacular set design that makes you forget it's a fully improvised series controlled by the roll of the dice. They even did a miniseries perfect for D&D beginners called "Dungeons and Drag Queens" where absolute novices and Drag Race royalty Jujubee, Monet X Change, Alaska Thunderfuck, and Bob the Drag Queen embark on an adventure full of mystery, intrigue, and stupidity. I mean, Alaska plays a muscle-bound, axe-wielding, caveman-grunting Orc named Princess, what more could you want? Plus, the primary game master Brennan Lee Mulligan is so easy on the eyes. Oh, you're not into dorky ginger dudes? How about Aabria Iyengar, a 6 foot tall goddess who's equally as nerdy as Brennan but loves basketball. that's right, if nothing else, there's eye candy for every person in every season.

"Oh, why aren't there any good game shows on TV?" you wonder, wishing that the Game Show Network could come up with something that isn't a lame remake of a free-to-play phone game. Well how about Game Changer, "the only game show where the game changes every show (except for [...] Game of Games, Taskmaster, and a few others that have come to light AFTER [Game Changer first aired]. That's right, [the] players have no idea what game it is they're about to play. The only way to learn is by playing, the only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning." And yes, I did sit there and watch the beginning of an episode to make sure I was accurately quoting Game Changer host (and Dropout CEO) Sam Reich's description of his flaghship game show that has THREE separate spin-offs. (for context, he only mentions the other shows that copied his in the one episode I pulled up to get an accurate quote. could you imagine how uncomfortable it would be if he said that every episode? hah!)

Are you more of a traditional Whose Line fan? Look no further than Game Changer spin-off Make Some Noise, where contestants act out "improvisational prompts that [they have] never seen before, isn't that right contestants?" ("We won't know if we've seen them before or not until we see them!" Brennan insists every time he's on...)

You like musicals but wish they were less... ya know, scripted? Check out "Play It By Ear", a fully improvised musical! (you may be familiar with its primary cast members Jess McKenna and Zach Reino from the podcast that inspired it all, "Off Book: the Improvised Musical Podcast with Zach and Jess")

Or maybe you're more into trivia, cuz you're a total nerd like me (and every single performer that's ever appeared on dropout.tv). How about "Umm, Actually" where contestants are given an incorrect statement and have to buzz in to correct it - but you have to say "Umm, Actually" first!

Straight up, you can't go wrong on Dropout. Please, check it out. They're nearly doubling the amount of original shows they have in 2024, and no other streaming service is doing it like them. If I haven't convinced you yet, get the 7 day trial and give em a chance. There's no referral code I can give you that gives me some sort of kickback or whatever, I genuinely wrote what looks like a thousand word essay about Dropout at 1am just because I love them so much.

[riacte]

Yeah at first I thought this session was good because the gimmick didn’t 100% interfere with the players. They could fight and chat and maybe a little something something from this Sam Reich Robot but seeing how the questions were made by fans for fans, it definitely feels very pandering like “oOooOooooO what two flowers did Scar give to Grian in third life?” and “wow wow wow who was married in third life? Was it this popular ship? This popular ship? Or this popular ship!” and “who was Grian’s secret soulmate” like you know the tumblr peeps would freak out other it but overall it’s like? Okay and? You (the players) keep referring back to old seasons in wild life while not focusing on the current season at hand or make an effort to try something new? Maybe this is why I like Lizzie’s pov because she isn’t stuck in the past (cough cough treebark pandering cough cough scarian divorce cough cough whatever the hell is going on at the 4 B base)

This session I think did have more downtime than snail and speed and they got some things done, but yeah you're so right. The Treebark pandering thing is so weird for me personally because usually I love being pandered to— it's like a self-aware thing between Martyn and the fandom, we play along, we have a good time— but somehow this wasn't my vibe. There's always been a thin line, but now it's intentional and painfully obvious. I know fans made the questions and this isn't hate, I would've probably done the same given the opportunity 😭 but it being accepted by Grian and shown in the ep felt a little too self aware? It's like when you're lucid dreaming and you dream up your crush and they magically like you back and it feels insanely good because it's all you wanted yet it's off because you're controlling your dream projection.

I pretty much only watch this season for the Treebark honeymoon, so as the Target Audience, it's hypocritical that I'm like "ok now I don't like Treebark pandering" like okay girl what have you been doing since 2021?? Enjoying the pandering yeah?? What's wrong with me?? Throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler because I got the bait I wanted??? Hmm?

"You (the players) keep referring back to old seasons in wild life while not focusing on the current season at hand or make an effort to try something new" this is so real. It's like they're trying something new for fresh interest and rehashing the old things people liked to retain the past audience. Arguably Treebark has an excuse because they haven't interacted in sooooo long and they don't do much outside of Life (now they do Rats and hopefully MCC).

Anyways yeah pandering. It's always been pandering but the curtain has drawn back just a little too much and I think it made me too self aware of the shit I do so I flinched. I joke about Ren and Martyn being married all the time but seeing it on my screen was like "girl why did the devil's sacrament come to YOU".

"Okay and?" Tbh that sums it up. What now? What happens next week? Did we ever get a proper exposition on the spawner cages and eggs? What now?

This season is easier to understand if I imagine it as a (borrowing MCC terms) "non canon" series of standalone gimmicks in which the Life series cast goof off once a week. Like Guess the Build. But saying that is taboo because this is officially Life Series 6, so everything that happens here is canon and the winner will be canon.

[grasslandgirl]

HI IM SO SORRY WHAT THE FUCK. FH JUNIOR YEAR REAL ?????? FOR REAL IN REAL LIFE ?????? FOR MY BIRTHDAY AND SAVJAM DAY ??????????? HELLLOOOOOO???? HAMMERING ON THE WALL SAM REICH DID YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU FOREVER

[msmargaretmurry]

friend, what do you do when you haven't written (fan)fiction in more years than you can say for sure, and you're bitten by a character arc for a story that keeps spiraling into more and more as you think about it? i am feeling VERY overwhelmed especially as it becomes more about that character arc than the original plot idea. i remember you saying that you thought HAW was going to be like 40k and obviously it ended up much longer - having gone through that process, what did you learn? is there any advice you'd give, especially to someone already nervous to start doing something for the first time?

hello pal! i'm sorry you're having an anxious time of it but i'm excited to hear that you're flexing your writing muscles, and i hope that i can offer some helpful reassurances here!

the short answer is: you just write it. you just do it!!! ultimately the two choices here are write it or don't write it, and not writing it is way less satifying. yes yes WAY easier said than done though, so onto the long answer. 💞

trying to write again when you haven't written in a while can definitely be nerve-wracking, so first of all, i want to say that it's totally fine to be nervous. very normal of you! obviously you want your story to live up to the idea in your head, so it can be really hard to shake the whole feeling of, oh no what if it doesn't? what if my grand foray back into writing is an EMBARRASSING FAILURE?? so i also want to say that it will not be, because there is no such thing as failing at creativity, and i forbid you from being embarassed of anything you create while learning. writing is a never-ending learning process. the best writers you have ever read are the ones who embrace learning something new every time they write. i would say this even if it hadn't been years since you last wrote, but especially since it's been years since you last wrote, but it is imperative to remember that you have to start somewhere. to quote the great sam reich, the only way to begin is by beginning.

my #1 tip for if you're working on a story and it feels like it wants to be long and you have a lot of thoughts and ideas and feelings about it is to WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. don't make yourself try to remember it all. i use a note in my notes app for this, but you can use a physical notebook or a google doc or whatever works for you.

this isn't for writing the actual fic — you might end up with snippets of scenes in here but nothing more than a few lines. this is for literally anytime you think of something for your story, into the note it goes, as soon as possible, so you don't have to worry about remembering it. a fact you learn, a future story beat you want to hit, a line of dialogue you want to include in a future scene, a lyric that inspires you, a reminder to include a detail or reference. i also use mine to keep a list of subplots/running themes — things you don't want to fall off your own radar and wind up forgotten halfway through.

you don't need to check your note/document/whatever every time you write, but if you're an outliner you can use it to periodically update your outline, and besides that, occasionally referring back to it is great for a) sparking inspiration for where the story goes next, and b) reminding you to go back and be like, hm, how long has it been since i referenced [subplot]? maybe it's time for that to make another appearance!

i also ALSO use mine to keep a list of things i know i'm going to want to go back and edit for once i have a full draft. i don't know about you, but i am a CHRONIC edit-as-i-go-er and doing this has helped me so much with being able to take a deep breath, accept that something in the draft probably needs fixing, and know that i won't forget about it. i no longer have the HAW version of this note (because i delete things out of mine as i address them, so by the end of writing the story the note is empty 😂) but iirc it had things like — make sure it's clear that matthew is kind of a mama's boy, double-check the pacing/frequency of matthew's big intrusive thoughts, make sure we know where bowie is for scenes in leon's house.

regarding the story becoming more about the character arc than the original plot idea, try to let go of your expectations of what the story was supposed to be and instead try to approach it with a mindset of discovering what the story is going to be. this will give you a lot more freedom to let it grow and change without feeling like you're abandoning something. the reason HAW got so long is because, when i started, i had two big plot beats that i knew i wanted to get to (the first breathplay scene and the first kiss scene) and as i was writing, i kept thinking to myself, okay i need x y z and then i get to tackle that big plot beat. so i would write x y z only to discover that i still needed more development to make it feel earned. so i just wrote more development! this did mean letting go of the conception of the story's structure i had going in, when i thought it would be shorter, but it ultimately let the beats fall in the right places.

(obviously letting your story sprawl however it wants to isn't always the the best thing you can do for a piece of fiction. but in character-driven stories, in my opinion, it's vital to give the character the space they need. and if it sprawls too much, you can always edit it down later. you can learn stuff about your characters from scenes you wind up cutting or from versions of scenes that don't end up working just as much as from the scenes you nail.)

if you think it'll help with motivation, get yourself an alpha reader. enlist a friend that you trust to be what you need them to be in this role. for me, it's that i can trust when i send them the next 5–10k chunk of first draft that they will read it at their earliest convenience (not letting it sit for days), that they will be invested in following the story (i once had an alpha reader tell me that they had totally forgotten about a major story development in the week or so between one chunk and then next chunk, and it devastated me), and that they will understand that as i'm grinding out the first draft, i need enthusiasm and encouragement, and concrit ONLY if there's a major issue. concrit is the realm of my beta readers.

everyone's writing process is different, so if there's stuff here where you're like, ugh i hate that idea, feel free to ignore it! or modify it! just don't spend so much time tinkering with planning and research and playlists and outlines etc that you don't actually write. occasionally a good writing sesh CAN be 98% tinkering, but most of them should not be.

finally, let yourself enjoy the process. don't put pressure on yourself to finish it quickly so you can feed it to the internet for comments and kudos. comments and kudos are, of course, fantastic, and also it's fine to set yourself arbitrary goals/deadlines if that helps you (e.g. "writing"i'm going to write 3,000 words a week" or "i'm going to finish this section of story by the end of the month") but try not to get stressed if it's taking longer than expected to write, or it turns out you want to add more than expected to the story. it's worth it to have a story you're happy with.

sometimes writing can be really hard and frustrating, but that doesn't mean you're doing it badly. sometimes you need to talk an issue through with a friend. sometimes it takes a few tries to figure out how a scene should go. sometimes you need to let a plot problem rotate like a $2 hotdog on the gas station hotdog roller of your brain for a couple of days before the solution comes to you in a vision at the most inconvenient time possible. (jot it down in your notes app before you forget it.)

anyway. good luck and i believe in you ❤ you know where to find me if you need to complain about writing/talk through something/get a pep talk!

[remidyal]

Bad Ideas of the Day, Part Three

My monthly-ish roundup of my bad dimension 20 fanfic ideas of the day prompts! As ever, all of these can be written by anyone who cares to do so.

Part two can be found here and part one here

Bad Idea Of the Day, Multi-class Edition: Following basic pattern recognition skills, Fig decides and convinces four of the other bad kids that the key to getting powerful wizard abilities is not hard work and study, but having a name that starts with the letter A. Can Adaine deal with walking in to class on the first day of school and finding five new students in her wizard classes, Afig, Akristen, Ariz, Agorgug, and Abian, or will she murder her friends on the spot?

Bad idea of the day, Sicktember is a curse edition: Out of respect for Aelwyn's compromised immune system following her time in the orb, the residents of Mordred Manor actually take proper precautions to avoid getting her sick during the following flu season. A fluff piece and alas seemingly pure fantasy.

Bad idea of the day, yes I already did one today edition: Fig, actually doing a bard assignment for once, needs to build a ballad for her family history and decides to include the entire insane non-Gorgug bad kids family tree, even the most tenuous links in it like Kristen and Aelwyn.

Bad idea of the day, role swap edition: Fabian, prince of Leviathan, must deal with a ship that has been raiding his father's trading vessels, led by two sisters who are pirating with varying degrees of reluctance to bring wealth back to their greedy and demanding parents

Bad idea of the day, backstory mix and match edition: In the summer before high school, Kristen and her entire family are ripped apart by the discovery that she is half-devil; meanwhile, wood elf Fig wakes up one morning to a god whispering in her head and is deeply annoyed because they won't just let her sleep in.

(If I want to do it for all of the bad kids, hmm… Riz's parents are actually retired thieves, while Bill Seacaster was actually a privateer working for Solace the whole time; Adaine is adopted and aware of it and hoping her birth parents would actually love her, while Gorgug has a wild gnomish older sister who may be up to some nefarious activity)

Bad idea of the day, every show needs a musical episode by its third season edition: The residents of Elmville have been cursed into bursting into song at the slightest provocation, with reactions ranging from the amused (Fig, Kristen) to the murderous (Riz, Aelwyn). What kind of villain could be behind such an impromptu act of theater?

Why, it's Sam Reich of course. He's been here the… you know the rest.

Bad idea of the day, I Like Werewolves Okay? edition - KINGSTON fails his con save to avoid becoming a werewolf during the train fight and everyone else needs to help him adjust without gnawing on too many people.

Bad idea of the day, the writer had to scroll back to see if it had already done a bad idea of the day today edition: A groundhogs day esque time loop for one of the bad kids, but it's not a dramatic day or anything special and in fact it's just kind of boring and miserable. This turns out to eventually be revealed to be revenge by Arthur Aguefort for some petty and long-forgotten-by-the-kid slight.

Bad idea of the day, campaign fusion edition: Arthur Aguefort sends the Bad Kids on their most dangerous and critical mission yet, shrinking them down to clean out his fridge and prevent the vegetables within from grouping up to kill him before he can eat them, without causing too much damage to the ecosystem he's been maintaining for the last five centuries. Can these mere fleshy beings stop this uprising against 'the hungry one' in the world of Calorum?

Bad idea of the day, early morning edition: Kristen's gay awakening is triggered not by Tracker, but rather by someone who her parents would hate even more: The cute bi rebellious tiefling in her new party.

Bad idea of the day, portal to hell edition: Daybreak succeeds in condemning Kristen to hell, which doesn't actually end the world but does mean Kristen's stuck in hell. Can she find a new god worth following in such spicy surroundings?

Bad idea of the day, after school special edition: Fig and Aelwyn get part-time jobs going around Solace to "demonstrate" the dangers of drugs and drinking by going to local school parties and faking getting into lethal car accidents, overdoses, and other mishaps to scare those local students into being drug free, mostly because both of them secretly find it funny and in Aelwyn's case she needs the money

Bad idea of the day, Double Your Pleasure edition: Riva, never quite certain how the pleasure putty they're selling works, finds out about oral sex and then makes the determination that the explosive material should be marketed as chewing gum. The ensuing pleasure blows people's minds!

Bad idea of the day, Oops All Spells edition: The bad kids manage to not get detention on the first day and to avoid accidentally playing into daybreak's hands, ending up in normal parties. Many of them have many troubles out of this, but the worst is for Fig, who finds herself tempted into hanging out with the first other tiefling she's ever met even if he is a little bit of a loser, one Johnny Spells

Bad idea of the day, Mentopolis edition: The Fix gets an assignment to wipe out serial distracter Imelda Pulse before she can ruin any more coworker's birthdays

Bad idea of the day, Afterlife edition: Figueroth Faeth is very bad at the paperwork of her domain in Hell, even after nearly fifty years running it. Luckily for her, her good friend and paperwork expert Riz Gukgak has just died of old age, and Fig isn't above cheating him out of heaven in order to get his administrative expertise in Hell.

Bad idea of the day, party swap edition: As part of a junior year test, all of the students in that year must do a relatively easy quest mixed up into different parties, with no two members of a typical party allowed to be together. How do the bad kids handle doing a mission with people who are less, well, generally insane and bloodthirsty than they are?

Bad Idea of the Day, Spy Versus Spy edition: All of the bad kids are on secret missions to spy on Arthur Aguefort and his school, with varying degrees of willingness and conflicting goals: Adaine for Fallinel, Kristen on behalf of the church, Fig on behalf of Hell, Riz for Kalina, Fabian for his father, and Gorgug for the Solisian government itself through his parents.

Bad idea of the day, A Crown of Candy edition: Amethar dies in the initial ambush, the way Brennan had frankly probably planned for. Can the remnants of house Rocks hold things together and avenge their fallen king?

Bad idea of the day, Nightmare Forest edition: Rather than illusions, the nightmare forest sequence is made up of a Freddy Kreuger-esque sequence of actual dreams in the Bad Kids' actual sleeps, with them needing to survive their respective worst nightmares in order to make it to the place at the center of dreams where they can find the Nightmare King.

Bad idea of the day, fake holiday edition: Aguefort in junior year includes a class on self-promotion, and Fig and Adaine, taking it extremely seriously, start a holiday honoring the anniversary of Riz murdering Daybreak.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

You do realise that Izzy Roland, a prominent improver on Dropout, and Sam Reich, the CEO, are literally Jewish, yeah? Pretty sure Katie Marovitch is also, as well as probably others.

Call them out for things you don't agree with, absolutely. That's your right, and it's something we all should do. But holy heck, you sure make it sound like people are only really Jewish if they agree with you? Otherwise, they don't count, I guess.

No, I didn't know they were Jewish. And your presumption that I did know or would judge them in a particular way based on it, and decide if they were "really Jewish" based on if they agreed with me or not is fucking gross.

"Call them out for things you don't agree with" -- That's literally what I did, and you're here mad about it. Because they were antisemitic, and then they tried to recover from being antisemitic, and no, I won't shut up about it because it's exactly this sort of behavior that has been getting ignored, minimized, and dismissed over and over again because people don't want to look directly at the massive issues with antisemitism steeped into our culture that leads us to a point where a group of people can hang a "No Jews we don't like" sign and people defend them because "they're trying their best" or "they didn't mean it" or "but they only mean the bad jews" or "But some of them are Jews."

I don't agree with their actions. I am calling them out on their actions. You are inventing a narrative for yourself where I am in the wrong because you don't want them to be in the wrong. That's your shit to figure out. Good luck.

[noys-boise]

Can you infodump to me about whatever youre currently obsessed with

can i? dude you're going to have to stop me with force i REALLY want to infodump I just never have the excuse to do it. I'll be nice enough to put it under a read more though because this is very long.

let me tell you about this little streaming service called dropout.tv because it has taken over my life. it was started by the people at collegehumor (idk if you know it, they made sketch comedy and that sort of videos for over a decade) when they got tired of having to conform to advertisers on sites like youtube or facebook. and also not long after dropout launched collegehumor's parent company tried to sell the brand since it wasn't profitable enough for them leading to Sam Reich, who's worked at collegehumor pretty much since the beginning, acquiring the rights. however he did have to lay off pretty much everyone except a skeleton crew plus Brennan Lee Mulligan who created the most popular series on the platform. but everyone else keeps working at dropout on a freelance basis so it's all good.

anyway with the launch of dropout they moved away from scripted comedy to really a wide variety of unscripted content. the series that got me into dropout is game changer, a game show where the contestants don't know what game it is they're going to play since the game changes (almost) every time. it is SO fun?? there's been so many insane concepts including lie detector that's secretly controlled by the contestants' significant others, selling useless shit like a keyboard that only has the letter p or a rubik's cube that's all green, murder mystery that's somehow both fictional and real at the same time (it's. really hard to explain this one it was really just to troll one specific contestant, a lot of episodes are made with specific people in mind since these people have worked together for a very long time), escape room but it's just locking these three people in a room and also there's some insane lore around it that people still make conspiracy theories about, an actual time loop and of course the multiple survivor parodies and the one batchelor parody (it's very bisexual). i could honestly rant about game changer forever. it really has that appeal of being able to get to know the contestants (a majority of whom are former collegehumor employees who appear in many episodes across all dropout shows) and that they're all professional comedians who know each other and the host very well. it has fun cozy vibes except when it actively breaks my mind (looking at you deja vu).

there are three shows that were spun off from game changer: make some noise, which is prompt based improv (sidenote, my icon and url are both referencing this show, specifically the original trio this series started with back when it was in game changer. the noise boys refer to Josh, Zac and Brennan who after doing four episodes of this game within game changer are also the contestants in every make some noise season premiere and finale), dirty laundry which is kind of based never have i ever as a game show and also Grant O'Brien is there as a bartender (Grant O'Brien is the tall bisexual theatre nerd i post quite a lot about), and play it by ear in which they improvise entire musicals, which i still haven't watched and I'm fully aware of how out of character that is for me. however i do really love the original game changer episode play it by ear is based on.

so.... here's the thing. i kind of lied. i said game changer is the first dropout show i got into but um, actually, i was into a dropout show before i really knew what dropout is. Um, actually is a game show where the host (originally Mike Trapp, now Ify Nwadiwe) says incorrect statements mostly about nerdy media which the contestants have to correct, but they have to start their corrections with the phrase "um, actually" or they don't get the point. they made two musical theatre themed episodes that i found back in 2022? i think? that were on youtube and then i got into Howard the duck which got me kind of into marvel comics which are referenced in a lot of episodes leading me to watching quite a lot of the episodes that were up on youtube (i think out of all dropout shows this one might have the most free on youtube content) and then i kind of forgot about it until this year's april when i started properly getting into dropout.

however the most popular and longest dropout show is dimension 20, which is a dungeons & dragons actual play. almost every season is a new setting and there's been a lot of different players though there is a main cast known as the intrepid heroes (Zac Oyama, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, Siobhan Thompson, Emily Axford and Brian Murphy + Brennan Lee Mulligan as the dm). the first season that then got two continuations is fantasy high which is set in a more modern dnd setting but with the same fantasy races as the original game but there's been a lot of seasons that completely break away from all traditional dnd elements (some of them aren't actually dnd at all but different game systems) like the one I'm watching right now is a murder mystery with anthropomorphic animals.

there's sooo many more dropout shows i could talk about but this rant is already getting way too long. i love so many things about dropout. they make so much original, fresh content that no one else is making. there's so much diversity in such a natural way (to me especially seeing Ally Beardsley's transition is very special) and it's generally extremely progressive and ethical. idk what else to say, watching dropout makes me very happy, I'm very hyeprfixated on it, it's my main comfort thing right now and i can't recommend it enough (there's a bunch of stuff on youtube for free already but also imo it's absolutely worth 6 dollars a month)

I'm sorry for how long that rant turned out unfortunately i am very unnormal

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

The White Rose: The Musical

THE WHITE ROSE: THE MUSICAL by Natalie Bruce and Brian Belding directed by Will Nunziata: Near the end of this true story (except for the singing) one of the students arrested for circulating flyers critical of the Third Reich during World War II says, “Art conquers hate.” By that point, all I could ask was, “But what if you hate the art?” You know those fictional bad musicals you see on TV shows or in movies about the theater? This is like them only it’s not supposed to be funny. It’s a worthy subject, and the talented cast performs it all quite earnestly. But it’s shallowly written, with repetitious musical numbers (power ballads in 4/4 and 3/4 seem to alternate) between sketchy dialog and following really clunky song cues. At one point, a sympathetic police captain (Sam Gravitte) confronts his former professor (Paolo Montalban) about why the teacher turned him in for questioning the Reich in his papers. Montalban says he did it for Gravitte’s own good. We switch to a scene on the other side of the stage, and come back to Gravitte’s saying “Now I understand why you did it.” Aroo!?!?! The lyrics are so simplistic they’re almost predicable. And some of the choreography is just laughably bad, often interrupting the contact the number would require between actors and audience or actors and each other. In two supporting roles, Laura Sky Herman (l.) gives one of the best performances. She makes her lengthy solo, “Stars,” one of the most bearable numbers in the show. As a sympathetic young police officer, Gravitte has the voice of an angel despite a sound system that rendered some of the voices tinny and at times inaudible.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Round-up of queer stand-up specials that were released in December 2023, and that I have watched (I did not set out to make this a specifically queer list, those just happened to be the three specials released this month that I was interested in seeing, and after I put them together in a list I realized, hey, December 2023 has been a pretty gay month for new British stand-up specials):

Leo Reich – Literally Who Cares (December 18, 2023)

I watched this because I am really trying not to be biased against Gen Z comedy. I think of how annoying it is when older people dismiss “Millennial” anything, and I don’t want to sound like one of those people when I say I think Gen Z comedy is all Tik-Tok stars doing prank videos for people with an attention span of eight seconds. So I have tried to watch their specials. The other one I tried this year was Finlay Christie’s OK Zoomer, which is free on YouTube and was better than I’d expected. There were good jokes in it. But also, throughout the hour (well… throughout the 37 minutes, because he wasn’t doing a lot to combat the idea that Gen Z people are performing for such short attention spans that they run well short of a full hour, but that’s just being picky because I think just about the best thing in the world right now is Sam Campbell and he did ten minutes in Edinburgh this year), I found myself working pretty hard to keep my mind open enough to enjoy it. I’d judge something and then stop myself and say, no, come on, this actually is kind of funny, if you’re not so judgemental (not with all of it thought – like I said, I think some of it is genuinely funny).

I’m pleased to say I did not have to do that with Leo Reich. Not even a little bit. There were a few parts that I didn’t love, but I let myself not love them without guilt, because I liked the vast majority of it so I knew I wasn’t just biased against him. Most of it I genuinely, easily, enjoyed.

And this probably should have been the type of humour that would annoy me. A Gen Z child talking about how very Gen Z he is, how the most stereotypical values of his generation are how we all live our lives now. That kind of things annoys me in general (it annoys me when Millennials do it too though, I don’t love any humour that’s too focused on generational stereotypes), and there were a few times when it annoyed me in Leo Reich’s show too. But only a few times, which is impressive given that that makes up so much of the show. I enjoyed most of it.

It makes me think of when I watched Maisie Adam’s show from the year she got married. So much of it was about her wedding, pointing out the sexism and just general stupidity of so many wedding traditions, and laughing at herself for how silly it is that she has to engage in them. And some of the humour got lost on me, because I kept thinking… well just don’t do it then. You’re right, obviously the father giving away his daughter is ridiculous. But you’re not the first point to point out the weirdness of this trend that we all have to follow. Most people have noticed that, and lots of them choose to not do it. You haven’t explained why you’re still doing it.

There were times when Leo Reich’s show made me think that, but about the performative social media obsessions of Gen Z rather than terrible wedding traditions. I appreciated it, when I heard him talk about how it warps people’s minds to live according to what will look best on Instagram. But I kept thinking… you haven’t justified why you’re doing it, though. This would work better if Instagram were something we absolutely had to do, and you’re pointing out the flaws in this system where we’re all unfortunately stuck. But you know we’re not, right? It’s like someone with their arm trapped under an easily liftable rock, doing funny observations about why the rock is so painful. It works best if you give some explanation for why you haven’t lifted the rock.

Obviously it isn’t that easy, obviously social media companies are spending billions of dollars to figure out exactly how to manipulate the chemicals in young developing brains (and older brains, but it’s even more common among young ones) to keep them addicted to it. I know that, and I see it in the teenagers I work with, and because of that, I do find it interesting to hear from the perspective of someone who is steeped in it. What’s it like in there? Why are you doing it? (I guess I shouldn’t condescendingly pretend to be so above it all because I have a Tumblr blog and am also imperfect for many reasons, I know.)

This is one of those extremely confessional stand-up shows, one of those “I’m laying out all my secret flaws and the most fucked up things I’ve done even though they might make me unlikeable, because I’m rebelling against the requirement to paint a sanitized public image of ourselves” shows. And there were a couple of points when I thought he might have succeeded slightly too well in his quest to make himself seem unlikeable. But only a couple.

This post has focused way too much on the negative for a show that I actually really liked. Let me be clear: I really liked this show. I’m being nitpicky about some parts that left me slightly cold, but overall, I thought it was great. It was smart and funny and it had well-shoehorned dramatic callbacks, I always like those. It had an interesting perspective and interesting points. It had ridiculously good production values for a show by someone so young, which makes me think we’ll be seeing a lot more of Leo Reich in the near future, if they invested that much money in filming him.

I didn’t have to force myself to enjoy this. It was good. It was about coming of age as a queer 23-year-old, and relationships, and the ways in which the panopticon of social media will fuck you up. Parts of it were sad. I’ve heard worse ideas than Leo Reich being the future of entertainment.

Jen Brister – The Optimist (December 14, 2023)

From the 23-year-old bisexual single boy, to the middle-aged married lesbian mother. Queer comedy is a spectrum.

I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as her previous special, Meaningless, but Jen Brister is always good, and that includes this one. It was consistent, it felt polished in the way that you don’t tend to get until someone’s been doing this for a lot of years. Everything flowed and cohered.

It was a special about lockdown and about parenting, and about lockdown parenting. Lockdown and parenting are two of the subjects I’ve most often heard people say they’re sick of hearing about in stand-up, they’ve been done to death and everyone is bored of hearing any more. Jen Brister acknowledges this early on, saying she tries not to talk about her kids all the time on stage, because people are always saying they’re sick of hearing about her kids.

But then she proceeds to talk quite a bit about her kids anyway, which is fair enough. She has five-year-old twin boys – at that point, your kids are such a massive part of your everyday life that I can understand why parents have difficulty talking about anything else (in life or on stage). And while most (most, there are exceptions) parenting material isn’t really my thing, I’m glad it’s out there. Because there are a lot of people who dedicate most waking minutes of their life to focusing on being a parent, and it’s probably nice for them to go out afterward and hear comedy that reflects their experiences, that makes fun of the most frustrating and absurd parts of that life. It’s just not my life, so I’m not really in on the joke.

Jen Brister does a better job than a lot of comedians of including non-parents on the jokes, and they did make me laugh at times. My favourite parts of the show were when she veered away from the parenthood stories and into broader topics, but still, as far as parenthood-based comedy goes, I think she does it well.

The trademark anger is still there, and I still think that’s when Jen Brister is at her best. When she’s getting furious about important and unimportant topics equally. Her previous special, Meaningless, had some excellent, searing fury about feminist issues, and also a lot of lighter topics for frustration. This one doesn’t quite hit the searing highs of Meaningless, but it’s still got the anger, about, you know, all of it. Walking around looking at all the terrible people out there. What that’s like. She touches on that.

I’ve said before that I find it funny that NextUp’s “Angry Acts” collection only has seven acts in it, and two of them are Michael Legge. Worth noting that one of them is also Jen Brister. Her show Meaningless is on there as well as on Amazon Prime, it’s worth watching:

Mild spoiler alert, this is one of those comedy specials with a sad bit at the end. I found that bit worked well because I’m already pretty familiar with her comedy catalogue, where (less mild spoiler alert, seriously, stop reading if you plan to watch, this special is free on YouTube and it’s worth watching and if you do then it’s worth going in without knowing the ending) her mother featured quite heavily, so it was a bit of a gut punch to learn that her famous (famous from Jen Brister’s stand-up routines, not actually famous) mother had recently died.

If you don’t already know who she is, I think the sad ending bit might have not quite worked as well as it could have. It could have been built up to more, been given a bit more time to expand. The callbacks were nice, but a bit tacked on, they could have been built deeper into the show. But still, I found the ending interesting.

Susie McCabe – Femme Fatality (December 24, 2023)

I’ll say right now that this was my favourite of the three. I was so excited to finally get to see a full Susie McCabe special. I was introduced to her by Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, where she was a recurring guest, and she was always excellent. So I sought out her other work, and was disappointed to find that while she’s clearly got quite a successful stand-up career going within Glasgow, she hasn’t gotten big enough to have done a lot of stuff that I can easily see from Canada. Apparently she’s a regular compere at The Stand in Glasgow. One time she went on TV and said good things about trans women and then got called horrifying things by transphobes for a while, because it turns out that those people are not actually interested in being nice to lesbians.

Anyway, the point is that I was very pleased to see she has filmed a stand-up hour about exploring her relationship to womanhood, and I was not disappointed. The gender that she’s exploring is being a cis butch woman, which is, you know, my thing. I enjoy hearing people of all genders explore their relationship to gender, but I do connect especially well when it my gendered experience being discussed.

The show’s central topic is a fairly heavy one, which makes it all the more impressive that she keeps the show very light. It’s funny. It’s funny, and at no point does it get sad. It briefly gets serious, particularly at the end, and I guess if I wanted to be nitpicky about something, I could say that maybe she could also have drawn that ending out a little more, made her central points a little more clearly (I see the points she was going for, about the pressure to fit into masculine expectations and how that pressure is on cis men but it’s also on butch women who want to fit in with those cis men), could have explored that a bit. But this show wasn’t really about exploring the deep important points. It was about telling funny stories that come together on the central theme of what being a butch woman is like. And I loved listening to it.

There are other types of identity that come into this show – being Glaswegian and working class. But she never actually uses the words “working class”, she never gets deep into talking about serious stuff related to that either. Just funny stories about what life is like when you’re Glaswegian and butch and working class. It's fun and easy to enjoy. I almost wrote "fun and easy", but of course it wasn't easy to write. But it's easy to watch and laugh. It's warm and accessible (again, I feel like "accessible" is a backhanded compliment, I really don't mean it that way, I just mean you don't have to be a working class Glaswegian butch lesbian to enjoy it).

She gets into her history, her family, her co-workers, her deep, identity-level connection with butchness and lesbianism. The fucked up parts of female gendered expectations, particularly around being skinny and diet culture and intergenerational trauma that gets passed down through mothers indoctrinated with said culture. But she gets into it with such a light touch. She's so likeable and so much fun to watch. Quick to make fun of herself and hold no pretensions.

One of the shitty things about Frankie Boyle's New World Order getting cancelled is that he brought on several comedians I had not seen on any other TV shows - Jen Brister and Susie McCabe are actually both people I was introduced to by that show. Frankie Boyle was single-handedly keeping middle-aged lesbians on our TV screens, and now that he's out of the game, someone else needs to step up because I want to see Susie McCabe on more things.