#because my flatmate has no respect for me

[mortalspork]

Need to rant about a flatmate. Will do it in the tags.

[moonscape]

i will be bothered by the most unimportant shit imaginable

[fingertipsmp3]

Speaking of random facebook people, I’ve never rooted for anyone more than the ex of this guy I used to know who always spoke really badly about his girlfriend (who was out of his league). Just saw she’s dating someone better and I was like

[heyyyharry]

Loved the flatmate series!! Can you write some more blurbs pls

I haven't written a flatmate blurb in a while, but enjoy! :)

.

They were here again. Y/N knew it.

Every day she came home after a class, and every time her flatmate's friends were in her living room. At least she had her room to escape to, but she still paid rent every month, so she should be entitled to use the communal areas without the fear of being talked to.

Well, none of them actually talked to her, though, and that made her feel even worse.

"Hello, hello," Harry said when she came in.

He didn't even bother to turn his eyes away from the football game on TV. There might have been a goal, or one of the players did something outrageous, making him and the other boys -- Niall, Liam, and Louis -- scream and bury their faces in their hands.

"Oh, you ferking idiot!" Niall said.

"Should have been a penalty," Harry sighed, shaking his head.

Y/N rolled her eyes. She'd seen him play football, and even though she didn't know much about the sports, she still thought he was pretty shit. But clearly, he would know more than these professional players.

The sound of the front door open and shut caused her to turn around. Layla strutted in like her name was on the lease. "Hello, bitches," she said to the boys and breezed right past Y/N as if Y/Nweres a ghost.

Y/N's jaw was on the floor as she watched Layla head to the kitchen area and open the fridge to grab the milk before moving on to Y/N's mug collection in the cupboard and picking one of her favs.

"Harry, did you get herbal tea like I asked you to?" Layla asked, annoyed when she only saw the English Breakfast in the cupboard.

That's it, Y/N thought, fuming, and cleared her throat. Nobody batted an eye, so she raised her voice when she spoke, "Harry."

"Yeah?"

"A word, please?"

"Sure. Just five more minutes."

"Now."

Harry looked up, lips quivering, puppy dog eyes blinking at her, but she only stared back with a poker face until he dropped that fake expression and got up, sighing.

"Be right back," he said, moving away from the sofa now. "And Layla. Your herbal tea is in that Tesco bag."

"Yay!" Layla said and started digging through the grocery bag on the counter.

Y/N grabbed Harry's wrist and dragged him into his room.

"Hey, if we're gonna have sex, at least give me ten minutes to clear my bed," he said jokingly when she sat down on his bed.

She made a face, disgusted. Clearing your filthy bed would take at least a month." Then she looked around. "You know what? A flamethrower would fix the problem."

"What are you talking about? My room exudes manliness."

She didn't have time to argue with him as he clearly enjoyed the attention. "Let's get straight to the point," she said, squaring her shoulders.

He stood in front of her, arms crossed, back against his wardrobe. "Sure."

"This has to stop. Your friends can't be here 24/7."

"They're only here during the day."

"Yes! The only time they're not here is when we're sleeping. Otherwise I would be so sleep-deprived!" Y/N said. "Look, I have class in the morning and afternoon and my part-time job. I just want to go home to peace and quiet."

"You must be fun at parties."

"I'm really not. I don't go to parties for this very reason." She got up, staring up at him. She hated that he was tall because she never succeeded in trying to look intimidating while confronting him. But to be fair, it was hard to be intimidating when you had crippling anxiety.

"Your friends go or I will."

"What?"

"You heard me. Your friends go or I will move out after this month. This just gives me PTSD about my previous roommate in the student halls, and I don't want to go through it again."

"Alright, alright. I never thought it was this serious," he huffed, shoving his hand into his hair. "What if I tell them to be quieter?"

"That's impossible."

"Hey, my friends are capable of being quiet and respecting other people's boundaries," he said, but she didn't think he believed it himself.

Still, she agreed, "Fine. Talk to them then. Thanks for this efficient discussion."

Before he could say anything else, she pushed back him and went to her room.

***

Something was definitely wrong.

Today, Y/N came home and saw Harry's friends' shoes in the hall, but it was so silent in the flat. She couldn't hear the sound of the telly when she came in, not even Layla's annoying voice talking shit about a different person as she did every week.

"Hi?" she said, stopping in the doorway to the living room/kitchen area.

"Hey," they said at the same time and went back to doing their thing. Niall and Harry were watching football, but the TV was on mute. Layla was on her phone, and so was Louis.

"No way," Louis gasped, and Harry immediately shushed him.

"Sorry," Louis whispered, going back to texting.

It took Y/N a minute to realise he was texting Layla, who was sitting right beside him.

"Why aren't you guys talking?"

Ding. Her phone in her pocket vibrated. She looked up to catch Niall staring at her, phone in his hand. Had he just texted her?

She quickly checked the message.

Niall: Harry forbad us from talking

"Harry, really?" Y/N said. "This is ridiculous. Are you seriously doing this to mock me?"

"No," he whispered, not taking his eyes off the game on the TV.

"And what are you even watching? How do you know what's happening when it's mute?"

"We know how football works."

"Don't sass me with your creepy whispery voice."

"Just go do your thing and let us be, please," he said like he'd just lost his voice.

It was making her very frustrated, so she decided to head back to her room. Before she shut the door, however, she heard Layla speak.

"I kinda agree with her. This is ridiculous. I'm literally texting Louis when he's right next to me."

"I promised her we'd be quiet. So try to act like you guys aren't really here now that she's home."

"We can just go hang somewhere else?" Louis said.

"As if that was an option," Harry said. "You and Niall share a flat with five other people. Layla and Trix live in the student halls and I can barely fit her tiny single bed."

"Ew, you'll never get into my bed."

"The point is," Harry lowered his voice. "I'm showing Y/N that I'll go to the extreme to keep my word."

"Or...you can let her move out and put up an ad for her room. I'm sure there would be a long list of applications for you to choose from," Louis said.

"Hey, Y/N is cool," Harry said, to Y/N's surprise. He thought she was...cool? Her? Cool? "Besides, she...knows me. And I don't think anyone new will tolerate me the way she does. She's given me so many second chances, and I really don't want to fuck it up. So when she's not here, do whatever you want, because I love you guys and I want you to feel comfortable. But when she's home, respect her personal space. And Layla, those mugs are Y/N's so the next time you make tea, use mine. Y/N never says it, but I know she hates people using her stuff."

"Wow," Layla scoffed. "Okay, Ryan Gosling from The Notebook."

"I respect your decision, Harry," Niall said. Then Y/N heard them silently cheering for a goal.

[toomuchracket]

"if anyone has any flatmate smut ideas" as if my brain isn't a constant rotation of flatmate smut 😂

How about makeup sex after their first fight. Maybe not even a huge fight just a misunderstanding but they both end up sleeping in their own rooms afterwards instead of sharing, but matty sneaks in at 5am and is like "I couldn't sleep without you"

GOD ok right so it's like a stupid argument over something trivial, you're both just a bit burnt out from working hard and more irritable than normal so something that shouldn't have been a big deal turned into a massive one. you're also both ridiculously stubborn, so neither of you are particularly willing to be the one to apologise, and you're so grumpy that you're like "i'm too fucking tired for this shit i'm going to bed"; you stomp off to your old room and slam the door behind you, getting into your unused bed and pulling the covers up to your chin. and as tired as you are, you can't fall asleep - through the wall, matty's the same, and it's because you're not cuddled into each other. for a good few hours, you both toss and turn, the anger ebbing from your respective bloodstreams and the loneliness flowing in; you're genuinely about to get out of bed and go into you and matty's room when you hear him through the wall saying "fuck it" and then his footsteps padding into the hallway.

he tentatively opens the door and kinda lingers in the doorway looking at you lying in bed, quite like he did right before you guys slept together for the first time - to be cute, and to reassure matty you're not angry anymore, you smile and say "get over here, healy, i want to spoon you". matty exhales and smiles back, then literally launches himself onto the bed, which makes you giggle, and climbs in behind you; he kisses your bare shoulder as he wraps an arm around your waist like "can't fall asleep without you next to me, sweetheart. m'sorry for being a dick earlier", and you're like "m'sorry too. couldn't sleep by myself either". thinking you'd turn to face him for a kiss, which would turn into a makeout, which would turn into matty lying above you with his hips grinding into yours - he's murmuring against your lips like "need to be even closer to you, darlin'. can i?", and you say "mhmm" and lift your hips so you can slide your underwear off. matty does the same, and just slowly slides his cock into you, moaning into your mouth as he bottoms out. immediately, you both feel better, and you stay like that for a minute - you being you, though, start to get turned on, and whisper in matty's ear like "need you, baby", and he's like "of course, sweetheart, let me make you feel good". he fucks you slowly, at first, hands intertwined with your own against the pillow for leverage, and it's lovely, but you want more; you shift your legs so they wrap around matty's waist and whine "want you to fuck me harder, please". matty groans into your ear like "fuck, yes, whatever you want", sits back on his knees, and obliges, speeding up his pace and slamming his hips into yours quite desperately - initially, he holds your hips for leverage, eyes fixated on the way your tits bounce with every thrust, but quickly places his hands on either side of your head so he can kiss you again. when he feels you clench like a vice around him, one of matty's hands moves to your clit, thumb rubbing over the nerves in a fervent attempt to make you cum; he begs you to do so right into your open mouth, capturing it in a kiss when you actually do. as soon as you cum, though, you push matty off you and onto his back, shimmying down the bed to take his cock in your mouth; he's whimpering like "oh, babe, m'gonna cum, you're gonna fucking make me cum". you look at your boyfriend, want evident in your eyes even in the moonlit room, and say "please" around his cock - that's enough to finish matty off, making him spill into your mouth. you keep him there until he's done, carefully sliding him out of your mouth with a pop before swallowing and smiling at him. matty pulls you up and into him for a hug like "you're fucking insane, my girl, but in the best possible way. thank you. i love you", and you're like "needed that. i love you too, so much"; after a quick loo break and more kissing, matty carries you back to your shared bed, where you fall asleep in each other's arms <3

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

Today, on 28th January, 2011

Q Magazine published with Queen 16-page exclusive - May & Taylor Speak! / 'The Unseen Freddie'

Roger Taylor interview (extract)

Who did you have most in common with when the band first got together?

Brian, really. We haven’t always got on but we’ve come to realise that we need one another. Brian is my enduring mate, but I was very close to Fred. I think we were the naughty ones.

You and Freddie were flatmates for a while in the very early days of Queen. Did you cook for each other?

Oh God! [Laughs]. One Christmas I was there with Fred and all we had was a packet of bread sauce that you make with water. We used to dream of a can of beans! We were very broke but we still managed to ponce about and appear rather grand.

You’d been a dentistry student. Did Freddie ever ask you for advice about his teeth?

Well, not really. His teeth were in strange places. I think he was very fearful, quite squeamish about having anything done because it would have involved fairly major surgery.

Queen released their first seven albums between 1973 and ’78. Not bad going…

No, I suppose it wasn’t. We were very painstaking making the albums, too. It was almost like a privilege to get in these studios which, at the time, cost what seemed like a fortune. Thirty quid for every hour! So we respected that and just grafted.

Did Bohemian Rhapsody seem like a peculiar song at all when Freddie first suggested it?

No, I loved it. The first bit that he played to me, was the verse. “Mama, just killed a man, dah-dah-la-dah-daah, gun against his…” All that. I thought, “That’s great, that’s a hit!” It was in my head, a simpler entity then; I didn’t know it was going to have a wall of mock Gilbert and Sullivan stuff, you know, some of which was written on the fly. Freddie would write these huge blocks of mass harmonies on the backs of phone books.

When Freddie would say thinks like “What’s a mortgage, darling?” in interviews, Brian and John didn’t seem to like it too much…

No, I don’t think they did.

What did you make of it?

I thought it was hilarious because it was always a complete wind-up. He knew that what would annoy people more than anything was assuming this sort of Marie Antoinette… “Let them eat cake!” That was him. You know, “F*** ‘em. If they don’t like me I’ll be even worse than they expect.

Did you ever accompany him on his legendary shopping sprees?

Oh yeah. We used to buy each other rugs occasionally. Freddie used to say, “Always buy the best, dear”, which is a great piece of advice. There’s no point in getting the Jag when you can have the Aston Martin.

Was that your philosophy?

In a way, although I didn’t take it anyway near as far as he did. We’ve been incredibly lucky, we’ve had a great career and I’ve never been one to hide it. We are what we are. At the same time we’ve done lot of quite good things. Maybe [laughs].

Queen’s parties were infamously wild…

It really was a very small part of what was going on. We just thought it was a laugh. If we could screw that much money out of the record company to have an almighty blowout then why not? It’s just become… the myth of the dwarf with the coke on his head [at the New Orleans launch party for their 1978 album Jazz] and all that. It never happened.

Really?

No. Well, I never saw it [laughs]. I’d tell you if I did. There were weird things going on but… [mildly weary] the parties and everything, people like to hear about all that but it’s sort of in the past now.

But you must appreciate why people love those stories.

Yeah, but I wouldn’t recommend a party with a hundred strippers as a great marketing tool.

In an interview back then you said, “I like strip clubs and strippers and wild parties with naked women.” Was that an accurate summary of your interests?

Ha! All true, of course.

Was cocaine ever your thing at all?

Well, everything was around then. We did a bit of this and that but I don’t think it ever really ruled us.

Everything in moderation.

[Laughs]. We were never for moderation.

As Queen became more successful, why did you travel around in separate limos?

That was the easiest way to do it. Limos are the stupidest cars. There’s really only room for two passengers and you’d usually have your girlfriend or wife or whatever, companion, or your assistant with you. We could afford four you know? It was nothing to do with not wanting to speak to one another.

What did you think when Freddie turned up one day with his new moustache?

I always said that he could have ridden naked down Oxford Street and got less publicity than he did by growing a f****ing moustache. One man grows moustache. Not a big deal. But it was, obviously, in his case. It represented this sort of gay clone scene at the time, so there was some sort of vibe off that. I mean, it didn’t bother us at all.

What misconceptions do you think people might hold about Freddie?

Well, he had a very shy side and a very forceful side as well. That was it, really. In the studio he was such a worker. That’s where he was completely at home, not shy at all. I never had a cross word with Freddie. He was the glue that kept us together, in a way. It’s difficult to describe. A complex man. In a social situation he might be quite shy, but then he could also enter the room with all the charisma turned up to 10 and take it over, but he’d have to psyche himself up for that.

As he would if he was going onstage?

Absolutely. The same thing, really.

Apparently on tour you and Freddie played a lot of Scrabble. Who was the best?

Fred and I used to love Scrabble. We all played, but it got a bit too serious so the other two would drop out. Freddie was brilliant because he could score more with fewer tiles. I was pretty much his match, I think. Brian got the most points I’ve ever seen with one word, which was 168. Can I remember what the word was? Yes, “Lacquers”. “Q” on the triple, all seven letters, triple word. Work it out. [Q Ed’s note: we’ve tried and failed – over to you, Scrabble nuts.]

When you knew that Freddie was dying was there any question of stopping?

No. He only asked two things. The first was let’s keep working. The other thing was when he was really sick, just come and visit me.

Towards the end Freddie’s home was besieged by the press. That seems normal now but it was quite unusual at the time.

Yeah, his house was surrounded by vultures. They’d even be photographing his groceries as they were brought out of the car. It was horrific, actually.

Did you make your feelings known when you would go and visit him?

I did hit a photographer one night and I think I ran over another one’s foot. All those people, what are you going to say, you know? Just horrible dickheads.

Did you get to say goodbye to him?

Well, one time he was very, very sick. I was about 300 yards up the street on my way to see him when Peter [Freestone], his assistant, rang me and said, “Don’t come, he’s just gone.” That was a real blow, but… yeah, literally 300 yards away on Kensington High Street. [Pause, little smile] Next question.

Sorry.

No, that’s alright.

After the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in 1992 did you think, “Well, what do we now?”

Oh, definitely. There was a very empty period. It was, “What do we do now? Well, let’s give up. Yeah, let’s give up. That was good. That’s done.” Then, of course, after a while you’d feel, “Well, shall we finish that material?” Eventually we summoned up the strength to finish it and I think we made a good job of it [the resulting album was 1995’s Made In Heaven].

Can you understand why some fans think that the whole idea of the Queen musical We Will Rock You, is almost offensive?

Yeah, I do, and they’re welcome to think what they like because I hate musicals. The fact is we did our best to make it an enjoyable experience for those who might like that kind of thing. I make no excuses for it. If you get all purist about things… everybody wants everything to be kept in a jar like it always was and that’s not the way the world works.

Queen’s album sales are often given as being approximately 300 million. Do you have any idea what the actual figure is?

Honestly, I don’t know. Somewhere between two and three hundred, maybe. It’s a lot. [Pause] Great, isn’t it? [Laughs]

(➡️ source: brianmay.com website)

📸 Pic: 1986 - Freddie Mercury posing

[crow-caller]

Hey! I want to preface this message by saying that I mean absolutely no hate by it, and I genuinely respect your content hugely and think you're an amazing person. However, in your most recent video you made a comment about autism that I, as an autistic person, have a different perspective on, and thought it might be interesting to you.

You said that being autistic doesn't automatically make someone disabled and I disagree. A disability is anything that makes it difficult for an individual to function in normal society. This means that, whilst autism is indeed a neurotype and is not inherently bad in any way, it is still a disability as our society is entirely based on social structures and social norms that are completely antithetical to how autism as a neurotype functions. Essentially, whilst autism is a neurotype, the way that autistic people are expected to conform to neurotypical standards makes it a disability, as it makes it significantly more difficult to function.

I and many other autistic people who are extremely high masking and have low support needs still consider ourselves to be disabled not because of our neurotype, but because of how society is structured to our disadvantage.

I know that it was just a passing comment and I genuinely don't want to be rude at all, but this is something that I'm extremely passionate about because of my own neurology. I love your videos, and I hope you have a good day :))

So, this is something I've got a lot of comments on!

Let's start here: I am ALSO autistic and disabled. I probably should have made it clearer.

This is a very interesting subject really and comes down to how we define disability in terms of medically, socially, and more. I'm not an expert, but I happen to live with someone who does study autism academically (and is also autistic and disabled). (My flatmate is helping me correct this wall of text too.) (also, this is VERY long and not like, trying to prove you wrong, it's just more I feel like giving a lot of context, especially for people who aren't very aware of autism related issues)

Firstly also, it's 100% valid to view autism as a disability or identify as disabled via your autism. I don't consider my autism to be a disability, but it is something which can be disabling.

Autism as a disability though is complicated, and to call it not a disability again relies on how you actually define disability. Your points here are very true, but also rely on a social system of understanding disability. The world isn't built for autistic people and that can cause disabling effects. If the world was built ideally for an autistic experience, would autism still be able to be counted as a disability? This is called the social model of disability and is a newer thing.

Traditionally disability has been considered in terms of the medical model, not the social. This views disability in terms of there being a disorder or deficit in capability for an individual which requires treatment or intervention. With autism, it isn't really ideal to use the medical model because it inherently implies autistic people are in some way lacking.

But then there's also the legal definition of disability. Autism is legally often classed as a disability because disability is a protected category that affords certain protections such as against discrimination. This is also how autism is able to be used to gain access to special accommodations such as in uni. While labelling autism a disability in this more legal system sense is important, this is primarily because there is no other protected characteristic it could fall under at this time.

Ideally, I'd say 'neurodivergence' is a better category, though it's a term which has a lot of debate on what that means. Usually, it'll include autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and dyslexia. All of these are things which can be disabling in certain circumstances per the social model but are harder to place in the medical model as disabilities.

I call autism a neurotype to reflect the idea it is fundamentally another way for the brain to be wired. A good example of this is what is called the 'Double Empathy Problem': Autistic people are often thought of as being impaired in terms of social communication and empathy because they are often viewed from a neurotypical perspective. However, the same is equally true in reverse: non autistic people often struggle to socially communicate and empathize with autistic people. Meanwhile, autistic people are able to communicate with other autistic people equally in much the same way neurotypicals find it easy to communicate with other neurotypicals. The trick to it is that autism is a neurotype, and what appears to be deficits and flaws is merely a difference in communication style between two neurotypes.

Is the theory, at least. This is pulling into flatmate help, who again studies this sort of thing at PHD level.

It's complicated, really. It has nuance. I hope it's been interesting!

Basically, I'm really aware I should have had more context in what I said. Especially since I pulled out the term 'neurotype' which isn't exactly common lingo. It's ultimately up to every individual autistic person to decide how to label themself and doesn't require any intervention from academia to find an answer. It's just this is actually a very hot topic of study and a rather interesting one. I definitely will be adding a new pinned comment meanwhile on youtube to at least clear up I wasn't an ablebodied neurotypical handing out judgements on the autistic. this is just my life.

[niemernuet]

Mentally I've been stuck here ever since I learnt that Dani had to babysit this ⬇️ Odi through his worst hangover during his very first wc finals in 2018:

The head coach is terrifying to approach at the best of times; today, in his current mood, he looks downright menacing as he drives past the entrance to the parking lot. Neither Daniel nor Justin are deterred though, and hurry across the uneven, icy ground as fast as they can. In their back, the long, drawn out lake lies grey and calm at the bottom of the valley.

They begin to talk at the same time.

“Excuse me, I think there has been a misunderstanding,” Daniel says.

“You can’t do this, Coach!” Justin says.

The coach, still half-way hunkered over as he is exiting the car, stops in his tracks, and glares at them. Both Daniel and Justin are wise enough to stop what they are saying. For a few heartbeats they are both quiet as the coach’s frightening glare rests on them. Daniel is the first to read his expression correctly.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hi,” Justin adds quickly, and they both follow the coach as he walks towards the boot of the car.

“Hello, boys,” the coach rumbles. Justin’s mouth is wide open again, though this time, Daniel shoves his elbow in his friend’s ribs, and takes over.

“I’m sorry but I think there has been a misunderstanding with the allocation of the lodgings.”

“It’s the last race week of the season, you can’t do…” Justin begins but again is silenced with a well-placed elbow to the rib cage.

“I’m just not sure there’s a good reason for your decision…though we fully respect it,” Daniel hurries to add. “But we thought that maybe there are some improvements we could do…and it would be beneficial for the whole team. Also…”

The coach raises a finger, and Daniel stops mid-sentence. Again the coach glares at them for the fraction of a moment too long.

“You will not share an apartment,” he eventually says. Daniel and Justin sputter like stalling snowmobiles in his back while he pulls a suitcase out of the car, and puts it on the ground.

Once more he silences them with a raised finger. “Do you want to know the reason?”

“Yes!” they exclaim.

“You!” the coach says, and points his finger at Justin whose expression immediately turns to utter shock.

“What? I didn’t do anything!”

The coach laughs as he pulls out another suitcase. “But you did! Because of you and your idiotic post on smartbook I had to sit not in one but TWO meetings with our organisation’s president and someone from FIS.”

“It’s facebook,” Daniel says softly, his shoulders now slumped at the sudden realisation of their endeavour’s futility.

“Do you know how much I’ve had it with meetings? Up to here!” the coach barks at Justin, and draws a line across his forehead with his extended finger. “So no, you will not share an apartment this week. You received your flatmates, and I told the team everyone who swaps with you will walk to South America next summer.”

“This is retaliation!” Justin cries out.

The coach laughs, and closes the hatch of the car. “I guess you could say so, yes.”

Daniel grabs Justin by the shoulder, and with a little bit of struggling mangages to push him away. “I understand that must have been annoying but I don’t see how that is a reason to punish me for it.”

The coach locks the car, and grabs his suitcases. “You’re not being punished.”

“You put me in the apartment with the rookie!” Daniel almost shouts, his nerves getting more frazzled by the second  as he struggles to keep Justin back.

“This is so unfair!” he throws in over Daniel’s shoulder.

“Listen!” the coach barks, and both straighten their backs. Again the finger lands on Justin.

“I’m giving you a bit of friendly advice, because I’m your coach, and it’s my job: The next time you want to call out FIS’ marketing strategy, I want you to go to a home-trainer, and I want you to pedal until your tongue touches the ground. Because this will be a much smarter use of your energy than anything else you could do.” Justin throws up his hands but the finger wanders over to Daniel, and he gets no chance to rage further.

 “And you are not being punished. He’s a good kid, and I’m sure you will get along just fine. In fact, why don’t you go over and lend him a hand?” 

Daniel and Justin whirl around. They barely register the coach taking off at a brisk pace as they stare at the bus and Gisin that have arrived on the parking lot while they have been busy. 

“I’m sure you’ve already heard of Daniel and Justin from the slalom team. They’re…well, you’ll get used to them,” Marc says to the young man climbing out of the passenger side of the bus. “Laurel, Hardy, this is Marco.” 

Strands of blonde hair peek out from under Marco’s oversized hat and curl around his shoulder, and even though he is quite tall himself he is so lanky that he could disappear entirely behind Gisin’s large frame. He snorts at Marc’s last remark, and bites down on his lip. From the other side of the bus, their service man appears and opens the back.

“This is all your fault,” Daniel hisses to Justin, and walks over to Marco. “Hi, I’m Hardy.”

-----

Their lodgings take up an entire street of long barracks separated into units, a short stretch behind the main street, and just elevated enough to get a glimpse of the lake through the naked birches. Justin and Daniel take off with Marco’s baggage while Gisin keeps Marco back by the shoulder. They have reached the first doors already when he catches up with them.

“It’s all true,” Daniel says.

“What is?” Marco asks. He is skipping along, only a backpack and his jacket dangling from his arms.

“Any warnings he told you about us.”

Marco laughs. “No warnings, he told me the number of his and Beat’s apartments, in case it gets boring with you.”

“That’s even more insulting,” Daniel grumbles, and fishes the key out of his pocket. They shuffle through the door of the tiny apartment, and drop the bags in the small space between the kitchenette and the rickety table. With a sigh, Daniel turns around to face Justin.

“Is this because…” He breaks off when he realises where Marco is heading. “Excuse me, that one’s my room,” he says loudly.

“I thought so,” Marco says, his feet right at the edge of the threshold, and with slumped shoulders stares wistfully towards the window with the breathtaking view over the lake and mountains behind it. “Pity.” 

Daniel waits until he moves on towards the other room facing the back alley to turn back to Justin. “You don’t need to sulk because I said it’s your fault.”

“I am not sulking!” Justin exclaims. “Because it is not my fault!”

“I told you you’d just stir the pot without changing anything!”

“Someone had to finally say what a clown organisation FIS is!”

“Everyone knows that!” Daniel shouts from the other side of the table. They both pause in their yelling to stare at Marco coming back from his room. He shrugged out of the top layer of clothes, and his hair is standing up in all directions from the static of the hat’s synthetic fibers.

“Oh, don’t stop because of me,” he says, and grabs his bags by the handles. “I just need these here….thank you.”

“Yeah but nobody puts any pressure on,” Justin snaps as soon as Marco has disappeared.

Daniel shakes his head. “Is this still because of your DNF in…”

“IT IS NOT! Frankly, I don’t even know why you had to go and complain. Now the coach will…”

“I?” Daniel barks. “I had to go? I did this for us but okay, I guess you prefer Loïc’s company over mine then…”

“You did it because you didn’t want to bunk with the rookie,” Justin shoots back, and crosses his arms in front of his chest while Daniel furiously tries to shush him. An apologetic smile washes over his face when Marco’s head peeks around the corner of the hallway. He is topless now, and a towel is dangling from his shoulder.

“I didn’t say...it like that.”

“It’s okay,” Marco answers light-heartedly. “I’d much rather be with Thomi too, even though he sounds like a chainsaw when he sleeps on his back. At first I thought the coach hates me but now I’m glad to know it’s because of you.”

Daniel blinks. “Oh.”

Marco smiles at him. “Right. Hey, would you mind if I took some of your soap? I’d like to take a shower before dinner but I forgot it at home.”

“You forgot your soap at home?”

“Well…more like my toiletry bag,” Marco explains, and stares at Daniel with his big, brown eyes.

Daniel needs a few seconds before he can answer. “Sure,” he eventually manages.

“Cool, thanks,” Marco laughs, and disappears in the bathroom.

Daniel chuckles when he turns back to Justin. “This is so much worse than I thought. He’s like you! This week will be hell.”

-----

It is not easy to talk with a pair of lips on his own but Daniel is quite practiced.

“No!”

As if he could convince him if he just pressed against him harder, Justin wraps his arms tighter around Daniel’s neck, and kisses him with even more fervour.

“Please,” he begs in Daniel’s mouth, and grinds his hips against Daniel’s just hard enough to make the narrow bed squeak.

“Absolutely not…not when I’m bunking with the rookie.”

Justin whines, and shoves his tongue even further in Daniel’s mouth.

“He’s not here yet,” he mumbles.

Daniel snorts, and pulls his head slightly back. “He better come back soon, he has a race tomorrow.”

“He’s young,” Justin shrugs, and follows Daniel until his head bumps against the wall and he can no longer evade his kisses. “He’ll be fit enough. Please, Poulette…”

“M-mh,” Daniel answers, and shakes his head so that their lips lose contact. He drags his fingers through Justin’s hair, and smiles at him. “I’m sorry, not tonight.”

“We’ll be quick, come on…” Justin begs, and Daniel laughs again.

“I know you will be quick,” he teases, and silences Justin’s outrage with another kiss until he stops fighting, and melts against his chest. Just when Justin tries another angle by putting his hand over the bulge under Daniel’s sweatpants, something heavy crashes against the front door. At once they pull apart. The noise outside just barely reaches Daniel’s room at the other end of the apartment, separated by two doors and heavy insulation but they still hear the breathless, almost shrieking laughter.

“Jesus, are you alright?” Gino yells.

Again something heavy drops against the door. Justin lifts one leg, ready to slip off the bed but Daniel keeps him in place, and shakes his head.

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” Marco’s voice assures. 

“So…do you want to get up again?” Gino asks after a short moment of silence.

“Uh, yeah…as soon as I know which way is up.”

Again Gino’s laughter reverberates through the apartment.

“Silence!” Marco laughs. “I’m with Yule and he’s already sleeping.”

“Sleeping, right,” Gino grunts. “Which one’s your room?”  Something heavy moves over the floor, and then drops against the wall to Daniel’s room.

“Thank you,” Marco says. “This one there. And it’s true. I saw him leave earlier, so we really have to be quiet now or…”

The door springs open and with a loud bang slams against the wall. Light from the kitchen as well as Marco follow right behind, though Gino can catch him at the last moment before he faceplants to the ground again.

“Wait, no, that’s not my room, that’s…ohhh…” Marco’s voice dies down as he takes in the scene on the bed. Then, a big smile spreads over his flushed cheeks and the blonde hair clinging to it, and he waves enthusiastically at the people on the bed. “Hi Daniel, hi Justin!”

Justin chuckles, and waves back. “Hi, Marco.”

“I was twelfth in the downhill today!”

“We saw. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay, let’s get you to your real room,” Gino presses through clenched teeth, and hoists Marco towards the hallway. “Sorry about that, guys.”

“No problem,” Justin says but neither of them is still listening as they shuffle off.

“Told you he’s sleeping alright,” Gino giggles, and another door gets slammed.

Justin chuckles, though he pauses when he looks down at his boyfriend and sees Daniel’s exasperation.

“Come on, he’s endearing,” he says, and kisses him.

“Annoyingly so,” Daniel snorts, and pushes against Justin’s shoulders.

“You used to love it when I did it,” Justin sighs but does not fight as he gets shoved off the bed.

Daniel grabs Justin’s jacket and throws it over his shoulders. “That’s because you used to be much more charming and sexy and handsome and overall breathtaking than him.”

Justin grins and leans in for another kiss. “Used to?”

Daniel smirks, and shoves him towards the door. “Good night, Honey Bear.”

-----

The slats of the bed are groaning almost as shameless as Daniel. His knuckles shine white as he clings to the headrest like a drowning man.

“Fuck, Justin…,” he moans, his legs twitching over the rumpled sheets. “Oh, fuck…”

Justin hums around Daniel’s cock in his mouth, and picks up the pace with his strokes. Daniel does not need more, and with a choked cry comes in spurts down Justin’s throat. He is still riding the wave down from the climax when Justin plops down next to him, and snuggles against his chest.

“See? I told you there’s enough time.”

Daniel laughs softly, still out of breath, and plants a kiss on Justin’s sweat-sheened forehead. 

“Okay, for once you were right.”

“M-hm,” Justin hums with a satisfied grin. For a few moments they lie together in silence before Justin pats Daniel’s chest, and sits up.

“You’re going already?”

Justin snorts, and grabs his trousers from the floor. “I only have the one back with me and I need it in two days…” He pauses, and checks the watch on his phone, “...no, tomorrow. I can’t share this cot with you tonight.”

Daniel sighs, and boxes the pillow under his head a few times. “This week sucks.”

Justin pulls his shirt over his head, and leans down for another kiss. “It’s almost over. Only two more nights with your new best friend.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “Considering the way he partied yesterday for a twelfth place I’m sure I won’t see him until we’re on the plane after today’s race. Tell Loïc my regards.”

“No, thanks,” Justin laughs, and softly shuts the door.

The party of the sponsor down in the village is still shooting rays of colourful light into the sky but Daniel is tired enough that he feels sleep crawl over him the moment he closes his eyes. He is almost entirely dozed off when his phone starts to vibrate again. For a second he considers ignoring it.

“Missing me already?” he mumbles as he puts it against his ear.

“Uh…no, sorry.”

Daniel shoots up. “Fuck…I mean, hi.”

Gino chuckles. Thumping bass music fills the background. “Hi. I’m just calling because I was afraid you wouldn’t see it if I wrote.”

“Okay?”

“It’s stupid but could you maybe check whether Marco’s already home? I was just on the toilet and when I came back they told me he left.”

Daniel silently throws up  his hands and rolls his eyes, though he cannot hide the drawn-out sigh when he answers. “Okay, fine. Though I’m pretty sure he’s not here ye…” He stops abruptly as the front door slams shut.

“What?” Gino asks in the growing silence. “Is he with you?”

“Oh no no no!” Daniel cries out at the terrible sounds coming from outside his bedroom. “I swear if you…” He pulls the door open, and stares at the scene unfolding in the small kitchenette.

“What? Daniel, what’s going on?” Gino yells through the phone.

“Everything’s okay,” Daniel sighs, and slumps against the door frame. “He’s not puking on the floor.”

“He’s puking?” Gino echoes, still loud enough that Daniel does not need his phone to hear him from the village square. 

He walks around the table, and steps to Marco who is hanging over the sink, and throws up another part of his dinner from earlier in the evening.

“Oh yeah, like mad,” Daniel chuckles. “But don’t worry, there can’t be much left inside of him.”

“Okay…” Gino answers, and hesitates for a second. “So…could you maybe…”

Daniel sighs again. “I’ll make sure he won’t asphyxiate on his own vomit…wouldn’t want to lose our junior world champion, right?” He pats Marco on the shoulder and elicits a soft whimper from him.

Whatever Gino says next drowns out in a new song and the DJ shouting, and Daniel takes it as cue to hang up. He leans over Marco’s hunched body, and turns on the faucet. While the ice cold water takes care of the worst mess, Daniel flips through the few cupboards until he finds a plastic mixing bowl. In the faint light from Daniel’s room shining into the rest of the apartment, Marco’s face and hair have the same grey colour. 

“If you feel like there’s something else you need to go over in your head, aim here!” Daniel says, and hands him the bowl.

“Thanks,” Marco mutters, and traipses off towards his bedroom. Daniel turns off the water, and follows him. He finds Marco laying on his stomach on his unmade bed, the plastic bowl next to his head.

“I will fucking delete Justin’s facebook profile,” Daniel mutters as he bends down, and pulls Marco’s shoes off his feet. He does not budge even a little, his breath coming slow and steady, and quietly Daniel slips out of his room. His feet have just warmed up again under the blanket of his own bed, when something heavy crashes from one end of the hallway to the other. With a heavy sigh he listens to the hollow, gurgling noises of Marco throwing up into the toilet. He stays put, and without realising that he has fallen asleep, jolts up a few minutes later when the same happens again. The third time he is wide awake, glaring into the darkness around him, too annoyed even to pick up his phone and write an accusing message for Justin to read in the morning. The fourth time Marco’s journey to the toilet wakes him up he notices that the lights of the party have stopped. The silence is heavier now, without the distant noise, and Daniel’s breath hitches when he hears something else between Marco’s retching. With a few whispered swear words he peels the toasty blanket back, and makes his way towards the only illuminated room in their apartment. The sharp, pungent smell of vomit hangs in the windowless bathroom, though luckily, Marco has managed to only stain the inside of the toilet bowl. Marco bites down on his lower lip when Daniel appears in the door but he cannot stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks.

“Is…everything alright?” Daniel asks even though the answer is apparent.

Marco shrugs, his cheek pressed against the cool porcelain of the toilet. He sniffles, and looks up at Daniel with red-rimmed eyes.

“Am I cool?”

Daniel’s brows fold into a frown as he tries to find something to say. “Like…right now?”

He cringes when Marco closes his eyes, and a new flood of tears rolls down his cheeks and into the matted strands of the hair clinging to them.

“I’m so stupid,” he chokes.

Daniel stares at him for a second before he turns on his heel, and hurries away. When he returns with a glass of water, Marco is still hunched against the toilet.

“Drink this!” Daniel orders. “And then tell me what’s going on.”

Marco takes a small sip. He stares at the ground, mute and deep in his thoughts.

Daniel keeps staring down at him until something occurs to him. “Is there a reason why you left the team at the party?”

Marco’s lip wobbles, and quickly he takes another sip. “I feel like I’ll never stop failing and I’ll never be as good as the others.”

Daniel rolls his eyes with a chuckle. “That’s because you’ve slept three of the last 48 hours and you’ve had two races in that time.”

Marco looks up, and blinks at him.

“Not to mention all the alcohol you’ve been putting away,” Daniel adds. “Well…temporarily, at least. Drink up, go to bed and I promise tomorrow everything will be different.”

He grabs the empty glass from Marco, and fills it again before digging a pill out of his almost depleted toiletry bag. Marco is already face-down on his bed again when he reaches his room.

“Do you think I could ever have the same that you have with Justin?” he mumbles from the depths of his pillow.

“Depends who you want to have it with,” Daniel answers, and puts the glass and the pill on the nightstand.

“Gino…” Marco sighs, and groans slightly as Daniel pulls the blanket out from under his body.

“You’ll have to ask him,” Daniel laughs. 

Marco lifts his head, and scans the room.

“Not now,” Daniel adds hastily. “Tomorrow, when you’ll be sober again…and maybe realise that you have terrible taste.”

Marco’s head drops back into his pillow, and he mumbles something inaudible.

Daniel throws the blanket over Marco’s limp body. “Take the pill here first thing in the morning,” he says, and points at the nightstand, but Marco has already fallen asleep.

“Rookies…” Daniel mutters, and quietly slips out of the room.

-----

The ending of the season two days later is sadder than anticipated, with two cancelled races and stormy weather. The teams disperse, washed away by the rain, and one after the other the rental busses stuffed with skis and other equipment leave for the airport. Daniel is checking the sidepocket of his backpack for his passport when Marco appears by his side. He huddles close to get under the open hatch of the bus. The hair poking out from underneath his hat is dark from the rain, almost as dark as the shadows under his eyes.

“Sorry you couldn’t race,” he begins.

“It’s just my luck,” Daniel says without interrupting his search. “One whole week with you and nothing to show for it. You look terrible by the way.”

“I feel terrible too,” Marco admits. “I think I’m dying.”

“It’s called a hangover. You’ll get over it. Okay, all there.” With a satisfied smile, Daniel closes the zipper of the backpack and puts it back with the rest of his baggage.

Marco shakes his head, and stares out into the rain. “I’m not sure…the only thing I know is that I’ll never drink again.”

Daniel laughs.

“Never ever! I don’t remember a thing from that night.” For a moment, Marco stares out into the rain before he dares to ask the question. “Did I say anything about Gino?”

Daniel frowns, thinks for a second. “Not that I remember, no. Why?”

Marco shakes his head. “Just because…not important.”

Before Daniel can prod further, Marco throws his arms around him.

“At first I really did not look forward to living with you but then it turned out to be quite cool. If you ever switch to giant slalom, I’d love to bunk with you during the season. But don’t tell Thomi.”

Daniel chuckles, and hugs Marco back. “And if you ever tried slalom I would gladly lend you my toothpaste and shampoo.”

Marco laughs, and skips back towards the bus where his service man is waiting. Justin rounds the corner, and joins Daniel under the hatch where they watch the other bus jolt over the gravel toward the road.

“He’s in love with Gino,” Daniel explains, and smiles at Marco who is frantically waving at them.

“Awww, Rookie,” Justin coos. “So endearing.”

[dramallamas]

The (unserious) notes of Beyond Evil. Episode Three Edition

Previous Episode || Next Episode

Cant wait to psychoanalyse this episode later with the scriptbook!

Jinmuk je te deteste dont even dare feel sad you monster

that shot of Juwon lazing on his sofa im down bad

He has nice handwriting tho

Honestly when is this man not thinking about Dongsik

The fly jumpscared me bc of my headphones

Dongsik you bastard (affectionately)

He is not ok rn

Juwon eavesdropping was me and my flatmate last night trying to find out the drama

The camerawork in this show is beautiful omg

Dongsik has no right to look this fine rn tho

Oop spotted!

Jihwa knew both of them were at the station lol

And bada bing bada boom we are in the recording room

And theyre off and Jihwa is so done

Juwon is so like WTF with this whole thing.

If looks could kill Dongsik would be dead 💀

why at 5am?! WHY WERE YOU UP AT 5AM?!

Bro Juwon doesnt hold back

Dongsik <3

Juwon could murder im sure of it. He has it ij him.

I like watching the gay men fight… because its fun :)

THE ONLY TIME I WILL AGREE WITH HAN KIHWAN IS RN “What a nut job. I like him [Dongsik].”

Juwon pissing off Kihwan is just so great at all times.

Theyre gonna find the wrong body and blow this case even bigger

Dongsik again <3 the onlt dilf of my life tbh

My heart breaks for him though. He masks a lot if pain

“What if I ran into older Yuyeon on the street, but failed to recognise her. That worries me a lot…” 💔

Fellas is it gay to stare at another mans smiling photo for a long time whilst in your room?

Juwon you have always been a crafty bitch and I respect that

YJG is a brilliant actor he is a master at subtle emotions which makes him one of the most expressive characters in the show

YAY you found a phone

Bad news for Juwon its Geumhwas phone that has his number.

Mate ur laughing like a maniac like dongsik does. You two arent as different as you think.

But my god you like to jump to the wrong conclusions

Watching the scene with nam sangbae and dongsik makes me cry but i cant because im in the living room with my flatmates. And the score in the background just 😭

Me 🤝 Dongsik : Laughing to hide pain

Man will stay in work just for Juwon

They back and forth in every scene like its all they do.

Mf going on about the culprit always returning to the scene and here comes JINMUK AHDKFMSP FORESHADOWING WE MISSED

Part of me think that Dongsik is suspicious of Jinmuk atp.

If you told them that they would be so close by the end of the series they would be fucking disgusted.

Oop juwon getting interrogated.

Juwon pausing before adding 요 at the end of his sentence like bro you are forgetting your respect conjugation

oh shit juwon not looking good for you is it.

"Given his nature, there is no way he [Juwon] would get involved in a crime" HYEOK YOU DONT EVEN KNOW-

Hyeok became his tutor in 2010... when JW was 17. does that mean that he helped JW in Korea rather than britain? or the tail end of britain onwards.

Hyeok you are such a kiss-ass

Do Haewon 🤢 she is so fake i hate it (which is the poing ig lmao)

LEE CHANGJIN. hes so funny for a bad guy

Jeongje is so frustrated with his mum (same)

Juwon is this close to slapping Hyeok at times.

aliens? rude much kihwan (what did we expect)

and there goes juwon loosing his cool.

annoyingly kihwan makes some points even if its for self centered gain. still hate kihwan dw

bro standing outside as ppl talk about him like 🧍

And then the eye contact between him and dongsik god having a whole silent conversation

Nice recovery juwon.

Them being nice to each other? NOT THIS EARLY BOIS

And boom personal space who? They dont know it.

Dongsik telling Juwon to go to therapy lmaooo

Juwon grabbing Dongsik probably became a… different thing later on yk? Hehe

This episode is basically Juwon and his terrible no good very bad couple days.

Bro you need to hike/walk more Juwon how are you already sweating.

You make think you have him, but nope he has you.

JUWON BREAKS INTO DS BASEMENT PART ONE HERE WE GO

The tiny bloodstain ofc. He def left it deliberately somewhat

And i am so hyped for episode four because of the incoming moments.

Juwon this isnt the victory you think it is trust me

see you all next episode! bye ^^

[clonerightsagenda]

lucy carlyle for the ask game!!! :)

(Ask meme here)

We are 2 for 2 for teen girls hanging out with the dead tonight huh. Maybe Aradia should be Lucy's next dead girlfriend.

First impression

Stroud likes his scrappy teen girls, huh? I respect that. A man can have worse stock characters.

Impression now

While she clearly shares DNA with Kitty (insert the 'he she lost her whole squad' meme) she is her own character and I like that she's petty and irrational and unfair in ways that make sense for her age. Honestly she is so extremely 13-15 it is hard for me to imagine what she will be like once she is an adult. But yknow. Tossup whether she'll make it that far anyway.

Favorite moment

I go on about all the CEOs she kills but siccing a guy's dead ex-girlfriend who he murdered on him after he threatens to kill you because he thinks you're the weak link was a great move. Really set my expectations.

Idea for a story

While I respect Stroud writing technology out of the world because he simply does not want to deal with it, I would love to see Lucy Carlyle unleashed on social media. I think she'd do numbers (derogatory). She'd write lengthy screeds about ghosthunting procedures and then tell people disagreeing with her to kill themselves. Meanwhile Lockwood has a google alert for his name and George is on fantasy Sci Hub. They can still have their intervention like 'Lucy you are putting too much trust in mysterious beings whose true faces and intentions you can't ascertain, it's drawing you closer to a realm inimical to human life that will warp you beyond all recognition if it doesn't kill you outright' but it's just because she has some weird tumblr mutuals.

Also don't think I didn't notice that when Lockwood goes "yeah I told Barnes there's no way we're doing anything with the other side ever again" and the rest of his team loudly agrees with him Lucy is conspicuously quiet. She's keeping her options open. Maybe she wants to go beat up Marissa Fittes again. She deserves to.

Unpopular opinion

Leaving the agency when she did was probably the right call. She and Lockwood's clashing personality traits and priorities were bringing out the worst in each other and making everyone else miserable. (I am so sorry Holly.) They didn't really resolve everything either, so if that workplace relationship is going to work out they should probably get therapy. Bright side is there must be loads of child therapists in this universe right. They'd probably have to be dragged kicking and screaming though. Maybe if you told them the office was haunted and then locked the door behind them.

Favorite relationship

If Lucy and Lockwood have clashing traits that bring out the worst in each other, Lucy and the skull just share a lot of their worst traits already, and I think that's very funny. Instead of saying she is so empathetic and pure of heart that she can befriend sinister ghosts Stroud was like yeah they just both suck in similar ways and thus get on, to everyone else's confusion and dismay. Honestly surprised they got anything done during their flatmates era besides coming up with mean burns about their neighbors.

Also this is a hostage situation. I appreciate Stroud's willingness to make his leads complicit. Marissa delivers the classic "we're not so different you and I" villain speech, but she has a point. They're both trapping and exploiting the dead to protect their lives and careers; it's just a difference of scale, and once you've justified something, scale is negotiable.

However I'm very invested in Show!Lucy's doomed girlfriend so watch this metaphorical space for whenever I finally meet her.

Favorite headcanon

Talent seems largely random but Lucy is described as being connected to the other side even before she crosses over, so I think maybe she was a preemie or almost died some other way as a child and that's why she's Like That.

[0zzysaurus]

Marivert Marivert!! Tell me about ur Marivert hcs :>

Just the same ones as usual :]] I might throw out some cute flatmate au ideas/prompts/sillies tho:

- Marius covertly adopts a street cat, it sits on the wheelie bin outside the kitchen window and he feeds it ham. He wants to bring it inside but Javert said he hates pets and thinks they smell bad

- smash cut to six months later where Javert does his paperwork w the cat curled up in his lap because there isn’t a grumpy man on earth who said “no get that thing out of my fucking house” and didn’t then grow to love it like flesh and blood

- they often do not pay their bills on time and Marius will get woken up by furious yelling when Javert takes his morning shower and the boiler’s been disconnected

- neither of them can cook. Ready meals are their lifeline and the microwave is worshipped like an idol. And yet somehow Marius still finds a way at least once a month to put something explodable in it

- Javert will regularly direct Marius to the “appointments charter” (notebook with coffee stains that lives on the kitchen counter) to mark down house-guest requests. Sometimes Marius just wants the amis guys to come over !! (denied. They are criminals. Get better friends.)

- “Hey, your partner looks familiar… have I seen them somewhere before?”

- “Oh my god you have to let me know the next time he/she comes over because their dad/daughter CANNOT know about us” — cue elaborate setups to get Valjean or Cosette out the house without either of them realising what’s happening

- on the flip-side Valjean and Cosette both think to themselves “hey… it’s weird that his roommate is some random guy from the street that I’ve definitely seen give funny glances to my daughter/father in the past… what a weird coincidence…”

- 90% of the time they are arguing. 9% of the time they are chilling in the living room eating cereal out of the box and watching How It’s Made. 1% of the time they are rawing it from the back and trying not to gaze into each other’s eyes for too long

- Javert wants the Snoopy Moped fucking gone. Marius still has his L plates too. It’s so embarrassing please get rid of it. (Marius has the matching snoopy goggles helmet to go with it he’s keeping it for life)

- they are both the worst roommate ever. Javert is super meticulous and strict and demands that the house be respectable. Marius attracts mess wherever he goes, often forgets to do even basic housework, and is regularly making a fiasco of the place often by no fault of his own (he is still trying to convince Javert that it was Grantaire who spilled a pitcher of gin and coke on the Turkish carpet)

- the mug incident is still my favourite au prompt for them btw

[soapdish290]

I initially read 'In The Woods' by Tana French in 2013, after seeing a recommendation basically saying that, after reading a Tana French novel, the reader "has to go and hug my dog for a long while", to paraphrase.

Re-reading it over a decade later I wasn't expecting to finish the book feeling just as desolate and affected as I did the first.

I know we here all love the phrase "doomed by the narrative" and let me tell you, there are so many characters here doomed in so many narratives. Sometimes the reader knows the details from minute one. Sometimes you can feel the doom, formless and cloying, and have to read on, aching and helpless, to watch it land.

French is an absolutely stunning writer. She fully leverages the first person perspective to create all the isolated inevitability the format can give. A sad, lonely, nostalgic autopsy of interwoven tragedy. Actually that's my blurb quote, fuck it.

I choose the word "nostalgia" very deliberately. It's a strangely butter feeling, to me. A sort of empty longing. French evokes it frequently and beautifully.

French writes slow and lets the characters and atmosphere breath and grow and move, in fits and starts, to the preordained (but, to the reader, still hidden!) conclusion.

I'm chucking a line break here because below this I'm going to spurt a bunch of spoiler shit I want to talk about and there's a (very faint) possibility that someone might read this and be pushed into reading a novel.

If you are planning to read, however, know this: The narrator is a bit of a prick. He's 100% written that way on purpose. He is what makes everything work.

Embarrassingly, when I first read the book as a 20 year old eejit, I saw Ryan as a likeable, sympathetic protagonist. I do not like who I was as a 20 year old. Luckily, inall subsequent readings, I recognised him as an extremely well drawn example of the casually misogynistic, genuinely thinks he's a good guy, thinks "political correctness has gone mad" prick everybody knew at least one of.

Honestly these days I think it's a testament to French's writing - he's very well drawn, entirely realistic, and completely vital to most of the twists. If he wasn't a fucking arsehole half of it wouldn't work.

One thing I noticed this time, is that it's heavily implied Ryan did to his flatmate Heather what he did to Cass, in part. When he fordt introduces Heather, he says he took the flat in part because he fancied her, but "we both worked out that Harry and Sally were never going to materialise" (page 103 of my kindle copy).

Later, when Heather works out that Ryan slept with and is now shutting out Cassie, Heather says "she doesn't deserve that, [...] any more than I did." (Page 491).

I'll admit this might be really obvious to everyone but my aro/ace arse, but it hit me like a truck this time around.

Another very tenuous thing I noticed and really fucking like is right at the end, when Ryan drunkenly calls Cassie and she leaves the line open and he hears her and Sam. The narrative is unsure whether this was accidental or deliberate. I choose to interpret Cassie's word choice in a way that leans deliberate. She tells Sam it was a wrong number. "He told me he loved me [...] but he turned out to be looking for Britney." (Page 587).

Now it's very likely I'm reading faaaar too much into this, but the phrasing matches Cassie and Ryan joking around about a hypothetical personal ad for Ryan, "male, six foot [...] seeks his very own Britney for..." (Page 188). I love this interpretation. Gives the scene such a delicate, devastating impact. If its a callback its so soft and intimate in its kindness or its cruelty.

There's literally an entire essay topic based on close reading the archaeological dig mirroring Ryan digging up his past, the respective value of one over the other, the effects on the present etc. On the way Ryan goes back at the end and the wood is almost gone, he connects to the people destroying the past, the arrowhead pendant he refuses, etc etc etc. The symbolism be RICH.

Fantastically written novel. I'm rambling.

[gigawatt-smile]

your icon is transmasc lockwood..give me ur transmasc lockwood thoughts pls *holds out a bowl*

(and any other gender/sexuality hcs you have for l&co characters 👀👀)

Oh I have SO much to say on all of this thank you so much for asking and noticing. (There are some book spoilers here so I will put a small * at the start for people who haven't read them. General spoilers are marked with ** :] )

Lockwood:

He's a stealth trans man and has hit a point in his transition where it's no longer at the forefront of his mind

He used to hate that he couldn't wear a binder on cases (he still did it at times) but I think he firmly has top surgery now. I have two headcanons about him getting top surgery, actually, though one is more of a joke

One is that Inspector Barnes managed to get it under DEPRAC insurance because binding was seen as inhibiting his ability to do cases

The other is that he once got a case that paid well and used the money from it to get top. He didn't think to tell anyone and returned one day with the drains in the pockets of his greatcoat completely high off painkillers

** His parents and sister never knew about him being trans and that makes him upset sometimes

He is a binary trans man, though I use the transmac flag for my icon (slightly altered colours) because I am. He used he/him pronouns

He's asexual to me as well

He's straight in a respecting women way and definitely in a bi wife way. With mentioning that...

Lucy

I'm gonna go off on two tangents with this with transfem Lucy and afab non-binary Lucy because they both greatly appeal to me; I'll explain them in that order

I'm not really in the mood to get into much transphobia because I don't want to bring the tone down, but her mom was not supportive at all, though she heavily defied her mom in that regard and was out to her friends

* Her sisters were supportive too, as much as they could be under the guise of their mother, and her sister Mary would help out a lot

Norrie in the show probably fills a similar role

Once she left home and went to London she was excited by the prospect of finally getting to be herself and openly using her name with new people

She uses she/they pronouns

My afab nb Lucy heavily ties into trans Lockwood, actually

Basically Lockwood getting rid of his old binders and her asking for one just to see what it's like and realising she prefers the way she looks wearing one

Lockwood talks to her about it blah blah heartwarming stuff about looking after your body n such but being happy for her

Anyways I like both of these for different reasons

Here lucy uses they/she pronouns

Anyways she's also massively bisexual

George

Oh he's got he/they energy in the same way Cabinet Man or Touch-Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon do

He's been out for years, and is quite comfortable with the fact he's trans and doesn't mind people asking or telling people about it

The more comfortable he is around you the more he'll say

His parents were just chill with it too, and his brothers were delighted to "teach him" how to be a guy

Also side note congrats on your autism George. This doesn't really have anything to do with it but it's on my mind

He's just got that transmasculine swag and that's cool for him

I think he may be pansexual, or omnisexual

Flo

I don't have as much to say on Flo but I adore her and she deserves a spot

Anyway she uses she/they/any pronouns in a gender is a social construct way and is adamantly opposed

She tells people to get creative with the pronouns

** Holly

Absolutely a trans woman who loves being a woman I take no criticism on this

She likes being pretty and wearing nice clothes because it makes her feel euphoric

She's not stealth trans, but she likes people not being able to tell

She's pretty open with the people she trusts

* Another joke-y headcanon that I have is the real reason Lucy is jealous of Holly is because Holly is further through her transition

But they learn to bond over it

* Also she's a lesbian because "flatmate from Fittes" who is a girl as well as the whole "there are other possibilities in this world" line. Yeah she's heavily implied to be a lesbian in the books

Kipps

Maybe trans, maybe bisexual, may be just an ally. Idk, I don't think a lot about him

I can see him being a stealth trans man like Lockwood ngl

Anyway rant over, thank you asker :D

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

This starts out as a post about one specific Daniel Kitson article, then it goes into a John Oliver article, then it just becomes a post about the crossover between Daniel Kitson and John Oliver. Click the link if you want to read that.

Every once in a while, I’ll come across something on the internet that is so relevant to my interests, it leaves me shocked that I have managed to miss it in my previous scourings of the internet for things that are relevant to my interests. For example: this article, from The Times, London (archived version here).

Sometimes I think I’ve already found all the articles about Daniel Kitson that are on the internet – finding this for the first time today confirms that I hadn’t even found all the articles by Daniel Kitson. Which is a rare thing to find, but not completely impossible, there are a few others. Hadn’t seen this one before, though.

It's from July 2003, and it's Daniel Kitson's "survival guide" to the Edinburgh Festival. At least, it's supposed to be. I assume what happened is The Times asked Daniel Kitson to write a survival guide to the Edinburgh Festival, and because he had not yet become quite as determined as he is today to never let anyone find out he exists, he said yes.

I'm going to go through it a bit at a time, starting from this first paragraph:

HISTORICALLY, survival guides are bastions for lazy thinking, shoddy writing and bad comedy. Articles about Edinburgh in particular abound with advice revolving largely around deep-fried foodstuffs, the hills, the penny black and everything else that is pretty much utterly irrelevant. I obviously consider myself way above such tawdry concerns of the hack and therefore will clumsily attempt to do a little more than telling you to avoid street theatre, of which I enjoy a certain proportion, and criticising students handing out flyers, which I think is a reasonable and vital part of the process of selling a show.

I quoted that one just because I like that last sentence. I haven't been to Edinburgh before, but I have been to a lot of folk festivals, and I've been handed a lot of flyers. So I know it can get annoying, but I don't think it's quite annoying enough to warrant how much people make fun of it, especially given that most people handing out flyers are just struggling artists trying to sell their show. I try to be understanding about anyone trying to sell their show, we wouldn't have an arts industry at all if people couldn't do that. I don't complain when people plug something on a podcast, for example. Hypocritically, I do tend to assume that anyone who has ever unironically said the words "like and subscribe" has never said anything of value in their entire life. But flyers are fine. If someone hands you a flyer, even if you've already had a lot and it's annoying, just be respectful and try to be out of their sight before you conscientiously put it in a recycling bin.

So, before I go father in this post, I should say that possibly one of ways in which I have most taken fandom too far is the folder on my computer called “Kitson and Oliver”. It started last year sometime, when I was first getting into Daniel Kitson, and told @lastweeksshirttonight that I’d keep track of every time Kitson mentioned John Oliver in one of his radio shows, so I could share the bits that are relevant to their interests. It snowballed from there, and now I have quite a comprehensive collection of every time I’ve ever seen or heard or read those two telling stories about each other, or rare instances of them being recorded actually doing things together. So of course, I hoped this article would give me more things to add to that collection. And it delivered by the second paragraph:

My perennial Edinburgh flatmate, John Oliver, and I have a plan to get us through this year’s festival unscathed. In previous years our main mode of escape has been PlayStation football. Controlling tiny sporting men into the early hours is the finest way to end any day. Particularly a day that has been dominated by reading reviews, avoiding people, sitting on the lavatory and performing. It becomes tricky only when the tiny sporting men cease to do your bidding and light begins to spill through the curtains, sparking a frantic rush to get into bed before the impending dawn can go full blown. In both 2001 and 2002 computer football was augmented with supporting struts of insular pleasure. Two years ago when I was in the throes of my first solo Edinburgh show and John was enjoying the relatively stress and inspiration-free environment of a package show, we found comfort in lists. In sticking big sheets of paper and back-to-front posters on the walls of our lurid sitting room — as much to hide the shocking pink that lay beneath as to form a canvas. However, once the paper was fixed in place we wrote lists. The lists could be anything: “People we hate”, “Comedians who are s***”, “People who need to shut up”. There was not a massive amount of generosity of spirit emanating from these tallies. It really helped us, though. Not much is more comforting than getting in after a particularly pointless exercise in crowd control, picking up a felt tip and writing “the audience” under the heading “People who need to shut up”, making your way to the PlayStation, switching it on, picking up a controller and settling in. Last year John and I were both performing solo shows. John had left the nursery pool of the Comedy Zone and was finding the wide open waters of solo performing a little choppy. I, of course, had a bigger boat than John, a boat I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in and a boat whose course I seemed unable to control. The point being that we were s****ing a lot. An awful lot. Once more the PlayStation was unpacked and controllers passed out. Once more the tiny sprinting footballers calmed us. Last year, however, rather than writing lists, we made juice. Watermelon, pineapple, apple, orange, strawberry, any combination you can think of. Getting home after a performance that has made you forget why you ever thought your show was remotely watchable is made so much easier when waiting in the fridge is watermelon and strawberry juice less than three hours old. After pouring a glass and picking up a controller you feel that you may actually be the future of comedy once more.

I would pay too much money for a picture of some of those lists. Though I think I do, actually, have some idea of what might have been on them. If I may take a detour at this point, John Oliver wrote his own article just a few weeks later (archived version here). That's almost a companion to this article, just because they were written so close together, both about their experience of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, circa 2003. Though John Oliver's article focuses a bit more on the comedy than on the video games and strawberry juice.

I'm going to quote a few parts of John Oliver's article, that seem relevant because they discuss overlapping experiences, and/or tell us some things that were presumably on John Oliver's lists called "People who need to shut up":

AS I WRITE THIS, by a sick twist of fate, Jim Davidson is performing standup on BBC One, and the thing that is making me want to throw myself out of the window is that this will be some people’s only experience of stand-up. He’s telling a joke in which an Australian man hits a woman. The audience is laughing. Now he’s saying something casually racist. They’re still laughing. Make it stop, please. Think of the children. I’m at the Edinburgh Festival, sitting in my flat overlooking a building site and some teenagers setting fire to a bicycle. Feel the spirit of the Fringe.

...

The interesting thing this year is not just that lots of “political comedians” are here, but that other comedians are commenting on politics far more. The main reason is the war, and the fact that in times of such party-political apathy, millions have hit the streets in marches ranging from stopping war on people to continuing war on foxes — all over two weekends. And the rise of political comment in stand-up has to be a good thing, right? Well, that depends on how it is being done, and whether it contains the question “Have we got any Americans in?” That perennial comedic question used to trigger off lazy comedy: “Anyone notice how fat Americans are?” “How about their lack of irony?” If you like this kind of thing, that’s fine — except that it isn’t, and you’re an idiot.

...

My favourite political comedy comes from a more whimsical background. Armando Iannucci (The Day Today, Saturday Night Armistice) has always done ridiculous satire better than anyone; The Onion website regularly manages aggressive political comedy dressed up as nonsense (their post-September 11 edition was outstanding), and Andy Zaltzman has developed a great political stand-up that is both true and stupid. There does also seem to be a growth in comedy that is broadly about social politics. Daniel Kitson’s show last year had a lot to say about how awful the world is becoming. David O’Doherty regularly produces outstanding shows with jokes from the heart. His stories appeal to how we live our life and how we view the world. The Dinks this year in Edinburgh are a three-man team of articulate clowns who weave together an elaborate political metaphor while jumping around in weird costumes.

...

But people are attempting to move away from the kind of comedy that changes the words to pop songs to insinuate that Ann Widdecombe is a bit ugly. Attacking the cosmetics is pointless. It’s distracting and it’s lazy. George Bush says stupid things, but the entire system behind him is raping the world. And Jim Davidson is still on my TV. Go and see Rob Newman, Andy Zaltzman, David O’Docherty, The Dinks, and, if you’ve still got time, me. We’ll kick our truth for you people, while trying not to.

John Oliver in 2003, everyone. Telling you exactly what he does and does not like. Also spelling David O'Doherty's name wrong, spelling it the way British people pronounce it, which is not the correct way to spell it or pronounce it. But it's cool that he gave him that respect of going on a list of comedians who have something substantial to say, even if most of his material isn't overtly political. He's done some overtly political stuff in the last ten years or so, but I don't think he had any by 2003. (I've just realized, @lastweeksshirttonight, I'm not sure I've ever sent you that second article before, you should definitely read it, and so should all the other people on the John Oliver side of Tumblr, the whole thing's very interesting).

Okay, back to the Kitson article, that doesn't spend as much time naming the things he hates, but does tell us about writing it on walls with John Oliver.

Sport in general is important to our experience of Edinburgh. Aerobie (flying rings), mini-golf and always, like a calming hand on your shoulder, football. Kick-about matches on the meadows are often hastily convened on days when there is slightly more blue than cloud. People surprise you in these makeshift games, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Generally people are pleasantly surprised by my quick feet and are often let down by John failing to deliver on his flashes of early promise. David O’Doherty, a man with a head seemingly too large for his body, is a phenomenal player, while Danny Bhoy, with a normally proportioned head to torso ratio, has a game that seemingly consists only of pace and ineffective touches of flair. Russell Howard, a great new comedian, is the most naturally gifted footballer I’ve seen but has a propensity to be distracted by food, while Andy Zaltzman remains stoic and determinedly old-fashioned as a defender.

Love this, thank you, Daniel. As I've said before, my favourite type of celebrity gossip in the whole world is gossip about which comedians are best at playing football. So thank you for the scouting report.

Nish Kumar once said that he thinks you can connect everyone's comedy to the way they play football, like how his football playing is inconsistent and he's often on the left wing. Does that apply here? David O'Doherty does have an entire song about having legs that are too short for his body. Danny Bhoy... look, he seems like a nice guy and I think the comedy he does is good for people who like that sort of thing and I don't want to be a dick about this, but I did watch three of his DVDs, and "a game that seemingly consists only of pace and ineffective touches of flair" is not a bad description of that those DVDs were like. Naturally gifted but plagued by the tragic flaw of being too easily distracted is a strong description of Russell Howard's comedic career. And "stoic and determinedly old fashioned" very much describes the style of Andy Zaltzman's obscure and resolutely wordplay-based comedy, if not its content.

While I'm at this, a picture of their lineup that I'm almost sure is from the 2003 Melbourne Comedy Festival, so just a few months before those articles. Look at my favourite type of celebrity gossip:

Actually, now that I look at it, this only features three people who were mentioned in Kitson's article: Danny Bhoy, David O'Doherty, and Kitson himself. Also featuring Dave Gorman, Dan Antopolski, Glenn Wool, Jason Byrne, Adam Hills, Charlie Pickering, and Noel Fielding. A picture that's just always worth throwing in, while I'm documenting 2003.

For the past two years John and I have employed a policy of avoidance (people, parties, agents) and indulgence (computer football, real football, waffles) and it has served us well. This year, however, we are ready for Edinburgh. Not ready in the sense of having a finished show. Not ready in the sense of psychologically prepared for the brief and utterly disproportionate amount of media coverage. But ready in the sense of having tracked down and bought every film we can think of that contains slow-motion sporting triumph over adversity, ideally backed by some manner of stirring music. Edinburgh cannot hurt us now. Negative reviews cannot upset us. Low audience numbers will cause us no concern. Walk-outs will be welcomed. All because the boys in Escape to Victory put up with more than we can ever imagine. It began last year with the stirring Remember the Titans (a film of such perfection that John momentarily forgot about his impending financial loss) and is continued this year with the futile courage of Tin Cup, the once-hip jive talk of White Men Can’t Jump, the documentaries When We Were Kings and Hoop Dreams, both ready to lift us from the depths to the very pinnacle of human courage. Field of Dreams, Chariots of Fire, Rocky, they are all coming to our aid. Like half-forgotten friends returning in the final reel to save the heroes from insurmountable odds. You play sporting footage in slow motion, put music behind it that makes you shiver, and you have a film I will pay money to own.

I love this bit of that article, because it's the first time I've actually seen Daniel Kitson acknowledge a connection I had previously made, that he and John Oliver both talk about how much they love dramatic sports moments set to dramatic music. My Kitson + Oliver folder actually contains a compilation I made a while ago, of Daniel Kitson and John Oliver, in separate stand-up shows, talking about the same phenomenon:

I figured this must mean they'd first come up with this interest together, but I really enjoy seeing Kitson actually tell us the origin of it. That's one of the first things that hugely endeared Daniel Kitson to me, by the way. Fucking right, dramatic sporting moments set to dramatic music are the most emotionally effective things in the world. I love that shit, I've pretty much dedicated my entire life to them.

I've now quoted literally the entire Kitson article besides the last paragraph (though not the entire Oliver article, people should go read that one), so I may as well throw in the ending:

This then is the plan: a juicer, a PlayStation, a football, waffles and paninis, little men doing as they are told, a glass full of juice and a scene of sporting courage ready in the DVD player. Come to me now, Edinburgh, and bring your slings and arrows, your potshots, your misguided ambition and your insularity. Bring it all and do your worst for I am prepared. I am ready.

That is a man who was fucking ready for the raging battle he was going to do with a large plastic cow almost exactly one month later. Going in with that attitude, it's no wonder they did so well.

...You knew that was where this post was going, right? I can't write a post about Daniel Kitson and John Oliver at Edinburgh in 2003 without going back to that stupid fucking cow video.

I find the crossover between Daniel Kitson and John Oliver fascinating (hence the folder). They do such different types of comedy (broadly, Oliver being extremely political and Kitson being extremely personal), but with so many fundamental similarities. Big things, like a similar worldview, full of frustration at individuals and reveling in petty complaints and emphasis on the importance of compassion and obsession with acknowledging everything that happens everywhere and separation between vulgarity and meanness. And smaller, more specific things, like they’ve both got rants against the Santa Claus Day parade and in favour of dramatic music over dramatic sporting events, they’ve both got material about how much they love swearing and about how much they hate people who swear in front of children.

And they both fit into this middle space between nerd and jock that I really like, though that one’s less specific to them and seems to be a defining feature of (almost) the entire Chocolate Milk Gang, which may be one little part of why I like the entire Chocolate Milk Gang so much. I’ve heard Kitson, Oliver, and Zaltzman and O’Doherty all do bits, separately from each other and in different years, about how they were more interested in being professional athletes than professional comedians. Gavin Osborn’s got a whole song about it. Apparently, what I look for in a favourite comedian (or comedy adjacent musician) is it’s nice if they have at least some familiarity with the middle of the Venn diagram between massive nerd and person obsessed with sports.

Most of the stuff in my Kitson + Oliver folder are clips of them talking about each other, because they’ve very rarely actually recorded stuff together. They’ve repeatedly described each other as best friends, but never actually worked with each other, which makes sense as what they did was so different. As far as I can see, there are only a few instances of them being recorded together.

One is when Daniel Kitson featured, playing the role of God (a little on the nose, arguably), in the Zaltzman and Oliver sketch at their reunion gig in Edinburgh 2011:

Then there's this shit from Daniel Kitson's radio show Trifle, in August 2020:

That clip absolutely killed me when I first heard it. It came from right near the end of the run, so Kitson was already very much in my head. I'd read the spoilers before I'd even started listening to that radio show, so I knew it would turn out to not be real, and still, as I got to the end, I got more and more confused and tried to find answers to more and more questions. "Wait... what the fuck did you... were you ever anywhere? Were you even outside that other time? Was that bird sound real or was that a special effect? Was every moment of it scripted? Have you ever even owned a camper van? Is Tim Key a real person?"

So I'm already totally drawn into that mystery, at the same time Daniel Kitson is hitting some emotional resonance buttons pretty fucking hard, maybe not quite as hard as dramatic sporting moments set to dramatic music, but pretty close. You know, some stuff about things lost during the pandemic, and then things lost during your whole life, things that used to matter to you and are gone now, things you lose track of and are never quite the same even if they come back, and then he hits you with that John Oliver clip, which I believe had me actually saying "Go fuck yourself, Kitson," to my phone. By which I meant absolutely nobody should be allowed to hit you this hard with a supposedly unscripted radio show about nothing. "The thing you miss is the future you once had." Fuck you.

And that bit was scripted, meaning he specifically wrote a script where all his friends call him to say they’re worried about him and want  him to come home and stop being stupid, except John Oliver, who calls to say he fully supports his harebrained scheme and thinks he should keep having this spontaneous adventure. And it’s not like Kitson regularly brings in John Oliver on things like this, he specifically brought in John Oliver on that one thing where he needed one character to be the voice of “Just go have an adventure, don’t worry about responsibilities and consequences”. And then you think about how much of Daniel Kitson’s early material was about love for adventure and spontaneously doing things in the middle of the night, and how much of his later comedy is about being sad that life loses adventure as you get old and your friends move away and have families.

Anyway. Anyway. I did not mean for this post to get quite so dramatic. Can I bring the tone to one a bit more lighthearted? Because here's a rare video of Kitson and Oliver together, it hardly counts because you don't even see them, but you can just barely tell they're both there:

Dunking Eugene Mirman in a dunk tank outside a gig at the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival in 2010. The video only shows Mirman falling, but you can hear Kitson's distinctive giggle, and you can hear John Oliver mutter something like "Ooh, that one was...". And if you don't believe me that they were both just on the other side of that camera, here's a picture taken by a camera that was facing them while they threw:

Here's a YouTube video where you can see them both. From the Honourable Men of Art show at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. John Oliver was supposed to be part of that show in person, but about six weeks before the festival started, he informed his friends that he was moving to America to work on The Daily Show, instead of, in the words of Andy Zaltzman, “Coming to Edinburgh to talk to twenty-five people a day in a darkened room.” So they got him on a live video linkup some nights, and here are 22 lovely seconds of it.

And finally, here is, to the very best of my knowledge, the only other instance of Daniel Kitson and John Oliver doing anything together that got recorded and put out there for the public to find:

I told you it would come back to that. It always comes back that. And it turns out that Daniel Kitson did tell us, going into that festival, that he was ready for anything. He wasn't kidding.

[restorativemeal]

Menu Twenty-Seven

Spaghetti Napoli: spaghetti, onion, garlic, capsicum, olive oil, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, fresh basil, oregano, brown sugar, salt and pepper, chilli sauce, parmesan cheese. 

Baked Rigatoni with Tomato and Mushrooms: rigatoni, mushrooms, butter, onion, garlic, capsicum, olive oil, tinned tomatoes, fresh basil, oregano, brown sugar, salt and pepper, chilli sauce, tin tomato juice, mozzarella, parmesan cheese, ricotta. 

This journey has gotten to the point where, if I didn’t check the back of my work diary I wouldn’t know what week it was. It was the Twenty-Second Week. The hold that the cookbook had over me, had slipped, or I’d let go. The end was a plausible entity. Twenty-two weeks into the journey, I finally had a crippling realisation. Life was not circular, I had only made it so. There are only 365 days in a year, and each one of them has the same title as the year before. The only circles in a life are vicious ones. Symbols exist. I was cooking Menu Twenty-Seven this week and the number 27 is a symbol of early death. On the second day of the week, we lost the neighbour’s kitten to an early death. Death, a symbol of expiration. It was also the last week that my most loyal guest was also a flatmate. The vicious circle I find myself stuck in is the one where there is safety in expiration. 

On Monday, prior to realisation I was floating on higher ground. Reading a Primer of Jungian theory at work and thinking about self-realisation. I had so far only realised that I was a frightfully honest person, but at the same time I lie a lot and I’d like to lie even more. I wanted to think about entropy and canalising energy but didn’t understand how it worked. I thought that Jung’s theory of entropy intertwined with the cookbook because both the psyche and Bishop and Carruthers sought balance in a lifestyle, as did I. Lana Del Rey has a song about the paramount sign sparkling just for her. The “paramount sign sparkling, sparkling just for me” could have been any of the signs I saw. Signs and symbols are inextricably linked. 

Valentine's Day Kitchen, Actually.

By Wednesday, I wanted to believe signs and symbolism only existed in dreams but unfortunately quite often signs and symbolism are manifested in a week and when they come to fruition you want to throw up. I cooked dinner instead. It was already 6 30 PM when I got home from work. I only needed to make the Napoli sauce, because this was going into both the Spaghetti Napoli and the Baked Rigatoni with Tomato and Mushrooms. While the sauce simmered gently, I wondered what it meant for something to simmer gently. Things usually remain at boiling point. 

<3

So the sauce boiled and I chopped vegetables and grated cheese for the baked rigatoni. The oven had been turned on, to let it warm only slightly before it blasted the rigatoni full force. I spooned half of the Napoli sauce on top of the rigatoni, topped it with the cheese, and relocated it into the oven, hoping for the best. Predictably, the oven shut off half an hour into the 45 minutes it had been diagnosed. I sat with my guests, all five of them.

Dinner, cooked and served.

Over dinner we paid our respects to expiration and I withheld the truth to the table about things I’d seen that day. Bishop and Carruthers had orchestrated a harmonious menu for their 27th, the Spaghetti Napoli and Baked Rigatoni with Tomato and Mushrooms were two primary colours on a plate.

[toomuchracket]

im not kidding i reread the boat angst saga at least 2 times a week. it’s so good.

if you’re not planning that to be a fic maybe you could write birthday party angst? like they’re both on separate tours (satvb and her book tour.) and they haven’t seen each other in awhile which transpires in to a fight about how either one doesn’t make enough time for each other (maybe leading to a “break” that only really last a few days and the entire time matty is beating himself up over it. or if you want to make it ESPECIALLY messy, he could have had a misunderstanding and thought maybe she was cheating on him?) could also work for flatmate. like he’s all consumed with his tour until he comes back to find girlie throwing herself in to a case (aka not making time for him.) which leads to them fighting, and her thinking he’s undermining her work. (maybe pre-kids)

i love the birthday party idea especially, but i might take inspo from the other one too!! thinking maybe matty gets a bit miffed that you can't always talk to him during the day (for you), because you have MULTIPLE events/appearances scheduled per day (podcasts, interviews, etc. on top of talks and presentations and book signings) - for some reason, he doesn't seem to get that, prob because his version of tour is so different from yours. idk, maybe he feels like he's putting all the effort in and it's not reciprocated, which really isn't true given that you're literally flying out to see him in a week after your own (lengthy) tour ends, and you get quite upset about it and say something like "well, now you know how it feels for once", and it starts a whole argument about how he asked you to come on tour with him last time and you said you couldn't because you had final drafts and editorial meetings and things that are really a lot easier to do when you're at home. maybe he says something quite cold and condescending about how that all seemed like a fucking shit excuse for not going, because he's a writer too AND he has to record and he can do it all while he's touring, and you get extremely upset because a) he's making it seem like his work is more important than yours, and b) he's disregarding the fact that he can only do everything at once because he doesn't have to do it all himself like you do. and matty lets his frustration get the better of him and says something like "well, it's not like anyone could work with you anyway, too fucking stubborn to compromise", and you just go SILENT and then say "ok. i'll just refund the plane tickets for coming out next week, then, since i can't compromise. bye. i'll maybe see you when you get back to london. but i'm not holding my breath" - he's like "whatever", and assumes you're bluffing, but you're dead serious. not that he bothers calling, because he's just as stubborn as you and neither of you want to be the person to cave first and call the other, but he does go to the airport the day you're meant to fly out to pick you up, and fucking PANICS when your flight gets in and you don't appear; only then does he phone you to question where you are and if you're ok, and you coolly say "i did tell you i wasn't coming. my lack of ability to compromise didn't tip you off?", and matty honest to god starts crying about how he was an arsehole and fucked up and how he didn't really mean any of it and he really does love you. he's giving it "i'll fly home now i'll fucking do it. i need to sort this", and you're like "no, finish the tour. i don't need you resenting me for anything else about it" - your voice cracks on that last sentence, and he feels like he's going to throw up with guilt. but you do love him, and you really miss him, so you forgive him eventually after you talk when he gets home. things take a while to get back to the way they were, and even then they're never quite the same again; not in a bad way, just in the two of you being kinder to each other about processes and touring and respecting each other's work. kinda wwat vibes, actually <3