#his article does him better justice than that interview ever could

[honeybunhalo]

Kara/Lena adopt Superboy AU Notes (Part 1)

I’m finally delivering on the content for this Supercorp AU

This is a Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor and Superboy (Kon-El) centric story. Specifically focused on exploration of one's identity and how you define yourself with the many aspects of your life and choices you made as well as what you consider important and precious to you. The effects of being constrained by how you were born and finding those who love you for who you are and don't ask you to change the core of your being to fit in. — this is not an action packed story at all.

Here are some of the ideas I have for this or things I thought Kon had in common with Lena and Kara that I find compelling.

Lena concepts:

Lena gets to know another Luthor, her biological nephew, who isn’t a trash person and is someone to not just for her to protect but who’s existence assures her that it isn’t blood that makes someone bad and maybe she isn’t so different from other people and she’s not “irredeemable”. Sometimes he reminds her of her older brother when he was kind to her growing up. Likewise, everyone usually sees the Lex in Kon as an inherently bad thing and thus he learns to hide it and hate himself for it. Lena presents an alternate because she remembers bittersweetly a simpler time when she looked up to her brother. Not everyone sees the Luthor genes in him as a threat, Lena finds it comforting to be able to help someone like her in a way she was never helped as a young girl. 

Lena thinks she can’t interact with kids well, much less the kid Lex had grown in a lab, but she totally warms up to him and can talk to him about familial rejection (via Clark) and if it’s because he’s a Luthor and if that makes him wrong. Is it because he’s artificial? Is it because he’s some strange illegitimate lab child? Smothering this kid with love and protection.

Plus Kon is like Kara in more than just being kryptonian but also in dorkiness. Lena’s life is just trying to wrangle an overpowered golden retriever and her lab puppy. She can’t stay mad at them for long.

Lena finding she is capable of loving and being loved and being with Kara makes it harder to ignore the crush she has on Kara. They talk together about love and acceptance now they have a shared kid they don’t want to hide personal things from that could later hurt him and many things become open secrets in their now shared house. Soon enough, it becomes obvious she needs to be truthful with Kara about her own feelings for her. 

Lena could learn about the difficulties of hiding being an alien that Kara had to deal with and the onslaught and exhaustion of developing powers in young kryptonians. She gets to see first hand what it does to a child and wonders how that must have affected Kara’s emotional development and sense of self. 

Lillian and Lex won’t get anywhere near this kid if Lena has something to say about it. Lena knows what it’s like to be the odd one out in a family and for people to reject you for simply existing from other people's sins

Kara concepts:

Kara recounts how she felt like a failure waking up on earth to find out Kal had grown up without her. Now she can maybe make peace with that by taking in Kon even if everything that motivates her choices with him is primarily for kons sake. 

Kara can share with another person krypton's history and culture which is something she’s had to keep seperate from her primary identity for years now *cough* it’s almost like she’s an immigrant who has to hide her identity and culture to be accepted and you could use that in the story *cough* 

Kon lived through being created as a lab rat and the only living experiment left. Kara could sympathize with his own grief from her experience with survivors’ guilt. 

Being open with Kon so that he doesn’t feel that same overwhelming pressure when she was told to hide with a human family also gives room for Lena to learn more about the world Kara came from beyond what she knows from interviews from Superman. Having Kara speak openly about her life on Krypton is much more personal and feels much more real than any article could do. 

Teaching Kon how best to control his powers and her and Lena being able to have the resources for him to do so safely 

Alex is very alarmed by the new addition to the family, mostly because how shitty Clark was in relation to the kid. From her perspective, this is not the first time the guy has dumped an unwanted kryptonian child on someone else’s doorstep. Whatever, she gets to buy leather jackets for her new nephew and be scary overprotective of him. “I don’t care if you think you’re nearly invulnerable at your age, do you have ANY IDEA what type of trouble your mother got us into when we were growing up? Or even when she just started hero work?”

Conner Kon-Cepts:

His sort-of-aunts can be his adoptive moms and be much better to him than his biological dads ever were to him in the comic canon. Kon actually being allowed to be close to other Superman family members!!! I need it like the air I breathe. Kon could get to know a Luthor that isn’t trying to hurt him or use him. Someone who defies part of why (Kon thinks) Superman could never accept a thing like him. 

(I have too many things to say to put in a brief bullet point just know that he’s my fav little boy and I think that he deserves parents who would love him unconditionally and Lena and Kara deserve to live a slower life where they can be cute and domestic)

(If he’s raised by these two then I can give a solid reason as to why we just ignore all the blatant misogynistic and horny writing from the 90s comics that made me really uncomfortable and didn’t completely fit with his given backstory especially with how over the top the specialization was. It helps make up for that)

Kon has to deal with being constantly compared to his two genetic fathers mirroring how Kara and Lena both are constantly being compared to Superman and Lex Luthor as they are the female counterparts of those two more infamous members in their respective families

Kara and Kon have very complementary stories and could become what the other needs to fill a hole in each of their hearts. Canon is way too personally tragic. I’d rather have a bittersweet world that’s also soft so I can spend more time with slow paced character analysis.

(In the beginning, Kon’s much more timid given he’s still so young and is coping with being rejected by superman. The tone at the beginning of the story is very serious. As the story unfolds, kon will loosen up to be goofier like his comic counterparts personality)

Both Clark and Lex don’t deserve this kid in any way. If all they are gonna do is mistreat or neglect him in their own ways, Kon is better off with his aunts. 

Conclusion:

Kara and Lena can be happy together by fully trusting themselves with each other in domestic bliss for once AND Kon doesn’t have to cry his eyes out knowing he’s an unwanted experiment child who is “undeserving” of family and home who never got to experience childhood

Everyone who's always saying “you can’t trust a Luthor” better shut their trap when Kara walks in with Kon-El Luthor, her newly adopted son, and her fiancé, Lena Luthor. These new moms will tear you apart if you try to instill that internal hatred of being a Luthor in their son’s young mind. 

Kara and Lena both defying what people say about them and instead raising a well adjusted boy from both their warring families. 

Kon is gonna be raised by a true power couple.

DC refuses to deliver on giving this boy a home or parents so I’m gonna do it instead. Just look at the family they could be together:

(FYI: This has nothing to do with the version of Superboy in the Young Justice cartoon TV show, so if you’re only familiar with that you may be a bit confused about this Superboy who that one was loosely based on. This whole punk fitted kid is indeed a real character and I stay pretty close to his original design from 1993.)

[keyofjetwolf]

We’re All Just Guys

Well it took the entire fucking season, but I FINALLY get the purpose for Henry Fondle: Sex Robot. And while the entire episode (and season, honestly) has been tremendous, that this ridiculous fucking punchline was the vehicle to deliver the overarching point with a solid knockout punch of meaning AND pathos? Absolutely floored. That BoJack Horseman can be (and often is) brilliant isn’t a surprise, but the ways is keeps proving it often are.

So “The Stopped Show”, a tale of accountability and responsibility and how we’re all just guys.

Each of our main characters closes out this season alone (sort of), in assorted stages of realizing the main themes, or completely failing to. I find Diane’s arc the hardest for me to make a decision on, which isn’t surprising, as I think in many ways, Diane’s the most complicated character in the show. She delivers, directly and succinctly, one of the major points of not just this season but the entire show, but how does it relate to her? I’M NOT COMPLETELY SURE. I think part of the problem with (and for) Diane is that she knows better. She’s the most insightful character, she has a fantastic head on her shoulders, but only for everyone else. She’s this fucked up little disaster prophet, her vision clear and her message concise, unable to ever apply her gifts to fix herself.

Diane is just as trapped as BoJack, but in a fun twist, is now lagging behind him in trying to do something about it. Nearly every single scene with Diane this season has been in this sad little room of her sad little apartment with all her sad little unpacked boxes, and no matter how much truth and wisdom she spits out, HERE SHE STILL IS, failing to correctly assemble IKEA furniture with names like Bȧcksleid. She already feels like shit for sleeping with Mr. Peanutbutter, so what does she do? THE SAME FUCKING THING. To which I groan and roll my eyes, while simultaneously being proud of her for directly and immediately setting him straight about not getting back together. Diane rides this constant line where she gets it but also doesn’t, which is so interesting to me in the level of additional frustration this makes me feel. BoJack is so self-absorbed you don’t really expect any better of him, which has the flip side of your expectations being so low that even the whiff of progress feels exceptional. Diane doesn’t come with any of that though, she knows better, you KNOW she knows better, and the consequence of this for the audience is that she winds up being more unlikeable than the guy who literally last episode nearly strangled his girlfriend and co-star in the middle of a paranoid drug-induced frenzy.

Which is fucked up! It’s intensely fucked up! And also, I think, the point! We expect more of Diane, and so feel more disappointed when she doesn’t deliver. Is that fair of us?

But there’s more here, as we pivot to the accountability portion of this episode/season. From the beginning of the show, it’s been incredibly upfront about how everything is unfair. We come back to this time and again. Privilege rules the day in the world of Hollywoo. Fame, money, charisma, gender, power. BoJack has been an asshole from pretty much the moment he set foot in the spotlight (possibly before?), and the only thing ever even attempting to hold him back has been the moments his guilt manages to scream loud enough to be heard over his internal narrative. Whatever he does, however he fucks up, he always stumbles back to his feet, and NEVER with any (broad scale) consequences. Meanwhile, here’s Diane, in her sad shitty apartment. Consequences haunt Diane, even if she’s the one doing the haunting. The crap things she’s done and the shitty choices she’s made cling to her.

There’s no fairness in that either, no justice. But Hollywoo (and the entire world around it) (and our world too oh yes) has that privilege carved into its bones, and Diane bears none of its marks. Her situation is very different from but parallel to Gina, who is just so fucked over, it keeps legitimately making me angry for her.

Gina, of course, brought none of this on herself. She made the mistake of caring about BoJack and trying to help him. OOPS YOU WERE A GENEROUS PERSON WITH AN OPEN HEART FUCK YOU LADY. For her trouble, Gina has been assaulted and traumatized, AND she is in very real danger of her career being over when it’s only just finally beginning. And she KNOWS THIS. That’s the part that I keep coming back to. All this should be an aberration, an anomaly, and while that may be true of the specifics, conceptually, it’s so commonplace that Gina already knows how it’s going to play. She’ll stop being Gina and become The Woman Nearly Strangled To Death By BoJack Horseman. Even if she’s able to keep working, this is what she’ll be asked about in every interview forever. Even if she convinced people to genuinely listen to her, BoJack would, at worst, get a slap on the wrist as he stumbles back to his feet. We know that, WE ALL KNOW THAT, because it happens all. the. fucking. time. Gina did nothing wrong, but this would still define her for the rest of her life, while for BoJack, it would maybe become a footnote on his Wikipedia page.

Nothing about that is FAIR. Nothing about it is JUST. Gina’s choices shouldn’t have to be “this becomes my entire life” or “swallow this down and pretend it never happened”. But it is, as it has been in perpetuity for the victims of the privileged.

So then what can we do about it? Well that’s really the question, isn’t it? This episode answers it in an assortment of ways (I think the entire SHOW is very much about this, really, but this episode is for sure coming with guns blazing), while also showing us why none of those answers can work. It’s funny and sad and awful and true, but also, ultimately, the most hopeful answer because it’s the only one you can actually affect: It’s you. It’s me. It’s each and every one of us, individually, making a choice to be better.

And believe it or not, we embody this with Henry Fondle: Sex Robot.

I thought the whole thing was so unbelievably stupid. Half the season, we’ve had this goddamn multi-dildo’d juvenile frat boy joke running around with its stupid ass Speak-and-Say voice, doing the same shtick over and over, and I’m like, “okay this is just the shit I have to put up with to get the clever stuff, I guess.” BUT THAT’S EXACTLY THE POINT I’M SITTING THERE LIVING THE ENTIRE GODDAMN POINT AND MISSING IT. Henry Fondle: Sex Robot is seventeen shades of overt horribleness, AND WE ALL JUST GIVE IT A PASS. It’s just the way it is, the way the world works, the price of doing business. When the whole time -- THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME -- all it took was one person to say no. One person who could see the game we all are playing and was willing to give up everything to stop it.

Hilariously, Henry Fondle IS a metaphor, sort of, but of the saddest kind. He is literally a robot, he can’t possibly change. What’s more, media fervor will never affect him, fallout will never touch him, and the powerful will always rally around themselves to retain their power. It takes Todd, the head of the company, the creator of Henry Fondle, and the one person who would benefit most from the unending efforts of the rest of the world bending over backwards to avoid the truth, to put a stop to it. In doing so, he immediately returns to his old, homeless, destitute self, but doesn’t once hesitate or look back.

It’s Todd, and only Todd, that stops that madness, because while individual people are a problem, the world at large is too. Stefani makes a great point that Diane holds herself and everyone else to impossible standards and a little forgiveness and grace wouldn’t go amiss, but when Diane suggests they apply that philosophy to their clickbait gossipy shit on their website, it’s just

Which again, is beautifully cynical and depressing, but not untrue. Fostering a more forgiving culture isn’t in stopping websites from posting clickbaity takedown articles, it’s each person deciding not to take the clickbait. We can absolutely have a conversation about the people creating their world or the world creating its people, but when you boil it down, only one of those things can you yourself absolutely and directly change, and it’s not the entire world.

A THING DIANE GETS BUT SIMULTANEOUSLY ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT.

I can’t take myself away from this Diane thing, I know, but only because she’s the fucking CORE of each and every one of us struggling with this idea. She’s the simplicity of it and the complication all in one. Not BoJack, which is NOT where I thought we’d be when we started this journey. BoJack is more an action on the people around him at this point in the story, he IS the world you cannot change. He’s pointed to rehab, and off he goes -- or doesn’t! I don’t think it’s coincidence that we stay with Diane and watch her watching him.

Oh, Diane, indeed. As she tells her story of her friend Abby, who threw her over for the cool kids, who turned every confidence into a scar. Who Diane still helped anyway, because Abby needed her. Did Abby learn from that, did she get better? We don’t know; we stay with Diane and watch her watching Abby. Diane, who can so completely understand about personal responsibility while failing to recognize her own enabling for the shitty things that keep happening to her.

You can control yourself. That’s it. That’s the only playground with a guarantee.

Will BoJack go off to learn that? Will Diane stay and figure it out?

THAT’S WHAT NEXT SEASON IS FOR

Something I was toying with including in this, but ultimately decided against for a variety of reasons, was the contrast between BoJack’s take on personal responsibility independent of external response, and The Good Place’s argument that people need external support for personal growth. An idea I may not have even considered contrasting save that Doc’s talked before about these two Jewish creators with what are clearly very different philosophies, and basically, if she were ever able to manage a discussion between them on this, I’d love to be in the room. I’ll be very quiet and not get in the way, I promise.

[struwwelzeter]

Ok, here it is. This is one of my all time favorite interviews. It doesn’t really contain anything new, and I am still convinced it has been translated before, but that is beside the point. He is so chatty, and I get the impression he was quite at ease with the interviewer, and he’s just and adorable dork. I gave up on trying to capture his “voice” pretty fast because it’s impossible. Maybe it’s because I know how he sounds when he speaks english, but he’s ... a bit of a hazard, in that he sounds dumb one minute and sophisticated the next, and some of the things he says are actually not translateable, so I just concentrated on trying to get what he says across and gave up on the how.

Interview with Richard Kruspe of Emigrate and Rammstein

by Marcus Schleutermann of Rock Hard Magazine, August 22, 2008

—-

Richard, where and in what kind of circumstances did you grow up?

Until I was seven I lived in a small village called Weisen. That was a beautiful childhood with alot of nature, cats and dogs and a big family with two siblings. Then the big break came unfortunately, with the divorce of my parents. My father was gone from one day to the next, and we moved in with my stepfather in Schwerin. We didn’t ge on at all. The situation between me and him escalated quite a bit and I often ran away from home quite often. Sometimes I slept on park benches or in a friend’s basement and was looked for by the police. When there was the chance to start an apprenticeship somewehre else I jumped on it right away and went to Hagenau. Since there was nothing there other than a big army base, I did nothing but spend two and a half years worth of sparetime playing guitar. Looking back, I have to say that my stepfather at least taught me basic discipline. I profit from that by now, because as a musician there is no outside obligation to sit down and compose every day.

Where would you most like to live?

At the moment, I live both in Berlin and in New York. I like that duality. New York has a unique energy that drives me. I never really warmed up to Berlin on the other hand. When I first came here, the negative attitude of the people here totally spooked me. It’s always a no at first. Apart from that it’s pretty cold here. But by now quite a few things have changed for the better, especially this refreshing multiculti-thing, which of course doesn't only work between germans and turks, but between all sorts of nationalities. I would most like to live in Cape Town. You have the mountains on one side and two oceans on the other. The people are open and friendly and there is a very beautiful light that is good for my mind. (I feel obligated to say that he uses the word «Gemüt» which could also mean mood or soul and kind of means all of those 3 things at once.) I can imagine that as a retirement retreat.

Were you more of nerd or a bruiser in school?

I think that goes without saying - quite a bit of a bruiser.

So you did end up in brawls now and then.

Certainly. At the age of 10 to 14 I got into situations all the time where I - lets say - could let loose physically. But when I started wrestling I learned how to chanel my aggressions. I trained 5 times a weekand had competitions on the weekends. Unfortunately I was way too offensive most of the time and had no patience while fighting. I wanted victory right away, like tyson.

Are your parents proud and of you?

I think my biological father is very proud of me. My mother always wanted something else for me, but by now my muscian’s life is okay for her. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you are successful. Especially for the post-war generation of my parents materialistic value is still held above evrything.

So what does money mean to you?

Essentially, only the freedom to be able to do what I like to do. Money means independency to me most of all. The problem with that is of course that you get used to a certain level of luxury and lifestyle. When I earned the first bit of money with Rammstein I was in seventh heaven and thought I would never need more. With my two apartments in London and Berlin and the constant travelling I need a bit more nowadays.

How do you define success?

Success is relative. With Emigrate I got great reviews, sold a good number of albums worldwide and got releases in America and Australia. Therefore, I could assess my solo project as a success, but in comparison with Rammstein, who sell millions, Emigrate are small fry.

What was the most miserable job you ever had?

The worst job was window cleaner, because I suffer from vertigo a bit [laughs]. Initially I was a truckdriver, but I lost my license after an accident. After that the company deemed I was supposed to become a window cleaner and climb up the Schwerin television tower. No way! I just put up the ladder for them and told them: See you later! (He actually uses english for the see you later. More impactful, you see.) To get by, I made shoes myself and sold them. Espardrilles and the likes. That is funny, because I am actually not talented in crafts at all. But I am streetwise and inventive when it comes to survival. I always had to improvise to get by because I couldn't handle authority at all. As a teenager I apprenticed to be a cook/chef (Same word in german. Probably more a cook than a chef to be honest here.) That's a tough job going off the tough hours alone. Apart from that it gets quite hot by the stove after a while.

That is not that different with Rammstein’s pyro show.

Quite true, hahaha! I believe cooking and making music has so much in common anyway. I have always cooked without a recipe. I just take what is there and conjure up something delicious. Some things maybe don't fit that well in the beginning, but you learn that quite quickly and then you develop an intuitive sense. That is the same with composing.

What would have become of you, if you hadn’t become a musician?

Hm, good question. I would like to produce a band some time - so kinda switch to the other side. Other than that I love to write and could imagine screenwriting would be a suitable job for me.

Speaking of Hollywood, how about being before the camera? Are there characters you would have loved or love to play?

Two characters I find brilliant: Taxi Driver and Leon the Professional. And those gangster flicks are cool. Goodfellas and Reservoir Dogs for exemple.

So more the underdogs and the villains - not the heroes.

Yes, they just have more potential. After I shot some erotic scenes for a video the other day I could also imagine doing an entire film in that direction. I was quite nervous in the beginning, but the longer we were shooting the more fun I had. Erotic, mind you, not pornographic.

So, you’d undress for Playgirl?

Not anymore [laughs]. Although probably not before either. I do have a pretty easy going relationship with my body and run around naked in my apartment alot, but then I am not that exhibitionistic that I'd strip for some glossy magazine.

So you’re a at-home nudist.

Yeah, that's an east thing, I think. When I opened my apartment door in New York naked once when the door rang while I was in bed with my then wife, she was completely bewildered. The shameless ossis (east germans) and the prudish americans - that was a meeting of the worlds. [laughs]

Are you vain?

Unfortunately, yes. I'd like to be more above that because vanity is a negative quality that has something to do with insecurity and ego. I work on myself and as I got older I luckily developed a more casual attitude. At some point you start to accept the degredation of the body.

Theoretically you could counteract that with plastic surgery. How about an appointment with Nip/Tuck, hm?

That's not something for me, but I don't have anything against plastic surgery. If people are unhappy with their body and gain new self esteem and sense of life through an operation, they should go through with it. I do see a problem in the danger of it getting exorbitant and to develop some kind of addiction like with tattoos that goes far beyond the reasonable. The body won't go along with everythig after all, and such things as calf implants are pretty crazy.

Speaking of crazy, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

That must have been asking a woman to marry me two days after meeting her. She said yes, and the rest is history. (They are divorced at this point, as the article points out here - in brackets too.)

Cue: Woman: What type do you prefer?

Like almost everyone I do have some sort of type. You need a relationship that mirrors yourself and to develop. So in that sense you're looking for a partner that drives you forward in certain aspects. To have a good relationship you need to keep a balance of passion and friendship - if it's just one it will overturn at some point.

What do you think of groupies?

They just belong to it all. This symbiosis of star and groupie is like theater. The relationship between both has of course nothing to do with reality, and is just an illusion, but you shouldn't destroy that. I'm personally not really tempted by groupies because I like it when I have to fight for a woman. But I like the glamour their presence emenates.

Do you believe in god or reincarnation? Are you spiritaully inclined?

More and more. I don't believe in god in a church sense, but I'm a spiritual guy and believe in a form of justice; that the things we do come back to us in some way eventually. Karma, so to speak. I also have the slightly feminine habit of using astrology to understand people. I use it as a tool to decipher characters. Once you know how someone's house is build, it's easier to place their actions. To be clear: I don't mean horoscopes or such nonsense. There's alot of maths in astrology and you can't compare that with the usual star-sign pulp in TV programmes.

Could you live without television?

Nah. I have a huge beamer in my New York apartment's bedroom. I love lying in bed, smoking and watching good movies more than anything. That is the only thing where I can really switch of other than sex. Lots of both, please. [laughs]

Reading isn't your thing?

I used to read alot, but now I'm unfortunately too lazy for it most of the time. Even on the plane you get a monitor and a huge selection of movies since a while now. But I still have a good reading recommendation: The New York trilogy by Paul Auster.

What's the most important invention for human kind?

Each century has it's own big invention and right now that is clearly the internet. Before that it was electricity, which made everything else like the light bulb and the elctric guitar even possible.

To which era would you most like to travel if there was a time machine?

I guess the sword and blade time as I always call it. Knights templar, 11th century. I can answer that this well, because I like to watch even stupid movies when they deal with that period. I just have a huge affinity to it somehow and would love to find out how things were going back then.

Do you have a phobia?

Other than the aforementioned fear of heights I have a phobia of snakes.

When did you cry the last time?

Now you got me. That is a huge problem of mine because I just can't cry. I think that is a pity myself, because crying is an outlet with which you let grief go. Maybe that's why my music is so important to me, it's like my tear duct and helps me to live out my feelings.

——————-

- sorry for any spelling mistakes but I’m dyslexci and I can’t be bothered.

[mackenyu-archives]

[Translation] Sato Takeru x Arata Mackenyu Interview: ‘Rurouni Kenshin: The Final’ as their break and a work they are proud to share to the world

For Takeru who just established a new agency in April & Mackenyu who announced his overseas expansion, where does this work stand?

— What was your impression of each other? 

Takeru: When I saw Macken dressed as a character that I’ve watched since I was a kid, he looked very convincing. He had prepared for the role, his costume and hairstyle looked great. Playing a manga character is not easy, but I can feel Enishi’s presence with his portrayal. 

Mackenyu: I was 14 years-old when the first movie came out, and since I am a fan of ‘Rurouni Kenshin’, the first time I confronted him, I thought, “The Kenshin that I watched in the movie is standing right in front of me!�� My confrontation with Kenshin was the most difficult action that I ever did in my life, there were times where I couldn’t even walk properly. However, I am glad I was able to perform such a spectacular action sequence.

— I also visited the shooting site, the two of you were all over the place in the whole room

Mackenyu: Somehow the entire set end up being used for action. 

Takeru: Really, it was tough, because Enishi was on a rampage (laughs). Anyway, I keep avoiding him and that led to a long battle. In the second half, our feelings heightened, our emotions collided with each other. It became a scene where we communicated through our swords clashing. Macken mentioned that there was a time where he couldn’t walk, the two of us reached our limit, it was really difficult. When I was at that point, I felt, “It would’ve been great if our energies could also collide.” The whole scene was filmed with the same feelings from the two of us and the entire staff.

—What was your impression of each other during filming?

Mackenyu: I was secretly doing muscle training in a separate room before a take for Enishi, and Sato-san peeped on me (laughs). He said, “I want to do it too” and I was happy we could do muscle training together.

Takeru: Since I also do muscle training in the midst of filming, so I was happy we found each other (laughs). When we work hard together, I feel more motivated. It’s better than doing it alone.

—Although your roles were fighting each other, behind the scenes you prepared the role together to complete the action scene

Takeru: After all, an action scene won’t work out well without trust. Our close relationship allows us to hit each other without hesitation.

—Obviously, this is a huge work, but where does 'Rurouni Kenshin: The Final' stand for the two of you?

Mackenyu: I think ‘Rurouni Kenshin’ is definitely one of the best manga in the world that Japan can be proud of. I’m proud to be part of the live-action adaptation of that work. I’m happy that this work is finally releasing in Japan, as I am about to challenge myself overseas, I want to proudly say to the world that I was part of 'Rurouni Kenshin' in Japan. 

Takeru: I became who I am now because I encountered this work when I was 22 years old, and I have carried the image of ‘Ruroken’ since then, all the while I as doing other work, so it is a special existence for me. I am deeply moved that this work is finally completing after 10 years. If ‘Rurouni Kenshin’ 10 years ago was the beginning of a chapter for me as an actor, that chapter will end with this release. I think this marks the beginning of a new chapter. So, from now on, I need to meet other projects that will surpass this work, and roles that go beyond this role, and I will have to make it my own. I should aim for that, but I don’t think it will be easy. After all, it’s such a powerful work.

—The release of this work was postponed for a little less than a year from the July-August 2020, but did you have that same feeling even before it was postponed?

Takeru: Right. During filming, I entered my 30s, and it was right at the end of Heisei era, I felt like I was heading for a new era. Kenshin also fought through the end of the Edo era to open up the Meiji era, and he was doing his best to enter the new era. While performing, I relate myself with the world. I’m sure that after I completed this work, there will be a break for me, and from then on, I am expected to have a completely different work and way of life. It was something inevitable.

—Does Arata felt a new break after this work?

Mackenyu: I am going to challenge myself overseas after the release of 'Rurouni Kenshin' so in that sense, I think it’s a perfect timing. After the release of this movie in Japan, I’m going to do my best overseas. It’s definitely a breaking point for me.

—I’d like to reiterate, but could you tell us the highlight of this work?

Mackenyu: To me, I felt really strong throughout watching the entire movie, but by the time it ended, I was completely worn-out (laughs). It’s interesting that when you switch their point of views, you can’t tell which side is justice and which one is evil, and I think there will be a lot of different opinions. Even though I was Enishi, when I was watching it, I didn’t feel like I was playing him, and I enjoyed the entire movie as a movie viewer.

Source: https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20210421-satouarata/

[amillioninprizes]

Some thoughts on Veronica Mars, fan service, and noir

I’ve been on winter break and at home with a nasty combo cold-ear infection-stomach virus the past couple of weeks, and as so often happens when I don’t have much going on, my thoughts have turned to ruminating over the steaming pile of excrement that was season 4 of Veronica Mars. Why yes, almost six months and one cancellation notice later and I’m still complaining about it--as I told someone on Twitter, it was so stupid that it’s going to take years to unpack.

This particular rant is brought to you by a common refrain seen in both professional critics’ and S4 supporters’ reviews of S4: the movie was schlocky fan service, while S4 is TRUE NOIR. I’m here to argue that neither of those things are true, and that in the grand scheme of things trying to definitively call Veronica Mars noir or not isn’t the best qualitative judgement of the series.

A note on “fanservice”

Something that’s been very strange to me in the critical discussion around S4 is that the fan-funded movie has been retconned as a fanservicey failure. This is weird because it did get a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, actually turned a profit despite the unorthodox distribution model, and was overall well-received by fans except for maybe the 5 Piz lovers out there (he absolutely did not deserve better you guys; he works at This American Life and lives in Brooklyn, he’ll be fine).

A lot of the things pointed to in the movie as fan service actually weren’t. In every interview about the movie and S4, RT and KB always talk about how they started with the image of Veronica punching Madison at the high school reunion and worked from there. The problem is that almost no one had been asking for that. If they had bothered to read any online discourse about the show (and we know RT definitely does), they would know that fans are actually somewhat sympathetic to Madison--after all, she was the intended recipient of the drugged drink Veronica received at Shelly Pomeroy’s party, plus growing up in a family that she wasn’t meant to be a member of must have negatively impacted her. When the preview scene of Veronica encountering Madison at the reunion welcome table was released, Veronica didn’t come off sympathetically. In a similar vein, as much as I liked Corny as a side character in the original series, I didn’t need him to come back for that random scene at the reunion. Nor was anyone asking for an out-of-nowhere James Franco cameo (which given what we know about him now is super gross in hindsight).

So why was the movie well-received by fans? Veronica was in character after an unevenly written and performed S3, and she was back in Neptune, doing what (and who; Ay-yo!) she was meant to do. So while the mystery was subpar (and what Rob Thomas mystery isn’t?), the character side of the story made sense and was satisfying. I wouldn’t call that fan service so much as good writing. Plus, what is even the point of wasting time, money, and effort on making a tv show or movie if it’s going to actively alienate the audience?

S4: more trauma porn than true noir

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the world’s foremost scholar on film noir (in my opinion, the height of cinema is teen romcoms c. 1995-2005), but I do feel I have enough pop cultural knowledge to have a working understanding of what film noir is, and as internet folk would say, S4 ain’t it chief. Sure, S4 was bleak subject matter wise, but that does not automatically equal noir. HappilyShanghaied, who does have a film studies background, wrote a pretty excellent post about why that is shortly after S4 dropped that I could not improve upon, so I will just leave it here. 

In addition to this analysis, I would also point out that S4 was lacking in a unique visual style common to noir films, especially compared to the original television series and the movie. The original series made use of green, blue, and yellow filters to fulfill a high school version of the noir aesthetic (quick shoutout to Cheshirecatstrut’s color theory posts for more on what we thought this meant before it turned out that Rob Thomas did not actually intend to imbue meaning into any of this), while the movie adopted a more mature muted blue-grey palette. S4, however, was more or less shot like a conventional drama and was brightly lit, perhaps signifying Rob Thomas’s apparent plans to turn the show into a conventional procedural.

The movie: more than fan service 

If anything, the movie was more noir than S4. Take Gia’s storyline for instance. While Veronica was off obtaining elite degrees, Gia spent 9 years in a virtual cage being forced into a sexual relationship without her total consent (because that’s the only storyline women can have on this show), and then set herself up to be murdered at the very moment she could potentially break free. That’s pretty fucking grim.

Then there is the whole police corruption storyline, which is a hallmark of noir fiction. The glimpses we get of the Neptune sheriff’s department point to a larger conspiracy at play than just crooked cops; Sachs lost his life trying to expose it and Keith was gravely injured. This was the story I was excited for future installments of Veronica Mars to address, especially given its relevance to today’s politics. Unfortunately, this thread was entirely dropped in S4, where the police department (because, as Rob Thomas revealed in interviews but not onscreen, Neptune has incorporated) is merely overwhelmed by the scope of the bombing case rather than outright corrupt. (Side note but Marcia Langdon was also a more complex and morally grey character when introduced in the second book than she was on screen in S4. Another wasted opportunity).

Noir is also marked by a sense of inevitability or doom as a result of greater forces at play. An example of this in the movie is Weevil’s storyline. After building a life and family for himself, he ultimately ends up rejoining the PCHer gang he left as a teenager due to a misunderstanding based on his race and appearance and the assumptions authority figures make about him because of those things. No matter what he does, he is still limited by an unjust and racist society. Contrast this with the final explosion in S4; it’s not inevitable, just based on Veronica’s incompetence. Rob Thomas claims that he tried to create a sense of doom to LoVe’s relationship between the OOC Leo storyline and the last minute barriers before the wedding, but those aspects just served to make the story unnecessarily convoluted.

What is noir anyway? Was Veronica Mars ever noir? Does it matter?

But this is all assuming there is a set template for noir anyway. This New Yorker essay points out that trying to definitively establish a set of rules for noir is difficult and that the classic noir films were more a product of midcentury artistic and political movements than a defined genre. The noir filmmakers working at the time would not have described their work as such. The kicker of this essay is the final sentence: “But the film noir is historically determined by particular circumstances; that’s why latter-day attempts at film noir, or so-called neo-noirs, almost all feel like exercises in nostalgia.” I found this particularly amusing because as Rob Thomas infamously proclaimed in his S4 era interviews, he wanted to completely dispense with nostalgia going forward. Rob Thomas and S4 supporters have said that Logan needed to die because noir protagonists can’t have stable relationships; but, if there isn’t a defined set of rules other than “an element of crime”, then was it strictly necessary? Hell, writing a hardboiled detective who does have a stable relationship and maybe even a family could have been an interesting subversion of genre expectations. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas isn’t that imaginative.

There’s also the issue that noir and hardboiled detective fiction aren’t interchangeable genres. This article lays out that idea that they aren’t the same because noir is ultimately about doomed losers; in contrast, detective fiction, while dark, contains a moral center and has an ending where a sense of justice is achieved. An interview with author Megan Abbott makes a similar argument; she states that in hardboiled detective fiction, “At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.” Based on the descriptions laid out here, I would argue that in its original format Veronica Mars far better fit the detective fiction model; while she wasn’t always right, she was never a loser, and she solved the mystery. S1-3 all had relatively hopeful, if not totally happy, endings, but you never see anyone complaining that they weren’t noir enough; if anything, they were more emotionally complex than the ending of S4, where Logan’s death is essentially meaningless. One could make the argument that S4 did push Veronica towards a more noir characterization by the definition of these articles by making her more incompetent and meaner than she was in previous installments, but that is a fundamental change in character, which is not coherent writing.

And that is ultimately why S4 was so poorly received by longtime fans and why there will be no more installments of Veronica Mars anytime soon (at least on Hulu). Even if S4 had been noir (or at least shot like one), the serious issues with plotting, characterization, and lack of adherence to prior canon that this season exhibited would still exist. Defending the poor writing choices made in S4 with “it’s noir!” does not mask them or automatically heighten the quality of the product. Perhaps ironically, in ineptly trying to be noir in S4, Rob Thomas likely prematurely ended Veronica Mars by failing his creation and fans with lazy storytelling.

[impressivepress]

Charlie Chaplin: Jewish Or Goyish?

As nearly as can be determined, Charlie Chaplin is virtually part Jewish almost most of the time. John McCabe, Charlie Chaplin

In March of 1978, Charlie Chaplin’s body was stolen from his tomb in Switzerland and held for ransom. Two months later it was discovered buried in a farmer’s field and returned to his wife Oona, who remarked, dryly, ‘Charlie would have found this ridiculous.’ According to rumour, the Swiss government suspected that his remains had been stolen by anti-Semitic groups, upset that a Jew should be buried in a Christian cemetery. Chaplin’s Jewishness made him an enemy of the FBI and put him on the Nazi’s list of international targets. He is perhaps one of the most famous Jews in American history hence it is all the more surprising to learn that he was not, in fact, Jewish. Since his early days as the Little Tramp, a role he assumed in 1914, Jews had believed Chaplin was secretly Jewish. The fact that his name was not Jewish was irrelevant; it was common practice for Jews to change their names when entering show business (Al Jolson was born Asa Yoelson). In the 1948 edition of a Jewish encyclopedia, Chaplin is listed as a Jewish movie star, and the name ‘Israel Thonstein’ is mentioned alongside the claim that he was from an old Eastern European Jewish family. As proof, the encyclopedia cited a 1931 article from the New York Herald Tribune, which commented upon the way Chaplin’s eyes could convey both sadness and joy in a uniquely Jewish fashion, and a Budapest Jewish paper which claimed to trace his Jewish ancestry (as Thonstein) back to Hungary.

More important than birth records and names was the fact he looked, acted and ‘felt’ Jewish. To Jewish eyes, Chaplin told Jewish stories. Famously, one critic recalled watching The Gold Rush (1925) next to a middle-aged Jewish woman: ‘Oy!’ she wailed, as the Tramp tried to escape from his on-screen tormentors, ‘What do they want with him, the goyim?!! What has he done to them?’ The Tramp, small and powerless, was taunted and hounded by authorities who hated him without reason, in what appeared to American Jews as the enactment of the Jewish condition. Hannah Arendt wrote in 1944 that Chaplin symbolised the ‘effrontery of the poor ‘little Yid’ who does not recognise the class order of the world because he sees in it neither order nor justice for himself ’. Meanwhile, in Sholem Aleichem’s 1916 story, ��Motl in America’, the hero spends his time watching Chaplin films and extolling the virtues of free America in which a Jew like Chaplin can become rich and famous.

For film scholar Patricia Erens, the Tramp is a variation on ‘dos kleine menshele’ or ‘little man’ of Yiddish literature, the poor and long-suffering antihero, the shlemiel (a little man with no luck), and the luftmensch (the ‘man of air’ who lives on dreams). Erens cites the numerous Jewish references in Chaplin’s oeuvre, in particular the prevalence of skullcaps and Yiddish newspapers as props, and a scene in The Vagabond (1916) in which the Tramp finds a Jewish man eating pork at a buffet and helpfully changes the ‘ham’ sign to ‘beef ’. Many of the characteristics we associate with ‘acting’ Jewish—the nasal voice, the New York accent, and the verbal wit a‘ la Groucho Marx—were unavailable to the makers of silent pictures. Chaplin, however, was a dancer, an acrobat, and a pantomime extraordinaire and able to communicate other, non-verbal cultural indicators to a savvy audience—the comic shrugs, the outdated black coat, the facial pathos combined with frantic body movements, the chaotic presence that mocks the establishment. Above all, Chaplin achieved a subtle gender inversion through the graceful, almost balletic eluding of his macho tormentors. Jewish audiences recognised this physical portrayal from the Yiddish stage and read it as a visual metaphor for the disempowered Jew in a hostile world.

Across the world this misconception raged, gaining him enemies to the left and the right. The German-American Bund helped spread the rumour that Charles Spencer Chaplin was born Israel Thonstein and in the book that accompanied the Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew, Thonstein is cited as the maiden name for the mother of ‘The Jew, Chaplin.’ In 1948 the US Navy investigated Chaplin on suspicion of Zionist activity: shipping guns to Palestine, as well as around 36 tanks. But it was the FBI under Hoover that became Chaplin’s greatest political and legal enemy. Chaplin’s FBI file is a comprehensive laboratory for identity construction that began in 1922 and remained open until after his death. The file chronicles Chaplin’s downfall, the suspicion of Communist activities, the Mann Act trial for transporting unmarried women across state lines for deviant purposes, and further rumours and innuendo that led to his expulsion from America in 1952. Chaplin is continually described as ‘of Jewish extraction,’ given the name of ‘Thonstein’ as an alias (though there is no proof that Chaplin ever used this name himself), and assigned attributes such as ‘Jewish accent,’ ‘talks with hands,’ and Russian birth.

Crucially, it was not Jewishness that alarmed Hoover but ambiguity. According to Omer Bartov in his compelling work The Jew in Cinema, Jewish characters are often portrayed as slippery and protean, possessing an insidious ability to obscure their Jewishness and blend in. The emancipation of the Jews from the ghettos of Europe at the turn of the last century had left them free to shave and dress in modern clothing, making them impossible to detect. This new found ambiguity of Jewish identity made them, in many gentile eyes, the most dangerous minority in civilised society. Ambiguity was the dominant paranoia of Cold-War America, which felt itself threatened by the enemy within—the Communists, Jews and homosexuals who were so hard to detect. The insistence on Chaplin’s Jewishness helped reinforce the notion of an ‘authentic American’ by establishing firm conceptual borders through identity construction and categorisation.

Not only did both Jewish and gentile audiences see him as a Jew, but Chaplin himself very nearly became convinced of his own Jewishness. While he did not officially doubt his mother’s version of his parentage, in which her legal husband, Charles Chaplin, Sr., a non-Jewish pop singer, was his biological father, there were times when he clearly wondered if the questions surrounding his lineage were true, and if they were more scandalous than imagined. His step-brother Sydney had a Jewish father and the world’s insistence on Chaplin’s Jewish origins prompted him and many others to wonder whether their birth stories had in fact been reversed.

‘All geniuses,’ Chaplin was heard to remark,‘have some Jewish blood in them.’ Flattered by the widely held misconception about his Jewish identity, his understanding of Jewishness was simplistic and stereotypical: Jews were blessed with superior intellect and financial acumen than non-Jews. Further, he believed that his physical attributes compounded the myth: he was short with curly black hair, ‘Oriental facial features’, and a prominent nose. In footage taken of famed British comedian Harry Lauder’s visit to Chaplin Studios, Lauder draws Chaplin on a chalkboard. Chaplin makes great show of stopping him, pantomimes ‘too Jewish,’ and re-draws the nose. Quite how to interpret this is unclear, but Chaplin either believed himself to be Jewish or was making fun of those who did. In the absence of confirmed roots, Chaplin may have sought to align himself with a group that, although outsiders in mainstream society, seemed to him possessed of an ancient and mystical national bond. When the great cantor Yossele Rosenblatt visited Chaplin’s studios, Chaplin told him that he owned all of the cantor’s recordings and that ‘Whenever I feel a little blue, I take them out and play them. They do something to me. They unite me, oh so closely, with my Jewish ancestors.’

Chaplin was an actor, and he played one role after another all his life. He occasionally told people he was Jewish, which sounded better to his director’s ears than ‘poor English gutter trash.’ But sometimes, including in his interviews with the FBI, he denied it, once commenting, ‘I am afraid I do not have that good fortune.’ Of his anti-Nazi picture The Great Dictator (1940) Chaplin said, ‘I made this film to show my unity with all the Jews of the world’. While American politicians and agents worried about the film’s ‘Communist’ message, the American Jewish establishment feared that an anti-Hitler film made by a Jew might make things worse for Jews in Europe. Chaplin’s own response—‘How can they get worse?’—indicates his own fearlessness. For the Jew in America, it was as if, as Stanley Kauffmann put it, ‘a David had arisen—a comic David—to fight Goliath!’

~

Holly A. Pearse · Oct 19, 2018.

Holly A.Pearse holds a PhD in religion and culture, and specializes in the representation of Jews in art and media. At the moment, her research delves into the portrayals of Jewish-Gentile romance in American film, and she currently teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada.

[honestandsincere]

reputation part four

There’s something about living in a city that only those with experience can truly understand. Its disquiet is unending, each hour spirals into the next without any time for composure or evaluation. Sensory overload is a regular occurrence; sound and light and smell and feeling all rage into incessant cacophony.   Life never ceases its movement, at least not until an apartment door is slammed shut on the outside world.

Y/n presses her back against the cool wood, closing her eyes and exhaling a sigh of relief. The elevator has been broken for the past month and having to take the stairs is a task that one would assume gets easier with practice. Sadly, that is not the truth. She doesn't have the energy to take off her coat or her gloves, so she rests against the door as she tries to regain her breath. Her eyes scan the apartment; her dishes are still in the kitchen sink from her rushed breakfast, the faux fur throw hangs off the arm of her velvet sofa in an utterly unattractive manner and the magazines scattered across the coffee table and dog-eared and worn with age. Y/n tips her head backwards allowing a small painless thud from its contact with the stained wood. She doesn't have the energy to tidy up, the day has extracted every tiny ounce of motivation to achieve or accomplish anything she has.

LIFE Magazine has been buzzing with activity for the past month, y/n, in particular, getting the most attention as a writer. Of course, this is extremely flattering and brilliant for her career, but juggling multiple projects at once has proven to be harder than she'd anticipated. Y/n loves working; it's what spurs her to roll out of her paisley duvet set every morning, it gives her life structure and she didn't struggle through four years of college to give up her dream job now. It seems that every journalist on her floor is coming to her for advice, asking her to proofread articles for their website or offer ideas on points they should discuss. Again, this is all very laudatory, considering she's the youngest published writer the magazine has ever housed, but reading has become tiresome and strenuous rather than enjoyable and writing almost insufferable.

She's currently finalizing an article on the trials and tribulations of attending New York's state-funded schools; travelling across the city to interview students and teachers alike. It's fascinating, honestly, considering that for the past four weeks y/n has been mingling with the city's elite. She has her dear 'boyfriend' to thank for that. But the project is time-consuming, she desperately wants to do these kids justice and present them in their truest, most honest form. She's been in the office from eight in the morning until ten at night, eyes squinting at her computer screen despairingly trying to formulate coherent sentences as well as the most applicable lines of dialogue. The whole thing is a digitalized headache.

Mustering her very last measure of strength, y/n pushes herself upright and takes a few steps into her disordered apartment. She peels her coat from her body and hangs it on the hook attached to her wall, her fingers wriggle free from the woollen mittens adorning her hands and they are placed on the side table along with her keys. The hum of the central heating is comforting, but it's offset by sporadic beeps from vehicles passing outside and the steady purring of traffic. This is the sound of the city. This is her version of quiet. Y/n slides off her pumps and shuffles towards her couch, flopping unrefinedly into its plush embrace. The blanket falls over her feet but she cannot bring herself to readjust it. She's exhausted. Her hand reaches outwards towards the table at the centre of her living area, fumbling for the television remote. The screen lights up in a blinding glow and she winces at its vibrancy.

"And in today's news; multi-millionaire businessman Ethan Dolan has decided to donate a staggering $50 million to NYC's very own Project Change, a charity that helps students from government-funded schools apply to Ivy League colleges."

Y/n's tired eyes enlarge, her mouth is suddenly slightly agape. How coincidental.

Her mind flashes to the last time she'd seen Ethan; they were on one of their staged dates last week. The pair walked arm in arm through Central Park, stopping at a quaint coffee shop for a seemingly riveting conversation. Tabloids went crazy, they were followed by cameras for the entire duration of their rendezvous and stopped by a few passersby for selfies. It was unnerving but necessary if they wanted to appear convincing. Y/n had told him all about her latest work and he had listened with acute concentration, nodding his head and humming in agreement after she'd vented her frustrations.

Ethan Dolan is extreme, but he is not this extreme.

Certainly, y/n can't help the way her heart swells with pride as images of Ethan flash across the screen. Him petting an elephant, dressed in safari gear from his trip to South Africa last year. Him standing in a school playground, a child clinging to each of his limbs, huge smiles on their faces from his month in Namibia. He and Grayson stood beside the City's mayor, smiling widely as they open a recreation centre for children in Brooklyn. Him.

"This is the organization's biggest ever donation, commentators are calling Dolan one of the greatest philanthropists the city has to offer."

The newscaster's voice melts into an indecipherable babble, their words dissipating into incomprehensible sounds. Y/n's eyes stay focused on the footage of Ethan Dolan. Her 'boyfriend'. It cannot be denied that the man is consistently portrayed as a saint. His work is commendable, amazing even. She just yearns for different circumstances, prays that his donations are not dirty money. The truth taints everything, it reminds her that ignorance is positively bliss. If she hadn't rifled through those documents, tried to dig up some dirt on Ethan Dolan, then maybe everything would be altered. Y/n knows that if she was not hyper aware of the truth, Ethan Dolan would have her hook line and sinker. Straight sushi.

There's a knock at the door. Not the delicate kind, those that resemble some kind of rhythm or upbeat pattern. Two heavy thuds hang in the air. Y/n grumbles and forces herself to her feet. She already knows who it is.

"Mr Dolan," she croaks as she swings the door open, "I wish I could say I've been expecting you."

He's dressed in his typical suit, but his tie is knotted loosely around his thick neck as if he's letting himself breathe. His hair is tousled and brushing the skin of his forehead, eyes heavy with tiredness but they brighten when they dance across her face. "Y/l/n," Ethan Dolan all but coos, "you're looking tired." "Tell me something I don't know," she steps to one side and he takes this as a verbal invitation, walking into her apartment.

He's all too familiar with y/n's place, he'd come to pick her up for their 'date' last week and she'd given him a brief and begrudging tour of her humble abode. She knows this is well below his standard of living, her mind conjuring images of huge penthouse suites with infinity pools and surfaces that can't be touched with bare hands because they're just too clean. But her space is a perfect chremamorphism of her, an amalgamation of all things y/n in one little space. Ethan studies the pictures she has hung up on the wall. He recognizes her friends from Delevigne's, their smiles all reflections of unadulterated joy. She stands out, she always has to him. Her smile is a little more radiant, her eyes shine with such vivaciousness it's almost painful. Her photographed lust for life is breathtaking. There are pictures of her with who he can only assume are family members, clustered together in somebody's living room, all dressed in matching Christmas pyjamas. It makes him miss home.

"What brings you here, Ethan?" y/n sighs, pushing her hair out of her face. He turns to her, his fixation on her memories interrupted, "I wanted to tell you something." Y/n rolls her eyes but he can see traces of a smile appearing on her lips, "Take it away." "I've talked to Grayson." "Right." "No, y/n. I've talk talked to Grayson." "Oh." She shuffles past him in her pencil skirt and creased navy blouse, making her way to her deliciously comfy looking couch and sitting down. Ethan does not know what to do with himself. He's developed this habit since spending more time with y/n. He stays standing up, almost hovering in her living room.

"I don't think you get it-" "No, I do," she wraps the blanket around her shoulders and stares up at him intently as if he's reciting a trivial poem. "We're gonna change Dolan & Dolan. For the better, obviously," he fiddles with the chunky rings that adorn his fingers, she notices the way they catch the light and glimmer. Ethan Dolan is a magpie's dream. "That's really great," he wishes her voice held more sincerity, he understands she's fatigued but he was definitely expecting some kind of applause. "We're gonna start selling back the companies we took over, cheaper this time. So it's all fair." "Ethan, that's amazing. I'm really glad you've decided to do this."

As happy as she is, y/n knows this sweet is contaminated with bitter. Ethan Dolan has only changed his ways for the sake of his reputation. It was her threat, the idea of her first draft being out there for everyone to read, that pushed him to finally do some good. Beggars cannot be choosers, she knows this. But the reality is as hard-hitting as the truth.

"I know what you're thinking," he crosses his arms over his broad chest. She quirks an eyebrow at him, shuffling closer to the end of the sofa to allow him some space to sit down. She turns off the TV before he has a chance to comment on what she was watching. Ethan lowers himself down beside her, shifting his weight so that they're almost facing one another. "I didn't do this because of you. I didn't do this because of the article."

Y/n scoffs.

"Honestly, I didn't. Of course, it motivated me to make some kind of change, but it's not the only reason I did it." She looks at him; the firm line of his jaw that's now dusted with stubble, the curve of his nose, the furrows in his forehead. He looks sincere. "The truth is supposed to set you free, isn't it? But if anything, my truth makes me want to run for the hills. That's not a legacy I want to leave behind. I don't want to be covering my tracks for the rest of my life, y/n. I may as well change everything while I still can."

Ethan looks at her with such depth, watches as she hangs onto each of his words, analyzing them. He wants her to know that this is the truth, it's her job to find it and showcase it, he's hoping she can see it. Y/n's bottom lip gets pulled into her mouth as her teeth worry it. She's thinking about what to say, how to word things. "That's very admirable," is all she can manage. Ethan feels relief but he does an excellent job of not showing it, "It's not. I've just come to realize that I'd rather play fair than have to watch my back. You've helped me see that."

She shakes her head, quite rapidly for someone so tired. Y/n opens her mouth to say something but words escape her, she wants to tell him what she's been thinking, not the version he's created in his mind. "I think I gave you a wake-up call more than anything," she shrugs. "Yeah, I guess." They're plunged into silence, both trying to determine which way is best to fill it. He wants to thank her but he doesn't know how. She wants to talk, but she doesn't know what about. It's one of those conundrums that can be look back on with such embarrassment that one begins kicking themselves for not saying whatever was on their minds. Both y/n and Ethan are far too scared to do so.

"I saw what you did for Project Change. That's really incredible." "It's the least I could do after what you told me." "It's going to make such a difference." "I hope so." "It will."

Another silence bestows itself upon them. It's slightly more comfortable than the first.

"Listen, y/n. Do you want to maybe go out for dinner tonight? To celebrate? With me?" this is the first time in a while that Ethan Dolan has felt nervous, his usually cocky exterior disintegrating into a puddle of nothingness. She breathes heavily and looks at him with some kind of look that is a bizarre intersection between sympathy and apathy. He can already predict what her answer will be. "Thank you, but not tonight, Ethan. Work has been tearing me to shreds." He swallows, nodding his head in faux understanding, "Sure, of course."

She shows him to the door, still wrapped in her fluffy blanket. He looks defeated, but she brushes this aside as a reaction to her lack of enthusiasm. He spins on his heel to face her as he walks into the hall of her apartment complex. Y/n realizes he looks young again, she enjoys seeing him like this. Ethan Dolan looks closest to normal this way.

"I'll pick you up at ten on Sunday for our grocery shop," he chuckles half-heartedly, "the entire city is anticipating great things from our domesticity."

----------

"Help yourself to some coffee." "I'm fine, thank you, Mr Benson."

Early morning light streams through Howard Benson's blinds, casting horizontal shadows across his spacious office. The room reeks of some kind of sickly scented candle, fake and chemical. His desk is piled high with papers, some separated into folders and others strewn haphazardly across the mahogany.

Monday.

"Please take a seat, y/n," the older man's tone is severe but not stern. Y/n eases herself into the worn leather of the chair opposite his desk. Howard sips on his mug of coffee, purses his lips, then speaks, "You're probably wondering why I've called you in so early. The education article isn't due for another week." She nods, watching the way he places the mug on top of a stack of documents. "But this isn't about your work, at least not necessarily." Y/n can already tell by the way Benson is prolonging the gap between each of his words that this is about Ethan Dolan. Her boss has always spoken of Ethan in the same way one would a rambunctious child, tentative and temperate.

"What can I do for you, Mr Benson?" she asks. Howard folds his hands, weaving his slightly wrinkled fingers between one another and looks at her, "We've had a few complaints since Mr Dolan decided to cause a scene with The Daily Mail, which I couldn't have foreseen." "Right." "You see, y/n, you are an incredibly talented writer with a stellar future ahead of you," she can sense the contradiction approaching, she braces herself, "however our sponsors are not too happy with the credibility of your work following Mr Dolan's announcement."

Y/n doesn't intend on furrowing her brow, but she feels her forehead crease in confusion as she processes Benson's words. She knew Ethan's little games would cause a stir, after all, that's what he wanted, but she didn't think they'd affect her work. At least not negatively. Pretending to be Ethan Dolan's girlfriend is tiresome and inconvenient, but it's not as insufferable as she'd imagined. He's helped put her in the spotlight, helping her establish her name and her work within the field.

"I know it's hard to comprehend, especially because you didn't exactly sign up for this willingly, but they're not impressed, y/n. All of a sudden the whole premise of the Dolan article is warped, people are under the impression that you're biased. It's inevitable that you'd sing his praises in your article if you two are linked romantically." "But surely LIFE's sponsors understand that Mr Dolan announced our relationship a week after its publishing?" Howard sighs, "This is New York, people lie, fact-checking is nonexistent in the world of gossip." "But they must know that-" "Y/n, you've done an excellent job of keeping up the appearance that you are in a relationship with Mr Dolan. I don't want this to impact your career, your impeccable reputation."

Y/n exhales, her shoulders slumping a little.

"You can fix it, though. It's definitely not too late."

Her mind flashes to Ethan in her living room. He's changing, it may be a slow change but it's change nonetheless. Ethan Dolan is changing things while he still can. Before it's all too late.

"I think it's best that you inform Mr Dolan that your public relationship comes to an end."

She nods slowly, imagining old men with whiskers for beards cheering with joy as the reputation of the magazine is suddenly restored. The city's most unbiased publication, factual and fair, returns to its rightful position.

"I hate to do this, y/n, honestly I do. But if you cannot conclude your little games with Ethan Dolan, I'll have no choice but to take matters into my own hands," he looks sombre, full of regret. "You'll fire me?" y/n's eyes are wide and her mouth is now bone dry. Howard Benson's face morphs from an expression of severity to a look of amusement, "Of course not!" he scoffs, "I'd never dream of firing you, Miss y/l/n." She breathes a sigh of relief, her hand coming to her chest to try and still the quickening pace of her heart. Adrenaline had coursed through her veins as panic had set in, she knows now it was unnecessary. "But, I've promised Mr  Reeves that if you cannot escape Mr Dolan, I'll see that your first draft is printed."

Y/n wants to gasp, clap her hands over her open mouth and run from Howard Benson's office. She wants the floor to open, dropping her twenty-five floors until she smacks the hard concrete beneath her. Mary should run in, tell them there's a fire that's swallowed the entire building and they have no choice but to jump from the floor-length windows and onto those weird trampoline-like structures the fire brigade have brought to them. Anything would have seemed more likely than Benson, one of the meekest men she's ever met, threatening to publish her first draft. It is scathing, derogatory and brutal, casting nothing but an awful light on Ethan Dolan. All the lies he told her in order to protect his reputation. His inflated self-assurance, his flippancy. It all seems so separate now, thinking of Ethan does not bring y/n a sickening sensation, she no longer seethes when she hears his name. His promise of change has changed her.

"Mr Benson-" she stammers but can't quite finish her sentence. "For the sake of LIFE, y/n, it's for the best. Your relationship with Ethan Dolan is a hoax and I am certain that a young woman of your intelligence can't have developed a certain romantic attachment to the man."

Two months ago, y/n would have agreed wholeheartedly. She owed Ethan Dolan nothing. He had swanned into her life off the back of a project that was retrospectively destined for greatness. She'd saved his reputation. Nevertheless, y/n has come to learn that even the most stubbornly unyielding human beings have the capacity to change. Under pressure, Ethan Dolan saw the light, not the billboards of Times Square or the spotlights of Broadway, but the truth. It scared her how quickly he'd decided to appease her, shocked that all it took was a threat.

Y/n can't help but feel some kind of loyalty to Ethan. She's grown to find him somewhat likeable, his mannerisms are unfathomably chaotic and unpredictable but his wit is unparalleled. He's a comrade; a young soul in the heart of the most turbulent metropolis in the city, trying to navigate his way through his mistakes. Undoubtedly, their backgrounds are dissimilar but their intellects are not. Ethan Dolan fights with fire and so does she.

"But if I end things, the draft will not be published?" though she's regained some of her composure, her mind is still reeling. "You can shred the document yourself. I suggest you pay Mr Dolan a visit this evening, you should probably terminate your association with him face to face." Y/n shakes her head in agreement, rising from her seat and smoothing down her black cigarette pants. As she heads towards the door she's stopped by the editor's voice, "Again, y/n, I am sincerely sorry."

Something in his words tells her it's not about the article.

------------------

Ethan Dolan's apartment is just as she has imagined it. All her wild and impudent fantasies have manifested themselves into the reality of polished marble and the smell of incense. Y/n sits in the lobby of his apartment complex in Tribeca, it's a renovated commercial building from maybe the 1930s. Its exterior is bedecked in flamboyant carvings, making it appear old and worn which is heavily contrasted by its sleek and modern insides. She wouldn't be surprised to find out that Ethan owned the entire complex, perhaps he shares it with Grayson.

She rests on a deep purple velvet loveseat, her every move being analyzed by the woman sat behind the reception desk. Y/n straightens her back and pulls out her phone, waiting to see whether or not he was going to let her in. The elevator doors slide open but she pays them no attention, the sound of their shifting has become white noise, blending into the dissonance of sound surrounding her. "Y/l/n," she hears, her head shooting upwards to take a look at him, "how nice of you to stop by." He's in his black dress pants, they cling to his muscular thighs leaving little to her imagination. His white button-up sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and there isn't a tie in sight. "Can we talk?" y/n asks, standing from the comfort of her seat and pacing towards him. Ethan senses her alarm and nods, leading her to the elevator and sending a quick wave to the receptionist. Y/n almost laughs at the woman's hard stare.

When encased by the metal doors, y/n shifts towards him, "I've got good news." Ethan holds his index finger to his full lips, "Wait till we get into the apartment." The elevator pings and they're faced with more shining marble. His hand hovers over the small of her back as he guides her into his suite. He waits for the doors to close before speaking, "Paranoia," he says, "I don't ever know who's listening. The security cameras have microphones."

Y/n looks unsure but doesn't question him. She takes her time absorbing the sheer elegance of his space. It's open and airy, huge mirrors clasped in gold swirling frames adorn his walls, paintings and prints hang idyllically. The huge flatscreen television reminds her of the fact he's New York's most eligible bachelor and the Persian rug on the floor emphasizes the extent of his wealth. "My mother's big on interior design," Ethan shrugs from behind her. "It's stunning," she breathes. "Now," he walks towards his blood red coloured couch and sits down, "you said you have news." She finds herself situated in the crimson armchair opposite him, the space between them makes him feel slightly on edge, "Good news." "Do tell," he folds his arms over his chest.

"They're scrapping the first draft, I get to do it myself. We just have to break up." "I thought that was a given?" "It was but we have to end now. Benson sort of threatened to-" "He threatened you?" Ethan leans forward in his seat, his jaw clenching. "No, not really. Apparently, all the big shots at LIFE aren't happy with me and you being together. It supposedly ruins the integrity of the publication." "That's ridiculous." "Maybe, but if the magazine is supposed to be unbiased and I'm making you out to be God's gift, people are going to assume it's because we're together." Ethan purses his lips, "What was Howard's threat?" Y/n leans back into the armchair, feeling the soft fabric hug her closer, "It was more of an ultimatum. If we don't end things now, he's gonna print draft one."

She watches as Ethan rolls his eyes. He's less panicked than she thought he would be. Y/n was expecting a repeat of his tantrum in Howard's office, intimidations and hard looks, but instead, he looks unamused. "This is preposterous. What a joke." "Is it though? Ethan, this is all pretend, it's not that big of a deal."

He sighs and she notes the way his shirt sleeves strain against his built arms. Her eyes follow his figure as he walks towards a table towards the back of the room and he pours two glasses of what she assumes is scotch. Y/n takes the drink from his hands after he walks back towards her. Ethan Dolan runs a tired hand over his face, dragging his perfect skin downwards in its wake. "We'll just have to break up then," he says before taking a sip. "Yeah, I guess so." "My people aren't gonna be happy." "Your people?" "Friends, business friends. People high up in the company. They love us." Y/n smiles, "We really are New York's star-crossed lovers." "Even more so now that we have to be apart," he scoffs.

They sit in silence, sipping their drinks and stealing glances at one another. She feels the finality hang in the air, the impending climax to their performance. Ethan has grown on her, she realizes she does not mind admitting it to herself now. She feels as though she knows him, she enjoys his company and not having him around will be strange. "Are our paths allowed to cross again?" there's hope in his words but he doesn't sound hopeful. "I suppose so." "Do you want them to?" "Our paths to cross? I wouldn't be opposed to it." "Neither would I."

She swills the liquid around at the bottom of her glass, watching it crash against the transparent sides like miniature storms at sea.

"I never thanked you," Ethan Dolan says, his eyes now boring into hers. "For what?" "Everything; rewriting the article, coming to the Gala." Y/n shakes her head, "It's fine." "It's not though. I was a huge asshole, like a massive dick to you. I'm sorry." She licks her lips, cleaning them of any alcohol, "Apology accepted."

A telephone's shrill ringing interrupts the intensity of their exchange. Ethan leaves the room to go and answer it. She places her drink on the floor beside the armchair and moves towards the windows of his living room. They overlook this part of the city, the overpriced houses, glowing signs of real estate agents and the steady humdrum of traffic. The deep rasp of Ethan's voice is unintelligible, but its soothing mumbles resonate throughout the apartment. This is y/n's first time in Ethan Dolan's abode and she suspects this will be her last too. She watches the sun's bleeding orange light disappear behind the towers and concrete columns of New York City, fragments of light forcing themselves through the crevices between buildings. It's stunning. She feels herself fall under the city's spell, the same way she did when she first arrived. It may be romanticized, but that doesn't debase its unmitigated beauty. This is the embodiment of human craft, the legacies left behind in people's wakes, establishments left to their inheritors to stay solidified within the skyline.

"It never gets old," he says, coming to stand beside her. "This is your world," she utters, her gaze never faltering from the view. "It's your world too, you're part of this now." "It was mine, for a very brief fleeting moment, and even then it was all pretend." "Fake it til you make it." Y/n laughs, at his sentiment and at herself, "I guess I did." "It's gonna be weird not having you around, y/l/n." "You mean it'll be strange not finding time in your schedule to arrange a fake date?"

Ethan slings a heavy arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side, the smell of his cologne is now familiar, almost comforting, "You know what I mean." "Yeah," she rests her head on the space between his neck and his chest, "I do." "Thank you again, for everything." "Ethan, I swear you don't need to thank me-" "Say it again." "I'm sorry?" she moves from his grasp to look at his face. He watches her, a smile across his lips, "Say my name again, but slower this time. Like we're friends." "Ethan." y/n puts an emphasis on the syllables. "Sounds nice," he hums, "I like the way you say things, y/l/n."

She's reading his expression as if it's the most riveting piece of literature she has ever been given. She wants to drink in every one of his features, learn them all by heart and save them for a rainy day. Nothing in her brain stops her from her admiration, no scream of dread reminding her that this is Ethan Dolan. He isn't allowed to be attractive, is he? Can she not appreciate his beauty and detach it from him as a being. Y/n recognizes that she doesn't want to do this. Ethan Dolan as an entire entity is alluring and gorgeous and irresistible. She wants to hate herself, but she can't. He's too dazzling. "What are you looking at?" his voice has dropped to a whisper, his eyes are a delicious caramel flickering over her face. "You." "I feel like I owe it to you to make a literary reference of some kind." She feels her mouth pull itself into a smile, "Only you could do-"

His lips are on hers before she can finish her sentence. Y/n is encompassed by Ethan Dolan. Nothing within her tells her she shouldn't kiss him back.

So she does.

---------------

Part Four! I had a tiny nightmare over the past few days because I did intend to upload this part yesterday but Tumblr decided to delete it from my drafts! I’ve definitely now been scared into saving my work on separate documents. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this part! I do love this series with every ounce of my being, but I have been toying with the idea of starting a new project as well as keeping up with this one. Currently in the process of doing research for a Gray piece, but only time will tell!! Let me know how you feel about this! Love always - K xx

THE TAGLIST

@lukescolours @honeybeeesworld @yslbailey @quickdolan  @dolancrew @sunflowerpseudonym @dreamergirl2727 @arrantsnowdrop @ceejay1163 @peruvian-bae @crown-jul @kinkbaby95 @takenbyheartstrings @loveyou3000-tonystarkzine @ergojenn @blackpinkdolan @sara29392 @someonedoingnothing @americasarse @dolanscello @siana2208 @

[lovelylogans]

where you lead, i will follow

previous chapter / chapter four / next chapter

start from the beginning!

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: food mentions, complicated parental relationships, mentions of transphobia and homophobia, verbal fighting, top surgery mention, classism, off-screen physical altercation (someone gets punched)

pairings: moxiety, logince

words: 4,557

notes: i’m back in the country now and hoo boy jet lag does NOT mess around

logan's reviewing study materials on the bus monday morning. it's fine. the weekend has been fine. he's fine. he should focus on getting into an ivy. that's the priority. he doesn't care about roman getting kissed, roman getting asked out on a date, roman spending the night with—

logan forcibly relaxes his hand before he snaps a highlighter in half.

anyway. he's fine. he has to focus on school. he has to focus on the consultation with the faculty supervisor of the franklin that all journalistically-inclined sophomores are having today. he has to focus on his midterms. 

he's focusing on that plan until he walks into the franklin meeting, sits down, and they're in the midst of talking about some journalism Hot Topics when dee starts loudly proclaiming about how lack of attribution isn't a bad thing.

(your friendly neighborhood journalism student here! as according to the lawyer for the publication i worked for: lack of attribution can often be the sticking point for a libel suit or not. plus, it's just generally good rule of thumb to show readers where i got that information—like how i told you just now i heard it from the lawyer for a publication. that's attribution, though of course in a published article i would include that lawyer's name/title/why they have the professionalism to say that. it's often answering the well why should i believe THAT?! question before it can ever get asked, or at least showing where i got the information, like citing a source in a paper.)

logan, as you know, hasn't had the best week. a nice, bloodless debate about journalism is exactly what he needs.

(when he says bloodless—)

cut to logan sitting in the nurse's office, pinching the bridge of his nose, as dee's getting chewed out in charleston's office. technically, louise punched him, but everyone saw dee goading her into it, so. louise has already been sent packing for suspension, which is apparently a rarity at chilton, and brings him right back into the frame of gossip. just when he'd shaken the matthew nickname.

"well," the advisor for the franklin ("god, please, it's mel or doc or kram, don't say dr. kramschissel, you're wasting time you could be using to tell me about a new story idea") comments. "can't say that i've ever seen someone get hit for saying lack of attribution was comparable to plagiarism before."

"i hope this doesn't sour your opinion of me," logan says, but with all the blood it sounds more like bi hob dis doesn' dour your obinion o be.

"honestly," mel admits, "i've had my eye on you since charleston brought up that you wrote your first byline at seven, sanders."

"oh," logan says, then, "good."

"i don't think this will be a blip on the radar when it comes to admitting you," she says. "honestly, it's points in your favor."

"good," logan repeats, and removes the handful of tissues he's been holding to his nose for the past five minutes, sniffing experimentally. 

"shame about grant," she tuts. "journalists are facing a rough enough time without in-fighting going into it."

logan nods, and she continues.

"your opinion didn't endear you to grant, i'll have you know, but keep it quiet. she got in trouble for plagiarism last year and it's a near thing that she wasn't expelled."

"ah," logan says. 

"not going to ask how i know that?"

"you're a teacher, and a journalism one, at that," logan says. "i'd think you'd want to stay informed."

she smiles. "good guesses are the basis of interesting journalism," she says.

"basis, not journalism in full," logan says. 

"of course, research and interviews and so on, but a good guess can set you down the path," she says, and logan nods.

"so," she says, "you want to be an investigative journalist?"

"yes," logan says simply. he hopes she won't come back with the why? question most adults tend to ask. how does he explain the adrenaline high of a hard deadline, the way he floats after a good interview, the inherent justice of it all, the way that when journalism, done well, changes lives? how does he explain the deeply understood ethics, the sharply defended principles, the roles each journalist is preached to hold—of watchdog, to call on things gone wrong, of marketplace, for people to discuss ideas, of mirror, to reflect society back at itself? how does he explain how do no harm is something he follows not only in journalism but in life? how does he explain the way he felt the first time he published a story that mattered? how can he explain the admiration he feels when he reads the work of others? how can he explain the duty of keeping everyone informed, of reporting on the stories that would otherwise go unheard? how can explain that responsibility? how can he explain that?

but mel smiles at him, and oh, logan realizes. she knows. she has a doctorate in journalism and a pulitzer nomination under her belt and three books to boot. of course she knows.

his phone buzzes. logan glances at it, and then at mel, who says, "oh, go on," and logan picks up.

"logan!" his dad gasps, and logan tucks the phone up under his ear. "the headmaster just called—"

"i'm fine, dad," logan says. "it's just a bloody nose."

"just," his father huffs. "there is no just about my son getting punched in the face! i have half a mind to send your grandmother in there, see if i don't."

"maybe you should," logan says.

"what?"

"i mean, she's closer," logan says. "plus, i mean. what's the use of grandma being grandma if we can't use it once in a while?"

"fair," patton says. "but i'm coming right up, i'm on my way now. should you call her or should i?"

"oh, dad," logan says. "obviously headmaster charleston should call her."

"i have no idea where you got this evil gene from," patton says admiringly, as if logan has not seen patton play innocent to get the upper hand a million times at the diner alone. "all right, i'll call back. how huffy should i get?"

"maximum levels of huffy. your son did get assaulted, after all."

"i can't believe you've been confronted by more delinquents there than you have at sideshire, i'm totally bragging about that at brunch slash our next dinner slash for the rest of time," patton says. "all right. i'll be there soon. i love you so much."

"you too," logan says, and then realizes that mel was listening, and god, that was hardly the language of a proper upstanding journalist—

she laughs like she's heard his thoughts, and she says, "we're journalists, not robots. honestly, seeing you act a bit like a normal teenager doesn't discredit your work."

logan offers a tentative smile, and then, "i thought your pulitzer article was riveting."

"aw, shucks."

"can i ask about—?"

"go for it."

"how did you get the correctional officer to talk to you? korinth, i mean," logan asks, fascinated, leaning forward. 

"well," she begins, and begins weaving a tale about how she'd unveiled a story about suspicious prison deaths across the county, and then across the nation, and logan listens and does not bother resisting the urge to take notes in his notepad, juggling another handful of tissues for his still-bleeding nose with a pen (which she nods at approvingly.)

he doesn't notice the aggravated clacking of heels down the marble hallway getting increasingly noisy until the voice comes with it.

"—incredibly displeased that my grandson got punched by some hooligan, hanlin!"

logan scowls—mel was just getting to the part where she'd finally gotten into the office of a prison superintendent. 

"is that someone of yours?"

"my grandmother, yes."

mel nods, and stands, wiping her hands off on her slacks, and the door flies open.

"logan," emily frets, and logan blinks accusingly at charleston. 

"hi, grandma," he says, possibly overemphasizing the way the bloody nose transfigured his speech. 

"is it broken?" she asks, and snaps at the nurse when she doesn't answer in 0.05 seconds, "well?!"

"it's not broken," the nurse says. "it might hurt for a couple days, but it's not broken."

"small mercies," emily huffs. "what even happened?"

"sanders and a couple other students got into a spirited discussion about attribution in journalism," mel says. "slange was urging grant on—"

"not dee slange?"

"—but grant got rather heated when sanders said that a lack of attribution was close to plagiarism—a view i share, i might add—and her temper rather got the better of her," mel finishes. "and yes, the same." 

"emily, i assure you, the student in question has been suspended," charleston says.

"oh i should hope so!" she hisses. "someone hit my grandson, i will ensure those consequences are enforced!"

logan, internally, is kicking back to watch the show, seeing how charleston shrinks and shrinks in front of his grandmother that reminds him a little of his dad, but in a much less blood-boiling way because charleston actually deserves it. externally, he is sure to look as mournful and as much like a kicked puppy as he possibly can.

"here, here, here!" a much more familiar voice pants, and patton stumbles into the nurse's office, wheezing, clutching a stitch in his side.

"dad," logan starts.

"logan," patton says, "my son," and he sounds upset, immediately crossing over to frame logan's face in his hands.

"how is it still bleeding?! it's not broken, is it?!" he asks the nurse frantically.

"no, it's not broken," the nurse says. 

patton swivels to stare at charleston, and he's genuinely teary-eyed. "you said you'd take care of my son."

"well, now—"

"you did," emily confirms. "you said you'd do your best to take care of my grandson."

"how on earth is this taking care of him?!" patton demands. 

"emily—mr. sanders—"

"how could this possibly be the best school in the state if he gets punched during a scholarly debate?!" patton nearly shrieks. 

"mr. sanders, if you would calm—"

"no, i will not calm down!" he shouts. "how can i possibly trust this school to take care of him if he gets beaten up within its walls?!"

"emily, surely you can—"

"my son's making a valid point," emily says coolly. "i sent one child here, and did you see what happened to him? you said that children would be children. you said you were trying your best to control the bullying. i found my son crying in his bed and hiding any possible sign and refusing to talk to me because it had gotten so bad. my son. when i brought up concerns about my grandson, you said that it had gotten better, and he's been attending for barely two months when i get a call that he's been assaulted?"

oh shit, logan thinks, they're pissed. they're pissed and they're teaming up.

"we should sue," emily says, and patton jabs a finger at her in agreement. "i should have sued when patton was here!"

"well, now, a lawsuit is—" charleston says, sweating very nervously indeed.

"my son's nose is still bleeding," patton says, "and you're telling me that a lawsuit would be overreacting?!"

"dad, grandma," logan says, finally cutting in, because patton might start angry-crying at any second. "maybe not a lawsuit, though i am going to have to protest to dee slange just getting a stern talking-to and nothing else."

"he's not even getting detention?!" patton snarls. "i got detention for politely telling people to respect my name and pronouns, and someone who prodded someone into hitting my son is getting nothing but a talking to?!"

"i agree with sanders," mel says. "the role of instigator is not a small one, and from where i was standing, grant may not have been so incensed without slange's commentary. mr. sanders—patton, isn't it?—i'll personally ensure that slange gets some form of detention, which i'm sure headmaster charleston will agree with, won't you?"

"i do!" charleston says hastily. "or, he will get detention. yes."

"oh, he'd better," emily says. "hanlin, why don't we continue this in your office, and you can outline exactly what your plans for discipline are moving forward. i won't be making the same mistake twice."

"yes," he says hastily. "yes, of course, and an excused absence for mr. sanders, if you'd like to take him home—"

"i will," patton says hotly. 

"emily, if you'd—?"

and they make their retreat.

mel lets out a low whistle. "god, sanders, i hope you can grill a source like that."

"i have good examples," logan admits.

"sorry," mel adds hastily. "dr. melissa kramschissel, but i insist on mel or kram. i'm the faculty advisor for the franklin."

"oh!" patton says, and tries for his best meeting-new-people smile, shaking her hand. "of course, logan's told me all about you. he's very excited to work on the franklin."

"oh, we'll have a place for him, but if you'll excuse me, i think the bell's about to ring," mel says, and nods to him. "sanders."

"mel," he says with a nod, trying not to outwardly celebrate too much at we'll have a place for him. 

"okay, give me your face," patton demands, digging wet wipes out of his pocket. "does it still hurt?"

"a little," logan admits. "i'll probably ice it later."

"i'll be gentle," patton promises, and begins swiping the dried blood off his face. 

"so," logan says, "you and grandma might have terrified charleston into giving me preferential treatment until i graduate."

patton snorts, but his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he attempts to scrub off a stubborn bit of blood without pressing down too hard. "yeah, well. one of us should have it."

"i didn't realize grandma wanted to sue. when you were here."

"that makes two of us," patton says. "dinner this week is gonna be interesting."

"i suppose it will," logan agrees, and patton sets aside the wet wipe. he frowns, tilting logan's face side to side.

"you're going to bruise up something terrible."

"i'll ice it," logan repeats. "louise grant apparently has a hell of a right hook."

"that she does," a voice drawls, and logan instinctively stiffens as both sanders look toward the door.

"she's a black belt, you know," dee continues. 

"i didn't, but you certainly did," logan grits out. 

"hm, innocent until proven guilty," dee says, with a little bow. "good job on getting your grandmother to solve your problems, logan."

"are you upset i marred your otherwise perfect record, or something?" logan sneers. 

"or something," dee says lightly. "now if you'll excuse me, i have an appointment with charleston to attend. and this," he says, face breaking out into a grin, "why, this has only just ended."

he sweeps off.

"jesus, i've never seen a high schooler so clearly destined to become a marvel supervillain," patton says with a shudder. "that's him?"

"that's him," logan confirms dryly. 

patton pats him on the shoulder, and says, "well, on that slightly unnerving note, you wanna come home?"

logan hops to his feet, and follows patton out of chilton, to the car. they're on the highway by the time patton talks again.

"this has been a rough week, huh?"

"i can't say i've ever been punched at school, no," logan says, sidestepping the other part of his week.

patton scowls, briefly, before he says, "not just that."

logan jerks up a shoulder in a shrug, looking out of a window. "i should be focusing on school anyway. getting into an ivy. they start really focusing on how i'm doing now, so—"

"it's okay to feel sad."

"i'm not sad."

"it would be okay if you were, though," patton says.

"right," logan says. "anyway. we really need to get a new soap dish for the upstairs bathroom, it's been broken for months."

"and i'm here to listen if you wanna talk about it, okay?"

"...we're going to need to call the heating company, too, you remember how it got so odd last year. we might need to replace the unit."

"okay, okay," patton says, and they talk about the house and nothing but the house until they get to sideshire. the length of the drive makes it so that—logan checks—both chilton and sideshire high will have just gotten out of classes.

"you wanna jam tart, or something?" patton offers. "my treat."

"i was," logan says, and licks his lips. "i was actually thinking of going to lucy's and dropping by the studio."

"oh!" patton says, startled. "oh, i mean, of course, but i thought you might be—"

"why should i have opinions on the situation?" logan says. "he's just my friend. it's not like it's my place to say anything about it."

"logan," patton begins, but sighs and puts up his hands. "okay, okay, fine. let me at least drive you to lucy's, i want a double-chocolate shake."

logan gets their regulars, withstands some fussing from patton and lucy, and walks down the street to the studio.

ms. prince has taken over that class, but roman's sitting in the furthest corner from the door, head bent, working on homework. he looks up when the bell rings.

logan holds up the milkshakes in answer, and roman beams at him, waving him eagerly down the hall.

as soon as logan gets close, though, the smile slides right off, immediately replaced by a look of concern.

"oh, my god, what happened to your face?!" roman hisses.

"journalism gets heated at chilton," logan says, and hands over the chocolate-covered cherry shake. 

"someone hit you?!" roman demands, setting aside the shake immediately and taking hold of logan's face (logan's growth spurt means that he's a little bit taller than roman, now. no telling if it'll stay that way, but for now, logan has to get used to the new angle.)

"grandma and dad both came to yell at the headmaster," logan tells him. "now grandma knows that dee slange is... well, the way he is."

"he hit you?!"

"louise grant did, actually, but everyone knows dee goaded her into it."

roman shakes his head in disbelief, cracks open the top of logan's milkshake to steal his maraschino cherry. "you go to school without me for, what, two months? and you got punched. in the face."

"the nose, more precisely," logan says, starting to spoon through the whipped cream. "apparently, she's a black belt."

"your dad yelled?"

"a little, yeah," logan says. "i mean, he looked pretty close to angry-crying, but my grandma definitely yelled. apparently she nearly sued chilton for the way he got treated when he was there. hearing i got punched in the face has kickstarted that desire right back up again."

roman lets out a low whistle, and takes a long slurp of his shake, smiling at it. "um. thanks, by the way."

"i owed you for last time. and technically my dad bought—"

"no! um, not the shakes, but thanks for those too, i guess," roman says. "i just—i didn't know if things would be weird now. with jess and everything."

logan blinks at him. "why would it be weird?" he says, in a carefully normal tone. "we're friends. why should i care if you went on a date?"

roman freezes, lets out an absolutely false laugh, and looks down at his lap. "right," he says, quietly. "right, why should you care."

"how was it, anyway?" logan says, as if an odd and painful thing wasn't clenching in his chest.

"oh," roman says. "it was—nice."

"nice," logan repeats.

"yes. nice."

"roman. i once heard you describe yourself as talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, and when it comes to your first date, you just say that it's nice?"

"okay, first of all, i can't believe you cannot recognize that i was referencing lady gaga," roman says, "second of all, i was just starting to describe it, calm down."

logan rolls his eyes, and keeps his face frozen in polite interest as he hears roman start to gush about jess, and thinks this hurts worse than his bloody nose.

meanwhile, patton walks into virgil's, shake in hand.

"no outside beverages," virgil says.

"you know what would go great with this one, though?" patton says. "a hot cocoa/coffee."

"you had three cups at breakfast."

"no, virgil, you don't understand, i need another one," patton says. "i actually was in agreement with my mom today—"

virgil opens his mouth.

"but patton, it's monday, you're about to say? well, i got called up to school because logan got passionate about journalism, like he always does, and some—some girl punched him in the nose!"

"wh—is he okay?!"

"he's fine," patton says, "he seemed to think that i was making too big a deal out of everything, he went to get shakes for him and roman. i'm hoping that's a good sign, but i'm just—he got hit, virgil!"

"he's okay, though?"

"bloody nose, nothing broken," patton says. "please can i get a hot cocoa/coffee?"

"i'm sending you home with a dozen jam tarts," virgil decides, and fishes out a mug. "oh, wait, you said your mom—?"

"my mom might have actually killed a man today, i don't know, she made him take her back to his office," patton says. "she was yelling for a solid fifteen minutes before i got there, i think."

"well, if your mom has to be who she is..."

"logan said the same thing," patton says. "he actually said that i should make charleston call, which." his lip twitches. "makes up a little for the time i got a month's worth of detention because i kept correcting teachers on my name and pronouns and ignoring them if they called out my deadname."

virgil high-fives him, face hardened. 

"also it turns out my mom wanted to sue when i was there," patton adds, distracted. "like she started yelling at him about me. i didn't know she was so..."

"loud?"

"upset," patton says softly. "i didn't know she was that upset about it."

"oh."

"i just—i dunno. i always felt so alone back then, and i can't help but wonder..." patton shakes himself, murmurs a thanks when virgil sets the mug in front of him. "it is what is now, i guess. can't change the past."

"i mean, if i could change the past," virgil says, an attempt at a joke, "i'd change the way we met."

patton smiles. "you weren't that bad."

virgil gives him a Look.

"okay, you were a little bad," patton amends, "but to be fair, i was on the verge of a breakdown for days and you fed me basically immediately after, that made up for it."

"well, i'd change it," virgil insists. 

"i wouldn't," patton says, smiling. "i wouldn't change a thing in the world about us."

except for one thing, they both think, except for one thing—

but they don't want to risk it, changing this silent, maybe-unrequited love into something said aloud. not yet.

⁂

logan keeps going to the studio after school. he did that a lot, really, did his homework in the pews, or read the courant, or compiled research for an article, but he'd stopped doing it as often after he transferred to chilton.

it makes sense that his date (boyfriend?) would come to visit him one day.

it's the wednesday after he brought roman a shake, and logan's busy perfecting his outline for his english essay that's due in two weeks when the door to the dance studio opens. logan blinks, looking up, and—oh.

the boy—jess, logan thinks snidely—hovers near the door.

"hell of a shiner," jess says, and he sounds impressed. "what happened?"

"journalism."

jess blinks at him in utter confusion, and roman bounces around the corner, beaming. the dancers (mostly around the age of ten) filter toward their bags. one of them is giving logan a pitying look. logan refuses the urge to bury his face back into his book.

"jess, what are you doing here?! my mom might kill you!"

"i brought you something," he says, bringing a bag out from behind his back, and logan barely suppresses his smirk.

roman hates al's pancake world. 

"oh, hey," roman says, rallying from the briefly disappointed look that flashes almost too quick to catch across his face. "thanks, jess, that's really sweet. oh, i didn't even—jess, this is logan. he's my best friend, he goes to chilton now."

"chilton?" jess echoes.

"it's thirty minutes away," logan says, and jess' eyes drop to the uniform.

"private school kid, then."

"fairly recent, but yes," logan says, trying not to get riled up. "i just transferred in this year."

"logan's going to be a journalist," roman says brightly, "and he—"

"yeah, he mentioned," jess says, cutting roman off. logan tries not to inflate too obviously, because sure, he might cut roman off, but roman always gives him that Look, the 'i'll-get-you-for-that-later' Look, not the way he's scuffing his ballet shoes over the carpeted floor of the hallway right now. but roman rallies, because roman always does.

"he's going to get a pulitzer one day," roman says. 

logan smiles at roman. just a little. "well, i'm not just focusing on journalism for that."

"yeah, but you're so good at it you're gonna get one," roman says. "maybe two. who's the record-holder for pulitzers?"

"carol guzy and david barstow are tied at four."

"amateurs!" roman declares, and logan laughs.

"as interesting as all that is," jess drawls. "should i...?"

"roman has class until six, then an hour's break, and classes again," logan says. "schedule varies depending on his mother, of course, but considering..."

"you could skip," jess offers, and roman actually laughs, before he blinks.

"oh. you're serious?"

"yeah, why not?"

because roman loves teaching the kids. you would have been better off asking if he could skip the sunrise yoga for the over-55s.

"because my mom might actually bludgeon you to death with a pointe shoe," roman says. 

that too.

"what else can she do?" jess says, with an eyeroll.

"oh, you're definitely new to town," logan murmurs, unable to help himself.

"what?" he scowls, swiveling to face logan. 

"you're definitely new to town, for two reasons," logan says, neatly shutting his book as roman slips back into the studio and a shadow looms behind an unsuspecting jess. "one, because ms. prince is rightfully the most feared person in town. and two, you haven't yet learned that she can be lurking around any corner."

jess rolls his eyes. "what, like she's the boogeyman? i think i'll take my chances."

"boo," ms. prince says coldly, and logan doesn't even try not to smile when jess jumps about a foot in the air.

"ms. prince," logan says, slipping his book into his bag and nodding at her respectfully. 

"logan," she says, without taking her eyes off her latest prey. "you have some nerve showing up here without so much as an apology."

logan steps out of the doorway, even as he's loathe to miss a ms. prince lecture directed at someone who's not him or roman, and quashes the urge to do something foolish, like skip his way to virgil's.

[dragonofyang]

From the Sock Puppet’s Mouth

Well folks, good news and bad news.

Good news: the ABTV interview on March 4th confirmed for us that WEP is the reason for the last-minute changes and that certain things were fought tooth and nail for until they came down and axed it.

Bad news: WEP is still using the EPs as their meat shields to hide behind, and despite not being really able to refuse, Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery still said some fucked up shit in this interview and the one before. And we probably should gird our loins for the next interview with Let’s Voltron!

But Yang, why in the fuck are we not going after the EPs, then?

The answer to that and why this is happening is three little letters, my friends.

NDA.

Non-disclosure agreements.

AKA the bane of your existence. And ours. And almost certainly JDS, LM, voice actors, animators, and literally anybody who has to comply with the season 8 we got back in December and the resulting fallout.

These are fairly standard in lots of situations where you’ll be working with confidential material, stuff like stories, military paperwork, movie production, that sort of thing. They generally tell you that you can’t spill the beans until a certain date when the contract expires, or when the information becomes public knowledge and the need for secrecy is lifted. Pretty standard in the entertainment business, keeps people from getting spoiled to trade secrets or important plotlines and ensures that you can trust your employees with whatever you need done for the project in question.

One other thing that these pesky little pieces of paper do is give your employer (say, the owner of a franchise or a superior officer), the ability to order you what to say just as easily as what not to. Don’t believe me? Look up interviews with the people who were in The Last Airbender (yeah… THAT movie). During production and when it was new, they all said how excited they were to work on the movie and be a part of it, but once those magical dates came by to free them of their legal obligations, they spilled more tea than the American revolutionaries did back in Boston. As soon as they wouldn’t get sued, they changed their tune about working on TLA.

Sometimes you just don’t like a project, sometimes your boss is a dick, whatever, but the fact is, if you sign one of those little things titled “Non-Disclosure Agreement”, you are bound by law to say whatever your boss tells you to. It’s very much a “they say ‘jump’, you say ‘how high’” situation. The only time this sort of shit doesn’t apply is if it implicates you in a crime. So like, your boss can’t embezzle money and then tell you to say you did it, or that you helped, or whatever. If it means you’ll get pressed charges, then you’re free to stand up and say “fuck this noise” and leave.

But JDS and LM aren’t being forced to admit to a crime, as heinous as some of what they’ve said in the past two ABTV interviews was. I’ll admit, I saw red the first time I heard the interviews on February 25 and March 4, but ya know fuckin’ what? That was the goal. Those interviews were meant to be a targeted blow against those of us in the VLD fandom who want the real s8 and for the characters to get their stories told correctly, rather than the slipshod stoic nonsense that ultimately created a story with zero meaning.

WEP/World Events Productions/Bob Koplar holds the Voltron intellectual property. JDS and LM are their puppets right now because unless they’re ordered to admit to a crime or otherwise break the law, they could be ruined legally, financially, and closed off from their trade. Would it be nice if they stuck to the scruples they displayed back when the show first started? Fuck yeah. I’d love it if they said, “screw it, here’s the real s8 with the heroine’s journey and the parallel storylines and the ending you deserved to see and get catharsis with.”

Fact is, they can’t, but we, who have never signed an NDA with WEP, DreamWorks, or Netflix or whoever the fuck else is involved, can.

They’re lying, yes, and they said despicable things that would make anybody’s blood boil, but the fact is they’re just the unfortunate human shields that will let WEP get away scot-free and it sets a very dangerous precedent about what happens when a story is being told and someone up top doesn’t like what they see. The narrative LM and JDS are being told to spin is that when the writers left, they went ham and ruined the story and that the real season 8 would be worse than the concoction we got on December 14. LM and JDS have said awful shit as WEP tries to demoralize fans and chase them off from going after the original season 8 and deflecting blame off where it should be aimed. But why would they have to write a story that’s animated and would have been completed before the writers left? LM said it herself that animation is extremely ahead of schedule compared to releases, and if you’re a fan of HTTYD like myself, you’ll know that the third movie’s release date had to be pushed back multiple times to account for the animation schedule because they failed to accurately project when it would be complete, and so pushed it back as opposed to releasing a shoddy product.

It’s simple enough to realize that the story being spun is just logically fallible and factually untrue, but because so much of what’s been said has been attacking the fandom, it’s easy to believe it. I almost wanted to believe that, too. It’s easy when there’s already a face and a name to blame. It’s harder to dig through stinging nettles, even if you know there’s a pot of gold under it all. Luckily I brought work gloves and have friends who know how to wield gardening shears.

We knew before that there was last minute edits to season 8, and @leakinghate did an excellent breakdown of that here in case you want to settle in for a nice read to see what should have been. But the interview on March 4th confirmed multiple times that the problem with the changes and story didn’t come from the EPs or even Dreamworks. The pushback came from the IP owners. JDS says so right toward the beginning, about 12 minutes in when he’s talking about Adam and Shiro’s romance. JDS and LM both discuss how it was the IP owners who gave the order to change an already-storyboarded and approved plotline for Shiro, which directly negates their tweet on March 1 claiming that the store has no creative control and the letter Bob Koplar wrote to a few fans, also written March 1, which claimed the same thing and seemed intent on absolving him as a responsible party for s8. Sure, the person tweeting and the person handling orders might not have to approve things, but that account and the store are both owned by WEP, which is easily proven if you dial WEP’s number. But the IP holders got discussed multiple times throughout the entire episode, more towards the first half than the second, which is when what they’re saying gets really screwy in terms of logic and what they’ve said before and general bullfuckery. Until JDS and LM are thanking the hosts for the unprecedented two hour interview and JDS says, “I don’t agree with myself” at 43:03, they were thanking the fans and apologizing for what happened and explaining that it wasn’t them or Dreamworks, but rather the IP holders who were pushing back.

Don’t believe me?

Click to 12:10 of the March 4 interview. JDS talks about Adam and Shiro’s relationship and how it was originally meant to be portrayed, and at the 12:50 mark he says that they got pushback about their relationship, not from Dreamworks, but from “other controlling parties with Voltron.”

Click to 18:52, where JDS mentions how they didn’t have the position as being creators of the IP. He also points out that, “We were, for all intents and purposes, like, started as a show for boys 6 to 11 to sell as much toys as possible.”

Does that phrase bother you as much as it bothers me?

Because it should.

Ever since VLD ended and the fans started pushing back against what got published as season 8, the EPs have been silent, at least for the first two-ish months. They didn’t say a word anywhere publicly about the show or if they liked it, because their NDAs probably had an “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” clause. Generally, that’s the case because part of your job is to build good PR and hype up your project. Don’t believe me? Look at how they were after literally every other season, they came out immediately saying how much they loved it and how much they hoped the fans would too, and when there was pushback about Lotor’s abuse and the colony plot they were like, “please trust us, we want to do his story justice” even when it probably would have served them better to remain silent.

Not with S8.

Until these interviews, nobody talked. And when they finally did start talking?

They all kept saying the same things.

“This is a show for boys and their dads” and “this is a show meant to sell toys to little boys.”

At no point before this did anybody on the production team say anything even remotely related.

You can look for yourself, but I guarantee you won’t find anything. “Boy toy show” has been the go-to phrase for everybody ever since the silence around season 8 broke, and it’s not their words.

It is, without a doubt, from the IP holder.

We were promised that Lotor’s arc would continue and that “there’s a lot that is at play in his brain and his mind,” in the GeekDad article about him. Narratively, Lotor and Allura were meant to foil Zarkon and Honerva/Haggar. We should’ve gotten an alchemist-versus-alchemist showdown and a cool Lotor and Lance arc. Many things that were built up in seasons 1 through 6 were dropped, and if you refer back to Hate’s meta “Seeking Truth in Darkness”, you’ll find her analysis on what was cut, why, and the plot she pieced together based on the inconsistencies in the details of the season 8 that got released. In the latest interview, JDS said, “We were just trying to break the trope, our own trope. You know what I mean? Like Voltron was its own trope and the sort of little nook that we inhabited was, like, sort of boys toys was its own weird tropey situation.”

And despite all this talk of family and love and complexity and breaking barriers, we received two things from December 14 and on: VLD season 8, and silence.

Complete and utter silence.

The VAs were trotted out to face the wrath of the fans at SAC Anime 2019 and there was nary a word to be heard from the EPs, Dreamworks, WEP, Netflix… Nobody had anything to say about the final season of Voltron. The VAs even commented that there were things they were and weren’t allowed to say. And if they wanted to say anything, their NDAs and general social etiquette prevented them from saying whatever was actually on their mind, because I guarantee you nobody happy about the season would have kept silent. Even when all the season 7 backlash happened, JDS and LM asked us as a fandom to please wait and see, because there would be narrative payoff.

Which is why the latest two interviews with ABTV are all the more rightfully infuriating.

In the February 25 interview, LM specifically says that the initial pitch was to kill everybody, everybody would die and that would be the end of it, and that they had to back off from that. After the broken promises of season 8, that’s pretty damn believable to a fandom who’s rightfully hurting and grieving what could have finished a great show. But then with this March 4 interview, she says that she wanted to go Sailor Moon with it and have Allura come back as a baby after sacrificing herself. Kind of hard for those two stories to mesh when the person LM says would raise Allura would also have been one of the ones to die in the initial pitch.

So what exactly is the truth there?

Frankly, I think neither of those ideas is the truth. At least completely.

Why? A) It sounds like a super early pitch idea and B) because their general behavior disagrees with every interview leading up to season 8. Because if LM and JDS were proud of this product that got released, they would have said so and behaved as normal, if maybe a little more reserved due to fandom backlash. Because they wouldn’t be silent and only coming out with interviews after two months and several of #TeamPurpleLion metas that poke massive holes in what exists of season 8, CallVoltron has been sending letters, and #FREEVLDS8 garnered over 30,000 signatures. WEP has been trying to do damage control ever since we as a fandom started putting two and two together about where these disastrous last-minute changes came from, and only when the petition got updated to include WEP as a point of focus did WEP start trying to discredit the fans and meta writers who were coming too close to the truth. Here is a complete list of everything that’s happened since December 14, to give you an idea of just how wild of a ride this has been.

One main consistent thing throughout everything that’s happened since season 8 dropped is that everybody from the EPs up is lying, whether by omission or outright or through someone else, people have been lying like mad. WEP doesn’t want you to know that they own the IP and have strong input, despite confirming it by liking a tweet on February 13 and how you can be directed to their store if you call WEP’s phone number. WEP doesn’t want you to know that they gave the original season 8 the axe. WEP got scared that we got close and so they trotted out their EPs after two months of silence to try and break those of us hunting for the truth. These two interviews, which, mind you, came after what was scheduled to be the last one.

The official story continues to fall apart with every word of these last two interviews, too. JDS says that they were crafting the epilogue for season 8 during the aftermath of season 7, but according to him they completed season 8 back in June.

Again: which is the truth?

I stand with @leakinghate and the rest of #TeamPurpleLion and think that the original season 8 was completed back in June, but that the backlash from s7 and the general disapproval of a story of empowerment caused the truly-eleventh-hour edits to s8. The EPs are being forced to lie to you due to their contracts, WEP wants to keep hiding and lying and calling their customers liars and mocking them. But the funny thing is that the more intricate the lie, the harder it is to keep it straight versus the truth, as evidenced by how JDS and LM seem to be confusing what was in s8 versus what was pitched versus what they were told to say.

So what’s it all mean, then?

It means you should be watching and writing letters and calling WEP and calling them out publicly whenever WEP and Bob Koplar lie to the consumers and customers that express dissatisfaction with their service and their products.

WEP forgets that there is more to fandom than diehard dads and young boys.

The more they ignore the majority of their consumers, the more money they lose, the more faith they lose, and the less people will want to follow their future projects (like if they decide to do an MFE spinoff). Let’s Voltron is coming up with a new episode with JDS and LM, and they’re hoping to get it up soon. I’d just like to remind y’all that it’s scripted and pre-recorded, it’s not live, and it benefits from being the official Voltron podcast and has to keep good relations with WEP in order to retain that status. So don’t stop calling, write letters, hell just leave a Facebook or Twitter review of the business to express your satisfaction or lack thereof with how WEP treats customers and its show and everything. After all, the road to s8 is paved with honesty.

@felixazrael @leakinghate @crystal-rebellion @voltronisruiningmylife

[slutforbroadway]

i have some thoughts about the prom movie casting

you can read it if you wish, or not. I just need to vent. Also feel free to like/reblog.

Some of these may be popular opinions, others may not be. These are just my thoughts and I’d be more than happy to have a (respectful) conversation about the casting choices they’ve made 😊

First I’m gonna start off with the fact that Ryan Murphy is directing this. I have mixed feelings. While I was absolutely obsessed with Glee growing up (it very much still is a guilty pleasure) and have watched some of his other shows (American Horror Stories, Scream Queens, etc), I do still have my worries. He isn’t necessarily famous for his outstanding wlw representation so I was kinda surprised when he jumped on this. Maybe this will be his redemption, I don’t know. He does seem to be worrying more about big names than getting actors who are true to the characters. And his lack of diversity in his casting has me worried. With that being said, lemme jump into the four broadway stars.

Meryl Streep as Dee Dee Allen. She was good in Mamma Mia, she was good in Into the Woods. She can definitely sing, I have no worries she’ll do this role well. I really wasn’t that surprised to find out she was doing Dee Dee. I’m excited to hear her sing “It’s Not About Me” and “The Lady’s Improving.” While of course I wish Beth Leavel could reprise her role in the movie, I do believe Meryl will do a great job.

James Corden as Barry Glickman. This one I have mixed feelings about. I have been a fan of James since his old BBC Show “Gavin and Stacey.” I loved him in Into the Woods and think he’s done an amazing job both times he’s hosted the Tony Awards. I do believe he could sing “Barry is Going to Prom” well and sound good, he is a strong singer. Here’s my issue. Barry is a gay Jewish man. Brooks Ashmanskas is a gay man (I’m not sure if he’s Jewish). James is neither of those things. He’s just a straight, cis-gender, white guy. In all honesty I believe he’ll probably do a good job, I just wish they had cast someone else (like idk maybe Brooks, just a thought) that wasn’t straight, white, and/or cis. One name I’ve seen thrown around that would’ve made a great Barry was Tituss Burgess, and he would’ve been great. He has the Broadway experience from The Little Mermaid and the screen experience from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Nicole Kidman as Angie Dickinson. This one I’m just kinda meh about. I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another. I know she can sing since she was in Moulin Rouge and did an amazing job. She has the look, and maybe I’m going crazy but I thought I saw an interview where Angie said she would be fine with Kidman playing her in the movie. Although now I can’t seem to find that article, so maybe I dreamt it. All in all, I think she’ll do okay. I’m just happy they still have Angie and Trent in the movie and aren’t writing them out like the book.

Andrew Rannells as Trent Oliver. This one I am super excited for. I think Andrew would make an amazing Trent. I am so excited to hear him sing “The Acceptance Song” and “Love Thy Neighbor” and depending on who they end up casting for Emma and Alyssa those two may be the only songs I listen to from the movie soundtrack lol. I think he’s really gonna do this character justice and I’m very happy they found a gay man to play this role. I just wish they would’ve done the same thing with Barry. I think Andrew and Meryl (depending on how she does) may be the saving grace of this movie.

Awkwafina as Ms. Sheldon. I can’t speak on this one too much seeming as how I know absolutely nothing about her. I haven’t watched anything she’s been in or listened to any of her music. I do know she’s at least been to see the show which I don’t know if anyone else that’s been cast has. I could be wrong though. I do think it’s cool that they’ve cast a female in this role though.

Keegan Michael Key as Principle Hawkins. This is another one I don’t have a super strong opinion on. I have no idea how he is singing wise, but Hawkins only has the one song. Which they better not cut, because I think it’s a beautiful song. I think it’ll be interesting seeing him interact with Meryl Streep, hopefully they have as strong of a chemistry as Michael and Beth did. This is one of those wait-and-see things for me.

When it comes to Emma and Alyssa.

Obviously I would love to see Caitlin and Izzy reprise their roles. The likelihood of that happening? Not very. If Murphy wants to cast a big name in this movie for Alyssa Greene, I personally think he should go for Zendya. She can sing, she’s been in movie musicals before, and she’s a woman of color. She also could pull off playing a teenager way more than Ariana Grande ever could. When it comes to casting Emma I think they should look to the Jimmy Awards, as there are huge sources of talent coming from them. And the people that compete in the Jimmy Awards are (or were, as some of them have obviously graduated by now) high schoolers and are musical theatre performers. Lord help us if Murphy ends up casting Taylor Swift. 

TL;DR Meryl should be fine. They should have cast Tituss Burgess for Barry. I have no opinions on Nicole. Andrew will be great. I know nothing about Awkwafina, and Keegan I have no strong opinion on. Thank Jesus Ariana isn’t playing Alyssa. While I want Caitlin and Izzy to reprise, Zendya is my choice for Alyssa and they should look for actual musical theatre people to play Emma. I have hopes, but I’m setting the bar low.

[malexfan10]

What is it about Malex?

I was playing around on my phone at work (when I should have been working lol) and came across some article about the best TV couples. It was published in 2018 so Malex wasn't in it lol

But I was going through the pictures in the article and I saw a lot of the couples I've liked & enjoyed over the years listed. Pacey & Joey, Captain Swan, Haleb, Stydia, Kurt & Blaine etc.

I started thinking...what is it about Malex that makes them extra special for me? What is it about them that made me join Tumblr and Twitter for the first time? I never had either before this year. What is it about them that made me write more fan fic in the span of 3 months than I have in years of watching other shows? And I'm someone who studied English Lit in university and have written many novels, hoping to finally pursue publishing this year with one of them. But the amount of fan fic I've typed out the past 3 months? My hands seriously hurt!

So why is Malex so special?

(I made a collage below)

Is it because they're an LGBTQ pairing? There have been other LGBTQ pairings I've rooted for. Malex isn't the first and they won't be the last. Times are changing in TV land and we're seeing more and more representation. It's progressing slowly, but it is changing.

Is the reason Malex is extra special a shallow reason? The actors are both incredibly good looking. No getting around that. But I loved Haleb too and Tyler was one half of that ship. I adore Joshua Jackson and Dylan O'Brien. I think Holland Roden is beautiful. In the couples I've followed over the years, all the actors & actresses have been attractive in their own ways.

-- side note -- I know I put Destiel (SPN) in the collage below even though technically they're not a couple but some of their lines over the past decade, I mean come on! It's so obvious! --

Anyway...

Is it the chemistry between Tyler & Michael? I thought Katie & Josh had amazing chemistry. Only reason I watched PLL was for Haleb and the friendship between Tyler & Ashley. Some of the couples I've rooted for really sizzled on screen. Do I think Vlamburn has better chemistry than all the others? Not necessarily. I think they tie for first with some of my other faves (although I would probably rank them above right now just because they're current).

So what is it about Malex that made me so emotionally invested that I joined social media like this? That I've written a bunch of fics and have so many other concepts cooking in my head.

I think it comes down to the angst at the end of the day and how the story has been written.

I've directed a lot of disappointment and anger towards Carina and the writers since that finale because I'm afraid the triangle will grow and span multiple seasons. I'm afraid the writers will show Michael really starting to have deep feelings for Maria the longer M&M exists (I know Vlamis said in those last interviews that his feelings for her are already very deep but sorry Vlamis. I love you but I don't see that yet.) I'm afraid now that they know they were renewed, they'll drag this storyline out, pursure M&M and then Michael with other relationships if/once M&M ends with Alex just waiting in the sidelines, moping and heartbroken.

But despite all my fears and disappointments after that craptastic finale (seriously, I can write a 20 page essay), I have to give the writers their credit.

The story they wrote, the beauty they created in Malex, with that amazing angst and history and love is the reason I'm so invested.

"Where I stand, nothing's changed"

"I never look away"

"That I loved you and I think that you loved me."

"Cosmic"

"But you are mine"

"I don't look away Guerin"

"I love him. I probably always will"

I mean, these lines all exist. No one can take those words away. Yes, the writers can try and diminish it by shoving another relationship down our throats & attempting to give that relationship the same level of meaning and importance (sorry, not buying it. Hardly anyone is). But those lines will always be there.

The epicness of Malex will always be there.

That beautiful first kiss in the reunion will always be there.

Their connection in senior year, bonding over their painful childhoods and living situations will always be there.

Caulfield, although bittersweet, will always be there.

Michael Guerin wanting to be Alex's hero will always be there.

The angst and love between them is just unbelievable. I don't think any other couple I've rooted for over the years has had the same amount of angst or history. Their story is just beautiful.

I don't cry too much in movies or TV shows unless there's a really sad death that hits me hard. LOST was one of those shows where I sobbed constantly (Jin & Sun's death, Juliet's, Charlie's...I could go on).

But I cried after that last scene in episode 6, when Jesse destroyed such a beautiful and pure moment 🥺

I cried at that moment in Caulfield 🥺

I cried at the finale, watching Alex just waiting there while Michael....let's not remind ourselves 🤨

So yes, the chemistry is unbelievable between Tyler & Michael. How close they are offscreen shines through their performance and this is in a cast where everyone's close. But with Vlamburn, especially from Michael, he's so unfiltered when he talks about Tyler's eyes or the way he kisses or just how much he loves him. What can I say, they make me love Malex more ❤

Yes, they're both incredibly good looking but that's a miniscule, shallow reason. How good looking a couple is in no way compares to how much their emotional connection matters, at least for me.

So really, it's the story. It's the history. It's all that profound, made for each other, soulmates love that they share. It's the incredible angst that makes me root for them even more.

And yes, as much as Carina and crew have angered me after that finale and after their insistance of shoving this triangle down our throats and in our faces, they did create Malex so I have to be grateful for that. Vlamburn perfected it and made it epic but the concept came from Carina (trust me, it hurts to give that credit).

So as much as it still hurts with what happened, as much as seeing the M&M promos bothers me, as much as I'll be a sobbing mess once season 2 hits and Alex realizes what happened, I have to believe that this much care and heartbreaking angst was given to this couple for a reason. That reason has to be that Malex is endgame.

Can Carina change her mind about Endgame Malex? Sure she can, if she wants to lose a substantial percentage of the fandom. But I can't believe she'll do that.

I can't believe that Malex is anything but each other's ending.

I can't believe that this beautiful love story we've seen between 2 men who started as scared, lonely boys and are now broken men trying to put themselves back together is anything short of EPIC.

I can't believe that M&M, however painful and ridiculously unnecessary, is anything but a bump in this road for Malex.

All that matters is how the writers take us from point A to B.

Does their separation last for 4 more seasons (pending renewals) and Malex reunites in the series finale, season 5? God I hope not. I need to see them existing as a couple together on screen, not just a kiss and makeup moment last episode and assume they made it. So once this teenage level of triangle nonesense has been dealt with (please let season 2 be the end of it!!!!), I really hope the writers realize the amazing couple they created and give them their due justice by bringing Malex together for good.

Episodes 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, last Malex scene of 9, beginning of 10 and all of 12 point this show towards one inevitable ending with Malex and that's reuniting (did I get the episodes right?). Just keep your fingers crossed it happens sooner rather than later. Right now, that's where my main fears lie.

This fandom has been super great about lending support to one another when things get tough. Unfortunately, things will get even tougher next season so it will be good to have this great support.

As far as the promos and interviews we'll be getting between now and 2020, I'll try to only watch interviews that Michael & Tyler give together and avoid anything that seems like M&M promotion (outside of full cast interviews or festivals etc). I love all the actors on this show. They're all wonderful and talented and deserve our love and support (not commenting on that Nathan instagram thing).

But as a Malex fan, I have no place in my life for unnecessary stress from a TV show because honestly, as invested as I am, it's still just a TV show. No need to give myself more heartbreak before season 2 even airs by watching pro M&M interviews like yesterday. I'll just stay in my happy Malex bubble until then (and then die when I see M&M next year 😭).

In the end of this long post, all I wanted to say is that Malex is extra special, head and shoulders above others ships I've rooted for and that's mostly because of the beautiful story I've seen on screen but Vlamburn defintely plays an imortant part in making it epic ❤

I'm a Malex lifer. Nothing will ever change that.

❤

[fortheheavenssake]

PG MM Anon Interpretation Collection - 21

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜💜

137: Dec 7

💜💜💜DISCLAIMER, I HAVE STATED FACTS AND SUPPOSITION THAT IS IN THE MEDIA AND DISCUSSION ON THE BLOG, PLEASE DO NOT ATTACK ME 💜💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON …… subpoenaed to swim uphill…… “withdrawal with notoriety”……… “pony!! “ she has no fear Catherine”……… “wherever did she get this wilfulness ?…… YOU!!!!…… “Philip will help me write it!!”……… “caution ma’am”……… “no colourful language”…… “ are you pensive LG”…… “frighteningly apprehensive ma’am”…… “I trust my subjects”………”one communicates with Netflix” ………”OMG😱😱”……”The Diana Years”……” it’s confidential LG!!”

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

December 7/2019 RIDDLE #137. 1105 hrs CST

subpoenaed to swim uphill…… “withdrawal with notoriety”

PA has sunk so far so fast! He has a far way to climb to pull himself up. Swimming , will he have to, be forced to cross the Atlantic and go to the F.B.I. Instead of them coming to London? He will have to give interviews to the F.B.I. and likely to French authorities investigating JE and GM. Another woman in America has now come forth with accusations. He will need to voluntarily or be subpoenaed be compelled to be interviewed. Whether he will be required to go to America or the authorities travel to London there is no hiding for him. Again, the usage of swimming makes me pretty certain that he will be compelled to go to America! This is so shocking and unprecedented. His life has been completely pulled out from under him, the long friendship with JE and GM has resulted in this. Normally it’s withdrawal from society, but he has become such a pariah now to the Royal family he has become notorious and strong calls for justice and stripping his HRH status. I dare suggest he will not be seen publicly again and despite British law saying a Royal cannot be arrested in palaces or in front of the reigning Monarch, there is no hiding for him. PC and PW will not allow it and HMTQ, despite the constant rumours for years as the favourite son, can no longer shield him. Annus horribulus 10.0 not 2.0!!!!

“pony!! “ she has no fear Catherine”……… “wherever did she get this wilfulness ?…… YOU!!!!……

Little Lottie, she has such a strong!!! Personality!!! Love and adore her! She is jonesing for a pony for Christmas big time! Sounds like William and Catherine and giving a go at each other about where this strong will comes from! 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂. As my mum used to say, better to be a leader than a follower in a child!

“Philip will help me write it!!”……… “caution ma’am”……… ““no colourful language”…… “ are you pensive LG”…… “frighteningly apprehensive ma’am”…… “I trust my subjects”………

Big discussion between HMTQ and LG. HMTQ will along with PP be writing a statement, likely video, about PA, and possibly the change to Regency when she is 95. No specifics regarding accusations, none proven but the drums are beating louder and louder for PA to face law enforcement investigators. TO BE CLEAR I AM NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM THAT HE IS GUILTY SO PLEASE DONT JUMP ON ME PLEASE!!! Well l dare say, the public wants his HRH status gone, l think HMTQ may not go that far. LG is extremely concerned about how this is all going to go over with the public and advises caution. To him to saying frighteningly apprehensive there is more going on! Madam is figuring into this somehow. Long been rumours of some associations with SoHo and the Rchildren family in Canada, l am not typing their name! This is one big soup of filth. Is PA a victim in it? Really naive about JE and GM? There needs to be answers for investigators. HMTQ is placing trust in the public accepting what her decisions are, let’s pray she is correct. Who are the backers behind this endless assault on the BRF? I think truly it’s a combination of attack and in the case of PA really crappy judgement and having the highest ego of doing and living without ever answering to anyone which PC has found very frustrating at best, and at worst who knows what the at worst truly is. All told this is horrible, just horrible.

”one communicates with Netflix” ………”OMG😱😱”……”The Diana Years”……” it’s confidential LG!!”

We know HMTQ and PP, and likely other Royal family members are binge watching The Crown onNetflix. Are we to believe HMTQ is in communication with the producers as consultant?? THAT IS SHOCKING!!! Sharing her perspective on Diana and her time with the family. Shocking, outs it mildly. But it’s strictly confidential!! Wonder if there are more secrets or details to come. I wish that Diana could be left alone, she been gone for so long and people still trying to make $$$££££€€€ off of her!

I want to say to HMTQ, PC, PW and the York family and the entire family, my prayers are with you. No one is immune to justice in 2019, unless you’re a backer. PA is being the sacrificial lamb when the alleged list of Je snd GM friends and visitors to his island and homes are well known public and polite figures. You all know who they are. Will they be crucified like PA?? I dare say, Justice is not equal and we all know that!

1140 hrs Thank you MM ANON glad l could do this before my wonderful Christmasy day starts with my friend!

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you PG. Seems much still going on in the background….I can’t wait for HM’s speech. Greatly appreciate this, thank you!😊💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy

—————-

138: Dec 8

MM ANON …… not an engaging situation …… my LITTLE pony……… WOC-less……… We’re just mild about Harry …… a charitable laundromat ……… expenses,expenses ………”it’s a Multi million business, trim it”…… hangers OFF!!……… ‘‘twas the night before Christmas”……… a conservative Royalist ……… 12th night ……… morning sic -ness……… “ say goodnight Gracie

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

December 8/2019. RIDDLE #138. 1300 hrs CST

not an engaging situation

Princess Beatrice And Edo Mapelli Mozzi have cancelled their planned engagement party at the Chiltern Firehouse that was schedule for December 18/2019 due to paparazzi fears regarding her father lest they end up spoiling the party. Likely they will reschedule, keep date, time, location ultra secret so as to not have it spoilt by any interruptions. My heart aches for this young couple, but especially for Princess Beatrice when this is meant to be the happiest time for a bride.☹️

my LITTLE pony

Our dear Princess Charlotte, affectionately known as, Little Lottie has been pleading for a pony for Christmas, love that LITTLE uppercase. My little pony years ago was a toy, l gave my niece one. I believe little Lottie means the real deal a live pony! The Daily Mail most certainly reads your blog 🐼, because we knew this days ago!

WOC-less

WOC women of colour, less. Or is it WOKE less, 🤔 Photos were in the paper today of madam volunteering regularly at a soup kitchen, St Felix Centre, in Toronto whilst filming Suits. She was well liked, reportedly called ‘the lovely Meghan’. In the photo, there does not appear to be any obvious WOC, although other ethnicities are evident, it’s Canada we are a melting pot, as it’s called here. I am uncertain if this is what MM ANON is referencing.

We’re just mild about Harry

The song is l’m just wild about Harry and Harry’s wild about me, again from when music was music. Harry used to be the most popular Royal, his popularity level has been dipping whilst Williams has been sky rocketing. I wonder if it’s related to madam?🤔🤔🤔

a charitable laundromat

Is there money laundering being done through madams charities? Foundation, ‘charitable’ ones, real estate and advances of huge sums of money for ‘consulatation’ fees are often ways that illegal guns are transferred or the term money laundering, make dirty illegal funds clean and soluble. This has long been suspected by of certain political family’s foundation. Is mama dam being investigated for this as well?

expenses,expenses

I wonder if this is regarding the York family and who is going to fund their expenses now. I have read articles that PA had lost money in some investments and now his privy purse funds are gone, no staff, his consulting and other areas of income are gone. I imagine the entire York family is used to a royal standard of living, is HMTQ going to fund their expenses? It’s all sad☹️🥺. If he needs legal help, he will need the best as well as American lawyers as well, it’s going to be exorbitantly expensive! Lawyers being lawyers will drag things out as long as possible for more billable hours and thus more fees earned! Lawyers allegedly do this😧🙄. There is also Princess Beatrice’s wedding coming up!

“it’s a Multi million business, trim it”

Sounding like what l just wrote. Is PA telling PC, who holds the privy purse strings now, that his status and the ayers estate, family is a multi million dollar expense, and his consulting fees or whatever he does for business in all his travels requires to earn vast income requires planes, RPO’S etc etc. Sounding like no sympathy from PC, telling PA flatly, he needs to trim his lifestyle and budget/expenses, full stop.

hangers OFF!!

Hangers on, is a sycophantic person, or persons, Who associate with another person or a group for the purpose of gaining some personal advantage. Like sugars, me oh, my oh. Now it’s OFF! I read yesterday that the Sussex instagram only gained 16 fans in one day, apparently is far far far lower, the sugars seems to be fleeing and the money for bots less and less. This upper case OFF with two exclamation marks makes me think of PA, all the charities, businesses,worldwide, organizations etc that have clung to him because of his Royal,stays are dropping like flies. Now that he is not of use to them, he’s been shoved onto the proverbial shelf.

“twas the night before Christmas”

The Cambridge children are going to be unbelievably hyper, it is my understanding that the Royal family, going back to their Saxe-Coburg Göethe /German roots open gifts on Christmas Eve, my family did as well. I wonder if the Cambridges will have the little ones wait till Christmas morning. Imagine getting them to sleep!!!! I certainly hope we all get our gift before then, the gift being the announcement of another Cambridge baby on the way!

a conservative Royalist

The ultra left, wants rids of the Monarchy, allegedly, the NWO definitely! Bojo and his party of conservatives endorse the constitutional Monarchy. The Brexit issue is still in play. The outcome of the election on the 12 th could permanently alter the future!

12th night

Shakespearean play but this is not that. The general election takes place on the 12 th of December, l was just reading the weather is supposed to be horrendous with wild winds. It seems nature is echoing all that is going on in the country. The results of this election could completely change the country permanently.

morning sic - ness

Sic is a let in term meaning “thus.” It is used to indicate that something incorrectly spelled or written is intentionally being left as it was in the original. Sic is usually italicized and always surrounded by brackets to indicate that it was not part of the original. Catherine is pregnant, l have been saying that for a few weeks and confirmed it yesterday with a photo and my rationale. This is the clincher. She’s is most definitely marvellously pregnant! Congratulations!

“ say goodnight Gracie”

At the end of the George Burns and Gracie Allen radio and tv show, she always portrayed as kind of ditzy. If you have never seen or heard YOU MUST!! At the end, he would say to her as meaning to the audience, say good night Gracie, she would reply Good night Gracie! I think the Edith Bunker character from All in The Family must have been partially based on her!

What’s or who is this referring to, someone misunderstanding what they are being asked to do, then doing it and being wrong, and getting laughed at. Or is it something is completely over and done with and they are being told to say good night and leave the what? Job? City? Party? Politics? I have no idea, it could be so many things. The only thing l know for sure is a Burns and Allen are classic and that’s the origin of the phrase!

1405 hrs CST. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you PG! Interesting….waiting for the 12th. Much appreciated 😊💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Skippy submission

—————

139: Dec 9

MM ANON ……… Re-Hab-itual behaviour ……” Gone In sixty seconds”…… ( six weeks?) ……… no sight, sound or visual,no optics???? …… old photos, photo shops and disinformation!!……… “ there OK, ma’am!!”…… “ones duty is, keep muddying the waters”…… The Peoples Princess, WHAT!!! ……… “capitalise on it ma’am”…… “AMERICA”…… “are you a gambling man LG?”……… “ only on absolutes”…… Charlotte’s wish-list Web 🤣🐴🦄🎼💕……… “what’s that racket basil”… “It’s Brahms, Brahms 4th racket”🤣🤣🤣🤣

Thank you😊❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANOM🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

December 9/2019. 1715 hrs CST RIDDLE #139

Re-Hab-itual behaviour

Invisibility, when one is used to constant visibility breeds rumours of all sorts. Is she/they in rehab? What is she up to! Where is she up to it? Is she incarcerated, in custody, in psych care, in SoHo, in Siberia? Where where where? What is she up to? Hobbies, yachting, hiding out, in an opium den in the Far East?? Her irregular patterns or behaviour are regular, so some of these must be correct, maybe even a combination of them.

“ Gone In sixty seconds”…… ( six weeks?) ……… no sight, sound or visual,no optics???? …… old photos, photo shops and disinformation!!

It’s a film , l have not seen, because you all know by now, the films l prefer. Will she gone after this six weeks? Is she already gone? There has been nothing new at all, in any media format! The only ‘new’ was last weeks Instagram of a years old visit to Hubb bakery with photos so poorly photoshopped it MUST HAVE BEEN done purposefully! A blind individucoukd see the horrible photoshopped job. Her hairstyle was different in two of the photos! So again, disinformation, love how a makeup les Adele was squeezed in at the top, unrecognizable without her trademark black eyeliner!

“ there OK, ma’am!!”…… “ones duty is, keep muddying the waters”……

LG assuring HMTQ they are ok. HMTQ feeling strong that her duty and instructions being followed are to continue to muddy the waters, sew seeds of confusion regarding madam. Her sugars are falling off the sticky cone like flies who normally stick to it!!

The Peoples Princess, WHAT!!! ……… “capitalise on it ma’am”…… “AMERICA”…… “are you a gambling man LG?”……… “ only on absolutes”

Madams goal/obsession has been to be Diana 2.0, sacrile en Francais! She wants to be America’s Princess now, they don’t have titles there but the truth has never ever stopped her before. HMTQ enquiring of LG his gamesmanship! He replies only on things he knows, sees, can confirm 100%! Madam is counting on her home country to Dave her and welcome her as their princess huh, nary princess, THEIR QUEEN!!

Charlotte’s wish-list Web 🤣🐴🦄🎼💕

Our Princess Charlotte, yes of course loves her unicorns, but a living breathing rideable horse, THATS THE TICKET! Christmas gift! She is singing her pleas for one, with all the sweetness that we know a little girl can muster, and l have no doubt she can muster with the best of them!💜💜💜💜💜💜 If she cannot have a pony, or even if she can, she still wants a unicorn, this is the song sheet she is reading from!

“what’s that racket basil”… “It’s Brahms, Brahms 4th racket”🤣🤣🤣🤣

Every time l hear Basil, l go straight to Barcelona and Fawlty Towers in Torkey , or kortey, or yer knot , orketort.. etc etc If you are fans of the classic you will immediately undestand my letter switching and no doubt be laughing madly now. The episode where Basils wife Sybil, henpecks him, well that’s every episode🤣🤣, but the one about him needing to do two tasks, the menu and hang a picture, but he is listening to music Brahms 4 th, is hilarious! I am not sure how this relates to things. I am rather out of the loop today. I haven’t read a paper, no tv, nothing, not the blog except to find the riddle. Please forgive.

THANK YOU DEAR MM ANON for the Fawlty Towers memories, l grew up on that and Monty Python!!! Back when CBC was more BBC than CBC!!! The good old days😊.

1745 hrs CST

Thank you😊❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thank you so much dear PG….sounds great. Much appreciated 😊💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy submission

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140: Dec 11

MM ANON …… Predictions Guaranteed …… W&K increases commitment …… 🎼”no other love have i”🎼……… mummy serves a Christmas ace……4-0-tee-love…… advantage HMTQ …… nutmeg, FAULT!! …… DOUBLE FAULT!!…… Game, Set and scratch🤣🤣🤣…… “ these are actors,as I foretold you “………” thar’s gold in them thar Hills”………… 🎼”HOLLYWOOOOOOOD”🎼……… “An exit strategy LG.”……🎄seasonal Sandringham🎄…… “I WANT A POOOOOOOOONY” ,please.🎅🎅😘😘😘………… “ ask your father!!……… ask your mother!! ……… ask Gan Gan. !!😂😂😂

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HUMBLING WORDS TODAY💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

SORRY KIDS THIS IS SO LATE MY INSOMNIA CAUGHT UP,WITH ME 😴😴😴💤💤💤

DECEMBER 11/2019 riddle sent December 10/2019

RIDDLE #140. 0155 hrs CST

Predictions Guaranteed …… W&K increases commitment

Well hints and interpretations are 100% guaranteed! For the millionth type l shall type OUR CATHERINE IS PREGNANT!! CONGRATULATIONS-GLORIOUS-WONDROUS-BLESSED-LATIONS!!

With PA off the roster, they both, despite their growing family needs will need to pick up the slack, as it were, left by PA absence. It’s going to be a mighty big juggling act to be sure!

🎼”no other love have i”🎼

The unbeatable team of Rodgers and Hammerstein, in fact listening to Perry Como right now. He sings the lyrics of true love so beautifully, his voice is like liquid floating through the lyrics and notes. This is definitely magic how the two intertwine. It is an absolute reference , the team of R and H, Perry Como’s liquid intertwining of the nites and lyrics, absolute comparison to how William and Catherine’s love and the relationship intertwines. That’s so beautiful MM ANON!THANK YOU!

mummy serves a Christmas ace……4-0-tee-love…… advantage HMTQ

Well an ace is a tennis term, a serve so good, no matter how skilled the opponent is, or thinks they are, it cannot be returned. MM ANON has used a number of tennis terms in this riddle. Forty love mean one person has 40 score and love means zero. Advantage means the one player needs just one more to take the game! Ok let’s interpret! We will all know, well l have already know based on observation alone,not by consultation of spirits, that Catherine is pregnant! The palace will release an official announcement as a Christmas gift to all! Forty love? Well Catherine will have four and madam zero OF THE BODY!! ! Remember that little law, that will be important in legal days in the future for madam! Thusly, the advantage is ours of course but it further secures the Monarchy!!! Plus it’s marvellous!

nutmeg, FAULT!! …… DOUBLE FAULT!!

A fault in tennis is simply that, a serve that hits the net etc. Archificial fault one, is she planning another fauxmegnancy? Madam has made so many mistakes/faults, l have no doubt she will be seething to find out. Catherine is pregnant and will pull another fauxmegnancy!

Game, Set and scratch🤣🤣🤣

The Crown wins if course,due to the law l just spoke about. MM ANON is being cheeky here because of all the photos we see of madam , sometimes in gowns, scratching her vag. It’s disgusting, there are always people around too. I have never in my life seen any woman do that EVER! Except her!

“ these are actors,as I foretold you “………”

Huh, this makes me wonder as our dear skipoy has often said, are her ‘family’ paid a tors and not really her family? This would be unbelievable but then London Scoop told us this several years ago. I think we should be prepared for everything and anything. As far as JE too, expect anything because l think the world will change once all that information is out. Just as Prince Andrew and HE GAS NOT EVEN BENN INTERVIEWED OR CHARGED!!

thar’s gold in them thar Hills”…………

That goes back to 1849, used to. All them the 49 ‘res, no l did have to look that up, just sing oh my darling clementine, it’s in there. They went in droves to the west both Canada and America seeking their fortune, some made it, most didn’t. Is madam hoping to live in the Hollywood Hills like a star and live the life? She is sadly delusional!

🎼”HOLLYWOOOOOOOD”🎼……… ““An exit strategy LG.”……

HMTQ with LG, in discussion, are they using this as an exit strategy to rid themselves of madam?? Setting her up there, or telling her this, the law will come a calling, for certain the IRS. This confuses me, l think these clues are for Miss Rachel! Are you salivating Rachel? Thinking HMTQ, or what do you call her again? Refresh me? Rachel, they are going to put you in the most gorgeous massive mansion, fill your bank and simply let you and archficial leave, after the terror you have wrought. Ok Rachel stop reading now, your part is done. after the terror you have wrought. IF YOU THINK THAT, YOU’RE MORE DELUSIONAL THAT I THOUGHT!

🎄 seasonal Sandringham🎄

The usual traditions of a Sandringham Christmas will be marvellous and enjoyed by all. No madam, the first time after two years of her being there!

“I WANT A POOOOOOOOONY” ,please.🎅🎅😘😘😘………… “ ask your father!!……… ask your mother!! ……… ask Gan Gan. !!😂😂😂

Yes dear Charlotte continues her jonesing for a pony!! Did they take her to see Santa and she begged as hard as she puked and as loudly as she coukd🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂. Santa , as Santa does with requests such as this, redirected her to ask her mum her dad, if that fails ask again Gan who loves horses to bits, pardon the pun!!

0230 hrs CST

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you death PG…this looks great..Charlotte wants that pony! Thank you for always getting our riddles done!🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Skippy submission

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141: Dec 11

MM ANON ………🎼 jingle smells, jingle smells 🎼……… 🎼” I’m dreaming of a POC Christmas”🎼…… “ no Christmas chemicals or alcohol in re-hab”……… “ on a whiter note”…… “ come on Lottie ‘ aunties found a little pony” …… “ So !!! You caved darling.”…… “well ‘ it’s Christmas!!”……… “not turkey ‘ Dover sole!!”… “ but it’s tradition Philip”……“ f**** tradition !!”…… “I’ll inform Sydney”…… “are you going to announce it old thing?”…… ANOTHER COUNTRY … “He’s a brilliant speech writer” …… “you’ll bloody need it

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

December 11/2019 RIDDLE #141. 1050 hrs CST

…🎼 jingle smells, jingle smells 🎼……… 🎼” I’m dreaming of a POC Christmas”🎼

The proper lyrics are Jingle Bells, and White Christmas. Everything madam, who has gone from self identifying as Caucasian to self identifying as a woman of colour, has done smells, smells off! Not in terms of scent, although many say her personal care lacks majorly! Her behaviours, merching, and on and on don’t pass the smell test meaning something isn’t right. And in this case, of madam, TRUER WORDS HAVE NEVER BEEN SPOKEN! Her sugars and many others are dropping her, no one can find her!

“ no Christmas chemicals or alcohol in re-hab”

Madam is likely court mandated to rehab and for a psych evaluation in preparation for court.Substances are banned for obvious reasons, searches are done on admission and fairly routinely whilst they are in groups etc. People try and sneak things in, that’s why there is a blanket drags on visitors usually for 90 days. So there are ways of getting stuff, but it’s tricky, uncouth staff being one, but they don’t last long. So the medical detox done, now come the “ work” of dealing with issues leading to use, and the beginning of learning new life skills and the long permanent rode to sobriety and keeping oneself sober. Madam is likely forced into rehab, which we know will not be a permanent solution but they want her clean for being charged! And assessed and cleared of any or diagnosed if any psychiatric diagnosis is present. This is all essential before any court case, common practice.

“ on a whiter note”…… “ come on Lottie ‘ aunties found a little pony” …… “ So !!! You caved darling.”…… “well ‘ it’s Christmas!!”……… “

Whose hoping for a white Christmas? Probably every child in the world. Where l am this morning -33C ish, so l would/will be ever so happy to share! I do believe Zara and her mum have intervened into Charlotte’s horse dilemma/battle🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂. William and Catherine are fighting a losing battle , no stables at KP, but l believe a few do exist on England and funnily enough l do believe close family members have ridden for decades AND have stables! So there is a plan in the works, pony has been purchased, a white one from sounds of it, stable arrangements made. Now her lifelong love of horses and fun begins. There was no fighting it, it’s most definitely in her genes!

“not turkey ‘ Dover sole!!” “ but it’s tradition Philip”……“ f**** tradition !!”…… “I’ll inform Sydney”…… “”are you going to announce it old thing?”

HMTQ and PP discussing aspects of upcoming Christmas. Menu is to NOT contain turkey traditional Dover sole. After all the hoopla of madam and Thanksgiving PR, nobody ever wants to hear turkey again!! Trying to convince PP it’s tradition, although l thought goose was traditional what do l know?? PP kindly gives his opinion, no turkey and no tradition!! Sydney, as we all know by now, is His Man, as we used to say, his Valet as now would be said. PP asking if she is going to announce the Regency in 18 eighteen months when she turns 95. No reply but l am certain we will be told if and when she feels is the right and proper time, as she has always done.

ANOTHER COUNTRY … “He’s a brilliant speech writer” “you’ll bloody need it

I wonder if this is not regarding tonight diplomats banquet and her speech. I thought HMTQ’s speeches were written by herself. I do think there is massive concern regarding tomorrow’s election, if LABOUR wins, active work to dismantle the Monarchy will be underway. England will no longer be England as we know it to be, despite it changing with immigration, this would be a primordial change of titanic proportions! I am NOT EXAGGERATING!!

As far as HMTQ announcing Catherine’s pregnancy via speech that would be unprecedented, it’s usual an office statement released by KP. I think this is more relation to the next words she utters following the election, the Monarch is to remain apolitical. The next opening of parliament speech is always traditionally written by the PM. I am not certain which speech this is other than the last possible which when all other options ruled out, must be the one, l learned from Sherlock, it is her Christmas speech/message. I am certain this will be a very difficult speech because it truly has been a terrible year and pending election results it could be outright horrific.

1135 hrs CST. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you dear PG….what will tomorrow bring….very insightful deciphering indeed! 😊💜💜💜💜💜💜

Skippy submission

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142: Dec 12

MM ANON ………emeralds should do the trick …… they certainly did…… W&K the lovers knot ………💍 a ring (Rock) of ages…… No Sin-ders you WON’T go to the ball😂😂……… 🎼”re-hab’ I said ,know know know!!!”🎼…… “ we ALL KNOW nutmeg!!”…… “GOD’ she’s in all the papers Philip”…… “ I see, she’s beautiful old thing”…… “she shines Philip”……… Wanta Konta and Kate🎾🎾…… Boris the spider…… “ doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government get in !!”…… sneezing ponytails 🐴🐴

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

December 12/2019. 1220 hrs CST. RIDDLE #142

emeralds should do the trick …… they certainly did…… W&K the lovers knot ………💍 a ring (Rock) of ages…… No Sin-ders you WON’T go to the ball😂😂

Well we were not all gobsmacked last night?? We saw HMTQ dripping in gorgeous emeralds and THE tiara!!! Catherine looked divine in blue velvet just dripping in diamonds!!! As l posted last night HMTQ sent those out to defeat her, those backers and individuals attacking her and her family AND the Monarchy that she is strong and has been vastly underestimated!! Catherine was right behind her. The full future of the Monarchy was solidly supremely gloriously on full display! Nary a sign of any undercurrents or any serious issues going on! NOW THATS THE TRUE BRITISH STIFF UPPER LIP!!

Catherine looked a star in the Lovers Knot tiara, the Hyderabad necklace, which HMTQ received as a wedding gift, actually the gift was hers to choose and that’s what she chose! Catherine was wearing a massive diamond and something?? Unsure ring on her right hand. I have never seen her wearing a ring on her right hand. I haven’t seen any really clear photos nor any attribution of the ring. Cinderella, ended up going to the ball, thanks to some mice and her fairy god,other! Our madam aka Sin-ders, sinderblock ??jail?incarceration? Looming?? Regardless of her present locale or her future, she was not invited nor welcomed nor present at the ball!!

🎼”re-hab’ I said ,know know know!!!”🎼…… “ we ALL KNOW nutmeg!!”

Classic I song by the gone too soon, Amy Winehouse. Madam is most definitely in rehab, and EVERYONE KNOWS! Is there truth to her trying to get into our country, Canada 🇨🇦, and was turned away? I would say then she is rehabbing in America which makes most sense due to frame of reference and long term sobriety. I wish that for her. If she eloped from rehab, that’s the term we used, she could be in rehab near the border. There are some awesome rehabs that have a strong outdoors focus, team building, skills etc.

“GOD’ she’s in all the papers Philip”…… “ I see, she’s beautiful old thing”…… “she shines Philip”

HMTQ and PP having a morning phone call, checking in and talking about the massive success the Annual Diplomatic Ball at Buckingham Palace. I believe HMTQ, greatly misses having PP by her side, not that she shows it, but how on earth could she not? And him as well, not missing the formal stuff but hearing the crack and being with HMTQ. They are absolutely delighted with Cather! With good reason! No one EVER EVER could have imagined or dreamt up a better partner for William, God’s Divine Handwork! She has fully come into her own, her confidence is unbelievable and she just oozes beauty, class and as if she were born a blood Royal!!!

Wanta Konta and Kate🎾🎾

We know Catherine loves tennis! She is the Patron of Wimbledon. Roger Federer is a friend and rumours of him playing with her and giving her lessons. Wants Kanta has me super duper stumped! I am ashamed but the urban dictionary definition of Wonta is a girl who doesn’t know what she is doing, sorry Catherine 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂 using the same source, a Konya is a handsome man, great personality and a MASSIVE ‘racquet’.🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂 I don’t know about the size of his ‘racquet’🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂 but a Roger is handsome and Catherine, sorry , maybe seriously needs help with her tennis game. I must say, before these riddles, I NEVER KNEW THE URBAN DICTIONARY EXISTED!MM ANON HOW ON EARTH DO YOU KNOW THESE THING??🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂

Boris the spider…… “ doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government get in !!”

Boris Johnson has made a very trick web starting way back when he misled HMTQ into proroguing parliament. Today’s election results will show if his webs have been effective in a minority government, a majority or an astounding loss. I read today the BBC political reporter made a major error talking about the results of the mail in votes which is not permitted until polls close. I shall not repeat what she said, you can find it online. The last line is funny, because in an election you’re electing a government so of course one will get in!🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂

sneezing ponytails 🐴🐴

I think, l fear our little Lottie may have a wee allergy to her pony! Or horses in general. That will work itself out, she will outgrow. It’s in her blood to ride and be a horsewoman her entire life. A tradition from HMTQ and even Queen Victoria!

1300 hrs cst. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you so much dear PG! Looks great! Poor Charlotte! She must have her mother’s allergy…..poor baby! Much appreciated PG!😊💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy

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143: Dec 13

MM ANON …… Cor’ bin a long night!!…… “ Darling ‘ it’s an allagee-gee” ……” majori-ty and crumpets ma’am”…… “ “That’s all ,I’m orf to Sandringham”……… George&Kate set and match…”that’s it Lottie ‘ walk on !!”…… “ I did it auntie Zara”…… “ Ducks in a row then Netty?”……… “Nurse!! What’s the bleeding time”?…… A little procedure!!…… “ the lids screwed down ma’am”……… “ones writing ones screech”…… “he’s coming Philip!!” …… “backlash old thing?”………… “it’s a Norwegian Blue Philip 😂😂”

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

December 13/2019. RIDDLE #143. 1005 hrs CST

Cor’ bin a long night!!

Oh Jimmy Crickets a sound! SOUND!!! RESOUNDING DEFEAT OF JEREMY CORBYN AND THE LABOUR PARTY! THANK GOD NO THREAT TO THE MONARCHY! Massive blow to the ego of JC and the celebrities whose importance and opinions they deemed were of superior importance to the populace. People turned out in droves giving BOJO and the Conservatives a resounding majority government. I know we don’t talk politics but now the British people’s vote for Brexit can progress and no more talk of ridding of the Monarchy. Other issues continue, but will be far less prominent! The usage of Cor’ its a British phrase like Cor blimey, l don’t know the origin of Cor but l bet lots of you do!

“ Darling ‘ it’s an allagee-gee”

Catherine explaining to Charlotte the reason she is sneezing and stuffed up is because she has an allergy to horses. Terrifically cute to call it an allageegee💜💜💜💜💜💜

” majori-ty and crumpets ma’am”“ “That’s all ,I’m orf to Sandringham”

HMTQ and PP sharing breakfast. Major-ity play on the phrase tea and crumpets! MM ANON I LOVE YOUR SKILLS!! PP heading back to Wood Farm/ Sandringham.

George&Kate set and match…”

Sounds here like George is as keen at tennis as Catherine. They playing each other and likely both taking lessons. But a different WONTA KONTA THAN I WROTE ABOUT YESTERDAY HILARIOUS!!!!

“that’s it Lottie ‘ walk on !!”…… “ I did it auntie Zara”

Despite sniffles and being stuffed up, our dear Charlotte will outgrow those allergies and Zara, the consummate horsewoman is the best person to help her learn the ropes, pardon the pun! Learning to lead , and having success!! Confidence building and trust building with her pony! This is marvellous!!

“ Ducks in a row then Netty?”……… “

PP, speaking Lord Maldon or Netty his old pal, who, to those who do not know,l shall explain again because it’s very important now and will be in the coming days!! Jiminy 🦗Crickets!!! Ian Duncan Burnett, Baron Burnett of Maldon, is a British judge and the current Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. PP checking in that everything is in place for legal issues related to madam!

“Nurse!! What’s the bleeding time”?…… A little procedure!!…… “

I wonder if PP is getting his flushot and it’s taking too long! That is not really a procedure,per se. The way the second line is written it’s a harumph, as if he was told it was little but turned out to be more. Could be a variety of tests, at his age, colonoscopy, DT scan etc. etc. I have not read anything about this in the papers.

“the lids screwed down ma’am”……… “ones writing ones screech”…… “he’s coming Philip!!” …… “backlash old thing?”

HMTQ working on her screech🤣🤣🤣😂, Christmas speech. The lid screwed down on what, the ink well? Why, so she won’t toss it at him? 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂 NEVER NEVER!! Awaiting the arrival of the new PM for the formality of greeting the new PM and meeting with him. PP asking if she will get on him about misleading her to proroguing the government? The lids screwed down confuses me……

“it’s a Norwegian Blue Philip 😂😂”

Earlier this week, many royals attended the funeral of the car park king, Sir Donald Gosling. He left 50,000,000 £ for the Monarchy to put towards a new yacht!

This is flipping hilarious because my two favourite Monty Pythons Sketches are regarding Canadians and the Lumberjack song! I cannot tell you how often l was called that in Scotlad😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣. The other one is with the Norwegian Blue dead parrot🤣🤣🤣🤣😂, the guy tried returning it be he wasn’t happy with it.🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂 YOU MUST LOOK THEM UP, IM A LUMBERJACK AND IM OKAY. I SLEEP ALL NIGHT AND I WORK ALL DAY..OK EVERYBODY JOIN IN AND SING!

1045 hrs CST. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you PG! Well things seem so much brighter today. All is well….love it! Much appreciated PG!🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy submission

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144: Dec 15

MM ANON ……… Blueeeeeeee velvet …… pop pop Poppins ……… she met Mary ………” Mmmmmm , a bit sneeeeezy”……… “ we’ll go and get something really silly for her” …… it’s not a phone, it’s a MPC…… “ it’s all very Cloak & dagger”…… “ Catherine, I’m deadly serious!!”……… “meals on bloody wheels!! piss orf”……… Shut down everything!! ………… “A new broom,old thing”…………… “ well, ones not amused “………… “I’ll inform Sydney”……… From Cromer!!……… “Cromer???”

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU DEAR MM ANON🎄🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

RIDDLE #144

December 14/2019, however l am doing it December 15/2019 due to somebody napping the 14 th away😜🙄🤔. 0025 hrs CST

Just so you all know, l have not read any papers since this morning so, accuracies may be a bit funny🤣🤣🤣. Please forgive my typing errors etc, my left hand is very numb and the challenge of balancing my iPad and typing is more difficult. Yet we all know the riddles are meant for fun, yet l learn lots from MM ANON about so many things and l do my best to try and pass that on the my often elaborative explanations☃️❄️☃️🎄☺️🎄

Blueeeeeeee velvet …… pop pop Poppins …she met Mary

Catherine wore an absolutely gorgeous blue velvet gown by Sarah Burton for the House of McQueen to the Diplomats Annual Ball on the 11th of December. She was dripping in jewels and looked amazing. Velvet, animal print, all thing sparkles are so on trend right now!! However, anything Catherine wears looks fabulous. I love the sort of retro, 1940’s look she has been wearing the last year or so. The wide trousers she has worn on some day occasions, example the Chelsea Flower show, her garden, when she wore the linen coloured wide legs trousers reminded me so of Lauren Bacall or Katherine Hepburn. If you do not know either, they were amazing stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, when films were films and magical! My favourite!! How long winded and elaborative am l? You can tell that l have rested!🤣🤣🤣😂😂☺️.

Mary Poppins has been a classic film and play. It has been recently redone on the big screen in film and is currently playing in the West End, the theatre district in London at the Prince Edward Theatre, l believe until June 2020 unless it’s run is extended. At the Royal Variety Performance show that was aired on ITV recently showed William and Catherine in the Royal Box. They also enjoyed several comedians especially one who jested about family issues and managing a busy household! They did meet the actors afterwards and there are pictures from that!

Blue Velvet is a classic Elvis Presley song. Black Beauty is a classic children’s book/film about a black pony. I wonder two things, does Charlotte want a blue velvet dress for Christmas like her mum wore so beautifully or does she want to name her pony Blue Velvet? I am strongly leaning to the latter, naming of her pony!!

Catherine has such a varied list of patronages, interests, and activities, she fascinates new! I marvel at her. My sister and l for years now have watched and greatly enjoyed the Great British Baking Show! We now have our own Canadian version!🇨🇦. The original GBBS, hosted by the amazing Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. We won’t talk about him!🥺😤. Mary Berry is a woman of world renowned pastry and baking skills and author of many books. She and Catherine have worked on a Christmas tv special. A Berry Royal Christmaswill air on BBC One at 8.30pm on December 16. In the show, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will team up with Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain and Mary Berry to create a festive feast for charity workers and volunteers who are working over Christmas. I hope CBC shows it!!!! Red velvet cake is a classic, might Charlotte want a blue velvet cake?? There are so many lovely interpretations of this marve riddle MM ANON💜🎄💜🎄💜🎄

Pop pop is often what grandfathers are called. I wonder if grandpa and grandma Middleton took Charlotte to see the play Mary Poppins? And Charlotte was able to meet the actress portraying Mary afterwards?? Or did they watch the new film and have popcorn ie pop pop during it? A few options here, all wonderful!!

” Mmmmmm , a bit sneeeeezy”……… “ we’ll go and get something really silly for her”

Catherine and William discussing dear Charlotte’s allergies to horsies/ponies. As parents do, they worry and want to do something for her. I wonder if she has some antihistamines OTC, over the counter or more likely seen the doctor and perhaps given some allergy medicine. I am sure she is so not happy to finally have a pony and then feeling yucky!! They will get her a treat of some kind to cheer her up, sounding like a fun jokey kind of thing. The royals are known for each gag/funny/silly gifts at Christmas 🎄.

it’s not a phone , it’s a MPC…… “ it’s all very Cloak & dagger”…… “ Catherine, I’m deadly serious!!”

William and Catherine are discussing security issues and things he learned during his time with MI6 a few months ago. I really wonder if that has been ongoing and started long before we were told publicly. Again, for the l don’t know how many times l have brought this up, but Harry’s wedding band IS NOT AN ORDINARY, RUN OF THE MILL, WEDDING BAND!! William is discussing a device, maybe looks like a phone but it’s not and does much more. Mobile Personal Communicator. Technology built into anything from something innocuous like perhaps a wedding band?? She is saying it sounds very spy-ish, 007, or cloak and dagger which is an old phrase used to describe the work that spies do. Now we often say intelligence, or in the field, when they are in the environment they need information/intelligence from. So is William talking about what has been part of his Royal trips recently or in the past? Or is he also talking about our Harry? I truly think both!!! Regardless, William is telling her how deadly extremely serious this device and reason for it’s use is!!!

meals on bloody wheels!! piss orf”……… Shut down everything!! ………… “A new broom,old thing”…………… “ well, ones not amused “………… “I’ll inform Sydney”……… From Cromer!!……… “Cromer???”

HMTQ and PP in conversation. It’s colder now, the 🔥 fire is lit and it’s roaring, crackling, and smells wonderful. The room is decked for Christmas, the smell of the Norwegian Blue tree is just fresh and ever so Christmasy 🎄. Both dressed with cozy wool sweaters and HMTQ a wrap over her lap. Meals on wheels, for shut-ins or elderly or people who have health issues, this is a fantastic program where a daily hot meal is brought, providing nutrition and a daily personal contact which is all many people have. We used to have that here. But TPTB in government, a year or so ago, cancelled Adult Day Care, which was a great day respite for spouses or caregivers of people with dementia or long term illness, aging issues, strokes etc etc. they would get a day off to do errands, cook, rest whatever, while the person needing help spent the day in care. So we have none of that now, no ADC or Meals on wheels and it’s been devastating. There is private meals on wheels now but it’s very expensive. ANYWAYS I DIGRESSED…. I cannot fathom why MOW would be an option for PP because he has a full staff at Wood Farm, however he is having none of it, judging by the comment l am assuming is his!

I do know the NHS has been a massive issue in the U.K. in terms of wait times etc. My sister listens to the monocle podcast. She told me that the NHS is sending patients to India for hip surgeries because it’s so much cheaper!

Shut down everything!! Double exclamation, is this to give everyone a good Christmas break after all the stress of the year? My first thought was electronics/devices/computers/ smart TVs etc etc. Has there been a hacking attempt? A virus? Shutdown and stop any intelligence theft or Trojans? Smart tv’s and things like Alexa or Echo, that follow voice commands to turn lights on, off, lock doors etc. I read yesterday about the Ring doorbell, being hacked so a man was attempting to speak with an 11 year old girl. I am unsure if this is what the shut everything down means, but it might be!

New broom for a New Year, New Years resolutions, changes, etc. Sweep out the old bring in new, fresh positive changes. To me, this is an absolute 🧹 sweeping out of madam and all the filth and evil she has wrought amongst the a Royal family, the U.K. and Commonwealth, the entire world also in terms of the Royal families reputation etc etc.

Alas l too wonder if this is also related to PA, sweeping out alleged accusations. Attacking him specifically, l am surely hoping all will be revealed about others , the backers, their plans and misdeeds etc etc. I pray and continue to pray for ⚖️ justice and people are made to face justice!!

HMTQ is not happy or amused about this, the used of the word amused makes me wonder if there was some cartoon in the paper or an article jesting about the Royal family or demanding changes. I truly do not know but she is not amused!

PP will inform Sydney, as we all know by now, but if it’s your first time, Sydney is PP long term valet. He knows and does anything and everything and is above reproach in the trust department!! Whatever is upsetting HMTQ is from Cromer! She is both shocked and uncertain at the same time. Cromer is a little town along the North coast of England in the county of Norfolk. Well known for its fishermen, especially crab!

I am stumped with Cromer! You have stumped me yet again MM ANON!! Unless it’s a continuation of a previous riddle, no turkey for Christmas sweep that out, bring in the new from a Cromer crab and seafood in abundance! Hence informing Sydney to make these changes in arrangements for the Christmas menu 🎄.

0200 hrs CST. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you PG, sharp as ever…thank you….interesting….leaves us pondering…much appreciated!💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy submission

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145: Dec 15

MM ANON ………… 🎼” give a little, take a little”🎼…… “Mary, Mary, quite …………”……FBI , (under the stones)……… “ very succinct old thing”…… “ blunt’ Philip!”……… “its a beautiful yacht ma’am” ………… “ I fear 20, more than 19” ………TO THE VICTOR……”………… a little late dear friend ……… WHITEHALL NOW!! …… only one came ……… IF , dear boy IF”……… “ you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”

💜💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻🎄THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH DEAR MM ANON🎄🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜💜

December 15/2019 RIDDLE#145

1330 hrs CST

I hope you are having/have had a lovely weekend ☺️💜☺️

🎼” give a little, take a little”🎼

Interesting song by Jimmy Cliff. Lyrics speaking of a woman in a broken relationship, she need to lear to give and take, not just take, sacrifice and pay the price. These are all things that madam has never allegedly done. She has only ever sought to serve one master, and that is the master of self! She has never been able to maintain any sort of successful relationship , be it intimate, friendship, collegial, work, family, none, l find that incredibly sad. She is a product of the choices she has made all through her adult life. These choices have certainly left her the worse for wear, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I truly pray she is seriously working on these issue if she is indeed in rehab or hospitalized.

Also fits in with merching and other financial “issues” give a little speech take a lot of cash. Have a little lunch take a little cash. Wear a little ring, take a little cash. You get the idea. Add that to whatever has gone on in the Sussex Foundation, MM, etc etc, taxes, undeclared income etc etc etc WOWZERS bit of a legal problem that! Give a little speech, take a little snort, take a little pill, take a little drink, take a little drink take a little snort. You get the idea, many ways this could go!

“Mary, Mary, quite …………”

Contrary, how does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockleshells

And pretty maids all in a row.

Tis an old English nursery rhyme, according to Wikipedia, which one must take with a grain of salt as anyone can add to it, alter it etc, this rhyme may refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus or it could have Royal references. I wonder since we are so close to the Nativity if that is not the meaning here. How will the Royal family be spending their Christmas, who will be there, who will be absent. More specifically now, will PA been there, will he attend Christmas Day services with the family as usual, will Fergie be there, Bea and Edo? As they are not yet wed, the tradition until madam came along to plus ones until marriage. Will Harry attend, will madam and archficial attend. Will PP attend. These are all the morning church l mean. As far as Christmas at Sandringham and the traditional Boxing Day Shoot, who will be there and who will not?? Some of these things we may not know. However it is pretty certain that The Cambridge Family, minus little Prince Louis, will be walking to church Christmas morning. I am so excited to see that!

FBI , (under the stones)

We know the F.B.I. Has been very keen to interview PA for quite some time regarding his long term friendship with JE and regarding the accusations made by VRG? Under the stones, is that supposed to mean information has been buried and dug up, or simply buried?? Found dug up on the Island?

“ very succinct old thing”…… “ blunt’ Philip!”……… “its a beautiful yacht ma’am” “ I fear 20, more than 19” ………TO THE VICTOR……”………… a little late dear friend ……… WHITEHALL NOW!! …… only one came ……… IF , dear boy IF”……… “ you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”

HMTQ and PP are reviewing the content of her annual Christmas Day message that she has been working. He has read it and tells her it’s succinct, short and to the point, no digressions, unnecessary elaborations, in other words, it’s exactly the opposite to how l would write something 😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣😂😂. I am NOT making light of the seriousness of this message in any way, shape or form. She corrects him by saying her message is blunt! No beating around the bush, she will lay things out exactly as they are and have been!

As l mentioned the other day with the Norwegian Blue clue, the Royal family was left £50,000,000 by Sir Donald Gosling, specifically to buy a new royal yacht, whose memorial service on December 11/2019 was attended by many royal family members. He was known as the car park king. Anyhow, HMTQ has obviously been looking into yachts, he passed away in September, so his memorial was held just four days ago but the bequest would have been known for quite some time. The last royal yacht was Britannia! It has become a permanent visitor attraction moored in the historic Port of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is cared for by the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust, a registered charity.

It sounds like HMTQ and LG are looking at one she has chosen and he concurs it’s beautiful.

“ I fear 20, more than 19” Continuing their conversation, l wonder if HMTQ in this comment is referring to Christmas and fearing 20 more than 19 means she fears, 20 guests for Christmas more than 19, meaning madam forcing herself onto the family for Christmas yet again!

TO THE VICTOR……GO THE SPOILS”. The victor, person who took the victory, is entitled to all of the rewards, bonuses, or benefits of success that were wagered in the contest, game investment or whatever scheme was afoot! Also written as “To the victor belong the spoils.”

A hard fought election with Brexit wanting revisit by the losing side saw a landslide majority victory for BoJo and the Conservatives. They can now, with a majority government, get Brexit done and finally move ahead and forward from the ,muck and mire of revisiting a vote that had already been done and dusted! The spoils are political power and decision making. The NHS is a massive issue as well, but we do t discuss politics here really, it l had to mention it because it just happened and was so obviously applicable.

HMTQ and LG and his team have masterfully played the game of real life cat and mouse. As many previous riddles have stated and one just a day or two ago, PP is keeping in close contact with Lord Maldon aka Netty regarding the legal charges at play. I truly believe it’s simply a matter of right timing and HMTQ is the only one who will make that choice! She will not be hurried, pressured or manipulated! NOT ONE WHIT! But to be sure, there is absolutely NO DOUBT THAT SHE IS THE VICTOR, THE CROWN WILL ALWAYS WIN! ALWAYS! The spoils in this case will be her family being able to resume its life, justice regarding madam, baby Archie shielded from EVER BECOMING PUBLICLY KNOWN, that bit l don’t know how they will manage that in this age of social media and if madam is the biological mother and MA? The father?? I pray for that innocent baby! The spoils may also include finding out the truth of these allegations against PA and why he is the sacrificial lamb so to speak for all the other billionaires who allegedly were friends of JE!

a little late dear friend…….. I think HMTQ is saying to LG despite justice against those who backed and were part of the assault on her family, severe irreversible damage has been done, years wasted, Harry’s health, both physical and mental changed in a way that would otherwise never would have happened, PA and his family, so damaged by allegations that thus far have been not even charged with. The victor may HMTQ be, the disaster in its wake is tremendous!

WHITEHALL NOW!! ……

BoJo and his new Conservative majority will return to sit before Christmas, HMTQ will give the speech he has written for her but the whole opening will be pared down version as it was just a few weeks ago, not the whole formal horse procession, crowns robes . etc This will take place December 18/2019, members sworn in and likely a big shuffling of the cabinet!

only one came ………

Only one what came where?? Who came? MM ANON YOU’RE MYSTIFYING ME BIG TIME TODAY!! Is this PA saying only one of his fellow members of the Grenadiers came to visit him or enquire after him to see if he was ok and why he was just a no show at the banquet when he was the guest of honour. I think anyone or everyone understands why he didn’t go.

IF , dear boy IF”………

l think this is PP speaking to PA, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If things were different, if this has never happened, this would have remained the same instead of becoming a pariah and having his life and his family life yanked right out from under them all. Prince Andrew took over from Prince Philip as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards in 2017. They had their annual banquet December 11/2019, PA was due to be the guest of honour. Despite assurances that he would be there, he simply was a no show, didn’t call or notify.

“ you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”…..

Well known phrase from the film The Italian Job, Michael Caine yelling in his Cockney accent at the literal overkill by a partner in crime, he blew up an entire security van when he was meant only to blow the doors off so they could get inside. This is a massive metaphor for way overdoing this in life. PA has had everything ripped from him and has not even been interviewed!! Talk about blowing up the entire van before even knowing if there are any doors!!!

The same goes for Harry, he has been playing a role, yet he has by most been 100% lumped in with madam! His reputation in tatters, let’s pray this ends soon, please🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻.

My brain cannot think anymore, l hope this makes sense

1500 hrs CST. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you PG! This looked like a tough one indeed! Great job. We much appreciate all the work you put in….thank you🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Skippy submission

[aion-rsa]

A Hopepunk Guide: Interview with Alexandra Rowland

https://ift.tt/2NNmRO5

We talked to author Alexandra Rowland about hopepunk, a term she coined in 2017.

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This interview with Alexandra Rowland was part of my research for "Are You Afraid of the Darkness: A Guide to Hopepunk," a feature written for Den of Geek's New York Comic Con print magazine that delved into the hopepunk term, first coined by Rowland in 2017. I recommend beginning with that article before diving into this full interview transcript.

Den of Geek: What is your current definition of hopepunk?

Alexandra Rowland: Well, there's the glib answer: “Hopepunk is the opposite of grimdark”, and there's the more nuanced answer: Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that “says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.” (from my essay,“One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” which is the closest thing that I've written to a hopepunk manifesto.) Whichever you choose, it's important to remember that punk is the operative half of the word – punk in the sense of anti-authoritarianism and punching back against oppression.

Has that definition of “hopepunk” changed since you first coined it in 2017?

Yes and no. The heart of it hasn't changed at all, but my efforts to remind people of the angry part of hopepunk definitely have grown. The instinct is to make it only about softness and kindness, because those are what we're most hungry for. We all want to be treated gently. But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to stand up to a bully on their behalf, and that takes guts and rage.

Do you consider hopepunk a genre or something else?

I mostly talk about it in the sense of a subgenre, yes – similar to how we use the words grimdark or cyberpunk. But it's important to remember that the sorts of stories that we tell (and how we tell them) reflect our values and perspectives on the world, or at least a value or perspective that we're striving to understand in some way.

By telling hopepunk stories, we necessarily have to be asking questions like, “How do we care about each other in a world which so aggressively doesn't care about so many of the people in our communities? Who do we consider community, and is that definition too narrow? How do we fight back against the people who want to make us sit down and shut up?”

By asking ourselves these questions, hopepunk expands from simple “genre” to an entire life philosophy. It sticks in the back of your head and changes you, a little bit.

What are your favorite examples of hopepunk?

Sense8, Meg Elison's The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, the Russian movie Stilyagi – these are all amazing (and sometimes difficult and emotional) works. But as far as I'm concerned, the face of hopepunk is Sam Vimes, a character from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. He's a gritty, hardened cop who is introduced when he’s lying blind-drunk in a ditch. He's tired, he's flawed, he's jaded and cynical... And yet he still, right at the basement foundations of his heart, believes in something. He gets out of the ditch, sobers up, gets his life in order. He holds onto his principles with a white-knuckled grip because he knows how easily they could slip away from him. He knows how easy and comfortable it would be to let himself become corrupted by his cynicism. But he stands up, sometimes against whole armies, and refuses to budge from what he knows is right and just. He is the very embodiment of: “No, you move.” And they do. The whole world does.

How intentional was that initial post? Was “hopepunk” something you had spent a lot of time thinking about before you wrote that initial Tumblr post?

Hah, the first Tumblr post was just that glib line “Hopepunk is the opposite of grimdark” and it was entirely off-the-cuff. It wasn't until a few hours later, when people were reblogging it and saying, “Wait, I think there's something here and I think I understand it instinctively, but can you explain so I can be sure?” that I started actually examining what I meant and discovered that oh, actually, yeah, this is important and it's something that I care about deeply.

I have seen some criticism, generally, of the overuse of the word “punk” as a suffix. Do you ever wish you had used a different word? Were there other words/phrases you considered?

We think that “punk” as a suffix has been overused because many of the recent genres that have invoked it did so for aesthetics (ie: to reference “cyberpunk”, the first instance of the compound), rather than because it meant something, and that’s annoying. Cyberpunk is punk. Steampunk is not – in fact, steampunk often reinforces the imperialist, colonialist narrative and ideals, which is the opposite of punk.

I have never wished I used a different word. The purpose of language is to communicate meaning clearly, and “hopepunk” seems to have carried its own meaning with delightful efficiency.

Do you think there’s something specific to Tumblr as a social platform that allowed hopepunk as a vibe to flourish?

I think that the very format of Tumblr was part of it – while Tumblr is terrible for having an actual conversation with someone, there's one thing it's really good for: you can write an essay as long as you want and then people can share it effortlessly. With Livejournal and Dreamwidth, you could do the former, but not the latter. With Twitter, you can do the latter, but the former is tedious in the extreme. That said, hopepunk didn't stay on Tumblr very long. People were crossposting screenshots of the post to Facebook and Twitter within the first 48 hours.

I think that hopepunk as a vibe flourished simply because it was the summer of 2017. We had a new president and the world was terrible and frightening. We didn't know what was going to happen, and whether it was too late to change anything, and so many of us were looking around for... something. Guidance, or comfort, or a promise that Good would eventually triumph, or ways that we could make a difference and heal the world. We were starving for stories that would tell us how and why to resist. I didn't invent the vibe – the vibe was already there and already burning. All I did was name it.

Were you surprised by the amount of attention this Tumblr post and hopepunk as an idea has gotten?

Initially, I was just vaguely bemused that anyone was listening to me, but at the same time I understood intellectually why hopepunk was resonating with people. Simply put: they were hurting, and hopepunk was a thing that helped comfort the hurt. In hindsight, I'm just very happy – when so many people find a philosophy like hopepunk meaningful and compelling... it sorta restores a bit of your faith in humanity, doesn't it? Maybe all is not yet lost, if there are enough people around to say, “Oh. Yes, this.”

Why do you think there is a need for an idea like hopepunk right now? Do you think culture is becoming more or less hopepunk?

There is a need for hopepunk because our president is a fascist. Because there are children dying in concentration camps within our borders. Because Jeff Bezos makes nearly nine million dollars per hour while his warehouse employees risk homelessness. Because we think it's normal that people should go bankrupt if they get ill and need medical assistance, or that they should get an Uber to the hospital instead of an ambulance. Because climate change is real. Because children have safety drills to practice what to do in case of an armed shooter in their school. Because racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism exist. And there is a need for hopepunk because it reminds us that these dragons can be slain. Because it reminds us that there's power in a union, that communties banding together can make a difference. Because the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. We've beaten them before, and we can beat them again, and the next time after that. The work is never finished, and the fight is never permanently won. But we keep fighting anyway, because it is the fight itself, not “winning”, that’s the point.

As to whether we're growing more or less hopepunk... It is easy to embrace despair and to think that the world is unrelentingly terrible, but at the end of the day, we're all just human. As individual humans, we haven't appreciably changed in tens of thousands of years. We still struggle with personal flaws and failings, we're still rude and inconsiderate and selfish, and we're still all making the same mistakes that our ancestors were making hundreds and thousands of years ago. And yet, as a society, we haven't managed to kill each other off yet, and we do keep striving relentlessly towards something better.

Do you think of hopepunk as a reactive idea? Does it have to be in relation to grimdark/noblebright or is it something bigger than that?

I think that all genres are reactive -- the purpose of storytelling is to show us possibility, and authors, since they are humans living in the world (sounds fake, I know), naturally react to the social context around them. Trends in horror movies, for example, reflect the shared cultural fears that we face. In the wake of WWII, the horror genre was fixated on the monstrous side effects of radiation. In the wake of 9/11, we got a spate of horror movies about airplanes.

Grimdark and hopepunk are reactive to two opposite social contexts -- they are the man standing at Julius Caesar’s shoulder as he rides his chariot through the cheering crowds, whispering to the emperor: “This too shall pass.” In some contexts, it is a warning (grimdark). In others, a comfort (hopepunk).

You are involved in lots of fandom spaces. (Love your Good Omens fanvids! Thank you for your service!) Do you think transformative fanworks tend to be more hopepunk than mainstream works or curatorial fandom?

Oh absolutely. I think of transformative fanworks as Marxist creativity. It is a group of people literally seizing the means of production and making the canon anew in their own image, often because so many of us haven’t seen ourselves reflected in mainstream media. Also I just have big feelings about Art being an ongoing conversation, and how Fan Art is a valid and legitimate part of the conversation and that it deserves to be acknowledged and honored. (And on that note, thank you for the lovely compliment!)

Tell me about Choir of Lies. Would you consider it hopepunk?

A Choir of Lies is the standalone sequel (meaning they’re a thematic pair but you can read them in either order) to my debut fantasy novel from last year, A Conspiracy of Truths. They are about fake news and the power of stories, and Choir specifically is about fantasy tulip mania, grief, recovery from trauma, and how we use stories to heal ourselves. It was deliberately and explicitly written with hopepunk in mind -- problems are solved by communities rather than by heroic individuals, and sometimes the most important and meaningful thing that you can do is to make a small and simple gesture of kindness, something on the scale of holding out a hand to help someone who’s tripped. Small, yes, but important -- and to the person who is receiving the gesture, it might change everything.

More generally, do you intentionally try to write hopepunk stories?

In general, yes, I do tend to. I write about characters being emotionally vulnerable with each other and relying on communties and networks of support, and characters who knowingly engage with systems of power and oppression. I write about ways to solve problems that don’t involve violence. I write about ethics and what we owe to each other. I write about basically good people being flawed and messy and broken, and about basically awful people having complicated moments of shining grace and humanity. I write about characters who are smart and who think about themselves and their impact on the world, and who wonder out loud how they can do better. I write about characters who care, ferociously, about other people.

What else are you working on right now?

Ongoing projects include my two podcasts: Worldbuilding for Masochists and Be The Serpent (the latter of which was nominated for a Hugo Award this year!). I’m always writing something or other, but nothing that I can talk about publicly yet in any detail, beyond that they’re book-shaped things.

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Interview

Culture

Kayti Burt

Nov 6, 2019

NYCC

NYCC 2019

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[giftfromthesleepprincess]

Chapter 5–An Unusual Event Visits With Expressionless Justice; Scene 1

Gift from the Princess Who Brought Sleep, pages 164-169

The World Police was an international organization founded in the year 573 under the leadership of Shaw Freezis, the chief minister of the Freezis Foundation.

Every country had organizations that maintained public order before it was established. There were countries where people in the position of peace officers were in charge of that, and other ones where the military would handle all peacekeeping work. However, they weren’t fully organized, and there was no cooperation between countries.

With the conflicts among countries quieting down, and the Evillious region beginning to grow peaceful, the new problem that had risen up to take its place was organized crime syndicates. There were even some cases where they were radicalized out of vigilante corps that had originally been formed to ensure a region’s order and stability. Viewing these as a problem, each country’s government began to seek out a unified peacekeeping organization that would be divided into subdivisions.

However, while things were peaceful compared to how they used to be, that didn’t mean that international warfare had ceased completely. It wasn’t a simple matter to get several countries in cooperation with each other.

Shaw Freezis was the one to step forward in that regard. The Freezis Foundation had at the time spread its influence over the entire Evillious region, and had connections to important people in various countries. It is thought that it was for this reason that they were able to establish a peacekeeping organization with a degree of compromise over the advantages and disadvantages of each country through the foundation’s leadership. And it ended up achieving great success.

There were those who objected to a foundation with one individual acting as its representative having its own peacekeeping organization, but they were quieted down by the establishment that the World Police was merely an assembly of each country’s personal police organizations. In other words, the police powers that carried out all peacekeeping actions would go on as they had before under each country’s governments, and the World Police operated to share information among the regional police and seek unity of purpose.  For example, in the case of Elphegort, the one who ran the Elphegort branch was the government of Elphegort, and its members were comprised of people who had originally been Elphegort police officers. But if the criminal of another country were to flee to Elphegort, or if they were up against any large-scale criminal organizations that operated between multiple countries, then they would be able to freely make use of the World Police’s societal networks, data on their targets, and easily obtain case details. Depending on the situation they would conduct an investigation with the cooperation of foreign officers.

Shaw had told Hanne that he wouldn’t mind leaving the World Police under her command, but in truth that would obviously be illegal. Despite being the leader of the Freezis Foundation, that didn’t mean that Shaw could do whatever he pleased with their police organization for his own convenience.

Only, that was, to the end, little more than the official stance. The vast bulk of the World Police’s funding was supplied by the foundation, and it was the true state of affairs for them that they couldn’t ignore the word of the foundation’s head so easily.

The World Police’s headquarters were in Marlon, but there as well they only conducted criminal investigations and peacekeeping inside the country, with sovereignty over them being held by the Marlon government.

However, there was another station inside the main headquarters that existed to aid in the undertaking of international criminal investigations.

It was the International Works Department, of the World Police’s Marlon Headquarters. It was commonly called “Justea”. Justea was the name of an old Beelzenian Emperor, who was himself known as the founder of the first peacekeeping organization in the Evillious region. A history buff, the first chief of the works department took on that name for them, and that spread through public consciousness.

There weren’t many investigators who worked under Justea. At present there were only twelve. They were the sole members of the World Police who were permitted to conduct investigations without heed to diplomatic negotiations, and due to the strength of their influence their numbers were always constrained to the minimum.

--Anyway. It had become quite frequent lately that one of the Justea investigators had been recklessly abusing their authority, and would carry out wild investigations in various countries.

Today, a letter of protest from a certain country had reached the works department. It was from the government of Elphegort.

She was responsible again. It seemed she had launched an assault on a private residence in the town of Toragay in Elphegort. What was worse, he’d been told that the owner of the house had ultimately had no connection to any crimes.

He had already summoned the perpetrator behind the incident. Hob had roared at her about it like usual when she came to the director’s office, but she replied, as calm in expression as she ever was, “I wouldn’t say, there was no connection, at all.”

“Oh? Then tell me, Investigator Heidemarie Lorre. You were pursing the criminal of the Rin Chan kidnapping case—what relevance does that have to the owner of an inn!?”

“I received information, that the suspected criminal, had entered Elphegort. The person who brought him there, by carriage, was the inn owner’s son. So I concluded that, the criminal and Rin Chan were at the inn—”

Hob was growing irritated. Both at Heidemarie’s attitude showing no self-reflection at all, and her tendency to periodically halt in her speech.

“But in the end that coachman was only carrying the two along as a job, and at that time you were at the inn he’d already taken them to the Kihel check station far away from Toragay—At least, according to the information that’s come my way?”

“Oh, so you already know.”

“It seems the officers of the Elphegort division are far superior to you. Unfortunately, their movements aren’t known after they got off the carriage at the check station…Because you were causing havoc on a completely off-the-mark investigation! Heidemarie!”

Hob hit the desk before him. In reality he wanted to strike the woman in front of him directly, but she was the great-granddaughter of Shaw Freezis.

--Though, even in Justea Hob was the only one who knew that.

“…I’ve decided to take you off this investigation,” Hob muttered as he heaved a sigh.

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious!? You’ve been causing nothing but trouble! Trashing buildings all over the place, torturing suspects without permission, disregarding cooperation with local police, skipping out on work to go see concerts, and, finally, giving an interview in the newspaper!”

Hob spread out a sheet of paper before Heidemarie’s eyes. It was the Schuburg newspaper that had been published two weeks ago.

“This article on Rin Chan being a lip-syncher. The female fan written of in there is obviously you! Who the hell gave you permission to do that?!”

“No, I just answered them, because I was asked. …And—” Heidemarie took in a little huff of breath, and then continued in a strong tone, “I believe in her. I know…that Rin Chan is no lip syncher—”

“I don’t care about that! You’ve put Justea’s dignity on the line! …Whatever the case, I want you to take a break for a while. Really I want to sack you, but that’s not something I can do.”

The reason he couldn’t fire her wasn’t because she was the chief minister’s great-granddaughter. Every once in a blue moon her heavy-handed investigations would provide much better results than expected. Thanks to that, though he petitioned the higher-ups to dismiss her, they never agreed to it.

“The inn that you attacked…Your older sister was staying there was a guest, wasn’t she? Then that’s a perfect opportunity. You should spend your time off in your home country of Elphegort with your sister, yeah?”

“I see…I might, take you up on that.”

“I’m so grateful you agree so readily.”

“Then I’m off…”

“—Oy, wait a moment. You intend to take your gun with you? Leave that here!”

But Heidemarie shook her head.

“This is, mine.”

“Ch…Fine, but while you’re suspended you’re just an average citizen. If you fire that at anyone I’ll arrest you so fast your head will spin.”

“…I’ll keep that in mind.”

Heidemarie left the room without so much as bowing. Once the door had closed, Hob kicked his desk with his right foot as hard as he could.

…His toes hurt.

<<prev------directory------next>>

[ghostflowerdreams]

What Is The Time Period In The Devil May Cry Series?

From what I’ve gathered the Devil May Cry series takes place in a Retro Universe -- basically where retro, vintage or antiquated technology, styles and aesthetics are still used, but which otherwise is or at least resembles The Present Day. Often cultural styles from different time periods are mixed and matched, usually with those that date no later than The '60s or so.

This makes sense as the technology in the series varies. For example, in Dante’s office he has a rotary phone, a boombox, a jukebox and a old color TV (in the anime). Later on in the series Nero shows up with some modernized-looking cordless headphones. This makes it hard to pin point the time period with just the few pieces of technology we’ve seen in the series. There’s also the possibility that Dante is just too poor to upgrade (or he doesn’t bother with it because his stuff keep getting broken every time). But that doesn’t explain why the rest of the DMC world isn’t up-to-date with modern inventions either. 

In Devil May Cry 5 each of the characters used telephone booths to make their calls. But when Nero was at the fancy-looking hotel, he made his call with a rotary phone. However, with Nico in order to receive those calls from him, she used what looked like one of those first ever mobile phone (which probably took hours to charge, lasted 35 minutes or so, and cost a lot too). Or it could have been a satellite phone? At that point, it was clear that the DMC world isn’t modeled after a particular time period and it’s not going for realism either. 

After all, modern cell phones would have been a thing for them by now and even computers. Instead, it borrow things from different time periods to create a retro and aesthetic pleasing game for us to enjoy. With a bit of digging around I also found out that Hiroyuki Kobayashi (the producer of DMC1, DMC4 and the DMC:TAS) once stated in an interview that the DMC world is very much like ours and it has phones -- just not cellphones. I can’t find the original article, but there was another old article that had a similar discussion with him about it...

Hiroyuki Kobayashi: In Devil May Cry [series character Dante's] office, they do have a phone, but it's a black analog kind of phone. That feeling of what the world is like is something that we really want to protect, so even though it does have phones, we don't want it to be a world where there is a cell phone and you can immediately talk to anyone in the world.

Having said that, it is a world where they do have motorbikes, so creating this mix between high-tech and analog technology -- a world where some things have advanced and some things haven't advanced -- is pretty difficult.

For example, there's a jukebox in Dante's office, but it plays old vinyl records. Some parts of technology have advanced, and some haven't advanced. Keeping that true throughout the series and the game is difficult, and we need to have all the core members on the same page. That is certainly one of the challenges in making the game. Having said that, it is a lot of fun to be able to create this kind of unique world of our own design.

After a little more digging I found more information on this subject and it’s actually a lot more recent too. On the Polygon website, Editor Matt Leone was at Capcom’s San Francisco office during this year’s Game Developers Conference. He met with Devil May Cry 5 director Hideaki Itsuno, senior producer Michiteru Okabe, and producer Matt Walker to discuss DMC5. Source: Devil May Cry 5: The post-mortem interview

Matt Leone [Interviewer]: To a certain degree, the game — and Devil May Cry in general — feels like a kitchen sink of different ideas; a lot of things could fit in the Devil May Cry world. Can you think of any things that have come up that felt too out of bounds for that universe?

Hideaki Itsuno: It’s interesting. I know this isn’t quite the direction you’re going for with that question, but there are things that technically don’t fit in a Devil May Cry, and it generally falls around the sense of style that we have. For instance, it’s not as cool for someone to take out a cell phone and say, “Devil May Cry” [with a normal voice]. But when you have a big landline phone on a desk, you can pick it up and say “Devil May Cry” [with a deep voice]. And that really comes down to the fact that we grew up in a certain era. We grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, before there was technology like this. That sense of style is something that’s been ingrained into us from having grown up in that period. There’s a lot of stuff in the game where they don’t use the latest technology, because from our point of view, this is what’s cool.

Eventually, if we ever have a director on a new Devil May Cry game who is in their 20s or something, they’ll have grown up with completely different stuff. So then the sense of style might change, and you might have stuff where in the game they’re watching YouTube or whatever.

But there’s also kind of that element of, what’s stylish? What we know to be cool is really based on our experiences in the ’70s and ’80s, but then also we have the cool dark hero element. Like with Dante, sure, he doesn’t really do terrible things — he doesn’t kill humans, that kind of thing — but there are dark aspects to him, or to the heroes in these games. Yet really, they’re pure, proper heroes that are very all about justice and protecting.

What got me thinking about all this was because when I was going over my old fanfiction I noticed something, well, more like the lack of something. I was wondering why I was making my original character go to the library to research books for information on the occult when she could’ve just google’d it (or use an equivalent of the search engine). 

But then I realized that it felt out of place if I did that because not once had I ever seen or heard any mention of computers in DMC series (especially in DMC3 as that was the game my fanfiction was focused on). Maybe they do exist, but it was still in the early stages of creation? Or that it wasn’t available for the public and only scientist, military, government or whatnot were the ones using it? I do not know, but books are a valuable source of information and will always be around. So I figured I couldn’t go wrong with having my character do some old-fashion research. 

It also makes sense that when Devil May Cry was first released it was in 2001, so of course that had some influence. At the time of writing this post it’s been 18 years since then and technology has made many advancements and will keep on advancing. But even before that in 1998, after the completion of Resident Evil 3, DMC originally started off as a part of the Resident Evil franchise, under the name "Team Little Devil". Early research and development work included a trip to Spain to examine various castles as a basis for the game's environments. So, of course, that also helped to shape DMC into what it is today. 

I get the feeling that DMC4 to DMC5 is kinda like when the 90s meet 2000s. In which those who live in the era know what it was like to see cassettes and VHS tapes turn into CD-ROMs. Floppy disk to USB flash drives, Walkman/Discman to mp3 or ipods and so on. 

Now, what about cameras? Hm, I do wonder which version of it is fitting for the DMC series. There’s a painted portrait of the whole family in Dante’s childhood home, but on his desk there is a photo of his mother. It might be one of those hand-coloring photograph? I figured because of the clothing they’re wearing looks old-fashion, it may suggest that photography might not have been that common during that time. Paintings were probably popular, but Eva’s photo on Dante’s desk is in color. Maybe it is an actual photo from a camera (the kind that’s not black & white -- film camera possibly)? Unless it’s a small hand-painted portrait of her? 

I’ll research this later. Anyway, these were just my musings that spawn from my old DMC fanfiction. Obviously, I don’t have to be canonically correct but I personally like to do my best in sticking with the source material. That usually means I have to do a bit of research to properly understand whatever peaks my interest and then figured how what I want to do with that information. Sometimes it helps me to better build up the DMC universe in my stories from. I also find that it even helps to make it feel very immersive for my readers.