#one shot podcast network

[creationcast]

Our February series is underway! We invited Maso Perez to join us to learn about the official Boyfriend Dungeon TTRPG, Life on the Edge!

We were thrilled to learn about this unique game where you play as people who can turn into weapons, and it's as much about your relationships with one another as it is about fighting through some very personal dungeons where you wield one another in battle.

If you like what you hear on this episode, the rest of this month's series is up on our patreon! Check out episode 2 and 3 right here:

[lordneptune-rb]

The next Character Creation Cast episode is out! @phaedra220 joins @gingerreckoning and me to finish our characters for Sleepaway by Jay Dragon, a summer camp horror RPG that really pulls at your emotions.

If you missed the first episode of the series, catch that one right here. In this episode, we learned what Sleepaway is all about and we began creating our camp and our characters.

[threedroidsforsweetrevenge]

For this star wars day listen to campaign podcast. Go in your podcast listener of choice and type in campaign star wars one shot podcast. Become a new strain of mentally ill and transgender by listening to the crew of the mynock on the campaign podcast. By one shot podcast network.

[the-royal-blue-network]

The Bunker Boys Podcast

‘The Hall Monitors’ had warned them, they’d said that a war was coming to town, and it would rip apart homes and families, but no one believed them. The Bunker Boys, formally known as The Insomniacs, as well as everyone around them had written The Hall Monitors as old men who were slowly losing their marbles. But now The Hall Monitors are long gone, a civil war is ripping its way through Deston, and The Insomniacs now record their podcast in a bunker as bombs go off above them. How did they get there?

Click the title and find out now!

[inkskinned]

nobody ever gets the mugshot of gluttony right. these days you think it has nothing to do with bodyweight. what a good trick: that gluttony could take a shape. no, there was never any fault in finishing a meal or in taking second helpings. it was always in taking from others that there was an issue - the oil baron's fingers steepled over dead bodies and stolen lands. gluttony - twin of greed, although most think greed and envy are the siblings - gluttony is pleased with the experience of gaining, is thrilled just-by-having. greed is the one that stays hungry, that has to move forever like a shark. gluttony likes it - "a glutton for punishment" is one who is seeking the harm, who loves the rush.

gluttony is a mother using her daughter's body for a diet testing ground, sharpening the bone angles. gluttony is saying why, well not! to the seventh and eighth mansion or yacht. it is not just wanting the six white horses, it is making sure that the horses came from your stables. it is not just bathing in milk - it is bathing in milk while others are starving.

oh, it's true that some sins still blaze in their bright floral prints. wrath in a white woman yelling at a person of color for even daring to be in her neighborhood. the red, incipient rage of a neck tightened at even the thought we would take the guns away. wrath has laurels, and she is good at her job, and works hard.

but sloth wasn't ever the sleepy morning of depression, the hours spent begging a clouded body to please move goddamn it; the protestant work ethic claiming even rest is somehow demonic. it was never chronic fatigue. sloth was subtle, a grey mist. she is watching you get bullied and she is deciding it is none of her business. she crosses the picket line because - what! it's just chicken, isn't it? she is closing her eyes and turning her head when the next anti-gay legislation passes. someone else will handle it. not the tense freeze of anxiety or a lack of preparation - she knows you're hurting and would rather you stay quiet about it. she tells other people i just don't see what the big deal is.

sloth is a father that doesn't do the dishes. sloth is your boyfriend's innocent shrug you're just better at household shit. sloth isn't the missed opportunity - it is the purposeful desire to just get-someone-else-to-do-it.

greed and envy are doing body shots in the back of a private jet. they are the way they always have been, but are lovers in the age of the internet. greed just finished union busting, is rolling a bitcoin over his knuckles, is about to start another MLM. envy is in a broadbrimmed hat, showing off her instagram life, grinning about how if you want it, work for it.

okay, it's true. you have a soft spot for lust, gathering dust in a corner. so tame in comparison to the others. but how funny lust is always painted as being a woman in tight clothes. you've met actually lustful women - the ones that purposefully climb into your partner's lap, the ones that say lesbians are gross but ask bisexual women into bed with their husbands. a lustful woman is not donned in lace and garters and red: that's how men think lust looks, painting their own sins into frame. this way, the sin displaces as fog and hovers above her: a woman in a dress is lust; what the man experiences is just the natural consequence.

here is the thing: lust is doing just fine, save your pity. lust is running more circles than any of them. lust is shutting down safe sexwork sites while also making teenagers in knee-high socks sex sensations. lust is CEO of an advertising network where women never pass 25 years old. all the bras lust makes are pretty to look at but, when worn, legitimately hurt. lust has a podcast, his fur coat looped around his shoulders, sells the idea that only certain people have value, that sex raises some and destroys others. lust is tilting his head and asking what did you expect when you dress like that? lust shuns you, sneers that everything you want is disgusting and taboo - right until he can figure out how to capitalize off of it. lust has the midas ability: everything he touches becomes an object.

people usually say wrath is the scary one. you agree with FMA here, though: the real dangerous one is pride, and the shit-eating grin. the white cloaks and the nationalism and the inability to apologize. it is every partner who threw a book at your head because you don't respect him. it is every mother who said my son doesn't deserve to have his life ruined over allegations. it is the teacher that fails you because you talked back.

you worry you have this one. you feel guilty when you need help but don't ask for it. prideful. ashamed when you complete something and feel good about it. too proud for your own good. but pride is not the reward of hard work or accomplishment: pride is a twitter feed. it is the thing that has to mask i didn't do anything with look at me.

pride is your father's raised hand, his raised voice. how he was never there when you needed him, but he is still "head of house." he ruins dinner and blames it on you: you're an embarrassment to this family. this is the glass you walk around, the cuts in your feet. how he says this isn't how i raised you and you have to bite back the retort: that's because you didn't actually fucking raise me.

[wellcomeoneileen]

Why does Randy Harrison deserve compensation? What happened to him? You can DM me if it's not okay to be public

Hey! No it’s totally okay.

⚠️disclaimer - I am a NEW fan and so I am NOT the most informed at all. Other people like @brian-kinney-apologist like really know shit. I initially found things bc watching S4 made me go oh there is bts shit going on for sure and googled, and then when I got on tumblr I saw a bunch of posts talking about it, too.

Lots of older sources are harder to find now bc they didn’t do a digital preservation or the website is expired, but here is what I’ve found, from heated Advocate articles whilst the show aired and then from more measured reflections from podcasts around 2016.

Randy was young and it was his first TV show - when he started he didn’t even have an agent, and really didn’t know what he was getting into. He had done sex scenes on stage and thought that he was pretty prepared for what was to come.

However, he has stated he ended up feeling pretty objectified, such as hearing “we need more shots of Justin’s ass” regularly or expressing a desire to not to go-go dancing type scenes (King of Babylon upset him) and then even more go-go dancing being added (S2 Sap scenes). He was also told to act less gay by casting directors for the show, and to “try to be more butch because Justin isn’t out of the closet”

The show pre-dates intimacy coordinators and there have been allusions, including from the actresses Thea and Michelle, that the sex scenes could be uncomfortable to film.

There was BTS clashing, with producer Tony Jones !!reportedly!!! Saying that Randy was a bitch to work with and “showrunners” “reportedly” saying they would never work with Randy again. There are two interview clips, one from when the show was airing, and one from 2016, when CowLip say they wanted all actors to be comfortable on set, and in BOTH clips , like 15 years apart, Randy kinda like laugh/roll his eyes and Gale looks at him very bemusedly. They had bigger reactions in the ~2003 clip.

He was openly pretty angry as the show went on. He told the Advocate that he would never be friends with or respect Justin if real. He disapproved of the Britin relationship. He said he had to fight to include the scene of Justin topping Brian, which was very important to him. Leading into season 5 he stated he hoped Justin was killed off by getting hit by a truck (obviously being glib, but like he was mad lol)

He has said that lots of scenes needed to be reshot because he struggled to do them so much, like the Cody sexy gun scene that made him so uncomfortable, and then either he or Gale said S5 sex scenes were reshot a lot because they just couldn’t stop laughing at that point anymore.

Peter and Scott recently have said the only time anyone asked for actors’ opinions was right after season 1 ended, and to ME they sounded kinda cheeky about it, all these years later, so perhaps it was a cast sticking point? Unsure, and it wasn’t even Randy who said that. Fat grain of salt.

He has more recently reflected on this time period and expressed regret he went out the way he did, and he understands things better and honors his craft more (heavy paraphrasing!) bc he was mentally checked out by the end and wishes he had finished strong instead.

Also, the cast didn’t realize when signing on how isolated they would be from The Industry. Randy has spoken about this in an unrelated podcast, as have the actors who play Ted and Emmett. NYC or LA are where you want to be for networking, and then signing on to spend the majority of the year in Toronto negatively impacted their careers, they feel. Randy has said he had to start from scratch after the show ended, and Peter and Scott have said Showtime had no idea how to market the show nor their stars, and so they had to just watch as all the initial hype fizzled and nothing was done with them. They were contracted to work too much to seriously be involved elsewhere, while simultaneously not getting good exposure, which I IMAGINE created a dire sort of mood and morale on set. < personal interpretation and fictionalizing history.

Meaning, Randy probably at the very least FELT like he had spent five years on a show that didn’t respect him and it was largely for nothing. He has since stated he appreciates the opportunity and it is the reason he was finically secure, for which he is deeply grateful.

And then finally the fans! He had stalker(s?) and tons of creepy people and was heavily typecast and people would come up to him frequently, which made him uncomfy, and would furthermore act like he was actually Justin, which made him super uncomfy. He was kinda like Chappell Roan!! He was like hey I’m not Justin I’m a person and y’all are freaks. He has publicially declined to speak on the stalking issues, which given his vocal responses to other issues, indicates to ME that it’s pretty personal and upsetting (I mean it’s stalking it’s obviously horrible but you know what I mean). During the show he had a boyfriend that fans like tormented online and even on posters (that bit comes from Tumblr or another forum, so not like verified info on my part at all) because they shipped “Gandy” so hard. I know I’ve read on tumblr about the insane Gandy people but all I remember is they were intense and insane and negatively impacted Randy’s actual real life. Again, that’s info from fans that I haven’t read in article or heard from out of his mouth. Secondary source lol.

This point is PURE speculation, but early interviews with the whole cast were super excited, and they all talked about how excited they were for something ground breaking. By the end, people were angry or giving fluff responses, or in Peter’s case; calmly stating the show was a soap opera and that’s okay. I FEEL like everyone thought they were signing up for something more real/gritty/positive impact to society and then were like oh I’m here to look hot in this show that only moms watch to get them turned on to have sex with their husband. Cool.

Now, do I agree with that - no. But, the show audience was vastly different than expected, and the artistic direction might have been too, both of which might have really disappointed people. Esp Randy and maybe Gale. Randy was a capital T theatre person, and Gale was too and had lots of experimental work and like performance art. Randy has ALSO expressed displeasure with some theater work he did because he didn’t think it was fresh and the audience was only older wealthy white people, so we do know that this sort of thing does matter to his sense of fulfillment at work.

TLDR; had to shoot scenes he didn’t want to, several times, felt objectified on set, disagreed with his character’s direction, maybe felt like he wasn’t being listened to artistically, was cut off from other work opportunities, didn’t appear to get along with leadership, had bad fans, was young and in deep over his head, and at the very least *started* with no career or social support system.

Again!! Am not the most knowledgeable person !!! I do NOT want to spread misinformation so hopefully I’ve tagged where I’m reading into things vs actual quotes but also people who have actually been around pls feel free to say 🙋um actuallllyyyyy

[indierpgnewsletter]

Recommendations: Books about RPGs

(This was first posted on the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

I’m always trying to level up my RPG knowledge and this has led me to look for books about RPGs. And there don’t seem to be that many! There are some academic books but while they have their strengths, easy reading isn’t one of them. Even as I wrestle with these academic texts (and I will emerge victorious), here are some books that are both interesting and fun to read:

Play Unsafe and Stealing Cthulhu by Graham Walmsley

Play Unsafe is a book of RPG advice. It’s a quick read (quicker than its 82 pages would suggest) and has some really gentle, grounded advice. For example:

If, while gaming, you can’t be clever or try hard, what can you do? The answer is: be obvious. Do the obvious thing: the thing that obviously happens next in the story; the thing that you think everyone expects to happen. Paradoxically, that obvious thing may, to everyone else , seem original and brilliant.

Stealing Cthulhu, by the same author, is about how to take inspiration from the stories of HP Lovecraft in a way that makes your own cosmic horror games feel fresh and unique.

Age of Ravens: Vol 1 and Vol 2 by Lowell Francis

These are two collections of various essays originally published on the Age of Ravens blog, formatted for easy reading. They’re essentially a greatest hits collection and do a good job of that. Volume I: Running has some of my favourite articles about running conspiracies, one shots, online games, and more. Volume II: Tools is mostly resources for play: story seeds and ideas to drop into your game whether sci-fi heists or apocalyptic hexcrawls. They aren’t connected by theme so you mostly can just dip in and out of them.

Unchained Mysteries by Jessie Burneko

Unchained Mysteries is a passionate call to ditch clue-based mystery design. Instead, the book proposes coming up with much more richly-layered scenarios where the players are drawn into a crime or crisis with no easy solution, where the players are caught up in a web of NPCs who are actively dealing with the situation, rather than passively waiting for someone to solve their problems. It ends up at around 100 pages so there’s real meat there if you want to engage with it.

The entire Knutepunkt line

Knutepunkt is one of the biggest larp events in the world - half conference, half festival, full of larps and talks and so on. Since 2001, they’ve been publishing books with essays (some more academic than others) about larp. They’re very well-respected. And as Evan Torner explained to me, if you’re not interested in larp, you can just mentally replace the word larp with TTRPG and still get lot out of these books. I’m nowhere close to finishing them but felt like I had to share them anyway. (Thanks to reader Mo, here’s the link to the books.)

The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide by James D’Amato

I have not finished this yet either but I can already tell the voice of the Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide should resonate with newer players who don’t have a lot of set ideas about RPGs already. The author is the founder of the One Shot podcast network and clearly has a philosophy of play. For example, the first chapter is titled “Understanding Audience” and basically uses the idea that everyone has preferences in what they consume (books, moves, etc) to segue into the idea that RPGs emerge out of everyone’s shared preferences. It’s an interesting approach and if you want to know more, there’s a nice review here.

[esperanzagalaxy]

when i was, unbelievably, commissioned by the one shot podcast network to make posters for the ''into the wood'' arc of skyjacks, i was given such a complete document to go off of, that there was barely any brain-bashing design work to be done. all i needed to do was this little lineup! and i adore making thumbnails, so i'm sharing the initial ones too. the jonnit & orimar side went with E instantly, while gable and travis needed pleeeenty more tries after these to get to the final composition. isn't it all just so nice to see?

[unitchiefs-blackbirdphoenix]

CME 17x06 Reaction/Spoilers Pt. 2 (The Jemily Ep)

Had to split into a second part lol. The first part is here. (thanks once again @blackbirdsaltzman!)

JJ not wanting Emily to quit :(

Luke speaking Spanish! Luke speaking Spanish! I called it for this season!

Omg Luke saying he still loves Penelope 😭😭😭

"Dating a coworker is a bad idea" omg

Rossi and Voit again

Video games? Hmm

Quest games?

Idk a lot of shit about conspiracy theories but do video games really help structure them?

Jade and Damien are searching for clues...

Voit's so done with him haha

"North Star is where it all starts"

"when you're lost and desperate and on a quest. all you want is something to connect the dots."

Jade and Damien might want to blame this North Star

Stuart House possibly was used to create serial killers... huh.

I mean, he's not wrong. A profile is an educated guess.

Yoo wtf Gasper

Back at the Stuart House

Dang Tyler

Luke and Tyler about movies! Omg I might actually like this beginning of a possibly beautiful friendship lol

"Hoo-ah!" Luke my boy! They're totally going to have movie marathons together now after that case hahahaha

Jemily scene #4 🥰😭👀🥺 (I have so many thoughts on this that it deserves a completely separate post)

I fucking called it! Chopsticks is now a jemily thing!!

Omg wait

Jemily is now officially cheetobreath stoner X salt and vinegar chip stoner (+chopsticks as their child 🥰)!!!

JJ's still so far gone lol "These are brilliant" as she's playing with her chopsticks

"All those years with cheesy fingers?" and the little mind-blown🤯 is so cute. JJ learning it from Emily now ahhh

"Shit. What was I talking about?" JJ swearing again yesss hahaha

"Gideon, Hotch, what do they have in common?" They're all men. Oh. That works too.

"They left. The two of us, we were kicked out." I honestly thought JJ was going to say "fucking kicked out" here ngl

"we're still here, Emily. We are stronger than anyone gives us credit for" oh 🥺

JJ finally getting fed up with Emily saying she'll quit. She doesn't want Emily to quit 🥺

"I didn't quit on you in Paris." Paris mention! Also ouch.

"You didn't quit on me after my miscarriage" "Oh, god damn it" Double ouch!! And JJ's voice shaking when she says it omg 😭😭

So Emily canonically knows about JJ's miscarriage then. I got a little one shot if you want to read it hehe (may be another on the way...)

"This job takes a lot, but you know what it gives? It gives me... y-you" oh FUCK 😭😭😭 my heart!!

Shipping or not, this is such a powerful moment for JJ and Emily. And this whole scene was definitely also a huge fuck you to CBS and a nod to what AJ and Paget went through in season 6 behind the scenes with the network. I highly recommend listening to AJ and Paget's podcast eps in Michael Kahan's "Funny in Failure" on youtube or anywhere you listen to podcasts on.

And yes, I got a whole lotta thoughts behind this scene.

"I'll support you, I will. Always." Omg JJ 😭😭😭

The way JJ looks at Emily before looking away and starting to cry aaaahhh 😭 and Emily looking at JJ 🥺 god I love this ship so much!! You can never take away their relationship and special connection from me or JJ or Emily, no matter how hard you try!

"Oh shit, it's Rossi" another shit from JJ haha

Emily deciding she'll stay bc of JJ. For JJ's sake 🥺 fuuuuuck I love them so goddamn much

“Grab your keys, let’s fucking roll” ok love JJ and Emily swearing in the same scene hahaha

JJ's "yes!" hahaha she's like "I knew it would work"

"I can't- I can't drive" lol "Rideshare?" There's a missing scene in the rideshare car ride huh?

Omg not the howl 😭

I seriously feel like they're trying to set Luke and Teresa up

Lol not JJ chugging down water 😭😭 she's still out of it

Also girly how are you fully standing right now??

JJ trying to focus but she's still "wooo" like she was trying to focus on the papers in Emily's hands

Not her shaking it off when Emily hands them to her omg. AJ thank you for that

So Gideon and Rossi were working on drafts for this assignment of the study of serial killers, a hypothetical scenario

Isolation in worse conditions.... controlled and directed?

But who would else would know about Gold Star?

"North Star is us, the BAU."

Oof the last shot of the team (and Tyler ig) being a "star" around the roundtable ooooh

And that's it! Also request to have more high/stoned jemily content for future seasons??

[mariacallous]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won’t be on the presidential debate stage next week to answer questions, but he is fielding them on TikTok Live.

On Thursday night, a group of TikTok creators livestreamed a town hall with Kennedy titled “The Sickening of America.” For around an hour, Kennedy, a noted anti-vaccine conspiracist, answered questions from the creators and their followers on food and vaccine safety. Kennedy spoke at length about the unfounded claims that vaccines and gluten could cause or worsen autism.

It was the second town hall the long-shot independent candidate has done with TikTokker Tiffany Cianci and her community. Cianci has become known for organizing livestreams with third-party campaigns and other creators over the past year. Thursday’s event was the fourth event, and though it reached just a few thousand viewers, Cianci says they’ve received hundreds of thousands of views in the past.

“Our very first one had almost 100,000 [viewers], and we only had two days notice,” says Cianci, who has more than 150,000 followers. “That was our first interview with Robert F. Kennedy. And we didn't really know what we were doing at that point. We were flying blind.”

While Cianci handles most of the logistics, other creators are invited on as panelists and to ask their own questions to the candidates. The group of creators hosting Thursday’s town hall included two wellness accounts, a conspiracy channel, and a pair of homesteading creators.

The TikTok town halls are not unlike the town halls many candidates participate in along the IRL campaign trail. But instead of answering questions in pizza shops and Veterans halls, they operate more like a giant Zoom call with technical difficulties and all. And unlike televised town halls with news networks, it’s the creators vetting questions and moderating the conversation, instead of journalists.

Few of the creators have professional backgrounds in politics, but they share a skepticism of politicans and institutions. These virtual events are meant to challenge candidates like Kennedy and provide “real people” an opportunity to hold a potential future president accountable ahead of the election.

“The point of this is to have a conversation with politicians on a mainstream stage where they come directly to us on our platforms, rather than moderated by mainstream media and mainstream questions that are filtered and screened before they talk about,” one of the creators known as @cancelthisclothingcompany said on TikTok before Kennedy spoke.

Cianci, who used to be a franchise owner for a toddler gym in Maryland called Little Gym, first met Kennedy after his campaign reached out to schedule a conversation with her on private equity last year. The Kennedy campaign recorded their discussion and posted clips of it across social media. When Cianci and her fellow creators decided to start holding these town halls, she reached back out to Kennedy’s team for the first one.

Since Kennedy first announced his campaign last year, he has gone on countless podcasts that have allowed him to speak on his controversial views for hours without fact-checking or disagreement, while platforming conspiracies. Despite the group’s plans to hold candidates’ feet to the fire, Kennedy’s concerning remarks went unchallenged. Instead the panelists agreed with much, if not all, of what he said.

“I think it’s important that presidential candidates take the time to speak to Americans without the mainstream media controlling the conversation,” Kennedy said in a campaign email announcing the event Thursday night.

Green Party nominee Jill Stein and Libertarian Party nominee Chase Oliver, who have both appeared in the livestream town halls, agreed.

“This is like motherhood and apple pie,” Stein tells WIRED. “This is what campaigning should be. Political dialog should be open with candidates. I think the less filter, the better.”

“I want to hear directly from as many voters as possible, and platforms like a town hall just allow me to do that,” says Oliver. “It also allows me to demonstrate that, unscripted, off the cuff, I can come up with articulate responses and speak to my platform and speak to those concerns that those voters have without the need being scripted or on a teleprompter like the major party candidates.”

Without receiving the constant horse-race coverage like major-party candidates, third-party campaigns have sought attention through less traditional means for decades. In 2024 however, it’s more difficult than ever to reach vast amounts of voters even online. The content moderation policies and changing leadership at platforms like Facebook and X balkanized social media, causing users to flee to new platforms. The filterless nature and the potential to reach sympathetic audiences is what makes these town halls attractive to candidates like Stein and Kennedy.

Other similar events are springing up as well. After Cianci’s first Kennedy town hall, Kennedy and Trump agreed to a similar format on X’s Spaces platform. The conversation would be part of a series called “the People’s Town Hall” moderated by NewsNation hosts and journalists. Viewers will be able to submit questions moderators may select before and during the event, according to Axios. No final dates have been set.

Cianci also says that the creators are open to non-third-party candidates as well. “We are hopeful that the Trump campaign is going to come on. We have been told the Biden campaign won’t, but we are hopeful that the Trump campaign will,” says Cianci. “We are not exclusionary. We want every single third party, a major party, represented. We are a nonpartisan group. We argue with each other, constantly, constantly.”

The Biden and Trump campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.

“Younger people aren't getting their news and want to reach their politicians in new ways,” Cianci says. “Understanding that is key to changing things for the better, because this is the only path we have.”

[creationcast]

New bonus series on Patreon!

Undying Bonds is a game design collaboration between @gingerreckoning and @lordneptune-rb based on marrying the stories and aesthetics of necromancy and magical girls using the LUMEN system by Spencer Campbell . Available for patrons at $5+

[apollowithapen]

get ready to hear me talk about ttrpgs and my own work guys somethings that you can expect to see are:

Jrwi:

Prime Defenders: (up to like s2e13 ish i need to rewatch everything)

Riptide: Caught up

Apotheosis: Finished

BitB: Finished

The Suckening: Finished

I've also watched a few of the one shots

Glass Cannon Network:

Time For Chaos

Get in the Trunk

Voyagers of the Jump

Androids and Aliens

And a few more podcasts that either are the only one by the people who produce it or they're the only one I watch as of rn:

Dungeons and Daddies

Bestow Curse Podcast - Hideous Laughter Productions

Sorry honey, I have to take this

Unprepared Casters

The Call - Twisted Gears Studios

im mostly going to talk about JRWI and the Glass Cannon Network if I had to guess, but hey :)

[mittensmorgul]

If you had to pick about three Supernatural episodes that had poor directing and/or writing, which would they be? (And I mean in terms of quality, not preference.) I hope you don't mind me asking.

aw, heck... i hate focusing on things i hate :'D

i mean, there's been some objectively Bad Writing and Questionable Directing on the show, but I don't know about whole episodes. i mean... i think everyone including (and probably especially) jensen thinks the wire fight in 13.23 was Bad, you know? overall, the episode wasn't terrible (even if i almost rage quit the show over it, but that's besides the point for your question... i didn't, i felt better about an hour later after some foot stamping and grumbling and yelling). but that whole scene was just... really poorly shot. singer should've known better, but they were going for a gimmick for some reason, and somewhere, anywhere along the line there, someone should've said "wait this is fucking stupid" and stopped. but no one (again, to jensen's eternal chagrin) stopped.

and honorable mention to 4.11 Family Remains, which was an intentional attempt to make an episode akin to the x-files episode "Home." The idea being if they made something so completely objectionable that the network would refuse to ever air it again, which was exactly what happened with "Home," (which I watched live when it originally aired and yeah heck that was a disturbing hour of television lol), they'd consider it a good effort. only what they ended up with just felt way too try-hard rather than genuinely disturbing, you know? so yeah, even when they were trying to make "bad on purpose," they were aiming for a very specific version of bad and they (in my opinion) failed to hit.

there's been some really questionable writing choices, some wtf moments (often with new/one-off directors who maybe didn't understand the memo), but i do try to focus on what i like and only grumble about what felt bad when i stumble across it again on the eternal rewatch.

though yes i do yell about them a lot doing the podcast. it's kinda refreshing to be able to grumble aloud at folks about them now :'D

[the-royal-blue-network]

The Royal Blue Network

The Royal Blue Network is an LGBTQIA story telling site with the main objective of inspiring the creation of quality queer content. For to long, thanks to how expensive it is to make television shows, LGBT content has been forced into a box to appease non-LGBT folks. Quality Queer content has been canceled due to poor marketing, low ratings, and Hollywood’s failure to see the potential in catering to the LGBT+ community. But RBN knows better, RBN understands the need for quality, queer representation, and how impactful such content can be. So RBN has taken it upon itself to create that content; quality queer content that will go on to inspire even more queer content. RBN seeks to tell stories of Women Loving Women and Men Loving Men relationships. RBN seeks to tell stories with queer and trans/non binary folks as main characters, and experiences of the queer community as main storylines. So if this sounds like something you’d enjoy!

Click the title, and check out The Royal Blue Network today!

[bamboobrat]

succession s4 e7 recap: tom, the one pepper menu item, gets spicy

sorry for the delayed recap this week, girlies. somehow i had a life to live and it was not very conducive to breaking down an episode where literally everyone is going through a breakup.

oh well.

we start the episode at tom and shiv's, where tom has made her breakfast after a long night of boning.

(this is an episode for the foodies, btw. did you guys notice?)

he gives shiv a scorpion as a present because she is toxic and can kill him.

hilarious joke, tommy. hilarious.

all is not well in this household. and none of the other significant relationships seem to be doing that well either:

this shot.... succession camera person, i see you.

i'm so happy we get to see rava, even if the writers are giving us crumbs at this point.

she tells ken to call her daughter. sophie is scared of the election and all the racist rhetoric which is spewed most prominantely by her father's news network.

ken pulls out his inner logan:

seems like most of the kids do this episode and it is certainly not a good thing for their personal relationships....

this goes for everyone except connor, who honestly seems to be having a great time this episode.

he's just happy his father is dead and that he is polling at 4 percent in alaska.

truly a power play by the writers to give con all the best lines in the episode. our girl is thriving!!

the tom/shiv saga continues, this time with sexting.

can't believe they are getting some of the best classically trained theater actors in the world to write this shit.

and make faces like this:

what time to be alive.

ATN is downsizing. greg is out for skulls.

shiv and tom host a tailgate party before the election which isn't really a tailgate party and all the finest people in the land are gathered, including a strange tv couple and a podcast god.

roman and ken are using the occasion to spread doubt about mattson and the gojo deal:

just two failsons/CE-bros working together for the good of the republic.

also, they've invited nate to go regulatory on mattson's ass, which tom is of course totally chill about.

it's the guest appearance nobody asked for and yet he has more screen time than gerri in this episode. the succession writers truly do not understand me.

con is offered a post as ambassador to somalia if he drops out of the race by mencken, but mogadishu isn't really his vibe.

he came to win this episode.

gerri arrives at the party and roman is like, phew, my girlfriend isn't mad at me for firing her and my guy frank probably worked it all out with her for me, right? right???

wrong.

it's giving high school drama.

let's all take a moment to imagine gerri, three martinis down, ranting about what a little shithead roman is.

the girlies stick together<3

mattson arrives at the tailgate party after shiv tells him about the regulatory route dumb and dumber over there are planning to go down.

he arrives during a moment of silence for logan, but not to worry, this swede knows how to behave and will not put his dick in the guac.

WHAT. IS. THIS. JACKET.

lukas is, of course, his normal charming self:

my face exactly when i'm caught between my potential future boss and the guy i've been boning nonstop for the past 12 hours.

the roman/con negotiations continue. it's a no on the slos, con wants to take berlin by christmas and contemplates opening up north korea like nixon did china.

it's giving napoleon, it's giving girlboss.

if you can believe it, you can achieve it, con con.

but alas, he is offered oman.

shiv asks mattson this:

if i was mattson i would eat her out right then and there.

i'm having perfectly normal feelings about it.

nate continues to.... be there.

luckily he doesn't stay for long. bye bye, nate. see you never!!!

con tries to sell willa on the whole oman thing:

the pros are: no lines at the airport and you can hit people with your car. bonus: you actually DON'T have to live under ground.

this is perhaps the first time in succession history that we see a couple have a truly genuine discussion about what their next move should be - together.

sticking up for your man's delusions really works out, i guess.

oscar is great.

he doesn't like greg. i like oscar.

ebba wants to murder everybody:

communications people with social anxiety, unite!

greg is a try-hard and joins in on the hazing of ebba.

i don't think i've ever liked him less.

anyway, turns out it helps the failbros, who come to ebba's rescue, smoke a cig with her, figure out lukas is basically not the coder from gothenburg he says he is, but instead some swedish elon musk type who took some tech to marked.

bravo.

oh, and his numbers in india are completely wack.

rome and ken are ecstatic!

lets run down a list of mattson's flaws so far: - fudged the numbers - sent weird items to his employee - potentially has a little drug problem? - calls things he doesn't like gay

totally inappropriate for a company like waystar, in other words.....

roman does the best gerri impression i've ever heard.

i know j. said she thinks the impression is stupid but i had to watch that moment three times to figure out if it was actually her saying the line or not, so..... sorry j. <3

gerri is done.

i feel unwell. someone please convince me this isn't their last ever scene together.

j. said there'd be ups and downs. WHERE ARE THE UPS?

roman is upset and takes it out on connor in his best logan impression to date:

con is like nah, i'm good on oman and willa is like everyone hates your fascist candidate, roman.

good for them.

ken and mattson fight over who has the fakest numbers.

mattson shits on new york like a true swede.

anyone doing the "drink every time someone fights" game this episode is dead by now.

speaking of, we get the best hbo balcony scene since the wire season 3 episode 11.

at the risk of mixing my hbo references, this is my red wedding.

the fight goes something like this:

shiv: you are a social climber tom: you are broken, you never got your dads approval and you shouldn't have kids because you are horrible

at least now tom can get some sleep, i guess, because the bonefest is certainly over.

ken talks to frank about taking doing a reverse viking, meaning waystar buys gojo, not the other way around.

OH MY GOD THESE KIDS. they can't even fucking pull off ONE deal before they are on to the next. c'mon.

oh and he wants the CEO position for himself. shocker.

imagine being frank in this scenario. just imagine.

tom is tired from all the sex and all the talk about him getting fired and acts exactly like me whenever i have people over:

tired girlies need representation too.

the era of wambsgans ire is here.

shiv is like oh fuck.

the episode ends with everyone pretty much being alone. there are no teams anymore. there are zero hugs except for one very disturbing one between mattson and ken, and i'm having a hard time remembering if i like any of these characters at all.

oh no, wait, i like connor.

it's all good. i still like connor.

ps: WHERE IS KARL?!

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Hi there! I just wanted to say thank you for being unbiased and consistent in your ruling of the Gable v. Nicky poll (but also just in general). I admit that it pains me a bit to see that some people are so upset over the tie, especially since it gives BOTH characters a better shot in the long run. I for one think a (fallen) angel and a demon (who is also a saint) moving on together is sexy as fuck, personally.

I also think it's a shame that some people are trying to make this a competition about who is queerer, particularly without any knowledge of why Nicky is so universally considered to be heavily queer-coded in the first place. It's frankly also just kind of mean considering how many queer people have really resonated with him because of this? This, in addition to the fact that is discourages transparency in poll propaganda. This is a non-scripted podcast! Not everything is going to be handed to you "on paper"! All that said, if you're looking for 100% explicitly-stated diversity to celebrate, Nicky is canonically asian and canonically disabled!

Anyways, to the rest of the Skyjacks fandom, the dndads fandom looks forward to fighting alongside you! 💖

I mean I definitely have a bias, I just try to keep that on my personal blog. Another reason why I can't take a hard stance against voter fraud is because I try to write propaganda that sways people to vote in a certain direction and while that may not be fraud, it certainly isn't completely fair.

Not about that poll in particular, but in response to something I saw a few times in Round 2: I think when people use "heavily headcanoned to be [identity]" and "popular fanon is [identity]" as propaganda it does open them up to critique about it, especially in a medium like podcasts without network/publishing censors. Especially when the opponent is canonically in-text that identity. As I've said before, it's fine for people to have negative reactions to all of this, as long as they don't personally attack each other.

I also like the idea of an angel and a demon teaming up. 0>:)