#and like this is not a dig at the podcast itself?

[cinnabeat]

i should relisten to season 1 of the magnus archives

[99thpercentile]

places where the audio distorts

image ids under the cut

tmagp 4:

tmagp 5:

tmagp 7:

tmagp 8:

the audio distorts when people lie.

I imagine this knowledge will come in handy later.

[id: ALICE: This is not something you go poking around in. Not if you want to keep your job… or your neck. SAM: (a little amused) Okay, okay! I get it. Consider me scared straight. "Consider me scared straight" is highlighted. end id]

[id: LENA: Now, while I understand your concerns, you need to understand that Colin has held the IT Manager position for some time without incident, and although he is somewhat… frustrated with his current assignment, he can request help from the central IT team at any time. I am certain that should he find his responsibilities unmanageable, he will request assistance. Or resign, of course. Either way, the problem will resolve itself. "Or resign, of course" is highlighted. end id]

[id: CELIA: Is there any way to look up specific files? ALICE: Like what? CELIA: Oh, I don’t know. Every case about… being buried alive, or meat, or… whatever. ALICE: Well, there’s a search bar, but it doesn’t actually do anything. You’d have to dig through them all manually. (suspicious) – Why do you ask? CELIA: Just figuring it all out. Ah well, I guess I’ll need to find Bigfoot on my own time. "Just figuring it all out" is highlighted. end id]

[id: GERTRUDE: I see. Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think Gerry can help you – GERRY: (casually) Yeah, I barely remember any of it. "I don’t think Gerry can help you" is highlighted. end id]

[id: GERRY: Oh yeah, but I was pretty young. I remember filling in a bunch of forms and questionnaires, then some old men asking me questions about what books I liked to read, who did I look up to, that kind of thing. And then I left. SAM: (disappointed) That’s all? GERRY: Yeah, afraid so. Other than just sitting around with a bunch of other kids in a room that smelled like old books. "Yeah, afraid so" is highlighted. end id]

[id: CELIA: I’m trying to look into… Weird physics stuff: time travel, other dimensions, teleportation, all that good stuff. Freddy doesn’t really do searches, so you could keep an eye out and let me know if any come up in your cases? SAM: Uh, sounds a bit sci-fi compared to our usuals. What’s this for? (amused breath) You’re not doing research for that podcast you were on, are you? CELIA: (surprised) You know about that? SAM: I might have given you a quick Google. CELIA: Then… yeah. I’m doing a favor for Georgie. "yeah. I’m doing a favor for Georgie" is highlighted. end id]

[lxclerc]

𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭, 𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐢 ─ 𝐜𝐥𝟏𝟔

summary... in which karma finally bites you in the ass faceclaim... christina nadin pairing... charles leclerc x reader warning... none so far. petty charles and petty reader

note... i need everyone to pretend like all the text messages are in french. also no charles yet but lots of charles in the next part.

series masterlist main masterlist

part one → current part (part two) → part three

charles leclerc has never been on your podcast. it isn’t for the lack of trying per se but rather out of your own sheer stubbornness and need to protect your pride. chasing red, the motorsport podcast you’d built from the ground up, consists of you and your best friend emma. months ago, emma had emailed charles inviting him as a guest with emma alone as the host. it’s already unusual in itself considering you’re in every episode, but charles had replied to the email with a sort of snarkiness you aren’t used to but definitely not surprised to hear. 

dear emma,

if y/n wants me as a guest then she can contact me herself. thank you. sincerely, charles

it had been short and to the point and you’d rolled your eyes when you read it. if charles wanted to be petty then you’re certainly not about to appear on his doorstep begging him to come on your show. charles seems to forget that he’s gotten his pettiness from you. 

still, after that particularly irritating email, emma had been badgering you to explain what had happened. charles leclerc is the nice guy after all. who else would let ferrari fuck them over as much and still scream forza ferrari at the top of his lungs? according to emma, it’s simply impossible for charles to respond in such a way without some hidden history between the two of you. 

and she wouldn’t be wrong but you’d been able to keep that under wraps pretty well. you’ve kept your past right where it belongs – in the past and in your opinion, there’s simply no need to dig up old bones. of course, up until now as you watched with furrowed brows as your name trended on twitter. it seems no matter how deep you bury old bones, it comes back and haunts you – or in your case, bites you in the ass.

“you dated him!” you winced at emma’s sharp tone. you already feel a headache coming in – you hadn’t expected to be shoved down memory lane at a random tuesday if you’re being completely honest and you’re definitely not in the right state of mind to be dealing with it. 

“keep your voice down,” you say, putting your phone down and allowing yourself a sip of your coffee as you try to ignore emma’s incredulous looks. 

“you dated him?” she says again, in a sarcastic whisper this time that made you roll your eyes. you hated her sometimes. you love her of course, but you really hate her sometimes. 

and you hate whichever idiot got ahold of those photos. everyone seems to have so much to say but they can’t seem to comprehend that the charles and y/n in those photos aren’t the same charles and y/n now. you’re both grown now, no longer little kids fueled only with dreams and ambitions. now you’re fueled entirely by coffee and the will to not stalk his social media. 

you’re over charles leclerc. you’re so over him that you spend all your time applauding yourself just how over him you are. of course, you’ve seen charles around after the break up. you both live in monaco after all. it’s impossible not to accidentally pass by each other walking to the grocery store or be at the same restaurant or the same party. you’ve seen him around the paddock multiple times but neither of you say anything. sometimes your eyes meet and the familiarity in each other is difficult to ignore but mostly, you just walk past each other as though you’re strangers, as if you hadn’t spent your childhood memorizing the patterns in his eyes. 

you groaned at where your mind went. this is the last thing you want to be thinking – or talking – about at eight in the morning. you blame twitter and emma entirely for your predicament. it doesn’t help that you share an apartment with her too. 

“no comment,” you say finally at her expectant face. 

her little evil grin terrifies you as he picks up a stack of papers from the coffee table, placing it in front of you. “i’d suggest clearing the air between the two of you before thursday because you’re spending vegas with ferrari.” 

you almost spit your coffee as you grabbed the paper and double checked. unfortunately, there it is in plain sight, your sponsor team right next to ferrari. the document contains your schedule for vegas as an F1 presenter. you’ve been lucky enough not to be assigned to ferrari since you’ve been assigned the job three months ago. but alas, all your bad karma seems to have finally caught up with you today as you read through your itinerary, the first words being an ice breaker game with carlos sainz and charles leclerc proceeding with a hot lap with one of the drivers on friday. 

oh jesus christ, you’re screwed. 

yourusername

liked by arthur_leclerc and others

yourusername vegas ready and sporting red for the weekend!

view all comments...

emmauser very excited for the weekend

⤷ yourusername 🖕🏻

⤷ username emma what do you know

username god have answered all my prayers and forced y/n and charles to finally interact

username watching the childhood lovers to strangers, forced proximity trope in real time

⤷ username i am so invested actually

username her and charles are my roman empire

⤷ username they have consumed every nook and cranny of my feeble brain im afraid

username now what in the booktok is going on

taglist: @nhlfs @livinglifethroughfanfic @sage-butterflyy @chimchimjiminie16 @thatgirlmj @hiraethrhapsody @roseseraj @celestialams @1655clean @minkyungseokie @ssararuffoni @f1verse @honethatty12 @formulas-bitch @nmw-am @lorarri @erikasurfer @thievin-stealing @glow-ish @raevyng @scenesofobx @coffeehurricanes

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka seems like it could be a cool game to drop players into with some hooks and let them do what they want. Will there be a pre-made setting or something along those lines in Eureka when it's complete?

Sorta but it’ll work a little differently from what you might be used to if you’re used to epic fantasy campaign games like D&D5e and Pathfinder.

Eureka won’t exactly have big setting books the same way that something like D&D does, it just has the one setting as described in the rulebook itself, which is primarily 21st century but can span all the way back to the late 1800s. I can dig up a post about that to link here

As for hooks, we recommend you use adventure modules. Eureka supports a LOT of things, it’s a “toolbox game,” which means that if there’s a situation that can come up during the adventure, the rulebook probably has some advice for what to roll (That’s also why it’s such a long rulebook.) - however, all of these situational considerations are in service to the one main thing: Investigation. Eureka does mystery Investigation really well, which means it does it pretty differently compared to most other games, and the way it does it means that the GM will run into trouble if they try to make everything up on the fly based on whatever random hook the PCs decide to follow up on. They’re going to investigate and find evidence, and if the GM isn’t prepared with cohesive information to give them based on that evidence, then it won’t all come together in the end.

This is not to say that Eureka adventures need to be pre-plotted or railroaded, far from it. What it means is that that hook has to have a whole line attached to it.

A good “campaign” for Eureka will probably last 2-10 sessions at most, and have one or multiple hooks, all of which are related to the same event.

That event will be something the GM has written out in detail and set in stone, which has already happened (or in more advanced cases, is actively happening). Lady Violet killed Colonel Mustard in the study with the candle stick. With that set in stone, you can start sprinkling clues around that they can find that either point to Lady Violet, or help rule out other suspects. You gotta stick with that no matter what crackpot theories about aliens or ex wives the players or PCs might come up with, because if you change it on a whim based on what the players want to be the truth, then previous clues will quickly stop making sense.

To this end, we recommend using prewritten adventure modules, because we know from experience that it’s a lot of work for a GM to make up an event to be investigated that has enough detail for every eventuality. (That’s why they pay people to write adventure modules after all, it’s work, even if it can be fun work.)

Our team plans to support Eureka for as long as is feasibly possible with continual releases of new adventure modules, and we already have four in the works to release with the full game. The beta version of one of them (Horror Harry’s Haunted House) comes free with the name-your-price beta of Eureka on itchio, and two more (The Eye of Neptune and FORIVA: The Angel Game) are available on our patreon.

You can also listen to an Actual Play playthrough of FORIVA: The Angel Game on @tinytablerpg's podcast!

And finally, Eureka is compatible with most other already-existing adventure modules about mystery Investigation, which we have a post about right here

[hungwy]

i do suggest everyone gives many listens to the bookworm radio show/podcast. the host and interviewer michael silverblatt is celebrated as the reader par excellence, the kind of guy who reads truly everything. for the radio program he did more than 30 years of the following every single week: find an author to interview. ask to interview them on one of their books, usually a new one. read that book for the interview, along with the rest of their body of work if available.

he was incredibly sensitive as a person and reader and always found what is worth to say about what he read. its really a treat to listen to. michael has made guests cry not only due to his generosity and feeling for the works but because he really does dig into what the book means for the author--not the intent storywise (he was attentive to structure like this as well), but what feeling the book itself had been written with.

go on this list and find an author you know and listen to michael interview them. he's done them all, big and small

[dutifullyscreechingdragon]

Michael the Distortion X Reader

A/n: Hiiii, I should note from the start, that the characters belong to the Magnus Archives Podcast, which was written by Johnny Sims. So, yeah, I do NOT own the characters. That being out of the way, enjoy:)

You were an Archival assistant. You were also Helen's close friend. So it was natural that she went to you for comfort after being trapped in the weird halls dimension and terrorised by a series of weird doors. It was also natural for you to suggest she makes a statement for the Archives. There was a chance, however slim, that they might do some digging into the matter.

And naturally, you were there with her as emotional support. It would be cruel to make her face Jon's scrutiny on her own.

So here you were, listening to your friend rambling about her encounter, nodding along and giving her encouraging smiles. You glanced at Jon. He wasn't pleased, but he wasn't wearing his usual look of skepticism either.

"...Maybe you can make some sense of it" Helens words finally drew you out of your thoughts.

"We'll try our best" you gave Helen another smile and gave her a pat on the back. Your little moment was interrupted by Jon:

"You said you don't remember the man's name..."

"I... I think he told me, but I just, I..." Helen begins but is interrupted, by Jon:

"-it wasn't Michael, was it?"

"Yes! Michael..." Helen's face darkens "Do you know him?"

You furrow your eyebrows and turn to Jon:

"You don't think that-"

"Maybe. I don't know!" Jon sighs and turns to Helen "We'll make some enquiries and get back to you"

"Right, well... I'll just leave you to it" Helen says before leaving.

You watch her and turn to Jon, to start discussing Helen's statement. You brace yourself for his questions. Maybe he'd ask you to provide some more context. However, instead Jon opts for calling Sasha and you resignedly plop into the armchair once again.

You look over the maps Helen drew. They really don't make sense. At all. Weird lines crossing one another... They are oddly fascinating.

When Jon and Sasha finish talking you brace yourself for questioning once again, but freeze when you see a tall, lanky man.

He has golden locks that twist and turn into intricate patterns. His hands are abnormally long and his fingers curl around the doorframe he leans on. The suit he wears makes you dizzy. It looks woven out of caleidoscopic fabric. And his smile. It's unnaturally wide. His features... Are weird... As if shifted a bit, making his face a bit mismatched, misaligned.

He is not supposed to be in the archives. You are sure of that.

He speaks:

"Do you know they're lying to you?"

The words make your hair stand on end. Or maybe it's just the static that seems to rise in the background with every word he speaks.

"I'm sorry- This uh... May I help you somehow? This place is off limits" You hurriedly inform the impromptu visitor.

"I disagree" the man says leisurely.

"Who let you in here?" Jon cuts to the chase with his questions. This seems to amuse your stranger.

"Let?" He laughs. It's breathy and out of sync. It makes you shiver. "I'm afraid this isn't how it works..."

"You're him" Jon states, rather than asking.

"Yes"

"Michael"

The creature holds a pause before speaking:

"That is a real name"

"Wait. Pause. Break" you interrupt. This is... Well, you'd say weird, but anything concerning the archives is weird... It's more than your daily intake of "weird".

"You're... Michael" you restate.

"Ah... The little archival assistant's comprehension skills deserve the highest praise" Michael muses.

"No. I mean... You're the guy that Sasha met... Michael 'How would a melody describe itself if asked' the distortion ?"

"Mhm... Yes... The Deceitfully distorted being of non-reality" Michael grinned, visibly please you quoted him.

"Sure... That checks out... Weird, but poetic descriptions" you mutter "Should I uh... Take your statement?"

"You'd like one.... Wouldn't you?" Michael asks you, twirling his hair "I wonder... Is it the eye's mark... Or sheer human curiosity? A mix of both? Or perhaps... Something else entirely?"

"Are you here to make a statement? You haven't answered the question." You respond.

"I suppose I haven't..." Is all the response you get.

"Are you here to kill us?" Jon asks. Way to be optimistic, you think.

"No" he states decidedly.

That's a relief, you don't think fighting him would be pleasant.

"Oh... Why are you here then?" Jon seems to take the lead in asking questions.

"I am simply collecting what is mine, Archivist. the one who entered my domain"

"Helen?" You muttered, your heart rate picking up.

"Mrs. Rich-ard-son? You own those hallways?" Jon asked slowly.

The distortion grins

"What a fffascinating question" Michael drags out "Does your hand in any way own your stomach?"

"Ah-" is all you can manage to utter. Your stunned silence doesn't seem to throw Michael off as he continues:

"In any case, it doesn't matter, the wanderer had a brief respite, but it's over now" he shrugs.

You can't help but let out a triumphant laugh:

"Haha! You're too late! Helen's already left! You ain't getting her! Tough luck, mate" you shrug.

"Yes... Ah... Did you notice which door she left through?" Michael's smile grows wider and he can't help but let out a small chuckle.

"Well, yes it's... Wait... You trail off" you don't remember that door... Should there be a door?

"There has never been a door there, your mind plays tricks on you…" Michael responds to your silent question.

"Let her go! This instance! Open the bloody door and Let. Helen. Out!" You clench your fists, making a few steps forward.

"No?" He laughed. That made your blood boil. You couldn't contain yourself. You leaped over the desk, grabbing a dagger in the process and putting it to the creature's throat... Or at least where you thought it would be.

"Let Helen out!" You seethe.

This didn't have the effect you counted on. Michael stayed unphased.

"No can do" he slightly moved your dagger to the side and unperceptedly shifted behind you.

You turned still gripping your dagger.

"How did you- you were just standing here and-"

His Cheshire cat smile just widens at your confusion.

"I'd advise not to wave sharp objects" he drawls in a leisurely manner "you can never know when you can accidentally... Get cut" he lightly trails one sharp talon over your forearm. Tiny beads of blood litter your skin, in spiraling shapes. It stings. You wince. Michael.... Smirks. It almost makes you want to punch him in the face. But you know better. You do not want to be sliced into ribbons. At least, not before you have rescued Helen.

You take a few steps back, trying to put a bit of space between you and Michael. You barely contain the irritated groan, when he shifts a bit closer.

You try to move away, without turning your back to him and simultaneously avoiding tripping over the boxes scattered on the floor. Somehow, you still find him behind you, his long fingers resting on your shoulders and tapping a rhythm you can't quite guess. It's too irregular to be predictable, yet too regular to be completely random.

You turn and come face to face with the madness incarnate. Michael cocks his head to the side and you wonder whether he will continue twisting further and further, until any normal human neck would snap.

Jon's voice breaks you out of your staring contest. Michael directs his attention to the Archivist, leaving you standing there.

It gives you ample opportunity to catch your breath and notice, that you're mere meters away from the door Helen walked through. A quick glance reassured you that Michael and Jon are deep in conversation.

You inch slowly to the door, trying not to tip off the embodiment of losing your mind. You're almost there. You wonder if the door is unlocked and if you open it, will you be able to get to Helen instantly.

Your hand touches the door knob. It's warm almost welcoming.

You turn your head slightly, to check that Michael is still distracted.

He isn't. In fact, he's staring right at you, with his everpresent uncanny smirk

"Oooh, do go on... Don't you want to see what's behind the door?" His staticky voice encourages you, "Don't you want to rescue your friend? It is... Slim chance... But I am keen to see you try..."

You wonder briefly, whether this is some reverse psychology thing. Whether he actually doesn't want you to open the door. You look at Jon, noting his foreboding expression and slight shake of the head.

You start weighing your options, but then you remember her. Helen. Your friend. You can't leave her.

You put on your bravest face and push the door open. Caleidoscope colours flood your senses. And this laughter. This uncanny, hypnotising laughter, feels your ears, clouding your senses. You feel it reverberate in your bones and course through your veins.

The avatar of the Spiral and the Archivist watch you disappear behind the door. One wears an all too wide grin, the other the expression of utter shock and horror. It's easy to guess which is which.

"What a fascinating Archival Assistant you have" Michael drags out disrupting the silence, "Or perhaps I should say... 'had'?" He muses much to Jon's irritation.

"What did you do to them? Bring me backy assistant!"

Ignoring Jon's demands, Michael approaches the door. It swings open and the distortion's fingers curl around it's frame.

"If it wasn't for the Ceaseless Watcher's touch, they'd make a fine spiral avatar..." Michael's laughter echoes through the room "They still might..." He grins disappearing through the door

A/n: Whooo, this is done. I hope you liked it and have a great day!!

[rosered2018]

The Magnus Archive - American Edition

I know there's been plenty of talk here about what the Magnus Archive would be like if it were set here in America, and I have to admit I've given that a fair amount of thought.

This is what I've come up with.

The Institute itself would be in Chicago. It's a fairly old city, and has its fair share of ghosts and urban legends. It's also far enough off the beaten path that it wouldn't attract the attention of anyone who would have reason to pay attention, but is a big enough city that Jonah Magnus would have access to all the amenities he's gotten used to.

I think Jon would be from New Orleans or somewhere around there. This is as much a nod to Jonny being from the south of England as my liking the irony of Jon being from the magic capital of the U.S. and playing the skeptic card as hard as he possibly could.

Martin I could see being from Minnesota or Michigan or somewhere else that's aggressively midwestern. His backstory would be mostly the same, except that at some point he ended up in therapy. He went low/no contact with his mother, and is dealing with the guilt from having made that decision.

I think Tim would be from somewhere around New York City - Either Manhattan proper or one of the five boroughs. The publishing industry has its headquarters there, and there are a lot of places there that are ripe for urban exploration, so it would make sense that it would be the place where he and Danny would have crossed paths with the Circus.

We didn't get any of Sasha's backstory, but I think she would be a local girl. She's had encounters with things that she couldn't quite explain and she wants answers, and her digging eventually led her to the Magnus Institute.

The OG Elias strikes me as someone from one of those old Boston families who came over on the Mayflower and never let anyone forget it, and Elias was like that right up to the point where he discovered weed. Afterwards, he was too busy being stoned to give a rat's ass.

Jonah Magnus I could see coming from a humble background and clawing his way up the socioeconomic ladder to become the asshole we all know and hate.

The main difference between the original storyline and the American version would be that the distances would be further. One statement might take place in Indianapolis while another one might happen in San Francisco.

When the apocalypse happens, Jon and Martin are in upstate New York or somewhere equally remote, and have to walk back to Chicago, where things play out basically the same way as in the podcast.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

What makes you know hobie is 18 or above? And not the in the same age range as miles and gwen

Honestly, great question. And the answer is:

I Don't Know Jack Shit. So jot that down.

Additionally, anyone telling you they DO know Jack Shit is a liar. Jot that down too.

[I may go a little Miguel Mode at the end of you know what I mean]

I personally operate under the headcanon that Hobie is over 18.

Why? He says he goes to pubs. You need to be over 18 to do that. The End.

You can headcanon that he has a fake id or simply finds himself in pubs while underage - and that's completely valid. Go ahead. You can headcanon he has a mfing tail. I can't stop you and we haven't seen his ass so maybe he do, who knows.

But my headcanon is just that. And to me - until Hobie's age is clearly displayed and mentioned on screen, then it'll always be a headcanon.

No matter what age you headcanon him as - if you think you KNOW his age, you're probably wrong. And I mean that.

The ATSV describes him as a 'slightly older boy'. Case closed, right? He's a minor then.

Nah, three lines later they say he's MUCH older than Miles....literally contradicting themselves within the same paragraph.

[And the funny thing is - I've seen the artbook used as evidence in the argument multiple times. Even though it literally contradicts itself. And every single time I'm like 'bruh did you even read the full page come on now'.]

Case in point, if you think you KNOW Hobie's age when 1) it's not stated on screen and 2) even the official external material gives conflicting information - you're just wrong. You can't know a theoretical number. And you can't be wrong about a theoretical number.

It's Schrodinger's age.

Example: A character is shown to be in High School. They live in New Jersey where the driving age is 16. If a fanfic writer has the character say "I can't do that, I can't drive yet.", is the fanfic writer canonically wrong? No. Because the character could reasonably be above OR below the driving age, either 14-18. Even if the director mentions the character having a sweet-16 that is never mentioned in the show, it's not screen-canon and the average viewer will not know the character is definitely over 16. Therefore they can reasonable be 15.

"But the director said-"

Don't care. Not weighted canon unless stated on-screen.

Maybe this is a controversial opinion. But if it's not on screen, I can't say it's canon.

Sure, the director may have said in an outside interview that Hobie's conceptually 19-20 -

But a normal person who goes to see the movie, and comes home to write fanfiction isn't going to know what.

They shouldn't have to dig through all conceptual and external content of a specific character in order to be deemed 'acceptable' and knowledgeable enough to write about them.

A person who watches the movie and writes solely based off of what the movie says about Hobie shouldn't be harassed or told they're wrong because they didn't listen to a podcast of a director who's name they don't even know.

There's no pass that says 'Okay you've done enough research about Hobie to write about him, congrats-'

If it's not in the movie, show, book, etc - a fan should not be required to seek out that information to be caught up to speed. External information is supplemental, not a part of the hole.

Also-

If it's not in the movie - It DOESN'T MATTER.

ATSV is a very well written movie. Every line is used for the purpose of telling the story. Especially Hobie's.

They didn't tell us Hobie's age because it didn't matter to the story. And it shouldn't matter to you.

If the writers didn't care enough to take time out to clarify his age, then it makes no sense to spend take arguing about it.

They obviously don't find it important. Because it isn't. It doesn't matter to the story at all.

Hobie's age doesn't matter to the 'love triangle'. Although the film is narrated by Gwen, we largely see it from Miles' point of view. And the 'love triangle' only exists when Mile has no concept of who Hobie is.

Miles doesn't know Hobie. So him questioning a love triangle happens regardless of whether Hobie is an adult or not. Miles doesn't know, neither do we.

The 'Hobie' in the 'love triangle' is an empty-shell of the mystery of who Hobie COULD be. The moment Hobie takes off the mask and we're revealed to the real him - the illusion of who he could've been is shattered for both us and Miles.

Because his age isn't stated, it has no bearing on Miles' perception of him. Miles don't know shit. Neither do we.

Also you people should be fucking grateful GODDAMN WTF

If you deadass beef about this you one ungrateful mfer i swear. Take offense. All offense.

We have a black, attractive, educated, useful, respected character in an animated movie that's available for ANY SHIP with ANY character and what do you people do??? - you argue.

Why? Explain to me why.

You should be happy it's up to interpretation and not definitely stated that you were wrong. At any time the creators could just put it in the next movie and make you look stupid.

You could be out there enjoying any ship of your choosing; with any character you enjoy him with - regardless of age. But no, instead of enjoying the ship that's available to you, you antagonize others.

Sit there and eat your mfing salad you INGRATE

Be grateful we have a character with such free range of shipping. A character that's un-aged and doesn't have a specific gender preference. BE THANKFUL.

You like Gwen x Hobie. Great. You argue with people and harass people who think Hobie's an adult??? - What if Hobie deadass looked in the camera next movie and said "I'm 19 also I'm gay." You'd look dumb as hell.

But they didn't do that. They left it unstated for you to go and enjoy your Hobie x Gwen or Hobie x Miguel or Hobie x whoever the hell.

I'm thankful everyday they didn't say his age because I don't make OCs that go to high school because I'm 24 and hate high school. And guess what, I can do that.

Him and Diane can just hang out on the houseboat all day cause they're grown ass adults with no place to be. Isn't that swell?

Stop playing with me and enjoy the goddamn shipping buffet. Christ almighty

All in all - I don't know shit. You don't know shit. And it's okay to not know shit.

NO UM-AKSCHULLY

Get comfortable with saying "I'm not the authority on this." or better yet "I don't know shit about nothing."

I love him to death, but I am not the authority on Hobie Brown.

For me - I know he said he goes to pubs and I know I wanted to ship him with Diane. Personality wise, Diane is 19. So Hobie is 19.

But I don't know anything about his age. No one does.

I'm just cute and like to share headcanons. Hobie Brown as of right now doesn't have an age. And that's fine. Cause he ain't real.

If you made it this far ummmmmm Here he is. I'm giving you this photo under the condition that you'll act right and enjoy him in a ship of your choosing if you'd like to do that.

Now lets sit here, and eat this ship salad.

[me making sure ur enjoying ur shipping salad]

Bye.

[lilac-hecox]

would you write that idea that's been moving around here recently with everybody thinking ian and anthony are exes before actually getting to know them? bonus points if they hear about it and they actually reconsider some things 👀

Actually Exes?- Ian/Anthony - ianthony

--

It’s at lunch when Angela perks up and lets her mouth move faster than her brain, letting her thoughts fall like loose change from her mouth with no one to catch them.

“You know, I was thinking of how progressive it is that our company was not only founded by, but owned, and run successfully by a pair of exes. Gay exes at that.”

Chanse looks at her, arching an eyebrow. “Angela…”

“What?” she asks, taking a bite of her salad. “Don’t you think that’s cool? I mean. You don’t really see that a lot. Imagine buying back your company with your ex-boyfriend and making a big theatrical reunion and all that.”

“Oh, Ang…” Amanda says, as if she were looking at a cat who is struggling to figure out how to get itself out of a box or something.

Angela looks around at her friends and co-workers, and then she looks over at the far table where Ian and Anthony are seated, shoulder-to-shoulder. Anthony is cracking up at something Ian has said, a grin stretched across Ian’s face, as Anthony wheezes and pounds his fist on the table.

When Anthony regains his composure, they keep eating until Ian offers Anthony a bite of his salad from his own fork, which Anthony gladly takes.

“You’re telling me those two salads sharing freaks aren’t ex-boyfriends?” Angela asks.

“They aren’t,” Courtney says, turning away from Shayne next to her to focus on Angela and the conversation that had been going on next to them. “As much as it seems like they are.”

“But…” Angela says, frowning. All of her thoughts of a progressive Smosh being championed by queer owners flying out the window of her mind. “Look at them.”

Courtney smiles at the two men who are lost in a world that seems to be completely their own.

“I know, but I’ve known them a long time and as far as I know they’ve never been together.”

“This is one of those things where you guys are fucking with me, isn’t it?” Angela asks, “like, ha ha, Angela believed that Ian and Anthony never dated.”

“No! I swear!” Courtney says through giggles which isn’t helping her case.

“Bitch, don’t you think I would have said something?” Chanse asks.

“You did! Our half-time song at the funeral! The sexual tension of it all!”

Chanse blinks at Angela and then looks at the group around them.

“She’s got me there.”

“Angela,” Shayne says, smiling but more serious than the rest, “We swear as far as any of us know Ian and Anthony are just friends.”

Angela lets the conversation die down after that, but she keeps her eye on her bosses the rest of lunch in case they do anything that could signify that they ever were a couple.

Over the next few days Angela takes to watching Ian and Anthony. She follows a distance behind them as they walk down the hall together. She notes that Anthony knows the exact way Ian likes his coffee in the mornings. Later on, when they get ready to shoot, Angela overhears Ian reminding Anthony that he needs to grab a snack after the shoot because Anthony had a small breakfast. She watches Anthony smile and nod, reaching out to touch Ian’s arm in thanks.

There’s no way they’ve never dated.

She records a Lunchtime Podcast with them and Erin and during the episode they talk about how they sat together at lunch throughout high school. Ian even feeds Anthony a forkful of vegan spaghetti. Angela has to dig her nails into the palm of her hand to stop herself from asking outright during the podcast about their history and their relationship.

The next day Angela gets an email from Emily that they are looking for cast and crew meme submissions for the upcoming episode of Who Memed It? Angela scans the website Spencer had shown her for making memes, but nothing inspires her. She’s too wrapped up in this Ian and Anthony conspiracy.

The way they look at each other, talk to each other, how close they are, there is no way they aren’t amicable exes!

Things at Smosh get a little busier and Angela can’t keep track of Ian and Anthony as closely as she wants. She does walk by Ian’s office and catches him on his couch, phone in hand, Anthony with his head pillowed on Ian’s shoulder, napping there.

Then, they are set to film the Who Meme’d It? episode. Angela isn’t on the panel, but she sits and watches because those episodes are always a good time and really funny to watch be filmed. Ian and Anthony happen to be on the panel along with Courtney.

They go through the memes and then partway through Shayne presents a meme that is two people making out, bodies tangled together.

“So, this says, uh, how Angela sees Ian and Anthony,” Shayne says, laughing as he explains the meme.

Anthony laughs, his cheeks red, and Ian is grinning.

“Angela has seen us make out?” Anthony asks, glancing at her across the set.

“No, she just thought you two were actual ex-boyfriends,” Shayne says, laughing.

The cast and crew watching break into laughter, Angela too.

“Hey!” she says, standing up to defend herself, “it’s an honest mistake to make!”

The laughter quiets down and the panel make their guesses. The meme was made by Shayne, and he sheepishly grins at Angela as she glares at him.

When the video is over, Angela makes a beeline for Shayne, she is so wrapped up in giving him shit over his meme that she misses the way Ian and Anthony happen to slink off the set together, as usual.

--

“So, Angela thought we actually dated,” Anthony says, “that’s funny.”

“Of course she did,” Ian says, rolling his eyes, “she also thought xylophone was spelt with a ‘Z’.”

“Yeah, true, and she and Chanse wrote that half-time show saying we had sexual tension,” Anthony adds.

Ian looks at Anthony, the two of them in their shared office.  

“Our meddlesome kids,” Ian says with a sigh.

Anthony grins, “Yeah, see, when you say they are our kids, when we’re their dads, they kinda have a point.”

“Oh,” Ian says, “you want to talk to them? Tell them to tone it down?”

Anthony smiles, leaning across the expanse of Ian’s desk and covering Ian’s hand with his own, squeezing gently, affectionately.

“Nah, it’s way more fun this way.”

[omgthatdress]

Everything I know about the royals comes from Tumblr memes and one bonus episode of a totally unrelated podcast but now I'm morbidly curious, so: what's up with William? And the Middletons? Or if that's a longer story than you want to explain, do you have recommendations for where to read about this that is likely to be fairly accurate?

I don't have any facts I just have pure fucking speculation if that's okay. :)

Like I've been saying for a long-ass time the one thing I absolutely LOVED about The Crown was its portrayal of generational trauma. It very skillfully showed how being a shitty husband who cheats on his wife and treats his kids like garbage was passed down from Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark to Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh to King Charles and then to Prince William. Hell, it probably started long before that but holy shit THE CYCLE OF DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE BE REPEATING ITSELF.

And if you really want to dig into it, well.... I think he and Harry followed a pattern that a LOT of siblings of bitter and messy divorce fall into, one kid sides with the mom, one with the dad. It's been said a LOT that Harry was Diana's favorite son, so it probably started with that. And OF COURSE William is gonna side with Charles because well... he's the heir. They have that shared trauma.

And then there's the way the whole "heir and spare" thing absolutely perverts any relationship they might have had as brothers. Charles managed to have a decent relationship with his siblings, I think, because first of all, Anne was a girl, and then Andrew and Edward were significantly younger than him and Anne, so there wasn't this unnaturally massive imbalance of power between them. One of the reasons I've come to believe the monarchy should be abolished is because of how badly it damages the structure of a family in a way that no one should have to deal with.

I think Diana might have been able to guide William into being a better person if she'd have lived, but idk. It may be wishful thinking. His relationship with her became kind of strained when he was a teenager and she was going on TV to tell the whole fucking world about her sex life. I think Diana did the right thing exposing the family like she did, but I can also understand how a 13 year old boy would be absolutely humiliated by that.

THEN there's the whole way he was a MASSIVE heartthrob as a teenager, and was intensely sexualized for it. Like it will absolutely mess with you when you have girls screaming and throwing themselves at you when you're still trying to figure your own sexuality out. It will also massively inflate your ego and convince you that the whole world loves you and there's nothing you can do wrong.

SOOOOOO

as for his relationship with Kate. She's much harder to pin down because she hasn't spent her entire fucking life in the spotlight, and the Middletons are sill granted a certain degree of privacy that the Windsors aren't. I don't think they're as absolutely fucked up as Diana's family was but I still definitely think her mom was a major driving force behind her staying with William.

I think there actually was some initial mutual attraction and that they may have even actually been in love. Buuuut then he waited ten years to propose to her, during which he cheated and they broke up and got back together. Honestly, I don't know what Kate's damage was with all of that, whether or not she was able to convince herself that William wouldn't be another shitty husband, or if she was willing to put up with his bullshit if it meant she would be queen.

Diana was more or less picked out as a bride for Charles because it was assumed that she would be a meek and beautiful wifey who never caused any problems. I mean, she was 19 and he was 32 for fuck's sake. She very much wanted to be queen. BUT what everyone wasn't counting on was that Diana would *gasp* have some serious emotional needs. She was deeply traumatized by her own parents' incredibly bitter divorce, overwhelmed and deeply lonely in her position as princess, and on top of that, suffering from bulimia and then post-natal depression. She needed love and support and Charles spent the whole marriage balls deep in Camilla.

Kate had a much more stable upbringing and had more than a few months to get to know both William and what her role as a princess would be. Ultimately, the vibe I get from her is that she's willing to be the perfect meek beautiful wifey who puts up with William's bullshit if it means she can be royal, which is exactly what Diana was supposed to be.

And I don't mean that to knock or belittle her. She's good at it. She looks incredibly happy when she's doing that. It's her career. It's an exchange I can actually really understand making, especially when your only other prospects involved working for your parents' party company.

But I could be extremely wrong about all of this Maybe she's absolutely miserable but she feels like she has no other options and worried about losing her kids and is terrified of what happened to Diana. It's hard to know, and I wish The Crown would have at least committed to *something* rather than just brushing all of this off.

[torgerandsuzanne]

This weekend, all the major movers and shakers in Formula 1 have descended on Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. On track, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton will attempt to slow Max Verstappen’s seemingly inexorable charge towards a third successive title. Off it, their respective team principals, Mercedes’ Toto Wolff and his nemesis, Red Bull’s Christian Horner, will also do battle. But arguably the most significant power move made in motorsport this week may already have taken place. Its architect was none other than Susie Wolff, wife of Toto. And just quietly, she is hoping she may have triggered a revolution.

As managing director of F1 Academy, a new all-female single-seater series, she is currently thrashing out what she believes could be a ‘game-changing deal’ with F1’s 10 teams, which she hopes will boost female participation in motorsport like nothing before.

......

Leaning back in a chair in the library of the Monaco Yacht Club, Wolff lets out a snigger. ‘It’s true,’ she nods. ‘He really did once describe me as a donkey!’ We are talking about her husband, Toto Wolff. The donkey reference actually cropped up in an interview the couple gave to Ben and Georgie Ainslie’s Performance People podcast last year. In the YouTube version of the podcast, you can see Susie, by this point in hysterics, miming someone digging a hole ever-deeper. The exchange is a window into their relationship: playful, loving, with Susie giving as good as she gets. But it also says something about both of their characters. Toto is a high performer, there is no doubt about that. And Susie? Well, ‘donkey’ may be a bit harsh for a woman who once gave Hamilton a run for his money in karting. But she knows what her husband meant. ‘Don’t underestimate the donkey,’ she says, grinning. ‘It gets there in the end. I do have a lot of tenacity.’ She is going to need it in her latest role. 

There have been various attempts down the years to drive female participation in motorsport and achieve the ultimate breakthrough: returning a woman to the F1 grid. Wolff believes F1 Academy is different. For starters, it is the first all-female series launched and owned by Formula 1 itself. That means it is in F1’s interests for it to succeed. So whereas W Series, for instance, was given an enviable platform by the sport the fate of F1 Academy is far more intertwined with the brand. Not only will it compete on the F1 circuit from next season, but the two series will collaborate far more closely. Wolff cannot speak just yet about what that might look like, as the finer details are still being ironed out. Suffice to say there are some very exciting plans in the offing that she hopes to announce soon. ‘I think there are some forward-thinking team principals in Formula 1,’ she says. ‘I certainly feel a real commitment from within the paddock to help change things now.’ ‘When I met them all after my announcement in Bahrain, I said to all of them, “Please don’t think of this as a ‘woman’s thing’ being run by a woman. This is for the greater good of this sport. I hope it will add value to Formula 1 long-term. And we need to be on this journey together.” So far, the response has been very positive, I have to say.’ Wolff smiles. ‘But F1 Academy cannot just be about 15 young women racing. And we cannot have the sole purpose of trying to find the next female F1 driver. We have to stand for something much more. It’s about creating opportunity. How are we making motorsport accessible to girls? That’s why I’m spending a lot of my time in the world of karting right now, trying to understand, OK, who’s out there racing? At what level? What is stopping girls from racing? I think that’s where we’ve got to be really proactive. Because that talent pool is what we need to grow.’

......

Wolff is uniquely well-placed to do so. Born in Oban she had a typically outdoorsy upbringing. Both she and older brother David, were put on skis and bikes as toddlers. Her parents, owned a motorcycle dealership and her father raced bikes competitively, so racing was ‘in the blood’. But, Wolff says, she was ‘never a typical tomboy’. ‘I had my Barbie. I had my dolls. I liked that stuff. But I also loved going fast.’ Eventually the family got a second-hand kart and that was it, although Wolff insists it was just ‘for fun’ until she was taken to a Formula 3 race at Donington Park one year and watched Jenson Button win. ‘That’s when I was like: “This is what I want.” After that I started racing in the European and world championships.’ It was at that point, too, that Wolff began to experience sexism for the first time. She had always been ‘the only girl’ in karting races. Or at least one of very few. But as her participation became more serious, so too did the feeling of being not just different but unwanted. ‘Funnily enough, half of my battle was with the parents of my competitors,’ she recalls. ‘For them, it was not wanting their sons to get beaten by a girl.’

Sometimes her own teams, supposedly on her side, were just as culpable. When she reached DTM, the German touring car championship, Wolff was famously made to drive a pink car. ‘I hated it,’ she says. ‘It was such a cliché. No one wanted to be overtaken by that car.’  Wolff recalls one particularly awkward episode when three-time F1 world champion Niki Lauda came to watch his son Mathias. ‘Mathias and I were teammates and it was a real thrill that Niki was coming to watch,’ she says, wincing. ‘So anyway, he walks into the garage, and all the drivers were in there, and without even saying hi to Mathias or anything, he took one look at me and said to Mathias: “Whatever you do, beat her.” Even Mathias was embarrassed.’ ‘Years later, when we obviously became friends at Mercedes I brought it up and Niki was like, “Yeah, I know. But I knew it wouldn’t have been helpful to Mathias if he got beaten by you.” I said, “But Niki, I was an impressionable young driver.” Obviously he was of a certain generation. But I think that still exists. That stigma. Not wanting to be beaten by a girl. The preconception that women are bad drivers. We have to change that.’

.....

In other times during Wolff’s career it has been double standards that infuriated her. Male drivers could advertise products or cash in on their celebrity. But when Wolff did the same she would be accused of ‘using her body’ to further her career. This is someone who had, and still has, a genuine interest in fashion. ‘It was frustrating,’ she admits. ‘I turned down loads of things. I remember being questioned about one shoot, with Vogue Japan. “What? You’re going to turn down Vogue? No! It’s one of the top titles…”’ ‘Ultimately, I think it’s about finding a balance and doing what you’re comfortable with. I had one golden rule. I would never date another driver. I wanted to look after my reputation and just be someone that was seen as credible. But I think this idea that you just put your helmet on and race and nothing else matters… that’s not the case. Take Lewis. What he brings to the table is his outstanding talent on track. But also, all of the stuff he represents off-track. So if anything, I look back and say, I should have gone even harder.’

.....

Does she believe she was held back? Wolff shakes her head. ‘I think I fulfilled my potential. If I look back now, with more perspective, I wasn’t one of the most talented. I had a lot of tenacity and a lot of determination. A lot of thick skin. So I look back with no bitterness whatsoever. There were a lot of tough moments, I won’t lie. But I also met Toto, which led me to where I am now.’ They met in 2009 when Wolff was competing in DTM. Toto, 11 years her senior and with two young children from a previous marriage, was the co-owner of HWA AG, which ran the DTM race programme for Mercedes. He proposed one year later on a boat in Venice (well, on a boat back to the airport after his original plan to propose at a romantic restaurant was scuppered when a couple they knew sat down at the next table) and they were married in Capri in 2011. Inevitably their relationship, her subsequent role at Williams, and rise through senior management positions at Venturi Racing, a Monaco-based Formula E team, to F1 Academy, have led to allegations of nepotism. 

‘I am completely fine with that because in the end, I know the truth,’ Wolff says. ‘I got the drive with Williams after I met Frank at a DTM event at Brands Hatch and told him I’d done a school project on Williams as a 12-year-old girl and it was always my dream to drive an F1 car. At the end of the conversation he said, “I’ll give you 25 laps at Silverstone.” It kind of snowballed from there. How much of that was Toto? It’s impossible to judge. But I feel I grabbed my chance.’ ‘Toto was never on the radio telling me how to drive a Formula 1 car. He wasn’t holding my hand telling me how to run a Formula E team. I did all of that on my own two feet. I know I’ve got what it takes to be successful, I don’t need Toto to open doors for me.’ She pauses. ‘I think in some instances, it can be very helpful having the Wolff surname, in others very unhelpful. But I wouldn’t change it for a second.’

Marrying up their schedules can’t be easy. The couple’s main home is in Monaco, but when we meet, Toto is back at the factory in Brackley, having just returned from the Canadian Grand Prix. He will fly out to take over parental duties from Susie when she heads to Zandvoort at the end of the week. ‘I don’t think we’re dissimilar to many couples who have busy jobs,’ Wolff says. ‘I have Toto’s schedule on my phone so I always know which country he is in, or at least when he’s coming home. And we just have to prioritise. If that means Jack and I jumping on a plane to wherever he is to make it work, we make it work.’  Wolff admits it is her who generally compromises. ‘Someone has to,’ she shrugs. ‘And right now it’s me, for sure. I’m based here. And Toto is in and out. It’s a big advantage that I understand the industry so well; why he has to be away, why he has to stay longer at the factory. All of that means I’m not giving him a headache at home when he does return. I get it.’

Have Mercedes’ recent struggles on track made things more stressful? ‘Actually I’d say he is in a better place than he was a few years ago,’ Wolff replies. ‘I think he had a moment in lockdown where he didn’t know whether he wanted to stay in the sport. But now he has really got the bit between his teeth again. Sometimes I’m in a room when he’s on a very difficult call and I’m starting to feel, “F--k, this is some serious pressure!” But he can just pile it on. It’s definitely one of his strengths.’ In 2021 the couple moved to Monaco from Switzerland, although they also keep a place in Oxford from which Toto can commute to the factory. ‘Believe me, I never imagined I would be living here,’ Wolff says, laughing. ‘Obviously I started coming out a lot when I joined Venturi. I’d leave cold, grey England and land here in blue skies. I just started thinking, it’s not so bad out here… It works for us now.’  As you would expect, Jack attends a school with the sons and daughters of other international jetsetters. ‘His best friend is Augusto Farfus’ son. Naila Rosberg is a year older, her sister is a year younger,’ Wolff says. But really, she insists, they do not have a lavish lifestyle. ‘My son spends every school holiday back in Scotland because I want him to have that balance. You know, this is a bubble. It’s not quite reality. So he goes camping with my parents.’ As for the Monte Carlo nightlife, Wolff says, ‘We keep ourselves to ourselves. The buzzing social life is just not my thing at all. You find your tribe but we spend so much time away, I’d much rather stay in during the evening than go out somewhere.’

Susie's interview with The Telegraph where she talks about F1 Academy, sexism and double standards she experienced as a female racing driver and her relationship with Toto.

[townofcadence]

It was almost absurd, how rapid a day could switch from pleasant to devastating.

It could happen in the most unexpected places too, like during a small book faire at the local library. He had been perusing the tables, both to support such an important building to his community, and to find some used books both for him, and potentially for Caelan to consume as well. It had been a good day; there was a certain joy in buying books, in knowing he held something with knowledge and information he might not yet have discovered from other sources. And with most everything being sold being what the library needed to get rid of, it was all used, and definitely affordable.

And then she'd hailed him.

It wasn't....really a bad conversation, initially. She was a girl he'd known in high-school; Peyton, one of the girls from the cliques that really cared about their self-image. He remembered her well enough to recognize her, since she was the one who coerced Elias into going on a few dates. He had said yes, but she was the kind to lay on the pressure until you did, and he had always been too much of a people-pleaser to let anyone down. Thankfully someone else had come along that she deemed more her type, and those few dates had ended without further issues.

He felt awkward from the get go, but mainly the conversation had revolved around her being here to visit her family and deciding to stop in at the faire, and asking how things had been since she left town. It was small talk between past peers: most of it he was wondering what made her want to talk to him as he answered some of her questions and tried to politely offer some to her as well. She had left town for a bigger city and had a husband there. She had a podcast she ran with a friend. He nodded along.

Honestly, he just wanted to look at books instead.

And then, he figured out why she approached him; she asked about Elias, as 'you two were so close'. It made sense, then, why she'd even talk to him. He could feel her anticipation. The left turn was a sour pit in his stomach.

Said pit widened itself to a chasm the more questions she asked. Especially as she started needling about how Elias had disappeared, without a trace. She brought up rumors she'd heard, anything from him running away to elope with his girlfriend, to he had joined some government agency, to he was in witness protection. He sat with the truth tight around his neck, constricting just a little tighter each theory she posited.

The final blow was a slap to the face, the chasm's cliffs giving way to just a gaping hole. Her eyes had cast on him and her head had tilted in this perfectly innocent expression. "I also heard you did it. Some friends of mine said you three had a falling out right before, right? They weren't talking to you at all and you looked so miserable. A lot of people say it's your fault. You drove them away or murdered them or something. Lots of places to hide bodies out here. And oh, you know how true-crime girls can get when they think they've figured out something juicy like that. But it is awfully suspicious how they vanished right after things changed with you. You had to be angry, right? How angry were you? Do you have anything to do with what happened? How did you react when they disappeared? I mean you did have that one murder news story tied to you, didn't you? The one with that one guy from high-school? Oh-- sorry, 'self defense'. But it's awfully suspicious, don't you think?"

Her tone wasn't fully accusatory, but her gaze was scrutinizing, as if looking for any tell, any sign he was guilty. He could see her phone in her hand, but it only registered like a hazy periphery. Too many feelings threaded their way through him, the blood draining from his face. They were infected wounds even after years, and her perfectly manicured nails had managed to dig into the skin and make both bleed again. His throat was dry no matter how much he swallowed. His hands came up together, right hand clutching his left wrist in a curled position, over his chest. "I--- I--"

"So you do know." She'd advanced closer, taking away that semblance of protective distance. He was thrown off too much to push back for himself, drowning in a slew of old feelings. She looked like she smelled blood, maybe for her fucking podcast or something. Her phone came up higher. "The truth will come out either way, so if you tell me, then I can help your story sound a lot more sympathetic, I know you had something to--."

The familiar voice cutting-in felt like a fucking blessing. They must've spotted them. She stopped, startled by the interjection, and it was enough for him to manage a ragged breath.

"I--- it's okay." He tried to sound normal, but his voice was splintering and wooden. "I'm-- you don't have to worry." He wished he was anywhere but here, wished he could do something other than worry his friend, and talk to someone who wanted to--- probably boil one of the worst moments of his life down into a #tragedy on tiktok for views. Or worse, given the line of her self-appointed sleuthing.

"We were just having a conversation." She adds, and it's like jagged glass in his brain. His hand finds it's way to his hair to tug on a few strands, to ground himself and he averts his eyes. "I'm not doing anything to him."

[anistarrose]

Sometimes when I see people talking about extracanonical confirmations of queer rep, I feel like the phrase "Word of God" gets a little overused — specifically, I think it gets used as a synonym for extracanonical confirmations in general, or sometimes, in a way that obscures how even true Word of God can cover several different things.

And like, that's genuinely not a huge deal, it's not a grave or serious issue — but extracanonical reveals are very much a spectrum. And to me, that incomplete spectrum (in an order that's deliberate, but malleable depending on the circumstances), is something like:

Confirmed in the primary source material (i.e., not actually extracanonical, so included only for comparison).

Confirmed in official secondary canon material. (Example: a spinoff, or a companion book that expands the universe of a show). It's official content, but may not be seen by many of the more casual fans.

Confirmed in an adaptation. Official content, but more likely to have a different writing team, may exist in a different canon, and have a very different audience than the original.

Confirmed in (usually unofficial) tertiary canon, which the creators made for fun or as a gift to the fans, but with actual production value and storytelling put into it. (Example: voice actors perform a script, or creators put together a website for an ARG/other lore). Almost universally seen by fewer people than official secondary canon, itself seen by fewer people than primary canon, but still a genuine piece of the storytelling.

Confirmed by a creator in official commentary, which is promoted/packaged alongside the source material. (Example: official commentary tracks on a DVD set, or a Q&A podcast episode in the same feed as the source material podcast.) Not just any fan will dig into it, but it's right there for anyone interested enough to look.

Similar to the above, exept the commentary isn't packaged alongside the source material. (Example: the creator of a show has a podcast, but it doesn't air alongside the TV show, because... like, that just doesn't really happen.) Can and will escape the notice of casual fans, and yet, completely entry-level stuff for most hardcore fans.

Confirmed by a creator in some official, widely accessible interview.

And... confirmed by a creator in some random, ephemeral post on social media.

Obviously, these all have wiggle room depending on the format of the media, how self-published or "indie" it is, and how much the distinction between official and unofficial really matters. It's also an incomplete list — limited to either things I've personally seen, or things really similar to what I've personally seen. But I would argue, Cases 5 through 8 are Word of God, but Cases 2 through 4 really aren't.

Why? Because they're not just the creator telling you something out of universe. Cases 2 through 4 have some storytelling and production value around them, albeit to varying degrees. And lot of unofficial tertiary canon (Case 4), whether queer or not, has been a particular love letter to fans, in just my personal experience. That doesn't mean I prefer my queer characters to only come out under those circumstances — but compared to the creator just tweeting it or whatever? It's not even a contest. It's hardly even the same conversation.

And of course, this isn't the only axis for analyzing extracanonical queer confirmation — there's quality of execution, there's whether it's confirming subtext from the primary canon, there's how heavy or weak that subtext was, and there's whether trying to fit it into primary canon would've resulted in censorship (the mantle under which I include cancellation).

I've also glossed over Word of God versus Word of St. Paul, which can contextually make a difference to many people. But I just feel like we can have more nuanced conversations — about where representation has made progress, versus where it still has shortcomings — if we expand our mental picture of extracanonical reveals beyond just Word of God.

Have we made progress from "creator tweets a character is gay just to look progressive," to "character is implied to be gay in the source material, and confirmed in secondary canon (where there's less censorship) as soon as the creator gets a chance?" Is there still a problem with asexual and aromantic characters being extra likely to get extracanonical reveals, even in series that are queer-positive overall, but are we at least working our way up the extracanonical sliding scale?

Those questions are easier to answer when we note that not all extracanonical confirmations are created equal. And just personally, I do feel better about a lot of queer representation when I look at it this way — not because I think we should settle where we're at right now, but because it seems widely understood that we won't settle for random twitter replies anymore. And that's genuinely encouraging.

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Malcolm Reed

By Ames

Well, we’ve covered the three main stars of Star Trek: Enterprise, and you’ll find that we’re going to struggle a bit more to come up with highlights for the rest of the characters. Maybe Enterprise was more like The Original Series than we thought. But you know what? The hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By came to really appreciate how consistently written our security chief Malcolm Reed really is. You just have to be a little more observant to notice it through Dominic Keating’s accent.

Somewhat like Chakotay, Reed’s characterization has a subtle nuance that doesn’t hit you over the head, but it’s all there: his self-deprecating humor, his stalwart loyalty, his British gumption. It’s easy for your typical Trekkie to commiserate with our explosion-loving friend. His parents kept him at arm’s length, he never seems to luck out romantically (except in Caitlin’s fanfic, of course!), and he might be the most introverted character in the franchise. Can relate! So grab a slice of pineapple cake as we dig into our Reed moments below and on this week’s podcast (jump to 1:04:09). Reed Alert!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Do you like piña coladas? Even the show seems to understand that Reed is underwritten, but that’s actually part of his charm! When, after painstaking investigations, we learn in “Silent Enemy” that our boy loves pineapple enough that he will go the distance and get inoculated to fight his natural allergy to it in order to have his cake and eat it too, it’s an early endearing moment with the security chief.

Click, click, BOOM Another of Reed’s interests is weapons. If it goes “boom,” you know Reed is 100% there for it. So it’s a cute moment in “Sleeping Dogs” when Hoshi translates some Klingon to “photon torpedoes” and Reed pops up out of nowhere, half erect already. And even more amazing, he uses this entirely alien tech to blast the failing ship into a higher orbit and save the day!

I imagine that would make quite an explosion Like we said last week, the comradeship between Tucker and Reed is one of those beautiful friendships you love to see in Trek. And it also includes more of Malcolm loving explosions! He saves both their asses in “Shuttlepod One” when he comes up with the idea to blow up the impulse drive AND keeps Trip from Captain Oates’ing himself because that’s what friends do for each other!

More possibilities than a bowl of day-old oatmeal Or so the box art for Nickelodeon Floam says. Reed is definitely up for a crazy scheme involving covering himself in bubble-gak (the original product name for Floam!) to disguise himself as a Suliban to sneak into the Tandaran prison in “Detained.” Roll it, mold it, cover it — That's the way you Floam it! Okay, I admit this was all mostly an excuse to do some Floam research.

Throw a patent on that When Archer, Trip, and a couple extras are trapped in a jizz web in “Vox Sola,” Reed basically offers to invent the forcefield, which has been eluding engineers and physicists for the last five years. But Malcolm somehow pulls it off in an afternoon. He tests out just how strong the EM barrier needs to be to keep the tendrils from passing through it, and voila! Instant forcefield!

Keep talking and nobody explodes Reed also instantly figures out how the Romulan mine works after it attaches itself to the hull in “Minefield.” And even more impressive: he’s able to communicate how to disarm it to Archer when he’s gotten himself pinned in the leg. And most impressive of all: he survives the constant chattiness of Jonathan Archer, the extrovert who makes introverts uncomfortable!

If you get tired of exploring, you’d do well in the Imperial Guard Considering how Reed never seems to make romantic strides over the course of the show, it was nice to see some successful flirting between him and Talas in “Proving Ground.” Sure, it was mostly an Andorian ruse on her part that he manages to see past, but their chemistry together was still ship-worthy. One could imagine that in another life, they’d make a cute couple.

The hull, the hull, the hull is on fire Reed is tasked with helping Tucker close down a leaking plasma conduit that was creating a huge plasma fire in “The Forgotten” and it almost does him in. Though his EV suit is rapidly heating, and though Trip specifically orders him to bail and go back inside, Malcolm puts his life on the line to finish the task that stops the leak… and then promptly passes out.

Checkmate in eight moves According to the Organian that possesses Reed all through “Observer Effect,” Reed is the ship’s chess expert and wins all the championships he plays in. That’s just a nice little detail that rounds out Reed’s character a little bit. And it makes sense as a security chief to be able to plan strategies several moves in advance while also increasing your nerd cred.

I apologize for saving your life, Commander. It won’t happen again. Though Reed’s usual modus operandi is to accept that he’s about to die and run with it, he actually fights to survive in “United.” Maybe because it’s also saving Trip from radiation, which he wouldn’t have any other way. But it’s a very clever plan to trick the Romulans by setting his phase pistol to overload on the drone ship to allow for escape and eventual rescue!

You have to choose where your loyalties lie We definitely don’t need more of Section 31, as none of us are particularly hyped for the new feature coming out tomorrow (at time of posting). But at least Reed seems to understand that he’d like no part in them either. Through the events of “Affliction” and “Divergence,” all he wants is out of that shady organization, and he ultimately picks the Enterprise over Agent Harris.

Red rover, red rover, let Trip come over Apparently the only person who can save the Enterprise 90% of the time is Trip. But the only person who can get Trip to the Enterprise from the Columbia in “Divergence” is Reed! Even while stuck in the brig for doing shifty Section 31 things, he’s able to use his grappler skill to create the tether that brings the Commander over. Ya know, for the spectacle of it all!

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Worst moments

You ever noticed her bum? Let’s move on to the bad things that Reed does. It got fully tiring to the SSHB hosts how obsessed everyone on the show was with T’Pol’s bum. Mind you, it’s a nice bum, but you don’t say it! So Malcolm starts a pretty gross trend in “Shuttlepod One” during his obnoxious dream sequence when he first notices dat ass, and don’t worry, everyone’s gonna jump on board.

This is a strange way to get to the garden Speaking of objectifying women! Trip and Reed are both made to look like fools, led entirely by their penises, when they get tricked by the shape-shifting thieves on Risa in “Two Days and Two Nights.” It’s a very tired plot that you’d expect to see in some sitcom or coming-of-age movie, but we also just don’t need to see more gross behavior from Starfleet officers, do we?

I’d prefer a burial at sea, if I’m not completely vaporized Nearly every time we see Reed in an EV suit, he tries to get himself killed for nothing. In “Minefield,” Archer needs to put his oxygen tube back in when Reed has disconnected it in order to sacrifice himself. Later, in “The Forgotten,” he specifically disobeys a command in order to fix a plasma leak and it nearly gets him killed. This boy is the poster child for therapy.

Your inquiry was not recognized This one probably belongs on the Trip list since it was his idea, but screw it, at least it’s getting reflected here. But really, how stupid is it for the two boy wonders to go sneaking around like dingbats in the Repair Station in “Dead Stop,” having no idea where things go and where the computer can transport them? They’re lucky she didn’t beam them into space.

It’s always in the last place you infiltrated Another dunce moment from Reed comes in “The Communicator” when he leaves his communicator on an alien planet they were sneaking around in disguise (for no good reason, I might add!). It’s a move straight out of “A Piece of the Action” when Bones did the same damn thing, and it’s just meant to be a little joke. A little joke that makes your character look incompetent!

When someone asks if you’re a genetically enhanced super soldier... There’s no Prime Directive in the time of Enterprise, but we can still call out when characters do stupid things, such as in “The Communicator.” Like a buffoon, Reed blurts out that he and Archer are super soldiers as an attempt to cover their identities that not only makes things worse for them, who’ll be killed and dissected, but for the society, who now think their war has escalated off the scale!

I considered your suggestion, Reed Alert, but it seemed a bit narcissistic For the sheer eye roll of it all, this one needed to make the list. Whenever Enterprise gets cheeky and makes a poorly timed, awkwardly written, fanwanky reference to something that will come later, it induces groans all around. The worst offender might be the Reed Alert in “Singularity,” which is just so clunky and obvious bait for fans that we can’t even even.

Would you like a sauna while I’m at it? Why does Reed have to be such a whiny little bitch during “The Catwalk”? It doesn’t seem particularly like him to get on Trip’s case about the preparations made to house the whole crew in the titular catwalks to hunker down through a storm, but instead Reed does little but complain. Poor Trip had mere hours and very little help for this massive excursion. Where was Reed then?

You were looking at my hands when you should have been looking at my eyes Yet another example from “Harbinger,” which has already come up a bunch of times in our Worst Moments. For Reed, this episode is all about having a juvenile spat with Major Hayes and it’s so immature I could weep. Reed is a big baby for thinking Hayes literally doing what he was brought onboard to do as a MACO is an insult to him, and he has a big temper tantrum about it.

This seat’s available It’s unappealing how the show depicts Reed as forever alone. He borders on being an incel at times, and one of those times is in “E²” when he learns his alternate self never got with anyone. It’s one of those cringe moments you expect from television of that era when the very next thing you see is Reed making an admittedly tame pass at the first woman he sees. Ick.

With my final breath, I curse Reed After Reed has finally mended things with Major Hayes and the two hold some respect for each other, Hayes gets killed off in a blaze of glory in “Countdown.” His final request is that McKenzie become his successor. As a last “fuck you” to Hayes, Reed apparently never does this! We don’t see her in the subsequent scene rallying the MACOs, or ever again on the show.

Do we need more Section 31? Finally there’s everything else to do with Section 31 in “Affliction” and “Divergence” and needlessly again in “Demons” and “Terra Prime.” What a terrible retcon for Reed. We already have a secret spy onboard in T’Pol. But instead we get Agent Harris showing up to meanly manipulate Reed and make Archer yell and yell as he so often does. It’s such fanwank because we’ve heard of this pointless memberberry before and that’s all it is.

—

That’s a wrap on Reed; cue the explosions! Keep watching this space for more blogtivities as we finish up all our remaining Enterprise discussions. You can also follow along as we watch episodes of Discovery over on the podcast at SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, wish Reed a happy birthday on Facebook, and if you have you put on an EV suit and go outside, consider staying in for the sake of your mental health.

And hey, we're on Bluesky now too! Check us out there!

[melodytaylorauthor]

Valancing and specificity

I'm gonna geek out about The Story Grid here again, because I have ADHD and specific and granular instructions make my brain go, and The Story Grid is especially good at that and avoiding all the woo-woo "you just have to feel it" bullshit. Okay? Okay.

All right. The latest Story Grid focus has been on descriptions. The book itself is more about plotting and editing, one of the classes they offer now is focused on scene writing, but lately language and description has been on their radar in their emails and Youtube. I dig.

So thing number one has been what they call "valanced language." This is simple. Squeeze descriptors into your nouns and verbs. If the right verb doesn't exist, use an adverb. Don't be scared, they have their place.

For example: "The woman ran down the hall."

Let's start with the first noun. Who was the woman? A secretary? A superhero? A dog groomer? See how each of those examples fills your brain with a distinct idea about why she might be running down a hall? You just fill in all sort of blanks on your own; how she's dressed, what it sounds like as she runs, what she might have in her hands, her expression.

Nice, how about "ran?" How is this woman running, exactly? Is she in a hurry? Is she worried? Is she angry? Does she scurry, or clatter, or jog, or race? If it's a secretary clattering down the hall, that's quite different from a superhero jogging down a hall, or a dog groomer racing down a hall. There are all sorts of implications that come with each, and your brain just fills them all in when the different words are used.

Okay, last, the hall. What kind of hall is it? Is it in a school, a business, a convent, a government building? A secretary clattering down a high school hall has a very different vibe than a hall of the White House. The same with a superhero, or a dog groomer. (Is it just me, or does "The dog groomer raced down the White House hall" scream rom-com? No?)

None of this is to say you have to say "the superhero" every time you refer to your superhero character; if it's established that she's a superhero, you can call her "the woman" or "Agnes." This exercise is to point out what Mark Twain has said: "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug." It's so much easier to see it with this concrete example.

Now, number two, besides valanced language, the latest Story Grid emails and Youtube vids have been talking a lot about description. About how too much will kill your story, and not like, "You killed it!" but like, "It's dead." They point out that every time you pause the action to describe something, you take a chance that the reader won't put the book down. Readers read for action. They want to know what happens next, not what that tree looks like.

The solution? A few things. Use valanced language; fold your descriptions into the action, don't pause to describe something, note it while you're having the character doing something; and last and most deliciously, use specificity instead of vagueness.

I say "most deliciously" because to me, it is delicious. I love Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History, it's such a good braingasm. On one episode I listened to last year, he talked about how country music differs from rock in its ability to pull at people's heartstrings. The main point he gave was specificity -- the lyricist uses very particular imagery to put the listener in the shoes of the singer. I remember thinking that was really interesting, even though I don't like country music myself.

Then Tim Grahl brought up specificity in storytelling. He used this example: "I wanted to show an apartment in disarray, so I was picturing dirty dishes piled in the sink. But rather than just say there were dirty dishes piled in the sink, I have my character wanting to make coffee and finding the French press still caked with yesterday's grounds." That's just beautiful to my mind. It calls up everything you need to see about a place that hasn't been tidied in a while, it gets brought up while the character is doing something, and it has a vibe attached to it. Perfect.

So when you are writing a description, dial down into something particular about the thing you're describing. Traffic sounds? What about a car alarm going off that no one's paying attention to? A crowded cat room at a rescue? What about a calico kitten careening off the other cats after a stuffed mouse? Or cats tucking their paws in to avoid the careening kitten with a stuffed mouse? A boring day at work? How about if the co-worker is flicking paper clips into an empty cup at his desk?

I love stealing from my own life for this kind of thing. It lends some authenticity, I feel. Notice things around you in your life, then when you're writing, think of how to invoke the mood by pulling up one small, particular detail. Then weave that into the narrative, don't stop the action to deliver the picture. Keep the character moving and on-screen, have the description baked into the action somehow. And if it just won't bake in, cut it. Trust your reader to see your world through your character moving through it. Always trust your reader! If they're too dense to get it, you probably don't want them reading your book in the first place.

Anyhow, I am re-editing my first novel (because I want to, and I'm indie so I can), as well as editing my latest novel, and I just cut a couple paragraphs of description from each. In both cases, I dug down and got one particular detail about the descriptions, wove them into the action, and cut the rest. I can definitely see that that scenes are stronger for it, and the visualization of the setting is actually better with fewer but more specific words.

I fucking love what I do.

[tanadrin]

i've kind of gotten sucked into the back catalogue of the podcast Mormon Stories, specifically the episodes where they have like honest-to-god egyptologists and archeologists and such on and they take apart mormon apologia piece by piece. because it would be fairly easy (and fairly accurate) to simply ignore this particular subgenre of apologism--not only are the foundational myths of mormonism patently absurd to almost everybody who grew up outside the faith, mormon apologists specifically have only the tiniest little wisps or shreds of reassurance to offer their fellow believers.

like, mainstream christian apologism has been working for two thousand years to produce a parallel body of knowledge--hell, it didn't even used to be "parallel," it was simply the default assumption in most of christendom for most of that period--and can not only draw on a much longer history, but does so in the defensive interpretation of what are (in part) much older events. and the debunked mythology of abrahamic religions accreted gradually, heavily steeped in a local geographic context. there actually were persians and egyptians and babylonians and stuff! nobody got basic facts about what food crops were available in the region wrong, because the people who wrote this stuff had lived there for centuries! you can't dig a posthole in the middle east without turning up artifacts suggestive of that history, because that history is (while false) authentically local.

the book of mormon isn't like that. the book of mormon is insane. it's what you get talking to a guy you met in a bar at 2 am who wants to tell you about the stuff he half-remembers from history channel ancient aliens specials he saw ten years ago, because that guy occupies approximately the same social niche joseph smith did, and also people knew even less about archeology (to say nothing of the archeology of the americas) back in the 1830s. and yet these guys like hugh nibley and kerry muhlestein get up and try to defend this account, writing stuff that makes your average christian fundamentalist apologist look like a paragon of scientific integrity.

what baffles me isn't the rank and file mormons raised in the religion who might know little else. what baffles me are the people who are thoughtful enough to engage with real archeology, to understand the nuances of just how completely nonsensical the mormon version of ancient history is and how indistinguishable recent mormon history is from, like, scientology-level cult shenanigans, and yet who still consider themselves mormons and affiliate with the religion. like i get that religion isn't all about truth claims. there's social and cultural and emotional and all kinds of other elements that bind members of a religious community together. but "mormon" isn't an ethnic group. so far as mormons have a unique culture outside the religion itself it is, as far as i can tell, 1) the shared misery of the mission experience, 2) giving your kids slightly goofy names, 3) getting married really young, and 4) not drinking or smoking. and clearly you care to a certain extent about the truth claims, or you wouldn't have these (very interesting!) discussions on your podcast with archeologists about those claims.

anyway, it's a very weird phenomenon!