#eyewitness usa network

[nellisdownterrible]

WHY DOES USA NETWORK HATE THE GAYS?! Genuinely still in shock both shows got canceled after one season smh

[bibuckbuckgoose]

Eyewitness girlies rise

[kissablelips-desireslure-vol2]

EYEWITNESS S1 E1 (2016, USA NETWORK)

Created By: Adi Hasak

TYLER YOUNG (as Philip)

&

JAMES PAXTON (as Lukas)

[bengiyo]

I'm still relatively new to the world of BL and not fully immersed in it yet either so I could potentially be working off only partial (or even slightly incorrect) information here BUT

Why do there seem to be so many remakes in the world of BL? Don't get me wrong, I know there are plenty in the non-BL sphere too (Boys Over Flowers seems to be a prefect example of a drama that has been remade by multiple countries about 5000 times) but it does feel like it happens more frequently in BL and I'm wondering why that is, especially when the shows they pick to remake are often considered classics or have their own very distinctive character that's... not necessarily conducive to a positively received remake.

Does it just feel this way because BL is a much smaller pool so it's easier to encounter remakes of shows we already know? Or is it because each BL producing country wants their own version of a hit BL series once they know it has a chance to be a success? Or is there another reason all together that I'm missing?

So, cross-culture adaptations of other work exist everywhere in media. It's not unique to BL. Every day I wake up and find that a new European country has decided to adapt Skam. The USA network show Eyewitness is an adaptation of Norwegian show. Shameless was originally a UK show. Same for Queer as Folk. The Cleaning Lady on Fox is an adaptation of an Argentine work. Being Human was adapted by SyFy channel from the UK. Here's a wiki page on this just focusing on America.

Coffee Prince is a popular (to put it mildly) Korean drama that has been adapted multiple times by other nearby cultures.

So, adaptations are fairly normal. We just notice it in BL because of the genre aficionados. Besides, Japan is the origin country and it's interesting to see what some of their beats look like interpreted in other cultures.

Also, it's hard to sell romance. BL is also a niche genre. They'll rely on any bit of familiarity to get the buzz going on a project. Even my doubts about My Love Mix Up will make people curious about it because Gemini and Fourth just picked up huge popularity from Moonlight Chicken and My School President. The fact that some of us are doubting them means people who love them are going to be even more excited because it indicates that GMMTV is putting a lot of trust in them. It also means that Kieta Hatsukoi fans are likely going to cross over in the first week at least even if it's just to judge the show.

Adaptations are just good business sense for both parties. The Japanese team gets to monetize their IP further, and it often leads to secondary purchases and engagement with the source content.

[nicky999doors]

Eyewitness and dare me are the best things USA network ever did

[beardedmrbean]

FARMINGTON, N.M. — An 18-year-old gunman who killed three people and injured six others, including two police officers, used at least three firearms in a rampage through a northwestern New Mexico community, shooting randomly at cars and houses, authorities said Monday.

Officers began receiving reports of gunshots at about 10:57 a.m. in Farmington, New Mexico, a city of more than 45,000 people about 200 miles north of Albuquerque. In a video released late Monday, Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said the gunman fired three weapons, including an AR-style rifle.

The shooting was "honestly one of the most horrific and difficult days that Farmington has ever had as a community," he said, adding that investigators are searching for a motive for the attack, including talking to the shooter’s family.

"But at this point it appears to be purely random, that there was no schools, no churches and no individuals targeted," Hebbe said. "During the course of the event, the suspect roamed throughout the neighborhood up to a quarter of a mile. At least six houses and three cars were shot in the course of the event, as the suspect randomly fired at whatever entered his head to shoot at."

The shooting led to "preventative lockdowns" of the Farmington Municipal Schools at the request of police, the school district said. The lockdowns were lifted Monday afternoon.

San Juan Regional Medical Center, where victims were taken for medical care, was also locked down during the "crisis," according to statement from the hospital, as an incident command center was put in place to organize the facility's response.

"We worked closely with law enforcement to ensure the safety of our patients and caregivers," said Laura Werbner, public relations coordinator for San Juan Regional Medical Center.

Authorities investigate motive

Deputy Chief Baric Crum said the investigation would continue with a look at the "several blocks of this crime scene to see what actually happened." Hebbe later confirmed that six homes and three vehicles were shot as the gunman fired at whatever entered his head to shoot at."

Officers from the Farmington Police Department, San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, and the New Mexico State Police are investigating the shooting. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tweeted that agents from Phoenix were responding to Farmington to assist in the investigation.

Authorities are asking for anyone with information to come forward.

"What we now need from our community is anybody that has any additional information, whether that be eyewitness information or video information or whatever it may be, if you feel it’s pertinent," Crum said.

Crum said the investigation would continue with a look at the "several blocks of this crime scene to see what actually happened."

"We're grateful for the response we received from our agencies partners in the area," Crum said.

Witnesses describe the attack

Hank Shirley who lives near the scene of the shooting, said he was home watching television when he heard a series of gunshots around 11 a.m. which he described as a prolonged gun battle. Shirley said he did not see what happened but rather identified the distinctive pops as gunfire.

"When I heard that, I told my daughter to get down in the basement and get the baby down in the basement," Shirley told the Farmington Daily Times, part of the USA TODAY Network.

About four minutes after the gunfire ceased, he said he heard sirens and saw emergency vehicles approaching.

Joseph Robledo, a 32-year-old tree trimmer, said he rushed home after learning that his wife and 1-year-old daughter had sought shelter in the laundry room when gunshots rang out. A bullet went through his daughter’s window and room, without hitting anyone.

Robledo jumped a fence to get in through the back door. Out front, he found an older woman in the street who had been wounded while driving by. She appeared to have fallen out of her car, which kept rolling without her, he said.

“I went out to see because the lady was just lying in the road, and to figure just what the heck was going on,” Robledo said. He and others began to administer first aid as neighbors directed an arriving police officer toward the suspect.

"We were telling (the officer), 'He’s down there.' … The cop just went straight into action," Robledo said.

Robledo’s own family car was perforated with bullets.

"We’ve been doing yard work all last week. I just thank God that nobody was outside in front,” he said. “… Obviously, elderly people — he didn’t have no sympathy for them. Who’s to say he would have sympathy for a little kid."

[llpdesign]

shop this and more at my redbubble store (http://redbubble.com/people/laurenpaulin)

do not download, redistribute, edit, or remove the caption from this photo.

[guesswhofern]

Tivoli. I miss Eyewitness so much.

[unblogparaloschicos]

TV: Øyevitne (2014)

“Pueblo chico, infierno grande”, reza un conocido refrán, el cual se cumple a la perfección en esta miniserie noruega (seis capítulos) creada por Jarl Emsell Larsen. Allí nos topamos con el tremendo dilema de Philip (Axel Bøyum) y Henning (Odin Waage), dos adolescentes de Mysen que pasan un rato nocturno en una cabaña, tonteando un poco hasta que la travesura se convierte en una situación más cariñosa. Lo que comenzó como una broma adquiere otro cariz cuando presencian algo espantoso: en el exterior, un auto se detiene en las sombras y cuatro maleantes sacan del baúl a alguien que estaba cautivo con la misión de matarlo, pero terminan siendo asesinados por la presunta víctima, que se libera mediante la colaboración de uno de ellos, infiltrado de la policía.

La escena sacude la modorra de ese pueblito noruego en el que el dúo se plantea que descubrir la verdad puede ponerlos en peligro por el fugitivo, que conoce sus rostros, o por el reconocimiento de una aparente relación amorosa entre ambos. Para colmo de males, la situación se complica cuando otra adolescente, hija de un mafioso, es asesinada y la detective Helen Sikkeland (Anneke von der Lippe), que investiga el crimen, cree que hay conexión con el cuádruple homicidio, del cual nada menos que Philip, su hijo de acogida, ha sido testigo. Todo en medio de una guerra de bandas que no tiene ningún prurito en asesinar inocentes a la hora de las venganzas.

Emitida al principio por la cadena noruega RNK, la serie tuvo tres remakes: la estadounidense “Eyewitness” (2016, por USA Network); la rumana “Valea Mută” (2016, HBO Europe) y la franco-belga “Les Innocents” (2018, TF1 y RTBF, provenientes de Francia y Bélgica respectivamente). 

[ghostcat3000]

SKAM season 3 talkback series: Season Three overview, part two

The SKAM season 3 rewatch talkback series was done in conjunction with a first-time watch for a small group of newbies in 2019. I talked to a cross-section of fans about each episode so our newbies could get a varied taste of what the SKAM fandom was about. I didn’t get to post the final two interviews, here they are at last.

SKAM Season 3: Isak - Structure and Symbolism

Talk back with SKAM recapper @lightsandlostbells

SKAM season three overview (part two) conducted on 25, October 2020

Ghostcat: Hello, hello! Long time no see, here in talkback land. Today we have @lightsandlostbells, who provides my favorite SKAM commentary posts over on tumblr! Go and read if you haven't already. How are you? And welcome to this very lowkey chat corner!

lightsandlostbells: Awwww, thanks for the kind intro. Hello! I'm doing well, how is everyone else? I'm new to Discord so I hope I get this right.

Ghostcat: You only have to type and hit enter. I will attempt to keep things profesh but I can't promise that I'll be successful.

lightsandlostbells: Nice. I'm sitting here drinking tea, underneath my coziest blanket, ready to talk about one of my favorite things ever. It's so cool that years later, people still love Skam season 3 enough to chat about it together.

Ghostcat: Yes! Let's get into this thing, we're here to talk about the tidy little miracle of structure that is SKAM season three. On the one hand, it's a deceptively simple season. Boy comes to terms with sexuality. All's well that ends well. Romance, Drama, plus a sprinkling of mental health issues. 10 episodes, most of them under 30 minutes. I'd call it "mean and lean" if it wasn't such a hopeful story, full of love in a non-saccharine way. Once you start taking it apart and really studying it though, you realize that it's super well-planned, almost like it was ON PURPOSE. lightsandlostbells, you write some of the best recaps of the show. I hesitate to call them just recaps because you really dig into what they're about. What made you start doing them?

lightsandlostbells: 😊 Thank you so much! I started with the remake reactions, actually. When Skam France was released, there was a ton of hype due to being the first remake of Skam. Lots of varying emotions ranging from negative to positive - people who didn't want any remakes, people who were intrigued, and people who were so desperate for any Skam content that they'd take a remake. After the initial clips of Skam France were released, I made a few off-the-cuff posts about what I saw as differences between OG and the remake. Eventually, that grew into me recapping full episodes of the remakes.

Ghostcat: Ah ha.

lightsandlostbells: And eventually that bloomed into me going, well, I love Skam season 3 so much, and it's so wonderfully structured and is packed full of symbolism, why don't I write recaps of those episodes, too? I had all these Feelings about it that weren't going away anytime soon.

Ghostcat: Relatable.

lightsandlostbells: It's such a rich season of TV in detail that there was no shortage of things to write about.

Ghostcat: Before we get into what you discovered in rewatching and recapping, can you tell us a bit about how and when you started watching the show?

lightsandlostbells: By total random chance, haha.

Ghostcat: Were you googling "scam" and misspelled? (because that happened to one of our interviewees).

lightsandlostbells: I love it! No, I have YouTube to blame. In October 2016 this show Eyewitness premiered on USA Network. The show was about two teenage boys in a secret relationship who witness a murder while they're hooking up in the woods. I was like, hey, sounds like it could be good. (Funny thing, it's actually a remake of a Norwegian show...)

Ghostcat: Oh yeah...I think I saw gifs of that.

lightsandlostbells: USA Network put the first 10-15 minutes of the pilot episode on YouTube, so I watched that and then a few videos about the show. Shortly after that, my YT recommendations were full of supercuts of gay storylines...including one called Skam.

Ghostcat: YouTube recs strikes again. So you clicked on...a supercut?

lightsandlostbells: I ignored them for a few days and then, late at night, putting off going to bed, I clicked on a Skam video randomly, thinking I would watch a minute or two and then get bored and exit. Ha.

Ghostcat: LOL.

lightsandlostbells: It was actually the neon party clip!

Ghostcat: Oh geez. My favorite thing about that clip is how nobody at that party sees those two boys and their laser beam eyes. They're just bopping along completely oblivious to this high end romance.

lightsandlostbells: After everyone's finished dancing, Even is just standing there dead-on staring at Isak like he wants to kiss him or slowly murder him and everyone's just puttering around trying to find their phones or w/e.

Ghostcat: True, and then Isak shoots that over the shoulder look in the kitchen and Even is like: 👀

lightsandlostbells: The IsakxEven account on Twitter was still uploading the full clips to YouTube at the time. So I watched that clip, was immediately hooked, and then went back and watched the rest of S3 to that point. By reading the comments, I was able to figure out how the show worked, its real time structure, social media, etc. And then the first clip I saw in real time was the pool scene.

Ghostcat: WOW. What a great clip to see in real time. When we watched it with our newbies, they were all yelling. So genuinely happy for this fictional boy.

lightsandlostbells: THAT WHOLE DAY. I was refreshing the Skam webpage for updates. Because I knewwwwww they were going to finally kiss, for real.

Ghostcat: THIS WAS IT. IT WAS HAPPENING. It made sense that they'd kiss. It was the thing that needed to happen but going into their hell-double date, I was genuinely wondering...how. Good ole Even and his lack of chill.

lightsandlostbells: It definitely did. I remember sitting there watching as they got to the Head over Heels bike ride and my heart was just FLUTTERING. I was vicariously swooning through this epic teen romance.

Ghostcat: It is such a swoon-inspiring moment. The music cue is perfect.

lightsandlostbells: I was also watching in unsubtitled Norwegian.

Ghostcat: Ha ha ha! Really??? So you were filling in the blanks HARD.

lightsandlostbells: Yep! That was my whole S3 (and S4) experience. But it was great in a way because I was able to focus entirely on the acting, reading Tarjei and Henrik's microexpressions. I've mentioned before that I was able to tell Even was having a manic episode from the episode 8 kitchen scene by the acting alone, before I had subtitles.

Ghostcat: Really? We're gonna come back to that. Luckily for us, and I really do think this is an enormous part of SKAM's international appeal, both Henrik and Tarjei are wonderful when it comes to non-verbal acting.

lightsandlostbells: They're amazing. I remember when I wrote the recap for that clip, I had to watch several different times because SO MUCH is happening in that scene - with Isak, with Even, with Isak-and-Even, and also with Sonja and Emma.

Ghostcat: What did you think happened on your first watch without subs?

lightsandlostbells: In the pool/bike/double date from hell scene, I thought maybe Sonja just broke up with Even right then and there.

Ghostcat: Well, it does look that way. That entire scene is a gem of silent movie acting too. Isak on the couch and the five billion ways he has of looking around, looking away, looking directly at. All while winsomely sitting there in the costume Emma put together for him.

lightsandlostbells: I just thought Sonja got sick of dealing with Even and called it off right there, lol. The Norwegian kinda sounds like "We're done" in English which is what put the idea in my head.

Ghostcat: Ha! What did you think when you found out it wasn't quite that simple? Were you like I THOUGHT HE DUMPED HER?

lightsandlostbells: Yes, I had a bit of a grumble.

Ghostcat: Sonja and Emma are having this whole socially appropriate interaction while Even growls softly into his beer (I have such a thing for Even's seething in this scene, it's so overt and we've never seen him do that before.)

lightsandlostbells: Sonja's dialogue there is actually pretty revealing for her character, although you don't really understand until later.

Ghostcat: In what way? *chin hands*

lightsandlostbells: Even is not concealing his real feelings at all, and he's trying to get a silent conversation with Isak happening, and Isak's a bit too skittish to reciprocate.

Ghostcat: Isak is almost afraid to look at him directly but he keeps sneaking looks like he's taking sips of Even and then immediately glancing away. In gifsets, you can always spot the moment his gaze lands on Even and away.

etal: (all while in fancy dress too)

lightsandlostbells: So admittedly a lot of this is headcanon/conjecture, but Sonja is talking to Emma about how she's bored and misses having things to do during the day. It makes me think that just as Even relies on Sonja and sees her as a source of stability, in some ways Even is that for Sonja, too.

Ghostcat: Clearly, Sonia misses structure too. Also on the headcanon tip, but it makes me think about how Sonja's university trajectory was also diverted probably by Even's suicide attempt.

lightsandlostbells: Yes! Taking care of Even brings a sense of purpose to her life. We know from a previous clip she's working a crappy retail job that probably isn't very satisfying.

Ghostcat: That idea kind of piles on to Even's complicated feelings about dumping her.

lightsandlostbells: That's a good point! I've wondered about Sonja and university because it sounds like she isn't in school from her conversation with Emma.

Ghostcat: She's not and she definitely comes across as a driven, organized person which is why it surprised me that she wasn't.

etal: (She is, in a way unbalanced, even though she has both her legs.)

Ghostcat: Ha! Yes. It's a complex, thorny situation between the two of them. So much more than just a simple obstacle.

lightsandlostbells: One thing I appreciate about season 3 is that it really shows you why Even and Sonja need to break up without demonizing either of them.

Ghostcat: It's brilliant! It's very hard to do. Andem did a little bit of that with Jonas and Eva, but here, I think it's very high stakes. Was their troubled relationship something that you kind of understood on a surface level on first watch but deepened upon rewatch? It was for me, on first watch, I definitely knew they were wrong for one another, but upon rewatch it felt so much sadder. She's not the obstacle people think she is.

lightsandlostbells: It really is. Season 3 in general develops such high stakes beyond just "will this cute boy get with the other cute boy" and while it'd still be wonderful as a sweet romance, it ends up feeling downright profound by the end. Definitely deepened upon rewatch.

Ghostcat: Andem doesn't skimp on emotional truth with these characters. People don't do things arbitrarily. They all have their reasons for doing what they do. And it's not entirely in the service of a plotline the way it often seems in scripted drama.

lightsandlostbells: She's definitely not a shallow obstacle to be disposed of. Sonja represents Even's larger struggle, as well as being her own person, of course. If I can get into S4 here - I think this is why the conflict works so well with Even and Sonja versus a somewhat similar love triangle-type conflict with the Sana/Yousef/Noora situation. Which doesn't work for me nearly as well.

Ghostcat: Yeah, that didn't work so well. Andem needed Yousef to "give up" on Sana and hook up with someone else BUT it didn't match the character or how his feelings for Sana had been portrayed. The plot demanded it, but the characters didn't agree.

lightsandlostbells: Because once Even breaks up with Sonja, there's still the larger issue of mental illness that he and Isak need to face together. The problem really isn't Sonja's presence, after all. But with Sana/Yousef/Noora, the "conflict" really hinges on miscommunication and a simple 5-second conversation would have saved weeks of drama. It's over as soon as Noora tells Sana the truth. It's not a complex conflict.

Ghostcat: No. Not at all.

lightsandlostbells: Yeah, it was a case of the plot demanding the characters act a certain way instead of feeling organic. Also demanding that no one talk to each other for weeks...

Ghostcat: On rewatch, what was the first big thing you noticed about the structure that made you go, WOW, they did that. Mine was Even's flippant little "Did you think I died?"

lightsandlostbells: Yes, that was huge. I think the pool scene and the subsequent cuddle scene are packed with little moments like that.

Ghostcat: It's handled very deftly. His comment is so throwaway, it could be an improv BUT IT ISN'T and that's bolstered by Even's comments during the I'm Not in Love scene.

lightsandlostbells: Also earlier in the scene, when Sonja reveals that she's graduated. They leave it to you and Isak to connect the dots…hmmm, they're the same age but Even hasn't graduated yet? Wonder why. And then they just move on before you can think about it too much

Ghostcat: And Isak was going to ask Even why he transferred as a senior in Lykke til Isak. But they're interrupted by Emma.

lightsandlostbells: Yep, that too.

Ghostcat: The thing is Isak has been set up from season one as an observant guy.

lightsandlostbells: Emma literally plants herself between them...

Ghostcat: So he's trying to piece things together because he genuinely wants to know Even but Even is very good at diverting his pesky feelings. It made me wonder how Andem decided to spread out those clues and when and why?

lightsandlostbells: That happens all throughout the season. Another big hint you only notice on rewatch: Sonja's aluminum leg.

Ghostcat: Yes and the realization, when you look at the social media, of how often Even tries to communicate indirectly with songs and quotes and references.

lightsandlostbells: That was probably one of the biggest. Because it works so well in character, as Even being this weird quirky guy, spinning this wild story for a laugh, and only later do you realize he was genuinely trying to communicate with Isak. IT'S SO GOOD.

Ghostcat: So good.

lightsandlostbells: That's such a sharp character detail! (The songs and quotes and references).

Ghostcat: Particularly when you loop it with "I saw you on the first day of school" because it recasts nearly everything he says to Isak, not just because we know he had feelings but because now we know he had time to think about what he would say to him and of course, how he would present himself, at his best (cough that deliberate courtyard walk).

lightsandlostbells: Oh yes, "I saw you the first day of school" is absolutely a killer moment. Totally makes you want to rewatch the whole season.

Ghostcat: AND IT WORKS. it's no retcon!! that's what makes it so good.

lightsandlostbells: Even really does treat his life like a movie! Specifically a romantic comedy where he is the star. The paper towels are his version of a Meet Cute

Ghostcat: His love even gets the beauty close-ups in the stoney hang. The other thing that became apparent to me was how on rewatching, Even's influence felt bigger.

lightsandlostbells: It's alllll over the season.

Ghostcat: Yes! I muddled it all up in my head. I hadn't realized that Isak hadn't seen R+J yet.

lightsandlostbells: I mean, from the moment he mentions Baz Luhrmann, and we bring R+J into the picture, that shapes so much of the season.

Ghostcat: But there's Even, doing his best DiCaps Romeo look to camera/Isak. His idea, his framing, his choice of song.

lightsandlostbells: And I was lucky enough to watch from episode 5 onward in real time, and despite all the cuteness and romance, there was this level of dread hanging over everything all the time, because I was expecting the R+J focus to pay off later.

Ghostcat: It's meant to be there. You're meant to feel it

lightsandlostbells: And it does! Just not in the way everyone was fearing

Ghostcat: Using Luhrmann's R+J as the central motif works spectacularly and it's not the first time it comes up!

lightsandlostbells: Yeah, I mentioned in a recap that Isak hadn't watched R+J by the time Even does his alluring courtyard walk to Talk Show Host, so it almost comes across as Even's POV when you make the connection to the film.

Ghostcat: Andem tried to use it in season two with Noora and William in front of a fish tank but it doesn't resonate.

lightsandlostbells: Oh yeah...them.

Ghostcat: Here she brings it back and it makes sense.

lightsandlostbells: Not to get into Noorhelm but parts of S3 feel like course correction with regards to the development of the love interest and relationship.

Ghostcat: I agree. The biggest correction being a couple that actually likes each other.

lightsandlostbells: Yep!

Ghostcat: That's one way to kick things off in the right direction.

lightsandlostbells: And Even has so many interests and hobbies compared to William.

Ghostcat: Even is so different from Isak and yet he DELIGHTS in those differences. Neither of them is trying to change the other. Their differences complement one another.

lightsandlostbells: It honestly is amazing how Evak just works so well as a ship, in all directions. Like, I've tried to break that pairing down into words, and I just fail, every time, because it's got so much going for it.

Ghostcat: Back to R+J as a framing device: Even is a film student > Luhrmann is his favorite > he mentions his love of tragic romance > he sets up that pool kiss > he talks about death and loss > he's fearful of change and yet seemingly absolutely certain of his feelings for Isak. For whatever reason, we know he thinks there's an element of the forbidden with his relationship with Isak and we're led to believe (mistakenly) that it's because he has a girlfriend, but really the forbidden is Even himself, who doesn't think he should have this.

@etal-late: I mean 👆

Ghostcat: By likening them to R+J, he believes their love is fated but impossible but he lets himself have it for a little while. All the clues stack up.

etal: 'The forbidden is Even' ouch yes.

Ghostcat: He's feeding them to us and Isak so that when Isak goes to the church and Nils Bech is up there singing and the neon cross is shining and the montage starts and ISAK FIGURES IT OUT. That run, paired with those strings, and that backward montage―

lightsandlostbells: Oh I'm so glad you brought up O Helga Natt, because that's where I was about to go with this, lol.

Ghostcat: ―hits like a ton of bricks. Suddenly all these little moments, them talking in bed, the kiss in the elevator are reframed in a new context. Their love becomes EPIC.

lightsandlostbells: YessssSSSSSSS (the part of this chat where I get incoherent has COMMENCED)

Ghostcat: And, as we find out at the end of the ep, it's NOT because someone dies. It's because of how real it is.

lightsandlostbells: So going back to what we were saying about Even communicating through notes/art/music: I think that's why Even's text in O Helga Natt is so effective. Because throughout the season, he's been dropping hints to his emotional state through his sketches and song lyrics, and we're like Isak, we're trying to piece it all together. With that text, Even finally lays out his true feelings in this vulnerable, direct manner. Then as soon as Isak connects the dots, all those clues in the season pay off. It was absolutely glorious to watch this in real time because I was dreading this would be a story about death. Instead, it became a story about rebirth.

Ghostcat: YES. Which ties into the story of Isak/Isaac in the Bible.

etal: Woah

Ghostcat: Lest we forget that Mamma has been doubling up on the indirect hints as well. Her texts are also clues.

lightsandlostbells: O Helga Natt is utter brilliance. I know everybody recognizes it's a masterpiece, but there are just so many things happening in it. It was difficult to write about for recaps because I didn't want to miss anything. I still feel like I did.

Ghostcat: Because things continually reveal themselves about it.

lightsandlostbells: Yeah, Mamma even mentions baptism like immediately before the clip, lmao.

Ghostcat: Yeah! It’s oh so spectacularly specific but never labored.

@modestytreehouse: My god she does.

Ghostcat: It feels like a gift.

lightsandlostbells: The pool scene and O Helga Natt are mirrors of each other and I think that's such a testament to Julie Andem's mastery of structure. (Also the cuddle scene and Minutt for minutt are mirrors. Lots of scenes in S3 are mirrors to each other.)

Ghostcat: The symmetry of this season is spectacular. Even with the most throwaway nonsense.

lightsandlostbells: I'm a huge sucker for symmetry and it's all over the place in S3.

Ghostcat: Like Magnus and that cat tongue girl.

lightsandlostbells: Yep!

Ghostcat: Ending the season by making out with a meowing Vilde.

lightsandlostbells: The dance chicks: starts with Isak being alienated from his friends as they drool over hot chicks. They come back so Isak can confidently reject them, in a scene where he also talks about which of his male friends he'd bang.

Ghostcat: I remember watching it and saying out loud OH MY GOD, EVEN CAT HOOKER PAID OFF.

treehouse: (21.21)

Ghostcat: Sana and the 10%. Isak being unable to say a guy is hot

lightsandlostbells: That's such a nice little Christmas bow, lol.

Ghostcat: --to telling his boyfriend exactly that. Avoiding his parents/reuniting with his parents and about to meet Even’s. A party where he’s off in another room pretending. A party where he’s in another room being as real as can be. Lying to truth-telling.

lightsandlostbells: Isak putting on a fake persona to flirt with Emma at her locker about "the asshole" to Isak being himself with her and bringing back "the asshole" comment in episode 10.

Ghostcat: Yes! Everything is suitably rounded upon. It is airtight.

lightsandlostbells: Except the girls who were hungover on a Wednesday.

Ghostcat: They're still hungover, it's four years later. Still fucked up (we are those girls). [Mod note: it’s five years later, we are still those Hungover Wednesday girls]

lightsandlostbells: They might want to pop a vitamin IDK. Lol yes, Julie Andem had a plan for them all along! They were symbolic representations of the audience.

Ghostcat: Ha ha ha.

lightsandlostbells: When I think about S3 I physically manifest into that Ben Affleck smoking gif.

Ghostcat: All this talk of perfection leads me to the final question in this section of our conversation…you know what's coming.

lightsandlostbells: Oh, and the representations of time in S3 also have payoff!

Ghostcat: We didn't get there!

lightsandlostbells: From big talk of "forever" and "infinite time" to "minutt by minutt" and "now" (Sorry)

Ghostcat: Oops. Ha ha ha. But yes! Also important, along with the numbers nudging us along, all that very deliberate time, BUT this is big talk so let me dumb things down with the following question―what is your interpretation of the following emoji hieroglyphics: ❤️ 🐬 🌞 🍆 💯

lightsandlostbells: "Isak, I love you so much and also you make me horny as Flipper. The sun shines out of your dick. Full marks."

Ghostcat: Excellent.

lightsandlostbells: Aren't dolphins notoriously horny in real life? I'm not a marine biologist.

Ghostcat: I am and it’s true, they are famously horny and pansexual as well!

lightsandlostbells: JULIE ANDEM DOING IT AGAIN.

Ghostcat: I'm not actually a marine biologist, but I couldn't resist…the symmetry. :sunglasses emoji:

___

Thank you so much for reading these interviews! I will post a master post of links to all of these if you feel like nerding out at your leisure.

Thank you again to all of our interview participants! You were very kind to say yes.

Last but not least, thank you to our first watch crew for agreeing to go on this little ride back in 2019. We hope you enjoyed watching SKAM with us. 💗

[sellingsecrets]

Fanfiction Survey: Most popular story

My fic with the most kudos on AO3 is At Night, Alone for the Philkas ship from “Eyewitness,” the USA Network’s English-language remake of Norway’s “Øyevitne.” Lukas and Philip’s trajectory was so sweetly written on the show, and the actors who played them (who are both straight men, afaik) weren’t afraid to develop the bond and closeness needed to make the storyline feel authentic. I’ll just love them forever. 

My fic with the most bookmarks on AO3 is Close our eyes, pretend to fly for the Morcia ship from “Criminal Minds.” There were a solid couple of years when “Criminal Minds” was my emotional support show, so to rewrite some of the key plot points through the lens of a coffee shop semi-AU felt almost like an honor. Kirsten Vangsness is also one of the kindest celebrities I’ve ever met. It always tickles me when ~public figures~ introduce themselves like I don't know who they are; that's happened to me with her and Kevin Jonas 🤣

[trans-advice]

Excerpt from “Transgender History” (2017) by Susan Stryker (“Chapter 3: Trans Liberation”)

[...]

Stonewall:

Meanwhile, across the continent [from San Francisco, California, USA], another important center of transgender activism was taking shape in New York City [New York, USA], where, not coincidentally, Harry Benjamin maintained his primary medical practice. In 1968, Mario Martino, a female-to-male transsexual, founded Labyrinth, the first organization in the United States devoted specifically to the needs of transgender men. Martino and his wife, who both worked in the health care field, helped other transsexual men navigate their way through the often-confusing maze of transgender-oriented medical services just then beginning to emerge, which (despite being funded primarily by Reed Erickson) were geared more toward the needs of transgenderwomen than transgender men. Labyrinth was not a political organization but rather one that aimed to help individuals make the often-difficult transition from one social gender to another.

Far overshadowing the quiet work of Martino’s Labyrinth Foundation, however, were the dramatic events of June 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York’s Greenwich Village. The “Stonewall Riots” have been mythologized as the origin of the gay liberation movement, and there is a great deal of truth in that characterization, but—as we have seen—gay, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people had been engaging in militant protest and collective actions against social oppression for at least a decade by that time. Stonewall stands out as the biggest and most consequential example of a kind of event that was becoming increasingly common, rather than as a unique occurrence. By 1969, as a result of many years of social upheaval and political agitation, large numbers of people who were socially marginalized because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, especially younger people who were part of the Baby Boomer generation, were drawn to the idea of “gay revolution” and were primed for any event that would set such a movement off. The Stonewall Riots provided that very spark, and they inspired the formation of Gay Liberation Front groups in big cities, progressive towns, and college campuses all across the United States. Ever since the summer of 1969, various groups of people who identify with the people who participated in the rioting have argued about what actually happened, what the riot’s underlying causes were, who participated in it, and what the movements that point back to Stonewall as an important part of their own history have in common with one another.

Although Greenwich Village was not as economically down-and-out as San Francisco’s Tenderloin, it was nevertheless a part of the city that appealed to the same sorts of people who resisted at Cooper Do-Nut, Dewey’s, and Compton’s Cafeteria: drag queens, hustlers, gender nonconformists of many varieties, gay men, lesbians, and countercultural types who simply “dug the scene.” The Stonewall Inn was a small, shabby, Mafia-run bar (as were many of the gay-oriented bars in New York back in the days when being gay or cross-dressing were crimes). It drew a racially mixed crowd and was popular mainly for its location on Christopher Street near Sheridan Square, where many gay men “cruised” for casual sex, and because it featured go-go boys, cheap beer, a good jukebox, and a crowded dance floor. Then as now, there was a lively street scene in the bar’s vicinity, one that drew young and racially mixed queer folk from through the region most weekend nights. Police raids were relatively frequent (usually when the bar was slow to make its payoffs to corrupt cops) and relatively routine and uneventful. Once the bribes were sorted out, the bar would reopen, often on the same night. But in the muggy, early morning hours of Saturday, June 28, 1969, events departed from the familiar script when the squad cars pulled up outside the Stonewall Inn.

[Source text Inserts “Sidebar: Radical Transsexual” here]

A large crowd of people gathered on the street as police began arresting workers and patrons and escorting them out of the bar and into the waiting police wagons. Some people in the crowd started throwing coins at the police officers, taunting them for taking “payola.” Eyewitness accounts of what happened next differ in their particulars, but some witnesses claim a transmasculine person resisted police attempts to put them in the police wagon, while others noted that African American and Puerto Rican members of the crowd—many of them street queens, feminine gay men, transgender women, or gender-nonconforming youth—grew increasingly angry as they watched their “sisters” being arrested and escalated the level of opposition to the police. Both stories might well be true. Sylvia Rivera, a transgender woman who came to play an important role in subsequent transgender political history, long maintained that, after she was jabbed by a police baton, she threw the beer bottle that tipped the crowd’s mood from mockery to collective resistance. In any case, the targeting of gender-nonconforming people, people of color, and poor people during a police action fits the usual patterns of police behavior in such situations.

Bottles, rocks, and other heavy objects were soon being hurled at the police, who, in retaliation, began grabbing people from the crowd and beating them.Weekend partiers and residents in the heavily gay neighborhood quickly swelledthe ranks of the crowd to more than two thousand people, and the outnumberedpolice barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall Inn and called for reinforcements. Outside, rioters used an uprooted parking meter as a batteringram to try to break down the bar’s door, while other members of the crowdattempted to throw a Molotov cocktail inside to drive the police back into the streets. Tactical Patrol Force officers arrived on the scene in an attempt to contain the growing disturbance, which nevertheless continued for hours until dissipating before dawn. That night, thousands of people regrouped at the Stonewall Inn to protest. When the police arrived to break up the assembled crowd, street fighting even more violent than that of the night before ensued. One particularly memorable sight amid the melee was a line of drag queens, arms linked, dancing a can-can and singing campy, improvised songs that mocked the police and their inability to regain control of the situation: “We are the Stonewall girls / We wear our hair in curls / We always dress with flair / We wear clean underwear / We wear our dungarees / Above our nellie knees.” Minor skirmishes and protest rallies continued throughout the next few days before finally dying down. By that time, however, untold thousands of people had been galvanized into political action.

Sidebar: Radical Transsexual

Suzy Cooke was a young hippie from upstate New York who lived in a commune in Berkeley, California, when she started transitioning from male to female in 1969. She came out as a bisexual transsexual in the context of the radical counterculture.

I was facing being called back up for the draft. I had already been called up once and had just gone in and played crazy with them the year before. But that was just an excuse. I had also been doing a lot of acid and really working things out. And then December 31, 1968, I took something—I don’t really know what it was—but everything just collapsed. I said, “This simply cannot go on.” To the people that I lived with, I said, “I don’t care if you hate me, but I’m just going to have to do something. I’m going to have to work it out over the next couple of months, and that it doesn’t matter if you reject me, I just have to do it.”

As it was, the people in my commune took it very well. I introduced the cross-dressing a few days later as a way of avoiding the draft. And they were just taken aback at how much just putting on the clothes made me into a girl. I mean, hardly any makeup. A little blush, a little shadow, some gloss, the right clothes, padding. I passed. I passed really easily in public. This is like a few months before Stonewall. And by this point I was dressing up often enough that people were used to seeing it.

I was wallowing in the happiness of having a lot of friends. Here I was being accepted, this kinda cool/sorta goofy hippie kid. I was being accepted by all these heavy radicals. I had been rejected by my parental family, and I had never found a family at college, and now here I was with this family of like eight people all surrounding me. And as it turned out, even some of the girls that I had slept with were thinking that this was really cool. All the girls would donate clothes to me. I really had not been expecting this. I had been expecting rejection, I really had been. And I was really very pleased and surprised. Because I thought that if I did this then I was going to have to go off and live with the queens. And I didn’t.

Stonewall’s Transgender Legacy:

Within a month of the Stonewall Riots, gay activists inspired by the events in Greenwich Village formed the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), which modeled itself on radical Third World liberation and anti-imperialist movements. The GLF spread quickly through activist networks in the student and antiwar movements, primarily among white young people of middle-class origin. Almost as quickly as it formed, however, divisions appeared within the GLF, primarily taking aim at the movement’s domination by white men and its perceived marginalization of women, working-class people, people of color, and trans people. People with more liberal, less radical politics soon organized as the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), which aimed to reform laws rather than foment revolution. Many lesbians redirected their energy toward radical feminism and the women’s movement. And trans people, after early involvement in the GLF (and being explicitly excluded from the GAA’s agenda), quickly came to feel that they did not have a welcome place in the movement they had done much to inspire. As a consequence, they soon formed their own organizations.

In 1970, Sylvia Rivera and another Stonewall regular, Marsha P. Johnson, established STAR—Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Their primary goal was to help street kids stay out of jail, or get out of jail, and to find food, clothing, and a place to live. They opened STAR House, an overtly politicized version of the “house” culture that already characterized black and Latino queer kinship networks, where dozens of trans youth could count on a free and safe place to sleep. Rivera and Johnson, as “house mothers,” would hustle to pay the rent, while their “children” would scrounge for food. Their goal was to educate and protect the younger people who were coming into the kind of life they themselves led—they even dreamed of establishing a school for kids who’d never learned to read and write because their formal education was interrupted by discrimination and bullying. Some STAR members, particularly Rivera, were also active in the Young Lords, a revolutionary Puerto Rican youth organization. One of the first times the STAR banner was flown in public was at a mass demonstration against police repression organized by the Young Lords in East Harlem in 1970, in which STAR participated as a group. STAR House lasted for only two or three years and inspired a few short-lived imitators in other cities, but its legacy lives on even now.

A few other transgender groups formed in New York in the early 1970s. A trans woman named Judy Bowen organized two extremely short-lived groups: Transvestites and Transsexuals (TAT) in 1970 and Transsexuals Anonymous in 1971. More significant was the Queens’ Liberation Front (QLF), founded by drag queen Lee Brewster and heterosexual transvestite Bunny Eisenhower. The QLF formed in part to resist the erasure of drag and trans visibility in the first Christopher Street Liberation Day march, which commemorated the Stonewall Riots and is now an annual event held in New York on the last Sunday in June. In many other cities, this weekend has become the traditional date to celebrate LGBTQ Pride. The formation of the QLF demonstrates how quickly the gay liberation movement started to push aside some of the very people who had the greatest stake in militant resistance at Stonewall. QLF members participated in that first Christopher Street Liberation Day march and were involved in several other political campaigns through the next few years—including wearing drag while lobbying state legislators in Albany. QLF’s most lasting contribution, however, was the publication of Drag Queen magazine (later simply Drag), which had the best coverage of transgender news and politics in the United States, and which offered fascinating glimpses of trans life and activism outside the major coastal cities. In New York, QLF founder Lee Brewster’s private business, Lee’s Mardi Gras Boutique, was a gathering place for segments of the city’s transgender community well into the 1990s.

[kissablelips-desireslure-vol2]

EYEWITNESS S1 E7 (2016, USA NETWORK)

Created By: Adi Hasak

Based on: Eyewitness by Jarl Emsell Larsen

JAMES PAXTON (as Lukas)

&

TYLER YOUNG (as Philip)

[rodpower78]

No matter how hard things got, even when we were kids, Sita always had this part of her that would stay positive. That she was convinced that things would work out.

Agent Kamilah Davis

[lite-welsh-history]

update: i miss philkas.  and gabe.  and helen.  and tony.  and everyone.  can i just have a lame tv movie that gives me a bit more closure?  that would be great @usanetwork

[winterevanesce]

» “I always feel like somebody's watching me.”

「 Vividcon 2017 Premiere Vid // Overview of S1 Eyewitness 」

☞ Download/Notes Links: AO3 | Dreamwidth