#there's some part of me that wants to track like 10 different bits at once and make a whole spreadsheet of drawfee bits and what--

[episodes-without-incident]

10/3/2023:

4 episodes since Drawfee last referenced Cats (2019)

0 episodes since Drawfee last referenced Everytime We Touch (2005)

[imaginespazzi]

Part 5: The Answers We Wait For

Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11

I'd go back in time and change it (but I can't)

(In which a writer's busy schedule somehow still had time for her favorite obsession)

Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd

Themes: Angst, Pining

Words: 7.0K (it's very on-brand that my busiest week would produce the longest chapter)

TW: Swearing (I think that's it?)

A/N: Happy Monday lovelies :) How I managed to pull this off is between me and God at this point but here we are. I know it's been an interesting day to say the least, so I'm hoping me living up to my promises can be a silver lining. Quick note that I already fucked up the timeline at some point and Paige Olivia have actually been divorced for almost 3 years. I'll change that eventually. I actually didn't even try to really edit this chapter and in the choice between editing tomorrow and giving it to y'all today, I chose the latter. So please help a girl out and point out my typos/mistakes if you spot them and I will also eventually go back and edit. As always, let me know what you liked, what you disliked and anything you'd like to see going forwards. Have a lovely week my loves <3

December 2027

Marriage and weddings had never been at the forefront of Paige’s mind. To be completely honest, for most of her life, there wasn’t much occupying her brain other than the court under her feet and the basketball in her hands. But the couple of times she had let herself picture it, she’d always thought that she’d have a Fall wedding, probably in Minnesota, maybe even on a basketball court. An indoor winter wedding in Texas had never once crossed her mind. She’d imagined vibrant fun bouquets made of pink lilies and purple hydrangeas, not the elegant red and white roses arrangements that were currently being placed along a far too heavily decorated aisle. Instead of vintage wines and carefully constructed fancy cocktails, she’d thought it would be nice to have spiked shirley temples and maybe even blue and white jello shots. She had expected to have a quiet ceremony followed by a vivacious gathering of everyone she loved. It had never even occurred to her that her wedding would become a public spectacle with People's magazine in attendance.  She’d pictured a party, not an event. 

Most of all she’d dreamt of getting married to a girl with dark eyes that could see all of Paige’s flaws and a soft smile that promised she’d love Paige despite them all. 

But the thing about dreams is that they’re fleeting trains that travel through the tracks of your mind when you’re asleep, and when you wake up, reality is nothing but a devastating train crash. 

Paige sighs, forcing herself out of her own head, as she stares at her reflection in the mirror. She looks pretty. Brittany had found her a nice white wedding suit -fitted to perfection- matching it with dainty silver jewelry. Paige normally liked her outfits a little looser but Olivia loved it and Paige likes that Olivia loves it. Her hair is styled in a bun, with two straightened strands to highlight her face. She thinks she might have preferred to have them curled in the front but Olivia had sweetly insisted on them being straight because hers would be curly and they had to complement, not match. Paige doesn’t really understand the difference or the importance but she thinks if Olivia wants it like that then she's fine with it. She thinks the bold red lipstick heavily coating her mouth makes her look a little bit like a vampire out of a badly directed 90’s horror movie but Olivia had said it was necessary so that the lights and cameras didn’t wash her face out. 

Paige looks pretty. She just doesn’t really look like Paige. 

“What do you think Drewski?” she asks, twirling to face her stone-faced brother who’s sitting on the couch, with a bout of enthusiasm that rings hollow to her own ears, “do I look gorgeous or what?”

“You look weird,” Drews says stiffly and Paige sighs. 

“Dr-” Paige is cut off by her younger brother sauntering over. A confused expression spreads over her features as Drew takes her hand and places it on his forehead, “uh- what are you doing?”

“Paigey, doesn't my forehead feel hot? I feel so sick,” the little boy whines, letting out a series of overzealous dramatized coughs. 

“Your forehead feels fine,” Paige says, slowly removing her hand.

“Well of course you’d think that. You’re not a doctor who knows how to feel foreheads correctly. I think we need to go to the hospital to see a real doctor. Like right now,” Drew pulls at Paige’s hand as she begins to catch onto what he’s trying to make happen. 

“You’re fine Drew.”

“I’m NOT. I’m very, very, very sick. So we have to leave right now. I could be contagious. I could be a danger to all these people,” Drew’s animated hands start to fly everywhere, “you can’t get married when your little brother’s sick. It’s- it’s just wrong. Bad juju or something like that. Everybody will understand that you just had to call off the wedding. For family reasons.”

“Drew-” Paige tries again, a hard pit settling in her stomach. 

“Are you worried cause you didn’t bring your car? That’s okay I’m sure Ice or KK will drive us but you can’t get married today Paigey. You just can’t,” his bottom lip trembles as the façade of illness slips and Paige feels her own eyes start to get glossy, “it’s not right Paigey. This is all wrong. She’s all wrong.”

“It’s not like that Drew. You just haven’t gotten to know-”

“I don’t want to know her,” Drew yells, “you don’t even know her. How can you get married to someone you’ve barely dated for a year. How can you do this to Az-”

“That’s enough,” Paige’s voice is eerily calm, as she digs her fingernails into her palm, “watch how you talk to me-”

“You’re being stup-”

“Drew Thomas I am not going to repeat myself again. Behave yourself. You’re not nearly old enough to be questioning what I do with my life,” it takes every inch of self-control Paige has to not let her voice shake. 

Her younger brother’s words feel like acid rain pelting against her already wounded skin. They slip into the gashes, mixing into her bloodstreams to create an army with the battalion of her own thoughts that have been hacking away at her heart for god knows how long. Paige wonders how long it’ll be before she finally bleeds out. 

“Please don’t get married Paigey,” Drew pleads, gripping his sister’s hand, “please.”

There’s nothing but silence as Paige opens and closes her mouth. And she doesn’t know if she’s trying to get words out or breathe air in; all she knows is that Drew might be squeezing her hands, but it feels like someone is strangling her lungs. 

She’s saved from having to say anything by a hesitant knock on the door. As Drew begrudgingly goes to open it, Paige scrambles to put herself back together. She closes her eyes, taking in three deep breaths before-

Drew gasps and Paige’s eyes fly open. With her back turned to the door, she can’t see who it is and something like hope starts to bloom in her chest, vines of maybe it’s her weaving through her ribcage. And as she turns around, they turn to dust; dust that floats up to her eyes and makes them tear up again as she stares dumbfoundedly at the two people standing somewhat awkwardly in her doorway. 

Paige had grown up an independent child. It wasn’t that her parents were neglectful or that they hadn’t loved her enough because they had. But at first it was the constant fighting and then it was the nurturing of a brand new family with new children and Paige had slipped through the cracks of oh she’s so mature we don’t need to worry about her. She had always had her parents as cheerleaders in the stands; no one was prouder of Paige than they were. But no one had bothered to force her to drink terrible tasting immunity boosters. No had patiently dyed her hair purple and pinky promised to like it even if it turned out terrible. No one had yelled at her for being in the gym till one a.m or woken her up at an ungodly hour to run drills. Not until she’d met a girl at 15 and that girl’s parents had decided that Paige was just as much theirs as their own daughter. 

And suddenly there were more people added to her cheering squad for her wins. But that’s not when Paige fell in love with Tim and Katie Fudd. It was when she lost and there was a nagging finger followed by a full breakdown of what she could do better next time and finally, a bear hug promising they’d help her do it. They’d been there every step and she’d sent the invitation, scared they wouldn’t show up, that they wouldn’t be there for this step, a step that inadvertently took her further away from them. But here they are anyway. 

“Hi sweetheart,” Katie says softly, her own eyes moist as she takes in the sight of the bride, “you look- you look absolutely stunning Paige.”

“You came,” Paige whispers, “I didn’t- I didn’t know if you would.”

“Of course we came,” Tim exclaims but his normal boisterous voice doesn’t feel nearly as enthusiastic, “always told you we’d be front and center at your wedding.”

Because I was supposed to marry your daughter; I was supposed to become your daughter, officially. 

“I’m really glad you guys came,” Paige says, letting Katie wrap her into a warm hug. She only gets a second to let herself enjoy it before Drew’s asking a question that makes her stiffen. 

“Where’s Azzi?” 

It’s like there’s lightning wrapped in that one syllable and it strikes right through Paige’s heart, setting every inch of it ablaze with the flames of a name that used to feel like cotton candy on her tongue; now it feels like lava. 

“She couldn’t make it,” Tim says slowly and Paige knows she shouldn’t be surprised, let along disappointed that her ex wasn’t coming but there’s a string that snaps anyways. 

“Why not?” Drew asks petulantly. 

“The baby’s due next month,” Tim tells him gently, “she can’t fly.”

The air feels suffocating at the mention of the baby. She’d been scrolling mindlessly through her tiktok feed when the announcement had popped up. She still has it memorized. 

Golden State Valkyries superstar shooting guard Azzi Fudd announces pregnancy on Instagram; she’ll miss the upcoming WNBA season. 

For a moment the world had stopped as Paige had hurriedly switched apps to instagram. And there it was. A smiling picture of Azzi holding a sonogram. Paige doesn’t know how long she’d stared at the picture but she remembers that it was set against a white background and she remembers that Azzi was wearing a green top. And as she’d typed out a congrats! that blended in seamlessly with all the other felicitating comments on the post, Paige had wondered if Azzi had felt it too. She’d wondered if, when Azzi had left a similar congratulations <3 post on Paige’s engagement announcement, she’d felt something unravel too. She’d wondered if Azzi had felt this hollowness of and i guess this is us signing off on never getting forever with each other. 

“So Azzi’s not going to stop this wedding?” Drew’s voice is dangerously even as he rounds on Paige, “and you’re really going through with this?”

“Drew please” Paige says tiredly as Katie runs a soothing hand down her back. 

“You’re stupid. And she’s stupid. You’re all so freaking stupid,” Drew bursts out, stomping past the adults in the doorway, his anger palpable in every single word. 

“I got it,” Tim says, wrapping a wrist around Paige’s hand as she moves to follow her younger brother. He squeezes gently, a half-hearted smile on his face, “it’s gonna be okay kid. It always is.”

Paige wishes she could just believe him, turn off the voices in her head and just be a kid who could take an adult’s word as gospel. But Paige is the adult now and believing no longer comes so naturally. 

“Hey,” Katie says after Tim runs after Drew, pulling Paige to sit with her on the couch, “I have a little wedding gift for you.

“Katie you don’t have-” Paige begins, watching as the older woman pulls out a velvet box from her bag, placing her phone on the table next to her. 

“Oh hush. I told you I’d give this to you,” Katie chides as she hands the velvet box. Paige’s eyes glisten as she opens it to find a familiar purple amethyst necklace. She’s flooded with the vivid image of her and Azzi on a random day in lockdown helping Katie organize her minimal jewelry. Paige had fallen in love with this necklace and Azzi had her eyes set on a pink topaz. It was fitting to say the least and Katie had promised them, with a glint in her eyes, that she’d give it to them as their something old on their wedding day. They’d been in between something and everything but Paige and Azzi had shared a shy smile over it anyways. 

“I can’t accept this,” Paige shakes her head trying to hand the box back but Katie dodges it expertly. 

“Yes you can. It’s basically a family heirloom and you, Paige Bueckers, are family,” Katie says firmly. 

“Katie-”

The older woman presses a kiss to Paige’s forehead as she starts to head out, “you’re always gonna be family Paige. Always.”

Katie’s words act like a band-aid but they’re not enough- maybe nothing will be enough- to fully heal the wound of today i was supposed to officially become a Fudd. 

A ringing noise interrupts Paige’s pity party and she starts half-heartedly digging around for her phone. She’s confused when she finds it because no one’s calling her and the room is still vibrating with noise. Crinkling her eyebrows, Paige’s eyes finally land on the couch side table, where Katie’s phone, clearly forgotten, is buzzing. 

Azzi’s CallerID flashes on the screen. 

Paige stares at the phone, rooted in place. She knows she shouldn’t pick it up, knows she should go return it. Still without a decision, Paige slowly starts to reach for it. And then it stops ringing and Paige goes still again, unsure if she’s relieved or disappointed. Swallowing, she takes another step. The phone rings again. A myriad of thoughts dance through Paige’s mind, opposing thoughts clashing with each other and making her head hurt. She lies to herself that it’s out of concern; that Azzi’s pregnant and this could be important. She lies to herself as she hits the green answer button that it’s not because she’s desperate to hear Azzi’s voice. 

“Mom?” Azzi sounds distraught when she picks up but Paige thinks it’s still her favorite sound any way, “Mom? I think I did something wrong. I can’t do this Mom. You’ve been gone a day and I’ve already fucked up. I don’t know what and I don’t know when but I think I fucked up. Maybe I ate something I wasn’t supposed to. Maybe it’s because I lay on my back instead of my side but Mom she hasn’t kicked all day and I can’t get Dr. Myers on the phone and I-”

“It’s a girl?” Paige breathes out. And suddenly she’s 22, sitting in a UConn apartment living room, grinning foolishly as Jana points out an AI picture that looks like the perfect mixture of her and Azzi. Azzi, who’s having a daughter. 

The woman in question is quiet and for a second Paige thinks that Azzi might hang up. 

“It’s a girl Paige,” Azzi says finally. 

“Are you- are you okay?” Paige asks slowly, trying not to dwell on how much she’s missed the way Azzi says her name. It’s been Bueckers every time they’ve seen each other this year and she’s never hated the sound of her last name more. 

“Yeah, I just-” Azzi sighs, her voice still a little frazzled, “I’m just being paranoid cause my Mom’s not here and my doctor’s not answering and the stupid baby hasn’t kicked all day,” she pauses, “sorry. I-I don’t mean to dump on you. Not today at least.”

“Az-”

“Where’s my Mom?”

“She- she’s probably outside. Think she left her phone here by accident. I can go find her but can I-” Paige hesitates, chewing at her lips in a way she knows Olivia hates, “can I help?”

“I don’t think-”

Paige shocks herself with her next words, “put the phone to your stomach.”

“What? Paige, did you hit your head in the last two seconds or something?”

“Just- just trust me,” she’s not really sure what she’s saying but now that she’s said, might as well commit to the bit, “I’mma talk sense into her. I saw it in a movie.”

“You saw it in a-” Azzi sighs and Paige can practically picture her rolling her eyes.  “I don’t know who’s more insane. You for coming up with the idea or me because I’mma follow through it,” there’s a bunch of static noise on the other side as Azzi adjusts herself, putting the phone on speaker and pressing it to her belly, “alright Dr. Bueckers work your magic.”

Paige is nervous as she speaks, “hey there little bean. I’m your-” she stops because what is she, “I’m your Paige,” she decides softly, “and I think- I think you should stop stressing your Mama out. She’s a bit of an overthinker so if you could just help her out, I think she’d really appreciate it. Because if- if you don’t she isn’t gonna be able to sleep tonight and you don’t know this yet but when your Mama doesn’t get sleep, she’s kind of a bi-”

“Paige,” Azzi hisses.

“Big baby,” Paige corrects, “she’s a big baby. And then she cries and it’s not a pretty sight-”

“Hey!”

“Sshhh Azzi I’m working my magic,” Paige scolds, “where was I? Oh yeah. She cries and it’s not a pretty sight because,’ her voice softens, “seeing your Mama cry is the worst thing in the world. I hate it and I know- I know you’re gonna hate it too because when you finally come out little bean, the first thing you’re gonna see is your Mama’s smile. And you’re gonna think it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. Just like I do,” a sob escapes on the other end of the line and Paige feels tears start to cascade down her own cheeks, “come on little bean, give us a little kick. Make your Mama smile.”

Time ticks by slowly and Paige closes her eyes, thinking maybe her desperate attempt to keep Azzi on the line had failed miserably. And then Azzi gasps, “she kicked. Oh my god Paige she kicked.”

Paige’s grin stretches her whole face and for a second it almost feels like she’s right there with Azzi, that instead of her ear being pressed to a phone, it’s pressed to Azzi’s belly. For a second she almost feels like she can feel the baby kicking. And then she opens her eyes. 

“Did it make you smile?” 

“Yeah, yeah it did,” Azzi admits and Paige can hear the relief in her voice. 

“I’m glad- I’m glad you have something that makes you smile.”

“Do you?” Azzi sucks in a sharp breath, “do you have someone that makes you smile?”

“Yeah, yeah I do,” and it’s not a complete lie. Olivia does make Paige smile. And maybe it’s not quite as big or bright or real but at least Olivia’s here to try. 

“Good. I-I’m also really glad you have that.”

“You are?”

“Of course I am Paige,” Azzi says quietly, “I want you to smile. I just- I just want you to be happy. Are you happy Paige?”

“I’m getting married today,” Paige says in lieu of an answer and she can hear Azzi’s breath hitch. 

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is. It’s a yes or no question,” Azzi presses.

“Then you answer it Azzi,” Paige bites out, “are you happy?”

“I”m-,” the younger girl lets out a sigh, “I’m content.”

Her answer makes Paige’s skin itch with irritation and she can’t stop it from seeping into her next question, “so you have no regrets then?”

“I didn’t say that,” there’s a warning edge to Azzi’s voice. 

“Do you or do you not regret saying no to marrying me Azzi?” Paige asks, unable to hold it in any longer. 

“Paige-”

“What? You gonna say it’s not that simple? It’s a yes or no question Azzi,” Paige mocks. 

“That’s not it-”

“Then what is?”

“You’re getting married Paige,” Azzi yells, “you’re getting married,” she repeats again, softer this time, “to someone else. And so it doesn’t matter how I feel. It isn’t fair of you to ask and it wouldn’t- it wouldn’t be fair of me to answer. Not today. Maybe one day- one day it'll be the right time but not today.”

“And what if it’s never the right time?” 

“Then maybe it’s a question you were never meant to know the answer to.”

There’s something final in the quietness that follows, like they’re having a moment of silence at a funeral for what never even got to be. 

It’s Azzi who speaks first. 

“You’re gonna be a wonderful wife P.”

“You’re gonna be an amazing mom Az.”

They let it left unsaid that they were supposed to be wives to each other, that they were supposed to be moms together. 

***

March 2033 

Paige doesn’t know how long she stands outside, staring down the winding road that had taken Stephie and Azzi away from her. The neighborhood is slowly waking up and if the woman across the street opens her curtains and thinks it’s a little strange that her new neighbor is standing like a statue on her front porch, she only raises a slight eyebrow before going back to her day. It takes almost twenty minutes before her head finally convinces her heart that no matter how much she stands outside, they’re not coming back. 

There’s a part of her that can admit that maybe Azzi had a point and maybe she shouldn’t have asked her to stay over last night. But Paige has never been known for her common sense, especially not when it comes to Azzi. Because truth be told, asking Azzi to stay the night was perhaps the least ridiculous of the thoughts that had invaded her mind last night. It was easy- too easy- to fall right back into whatever with Azzi. She’d done a good job pretending that the nightly facetime calls had been for Stephie’s benefit but the truth is that they had become just as much a necessity for Paige. She’d fallen asleep with a smile on her face every night and the temptation to have that in person last night had been too hard to resist. And so she hadn’t. 

She makes it about three steps up the stairs, when the fort still set up in the living room catches her eye. And that’s when the first tear falls, and then the second and then the third until she thinks if she tried to swim in them, she’d probably drown. Paige abandons the idea of going up to her room and crawls back into the tent made of blankets. And she must be going insane because she swears she can still smell the faint scent of a toddler and Azzi’s lavender perfume on the pillow she cradles to her chest. It’s ridiculous to be so attached already. She knows that. Stephie isn’t hers but it feels like the little girl has crept underneath her skin, burrowing herself in a part of Paige’s heart that the blond didn’t even know was there. And Azzi- well no matter how long it’s been, no matter how much resentment Paige has held, the truth is that there’s a little patch of Paige’s soul  that will always belong to the younger woman. 

Paige barely registers herself falling asleep until there’s abrupt knocking on her door and she realizes she’s been cocooned in the fort for almost three hours. She hesitantly lets go of the pillow, groggily walking towards the door. It’s useless to pretend that she isn’t hoping it’s Azzi and Stephie on the other side, isn’t hoping that Azzi had realized her mistake, isn’t hoping to scoop both of them into her arms and fill the hollowness that’s been thrumming against her ribcage. God Paige has barely survived a month -a day if she’s completely honest- she doesn’t know how she’s going to survive this whole season. 

She crosses her fingers behind her back as she opens the door. 

“Hey,” Katie’s smiling face looks back at her, holding up a tray of coffee and a bag of something, “figured you haven’t eaten breakfast yet?”

Paige blinks stupidly as Katie lets herself in, moving through Paige’s house with ease and immediately locating the kitchen. She hands Paige a cup of coffee before ransacking through the bag and pulling out a glazed donut, “eat. I know you haven’t.”

“Does Azzi know you’re here?” Paige asks slowly before taking a bite out of her donut. 

Katie gives her pointed look, “who do you think gave me your address?”

“Is she- is she okay?” 

“You two are something you know,” Katie shakes her head, “you’re asking me if she’s okay and she sent me over here to make sure that you were okay.”

Paige feels her heart swell with after all this time, “she sent you?”

“I have breakfast with Azzi and Stephie every Sunday morning. Now imagine my surprise when I get there today and my oh so sweet and wonderful granddaughter isn’t talking to her mother. And so I forced the story out of Azzi and I barely understood a word she was saying through her tears-”

“She was crying?” Paige feels her lungs constrict. 

Katie shoots her an unimpressed look, “can I finish the story?”

“I don’t like this story. It has Azzi crying.”

“Yeah well the two of you seem to enjoy doing that to each other,” Katie cocks an unamused eyebrow and Paige flinches at the truth of it, “anyways I didn’t understand much of it but she was clear by the end. Seemed to think you needed someone, needed me and so here I am Paige.”

“Why is your daughter like this?” Paige demands, “how is she gonna make me cry and then send somebody else to wipe my tears.”

“Well I can leave-”

“Why couldn’t she just have stayed?” the blonde questions, “why does she always have to overthink things and make it more complicated? Why can’t she just listen to her heart once in her fucking life? Why can’t she just let herself live? Why is it always no with her and never just yes?”

Katie gives Paige a sad smile, reaching for her hand, “that’s why.”

“Please don’t speak in riddles. It’s 10 a.m and I’m sad,” Paige whines. She might be in her early thirties but there’s something about Katie Fudd that makes Paige feel like it’s okay to be a bit of a child.

“Why is it always no with her and never yes?” Katie repeats, “c’mon Paige you know that’s not about last night.”

“It is,” Paige argues stubbornly. 

“It’s not,” Katie says, gently squeezing Paige’s hand, “it’s about her saying no 8 years ago.”

“I’m ov-” Paige stops, withering under Katie’s glare, “okay maybe it’s a little bit about her saying no 8 years ago. But I’m allowed to still be upset about it. She broke my heart. I wanted forever and she walked away. I’m allowed to be mad about that.”

“Of course you’re allowed to be mad Paige but that’s exactly why Azzi had to go this morning. And it’s exactly why you shouldn’t have asked her to stay last night. You guys can’t just pretend none of it happened because it did. You’re still hurt Paige and ignoring that is gonna get you guys nowhere. Especially with Stephie involved.”

“So what are you saying? You’re saying me and Azzi should just be teammates? You’re saying I should just never see Stephie again,” even the thought of it makes Paige feel like she is laying down on a bed of thorns. 

“You’re so goddamn dramatic Bueckers,” Katie rolls her eyes, “I’m not saying any of that. I’m saying maybe you just need to take it slower, with both of them, instead of having a goddamn sleepover the literal first night you’re in the same city. Besides,” Katie gives her a knowing smirk, “my granddaughter is obsessed with her Miss Buecks. Pretty sure she’d find a way to see you again no matter what.”

“Good,” Paige lets out her first smile of the day, “because I’d find a way to see her again too. She just- she’s kinda great isn’t she? Azzi did a good job with that one. She’s- she’s perfect,” she looks at Katie who’s regarding Paige with a thoughtful expression, “what? Do I have donut glaze on my face?”

“No, no it just- I’ve seen that expression before.”

“What expression?”

“The one you just had on your face while talking about Stephie,” Katie laughs to herself, “it’s the same one Tim had when he first met Azzi.”

***

“Oh my god. It’s Paige Bueckers. Can I have your autograph?” Steph Curry winks at Paige as she walks into his office. The Golden State legend had started an after-school basketball camp for kids in the Bay Area and as soon as he’d heard the news of Paige coming over to the Valkyries, he’d messaged her if she’d be interested in helping him out in the off-season. Paige had been more than willing to be a part of it, always invested in giving back to her community. If she’d been excited by the idea before though, today, after the worst sleep of her night as she tossed and turned to the hopeless depression of not having spoken to Stephie and Azzi for far too long, Paige really needed this distraction. 

“Don’t think you can afford my autograph,” Paige smirks lazily as she basically droops into the seat opposite him. 

Steph laughs goodnaturedly, “welcome to the Bay Area kid.”

“I’m a little old to be called a kid don’t you think? I’m nearly 25,” Paige grins, wiggling her eyebrows.. 

Steph shakes his head, “nah you’re always gonna be a kid to me. You and Azzi both,” he chuckles to himself, “even though Azzi’s got her own kid now. Have you met her?”

Well that distraction lasted 30 seconds, Paige thinks to herself as she forces a smile onto her face, “yeah. I’ve seen her around.”

“She’s cute as hell right? And she knows it. Little miss bossy pants has everyone wrapped around her fingers. Kinda reminds me of Riley,” there’s a goofy expression as Steph thinks of his daughter and Paige wonders if the same one is reflected on her face as she thinks about Stephie, “and she’s a natural at basketball. Only five and her shot’s already pretty good. You’ll see it today when she comes to camp. And she’s pretty good at defense-”

“I’m sorry what?” Paige blinks rapidly. 

“I know. What defense can a 5 year old play but it’s just the way she moves you know?” Steph tries to explain and Paige shakes her head. 

“Not that. Stephie- Stephie’s coming to camp?”

Steph grins large and proud, “of course she is. She was the first camper I signed.”

“Right,” Paige nods, giving the man in front of her a tight smile, “can you- can you excuse me for one second.”

As soon as Paige is outside of Steph’s earshot, she’s calling Katie; Katie who had sat at her kitchen counter yesterday and listened with a smile as Paige told her all about Steph’s camp. Katie who hadn’t said one word about Stephie being a part of said camp. Katie who was maybe grinning just a little too hard at the idea. 

“Did you know Stephie goes to Curry Camp?” Paige asks as soon as the line connects. 

“Hi Katie. Hi Paige. How was your day? Oh mine was good Paige, thanks for asking, how was yours?” Katie replies sarcastically. 

“Katie,” Paige groans. 

“Did I know that my granddaughter goes to her godfather’s special camp for the sport that her mother plays and she’s obsessed with?” Katie says slowly and Paige can tell she’s holding back a laugh, “nope, didn’t have a clue. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And ruin the surprise?”

“What happened to telling me to take things slow?” Paige hisses. 

“Well if I left the two of you two to your own devices y’all wouldn’t go slow, you wouldn’t even move at all,” Katie defends. 

“So you’re meddling?”

“I am not,” Katie protests, “you were always gonna help with the camp and Stephie’s already been going to the camp. I just didn’t let you stress out about it. Really you should be thanking me.”

“Thank you Katie,” Paige bites out mockingly. 

“You’re so very welcome Paige,” Katie sing-songs, “by the way, come over for dinner soon okay sweetheart. Love you honey. See you later darling.”

She hangs up before Paige can say anything and the blonde saunters back into Steph’s office, trying to corral her facial expression into something more neutral. 

“All good?” Steph asks. 

“Just peachy,” Paige hums in response, “we gonna head over to the court soon? It’s almost 4.”

Steph nods, “yeah they’ll be done setting up for us. Azzi usually brings Stephie to say hi to me right before cause no favoritism in front of the other kids you know? But maybe she’s running la- oh no wait there they are!”

Paige freezes, heartbeat erratic, as Steph walks to the door in anticipation. 

“UNCLE TWIN,” Stephie screams and something in Paige’s heart starts to fix itself at the sound of the younger girl’s voice. She’s scared to turn around, unsure if she’s more scared to realize it’s a dream or find out that it’s reality. 

“TWIN NIECE,” Steph yells back with equal vigor and Paige can hear Azzi’s laugh now too, each giggle acting like a needle, stitching up the parts of Paige that had felt broken since yesterday morning. She turns around deliberately slowly. Stephie is cradled in Steph’s arms and Azzi’s watching them with a fond smile. And it’s ridiculous to be jealous of a happily married man who’s practically Azzi’s brother if not her uncle, but the sense of that should be me, weighs heavily on Paige’s lungs anyways. 

It’s Azzi who sees her first, smile slowly fading as dark brown eyes clash with light blue ones. 

“Paige,” she whispers softly and there’s a multitude of undecipherable emotions wrapped in that one syllable and Paige thinks she could spend forever just trying to uncover them. 

Stephie’s ear perks up at the mention of Paige’s name as her own little eyes finally land on the blonde, shuffling her feet nervously in the corner. Her bottom lip trembles, eyes watering as she forces herself down from Steph’s lap, racing to Paige. It’s instinct the way Paige falls to her knees, ready to catch the bundle of limps that practically falls into her waiting arms. 

“Miss Buecks,” Stephie whimpers, “I missed you so much.”

Paige’s own eyes water as she buries her face in Stephie’s hair, “me too sweetheart. I missed you so, so, so much.”

In front of them, Steph looks beyond confused as to what's happening and Azzi’s determinedly looking away, even if there’s a lone tear waterfalling down her left cheek. 

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Stephie confesses, voice choked up as she tightens her grip on Paige’s neck, “and I begged and I begged Mama to let me call you but she said you were busy. And then I yelled at Mama and it made Mama cry too and I hate making Mama cry.”

“I know. I know sweetheart,” Paige soothes softly, running her hands down Stephie’s back as the little girl continues to babble. They stay like that for a long time and Paige thinks if she could ask the world for one thing that doesn’t belong to her, she’d ask for Stephie. 

Finally Steph coughs, looking apprehensively between the three girls in the room, “so um- I take it you’ve more than just seen Stephie around then Paige?”

Paige lets out a watery laugh, finally letting Stephie go and turning around but still keeping a hand on Stephie’s shoulder, “yeah I guess that’s true.”

“What are you doing here Miss Buecks,” Stephie asks, looking up at Paige. 

“I’m uh- well Mr. Steph-”

“Uncle Twin,” Stephie corrects immediately and Paige can’t help but grin at the nickname. 

“Right. Uncle Twin asked me to be a coach at his camp and I agreed,” Paige explains, trying to catch Azzi’s eyes but the shooting guard seems determined to focus on a picture of Steph and Ayesha on the wall instead. 

“You’re gonna be my coach,” Stephie squeals, turning around to hug Paige’s knees, “this is the best news of my life.”

Paige feels her heart soar into a sky of you’re the best new of my life Stephie as she bends down to kiss Stephie forehead, “let’s see if you say that when I make you run laps after you miss a shot.”

“You wouldn’t?” Stephie says, looking horrified at the idea. 

“I totally would,” Paige teases. 

Stephie is quiet for a second before a proud smirk blooms on her lips, “that’s okay ‘cause I don’t miss. I’m Azzi Fudd’s daughter. Right Mama?”

“Right baby,” Azzi says, finally letting herself meet Paige’s gaze. 

“Well Miss-I-Don’t-Miss, how about you walk over to the court and show us how you don’t miss,” Steph teases. 

Stephie waddles out of Paige’s grip and holds her arms up at Steph, a saccharine smile on her face,“I can’t be tired if I don’t wanna miss Uncle Twin, so can you please carry me over there?”

Steph rolls his eyes but it doesn’t stop him from hoisting Stephie onto his shoulders, “alright your highness, let’s go.”

Stephie’s giggles echoe down the hall as Steph runs towards the courts and Paige can’t help the fond laugh that escapes her. 

“She gets that from you, you know,” Paige says softly to Azzi. 

“Gets what?”

“Being a princess who gets everything she wants.”

“Not everything,” Azzi says wistfully, “not everything I want.”

She moves to start following but Paige wraps a hand around her wrist, “I didn’t know Stephie was a part of Curry Camp. I swear I- I didn’t do this on purpose.”

Azzi sighs, “I know. I know you wouldn’t Paige.”

“And I- I wanted to thank you for sending your Mom yesterday. I really- I really did need it even if I didn’t know it,” Paige’s thumb subconsciously rubs against Azzi’s skin, “but you- you always seem to know what I need.”

Azzi rips her hand out from Paige's grip, “you’re doing it again.”

“I’m not-”

“Yes you are. You keep saying things like that- things you shouldn’t say- things I can’t just listen to and be okay,” Azzi brushes her hand against her face, “I know the way I left yesterday was wrong and maybe I was projecting,” she admits in a whisper, “but you just- you make me feel too fucking much. And it's too quick and it’s scares me.”

“Scares you?” Paige scoffs, “I’m not the one who broke your heart Azzi.”

“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I’ve lived with that guilt for the last 8 years? Jesus fucking christ Paige. I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of me,” tears stream down Azzi’s face as she paces the room, “I have never heard Stephie cry so fucking much in my life Paige. And you know who did that to her? Me, I did that. Apparently I’m really fucking good at making people cry but I don’t want to. I don’t want to break her heart, I don’t want to break your heart and I don’t want to break my own heart. Not again.”

“Azzi-”

“And so I’m stopping it before it happens. Before I ruin it again.”

Azzi tries to leave again but Paige is faster, wrapping her arms around the younger woman’s waist and pulling her flush against her chest so she can’t escape. It’s a terrible idea because now all of her senses are consumed by Azzi as they both become acutely aware of how close they are now. 

“Paige,” Azzi whispers weakly, one hand pressed right against Paige’s heart, “let me go.”

“I think today’s the right time,” Paige says softly, hands grazing Azzi’s waist, “I asked you a question once and you said one day, when the time was right, you’d give me an answer. It’s the right time.”

“I don’t think so-”

“Azzi please,” Paige begs, “do you regret saying no?”

“Paige let me go,” Azzi wriggles against her grip but it only makes Paige tighten her hold. 

“It’s a simple yes or no question.’

“Stephie’s probably wondering where we are-”

“Then answer the damn question and we can go to her-”

“Paige please.”

“Answer the fucking question Azzi.”

“What do you want me to say?” Azzi bursts out finally, “you want me to say that I’ve never regretted anything more in my life? You want me to say the minute I said no, I wanted to rip out my tongue? You want me to say that I almost called you several times in the last decade to tell you how stupid I was? You want me to say that I flew to Dallas once to tell you that I fucked up but then I saw you with Olivia and decided you deserved better than me-”

“What?”  Paige feels the air being snatched from her lungs. 

“The answer to your stupid fucking question,” Azzi’s voice breaks, “is yes. Yes I regret saying no to you Paige. But it doesn’t matter. Because I said no and you found someone else who’d say yes and now it’s too late.”

And Paige thinks that Katie was probably right, that she should probably take things slow. But when it comes to Azzi Fudd, Paige Bueckers has never been one to do what she should. 

“It’s never too late for us,” Paige whispers before crashing her lips against the woman, who’s always been the reason for her biggest, brightest, most real smile.

[loubouskz]

could you do a chan ff where y/n asks him to read a couple chapters of the book they’re reading but the reader asks bc the book has smut in it and then chan reads it and gets all 😉

reading can be fun

bang chan x reader

description: reader gets turned on by chan's reading and they have a lil fun haha

warning: cute nicknames(like baby and sweets, I used 'my girl' once, couldnt figure out a different name to put, other than that its pretty neutral), SMUT!, reading smut, the smallest bit of thigh riding, some foreplay, dirty talk, unprotected sex, creampie, chan may have a slight breeding kink but it's not mentioned, reader loves chan's dick...I think that's all, let me know if I missed anything.

wc: 2.0k(not proof-read)

a/n: ofc I can and thank you for requesting!! I had some much fun writing this! and I'm sorry this took so long to post. my laptop is finally kicking the bucket so I have to type everything on my phone(on the days where I can't get my computer to work.)so it's taking a bit longer than I like but i hope you enjoy this and I did your request justice!🥰

--------

after a long day of catching up with doing chores around my apartment, I finally had time to myself. to sit down and read the book my friend lent me. they said it was really good and that I should try to read something that wasn't my usual genre that I love. they basically begged me…for two weeks straight before I finally agreed to read it. I made a cup of tea and sat down on the couch with the book in hand. I brought my legs up to sit somewhat under my butt and got comfy. grabbing the throw blanket from the top of the couch and laying it across my lower body. I took a sip of my tea before opening the book.

i was on the eighth chapter when I heard chan enter my apartment with the key I had given him. I heard him take off his shoes and jacket before entering the living room. I turned my head and met eyes with the person I loved most. his dimpled smile brightened up when he saw me.

"hey baby!" chan said, as he made his way to me. "hi!" I said back, tilting my head up to follow his eyes. chan kissed the top of my head and maneuvered his way to sit next to me. "how was your day?" he asked, grabbing my legs and laying them across his lap. "a bit long, but that was because of the chores I had to do around my apartment. now I'm relaxing, what about you, channie?" I said. "ahh, tiring but worth it- like always. changbin, jisung and I are working on a new track and it's coming along nicely." chan said, absent mindlessly caressing my legs. 

"but I'm also happy I got the rest of the day off and get to spend some time with you." he said, leaning over and giving me a kiss. I smiled into it, making him giggle. "so, what are we reading?" he asked, snuggling closer to me. I told him the name of the book, "it's the book my friend has been wanting me to read for a hot minute now." I said, showing him the cover of the book. "nice! what is it about?" he asked. "it's a fantasy/sci-fi romance novel set in space. it's about this girl falling in love with a crew member from another ship that they've been on a race with- without knowing whom…" I told him what the book was about and caught him up to the part I was at.

"wow, i might have to read it after you, it sounds really good." chan said. "you wanna read a few chapters to me?" i asked shyly. "sure." he said with a big smile on my face. i handed over the book to chan. knowing what was coming up next in one of the chapters my friend had told me about. "are you sure?" I aksed before getting comfy, to which he nodded too. once we were both comfy, he began to read where I had stopped.

we were now on chapter 10, and the two main characters were sitting next to a window and talking about what they were.

he looked back out the window. minutes passed, and he still hasn't said a word. she sighed and stood up. "this was stupid. to think, for once, you would talk to me about what's going on inside your head. but no." she said. as she turned her back to him, he finally said something.

"what is this lee?" she said. he tilted his head. "what do you mean?" he asked. "I mean like all the nights we've spent up here. you listening to all the thoughts in my head and answering them aloud. even when i think you can't hear them. the long talks and banters. all the secret glances. what is this? what is this to you?" she said as the words fumbled out. her heart racing, like it was going to explode. 

"if you want me to say I feel the same way about you, just know I do, but nothing more can come from this." he said, almost too quietly for her to hear. she could feel the tears start to build up. "and why is that lee?" she asked, not turning around. "because you have to leave. you have to stay with your brother. you can't be with me." he, again, said quietly. she turned around and walked up to him. 'look at me' she said in her head. "stop it. just go back to your room." he said. 'please look at me. I wanna love you.' she said. lee hissed in a breath of air. "we can't." he answered again.

'then love me for one night. this night. my last and only night with you.' he snapped his head to her, with an unfamiliar look in his eyes. he looked at her for a couple of seconds before making up his mind. he shot up from his seat and placed his lips onto hers. quickly…."

"okay! I think that's enough for tonight, channie." I said, grabbing the book out of his hand and closing it. i felt my cheeks starting to heat up. "what no, let's continue!" he said. I pretended to yawn and placed the book down on the table. "let's go eat something and go to bed channie." I said, flipping the blanket off and hopping off the couch. I made my way into the kitchen, opening up the fridge.

I heard chan's footsteps making their way to me. I called out to see if he wanted one of two options I offered to make, but he didn't answer.

"he shot up from his seat and placed his lips onto hers. quickly grabbing hold of her waist tightly, like she would slip away if he didn’t, making her moan into the heated kiss. her hands threaded his hair, pulling at it slightly.

"fuck." he whispered out, breaking the kiss. she started kissing down his jaw, finding his sweet spot. though they were in a hidden spot. lee didn't want to be caught. he grabbed her hand and pulled her to his room. once in the safety behind the closed door. he pushed her against it, one of his legs slotting between her legs. right where she wanted him most."

chan stopped reading aloud after that. i peeked my head up from the fridge and saw his eyes scanning the page. hearing him say that part of the story out loud, made my knees go weak. the way he was saying the words creating an uncomfortable wetness between my thighs. chan's eyes left the book and made their way to me.

"you want me to continue?" he asked with a slight smirk on his face. I shook my head no and closed the fridge door. I need to calm down. I tried to walk out of the kitchen and pass chan. he quickly dropped the book on the counter and grabbed my hips. "where are you running off to baby?" chan asked, pressing me against the counter. "no where." I said confidently. he chuckled at my answer. "really? because I think my girl was starting to get all hot, flustered, and bothered from the book i was reading out loud to her before i even got to the good part." chan said as he leaned in.

"am I right, baby?" he asked in a lower octave. I whimpered out as I felt him push my legs apart with his. one of his hands slowly made their way into my sweats and past my underwear. "answer me sweets." chan said, cupping my sex. he and I both knew the answer, but he wouldn't continue if I didn't say the word. "yes." I said quietly. he hummed at my answer, slowly pushing two of his fingers past my folds and curling them up inside. my eyes fluttered closed at the feeling, moaning lightly.

chan groaned, "god, you're so wet baby." I held onto his arm that was in my sweats as he quickened the pace. chan started leaving open mouth kisses on my neck, sucking sweetly on the spot that made me clench around his fingers. "channie, please." I said as I started to ride his fingers. "what do you need baby?" chan whispered in my ear, nibbling on my lobe. "I want more." I said. I grabbed him through his pants and felt how hard he was. chan removed his fingers, quickly tasting them before grabbing me behind my thighs. lifting me up and walking back over to the couch.

"oh fuck. don't talk like that y/n." chan said, grabbing my hands and holding them above my head. one hand on my wrists and the other guiding his dick into my cunt. slowly filling me inch by inch, I closed my eyes at the feeling. 

he laid me down, caging me in. clothes coming off fast, feeling up each other. chan grabbed his wallet as I stroked his dick. "fuck baby, I don't have a condom on me." he said, throwing his wallet onto the coffee table. "I wouldn't be the first time fucking me raw." I said, squeezing him. chan shuddered at my words and action. "you still want to?" he asked, fucking into my hand. "of course, why wouldn't i want your thick cock inside me, filling me up so nicely." I said, spreading my legs a little more for some more room.

"oh chris!" I moaned out, throwing my head back as he bottomed out. he groaned, letting go of my hands to place both of his on my hips. dragging out till only his tip was in, then slamming right back in. "shit, I love how this little cunt takes me all in." chan said, as he kept his slow but rough thrusts. taking his time to bring each other to our highs. with every thrust, hitting the gummy part inside me so perfectly every time. "faster please." I said, sweeping my hands up his arms to around his neck. 

"wanna cum baby?" he said, circling his arms under my body to completely hold me. his sweaty red chest presses against mine tightly. he rolled his hips, hitting my cilt with every stroke. I choked out a moan, angling my hips to get better friction. "yes, make me cum. please make me cum channie." I whined out, pulling at his now wet locks. as chan quicken his sloppy thrusts, he pushed his head into my neck. chan started moaning louder and louder, making me clench around him even harder. "oh fuck!" I moaned out. "yeah, cum for me baby. cum all over my cock." chan said, lifting his head, pressing his forehead to mine. "let me see how good I fuck you." he said with broken moans in-between.

the eye contact, the feeling of his body pressed to mine, and god-sent thrusts bringing me closer till finally the knot broke inside. dragging my nails down his back as I came. chan didn't let up with his thrusts prolonging my orgasm while chasing after his. which came with a couple of thrusts later. chan moaned loudly, pressing his hips as far as he could. cumming deep inside me. "oh fuck!" chan cried out, still lightly pumping with shallow thrusts. "take all my cum baby. take it, it's all for you." chan said, pushing once more before fully stopping. laying his head on my chest.

"I love you chan." I whispered into his hair. he pushed himself up and gave me a dazed smile. "I love you more." he said, pecking my lips gently. he fully say up and slowly pulled out. "going need to wash your blanket." chan laughed out, with his ears turning red. "what?" I said lifting up my body. "we made a mess baby." he said, rubbing the back of his neck. ohh. "well, let's get cleaned up." I said, careful getting up. I held out my hand as chan could grab it as we made our way to the bathroom.

chan relaxed into my arms. he dragged out his arms and stroked my thighs as we both calmed down from our racing breaths.

"I can't believe that book really turned you on." chan said. "and what about you? you had a complete hard-on and you had barely touch had you hands on me at first." I said, laughing. chan blushed as he pushed me into the bathroom. "shut up." he mumbled.

[preciadosbass]

14/8/24 [4x DIYS + a drawing <already posted> today!! key & significant photos at end. technically a journal from yesterday as it was posted on a later schedule.]

woke up at 9 and opened instagram to find out about danielle’s [vic fuentes’s wife] second pregnancy. im so happy for the both of themm!! [that explains vic’s freaky comments on danielle’s posts…] i stayed scrolling on insta and doing those story template/prompt things up until 9:50 when i finally went out to properly say good morning to boris. id already mouthed it to him through the front door after waking up, but i can’t go without actually sitting with him. i had breakfast as the heat is making me faint and he kept on jumping up on my knees to try and eat it. he did at one point lick the bottom of my toast [i got it on video yipee] and the way he tucks his paws and places them on my leg to get to it is so cute.

my mum said i should take off that bit of toast so i did, and stayed outside with him until 10:15 because apparently my sister has people [keyworkers [[?]] come over aswell and two people turned up on the driveway. once i was back inside my room, i wrote the entry to this journal and listened to linkin park’s ‘meteora’ [their best album in my opinion] i thought that i wouldn’t be able to leave my room in ages due to the people round, but my dad came in and told me that they’d left to shop/bake/cook with my sister. which is good for her, and ideal for me because i can get on with my diy windcharm inspired decoration/bottlecap charm.

i waited for my dad to get his tools and he started drilling the holes through the bottlecaps at around 10:40. after he was done, i brought the shells i collected from the beach inside, and my dad started going through the different ways he could drill through them as i couldn’t decide. i decided on one and made my bottlecap charms while he drilled. i finished one out of two of the charms when i realised the elastic was drooping and it looked weird so my dad drilled through the tops of the caps to make things easier. obviously you can see where it was originally drilled but i still think the results are cute. [photos at end]

i went outside to get sticks for my ‘windcharm’ thing, and put ‘jaime’ on my favourite bottlecap charm, which isn’t revolutionary for anyone else apart from me. it is at the moment because i don’t have my name on anything i own, and i finally put it somewhere!! the best part is, i can just say it’s because i love jaime preciado, as my family already know about my interest in him. they’ll never know whahahaha

i don’t actually know why i made the charms, they don’t serve much purpose other than hanging somewhere in my room and being something to look at. but i like randomly making ‘useless’ stuff — it gives me something to do. hopefully i can put up some more hooks and actually put them on display, maybe use the jaime one as a keychain if i do ever come out. i finished re-doing them, took pictures of them, and then said a quick hello to boris before starting to make my windcharm thing at 12:40.

i felt conscious over everyone in the house watching me make it, so i took the shells with me went into my room. i measured out all the elastic and started making it at 1. i threaded all the shells and a few odd tiny beads onto the frame. i originally meant to make one the bits that hang down to have silver beads on, but they didn’t fit through the elastic, so i resorted to bigger cream coloured beads. i finished it at 1:40 and stood on my stool to work out where i wanted it hung. i organised a place for it to go and hot glued my favourite shell onto the centre of the stick frame. my dad put a hook in my ceiling and hung it at 2:20. it dosent really look anything close to a windcharm, but at least it’s another thing in my room to glance at. [picture at end]

i listened to my atticus cd while making it, and i love it — my favourite track so far [im not sure how long i listened to it] was american nightmare by am/pm. it’s one of the only cds i have where all of the tracks/most of the tracks; [i cant remember] are all recorded by different artists. afterwards i went outside with boris until 3. my mum and dad were on the other side of the garden gate, being shown my sister’s nunchucking. upon getting inside, i started putting up some more photos at the side of my desk [3:20] i also stuck my jaime charm up there aswell. as for the other target looking one, i’m going to leave it hanging on my mini bass. [pictured at end]

i feel like i haven’t put up anything in decades even though i did not too long ago when i stuck pikachu on the side of my shelf, but still. while doing this, i listened to my main playlist [WIP] [link at end]. once i was done, i got out a few scrap parts of old jeans that id cut up and drew on them with a paint pen. i cant actually make any patches because i’ve lost my fabric paint, but i thought i might aswell make the ‘template.’ i made a my chemical romance once, along with ones of fall out boy, ‘all cats r beautiful’, the pierce the veil symbol, the frank iero logo, a killjoys patch, and a party poison patch. kobra kid is my fav out of the killjoys, but there’s no way on earth i’m drawing a kobra on denim or whatever the fabric im using is. i’m bad at drawing as it is. [will post photos of the finished product if i remember]

after putting all my supplies away, i posted for the first time on the mcr community i joined [which was scary wtf everyone’s so good at art there]. it was a picture of my diy black parade mcr trinket box. afterwards i wrote a decent amount of this and added a few full albums to my main playlist along with changing the playlist image. i also added three more can tabs to my tab bracelet as i found two out of nowhere this morning, and my sister brought one back from her outing. i listened to some more music and made drafts up until 5:40 when i started collecting black + white/dark blue pics of jaime and chi so i can redesign my homescreen and app icons. i finished after an hour and im super happy with the result. hopefully my favourite colour dosent change again because actually going through every app and changing the icon is boring asf. [photos at end]

i drew a killjoy oc from 7 to literally 12.. it took so long because it was my first time every drawing digitally and i made up their design on the spot. i wasn’t planning on finishing them so i had a break at 9, also. i’m okay with how it came out considering what i just mentioned. i love their ray gun design and i’m obviously yet to give them lore/a proper gang etc. i continued adding text to the drawing and posted a picture of them at 12:30. [the post under this]. at 12:50 i started looking at other peoples killjoy oc’s as i haven’t really done that before. i continued doing that while collecting band/musician gifs along the way until 1:50. i had already been in my parents room for 15-20 minutes but i did my questions about boris around the time just listed.

i did them quite quickly, went downstairs, did my teeth, and started saying goodnight to boris at 2:30. i told him/showed him the things i’ve made today and finished speaking to him at 3:20. i fed him before going into my room and wrapping up this journal. i posted this before going to sleep, but i’ll say i went to sleep at 3:35 and update the actual time in tomorrow’s journal.

🗝️ — boris/my cat, questions about boris/i ask my parents questions about my cat to verify he’s okay + will be okay in the morning. its a compulsive thing and i’m hopefully going to be tested for OCD in the future.

have a good day/night O_o

[steamberrystudio]

27/08/2023

So now that Gilded Shadows is wrapping up, I am promoting When Stars Collide from "Spare time project" to "Part time project"

What is the difference? Well, when I work on something in my spare time, that means it is late at night or the weekend. Literally when I am not doing anything else and just feel like tinkering with it. 

As a part time project, this means that I will be spending an hour or two each day during the work week to do things for this project. It will start making more steady progress even if I'm not focusing on it full time.

This is basically taking it from me spending 0 - 4 hours on it a week to 8-10 hours on it a week. 

My goal is to have the draft complete before the end of the year (by 'draft', I mean 'rough draft'). But more on that below.

Summary

Finished all scenes for the new chapter three

Finished Yren chapter 6 scenes

Started catching Kav's route up to the others

Edited Asher's CG to account for the new conference room BG

Small adjustments to Wil's first CG

Ramble

This week my big focus for WSC has been on writing. As I mentioned, I really want to get the rough draft completed by the end of the year. Currently the draft is nearly 70% complete (for those following updates in multiple places, when you see different percentages....it's because I've written more since then. Rofl).

Now, the draft was nearly 70% in the past as well but I added another route since then, so I lost some progress due to the increase in target word count. I'm also calculating things more precisely now as I created a newer and fancier writing spreadsheet to track my progress and keep myself on track.

I went back and wrote in the new chapter 3, reorganising all the existing chapters and scenes to accommodate it. 

I finished Yren chapter 6 (which catches him up to Noel and Raif). 

And now I'm working on catching Kav, the new character, up to Yren, Noel, and Raif. (Remember, Daaz and Asher's routes are already fully drafted).

I have written about 15000 words since my last update here. I don't expect to write that much every week and my goal is actually a fair bit more modest than that. Gilded Shadows is not 100% complete yet. I still have multiple KS related things to finish and, of course, I will be making corrections and focusing on its beta testing once testers have had a bit more time with it. 

WSC is still a part time project. This was just a particularly good week for it.

I have also worked on a few other things for WSC - mostly UI related and some art related things.

I received a new BG since my last update, and realised that...I have to revamp all the existing CGs. Or at least update them to change the background elements. I've only edited one so far but I don't think it'll be too much effort to fix the others.

And I continue to streamline and adjust the UI to make it look nicer and be more efficient.

So...

Kav. The new character. Kav'isari Tiaine, a Ka'mérian crew member who works in the space labs most of the time and specialises in identifying alien technology (what species it belongs to and what it does).

To explain where Kav came from, he actually popped into my head months ago. And every so often, I would contemplate whether or not I wanted to add him. I would say I first had the idea in January or February of this year. I would repeatedly think about it and dismiss it.

I then mentioned it to a friend sort of off-handedly back at the very beginning of June. A month and a half later, I mentioned him on a voice call on my server knowing full well that if I really talked about him and had a conversation about him, I would probably end up doing enough character brainstorming that he would become "real." And I talked about him anyway.

And that's exactly how he became an actual character. I think I had his sprite sketched out by the end of that day.

But he had existed as a concept long before that. The main reason I was willing to add him instead of ruthlessly telling myself no is just that I felt there was a gap in the cast for a gadfly style character who has a little mystery to him. And I just knew I could manage another route based on the length of Asher and Daaz's routes.

So...yeah. That is how Kav came into being. His introduction into the story has caused a few minor changes to standing lore or things in the prologue (just mentions of him, etc). But the changes to the currently public content of the game are pretty minor.

Kav won't actually appear in the game until Chapter 3. He gets mentioned a few times up to that point. There are some logistical considerations to his route but I have talked about those more on Patreon.

Speaking of Patreon, now that WSC is moved into "part time" status, I will be starting to slowly release some Patreon-exclusive lore posts for this game there. Like most games monetised through Patreon content, the lore posts will not be critical to having a full and complete game experience. Rather, it is going to be comprised of additional and extra lore content.

Some of the lore content released on Patreon will be in the game (such as character back stories) but Patrons will get to see it early and will get it presented in a different format.

Much of the content can be considered "extras" rather than necessary.

I will also be updating on the development progress weekly there (available to all patrons) rather than bi-weekly, and my updates there (going forward) will tend to be more detailed than the ones here.

Once episode releases start, Patrons will be able to access them before they the public releases. But backing on Patreon is not necessary to be able to play the game and get a full and complete game experience. It's just how this particular game will be monetised as I'm looking for more sustainable release styles so I can continue to make games.

That is all for this update. I will see you in a couple of weeks to talk about WSC again!

[hurpdurpburps]

Otherside Picnic Manga Yuri Club Special Story 10 English Translation

SPOILER WARNING: Takes place at the beginning of File 11 - The Whispered Voice Requires Self-Responsibility in Vol 3 of the novels.

Written by: Miyazawa Iori

Translated by: @hurpdurpburps

-

Chapter 10: Ikebukuro Bookstore, Meet Up

Thanks to the camping boom, I had no trouble finding reference materials. I entered the bookstore where we were supposed to meet, and took the escalator up to the second floor, where a row of camping books and mooks were lined up somewhere prominently. [1] As a matter of fact, there were so many books that I was at a loss.

Fortunately, I’d arrived much earlier than when we supposed to meet, so I had time to lose myself. I settled down at the section and started looking through the selection.

During my recent exploration in the Otherside, I’d realised that I was lacking when it came to outdoor skills, and I felt somewhat compelled to brush up on that. When I tried to burn the yamanoke that Toriko had crushed - or rather, something that resembled a yamanoke in ghost stories - I hadn’t been able to start a fire swiftly. Even though I had waterproof matches, it still took a while for the flame to grow.

Since I was planning on continuing my exploration of the Otherside, it wasn’t a good idea to go on like this. I wanted to have more wilderness survival skills and other more basic outdoor skills under my belt.

I hadn’t picked up much from back when I was still living in my hometown, moving from place to place. The money I’d brought with me from home was enough to scrape by for necessities, and I would sneak into ruins or abandoned houses when I was broke, so I never had the opportunity to live completely outdoors.

I started looking for books that looked decent, focusing on mooks aimed at beginners. Their content didn't seem to be all that different. Ways to make a fire, methods of pitching a tent, camp meals, and information about facilities in various locations. These were regular leisure guidebooks, but they were precisely what I was looking for, so it wasn't a problem. I wished to learn about survival techniques for crisis management, but first I wanted to know how to go about camping normally. We weren’t looking to survive out in the jungle with just a knife, but instead purchase the right equipment and explore with ease.

I picked three books that seemed easy to read and left the area. I looked at my watch and saw that there were five minutes left until our meeting time. Toriko might have already arrived. I wanted to take a look at books on military survival and mountain climbing books as well, but I left that for next time.

I went down to the first floor and looked around the area. Toriko didn't seem to be here yet. Even in a crowded place, Toriko stood out so it was impossible to miss her. I decided to pay first, and headed towards the checkout, when the magazine section caught my eye. I stopped in my tracks when I saw the front page of a fashion magazine with covered in words about fall and winter hairstyles and other stuff.

I hadn’t bothered with my hair for some time and it’d grown out quite a bit before I knew it, and one of my immediate problems was what to do about it.

Even though I had never paid any attention to my hairstyle since the day I was born.

When I was in elementary school, my hair was so short that I was mistaken for a boy. From middle school to high school, I simply let it grow out without any care or concern, and cut it myself when it got in the way. Things at home calmed down during the winter of my second year of high school, but I wondered what happened after that point. I think I went to the local barber once?

When I started university- nah, I think it was before my part-time job interview, I went to a 1,000-yen barber shop and got my hair cut somewhat short, and it had basically stayed the same ever since. When my bangs got in the way, I would visit the barber again. I think that was the extent of how much work I'd done with my hair. I'd never been to a beauty salon. They were expensive, and kind of scary.

I picked up a hair catalogue-like thing from the fashion magazine and started flipping through it.

... ... ... ...

I didn’t get it. Nothing was going into my head.

There were all sorts of hairstyles, but I had absolutely no idea if any of them suited me.

As I flipped through the pages in pure confusion, I started to get increasingly pissed. I felt stupid for fretting over something like this. I closed the magazine, put it back on the shelf, and turned around, just in time to see Toriko enter the store.

It seemed like Toriko noticed me at the same moment. I turned and headed in her direction since she was waving at me.

When we met in front of the corner for new releases, Toriko smiled and said "Sorry, I'm a little late."

"It’s alright, I was looking at books anyways. I'm gonna go pay, wait here for a bit."

"Okie-dokie." [2]

I got a little annoyed at the carefree smile she directed towards me.

Without a clue about how others feel…

Whose fault do you think it is that I’m vexed over something like my hair?

It's you. [3]

Do you get that, Toriko?

TL Notes

General note: I adopted a more 'literary' prose style to match the tone of the novels. Hence, the translation in this series will be significantly more liberal than my usual analytical posts. Feel free to ask me anything. Feedback regarding translation accuracy is also welcome.

Holy guacamole, a bit of an intense trauma lore drop there about her hair... These chapters are getting heavier as we go, ngl.

[1] So, the Japanese here says ムック and I was like wtf is that? Turns out it's a portmanteau of books and magazines that started in France(?) but is now only really used in Japan still.

There's apparently a Wikipedia page on this lmao, which describes the thing as such: A mook is a publication which is physically similar to a magazine but is intended to remain on bookstore shelves for longer periods than traditional magazines, and is a popular format in Japan.

[2] Toriko says "okay" in katakana (オーケイ), which has a more casual vibe than an actual "okay" (which would be something like はい) so I changed it up a bit.

[3] Sorawo uses お前 ("omae") here, which is a brusque version of "you", so the tone here sounds rather resentful lmao.

List of Yuri Club's Otherside Picnic Short Stories [my translations]:

1. Shinjuku, The First Meet-Up (新宿、初めての待ち合わせ)

2. Hasshaku-sama Epilogue (八尺様エピローグ)

3. Ochanomizu, The First Afterparty (お茶の水、初めての打ち上げ)

4. Ikebukuro, Cafe Meal For One (池袋、ひとりカフェ飯)

5. Naha, After The Big Job (那覇、大仕事の後)

6. Ishigaki Island, A Dazed Vacation (石垣島、呆然のリゾート)

7. Mercedes AMG, The Backseat (メルセデスAMG、後部座席)

8. Otherworldly Elevator, On The Way Back (異世界エレベーター、帰路)

9. Kozakura Mansion, Pizza Party (小���屋敷、ピザパーティー)

10. Ikebukuro Bookstore, Meet Up (池袋の書店、待ち合わせ)

11. Hannou, In The Car From The Station (飯能、駅からの車中)

12. TBD

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Okay. This post has been a while in the making. Here is a screenshot of the spreadsheet where I have tracked all 65 shows from the Edinburgh Festival 2024, that I have gotten to experience in one way or another (seeing it live, NextUp streams, etc.). They're sorted by a ranking that I gave them out of 10, though it's actually out of 40 because I couldn't keep myself to just 10 numbers, so I started giving half points, and then quarter points and three-quarter points. But I drew the line there. No further decimals.

The rankings are very subjective, based on how much I enjoyed each show at the time, and may in some cases not line up with what a reasonably objective observer would think. Obviously, because of this, reducing comedy shows to numbered rankings and stars and things is fucking pointless. But on the other hand, I do like putting numbers in spreadsheets, so I've done it anyway.

And here are further thoughts about all 65 of those shows. It is... it's nearly 21,000 words. There or thereabouts, is the word count of this post. It's long, even by my standards. I'm pretty sure it's the longest post I've ever made on Tumblr. It's so long. It's too long. And it's not edited, because fuck that. I spent long enough writing it. So it might be unreadable. I know that lots of my posts are ridden with errors, but usually with the ones I spend more time on I do at least a quick glance to try to catch some, I'm not even bothering here. Sorry about that.

Also, Tumblr formatting appears to have made the whole numbers very large, for reasons I do not understand and cannot be bothered to try to change.

10

- Nish Kumar – Nish Don’t Kill My Vibe

It’s one of the best stand-up shows I’ve ever seen. I’ve been lucky enough to get to follow this show as it’s progressed over the past year, and it was still officially labelled a WIP in Edinburgh (but a WIP that he’d been developing since the previous fall and for a tour that was about to start, so very well put together for something with that label), I was blown away by how great the initial version was and then he just kept adding more stuff that kept being excellent. It’s a very rare show where I can’t think of a single bit that seemed weak or like filler. On the contrary, he was struggling to squeeze all his great material into only an hour. In the version I saw in Edinburgh, he overran slightly, and talked even faster than his usual breakneck pace, and managed to do almost every bit that’s been in the show all year, and every single part made me laugh.

If I hadn’t seen it the week before, I’d have wondered what part of it was a WIP at all anymore. But I can see he’s still playing with it because he ended on a different routine from the closing routine at the WIP I saw him do in London the previous week (I’m not… I mean… it’s fine, in 2022 I drove 8.5 hours just to see him perform in New York City and then a few months later drove 2 hours to Montreal to see him do that show that I’d already seen, in 2024 I got a two-week trip to London and Edinburgh and saw him twice, I like Nish Kumar a normal amount). I find that sort of thing fascinating, being able to see his workings as he tries to decide what tone of closer he wants to go for, and normally I’d have an opinion on it. But in this case I actually don’t know, they both fit the bill very well in different ways (do you want to close on a sensitive moving anecdote or a furious call to arms?), I just think it’s a shame that he can’t do it all. He’ll have to cut some stuff for the tour show, but I wish he could do a 1.5-hour version just once to film it and have this whole show forever.

His 2022 show, the one I saw live twice in a few months because he kept coming to North America, was one of my favourite stand-up shows ever. I think his 2024 show is even better.

9.75

- David O’Doherty – Ready, Steady, David O’Doherty

I came very close to giving this show a 10, knocked it down to 9.75 because I feel like I shouldn’t be able to give more than one show a perfect score (totally arbitrary rule that I’ve made up), and if I’m really honest, I know that my experience of this show was enhanced by the fact that it was the first time I’d ever been in a room with David O’Doherty, after several years of being obsessed with his entire career. In my subjective view it was a mind-blowingly wonderful masterpiece, while a more objective observer would – if they have any taste – call it a fantastic show, but not necessarily, you know, perfect 10.

It was so much fun. That’s my overriding memory of it. He played a big room – an Assembly Rooms theatre with a capacity of nearly 500, sold out the night I went, I checked and saw he sold out a bunch of other nights too despite doing a full month-long run, and good for him – but I turned up really early to get the front of the line and front-row seat, and I’m so glad I did. It was so exciting to be right up there.

This was a rare show in which I was totally unaware of the time. Usually for any kind of show, even if I’m enjoying it a lot, I do have it in my head how long it’s been since we started, and by the time they start wrapping up I’m ready for that. Not with DO’D. DO’D has done this thing for nearly twenty years where the second-last bit of his show will be that year’s “My Beefs” song, about all the things that piss him off that year, get something silly and fun with lots of energy in the room, and then he’ll do his more poignant closing routine. In this show, he built up to it briefly by saying sometimes things bother him, it took the whole room a moment to catch up and realize what he was introducing, and then there was a massive cheer all across the theatre as he shouted “My beefs 2024!” and started playing his keyboard, and that was the coolest fucking thing. I think I cheered out loud. I never cheer out loud. Not at a show. Maybe at a sporting event, but not at a comedy or music show. I clap politely and I see the people around me outwardly expressing their excitement, and I think “Oh that looks like fun, being a person who does that.” But in this moment, I got so caught up in the “Oh my God new Beefs song and I don’t have to wait until the MICF gala short videos come out to see it, I get it live, right here!”, that I think I might have shouted something like “Yes!” I’m not sure, any noise I made was drowned out by everyone else’s cheering.

It was fucking cool. I’ve joked before about DO’D being a rockstar to me, but he was in that moment, and it was so much fun, but also it made me realize we only had one more short song until the closing routine, and I honestly had it in my head that we were still in the first 15 or so minutes. But nope, and he didn’t underrun or anything, I was just enjoying it so much that an hour felt like half that time. I was nowhere near ready to be done when he finally did wrap it up, I could have stayed there forever.

The show itself was lovely. Classic DO’D, just him and his keyboard up there, standing to talk and sitting to play, this is the first time that I realized how much the variety helps him avoid any lulls in a show (just when talking starts getting old he switches to singing, and vice-versa). It was a sweet show about his parents, which he used to talk about bigger cultural stuff in how he was raised and how people view their own lives and affect each other, it had touching messages and it was so funny. A couple of the songs had better end up getting officially recorded at some point, because they were so funny. Brilliant show from start to finish.

- Jordan Brookes – Fontanelle

This was the first show I saw at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I got there on Sunday evening, saw this show on Sunday night, and then went back to the Air B&B to sleep before I started my full days in Edinburgh. At the Air B&B that night, I wrote a post that said I was genuinely a bit worried I’d made a mistake in putting Jordan Brookes first on my schedule, because that was so fucking fantastic that it’ll set the bar too high for everything else. Jordan Brookes was waiting outside as we emptied the room, to hand out flyers and stuff, and as we walked by, the audience member in front of me told him, “I’ve been coming to the Fringe for twenty years and that was the best show I’ve seen here.” I thought… yeah, I’ve been coming to the Fringe for about 90 minutes, but I feel like I could come for 20 more years and wouldn’t outdo that.

They gave him the award too early, I’ll say that much. It’s a shame that this show wasn’t eligible for the Perrier Award, because he already won it, for a show that’s on NextUp and is very good, but isn’t as good as this one. He has a few shows on NextUp, I like them all quite a bit – that’s why I bought a ticket to see him live – but this was his best one.

There was so much going on in it. Costumes and props and music and lighting cues. Background dancers (including one of the guys from Crizards, whom I was pleased with myself for recognizing because I'm quite bad with faces). The premise was that he’d written a musical about The Titanic, and every time there was even the smallest risk of a lull, he’d launch right into something high-energy about a musical, before going back to intellectual ruminations on societal conceptions of masculinity. It went dark in places, but that never felt like it was for shock value, it was just seamless. It was this whole big production, but at the same time it felt intimate and personal. This had the feeling to it of a masterpiece, a magnum opus.

Fun comedian-spotting side note – Jin Hao Li was in the audience when I saw it, conveniently seated across from me in the seating that went along both sides, so I could very easily glance at his face any time. Which I probably did too often, because I was interested in how an actual comedian was receiving this, and I suppose because I was interested in the validation of knowing whether my favourite comedians share my taste in comedy. I’m pleased to say that every time I looked over, Jin Hao Li was dying laughing, probably enjoying it even more than the rest of the audience, which was a lot.

- Sarah Keyworth – My Eyes Are Up Here

I’d heard a few earlier versions of this show, but the most recent was when they filmed it for Access Festival in January, so it had a lot of time to grow between then and August. It’s been on some international tours, won the Champion of Melbourne Award, developed over eight months. And that showed. I thought it was a very funny show even in its earlier forms, but by August the routines had been polished, the narrative was more coherent, the jokes sharper and even more had been added, and it was a beautiful piece of work.

It is so funny. The joke rate is really high, they’re all good. There’s a big variety of types of jokes, from quick little gags to drawn out, well set up ones. I think that really sets this show apart from similar ones. I hate it when people say things like “Oh, comedy doesn’t have to be funny anymore, you can just be emotionally moving and people like that now.” Because lots of emotionally moving shows are also funny, otherwise they wouldn’t be good comedy.

But I will admit, sometimes, the really emotional shows are probably, overall, less funny than ones that focus only on humour. Which is why I’m so impressed when I see one like this Keyworth show, that had a really moving emotional arc and covered their personal experiences with significant political issues (ADHD and top surgery/non-binary identity, primarily, which I feel weird calling “political issues” because it’s someone’s life, but those are big contentious things right now where voices of lived experience matter), that spoke touchingly about the importance of family and inter-generational connection and had an appropriately emotional conclusion, and when I look back on what that show did to me, I remember it making me properly laugh almost constantly.

Okay, I have one tiny issue. There was one joke in earlier versions of the show (they did this joke when they streamed the show for Access Festival, so I assume it’s okay to refer to it, as they chose to film that joke, it’s not just some WIP that they later scrapped), where the target was Ricky Gervais. In the Edinburgh version, they kept the joke but made it about transphobic Netflix comedians in general, and cut the references to The Office. I would love to know why they did that, because I thought the joke worked much better the first way. But that’s the only thing that I thought changed for the worse. Every other part of the show got even better.

This show deserves all its accolades, Sarah Keyworth deserves all the accolades, it felt like a privilege to sit in a darkened basement and get to see it live. Also, fun comedian spotting: Jordan Brookes was in the audience with me. I didn’t realize he was there until after the show when I saw him in the crowd emptying the room, but I heard him talking to some people about how good it was.

9.5

- Amy Gledhill – Make Me Look Fit on the Poster

I watched the NextUp stream of this show on the day that Amy Gledhill won the Perrier Award for it (or you know, whatever, Champion of Edinburgh), and I could immediately see why. Actually that might not be quite true – I made the mistake of going in thinking “Wow, show me what made this one better than the other, like, thousand eligible comedy shows in Edinburgh this year”, and that’s not the right way to go into a show. The opening routine was funny but not instantly groundbreaking, which led me to wonder why this isn’t the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And then I caught myself thinking that, told myself to knock it off and stop buying into fake award hype and just enjoy a comedy show on its own merits. And then it got really, really good. It got better and better as it went along, I got really drawn into the building narrative, it all came together in a strong and emotional ending, and by the time it was over, I found myself saying, “Wow, I see why that won the award.”

I hadn’t seen her perform solo before this, but I’ve seen and really enjoyed all the Delightful Sausage shows on NextUp (okay, if I’m honest, I’d really enjoyed two of them and the third not so much, but I’d enjoyed those other two a lot), and I think those skills really came through in this. It was just an hour of straight stand-up, but it felt more theatrical that most straight stand-up hours. Her facial expressions, her act-outs, and just her stage presence. Her ability to keep a crowd’s attention, to be playful and interesting no matter what she’s talking about. Those felt like the things she does in sketch to make the narrative more compelling, and it was interesting to see it applied to stand-up.

- Dan Rath – Pariah Carey

Holy God, is he ever funny. Some of the material was recycled from last year’s show, I’m Not Doing Well Folks (which is free on YouTube and excellent), but I didn’t even mind because so much of what’s funniest about Dan Rath his stage presence and delivery. He does a lot of one-liner-type jokes, stuff that should get less funny when you know the punchline, but in his case I could watch him say this stuff over and over and it’ll still be funny because of how he says it. And the majority of the show was new, and also funny. Dark, fucked up humour, but the kind of dark humour where he’s the target of every joke (so, not that thing where edgy comedians just say racial slurs and then say “sorry you don’t understand my dark sense of humour”).

At one point he asked me my job, and I said autism therapist (which is true), and he’d just done a bunch of jokes about how very autistic he is, and he did a whole riff about how I’ve come to get him, and then he tried to have a further interaction with me but I was too awkward for it, and he asked “Do you have what your clients have?”, and I said “Yes” before realizing he meant that rhetorically, which sort of made his point.

- Kiri Pritchard-McLean – Peacock

Probably the closest any Edinburgh 2024 comedy show came to making me cry. It came so close. It might have… I might have had, like, one actual tear in my eye, near the end. Blinking it away so people wouldn’t see me cry in a big theatre. And it was a big theatre. Kiri Pritchard-McLean is too famous for this festival, she did three nights in the Pleasance Grand with her name in massive lights behind her and a blindingly sparkly dress, it felt glamorous and exciting.

The show’s topic was one close to my heart, about how to be an adult who raises kids and teenagers while not being their biological parent. It’s not exactly my experience, as I’ve never been a foster parent, and that’s what the show was about. But so many of the themes and messages resonated with me so much, from all my years coaching, about how to be a mentor a safe place for youth who need it and might not get it from their biological parents. How to find fulfillment in a rewarding experience like that even if you don’t want to do the biological parenthood thing. And I don’t want to do the biological parenthood thing, but a couple of weeks ago I went to the wedding of a guy whom I started coaching when he was fourteen years old, and now he’s 27 and on his wedding day he hugged me and told me he’d not have got here without my support and that I was his rock in his teenage/early twenties years, and I told him I wouldn’t be able to be any prouder of him even if he were my actual son, and it was fine that that made us both tear up because it’s a wedding, a normal place to cry, rather than a theatre where a woman in a sparkly dress is talking about the code name she used with her foster kids.

…This one hit me too personally for me to be able to talk very well about the show itself, rather than veering off into my own stuff that it brought up, but it was such a well put together show. The type of comedy hour that just constantly signals experience and professionalism from the person who wrote and delivered it. Polished, coherent, confidence. Took what could have been a really boring topic, the admin involved in navigating the social care system, and made it consistently funny. And took what was always going to be an emotionally affective topic, the reasons to work in the social care system, and hit all the right emotional notes without once feeling over-wrought.

I’m so glad that my 5 days (plus one evening) in Edinburgh overlapped with Kiri’s three, this one was worth taking the opportunity to see live.

- Marjolein Robertson – O

This was a rare chance I took on someone I knew very little about before this. I’d heard a few short sets that she’d done on mixed bills, and I’d liked them well enough, but little 10-minute things aren’t really the way to appreciate a comedian like this one. I’d read a lot about how great her 2023 stand-up hour was, so I figured I’d buy a ticket for her 2024 one and hope it’s true that she’s very good.

It was true. Whatever my expectations were, she exceeded them. I didn’t know the topic going in, so I was immediately surprised by (I assume this isn’t a major spoiler, I’m pretty sure the synopsis is easy to find) realizing she was going to spend the whole hour talking about menstrual complications (that seems like too small a term to describe some of the quite severe health issues she discussed, but she also discussed the issue more broadly). I initially thought, “Wow, you don’t hear much about that in comedy.” And then I thought, “Hang on, it was a stereotype for years that female comedians only talk about periods.” Marjolein even addressed that stereotype in her show, in a moment that got one of the biggest laughs out of me that I got from the whole festival.

But 1) Obviously that’s bullshit, some female comedians made a few jokes about periods and then they got defined entirely as that by misogynists who think even two minutes on the subject is too much, and 2) Yeah I’ve heard a few period jokes before, but not like this. I’ve never heard any comedian address it like this. This took on an incredibly weighty subject (not that menstruation has to be an inherently weighty subject, but it is when discussing a possibly life-threatening medical condition associated with it), and handled in a way that gave it its due seriousness while still being funny at regular intervals. I say “at regular intervals” because yeah, this show had times when it would go a few minutes without being funny. It had to, for the whole thing to work. But those few minutes would always hold your attention in some other way; they’d be interesting (giving me information I didn’t already know about medical situations, or Scottish legends), or scary, or sad, or occasionally heartwarming. And she used that brilliantly to highlight the funny parts. Playing with tension, turning it all the way up for the serious bits, and then getting an even bigger laugh for her next joke because she had so much tension to release.

I was captivated from start to finish in this show. Any time there was any risk of a lull, she’d launch into some mythology, and then bring it back around. I guess the mythology bits could maybe have been integrated slightly better into the main themes of the show – I could see where it was going by the end, but not always in the middle. I don’t know, that’s a tiny nitpicky thing because I felt like I had to find a flaw in it. It’s a very good hour of comedy.

- Natalie Palamides – WEER

Fucking brilliant, obviously. Should probably be rated even higher than this, really. It’s probably the most impressive display of talent that I’ve seen in the entire festival, one of the most impressive displays of talent that I’ve ever seen on a stage. It’s theatre, rather than just comedy (I don’t know where the line is between a play and a narrative comedy show, but this was definitely a play), but it was still frequently funny.

I wasn’t planning to see it until the last moment, because I enjoyed the two shows that Natalie Palamides has filmed before – Laid and Nate – but they also made me feel weird and uncomfortable with the nudity (entirely my issue, not anything she did wrong – I just do not have Theatre Experience to be chill about a naked person on stage), and creeped out by the puppets, and I was sort of glad that I watched those alone where I could curl up in a ball of discomfort, rather than in a theatre full of people. But a friend of mine gave this show a very high recommendation to me, and I figured this is the type of thing that’s better for a live experience, so I may as well take the chance to see her. I bought a ticket a few days before I arrived in Edinburgh.

Natalie Palamides plays both the man and woman in a romcom, half her body dressed/made up as one and half as the other, constantly switching which half of her is facing the audience so she can play one and then the other as they interact with each other, and that sounds like the worst thing in the world if done badly but blindingly impressive if done well, and this was the latter. Very much the latter. I was occasionally distracted from other aspects of the play, by just marveling at how impressive the situation was. I don’t really have enough Theatre Experience to have a proper informed opinion about this play, beyond “fucking hell, that was impressive”. She did get naked at one point but at least I was expecting it this time and I did not curl up in a ball. I’m so glad I saw it live.

9.25

- Ed Night – The Plunge

This show was not in a glamourous theatre. It was in a cramped, small, dark basement that smelled bad. And I don’t know how to make it sound like the high compliment it’s meant to be, when I say that is the perfect venue for Ed Night. It’s almost a shame that he’s so talented he’ll probably get too successful to play a room like that soon. But it’s only almost a shame. It’s not quite a shame, it’s actually a very good thing. Because I have now spent several years rooting for this guy to get famous.

I wrote this story out a few times during the posts that I hastily made from the festival itself, but I’ll write it again for this one. I first discovered Ed Night a few years ago, when I made the very ill-advised decision to watch every episode of Roast Battle UK, one of the worst guilty pleasure shows I’ve ever seen. “Guilty pleasure” probably isn’t an accurate term, because I didn’t even enjoy most of it. But there were a few that I found funny. And my favourite of the whole show was one with Huge Davies, a comedian I knew a bit, and Ed Night, a comedian I did not know at all. I looked up Ed Night afterward, and was disappointed to find he’s done nearly nothing else on TV or radio or recorded stand-up. I found a couple of really short sets he did on YouTube, liked those a lot, but there was no more.

For the next while, I kept trying to follow his stuff, and being annoyed that he wasn’t famous enough for me to see him from Canada. I could go see him in a club if I lived in the UK, but there’s an ocean. He started a podcast with Huge Davies and Sunil Patel, and I tried the first episode, but could not get through it. Maybe it gets good, I don’t know. I couldn’t get into it. And I hear it now involves making Ed Gamble read pornography on a podcast, as though someone else didn't do that 15 years ago, and do it so well that that idea's been burned. No one else could come close to matching that glory and shouldn't even try.

Anyway, Ed Night has that, and has a YouTube series about bad movies, but that is a topic that I care so little about. I just wanted to see his stand-up, to test my hypothesis, based on like 8 minutes of Roast Battle, that I bet I’d really like this guy, if I could see his actual work. That was the hypothesis, that I probably put way too much faith in, based on so little evidence. That he was both objectively good at comedy, and that his comedy would probably be the sort of thing that I subjectively like. I spent a couple of years rooting for his career to succeed as thought it were a sports team, hoping he'd get famous enough to record a special or something, but he didn't, so I had to go to him instead.

So when I got the chance to plan a trip to Edinburgh, one of the first tickets I booked was Ed Night, dedicating a whole primetime timeslot this guy I knew basically fuck all about. I nearly walked into him on the street outside the Pleasance Courtyard, a couple of days before I saw his show, and I had a moment of thinking… "Fuck, I had to cut so many comedians from my list of people to see, what if this guy is a waste of one of my precious few 7-8 PM timeslots? Can I really be sure he'll be worth it, just because I like that he referenced Pokemon in a Roast Battle?"

So after I actually saw his show, I was so fucking pleased to report that it turns out Ed Night is good at stand-up comedy. He could have been shit. Some people are shit. But he was so good. So good that I bet he’ll get famous soon, and then there will be more stuff by him that gets released in ways that I can see it from across the ocean, and that’ll be convenient. But I’m glad that before that happens, I got to see him in a small cramped darkened basement, where his style of comedy clearly belongs.

It was funny, and, as I’d suspected, the specific type of thing that I like in stand-up. Very dark, but not in a racial slur way. On the contrary, sprinkled with angry left-wing sentiments (I wouldn’t call it political comedy, but it was sharply opinionated and on the left side of whatever political issues did come up). Reminded me of Dan Rath, in some ways, with its level of darkness of his stand-up persona being extreme low status, but with Dan Rath it was more obviously a character, while with Ed Night… I mean obviously it was curated, but it felt more real.

It was about mental illness and physical illness and anxiety about the future and dangerous dogs and death and caregiving and the healthcare system and he found some time to talk shit about Tom Binns, a fairly left-field target but one that’s definitely worth shit talking. He got a Pokemon reference into a suicide joke, which is right up my alley. It was also surprisingly gag-heavy, they were constant and sprinkled around all the pessimistic rhetoric and you can tell he’s spent a long time crafting this show to get as much as possible out of every minute.

I think my description of this show has been longer than my description for any of the others so far, and I really have to start cutting these down soon because there are 65 shows on the list and if I continue at this rate, this post will technically qualify as a novella. But I needed a long time to explain this one, because I need one thing to be very, very clear: my decision to watch Roast Battle has now been artistically justified. It’s not an awful guilty pleasure, it’s the way I discovered a guy who turned out to be very good at stand-up comedy, so it was actually a good decision for my overall experience of art.

- Emma Sidi – Is Sue Grey

This is another one where I took a bit of a chance on someone I didn’t know well. I knew she was supposed to be good, she did amusing characters on YouTube, she did good acting on Starstruck, she hung out with Rose Matafeo so she had to be all right, comedians I like rate her. I was trying to expand my comedy horizons a bit, figured it would be a safe bet to go with her as a way to experience character comedy. Plus it was advertised as something political, and while I can’t stand it when people say “PoLiTiCaL cOmEdY iS dEaD nOw” as though Andy Zaltzman and his entire Bugle empire just doesn’t exist, it is true that political comedy’s not as common as I’d like. So I booked a ticket (booked it just before the Taskmaster season 18 lineup spoilers came out, which I’d like noted for the record so I get credit for jumping on the bandwagon before it was cool, if only just).

It was so much fun. From start to finish, it was huge fun to be in that room. I must admit that about five minutes in, I was thinking… “Okay, this is funny so far, but surely she can’t keep it up. Is it really going to be an entire hour of just this one character? She can’t have a whole hour worth of material on this.” But she did. It never felt, to me, like a sketch stretched thin across an hour (though I’ve seen some reviews that say it was, so I guess your mileage may vary, if your mileage is incorrect). It felt like she had more ideas than she knew what to do with. She took us through the history of Sue Grey’s career chronologically, which I liked. It gave the narrative a coherent arch. She threw in all these different things, water cooler audience participation and weirdly hilarious Spanish bits and this surreal thread with a dwarf, that kept it feeling fresh to me, like it wasn’t just the same stuff repeated.

And the ending really got to me. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for a good ending; I’ve probably come away from some stand-up shows thinking they were better than they really were, because the ending was better than the show and that’s what forms the lasting impression, and I will fall for that trick if it’s executed well enough. I don’t think that’s what happened here. It’s now been a couple of months since I saw the show, I have enough distance so if I was just taken in by a manipulatively strong ending, I’d have noticed by now, as I look back on the whole show. It was all good. But that ending did work on me.

I guess I’m not supposed to write the details of what she did at the end due to spoilers for a touring show (I’m not avoiding spoilers altogether here, but I try not to go too heavy on them), but I have to say, she brought it all together, she suddenly and really sharply brought home the way that these fun sketches represent real things and it’s affecting real British people’s lives, and it wasn’t long after the election when I saw this, and I’m not even British but I’ve been invested in their politics for long enough to feel the emotional weight of that too (and I can relate, Canada’s had its own struggles with long-term Tory rule, and alternatives-to-Tory that are weak centrist bullshit), and I thought that was a pretty powerful statement to make on this particular summer. Which is why I don’t understand all the reviews for this show that say it was a fluffy character piece but missed the opportunity to make any actual satirical points. Maybe Steve Bennett and I saw different shows.

- Laura Davis – Albatross

Okay, for real this time, I need to start making these commentary sections shorter. Laura Davis writes brilliant poetic comedy, and I need to apologize to them for using that term because they complain in the show about people who call their stand-up poetry, but they also complain about pretty much every way this show could possibly be described, they’re not leaving us much. I’m pretty sure it is, in fact, a show about loneliness. And it’s poetic as fuck. It’s atmospheric. It’s so atmospheric.

I think it might fall just barely short of being my favourite Laura Davis show, just a notch behind If This Is It, but God, that is a high bar. I think it probably surpasses their other stuff, and their other stuff is really good too, but Albatross feels a bit like the show they’ve been trying to write for years. The atmosphere. The brilliant, engaging atmosphere they create, with stories of walking alone at night and staring at the abyss in the ocean. It probably helps that I, personally, romanticize the ocean a lot. I’ve spent many of my favourite hours of my life staring into the abyss of the ocean, and Laura Davis perfectly captured how it feels to look out and feel like you could be swallowed up by it. By the ocean, and by the information in the world, and all these other themes that came together brilliantly.

The stories about their childhood were poignantly relatable. The stories about feeling an instinctive dislike for people who can have fun in public but then feeling guilt about that dislike and trying to understand it – that was poignantly relatable too. And the stuff about dead birds on the beach. Atmospheric as fuck. I want to live in the world that Laura Davis sculpted for me.

I try to avoid the temptation to just reflexively compare everything good in comedy to Daniel Kitson. Laura Davis is the person with whom I have the second most difficulty in avoiding the comparison. The person with whom I find that comparison most difficult to avoid is Alice Fraser, who unfortunately was not in Edinburgh this year. But the end of this Laura Davis show had me really thinking of some of the old Kitson shows that end on a bit crescendo, like Impotent Fury of the Privileged or even It’s the Fireworks Talking. I’m just big on shows that metaphorically take you to the ocean and throw it all at you.

And it was also funny. Okay? Things can be poignantly relatable and atmospheric and also funny. It made me laugh. Laura Davis is really good at this.

- Sheeps – The Giggle Bunch (That's Our Name For You)

This was another “take the chance to see it live while it’s there, and broaden your horizons beyond straight stand-up” gamble that paid off hugely. I had heard some Sheeps stuff before and found it funny, and I like Liam Williams a lot from his other work (Ladhood TV/radio, Pls Like, that one stand-up special he did for the BBC), but to be honest I didn’t know Sheeps well enough to expect this one to be a standout. Luckily, my expectations were significantly exceeded.

Every sketch was funny, which was a good start. I always think of that Mitchell & Webb sketch when I see sketch shows, and it’s pretty accurate, they’re almost never all hits, even the good ones. But I think this Sheeps show was. Obviously some sketches were better than others, but all of them made me laugh at some point, none felt like they were just filler.

There was a fairly ambitious one near the end where they were doing some sort of anti-humour thing about AI, which got deliberately unfunny at times and then got funnier again as they ran the joke further and further into the ground, and to be honest, I’m still not sure what I think of that one. It was either a genius bit of writing and the best bit of the show, or their only miss. Probably the first thing, I think. It’s hard to tell.

But aside from that one sketch, every other one was straightforwardly good, accessible, funny. There was a bit of political stuff. There was an emotional arc that had the twist being, as far as they presented it to the audience, true (I mean, I assume stylized for stage and stuff, the same way that truth gets stylized in straight stand-up, but it was apparently an accurate representation of their professional relationship, which isn’t something I’d normally expect to see in a sketch show). Whether or not the “true” bits were objectively real, that heightened the impact, I think. The result was a collection of (mostly) unrelated funny sketches, and an emotional throughline with a big conclusion at the end. The way all those things came together was amazing, I felt like I was watching something really polished and great. Overall, it was just great.

9

- BriTANick – Dummy

It was so fun! It was like high school! In the best way! Not in the way that the comedy quality was as though a high school student made it. In the way that it immediately brought me back to when I was in high school, trading memes and College Humour videos with my friends. Not that this was meme-quality humour either! It wasn’t, it’s the College Humour that it reminded me of. Cracked. That stuff. Their opening song was so much in that vein, it immediately put me in the frame of mind to enjoy that sort of thing and remember how funny that very silly style of comedy can be, and then they kept it up for an hour (well, 45 minutes).

It was another sketch show with an overarching narrative, though this one was entirely fictional, and absurd, to the point where it didn’t really work, but intentionally so. Like, the plot not working was the joke. And it doesn’t sound like that joke should be funny, when I write it like that. But it really was.

The individual sketches were also funny, they way they’d start out as one thing and inevitably spiral into the confusing messing of the overarching plot. This might be really specific to my high school experience of being into the types of comedy these guys did, but hearing this type of thing again made me feel like a teenager, and laugh like a teenager, and it was so well written and just enormous fun.

- Guy Williams – This Glass House Makes It Easy to See All the Cowards I'm Throwing Stones At

I have already established – long established, repeatedly – that as much as I’d like to be someone who says “I’m not into that shouty comedy, I just don’t think you need to be so brash to be funny”, my list of favourite comedians shows the opposite is true. I fucking love having my own political views shouted at me aggressively from someone who will cathartically give me a break from the relentless efforts I make to try to “be fair” to the other side. See the one person on this list whose show I rated a 10. See Tom Ballard, a couple of spots down from this part (same rating, just lower alphabetically, I sorted the spreadsheet by rating and then by comedian first name, I know how to make consuming art fun). And see Guy Williams. So they can be British, Aussie, Kiwi, doesn’t matter. As long as they will shout my own political opinions at me in a cathartic way. (They do not have to be men, either, but unfortunately Josie Long did not arrive at this festival until after I’d left.)

I think the most impressive thing Guy Williams achieves with this show is managing to be genuinely edgy from a left-wing perspective. There are so many comedians out there claiming to be edgy. Most of them are right-wing edgelords, saying “Sorry you don’t have a dark enough sense of humour to appreciate my racial slurs.” Some of them are left-wing people saying “Fuck the queen of England – oh, sorry if that’s too offensive for you,” while speaking to an audience of people who clearly are not fans of colonialism. Guy Williams is a very rare person expressing views that made me say – “Okay, if you start saying ‘Sorry this material might be too edgy for some people’, that would be fair enough, he’s earned that.”

There were some genuinely interesting ideas in this show, like some stuff about reversing the mathematical formula for comedy + time = tragedy – a bit that I wished had gone on longer because I thought he was on to something cool with that. There was also a bit about Cat Stevens’ music that probably went on for slightly too long, but he delivered it with so much enthusiasm that I stayed on board anyway. There was probably the best Ricky Gervais joke I’ve ever heard (as in jokes about Ricky Gervais… not by him), in a festival where I heard quite a few Ricky Gervais jokes (even though Keyworth cut theirs, there were lots of people referencing him).

This show didn’t feel nearly as polished as most of the great shows at this festival. I have tried to work this out, but I cannot tell how much of that was a master of the craft intentionally making his work look effortless, and how much was genuinely shambolic. Doesn’t really matter though, since it was all so funny.

- Mark Watson – Work-In-Progress Is Not a Cop-Out, It Demonstrates Respect For The Paying Audience

This was billed as work in progress, as per the title, and it was certainly more like an actual WIP than the other half of Wumar, who turned up with a show he’d been perfecting all year and stuck a WIP label on it. But this was certainly not an early WIP, as most of the material in it was stuff I heard Mark Watson do at Access Festival in January (though it’s improved since then). So it was material that he’s been working on for a while, but performed in a room with literally 37 seats (I counted them), and for not very much money, due to its WIP status. It was the first time I’d seen Mark Watson live, after being a huge fan of lots of his work for a long time (don’t think about the cheating on his wife thing don’t think about the cheating on his wife thing, we’re just trying to have nice things here), and it was pretty cool to see him in a room that small.

It was really funny. I’ve got to admit I’d kind of forgotten, by the time I saw that show, how very funny Mark Watson can be. I like Mark Watson a lot as one of the more intellectual comedians; he’s so good as an interviewee on podcasts and things, because he’s so thoughtful, speaks so insightfully about aspects of the human experience that I find really resonate. I find him inspiring, the way he talks candidly about even the less savoury sides of anxiety, like bitterness and envy and frustration, the way he talks about alcohol and mental health stuff that makes me feel less shitty about my experiences with that, if someone as smart and talented as him can describe those same experiences with it (don’t think about the cheating on his wife thing just let us have nice things). But in the midst of this, it had been a little while since I’d watched his actual stand-up, and I think I forgot how purely funny he can be.

I was very much reminded of that in this room of 37 people, around the corner from the actual Stand, upstairs in a weird room where you could hear all the traffic outside. I laughed so hard, almost constantly for a whole hour. I’d heard a bunch of it before from Access Festival, but there was new stuff, and the older stuff got polished, and there was more of an arc to it. I could see, during Access Festival, where this might be going – bringing overall themes about the disconnection in technology and AI. By Edinburgh that was even clearer, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll end up once it’s all integrated.

For ages, he has been mentioning on podcasts and things that he’s scared of thunderstorms and thinks that should be considered a normal and reasonable fear, that it’s weird that people are considered an anomaly if they’re scared of explosions and fire in the sky. Which I have been saying for years, but obviously I haven’t been saying it in a way that’s as articulate or funny as the way Mark Watson says it. I even once cut out a clip of Mark Watson discussing this on a podcast and sent it to my mother, to back up my side of the argument that we’ve been having since I was a teenager, where she says “But thunderstorms are fun!” and I say “No they’re terrifying and it’s weird that not everyone thinks so.”

I’d heard Mark Watson say this on podcasts before, hadn’t heard him say it in stand-up, until this stand-up show. Where he asked the audience if anyone’s scared of thunderstorms, and I said “Yes” – I swear I wasn’t trying to draw his attention to me, but I assumed lots of people would say “Yes”, and my voice would be lost in the crowd. Instead, I was the only one who answered, because I’d kind of forgotten that there were only 37 people in the room. So Mark Watson pointed at me, said “Thank you” for being one of those few people to agree with him about thunderstorms, and proceeded to do a whole routine on thunderstorms, in which he kept pointing to me and saying “Me and this woman are the ones in the right, by being scared of them.”

And that was... look, I know we’re not supposed to parasocially put our favourite comedians on pedestals or else we’ll get all disappointed when we inevitably find out that they cheat on their wives and stuff. But that was fucking cool. Mark Watson looked at me and it was fucking cool. Okay? Let me have nice things.

- Tom Ballard – Good Point Well Made

I’d never noticed, before seeing this show live, that Tom Ballard is too big for a room. Too tall, shoulders too broad, he could barely fit onto that stage in the cramped basement. His delivery style didn’t help, waving his arms around, reaching up in the air, leaving forward to yell at people. I even saw him live in Montreal last year, but for some reason, he didn’t seem quite so larger than life at that time. I really noticed it this year, though. He was everywhere. Loud and relentless and in your face and all over the stage.

I have a friend who very much dislikes Tom Ballard’s comedy, and I’d wondered why someone would reaction with such a strong dislike to Tom Ballard, even if you’re not really into the material. But after seeing him live in that cramped basement, I get it. If you like that stuff, it’s great. If you don’t, it would be overwhelming dose of stuff you don’t like, and would be incredibly annoying.

Luckily, I love that stuff. Tom Ballard cathartically shouted my own opinions at me at top volume for an entire hour, but shouted them in a more articulate and funny way that I could manage. Took my opinions that I find exhausting day to day, to walk around carrying the weight of these frustrating fucking opinions that put me at odds with everyone I know, and Tom made them into something that could make me laugh, that made me feel connected rather than alienated.

He was furious, talking about a specific political situation in Australia, but putting it in a way that will be relatable to anyone who’s seen a vote by their fellow citizens make them realize what kinds of people they share their spaces with (not that it needs that broader relatability, really, as that one Australian situation is bad enough to deserve its own focus). But his underlying thesis was a broader one, about wanting the left to stop trying to moderate its opinions in the name of reaching across the aisle, about how fucking cathartic it is to say “Actually I’m right and your opinion does make you a bad person because it’s racist and racists are bad.” I don’t even realize how tiring it is to try to “be fair” and not say that stuff all the time, until I let a comedian take that burden off me for a bit.

This show recycled a little bit of material from his 2022 show, about how right-wing people aren’t listening to us and aren’t making art because they’re too busy running the world, so left-wing people should probably stop considering whether we listen to enough right-wing people when making our art. I did not mind that material getting recycled at all, because 1) it’s stuff I liked a lot and was happy to hear again, every time I lament the fact that I don’t live in this mythical “liberal bubble” that sounds like a great place to live, I think of Tom Ballard shouting about how the liberal bubble is actually great, and 2) it fit really well into the thesis of his 2024 show, he’s developed the idea a lot further than he had a couple of years ago, and I liked seeing that get developed.

The whole show was a great time. I even managed to stop and the end and briefly speak to him, something I almost never do because the thought of speaking to famous comedians terrifies me, but he was waiting outside the venue after the show with a bucket, and I was able to hang back so I’d be at the end of the line and wouldn’t hold up other people, I gave him some extra money even though of course I’d paid for a ticket, and I told him how I saw him live in Canada last year and loved it but I think this was even better, and it was a great time and he’s so cool and very nice to meet him! And he was so nice. It was actually weird, after the hour of high-energy aggressive shouting, how different he was out-of-persona outside, came across as really humble and asked me what my name was and thanked me for coming. It was cool. I was glad I did it.

8.75

- Catherine Bohart – Again, With Feelings

Well, at some point I’d started to succeed in keeping these commentary passages short, and then they got long again. There are 65 of these fucking shows, this isn’t sustainable. However, the ones I rated between 9 and 10 were the ones I felt the most strongly about, so those will mostly be the ones I have the most to say about. They need to get shorter after this. Like. Significantly shorter. I have a life to lead.

This hour was very funny. Catherine Bohart discussed topics that are not at all relatable to me, about long-term relationships and considering parenthood (even her stuff about being gay was not all that relatable to me, as most of it was based around being one of those gay people who actually has relationships on a regular basis), but that made it more impressive to me, because it made me laugh so much, and if someone can make me laugh with material I do not personally relate to,  

- Chris Cantrill – Easily Swayed

I’m going to copy some stuff from a Tumblr post that I wrote right after watching this show, to save me a bit of time:

I didn’t know what to expect when I went into this show, given the offbeat Delightful Sausage, but this was straight stand-up. Stories about his life, told as himself, but he did wear a cape for much of the show, which made sense in context. It hit some themes that chimed quite well with me at the moment – depression and the loneliness of old friendships deteriorating as you get older. So it got a little dark at times, but it never felt very dark, and it ended on a note so hopeful that I may have been briefly, genuinely moved.

This was one of those stand-up hours where you can feel how competent and experienced the person who put it together is. It was paced really well, everything felt like it was in the right order and it really built up and came together nicely. I love how easily he could move between whimsey (there was some stuff about Medieval fantasy lands in there), straightforward storytelling, and occasional breaks to add something like a political opinion or a fact about history. All the different types of material flowed so well that none of the seams felt jarring. It felt honest about depression without seeming overwrought or overly emotional, which is pretty impressive.

He dropped little threads early on that I’d assumed were nothing but came back unexpectedly, and I always like that. He had so many little ways of describing things that I’ve found myself going back to in my mind, I feel like this is going to be one of those things where a year from now I wonder why I use a certain turn of phrase when I talk about certain things, and then remember I heard it in a Chris Cantrill show.

And I love how much care he took over all the people in his story, who were mainly his friends. That seemed like his skills as a sketch comedian coming out, he could make all these people come to life in the stories; I ended up sympathizing with everyone and getting really invested in all the different things that were going on. He’s spent all this time in Delightful Sausage making fictional characters seem real, and he continued that in such a lovely way when telling us about people he knew.

This show had, you know – heart, or whatever would be a less cheesy word to describe that.

- Milo Edwards – How Revolting! Sorry To Offend

More political comedy, in an era when supposedly political comedy is dead. I don’t know if this show is quite as good as Voicemail, my favourite Milo Edwards show, but that’s a fucking high bar. This one is certainly a close second for my favourite Milo Edwards show, it’s sharp and clear and goes into uncomfortable territory but deals with it deftly – all the stuff Milo Edwards does best. This is a weird comparison and I don’t know if it makes sense, but I sort of think of Milo Edwards as the edgy intelligent analytical comedian that Alfie Brown wanted to be, and maybe would have been if he weren’t such a dick.

This latest Milo Edwards show is almost entirely about class, a topic that frequently gets referenced in British comedy, occasionally gets lampooned for a few minutes, rarely gets truly examined. It has more explicitly political material than some of his previous stuff, the joke rate is very high, and they’re consistently good. Great show.

8.5

- Eleanor Morton – Haunted House

This show started a little bit slowly, I was slightly disappointed for the first five minutes or so. Because the room promised a lot – there was a funny and atmospheric ghostly recording playing as we walked in, there were candles and an intricate dollhouse on stage, Eleanor came out dressed dramatically in white. And then she started some somewhat conventional material, when according to the setup, she should have started floating through walls and stuff.

However, it started getting better very quickly, and snowballed that way until I was utterly captivated by about 20 minutes in, until the end. She had some really interesting stuff about being from Edinburgh and having her colleagues all descend upon her hometown for one month of every year, during the festival. I found that a really interesting perspective, and one I had been wondering about, how someone from Edinburgh feels about the festival every year (according Eleanor Morton: frustrated that her complex city gets reduced to touristy stuff like Harry Potter and ghost tours; according to an Uber driver I asked: nice to get the extra work; according to the woman who ran my Air B&B: incredibly annoying as there’s nowhere to park and too many people around to run errands in town).

She slowly brought in this other thread, about the sexual predators who are all over comedy, and I thought she came up with some really interesting ways to weave that around her theme of ghosts and haunted buildings. She said something that Guy Williams had also specifically mentioned, which is that everyone at this festival says we have to do something about predators in comedy, but everyone is also aware that there were comedians performing at that festival that month, and no one had done anything about it. She told a few specific stories but named no specific names.

It all came together really nicely by the end, the stuff about Edinburgh and about ghosts and about dangerous people, and I found the very end pretty emotional, as she talked about wanting to protect her city and her friends and her colleagues in her own home. I don’t know how well this show would travel outside Edinburgh, but performed in a darkened basement during the Edinburgh festival with the candles and the dollhouse and sort of surreal, outside-the-real world feeling of the entire festival (a feeling she addressed repeatedly), it was a very good show.

- Jin Hao Li – Swimming in a Submarine

Okay, I’m going back to keeping this short again. So short. Super short. There was really ambitious structure here that hit all the cool notes that he couldn’t have gotten to any other way. It was ethereal, mesmerizing, in a way that just enhanced the jokes because the laughs were bigger when we were all too mesmerized to expect them. Like an edgier Johnny White Really-Really, which is a fascinating thing for a person to be. I could listen to Jin Hao Li talk for hours. I want him to be my nephew, I think.

- Lou Wall – The Bisexual’s Lament

Blinding, lightning-paced show that really needs to be seen in person to have any chance of taking it all in. Dealt with some very heavy topics without ever getting over-emotional, jumped around from idea to idea, was consistently funny enough to distract us from how fucked up the subject matter was, though every once in a while they’d bring that back into focus, quite effectively. There should be no way to do a routine about Facebook Marketplace that’s at all interesting anymore, but Lou Wall managed to find it, I can’t believe I’m staying this but holy hell their Facebook Marketplace material was funny. All their material was funny, except the stuff that was harrowing, and that was successfully harrowing. Fun comedian spotting: Rhys Nicholson sat behind me during this, so you know it’s a cool show.

8.25

- Jonny & the Baptists – The Happiness Index

I saw them in a circus tent-like room, with about 20 people sparsely scattered across benches. I’d never seen them before (I bought the ticket on the strength of: 1) political comedy is not dead and I wanted to see as many people as I could who were out there proving it, and 2) Josie Long likes him so he has to be all right), but then since then I have bought four of their albums off Bandcamp, so that tells you something about how much I enjoyed this hour. It felt like a proper “experience the Fringe” moment to sit in a circus tent sparsely populated by about 20 people, and watch Josie Long’s life partner and his friend’s little brother (I also listened to their ComCom episode after seeing them, apparently that’s how Jonny Donahoe and Paddy Gervers met) perform what was ostensibly a musical version of Shakespeare, but was in fact a detailed, chronological, musical critique of how 14 years of Tory rule had dismantled the NHS and arts funding in Britain.

…The above paragraph is unnecessarily dismissive, reducing the whole thing to a twee novelty, when actually it was a well-written and well-performed hour with funny songs, touching moments of friendship, and a genuinely important political message/call to arms that was delivered well.

- Melanie Bracewell – Attack of the Melanie Bracewell

I’m vaguely paranoid to write her name here because she is one of the very few celebrities who are actually on Tumblr, but I’ve probably buried this enough so that it’s all right. I was sure what I was expecting from this, knowing Melanie Bracewell only from Taskmaster (though since this I’ve gone and watched her YouTube special), but I enjoyed this a lot. It’s almost all one story, which I generally like in a comedy hour, if they have enough material to fill an hour of one thing. In this case, the story of trying to retrieve stolen air pods. Which I expected to just a storytelling device, a story where the message is that sometimes you don’t get closure, so I was surprised and quite entertained when this turned out to be a full narrative with an ending and everything.

I won’t spoil more than that, I guess, but it was fun all the way along. The story had twists and turns and I was genuinely invested, in addition to enjoying the jokes and everything else. There was an underlying message about standing up for yourself and things like that, but it was mostly just an interesting narrative with solid humour and engaging personality. Good stuff.

- Pierre Novellie – Must We?

When I made a spreadsheet like this for the 2023 Edinburgh Festival (which I didn’t even attend in person, but some shows got streamed or otherwise put in forms where I could hear them, and those still had to be tracked, there’s no point to consuming art without spreadsheets), I gave Pierre Novellie’s show Why Are You Laughing? a 9.5, and it is still one of my favourite stand-up shows I’ve ever heard. This one had some of the same type of stuff that was so good in the previous show, it just felt slightly unfinished comparison. Pierre Novellie even addresses that within the show, saying he’s been writing a book and touring his previous show and had so much else on that it was hard to write a whole new hour at the same time. Which is fair enough – his book is great, everyone should buy it, but it was pretty dense in places and must have taken a lot of time and effort and stretched him pretty thin.

There were a lot of funny individual bits, but they didn’t come together as well as they have in some of his previous shows (not just his 2023 one, but the 2022 one on which he based his book). He had an ending routine with some deeper stuff behind it, and I thought that had a lot more potential than he actually got from it, it felt slightly tacked on. On the other hand, it made me laugh repeatedly, and he also said at the beginning, quite correctly, that it’s odd that “It was just a funny hour of comedy” can be an insult (or at best, damning with faint praise). This was a really funny hour of comedy, which is why I’ve still ranked it above most other stuff I’ve saw, I’ve just unfairly spent most of this description explaining why he’s come down from a 9.5.

This was a funny hour of comedy. No need to mitigate that. He had some good jokes about food, and I normally dislike jokes about food, but his were so good that I liked them anyway.

- Shenoah Allen – Bloodlust Summertime

These are getting long again, I need to curb that. This was an hour of trauma. There were frequent jokes within the trauma stories, and they were funny. I found myself thinking he could have gone further in putting some overarching meaning or analysis into the trauma stories, but as Pierre Novellie would say, what’s wrong with just telling a bunch of good jokes? This had jokes and happened to also contain a lot of trauma, rather than being one of those “here’s a deep analysis of how my trauma’s affected me” shows. Which I think sort of surprised me, as I’ve been conditioned to expect trauma-filled comedy shows to go that way, and this didn’t. But it was funny, and fascinating, a complex look into a certain type of life. It was definitely not what I was expecting from a guy I know from an improv clown duo. It was not improv and it was not clowning. And to be honest, as much as I want to expand my horizons and appreciate experimental comedy more, I enjoyed this stand-up show way more than I’d enjoy improv and clowning. It’s very good.

- Stevie Martin – clout

A show about internet comedy vs. live comedy, the arbitrary nature of algorithms, the changing nature of the comedy industry as a whole with the rise of social media. A topic I find very interesting, and I know I’ve got some prejudice against the social media comedians, so Stevie Martin was a great person knock through some of that prejudice by putting a great show about how sometimes you do what you’ve got to do, social media-wise, but live comedy is hardly perfect either, and surely there’s room for both. This was incredibly well put together, with slides and videos and some props, I appreciated the way she used this to what a really dedicated comedian can do with technology. It consistently set up expectations and then subverted them.

- Susie McCabe – Merchant of Menace

Another show that’s mainly about class, this time told by a working class Glaswegian, who had observations on a lot of different areas of life that get divided by class, like schools and hotels and grocery stores and travel. Sharp observations, captivating delivery, especially impressive for a woman who had a heart attack about ten days before the festival. I’ve been a big fan of Susie McCabe ever since I first saw her on Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, I liked her 2023 stand-up special, thought this one was better. It ended on a poem, a really unassuming poem delivered in an even tone so the quality of the writing could speak for itself, and I love stuff like that. A really funny hour of comedy., and I don’t mean that as faint praise.

8

- Judi Love (MC), Ivo Graham, Sophie Duker, Jin Hao Li – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x01

The only one of the NextUp mixed bills, streamed from this festival, where I enjoyed every act. Judi Love was all right, had some stuff I liked and some that I didn’t, but all three main comedians were really strong. Jin Hao Li’s stuff breaks down into shorter sets surprisingly well, for something with so much structure to the full hour. Ivo Graham, whose shows I did not see in Edinburgh but I heard a preview of his comedy one (he had two shows in Edinburgh this year, comedy and theatre) and it was one of the most boring hours I’ve heard in my entire life, so my expectations weren’t high for him, but on this bill he didn’t do any of the boring story from his comedy hours, he riffed a bit about previous events of the night and it was absolutely hilarious. Sophie Duker was fantastic, she was one of the comedians whom I regretted cutting from my schedule because I just didn’t have enough day to fit her hour in, but sample form it that she gave us here was so much fun and I hope she films the whole thing eventually.

- Lauren Pattison – Big Girl Pants

Copy-pasting from a previous post again. That’ll speed up the process a bit.

It started a little bit slowly, I wasn’t sure about it at first, but she quickly picked up steam and started building on stuff. By the end, so many threads had been tied together, and she’d made me laugh so many times along the way, that I was totally on board for her powerful ending. She did the requisite 40-minute-mark emotional stuff, along with a requisite self-deprecating comment about how she knows it’s cliché to go into an emotional ending at the 40-minute mark, but I thought she also had a very good justification for why she introduced the sad bit at that point in the story (basically, she needed to do all that buildup to give it proper context and meaning), and I thought it worked very well.

Obviously this is also personal, her themes hit some stuff that’s familiar to me, with anxiety and alcohol issues. But I think this show was really well put together no matter who the target audience is. It was smart and funny at the same time (difficult to do), it was structured nicely. It was dark at times but overall hopeful.

- Two Hearts – Til Death Do Us Hearts

Enormous fun right from the first moment, I loved the opening song and then was impressed that they kept up that energy. Most of the songs were good, they did a pretty good job of walking the awkward line that comes from mixing their work with their personal life so closely. It was a show about a wedding and a marriage, which is really not my favourite sort of comedy show, so it’s fucking impressive that they made a show that I liked as much as I did. Objectively this show’s probably about a 9; a show about marriage has to be pretty fucking good to get an 8 in my subjective rating.

- Zoe Coombs Marr – Every Single Thing in My Whole Entire Life

I’ve seen/heard three Zoe Coombs Marr specials before – Dave, Bossy Bottom, and The Opener. They were all ambitious, brilliant, some of my favourites. This one I was not as into as I was with any of those, but still pretty fucking good. If the weakest (in my subjective opinion) show I’ve seen a comedian do still rates an 8/10, they are quite a good comedian. It also had a cool and ambitious premise, putting Zoe’s whole life into a spreadsheet and letting the audience pick stories, but that last part is where it seemed to fall down a bit, as it basically came down to whether the crowd picked funny enough stuff. Which they did sometimes, but didn’t at other times. I really liked the overarching stuff in the show, when Zoe would veer off from audience-selected stuff to discuss, mostly, non-binary identity, their recent mental health breakdown, ADHD, and their love of spreadsheets. I’d have liked to hear more about all those things, but it was still a lot of fun.

7.75

- Amy Annette – Thick Skin

This has something in common with the Two Hearts show, which is that it had to overcome being not my sort of thing, usually, and still became a show I really liked, just by doing it so well. It’s a show about being a teenage girl in the 2000s, but from the perspective of someone who spent those years reading women’s magazines and having crushes on boybands and trying to fit in as a girl. And when I hear comedy material like that, it immediately gives me the anxiety of remembering my time as a teenage girl in the 2000s, where my mother really wanted me to be that, and I wasn’t. And when people do comedy about it there’s often such a strong focus on the relatability of it all, the “the boys have dominated comedy for so long but now we girls get to talk about what our adolescence was like”, and because it wasn’t for me, that feels more alienating to me than hearing a male comedian talk about a male adolescence that I’m not supposed to relate to (though to be honest, male comedians talking about adolescence usually describe years spent being the nerdy kid in school and having crushes on girls who didn’t like them back, which is in fact relatable to me).

I don’t know how to write about this without coming off as a “Not like the other girls” internalized misogyny person. And I don’t mean to be that! I had a little while, when I was a kid, when I was like that. Because I’d see girls with the teen girl magazines, wearing makeup and shaving their legs and being into clothes and shopping, and part of me resented them for being the thing I was supposed to be, or even blamed them, like if they just wouldn’t do these things then my mother would stop expecting me to do them. By my late teens I got into feminist blogs and realized that that’s bullshit, obviously, and they didn’t have it any easier than I did. They were caught up in expectations too, they were navigating really difficult stuff, they definitely weren’t responsible for gender stereotypes. Some of them made fun of me for not wearing the right clothes, but lots of them were happy to get into buying particular clothes as their own hobby, and they didn’t give one fuck if I wanted to exclusively wear boys’ jeans and t-shirts that were several sizes too big for me, and if I resented them for that, then I am the dick in this situation.

I know that now, and in my twenties I made friends with plenty of girls who’d have intimidated me in high school, girls who wore makeup and wore girls’ clothes and shoes and read those magazines. But it did take me a while to get over my issues with them, and I really hate (I hate this about myself, that is, not that I hate the comedy or the comedians for it) the way when I hear a comedian talk about the “teenage girl experience”, especially if they’re around my age, it brings that back and I immediately feel defensive, like I need to justify that not all teen girls were reading Cosmo, even though obviously at no point has Amy Annette said that all teenage girls read Cosmo. She’s just trying to represent some experiences that were very common for many teenage girls and that don’t get talked about all that much (or at least, don’t get talked about in a way that really analyzes them and gives those girls agency and sympathy – they get talked about plenty by people mocking the girls for it), and that is a good thing.

Amy Annette does this thing when she comperes where she asks some woman in the audience what was their favourite teen heartthrob singer they had a crush on in school, and I always want to say “Well Amy, not every woman had a favourite boy band, some people spent their teenage years exclusively listening to Canadian folk music that was mostly made by people who were like 60 years old, and yeah I know that obviously if someone says that from the crowd they’ll sound like an asshole who’s ruining everyone’s by refusing to just play along, but this question puts audience members in a position where they have to either lie about listening to boy bands or ruin everyone’s fun, and it’s not like lying would be a big deal but being in that ‘lie or else you’ll ruin the fun’ position seems a lot like middle school, where I used to Google names of pop bands that I could say if people asked me what music I liked so I wouldn’t embarrass myself by listing folk singers, and I understand that this is cool and relatable for many women but it would be so easy to just ask them for their favourite singer as a teenager rather than making it so specific.”

Okay, those are a lot of reactions to Amy Annette that I have, automatically, due to my own baggage that has nothing to do with her, and isn’t fair to her, and it sucks that this tends to happen to female comedians more than to male ones, that they’ll run up against audience defensiveness because girls get pitted against each other so much that they have automatic defensive reactions to each other, in a way that can also happen with boys but not as often, and then I feel guilty for being part of the problem by having that automatic reaction. But anyway. Once I recognized that that reaction was happening in me again, and I consciously tried to stop it – I realized that Amy Annette’s show is actually a really interesting look at how things weren’t easy on any side, at school. Sure, some girls did not have their mother constantly asking them to start shaving their legs like I did, but they did have some horrifically toxic advice from magazines that they had to figure out at way too young an age, and with growing bodies that could be harmed by dangerous weight-loss culture. Most of them didn’t care what I was wearing because they were too busy trying to keep up with the expectations on themselves.

Amy Annette unpacks this in a way that’s deft, intelligent while coming off as playful and fun, and, once I got past the initial reaction, easy to understand even if it’s not personally relatable. The show is funny, it tackles important issues with a light and irreverent touch, it’s well done. And I’m sorry, Amy Annette, for the years of toxic baggage that meant I couldn’t just say that, instead of writing several paragraphs to navigate through all these other thoughts about some comedy routines on Cosmo magazine’s weight-loss advice.

- Dan Tiernan – Stomp

Okay, that last part was way too long. These need to be shorter. Dan Tiernan’s first hour, in 2023, was good and showed potential. I feel like his second hour develops that potential. Not fully formed, maybe, but more polished in a lot of ways, even while he’s still loud and jerky and way too intense (in a good, if you like that sort of thing, which I do). It matched the intensity of the subject matter, which managed to kick up a few gears from his previous show.

- Mat Ewins – Ewins Some You Lose Some

I should have enjoyed this more than I did. I enjoyed it, obviously, I’ve ranked it above lots of other perfectly good shows. But I know that objectively, as much as comedy can be objective, the thing Mat Ewins does is a extremely cool and exciting and should be rated as one of the best things at the festival. While for me, it was fun, and incredibly technically impressive, but I found that my most frequent reaction was thinking “Wow, that must have been difficult and taken ages to make.” I mean, I did also laugh. And it is my own fault for going to a show that’s known for audience participation, and then getting anxious about all the participation (I didn’t get asked to participate, which is good, but I also didn’t find that much enjoyment in the bits where others participated). It was good. But I didn’t quite get on board with the greatness.

To be fair to Mat, it was the last show I saw live in Edinburgh, and I was very sad about having to leave the next day, so I may not have been fully in the mood for this brand of silliness. I might have enjoyed it more earlier in the week.

- Paul Williams – Mamiya 7

I liked this. It was funny and the songs were fun. It was… I think I made the mistake of getting into this one right after Melanie Bracewell’s, as they were both about solving a mystery by tracking someone remotely, but her story had more to it, so his story seemed weaker by comparison. It doesn’t help that Daniel Kitson once did a show about coming across a camera and tracking down the person who owned it by the pictures in it. Not that the idea’s been stolen or anything – that Kitson show was only ever performed a few times in London and then for one month in the US so it’s very unlikely that Paul Williams has even seen it, and Kitson doesn’t own an idea that broad. The comparison just works out badly for Paul because you don’t want to go up against Kitson on any idea.

I feel like I should be really into Paul Williams’ work. He’s so very good on Taskmaster, and he does the type of nerdy, offbeat comedy that I like. I’ve tried to get into his music before, and that’s just stylistically not for me. While his comedy is… I liked his previous show, In the Moonlight, better than Mamiya 7. And I still liked Mamiya 7. I just don’t like either of them as much as I feel like I should. Mamiya 7 had all the good components, it had whimsical stories that came together nicely and were funny along the way.

I don’t know why I don’t fully connect with Paul Williams’ stuff. Mamiya 7 was good, but it did not turn me into a huge Paul Williams fan the way I’d hoped it might. I love him on Taskmaster, but when it comes to stand-up, to quote the latest NZ season, I prefer the touch of his brother.

- Stuart Goldsmith – Spoilers

Again I’m copy-pasting from a Tumblr post that I wrote just after watching this, to save time.

I like Stuart Goldsmith a lot, as I think he’s one of the best interviewers I’ve ever heard. Probably the best one I’ve ever heard, when it comes to entertainment interviewing. So many things make his podcast (the Comedian’s Comedian) so much better than other comedy interviews. He gets interesting stuff out of his guests because he’s so very informed, so knowledgeable about comedy in general and whomever he’s talking to specifically, so interested in what they have to say, so good at knowing when to add his own thoughts and when to shut up. He’s able to challenge them on stuff, to push back and ask for more detail or to call them out if they’re disingenuous, because he does his research so well. And he talks so insightfully about the processes in writing and delivering stand-up comedy, all the pitfalls and all the best parts. I figured a guy who knows that much about all that must be great at it. I was really interested, the first time I watched one of his stand-up specials.

And I was inevitably disappointed, because obviously that’s too high a bar for anyone to meet. It wasn’t bad. It was a pretty good hour of decent jokes. But I came away disappointed because he hadn’t managed to showcase all the greatest aspects of the entire form in a single set.

Months later I watched another one of his specials, this time with expectations recalibrated to a more reasonable level, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. He did have some good insights, in addition to a bunch of good jokes, he is good at comedy. He’s just not able to live up to what I’d imagined from his interviewing skills.

I knew this show, Spoilers, was supposed to be different from his others – he’d found a niche where he could stand out a bit, in doing a whole show about the climate crisis. I’d been curious for ages to see how he approached that, and now I’ve seen it. And it was… pretty good. Pretty good. It was a good show. It was much better than the many bad shows out there.

Once again, I realized my expectations were too high. Most stand-up hours are themed, but they’ll jump around for topic to topic. I figured a stand-up hour that’s so focused on one topic would have to go deep on that, wouldn’t it? I was looking forward to seeing how much research he’d done, how he’d managed to make all that funny, what new and interesting angles he had.

And that answer to most of that was, not much. I didn’t learn anything about climate change that I didn’t already know. I didn’t see a particularly new perspective. I did wonder if this might be one of those shows that was better in earlier WIP versions than the finished product. I’m thinking of Olga Koch’s current show, which I heard in a couple of early versions and I absolutely loved it, it was complicated and dense and fascinating, but obviously unfinished. I said at the time that once she irons out some of the thornier bits, it’ll be perfect. But then I’ve heard a very recent version, and I think it’s still very very good, but not as good as the earlier one. Because she had ironed out some of the denser stuff, but that meant simplifying things, cutting the more informative and nuanced bits where she couldn’t fit enough jokes. I think her current show, Comes From Money, is one of the best shows I’ve ever heard, in all its forms, and it probably deserves several awards. But turning something into a finished comedy show can dilute the most interesting parts, sometimes.

I have no particular reason to believe that’s what’s happened with this Goldsmith show, except that I feel like a few remnants of some early version might have been left in. Some references he made to how difficult he found it to make dry facts and depressing stats funny, how he’d tried to find quirky ways to make the research more palpable. Maybe this show did once have more of that stuff in it, and he cut it because it wasn’t funny enough. But I think that would make it more interesting.

I’m being unfairly harsh, again, because a guy who knows an incredible amount about comedy took on a very ambitious show theme and that set my expectations too high. It was a good show. It had a little more of what were my favourite things from previous shows I’ve seen him do – the parts where he goes deep into describing the experience of anxiety, and other difficult neurological things. I think that might be what he’s best at, in his own (non-interviewing) work. He’s great at talking about that stuff, finding angles from which to describe it that I’ve not heard before, despite how often it’s discussed in comedy.

7.5

- Caitriona Dowden – Is Holier Than Thou

Of the shows I saw in person, this was pretty much the only one where I took a chance almost completely “blind”. I’d never heard of her before I started looking up comedians who were performing around noon because I had that timeslot to fill on one day (because, to be honest, I heard a preview of Sara Pascoe’s show and decided I definitely do not need to use my noon hour seeing that live, I’ll watch something that at least might be good – nothing against Sara Pascoe in general, I like her stuff and that’s why I’d originally planned to see her in this spot, but my God, is her current show ever not for me). Caitriona’s show blurb seemed mildly interesting, so I looked her up, saw that this was her debut hour and she recently won a student competition. She seemed all right in one short YouTube set, and that was enough for me to put her on my schedule.

It’s probably the only show where I did the Fringe “properly”, using it to discover something totally new to me, rather than just as a chance to see Wumar in person (and I know I should have done more of that stuff rather than the Wumar, but the cross-Atlantic trip was a lot of money, too much money to “punt” on things that might turn out to be shit). I mean, I guess really doing the Fringe properly would be just wandering into something based on who happens to hand me a flyer, but every time I got handed a flyer, I cringed at the thought of being someone who plans a trip so badly that by the time I’m physically on the Royal Mile, there’s still room in my schedule for a flyer to make a difference.

Anyway. Caitriona Dowden was good. Not better than the well-established acts that I’m a big fan of, but better than all the shows that weren’t very good, and better than some shows that actually were pretty good. She had this really deadpan delivery that occasionally crossed the line into just seeming flat, but she was saying interesting enough stuff for that type of delivery to sort of work, a funny contrast to her material and she didn’t risk losing my interest. She had a solid premise, suggesting that she wants to get canonized as a Catholic saint and then going through how she could meet the criteria, which let her both weave in stories from her own life, and do esoteric material about Catholic doctrine. I enjoyed both those sides of the show, and how neatly the fit together. The whole show felt neat. They had a big thing of paper and marker instead of a projection screen, which combined with the small dark room behind a pub to give the whole thing a cool underground feel. I would be interested in seeing more stuff by her.

- Harriet Kemsley – Everything Always Works Out for Me

Again, I shall copy/paste some bits a previous Tumblr post:

I’ll be honest – I was a bit disappointed by this. I’d actually booked tickets to this one live because I had such high expectations for it, though I ended up skipping it when I learned that I could see it on NextUp instead (and by a nice coincidence, Harriet Kemsley happened to cancel the night I was going to see it so I got a refund). I was excited for it because I find Harriet Kemsley incredibly funny on panel shows, one of the funniest people they can ever have on. I watched her 2023 stand-up special Woman Child and thought it was pretty good, but I didn’t enjoy her as much as I do on panel shows. I found some parts of that show very funny, but other parts not so much, and the ones I enjoyed the least were the domestic bits about being married and complaining about her husband.

That’s not necessarily Harriet Kemsley’s fault; I happen to have fairly low tolerance for comedy about romantic relationships, unless they’re saying something really new. I think it’s very difficult to write an interesting or original show about that stuff when there’s so little that’s new to say. But I probably dislike that stuff more than is objectively reasonable, as it’s not relatable to me. I don’t do dating and hardly ever do relationships, and when comedians talk about that stuff, I usually have the same reactions as when people in my real life talk about it, which is – you know you don’t have to, right? Yeah, all those aspects to dating and relationships and weddings sound really annoying and frustrating. Just don’t do it then, if it’s that bad.

I have heard some great stand-up hours about dating and relationships, but they are far outnumbered by the shit ones. I tend to be more partial to their opposite. Breakup shows can be boring for similar reasons – it’s such a common topic that it’s all been said before – but at least those make sense to me. Someone tells me how much something in their life sucked, I think “Well stop doing it then”, and then they tell me they did stop doing it and here’s the story of how that happened. It seems like a reasonable course of action, so I can enjoy the show about what a reasonable thing they did.

So for all those reasons, when I heard some Harriet Kemsley material in early 2024 about her recent divorce, I suddenly became much more interested in seeing her in Edinburgh. It sounded much more fun to hear her complain about her ex-husband, than to hear her complain about her husband. And not just because I have also always found Bobby Mair fairly annoying. I’m always down for a breakup show.

And the breakup show parts of this were fun. A lot of it was fun, it was a good show. Just not quite as good as I was expecting, largely because there were so many dating stories. How do people have time for so much dating? I found those really boring, and there were a whole bunch of them. All the stuff about dating that needs to be said has already been said. People don’t need to say more stuff about it.

But some parts of this show, like the previous show, I liked a lot. The stuff about her own mindset, letting us in a bit on what’s behind the extremely daft panel show persona, was interesting and got very funny at times. There was some gossipy stuff about a book that I assume was the Seann Walsh one, though I don’t care quite enough to actually look it up, and parts of that were quite funny though other parts dragged a bit. I liked some of her stories about trying to awkwardly co-parent post-divorce.

So it was a good show, but it wasn’t quite the show I was hoping for. A lot of the most interesting threads, like what goes on in her mind to make her this way, or how her divorce might connect to those things, were sort of left hanging. And it’s her choice and totally fair if she didn’t want to go that deep into some of those things, but that did leave her show a bit more broad and not as compelling. But honestly, I think I’d have enjoyed the show a lot without the dating stories. As it was, I still enjoyed the show quite a bit, but there were too many parts that dragged.

- Rob Auton – The Eyes Open and Shut Show

I like Rob Auton; I’ve heard him do a few things that I found utterly brilliant, captivating, beyond whimsical and into immersive whisking me away through the worlds he created. There were several times times when this show achieved that, and it was wonderful. There were other, longer times when it was pretty good, not anything really special but nice, relaxing, whimsical humour. And there were a few times when it dragged for a bit and I had trouble maintaining focus on it.

This is a weird thing to be an issue, but – okay, I’m not good enough at parsing audio to be able to tell whether he happens to have the exact same specific accent as Alun Cochrane, or whether he has the same style of delivering material as Alun Cochrane. It’s definitely at least one of those things, and I think it might be both. I think it maybe has to be both, for hearing his voice give me such overwhelmingly strong “This sounds exactly like Alun Cochrane” vibes to actually be a distraction. Particularly because the material is so different from anything Alun Cochrane’s done (both pre-2018 Alun Cochrane, back when he was cool and quite funny, and the more recent Alun Cochrane, now that he sucks on a number of levels), so my brain is trying to enjoy the Rob Auton experience, but in this show he keeps telling us to close our eyes, and if I listen to him talk while I have my eyes closed, all I can think is “It’s fucking weird to hear Alun Cochrane be so whimsical.”

- Rosco McClelland – Sudden Death

This is one I watched just because it streamed on NextUp, as I’d never heard of the guy before, but I quite liked it. He certainly had an original angle for the show, discussing his very rare and likely fatal heart condition, and getting into some stuff that’s tough to even imagine having to think about, like how living with that condition affects his choices about relationships and potentially having kids. That's a fucking intense USP.

He also gets into some pretty hard-hitting political stuff. And yet, the show is funny. Dark humour, obviously, but not the racial slur kind, just the “I could die at any moment” kind. Puts all those racial slur-saying edgelord comedians to shame, with his level of dark humour. It made me laugh, it made me think, it made me uncomfortable, it covered some important issues. Good show.

7.25

- Stuart Laws – Has to Be Joking

I’ve felt for a while like I should like Stuart Laws. All the comedians I like rate him, he’s in the acknowledgements of everyone else’s stand-up show as a producer or whatever he does, and I got the impression that he’s the vaguely nerdy comic type I like, and he’s autistic. Because of this, I’d started watching some of his older NextUp shows a couple of times before, feeling like I should enjoy them. But for whatever reason, I failed to get into it, and never watched past the first five or so minutes. I’ve always assumed that if I gave his stuff more of a chance I’d probably like it, I just need to watch it at a time when I’m in the mood for something that might take more than few minutes to pick up.

So I watched his full show from 2024. And it was… fine. It was fine. Some parts were pretty funny. Some observations were interesting. It was well put together, structure-wise. It just… often felt like he had all the components of a good comedy show, and had put them together in a by-the-numbers way that worked, but never really took off. Which was the same feeling I got from his previous shows. I should really connect with his material, but for some reason I just don’t.

Maybe it doesn’t help that this was a show about his relationship? But most of it wasn’t even about that, it was mostly about going through life while autistic, which is obviously a topic that’s of interest to me. And I even liked what he had to say about it, this running metaphor about playing with all your cards once you know how your own mind works. I thought the metaphor worked, though it did feel slightly tacked on at the end, like he could have done more with it.

I don’t know what it was. Some of his jokes were funny. The thing as a whole just didn’t quite land for me. I still think I should try his older shows at some point, see if I can get into those more easily.

There’s some comedian gossip there too, as in 2023, American comedian Chloe Radcliffe streamed her Edinburgh hour on NextUp. I watched it, it was about how she cheated on all her partners because her dad didn’t love her. It was an interesting hour, I think, though I had to really work on the open mind thing to try to see that from her perspective (fair enough, some of my favourite comedians have cheated on their partners – realistically probably most of my favourite comedians have cheated on their partners and just choose not to tell everyone – though Mark Watson didn’t write a whole show trying to justify it). Though once I did that, it was an interesting show. In 2024, Stuart Laws wrote a show about how he also saw that Chloe Radcliffe show in 2023, and shortly after that, began a relationship with her, and wants to tell us about his new girlfriend and autism diagnosis. It was an odd perspective, the way he tried really hard to fuse those two concepts together. I guess it kind of worked.

- Elsa McTaggart – Caledonia

This was a concert of traditional Scottish music, not comedy; I’ve only included it in the spreadsheet for completism, so I can have all the shows I saw in Edinburgh on there. I mostly stuck to comedy on my Edinburgh schedule, but I was raised on folk music, particularly Celtic and Celtic-inspired stuff, have been a huge fan of Scottish folk music since I was very small, and I could not miss the opportunity to see some live during my first-ever trip to Scotland. This show was lovely, they played a few songs and tunes that I knew and some more than I didn’t, I liked them all. I nearly started crying when they played Dougie McLean’s Caledonia, as that’s a song that I’ve always associated with my grandparents’ house by the ocean in Nova Scotia. It was a nice hour.

- Judi Love (MC), Chris Cantrill, Huge Davies, Kemah Bob – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x03

Chris Cantrill of course was good, Kemah Bob was great and made me wish I’d been able to see her full show (it was on my long list and I just couldn’t fit it into the final schedule). I was a bit disappointed that Huge Davies only did material from his 2023 show, even though I liked that 2023 show a lot, because he was another person who got cut from my schedule of people to see at the last minute (replaced with Natalie Palamides), and I was interested in seeing a bit of what he was doing this year, but he didn’t do that. I mean, what he did was funny – his 2023 show is on YouTube and it’s great. So overall the show was pretty good. I’ve rated it a bit lower than I’d rate any of the individual performances, because a cut-down set for a mixed bill is (almost) never as good as a full hour. But this was a pretty good show.

- Judi Love (MC), Colin Hoult, Josh Jones, Katie Norris – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x04

I didn’t much like Colin Hoult’s set, though I might by biased by how annoying I find the Anna Mann character, so I was just predisposed to find Colin Hoult annoying too. Katie Norris I’d never heard before and I liked her a lot – that’s the sort of thing you want to get out of a mixed bill livestream, finding a new person to be interested in seeing more of in the future. Katie Norris definitely became that. And Josh Jones was pretty good, better than I’d been expecting.

7

- Elsa McTaggart – Hebridean Fire

This was another music concert, lovely Scottish traditional music that I’m really glad I saw live when I had the chance, included on the spreadsheet for completism.

- Judi Love (MC), Chloe Petts, Jack Skipper, Jason Byrne – ITVX Presents Live Comedy from the Edinburgh Fringe, 1x02

Chloe Petts was also on my list of people I wanted to see when I went into the festival, and I just couldn’t fit her into my schedule. So I was glad I got the chance to see her and I ended up liking her a lot, even more than I’d expected to. She was great. Jason Byrne was also pretty funny, better than I’d expected. Though I was basing my expectations on my previous knowledge of him, which is mainly from around 2006 (not that my previous knowledge of him made me think he was bad, just sort of solidly average), so it was nice to see he’s still fun. Jack Skipper brought the average down a lot, I could not stand that guy.

- Monkey Barrel Big Show – Garrett Millerick (MC), Alexandra Haddow, Micky Overman, Ed Night, Tom Ballard

Obviously I quite enjoyed Ed Night and Tom Ballard, particularly Ed Night, in this. I quite like Micky Overman and she made me laugh several times. Alexandra Haddow I found disappointing, I liked her 2023 show but this one wasn’t really for me. And I found the host incredibly annoying, which brought the average score down.

6.75

- Aaron Simmonds – Harry Potter or My Girlfriend... Who Do I Love More?

Now that I see this in the context of where I rated similar shows, I think I rated this one too low, it should be in the 7s somewhere. Because it was a good show and I had a good time there. It’s just that I went to see it because I’d enjoyed his NextUp special, Disabled Coconut, and then this show ended up being mostly recycled stuff from Disabled Coconut, with a few Harry Potter references tacked on.

He was open about that being a gimmick, and I think it makes sense. He said he was writing a show of new material that he’d do in the second half of the festival, after spending the first half doing a free show with the “Harry Potter” thing to draw in nerds who might not have heard of him but would like the “Harry Potter” in the programme and come check it out. And would hopefully use the exposure he got from that to bring in people for his new show later. It’s fair enough, especially since his first show was free (though of course I gave him some money at the end). I don’t know how that second show worked out for him because it started after I left the festival; I’d have gone to see it if I’d had the chance.

It's not a bad idea, probably, as a way to draw an audience if you’re not already really established. I mean, he’s not un-established, I watched his NextUp special because I liked him on The Russell Howard Hour, but he doesn’t have a lot of credits besides that. The Harry Potter thing was a gimmick but still used pretty well, he’d threaded the references throughout and tied them all together, rather than just tacking on a few mentions of it. And, as someone who was deeply obsessed with Harry Potter for several years of my childhood and knew all the trivia, I was pretty impressed by his knowledge of it; he wasn’t just using the popular IP, he had put in the hours on that. I was also pleased that he immediately clarified that when he says “Harry Potter”, he meant books, not movies. And of course I was pleased that he clarified quite early on, that when he says “Harry Potter”, he means intellectual property that he paid for years ago and the author in recent years can fuck off. That got a big cheer in the room, the crowd were clearly all on the same page as fans of the stories, not the author.

Anyway, it was a fun time to revisit my childhood in the Harry Potter fandom with all his references to it, and Disabled Coconut was a good show and it was fun to see that stuff again. He created a fun atmosphere in the room, and to someone who’s not seen his previous show, it would rank higher than a 6.75/10. I’d just heard the stories before.

- Bronwyn Kuss – Sounds Good

This was fine. There wasn’t a single joke in that made me really, properly laugh. But nearly every joke made me go “Oh, that was all right.” It was fine. I was pleased, however, to have further confirmation for my theory that there are no straight Australian comedians.

- Mark Silcox – Women Only

I wanted to like this one more, as he had an entertaining gimmick with the extreme deadpan delivery. He delivered this show like a lecture, where the joke was that it was presented in an intentional parody of a boring talk, with a slideshow. And there were times during this show when I found what he was doing quite funny. It’s just… maybe I wasn’t in the right mood for it, but he did such a good job of pretending to be boring that it was, at times, boring. When he had my attention, he made me laugh. A few times he got quite good laughs out of me. It’s just that much of the rest of the show dragged. It felt quite long and it was hard to pay attention.

6.5

- Tarot – Shuffle

I found a few of their sketches funny. I found a bunch of their sketches not funny. I wondered if my problem with it was just that I’m not into sketch comedy enough, but then BriTANick made me giggle like a teenage and I thought no, it’s their problem. It wasn’t awful overall, it wasn’t great.

Which is too bad because as I’ve said I like Kiri Pritchard-McLean a lot, and I know she writes on this sketch group. I don’t know any of the people who actually perform in the group, besides Edward Easton, who played James Acaster in James Acaster’s sitcom (and in Rose Matafeo’s sitcom). This particular show did not turn me into a fan of theirs.

- Thom Tuck and friends – ACMS

Thom Tuck was great fun. It was a cool thing in the middle of the night and it felt like experiencing the Fringe. Thom Tuck was great fun. Being there for all their little ACMS in-jokes was cool. Thom Tuck was great fun. Jin Hao Li came on first and he made me laugh so hard even though I’d already heard all his punchlines several hours before at his own show. Then a succession of other people came on, and a couple of them were all right but most I did not enjoy. I think that’s sort of what ACMS is supposed to be like, though, which is all right. I didn’t really mind the ones that I didn’t enjoy. Thom Tuck was great fun.

6.25

- Live from the Big Cave – Mark Watson (MC), Kate Cheka, Kate Hammer, Adam Knox, Oliver Coleman, Plastic Jesus, Aidan Sadler

I quite enjoyed Mark Watson. I’d never heard of any of the other performers. I liked a couple of them but wasn’t into most of them, I can’t remember which ones I did and didn’t like, and given how long I have already spent writing this post, I absolutely cannot be bothered to go back and check.

6

- Jessie Cave – An Ecstatic Display

Oh God, Jessie Cave. I’ve got to admit that I find both Jessie Cave and Alfie Brown, in some ways, annoyingly interesting, even though I do not want to. I do not watch reality TV, but occasionally being into the comedy of Jessie Cave and/or Alfie Brown is probably the closest I come to that.

…I nearly referenced Roast Battle just now, saying that being into their soap opera comedy is about on the level of Roast Battle in terms of stuff I’ve watched while knowing that this is shit, but then I remembered that they have, in fact, gone on Roast Battle together. And, fun fact, of all the UK Roast Battle couples (Sarah Keyworth/Catherine Bohart, Harriet Kemsley/Bobby Mair), they’re the only one that’s together now, so I guess they won Roast Battle. Good for them. Fucking hell.

I realized a while ago that if Alfie Brown were not a comedian, or some other public figure where we could recognize his identity, I’d probably assume Jessie Cave was a character. A young comedian who got her big acting break in Harry Potter, and then figured the best way to use that in her live comedy career would be to become her Harry Potter character on stage. She played Lavender Brown in Harry Potter – a character who’s been accused of being a misogynistic stereotype because she’s so over-the-top “girly”, and that’s connected to her being silly and airheaded, and the only time she becomes a major character is when she gets into a relationship where she’s a toxic possessive girlfriend. I would assume that Jessie Cave thought it would be interesting to just keep playing that character on stage, and to even give her love interest the last name “Brown”, as a little in-joke, that all she wants to do is marry him so she could have the same last name as her Harry Potter character. I think that sort of character comedy… it would get grating after a while, being a character who’s that annoying, but that could be funny for a bit.

But it’s not a character. I mean I’m sure it’s exaggerated and written for the stage the way any stand-up persona is, but it’s not a character. Because Alfie Brown exists and his stories match up with hers. I mean, I like the idea that Alfie Brown and Jessie Cave have been in a stable, happy relationship for ten years, and they’re just playing out this soap opera of a toxic relationship between two awful people, on stage/social media, because they realized it’ll generate no end of material for both of them. But that’s obviously not the case. It’s real, and that makes it seem like something that people shouldn’t just watch like it’s a soap opera.

So given all of that… I watched her 2024 show because it streamed on NextUp (I didn't actually pay money to see Jessie Cave of Alfie Brown in Edinburgh - when I say I find them weirdly interesting I mean I've occasionally spent a few minutes thinking about it, not that I'd ever actually choose to go see it, and in fact I almost didn't watch the Jessie Cave show when it streamed because I thought it would be bad, but I watched it due to my Edinburgh NextUp stream completism), and it was better than I expected. My expectations were very low, and Jessie Cave exceeded them. It had some interesting observations, some insights into why someone would stay in a situation like that. Some descriptions and observations that I find deeply unrelatable, but that became interesting in its own way, trying to understand such a person, as she opened herself up to show us what it’s like.

It definitely didn’t make me laugh at any point. But Jessie Cave is clearly a talented writer, performer, and storyteller, and that came through, even if the material was fucking bleak. It was interesting to watch. I think I might have enjoyed this a fair bit, if I’d thought it were fiction.

- Stephen Buchanan – Charicature

Scottish guy I’d not heard of before, who streamed his show on NextUp. It was okay. It had a gimmick where he kept switching between himself on stage and videos of stuff he’d filmed beforehand, with a “twist” ending in which it all came together, which was kind of fun. A lot of the material that got slotted into that structure wasn’t stuff I enjoyed much, but the structure was fun. I found him likeable.

5.75

- Seymour Mace – Seymour F*cking Mace You C*nts!

I wasn’t in the right mood for this one. I put it on my list because I wanted to try to expand my horizons and understand the alt-comedy clowning or whatever, but I also put it on the last day of the festival when I was sad about having to leave soon, and that is not the right mood for enjoying this extremely silly show. There was only one part that I properly liked, which was a game near the beginning that people played with the word “cunt”. That was the highlight, it was downhill from there. There were several puppets. I do not like puppets. The overall energy was fun at times, but I wasn’t into it.

5

- Tony Law – The Law Also Rises

Before he went right-wing, I felt like I should be able to enjoy his stuff, he’s the cool alternative guy that Stewart Lee likes. And I didn’t hate it, I sometimes found him funny, but other times I had to try to see what’s funny about it, because as I’ve said before, I am not a cool person who always “gets” alt-comedy stuff. Then I found out he’s in with the Comedy Unleased crowd and I stopped feeling bad about not always understanding his schtick.

If I’d been more on board with his persona from the beginning, I probably could have enjoyed this show. It only had a couple of references to how the woke cancel culture nanny state are ruining our lives, so I guess that could have been worse. I genuinely did try to watch it with as much of an open mind/lack of prejudice due to his political views that I could manage, and because of that, I did find a few bits of it funny. It’s certainly interesting, what he does. But overall, not for me.

4.75

- Anesti Danelis – Artificially Intelligent

A guy I’d never heard of who streamed on NextUp. It was a show about AI and internet comedy. Some of it he claims was actually written by AI, and even if he was lying, just making that claim (in a way that didn’t seem to be joking) was enough to knock my rating of the show way down. It felt like internet comedy trying to be live comedy – which, to be fair, can be fun. I did not find it fun in this instance.

4.5

- Kavin Jay – Unsolicited Advice

A guy I’d never heard of who streamed on NextUp. Did a lot of material that felt pretty hack to me, very little that seemed original or interesting in any way.

3.75

- Dan Willis – Cobra Kai, the Way of the Comic

It could have been good! I can think of so many ways that this show could have been good! There are so many ways to tie the themes in Cobra Kai into real life, in interesting and insightful ways. The inter-generational trauma, the complexities of interactions across socio-economic class, the role of sport in society, the transcendence of high school stereotypes, the way our past always shapes our future, the changing media and cultural norms that shows in the differences between the original movies and the TV show a few decades later, and that’s just for a start. But he didn’t do any of that, which made me mark this show down even lower than it maybe deserved, because I was so annoyed about the wasted potential. It was just a gimmick to get in fans of Cobra Kai, like what Aaron Simmonds did with Harry Potter, but unlike Aaron Simmonds, this wasn’t a way to advertise another show, and it wasn’t wrapped around a bunch of strong material. It was just the gimmick, wrapped around boring material. And, unlike Aaron Simmonds, he didn’t even impress me with especially in-depth knowledge of the source material.

3.25

- Takashi Wakasugi – Welcome to Japan

A lot of material that I’d expect to hear from a comedian who was doing a parody of the hack, overused observational stand-up comedy tropes from 30 years ago. Except this wasn’t a parody. There were so many observations about food, and I so don’t care about food-based comedy.

3

- Some Theatre Kids – NewsRevue

I found this as un-funny as some of the other shows to which I’ve given low ratings, but I’ve rated it even lower than them because I also found it frustrating that it tackled such serious issues so badly. It’s one thing to make boring observations about sandwiches or whatever, it’s another thing to do bad parodies of political issues that have ruined and cost innocent lives. I love political comedy, and I don’t know where the line is between “using humour to skewer bad people and policies and ideas in politics”, versus “treating serious situations like a joke”. But this felt like the second thing, and I really disliked it.

…I feel bad for writing that when it was just young people making theatre and I'm really not the target audience for it. I mean it streamed on NextUp so it's got to be fair game to critcize, but still, I'm sure there are people who like this sort of thing. Also, I really can't justify why I think it's all right for people to shout my own political opinions at me in a political stand-up show but it seems crass to display them in a musical, so, you do you, I guess.

2.5

- Michelle Shaugnesy – Too Late, Baby

I hated this, but now I sort of feel like I probably hated it because I’m too judgemental, and I feel bad that I was mean about the theatre kids before, so I won’t be mean again and go into detail about why I hated this. I actually also did go into that detail in a Tumblr post I wrote right after I saw it, no need to get into all that again. It wasn’t my thing.

- Bonus list: shows that are not on the spreadsheet because I haven’t heard versions of them that were performed at the Edinburgh Festival, but I have heard versions that were performed quite near the Edinburgh Festival, so no far off from were like in Edinburgh.

Shows that I thought were good:

- Olga Koch

Incredibly intelligent show about a complex issues that still managed to be packed with good jokes, criminally overlooked for awards this year, I thought.

- Greg Larsen

Some material recycled from his last couple of shows but I didn’t mind because that material was so funny, also lots of new stuff that was also funny, his usual level of dark and consistently hard-hitting humour.

- Fern Brady

Interesting and funny observations that make me laugh in autistic perspective.

- Patti Harrison

Wild, off the wall hour that did not slow down and made me laugh repeatedly.

- Guy Montgomery

Just enormous fun, observational comedy/wordplay, and describing it that way should mean it's conventional and boring but it's so much the opposite of that, so much fun, I really enjoyed it.

Shows that I thought were not good:

There are a few in this category, shows where I heard a preview and thought “I have no desire to see that again”. I’ve already referred to a couple of them, but I figure there’s no need to list any others, as I already feel bad for being a dick about the theatre kids and some of the other shows that I didn’t enjoy. So I’ll leave it at this.

[theverumproject]

hihi verum! i wanted to ask how it’s been writing your first story! what’s the process like for you? has it gotten tough to stick with? how do you go about issues in your writing?

hope you have a great day :>

Hello! Thank you for your questions and excuse me for answering a bit late (I like to take my time, lol)

How has It been writing your first story?

Writing Verum has had a little up, then a giant down and now it has been going up again since this year. The first book took me three years to complete, while it is only more or less 15 k long! I began the second book this year in April, and I think it's at about 40 k words right now, nearing the end of season 1. So at the moment, it is going great!

What's the process like for you?

I write everything down that comes to my mind. Be it a whole book or a very small detail to some alien species' biology. That's kind of how I build the story in my head. When I begin with a book, I write down all my ideas for the book and what should roughly happen in the different parts. One to five sentences are enough, though sometimes I also write down more, depending on how much I already got in my mind.

When I wanna write a part, I first make a description of it, where I just write down everything that comes to my mind and start to plot. It should be at least 500 words long, though recently it's been getting more and more. My newest description is over 2.6 k words long, longer than my minimum word count of 1.5 k, woopsies.

Once that is done I start actually writing the part. Like I already mentioned, my minimum is 1500 words, but my parts have been becoming longer too. The latest part is over 7 k words long, also woopsies.

I always give myself one month to write 10 k. And until now, I have always reached it. I use NaNoWriMo to keep track of that. Giving myself a goal to reach has really helped me!!!

I edit in between of my "writing months". For example, I write three parts, edit them, write another three parts, edit all six of them, write another three parts, edit all nine of them, and so on and forth.

Not sure if I understood your question right, but I hope this answer is good enough!

Has it gotten tough to stick with it?

Writing the first book really has been tough. I had no... Discipline nor motivation. That's also probably why it's not that good. It's kind of half assed, I guess?

But since writing the second book it has been going wonderful! The toughest part of it is actually figuring out how to write some things, or when there are plot holes and I don't know how to fix them. Or simply just beginning to write. But once I start another month, I have no other choice but to write.

How do you go about issues in your writing?

So, while I write the whole part for the very first time (after the description), I try to ignore all issues and questions that pop up and simply just write them into the text (like this). One of the simplest issues is for example:

There's a part where Arushi and Zri'Kla go hunting. They live in an Indian jungle, but I don't know what kind of animals live in an Indian jungle. I need one though that isn't too big to carry, but it also needs to have enough flesh on it to feed them for a little bit. So instead of thinking about what animal it is while writing, I simply just write down something like this; "The arrow pierced the (animal)'s flesh". I solve all issues while editing.

But when it comes to issues that affect the plot and stuff like that, I have write down the questions on notes. I often think about Verum throughout the day, so my questions often just get randomly answered. I just need to write it down before I might forget it again.

I think my own brain sometimes gaslight me though. I have a question and a simple answer that is not good enough. I look for a better one, but can't find one. And then suddenly I think that the first answer is alright I think it's a form of giving up.

Sorry for this wall of text! Hope I didn't ramble too much.

[alicechess]

Love your writing so much! I was just having an idea atm, so I hope it’s fine requesting stuff

Reading the Yandere Springtrap series (which I really enjoy ♥️🙏), reader asked if he’s a person in one part.

What if reader wanted to open his face in curiosity tho? What would he do and if he DID open his face, would he sometimes scare reader?

Ooo I like this idea, thanks! I'll just turn this into the next chapter. I changed it a bit, and used it only as a way to scare her.

This hasn't been proof read, so it might not be the best. Anyway, enjoy the year late chapter. Also sorry it's not super long.

The new nightguard Chapter 10 (Yandere Springtrap x f!reader)

--------

The familiar footsteps was heard from behind the door. The sound of metal hitting the old, wooden stairs. A sense of dread often fell on you whenever you heard it. Maybe it was just as a result of him being the only person you've seen over the past.... how long? You couldn't keep track of time down there. No windows, no clocks, not even a damn calender. It was boring, the same old thing over and over again. You craved for something different, whether it be something small or dramatic.

The sounds of keys jingling alerted you from your thoughts, and a few seconds later, he appeared into the room once again. He brought some gifts into the room, like some new clothes he got from... some victims.

"Here, this should make you feel a bit better. I... I'm starting to understand how you feel now." He says, glancing at reader. Y/n noticed how his eyes You aren't just something I can use, and... I'm sorry."

Y/n sat their on the mattress stunned, what makes him think you'd forgive him over something so horrid? What he said about your family, what he'd do to them. You knew you were still falling down the hole, the hole of Stockholm syndrome. But regardless of how much you tried to push it aside, those feelings never fully left. You were afraid of them clouding your ability to see him for what he truly is.

"We had such a nice day yesterday, but you had to fucking ruin it! I was starting to like you, but in the end, I'll always see what you're fucking like. I couldn't care less about what you give me. You disgust me. You're a fucking monster, you truly are rotten inside and out. You deserve all the hell which you've been through you sick fuck!"

You snapped, every single thought, emotion you've experienced spilled out. You couldn't hold it in, you realised it was too late when you saw him rush towards you. He gripped you by the neck, throwing you against the wall. Pain radiated all throughout your skull, putting you in absolute agony. You cried out, afraid of what he'd do. That horrific, scary suit, the rotten meat that clung to the metal skeleton making you realise further what is in front of you. You now had a good look at him, how he truly was once a human. How did a person become this? Something which was flesh and blood, had emotions and memories, close relationships, was a fucking corpse in a suit. You wanted to know what was underneath, but you had a feeling you'd regret it.

He put pressure on your neck, you knew it was going to bruise. You felt his hands slowly put more and more pressure on your neck, making it more difficult for you to breathe. You kicked at him, but you knew it was no use as he was much taller and heavier than you. After all, he's made of metal, you never had a chance.

As your vision became blurry, you started to accept your fate. Freedom, finally. What's the point in living if you're going to be surrounded by the same four walls? You let your hands drop from his, there was no point in fighting back. He looked at your face, realising what he was doing. The defeated look scared him. Springtrap didn't like that look on you at all. It didn't fit you, it felt wrong seeing you in a position like this. Although he wanted to tear you apart, he knew that he'd regret it. Springtrap let you fall to the floor.

In a way, he wanted to let you down gently, but he was still frustrated and upset with what you had said.

"Doll... we had a discussion yesterday. You should know better."

Y/n struggling to catch her breath, coughing repeatedly, her hands touching her neck. He had slightly cut her neck from the wires which were peaking from his hands.

"Darling?" Springtrap said, looking at her bloody hands. He felt panicked, "Darling!" He wrapped his arms around her, "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have hurt you. I love you so much, I'm so sorry! I didn't think." His voice was full of panic.

Springtrap stood up and walked to the bathroom, grabbing some medical supplies. He went back over to Y/n, seeing her still panting, not moving from shock. He knelt down, and opened the small metal box. He pulled out some disinfectant, then poured it onto a cotton ball. He then slowly patted it over her cuts. Y/n didn't wince from the pain, only staring into the distance. Springtrap then but a bandage over it, making sure that it won't come off.

Springtrap then held Y/n, knowing he absolutely fucked up and wasn't sure how to fix the mess he created. Y/n and Springtrap stayed together for an hour, y/n still not wanting to look at him at all. He disgusted them.

Springtrap started to become frustrated with how Y/n barely moved, didn't say a word. Their eyes were so empty, it angered him. Nothing he did satisfied them. They never responded, they just stared. It couldn't have been that bad, right? He's done worse before, why can't they just move on? He provided everything for them, he protected them from the outside world, gave them expensive gifts and love.

"Y/n?" He shook them

"Y/n, you've been silent for a while now."

"Y/n for fuck sake answer me!" He said making them face him. Even though he raised his voice, Y/n just turned away. Springtrap tried his hardest to not hurt them again, knowing it'd make things worse. He wanted to hit her, he really did. But he loved her. He wanted her to love him back.

"Please, just respond to me! I'm fucking sorry."

Y/n turned away, just not caring anymore. All the truly wanted was to die, to simply get away from here. Nothing provided them joy. They just felt.... so empty. They couldn't care less what happened anymore.

They just wanted it all to end.

"Y/n, you'll regret this. I'll fucking hurt them."

Y/n gave Springtrap an unamused glance, the thought hurt them, but in the end, they just couldn't do this anymore.

"Do you want to go for a walk? Yesterday was nice, wasn't it?"

He nudged Y/n, but when he didn't get a response, he got up and walked towards the door.

"Fucking last chance Y/n, you'll either fucking love me, or I'll kill your family. I'm not doing this with you. I'm not going to play your pathetic game."

Y/n just gave him a sad look and turned away, staring at the concrete walls.

Springtrap sighed at the response, then opened the door and walked out. He knew she'd hate him, but he tried so much. It didn't go anywhere.

----

Springtrap did some research, with the application for applying to the job, he found her address. It was so painfully easy. The shitty company had no protection for the individuals who applied to the job. At least no one would have any use for this anymore, besides Springtrap. Y/n was simply someone who used to be. People probably think she's dead. He wondered if they connected the dots yet. The workers knew he lived in the abandoned pizzeria. It'd be amusing if they hadn't. It was difficult to find the place while staying undercover, making sure people didn't spot him. It was late at night and dark, so it was unlikely. It was also pouring down with rain and thunder.

Eventually, he found the place. There was a crappy car at the front, the paint was peeling off and dirty. The overall house looked fine at the front of the place. The grass was kept mown, and the building looked newish, probably built in the past 5 years.

Springtrap attempted the front door, and it wouldn't budge. He then walked around towards the back, and tried with the door. He knew he'd have to pick the lock, causing him to sigh. He hoped it wouldn't wake them up, otherwise it would make things much more difficult and irritating. He had no doubt he could take them down, it would just be leaving the area which would be a nightmare if the police became aware.

Eventually, it unlocked, and the door opened with ease and little noise. Springtrap looked around the bottom floor, a few cans of beer was on the floor. He guessed the family was struggling. There were a few bottles on one of the shelves in the dining room. Some seemed to be half empty or less.

He started to walk up the stairs, hoping that he wouldn't have to deal with any creaking. Unfortunately, because of the suit, it did creak underneath him. However, there was loud snoring which seemed as though it helped to cover the noise, so as the crackling thunder.

Once he found the room, he looked over at Y/n's parents. "So you're the peoples she's so desperate for, huh?" He murmured under his breath, knowing it wouldn't wake either of them. Springtrap moved over towards the bed. He pulled out his knife, then plunged it into the fathers chest. The mother seemed to instantly wake up, but Springtrap held her down, slicing her throat. The father attempted to hit Springtrap, but that wouldn't do anything to him. He was much larger and stronger than the man next to him. Springtrap raised the knife, enjoying the fear and pain in the mans eyes. He stabbed the man in the head, ending the mans suffering.

Springtrap stood up, relieved that they didn't make much noise. It was beneficial having a thunderstorm occur at the same time, as it made this much quicker and less difficult.

He cut the heads off both of them, which was rather difficult with the knife he was using as it wasn't as sharp as he would've liked. He took note on doing that later.

He put them both in one of the plastic bags which were on the floor. He could hardly wait to get his darlings attention again. She'd be traumatised for a while, but thankfully she'd eventually fall for him, and be grateful for what he's done for her.

Springtrap walked down the street, the blood washing away from his suit. It was rather dirty, but he couldn't often do much about it. He knew he'd have to fix it up some day. If he was going to be stuck in this hell for the rest of eternity, might as well make it a tad bit more comfortable and appealing.

It took a while to get back to the house as it was rather far away. Once he arrived, he opened the door and stepped in. He had a thought of possibly cleaning the place later, maybe he could bring up Y/n. They might be able to live a bit happier. She had nothing to cling onto anymore, any hope of leaving this place. He might do some more research later into possibly any other family that may be alive. He'd take care of them too if there were to be. Springtrap opened the basement door and stepped inside.

Y/n glanced over at him, noticing tiny specs of blood. Most of it was gone, but there still were small stains. Y/n remembered what he said yesterday, panic instantly settled in.

"What did you do?!"

Springtrap smirked, "Oh darling, don't you remember what I said yesterday?"

"No...." Y/n mumbled, tears welling up in her eyes. "You didn't...."

Springtrap laughed, then dropped the bag. Both of the heads rolled out. Y/n instantly moved back against the wall, a loud scream escaping from her.

"NO! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!"

He grabbed her by the chin, she tried to turn her head away, but he pressed harder, forcing her to look at him.

"You have nothing left but me. You have to love me now. There's nothing left out there for you! Besides me!" Springtrap wrapped his arms around her. "Its just you and me now. If there's anyone else I'll find them. I will make sure you have no reason to leave this place. If you try to, I'll break your legs once again, I will make you so disgusting no one could ever be attracted to you besides me. You'll only be loved by me. I'll be the only one capable of loving someone like you."

Y/n cried hysterically, she didn't want this anymore. She couldn't do this. She couldn't live with herself. What could she even do? She truly felt as though there was no reason to live.

"Just fucking kill me, please. I don't want to do this anymore! Just do it already!" Y/n screamed, pathetically hitting him.

"Doll, that's not going to happen. Isn't it obvious? I love you so much. I'm risking myself everyday getting you new gifts to make you happier. I give you all the attention you need. You don't want to die! Why would you? Is none of this fucking good enough for you?" Springtrap raised his voice, hitting the wall right next to her head. Bits of concrete fell off onto the mattress.

Y/n didn't feel afraid, she wanted this. "You think any of this would make me happy? You ruined my life! You took everything for me! Do it, you freak, fucking do it already!"

Springtrap gritted his teeth, knowing what Y/n was trying to do. He sighed, sitting down next to her. "Oh darling, I won't let you get to me."

----

Springtrap kept attempting to get attention from Y/n. He wanted to spend time with her, but kept getting shut down which was making him frustrated.

"Do you want to go outside with me?

Y/n looked away, rolling her eyes.

"No."

"Want to watch a movie?"

"Fuck off."

Springtrap grabbed her wrist roughly, dragging her up. "You're going to fucking spend time with me. Got it?"

"Fuck no, why would I want to spend time with something like you. You're a fucking monster."

"You think I'm a fucking monster huh? I'll fucking show you how much of a monster i am." Springtrap pulled off his mask, showing the rotting face beneath it.

"Oh my god-"

"I'll fucking make you like me. I'll fucking force you to suffer like I have. You won't ever escape me then. You won't have a choice anymore, you'll be constantly under my control. What's your choice, hmm? Love me willingly, or I'll force you to."

[judasiskariot]

✨Writing Interview Tag Game✨

The 🖤judasiskariot❤ round - thank you lovely delightful @pinkberrytea for the tag 💕🌸

When did you start writing?

Already enjoyed writing creative essays at school. Wrote my first fanfiction (yugioh) as a teenie at an anime/fandom website. Got really into it, with writing fanfiction about a RPG I were playing/writing at the very same time.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Maybe I read more smut than writing it. Because it seems I always need to put up huge story before smut, so it makes sense, cause the ghost of dumb it is ooc comments are still in my head.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I guess not. Both ways (I just often say I am a film noir or Tolkien type cause I often get lost in description or heavy in inner monologue. We could be in Mordor....or only went down the hill, same length. So happens with me. (So gods no never ever would I say I can write like Tolkien!!!! I just mean by that, that I do not keep some things sharp and short when maybe needed, as I do prefer in real life)

I am a huge Dante Alighieri and Vergil fan, compare me to them and I will always love you 🤣🤣

I just feel like a bardic soul 💜📜🪶

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Desk is always occupied. Also is there gym, man sleeping medieval storage cave (The Manc Ave, right Terry and Korvo? 😉Dig old bicks)

Hardly wifi connection in there. I have no stationary pc, only cheap small laptop (it is hard to be a bard xD) so writing on the couch.

I have reading and writing candles (my luxury; even I should not)

Love to write in my bard poetry book outside in the nature 🌳🏞️🏕️☀️

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

🤷‍♀️

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

DRAMA OVER BLOODY DRAMA

I am the drama queen.

Love some angst and emotional damage; make it harder than it needs to be.

But also horror, gore, love and smut.

Never surprised.

and dumb sassy joking; could write forever funny crosstalks like chat. Would anyone read that? Than I would write all my ideas, ALL! So efficient and quickly. Sooo...I get lost in my Tolkien surroundings 😅🙈

maybe i write more cheesy and theatrically than I thought 🤔

What is your reason for writing?

SOMEONE HAS TO DO IT, RIGHT?🤷‍♀️

😄

No. I am not skilled in any other divine arts and I guess that's the only thing I can call on. I like it. I always liked it. I can create something, that's nice. And I've written so much RPG and FF as a teenager, I messed it up and I hate that I didn't do it for over 10 years now. Why abandon the thing you were good at, had fun with, made progress while practicing? So that all progress seems lost and you have to start from zero?

I'm glad I've started making progress again, maintaining what I once set out to do, and learning to be better.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

I'm incredibly happy with every single comment, even if it's just a smiley.

" You really did read my thing? How great is that!?!?" 😍🤩

But comments with a specific part or a line that they liked or whatever, their specific thoughts on certain parts are incredible. As a writer, I need feedback to know if I'm doing well and if I'm on the right track. Do others know what I wanted to say? Does it come out right? Otherwise I cannot improve.

If someone shares their exact first thoughts, what they thought about certain passages while reading, then the work pays off. 😍😍🤤🤤

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

As someome whose writig is good? 😅🤷‍♀️🙈 someone they can talk to. some nerdie partner in crime.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I have no clue. No one told me. I guess maybe having drama ideas and writing the inner struggles of characters.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Also here not much confidence in my own writing.

I got the two beasts in me: GOD YES! BEST WRITING EVER. THIS IS SO GOOD! THEY HAVE TO LOVE IT! CAN'T WAIT FOR REACTON TO THIS!🤩

Reread it: what da fuck is this?! 😠 I thought this was good?! I have no clue where I wanted to go with that 🤷‍♀️

BUT I can also be proud, reread it and think "I did this. I created that myself. It may be not the best, just small and silly and cliché, but I created it myself!" Be proud, all of you writers!! 👏🏻🫵🏻💪🏻 We are forgotten so often.

Do people criticize paintings for being ooc? Well..I guess assholes being assholes in every aspect of life 😅😆

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

I do it cause I want to. But of course the external motivation is important. Lack of comments and feedback makes you quit, mean people make you quit. You post cause you want to share your joy with others, hope they enjoy it too. When they do not, it can be bitter.

But still for me I guess. But non the less, I pick up things I think others will like (but not troping or so, writing things I dislike myself cause they are gaining online likes and so on; not in that way never) When I know a certain mutual/friend is reading the thing, I put easter eggs/insiders in it, they should get; things I think they might like and makes them smile. If someone would request some things they would like to happen/read, I would totally pick it up when possible. Shared happyness is happyness doubled.

thanks for the tag lovely

All my muts, please keep tagging me. I just keep forget doing it, when I can't do it right away.

And spinning head prevents me from that. I see what nonsense I write in the DMs and in every lil post a huge amount of spelling mistakes; I can't do it better at the moment; so embarrassing🙈

I've had a hectic time, sorry, but I love things like that and always smile when I get tagged😃😘 (and sometimes I'm a little unsure about telling something about myself. The urge to disappear completely one day and the next day I urge to overshare. Plus bad experiences with some folks😅🙈 )

I tag @nihil-ism @damadisangue

@sorceresssundries

@mercymaker

maybe you guys want to ramble a lil bit

[check out their works (if you like 😘)]

[hiraeth-witch-11]

Possession Part 2

Trigger warnings: brief mentions of sex and murder, customer service hell-scape (not literal)

Word count: 875

Tell me we are not doin’ this for the next 12 hours.

You’re lucky, today is only a 10 hour shift. You continue scanning items, listening to the repetitive beeping and background chatter.

Are you sure we aren’t in Hell right now?

Don’t be a baby. We’re only 2 hours in.

This is so boring.

Boring is better than the alternative. I’m sure you’ll see soon enough.

“I have some coupons,” your customer says, handing you a stack of paper cut outs.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but these are for a different store. And they’re expired,” You explain.

“But they should still work. The last time I came here they accepted them.”

Yeah right.

“Unfortunately, I can’t accept them.”

“You can though. You just have to type some things into your computer. I’ve seen it done,” she continues.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s against store policy.”

“What are you stupid? Just put them in your computer. It’s not that hard!”

What a bitch. I would’ve stabbed her by now, but that’s just me.

“I’m not stupid, ma’am. There is nothing I can do. It’s against store policy.” You keep your tone even. 

“Are you arguing with me? The customer is always right. See this is what’s wrong with your generation.” She huffs and puts her hands on her hip.

I’m older than you and if she was talkin’ to me like that, I wouldn’t stand for it.

Be quiet. You're gonna distract me.

“Ma’am, I cannot accept these coupons. Are you ready for me to finish the transaction?”

“No. I’m not. I want to speak to your manager.” She folds her arms over her chest.

Fine by me. Make her someone else’s problem.

You wave over your manager. “Hey Roger, could I have your help with something real quick?”

“Sure, what’s going on?” Roger asks. He’s nice, you like him as a manager. He usually has your back.

You open your mouth to speak, but the woman interrupts you and begins complaining. Roger is patient, explaining the exact same thing you did and finally getting the woman to leave. Roger isn’t a very tall or particularly strong man, but he’s nice and polite and you have a bit of a professional crush on him. He claps you on the shoulder and gives you an apologetic smile once he leaves. 

He wants to fuck you.

Jesus Christ, William. He does not.

I thought you were gay. How can you have a crush on him?

I’m pan. Equal opportunity as far as crushes go. Gay is just a bit of a catch all term I use when I don’t feel like explaining.

So you would be down for a threesome? You can hear the grin in his words.

You literally are just another dude. Could you be any more cliche?

I could. 

I’m gonna be clear right now. That was not a challenge.

Kinda felt like it.

How old are you, William?

I lost track. I’ve been outta Hell a couple times. Last time was during the Civil War, I think. Time before that is kinda fuzzy. I think some war for independence. When I was human, I fought with swords.

Damn you're old. If you’ve done the possession thing before, why are you so bad at it?

Ouch. I did just fine before. I think something’s wrong with you, not me.

So you’re blaming me for your possession? Take some responsibility for your own actions, my dude.

Responsibility is for suckers. 

You roll your eyes and focus on the rest of the shift. Billy is mostly well behaved-ish and only mentioning murdering the customers occasionally.

Damn look at the rack on her.

I will not.

If I saw, that means you looked.

Okay, I noticed, but it would be impossible not to. I’m not going to stare, that’s rude.

You can practically feel the demon pouting in your mind as he says, Now you’re just bein’ mean.

I know we established you are old as dirt, but I’m not gonna go around ogling women for your amusement.

What about ogling men?

What?!

You said no to women, that leaves a lot of options open. Can we ogle those?

First of all, there is no we in this and no. We are not ogling anyone. Oh my God she’s coming to my lane.

The beautiful brunette woman with the low cut top and killer curves is loading a handful of items onto the conveyor belt. You avoid looking at her as best you can as you scan the items.

“I like your hair,” she says. “It suits you.”

You stumble over your words. “You too. I mean, I like your hair too. Thanks.”

You’re hopeless, sweetheart.

I am not! I was just unprepared. 

“You’re cute,” the woman smiles. “I’ll see you around.”

You hand her the receipt and nod stupidly.

Absolutely hopeless.

Ugh, just a bit.

She wanted to fuck you too by the way.

She did not! How would you even know that? You’re out of date for human interactions by a couple centuries. 

I’m an incubus, plus fucking is timeless.

That’s such a weird thing to say. Of course I get a literal sex demon stuck in my head. God must hate me.

Join the club, buddy.

[music-my-beloved]

A Hard Day's Night: A 16yo's (horrible) album review pt.3

A Hard Day's Night: Catchy, she's so nice! She's like, a classic. Wasn't there that movie made with this same name or am I tripping? Dude making these reviews is like, giving me carpal tunnel I've never typed this much b4 !! Erm,,, but yea :/ this song is just a classic that's all I gotta say !!!

I Should Have Known Better: Harmonica goes insane honestly. Uh this song confused me 😭 like. i'm stupid??? I don't know girls this one through me for a loop. At first I was like, "Dang this girl's a runner she's out with other guys '-'" and then for a brief moment I was like no, "Okay maybe she's loyal she's just stupid and doesn't know what to say when the guy compliments her or something" I'm leaning towards the second option but the title still trips me up like, I should have known better what is that supposed to mean 😭😭??? Likeee,, "I should have known better that a girl like you would run off with different men" or "I should have known better that a ditzy girl like you wouldn't know what to say when I told you I love you" ?? I'm confuseddddd. Maybe I'm stupid. Help me 😭😭!!

If I Fell: THE DRUMS!?? Hellooo?? They're so cute !!!! They're so faint yet full it's so.. uh girl idk they're striking a chord with me. Was there a looping machine ??? Was that a thing in the 60s ?? If not that steady hand work was AMAZING. Good Job Ringo! 👍 Anyway yeah I'm familiar with this song already, she's another sister to me I love her!

I'm Happy Just To Dance With You: This song has like, melancholic undertones 😭 it makes me depressed. Not like, super sad but it's like, "Once this dance is over, I'll still love you" or something like that. Idk she's just so sad :(((( but I actually really like this track ! She's so sad I love it!!!

And I Love Her: erm, she's a bit too slow and sweet for me! I can imagine that under the right circumstances this song would be an absolute banger and just get me in my feels but right now a loud english class probs isn't the environment for this music idk.. but uhhhhh yeah. I WASN'T bored per se just mildly amused by her.

Tell Me Why: Girlllll we're getting drama???? Why this girl crying 😭 and lying ?! 😭😭 I'll tell you what these girls are! toxiccccc !!! Is it the same girl or multiple?? Because omg it's actually insane these girls are crazy or this one particular girl is just an absolute mad woman I can't tell 😭😭 uh but overall it's a pretty energetic song it's pretty good 👍

Can't Buy Me Love: Okay I heard the first line or whatever and I was like, "sugar daddy :3" what. girl nevermind. He wants a girl who doesn't want material things from him that's so sweet!! Apparently Paul and John turned their backs on Money from their previous album but whatevs I get it. Sometimes people are in a mood 👀. Uh I liked the song but the girl could bark she was a little loud for me idk 😭

Any Time At All: This song sounds a bit more modern idk but oh em gee he's gonna be there for you! Not in like a romantic way (but it could totally be seen as such) but in like a friendly sweet way !! Super cute idea for a song. Unfortunately Bruno Mars has already capitalized on such an idea with that one song that I cannot remember for the life of me rn idk

I'll Cry Instead: Teehee this song is evil >:3 !!! Revenge is real and this girl is gonna be a victim!!! I love itttt it's so catchy and just makes you wanna bop your head along with it. 10/10 for her, she was exquisite.

Things We Said Today: A parting song 🤨 hmm interestinggggg. Girl they had A LOT to say in this apparently 'cause looking at the lyrics, it reads like a short story. I mean, I know that is technically what a song is but most of the time the songs read like poems this one goes crazy (and yes I know, some parts are repeated) but OMG she was a lot !!! Charming track but I didn't really groove with this one!!!

When I Get Home: okay when I read the title I thought this song was a threat I'm not gonna lie to you 😭😭.. it still seems like a threat to me. ALSO these songs need some gut to them !! These tracks have the potential to sound more angry but they won't do it and I'm trying to understand why. The Beatles have made some angry sounding songs before (but that's for a later albums) and they've all sounded fantastic. I get that the songs at the time (60s) were all lovey dovey and cute and not so aggressive but RAAHHHHH it's so frustrating to hear the same thing over and over again. But anyway yeah I feel like this song was just too repetitive for me :/ EDIT: okay listened to this song multiple times I completely misunderstood it but the rant is STAYING !!!!!

You Can't Do That: uh this girl's a runner !!! Quick someone get her, someone watch her 😭😭😭 this song is a pretty tame response to the knowledge that your girl is talking to other people. Also this dude is oddly obsessed with his reputation like, boy, reputation don't mean nothing if your girl doesn't even respect you that much ?? I don't know i've been mean with these reviews don't mind me I'm just crazyyyy this album review has been a mess 😭

I'll Be Back: this relationship is not healthy wut. He left her just to see if she would chase after him. You know what good on you girl 'cause that was a crazy thing to do on his part. Uhm overall (despite the weirdness in the relationship dynamic) I think it was the perfect track to close out an album with. It's not using all the tricks in the playbook but it's also not completely lacking either !! It's was also a very chillaxed song and not too overbearing. I liked it!! Probs won't listen again but idk I could totally be lying don't listen to me!

More Reviews on the way, next up: Beatles for Sale...

[heyclickadee]

Thoughts on “Faster”

1. THAT’S MY BOY!! THAT’S MY BOY!! MY BEAUTIFUL NERDY BOY!!! 2. I love that Echo and Hunter were out delivering space door dash. I joked about that with my sister once; I didn’t think it would actually be canon. 

3. Even though I missed seeing Hunter and Echo (and Crosshair), I don’t think this episode would have worked with them in it. I’m not sure Hunter would have agreed to going with Cid in the first place, and even if he had, there’s no way he would have let Tech on that race track. They would absolutely shut down the shenanigans. I’d pay cash money to see his face when they all get back. 

4. I know a lot of people are calling this one filler, and while I don’t agree seeing as how there was plot development or at least set up for plot development as well as some lovely character development for Tech, I’m glad this one was a bit more lighthearted than the first three. You can only delve so far into the angst before the audience becomes numb to it. You need to let them (and the characters) breathe a little before going any farther with it. I’m genuinely glad they just got to have a good (albeit dangerous) time. 

5. Tech, seeing riot racing for the first time: It would appear that anything goes out there.

Tech internally: If I do not get out on that track within one standard hour I will perish.  6. I LOVE how, in contrast to the first season, which highlighted the batch as a team and what their roles on the team were, this season is focusing more on the batch as individuals. It’s less about what the team will do and more about what each member of the team might want. For Tech, that seems to mean opening his eyes to the possibility of life outside of war and combat, not just for himself but to the idea that there’s so much of the galaxy that existed before and outside of the war that he’s never thought about, as well as presenting him with the idea that he’s good for something besides fighting. And given the conflict between Hunter and Echo (who ultimately want the same thing but are looking to get there in different ways), I’d say that’s going to be really important later on down the line. 

7. Along those same lines, I’m adoring the throughline between Crosshair’s desperation to stay relevant using the only skills he thinks he has, Echo’s determination to fight back using the only skillset (being a soldier) he thinks he has, and Tech’s frustration with Cid wasting their skills on things like space door dash. They were designed to do one specific thing, and the republic they were designed to do it for no longer exists. They’re all floundering and struggling to find their own sense of purpose, the same way Hunter seemed to find his back in season one. 

8. TAY-0 was. Oh boy. 

9. Obnoxious. Eminently punchable. The irony of casting Sonic the Hedgehog as the blue racing robot was not lost on me, but besides the “Gotta go fast,” aspect of that, casting Ben Schwartz as an egotistical, aggressively dramatic theater kid always works. He always plays that part well. 

10. You could feel Tech was exactly 0.35 seconds from punching TAY-0 in his stupid metal face from pretty much the moment they met. That deadpan glare when TAY-0 told Tech to stop fixing him the wrong way? I felt that in my bones. The way Tech sighed and shook his head when TAY-0 said that Tech didn’t have strategy or skill? Dude was pissed and it’s almost like he’s had to mask his whole life. The, “Don’t try me right now, I’m done and I’m doing what I want,” look when Tech said he was going to be the one to race? Yes. Good. 

11. The way that Tech clearly didn’t know how to respond to the crowd chanting his name because he’s not used to that kind of recognition, so he gave that little awkward half salute is going to live rent free in my head for a while. As is the fact that Tech did listen to everyone giving him advice but ultimately trusted his own judgement. 

12. “Tech, you have to be in front to win!” “I know what I’m doing. It’s called strategy.” “No, it’s called losing!” I’m dying. I’m literally dead. 

13. So...Tech doesn’t trust Cid. Which, he shouldn’t, of course. Besides Millegi’s warning at the end, the way Cid was acting all the way through this episode makes me think she’s definitely got something shady in store for the boys. And the thing is, I don’t think it’s something she’s planning on doing--I think it’s something she’s already done. I suspect she actually sold them out to some extent way back, maybe back in season one, in a way that’s going to get them in big trouble this season, and that she’s maybe starting to regret it because a part of her actually likes them. 

14. Wrecker and Omega playing chess at the beginning of the episode! Omega putting things on the line to help Cid! Wrecker and Omega being so happy when Tech won! Tech with his hand on Omega’s shoulder and Wrecker doing that affectionate shoulder punch! I love them!

15. The poor guy who got shot at during the race at the beginning of the episode. I know this was a much lighter episode than the last few, but dang. That’s...kinda dark. 

16. I cracked up when the announcer lampshaded how odd clone names are in-universe, especially when they don’t have the “they’re a clone” context. 

[very-lost-hobbit]

as requested by @seadem-on, my Blonco playlist commentary 😊

Full disclosure: I am but a simple creature, give me woman/women KILLING IT with voice and guitar and I am ON THE FLOOR and that plays a part in my playlist creation no matter what I do also this is LONG

1. Rebel On The Run by Dakota Ray Parker- I was mostly thinking of Tuco with this one, but Blondie's also a bit of a rebel in his own way. He's clearly in the bounty hunting business for that sweet sweet $$$ and not for any upstanding moral reasons

2. I'm Good For Nothing by Jimmy Dawkins- Once again more about Tuco than Blondie, but everything I've ever seen about bounty hunters has just a pinch of self depreciation so I think Blondie probably has some too, he's just buried it DEEP down

3. Strangers by Town Mountain- The beginning of their partnership, the first bits of devotion that neither of them will admit.

4. Going Down by Freddie King- Blondie getting deeper and deeper in his partnership with this criminal he has a crush on and keeping up the facade of being an upstanding citizen who happens to be a bounty hunter.

5. Ain't That Peculiar by Fanny (cover)- strengthening of their partnership and whatever elaborate kink thing they have going on with the whole hangman con

6. Bad Spell by Larkin Poe- I'll be honest this one just fits the vibes of their relationship/situationship to me and I can't exactly explain why

7. Be Forewarned by Macabre- The title says it all, the two of them warning each other in their own ways do not fuck with me. The effectiveness of their warnings is pretty moot but, there it is lol

8. Walk In The Sun by The Angry- ah, the song I came across listening to random alt(ish) oldies that made me want to make this playlist. Tuco's walk and Blondie's walk, while very different in vibes, do both have spite (on Tuco's part) baked into each one. And lots of sun, too.

9. Gold Gun Girls by Metric- yet another one where it's more about the vibes, but the lyrics speak of chasing something empty in gold and guns and girls and I think that's both of these two in their own ways

10. Searchin' For a Rainbow by The Marshall Tucker Band- I mean. They ARE looking for a pile of cash that sounds too good to be true!

11. Hope in Hell by Black Pistol Fire- the spiteful vibes fit both of them really well, but especially Tuco!

12. Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane- Okay back on track with movie plot, the two of them in the Mission and the whump happening there <3 Tuco was fucking with him but I do think a part of him did genuinely feel a little guilty. If nothing else than because being around his brother makes him default just a little less selfish.

13. Miss You by The Rolling Stones- Seperated in the Union POW camp and by Angel Eyes :( They miss each other! I swear it's not just because of the song name, something about the guitar style and harmonica that speaks to me as Blondie.

14. Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel- The bridge. Need I say more? 👀

15. Funnel Of Love by Wanda Jackson- Ok so after the movie they say fuck it and accept they don't want to separate in my fan fic. And the way she describes it makes it sound out of control like I'm sure they both feel about it

16. I Don't Need Nobody by Human Expression- Come on we all know these two are toxicly devoted to each other <3

17. I Need You So Bad by Magic Sam- Same as 16

18. Runaway by Bonnie Raitt- So I've been considering retconning/explaining in a different way in my own fic that maybe Blondie DOES run away again after the gold and Tuco has to track him down. But also that bit where Tuco's tracking him with his cigars 🖤

19. You're No Good by Linda Ronstadt- They both know the other is no good for them in their own way, but they can't help themselves. For whatever reason they're drawn together time and time again

20. Starting Over by Christ Stapleton- So this is intended for right before my series begins, when they finally accept they want to stay together and kind of like each other, maybe they've kissed and had sex by now maybe not. Either way something fundamentally changes after reuniting with the money.

21. When It Comes To Love by Crystal Shawanda- They've had their ups and downs but in the end they're there for each other. Also I love Chrystal Shawanda's music so much I saw her live like 7 years ago and- (I'm biased but this IS on here because I genuinely think it fits them, the lyrics about being left wanting, desire, etc.)

22. Place In The Country by Fanny (cover)- The name of the song the lyrics about wanting to escape a war the longing for a place in the country? *chef's kiss* fits Blonco in my fic perfectly! Also the raw quality of Fanny in live performances fits Blonco So Well to me.

23. Before The Devil Knows We're Dead by Turnpike Troubadors- The wild devil may care way these two idiots blew up a bridge for money? This song gets that.

24. I Only Want To Be With You by Dusty Springfield 25. Baby What You Want Me To Do by Chuck Berry and 26. Nothing Compares To You by The Helltones- Some nice songs that fit the mood of this playlist to me no deep meaning, sorry.

27. Life Is a Carnival by The Band- Them adopting Large One, surviving the gunfight with Ang and Flora, finding the kids, etc. They've had a wild ride, and they're not done with hijinks yet! (I don't know if they'll ever be done with hijinks)

28. Hide Away by Stevie Ray Vaughan- Another one that just fit right in, this song is on the playlist almost entirely because it's what I was listening to while researching for their house and it stuck in my mind, especially with the thematic title.

29. Hell of a View by Eric Church- The two of them being sentimental about each other <3

30. Before I met You By Sierra Ferrell (cover)- Yet another love song I just think is nice and kinda fits the vibe of the playlist :) also the themes of wanting to ramble and be free? Both of them to a T!

31. Years by Sierra Ferrell (cover & I added it JUST as I'm typing this)- This one fits Blonco the way I wrote them SO WELL 😭 I can see old Blonco drinking their morning coffee enjoying grandbabies (maybe even great grandbabies?) and feeling some of the lyrics, especially the one about raising a family🖤. Once again Sierra Ferrell's version a) because of the raw quality and b) oh my god her voice 😳 The John Anderson version is also Very Good though, especially live.

32. Sober II by Lorde- Perhaps the most out of place song on this list, and the oddest to explain because... okay backstory lore; it's May(ish) 2023, I've just had my brain rewired forever by TGBU in SEVERAL different ways, it's on my mind and I'm half asleep in the back of my parents' car on the way home from a long trip, it's warm and sunny and my music is on shuffle and I'm overtired. So I'm thinking about how crazy the entire thing with Blondie and Tuco is and this song came on and whoa, it's them, "How we kissed and killed each other"? "All the gunfights and the limelights and the holy sick divine nights"? IT THEM!! It's forever associated with them for me now. I wanted to return closer to the original dynamic to finish out my playlist and I think the "we loved each other but holy shit we had our problems" in this song is so good for that!

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

I saw your reblog+tags and I'm curious: how does one play Minecraft with a Jewish twist? :0

Basically, I'm trying to play in a way that corresponds to Halakha (Jewish law), which for now mainly involves trying to simulate Shekhita (Kosher slaughter). I did a lot of research on the requirements for the type of blade (called Khalaf or Sakin Hashekhita depending on who you ask) as well as how it must be used and concluded that only a diamond or netherite sword with sharpness V was suitable for slaughtering a cow (as they deal 10 and 11 damage respectively and a cow has 10 health and it Must be a one hit kill to be kosher, additionally it cannot be a critical hit as that might count as excessive force which is forbidden).

There is so much fun to be had around Kashrut (the dietary laws) in Minecraft. Did you know you're not allowed to eat fruit from a tree until it is three years old? Thus, I can only eat apples from oaks that have existed for 36 lunar cycles (3*12 months).

I've tried playing with "must keep Shabbat" but honestly it's very annoying to once every 7th ingame day just not be able to do basically anything. Pretty much everything that can be done in Minecraft is prohibited on Shabbat, including Mining and Crafting. You can maybe go explore, but you can't take anything with you or pick up anything, or make plans for what to do after Shabbat with what you find, and you can only go by foot, which I think means you're not breaking the prohibition travel, but I'm not sure, I need to look into it. It's possible that enchanting would be allowed if you reaaally stretch the concept and try to define it as studying, which is encouraged on Shabbat. Anyway I'm currently ignoring the Shabbat part because it's annoying to keep track and there's nothing you can really do. (Not to mention if you want to properly observe Shabbat you do so with meals which in Minecraft means you need to fast all week to be hungry enough to eat several meals.)

Once I get a bit more set up I really hope to create some redstone thing at spawn that will count the days for me so I can incorporate holidays. Maybe. It would be fun to build a Sukka (hut) for Sukkot (holiday when you build and live in a hut for a week) in Minecraft, but I might end up just going by the real world calendar to make sure I have time to really celebrate ingame (especially since lunar cycles are 8 days in Minecraft which means I'll have barely any time between holidays, Sukkot alone would take up a whole month).

It's basically a fun roleplay twist and as a bonus I get to research and learn about different Mitzvot (commandments) and Minhagim (traditions) before I'm able to meet a rabbi and incorporate them into my own real life. I love learning about Halakha and Judaism and I love any excuse to ask all the silly questions about it. Like earlier today a friend and I were arguing about whether a gun that shoots blades could be used for kosher slaughter! Judaism is so great and appealing to my autism like it has probably the world's largest collection of commentary upon commentary about how to interpret the rules and what does it all mean and I could spend the rest of my life learning about it and while there are disagreements there's bound to be some answer to any question I have about an ambiguity of a rule and oh my autistic little heart.

But there's some stuff I don't feel comfortable doing yet, even in game, because they feel too important and exclusive to real Jews, such as Tzitzit (knotted strings that are attached to certain articles of clothing) on my Minecraft skin, though I drew on a kipa (traditionally a round flat little hat worn by men) because it is only a Minhag (tradition) and not a Mitzva (commandment) and I wear one in real life. I've been considering making a Mezuza (little container put on doorposts containing an important prayer and marked with the letter ש, it is a Minhag to kiss it when you pass it) by writing the Shema (the aforementioned prayer) in a book and putting the book in a barrel next to the door and then putting a button on the barrel and pressing it to kiss it and open the door, but it might also fall into this category and might have to wait until I'm further in my conversion.

Anyway thanks for listening to me infodump about Judaism, it will happen again. Also there are 613 Mitzvot in the Torah and countless more in rabbinical texts, just so you don't think I'm even scratching the surface here. This is a brief summary of scratching the surface. In Minecraft.

[not-poignant]

Hi! Sorry if you've answered this before, but how do you keep track of all the details (e.g. characterization, worldbuilding, etc.) when you write something long? Love your books, and hope you're getting rest!

I really just depends, anon! I have different methods per story.

For example, re: A Stain that Won't Dissolve, I have nothing except what's in my head and what's in the story. I'll ctrl+F for any details that I need to double check before writing future chapters.

For The Nascent Diplomat, I have nothing except a single 4 page Word document that mostly just differentiates between the different clans with vague mentions of appearance. That's it. Oh and ctrl+F to look up details.

For Underline the Black and the rest of the Rainbow I have an Obsidian Vault. Obsidian is free program (unless you need it to sync between devices, and then it's a one-time very modest payment and they entirely deserve it) and I like it more than World Anvil because I can build my world the way I want. I can give you an idea of what that looks like for Underline the Black here:

The folders on the left are all like Wiki articles on all the characters. The graph view allows me to identify node categories by colour, and find what I'm looking for. I'm actually in the character pages for this about once or twice per chapter, but I don't need to use it often anymore because I remember a lot of the details now (except, for some reason, Caleb's eye colour). Here's an example of how detailed I get for the articles:

And obviously for more main characters, the articles are either more detailed, or way, way less detailed lmao. (Also Efnisien is in the 'omega' category not because he's an omega, but so I can more easily find him, lmao).

For Vexteria I have what's in my head, but I'll open a vault for that eventually. I'll need to.

For Fae Tales canon, I had a bunch of Word articles that I didn't often need to check for any reason. They were like...good early on, but then became kind of redundant. I get frustrated if I can't keep 95% of the details in my head at all times. Towards the end of The Ice Plague I actually started to sometimes use the Fae Tales Wiki to find details, lol.

Which is why the Mallory & Mount Obsidian Vault is pretty intimidating to me, but that's mostly because I haven't started writing yet:

For Falling Falling Stars and Spoils of the Spoiled I had nothing at all, except for what was in my head.

As you can see, anon, it really just depends on the story! My longest story (Falling Falling Stars) had no worldbuilding notes at all. And then other stories do get some worldbuilding. Underline the Black does because I knew I'd be spinning off couples/stories, and keeping track of like 10 different characters in 5 different couples can get overwhelming.

When I'm winging a story, I actually go to my documents less than I search through the stories for what I want to know. It's very common for me to open a story, go to 'Entire Work' and then literally just search through keywords that I know I use, to double check hair colour, eye colour, or something else. It got a bit unwieldy with Fae Tales because there was an awful lot to search through, but it's a lot easier with stories that just have one or two parts.

And I think folks might be surprised how much just...perma-lives in my head. That stuff is pretty much on tap. There's exceptions, especially depending on the time or fatigue (if I'm asked a detail about one of my stories and it's 1.00pm and I'm too tired to write, then I'm also too tired to talk about details without having to search for them myself). Generally speaking I can trust myself to write a story with solid continuity based off nothing except what I remember, and the ability to search the story before committing to something. That has led to minor, fixable continuity errors, but to my knowledge, no major ones.

Character details I find the easiest to remember, honestly, outside of cosmetics (fashion choices, eye/hair colour etc.). Like, I often don't have nearly as much in my worldbuilding notes about their histories or personality details, because that stuff I know I'll remember, and a flaw of mine is sometimes assuming readers will just naturally know it too.

I enjoy worldbuilding, but I don't need it for a lot of my writing. I would say the majority of my writing on AO3 has never had much by the way of worldbuilding or character notes, and even the stories that do like Fae Tales, I was checking those notes once every 10-15 chapters, because I didn't need them more often than that.

Er yeah so I keep track of the majority of it by just...thinking about it or recalling something to do with it. I have a good mind for this kind of storytelling, and I would say it's one of my strengths that allows me to write stories this long, because otherwise I'd feel SO frustrated always having to check documents and vaults etc. before I got started with each new chapter. But I have to admit that worldbuilding for Underline the Black finally forced me to give Kadek a last name, lol.