#but since it's a soap opera they are obviously involving EVERYONE and that is amazing

[nandalikesstuff]

For the ask meme! 15, 24, 38, 48

50 questions just because - Accepting!

15. Do you have any houseplants? Do any of them have names?

I do not, sorry, plants are not for me, and all the ones my mom had already died 😔

24. Are you a good driver?

Absolutely not. I am terrified of driving for Reasons TM and haven't touched a car ever since I got my driver's license over 10 years ago.

38. What’s one show you watch or musician you listen to that your friends know nothing about?

Practically everything I watch or listen to xD Most of my friends aren't into anime and even the ones that are aren't big on Japanese artists so some of my fave artists like Spyair or Maximum the Hormone, no one irl has any idea exist. Me and my mom also love watching Hallmark-like slice of life/romance tv series like When Calls the Heart, Virgin River and The Good Witch that none of my friends like, sadly. Oh and my aunt recently recommended to us a Turkish soap opera called "Sen Çal Kapimi" (Love is in the air) that we are absolutely obsessed with atm and literally no one else knows about so this is my propaganda for everyone to go watch the Turkish soap opera, it's on HBO Max!!! It's enemies to lovers fake dating, come with me to my ex's wedding style, and they are both absolutely batshit insane people. Seriously, everyone watch it and then come talk to me about them cause I can't get over how crazy they both are, I'm on ep 7 and they haven't made ONE normal person decision yet. Plus the guy is super rich so there's rich people DRAMA, which is the best kind of petty useless drama.

48. Do you have a favorite plate or bowl?

I do, actually! It's a Bugs Bunny printed plate that's been mine since I was like 5 years old? It's plastic and deep to avoid child messes so that means that even today it's ideal to eat desserts and ice cream or soup when I don't want a lot of it uwu

[birbleafs]

[fic] A Tragicomedy In Five Acts

Series: Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan || The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Rating: T Genre: Friendship, Humour, Breaking the Fourth Wall Character(s): Akechi Touma, Saiki Kusuo, Saiki Kurumi, Saiki Kuniharu, Saiki Kuusuke Warnings: None, save for the canon-typical shenanigans Summary: Akechi has made a habit of showing up unannounced, uninvited at the Saiki residence. The inevitable "bonding" occurs and Kusuo despairs; the world continues to turn. A/N: A piece I wrote for the Disastrous Life Zine, a charity zine. I wanted to share the uncut version here since I like how it reads more (it's not too different from zine version, though). Leftover sales are currently still live, so here's your last chance to grab some limited items if you had missed the pre-orders earlier! Thanks to the mods & other contributors over at @disastrouslifezine, for all their hard work on this project. Many thanks also to my bro Digi for the awesome beta work and for always being an all-round great pal ❤ Fic can also be read AO3. _______ i. It’s a problem Saiki Kusuo should have—could have—nipped earlier in the bud, when he’d been forced to spend a whole Sunday with Akechi Touma betting on horse-racing. But between Akechi being (begrudgingly) accepted as one of the PK Psychickers to Kusuo having to stop a meteor from slamming into the planet—well, a lot had happened. Akechi had since taken to visiting the Saiki residence at random, with little notice in advance. On his second visit, Mom had invited him in before Kusuo could intervene. If it weren’t for the cupcakes Akechi had brought along—not to mention the terrifying heat of Mom’s demonic glare at the first sign of a protest—Kusuo would have teleported him miles away without hesitation. That’s how Kusuo finds himself now—glowering at Akechi who’s sitting politely in his room and firing a running commentary about nothing and too many things all at once. Resigned, he leans back into his study chair and asks, point-blank: What do you want, Akechi?

“Your mother is lovely as always,” Akechi replies instead, dancing around the question. “I’m grateful she’s gone from remembering me as ‘Pee Boy’ to ‘Kusuo’s Friend Who Only Ever Wets His Pants Occasionally’. Surely that’s a sign we have gotten closer.” It sounds just as terrible as the first—only a simpleton would be okay with that as a defining trait, Kusuo retorts. In any case, we’re hardly more than classmates. So, why are you here again? “I thought you would have realized it by now with your telepathy. But I suppose I can explain it for the sake of the readers!” Akechi beams, holding up a small case in his hand. Don’t just casually break the fourth wall, Kusuo frowns, even as he leans forward for a closer look. Akechi pops the case open and turns towards the game console. “I was recently gifted this game by my cousin, who assured me that, while underrated, it’s still a cult hit among fans. I thought it would be fun to play it together.” Kusuo stares flatly at the title OVERWORKED displayed on the disc as it slides into the console drive, already unimpressed. That is such a blatant rip-off. “Oh, no, it's a completely different game from the one you’re thinking of!” Akechi says. “Here you play as the overworked waiter of a cafe who serves multiple orders at once and takes over the cooking whenever the head chef throws a tantrum and storms right off.” How is that different from OVERC***ED? It is totally OVERC***ED! “Regardless, shall we have a play-off?” Akechi offers the controller to him. “Winner gets this box of cupcakes. I got them from the best pâtisserie in town, which is no easy feat. Why just this morning I left home at the crack of dawn to secure a spot in the queue, and even then, there were already about 30-odd people ahead of me! Who knew it was so popular—A-ah!” Kusuo yanks the controller easily from Akechi’s hand towards him with telekinesis, a glint of determination in his eyes now. Best two out of three levels. Loser also has to leave immediately. Akechi grins knowingly and cracks his knuckles, reaching for the second controller. “You’re quick to assume victory, Kusuo-kun. Very well, then!” Thirty-seven minutes later and Kusuo’s left staring at the final scores, appalled. He would have won if his character hadn’t kept freezing in place and glitching at crucial moments, messing up in the kitchens and sending out wrong orders. How is he always losing to Akechi like this? Clearly the universe is still conspiring against him. “You were so close to beefing my lask score dhoo,” Akechi says shamelessly through a mouthful of strawberry frosting. “And my, deez fupfakes are s’per dhasty!” Are you taunting me now? Kusuo scowls enviously at the cupcake in Akechi’s hand before he huffs, slinking back into his chair. Well, I’ll be staring dejectedly out my window for a bit, so feel free to eat your cupcakes and then leave. But Akechi only laughs then and, to Kusuo’s surprise, moves to place a chocolate cupcake before him. “You’re so melodramatic, Kusuo-kun. I never said the winner can’t share.” ... I guess you didn’t. They spend the rest of the afternoon eating cupcakes. _______ ii. This again? It’s been a month, but Kusuo already feels a sense of gloom settling over him when Akechi steps into the genkan. He would have been fine with leaving Akechi outside blathering away through closed doors for the entire day while he pretended not to be home, but obviously Mom is having none of that. “I’m so glad you’ve been coming over to play with Ku-chan!” she greets cheerfully. “I couldn’t believe it when I first heard, but you and Kusuo are getting along well, huh, Akechi-kun!” Dad says with a sagely nod, looking every bit the part of the morally upright, reliable father. Bold of you to believe such delusional notions of camaraderie, or that you even look the part of an admirable adult, Kusuo comments drily, before turning to leave. “We don’t just get along,” Akechi chimes in reply. “You could even say our friendship is super-califragilisticexpialidocious!” GET OUT. If looks could kill, Kusuo’s current expression is pure genocide. But his parents are already fawning and AH-HYUU-!!-ing at Akechi’s words, tears of joy gushing down their cheeks like an endless waterfall. Kusuo watches in quiet despair as Akechi is readily accepted into their fold with welcomed embraces, a key development in this romantic soap opera. Oi, what’s with the misleading narrative?! We’re not in that kind of fanfic right now! Dad and Akechi hit it off well enough, one thing leads to another, and Kusuo suddenly finds himself roped into playing MECH-O ARENA VR on the WAB station in Dad’s study. Seriously, stop it with the terrible rip-offs of actual games already, Kusuo frowns as he watches Dad’s and Akechi’s characters flitting about on the screen to fight off an incoming attack. “I suppose it’s not very original, is it?” Akechi says, punching the controller buttons in a flurry of movements. “But it’s different enough that we can probably avoid any unwanted copyright lawsuits.” That’s completely beside the point. Dad’s wholly immersed with the game now, so it’s impossible for Kusuo to get rid of Akechi without Dad throwing a childish fuss about losing his new gaming buddy. Not to mention Mom’s uncanny ability to appear with coffee and snacks each time Kusuo had tried to inconspicuously retreat back into his room, all while exuding an ominous aura that effectively dissuaded his need to leave immediately. Good grief—everyone’s being such a pain today, Kusuo sighs, before he finally relents to Mom’s cajoling to team up with her against Dad and Akechi in the final round. He figures it can’t get worse than this anyway. That is, until Kuusuke gets involved. _______ iii. When Kusuo returns home from a quick grocery trip for Mom, he walks into a surprisingly empty living room. He can hear Dad and Kuusuke’s voices from upstairs but for some reason he’s not quite able to perceive the atmosphere within—it’s as if his senses are partially blocked by a cognitive fog with the study engulfed in a dead zone. Must be that prototype “router” Kuusuke had installed in Dad’s study yesterday. Kusuo has zero interest in his brother’s tiresome antics, but is compelled nonetheless to check on them, if only to ensure Kuusuke isn’t playing Mad Scientist and coaxing Dad into yet another deranged human project. He opens the door, nearly lashes out in shock with telekinesis when he sees Akechi staring through the doorway with a creepy, owlish expression. “Oh, were you actually surprised, Kusuo-kun?” Akechi says. “My apologies for frightening you like that.” Kusuo studies the room cautiously, only to realize he’s unable to hear anyone’s thoughts with telepathy. He glares at his brother in suspicion. “Welcome back, little brother!” Kuusuke greets him with a Cheshire grin. “I see you’ve got yourself a new playmate. Hmm? Ah, you must think it strange that I've taken to Akechi-kun so readily.” Strange and highly dubious, Kusuo counters. What are you scheming? “Well, Akechi-kun shows the most potential and capacity for mental growth amongst the lesser primates close to you—” What a disparaging worldview. And stop deflecting! I know you can still understand me. “—So, he may yet make a good test subj—Ah, I mean, a good friend! Interesting specimens tend to gravitate towards you, after all. Though his propensity for peeing sure is troubling, isn’t it? Haha!” You can excuse questionable human experimentations, but you draw the line at incontinence? Kuusuke attempts a nonchalant shrug. “Priorities, amirite?” “But this is amazing, Kuusuke-san,” Akechi says, glancing up in awe at the blinking device on the ceiling. “The telepathy canceller really does block our thoughts efficiently!” “It’s child's play compared to Kusuo’s abilities,” Kuusuke says, seemingly modest, but Kusuo doesn’t miss the devious glint in his eyes when he reaches into his coat pocket to pull out what looks suspiciously like a detonator with a giant red button. “Still, with this, Operation SM☆SH can now finally commence—” Wait, Operation what?? Kuusuke, don’t you dare...! But Kuusuke is already pressing the button, and the study is plunged into darkness as the lights flicker off and the blinds draw shut. Alarmed, Kusuo wrenches the detonator away from Kuusuke’s grip with his telekinesis. What did you just do?! There’s an electronic whirr, a blinding flash, and Kusuo finds himself suddenly staring at a large LCD screen as it emerges from the ceiling. Music blares from overhead speakers as a cinematic opening sequence begins to play. “There you are, Kusuo!” Dad looks up from behind the coffee table where he’d been fiddling with the game console. He adjusts the VR headset over his eyes. “It’s time to finally beat you at SUPER SM☆SH BUDS as payback for last time! HII-YAAAH!!” ... Oh. So it’s just another game. “That’s right!” Kuusuke claps his hands together, blissfully ignoring the heat of Kusuo’s baleful glare. “I heard about your horse-racing bet from Akechi-kun and found this as the best way to even the odds for other types of games.” “The idea came to me while peeing in the shower; to find ways you could play and not get bored easily, Kusuo-kun,” Akechi adds in unnecessary detail. “But I didn’t think Kuusuke-san could actually pull it off.” “Here, Kusuo,” Dad says, waving his controller. “Come choose your character—” But Kusuo’s already teleporting away, fleeing the wretched upheaval within his own home to hide at Cafe Mami for the rest of the day. _______ iv. Akechi corners him after school three weeks later. Kusuo is surprised and unsurprised all at once; he had worn the germanium ring to class, after all, in a bid to avoid spoilers for the direct-to-streaming release movie adaptation of a book he’d been fond of. It’s easy to ignore everyone’s spoilery chatter when it isn’t droning directly into his mind—he’d kept his fingers stuck into  his ears each time class ended, oblivious to the strange looks thrown his way, and had even hidden away in the restroom cubicle during breaks, successfully avoiding any interaction with the usual human nuisances. Until now, that is. “Let’s walk home together, Kusuo-kun!” Akechi calls, jogging after him. I’m suddenly deaf and sound has eluded me, Kusuo deadpans as he breaks into a sprint, determined to leave before Akechi starts blabbing spoilers. “I noticed you weren’t quite yourself today,” Akechi continues, catching up with him.  “And I thought it might have something to do with the ring on your left index finger that you’ve fondled precisely seventeen times throughout the day.” What an awful way to describe it. I didn’t fondle anything. “Perhaps the material of that ring works in the same manner as the telepathy canceller—which would explain why you seemed uncharacteristically skittish today since you’re pretty bad at discerning people’s intentions without your telepathy.” What are you? A psychic? But Akechi only persists. “I realized later that you’d always leave whenever anyone started talking about that new movie on Netfl*x—” Can’t hear now, Kusuo slaps his hands over his ears. Gone horribly deaf. “And I figured it must be that you haven’t watched it yet for some reason, like maybe your home internet is down because your father forgot to pay the bills for three whole months and so it got cut—” How did you even..? Kusuo grimaces. N-nope, not listening! 100% deaf! “I know you don’t have a mobile phone to watch it on either,” Akechi continues. “So, that’s why I wanted to invite you to my house today, to watch it together. Oh, don’t worry, I know absolutely nothing about the movie. In fact, I’d only heard Kaidou-kun screaming out the title just ten minutes ago.” Kusuo pauses then, glancing back at Akechi in hesitance. Akechi only meets his wary gaze with a knowing smirk, and says, “We also have strawberry shortcake in the fridge.” _______ v. I don’t suppose there’s a good reason this time either, Kusuo sighs wearily, closing his book. Still, there’s a glimmer in his eyes; he knows Akechi had come bearing gifts—a selection of coffee jellies topped with cherries and chocolate drizzle. “I’ve made a habit of crashing your place unannounced, haven’t I?” Akechi offers a contrite grin, watching as Kusuo helps himself to a spoonful of jelly. “I do apologize, but whenever I get restless, I find myself wandering here by instinct. Admittedly, I was worried about being a bother, but your mother is always so welcoming at the door despite that dreary, constipated look in your eyes—” You are being a bother. Like a persistent mosquito that thinks it's summer all year round, Kusuo grouses with his Most Annoyed Expression, knowing how ineffectual his Feigning Ignorance Face had become over time. Also, have you graduated from pee references to shitty jokes now? Disgusting. But Akechi takes it all in stride, undeterred by Kusuo’s ugly grimace and acerbic jibes. “—Plus, it’d be considered extremely rude if I didn’t come in after that, and I certainly do not want you to think of me as rude. You’re a friend I hold in high regard, after all. I always have, ever since I found out it was you who saved me from the bullies back then.” The earnestness in Akechi’s words stumps him, if only a little. And though Kusuo is careful to keep his surprise from showing, there’s a part deep down in his not-so-granite heart that feels a touch of warmth at the sentiment. Akechi’s already placing the Scrabble board on the floor, so he misses the ghost of a smile that crosses Kusuo’s lips. Did Akechi honestly think he could beat a psychic at Scrabble too? How naive. “You’re probably thinking how naive I must be, believing I could beat you at a board game with your powers and all,” Akechi notes cheerfully, almost as if he’s a mind-reader himself. Kusuo frowns, slightly disgruntled by the fourth-wall breaking once more and wishes they would give it a rest for once. Overusing a trope gets really tiring, you know? Still, he smiles again as he takes a seat across from Akechi—who is now shuffling the Scrabble chips while nattering away about the history of board games and how the loser would have to give up his share of coffee jelly (as if Kusuo would allow it to come to that again). Two Sunday visits per month only, Kusuo says, lifting several chips into the air with a wave of his hand. If you beat me... I’ll allow it. Akechi’s eyes widen, before he breaks into a playful grin. “Very well, then. May the best man win.” Kusuo only lets out a soft laugh. Perhaps it’s not too late to pick up where they had left off in grade school. —End—

[sendryl]

Sandpaper Love!

Okay so super late but you know how it is.

Sandpaper Love AU is a massive modern soap opera au wherein Naruto and Sasuke have been friends since high school (both students at Iruka's dojo) and have been through a lot of shit together. Sakura has always been there too, but as in canon, she's never quite as close to them as they are to each other. So college comes around and they stick together and that where Hinata appears. She thinks Naruto is amazing and bright and everything and she gathers the courage to ask him out while they're all four at Ichiraku's. Naruto, who has no idea what love actually is (bad foster homes growing up) is just like "yeah sure sounds great" and Sasuke is quietly trying to hide the fact that his world is collapsing. Sakura sees her Hinata being courageous and asks Sasuke out too, and Naruto is thrilled because now it can be a double date.

Things spiral from there, involving Sasuke dating Sakura, Naruto talking to him about finally having sex with Hinata, and Sasuke freaking out and ending up having sex with Sakura in a very fucked up grasp for normality. Eventually, through stupidity and bad sex education on the Uchiha family's part, Sakura gets pregnant, and Sasuke gets pressured into marrying her. Naruto thinks marriage is a great idea and asks Hinata, and Naruto steamrolls them all into a double wedding and honeymoon. So. Yeah. Soap opera to the extreme. XD

A few months later, Naruto gets in a bad car accident, and Sasuke goes to the hospital while he's in surgery. Meanwhile Sakura goes into early labor, and can't get ahold of Sasuke (no phones in hospital) and calls Hinata. So Hinata is there for Sarada's birth, and Sasuke is at Naruto's bedside waiting for him to wake up.

Much later, Naruto and Hinata have their two kids in an attempt on Hinata's to make Naruto really love her, and stop focusing on Sasuke. Naruto loves his kids, but it doesn't pull him closer to Hinata or farther from Sasuke. Sasuke and Sakura are fighting and not sleeping in the same bed, but they both love Sarada and do their best to take care of her.

When Sarada is about three, Sakura finally files for divorce. This prompts Naruto to finally realize that he might not actually understand love at all, and he ends up talking to Hinata and eventually Sasuke about it. Sakura won't talk to him, because she says it's too painful atm.

Eventually Hinata decides to divorce Naruto as well, to let him go, because she's realized that she's never going to be able to make him love her. Not the way she wants him to, at least.

The divorces are as amicable as they can be. The kids are well taken care of. They all end up seeing therapists, one of whom is Ino, and both Sakura and Sasuke end up clicking with her.

End goal would be:

Sakura becoming an mma fighter as she works her way through medical school, training with Lee, and having a longstanding "fuck me yourself, coward" thing with fellow medical student Neji that works for them both.

Hinata going back to school to join the orchestra as a cellist, ignoring her family's urging for her to take over their medical practice and fully supporting Neji in his push to become a doctor on his own, outside the family practice. She meets Ino after a performance, and Ino is obviously into her, but Hinata decides she wants to spend some time on her own figuring out what makes her happy, before getting into any relationships.

Sasuke finally telling Naruto that he's been in love with him since high school, and then being willing to let Naruto go to figure out what he wants in life.

And Naruto finally going to a therapist and figuring out what the different types of love are, and realizing that Sasuke is the person he actually wants to be married to. So, after a year or so, he proposes.

Naruto ends up taking over his sensei's dojo, and Sasuke joins him as a co-owner.

Naruto and Sasuke's house is the main home for the kids, but everyone has equal visitation, and the kids end up alright.

So there you have it! Bad choices all around, lots of angst and confusion and pain, and a journey through doomed love to find happiness on the other side.

I don't think I could write it realistically enough to do the au justice, so it'll probably always just be an idea, but yeah. That is Sandpaper Love.

[kalluun-patangaroa]

Suede brush up

The Guardian, 21 October 2010

by Jude Rogers

(This is the actual article The Ministry Of Sound photo shoot was done for)

Drugs, ME and despair sent the poor urchins of Britpop their separate ways in 2003. Now Suede have come roaring back to life.

'Much less interested in the persona of Brett Anderson' ... Suede's frontman at the Ministry of Sound, London. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi for the Guardian 

This year, in the first flush of spring, a band that time forgot played the gig of their lives. "It was so special, it was impossible to leave it behind, wasn't it? We had to keep picking at it, didn't we? It was like a scab." The once long-fringed frontman who led the band that launched Britpop – albeit against his will, Brett Anderson reminds us – sits in a hotel room on a darkening weekday evening, remarkably untouched by both time and excess, recalling Suede's performance at the Royal Albert Hall in March. Next to him, drummer Simon Gilbert and keyboardist Neil Codling are similarly Peter Pan-like; bassist Mat Osman is in New York; while Richard Oakes, the young pup who replaced guitarist Bernard Butler after writing to the band's fanclub, is in the gents. 

"He's hiding," says Anderson. "He's terrified. Be gentle with him."

In 2010, something remarkable has happened to Suede. Nearly 18 years after their debut album became the fastest-selling in British history, and seven years after they split not with a bang but with a whimper, they are, incredibly, the talk of the town. Next month, they release a carefully curated Best Of – Osman says on the phone, later, that Anderson has spent months labouring over it, making his own CDs to discover the best running order. In December, they play the O2, their biggest-ever non-festival show. This is all thanks to a gig they played for Teenage Cancer Trust back in March, preceded by two "practice runs" at London's 100 Club and the Manchester Ritz. At the Royal Albert Hall, they were a revelation: five men in their 30s and 40s playing at full throttle, as if the world was going to cave in once the curtains came down. When they played Metal Mickey, they received a standing ovation that went on for five minutes. Oakes finally enters the room as we discuss it, and smiles shyly when he realises what we are talking about. "I thought someone had walked on stage, or something. It was genuinely unexpected."

"That's the one moment that I'd relive for the rest of eternity," adds Anderson. "And I did actually say on the night – here's your bold quote if you want it – I've taken a lot of drugs in my life and nothing compares to it."

Anderson at Royal Albert Hall, London, in March 2010. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA 

Everyone laughs. Suede know who the press expect Anderson to be: the easy-to-parody commuter-belt wordsmith, still in love with suburbs and skylines, nicotine and gasoline. The old dog still deploys flamboyant one-liners – when Gilbert's lost phone turns up in his pocket, for example, he says, "Oh, come on, Simon, this isn't Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World" – but in 2010, Anderson is much more self-aware. He is, he says, "much less interested in the persona of Brett Anderson", and even has a sense of humour about having a parodist on Twitter, something you couldn't have imagined 15 years ago.

Since Suede broke up in 2003, all the members' lives have changed hugely. As well as making three solo albums and reuniting briefly with Butler as the Tears, Anderson has married and gained a stepson "who likes being read bedtime stories about pirates", and lost a father, who died in 2005. Gilbert moved to Bangkok as soon as the band split, and now drums for two bands called Futon and Goo ("that's G-O-O"); Codling became "a keyboardist for hire" for Natalie Imbruglia, among others; Osman became an editor of the online zine le cool; while Oakes has been working quietly on a new band, Artmagic, though he had not been on stage since Suede played their last note seven years ago.

But then Teenage Cancer Trust came calling. At first, Anderson didn't know whether reforming would be wise. "There were two conflicting voices," he says. "One saying I'd love to play those songs again, I'm really proud of them. Another saying I should leave well alone." He spoke to Osman and Codling, called Gilbert on Skype, then spoke to Oakes – the least convinced party. Oakes stands out from his bandmates in other ways today: he wears a beige jacket and scruffy jeans while the others are stylish in black; he has a receding hairline; and he still looks acutely aware that he filled Butler's shoes, despite co-writing some of Suede's biggest hits. "I was thinking, 'Oh God, can I do it, revisiting the past?' All these emotions, I didn't think I could cope." Osman will also admit late that he had his doubts: "Men in their 40s performing teenage songs … it could have easily gone horribly wrong."

Anderson confirms there were lots of difficult conversations. "But if it had been the wrong thing for one of us, it would have been the wrong thing for all of us. We kept persevering because we knew there was still something there."

To decide once and for all whether a reunion would work, this version of Suede (Oakes joined in 1994, Codling in 1996), went to a tiny rehearsal room near Anderson's house. It was the first time they had played together for 10 years (Codling left the band in 2000 because he was suffering from ME). It was crucial there were no managers or roadies present, explains Anderson, so the five musicians could just drink tea and chat, and then hook up their instruments. They played Filmstar first, and it sounded amazing, he says. "We also noticed a purity in those songs, because we'd had distance from them," adds Codling. "It also helped everyone remember," adds Anderson, "why they were written in the first place."

As the Albert Hall show approached, Osman remembers them discussing how important it was that they present the music free of frills: "It had to be like five boys playing the Southampton Joiners Arms. To hide behind anything would have been cheating. We had to do the opposite."

Anderson felt they had a point to prove, too. "I don't think there's ever been a point in Suede's career when we haven't. We've always had our doubters. We've always polarised opinion." He stops, then smiles. "Although there's part of me that quite likes that, you know. I never wanted to be in someone's fifth-favourite band."

Suede were born to be divisive: from early on, they were criticised for being the beneficiaries of media hype, even though they had spent years in various bands playing "in front of three people". Later on, the fact that Anderson had been involved with Justine Frischmann, who became the frontwoman of Elastica and dated Blur's Damon Albarn, helped transform Britpop into a class-fuelled soap opera, with Blur cast as foppish class tourists, Suede as poor urchins looking at the stars and Frischmann a black-clad princess tearing them apart. Anderson doesn't think about the other Britpop bands now, he says, though he is still close friends with Frischmann, who now lives in LA; they had dinner together with their spouses last year, and he wishes he saw her more often.

By 1994, as Oasis became more popular, it became clear that Suede didn't fit into Britpop any more, even though it was still a year before the scene's commercial apogee. Butler's departure also gave the critics extra fuel for the fire. "They realised that a part of our armour was missing," recalls Anderson. "That was the first time I realised that people often run in packs, and when they smell blood, they attack."

Suede didn't want to run with a herd, though – and their second album, Dog Man Star, was deliberately anti-Britpop for that reason. "We didn't want to wave union jack flags. And I didn't want to talk about my life any more, or include any references about living in London on the dole. It felt weird how they became Britpop references, really, and how quickly they got turned into beery cartoons."

Anderson was also missing the departed Butler. "He's an amazing musician, so I missed him in that sense. And the two first Suede albums were obviously very special." Butler has played a big role in putting together the Best Of, Anderson says. "It was really nice: the two of us sitting together listening to Suede songs in the studio for the first time for nearly 20 years. A really lovely trip down memory lane." Anderson won't go into detail about their friendship, but thinks they made a good album together as the Tears, although they were naive not to realise how much the idea of their reconciliation being a de facto Suede reunion would overshadow it. Butler, though, will have no part of this reformation.

Instead, Suede's current lineup is centred around their most commercially successful spell, one that gets overlooked because of the excitement of their early breakthrough. 1996's Coming Up produced five top 10 singles, and also made Suede famous in Europe and Asia. They all remember that time fondly, Gilbert says: "It was make or break, but also really exciting. We were all waking up each morning not feeling any pressure." Things only went awry with 1999's Head Music. Codling was getting ill, and having to send ideas in by email; Anderson "was off my head on buckets of drugs"; Oakes, whose guitar parts were getting replaced by electronics, was "switching off", he says. "Which I really regret."

By 2002's A New Morning, the band had grown apart, and Anderson was trying to tear Suede's sound into pieces – partly, he now realises, because he didn't want there to be a band any more. "I think that we shouldn't have made that record, quite honestly." He persevered out of sheer bloody-mindedness – wanting to prove to the doubters, once again, that Suede hadn't been a flash in the pan. Instead, the band broke up amicably with a run of full-album gigs at London's ICA, which they nonetheless remember as quiet final flourishes. "We didn't go out the way we had planned," Osman says. "We should've gone out in a blaze of fists in Bangladesh, or something."

Quietness seems inimical to Suede: Anderson misses the danger and fierceness his band used to thrive on. "I do find it weird that the last 10 years hasn't thrown up a new definitive genre. It seems that music is here to placate now, rather than provoke. Maybe a sense of apathy has crept in, or people's lives are too comfortable. No one wants to inspire extremity, as we used to do."

Perhaps sticking around beyond the winter tour would help make this happen, I suggest. The room falls silent as the notion floats around. "At the moment … we don't know," Anderson says finally, making it clear he is the ringmaster. "I think we'd have to be convinced that it would be the right thing to do. You know, has the moment passed, or should we pick at the scab again?"

Next year, after all, he releases another solo record, a big rock-inspired album – although its energy has, he admits, been fuelled by Suede's reunion. And everyone agrees that something has changed in all of them in the wake of the reunion. "The fact it happened 20 years after the band formed – isn't that wonderful? Who's to say it couldn't happen again in the future?" Anderson raises his hands, and his cheekbones gleam in the evening light as it falls through the window. Everyone smiles, and understands. This isn't yesterday's man.

The Best of Suede is released on Ministry of Sound on 1 November.

[beautifuldisastr]

As season 3 closes, ‘Madam Secretary’ creators, cast reflect on real-world events, show’s future

Politics are notoriously unpredictable. So, perhaps, it’s little wonder that the creators of “Madam Secretary” on CBS have a hard time conjuring storylines that are more dramatic than current events.

“We shoot three or four weeks out, and by the time they got on the air, some of these things have happened” in real life, Barbara Hall, the show’s creator and executive producer, told The Washington Times during recent filming along the National Mall.

On a particularly bright spring day, series star Tea Leoni jogged with a dog and two fictional Secret Service agents trailing her near the Lincoln Memorial. A sign not far off informed passersby that they were tacitly giving permission to use their likeness in the background of certain shots. Here and there, onlookers recognized Miss Leoni, using their phones to snap photos of the star.

“We try to take anything that’s happening right now and then ‘game it out’ in the future to the most dramatic conclusion,” said Ms. Hall, a veteran producer of “Homeland,” “Joan of Arcadia” and “Judging Amy” in between takes of Miss Leoni jogging with her entourage next to the Reflecting Pool.

Viewers have tuned in for the exploits of Secretary of State Dr. Elizabeth McCord (Miss Leoni) since 2014. The show, already renewed for a fourth year, airs its third-season finale this Sunday.

“The first time we were here was the pilot episode, so this is a little nostalgic for us,” said executive producer Lori McCreary of location filming in the nation’s capital. (The bulk of the series films on soundstages in New York.)

“We had no idea if the show would ever get picked up, or if people were going to like it,” Ms. McCreary told The Times of the political show’s beginnings. “So being here at the end of the third season is really satisfying because we know we have a great audience.

“And I love being here. There’s nothing like shooting in D.C.”

Season 3 has seen McCord working to end a hostage crisis in Sudan, fighting worldwide human trafficking and even in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize. All the while she balances geopolitics with a home life that includes her husband, Henry, (Tim Daly) and the couple’s young-adult daughters, Stephanie (Wallis Currie-Wood) and Alison (Kathrine Herzer).

Both Ms. McCreary and Ms. Hall are proud of the fact that their show not only features a strong woman in the title role, but is run by women and has a writing room staffed by several more — somewhat of a rarity in the often male-centric television industry.

“The networks are really focusing on” gender parity, Ms. Hall said. “We’re certainly doing our part. I just think it’s a matter of awareness and everybody being committed to improving that situation.”

“Girls especially being able to see women in those positions will make the biggest difference,” concurred Ms. McCreary. “I think mentoring programs are great,” she said, adding the crew has many women on staff as well.

Such sentiments are echoed by actress Patina Miller, who portrays press coordinator Daisy Grant on “Madam Secretary.” Miss Miller, who came up through the milieus of soap operas and Broadway plays, believes it’s crucial to continue to support entertainment created and shepherded by women.

“It’s been great to work in an environment where we’re getting to tell smart, interesting stories that are written by females and performed by females,” she told The Times. “It’s a really great place to be in, and I hope we continue to move in that direction.”

Art not imitating life

“What I like about the show is that we portray a government that is aspirational,” said actor Erich Bergen, who portrays McCord’s assistant, Blake Moran. “Very similar to what was going on in ‘The West Wing,’ we’re trying to [show] a government that works for everyone and attempts to do the right thing.”

Mr. Bergen, who cut his teeth on stage as Four Seasons member Bob Gaudio in the stage and film version of “Jersey Boys,” said “Madam Secretary” viewers need only click “a few channels over” to witness the current chaos of the Trump administration and the nonstop criticisms emanating from its political enemies.

“I think our show holds an important place on television just because of [what] we’re watching our real government go through,” he said.

On “Madam Secretary,” the McCords marriage is depicted as stable and the fictional administration is largely scandal-free.

“The drama that is dealt with between Elizabeth and Henry is obviously very high-stakes given their jobs, but they work through it as a strong couple and a strong family would,” Mr. Bergen said. “I think that’s something we don’t see a lot on television.”

Like Mr. Bergen, Miss Miller is a veteran of the New York stage, having starred in the Broadway and London versions of “Sister Act” and assayed the lead in “Pippin.” But reciting the same lines night after night on the Great White Way is a far different animal than learning and filming a new mini-film every eight days on “Madam Secretary.”

“There kind of is no rehearsal process in TV and film,” she said. “We have blocking and marking, and then we shoot.”

Furthermore, she said 40 to 50 crew members don’t provide the instant performance feedback that a packed theater of 1,000 audience members can.

“Coming from the theatre, you feed off that energy every night. It helps your performance in a way,” Miss Miller said. “With TV, because there is no audience, you don’t get the satisfaction of knowing if what you did during the scene played well. You find out later whenever you see it.”

The piecemeal nature of TV and film work means that actors aren’t as “in charge” of their performance as stagecraft allows, Miss Miller believes. Rather, it’s “everyone telling the story,” including the editors who construct the show from shards of different takes.

The brisk nature of TV work also requires the rapid memorization of scripts — as well as sudden, and constant, rewrites. Miss Miller credits her time on “All My Children” with helping her to develop the ability to briskly learn new dialogue. (She calls “AMC” legend Susan Lucci “one of the most amazing, talented actresses.”)

“Honestly, you just get used to it,” said Miss Miller.

Mr. Bergen said that while people do approach him on the street to discuss real-life politics, more often they wish to inquire after aspects of the show’s characters.

“I hear the classic line: ‘Boy, I wish you guys were in the White House’ a lot,” he said.

Mr. Bergen was in fact invited to the Executive Mansion during the show’s first season. He dined with former President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Mr. Abe, it turned out, not only recognized Mr. Bergen but informed him that “Jersey Boys” was his favorite film.

“So I was there as a ‘Jersey boy,’ but then I was also starting to get known for this fictional government show,” Mr. Bergen said, adding that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also approached him at the event to discuss the show, which he describes as a “meta moment.”

On the set of “Jersey Boys,” Mr. Bergen said he experienced another such surreal incident sitting next to director Clint Eastwood on the first day of filming in Burbank, California. Mr. Bergen pondered if perhaps “Jersey Boys” would be the octogenarian’s final film, but while entertaining the thought, he received an alert on his phone announcing Mr. Eastwood’s next project, “American Sniper.”

“He’s very inspirational to me,” Mr. Bergen said of Mr. Eastwood, who, at 86, continues to make films.

“It’s the same thing with Frankie” Valli, the Four Seasons frontman who still tours the country night after night singing “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and other classics, Mr. Bergen said. “If you love what you do and it’s what you know how to do best, there’s no reason to stop.”

Incumbency

The cast and crew of “Madam Secretary” are mum on the details of Sunday’s season finale, but all involved are proud of the season 3 arc, including the May 7 episode, “Seventh Floor,” which Mr. Bergen describes as “our strongest yet.”

“I think we’re really about to start hitting our best stuff” in season 4, he said. “I’m very proud of the work we’ve done.”

Miss Miller said her character Daisy’s pregnancy will play a major part in future storylines.

“We’re going to keep giving you a fantastic show,” she said.

Ms. Hall, the show’s creator, echoed the sentiments, saying the showrunners’ goal remains to continue to expand the universe of “Madam Secretary” moving forward.

“We want to [give] everybody a better understanding of our characters,” she said as the crew called for Miss Leoni and his entourage to do another jogging take by the Reflecting Pool.

The season finale of “Madam Secretary” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. EST on CBS.

- Washington Times

[lynchgirl90]

How #TwinPeaks inspired #Lost and #TheLeftovers

Damon Lindelof tells EW why ‘The Leftovers’ would not be possible without David Lynch’s classic series

JEFF JENSEN@EWDOCJENSEN

Let us be first to remind you for the millionth time that Twin Peaks, the short-lived sensation created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, inspired much of the television that has obsessed us over the past 20 years. To name just a few that hold the cult classic’s peculiar dark spark: Chris Carter’s The X-Files, David Chase’s The Sopranos, Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men, Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, Damon Lindelof’s The Leftovers, Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot, and Donald Glover’s Atlanta. Since Twin Peaks also shaped modern TV tastes and watching — capturing the imagination for serialized mystery, supernatural fantasy, and cool irony; setting an early standard for internet-based conversation and theorizing — we can say Twin Peaks even influenced you. Especially if you’re a person of a certain age.

Of course, Twin Peaks doesn’t completely explain the vibrant state of TV. The radical transformation of the media business — the emergence of demo-driven networks that turned cult TV into a business plan — deserves more credit. There’s probably no X-Files without a network like Fox. There’s certainly no Buffy The Vampire Slayer without The WB. In his essential book The Revolution Was Televised, critic Alan Sepinwall identifies a critical turning point when TV went next level: 1997, when HBO, seeking to ramp up original programming, empowered the likes of Tom Fontana and David Chase — veteran scribes frustrated by the limits of broadcast TV — to pursue bolder vision with decidedly adult storytelling. The buzzy nerve of Oz and even more so The Sopranos spurred broadcast competitors to take more chances and basic cable to get into the game, and now, here we are, with “television” streaming out of every media orifice possible. That, kids, is from where TV babies come, in a terribly reductive nutshell.

Twin Peaks contains a version of this creation myth in its DNA, too. In 1989, ABC, looking for new hits, took a chance on a risky marriage with an avant-garde filmmaker (Lynch) and an accomplished TV writer (Frost) who wanted to make a splash by reinventing the prime-time soap with sophisticated edge and ostentatious quirkiness. Think of Twin Peaks as a kinky bridal dress: something old, something new, something borrowed, something Blue Velvet. The relationship didn’t last long. ABC ditched Twin Peaks after a year, the fast fade partly due to a broadcast network in flux that really had no clue how to manage Team Lynch or the wild, weird, FrankenGenre creature they had made. Yet can’t you see Twin Peaks thriving in today’s mediaverse? Maybe, say, on Showtime?

Mark Frost certainly could. In 2012, the Twin Peaks co-creator beheld the exciting things happening in TV and thought, I want to do that, too. He had the perfect creative vehicle for it, too, one with something TV networks love: a recognizable and marketable brand name. But he couldn’t do it alone. Wouldn’t dream of it, either. So Frost called Lynch and put forth a proposal: How about making more Twin Peaks?

Lynch had convinced himself over the years that there was no interest in Twin Peaks. “I felt that the thing had drifted away,” says Lynch, “so part of me kind of shut down about the possibility of going back.” He was wrong. Twin Peaks actually lingered like a ghost, and it was slowly gaining power. Twin Peaks was steeped in the creative fabric of television, as evidenced by many series. There were people who identified as Twin Peaks fans — cultists who could read about Twin Peaks forever and ever in books, websites, and fanzines like the legendary Wrapped In Plastic, plus many more who considered the show a generational marker. Twin Peaks was also starting to make new fans via DVD (the complete series wasn’t available on disc until 2007) and streaming services like Netflix.

Frost presented Lynch with several arguments for reviving Twin Peaks right here, right now. They had a story to tell — Twin Peaks ended with several unresolved cliffhangers — and their infamously bonkers series finale included a curious, memorable line that offered an irresistible hook. “I’ll see you again in 25 years,” the specter of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) tells FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). “Meanwhile…” And then she struck a pose and froze, as if a statue, or suddenly frozen in time. Frost — confident, ambitious, and maybe a little competitive — also argued that they had a chance to make some bold art, without compromise, in a new TV universe that allowed for greater creative freedom than existed 22 years earlier.

“What I saw was that the TV landscape had shifted dramatically and people were obviously hungry for storytelling that has broken out of the box over the last 10 years,” says Frost. “I felt it was time to take a kind of evolutionary leap forward and that we should be a part of that. David readily agreed. But we went in knowing we couldn’t just do what we did in the past — we’ve got to raise the bar. So that was our admonition to ourselves. This is a chance to keep pace with that evolving landscape, to contribute something new, to move the ball forward even more. And we had some unfinished business.”

And so it goes that the return of the show that inspired today’s TV was inspired by the products of its own legacy. Fun Fact! Lynch doesn’t watch much TV, but he cites Mad Men and Breaking Bad as two shows of recent times that he loved. Their hotly anticipated contribution to our Peak TV moment — an 18-hour limited series described by Lynch as an 18-part feature film — premieres on Showtime on May 21.

We recently asked several leading TV producers to share how Twin Peaks influenced them. Over the next couple weeks, we’ll be sharing with you EW’s conversations with them. We begin with Damon Lindelof, who co-created Lost with J.J. Abrams and The Leftovers with Tom Perrotta, now airing its final season on HBO.

Lindelof’s tale of Twin Peaks fandom takes us back to a time when TV watching was a family time activity, not a solitary, everyone-on-their-own-screen free-for-all. His very personal testimonial also shows how Twin Peaks was part of larger moment in which David Lynch was virtually atmospheric — beginning with his neo-noir masterpiece Blue Velvet in 1986 and including the hyper-pop nihilism of Wild at Heart, released at the apex of the Twin Peaks phenomenon — and saturated the public imagination. Here, Lindelof reveals how Twin Peaks influenced Lost, how Twin Peaks informed his approach to surrealism in The Leftovers, and how the legacy of Twin Peaks nearly cost Lost its legendary monster.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you first watch Twin Peaks? DAMON LINDELOF: When it first aired. I watched it at my dad’s place. It was on his radar; he was very excited about Twin Peaks because of David Lynch. We had seen Eraserhead together, and I had loved it, and I remember him saying, “The guy who made Eraserhead has a new TV show and I think it’s going to be very good.” So we watched the pilot together, and once it was over, we watched it again, because he had recorded it.

This evolved into a ritual. Because I was with my dad every other week, there were some weeks I would watch it by myself, but the weeks I was with him, we would watch two episodes: that week’s new episode and the previous week’s episode again on VHS. He would do live commentary and we began to formulate theories. This was my first experience, in the pre-internet era, of theorizing about TV.

So you liked Twin Peaks. I loved Twin Peaks.

What did you love about it? The mystery. The music. The pacing. It was also my first exposure to soap operas. There was just this complex web of affairs that was delicious. Within the first couple of episodes of Twin Peaks, you understood that James and Laura had been together, but James and Donna were actually sort of secretly in love with each other. Laura was also dating Bobby, but he was also seeing Shelly, but Shelly was two-timing her abusive husband, Leo, who also had something going on with Laura and was dealing drugs to Bobby. Meanwhile, Josie Packard is having a secret affair with Sheriff Truman, except she’s also involved with Benjamin Horne, who was married, but also having an affair with Pete’s wife and Josie’s rival, Catherine, and also apparently messed around with Laura. The sexual intrigue was bonkers! And for me, a kid, it was new and exciting, particularly as it related to Laura, this teenage girl who was mixed up in some really bad, traumatic, dark stuff. That was really interesting and felt very fresh at the time.

And then there Agent Cooper. What an amazing character. His entrance in that pilot is a classic TV moment. I loved his quirkiness. He had these obsessions with coffee and pastry. The fact that he seemed to really be enjoying having just a grand old time investigating Laura’s rather horrific murder was provocative and entertaining.

The show had this very distinctive sense of humor. Deadpan and odd. The Log Lady! People remember her as weird, but I just thought she was really funny. And Ben and Jerry Horne, the brothers, their names are funny because of the ice cream, of course, but that scene where those two guys are eating these huge sandwiches and relishing the sensual experience of eating those huge sandwiches — just the fundamental bizarreness of it was hilarious.

One other thing that I loved about Twin Peaks was that it was scary. Cooper’s dream at the end of the third episode, when he’s in the old age makeup and we see Laura and The Man From The Other Place talking backwards — that creeped me out. I slept with the lights on after that episode.

I go on and on like this, because one of the ways that Twin Peaks impacted me was that it showed me that a TV show can be so many things at once — funny, scary, strange, sexy, melodramatic. It was the definition of unique. I had never seen anything like it, before or since. And then — when did Wild at Heart come out?

August of 1990, between the first and second seasons of Twin Peaks. I loved Wild at Heart. It was just so gonzo. Looking back on it, I can’t say I became a fan of David Lynch because of Twin Peaks. I was just a fan of Twin Peaks. But after Wild at Heart, I was just all the way in on Lynch. By the way, this is not to take anything away from Mark Frost, who is a big part of Twin Peaks. But again, my dad turned me on to the show particularly because of Lynch, and then with everything that followed, including Wild at Heart, it became about Lynch, and everything that came with him. The music! That Angelo Badalamenti score! I played the Twin Peaks soundtrack all the time when I was a junior in high school. I didn’t own many CDs — I had to buy them with my own money, and they were expensive — but I owned that one.

What did you make of the supernatural aspect? It became more important to the storytelling as the series progressed. We came to find out that Twin Peaks was a hotspot of uncanny and spectral activity because it was located near a portal into a mystical realm, not unlike the Hellmouth in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or, of course, The Island on Lost. Did you enjoy that part of the show? That was interesting to watch unfold. From the start, you had Cooper’s dreams and you had his fascination with Tibet and a kind of mysticism that he associated with Tibet. That scene in the third episode of season 1, where he’s winnowing down a list of suspects through an intuitive process that involves throwing rocks at a bottle — that was funny and quirky, but it also suggested the supernatural, and obviously, the show became more and more supernatural as it went on.

But I didn’t see it coming. As my father and I were theorizing about Laura Palmer’s murderer, a supernatural possibility was not part of our speculations! But then we move into season 2, and you get the introduction of The Giant, and you have Major Briggs revealing that he’s been monitoring extraterrestrial communications in episode 2. Here, the show is openly declaring that everything is up for grabs. And I do remember loving that and being very excited by that stuff. But I experienced it as an escalation. The show didn’t start supernatural. It became progressively so.

When the show declared this supernatural aspect in season 2, a lot of people I knew who loved the show bailed. They wanted a naturalistic explanation. It reminds me that 25 years ago, TV was rather cool toward sci-fi/fantasy, although it was about to warm up to it. That want for a naturalistic explanation might have had something to do with the fact that Twin Peaks intersected with another trend of the time, serial killer pop. I don’t know exactly when The Silence of the Lambs came out, but my memory of it is that it came out before or during Twin Peaks. [The film version of The Silence of the Lambs starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins was released Feb. 14, 1991, during the middle of the second season of Twin Peaks. The novel by Thomas Harris was published in 1988.] When you watch the pilot of Twin Peaks, you immediately think it’s a serial killer story because of the clues and how they’re found, like when Agent Cooper knows how to examine Laura Palmer’s fingernails and look for these pieces of paper the killer has been leaving behind with his victims. So I can understand why an audience expected a naturalist resolution, because serial killer stories resolve naturalistically.

How did you feel about the way Twin Peaks ended? During the second season, I remember feeling at times, “This is not the show I fell in love with.” And then something would happen that would make me fall in love with it all over again. There was a storyline where Donna resumes Laura’s Meals on Wheels job and she comes into contact with this weirdo who grows orchids and is in possession of Laura’s secret diary. And I remember not liking that. But then Lynch would show up playing [FBI regional director] Gordon Cole, and I’d love that, or David Duchovny would show up playing DEA agent Denise Bryson, and I’d be like, “This is the greatest thing ever!”

Still, I was alternately in and out. The turning point came after all the big reveals with Laura’s murder, that it was Leland who was responsible for killing Laura, that he was inhabited by this evil spirit named BOB. Now, what is the show? Now, what’s the mystery we’re supposed to solve? It never quite locked into anything new that was as compelling as Laura Palmer.

By the time the show ended, my father and I were no longer watching it together, and it didn’t feel like it was appointment TV. I was still watching, but I wasn’t loving it… and then we got the series 2 finale. Wow. The sequence in The Red Room. Cooper getting possessed by BOB. Ending on him looking in the mirror and ramming his face into it. I remember thinking, ‘This is going to be cool! I’m back in!’ And then the show was canceled.

Did you see the prequel movie? Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me? Yeah. That was a year later, right?

Right, summer of 1992. I remember kinda liking the movie and still considering myself a Twin Peaks fan, but also sort of resigning myself to the fact that there wasn’t going to be any more Twin Peaks that resolved those cliffhangers and being kind of bummed about that. Still, I only had positive feelings about Twin Peaks. Even in college, in the mid-’90s, when my friends and I would talk about our favorite TV shows, Twin Peaks was always on our lists, even though it was only on for a brief time and even though it disappointed.

Why is that? Because it was a cultural moment for people, and especially for kids of that era. We were the age of Bobby and James, Laura and Donna and Maddy. Even though they were all clearly played by actors in their 20s, there was an identification with them. The perception was, even if the show strayed from the path and went off the rails a little bit, Twin Peaks was cool, and it was a shared, zeitgeisty thing. But more importantly, in our pretentious NYU film school heads, Twin Peaks was important because it was “cinema.” It was an auteur-driven story in a way a lot of TV wasn’t, but was about to be. And, of course, it felt like cinema because it was Lynch, and we were all obsessed with Lynch in film school.

Did Twin Peaks influence your storytelling? I’m thinking specifically of the phenomenal “International Assassin” episode of The Leftovers, in which Kevin enters a surreal realm that might be pure imagination, might be some kind afterlife, or might be something else altogether. There is no Leftovers without Twin Peaks, full stop. That said, when we tried to “do” Lynch — for example, Kevin’s dreams in season 1, where dogs are growling in mailboxes — we fell way short of the mark. It wasn’t until we embraced the absurd — like Patti pooping in a paper bag and labeling it “Neil,” or Nora simulating sex with a life-sized replica of a salesman while he watched, both aroused and disturbed — that we realized we were finally scraping the essence of Twin Peaks: weird and disturbing and spiritual all rolled into one. And yes, of course, the episode “International Assassin.” No way does that happen in a world where Twin Peaks never aired.

And Lost would never have happened if Twin Peaks hadn’t occurred, either. First off, the idea of mystery as the central premise of a television show came from Twin Peaks. Up until Twin Peaks, at least through my lens, a mystery show was, like, Murder, She Wrote. A procedural. Every episode, there’s a mystery, it gets solved. But the idea of a serialized mystery show, taking place over many, many episodes, was completely and totally revolutionary.

Now, there are downsides with mystery. You’re playing with fire. The minute you resolve the mystery, the show is over. Twin Peaks became a cautionary tale for that. Whether it’s true or not, fair or not, the perception is that once they revealed who killed Laura Palmer, there was no reason to watch the show anymore. I don’t agree with that premise, but I do think if you’re going to do a long-form mystery show, you have to have a plan for what to do once you resolve the central mystery. And the answer has to be, there just has to be multiple, multiple, multiple mysteries, so every time you knock one off, there’s still two unresolved ones in its wake, and you see how long you can play that game. This can become even more complex when the mysteries of your show are supernatural in nature or just plain weird. Which brings me to a story about Lost.

My memory might be faulty. I’m sure about some things in this story and less sure about others. But what I’m sure about is that, after J.J. and I wrote the treatment, ABC really only had two areas of concern. No. 1, which we have talked about ad nauseam before, was the idea that Jack, who would present as the main character, would die at the end of the pilot.

But the main area of concern was the idea that there was this monster on the island. In that meeting, present were Lloyd Braun and Susan Lyne, who were the co-presidents of ABC. Before I go on, let me just say, if Lloyd hadn’t been the president of ABC, there’d be no Lost, because he believed in this thing from the word go. It was his idea to do a plane crash on an island show, et cetera.

But I don’t think he wanted the monster. So in this meeting, he says, “I think this outline is dynamite, but I don’t think that there should be a monster in the pilot. If you guys want to work your way up to some of that weird stuff, it’s a conversation for another day. But definitely not in the pilot. It’s too weird. We don’t want to do a Twin Peaks.” I remember Lloyd very specifically saying, “I don’t want to do a Twin Peaks.”

This wasn’t good. All the things that J.J. and I were starting to get super-excited about were the weird things on the island. The monster is representative of the idea that if they’re just on a normal island, the show isn’t going to be very interesting. But if the island’s weird and supernatural and, more importantly, has a long history and mythology behind it — well, that was the stuff that was turning us on. If we had to take the monster out of the pilot, that would have meant that we’d have to take all the weird things that we had already been sort of talking about. So I was having this bad feeling in the meeting: “Oh, no, what’s going to happen now?”

And then J.J. jumped in and said some version of this: “It’s 2004. Twin Peaks has been off the air for 13 years and you’re still using it as a cautionary tale. But even if it is a cautionary tale, we should be so lucky if this show gets to be like Twin Peaks, because how many television shows get remembered the way Twin Peaks is remembered? Twin Peaks was amazing and maybe it didn’t end well, but we can learn from its mistakes. We should be so lucky to be compared to Twin Peaks! We should aspire to Twin Peaks!”

And Lloyd said, “Okay, do your monster.”

At this point in your working relationship with J.J., you had only known him —

A week!

Did you guys discuss Twin Peaks in your brainstorming? I don’t think so. We talked a lot about The Twilight Zone. We talked a lot about Dickens, in terms of how we would do coincidence and how that would be a big part of the show. But Twin Peaks influenced a lot of Lost. Easter eggs. Characters having secret motivations. A massive ensemble. These were not revolutionary ideas. Certainly not for soap opera. But when Lost came along, there weren’t really any shows on the air that were doing 14 series regulars. I think that the last time ABC had an hour-long drama with 14 series regulars was probably Twin Peaks.

I remember very specifically — although I don’t remember which season it was in — that we contemplated putting some Twin Peaks Easter eggs into Lost and then decided against it.

Why? I don’t know if you know this, Jeff, but back in the days of Lost, there were these people on the internet who were fervently theorizing about Lost to such an extent that, if you made, say, a, reference to The Black Lodge from Twin Peaks, just as a joke, the people who were analyzing the show beat by beat, would be like, “Is the Black Lodge on the island? Is it possible that Agent Cooper exists in the world of Lost?”

That would have been my greatest favorite thing ever. It would have.

What was thinking behind the idea? Why even make that joke? It could have been something like Sawyer making a pop culture wisecrack. Shannon would be walking out of the woods with some firewood and he’d say, “Hey there, Log Lady!” … My knee-jerk impulse memory is that it related to our awareness that the audience was trying to solve mysteries and that there would be some kind of wink-wink at that. Along the lines of, say, a character saying that trying to figure out where the polar bears come from is like trying to figure out who killed Laura Palmer. It was for the best we abandoned the idea. Lost making a reference to Twin Peaks as it related to the frustration of supernatural mystery? That’s radioactive. We couldn’t be that self-aware without eating a tremendous amount of s—. … But in all seriousness, you are literally playing with fire if you invoke Twin Peaks on a show like Lost. The shows shared similar issues, and in some ways now, similar legacies. Echoing what J.J. said in that first meeting with Lloyd, to be compared to Twin Peaks makes me very, very happy, whether the comparison is positive or negative.

I’ll tell you this much, though. We had three years to build up to our ending, and we got to do the ending that we wanted. Frost and Lynch did not get to do that. Now, they are. And that’s the other reason I’m super psyched for Twin Peaks coming back. I don’t know whether this is a season of Twin Peaks that will lead to more seasons of Twin Peaks, or whether it is the final chapter of Twin Peaks. Either way, I feel like it was a story that ended in media res, and now, the very same people who told the first chapters of that story are coming back to tell a new chapter. That’s exciting.

link (TP)

[jxffhxrdy]

Raw 5/11/2020

Hey guys! Back again with opinions (that you didn’t ask for) on Monday Night Raw tonight- 5/11/2020. So let’s get into it! Again, I am not related to WWE in any way so what I say is not bible.

So, first of all, let’s get the most important thing out of the way. BECKY LYNCH IS PREGNANT Y’ALL!! Lowkey, kinda saw this coming? One, I think we’re about to see a lot of quarantine babies popping up haha. Second, the way they said she had a “big announcement”- what else could it have been? Huge congrats to her and Seth. I know she’ll be a great mom. 

Alright, on with the rest of the show!

♡Asuka is now the RAW Womens Champion!

Duh. She was going to get it whether she fought Becky or not. Am I happy about that? Meh. I wanted it to go to Nia Jax, but Asuka is very talented and well deserving, so kudos. She has a bajillion wins under her belt- let’s get her an elimination chamber match too! I really liked how they did the pass off though. I thought it was super cute, very professionally done, and I didn’t feel like it “wasted” the briefcase. I was semi-hoping for Becky to hand over the belt and Asuka to hand the briefcase to someone else, but I’ll take what we got and keep my mouth shut. Looking forward to Asuka’s first feud (which is probably Shayna and will probably give us a Backlash match). Cute nod to Kairi too, glad WWE remembers she exists. 

♡Angel Garza vs. Austin Theory vs. Akiri Tozawa?

Okay, so we all knew the download of Zelina’s clique was coming, but my question is- where did Tozawa come from? Who was he supposed to be fighting? Was his main opponent Garza? They were all in the ring at different times, then there was a poorly timed commercial break and I’m just all so confused. I’m kinda intrigued about how they are going to split up the group, but in no way excited for Garza and Theory. Frankly, I just don’t care. I think they got pushed up from NXT way too quickly, Theory especially. If one of them gets Andrade’s belt... let’s just say there will be some unhappy tweets sent out from me. Just when we thought this match was done....

♡Andrade (c) vs. Drew McIntyre (c) (MVP)

A champion versus champion match! And on the first show after a PPV! We love to see it. Andrade is very talented and I can definitely see him moving off midcard (even though he has the title, he’s still midcard y’all) and doing awesome things. Anything Drew McIntyre touches is gold. You could put him in a match with just about anyone and he’d make it great. He is such a talented performer, so passionate with every kick, punch, and promo and I just adore him. I don’t know a single person who thinks he is undeserving of his title (and if you do think he’s undeserving... who hurt you). I don’t really know why Drew got involved in the weird Zelina Clique fight in the first place, but I’m not complaining. I think they’re just getting some heat off of Drew before his next big feud. Regardless, my MVP of the night. Unlike the actual MVP, who sucked. Buttttt anyway...

♡Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross (c) vs. The IIconics

YES. BRING BACK A GOOD TAG TEAM, THANK YOU WWE. Are the IIconics annoying? Yes. But they’re supposed to be. That’s the whole point of their characters. Regardless of that, they are a legit tag team and they do amazing work together. They have fantastic chemistry that isn’t forced- like Bliss/Cross. The match was great, I love an IIconics win, and I’m hoping they’re the ones to dethrone the current champs. Still annoyed by Alexa Bliss, sue me.

♡Whatever the hell the MVP match was

I cannot stand this. Truthfully. I don’t even care much to write about it. The only one I give a shit about here is R-Truth and even sometimes I think he’s too much (like tonight). He needs to be focused on the 24-7 title and kicking Gronk’s ass and MVP needs to just... go away. And take Bobby Lashley with him. Ever since the whole tire bit a few weeks ago, Bobby Lashley is a full joke. I don’t want him in a title picture or doing anything besides dumb backstage shit. Also- Lana should’ve been let go instead of Rusev after that promo. Woof. Please, just take them away.

♡Aleister Black/Rey Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins/Murphy

Woof. This match. Okay, for one, kinda sucks they didn’t make Aleister Black and Rey Mysterio undead, because that would’ve been rad. But second roof makes sense. I just like undead storylines. So Black and Mysterio come out all cute and what not, then we get to Seth/Murphy. I have NO idea what they’re doing with Seth’s character, not even a slight clue. I thought he was all like this because he’s a new dad? But nah, I think this is like some AJ Styles PTSD thing. I honestly couldn’t even tell you about how the fighting was, because of how locked on I was to Seth. The second Seth got involved I went from 0 to 60. Seth is just an amazing performer and my jaw was on the floor. Like Drew, everything he touches is golden.The thing that I think got me here (in a good way) was the eye thing with Mysterio. My heart fucking d r o p p e d. I know it’s rumored that Mysterio is on his way out and I just know it’s going to end with him unmasking. The second I saw blood, I knew they were going to have to take his mask off. They cannot and they should not have Mysterio unmask and retire in an empty show. They need to hold off and let him retire in front of a sold out show. This man has had a golden career, he’s a future hall of famer, and needs that respect. I thought this match was well done by both sides, loved the Black/Mysterio friendship, and the new tension between Rollins/Murphy. Great. Good showing. 

♡Shayna Baszler vs. Natalya

What is with WWE and giving Natalya losing matches? She’s so much better than that. That queen is a Hart, damn it, but you know Vince believes that Bret screwed Bret, so I guess Vince screwed Natalya is on the table now. I know they’re setting up Baszler to be Asuka’s first feud, it’s a tad obvious, but I hated that this fight came because of motherhood? Like what the hell was that. You could’ve done Baszler believing she had to fight her way through the female Raw roster to prove herself or something like that. But Motherhood is a tad soap opera- and we already got that with the Rollins fight. Snooze. 

♡Edge vs. Orton Standoff

Alright, so I want to give this its own little section because I have a lot of feelings. This is obviously a rating grab. The Edge/Orton thing died at Wrestlemania with that hour long match. It felt like a really good finish and was good for both performers. Then they announce “Edge is going to chase the Viper”, which is just... overkill. It’s because they feel they have no one else on their card big enough to feud with one of them? Which is crap! Feed Edge to Drew! Give Orton a match with Seth to avenge his old buddy Mysterio. Just stop overputting these two legends together like this because it will truly never end. If Orton wins the next match, then Edge can just turn around and say “well I’m not done either!” and it will drag. I was so hoping for a friends ending, but... ugh. I love both of these performers, but I hate dead end circle feuds.

♡General Thoughts

-What the fuck was that Lana promo and why did it suck so bad?

-First match announced for Backlash 2020: Edge vs. Orton in a “regular wrestling match” whatever that means. Will probably be the main event or one of them.

-Brand vs. Brand match next week with Drew McIntyre and King Corbin. Love this. Love both of these performers, I think they’re going to do some great stuff together. Corbin is most likely getting his ass beat, but I hope this is a forward to giving Corbin the Intercontinental title. I just need it off Sami Zayn. 

-Goddamn, I love Drew McIntyre.

-We didn’t have a single roll-up finish all night! God bless America.

-Seriously, what the fuck was that Lana promo?

Anyway, hope you all have a great night and I will see everyone on Wednesday for AEW and Friday for Smackdown!