#during lockdown we had a lot of that but these days not so much

[thetrashiestoftrash]

The doctor who did my hysterectomy said, knowing full well that I'm trans, "Lots of insurance won't cover a hysterectomy if you're trans, because they consider it elective. Do you feel pain in your abdomen, ever? I'll recommend some over-the-counter meds, but if you still have pain--and obviously I can't judge how much is normal for you--then hysterectomy is a possible treatment for abdominal pain without an obvious cause."

When I worked in a call center during early lockdown, we could refund just about any fee if someone mentioned the pandemic, but they had to say it. The difference between quitting and getting fired from Amazon was the HR rep who asked me, "Is today your last day? Or was it yesterday?" and quietly backdated the paperwork so that I didn't get another absence. Folks in gatekeeper positions know the rules are often bullshit, but they can lose their job if they openly break them, so they help how they can.

Here is a skill that many of us are going to need for survival: how to tell if someone is offering to let you lie.

The tip-off phrase is "If [circumstance] was true, then we/I could do [helpful thing.]" This is not a guarantee that the person is offering, but it should tell you "I am being informed of a way to improve things."

Your confirmation phrase is "What documentation would that require?" This is essentially asking them "if people come asking me to prove this, will I be able to? Or will they not come at all?"

The answer you are hoping for with the confirmation phrase is "Just tell me if it's true, and I'll put it on the form." Note that this is not a direct instruction to lie, because they can't tell you that.

If they didn't mean to extend an offer to lie or this is a situation where they can't, then they'll list off something like your paystubs or your birth certificate. Your response back in that case is "Thanks, I'll tell my friends who qualify." This clears you of any concerns that you may have been considering lying.

The more complex answer is when they answer by giving you a form on the spot. Your job, in this case, is to scan the form and see if what they are asking you can be meaningfully verified by an official source.

Things that can be verified by an official source include, but are not limited to, your age, legal sex, income, veteran status, and place of residence. It's not generally a good idea to lie about these on official documents.

Be smart, and be practical. Do what you need to in order to stay alive, and keep an ear out for the people offering to help you do so.

[woundjob]

sorry to be corny but i love the literary and poetic conversation that happens on this website. everyone wants to help eachother learn. sniff sniff

[delyth88]

Jacinda just resigned.

[orcboxer]

Sure there's zombies killing and eating people on the street but those people are not dying from the virus they're dying from comorbidities. For instance, that guy we saw getting eaten on the way into work today clearly died from blood loss, not infection, plus he already had a heart condition. People with preexisting conditions are just going to have to take care of themselves. Say it with me, "They're all already dead to me." See, that feels a lot better now doesn't it?

Good because you still have to go to work. No we're not paying you extra. Yes we're doubling grocery prices. No you don't qualify for disability. Or healthcare. Or a home.

Look, if you get bitten, you can stay home for one day, I guess 😒, but then you need to come in early. We're really short staffed at the moment, despite our company's profits being higher than ever. In fact we may be laying some of you off next month. You don't mind working off the clock right?

Also you look silly with that protective gear. We're gonna harass you for it, not like institutionally but just socially. Who cares if a zombie attacks you? Who cares if we invite them into the building? You don't need to defend yourself, you're just overreacting. If you get bitten just tell everyone the festering bite mark is from a different animal, that's what we all do.

And hey, don't worry so much. It's endemic, which means we don't have to keep track of how many people are dying from it anymore. Just look at those numbers! It's only killed 2,000 people in America this week! That's basically nobody! We're back to normal!

If everything starts tasting like rotting meat for the rest of your life, it's probably something else. If you experience brain fog or you forget things constantly or you're tired all the time after even minor physical activity, it's just because you're lazy. Yes every other virus you ever get will also be increasingly worse but that's just a coincidence. Those viruses just happen to be exponentially worse now.

Plus, those few weeks during the lockdown were terrible for my mental health. I just can't keep living like that, so we have to go back to normal life, which now involves people biting each other and twitching uncontrollably and rotting visibly.

You can't expect the world to wait for you. "Already dead to me," remember?

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[meyhew]

“WHAT WE MOURN FOR THE DEAD IS THE LOSS OF THEIR HOPES.”

I never thought I’d make this post. Any time I imagined a One Direction member dying, I pictured myself weathered and grey. This was an eventuality that wasn’t supposed to be actualized until the boys and I had lived full lives. To have to come to terms with Liam’s death—his perpetual absence moving forward—in my mid twenties feels absurd. I wrote a long thing the day after I found out, so I’ve already gotten some thoughts out. I’m going to try and keep this short. I likely won’t succeed.

Liam was kind. If he’s remembered for anything, I hope it’s that. I know he helped out with food banks in London during lockdown because there were photos of him packing boxes, but I didn’t know until now how much money he gave them. £80,000 without any publicity. And it wasn’t a one-time donation. He kept working with various orgs to help food insecure people. In the week leading up to that unfortunate Wednesday, he gave away thousands to fundraisers—primarily set up to help people with severe illnesses. He’d been part of Soccer Aid for years. He was involved with anti-bullying campaigns. He worked with Rays of Sunshine to make hundreds of sick children happy. Over the years, he also donated to nonprofits that help children in Gaza and other places. The T-shirt he designed for Choose Love has garnered nearly £200,000; Choose Love has been working with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and Medical Aid for Palestinians to provide desperately needed aid in Gaza. Liam understood the value of his wealth, and what his social responsibility was. He did his part to make this world better.

All that without taking into account everything Liam did for us. The youtube videos he started during quarantine because it was a way to distract people, give them something to look forward to. His comedic timing was something special. The discord server where he talked to fans and highlighted their creative endeavors. His livestreams, the endless culture-defining tweets he made. I still see people laughing about his tweets. We all remember Mrs. Horan, yes? I mean, go all the way back to TwitCams. Just google the phrase and one of the first videos you get will be Liam’s. From day one, he took it upon himself to make sure the fans were happy. That we felt seen, heard. And he kept One Direction alive for us, on occasion at a great personal cost. He performed deep cuts we’d never seen sung live, he was always so enthusiastic about everyone else’s projects, he never shied away from talking about the band—because it made us happy. He knew what the band meant to us, the blend of hope and nostalgia many of us clung to, and he held on with us. For us. The masses ridiculed him for his clinginess, and he didn’t let go—for us. I’m sure he knew there are those of us for whom the name One Direction still means everything. And how right he was. Look at the global charts for the past two weeks. We’ve made history again. Because of Liam. He had been the glue holding a lot of the fandom together, whether people realized it or not. He brought us all together again in the most heartbreaking of ways.

One Direction came into my life at a time when I was becoming lonelier by the day. I had moved to a new country two years prior, and I didn’t yet have many friends because I knew only enough English to get by at school. Outside of school, I had no friends. They were all back home in the place I’d left. All I had was my two siblings—and when you’re 13 years old, your 14 yr old sister is hardly the person you want to spend all your time with. I didn’t have space for me, to do and to be something that was just mine.

Then I found 1d through a girl at school and they became that something for me. I bettered my English by watching them talk. I found this community because of them, and I have learned so much from being a part of it. So many wonderful people have touched my life because of them over the years, some I’ve fallen out of touch with and some I hung out with just this month. They—and, by extension, Liam—have made me wealthy in friendship.

Claudia, Ingrid, Mery; Thank you for putting up with my insanely specific demands and making headers for me. Ingrid, you’ve been so patient about teaching me how to gif. Mery, I still have your rec list for learning Spanish saved in my notes app. The TPWK print you gifted me hangs on my wall. Cloudy, do you remember that lineart you made of me? I still have it. You’ve all been so kind to me.

Rafa; You have no idea how much you’ve helped build my confidence as a writer. Lyab is a thing of the past now, but those hours you spent fleshing out the details of that fic are priceless to me. I’d never written anything so ambitious before. And, frankly, I don’t think I would’ve attempted a novel if I hadn’t written a 100k fic—which I couldn’t have done without your encouragement. I think this is my first time telling you I finished the first draft of my novel in September. Thank you <3

Yas; Beloved you are so dear to me. You have shown me such kindness over the years, at times I wondered what I had done to deserve it. Not many people check in with me the way you do. I value your presence in my life beyond words. You have so much love and affection to give, and I’m glad I get to receive so much of it.

If I wrote a personal note to everyone who’s in my life because of Liam we’d be here for hours and hours. Jess, Bella, Alex, Jack, Hayley, Hope, Soni, Kayla, Sara, Arsh, Tina, Ola, Cristal, Kylee, Hana, Ali, Antonise, Clare, Abby, Nina, fnh, mert, people I don’t follow anymore, everyone who’s come into my life because of liam—I love you. Literally every single person I follow should be named here because I wouldn’t even be on this website if it weren’t for 1d. You’re all so special to me.

I still can’t believe Liam is gone. I was at the grocery store and it hit me that it’s real, and I thought, no, there’s no way. It feels so fucking weird having this invisible hole in my life that’s never going to go away. But I’ll always be grateful for everything Liam brought into my life. I know I’ll grow old with a whole bunch of you in my life—I’ve already spent a decade with some of you in my life—and I wish Liam got to grow old and weathered with us all.

This is such an inadequate goodbye. I think I’ll keep coming up with things I wish I could tell Liam, or things I want to say to you all. There’s so much history here, so much to reminisce about. He took a piece of my adolescence with him. I’ll miss him forever. Too many of my memories are intertwined with him and I’ll miss him forever.

Sleep easy, Liam. I hope, in time, you’re remembered for your limitless capacity for love and your desire to do better, be better. You deserved more. 🤍

—————

tagging 1d people here because i know many blogs aren’t active on a regular basis. apologies if i missed someone (i’m sure i did). hugs for everyone

@1dclowns @hrrytomlinson @sandiazucar @fookinfreezin @hoeranghae @wlwmermald @tomlinsun @epubgf @heyangel @fireproofs @90sgrungelouis @lirry @iconichalo @itsnotreal @aquickstart @roguecurls @harryscuddles @hoteyelinerguy @babyy-honey @goldencereza @kindathoughtprovoking @kindofsharethat @fuchsiasea @queerbloodyangel @tofiveohfive @aboutmetamorphosis @wastelandbabyblue @delicatepointofview @twentybiqueen @girlcrushau @chaoticsue @chimnation @akasakasads @icouldbeluckyagain @alloutshirt @half-lightl @halohamilton @willowfey @meltedwings @softandslow @loustyles @onedirectiom @pop-punklouis @pridesobright @finexbright @femstyles @baawree @iamnathanscott @avocadolouie @userautumn @niallerer @itsnothesameasitwas @usignedupforthis @svpportive @svncourt

[raceweek]

hello. alexalblondo's rude anon coming here to humbly and politely beg for galex primer because i dont understand their history. george said he lived at alex's family's house at one point? how - weren't they already racing? sorry thank you humble thank you 🙏🙏

hello!!! thanks chris for the referral FKFJDKD

i have overwhelmed my alex and george tags so much that i fear i could never capture all of it but my galex key moment anthology is under the cut!!

karting/early single seaters

Alex thinks they met in 2011 but the footage in georges flip phone says he knew alex back in 2009.

Their first actual interaction (so far as they've told the world) was when alex was world champion with the intrepid karting team and bc he was their reference driver he was asked to help pick the drivers who were quick to replace him when he moved up and he picked george (and charles) so they were then part of that same intrepid driver programme for a while. Interestingly, alex was always at least one year above him bc of their ages and george says the fact they didn't really race directly against each other before 2016 was probably why they became such good friends.

They did a deep dive of their camera rolls from this time on twitch a couple years back and talked about the oldest pictures they have of each other in their camera rolls (1:25:36) which was cute.

2017

2017 is the year george basically lived with alex. They were also sharing a trainer whilst alex was competing in gp2 and george was in gp3. George was doing mercedes sim work at their factory so rented a flat in milton keynes near where alex lived but according to alex that rent was wasted money bc george had more meals at alexs' house than he did that year. Also as detailed in those links, the Great Mountain Biking Incident of 2017 occurred at this time so we have the fun mental image of george literally wheeling alex into a&e on a wheelchair bc that is an actual event that happened.

2018

George and alex both in f2 fighting for the title year wooooo!! They never really fought on track but we did get fun tidbits like when alex pipped george to the win at silverstone bc george had a slow pit stop and giggled about it in parc ferme (5:42) & these post session interviews.

also some incredible photoshoots.

2019

Promotion to f1!!! We started the year at winter testing and this nugget that they have both accepted that they are actually tied together by the strings of fate. They're doing fun media stuff like karting and bullying each other over percentage of apexs hit at the skypad (video). 2019 also the start of the umbrella sharing. They were just together a lot… more skypad analysis!!!

2019 also has MY personal favourite galex moment which was hockenheim 2019 and the 45 minute phone call galex had on the way home after george missed out on scoring what would have been his first point in f1 and only point of the season.

There was also the summer break and enjoying a training camp together, exchanging infections etc. Alex also took george to meet lily for the first time, bc that’s a normal thing to do.

There was also the rookie of the year vid, and the rookie season review vid at the end of the year. Much was happening.

2020

The year started with f1 trying to race during a global pandemic. Fun! On the singular media day before everyone realised just how stupid that was they were being annoying. The lockdowns did give us the twitch streams. George was initially so bad at virtual racing he had to secretly consult alex's brother for help behind alexs back. George was also actively seeking alex out like a missile at any given opportunity and at one point felt necessary to declare that he wasn't alexs boyfriend when someone asked if alex was going to be streaming that day. Anyway my lockdown twitchscapades tag has a post with a playlist of all the streams that haven't been lost or deleted if you want to feel joy and have a spare million hours.

Racing resumed in July with the covid team bubbles and within two races and one qualifying session george was defending alexs honour to sky sports and the world in a truly remarkable fashion.

At the end of the year alex was unemployed....even more tragic than this loss was that alexs career difficulties were so extreme he started ghosting george, which devastated him to the extent he needed to publicly drag him for it.

There was also george asking lily to post alexs n*des on instagram and lily responding with if anyone has them it would be you which was perhaps the last time george had access to his own social media password.

Despite george not liking it they celebrated alexs first podium by going golfing! and reverse! George was also gifted an alex albon signed autograph card for christmas and said that he'll put it somewhere special x

2021

The beginning of 2021 was during lockdown and there was more fun virtual gps except the only two drivers doing it were george and alex so they were just bitching and gossiping and threatening to steal strategies and abu dhabi 2016 each other. Particular shoutout to the time they had a virtual race on valentines day and alex put a suit on for it and george was baffled. Immediately after valentines day was georges birthday which lily used to thank george for letting her borrow his boyfriend from time to time.

Then the season started with george enduring the season alexless and not letting anyone forget about it. Alex was turning up to races after being locked in the simulator until the early hours posting stuff like this on instagram and otherwise stumbling over his words after getting whipped on the ass.

Perhaps the defining moment of the galex 2021 season was george pushing the williams board to sign alex so heavily that they had to actively shut him out of proceedings. Also at this time there was this cute congrats from alexs family and one from alex to georgie about the mercedes seat.

anyway here's some more random 2021 nuggets:

i've seen him topless a few times

george getting alex a good deal on a merc x

yet More golf

the handover

georges driver room

2022

They truly lost every inch of personal space in 2022 like. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. The back signing Hello.

2022 had alex having his appendix out, nearly dying and alexs family updating george whilst alex was in the icu and then when alex returned for the next race in signapore a couple weeks later (insane behaviour) george was like mmm audacious of him to be here.

Elsewhere alex discovered georges photoshoot and was making screensavers about it. Alex also discovered hair dye and george was making instagram stories about it.

other random 2022 nuggets:

george is alexs fave f1 driver excluding himself

this skit williams did of lily finding a huge picture of george in alexs driver room

whatever this image is of lily george and alex

private plane carpool

double date

2023

@onadarklingplain covers the whole year for you much MUCH better than i ever could here!!!!!

and that brings us to present where they're just as weird and freaky with each other as ever!!!

[tangibletechnomancy]

The reason I took interest in AI as an art medium is that I've always been interested in experimenting with novel and unconventional art media - I started incorporating power tools into a lot of my physical processes younger than most people were even allowed to breathe near them, and I took to digital art like a duck to water when it was the big, relatively new, controversial thing too, so really this just seems like the logical next step. More than that, it's exciting - it's not every day that we just invent an entirely new never-before-seen art medium! I have always been one to go fucking wild for that shit.

Which is, ironically, a huge part of why I almost reflexively recoil at how it's used in the corporate world: because the world of business, particularly the entertainment industry, has what often seems like less than zero interest in appreciating it as a novel medium.

And I often wonder how much less that would be the case - and, by extension, how much less vitriolic the discussion around it would be, and how many fewer well-meaning people would be falling for reactionary mythologies about where exactly the problems lie - if it hadn't reached the point of...at least an illusion of commercial viability, at exactly the moment it did.

See, the groundwork was laid in 2020, back during covid lockdowns, when we saw a massive spike in people relying on TV, games, books, movies, etc. to compensate for the lack of outdoor, physical, social entertainment. This was, seemingly, wonderful for the whole industry - but under late-stage capitalism, it was as much of a curse as it was a gift. When industries are run by people whose sole brain process is "line-go-up", tiny factors like "we're not going to be in lockdown forever" don't matter. CEOs got dollar signs in their eyes. Shareholders demanded not only perpetual growth, but perpetual growth at this rate or better. Even though everyone with an ounce of common sense was screaming "this is an aberration, this is not sustainable" - it didn't matter. The business bros refused to believe it. This was their new normal, they were determined to prove -

And they, predictably, failed to prove it.

So now the business bros are in a pickle. They're beholden to the shareholders to do everything within their power to maintain the infinite growth they promised, in a world with finite resources. In fact, by precedent, they're beholden to this by law. Fiduciary duty has been interpreted in court to mean that, given the choice between offering a better product and ensuring maximum returns for shareholders, the latter MUST be a higher priority; reinvesting too much in the business instead of trying to make the share value increase as much as possible, as fast as possible, can result in a lawsuit - that a board member or CEO can lose, and have lost before - because it's not acting in the best interest of shareholders. If that unsustainable explosive growth was promised forever, all the more so.

And now, 2-3-4 years on, that impossibility hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of these media company CEOs. The market is fully saturated; the number of new potential customers left to onboard is negligible. Some companies began trying to "solve" this "problem" by violating consumer privacy and charging per household member, which (also predictably) backfired because those of us who live in reality and not statsland were not exactly thrilled about the concept of being told we couldn't watch TV with our own families. Shareholders are getting antsy, because their (however predictably impossible) infinite lockdown-level profits...aren't coming, and someone's gotta make up for that, right? So they had already started enshittifying, making excuses for layoffs, for cutting employee pay, for duty creep, for increasing crunch, for lean-staffing, for tightening turnarounds-

And that was when we got the first iterations of AI image generation that were actually somewhat useful for things like rapid first drafts, moodboards, and conceptualizing.

Lo! A savior! It might as well have been the digital messiah to the business bros, and their eyes turned back into dollar signs. More than that, they were being promised that this...both was, and wasn't art at the same time. It was good enough for their final product, or if not it would be within a year or two, but it required no skill whatsoever to make! Soon, you could fire ALL your creatives and just have Susan from accounting write your scripts and make your concept art with all the effort that it takes to get lunch from a Star Trek replicator!

This is every bit as much bullshit as the promise of infinite lockdown-level growth, of course, but with shareholders clamoring for the money they were recklessly promised, executives are looking for anything, even the slightest glimmer of a new possibility, that just might work as a life raft from this sinking ship.

So where are we now? Well, we're exiting the "fucking around" phase and entering "finding out". According to anecdotes I've read, companies are, allegedly, already hiring prompt engineers (or "prompters" - can't give them a job title that implies there's skill or thought involved, now can we, that just might imply they deserve enough money to survive!)...and most of them not only lack the skill to manually post-process their works, but don't even know how (or perhaps aren't given access) to fully use the software they specialize in, being blissfully unaware of (or perhaps not able/allowed to use) features such as inpainting or img2img. It has been observed many times that LLMs are being used to flood once-reputable information outlets with hallucinated garbage. I can verify - as can nearly everyone who was online in the aftermath of the Glasgow Willy Wonka Dashcon Experience - that the results are often outright comically bad.

To anyone who was paying attention to anything other than please-line-go-up-faster-please-line-go-please (or buying so heavily into reactionary mythologies about why AI can be dangerous in industry that they bought the tech companies' false promises too and just thought it was a bad thing), this was entirely predictable. Unfortunately for everyone in the blast radius, common sense has never been an executive's strong suit when so much money is on the line.

Much like CGI before it, what we have here is a whole new medium that is seldom being treated as a new medium with its own unique strengths, but more often being used as a replacement for more expensive labor, no matter how bad the result may be - nor, for that matter, how unjust it may be that the labor is so much cheaper.

And it's all because of timing. It's all because it came about in the perfect moment to look like a life raft in a moment of late-stage capitalist panic. Any port in a storm, after all - even if that port is a non-Euclidean labyrinth of soggy, rotten botshit garbage.

Any port in a storm, right? ...right?

All images generated using Simple Stable, under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

[anouchard]

how did you get into the magnus archives? like how did you discover it since you were a fan before you got cast?

have your opinions on the podcast (like fav character, headcanons, etc) changed since getting cast?

anyways thanks if you do answer!!! you do such an amazing job as gwen in tmp and it’s truly a delight every time we get to hear from the fandoms favourite character!!!

Hiya!

So, during lockdown I started a TTRPG campaign with friends from uni, college, drama school ... you name it. Just a random bunch of people who liked the idea.

Around October/November 2020, one of them recommended Magnus. They're a massive horror nerd, and I was not into horror at that point (or so I thought, like a FOOL.), but I liked the sound of it and decided to give it a go. I listened to the first two episodes and only broke off because I was about to go and play D&D, and from that moment I was in love - with Magnus, with horror, with voice acting, the whole lot. I said "God, I don't care if I have to work awful jobs for 6.5 days a week - just let me spend the remaining half day working on a show like that" (touch wood, I haven't needed to keep that promise yet ...).

Anyway, time went on, friend and I were on the phone to each other sobbing over the finale (I had liveblogged every episode with them), and that was that. A week later I finished my MA, started working day jobs, and had already e-mailed RQ after being encouraged by my old improv teacher whose name I had heard in the credits a few times (thank you, Ian ❤️).

Three years on and here we are! Madness.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much my opinions have changed as I haven't re-listened since I was cast (except to the odd old favourite). I think it would feel strange to do so now - so much has happened and changed in my life both personally and professionally, and I also listened to TMA at such a distinct moment in time. I always loved the Archivist, Jonah, and the whole concept of the Eye, as well as the Leitner storyline in S2 (possibly my favourite series).

Right, that's turned into another essay. Thank you so much for such kind words - I fully expected everyone to loathe Gwen, so this has all been something of a surprise. Still, I suppose there's still time yet ... 😊

[allsadnshit]

How did you meet your husband? And what was your story like?

I met my husband on tumblr when we were both like 17-18 but actually started dating when we were 24

We were mutuals for many years, just casually friends from different cities with no plans of ever hanging out but would chat sometimes, support each other's art, and recommend music/books

I had mutual friends with him irl because lots of people from my arts high school in Pittsburgh ended up in Philly at Tyler which shared a campus with his school which was funny but we still were really only internet friends till 2020 when during the first lockdown I had been through a break up earlier that year and had spent a lot of time alone and sort of thinking more deeply and uninterrupted than I ever had about romance and love because I was unhappy where I was at. I was also really sick at the time and had been getting more sick for the last 4-5 years without finding the reason why so it was just generally a very life changing moment of needing to soul search on a lot of levels to cope with what was happening.

My long time best friend ended up asking me "If you could date anyone, not just who you know or who's around, who would you ask out?" and I had never thought about it like that because I was very much a creature of comfort and usually dated co workers or friends within my social circles out of availability - but I answered right away with my husband which felt funny because I had not ever actually considered him a "crush" up until that point but I realized he was in my eyes, the coolest person I knew.

So I dm'd him on instagram (which he very rarely used) and said something flirty for the first time like "hey nice birkenstocks, maybe we can wear them together on a lavender farm sometime" not knowing if that would be weird since I had never been suggestive towards him before then but to my surprise he reciprocated hard and fast like no hesitation! We realized it had never occurred to either of us to consider something long distance but that we were both very attracted to each other and the timing just lined up well!

We started texting every day for about a month and I also moved into a new short term lease, and within that month of talking he bought his first car so he could come and meet me. He drove in on a friday after work and didn't get to my house till like 1am, but we just had a really intense emotional/spiritual connecting right away and I think both of realized it was serious very fast. I was actually so nervous that I got constipated to the point he had to drive me to the ER on his last night visiting. I told all the nurses I had just met my true love.

After he had to go back to Philly, he drove back up a month later to stay for a whole week, during which we decided he'd come move in with me for the rest of my 6 month lease and then I'd come move to Philly to be with him. I also realized that for all this to happen, I needed to take a risk and find out what was really going on with me medically, so I also got a diagnostic surgery where they found endometriosis. It was a really hard recovery that he was there for me for, and when I was healed up enough and my lease ended he drove us back to Philly. We got married in 2021 about a year later.

He is the treasure of my life <3

[avatar-anna]

The Haircut

just a little (long) blurb about the new haircut! part of the young!dadrry universe, which can be found on my masterlist

enjoy!!

“Hey, Mama?”

“Yeah, H?”

“Can you do me a favor?”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

“So, why did you want me to cut your hair? I thought Jeff asked you about it before we left London.”

Harry tried not to move much because his hair was between Y/n’s fingers as she snipped away. “He did.”

“And you didn’t get it done beforehand because...”

“I like when you do it,” he said simply.

Y/n didn’t bother hiding her blush. During lockdown, she took on the mantle of keeping Harry and the rest of the Styles family groomed. Afterwards, Harry went back to getting his hair styled professionally, but she thought him asking her to do it was sweet.

“Your fans are gonna riot,” she said, running a hand through his hair to find the next strand to trim. “Not to mention your children.”

Harry’s fans weren’t the only ones who loved his longer hair. Each one of their kids, from Simone all the way down to little Natalia, loved their dad’s hair, gripping a piece of it in their tiny fists whenever he held one of them in his arms.

He merely shrugged, as much as he could with Y/n still cutting his hair. “I feel like it puts me in the right mindset for a show.”

Y/n and Harry sat in silence after that; she had a feeling he was enjoying having her full attention, a rare occurrence now that they had six children.

Six. Some days Y/n still had a hard time wrapping her head around it. They started their family when they were so young—just teenagers—and now Simone was ten years old.

But the decision to expand their family wasn’t made until Harry and Y/n were older, after Harry wasn’t in One Direction anymore, and the rules weren’t so strict, and they felt like they were ready to take care of another baby—as ready as anyone can be, anyway.

So then came Collette, and then the twins, Julian and Maeve, shortly after. Y/n was sure that four children was plenty, had told Harry she would go back on birth control again when she found the time. He pouted, but agreed, especially since they were now raising two infants at the same time instead of just one. But then lockdown happened, and Harry was around a whole lot more than he normally was, and Geneva was the result. Their last child, Natalia, also came as a surprise, though no one but Harry and Y/n thought so. But she was the perfect addition to their family, and Harry and Y/n couldn’t have been happier.

“Are you all coming tomorrow night?” Harry asked, breaking the silence.

Y/n had moved to face Harry in order to get some of the pieces right at his hairline. “It’s a school night, my love, remember? But we’ll be there Friday.”

Harry nodded, understanding, though Y/n knew he loved when all of his babies watched him perform. Now that Simone and Collette were old enough to be in school, Y/n and the kids couldn’t travel with Harry unless it was during summer or winter break. They’d had lots of discussions about homeschooling so the family could be together more, but ultimately decided their children needed as much of a normal upbringing as possible, and honestly, homeschool would just mean more work for Y/n when she was already juggling so much.

“Can you call the sitter?” he asked.

Frowning a little, Y/n paused what she was doing and tipped her husband’s chin up with a finger. She could sense there was something he was thinking about, but wasn’t saying. “What’s wrong?”

Harry met her gaze, his hair now short and cleared away from his face. Y/n wouldn’t lie, she loved when his hair was on the longer side too, but she did think this haircut suited him as well.

He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Nothing’s wrong. I just like when you’re there. You missed the entire last leg of the tour. And I know why, but I just miss having you, all of you, around.”

“I know. We miss you too, H,” Y/n sighed, her heart squeezing at the look on her husband’s face.

Harry was quick to pull her into his lap, content to wait before finishing up his haircut. He tipped forward until his nose was pressed against her chest and breathed in deeply, and Y/n held him tightly.

She knew why he was so down without him having to express himself fully. Since Simone was a baby, he always became anxious about leaving for long periods of time, and the next leg of his tour was booked out for the next few months. It was a long time, especially when young kids were involved.

Raising a family while Harry traveled the world wasn’t easy. There were of course the good moments where Harry was able to spend time with Y/n and the kids, using old tactics to sneak around and find someplace private while they spent the day together. And Y/n loved seeing the world too. She loved seeing Harry perform and point him out to Collette or Maeve or Julian as he danced onstage. “That’s your Dadda,” she would say, helping them dance or clap along to the music.

And so things slowly went back to normal, or perhaps better than normal. They were with life at home and learning the delicate balance their family operated on. He loved music and performing, but all of that could wait.

But then of course there were the more difficult moments, where Y/n and the kids had to stay home while Harry toured. There were arguments about missing recitals and games and whether those tacked on extra nights on tour were really worth it when Y/n felt like she was raising their kids by herself. “I had dreams of my own, you know,” she said once. She regretted it immediately, especially when she would never change her life for a moment. But it had to be said. Y/n felt like she was on an island by herself while her husband travelled all over the world on huge tours. And when he was home, he was working on new music. Things were supposed to be different after One Direction. Harry promised that life would be different, but they weren't, and Y/n was going to keep putting up with it.

Harry came home from tour and more harsh words were shared. He tried to convince her that he could fix everything, but she was way past believing in him, and then they were both alone. Harry eventually came home, determined to make things right. He felt like a part of him would always be making up for letting his family down. Y/n tried to tell him that wasn't necessary anymore, especially when she became pregnant again because she wouldn't be having her fifth child with him if she didn't believe in him, but he wouldn’t hear it. “We’re a team,” he’d said. “We’ve always been a team. Letting you down will always be my greatest regret. I’m sorry.”

But things were a little different now. Half their children were older and Natalia wasn’t even walking yet, though all of them needed stability. With just one look at Harry, Y/n knew what was bothering him.

“You’re a great dad, H.”

And since they were as alone as they could be raising six kids, Harry felt comfortable to shake his head against her. Y/n continued to hold him, letting him get out whatever he needed to.

“I—I don’t want to feel like a stranger in my own home, my own family.”

There were times where Harry would come home from a long tour stretch and Geneva or Maeve or Julian wouldn’t like to be held by him. Because to them, as infants, he was unfamiliar. It killed Harry, the realization that he’d been gone too long that his own children would cry when he picked them up or look at him without an ounce of recognition. It was why shortly after his first tour as a solo artist he decided to take a break from touring and making music. The fight with Y/n was part of it, but at the end of the day, Harry just wanted to be a dad, and wanted to give Y/n a chance to pursue a career after being a full time stay at home mom for so many years. He had been so used to One Direction’s style of working in the industry, which was to say that you never stopped. But it put a strain on his relationships then, and it was doing the same thing as a new solo artist. He wanted a different life, a different approach to his passion, so he decided to slow down, focus on being a dad and a partner. It was how Y/n eventually went back to school and picked up styling hair.

She saw all of it written on Harry’s face, all the insecurity and fear. Each one plaguing him despite how proud she was of his success as an artist and a father. He didn’t give himself enough credit, not nearly enough. Their family had this life because of him.

“I’ll figure something out,” Y/n promised, kissing his forehead.

Harry shook his head, the ends of his hair tickling her nose. “You don’t have to, Mama. I know school is—”

“Family is important too,” she said, knowing what he had been about to say.

He nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

Y/n kissed him once on the lips before standing up again. School would be out soon, and Geneva and Natalia would be waking up from their naps any minute now. As usual, Y/n would pick up while Harry took care of the little ones, as the knowledge of the Styles family remained a secret all these years. Some people knew, of course. The first time the secret had unintentionally been revealed being when Simone gave a report about her family tree, and her teacher called Y/n in for a meeting to tell her that her daughter believed her dad was a world famous musician. That was quite the parent-teacher conference, but she and Harry handled it. So teachers and administration knew, and NDAs were handed out left and right to protect the children’s privacy, but it was easier for Y/n to pick up the kids from school as opposed to Harry.

“And...There! All done.”

Y/n handed a mirror to Harry so he could inspect her handiwork. She’d seen his hair done enough that she knew what he liked, but she opted for something ever so slightly different, leaving a little more hair on the top so it would curl on his forehead some. She thought it framed his face better than when he pushed it back.

“I look younger,” he said, eyes still on the handheld mirror.

“You look handsome,” Y/n replied. “Or you will once you shave that thing off your lip.”

That definitely got his attention. “Hey.”

“I’m kidding,” Y/n teased. She kissed him on the cheek. “Kind of.”

“Come here,” Harry demanded.

He grabbed ahold of his wife’s waist before kissing her all over. His stubble scratched her neck, her jaw, her cheeks, as Harry moved around, planting loud, opened-mouthed kisses everywhere he could.

Y/n shrieked and giggled, trying to push away from him, but to no avail. “Harry! Ha—”

A cry sounded from the baby monitor sitting on the coffee table. Geneva. Harry and Y/n paused, waiting to see if she would turn over and go back to sleep or if she was truly awake.

Another cry, followed by a different one from another monitor.

“I’ll get Natalia,” Y/n said, and this time Harry let her go.

“GiGi,” Harry replied.

Like a team breaking from a huddle, they went to their daughters’ rooms to bring an end to the crying and met back downstairs to change and feed them. By now, Y/n and Harry were practically a well-oiled machine. They moved around each other to fill bottles and strap the girls into high chairs, and finished with singing‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ when Geneva showed signs that she was about to cry. It was a system that worked for many years when they were at home together, and one that was perfected during lockdown. Before long, Geneva was sucking on a pouch while Natalia slowly brought yogurt chips to her mouth.

Harry raised his arm up, and Y/n met him halfway for the high five. Distance or no, they always made a good team.

Once the girls were fed, Y/n began getting ready to pick up the rest of their children. Harry kept the girls entertained, but she felt his eyes track her throughout the kitchen. Once she was done, she went over to him and gave him a kiss.

“How about we go to the venue for rehearsal, stay for the opening act and the first couple songs, and then I’ll take the kids home early,” she said against his hair, rubbing a hand up and down his arm.

“Really?”

She kissed his cheek. “I told you I would figure something out.”

Harry grinned down at her. “You always do.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Later that night, the Styles residence was filled with its usual commotion.

“I want Elsa!”

“We watched Frozen last week!”

“Elsa!”

“Mama, can we have chocolate?”

“I want to sit next to Daddy!”

“Move over!”

Harry tipped his head back against the couch and prayed for patience.

He thought a movie would be a fun way to end the night, and while he wasn’t sure why Y/n gave him a look of caution before, he certainly did now. His wife, of course, was upstairs putting Geneva and Natalia to bed while he got the movie set up, though now he guessed Y/n was letting him deal with all the chaos while she hid.

But Harry didn’t particularly care. He loved being home and being part of all the craziness, even the silly fights over what movie they were going to watch.

Julian, the only boy in the Styles family, sat in his father’s lap quietly, almost like he was just waiting for Simone and Maeve to stop fighting over what they were going to watch. His hair was long and curled at the ends, a result of him crying and screaming every time Y/n tried to take him to get his hair cut or do it herself. So they eventually gave up and let Jules grow it out.

“What do you want to watch?” Harry asked his son.

Julian shrugged and curled himself against Harry’s chest. It seemed he was content to just be with his dad, and Harry couldn’t help but agree.

However, when Maeve tried to rip the remote out of Simone’s hands, Harry finally stepped in.

“Alright. Saturday we’ll watch Elsa. Tonight we’ll let Simone pick. Come here, Maeve.”

Maeve was a spitfire like her mother, loud where Jules was quiet. He never imagined a preschooler to be so opinionated, but she always had something to say.

Giving up, Maeve took the spot on Harry’s right. Collette was on his left, tracing the tattoos on his arm absentmindedly. Simone finally settled on a movie, and by some kind of miracle, the house went quiet as the opening credits rolled.

He hadn’t been doing a typical tour recently, which helped him be at home more, but being at home was almost as exhausting as being on the road. He watched the cartoon with Julian on his chest, Maeve and Collette on either side of him, but before long, his eyes began to droop, each blink becoming more prolonged than the last until he didn’t open them again.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Y/n came downstairs once GiGi and Natalia were fast asleep. She had lunches to pack and breast milk to pump before tucking the rest of her little ones into bed, but it wouldn’t take too long.

Half expecting utter chaos, Y/n’s eyes widened at the scene in front of her. Harry was fast asleep, and so was Julian, who rested on top of him, one hand up by his dad’s neck like he was reaching for something that wasn’t there anymore. Maeve dozed beside Harry, and Collette was getting close. Simone was the only one wide awake and watching the movie, her choice by the looks of it.

Y/n went over to her oldest and kissed the top of her dark hair. “How long has everyone been out?”

“Dad lasted about twenty minutes, I think.”

“A record for him,” Y/n mused.

Simone grinned wide. Seeing how long Harry lasted during a movie was something of an ongoing joke between them, and Y/n liked to think her oldest daughter liked that they shared something that was just between the two of them.

“Will you help me get Maeve upstairs?”

Nodding, Simone paused her movie and took her sister into her arms while Y/n grabbed Collette. She took Julian up next, tucking him into his racecar bed before turning on his night light and closing the door. Harry was still out cold when Y/n came back down, but Simone was at his side while she resumed the movie.

By the time the movie ended, Y/n was wrapping up in the kitchen and Harry was stretching his arms after his impromptu nap. Blinking with bleary eyes, he said, “Sorry, bug. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Simone grinned over the top of his head at her mom, who shot her daughter a wink. “That’s okay.”

Harry looked between his two girls like he was missing something, but didn’t comment on it. “Come on. Up to bed then.”

Simone kissed her dad on the cheek, then skipped over to Y/n to do the same to her before going upstairs, leaving Harry and Y/n alone in the dark.

Looking around, Harry realized all of his children had gone to bed at some point. “I swear we have more than one kid.”

“They’re all fast asleep.”

“Really?”

“Mmhm.”

“Well then,” Harry said, his voice low after being asleep. “Might need to take advantage of this rare moment to ourselves.”

Y/n sat herself down on his lap and ran a hand through his short hair. “You know, I can’t help but agree.”

There wasn’t much talking after that. Harry was quick to capture Y/n’s bottom lip between his own, pulling her as close as she could possibly be. Y/n kissed him back, sighing as he brushed his tongue against hers again and again. She kneaded the muscles in his shoulders, gripping hard when a hand dipped beneath the waistband of her jeans.

“Love you,” Harry panted, kissing the spot where her jaw met her ear.

“Love—”

Y/n couldn’t get the words out fast enough before he was on her again, pushing her into the couch until she was spread across it.

They didn’t take it much further than that. Y/n knew Harry was too tired for more, but she didn’t mind. Sometimes kissing and touching took her back to a time when they were younger and only had one baby to look after. It made her realize that even after all these years, they were still crazy for each other.

Eventually tiredness won out, and they went upstairs, though Harry kissed Y/n’s neck the whole way to their room. It stopped, however, when they entered their bedroom and he realized they weren’t alone anymore.

“My money’s on Jules,” Harry said softly.

“Could be Collette,” Y/n countered.

They crept into the room towards the bed, and upon closer inspection, they realized Harry was right. Julian was asleep on Y/n’s side of the bed, his stuffed Mickey Mouse tucked under one arm.

Shrugging, they went about their nightly routines and got into bed. Harry kissed his wife once mumbling, “Love you, Mama,” before setting his head down on the pillow.

When Harry woke up, there were three more children in his bed, one of them on top of him completely. An excellent start to his morning, if you asked him.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David interview with Maggie Bocella for Collider, 10.7.2013

COLLIDER: Obviously, when you started making this show, you had the book to go off of, you had a very specific framework to work off of. But because everything for Season 2 is new, did you get to have any input with Neil Gaiman on where Crowley goes from the end of Season 1?

DAVID: Oh no, that's not my job. No, I mean, we've got Neil Gaiman, so you just get excited about what direction he's going to send you in. It wouldn't occur to me, to be honest, to start giving Neil Gaiman plot suggestions or character suggestions, that would just be limiting his brilliance, I think, if he was trying to sort of contort his ideas around mine. So no, I just sat back and was excited to let a script ping in and find out what was going to happen next. What a treat to get to be one of the first people to read the continuing adventures of Aziraphale and Crowley.

COLLIDER: In that vein, how do you think Crowley has changed between the end of Season 1 and where we see him now? Can we expect anything significantly different from him this season?

DAVID: Well, as you would expect, he's no longer working for his corporate bosses from Hell, which gives him a certain liberty. He's more of a free agent, but it does mean that they've taken back the swishy apartment that comes with the job. So he’s in slightly diminished circumstances. He's living in his Bentley in his car with his potted plant and feeling slightly hard done by it, I think. But quite early on, we see him meeting with Shax, who's his replacement in the job. So he's keeping his ear to the ground, seeing what's going on, and giving Shax a bit of guidance as to how to be Hell’s representative on Earth and also how to fix the boiler in the apartment. Yes, he's certainly as we always knew him, but probably a little bit grumpier.

COLLIDER: You mentioned the Bentley, and the Bentley being cursed to play Queen songs forever and ever and ever is one of my favorite parts of the show. I was curious what you think Crowley's favorite Queen song, is if he's not so sick of them that he never wants to hear them again.

DAVID: That's a very…wow, that's a difficult question. I need a lot of prep for that. What's my favorite Queen song? I don't know. I mean, “Don't Stop Me Now” is probably the best driving song, isn't it?

COLLIDER:Yeah!

DAVID: And he certainly enjoys driving at ridiculous, slightly supernatural speeds. I suspect that's probably the best soundtrack for that, so it's probably that, or “A Kind of Magic,” I suppose, makes a certain sense for a supernatural being with unearthly powers.

COLLIDER: That's a good answer. But you also work very closely with Michael Sheen, who you not only work with on this but also on Staged, you're quite close. What's it like getting to put that friendship dynamic to use? Especially since this and Staged are so completely different.

DAVID: It's very nice to get to work with a friend every day, you can't pretend it's not. I mean, we did have the pleasure of doing Staged during lockdown, which of course probably wouldn't have happened were it not for us getting to know each other so well on Season 1 of Good Omens. It wasn't so long after the first Good Omens came out that we were all locked in our houses for months on end. We managed to come up with this notion of doing Staged and making a show on our laptops, which, really, we did initially just to amuse ourselves, to see if it was possible. Then it ended up becoming more. We just [premiered] Series 3, so between the first season of Good Omens and the second season of Good Omens, we managed to do three seasons of something else together!

COLLIDER: This show has had such a massive fan response. How much of that are you really aware of? Are you seeing how people are reacting to this show?

DAVID: Oh, it's been quite overwhelming. I've been to a few Comic-Cons over the last few years, and when I visited them pre-Good Omens, I saw a lot of people dressed up as me from…another show. But that has slowly changed until the amount of Doctors and the amount of Crowleys I meet are certainly neck and neck these days. But what's lovely about the Crowleys and the Aziraphales is they always come in pairs, so you get to meet people who've got all dressed up often with their best mates.

That's one of the great joys of being involved in this show, that these characters are so beloved. And of course, the great honor of taking on something like that, a character that people are so enthusiastic about, is that the great terror is that you'll break it, that you won't be… I think, especially with a literary character, the act of reading a book is such an internal mental spell that you cast, isn't it? Those characters are almost more vivid than a character that you might see on screen. So embodying characters that have been so loved for so long, not breaking them, not, you know, crushing dreams… The way that we've been accepted by those fandoms, it's been quite humbling, to be honest.

COLLIDER: You're also part of another Neil Gaiman joint, you play Loki in The Sandman audio series. Obviously, that's a different medium, but are there any similarities between working on The Sandman and working on Good Omens?

DAVID: The Gaimanverse is certainly its own creation, but Good Omens is always slightly different, of course, because it wasn't just Neil, it was very much co-created by Terry Pratchett, who also had a very distinctive voice and a distinctive universe. But there's something very specific about the Good Omens universe, which is where these two very distinct, very vivid authorial voices blend together to create something very specific and quite unique. So, I don't know how similar it was being part of The Sandman. I mean, it was a great pleasure to be part of it. It was wonderful to make Loki come from Scotland as well. I think Tom Hiddleston should take some notes. There's nothing better than a Glasgow Norse god. I’m kidding, obviously, he is the definitive Loki, but I did my best to sort of, you know, target his coattails.

COLLIDER: Besides Good Omens and Staged, you are coming back to Doctor Who this year. It's all anybody I know can talk about, but obviously, the spoiler police will come and get me if I attempt to talk to you about too much. So if you could describe what audiences are gonna see in November in, like, three words, what three words would you use?

DAVID: Three words? Three words?! Three new stories. That's not very good, is it? That doesn't give you very much away. Neil Patrick Harris! There you go.

[jazzylovegood]

HAIKYUU HEADCANONS 1

Keiji Akaashi

Thanks to TikTok I learnt that Akaashi is canon to be one weird ass motherfucka, so….

- Definitely talks to himself. He mutters to himself all the time, no matter who he is around or what he is doing. Sometimes it would be on accident, he would be thinking and then just say it out loud.

“Was it the frog or toad that killed him?” -Akaashi

“….What?” -Konoha

“It was definitely the frog, the toad would never.” -Akaashi

- Listens to music you would not expect him to.

”Hey, Akaashi what you listening to? -Bokuto

”Nothing much.” -Akaashi

Bokuto puts his ear up to Akaashi’s headphones and just hears Cluster by fuckin Slipknot.

- Mr. Keiji “I cannot stop cracking my bones” Akaashi

Even in silence he will just randomly decide to crack something. Knee, fingers, hand, toes, head, elbow. He will be cracking it. Helps him concentrate.

- I would like to remind you that Akaashi is everything but shy, he is very blunt and sassy when he is speaking, and he definitely stays that way for everyone. Is not the type to hold back or change his personality when meeting someone new. (Which we saw in the show). Him and Kenma are not the same. There is a difference between chill and shy.

- You know you are one of his close friends when he remembers everything you tell him. Your shoe size, blood type, your favorite food as a kid, your 5th favorite color, even what you named your pet rock in 1st grade. You mention it once to him and he will remember because to him that is what could make him a great friend.

- He actually does write stuff in his notes app. His notes app is his most used app every week. 10 hours at least. He writes EVERY THOUGHT in there. For example, during the day when he thinks about food, he would like to eat for dinner he writes it down. As a reminder. Even though he has amazing memory, he does this to make sure his past self is happy.

- Watches tv in dad pose. Arms are entire crossed or on his hips. He will read the synopsis of the show and say he was not interested in it and then would be standing there watching. As The Gods Will for example.

- Makes eye contact. Wants you to feel heard and he wants to see the changes in your facial expressions (If you are like me, you have A LOT of those). That is why I think he is pulled towards people like Bokuto, loud and genuine people. He is also pulled towards great storytellers, people who use their hands when they are talking and/or voices for people involved. Always have that evidence on lockdown. He would love to see the receipts.

- Wears weird ass shirts. I am talking “a picture of pants on a shirt” type shit. World's greatest grandpa, I am just a girl, and would have shirts with his friend's names on it, in a pun way. “Danny stops! Do not poke your toes!” Get it. Bokuto. Poke your toes (I am kinda sorry).

═══════════════•°•🦉•°•════════════════

TIKTOK MENTIONS

“Sometimes he'll think of a line from a vid he watched a week ago and repeat it for hours.” -four ☆

“Does not smell like anything. not his shampoo, not even sweat, he doesn't have a smell at all.” -monira 💌

“Y’all know those little rubber band bracelets that made shapes? yea, he has a whole collection of them in a jar” -kai 🎸🦕

“If he had any piercings, he would constantly be playing with it touching them” -coors_lightt

Other HEADCANONS: Daichi,

[betterbooktitles]

When my father could think of nothing to add to a funny or odd moment in a conservation, he’d let out a sarcastic “Nothing but the best.”

When a drunk guy on the street swore at us and made lewd gestures as we walked to get dinner in Cleveland one night, he looked over and said nothing but the best. When I showed him a particularly insane clip from Wondershowzen he liked, nothing but the best.

It was rare, however, that he had nothing to add, argue, or joke about when talking to me.

The last time I was able to have a long conversation with my dad, he told me he thought his personal knowledge base had a few spots of depth but that he didn’t know much. It was a rare moment of self-pity, one I felt was unearned since he was a person who knew a lot about everything. I challenged him. I began listing stories he told me about writers, actors, politicians, about history and economics. He knew about petty arguments Joni Mitchel had with her managers in the 60s. He explained the 2008 financial crisis to me in under a minute (likely during one of his furlough days when the government was shut down). He taped avant-garde short films on VHS so we could watch them together on the weekends. That’s how I ended up seeing Maya Deren’s “Meshes of the Afternoon” before entering high school, let alone a film course. His favorite short was “Down Rusty Down,” an Australian black-and-white comedy from 1997 where humans play various dogs in a neighborhood. We watched it for the first time together but he asked me 50 times over the last few years if I’d ever seen it. I wanted to scream every time that I was there with him for his entire indie cinema phase! Our shared movie viewings started when I was a child when he forced me to watch All That Jazz and Die Hard (inappropriate movies to watch with your kid) and ended around 2001 when we watched Y Tu Mama Tambien (an inappropriate movie to watch with your parent). It made me feel better that he didn’t even remember I was with him on this art house movie rabbit hole because it meant he liked it on his own, whether his kids did or not. He liked paintings, he hated musicals, he liked cooking and got better from my middle school years on. He subscribed to specific guitarists’ Patreon pages during the lockdown and watched his favorite musicians explain how they wrote old songs.

When my grandfather died, my brother told me what he thought makes a great dad. “It’s doing stuff you don’t want to do for your kids.” This was before he had kids of his own. He seems to enjoy attending as many of my nieces’ volleyball games as he can.

What my brother meant was that the sign of a good father was the ability to engage in your kids’ interests rather than strictly engaging in your own. Our dad was not a basketball player, but I have memories of him teaching me in our driveway how to box out. When my brother decided to become a CPA, my dad took accounting classes online so he could understand what my brother was talking about when he visited. He came to every play I was in from the age of 6, including shows I did in college that were, I’m sure, not to his taste. He gave notes on scripts and stories I wrote, he played guitar with me, he helped brainstorm ways to get an agent with me. He would preface each piece of advice with “I don’t really know how any of this works” and then make cogent, informed arguments about what I should do next. He treated every interest his kids and grandkids had like a hobby of his own.

When he was not busy being a dad, cheering in the stands of a football game or clapping in the audience of a play or in the kitchen making dinner for his wife and kids, he was reading, exploring, and finding tolerable classical music to listen to and share with all of us. He didn’t merely love the act of reading, he liked fiction specifically. He liked finding out about the craft of writing. He worked on novels and stories of his own after retirement. He liked comedy. His knowledge of it was specific and enigmatic. After taking a few pictures at the house of my friends and our homecoming dates, he asked where we were taking the girls for dinner. “Buca di Beppo,” I said (because I know how to treat a lady), and my dad said “oh, that’s where Phil Hartman’s wife got drunk for hours before going home and shooting him.” “Thank you, Dad. That’s a great icebreaker.”

When I got into stand-up myself, he pitched me jokes and essay prompts via email, even when he was ill. His last email to me was to let me know he thought a big break was approaching for me and that he and my mom did not sit up at night worrying that I couldn’t make it in comedy. "We have faith in your work and talent.”

One day, inspired by some mystery itch that came from no one in his family, my father started digging a hole in the backyard. He read through a tiny yellow pamphlet on how to build a pond, and with no help (certainly not from his kids, and before the days of YouTube), he made a mosquito-free pond in our yard. He put in fish that survived winters, he put in tadpoles that became frogs and hopped into neighbors’ yards. One morning, he came outside and discovered a giant crane hunting one of his frogs. He’d made an entire ecosystem thanks to one afternoon of reading and following through on a whim.

That’s what I’ll remember about him. Not strictly the things he did his damnedest to enjoy for us, but what he enjoyed.

He was married to my mother for 49 years. He studied city planning and managed to find work in his field. He focused on fighting for affordable housing and revitalizing neighborhoods including Ohio City where we lived for most of my teens. He was a good dad because he engaged in the stuff his kids and wife liked even when he disliked it (that included moving from the city to the suburbs for a time). But he was a great dad and friend because he managed to get me interested in what he liked. He took the time to listen, to watch, to talk. He let me know how much joy he took in his work. He let us know how much he loved being a dad and grandfather.

When I think of what he could have done better, I can’t come up with anything to say. He gave us nothing but his best.

[fartcushion]

Lockdown Bubble - Part 2

The next day I came downstairs before Antony and made breakfast, sittng at the table with my back to the counters and munching away as he walked in. "Morning" he said cheerfully, and I waved a response while swallowing a mouthful of cereal.

"Morning, got anything planned today?", and took in another bite.

"Not really. Weekends aren't the same during lockdown. Day in front of the TV again I guess" he replied busying himself behind my head making his own breakfast. As he bent down to get the milk he let out a short fart. "Oh excuse me! That just slipped out".

Desperately trying to swallow the cereal before I retched it out from the smell, I leaned as far away as I could get. "Oh man, not another one, why do your farts smell so bad?"

"My diet isn't that great" Antony shrugged, then gave his belly a jovial wobble as if to emphasize the point. "If you think my farts are bad, just wait until I've done one of those home work out vids. Now they build up a sweat"

"I'll stay clear of that then until you shower!"

"Who knows, might be something else you learn to love. Like my farts", and that devilish grin returned.

I turned around to deny that I would never, but realised too late the huge mistake it was. Antony had purposely bent forward on the counter with his ass aimed directly at my head in hope his bait would work. As I turned to face him he released another quick airy fart right at me.

Ppfftt

Antony was beside himself laughing. In disgust I shot out the chair to wash my face in the sink. "Omg, so gross!"

"Aww I'm sorry, I was just having a laugh. Didn't mean to get you right in the face. Good job your mouth was closed ay, otherwise you'd have been swallowing last night's dinner again". He chuckled as he sat and ate his breakfast.

I finished drying myself and sat back to finish breakfast. "I'm beginning to think you have a thing for farts the way you keep subjecting me to then"

Antony chewed in thoughtful silence for a moment before responding, "nah, not the farting itself. I just aren't bothered by them like you are. But what I do like is humiliation, subjecting others to it. Like some people love having their feet worshipped, I don't care about it particularly, but if a guy hates feet then that's what I want them doing. I get off on that power". I was stunned by the honesty.

"That being said I am also very good at figuring out what someone truly desires. So either my farts will be a good punishment for you, or they'll be something you secretly crave". And he carried on eating as if he hadn't just dropped a bombshell.

"I can guarantee that I do not want your farts, they're certainly not my thing. And I'm not a big fan of feet either come to that matter"

Again Antony smirked while finishing his cereal. "Dont worry, we will only be vanilla then if that's what you want. I just thought last night you said you would be an obedient slave"

I felt oddly insulted. Was I vanilla? Surely there was a large gap between just wanting to suck a cock or sit on a dick, and having to be subjected to Antony's gaseous assaults. And I was ashamed to admit it, but every time he called me a slave I could feel my dick start to throb. Maybe I could help satisfy his need to dominate without going too far.

"I'm not vanilla! Just maybe you're a lot more experienced than me. I want to please, sir". I paused while giving an innocent doll eyed look, "but maybe, don't be too mean?"

"Of course not, wouldn't want you leaving here. And as a show of good will, how about you suck my cock?" Antony offered.

I felt relieved. It was stupid, but I didn't want to be boring and we'd both said how much fun being a bubble with benefits would be so I didn't want to look like I was bailing on it.

I pushed my chair out and slid under the table. Antony opened his legs so I could get at his crotch. He was wearing the same boxers as yesterday having not changed. The smell of the sweat from the night's sleep and a bit of dried cum was noticeable. Again I didn't want to be a buzz kill so without I protest pulled his fat cock out of the flap. Once in my mouth it started to harden and I began to work it.

Antony leaned back looking under the table at me slobbering on his cock. "Oh damn that feels good. Though I forgot to warn you that I needed a piss..."

My eyes must have shot open in terror. But before I could pull away Antony had slid his large hand to the back of my head and I felt a hard grip hold me in place.

"...I'm kidding! Would I do that to you? Keep sucking on that cock bitch, don't you dare stop when it feels this good"

The grip didn't let off but I felt reassured enough to carry on. Humiliation was one thing, but he wouldn't force me drink his piss surely.  His hand forced me down so the cock was slamming the back of my throat, and he began convulsing in the chair as he came. I swallowed quickly as he held me there for a minute before letting him go, making sure I got every drop.

"Ah, what a way to start the day. Think you can manage that as your new morning routine?"

I scrambled up off the floor. "Erm, yeh I guess, might be in a rush for work if you're not up early enough".

"Ah don't worry, I've got an idea for that". Without further comment on the matter he went to watch TV. I stood there for a moment. Unsure what to make of the morning. I was also sad that I'd not been given chance to come. I did consider excusing myself to go have a wank. But thought best save it. If I didn't want to look frigid, or vanilla, I'd want to stay horny. But how hard could it be to please Antony's needs?

[grandtreeangel]

wait what’s the love lockdown show

Good morning anon, thanks for asking! Before I get to your question, I feel a little backstory on the Love Lockdown cover is important here, so let's start at the beginning shall we? 🤓

First off Patrick dropped a cover of Love Lockdown by Kayne West Sept 21, 2008 during the promo for Folie. Where he had this to say about it:

And this:

@dykepatrickstump has a great post about Patrick cover songs that discusses the timing of Patrick posting the Love Lockdown cover and subsequent posts made by Pete to both his main blog and private blogs the same day and a few days after. It's very....interesting and IMO pretty critical to the whole narrative.

Hopefully you're still with me anon. Back to your original question.

To promo the release of Folie, they did a run of small venue secret shows and tv engagements which included a show for Much Music Canada (woo Canada mention), Live in the Lot on Oct 28, 2008. During that set Patrick played the Love Lockdown cover and after he finishes playing it says "that's for you Pete" 👀. It should also be noted that it seems Love Lockdown was played during a commercial break and not during the televised set.

As an aside, the Live in the Lot show was the second show they played the Love Lockdown cover. It was live debuted at Wembley on Oct 22, 2008. Those are the only two shows it was played at (to my knowledge at least).

Oh my gosh this has gotten away from me. Back to the timeline. The best man speech video post from yesterday is from the Harper's Ferry secret show in Boston on Nov 6, 2008, which according to setlist FM, was the show immediately after the Love Lockdown show on Oct 28, 2008.

Thanks for staying with me anon. There was certainly.....something....about these early folie era shows because there's a lot of interesting moments that came out of them 🩵💙