#like patrick is so relatable its not funny

[kurtcobaingirlie]

only luca guadagino could make me relate to and want to fuck 2 random white boys

[27-royal-teas]

Analyzing the meaning of the song 27 when we line it up with what  we know about the 27 club

So, for context, nobody thought pete would really live past 27. the 27 club is a group of celebrities in the arts that died at age 27 (Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, etc), usually from their own self-imposed destruction. But fall out boy and their history is so inexplicably tied to this number that I absolutely had to write an essay about it. this song is a complete masterpiece in its own right and it's definitely up in my top three fob songs of all time

The song starts like this:

“if home is where the heart is then we’re all just fucked

i cant remember, i cant remember

And i want it so bad id shoot the sunshine into my veins

I cant remember the good old days”

The first line feels almost like begging. Hes wondering where he belongs, because he doesnt feel safe at home, and this song was during the time where the band was fighting a lot, and they were kind of his home as well. so if home is where the heart is and he doesnt feel safe at any of his homes, if he cant belong, then will he ever? Anywhere? A kerrang feature interviewing pete said that this song was him trying desperately to hold the band together, which is expressed with this first opening line (“if home is where the heart is then we’re all just fucked”). Clearly he is clinging on with a single thread, and this was shown when the band went on hiatus not long after.

‘And i want it so bad id shoot the sunshine into my veins’ obviously a drug reference, of being so desperate that youd do anything to get the good feeling back, and here it is linked to ‘i cant remember the good old days’ because it feels almost like a desperate kind of longing. this might relate to the line ‘you were the sunshine of my lifetime’ which repeats multiple times through fob’s eighth studio album, So Much (for) Stardust. In the context that this is referring to a person (anyone, but likely patrick; pete keeps his lyrics vague for a reason) it would be overexposing yourself to something that gives you temporary happiness but in the long run can kill you. hm just something to consider but i know they probably didnt plan that far ahead lyricwise lol

“And it’s kind of funny,

The way we’re wearing anchors on our shirts

When being anchored aboard just feels like a curse”

A lot of folie is actually linked to this sort of nautical theme (what a catch especially) and i think this references ‘they say the captain goes down with the ship’ because anchors are usually on nautical themed shirts or the shirts of sailors, but pete is saying he hates being tied down to the ‘ship’ which can be interpreted as the band maybe possibly. either way hes definitely pointing out the irony of wearing something that symbolizes stability when he is DEFINITELY not stable (who ever looked at pete wentz and thought ‘this man is stable’?) (i digress)

then comes the chorus. i love this chorus so fucking much it is interpretation goldddd

“My mind is a safe, and if i keep it then we all get rich

my body is an orphanage, we take everyone in

doing lines in dust and sweat

on last night’s stage 

just to feel like you” 

ok so obviously petes referring to his mind as the safe because hes the one who makes the lyrics and thus hes the one who earns the band the profit. Its a safe because he is inscrutable. It is also a safe because he only takes out what he wants, and only he has the key. ‘My body is an orphanage, we take everyone in’ COULD refer to how hes kind of promiscuous but more than that fall out boy was known for being the band that didnt really care who their fans were. They were marketed towards teenage girls and for that they were looked down upon. His body could be a metaphor for the band itself, and taking everyone in could mean that they accept the people that other bands dont typically want as fans. 

‘Doing lines in dust and sweat on last night’s stage just to feel like you” this is a reference to the 27 club, and refers to stars doing drugs to be able to function/feel normal and human again. Idk. i just really like this line its so great

“The m-m-milligrams in my head burning tobacco in the wind

Chasing the direction, chasing the direction you went”

Im going to break this verse in half specifically because patrick fucking does NOT ENUNCIATE and also its long (how many times did i think ‘and youre a bottled star’ was ‘and you’re a bathroom stall’ rip)

The milligrams and the tobacco are pretty self explanatory- more drugs. 27 club connections via the drugs. burning tobacco gives way to the vision of trying to cling on to a high with desperation, and he’s chasing it- chasing the direction it went. 

“youre a bottled star, the planets align, youre just like mars

You shine in the sky, you shine in the sky”

pete uses a TON of star and sky metaphors in his writings, this song included. A bottled star would mean a person who is repressing their talent. It could also mean a celebrity who is drowning their problems in liquor. Mars is the roman god of war and often a symbol of masculinity (although im not sure how relevent the second part is). It means raw, unbridled energy. here pete is saying (in his vague, vague writing voice ://) that when the person he is talking about drinks, they lose all control and are pretty much unstoppable. drawing this to the 27 club, a lot of the members died by alcohol or drug abuse, so it makes sense.

The use of star and sky metaphors throughout this song really bring it home- yes, the stars may be bright and pretty, they might shine and sparkle, but at the end of the day they will burn away and self combust. So we have to hold it together if we want to keep our own worlds in once piece. 

“Are all the good times getting gone

they come and go and go and and come and go, oh yeah

ive got a lot of friends who are stars but some are just black holes”

For this verse lets work our way backwards. more space and star metaphors. stars clearly refers to his friends in the industry, but black holes could mean they have an almost deafening energy, or are on their way to becoming a part of the 27 club itself. The good times coming and going represents the sort of panic thats felt in the entertainment industry as a whole; the competition against time itself, for fear that when youre old people wont want to know what you have to say. So often the people who act and sing are so unbearably young, and once they pass thirty two they arent marketable anymore. pete is putting to words the worry and the scramble to get things done- to make a name for yourself- before your time is up. And AGAIN relating to the number 27, its quickly approaching 30, so you better move fast if you want to become famous. 

The rest of the verses from here are just chorus repeats, so let’s talk about how tangled fall out boy is with the number twenty seven. other than the 27 club, what’s so important about it? It’s not a prime number. Theres really nothing out of the ordinary about it. 

Except, there is. 

Everyone celebrated when pete made it past his 27th birthday. In 2011, patrick wrote his Confessions of a Pariah blog post. He and joe were both 27 at the time, and i think that might have been a deciding factor in what inspired pete to reach out. He didn’t want his best friend to give into depression, much less when he was 27. 

The band got together again not long after that. the first track off Save Rock and Roll, My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark, dropped February 5th, 2013. The rest is pretty much history. 

I don’t know. All speculation. But the number 27 is definitely linked with fall out boy, although it’s not relevant right now, and i just think its so damn interesting

[ambrossart]

Hi hello i absolutely love paper man best it fanfiction I've ever read. i just so happened to reread again and i have a couple of questions. they might be dumb but im curious!!

when evie burns herself with the glue gun and patrick wants to see it. can you explain why? is it because he wants to see her in pain or if he doesnt feel pain himself and hes interested by the idea of feeling something?

also i think it's funny how victors saw eves bright yellow panties and then she wears the yellow dress. was that on purpose or a coincidence?

last question im rambling sorry, can you explain why Patrick was so void of emotion when talking to evie about matin? like yeah he's usually very void and vague but it was reallyy emotionless well until he asks her if he should handle him lol. i just want to know what he was feeling and when he tells Evie something along the lines of its only her and him in the whole school. does he think evies real?

can't wait for more never stop being you ❤️

1) I'd say it's a bit of both, actually. Considering what we already know about Patrick, I think it's pretty safe to assume he derives some pleasure in seeing/inflicting physical pain on others. But I also think there's an element of curiosity to it. Innocent curiosity. It's hard to expand on that further without spoiling things, but Season 2 is all about Patrick. You'll be learning a lot about him then. Probably way more than you want to know.

2) You know, there are several yellow objects in the story. Evelyn's spirit week dress. The Band-Aid she put on Henry's cheek. Her pink-and-yellow quilt. And yes, even the panties she was wearing that night. When I think of Evelyn, that's the color that comes to mind, so... yeah, I purposefully made a lot of things yellow, especially if they're associated with Evelyn.

3) I assume you're talking about the scene in the science lab after Evelyn's assault? Well, there's a couple things at play here:

Patrick is incapable of empathy. If feelings were colors, this boy would be colorblind. He genuinely cannot grasp the full depth of Evelyn's suffering. He can’t imagine what she went through. He can't relate to what she went through. None of that is getting through to him. None of it.

Patrick has a very nonchalant attitude toward sexual assault and sex in general, if we're being totally honest. He's assaulted his fair share of women in the past, including Evelyn, and he's probably been assaulted himself a few times, especially in his youth. Patrick doesn't mind, though. It's just sex, after all. Sometimes it gets a little violent. 🤷🏻‍♀️

In Patrick's eyes, Evelyn got off easy with Martin, a known rapist, which is why he basically says, "Hey, at least you weren't raped, right?" It's not a very kind thing to say, but it's true. It could've been a lot worse.

And if it had turned out worse, I think Patrick’s response would be a lot different. It would still come from a very selfish place, but it would be different: stronger and more severe.

Setting all of that aside, I wouldn't say Patrick was entirely devoid of emotion. Evelyn's situation definitely affected him, just not in the way it would affect most people.

Patrick is wired differently. I think that's the simplest way to put it.

4) As for your last question, well… yeah, I'm not gonna answer that. I can’t answer that. I do love that line, though. I think it says a lot about Patrick and his feelings toward Evelyn. The boy’s intense, like scary intense.

Thank you so much for reading! 💖

[darkshrimpemotions]

Spoilery Aquaman 2 Review

Aquaman 2 was fun. A little clunky and cheesy at times, but tbh I found that kinda refreshing? It was so goofy and earnest in a way that didn't undercut the stakes or the tough moments and didn't feel nearly as formulaic as a lot of the superhero genre has gotten.

Like...I love a pithy one-liner as much as the next person, but does anyone else ever feel like big blockbusters in general have gotten SO polished that they've basically become scripts full of quotable moments? Does it ring a little hollow for anyone else, or is that just a me thing?

Anyway, the point is Aquaman 2 was kinda refreshing in that regard. There are moments where another film would've put the hero saying something funny and cool, but this movie just allows the character an emotional reaction that feels more honest. Because let's be real, even a goofy fucker like Jason's take on Arthur isn't going to be thinking up cool things to say when his family is in danger. He's going to be scared and angry!

I also thought some of the visual worldbuilding and background gags were just great, so fun. The film was definitely calling back to an earlier era of sci-fi and fantasy films, but in a way that felt self-aware without being too wink-wink, nudge-nudge. The use of CGI was a little heavy-handed in places, but that's hardly unique to this movie or particularly surprising in a film that takes place at least 1/3rd under water.

It was super obvious at first that Mera's role had been severely cut down compared to the first film, in a way that flirted dangerously with simply sidelining the woman into housewifery as soon as she has a child. But there were a few scenes that did the job of showing that Mera is still a queen and a warrior, and in the end it felt more like this was simply the story of Orm and Arthur while the first film was the story of Mera and Arthur.

That being said, Orm and Arthur's interactions were fucking delightful, beginning to end. Best part of the film, hands down. There was some great physical comedy, which I was surprised to see Patrick do just as well as Jason. There was also a really organic build from hate to grudging respect to understanding to love running through the film. The place they ended up felt earned, even in a film absolutely packed with plot and action and character journeys. It held the whole film together.

James Wan's horror background really got its moments to shine in this film, too, just as it did in the first one with that fucking trench scene. He really is a master at juggling tone and genre. I can't wait to see what he does next.

By far the clunkiest part of the film was the Black Manta/Necrus thing and whole environmentalism angle. Which is fine, actually. It feels like a little nudge toward the source material. And I think at any other time it would have fallen much flatter, but with the climate crisis constantly in the back of the mind the way it is now, the clunkiness got a boost just by how terrifyingly relatable and real the stakes were. The speech at the end felt earned, too, even with how clunky the plot was at times.

It was just a fun, solid superhero film! I'm sad we don't get a full Aquaman trilogy, but it was definitely a high note for Jason's time as Aquaman to end on. I can see myself watching this movie over and over.

[desertfangs]

🍀 Some quick & silly St. Patrick's Day Heacanons For Daniel and Armand 🍀

(encouraged by @hekateinhell, who may or may not regret their efforts)

Back during the chase years, Armand showed up at a bar where Daniel was drinking on St. Patrick’s Day wearing his usual clothes purloined from a victim: a sweatshirt and jeans, maybe. None of it was green. Daniel pinched him and laughed. Armand frowned, confused, and Daniel had to explain the tradition of pinching people who weren’t wearing green, which led to a long conversation that amounted to Daniel going, “I don’t know, that’s just the tradition!” 

The first time Armand heard about them dyeing the Chicago River green for St. Patrick’s Day, he insisted they go see it. They made the trip, stayed in some fancy hotel overlooking the river, and Armand stood on the edge of the river looking down at it for the half the night while Daniel drank discounted Irish Whiskey and made conversation with people at the riverside bar. With the lights they shine on the river, Armand could see the vibrant green pretty well but Daniel made sure to get up early and to go take a few Polaroids so Armand could see how green it looked in daylight. 

Since Armand was asleep during the St. Patrick’s Day parades while they lived in New York, he’d take Daniel down to the Irish pubs on the parade route after dark and get visuals of the parade from people’s thoughts. The first time they did it, Armand spent the entire night asking people what the point of St. Patrick’s Day was and engaging a lot of very inebriated people into discussions about the point of modern holiday celebrations and parades. 

Daniel and Armand have also had long conversations about why the four-leaf clover is lucky (“Because it’s rare and hard to find, why does it matter?”) and why the beer is often dyed green (“For fun! People just like to have fun.”) after which Armand made Daniel drink far too many green beers. 

Night Island definitely had a big St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the 80s, complete with decorations, Irish music and dancing, green beer, the works! Once Daniel became a vampire and couldn’t drink cheap whiskey or eat corned beef at the pub, it lost some of its appeal, although Armand’s unabashed loved for holidays and their shared love of people watching still made those kinds of celebrations fun.

At least once since moving into Trinity Gate, Daniel has tried to pass out green bowler hats and shamrock headbands for the occasion. (Benji tried to refuse but if he can wear a fedora, he can wear a green bowler!) And every year if they're in NYC, he tries to convince Armand to wear green and go out into the fray with him, because it’s the perfect place to hunt for the Little Drink and people watch, which is still a pastime they enjoy. Plus, they like asking inebriated revelers what they think the origin of St. Patrick’s Day is. The answers are usually funny. Benji keeps telling Daniel he should film it for TikTok but he refuses to learn another social media app.

Please feel free to share your own vampire-related St. Patrick's Day headcanons, I'm always curious to hear this stuff.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Water Damage

Water Damage plays a thick and noisy variety of drone, favoring looooooong compositions that the band refers to as “Reels”; on Water Damage’s most recent LP, 2 Songs, you get two reels, subtitled “FUCK THIS” and “FUCK THAT” (band’s caps). All those verbal antics feel appealingly playful, but the music is deadly serious stuff — not surprising, given the players involved. Members of this septet also play in Austin-associated bands like USA/Mexico, Marriage and Spray Paint. As the band’s moniker suggests, the music is patient, persistent and often insidious. Here's some music the band has been listening to.

Travis Austin

Surface of the Earth — Surface of the Earth (1994/95, Reissued 2022 Thin Wrist Recordings)

New to me when it was reissued and the record I’ve played most since then. It feels as huge to me as it does microscopic — prehistoric as it does post-apocalyptic.

Jon Hassell — Aka/Darbari/Java: Magic Realism (1983, E.G. Records)

Start to finish, I don’t know of anything else that sounds like this — the hazy atmosphere and way the rhythms tumble. From the liner notes: “a ‘coffee-colored’ classical music for the future.” And the cover is by the same artist who did the cover for Bitches Brew.

Mike Kanin

Archie Shepp — Blasé (1969, BYG/Actuel)

I heard this one for the first time just this past year. I can’t believe I’ve missed it. By turns raw and beautiful, honest and evocative, what’s here transcends genre while highlighting Black experience and struggle. Incredible work.

George Dishner

Clipse — Hell Hath No Fury (2006, Star Trak / Re Up Gang Records)

The most engaging rap record in history as far as I’m concerned. Pusha, Malice, and the Neptunes peaked. Sonically HHNF is minimal and alien sounding, almost nonmusical at times. Lyrically, it’s bleak throughout and incredibly funny at times (some of the best punchlines ever recorded). At 12 songs and 48 minutes with only a few guests and skits, there is no fat whatsoever.

Remarc — Sound Murderer (2003, Planet Mu)

I’m always looking for cheap electronic records at every record store. Mid 1990s Jungle scores are the best. It’s a pretty narrow subgenre but one of my favorites. Remarc checks all my Jungle boxes — chaotic, lo-fi, dubby, rough. It’s devoid of any pretentious jazziness or techy soullessness. His formula is pretty basic — supreme mastery of The Amen and sick ragga Bass shit. This is a comp of some of his best stuff of the era when Jungle was at its best.

Nate Cross

Omertà — Collection Particulière (2022, Standard In-Fi, Zamzamrec)

Not to point out the obvious, but France is a huge influence for Water Damage. I’ve obsessively kept up with everything they’ve done and all their various related projects and their label Standard In-Fi. This is Omertà’s second LP; the group features members of France, Tanz Mein Herz, Societe Etrange and more. The album is a vibe, I can listen to it over and over. Really interesting to hear these folks do something more ‘song oriented’ instead of the normal long-form style in their other groups. Also, you can never go wrong with two bass players.

Bumblebee Unlimited — Sting Like a Bee (1979, RCA Victor)

Always been a huge disco nerd and Patrick Adams was a genius. This one-off LP and group was about as close to perfect as you can get and is a sort of bridge between disco and house music. So much glorious repetition on this album, and the bass lines are minimal brilliance. The chipmunk-esque vocals are ridiculous, but still work so well (similar to another 1979 disco gem — Bryan Adam’s “Let Me Take You Dancing”).

Jeff Piwonka

John Coltrane — Olé Coltrane (1961, Atlantic)

This is one of the first jazz albums I heard that had two bassists on it, Reggie Workman and Art Davis, Davis being a little lesser known I think and a really really amazing bassist. This whole album is great but the first side, 18 minutes of everyone going in and out, and there is space for the bassists to get weird with arco and pizzicato playing. I’ve known this album for a long time, but it’s been played a lot lately because both my 4-year-old and 16-month-old grab this record from the shelf all the time. It’s really strange actually, I put it in a different spot each time and they still grab this record very frequently, it’s a French pressing and Reggie Workman’s name is spelled “Reggie Wokrman” and Eric Dolphy is “George Lane.”

Greg Piwonka

Lungfish — Artificial Horizon (1998, Dischord)

Love this record, and the repetition is something that I often thought about as we were still figuring out Water Damage ideas. I feel like some of the newer songs that we are working on sound like extended Lungfish songs. Much of that has to do with the influence of this band on my drumming. There is a part toward the end of this interview where Daniel Higgs talks about experiencing repetition as a listener, and how there isn’t really a thing such as a repeated passage in time — that it’s unique every time… the listener is creating the pattern. That idea is foundational to me in relation to what we do as a band. Every time we play, I get lost and question how the pattern is even working.

Palace — West Palm Beach/Gulf Shores (1994, Drag City/Palace)

These two songs back-to-back are high on the list of my favorite things ever recorded. The mood here reminds me of all the rundown beach towns around the Gulf. The playing is great, it sounds like they just went in the studio and made it with very little effort. Many other recordings have that same vibe, Neil Young’s Zuma, Songs: Ohia’s Didn’t It Rain, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme… this list could get long. I guess a technical term for that vibe is magic. I had not listened to this for a few years and returned to it recently and instantly loved it again.

[horseshoemybeloved]

wait i am really intrigued with your versions of the suitehearts i love the designs and seeing your take on them so please infodump about them to me about this obscure fob au that i’ve been insane about for years

It is now time for my long ass ( my version of the ) suitehearts masterpost * wiggles fingers *

Keep in mind!!!

So basically first things first, my versions of ‘em are Completely different characters. Some draw/view the suitehearts as fob in silly costumes ( which is super chill ) but my versions are very different. So when I say “ Benzedrine is a repressed gay wizard obsessed with abba“ I am in no ways implying that Patrick is a repressed gay wizard obsessed with abba. There are some similarities between people but it is never intentional. ( also I’m constantly changing stuff nothings set in stone lol )

Da world!

The world is kinda like a purgatory, everyone there has died but could move to another plane. Thusly there are people from all different decades. Magic is very common here, a lot of people can do small basic spells. But it takes years of practice to become a wizard, and decades to become a good one. There are 5 main,,, species? Races? I’m not quite sure how to label em. But we have:

your average human, nothing really of note here

elemental benders ( they are born with a cavity in their chest relating to what “ element “ they control. Some control water some Disco music! )

Pixies/sprites, they usually have abnormal colored skin, pointy ears, and the ability to float around. They naturally have good connection with spirits and can summon them when needed ( if they’re good at it )

Angels, they’re naturally fun colors, have magical hair, and vaguely cow like ears?. Angles can use their magic to make themselves look like normal humans tho. They usually live together and provide comfort for people. But there has been a rebellion happening and now a lot of angels try and live life not for the sole service of others but now for themselves ( is allegory 4 womanhood moment )

And then of course furries xoxo

Now the reason you even started reading this, info about the suitehearts!

Dr. benzedrine is vaguely narcissistic and full of himself, but in an oddly charming way. Personality wise hes a mixture of howl ( hmc ) without Any of the swauve, mostly just the dramatics, and aziraphale ( good omens ). Hes a middle aged man who Will Not admit hes gay, he is Incredibly repressed. He was apart of the huge royal academy of wizards, best one they’d ever had. But had a falling out with the leader in charge and now just has his own little wizard store. He befriended Donnie at a little diner because he made a reference to a Kate bush or Fiona apple song, or something or other. Him and sandman do Not get along, sandman often visits the store just to annoy him. But they have more similarities than they know, they just need to stop bitching at eachother!

( also he was born like 5’ something but the spirits in charge of transferring people to this plane were like “ I’d be mad funny if we made him really short he’d be so mad “ )

He is my autistic little meow meow 😔🙏

Horseshoe has a regal flowyness to him, semi-oblivious to his own charm, and loves to dance the night away. When everyone around him is disheveled and falling apart, he still manages to look fantastic. He appears to be the dumb blonde of the group, which he definitely doesn't mind and loves to indulged in the trope. ( he may not know where or even what Sweden is but at least hes pretty ) But he is a deeply creative person, and that in its own special way shows an intelligence. He works at a small local craft store ( bcus then he gets first dibs on all the cool new art supplies :D ) he is an angel, but chooses to focus his little magical power on constantly disguising himself cus he doesn’t wanna be bothered lol.

Donnie is very nurturing and kind, yet extremely energetic and bubbly, think kinda like,,, super sweet valleygirl. He’s slightly based off YouTuber Garret watts. He is very big solid guy. He has a bit of a problem with feeling like he Needs to take care of everyone, like it’s job ( he’s workin through it in therapy ) Like I mentioned there are people who are like elemental benders, Donnie is one of them. He has a little terrarium with either a mushroom or a daisy, and can make vines grow from his hands and legs. Donnie is also autistic ( heavily based on my experiences with it, he’s also just kinda heavily based off of me ) He's from da 60s, during the whole hippy thing.

Sandman is your typical bitchy mallgoth, who goes around calling everyone a " poser" and everything " poser shit " they put up a bitchy angry front but deep down theyre an insecure sensitive little guy. Sandman is a Pixie so that means they can summon these ( usless ) spirit guys ( they’re not very good at it ) shes also kinda Super into typical """ cringey """ stuff from 2015 ( ie undertale, fnaf, the lving tombstone, mlp ) Sandman is semi kinda not really it’s complicated openly non-binary, but still seems to repress quite a bit and just push away all deeper feelings. I thought it would be interesting to experiment with a character who is a trans femme gay guy, kinda like a reverse trans masc lesbian I guess. Idk lol don’t get mad at me

Anything else kiddo?

The format id choose to express this story would def be a movie. Uhhh… I can’t really think of much else right now, but feel free to ask questions I luv talking about em :3

[br1ghtestlight]

okay first of all im not convinced that rudy didn't buy tickets only bcuz louise annoyed him about it and he vaguely recognized the bands name from one of his dads old records FJDMDNSMSMSJ

why doesn't tina get to go to the old man concert w/ gene louise and their friends 😭

love how both concerts that tina mentioned going to were boyz 4 now concerts and that BOTH of them were actual episodes in the show. this is why catching up on bob's burgers lore is so important. these are the things you'd miss!!!!

NOOO NOT THE KING BREAKING HIS PAW this is a code red emergency

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT QUINCE BURGER BANGER NAME‼️‼️ have the bobs burgers writers seen the hawk and chick bb/eeaao comparison gifsets. do they even know that they made me cry. i want you to know how much i love and support you even if you stop fighting monsters with me someday and do taxes instead. okay sorry i got distracted

rudy!!!!

okay MAYBE i missed them saying that the concert had paid entrance or something but this is a block party?? could they not just go downstairs and watch the band outside. like it might not be premium seats but at least they'd be going to their first concert ?

most normal louise and rudy interaction

LINDA IS GONNA GET LITTLE KING TRASHMOUTH EUTHANIZED GOOD GOD 😭😭😭😭💔💔

why is tina being the voice of reason here LMAO like at least google how to capture an injured raccoon or something

OH ITS NOT THAT HARD. GOOD WHEELS ON THIS THING obsessed w/ teddy in this subplot(??) i missed him

i feel like this episode has the same problem as the st patrick's day episode where despite the episode's title and description trying to make the subplot the main focus of the episode its also Clearly the subplot to a more important storyline. which is fine bcuz they're both entertaining in this episode but its gonna be confusing as hell in the future trying to find this episode 😭

"maybe it would be easier to watch the concert from the street" IM SAYING LIKE?? literally what was louise's plan here. im obsessed with her

girl. all this for like six pieces of candy

THIS HAS NO REASON TO BE SO STRESSFUL im shaking im so worried about little king trashmouth... if anything bad happens to him im killing everyone in this room and then myself. that would literally be bury your gays. to me

not bob having another burger related existential crisis ☹️☹️

bob has failed to realize he could cook literally ANY other food if he really wanted to. but i will admit he likes cooking the burgers. and tbh?? what he described sounded like an autistic dream so maybe he simply does not understand the vision like me and u bob. maybe he just doesn't get it

"is that magic marker?" "what makes you say that??" "my.... eyes?"

actually where the HELL did they get those shirts they're too big to be louise's but wayy too small to gene's this is the actual mystery in the episode. possibly maybe tina's old shirts or something??

today we learned that linda buys her wine from the liquor store on their block which was Probably obvious but cool to see it confirmed

OH HELL NOO BOB IS GETTIN OLDER

also kinda funny to say this when big bob is Literally in next weeks episode and seems happy enough running his diner.... like bob have you considered maybe you LIKE cooking for people and thats okay?? your dad does too. some people are happy to do one thing forever and thats not like a Problem unless you're unhappy

awww they're such cuties dancing together

ROMANTIC RACCOON REUNION 💕💕🏳️‍🌈

"Well there are moments, you know... when the band locks in, the crowd is with them and everything they ever loved about playing music comes flooding back in a rush of pure heavenly emotion. All that crap."

"But... all these decades later, they still have them? The moments?"

"You tell me."

😭😭 WHY DID THIS PART OF THE EPISODE MAKE ME WANNA CRY I HAVE TO GET A VIDEO OF IT OR SOMETHING. WHAT THE HELL too real for creative people..... omg. this season has a lot of moments like that about the creative process like gene's song etc

YOUNG BOB‼️‼️ OHH HES SUCH A GENTLEMAN bob my beloved

THIS EPISODE WAS VERY CUTE?? very silly subplot w/ linda and the raccoons and then louise and gene and their friends. bob's little crisis in the middle there got to me harder than anticipated (i think they could have easily made that into its own episode but considering they've done similar concepts in the past i dont hate that they didn't flesh that out as much as they could have. we already KINDA know where bob is coming from here) and the ending clip with bob singing was soo silly im gonna need to post that too. fun episode!

[anzuhan]

Do you have any 00 characters you like, aside from the innovades and the Trinitys?

yes and im sorry i dont really talk about them or draw them (only sometimes) 😭 i posted a tierlist awhile back & i have no idea where it is . so i will just talk about everything here now :) it will probably be VERY long so i am putting it under a read more. also this will be full of spoilers but i guess that makes sense <- saying if anyone stumbles upon it & is still watching

edit its super long 🙏🙏🙏🙏 HOPE YOU ENJOY READING

my absolute favorites besides the innovades (trinities included) are neil and chris! i did draw neil a few more times than anyone else thats not an innovade, and sadly only drew chris once for her bday 😭 IVE REALLY GOT TO DRAW HER MORE shes so cute and fun to draw..

my opinions of neil were very rocky at the start and i didnt like him AND IT WASNT EVEN HIS FAULT 😭 i first played dwg3 before watching anything gundam related at all (and then started by watching 00); i didnt know which lockon stratos was in dwg3 but he was kind of annoying to me </3 and because i couldnt tell them apart i just supposed it was neil and hereby disliked him 😭 well . that one was lyle but i found that out later ... thruout s1 i slowly got to like neil more and more and by s1 finale i was absolutely crushed . my opinions on tieria may also be foreverchanging, but one thing we share for sure is that we hated neil till he died then just didnt anymore </3

chris i liked a lot from the beginning because of how easygoing and nice she was with everyone, and in more ways than one she reminded me of myself 🥺 i also dont really see very often characters that like coding or technical stuff & are extroverted & like fashion so this felt like a win for me.. finally... some representation (real). this all and her whole thing with weekly crushes is so 😭😭 when she first saw johann and got a pic with him IMMEDIATELY and thought he was hot n then got sad that he was evil and fucked up was so me 🙏 so with how much chris meant to me & how they basically replaced her with mileina that i do not like for variety of reasons was my personal 9/11 for this anime

now besides these two i also hold quite literally majority of all characters in high regard. i love patrick a lot for being funniest guy around & kati his not bayonetta badass wife ... i dont usually do shipping but theyre really so cute together i always go 🥺🥺🥺 when they were just happy together. saji and louise too !!!! the whole story with how their relationship changed and evolved was so great and i was hooked. marie is absolutely one of my favorites in terms of backstory & the peak of s2 to me (yes ... despite the innovators because i didnt like a lot of handling of them 😭) — i really didnt care all that much about soma in s1 and then they elevated that so hard in s2. i am not a person that holds family things in high regard due to my own personal bad experiences, but besides her backstory with allelujah, the scenes between her and becoming smirnov's family were always so dear to me whenever we got them 🥺 this was also really just from a little side thing of the extra s2 chibi animation, but that scenario of them all taking a trip to heaven and marie making andrei talk to his parents and them getting all together was so sweet as well i love loved that one ...

despite it all, i also truly believe graham is best boy of the entire 00 series. this guys so peak i dont even know where to begin; the bond between him and his other squadron members was so good. it was a real shame they kind of had to go 😭 his love for the flags was also so real... and this guys VERY good at what hes doing, like my guy could fight off whole gundams with gn drives in some far underdeveloped flags. i know some people didnt like the turn they went for with him in s2 where he became weeb supreme but i thought it was so funny 🙏 MR BUSHIDO LOVE. he also got a super cool custom ms so i gotta give it to him ... all & all as well, this guy then sacrificed himself, died a hero, and was so cool he just came back to life to become a new meister. how can any other guy in this beat THAT ☝️

for the rest of meisters, i am sorry everyone. i did not care about setsuna that much </3 i acknowledge him and his greatness and how much hes helped multiple people here, but whenever they just wanted to mirror setsuna and saji i always ended up being more interested in saji im sorry 😭 ; allelujah is a little guy i just felt sorry for the entire time for literally everything . all the way from the start from the debacle with tieria that was so crazy to the hallelujah struggles to then having to also struggle with soma 😭 this guys just the real struggler. the supreme struggler of all time. i hope he gets some rest he really needs it asap ; lyle i used to not like because of . how he even started off in the scene with feldt </3 AND I LOVE FELDT like get ur hands off her omg ... but he did grow from then and i think hes pretty epic now, him killing off ali was also super satisfying in the end of it all :)

for the rest of ptolemy, talked briefly about feldt above, i think shes great but also her changing crushes between meisters was so funny 😭 like you go girlie i guess ... ! she tried her best . her holding the crew in such high regards as her own family was very wholesome 🥺 LICHTY 😭 lichty was so funny too and. well. LIKE I GET IT i get the drama that went down in s1 but i wish it didnt have to end like that skllwmegj😭😭😭😭 i wish theyd just have a near death experience and then him and chris could just get to be happy together after but i guess not 😔 sumeragi & kati's intertwined backstories we got to know more of thru s2 were really cool to see, and billy's love for her punched me and kicked me into a wall. this man loved her SO much its unreal . hes such a good guy 😭 (which it kind of ticks me off he ended up with mina ........... LIKE COULD YOU GUYS NOT FIND A MORE NORMAL PERSON FOR HIM 😭 i think he deserved better but thats just my personal opinion ... im sure theres a lot of people out there who want mina right NOW and would disagree. so this ones for u guys . if u think shes epic and cool then i guess he got peak ! good for him) ; other unmentioned members i had no real big opinion on 😭😭😭😭 i sometimes even forget lasse exists i am sorry . hes done nothing wrong just left absolutely no opinion on me 🙇‍♀️

now im not gonna detail THE REST as well but again i literally hold everyone in high or at least neutral regard from ali to whatever the name of the a-laws blond evil guy was im sorry 🙏 the only two i can even say i dislike in the slightest are mileina and alejandro 😭 which is such a duo out of every character in this to tie together . i know . but yeah i hope you enjoyed the sumi rambles 00 NO INNOVADES edition 👍👍 i tried to be as true to myself and my opinions as possible so heres all of them . on paper. digital tumblr paper

[denimbex1986]

'Doctor Who just introduced a game-changing concept to the show’s lore: bigeneration. So what is bigeneration, and how will it impact the franchise going forward?

Bigeneration debuted in the final Doctor Who 60th anniversary special, “The Giggle,” during the climactic showdown between the Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant) and the Toymaker (Neil Patrick Harris).

Here, the Doctor is fatally wounded by the Toymaker and starts regenerating. The Doctor’s apparent regeneration is ultimately a fake-out, though, as the Time Lord doesn’t transform into his next incarnation.

Instead, our hero splits into two separate beings – the Fourteenth Doctor and the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) – in a first for the Doctor Who franchise...

What is bigeneration in Doctor Who?

Bigeneration is a variation of the Time Lord race’s regeneration ability. As its name suggests, it results in a regenerating Time Lord continuing to co-exist alongside their future self.

According to the Fifteenth Doctor, Time Lord society always considered bigeneration a myth, and “The Giggle” doesn’t explicitly reveal why the Fourteenth Doctor experiences it. That said, the Toymaker’s reality-bending presence – which can make the impossible possible – was likely a contributing factor.

It’s also unclear exactly how connected past and present incarnations are post-bigeneration, although the Fifteenth Doctor displays full knowledge of the Fourteenth Doctor’s history. The Fifteenth Doctor also indicates that he’ll also benefit from any new memories or personal growth that the Fourteenth Doctor experiences, describing this as doing “rehab backwards.”

Whether the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors will co-exist forever is also a grey area for now. Doctor Who fans debated this topic shortly after “The Giggle” aired, with many convinced that the Fourteenth Doctor will eventually merge with his successor.

How does bigeneration affect existing Doctor Who canon?

Interestingly, showrunner Russell T Davies recently revealed the Fourteenth Doctor’s bigeneration had a knock-on effect for the Time Lord’s predecessors.

In his commentary for “The Giggle” (via Radio Times), Davies indicated that “a whole timeline bigenerated… I think all of the Doctors came back to life with their individual TARDISes, the gift of the Toymaker. And they’re all out there traveling round in what I’m calling a Doctor verse.”

This tracks with the Tales of the TARDIS spinoff series, in which the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) chalks up his presence to timeline-related shenanigans. “Time streams are funny things,” he says in the sixth episode. “In some, I regenerate. In others, I don’t.”

So, in theory, this means there’s no longer a single, unified Doctor Who timeline. It also leaves the door open for future multi-Doctor adventures. Even so, fans shouldn’t expect to see Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor again any time soon, as Davies described the character as “parked.”'

[monstraduplicia]

hiii I saw your beautiful Brother moodboards and I so relate to your feelings for Reb and falling for screwed up, irredeemable (fictional) killers, do you have a little list of characters with the same vibe? 👉👈

aaaaaa!! you've come to the right place 💜 fucked up little guys are literally my favorite so I have loooooads of recs (and yes i love rebel hes my bestest boy my lapdog my lovely lil killer so you def have good taste)

as for books i would recommend American psycho (patrick bateman is a very funny guy just like. what if we gave the most obviously closeted rich guy a knife), and then my favorite books of all time: lost souls (zillah, molochai, and twig are my favorite vampire serial killers. especially zillah. hes like a irredeemable, more manipulative lestat), drawing blood (trev is very similar to Michael in that he's reluctant to use violence and yet drawn to it), and of course i have to mention exquisite corpse tho it's not my favorite (two serial killers fall in love) all by poppy z brite!!! lost souls and drawing blood are so amazing theyre much more like. goth but they are still southern gothic so its not a huge stretch from brother

now as for movie murder boys!! "chained" of course bc it is the film that inspired brother (rabbit my beloved), the cell (Carl my beloved), deadgirl (one of my favorite films of all time and jt reminds me sooooo much of rebel), frailty (murder AND brother conflict AND father/son conflict), creep 1 and 2, funny games (both the original and the American remake are good bc it was done by the same director. also I'm just a sucker for michael pitt), red dragon, house of wax, primal fear (roy is VERY rebel coded), like minds, the talented mr ripley, stoker, natural born killers, rope (a gay classic), murder by numbers, psycho (guys that love their mom so much they murder people is a favorite of mine), deranged 1974, the black phone, behind the mask the rise of Leslie Vernon, spree, and bennys video!! not all these guys specifically remind me of rebel, but they're fun murderers that i just adore <3

[pacifymebby]

Hey what are your favourite books? I’m so intrigued about what books you’ve talked about to musicians about, because I too have ripped into many an indie boy about only ever paying attention to Bukowski hahah so relate

Hiiii!!! This is my favourite thing to talk about so thank I for the ask <3

So I'm not gonna lie, for all I rip into indie boys for Bukowski, some of my favourite books are by people just as bad morally haha

Also this is gonna be longggg because my taste varies so much

I think my favourite books/most treasured/ almost always guaranteed to have one of these in my bag at all times are:

🌿 Quite Early One Morning/Dylan Thomas

Man's a genius when it comes to a vivid, touching, somewhat haunted short story, there's so much life and spirit in every single memory he tells, and if you listen to him reading his own stories you feel them hit all the harder. Something really homely and cosy and I read them whenever I'm feeling sad. This little books been all over with me.

🌿The Dear Green Place / Archie Hind

When I lived down in England with my gran, I'd phone B when I was sad and he'd read down the phone to me, usually Scottish faerie tales and stuff but also this from time to time and then he gave me a copy one day and I read in cover to cover in a day or two whilst travelling and like, this is one of the ones a mean when I talk about like, "nothingy books that are sad af but beautiful, Bukowski take notes.." because it's just about a working class man living in poverty, he meets the love of his life and they marry and they live in poverty, he's desperately trying to be a writer, nothing works out for them, it's miserable, its bleak, it's fucking beautifully written, it captures the hope in being hopeless, it touches your own sadness and idk, also the man just describes industrial Glasgow beautifully. It's just beautiful. (Also no one gets raped, he doesn't think women are whores, he's a kind and mostly gentle man, it really shows you that not all men are like or think like Charles Bukowski which I think is v important)

🌿 God's Silence / Franz Wright (poetry)

Okay so, he's struggling with the death of his famous poet father, he's struggling with his faith, he's struggling with alcohol and feeling hopeless. Again melancholic, nihilistic but... well written, it actually makes you feel something, there's imagery, you can picture stuff, there are lines that hit you in your chest and stay with you forever.

🌿 How Green Was My Valley / Richard Llewellyn

This is one of my dad's favourite books and he read it to me in bits when I was sick as a teenager. But I've read it so many times now too. The funniest thing I think about this is that the guy who wrote it claimed to have based it on his own experiences as a Welshman from a Welsh mining family, but he actually spent most of his life in England. I was always read this with a "isn't our country gorgeous, aren't these descriptions beautiful," kind of attitude and part of the reason I still love it is because it's true, just the first few pages where he's describing the valley are fucking lovely and really do make me a wee bit homesick but like, it's funny to me that the man was actually about as Welsh as me.

Books musicians recommended to me (I did not like all of these):

🌜 a few weeks ago an indie boy in a band went off on one about how Perfume by Patrick Suskind is his favourite novel of all time and I was actually probably a bit too mean but A) me and my dad are both in agreement that it's just not thattt interestingly written B) it's my ex's favourite book and C) guarantee this particular indie boy is only saying it's his favourite because it was Kurt Cobains favourite.

🌜 Hangover Square / Patrick Hamilton

A member of the libertines recced this to me when I was extremely drunk about 7ish years ago haha, like drunk enough that I don't remember which one I was talking to, but he was really laying it on thick about how much he'd enjoyed reading it (I honestly think he'd just finished it because he gave me the copy out his pocket which is either like, he always keeps a book to give to girls he's chattin up or he'd just finished it idk) anyway I didn't read it for ages afterwards but then when I did I was actually like oh shit this is quite good actually. It's very dark but also quite amusing in a similar way to all the Russian stuff, like bad shits happening to the protagonist but the protagonist is a bad person so you're enjoying it I guess.

🌜 Lolita / Vladimir Nabokov

Okay so as much as we all know Lolita to be that book, there's no denying it's incredibly beautifully written, the prose is gorgeous (purposefully so because famously Nabokov was laughing at the stupid Americans he said would praise anything if you dressed it up nice enough, even noncing)

This was another rec from my "wants to be a groupie coquette" days and I'm not gonna say who it was who recommended it to me, but they read me some of it and went on a little rant about how lovely they thought it was. And I laughed at them later when I was reading it because I was like wow, you're the person this mans laughing at wow. BUT I'm also eternally grateful to them for turning me onto Nabokov when I was like 16 because Nabokov turned me onto all the other Russians and also Nabokov wrote one of my favourite books ever also. So I owe alot to the older man in the indie band who should not have been talking to me lol.

🌜 Ham on Rye / Charles Bukowski

So! Many! Men! Told me to read this book or other Bukowski books and I tried really hard with the man's poetry and stuff but fucking hell, I can't do it... I just don't think you can go from idolising Ginsburg's "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked..." to Bukowski's "People run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water," and accept the latter as a genius because like, those poems are essentially about the same hopelessness that swept up several American generations and yet one of them captures the devastation and the hideous romance of it all and one is making snide comments about baths.

🌜Bright Dead Things / Ada Limon

This is actually one of my favourite poetry collections of all time, it's gorgeous and emotional and you will be so unsurprised to find out that it was a woman who recommended it to me, she also went off on a long and loving rant about Sylvia Plath, it was lovely. Best post gig convo ever.

🌜 Just Kids / Patti Smith

Okay Patti Smith is fine right, but every feminist boy in an indie band is going to rec this to you as proof that he reads books by women. She is good though, I didn't finish the book but that's because I started reading Touching From a Distance/Deborah Curtis at the same time and got my heart trashed so badly I couldn't pick up a book for a month afterwards.

🌜Touching From a Distance / Deborah Curtis

The man who lent me this one actually had really good taste in books and put me onto a lot of good authors (Max Porter - read Lanny - , Amalie Smith, Emma Glass, Fernanda Trias, Victoria Kennefick - eat or we both starve is very good poetry - Daisy Johnson) he's really into his musician biographies as well and he's recommended a few good ones over the years. But this is by far the best one, it's really heart wrenching and it tells the story of a family getting let down time and time again but the government/social care and healthcare in Britain and just, idk, it doesn't glamorise Ian Curtis and it doesn't dismiss any of the bad shit he did, it doesn't paint him as a lovely wouldn't hurt a fly kind of man. But it does give you a lot of insight into a complicated and painful set of experiences, and honestly I think it's written simply and beautifully too.

🌜 Homage To Catalonia / George Orwell

I'm literally just including this to let you know that if a man tells you to read George Orwell run a fucking mile. This is by far the better of his books I've read but Orwell's just a classic shitty misogynist with an inability to even write that stuff in a pretty way. Like I think the fact that he himself was very privileged and constantly trying to convince the world that be actually wasn't, and that he was really interesting just shines through so hard. You sorta read it and you don't get any of the "this man understands me" you just get "this mans boring and wining about something his rich parents could totally fix" like, he doesn't have anything good to say because he doesn't feel idk.

Other big favourites of mine that I recommend to everyone ten times a day:

🍒 Glory / Vladimir Nabokov, The Double / Vladimir Nabokov

Honestly skip Lolita and go straight to the double because it's straight up incredible, it's black humour, self made catastrophes, your main character is bad and you see him cut about making trouble for himself and it's so entertaining and just a good read. Glory is amazing for the same reason. Nabokovs been done so dirty by heart shaped Lana girls (ME!) And the men who fancy them.

🍒 Elena Ferrante / My Brilliant Friend and the rest of the Neopolitan Quartet

These are for the girls and possibly the men who want to understand the girls. It's like This Is What Makes Us Girls but set in post war Italy in a poor neighbourhood, it follows two girls who are best friends who's different lives drag them apart and push them together. It will make you feel things, it will make you write a letter to your childhood best friend, you will want to call your mother and get to know her etc. It's so so good, there's drama, there's emotion, it's not an overly complicated book full of long words so you find yourself really gripped and hooked in without having to concentrate which is great.

🍒 Tropic of Cancer/Capricorn / Henry Miller

Of all the horrific cunts out there he's the worst (apart from William Burroughs because as far as I know Henry Miller never murdered his wife?)

But he was a misogynist, he was a racist, he was just a total lowlife HOWEVER

All is forgiven (joke) because there are some heavenly passages in these two books, I remember being so breath taken when I was reading these as a sad stoned late teens girl in my lonely little London flat. I lay on my rug getting high and read these two in like 3 days and I kept crying cause the words were so fucking pretty. If Bukowski had ever written anything this pretty I'd have forgiven him for being such a pervert.

Trigger warning though, you have to be really careful with Henry miller because there's heavy violence against women in some of his books (I don't remember there being much in these tbh, just explicit but consensual sex in these two) but in some of his others he talks about raping women or beating them and it's unpleasant. He was for sure a deeply unpleasant human being. Very good writer though.

🍒The Unbearable Lightness of Being / Milan Kundera

I only read this one last winter, I was miserable and feeling like I needed to press on the emotional bruise and this book really did the trick.

Again, the main character is a womanising cunt and I would say if you ever meet a man who reminds you of him then run as fast as you can. However there's just so much beautifully written sorrow in it and again, there were passages that stole my breath away or made me swallow a lump in my throat or just straight up gasp on the train home from work.

"But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously the image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?"

"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine."

I remember I underlined a lot in this book and like just searching for the passages I loved most has made me want to read it again.

🍒 The Bell Jar / Sylvia Plath

I just don't think I'd be a nymphet girlie on Tumblr if I didn't tell everyone that reading this book when I was just starting to feel the strain of uni was like, being hit with an emotional freight train and being relieved that it had hit me because that meant someone else had felt the same thing as me in the past. No one's going to write better about the intimate pain of womanhood than women I guess. The expectations everyone has on you to be bright young and beautiful like, no man's ever tapping into that no matter how empathetic they may be.

🍒 The Pachinko Parlour / Elisa Shua Dusapin

Similar to Sylvia Plath, there's just somet really touching and homely comforting when you read women in their late teens early twenties being lost and melancholic and wasting their life away and not achieving as much as they were supposed to, when you're a woman doing all of those things too. And that's what I am and what I was when I read this. The books written quite basically but not primitively, the sentences are all very simple but all the more touching for their simplicity I think.

🍒 Tristessa / Jack Kerouac

When I am miserable I put on Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and I lie in bed, languishing, reading this. It's literally just a real tragic story of love withering to loss and like, it's beat generation, and its written by an alcoholic wanker but, he's a sentimental, nostalgic wanker with a talent for making you feel sentimental and nostalgic for lives you never lived.

I'd also recommend Maggie Cassidy by the same man, his shorter novellas are really good and nowhere near as overwhelming as On The Road. Though On The Road is a good read if you have the time and patience for it.

🍒 The Dangers of Smoking In Bed / Mariana Enriquez

Some of the scariest short stories I've ever read fucked me up good and proper but also kick started my horror revival.

🍒 Rebecca / Daphne Du Maurier

Gothic and haunting but romantic too and she really really hits you in the chest when it comes to fancying gloomy older men who make you feel like a little girl. Again though her descriptions and sense of place are captivating, everything's vivid, you can really picture yourself in the gardens at Manderly. It's beautiful and dramatic and yeah, I love it. I read it at the height of a heatwave but I think it would also be a good autumn read tbh.

🍒 Wuthering Heights / Emily Brontë

Definitely read it when it gets cold and autumnal and gloomy. The books peak gloom. You hate every character and yet you feel their pain and root for them too. Idk I read it in the winter when I was sulking and at home in bed with a fever and it was really good, I've read it three times since haha.

🍒 Little Birds /Anaïs Nin

If you're gonna read Henry Miller you should read Anaïs Nin because she was his better half. She wrote erotica which men sent back complaining she ought to "cut the poetry" some of its very shocking but erotica back in the day was very much about challenging people and subverting the literary worlds expectation for art and stuff. I honestly think it's pretty feminist to read Anaïs Nin, as a teenage girl I think she taught me a lot about sexuality and definitely was how I learned sexuality isn't a masculine thing, that women's pleasure and desire is a fcking art form.

I will be straight up here and say with my whole chest that I haven't read enough women. When I was a teenager doing most of my reading I was reading the beat generation and the beats don't have many famous female writers among them because major sexism of the time meant that if a man went off and did drugs became a bum and lived the bohemian lifestyle he could be Jack Kerouac and be hailed a charming but gloomy tender author. When women did this they got carted off to institutions by their parents or became rhe victims of severe domestic violence. So for a long time I wasn't reading women because it didn't fit the genre I was into.

Then when I got back into horror I got deep into feminist horror but like, some of that is the likes of The Bloody Chamber which I read and HATED. I think basically what it is is that men who are good get published way more but also talked about way way more. Women who are good get published but not as often and when they do they get talked about less. Some of the best stuff I've ever read has been written by women but it's only in the last ten years started being translated because a lot of its from foreign countries and the literary worlds not long since stopped only publishing white men.

Anyways sorry for such a long post!!! If anyone decides to read any of these then let me know what you think of them!!!!

[greenlikethesea]

Song recs for sleepover night!!! Also what’s your favorite song off folie a deux and why?

song recs for sleepover night!

fast in my car - paramore

shawty - remi wolf

antonia - motion city soundtrack

fine without you - best coast

ex-factor - lauryn hill

dead oaks - now, now

on the regular - shamir

garden song - phoebe bridgers

nibble nibble - say anything

my nene - mykki blanco

west coast - the forecast

bad - tablo ft jinsil

trash - bully

like a pen - the knife

the worst - jhene aiko

blood infections - frank iero

mercury - bloc party

clementine - halsey

anxiety - megan thee stallion

jealous - ingrid michaelson

my favorite songs off folie a deux are she's my winona, tiffany blews, and w.a.m.s!

i love she's my winona lyrically -- few things have described how i experience mental illness quite like "i'm never the same person when i go to sleep/as when i wake up, as when i wake up". i think the contrast between the fast paced, racing verses, with a lack of cohesive prechorus, into a sweeping and triumphant chorus, "hell or glory/i don't want anything in between," creates a dynamic, intriguing song that has me hitting repeat. i think this song, out of all of the songs on this album, is the closest to nonfiction that we get, the closest the listener gets to seeing pete as himself as opposed to the many characters that he writes from the perspective of in this album. and we LOVE a key change.

tiffany blews is interesting on a lot of levels -- i think it really shows how funny pete wentz can be as a lyricist ("i'm not a crybaby/i'm THE crybaby" is objectively hilarious, because relatable as fuck -- hey now, if you're gonna make fun of me do it right, etc etc) and i think the lil wayne guest is their most important and best guest to date, only followed by big sean in the mighty fall, and contains lyrics that are so so so "not the boy i was/the boy i am is just venting, venting/dear gravity/you held me down in this starless city" . as well as this it's SO musically engaging, patrick deconstructing the traditional song structure by having the big pause in the beginning pre-chorus and the subsequent pre-choruses flowing into the main chorus as a meta commentary on the lyrical content, the feature completely changing the mood of the song with arrangement/tempo/melody.

w.a.m.s. is, like jetset life by mcr, completely inscrutable lyrically and musically, and also contains some of the meanest pete lyrics to date, because it's simultaneously mature and immature "oh freckle, freckle, what makes you so special? what makes you so special? i'm gonna leave you, i'm gonna teach you, how we're all alone." the lyrics themselves are damning, very bare and psychologically telling, but patrick's anguished, almost sniveling delivery really seals the deal with its vindictiveness. plus -- mayhaps my hottest take yet -- but i think the spoken word at the end is far superior to the spoken word at the end of "get busy living or get busy dying" by a LONG SHOT. it's mature. it's unnerving. it's a man at the brink, and it actually flows into west coast smoker, unlike the abrupt beginning of "xo".

[moonbear-from-space]

New and mostly interesting Venom 3 news and more :]

Okay, let's get this one outta the way first.

The plot of Venom 3 quote on quote has been leaked onto Reddit, but I'm gonna say this now, it's likely fake unless some bits of it could be real or an early draft of said story. But please take that with a massive grain of salt.

But other news that is true but still very vague, Juno Temple will be in Venom 3. No one knows who she will play but people have theories that she will be one of the female symbiotes like Scream or Agony, Patrick Mulligan's wife. Maybe even Mary Brock? Aka Eddie's sister but not really because that was only in Eddie's false memories by Venom and fabricated them into his mind. But anyways we shall see what role she's gonna take part in. Next Owen Wilson of all people for some reason will also be joining the third movie. He will be playing a character named Mobius originally from the Fantastic Four comics. But its MCU counterpart is from the Loki series. [I haven't seen that series yet and I want to but haven't gotten around to it so forgive on that one.] I'm curious to see how that one plays out.

Lastly not related to Venom 3 but still somewhat related to Venom and something kinda funny I wanted to share. I'm just gonna leave you all with this from Topher Grace with this quote tweet. It likely means nothing and was just a silly joke but half of me is like it's some subtle, cryptic hint of him returning as Venom again?

Probably not... but oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But yeah thanks for reading these dumb news updates I do whenever something new happens I'm likely gonna do more of these when more info comes out on Venom 3 and they're fun to do overall.

[dankusner]

BOOKS Dispatches from the shadows

PR pro dishes on his shady dealings with some notable names

Meet Phil Elwood, an insider’s insider of Washington.

A public relations professional, he has stealthily managed challenging assignments over the years, from Qatar’s contested World Cup bid to Vogue ’s disastrous 2011 profile of Bashar al-Assad’s wife, Asma.

His passion is controlling the narrative — leveraging valuable intelligence and his media savvy to deliver for clients.

And oh, what a client list it is.

Under the surface, though, Elwood is a wreck.

Diagnosed with depression when he dropped out of college, he self-medicated with booze (and more) as he built his Washington career, battling a succession of mental health crises that culminated in a suicide attempt.

After recovering from that episode, he’s telling his story in

All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians ,

an account that’s part therapy, part cautionary tale.

What makes Elwood’s story stand out from the typical Washington read is that his personal demons are so intertwined with his professional choices.

Most dramatic is his realization at the end of the story that his addiction to adrenaline — the power rush from working behind the scenes — is also a feature of his bipolar II disorder, which led him to the edge.

The book also pops because it’s funny — despite everything.

Elwood’s prose is zippy, even Sorkin-esque, and he relishes dark humor.

“Karl Marx said religion was the opium of the people,” Elwood writes in a section about becoming addicted to pain medication following a serious hip injury. “You know what’s a lot more like the opium of the people? Opiates.”

Elwood’s D.C. journey began in the summer of 2000.

Even though he blew up his college career, he finagled a Senate internship with Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) with the help of a well-connected friend, then landed in the office of Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

Through Levin’s pull, he completed his formal education, then launched his professional life in Washington PR.

His lucky breaks made it clear to him how unfair the system can be.

He soon landed a job at Brown Lloyd James, the PR shop headed by former Beatles manager Peter Brown with a long client list of what Elwood deems the “worst humans,” including Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Needless to say, the job gave Elwood the excitement he craved.

Except that it was a bit too exciting.

One of Elwood’s wildest tales took place in 2009, when, he writes, Brown dispatched him to Las Vegas with Mutassim Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator, to make sure he and his entourage stayed out of the headlines while they had fun.

There were drugs, guns, a Cher concert (Mutassim was a fan) and lots of gambling.

A terrified Elwood realized that if anyone in this brutal, unhinged gang wanted to kill him, they’d probably get away with it.

He left Las Vegas relieved to be alive, only to be told he was needed in New York.

This time, it was Mutassim’s father, Moammar Gaddafi, whom BLJ had to (try to) manage during his notorious appearance at the U.N. General Assembly, as part of his short-lived rehabilitation phase with the West.

Tasked with housing and other logistics, the firm scrambled to organize a massive tent on the Bedford, N.J., estate of Donald Trump (the only willing host, according to Elwood) and find a sacrificial goat for the Libyan delegation, just to name a few to-do list items.

Elwood recounts that his moral angst and self-doubt became more acute in 2010 when he was part of Qatar’s successful effort to beat the United States in its bid to host the 2022 World Cup — a FIFA decision so controversial that the Justice Department eventually investigated.

He was further shaken on a business trip to Bosnia, where he visited the site of a Bosnian Serb massacre of Muslim civilians and was “confronted with the gritty reality of totalitarian power.”

He didn’t have to ponder too long; upon his return, Elwood recalls, Brown told him, “The Arab Spring has been bad for our business model,” and fired him.

Elwood then landed at Levick Strategic Communications.

There the clients were less brutal, but some were still, in Elwood’s assessment, dodgy; he cites the example of Kim Dotcom, a hacker and internet entrepreneur who has had decades of run-ins with the law.

Eventually, Elwood started his own shop.

This time, he worked with an Israeli firm, Psy-Group, that became ensnared in the Mueller investigation for allegedly pitching an election influence campaign to Trump’s team in 2016.

Elwood was questioned by the government but let go — and deftly managed to keep his name out of the press.

Another close brush.

One of the juiciest parts of Elwood’s story is his work with the media.

Early on, after he negotiated with CNN to air a strategically useful clip, he describes an “aha” moment:

“My job isn’t to manipulate public opinion. My job is to get gatekeepers like CNN to do it for me.”

This sounds cynical, but what he describes is an exchange in which both sides mutually benefit.

Elwood has an innate understanding of how journalists work and genuinely respects them.

He makes that clear as he spills details of his tradecraft: working with reputable reporters at top publications (he divulges a long A-list of names), selectively picking outlets for maximum impact and exploiting the “scoopiness” that journalists prize in exchange for results for his clients.

He describes this quid pro quo as a form of “insider trading” but points out that valuable information in Washington, like all commodities, is appraised and traded on a market.

And information is valuable only if it’s true, or at least true-ish.

To that end, he counsels his fellow PR flacks against trading in bad information — reminding them that good journalists will quickly detect lies when they are handed to them.

Elwood is a troubled but sympathetic narrator, and most readers will probably find themselves relieved to know that, at the end, he’s in a better place.

He closes his story lurking in the background, as a black rectangle on a Zoom call with clients.

But this time, he says, he’s working for “the good guys.”

All the Worst Humans How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians Phil Elwood Henry Holt, $28.99

All the Worst Humans Author: Phil Elwood

CHAPTER 1

Of Marble and Giants

EIGHTEEN YEARS EARLIER, JULY 2000

The halls of the Capitol Building are empty this morning.

The clinks of the liquor bottles in the hand truck I’m pushing are the only sound.

I love being alone here, marveling at marble columns propping up carved ceilings.

Under the massive dome of the Rotunda, paintings tell the mythology of early America.

In Statuary Hall, I nod to a bronze statue of Huey Long, an assassinated senator who some consider a hero, others a criminal, and then enter a wood-paneled corridor.

Spiral staircases of iron and marble materialize out of dark corners.

I maneuver the bottles past unmarked doors that lead to the hideaway offices of Senators Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, and Ted Kennedy.

Senators steal away to these coveted havens to host meetings they’d rather not have eyeballed by reporters or to nap after marathon debates.

The booze is heavy, and I’m out of breath when I reach Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s hideaway.

Vodka soda sweat leaks through my cheap, white collared shirt.

We interns were out late at Politiki bar last night.

I let myself in and head for the brass bar cart.

Fifths of whiskey, gin, scotch, and Tio Pepe sherry, Moynihan’s favorite, get loaded in and lined up.

When I’m finished, I sit on a leather couch dyed the same dark mahogany as the regal desk and spark up a Camel.

Moynihan is a fellow smoker.

His hideaway reeks of tobacco.

The hundred or so hideaways in the Capitol are passed down through handshake deals.

Seniority rules, and sitting on the Finance Committee doesn’t hurt.

Junior senators fight over windowless basement rooms the size of utility closets and furnished with cots.

Moynihan has earned a view of Pennsylvania Avenue and space for ten people to sip cocktails.

Standing under an oil painting, I pull back the cream-colored curtains and take it all in.

I imagine the senator from New York in here, lighting up, pouring a tumbler of Tio Pepe, and telling stories about the presidents he has advised.

Sitting in the private office of a Senate demigod still doesn’t feel real.

I’m a twenty-year-old college dropout whose only credentials are a job at a Mexican restaurant and a cocaine problem.

The rest of my intern class are the kids of campaign donors and New York City’s financial glitterati.

My dad is a pastor in the other Washington.

He preaches to a congregation in Olympia.

Six months ago, I was a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh on a debate scholarship.

Debate is about speed.

Being able to talk fast was the prerequisite for entry.

On weekends, I traveled to universities around the nation to argue about what policies would lead to nuclear war.

Rapid-fire reading of news clippings scored points in a round.

So did biting insults lodged at your opponent in an attempt to trap them in a rhetorical mishap.

You won by manipulating the news and calling it “evidence” to advance your argument.

I won a lot.

My grades were nearly perfect until I started working nights as a cook at Mad Mex.

The waiters survived on a diet of wings and cocaine.

One night, one of them noticed that I seemed a bit down and he offered me a pick-me-up from his bag.

It worked.

For fifteen minutes.

Three months later, I was failing five out of five courses.

I don’t believe I attended one.

The week before finals, I called my older brother in a panic.

He jumped on a plane to Pittsburgh.

We debated my options.

I tried to advance the argument for my brother taking my finals.

It was raining when we went to the registrar’s office and filled out the forms.

The first Elwood to drop out of college.

My parents collected me at SeaTac airport.

I deplaned drunk on whiskey and clutching a plush toy of Opus the Penguin, from Berkeley Breathed’s comic strip.

My father shook his head and made me see a shrink.

I snowballed my way through the sessions.

Left out the cocaine use.

The shrink informed me that I was suffering from “situational depression.”

“Since you are removed from the situation,” she explained. “The problem must be resolved.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

It didn’t.

And the depression didn’t lift.

A childhood friend, who I’ll call Preston, worried that I had no prospects after dropping out of school, threw me a lifeline.

His college classmate Eric, a trust fund kid, worked in Washington, DC, as Senator Moynihan’s aide.

If he liked me, Eric could get me an internship on the Hill.

I called Eric, and he told me to meet him the next Tuesday, at 10 p.m., at 1823 M Street.

“Northwest M Street, the one near the White House,” he said. “Do you have a fake ID?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Bring it. You’ll need it in DC,” Eric said. “Your official interview will be on the Hill the next day. But this one is more important. I vet the interns for the staff.”

My parents bought me a suit at the mall, and I flew to Washington.

Résumé in hand, I cabbed it to a redbrick building with blacked-out windows on M Street.

My fake ID fooled the bouncer.

Inside, Ice Cube’s “You Can Do It” played as a dancer sprayed Windex on the pole before taking off her underwear.

A topless woman asked if I wanted some singles.

Eric wasn’t hard to spot.

He was the only other guy wearing a suit in the strip club on a Tuesday night.

He chugged a Bud Light at a table with a clear view of the stage.

I handed him my résumé.

He gave it to a dancer in a neon-yellow G-string.

“Relax,” he said, sliding me a beer. “You met me at Camelot on a Tuesday night. You passed the test.”

In Moynihan’s hideaway, I kill my cigarette and flush it down the toilet.

I lock up, push the empty hand truck past Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s office, and ride an elevator down to the basement.

I flash my badge to a guard, cut through the crypt under the Rotunda, and head into the Capitol Hill Tunnels.

I love these underground passageways, that feeling of special access.

I walk the pedestrian pathway alongside a miniature subway trolley modeled after the Disney World Monorail.

A group of congressional aides are taking the two-minute ride, briefcases on their laps.

To my right, I spot Sen. Fred Thompson.

“Good afternoon, Senator,” I say. “Die Hard Two was on TNT last night.”

“Was it really?” he replies in the deep southern drawl that was so out of place when he played a New York district attorney on NBC’s Law & Order. “Walk me back to my office.”

On the twenty-minute trip to the Hart Building, Thompson asks whether I think DC or Hollywood is the more terrifying place.

I argue in favor of Hollywood.

The Capitol doesn’t frighten me.

Just the opposite.

From the moment I set foot in DC, I knew I was home.

The Hill is a real-world version of debate team.

Everyone talks fast, and there are winners, losers, and nukes.

Last week, I had a drink with Sen. Russ Feingold, who told me stories of working with John McCain and Carl Levin on trying to pass campaign finance reform.

I’ve gone from bussing tables at a Mexican restaurant in Pittsburgh to rubbing elbows with senators.

I never want to leave.

I weave through redbrick-walled tunnels back toward Moynihan’s staff office in the Russell Building.

Discarded and broken office furniture lines the bowels of the Capitol Hill office buildings.

I pass the Senate barbershop, where I recently got a bad haircut sitting next to Majority Leader Lott.

A quick elevator ride up from the basement takes me to Russell’s fourth floor, where I drop off the hand truck and head down a flight of stairs to a private parking lot.

Two interns are already out here smoking.

The senior senator from Michigan Carl Levin’s beaten-up blue Oldsmobile sticks out among the rows of luxury sedans.

I smoke another Camel and watch Kit Bond of Missouri climb out of a black town car.

Kay Bailey Hutchison struts by, followed by her “purse boys,” two young, attractive male aides who carry her luxury bags around Capitol Hill.

When senators bum a smoke before hustling to their next meeting, I feel like a young Henry Hill parking cars for Paulie’s crew in Goodfellas.

It’s almost four o’clock.

In this town, the most important hour is happy hour.

I head back out into the muggy city, down First Street, passing the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress, where 3,700 boxes of Moynihan’s personal papers have been kept for posterity.

It’s the largest one-man collection in the library, Moynihan’s legislative director recently told me over whiskey and Cokes at the Capitol Lounge.

At Pennsylvania Avenue, a helicopter buzzes across the sky.

The pilot shadows a motorcade of black SUVs careening downtown, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

When the street clears, I duck into the Hawk ’n’ Dove.

I nurse a vodka soda, holding a good table with a view of the TVs, tuned to CNN.

Just like the hideaway office system, this place runs on dibs.

Soon the bar will be teaming with staffers from both sides of the aisle.

They will drink, party, date, and sometimes put together bipartisan legislation.

Tables are valuable currency.

As an intern, I take it as my sacred duty to make sure the staff doesn’t have to stand at the bar.

At five o’clock, Moynihan’s staff trickles into Hawk ’n’ Dove in ascending order of the food chain.

Legislative correspondents arrive first, along with the rest of the interns.

An hour later, the legislative assistants claim their seats.

Then come the legislative director and, finally, around seven, Moynihan’s chief of staff.

His blue suit is rumpled, and he looks exhausted.

In his hand is today’s “clip sheet,” a binder compiling daily press filings that mention our boss.

The interns create it each morning by cutting apart the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the hyper-local weeklies and meticulously underlining Moynihan’s name.

“Thanks for holding down the fort, Phil,” the chief of staff says. “Look at this. Hillary Clinton is going to walk into Moynihan’s seat. Rick Lazio doesn’t stand a chance.”

I’ve landed in Moynihan’s office just in time.

He’s about to retire after twenty-four years in the Senate.

The alumni list from his office reads like a who’s who of Washington, DC—and they help each other out.

I spent the rest of the summer helping them out by following the legislative director’s instructions:

“Do anything we ask. And do it with a smile. Even if it’s not part of your job. Even if it’s weird.”

I take his words to heart.

Moynihan’s staff takes a shine to me because I volunteer to huff cartloads of Tio Pepe and get menial intern tasks done at my restaurant pace.

There are two ways to go about a career here: get in deeper or get out.

I know one thing: I’m never leaving Washington.

But a college dropout’s trajectory is limited; I need a degree.

Before my internship ends, I apply to George Washington University.

I draft my own letter of recommendation, and Moynihan’s chief of staff, for whom I’ve held tables all summer at half the bars in town, signs it.

“Motivated and gifted with his words, Phil Elwood will make a valuable addition to your storied university.”

I wake up in a holding cell.

Two cops yank me into an interrogation room and slam me with the accusation that I drunkenly crashed through a window at GWU’s Gelman Library.

I can’t remember last night, but my throbbing head and the cuts on my body indicate that the police are telling the truth.

I’m frog-marched into a sheriff’s van and handcuffed to the floor.

I stand in front of a judge, who tells me he knows I’m very sorry for what I’ve done and that I will never do it again.

He slaps me on the wrist with twenty hours of community service.

Later, I hear that Moynihan’s office made a call.

A few days after I get home from central booking, a thin letter arrives from George Washington.

I am no longer welcome on campus.

I’m certain I’ll be excommunicated from DC.

I’ll have to return to Olympia.

My parents will once again watch their son emerge at the Arrivals gate holding his plush toy Opus the Penguin, like a deadbeat Sisyphus.

Instead, I’m promoted.

Moynihan’s office makes one call, and I’m hired as a legislative correspondent for the senior senator from Michigan, Carl Levin.

The happy hours continue.

It’s amazing I get anything done with all the booze.

Toward the end of my first year, the chief of staff hauls me into his office.

“I strongly suggest you get a college degree,” he says. “George Washington is off the table, clearly. What about Georgetown?”

Given my high school C average, Georgetown should be off the table, too.

But it turns out Levin has considerable influence with the university.

One letter from the senator and I’m accepted as a transfer student.

I realize this is how the world works, or at least how this world does.

It is not a meritocracy.

In the basement office of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, staffers drop off crates of documents.

“Go through these. Look for anything suspicious,” they instruct.

They leave to fetch more boxes.

Levin is leading an inquiry into the malfeasance of Enron’s board of directors.

Enron’s spectacular implosion has been a lead story on CNN for months.

Now Levin is making it his mission to codify the company’s wrongdoing into the national record.

I drink coffee with a team of lawyers who haven’t seen the light of day in weeks and sift through thousands of pages of emails with a highlighter.

Most of the material is banal talk about steakhouse lunches and corporate retreats.

Every few pages, I notice the obscene dollar amounts of Enron’s transactions.

Villains get paid in numbers with extra zeros.

On the day of the Enron hearings, I go watch the fireworks at the Hart Building.

A homeless man stands at the front of a long line stretching down Constitution Avenue.

I watch a sharky-looking guy in a jet-black suit hand the homeless man a ten-dollar bill and slide into his place.

Lobbyists have probably been pulling this trick since the Grant administration.

I flash my staff ID and follow the lobbyist past security and into the Senate hearing room, where I stand against the back wall.

Levin strides up to the dais in a baggy suit, the last of his hair combed over a sun-spotted scalp.

In 2013, BuzzFeed News will publish a list of the “23 Most Important Comb-overs of Congress.”

Levin will come in second place.

A man of the people.

He’s the hardest-working member of his staff.

I watch, rapt, as he rakes Herbert Winokur Jr., Enron’s Finance Committee chair, over the coals about a half-billion-dollar loan.

“Now, when you met with my staff, did you also tell my staff you did not have much recollection of that transaction?” Levin asks, peering down his glasses, pushed far down the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now that you have refreshed your recollections. Enron was borrowing a half a billion dollars from Citibank, but it did not show up on the balance sheet of Enron as debt but rather as preferred shares, which looked more like equity than debt. It was a loan disguised as equity in order to avoid showing debt on the books.”

“Sir, I believe it was accounted for as a consolidated subsidiary with a—”

Levin cuts him off. “Was it shown as a loan?”

“It was shown as—the entity was consolidated and the $500 million of Citibank was a minority interest.”

“But was it shown as a loan?”

Levin’s got him dead to rights.

I watch Winokur break. “No, sir.”

An exchange worthy of a headline.

I spot a gaggle of reporters taking notes at the side of the chamber.

As in a debate, they’ve got their evidence.

Now they’ll print it in tomorrow’s paper.

And some college debater will use the article as evidence in a round where the topic is “fiscal regulation.”

It’s codified into the record.

The truth, as far as anyone is concerned.

I’m fascinated by this bloodbath, particularly by the criminals on the witness stand.

Who helps them?

Who prepped them for this massacre?

Whoever it was, they aren’t good enough at their job.

Where’s the consistent messaging?

Why weren’t they expecting these questions?

Why aren’t they repeating the same five lines over and over and over?

Why are they just giving easy sound bites to the senator and the media?

I realize I’m probably the only person in the world who has this reaction to the Enron scandal.

I lean out into K Street, hailing a cab.

It’s the first week of summer.

School is out.

I’ve been barhopping with Hill staffers.

A yellow cab pulls up, and I attempt to hop over a Jersey barrier.

My foot catches the edge.

I spin as I fall to the curb.

I can’t walk.

I crawl into the cab’s backseat and tell the driver to take me to the nearest trauma center.

When we arrive at George Washington University’s ER, nurses put me in a wheelchair.

Three hours later, a tech looks at my X-ray, says, “Oh shit,” and starts to run out of the room.

I grab his arm.

Make him show me the image.

The ball of my hip is floating, completely separated from my femur.

I wake up sucking oxygen from a tube.

My mother is sitting in a chair next to the bed.

My mother lives on the other side of the country, so I figure something is probably wrong.

I don’t remember anything after looking at the X-ray.

I’m on crutches for a month.

Then I graduate to a cane.

For the rest of my life, I’ll walk with a slight limp.

And the three titanium screws in my hip will ache when the temperature dips below forty degrees.

A few months later, I skydive out of an airplane for the first time.

At a checkup, I inform my surgeon that he must have done some good work.

He is not pleased.

My parents fly in for Georgetown’s graduation ceremony.

They seem relieved that I made it to the finish line.

Levin writes yet another letter, and I’m accepted into the London School of Economics.

I live in a flat in Notting Hill, attending lectures on trade wars with the kids of prime ministers and international diplomats.

One day, I’m walking on campus when I pass a balding young man with hard eyes flanked by massive bodyguards.

I’ve heard about Saif Gaddafi.

The students whisper that he’s a dictator’s son.

I’ve heard we share a weed dealer.

In a few years, he’ll be one of my clients.

Long after I’ve been on his family’s payroll, the world will find out that Saif allegedly bought his PhD in philosophy from LSE with millions of pounds in bribes.

Howard Davies, the distinguished institution’s director, whose signature is on my diploma, will resign, disgraced.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

[murdrdocs]

Fun fact I have never watched bluey

But I will indulge now that you say it !!

and ur brave for American Psycho

I can't help but relate anything with that movie to "sigma males" so 💀💀 (the "I still need him" is so real)

You might like the kid in this movie tho, his name is Tye Sheridan (Cirk specifically u might like) but maybe I'm insane ‼️

-- 🎭

plz watch bluey one of my all time favorite episodes is season 1 episode 25 called taxi

also so real i just think its such a funny movie patrick is a little hilarious. and hot 😁

and my oscar obsession is near and with that comes watching his filmography so im gonna remember this for when that day comes