#i’m very normal about this podcast actually

[mangozic]

archivist be upon ye

[crownconstellation]

my parents are such funny people in the deeply insidious way that conservative parents always are. (i do not mean funny in an actual comedic sense, i mean it in an ironic / insulting one).

like ever since my stint in the hospital my mom has been fussing about making sure to keep my stress levels low because stress can affect blood pressure and how i need to take it easy at my job more. meanwhile while she’s saying this she’s - as always - loudly blasting her 48294884 deeply right-wing podcasts she tunes into religiously every single day and it’s like hmmmm. Have you not considered that maybe THESE and the shit they spout in them (and the rhetoric you and dad parrot in response) are perhaps a greater influence on my stress level than my job even at its worst

[thoughtwriter]

on air - g. clarke

summary -> [ part 2 ] you’re a guest on the useless hotline podcast hosted by your secret boyfriend | george clarke x fem!reader

wc -> 1.2k

WARNINGS -> secret/private relationship, george is smitten

masterlist | main masterlist | requests

george knew inviting you on the podcast was a bad idea.

not because you wouldn’t be great - quite the opposite, actually. you were quick, charming, dangerously funny. the kind of guest that made a podcast episode fly by and rack up views. but because george had a very hard time pretending you weren’t his girlfriend, and the useless hotline was filmed in 4K and recorded with high-grade microphones that picked up everything - including every slip-up, lingering stare, and voice crack.

and right now? he was seconds away from combusting on camera.

you were sitting across from him, legs crossed, mic in front of you, hoodie sleeves pushed up to your elbows, looking like you didn’t have a secret in the world.

meanwhile, george was sweating. literally and figuratively.

“right, welcome back to the useless hotline,” he said into the mic, trying to sound normal, casual, definitely not like a man who had been up until 2 a.m. last night with the very guest now smiling sweetly across from him. “the show where we help you with your problems, whether you want us to or not.”

“usually not,” max muttered next to him.

you laughed—a soft, familiar sound george had heard a thousand times before, but now it echoed in his headphones like a siren call.

max leaned forward, smirking. “and today we’ve got a very special guest... content creator, chaos gremlin, and george’s—what was it? longtime friend?”

george gave him a look. a subtle but deeply meaningful shut up look. you just smiled and said, “that’s what we’re calling it, yeah.”

you were good at this. at pretending. too good.

george could barely keep his eyes off you. the way your fingers tapped the mic stand absentmindedly, how your lips twitched whenever max made a joke, how you’d glance at george when you were holding back something private - something only the two of you knew. well not just you two but also not the rest of the world.

he was so screwed.

“so,” max said, reading the first listener submission. “this person says: ��my situationship keeps liking my Instagram stories but never replies to my texts. what do I do?’ classic.”

you leaned in, “oof. see, that’s emotional terrorism.”

george barked a laugh - too loud, too sudden. you glanced at him, amused, and he felt his neck heat up. “sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “just - ‘emotional terrorism.’ that’s gold.”

“tell me I’m wrong, clarke,” you teased, tilting your head.

his full name. dangerous territory. it made his stomach twist in ways it shouldn’t while on camera. “nah, you’re spot on,” he said, but his voice cracked slightly at the end.

max turned his head slowly, eyes narrowing. “you good, george?”

“yep. yep. great.” you smirked. george wanted to crawl under the table.

the episode went on. more questions. more advice. more jokes. and the longer it went, the worse george got. because you were so effortlessly you. because every time you teased him, he had to stop himself from reaching across the table and grabbing your hand like he always did when you were off-camera. because every time you laughed, he remembered what it felt like to kiss you mid-laughter, tangled in sheets and sunlight.

you reached for your drink, eyes flicking to him mid-sip. that look. the look you gave him when you wanted to be alone. private. quiet. yours.

he nearly dropped his mic. max noticed—of course he did.

“george,” he said suddenly, interrupting whatever nonsense advice you were giving. “what’s going on with you today? you’re being weird.”

george flinched. “i’m not being weird.”

“you’re being super weird,” max insisted. “you’re staring at her like she’s about to float away.” you raised your eyebrows in mock surprise. “am i?”

george laughed nervously. “i’m just - she’s just funny. that’s why she’s here.” max narrowed his eyes. “uh-huh. not because you live together or anything.”

you coughed. george blinked, “we don’t live together.”

max smirked. “not technically. but didn’t you stay at her place last night?” george’s mouth opened. closed. you shot Max a look that could kill.

“wow, max,” you said slowly. “way to make it weird.”

george leaned back, palms up. “can we not do this on air?”

“oh my god,” Max gasped. “you two are actually—?”

“nope,” you cut in smoothly. “still besties. he just likes my cooking.”

“yeah,” George added, voice hoarse. “just... spaghetti and stuff.”

you knew he was remembering last night. the way you kissed him in the kitchen, salt still on your fingers, shirt half-unbuttoned from laughing too hard during dinner. the way he picked you up and laid you across the counter, like-

“george,” max said again. “dude. you’re gone.”

“okay, next question!” george blurted, slapping the desk. “this one says: ‘is it a red flag if my boyfriend won’t post me?’”

max raised an eyebrow. “a very fitting question for the current vibe.”

you looked at George. your voice was low, almost teasing. “well, it depends, right? some people just like privacy.”

“yeah,” george said, throat dry. “privacy’s important.”

max squinted. “sure, but like… if you’re dating someone and you’re never in their stories, never on their grid, don’t even get a soft launch - what’s that about?”

you shrugged. “maybe they’re just waiting for the right time.”

“or maybe they’re secretly dating their podcast guest,” max said under his breath. george choked.

you snorted. “i think we’ve veered off-topic.”

george could barely look at you for the rest of the episode. he was red, flustered, and so obviously not okay. the fans were going to eat this up. the clips alone were going to break tiktok. you were cool as ever - effortlessly gliding through the chaos.

but as the outro music played and the red light on the camera clicked off, you finally looked at him properly. the kind of look that said, you’re in so much trouble, but i kind of love you for it.

george leaned toward you, voice low, private, almost pleading.

“i was trying so hard to keep it together.”

you leaned closer, “you did terribly.”

he laughed, soft and warm, “i know.”

you looked over at max, who was pretending to check his phone but was definitely eavesdropping. then you reached over and squeezed george’s hand under the table, a quiet promise between the chaos.

“next time,” you whispered, “maybe we don’t pretend.”

george blinked. “yeah?”

you grinned,“yeah.”

TWITTER

@/uselesshotlinepod - Y’all… there’s NO WAY George and y/n are just “friends.” This episode is wild and you can go watch it now.

i’m on a role rn slayy. feel free to request i get to them within a week of when they are requested

[cressidagrey]

The Queen of Romantasy and the Race Car Prince - Chapter 15

Pairing: Lando Norris x Elizabeth "Lizzie" Treshton (Original Character)

Summary:

Elizabeth Treshton—bestselling romantasy author, queen of fae heartbreak, and sworn devotee of a carefully structured routine—never expected her service dog to abandon protocol and diagnose a Formula 1 driver with something. But that’s exactly what happens when Mara the wonder-dog ditches Lizzie’s side to aggressively alert to none other than Lando Norris in the middle of a coffee shop.

Warnings and Notes: 

Mention of epilepsy and service animals. I don't myself suffer from epilepsy, so I asked my IRL friend, who thankfully was nice enough to let me ask her all the questions I could come up with. The rest I asked Reddit. So everything that's wrong...that's totally my fault and not on purpose. Also Discussion of toxic media/fandom.

Also, this is the first time of me trying to write fake articles/transcripts...so be nice, please?

As always big thanks to @llirawolf , who listens to me ramble

Podcast Transcript: The Paddock Report

Episode Title: Silverstone Predictions & Paddock Whispers

Hosts: Jake Carter and Emma Turner

Jake:  Alright, moving on from the usual weekend predictions—there’s been a bit of... let’s call it energy coming from McLaren lately. Obviously, Silverstone is always a big one for the British drivers—Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, and of course, Lando Norris. But I have to say… there’s something going on at McLaren, and specifically with Lando, and they are being very tight-lipped about it.

Emma: Yeah, something is definitely brewing over there. And I’m not talking about car upgrades…There’s been this weird… I don’t know, energy? Around McLaren. Like, normally, they’re very open with their media content. They love a good teaser, they love stirring up excitement. But this time? It’s like they’re trying not to say something

Jake: Which, historically, means something is up. Because let’s be real, McLaren PR loves a good hype moment. But this? It’s different. They’re trying really hard to keep a lid on it.

Emma: And it’s not contract-related, as far as we know. Lando’s locked in. It’s not a last-minute driver swap. So, what are we thinking?

Jake: My money’s on a personal announcement.

Emma: Oh, absolutely. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a WAG situation.

Jake: You think Lando’s finally gone public with someone?

Emma: Maybe? Or at least, something’s happening where they know the media will ask about it, and they’re trying to get ahead of it.

Jake: Or, hear me out, it’s even bigger.

Emma: Like… marriage? A secret engagement? A baby?!

Jake: Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Emma: All I’m saying is—McLaren never keeps things this quiet unless there’s something big brewing. And whatever it is, we’re going to find out very, very soon.

Jake: Exactly. Whatever’s happening, we’ll find out soon enough. But mark my words—Lando Norris is hiding something.

Max Fewtrell on Stream

Chat is an absolute disaster, filled with variations of “Max, spill” and “Lando girlfriend when???”

MaxFewtrell: You lot are relentless. Actually relentless. I should’ve put slow mode on.

Squints at the chat.

MaxFewtrell: "Max, we saw the dog." – Congrats, you have eyes. Very impressive.

MaxFewtrell: "He literally said 'my girlfriend’s dog' on stream, explain yourself." – Okay, first of all, I don’t have to explain anything. Second of all… yeah, that was funny.

Grins as chat goes feral.

MaxFewtrell: "So he DOES have a girlfriend??" – I mean, I’m not saying that. But I’m also not not saying that.

MaxFewtrell: "Hard launch when?" – You guys are so impatient, honestly. Maybe soon. Maybe this weekend. Maybe you should all stay very, very tuned.

Leans forward conspiratorially.

MaxFewtrell: But hey, I’m just some guy on Twitch. What do I know?

Elizabeth Treshton on Fantasy, Fame, and Finding Magic in the Real WorldBy Jolene Cooper

When Elizabeth Treshton first started writing Season of Fate, she had no audience in mind—just a story itching to be told.

“I was twenty, home from university for the summer, and just writing for fun,” she recalls. “I’d sit in my dad’s garden with a notebook, scribbling away, thinking maybe one day I’d finish something just for myself.”

That “something” became a literary sensation. The Seasons of Fate series has since sold millions of copies worldwide, with a devoted fanbase that dissects every detail, from character arcs to hidden lore. The upcoming film adaptation of A Spring of Secrets and Thorns has only heightened the excitement, turning Treshton into one of the most talked-about authors in romantasy today.

And yet, she still seems a little surprised by it all.

“I don’t think I ever fully processed how big it’s gotten,” she admits with a laugh. “Every time I see someone with my book, I have to resist the urge to ask if they’re enjoying it.”

The Unexpected Rise 

Treshton’s writing blends intricate world-building with deeply personal, emotionally charged relationships. Fans praise her for crafting characters who feel real—flawed, fierce, and achingly human, even in a world of magic and myths.

“I love that romantasy lets us explore relationships in heightened, dramatic ways,” she says. “It’s adventure and escapism, but at the core, it’s about love—whether that’s romantic, familial, or self-love. That’s what really draws people in.”

She credits her love of grand storytelling to her lifelong obsession with Formula 1, of all things. 

“I grew up watching F1,” she says. “My dad was a huge Ferrari fan, so I was basically raised on race weekends and heartbreak.” She grins. “I think that’s why I gravitate toward emotionally devastating storytelling.”

Writing While Living with Epilepsy

Treshton has been open about her journey with epilepsy, something she’s lived with since childhood. It’s a condition that affects her daily life, including her writing process.

“There are days when I can write 5,000 words without stopping,” she says. “And there are days when my brain just says, ‘Nope, not today.’”

She’s learned to listen to those limits. “For a long time, I thought I had to push through everything. But then I realized that rest is just as important as work.”

Her service dog, Mara, plays a huge role in maintaining that balance.

“She’s my shadow,” Treshton says, glancing down as Mara, a brown Labrador, dozes beside her. “She keeps me safe, but she also keeps me grounded. If I’ve been working too long, she’ll put her head on my laptop and sigh dramatically until I take a break.”

Mara has become a beloved fixture in the Season of Fate fandom, with fans drawing art of her as various mythical creatures from the books.

“I love that people adore her as much as I do,” Treshton says. “She deserves all the attention.”

A Love Story of Her Own

For someone who has built a career on writing sweeping, emotionally charged romances, Treshton has always been remarkably private about her own love life.

When asked if her stories are inspired by personal experience, she hesitates for a moment, then smiles.

“Not at first,” she admits. “I used to think love was something that only happened to other people. Not me.”

She pauses, a small, knowing smile playing at her lips. “Turns out, I was wrong about that.”

It’s the kind of answer that will undoubtedly send fans into a frenzy, but she offers no further details. Just a quiet acknowledgment that, for all the fantasy she’s written, real life has its own magic too.

What’s Next?

With A Winter of Ash and Starligh, the final installment of Season of Fate, set to release later this year, and the movie adaptation moving forward, Treshton’s world is only getting bigger.

“I’m excited,” she says. “A little terrified, but mostly excited.”

And as for what comes after that?

She grins. “I guess we’ll see.”

[mikeystrawberry]

Today is Dungeons & Daddies’s 5th Anniversary!

I haven’t been listening for nearly that long but the podcast and all its characters means a lot to me. Happy Anniversary!!!

Throwing the cropped sections under the cut because there’s a lot of stuff going on and I know Tumblr likes to throw half the pixel quality out the window. And also so I can ramble a bit about this piece!!!

This piece has been months in the making, possibly an entire year. And by that I mean I’ve had a sketch of the comp scribbled on my whiteboard for ages because I wanted to save this specifically for 5th anni art. Now onto design stuff!

(First off a random thought: I really love how the garlic knot came out, I kind of want it as an enamel pin.)

I knew I wanted to make this a stained glass piece since the beginning, but I was also going to add flowers at one point but quickly dropped the idea. It felt like too much and I also didn’t want to fuss over flower language assignments for everyone. I was also going to add Doodler tentacles, but also dropped that idea pretty early. Kind of on accident, right at the end, I figured out how to make it even more stained glass-like but taking a duplicated lineart underneath the regular layer and turning the brightness all the way down, then setting it to overlay and adding a guassian blur. It’s very subtle but it adds that tiny bit of depth that makes it look more real. As for shading on the lineart/gold, I tried adding more highlight on the characters who died but once I evened everything out it wasn’t as noticeable anymore so I’m throwing that thought here so the attempt at least known lol.

The order of characters only changed a little bit from my original comp, I flipped the Wilsons and the Oaks so the rainbow could work. As for the anchors, specifically in season 2, I lined them up to the teens since the season 1 anchors lined up with each dad:

Tony —> Scary: his death was the beginning of Scary’s betrayal arc and also Willy killed him.

Guitar Pick —> Taylor: it’s not really aligned with Taylor at all, but the anchor was with Glenn so I put it next to his blunt.

Scroll —> Normal: was only because it was the last left to give him, but there’s the whole scene of him and Hermie in the Green Room so it still works!

Garlic Knot —> Link: one of two that he broke, but the more significant of the two with him telling Grant he never wants to see him again.

Small notes on the season 1 anchors: I put the layer of mold in the overnight oats but you can’t really tell with the overlay. And to make the supper bowl more interesting I added the fantasy sodas mix they dumped into it. The lure of actually drawn before so I just traced my own art lol.

As for the other smaller triangles, it took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to put there. I didn’t even think of adding the vehicles until two days ago but I’m so glad I did. I don’t really have my own take on the mascot version of the Doodler (yet?) so I borrowed the design from one of the stickers in their merch shop. Teeny was terrifying as just a front facing head so I made him cute again.

In the outer circles, I put what I felt was the most significant quotes for each family. I really wanted to use “It’s okay to be angry, it’s not okay to be cruel” but it was just a little too long.

That’s all I can think of! If you read all the way through, thank you for indulging me in my excitement to gush over this piece.

[ludolka]

Ooo come get yalls Activity detected au content juice, I have a new concept idea 👀

I mentioned possibly involving a professional paranormal investigator group in the form of Gem, Skizz, Impulse and Tango before. Well I have thought more about them !

Besides doing investigations and legit hunts (so unlike Paranormal Traffic, they actually capture creatures that are causing issues and help spirits pass onto the afterlife), they also have a podcast where they talk about their experiences. Skizz, Impulse and Tango are sort of “veterans” in this field, having done it for a long time and Gem’s the youngest and newest addition to the group. I could see her being sort of a scientist maybe? Anyways, their group is nicknamed TIGS bc I’m still not creative with naming things,,

Their podcast is the most popular of its kind and they are well known and respected in the paranormal investigation community. I could see them looking into Paranormal Traffic because they keep getting messages and comments about them, asking if they think PT are faking their videos or if they would know what’s up with Grian based on the videos

They normally don’t do collaborations or really talk about other investigator groups on their podcast, but after Gem started watching the videos and showed it to her teammates, they all became rather interested. They haven’t seen or heard of any creature that messes with footage or equipment this much, but it also seems too real and versatile to be fake, especially with the otherwise shabby editing of all the videos

So they reach out, asking to meet up with the group and maybe take them on one of their sessions as a collab :) if they are faking, they wouldn’t be able to tamper with TIGS’ high quality equipment and if they aren’t, well then TIGS are very curious to see what Grian really is with their own eyes

[jesterscourt-e]

Do you have to let it linger? Pt. 1

A/N: hey yall! First fic! This is part one to kind of get a feel for if people like this and want more. Let me know.

Third person POV

You're a streamer/singer/dancer who is asked to sing at the wedding of a fellow streamer. Schlatt is invited too, which means more fake flirting and bullying. Unless the flirting isn’t fake after all.

Y/N- She/her (may write more gn in future)

Slow burn, yearning, fluff

No warnings (for now..)

——————

Being friends with Jschlatt is weird. It’s actually like you’re friends with two people at the same time. In front of a camera he’s a boisterous, loud, obnoxious character, but behind it he’s pretty quiet and closed off even. He doesn’t do the cons or public appearances. He’s actually pretty introverted.

When you met schlatt on “love or host” in 2020 you didn’t love the energy, but did think he was funny. You made him laugh, you related to each other both being from the east coast, and you did find him wildly attractive. You choose host that game which led to an awkward conversation when you won. You invited him to your stream anyway though since you ended up regretting your decision. You playfully bullied and flirted with each other for a couple hours. Afterwards schlatt reached out and was friendly and chill behind the scenes. Even though he does still hold a grudge about you choosing host. This started an amusing partnership spanning the past couple years that was mostly him interrupting your streams to bully and flirt with you and you being “annoyed”. In reality you guys spend a lot of time on the phone after streams talking or just working on your own shit while in each other’s company. You’d fall asleep to his streams on nights he would stream. And he’d call you during them sometimes.

“When are you moving to Austin?” He’d tease

“When you fund my move,” You shoot back.

“Fucking gold digger,” he’d respond, sipping on his drink.

After many months of this and many appearances on each other’s channels and fancams you guys got used to this routine. Constantly getting asked about each other on each other’s streams. You had met only twice in person. Once a couple months after love or host, at the height of the “shipping”.

A week before you met in person for the first time, schlatt called during a stream of yours, “when I get out to LA I’m gonna fuck the shit out of you. And that’s no j-“

you hung up before he could finish the sentence and slammed your phone on the table laughing with fake frustration and put your head in your hands to hide your burning cheeks. You pretended to be annoyed and disgusted even, but in reality, that made for great content. You don’t even have to look at chat to know it’s going a million miles an hour. “Chat, can we ban that guy?”

You guys just knew how to boost each other’s numbers. Sometimes you didn’t even realize he was in the chat until people started freaking out.

You got into streaming because of Ted. You met Ted in college through mutual friends who you don’t even talk to anymore, and he convinced you to get on twitch to boost your numbers on your videos. You normally post your music or dancing, but Ted got you into streaming games and it helped get people into your other content. He’s the one who got you on love or host too. So really he’s to blame for all of this.

The first time you met, Schlatt was coming out to LA for chuckle week, a week of podcasting with Ted and Charlie, which you had been invited to be on. The meeting was highly anticipated and now thanks to schlatt, public knowledge, so your socials were very busy leading up to it.

The day everyone arrived you drove over to Ted’s place where everyone was hanging out. You couldn’t help but feel nervous. It’s weird, you felt so comfortable around Schlatt online, but in person? What if it just wasn’t the same?

When you arrived you went up to Ted’s apartment door and let yourself in with a deep breath and shaking hands. Faking confidence you yell as you burst in, “WHATS UP CHUCKLE FUCKS??”

A chorus of excitement from the group as you entered with schlatt nowhere in sight. You got in and said hi to everyone. Connor came out to say hey, “schlatt’s upstairs,” he said after giving you a hug.

You nodded and went back to mingling, Ted got you a drink and you were all catching up when I heard from upstairs, “where is she? WHERE’S THE BROAD?!”

You looked towards the stairs where you see Schlatt hurdling down them. You move to meet him in the middle of the room and as you do he grabs your waist and hoists you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and laughs maniacally. You immediately started laughing and pretend to struggle and yell.

“HELP HELPPPP ME!” You scream between laughter as he walks out the front door and shuts it, but as soon as you get outside he sets you down laughing. You both laugh hysterically and he gives you a big bear hug.

“Holy shit you’re real!” He finally says holding your arms, looking at you in full now still grinning ear to ear. You can tell he’s a little nervous about being in each other’s presence too.

“Jesus, dude,” You laugh still composing yourself after being manhandled. “Of course I’m real,” you laugh. The nerves melted away pretty quickly as you playfully smacked him.

He giggled mischievously and opened the front door to go back in where everyone was also still laughing. You could see Connor had his phone out recording the interaction. That’ll surely make the rounds on twitter later, you thought to yourself. The evening proceeded and it got sloppy relatively quickly thanks to the excitement of being together.

The week was mostly work for the boys and you only saw them again when you filmed your episode with them, but schlatt did make sure you guys all went out together one more time before he left.

When you did check twitter, the video of Schlatt throwing you over his shoulder and running out the door was blowing up. People in the comments losing it over how cute you two were.

—————

The second time you saw Schlatt in person was just as busy and chaotic. You went to Austin to visit him and other fellow streamers for a big streaming event. You didn’t get to see Schlatt too much but one of the last nights you guys hung out and stayed up all night as his house hanging out and talking. You guys played Mario kart and watched YouTube, but by the end of the night you guys put on Radio Head and discussed their discography and your mutual love for them.

“You know it’s funny though, one of their songs is my least favorite song of all time,” you say.

“Which one?” He responds.

“Creep. I fucking hate that song,” you fume.

“What? Why?” He asks.

“I hate that it’s their most popular song and it’s so shallow. It’s like what guys put on before they tell me I’m “not like the other girls” you know?” You finish.

“Honestly bad take dude,” he responds.

You guys keep arguing back and forth about Radiohead for a while until the conversation dies off.

“I’m moving back to New York,” schlatt finally says.

“Really why?”

“I fucking hate Austin.”

“Wow big surprise there.”

“Seriously dude it sucks. I wasn’t built for this heat, and everything is just fucking insufferable,” he rants.

“Well now I have more of an excuse to go back out to the East coast,” you respond. “When do you move?”

“When you leave I’m gonna start packing.”

You nod and pet Jambo who has found his way over to the couch and onto your lap. Schlatt scoops up the other one and starts terrorizing him. you giggle at them.

“Is it weird that I’m gonna miss you?” He asked. It’s late in the night, the drinks and tiredness influencing his mind.

“Yeah a little. You’re like obsessed with me or something though so it makes sense,” you say shrugging.

“We’re barely business associates,” he said back, Slipping into character, “fucking bitch.”

“Shut up, baby. You know you want me,” You said in a sultry tone. You look at his cheeky smirk. He tried to avoid your gaze and chuckled as he finished his drink. “I’m going to miss you too,” you finally said.

It hadn’t meant to be serious, but you could feel the tension shift after you spoke. All the jokes in person and online, sometimes you wondered where the line was. It was blurry and getting blurrier by the day. When the cameras were off he didn’t flirt with you as much if at all. But there was a genuine side to the playful flirting that seemed too real sometimes. When he’d speak he’d sound so serious even if it was an obvious joke. It made you a little excited and flustered sometimes when he said stuff on camera.

Sitting so close to him, he smelled so good, musky, and like clean shampoo, but also laundry soap. It was distracting. Man you were tired. And delusional. But the way he smiled at you, his eyes were dark and his freckles so perfect on his face. You shook your head and shook the thoughts away.

Fuck I need to go to bed.

———

The last time you saw Schlatt was over 3 months ago, and you did miss Schlatt like you said you would. Working on music and being in the studio dancing kept you busy, not to mention streaming. But late at night he would call you and you would chat until the early hours.

A fellow streamer contacted you out of nowhere several months ago about performing at his wedding you immediately said yes. He wanted you to sing a duet for the first dance and for the mother son and father daughter dances. It was such an honor to be part of someone’s special day like that, of course you said yes. So for the past months you’ve been rehearsing with a fellow singer/creator, Max, and now the wedding week was here.

Hotel arrangements were made in the place the same hotel the wedding will be held so you can get ready there. You showed up a day ahead of everything so you can see the space and practice. you have to do it in secret because the bride didn’t know you would be performing. The groom wanted it to be a surprise so you’ve kept most of it down low.

You did tell schlatt and Ted you’d be there a day early since they were both invited as well. You told them you’d be performing and to keep it a secret. You didn’t tell them much else about it though to keep it confidential. while driving to the hotel you get a call from Ted.

you answer, “Hey what’s happenin’ captain?”

“Heeyyyyy, Y/N!” He responds. He sounds immediately suspicious.

“What did you do?” You crack back.

“W-what do you mean?” You hear someone in the background.

“Who’s with you???”

“No one.”

“Theodore.”

“….Tucker… And schlatt.”

“Heyyyy Y/N,” you hear Schlatt say over exaggerated.

“Heyyy” you hear Tucker.

“Wtf I thought you guys weren’t going to be here until tomorrow morning?”

“They weren’t but then they decided to come a night early so we can hang out.”

“You guys know I have to practice right now right?” You say feeling stressed.

“Yeah but after we thought we’d hang out at the hotel or go out!” Ted responds hopefully.

You sigh trying not to expose how truly excited you are that your friends are here, throwing up a shield of annoyance. “Ok alright, come by at 7 I should be done then.” They agree and hang up.

Getting to the hotel all went smoothly, you met with the wedding planner and their team to be shown where you would be performing and met up with Max. You got to practice a couple times and do a sound check before the rehearsal dinner started. The whole time you felt like your heart was pounding in your chest. You felt distracted at the thought of seeing your friends who you haven’t seen in a while.

Your heart kept skipping thinking about schlatt being here. You couldn’t help but feel the butterflies in your stomach when you thought about schlatt lately. You missed him so much, more than you expected and all you want to do is hug him and be near him again. You push those thoughts out of your head as you went back to your hotel room.

You get freshened up and text Ted to tell him you were done earlier than expected. Ted responded almost immediately

We’re in my hotel room

345

Your heart skipped, you didn’t realize they were here already. You grab your purse and flannel and practically run to the elevator. Pressing 3 and waiting trying not to jump up and down. As you got out of the elevator you looked down the hall to see Schlatt swearing at himself in front of a door.

“Hey!” You yelled down to him, making him jump.

“Holy shit. you scared the dick out of me.” He starts walking down to you.

“I missed you too pookie bear!” You say reaching to hug him. He grabs you hard and lifts you up just enough to pick your feet off the ground.

“Ah! Jesus dude.” You say acting mad.

“Sorry toots.” He says and quickly puts you down and releases you gently. He looks down at you inspecting your face.

His gaze felt heavy and intimidating. He seemed more confident this time, less nervous. He was smiling so wide his eyes disappeared behind his lashes. Still standing so close that you could smell his cologne again and it made you shiver. His hair was ruffled and messy under his hat from travel. He looks so kissable. You pushed these feelings down, and out. You felt silly for even feeling this way about schlatt, it was supposed to be for show.

“What were you doing?” You say trying to distract him from your blushing under his gaze.

He looks back at the door sighing his smile harshly falling, “fucking- I fucking locked myself out of my room.”

“How did you do that?” You burst out laughing.

“Fuck off, ok? I was trying to get my bags moved in here and Ted’s room is down the other end of the hall and I just-“ he sighs and puts his head in his hand.

“Come on I’ll go with you to the lobby, Big Guy,��� you chuckle and hold out your hand playfully.

He grabs it reluctantly and follows you to the elevator. His hand is so much bigger than yours. It’s warm and soft where yours is cold. He swings his arm with yours as you walk down the hall playfully. He drops it as you approach the elevator making your heart sink a little. Pressing the button and getting in with you. He stands next to you, looking down at you as his frame towers yours. You guys catch up and he tells you about how awful his flight was and how much he hates LA making you laugh.

You’re able to get him a new card from the front desk no problem, and head back up. He heads towards his room and you tell him you’re going to say hi to Ted. He nods and watches you walk down the other end of the hall towards his room. You can feel his eyes staring into you as you walk. Finding Ted’s room you knock super hard and keep knocking until Tucker opens the door.

“Hey! Y/N!!!” Tucker exclaims and hugs you.

“Holy shit, Tucker I haven’t seen you in a minute man how are you!!” You genuinely can’t hold how excited you are to see Tucker. He’s been busy with school and having a wife that you haven’t seen him much. Now that he’s doing streaming and content creation too you hope that will change.

“So you were a victim of Theodore’s pyramid scheme too huh?” I say.

“He makes compelling points!” Tucker says laughing.

“It’s not a scheme! Look how well it’s working for you, missy.” Ted says coming out of the bathroom.

You roll your eyes at him and hug him anyway. He gives you a bear hug that could crack your ribs. You just saw Ted at a creator event last week but he’s happy his friends are all together. It’s truly one of Ted’s favorite things when he can have all his buddies together at once.

“Schlatt’s down in his room,” Tucker says.

“Yeah I caught him already.”

“Oh?” Ted inquires

“Yeah he locked himself out,” you smirk. You explain the situation and series of events minus how soft his hands are and how his cologne makes you want to bury your face in his chest.

They laugh at the story and get to catching up but you can’t stop thinking about the way he looked at you. As you listen to Ted and Tucker bicker about some small detail of a story, there’s a knock.

“Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!” You hear Schlatt say with a deep gravelly voice.

“Not by the hair on my ass!” Ted says back.

“That’s not how it goes,” says tucker chiding Ted.

You just laugh as Tucker lets Schlatt in. The shenanigans ensue and soon you’re all making plans to go to this steak place Schlatt never shuts up about when he’s in LA.

At the restaurant Schlatt complains more about mundane shit and argues with Ted. You guys order food and while you’re sipping a rum and Coke you tune out of the conversation. You sudden realize how hungry you are, smelling the food waft through the room. You tap your foot and look around the restaurant until you glance at Schlatt who has stopped fighting and is looking at you. His gaze is soft as he looks at you. Ted and Tucker are arguing now about something as Schlatt stares at you.

“What?” You say combatively, putting up a fist and pretending to go to hit him.

He pretends to flinch and cower making you laugh. He drops that act fast and smiles going back to his drink. You can’t help but hang on to his every move, suave and smooth, unless he was trying to be goofy. Even then, it was like he had to try to be awkward. You tried to make sure your gaze didn’t linger too long on him. Distracting yourself with everything, anything.

God I’m hungry.

Schlatt insists on paying your bill when you nearly have a heart attack looking at the menu. You tell him it’s fine, but he insists because it was his idea to choose a place this fancy. you had to give schlatt credit though this place was amazing. The food was to die for. You thought you were gonna cum from the first bite. Maybe he wasn’t being over dramatic in his love for this place.

Ted suggests going out to a karaoke bar when dinner wraps up. Tucker and Schlatt protest because neither wants to sing. You love karaoke though so you side with Ted. You decide to make a conscious effort not to take it too seriously or go too hard since you have to sing tomorrow. You didn’t take karaoke very seriously anyway because it was supposed to be fun and you always used it to try to make your friends laugh. You guys pay the bills and head out.

Walking down the block the guys all goof around as you follow. You’re glad you didn’t wear heels, because keeping up with these guys was a challenge. Their strides are much longer and faster than yours while you lag behind. You’d all had a couple drinks already and the jokes were flowing. The night air was warm and the cars were rushing by, you tuned out the boys and pulled out your phone to see Max had texted you about tomorrow. Suddenly Schlatt stops and waits for you to catch up, standing right in front of you, “Trust fall!” He shouts and then starts to fall into your arms. You instinctively grab him, but he stops himself, laughing.

“Nuh uh, do it again motherfucker you didn’t even fall!” You yell.

He looks at you seriously, “Y/n, I’m 250 pounds and 6’5”. You can’t catch me,” he scoffs scowling at you.

“Try me bitch!” You put your arms out this time. He looks at you.

“Ok but if you don’t catch me we’re not friends anymore. it’s not my fault when I bludgeon you to death with my body,” then he turns around and crosses his arms over his chest. Now Ted and Tucker are stopped and watching.

“Do it pussy,” you spat, then he does and as he does he yelps with a girly scream, but you catch him and prop him back up. Ted and Tucker golf clap. Schlatt turns around and looks at you.

“Jesus what steroids are you on?” He laughs now uncontrollably, “you have fucking man strength.”

“Bruh, I’m a dancer? I lift weights?” You roll up your sleeve and flex. Schlatt genuinely looks impressed as he laughs.

“Yeah dude, Y/N’s a sleeper build!” Tucker shouts.

Schlatt grabs your arm and squeals like a girl again “my HERO!” You smack him away and he pretends to be hurt still using his high pitch voice. You can’t help but laugh at him as you continue walking.

——

When you get to the karaoke bar you guys get more drinks and get a room. Ted starts cueing up songs telling you that he wants to do a duet with you but half a dozen duets with Ted later ranging from Barbie girl (he was Barbie obviously) to shallow from “a star is born” you feel yourself getting too drunk too fast. So you take a break and give the microphone to schlatt.

“I’m not singing,” he says indignantly.

Ted whips around to him, “schlatt come on.” Schlatt shakes his head and they start arguing back and forth.

“I can sing My Way better anyway,” Ted says finally.

“Oh ho no you can’t,” Schlatt says dismissively. This leads to ted singing My Way and Schlatt yelling and booing the whole time as you laugh your ass off with Tucker.

“Fine give me that shit,” Schlatt starts going through the menu looking for a song. You can’t see what he’s looking for then suddenly “Creep” starts playing and you groan loudly.

“FUCK OFF DUDE.” You Yell at schlatt over the music. He starts singing it all dramatically. You plug your ears and ignore him but he sits in your lap and continues to sing until you have to join in to get him off of you.

Ted makes Tucker sing with him a couple times and does a couple solos while you cheer and add ad libs. you’re all so drunk and laughing your asses off.

——

After you almost get kicked out of the karaoke bar, you all go back to Ted and Tucker’s hotel room and watch videos on the TV, many a wrestling match between Ted and Tucker later, around 2 am when you decide to call it quits. “Alright I have to go to bed, it's a long day tomorrow,” you say, standing and grabbing your purse.

“Booo party pooper,” says a very inebriated Tucker.

“You want me to walk you to your room?” Ted says.

“I’m a big kid Theodore, I can walk-“ you say stumbling to your feet. Ted rolls his eyes and follows you to the door. You honestly wouldn’t mind having a second alone with Ted.

As you walk toward the door schlatt calls after you, “Good night ookie wookie pookie bear!”

You flip him off without looking and walk out. As soon as the door closes Ted makes a look towards you, lifting his eyebrows.

“What’s wrong with your face?” You ask.

“Oh nothing, you guys are just cute.” He says cheekily.

“God you're worse than the stans,” You whine.

He laughs in response “yeah except there’s no cameras here that was just pure flirting.”

“That was very clearly a joke, Ted.”

“Dude come on you two were staring at each other all night.”

“Look, I don’t want to ruin this friendship with Schlatt so drop it. It’s a joke, you know? He’s joking around and so am I! It’s a bit..” you say not very convincingly.

“Alright… but it would be cool you know! Two of my best friends-“

“Fuck off.”

“Ok.”

It’s true, you don’t want to lose what you already have, especially not for a foolish crush. Plus it’s terrifying being that open to someone. There’s something about what you and schlatt have now that is like dating someone without the vulnerability and just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for them to decide you’re not the love of their life and leave taking a piece of you with them… or something like that.

———

The next morning your head is already spinning. You run down and grab some breakfast and coffee since you know you won’t be eating until much later, you avoid taking anything because you know you’ll be drinking later anyway so you just pray the caffeine and water will do its job. As you get ready in your room you begin your ritual to prepare your voice and get the shower ready. You take a shower, do your makeup and slowly warm up your voice. You make your tea for your throat and do some stretching too to calm the nerves. You’ve given yourself enough time until the ceremony to take your time finishing your hair and getting dressed. For the ceremony you have a pretty boring dark blue long sleeve dress knee length dress. For the the reception however, you have a burgundy red mermaid spaghetti strap dress to put on to perform in. It’s shiny with a deep V neckline and an open back. It’s fancy. And you have to admit it makes you feel sexy. You wear the same black heels with both. For the ceremony an updo then you’ll take your hair down when you perform.

As the ceremony approaches you double check that you have things ready for the reception and make your way down to the lobby. As you ride the elevator you text Schlatt.

I’m heading down, you guys ready?

He responds immediately

Yeah we’re headed down too.

You’re only in the lobby for a minute or two before the elevator dings and the guys arrive including Charlie and Connor, all dressed to the nines.

Schlatt in a suit. I mean come on. you can’t say you haven’t thought about it since you found out he was coming to the wedding. He cleans up really well. He looks so proper. He’s chatting with Connor when he sees you and you have to hide the breath hitching in your throat.

You can feel your cheeks glowing already.

“Nice monkey suit. You clean up alright,” You joke. “Who knew there was a handsome man under there?” You say adjusting his tie when he approaches.

He swats your hand away then suddenly grabs it and kisses it, “you don’t look so bad yourself, toots.” He winks at you.

Holy fuck. My knees are fucking jelly.

He immediately chuckles at your reaction. Cheeks burning up you roll your eyes and turn away.

On the grounds of the hotel, there’s a beautiful garden with a pavilion setup with chairs. You mingle and find other streamer friends you haven’t seen in a while or haven’t met yet. You recognize quite a few faces. You see Tyler (handsumfella) who you have had playful banter with on the SDMP and have streamed with occasionally. You haven’t met him in person yet however. You break off the little group forming to go say hey.

“Tyler, hey!” You say.

“Holy shit, Y/N! You look incredible. God damn, girl!” He says gassing you up, as you hug him. You blush and wave your hand to shoo his compliments.

“Says you! Look at you! now I see where you get your username.” you weren’t lying. Tyler was wearing a gorgeous suit and god damn was he even sexier IRL. Now here’s a guy you could really crush on. You guys flirt back and forth when Schlatt walks up.

“Hey! Tyler! What's good man?” He shakes his hand and Tyler pulls him in for a hug.

“Schlatt! Holy shit dude!” He grabs schlatt’s shoulder, “man everyone looks so good! I was just telling Y/N how sexy she looks.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna take her back to my room tonight,” Schlatt interrupts Tyler. He grabs your waist to pull you close to him, catching you off guard.

Tyler laughs at schlatts words and your shocked reaction and you join. Schlatt has a serious, borderline scary, expression, not moving his hand from your hip. You put your hand on schlatt’s chest to motion that the bit is over now, and he lets you go. Tyler goes on to chat with you and joins the little group forming on the lawn.

The ceremony goes swiftly, smoothly, and rather quickly. You sit with Schlatt, Ted, Tucker, Connor, Charlie, and your duet partner, Max. You’re not huge on the whole lovey dovey stuff so you’re glad this is a short ceremony. As soon as the ceremony ends you grab max and make a game plan to get ready and meet up to set up for the first dance.

As You break off from the group you tell Schlatt you’re going to get ready. You become focused on the task at hand. You slip into the silky red dress, and take down your hair, which you style and spray. You freshen up your makeup adding a red lip. As you inspect in the mirror you feel confidence rising in you. It’s rather revealing and you’re not really used to it, but dammit you look hot. Then you text Max and run down to meet the wedding planner. You check the instruments and microphones quickly before the guests come in. As guests arrive for cocktail hour you grab a glass of wine and stand by the bar.

Schlatt comes in and this time he’s the one blushing as he sees what you’ve changed into. He makes a beeline for you and you try not to watch him stalk over. He comes up next to you.

“Wow,” he says plainly. As introverted as Schlatt was, it was rare for him to be lost for words.

“Yeah yeah get it over with,” you say.

“Get what over with?”

“Your snarky comment about how I look like man in dress or whatever,” you say rolling your eyes and drinking your wine.

He looks genuinely confused, “Y/N. You look stunning.” He says seriously.

His reaction catches you completely off guard, no jokingly flirty remark or snide comment. It was just a genuine compliment. And the way his face was so real made you squirm. It’s a look you weren’t used to seeing on schlatt often. You could feel your heart racing in your chest as you continued to study you.

Before you can respond, the newlyweds are announced and given drinks you know you have about 15 minutes until the first dance. You have to excuse yourself from Schlatt after he just made your heart fall out of your ass. As you walk away you can feel his eyes burning holes into the back of you.

Nerves start to build as you focus on getting into your performance mindset. You are suddenly very aware of the skin you’re showing and how your head is still thumping, and the fact that over 50 of your closest colleagues (basically) are all here to listen to you. You suddenly think about how schlatt is out there now and he’s going to hear you and see you perform. You take deep breaths, being deafened by your pulse.

As the first dance is announced you take your spot with Max towards the dance floor discreetly. You go to sit at the grand piano and Max starts playing the guitar. As the couple starts to dance Max starts to sing “Die with a Smile” the spotlights shine on you two and the room erupts into applause as Max sings the first verse, the bride doesn’t realize you two are there at first but when she does it’s priceless. You focus on harmonizing with max and playing the piano. Soon the nerves melt away as you’re swept into the emotion of the song and of the day. You can’t help but glance around the room a bit. When your verse begins you notice Schlatt staring solely at you. You do your best to ignore it as you put your heart and soul into playing and singing and feeling every word and note.

If the world was ending I’d wanna be next to you, if the party was over and our time on earth was through, I’d wanna hold you just for a while, and die with a smile

You guys finish and the crowd erupts in cheers you stand from behind the piano and motion to the couple and clap, then to Max, then max motions to you and you bow. You play and sing for the mother son and daughter father dances as well with Max, afterwards more applause and tears. You can’t help but feel emotional about it all. something about this wedding was getting to you. You started to feel an appreciation for the whole ordeal. Once things quiet down you move to find your way out to run and freshen up before dinner.

You make your way through the crowd as people compliment you and praise you for your work. You whisper polite thank yous and excuse yourself through the crowd and out to the lobby. You and max stand in the lobby alone and you hug each other.

“Hey that was great, I think we really killed it,” he says.

“Yeah I think so too!” You respond finally breathing for the first time today. You guys grab each others hands and share a giddy moments

“Bitch, your voice is unreal,” max dotes.

“God the way you hit those notes in the beginning.”

You guys talk about the performance and exchange notes as you walk to your rooms. Max was a singer you met through streaming and you did some collaborations with him. Your voices just melded together so well. Over the years you guys had made a great friendship and working bond.

“Hey so what’s up with you and JSchlatt? Are you guys a thing?” He inquires raising a hopeful brow.

“You’re such a gossip whore.” You respond.

“God he looks so good in a suit,” he says, rolling his eyes at you.

“Yeah he looks fine.”

“If by fine you mean, drop dead,” he says flipping his hair. “You better get up in that otherwise I will.” He finally says opening his room and going in.

You scoff and open your door.

You quickly freshen up your makeup and hair and puff on your weed pen before stuffing it in your handbag and heading back to the party with Max. He jokingly sticks out his arm for you two to walk arm in arm like high school girls back into the ballroom.

When you get back you see dinner is already in motion, you find your table with Ted and the rest and sit down in your spot between Max and Tucker. You say hey to everyone as they compliment you both. By the time you guys get there dinner was pretty much over so you eat a little of whatever is left since you haven’t eaten much today. You quickly clock the open bar again and move to get a drink. Schlatt gets up when he sees your plan. As you weave through the tables Schlatt follows you. When you arrive at the bar you steal another look at him.

“You sounded amazing,” he says shyly.

“Thank you! I’m happy with how that went. I think the bride was pretty surprised,” you respond, giving a chuckle. You try not to stare at him for too long. There’s a small not entirely uncomfortable silence as you wait for your drinks.

“Ready to get fucked up?” He questions as he grabs a shot and his drink.

“Oh absolutely. Open bar for a bunch of content creators? Huge mistake.” You hold your shot out to cheers him, he does chuckling and you both shoot back a shot and head back to the table drink in hand.

After dinner they cut the cake and the dancing begins. Pretty standard party bangers. You get in with the crowd of other girl content creators you’re friends with and you’re all dancing on the floor like fools soon enough. You love dancing, seriously and just for fun. You don’t get to dance for fun often, but right now it’s all fun. You’re grinding on each other and doing the goofiest dance moves. Most of the guys are hanging out together and chatting. occasionally, some of them coming out to dance, namely Ted. Tyler too though. They both dance like fools. Soon you’re all screaming “FROM THE WINDOOOOOW TO THE WALL!” And you can feel the intoxication taking over quickly. You pretend to dance up on Ted and he throws it back at you. You’re laughing and shouting lyrics you can feel yourself losing your voice. After an hour or so of this You start to feel the spins and decide to go sit and nurse a water for a bit. Tyler comes over to sit next to you at a table.

“Hey you killed it tonight!” He compliments.

“Thank you! I appreciate that.” You smile back

“Of course dude.” He nurses a water too while you guys talk. “Where’s your date?” He asks after a while.

“Max? Probably flirting with a straight guy somewhere-“

“No! Schlatt!” He cuts you off.

“Schla- he’s not my- we’re just-“

“Oh shit! My bad homie, just earlier when he said that thing I just expected.”

“No you’re good, I mean idk why he said that but no we’re just friends,” you say maybe not hiding your disappointment very well.

“… I don’t think it’s just friends dude,” Tyler says looking over your shoulder.

“What-“ you start

“Pretend I made a hilarious joke, touch my arm, and then glance over there,” he says gesturing to his right.

“What are you-“

“Do it, trust.”

You fake an exaggerated laugh and grab Tyler’s arm leaning closer to him for a second, then you give it a beat then nonchalantly glance over your shoulder and see Schlatt looking over. He’s not hiding his expression at all now. He’s pissed.

“See what I mean,” Tyler says leaning in.

You do see, but you still can’t believe it.

“I don’t know, he just, looks like that. He’s not huge on crowds.” you respond after a minute.

“Well whatever the reason, he better nut up or shut up. Otherwise someone else will,” he says with a wink then gets up and walks away.

You sit there for another minute or two in deep contemplation. Nut up or shut up.

The music changes to a slow song. you recognize the opening of the song. You jump up out of your seat, looking for around the room. You see Schlatt jokingly threatening someone with a pocket knife and rush towards him.

“Dance with me.”

“Wha-“ he starts

“Don’t fight me, let’s go bitch.” You grab his arm and pull him toward the floor.

“Y/N, I don’t dance. I can’t dance.”

“It’s the song from Click, we have to,” you say chuckling. Couples make their way to the floor and start to embrace while “Linger” by the Cranberries starts to play. At first Schlatt was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. You place his hand on your hip and take his other in your hand and begin to lead. He loosens up when he sees you’re being silly about the whole thing. You do a shitty Adam Sandler impression that makes him cringe. He begins to pretend like you’re middle schoolers at a dance and keeps you as far away as he can as you uncontrollably laugh.

Then why are you holding her hand? Is that the way we stand? Were you lying all the time? Was it just a game to you? But I’m in so deep

When you stop laughing he pulls you in and dips you in a dramatic fashion making you laugh all over again. When he brings you back up he keeps you held close to him and you get into a rhythm.

“What were you and Tyler talking about?”

You know I’m such fool for you, you got me wrapped around your finger, do you have to let it linger?

“He was asking me girl advice,” you respond quickly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah he has a crush on this girl and doesn’t know what to do about it,” you say glancing around the floor.

“What did you tell him to do?”

“I told him to nut up or shut up otherwise someone else might,” I say looking him in directly in the eyes now, almost daring him.

Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?

As the song ends you guys stop dancing but make no move to separate. A moment feels like a lifetime as you study his face this close. His lips, his nose, his brows semi-furrowed. The way his hair curls on top of his head.

“I need air, do you need air?” He asks. You nod and you guys move towards the door to the garden.

———

Outside is still warm but there’s a slight breeze. The moon is already high in the sky. The nighttime beasts make noises and the party rages on inside. You were starting to feel very overwhelmed inside. As much as you loved these people, you’re not a huge partier.

“God it’s gorgeous out here,” you say. “Are your ears ringing? Mine are ringing,” you laugh taking a deep breath. Schlatt doesn’t respond.

You turn to face him as he stares at you. You stare back at him as he unashamedly drinks you in. You suddenly feel exposed to him. The light out here bathing you and making you feel like you’re in a spotlight again. The outside air is a stark contrast to the stuffy dance floor you came from, it gives you goosebumps. You shiver a little as you shift uncomfortably. He slowly moves to close the distance between you.

“You look incredible,” he starts. “And your voice is so incredible. You look stunning in that dress. I can’t stand you.”

“Wha- You can’t stand me?” You’re genuinely shocked at his words. He spoke with a matter of fact tone. His eyes shifting wildly to every inch of your face.

“I can’t stand watching you like that all day. The way you effortlessly charm people. Unashamed, effortless, charismatic. You’re just. Astonishing,” he finishes and before you can respond he puts his hands on either side of your face and kisses you deeply on the lips.

You melt in his embrace. What is in reality only seconds feels like the culmination of years of tension being snapped. Years of uncertainty and personal turmoil all washed away. He splits from the kiss and looks at your face, a mixture of shock and pure elation spreading across it. You pull him back for a second deeper kiss. Needier and heavier this time. You hunger, suddenly starving. No amount of contact right now could be enough. You put your arms around his neck running a hand through his hair as he moves his arms around your torso pulling you closer. As His hands slide up your bare back you let out a soft moan from his warm touch. He stiffens at the sound.

After a minute or two you pull away for air looking at him, “About time,” you breathe out, smirking.

“Shut up,” he says, kissing you again.

After another eternity of learning and exploring each other you separate, remaining in each other’s arms. Just smiling at each other like idiots. You put your hand on his cheeks feeling his facial hair. You run your thumb across his bottom lip and shiver. You can’t help but just touch him. After all this time and yearning to be this close you couldn’t contain it anymore.

“You wanna get out of here?” He asks breathlessly.

“Absolutely.”

———-

[nateconnolly]

What Does the Lion Turtle Chant Mean?

A podcast episode about the spirituality of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Transcript Preview:

Many people have told me they struggle to take Sozin’s Comet seriously because they would have killed the Fire Lord without hesitation. And, look, as far as I’m concerned — if you’re willing to kill a genocidal colonizer, good for you! Many blessings upon your journey! And the show isn’t trying to dissuade you. 

Aang is not the only voice of wisdom in Avatar. He’s not a puppet through which the text articulates its meaning. Avatar is about cultural exchange. When one character says what they think is true, that isn’t necessarily the moral of a story. That’s one voice, and the story is a conversation. So, I don’t think that Sozin’s Comet is using Aang to say “Hey, you, you, looking at the TV, you personally should never support violent revolution!” Water Tribe culture doesn’t seem to have any problem with killing on the battlefield. 

When Sokka lops off the Melon Lord’s head, there’s some very clear indications that we’re supposed to be troubled. The musical cue, Momo eating the melon, he lingering focus on Aang’s reaction … But I don’t think this scene is meant to communicate that Sokka is a bad guy. Or that soldiers are inherently bad people. I assume that Hakoda, Bato, and Tyro killed people. These figures are portrayed as admirable, and even as mentors. 

The scene in which Sokka kills the Melon Lord is there to illustrate the difference between Southern Water Tribe culture and Air Nomad culture. Sokka’s journey is about embracing and reclaiming all the parts of his culture that the Fire Nation tried to destroy. He wasn’t able to go ice dodging or to train as a wolf warrior, but he has found a way to become a strong, protective man anyways. And that does mean that he’s willing to kill or die for a cause he believes in. This scene doesn’t communicate that Sokka is a bad person. It communicates that Sokka is walking his own path, and that Aang is walking a different path. But the show doesn’t try to tell you one of them is wrong and the other is right. 

At the same time, I think we need to remember that Aang is saying something he believes. It’s not just an emotional problem for him. 

Aang gives multiple related, but different reasons not to kill the Fire Lord.

“I didn’t feel like myself.” 

The Fire Lord “is still a human being.”

Killing goes against “everything the monks taught me.”

“All life is sacred.”

In Southern Raiders, he also makes a more general claim that “violence is never the answer,” but I think that the writers had to use the word “violence” as a euphemism. In our normal usage of the word, punching somebody would be a “violent” act. Aang clearly has no problem whacking people over the head or shooting wind at them. I think this is a way of making the show more kid friendly, and that what Aang actually means is 

“[Killing] is never the answer.”

Some of these claims are about Aang as an individual. He’s saying he doesn’t feel like he, specifically, can kill someone. That it goes against the values of his culture. And some of these are universal claims. He’s saying no one should kill, not ever. 

But he also believes in a separate ethical mandate. As the Avatar, he has to protect the world. In this lifetime, that means preventing the Fire Lord from burning the Earth Kingdom. 

This is a story about moral standards, and they seem impossible to live up to. There’s no easy answer. If you believe that murder is wrong, and you believe in the duties of the Avatar, then you have a conflict of values, not just emotions. In order to understand the Buddhist themes of Sozin’s Comet, we have to understand Buddhist ideas of morality. 

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Nate's short story about Buddhism

Transcript with Citations

[thesiltverses]

Hello! I found the silt verses about three weeks ago and have listened to it several times since. I have a few things to say.

I absolutely adore that episode about the national grid workers. I think it’s my favorite episode of any podcast I’ve ever listened to. My favorite part of that first episode Paige is in is how she justifies not standing up for Vaughn, that cognitive dissonance that you wrote so well. This episode gives me what I wanted from that episode, the workers all banding together to stop the wasteful sacrifice of one of them. The actor who played the foreman did an incredible job as well. I think that having him discuss which of his workers he would sacrifice was such a significant moment, despite how brief it is. It cuts right to the big question that I took away from the podcast which is, “How much is someone willing to sacrifice in order to maintain their comfort?” And the utter disrespect of Glodditch (apologies for the spelling) refusing to cancel even the radio but asking grid workers to kill themselves for 200kw/h! Top tier episode.

I grew up in the south and went to college in Appalachia. I saw the disparity in technology and “advancement” if that makes sense that poverty brings, and the way you set up the world invokes that feeling in me again. You are an amazing world builder and storyteller.

I really enjoyed the cameos - I’m a big fan of malevolent/devisor, Old gods of Appalachia, and all of Jonny sims work, so hearing familiar voices was an absolute delight. Harlan Guthrie as an acolyte of the snuff gods might have been a bit too on the nose with some of the things that man writes, though… /pos

I’m transmasculine, and something that I really appreciate is how you manage to make a trans man do some objectively awful things, but still manage to make him a complex, full character that I was rooting for very frequently. Brother Faulkner is so, so important to me as a character. Paula Vogel has a play called “Indecent,” which is about the true story of a troupe of I believe German Jewish actors between the years of 1910ish and 1940s putting on a show called “God of Vengeance” by Sholem Asch, also a Jewish man. “God of Vengeance” has queer themes and received a lot of criticism from the Jewish community for showing Jewish folks in a “bad” light at a time when there was already so much hatred for Jewish people. Brother Faulkner being as complex and, in my opinion, malicious and cutthroat as he is at a time when trans people face so much bigotry, especially legislatively in the United States, brings this conversation about “God of Vengeance” up again for me. I also love how normalized non-binary people are in this world, without question. “Sibling this or that,” the hunter, adjudicator Shrew - big thanks from me for all of this.

All of this to say, I love this podcast. Can you talk more about the rhetorical gods? Is Babble one? What makes them one if they are, or why aren’t they? I’m fascinated by them. Can you talk more about the propaganda gods too?

Thank you so much for the thoughtful and kind words!

I'll check out Indecent, it sounds really interesting and I'm very glad to hear Faulkner works for you as a character. I think the topic of how to include and write queer characters who are capable of terrible things and thoughts (because, after all, these characters are human beings and not tutelary exemplars), within the context of both a rising movement of transphobia right now and centuries-old scapegoating / pathologising portrayals more generally, is a really knotty but a really important one, and I always want to make sure I'm approaching it with care and due responsibility as well as a sense of humility around the limitations of what, as a cis writer, I can actually achieve.

To that end, I don't want to ever take the audience response for granted, but I'm always really grateful to hear that the portrayal is working for a listener!

Propaganda gods: gods whose prayer-marks or ritual verses are fed directly to the enemy, enforcing destructive or sabotaging changes to reality (so rather than sending a destructive saint or angel to rampage over the foe, you might drop pamphlets or send radio messages to the enemy to 'convert' them).

Rhetorical gods: gods whose followers possess reality-warping powers of language itself (which is why 'rhetorical god' is a polite way of saying 'liar's god'). In other words, the paranoia around them comes partly down to the fact that a disciple like Val may appear to be a limitless shaper of new forms, rather than shaped into a limited form of their own, as a result of their worship.

[xclowniex]

EUROVISION DRAMA UPDATE

Baby Lasanga went on a podcast and talked about some drama which happened regarding Israel. It was in croation but the official translation is:

"This is the first time I’m actually talking about it. We were standing in line to join the flag parade, and everything was fine. The Irish representative and the Greek representative were standing there, and just then someone passed by and filmed a video; I guess it was someone from the Israeli delegation. Bambie started shouting at him, ‘Don’t film me!’ They yelled like an angry dog! And added that it’s a ‘celebration of love and peace’ while drooling… and everyone was really shocked. I bit my lips trying not to laugh. They talk about a celebration of love and peace while shouting and getting angry, just unnecessary drama. In the end, Bambie, Nemo, and I don’t know who else ran to the room and started crying. What’s going on with you guys? This is supposed to be Eurovision…”

“I don’t know why Bambie, Marina, and Nemo were so upset with the Israeli delegation. The Israeli delegation was not a nuisance at all, at least from what I saw. And regarding Bambie’s claim that they film her, there are cameras everywhere and everyone is taking pictures of everyone. It just amused me that she shouted about peace and love while behaving with anger and frustration.”

PLEASE DO NOTE WITH TRANSLATION: The Croatian phrase which has been translated as "angry dog" does not hold as strong of a connotation in Croatian as it does in English. It is used to emphasize severe anger, and does not mean rabid with anger, as a lot of english speakers have assumed it does.

So, what this means is:

A lot of allegations surronding the Israeli delegations actions were likely blown up, and made to seem worse than what they were

At least a portion of the claims of the Israeli delegation filming people is likely them filming Eden Golan or each other and contestants being in the background which was standard for other contestants to be in the background of any delegations videos, aka not out of normal behaviour for any delegation

Any complants brough to the EBU about the Israeli delegation had no rulings made on it, meaning that they were found unjust aka they didn't break any rules

Bambie Thug was so unprofessional that they were suspended from the flag parade in the finals due to their own behaviour, not the Israeli delegation's like they claimed

Bambi thug is a major sore loser considering their comments after the finals

What the implications of this is;

Bambi Thug is either antisemitic or xenophobic - depends on exact motives, which we do not know

Bambi Thug is also immature as they purposely lied and/or made things out to be way worse than they were to garner sympathy and/or to paint the Israeli delegation as these big bad evil people

Considering Marina was present during at least one of the situations, and still supported Bambi Thug, we also know that Marina either does similar behaviour to Bambi Thug, or thinks that behaviour is okay

The biggest thing out of all of this, is that the Israeli delegation was made out to be super evil and bad, and so much effort was put into protraying them this way, and all that effort has gone to waste because someone decided to speak out about what really happened.

Baby Lasanga also isn't even the only person who is proof of the delegation not being cunts the entire time. käärijä, in a now deleted video, was seen being nice to Eden Golan and even danced with her to his track from last years eurovision backstage. käärijä had the Israeli delegation take down the video after he recieved backlash for it and he also released an apology very similar to baby lasanga's statement.

Baby Lasanga's statement for the podcast was

"I won't beat aroud the bush and I feel like I have to respond because I owe that to the ESC community. I didn't feel like I had to express this online, but now I see that there's some confusion about it. So let me say it: U condem the actions of Israel's government. I bow my head to palestine and it's victims. I keep them in my prayers every night I go to sleep. Likewise, I will truly give my best to help those wounded by this horrigic tragedy. Love Marko"

My take aways from this are:

He can seperate citizens from their government like a normal fucking human being should

He also assumed that people would be able to do that too, but alas they weren't and he had to release a statement

He still stands behind his comments during the podcast

For anyone wanting to interact with this post, please note that this post is not about whether or not Israel should or shouldn't have attended. Whilst it is part of the overall wider conversation, I am not talking about that as eurovision already happened, Israel competed. This post is purely about how the Israeli delegation was treated and drama going on about that. Please do not start talking about whether or not Israel should have been allowed to compete.

[puckpocketed]

Trying to absorb everything there is to know about ice hockey within the shortest amount of time possible really does strange things to a person. You come up against questions such as what do defensemen even do aside from skate backwards and do tummy time to protect their goalie? (Broadcasts aren’t the most informative) What the hell makes defensemen effective? What do the casters mean when they say “gap”? What are defensive details?

I love watching games back, I love trying to understand the game. I love hockey <3 But sometimes it’s nice to have help, and sometimes my favourite writers/podcasters collaborate!!

Here is part 1/3 of a podcast mini-series about defending, putting it here so I can have a copy of it in case it ever gets taken down + wanted to share with everyone some of my findings! (All episodes are available if anyone just wants to listen to them!) Transcript + edits done by me, all mistakes are mine.

Published 6th November 2024, Hockey IQ Podcast: Modern Defensemen (with Will Scouch) Ep #1 - by Hockey's Arsenal, hosted by Greg Revak (apple / spotify / youtube / bonus substack link)

part 2

[START Transcript]

Greg Revak: On the Hockey IQ Podcast today, we open up a new segment: we’re bringing back our favourite Will Scouch. If you’re on the Hockey IQ Newsletter you know his work by now.

Will, good morning. Earlier than most of us probably normally get up, but it’s a good day.

Will Scouch: Yeah, Greg, thanks for having me, it’s a lot of fun. Me and Greg go way back. We’re boys from years ago and I’m excited to hop on the show. I’m a keen listener, keen reader. 

[They exchange pleasantries]

GR: Beautiful. Well, today we’re gonna talk about three concepts. We’re gonna break it into three spots though, so everyone’s gotta come back next week and the week after that.

We’re gonna talk about defensemen, because everyone knows they’re important but how do we actually play the position well?

WS: Yeah, I mean, it’s a position that’s still, to me, being explored; both by, I’d say youth and junior coaches and pro coaches alike. There’s a lot of different ways that you can do it.

I mean, I watch a lot of hockey from around the world, all kinds of different levels. I’ve watched guys develop from 15 to 24 at this point, and just seeing how their games evolve and everything, and how effective various versions of this position is. And I think it’s a very interesting area that’s still being explored in a lot of really interesting ways, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think back to David Savard; he comes out of the [QMJHL] as this high-flying offensive defenseman, and if we just forgot about the rest of his career and you just saw him today as this great shutdown, defense-first player, you’d be absolutely shocked.

I mean, you think about Rasmus Dahlin — kid didn’t even play full time defenseman until his actual draft year, he was still playing forward a ton. There’s so much to be explored here.

I feel like [to get a lot of] — for you NHL fans — to get a lot of value in the later rounds out of your defensemen, take those offensive players first, and we can find a lot of hidden gems later.

WS: Well, yeah. I mean, actually, I’ve said this a few times but your listeners probably don’t know, but I did a presentation during the pandemic at the Ottawa Hockey Analytics Conference about this topic exactly; how, when you look at the numbers and the defensive value of players in the NHL, I found that there were just as many in the top 50 defensive value of players in the NHL, there were just as many undrafted players as there were second round picks, second and third round picks combined.

So the draft isn’t really a great historical gauge on defensive ability. Offense is a different story from defensive players, which we could probably get into a little bit.

But I find, personally, that evaluating defensemen and projecting defense to the NHL is still really spotty and questionable. And I don’t know, in my line of work, watching a lot of defensemen, a lot of the ones who I think are some of the better defenders kind of go a little unheralded, because a lot of the time you don’t need to be particularly noticeable to be a good defenseman, but scouts are always looking for the noticeable guys.

So it’s a very interesting world and it’s a very interesting thing to pick through, but there’s definitely a lot of case studies you could dig into, and a lot of players you could look at as cases of, “Oh yeah, nobody was really paying a whole lot of attention to them!” or maybe people were thinking about them the wrong way. But if you think about things a little bit outside the box, you might be able to see something really interesting there.

GR: Yeah, so let's dive into why that may be. Classic example would be Lane Hutson, so maybe we'll pick on him a little bit, but I definitely want to talk about Rasmus Ristolainen, because he is an interesting case study that we wrote about on the newsletter.

So where I want to start with this is just modern day defending. How are defensemen defending today versus old times? A lot of times it was the big hit, separate the head from body. The puck’s somewhere, but let's separate the head from the body, and we’ll worry about the puck later — that is going bye-bye.

Every coach I talk to now, they prefer having the puck rather than having a head on a stake. So for me, it comes back to this old saying of, “position before possession.” We're gaining body positioning, we're not so much separating head from body, but puck from player.

All right, so we've got position before possession. It's super valuable in gaining the space that you need to have first whack in a puck or put the puck where you want it, or just push it to a teammate. Just having the idea of owning space and there's no better league at this and no league that values it more than the NHL. If you don't do this well in the NHL, sooner or later, you're going to find yourself out of a job making a heck of a lot less money in a league that probably no one really cares that much about. You want to be in the show, the big lights: you have to value this more than anything.

And this is actually the one thing that I noticed about Hunter McDonald. He's in the Flyers’ system now — he was an overager, but I was like, “This guy is unbelievable!” He’s a huge frame, you can’t miss him out there. He would just get the positioning before possession, and I was like, “Okay, that’s interesting, let me watch him further.”

And I feel like he’s going to be one of those bottom of the lineup guys who, unlikely, made it out of being an overager in the [United States Hockey League], going to college for a few years, but has those little details of a defenseman that you see in modern day play, which is positioning overall, which is an NHL trait to the nth degree.

WS: No, I know. I think I would definitely agree. Those are the players that are always really, really fascinating to me because you look at a guy like Hunter McDonald and the production just isn't amazing. But it doesn't — to me, when you look at defensemen, it almost doesn't really matter. That's kind of a very secondary-slash-bonus style of thing that comes with a player.

I see a lot of defenders every year and it seems like a thing where a lot of them, maybe at the lower levels, there is a little bit more of that “separate the head from the body”-type of player. And I think there are NHL scouts who still gravitate towards those guys but, at the end of the day when it all comes out in the wash, it's a lot of the time the guys that are kind of, I hate to say ”boring”, but just very effective, and just they're always in a good position.

The guy I always reference as a young defenseman who, I think, is just a really, really high-end defensive guy is Kaiden Guhle in Montreal. We're going to talk a little bit about Lane Hutson in a second, but Kaiden Guhle is a guy who, when he was in the junior level, just played such a great, balanced style of defense.

He was a good skater, but he had really good length. He was a guy who didn't just lay the body every single time, but he certainly could if he needed to. It was about his lateral mobility, it was about tracking rushes, keeping inside the dot lines, and preventing chances from inside and leading with his stick, but then finishing with the body if he had the opportunity or the need to do so. And he seemed to have a really good read of just how to do his job really, really well.

And so that's been a lesson for me for sure. He was a really interesting case study a few years ago, and he's become a pretty solid NHL defenseman. I mean, on a team this year that’s kind of struggling defensively I think he’s been one of the brighter spots on that defense group there, [he’s] doing a pretty good job at least suppressing chances against.

GR: I don’t watch as much as you do, prospects, but Guhle I did catch. For me, the play style wasn’t very good. He had elements of it, you could see the flashes, but he was just really brash. His decision making and his reads were quite poor. But the tools were there, and it was like, “Can he adjust?” Which I think he’s done a phenomenal job [of], and I think Montreal is probably the perfect place for him to develop a lot of that.

So I think you're spot on like, “Okay, how does he actually apply?“ Having assets is one thing, having the tools is one thing, but how do we properly apply those assets, those tools that you have in a good way? So I think another piece, for me, is if you do have the speed, is just making sure that you're controlling speed and then you're also keeping small gaps.

And just knowing with my high school team that no one knows what a gap is, let's define that real quick, which is: the difference in space between the forwards and the defensemen. So the space in between, “How much space are you [allowing]?” in hockey term slang. It's underneath you versus on the other side, which is above you or behind you. So, “How much space, what's that gap between D and O?”

(Editor’s note: He says O instead of F here, I assume because the person attacking isn’t always a forward. As in, “How much space between the defenseman and offenceman?”)

So you got the speed, shrink that gap as much as possible. Don't give them the space to operate or work in, or, I even call it the space to think, which [it often becomes] for forwards, especially unsophisticated ones.

WS: Yeah, I mean, that's really the bread and butter of a lot of the position. It's so much of this, like you said, gap control. I actually just did a bit of video work for a really high end player, [an] NHL draft pick playing in Sweden this year, who is producing really well.

But in terms of the defending side of the game, he's not the most incredible skater you've ever seen, he's not the biggest guy in the world. And a big thing that I noticed, that even at the professional level that was kind of a bit of a work in progress, was that gap management. Especially because the footwork wasn't amazing, [he was] keeping his feet a little too stationary, gliding backwards and sort of allowing that gap.

And when you watch the NHL that's the point of the whole exercise, watching the NHL and how they play. Forwards are fast and they're smart, largely. The guys who can score are the guys who know how to get through soft defensive pressure, the guys who know how to find lanes and cross up defensemen, and if you don't have the footwork or the mobility or the reach or all of it — all of the above — to track all that and manage it, then it's going to be a lot tougher to do your job.

But the interesting thing, though, is that there's a lot of different ways that you can get defensive jobs done. That's always been very interesting to me; seeing how different players approach the position in different ways and seeing the efficacy of that come out in the wash, and how their offense balances with their defensive ability. It's a very interesting world to dig into, for sure.

GR: Yeah, I think you've got a rabbit hole there. You just kind of opened up around defensive skating. What do clean feet look like? What does defensive posture look like, that actually allows you to have that kind of mobility?

So we'll leave that for another day. If anyone wants to go check it out on the Hockey IQ Newsletter, they can do so. Just look up defenseman skating development. We've got two good pieces there talking about building and maintaining defensive posture and keeping clean feet, which — actually massive base for anyone.

It allows you to have the proper gap that allows you to kill plays early, and ultimately, it's a lot about just controlling speed. You don't want McDavid building up to full speed. You don't want MacKinnon building up to full speed. You don't want anyone coming up to you at full speed. It's very hard to maintain that kind of speed going backwards [that we] even generate in the first place. 

How do you kill it early? How do you get a hand on someone? Or, my favorite example is just proper pivoting. A guy dumps a puck on you, how are you going back? What does that pivot look like?

I'll let you open that up because at the NHL it's almost too good, where you can't see what a bad example looks like, but you can see it's everywhere.

WS: Yeah, I mean, it's a make or break skill in the NHL. It's where a lot of defensemen die. I mean, it's a cliche at this point to talk about pucks in deep, to talk about [getting] pucks deep in the offensive zone, get below the goal line, dump and chase. People make fun of dump-and-chase kind of stuff. But if your team is built to do it, you can do it.

You can take advantage of defensemen in the NHL who just don't have the speed or the agility or the skating ability that some of your forwards might have. It is a lot easier to skate forwards than it is to skate backwards. That's just, you know, anecdotal, but also pretty factual — you're naturally going forwards.

I think an interesting trend that you're seeing a little bit more of [is] what they would call ‘scooting’. You're the coach; I don't know if that's exactly what the terminology would be, but [it’s getting] your defensemen in the neutral zone, kind of pinching a little bit more and having them skate forwards, tracking play towards the boards.

So it's not necessarily that they're doing their backwards crossovers, it's not necessarily that they're entirely skating backwards, but you see guys who are really talented skaters or do have a lot of quickness driving play to the boards in a more aggressive way than having the play in front of them. It's about them sort of tracking that play laterally, which is an interesting thing I think you're seeing more of now.

I think there are definitely coaches and systems that love to play their defensemen more that way, and the weak side defense can sort of fill between the dot lines for them and sort of leave the weaker side of the ice a little bit more open. That's kind of what I mean. There's a lot of different ways to achieve these kinds of goals, and I think you're seeing a lot of different things popping up to adapt to this. 

In situations where you have a dump and chase or something like that, or just getting pucks in deep or whatever you say, when you have a defenseman who has trouble with their footwork and turning around… Trust me, I'm a defenseman, when I play hockey, I strap on the skates — I play defense myself and that's where I fall apart, when I do fall apart. Which is often. But definitely, when play turns around and I’ve got to change directions or change my area of flow, it can be tricky. And in the NHL, I can only imagine how tricky it can be there. 

GR: Yeah. I mean, a good pivot you're looking at three steps total, like boom-boom-bam and you're there. You watch an amateur game and it could be like five, six, seven, eight chops before [they] finally get going and [it’s] looking like a proper forward stride again. [Or just] getting into a good defensive posture and positioning. It's total scramble mode.

A big one for me, too, is just the direction that you pivot. Do you wait for that offensive player to commit to their lane? It's just a great defensive habit in general, letting the offenceman make the first move. If you're making the first move, you're the one showing your cards. It's kind of like showing your cards first in Poker.

Let them make the decision and then you can pivot into them. Now you can get that position before possession, or at least get a chip on them, slow them down. You can either make it easier for yourself or your partner. So one, there's the clean footwork on the pivot, and two is making sure that we're controlling the speed and we're pivoting properly in the direction that we want to pivot.

There's a ton of times where I see, especially the lower levels, players coming up, they're in a bad spot, they're skating forward, defenseman skating backwards and they just chip it off the boards. And the defenseman is like a dog just following the puck and it ends up in the middle of the ice where the forward actually went. Again, the NHL is the best at this so it's really hard to see bad examples of pivoting into and controlling the space of the opponent.

WS: Yeah. I do a lot of work outside the NHL, and the biggest thing I notice is not necessarily the number of chops it takes, but the amount of time. You can see guys taking two seconds, maybe more, to get themselves turned around, tracking pucks below the goal line.

To me hockey is a game of milliseconds a lot of the time, right? I was working with someone years ago who really shared the idea with me that, in the NHL, generally goals are not scored if you have the puck on your stick for more than either half a second or a second.

I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's so fast in terms of; when you score goals in the NHL, it's when you touch the puck for a very short amount of time in the offensive zone and get a puck on net. And so, if you have guys who take too long — and “too long” might not be very long… If the difference is relatively short at the time you're making those pivots or those changes, but the [opponent has] got a lot more speed than you and you're [taking more] time to then start generating that speed to match the opponent, you're in trouble.

And in my opinion, I think that you want your defensemen to be more assertive. I always fall back on the strategy of; make them make a decision, make them commit. That might imply that you do the committing first, but that's where the importance of footwork and tactics come into question. 

You have to have strong support, whether it's from backchecking forwards or your partner. You want to be able to adapt to quick players who might fake one way, go another, and be able to use your stick or use your feet or both to be a factor regardless of what happens. 

It's very interesting to watch defensemen play. I find it really, really interesting to see the different approaches of different players and especially how they evolve and get into the NHL.

But yeah, I mean, [it’s so pivotal], the skating ability; defensemen who can skate, it unlocks so many doors for their career. If you're an elite level skating defenseman, it just unlocks so many doors that interest me. If you're not, and if that's not a strength of your game, then it can be a big struggle, especially against faster opponents. Even if you're big and physical and pretty good throwing the body or whatever, there's a lot more of the game in the NHL these days. Very, very interesting stuff. 

GR: I think that's actually the perfect segue into someone who, early in his career, threw the body too much and sold out too much on plays that he probably shouldn't: Rasmus Ristolainen.

Great case study, great case study from when [John Tortorella] started working with him to where he is now. Will, I'll send in the link here from the Hockey IQ newsletter so we can track a little bit better with each other. 

I found him to be a fascinating player. High draft pick, 8th overall in 2013. Really pretty, smooth skating, big body — has all of the tools that you would traditionally say, “Yep, that checks [out].” And then you looked at his stat profile and it was just abysmal. His micro stats were terrible. I think the only thing he was good at was D-Zone Retrievals, which, being able to take contact, it was kind of an easy thing for him.

WS: Yeah. I remember watching Ristolainen when he was in junior hockey, because that was the earliest years of me being kind of curious about that side of the game, and I did not really recall that being a premier area of his game.

I remember him being big, but pretty mobile, and has some skill to play around with. He did have a bit of a physical edge to him, but it feels like it was that tail end of an era in the NHL where those big, mean, physical guys were kind of in vogue, and people were kind of curious and needing guys like that. And I guess that's what Buffalo drafted him to be.

I remember being very surprised that he was in the NHL the year he was drafted. It just did not look like it was really working out there. And Buffalo just seems to have been not a great fit for him, they kind of turned him into something that he wasn't, but I do think that he's turned into some sort of serviceable defenseman.

But he, to me, is a great example of one that I always look back on and go, “Man, what if?” Like, what if things went a little bit differently for him? Because there was good stuff there, it's just I feel like the development was focused in the wrong areas.

To me, 65% of the work [is] scouting, and developing — the easy part is drafting good players, the hard part is developing them and bringing them along into being good NHL players.

So to me, if you can find the most amount of things that get in the way of that process being easy, then you're doing a really good job. And with Ristolainen, I feel like in his case they inserted more things to make that journey more difficult and sort of turned him into something that he wasn't, which is always a scary thing for me to think about doing to a player.

But it's not over for him, obviously. He figured it out. Obviously, Tortorella found something for him to do, and he has shown a little bit better. But yeah, he's always been a what-if guy for me.

GR: I always liked how Tortorella, after the 2022-2023 season, was doing his media stuff and he was like “Yeah, he's our most improved player.” You're a guy who's getting paid big bucks — I think he was making five million plus that year, still is, probably — and even him, he was like, “I was just bad the first half. And then around Christmas break, I started getting going. The second half was much better.”

Basically, the first half, they were just trying to rebuild his defensive game, and this is true for anything. Zach Benson's another good example of this. If you can't play defense in the NHL, you're going to be out quick. Benson can play defense despite being — I think they list them at five foot 10, but there's no way.

WS: Yeah, no, no. I know. He's a little guy, but he's another great example of a player where I, in my work, I do not care how big you are. I just care about how you play. Even in the NHL. And I feel like Benson's a really, really good example of that; a guy who, just forechecking alone is a really… The easiest way to defend is if he can cause turnovers in the opposing team's offensive zone, a guy like Zach Benson does that extremely well.

And if he needs to track guys through the neutral zone and backcheck, he'll do it, and he does it really well, and he does it at a speed that I found to be projectable to the NHL. And again, that's another one where I was a little surprised to see him in the NHL so fast, but he didn't really look out of place there.

He's had a bit of a slow start this season, but just a really, really talented player, and one where you kind of do look at and go, “Yeah, these smaller guys can definitely defend.” They just — the expectations are a little bit higher, and maybe for good reason, but he checks all the boxes for sure.

GR: Yeah. So for Rasmus (Ristolainen), there's two big things that, when I dug into this, that Torts was working at. At this point, I was so intrigued [that] I was tracking every single time Torts spoke and Rasmus spoke to the media. So I was like, “I wonder what they're actually doing?” Which, Torts can be tight-lipped, but he gives it away if you follow long enough.

The big one was just inside, like too much, he was finding himself, Rasmus was finding himself on the outside. So whether that be outside the dots, outside on bad ice, for whatever reason, or just finding yourself outside, like losing defensive side positioning to the offensive player.

If you finish contact, but now you're on the wall and your player's got to step to the net, that's trouble. There's a great, great clip the other night featuring, I think it was (Aliaksei) Protas [who] ended up scoring the goal and K’Andre Miller of the New York Islanders. So Caps — Rangers, not Islanders — Rangers… Where [Miller] went in soft, didn't really take positioning, got beat back to net, and Protas just put out a stick and just tapped it in, Igor Shesterkin never had a chance.

A similar idea of; okay, good, maybe you got some contact, you tried to make the stop, but you still need to maintain defensive side positioning. You still need to finish on the inside. So if you're doing contact, you can't overreach.

You just can't do that. You have to stay in good positioning.

And the second piece was just, finishing with contact to get stops, like stopping movement. Offensive play is a lot about movement, and defensive play is about stopping movement, AKA getting stops. So he would maybe make a play, or get a poke check, but the puck was still moving and could be easily on the other team's stick. 

So how do you make sure you're always staying in good positioning? Staying on the inside, as Torts put it. Or the other piece, which is getting stops, or finishing with contact — but smartly, not chasing the contact for contact’s sake? Being tactful in your play.

I feel like Risto really just learned how to play defense smartly. He was actually thinking and being intentional about what he was doing, rather than like, “I see a puck and a player, I'm going to go end that!” And then, boom, in the big scheme of things, it’s a net negative. Even though at the moment, it may have, especially to him — otherwise he wouldn't make the play — seemed like a positive, really it was a negative for the team.

WS: Well, that's the interesting thing too, going back to talking about junior players and the context in the draft and how defensive players might go a little bit underreported or undervalued in a sense.

I see this all the time, especially with North American defensemen, especially with Canadian ones, but there are definitely players who everybody talks about how good they are defensively, everybody talks about how solid they are. They're big, they're physical, they're mean, blah, blah, blah. But then when you watch things in detail, it's this sort of Ristolainen-style thing. You're talking about K’Andre Miller where it's like, they're along the boards, they're doing the thing along the boards, but they're losing.

They're allowing guys to get low on them, get through them, and even in the junior level, right? What good is it if you're trying to pin a guy against the boards and they give you a little shove, crouch down a little bit, chip the puck three feet out from you, you don't adapt to that, they get three feet of space on you, throw it out in front of the net, and boom, you got yourself a scoring chance, right? I see that all the time.

It's the focus on the body and not focus on the turnover, turning that possession back over, that really seems to be a tough lesson for a lot of defensemen to get over. I find that a lot of defensemen from the age of 18 to 23, in the grand scheme of things, their style of play doesn't drastically shift all that often.

And so, when I see things like that happening, I'm going, okay, I gotta either hope that this guy puts in the time in the gym and becomes, just, a strength nut, and pins that guy to the boards so they can't do anything, or they figure out a way to get into those situations, take a step back, chip at the puck. Really battle for the puck rather than focus on the guy.

Because I've seen it so many times with guys who are bigger and more physical, they apply it in a way where I feel like coaches will go, “Wow, look at you go, you're playing hard, you're playing the thing!” But then they escape, this opponent might escape, and create a little bit of space for themselves. And again, this is a game of inches, it's a game of a couple of feet, and every inch matters.

So in some cases, yeah, you get those situations where guys like Ristolainen, yeah, you're doing the thing, people clip the hits, people clip the physical play, but then five seconds later, someone's got some space on you and they generate a scoring chance. And so what do you really value, right? Personally, fewer scoring chances would be ideal.

GR: I love it. Last piece to wrap this up, because I think it'll go well into our next piece, which is point play. Shorting the zone.

I was able to find some phenomenal clips and do some photos of this for the newsletter. But the concept of; if you're watching a game in the NHL, if you can see all five of the people trying to break the puck out, low in the zone… A lot of it, you think about the NHL today, is like a swarm. We're going to do close support. I'm going to try to crowd the puck out.

A good way to respond to that is to short the zone, which basically means your defensemen, instead of hanging out at the blue line, are going to go into the offensive zone. And they're going to start with small gaps, they're going to be [at the] top of the circles, if not a little bit lower.

Tortorella is another big fan of this, so you can see it with the Flyers a lot, too. I would say [Sheldon] Keefe is another example of a coach who does this a ton. So you saw a lot in Toronto, now you'll see a lot more in New Jersey, which is  the perfect d-core to make all of this work. So I think Devils are going to be good for — that's going to be a great fit.

But just the idea of crowding in the space, setting small gaps, so when you do start defending, you can either cut a play off early — it's an easy pinch there if you don't have to go very far — you can cut it off. Or, 2; create a turnover in a much better spot than what is in your own zone. Why not make it in the o-zone? So from a positioning standpoint, phenomenal place to start, good way to kill plays early.

Before they can get going, before the team can build speed, and just being able to put yourself in a good spot to take advantage both from a defensive standpoint, but offensive standpoint.

WS: Yeah, I love when I see this being deployed. I think, again, I'm a geek, like I'm a math guy, and even just thinking about the numbers here, it makes such a difference if you think about it.

The offensive zone from blue line to goal line is 64 feet. So you're looking at the difference between a guy standing at the blue line being maybe 75 feet from the net or at the top of the face-off circle where you might be 20 feet closer, maybe 20, 25 feet closer. So you're cutting down the time at which you give the defense to adapt, the goaltender to adapt. You're cutting that time down by a third-ish, a quarter to a third. I'm ballparking here, but that automatically is just based on where you are on the ice.

If you can compress the offensive zone on your opponent, you're laughing. The second thing I wanted to mention here is this is, again, why skating ability and quickness and speed are so important to me. Because it is objectively a better position to be in when you're in that position — closer to the top of the face-off circles for your defensemen.

But if you do have a situation where the opponent has possession of the puck you have to get set up, you have to cover that gap, you have to cover for yourself, or you have to have some sort of system in place where a winger can cover for you if you're caught in the offensive zone. Ideally, you have your defensemen who can wheel up, get some speed going, get positioned well to counter that attack, and have a system that can swarm whoever has that puck in the offensive zone.

I think it's a really interesting trend for sure. It's a simple little thing, it's a concept that you see definitely a lot more now than you used to, but I'm all about it. It just makes sense mathematically, and it plays into exactly the styles of player that I always look for: guys who do pinch a little bit more aggressively, but have the mobility and the skating ability to cover for themselves.

I would rather have a player who tries something creative, or tries some sort of play that could lead to a high scoring chance, but may relinquish some space on the ice, but has the ability to cover for themselves.

And I can at least as a coach, rely on them — not that I'm a coach — but rely on them to cover for themselves. To go, okay, I can rely on them to try these things, because I know that if it doesn't maybe go their way, which happens in hockey all the time, I'm not going to be upset at this player, but I know that I want them to backcheck, cover for it, because I know they're capable of it.

I think that that's sort of the trade off that you have to live with, but I'm totally cool with it.

GR: All right, so we're going to call this end of the day on some modern day defending, and we'll pick up on point play in episode two.

[END Transcript.]

part 2 <- convenient link at the bottom <3

[moonstruckme]

Hey love! How are you? I hope everything is well. Could I request a fluffy fic where the reader is sick and the marauders dote all over her? I have been sick the past couple of days with high fever and I am in desperate need to be taken care of lol. It doesnt matter if it is a poly!marauders or one of the boys. You can choose whichever you are in the mood for. Thanks in advance <3

Hi sweetheart, I'm good, thanks! I'm sorry to hear you're unwell :( Soooooo relatable, basically all I do when I'm sick is fantasize about someone taking care of me. I've been dying to write a roomate!James fic so I took this in that direction, hope that's okay. Thank you for requesting and I hope you feel better soon lovely!

roommate!James x fem!reader ♡ 1.4k words

James listens as the door to your room opens and closes again, his unease mounting. 

You’re typically quiet, but lately you’ve been quieter than usual. Normally, James can count on at least seeing you in passing, or hearing your comings and goings signaled by the ridiculously harsh creaking of the front door. You sometimes play soft music while you cook, or have a friend over to chat in your room, or listen to a podcast while you get ready in the morning. 

For the last few days, there’s been none of that. If it weren’t for the occasional sound of your bedroom door and your key still on its hook in the entryway, James might think you’d moved out. 

He’s been walking past your door more often today, curious and a bit concerned at what’s keeping you confined in there. Though he knows he should be more ashamed of his eavesdropping, who else is responsible for making sure you’re okay if not your roommate? Anyway, if one day he finds you dead in your bedroom, “I was trying to mind my own business” isn’t going to make a very good excuse. 

When he goes by on his fourth unnecessary trip to the kitchen that afternoon, James is stopped by the startling noise of rapid-fire sneezes from behind your closed door. He’s knocking before he can second-guess himself. “Hey, you alright in there?”

There’s a great snuffling sound, and then, “Yeah, thanks,” your voice muffled. 

James hesitates. He’s not sure what your definition of “alright” might be, but he doesn’t feel right going about his day when you’ve locked yourself away and are acting so strange. “Can I come in?”

“No.” 

Well, that’s about as much confirmation that you’re not alright as he needs. “Are you decent?”

“I—yeah, but James—” 

He cracks the door, sticking his head in just as you dive beneath the covers of your bed. The floor is covered in tissues and wrappers of some sort, dirty dishes stacked on your desk. The room actually smells like sickness, likely a result of your being in here without opening a door or window for days. 

“James, please go.” Your voice is muffled by the covers, but now James can hear how congested it sounds. “I don’t want to get you sick.” 

“We’re roommates, love,” he says, taking a few tentative steps toward you. “Whatever you have, I’m gonna get it eventually.” 

You sneeze, your form tensing under the covers. “Not if I stay in here and you stay out there,” you insist nasally. 

James crouches by your bed, careful to avoid the tissues and what he now sees are cough drop wrappers. He tugs at your sheets until you release them, pulling them down to reveal your very flushed, very displeased face. James can’t help it; his eyebrows come together and his bottom lip juts out in pity, and your glare intensifies. 

Of course, it’s hard to appear very intimidating when your nose is twitching as you fight off another sneeze. After a moment you give in, pressing a tissue under your nose as your shoulders hitch. James winces in sympathy. 

“How long have you been like this?” he asks, taking advantage of your distraction to touch the back of his hand to your forehead. He’s not surprised to find it warm, but the intensity of the heat that meets his hand has him inhaling sharply. He presses his palm to your cheek to be sure, but it’s the same. “Merlin, you’re burning up.” 

“S’not that bad,” you say, though your next sniffle undermines the claim. 

James brushes a sweaty strand of hair from your forehead, worrying his lip. “Seems pretty bad, love. I think we ought to get you to a doctor. You shouldn’t be this warm.” 

You’re shaking your head before he’s finished speaking. “James, no. I want to stay here, at home.” You pull your blankets closer about your shoulders protectively. “I don’t want to sit in some freezing waiting room for hours just so they can tell me I have a cold.” 

James looks at you for a moment. Your clammy forehead, your poor pinkened nose. A tiny shiver takes you, making you burrow under the blankets until just your pleading eyes are peeking out at him, and that’s what softens him to your cause. “Alright,” he sighs, “but then you need to let me take care of you.”

“But—”

“I don’t care about getting sick,” he cuts you off, leveling you with his sternest look. It’s not very well-practiced, but it does the trick, and you settle down. “You let me help, or I’ll take you to someone who will.” 

You look resentful at being given an ultimatum, but nod. 

“Great.” James grins, his usual affability returned. “Now when was the last time you ate?”

From that moment on, you’re on strict bed rest. James cancels his plans with Remus and Sirius for that night, both of them sending wishes that you start to feel better soon, and a call to his mum grants him access to her recipe for “get well soup.” You don’t have an appetite, but James coaxes you into eating a few spoonfuls, and the warm sensation in your throat proves too soothing to let a silly thing like appetite prevent you from finishing the bowl. James cleans your room as you eat, ignoring your protests and embarrassed groaning as he puts your tissues and wrappers into a bin, placing it beside your bed for easier access when you need it. Then, he gives you a steaming bowl of water, making you sit with a towel over your head in your own personal sauna. You complain about feeling disgusting as your sinuses empty themselves out, but admit to breathing a bit easier once it’s done. Soon you’re feeling well enough to sit up, propping yourself up on a few pillows with a full stomach and slightly clearer nasal passages while James takes your temperature with the thermometer he’d run to get from the corner store. 

“Can’t believe we didn’t have one of these,” he mutters as he holds it in your ear. “One of us was bound to get ill eventually, it’s a miracle it’s taken this long.” You hum, your eyes trained on the inside of James’ forearm. It hasn’t escaped his notice that you’ve been looking at him more today than you ever have before; he supposes he owes that to the glaze of fever he can still detect in your eyes. James would never embarrass you by mentioning it, but the warmth of your gaze is nice, and he’s glad you’re not sharp enough at the moment to notice he’s as flushed as you. The thermometer beeps, and he pulls away, the tension in his brow relaxing a bit as he reads the number. “Well, it’s not nothing, but it seems lower than earlier.” He feels at your forehead again, nodding to himself. “Yeah, definitely lower.” James leaves his hand on your face a tenth of a second too long, and your eyes raise to his.

“That’s good,” you say, giving him a small smile. He returns it heartily. “I feel better, thanks.” 

“Yeah?” he asks, his smile falling away when you give a small sneeze and then wince. “You sure, love? Is your head still hurting you?”

“It’s not as bad,” you sniffle, grabbing a tissue to wipe your nose. “I really think all this is helping, James, thank you. Sorry you have to be around me when I’m so gross.” 

“You’re not gross, you’re lovely,” he says dismissively, moving the box of tissues closer to you when you reach for it again. “You’re incapable of being anything but lovely.” 

You actually snort, the sound loud and wet. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you say.” 

“I do say,” James insists. “And I’m the only one here not delirious with fever, so I think that makes mine the final opinion.” 

Your cheeks get impossibly pinker, almost matching the hue of your nose, but your smile rivals James’ own. “Well, anyway, thanks for taking care of me. I really appreciate it.” 

James doesn’t bother to pretend he’s feeling for a fever this time, placing a hand on your cheek and rubbing at the skin under your eye affectionately. He thinks his heart actually turns to mush when you lean into the touch. “No thanks necessary, sweetheart. Happy to do it any time.”

[potatoofdefiance]

My two cents and a rant on the allegations and Good Omens

(I will probably regret this later)

This has been eating at me for a while now, ever since the news broke that Neil Gaiman was a sex pest (see infamous TERF-adjacent podcast by Tortoise media) and I have been consciously and unconsciously ruminating over it for weeks now, so here goes.

I think the news of Neil Gaiman hit me harder than I was expecting, and certainly harder than I would have liked.

I didn’t (and certainly do not now) consider myself a “true fan”. I was never a hard-core fan, one that goes to signings or book fairs or cons to meet my favourite author. Partly because I never latched that much on any of the authors of the books or movies I loved, and partly (maybe for the best now that I think about it) because I never had the money, or wasn’t located in a geographically favored area. Meaning I never lived anywhere near wherever events with Neil Gaiman were happening.

So, with all this in mind, how is it that the news managed to hit me so hard?

I thought (read: ruminated) about it, and I think it is because of Good Omens. And the latest times. In my life, and I think a good chunk of other people’s lives too, these last few years have been a roller-coaster. You choose which particular scenario the roller-coaster is set into; mine is on fire, running through a sea of shit and we are being slapped by gooey flaming eels hard in the face.

Maybe someone might enjoy this. That someone isn’t me.

But the point is: I have been struggling. With my life, with a mental health condition, with the world and my place in it.

Enter Good Omens. In an effort to actively expose myself to “nice” stuff, stuff that would, if not make me feel better, at least make me laugh, I started tapping more into the fandom.

I’m not a fandom person. Again, never latched onto anything that had a fandom big enough (where are the Ann Halam fans? No one is making cosplays of Sloe from Siberia, are they?).

But with Good Omens, it seemed perfect for me. I wasn’t invested so much, it didn’t make me feel like I was “lacking” something in order to be part of it. I just felt like I didn’t care enough to really be vulnerable to it, I felt like it could have been a nice innocuous hobby.

But that’s the point. Thinking it was innocuous made me let down my guard enough to actually fall in love with the fandom. Fall in love with those two weirdos of characters (which by the way, I’ll say this now: I think Aziraphale and Crowley as portrayed in the series are more a product of fans and Tennant and Sheen than they are a product of Gaiman and Pratchett. And this is not a bad thing per se, I think, but let’s give credit where credit is due).

And let me be clear: I gained so so much from joining the fandom. It has positively affected so many seemingly unrelated parts of my life, and I’m so grateful to so many kind strangers on the internet who have shared such wholesome art with me, and have gifted me so much, that even putting it into words is simply not enough to explain all of it.

And one of the results of this “wave of wholesomeness” is I also started following Gaiman more closely.

Like so many, I loved Coraline. Gaiman seemed a genuinely nice person. An old guy who had wisdom to share, and who seemed to be fascinatingly non-stereotypical? If that makes sense. What I mean is that he was everything my father warned me against. A goth, weird, a writer therefore an artist (and in my family we know artists are fools who end up on the street jobless and homeless). And yet, to me now he seemed such a normal guy. Yes maybe someone who enjoyed that fashion style, but otherwise very far away from the usual excess of a rockstar. Of course I was too young when he was at the peak of his rockstar years. English is not my first language, and when he was 40 I was in elementary school and just learning about him, and you know, they do not write about his fans passing out at signings or his groupies on the back cover of children’s books.

What I mean is that I didn’t have access to all the media and information about him.

So I start seemingly connecting to this writer, whose works I have enjoyed for the most part, and who seems such a nice guy in how he interacts with his fans and people in general. Such an inoffensive, kind person. And kind seemingly to everyone.

I started liking him. To the point where I remember telling my partner: you know, Neil Gaiman is someone I’d take a coffee with (which in Italian culture is one of the greatest honors one can give you. Having a coffee while sitting at a café and chat for hours is what good friends do).

So, in my mind he had a special place now. He was someone I started to admire and look up to.

And this is, I think, where it hurts. It hurts because even if I wasn’t personally victimized, I never met him, he never acted creepy with me, he doesn’t even know me, it still felt like I, as part of the fandom, had been used for his clout. And also, it hurts to feel like someone you trusted because of how they presented themselves has lied to you.

And on top of that: it is so fucking disrespectful. The fact he thought he could get away with it. With hurting so many people (one is one too many by the way), and causing so much pain, while also enjoying crowds of adoring fans, both online and in person.

I find it personally difficult to reconcile my love of the GO fandom with all of this right now. And I think it’s for a number of reasons.

Firstly because the silence of institutions and people around these facts has opened some old wounds and made me angry again towards a system that I perceive as hostile towards me and people like me who might be vulnerable.

What I mean is: I know that Gaiman is a powerful person, and a lot of people need to bring money home and are tied to contracts and what not (yeah I’m looking at our favorite two male presenting british actors here) and I understand it. I do. And this is exactly why this stuff makes me angry again. Angry at the whole shitty system we live in, where if you happen to be in some kind of power imbalance you might end up having to eat shit and shut up while witnessing violence against you or others and not being able to utter a word about it. This sucks. It makes me angry. It makes me angry that Michael Sheen, someone I like to believe would be among the first to shout “I BELIEVE THE VICTIMS” if he was talking to friends at a bar, likely has to shut up and play nicely because Darth Amazon has some fucking clause written in Braille somewhere that says he has to sacrifice his firstborn if he ever dares to suggest he doesn’t like anyone related to the franchise.

It makes me soooo angry that we stay in the dark, and we only know from those people who are brave, and powerful enough to speak up about something that (allegedly) has been known for fucking years in the writing community. That this person was a creep. That he was treating people, mainly women and non-binary folks, if not bad, at least poorly.

And you know, this makes me even more angry because I have been in such shitty situations too! I was a victim of a system where exploitation and borderline abuse were normalized in a work setting.

And it wakes something deep in me to read that “it was an open secret bla bla bla” and again: I understand why people set up whisper networks instead of taking these giants down. I understand it. It still makes me angry because I simply do not want to live in such systems. Systems where I’m either the sacrificial lamb or I’m the one tying it on the table, or handing the axe over to the butcher, or a witness who has no power to stop the suffering.

I don’t want to live in such a system. But I have to. In my real life. I have to put up with so much shit sometimes, shit that makes me feel like I cannot stand up for my values because hey, I need to pay the bills too. And Good Omens was one of those few things where I could escape a bit into an alternative reality, where everything could be a bit better.

And I’m sure the fandom is still like this for most of the fans. I have witnessed first-hand how supportive and cheerful this fandom can be.

For me though, it still makes me think of all this...tsunami of shit.

I want to be able to enjoy the silly fanart, the memes, the wait for season 3 again. But I can’t. I can’t because my brain does not work like that. Good Omens still means Neil Gaiman too much to me. And I cannot go around talking cheerfully about Good Omens while feeling like I’m feeding into the clout of someone who used their power to coerce vulnerable people. Because (and I might be wrong) it feels like the message I’m sending is: my comfort show/book is more important than your pain or your life. And I can’t. This is not the truth.

I feel for the victims. Probably I feel even more than it would be healthy for me, or normal. But I don’t know, I feel like I connect to them. Maybe because I’ve been a victim of abuse perpetrated in clear power-imbalanced relationships, or because I felt like nobody cared about me and my wellbeing for so long, that eventually I stopped caring too.

And it is bad. It’s dehumanizing to a point where you really start believing you don’t matter. Your wellbeing doesn’t matter. There are more important things.

Ok so, I don’t want the victims, the survivors, to feel like this. They matter. They matter to me because if there’s one thing that is going to re-ignate the sacred fire of defiance in me is being able to stop this self-feeding cycle of self-loathing and misery. You matter. We matter. Vulnerable people who have been hurt matter to me. If there is one thing we can do to resist these systems of oppression and these people who abuse their power, that thing is believing that the people they hurt matter. If not more, at least as much as them.

And the way I show myself and others that the victims and their lives matter to me is by distancing myself from Neil Gaiman and his works, at least for now.

I feel bad for people who might have found themselves unwillingly tied to all of this. I feel bad for Sheen and Tennant, for all the wonderful artists and craft-people who have put so much of their work and love in Good Omens and I don’t want to let them down.

My two cents are that season 3 will not be canceled if they see there’s enough traction, and definitely won’t be canceled unless fans start a crusade against it, which won’t happen most likely.

The fandom loves Tennant and Sheen too much, and these are too much nice people to really hold a grudge against them, so I don’t think it will be canceled.

I’m afraid we (I say “we” meaning everyone who loves Good Omens) will be “held hostage” by Gaiman in the sense that he knows season 3 is not going to happen without him, so it’s either “we” or the majority of “we” behave, or it’s not going to happen. Which again, I don’t think he would lose the opportunity to make some money, and he also has contract duties to fulfill, but it still is worth it for him to try to leverage his power.

I wanted to end this rant on a positive note, somehow. But I don't know exactly what to say. Recently one of the things that has brought me laughs and joy has been the Channel 4 series “We are Lady Parts”.

In one of the episodes they quote a very beautiful poem, which came back to mind when I was listening to Claire (the latest woman who has come forward with allegations) on the “Am I Broken” podcast.

The poem is Speak by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, I will paste the version from the show, because I think it’s very powerful and beautiful.

Speak, for your two lips are free Speak, for your tongue is still your own This straight body still is yours. Speak, your life is still your own.

See how in the blacksmith’s forge flames leap high and steel glows red, padlocks opening wide their jaws. Every chain’s embrace outspread.

Time enough is this brief hour Until body and tongue lie dead. Speak, for truth is living yet. Speak, whatever must be said.

[tanoraqui]

rereading the Dalemark Quartet because of this fantastic podcast series, and a few notes:

I really cannot imagine Duck as looking like anything but my own younger brother. I don’t imagine Tanaqui as looking like myself, despite the many years of having this username and relating intensely to DWJ’s first girl narrator & mythic history-weaver trope. I don’t have any problem imagining Gull, Robin or Hern as they’re described. But Duck, young or grown, looks like my little brother (who, for the record, is currently doing grad school chemistry, which is definitely a sort of magery).

I’d argue that Mitt and Navis have a parallel moment of first-meeting, future-of-the-country-deciding Mutual Vibes Check to Hern & Kars Adon. It’s just that Mitt is 3 years old at the time, so Navis is mostly going “why is there a toddler here. …Hildy-coded, though”, while Mitt has gotten all the way to “he’s a little strange but I can and will trust him with my Dream of a Better World.” (They are both correct.)

I’m having a LOT of thoughts about the fantasy trope of “there used to be magic & gods but now there’s less or none at all”, and all its variations, in comparison to Tolkien and modern works. But I’m having so many that it needs to be a separate post and maybe short essay.

The structure of the series is so interesting. It’s not chronological at all, which actually makes the gap—15 YEARS—between books 3 and 4 even more agonizing to imagine waiting through. Books 1-3 are all separate tributary rivers pouring into 4, and each one ends on more of, in effect, a cliffhanger: Cart and Cwidder with a fairly normal “this adventure is entirely resolved but there are likely more to come.” Drowned Ammet wraps up the story but is lacking some denouement, they never actually reach the North, it’s just safely in sight, it’s clear that they will reach its relative peace & safety—but we don’t see them do so, and we don’t know what happens to them when they do. And Spellcoats! Has a vision of how the plot will resolve, but very pointedly ends before showing it! All we have to know what happened to any of the characters is a historically uncertain postscript, and the knowledge that (more) modern Dalemark exists as it does! Much less any mention of anyone or anything—except technically the earl and earldom of Hannart—from either of the previous books. And she left the readers like this for fifteen years!

If I’d been a teen in the late 70s reading these books as they came out, when Crown of Dalemark was accounted in the mid-90s, I would’ve screamed aloud. I would love to know if anyone reading this post did have that experience.

[billpottsismygf]

Doctor Who: Lucky Day

I’m still trying to process my thoughts on this one, and I’m not entirely sure where I stand on it. For one thing, it’s just quite a strange episode in terms of format. I’ve often loved a good Doctor-lite episode, but it’s quite strange for one to follow a former companion like this. Not bad, to be clear, just strange, and I missed the Doctor and Belinda. I did like seeing Ruby back, though, and I think Millie Gibson did a great job stepping back into the part, even if it did seem a little odd.

I think I want to split this into good things and bad things, so I’ll talk about the good first:

As mentioned, I liked seeing Ruby again, but more than that I loved the angle that was taken here. Of course a year travelling with the Doctor and being in constant fight or flight mode is going to traumatise you; of course she’s going to be on high alert now; of course it's going to be hard to settle back into normal life. It’s the Steven Universe Future angle, and I think it’s actually really important and really interesting for the show to address it. It also ties in really well with Belinda’s take on the Doctor: that he’s dangerous, that him scanning her without permission is a violation, that he is treating her more like a puzzle than a person, that she should be wary of him and the life he leads. It’s not that this idea of the Doctor being dangerous is new, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen this angle before and I really like where it’s going. Let’s force the Doctor to confront how he traumatises, endangers, and violates his friends when he seduces them into this adventuring lifestyle.

I also thought it was really creatively directed. I particularly loved the scene where Ruby is explaining how the Shreek hunts and we see the effects as she’s describing them, as well as the soft focus around the edges of the frame during their whole romance. It made the shift later on all the more impactful.

Speaking of that shift, the reveal of Conrad’s true motivations was a real shock and very well handled on an emotional level – I’ll get to the actual plot stuff in a moment. I felt so awful for Ruby, who just needed a nice normal boyfriend and instead got so horribly betrayed and hurt. There’s a bit of a running theme with right wing boyfriends this series, since The Robot Revolution had Al, and I think it was done here in a much more brutal way. Might this tie in slightly with the previously mentioned theme of how the Doctor treats his companions?

I also liked the Doctor’s rant about right wing conspiracy theorists at the end. It was never going to do anything to convince Conrad, so I guess he just wanted to vent, but it was well said and a better way of getting the moral of the story across than some of the more awkward versions of this we saw in the Chibnall era.

Neutral things:

There keep being a lot of reminders of previous RTD era episodes this series, and this one was no different as it felt very Love and Monsters for a while there. Young boy meets the Doctor, becomes obsessed with meeting him, his mum dies (even though Conrad was lying about that), he begins stalking and flirting with the main companion(‘s mum), etc. It went in a very different direction from there, but the comparison is hard not to make.

It also put me in mind of Doctor Who Redacted. Fewer people will know about that, I guess, but it was a BBC radio series during the Chibnall era about three friends with a podcast called The Blue Box Files. It’s good! More people should listen to it!

Also, I’ve seen some people question what the status of aliens as public knowledge is in this new era, given Belinda’s reaction to the robots and the huge UNIT tower and stuff, so I guess we finally have our answer! Might this lead to a soft reboot where no one believes that aliens are real? Might the public’s disillusionment with UNIT be something to do with the world coming to an end? I also wonder if this is something of a soft pilot for the upcoming UNIT spin off, The War Between the Land and Sea.

Anyway, I’ve stalled enough, so time to talk about the things I didn’t like so much:

Look, I’m fond of UNIT, both in the modern iteration and the classic one, but this story needed a hell of a lot more clarity on what it was doing wrong. UNIT has always been somewhat morally questionable. Famously, the Brigadier made decisions that the Doctor thought were evil and wrong, and the show framed them as such. Modern day Doctor Who seems to be less comfortable with doing that, which I guess is fine, but here it feels like it’s starting to try and do that, but in such a muddled way I don’t know what it’s trying to say.

For most of the episode, UNIT is framed as being the wronged party here. Poor little powerful government military operation has been criticised for wrongfully arresting someone. Like, obviously Conrad is a right wing dickhead and also just incorrect, but we as the audience only know he’s incorrect because of our privileged position as viewers of this television show. I think people in their world would have a right to be suspicious of UNIT, especially when their powers seem to be far greater than they should be. I do think the episode was showing that Kate was going too far at the end of the episode, acting vengefully and spitefully, but it’s all a bit muddled given how little clarity there is in her fucking up at the start of this as well (wrongfully arresting someone on camera for a hoax).

Speaking of the hoax, it also isn’t entirely clear how Conrad or his followers think they’ve actually exposed any lies, given that they are the ones who created the hoax, not UNIT. That’s not to say that conspiracy theorists’ “evidence” ever makes that much sense, but I would have liked a line about how that didn’t prove anything about UNIT lying, then maybe some conversation about how UNIT arresting him muddied the waters and made it look like they were trying to silence him. Essentially, I can create a narrative in my mind about how this whole media storm makes sense, but the show doesn’t actually put those pieces together and I think it should have done.

To summarise:

I’m finding it really hard to figure out what I think of this episode. It was a very unusual one, and although it was nice to see Ruby again, I also really missed the Doctor and Belinda. We’re getting so few episodes with them as it is that it’s a shame to have to miss an entire episode of potential time with them. I liked some of the ideas this episode was going for, but the execution was so muddled and I wish it had come down harder on UNIT the whole way through and not just with Kate’s overstepping at the end.

I think this is one I’m going to be stewing over for a while and I’ll be very interested to see the general fandom reaction to it.

[ludolka]

Hey hey!

I know this is probably not smthn you’ve thought abt, but are there other paranormal channels in the activity detected au? And have any of them tried to like “expose” the gang? What’s the sort of fandom around the channel??

This is like entirely my own personal interest in au’s where there’s a sort of fandom culture ,,, I yearn for the exploration of dynamics (as a media/fan studies student). So please forgive the onslaught of questions,,, I’m also not sure if you’re familiar w Watcher/Ghost files & Buzzfeed Unsolved/Paranormal, but I like to imagine Joel and Grian being like the equivalent of Ryan and Shane in the sense that even if you don’t ship them in-universe everyone’s like “they’re a pair. do not seperate”

Hey!

I’ve talked about this before ^^ with a skimming through the tag here’s art of fake YouTube videos that other people uploaded related to PT and here’s a post about how the comment section sometimes looks like regarding to Grian and Joel

There’s also a post I’m not going to look for rn about how fans have dug up Grian’s very old instagram where his pictures were all normal and that sparked more controversy about if that can be proof they are faking or if it’s proof something’s going on with Grian because something must have happened to him that made him stop posting pictures anywhere on the internet

I’m sure I talked more about this specific topic, but I couldn’t find other posts without actually reading through all of them, so I’ll yap more about it here

There are more paranormal investigator channels, it’s a niche community that PT is a part of and got kinda famous in. There are clip channels for PT specifically as well. There are some channels, both in the community and in the broader “talking about anything paranormal” community that have tried to expose them for faking their videos. They have showed proof that they don’t, Jim has uploaded a “vlog” that just consisted of him editing clips together and posting the video

There’s also the TIGS group, who are the most well known in the community, who have a podcast where they talk about the paranormal

Oo talking about Buzzfeed Unsolved, I used to watch it years ago and Shane and Ryan were sort of inspiration for Joel and Jimmy’s behavior. They aren’t as much of a pair as Shane and Ryan are, but Joel’s their resident sceptic, who doesn’t really believe in any of this and doesn’t take it seriously while Jimmy fully believes in the paranormal and gets scared easily

But yes, through the months of Grian being in most of the videos their fanbase/fandom has just accepted he and Joel come in a pair. There’s still heated debates on what’s going on between them