#two phrases that i am thinking of from the podcast are

[meraki-yao]

RWRB: The Awardist Podcast Interview Thoughts

Alright after listening to the podcast giddily while aggressively stomping on the cross-ramp machine to work out my extreme happiness and excitement to the point that I burnt through twice as many calories than usual and soaked through my shirt, I'm here with thoughts

Pippin @pippin-katz, who sent me a voice message at 3 am my time to tell me to brace myself and be prepared for what's happening and what I'm going to wake up it, did their own version of a summary+thoughts with timestamps here, go check that one out

So my list of thoughts is gonna be a little more all over the place

Immediately burst out laughing with the "mouthful" joke, even more so when the boys both caught it lmao

"I am not happy to see Taylor's face" and "I have a Post-it I'll stick it over your face now" that is peak bestie behaviour

Nick honey I love you but I... do not believe you don't look through online stuff lmao we literally caught you likely fan content and edits you posted two Henry edits and referenced another one

I love how unintentionally in sync they are??? For the first question they started talking at the same time, and for the second they both started nodding and stayed silent forgetting this was an audio interview

"mate, mate, mate, MATE" and the last one being said in sync oh my god this is so much fun

The whole comment on the signing wars: what Pippin said, we were literally calling Taylor "that little fucker" yesterday when he started taunting us with more BTS (EVERYONE KEEP VOTING PLEASE)

"What possessed you? What have you got against me?", the same energy as "Why do you dislike me?"

Taylor's explanation of signing on Nick's face and how it started made me laugh and scoff a little because I translated that fucking moment: the first time it happened, Taylor was in China, it was the firstprince PR photo not the GQ magazine, he was on a boat, and he was the one to ask for the photos to sign lmao

Again, need to see them sign stuff in the same time and space: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!! :D

"Take it Nick" Nick's little snicker in response

A little heavy and personal but I wish I could talk to them and tell them how much the book, the movie, the characters and the boys mean to me and how it kept me somewhat afloat last October when I was drowning every single day, and how this story made me want to change myself and break out of my status quo

I know I've been saying Taylor knows Casey's pronouns and he gets them wrong when he's nervous, and I stand by that, but God the sigh of relief I let out when he used they/them

"Right Nick?" is so oddly comforting?

Oh my fucking God the "Top to Bottom" joke was a low-hanging fruit but it made me laugh

Also even the order was right! "Top to Bottom", "Taylor and I" (jkjk lmao) 😜

I really fucking hope that the "that's what I'm known for now, doing intimacy work on screen" is an offhand joke and that people don't genuinely label Nick as that

"Why don't you speak for this, Taylor" again, unexplainably comforting

"Seeing my mate at all these awards shows" made me remember a Chinese phrase "頂峰相見·", literally "meeting again at the peak", meaning "I'll see you when we're both at our best"

Nick's burst of laughter at the "who's a better kisser" comment

Taylor I swear to God 🤣 he combined the "is nick a good kisser" and the "who has your heart joey or Nick" questions together and said "I don't know, I don't know how to answer that question, I have no idea" DUDE YOU LITERALLY ANSWERED THE GOOD KISSER QUESTION WITH "YOU KNOW WHAT HE IS A GOOD KISSER WE HAD TO PRACTICE A LOT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT" WITH ZERO HESITATION (that answer, on that day, was first thing in the morning for me, and I lost my sanity for the next two hours)

I'm so fucking happy and Matthew comes from a theatre too, speaking as a theatre person and someone who has been dissecting this film since its release

I really think there's gotta be more improvised scenes? Or at the very least stuff like the morning after V&A that was a last-minute decision to add in and wasn't in the script, or maybe scenes where there wasn't specific lines written and they just reacted and spoke based on the scenario? Or even little moments, the shoulder kiss or something?

"Tay" OH MY HEART

Ok I can make an argument on both how Nick is like and not like Henry, but Taylor is so ACD that he basically fell out of the book? How does he not see that? (personally think Taylor's very similar to Alex with a bit of Marco?)

Oh my god the whole segment of the DNC/getting caught scene and Taylor's ass

"I will take this one" "yeah"

"I love working with her, we both love working with her" That's sweet- hang on Nick you just have this one scene with her

I have so many more questions about this scene: Was Nick actually in the closet for that one shot? How many takes did it take?

Taylor referencing a detail in Bottoms from like a 30-second scene in the movie!!! Yes!!! We love seeing friends being supportive of each other (suddenly want to hear Taylor's opinions on M&G lmfao)

"And I'm not even going to get into M&G"

The text question is kind of the only question that made me think "Why would you ask that?" because that was definitely more of a directing/editing thing

Nick really freaking loves the cake scene, he mentioned that as his favourite scene three times at this point, all times on audio, twice on video

Aw Taylor's story about Jack... 🥺

But somehow everyone knowing it lmao, and Taylor's fucking awful British accent

And at this point Nick starts swearing lmao

Awww Nick's compliment to Taylor

Tangent: what the fuck is a fuel museum?

Oh I just love hearing them finishing each other's sentences when one of them forgets the word

Lmao imagine just recovering from Covid and then needing to make out for two hours

"Next to a witchcraft shop" What the fuck lmao

Tangent again but I could write a sociology essay on what Taylor said about architecture and history

I swear to God, Nick's "go on Taylor" somehow being softer, you can fucking hear that that little shit is smirking

Taylor saying that he wants a second book from Casey and me immediately going "BOTH OF YOU QUIT YOUR FUCKING JOBS" (I have complicated feelings about the bonus chapter)

"What-if world" exactly!

Taylor pulling out the stats about the queer population: did he fucking calculate that on the spot or he just casually have that information in his head?

the little wrap-up by the hosts was so sweet but somehow talking about Taylor's ass again oh my god (his body hair being digitally edited, it was minx right?)

"it's so sweet and nice and we need more of this in our lives right now" YES WE DO, WE FUCKING DO

"he's gonna be second-guessing his booty" is not a sentence I thought I'd ever hear but here we are

Culture shock moment: the number to call the podcast/American phone numbers is 3-3-4 which caught me off guard for a second cuz here it's 4-4

And that's it for now! God, I need so much more of this, like, if this is what we get out of a half-an-hour podcast interview what would press and promo be like?

Now that we're back for awards I really freaking hope these new RWRB content will be coming back, maybe like once a week or something

WE'RE BACK WE'RE FUCKING BACK WE'RE FUCKING WINNING

EVERYONE GO VOTE GO VOTE GO VOTE

[mia-townie]

Important take aways from the new blog post

They have been on the road for two years and have been solving supernatural mysteries all over the country

Gaston has grown up and is now heavier than 60 pounds and tall enough to lick Jack in the face when standing. Gaston is also apparently acting as a service dog (or as close as you can get without formal training I guess) which I absolutely love!!

Gaston also has a Bunch of spirits in him that originally came from Rosa (and seeing how Jack tried to use the trigger phrase for the Dark God during the timestop that could mean the Dark God is now in Gaston (or that the Dark God is still in Rosa))

One of said spirits (namned Sergeant Pupper) calls Jack "Papa" and calls Jerry "Uncle Jerry" which isnt really vital information but something I think is very cute

There is some strange man who can stop time, who has meet Jack before ("good to see you again.") and who seems to know something about Jack's future- more specifically that Jack is going to die before he reaches whatever destination he thinks he needs to go to

Jack's go-to move is to throw whatever is closest at the enemy's head and tbf we already knew this but I am continuously impressed with Jack's perfect aim

Jack's second go-to move is to go for the balls (another example being Jack grabbing Spencer’s ball at the end of vol 4)

Something is pulling the gang back towards the town and they are probably (maybe? possibly?) returning there in the next blog entry

Honerable mentions: Gaston violently hates Troyal Garth Brooks, the gang has visited Lucy (from Code Green) and Claire (from Bedside manor), and they mentioned the Snake's Paw podcast (!!)

[minustwofingers]

love is a laserquest p.2

series masterlist (read p1 here!)

pairing: rockstar!ellie williams x reader

request: @thatgiraffefromtlou so kindly included me on a post about writing something inspired by these beautiful edits :) thank you !

summary: after a serious of unfortunate events, columbia grad y/n y/l/n finds herself using her hard-earned journalism degree interviewing vapid stars and writing articles that she's convinced are rotting her mind. ellie williams has just dropped the album of the year and it's all anyone is talking about, but all she wants is to be off the press train. a certain interview with a certain interviewer might change this.

cws: explicit language, kind of suggestive phrasing? (i get a little feral with guitar playing descriptions), shitty bosses, mentions of nausea and throwing up (no one actually does tho dw), y/n is anxious asf, my writing is a little....yikes...in this one, loser!ellie

a/n: i lied i lied hehe. here's the next part. im still working on building this stupid app so i havent been able to write as much recently + holiday family stuff but oh am i back!

here's a playlist inspired by this fic

wc: 2.4k

tags: tags :) @intrnetdoll @dazedshoon @lovecaraya @pctcr @sariyaflowr @loser-keiji @prettyplant0 @666findgod @sawaagyapong @rystarkov @buzzybuzzsposts @addisonnie@galacticstxrdust @elliesbabygirl @pinkazelma @ariianelle @lu002 @blairfox04 @sparkleswonderland @elliesflower @muthafuckingstargirl @elliewilliamsissubermommyoml @eviestevie-14 @quicksilversg1rl @guacala @crtcrp @overtrred28 @diddiqueen @krisyslostsoul

enjoy mwah

It starts slow, like the drip of a broken faucet. It’s not like you’re actively seeking out anything Ellie William’s related, but somehow it seems like everything Ellie Williams related is seeing you out. 

In the grocery store, one of her hit songs from her newest album blaring over the speakers.

On the street, where you see crumpled pages of magazines with her face plastered all over them. 

And—perhaps the most offensively—on NPR and the New York Times, quite literally days after you’d met her. Suddenly Steve Inskeep and Leila Fadel begin the Up First podcast with a familiar song and devote an entire third of the morning podcast to Ellie and her band’s rise to fame. 

You decide to switch to the BBC World News for a while, but even they seem to be under her spell.

It’s not that you don’t like Ellie. She seems fine. Normal. Really cute, actually, and clearly very talented. But whenever you think about her, you think about the ill-fated, awkward, charmless interview.

“What happened?” Alyssa had asked you when she’d come back from surgery. “That wasn’t you out there.”

Which was actually very hurtful to hear, because you’d been holding onto the hope that you’d been all in your head about your interview being a failure. It all culminates in Eric, your 300 year old manager, sending you a strongly worded email that told you that your performance in the interview was so underwhelming that you were being pulled from the interviewer pool and exiled to article writing land. Which could be worse, you admit. You could be unemployed on the streets of LA. At least you’re still writing. 

And write you do. You spend all your waking hours either at your keyboard, on your yoga mat, or sat in a chair somewhere at a local cafe for a coffee chat. You’ve mostly deleted social media, since all you see nowadays are pictures of Ellie and Becca’s posts about her experience working and loving her life in New York (the algorithm apparently knows exactly what you want to see the most). 

It’s bizarre that, even as you try your best to place your focus on honing your craft and consuming only content that you think will make you a better writer, you still somehow learn everything and more about Ellie Wlliams and her band. It’s in the emails at work whose chains you’re CC’ed on. It’s in the advertisements and the billboards everywhere. It’s even in the conversations you have with your two roommates, Greta and Maureena. 

“She’s so fucking cool,” says Maureena dreamily as you sit around the TV in the living room. “I still can’t believe you got to talk to her.”

“It’s not like I actually got to, like, get to know her or whatever,” you say. “It was honestly kind of dry. Just awkward small talk.”

“That’s more than anyone else I know can say.” She reaches forward and grabs a fistful of popcorn. “How come she gets interviewed by the person who probably cares about her the least in all of LA? Like, what are the chances?”

“I care,” you say, and it sounds unusually defensive coming out of your mouth.

Maureena gives you a long, suspicious look, but before she can respond, Greta comes bursting into the apartment, purse swinging from her shoulder.

A greeting is halfway out of your mouth when she cuts you off. 

“You guys will not believe what I just did.” She’s nearly bursting with excitement, her eyes bright and wide. 

“Like, in a good way?” you ask. 

“Yes. Obviously!” Greta fishes around in her pocket until she pulls her phone out, waving it around. “Check your email.”

The last time Greta had come in with an entrance this energetic, she’d been coming to inform you both that she was getting engaged to her loser boyfriend Brian (which—thank God—didn’t actually last), so you and Maureena trade nervous looks. 

Maureena gets to it first. 

“Tickets to see Ellie Williams? Tonight?” Now she’s about to explode with giddiness, leaping from the couch and throwing her arms around Greta. “I love you, I love you, I love you. How did you get these? I thought they were, like, totally sold out. Or ten thousand dollars.” 

She grins wickedly, holding her hands out in a “who knows” sort of way. “You can all thank me later. We have to leave in about 20 if we want to get there in time. Y/N, you good?”

You’d been staring on in horror, jaw dropped and body completely frozen. You had registered that Ellie was playing in LA tonight—it’s all anyone you knew talked about at work today—but you never once considered actually going to try to see her. “Uh, yeah. Give me just a few.”

By the time you get to the venue, you’re convinced that you might actually puke from the nerves. It’s ridiculous. It’s not like three broke 20 some year olds were going to get last minute seats to an Ellie Williams concert that were genuinely good seats. It’s not like she would see you and realize that the girl who flopped while interviewing her was a big enough fan to attend. You’re going to be fine. 

“Shit, Grets, how are we so close?” asked Maureena as she leads you both closer and closer to the front. 

Horror steadily rises within you as you approach the front row. 

“I got these from my boss,” she says, turning around with a devilish glint in her dark brown eyes. “Her daughter got food poisoning, bless her. She had to stay back to take care of her, and I was the only one who stayed late to work, so…”

Greta’s boss was some filthy rich nepo baby who was a partner of a big talent agency. All of a sudden you feel stupid for not realizing this sooner.

“Shit,” you say, mostly to yourself. “Oh no. Oh my god.”

“Isn’t this so cool!” Greta jumps up and down, hands on your shoulders as she tries to rile you up. “Dude, what if she recognizes you?” 

“I think I’m going to puke,” you say miserably. Somehow the thought of her seeing you made you want to crawl inside your skin in shame and hide for the next calendar year. “Did you guys not see how ass it was? I was so fucking awkward.”

“It wasn’t even that bad.” Maureena pats your shoulder. 

“I literally was forbidden from ever interviewing again because it was so bad.”

“Because Eric hates women,” says Greta. “It’s not your fault he’s a horrible human being. Give it, like, a year or so until he croaks. Then they’ll let you back in the game.”

“Uh huh,” you say, feeling very harrowed. 

You remain in this state of abject terror for the entire opener performance. The nausea doesn’t subside. It only gets worse when you realize that if you actually puke, Ellie’s definitely going to see it. Just like she’s going to see you, with the stupid stars Greta had insisted you paint on your cheekbones with glittery eyeliner and eyeshadow. 

“She really likes space,” Greta had told you while you’d been getting ready, pretending like you didn’t already know all about this. “So all of her fans wear star stuff to see her.”

Before you can think to wipe off the glitter, everything goes black. Then the crowd goes wild. 

When the silvery blue light spills onto the stage, it illuminates Ellie, standing just a number of feet away from you. You barely have enough time to take in the black leather coat and loose white shirt she’s wearing before music explodes out of the speakers, her fingers flying up and down the fretboard. 

You’re spellbound as you watch her. Her voice rings loud and clear and slightly gravelly when it snags on her words. She’s nothing at all like the girl you’d met a month ago—there’s no discomfort, no awkwardness. She looks like she’s born to be on stage. 

When the first song ends, she steps back, grabbing the standing mic next to her. 

“Uh. Hi,” she says, and it’s so endearingly nervous compared to how she’d just sounded that something in your chest twists. She rubs the back of her neck. “I’m Ellie.”

Greta and Maureena join the crowd, screaming and cheering. 

“I LOVE YOU!” someone shrieks, louder than everyone else.

“You know,” she says, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to people reacting like this to me just, like, saying my name. It’s really fucking weird. Oh. Shit. Sorry. Are you guys okay with me swearing?” 

The roar that comes from the crowd is entirely undecipherable. 

“Right,” says Ellie. “Um. I’ll take that as a yes. Sorry to anyone who brought their kids or something. Anyway, this one’s about the ex who cheated on me and gave me mono.” 

Before you can react to that, she starts playing. 

As she proceeds through the setlist, you’re struck by just how close you are to her, how many things you can notice that hardly anyone else in the crowd can see. You see the outline of her phone in her pocket, the pieces of hair that have fallen out of her little half bun and are sticking to her face, the way that the glitter on her collarbones trails down her shirt in little rivulets. 

And, above everything else, you can see the horrible way her fingers straddle the fretboard, curling and pressing with ease so practiced it looks tender. 

Apart from this bad, bad development (you can feel your mind going a million miles an hour about things you should not be thinking about), things are going great. Ellie hasn’t noticed you. Or even looked in your direction. You’re not even sure she can see you, given how little light is shed onto the crowd. The false sense of security makes you feel comfortable singing along with Greta and Maureena, your lips forming the lyrics you’d been pretending to not listen to whenever her songs came on. 

It happens during a slower song, a sort of ballad that makes your heart thud harder in your chest to hear from her mouth. The lights on stage dim a little. Light spills just the slightest onto the front of the crowd, and Ellie’s eyes fall and snap onto yours so decisively that it almost feels audible. 

For a moment, you can’t breathe. Ellie’s voice suddenly catches mid-word, faltering and missing a beat. She thrusts her hand with the mic into the crowd, which eagerly picks up where she left off and finishes the verse. 

It’s impossible to see on the screen projecting her image behind her, but you can see the flicker of recognition in her eyes, the stiffness that comes with realizing that you actually know someone from somewhere. 

You’re the one who breaks eye contact, focused with a sudden intensity on the way the thin fabric of your sleeves are situated on your arms. 

Greta pokes you so hard in your ribs that you gasp. 

“What the fuck!” you snap, but the words are swept away by the noise around you. 

“Why didn’t you wave?!” she hisses in your ear. “She totally recognized you.”

The realization falls over you with the subtlety of an anvil. Oh my god. You totally should’ve waved. That was the normal, well-adjusted thing to do. Now she was going to think you were weird. And it was too late now. But she didn’t wave to you. Wasn’t she supposed to wave first? Because you of course remembered her, but she might not remember you. Yeah. You could go with that.

Maybe she didn’t remember you. 

You can’t relax for the rest of the concert. You try your best to just act normal and dance along with your friends and casually mouth the words, but it’s hard when it feels like she’s staring at you. Which is completely impossible. The light doesn’t fall back onto the crowd until the concert is over and Ellie and her band are long gone backstage. 

~

Two months later, all you can think about is the way that Ellie stuttered over her words when she saw you in the crowd. Of course, this is definitely something you’ve made up in your mind, because there’s a number of reasons why she might’ve slipped up. Maybe she just thought she knew you from somewhere and couldn’t place it. That’s why she (allegedly) kept looking in your direction afterwards. Or maybe you’re completely batshit insane, and she didn’t look at you at all. Because if she had, wouldn’t she have waved? Right?

It’s almost bad enough to distract you from work. You find yourself prowling on Twitter, watching the #elliewilliams tag blow up following every concert date. It doesn’t give you any clarity, because in every picture, she looks just as perfect and cool and confident as she was at the LA show. You don’t know why you assumed she’d look different if it was true that she’d recognized you. More human, maybe. But she’s just as bathed in starlight as she was that night many weeks before, just as far away and untouchable. 

You spend so much time thinking about her that you’re convinced you might’ve slipped into a dream when Eric appears at your cubicle with the news.

Instead of saying hello, he plops a stack of papers on the desk in front of you, all labeled “PopNow! Interview Etiquette”. 

“Excuse me?” you say. 

“Start reading up, kid,” says Eric. “You’re back in the game.”

“What?” 

“You have an interview scheduled later this week.” He scowls down at you, gum smacking in his mouth. He smells faintly of tobacco. 

“But I thought I was removed from—”

“You still are,” he says. “But someone requested you. Their manager told us they wouldn’t talk to us if they didn’t get you.”

“What?” 

He huffs out a short laugh. “Believe me, I was surprised too. Don’t know what they’re on about after the last time you talked to their client. Fuck this one up and you’re out, okay? Got it? The info’s in your inbox already.” 

Somehow the words don’t quite sink in until you open the email and see the words on paper. 

SENDER: Maria Miller

RECIPIENT: Eric Bal

CC: ewilliamsmusic@gmail.com, y/ny/l/n@popnow!.com

Eric,

Great to hear back from you. Glad that 3 next Wednesday works. 

Best,

MM

final a/n: lmk how u guys feel about this...feeling a little unsure about where this is going but enjoying writing it anyway there are two wolves inside of me etc. etc. also ive missed u all! i hope everyone is doing well! dont b shy!

[easays]

This Shawl, This Chair: Materiality and Worlds Beyond Number

Hi! Below is an actual play mini-essay. These are written as part of a personal writing practice of thinking critically about actual play. I hope you find this reading engaging and know that all I write reflects my own interpretations rather than as an official representation/canonization of these shows. Keep reading for thoughts on Worlds Beyond Number, an audio-only actual play show, and how it crafts a visceral, material experience.

For an audio of this mini-essay, please click this link. I'm new to audio recording, so please excuse the quality!

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of parental death, discussion of grief (general) Minor spoilers for episode two and seventeen

Ahead of @worldsbeyondpod Arc 3, I've been thinking about what sets this show apart from so many. Charlie Hall at Polygon recently showcased that WBN leans into Dungeons and Dragons, giving them free rein in playing the show without focus on combat because once they arrive at that combat, the system is already there. I think Hall's astute observations help articulate why WBN has retained (and grown) its Patreon (and wider audience), even though it's an audio-only, every other week podcast that takes month long breaks between arcs. None of these factors are bad, but the questions of audio versus visual, pacing, content production, and audience engagement are part of every actual play's design. It takes what we think Dungeons and Dragons can be, breaks down those assumptions, and builds something better. To me, this is best seen in how its narrative crafts masterclass materiality without using visuals or minis of any kind.

WBN taps into materiality often. Materiality is a fancy term for the physical properties of an item being considered as essential or important to the significance of the item. It's something I'm constantly aware of. The show builds its world through the hyper-individual experience of these three characters, tapping into how human experience is being woven into and through each other. The world of Umora, from its earliest moments in the show, come to us through the sensory experience of a small girl, held under cloth. The listening experience can be overwhelming at times, jetting back and forth between the interiority of the characters, the setting of Umora, and the endless material pieces mediating the interior and exterior. The cast and the sound design (thanks to Taylor Moore with additional design from Michael Gelfi studios) work in tandem to stoke the audience’s minds eye towards the embodied experience of being in a world that is simultaneously only your experience and impossibly infinite. Unsurprisingly, then, is the show's ability to tap into material in new, innovative ways, even as an entirely audio medium.

Aabria Iyengar was the first person I heard use the phrase "paint me a word-picture." Whether she originated (or not) the phrase, the kenning-ness of it sticks out to me as capturing the thrill of "theatre of the mind" actual play done at the level WBN has achieved. A word-picture gestures to both the process of creation and the creation as completed, simultaneously. Word, in this instance, is the ephemeral improvisation of the performance; picture is the scene completed. Alternately, word is the inscription of that picture, already completed in the player's minds-eye, waiting to be described. The way the phrase collapses created, waiting to be created, and being created captures perfectly how materality becomes weighted and real through the lack of visuals and minis and battlesets.

My personal affinity for materiality stems from what I've always called "Southern mausoleum decorating." Like Ame, I grew up in a home filled with dressers, beds, mattresses, couches, photos, clothes, books, and other physical items connected deeply to people and sentiment. Specifically, the winding thread between myself and various dead relatives across both sides of my family often strung itself through these objects.

I hail from Missouri and Arkansas (paternally) and the Carolinas (maternally). Growing up believing this kind of home decorating was normal fit right alongside knowing it's the humidity that gets you, not the heat. Right now, the oldest thing in my home is a 90 year-old horse hair wingback chair that belonged to my great-grandmother, then my mom, and now, me (though it's been reupholstered a half dozen times). When Suvi scavenges her favorite, slightly-threadbare shawl from Grandmother Wren's cottage in episode two, I was a bit struck because Aabria Iyengar (who plays Suvi) showed perfectly how an item, carried from home-to-home, accrues meaning rather than changing. Her word-picture in that moment contained her childhood, her present grief, her home in the Citadel, as a site incongruent to said shawl, all simultaneously. Transporting that item with her to the Citadel creates a rip in time Suvi might (or might not) access later and goes beyond the momentary solace of holding a piece of her fictive kin.

Thinking of her summer at the cottage or even to the night her parents were lost, those precious last moments of being held under a different cloth, Suvi exists in multiplicity to the audience as well as to her fellow player characters. This character depth through materiality speaks, in my view, to how WBN shakes up the expectations of a Dungeons and Dragons-based show. Combat is not trotted out to make the world or more real, and there's no mini for anything, from the shawl to the Citadel. Suvi's reality and her Citadel justification machine (a self-described mechanism on Iyengar's part) is not given to us primarily through movement speed or action economy. Rather, it reveals its self methodically: a shawl, from a cottage run by a witch, carried to Port Talon and beyond, stretched across Suvi's bed*, nestled in the heart of a Wizard of the Citadel's tower, a thread jutting through space-time, signifying to us and Suvi how many ways to be "out of place" in the Citadel. Over time, I've accumulated new furniture and items that are just mine, like Suvi does in her tower, but I constantly orbit around and to that chair. Some days, I can't sit in it for too long because the black hole of grief from losing my Mom comes hurtling up through the wood, the springs, the fabric. Others, I sit in for hours, cocooned. I wonder often what other objects in Suvi's world mock or tease or beckon or enamor her.

I poke and ponder about Suvi likely because, of all the characters, I identify with her most directly. In future, I hope to write more on Erika Ishii's striking portrayal of spirituality as communal responsibility, or Lou Wilson's tender, grief-filled approach to found family, or Brennan Lee Mulligan's portrayal of the Fox as a narrative tool. But for today, three days after what would have been my Mom's 64th birthday, I sit in my chair, writing about that shawl, forging what feels like connections to a world beyond this.

*Covering the current Witch of the World's Heart, but that's another GlassHeart post for another time.

Image description: a wingback chair, with pink fabric that has gold filigree, is centered in frame, against a tall, terracotta colored wall and abstract painting

[asherlockstudy]

Did you see the loft video on the society????!

I am not in the society but I was well informed about it by a friend!

I assume the moment you are interested more here is the "if I lost the ticket to heaven, so did you"?

My thoughts about it in bullet points:

Just another time they bring up religion / heaven & hell without it being necessary. I am not buying Rhett is completely over his past self. They mention religion at least once per week and Rhett spends a huge part of his free time reading or listening to podcasts about it.

I am sure you know what I believe Link meant by saying Rhett lost his chance to go to heaven. Note the finality in it, it's not like Rhett can repent or return to the faith. They phrase this as if it's something that can not be undone and they also do not regret. So... you know what I believe.

You know this is a sensitive topic for Rhett, even when it is mentioned for fun like it was here, so he's quick to point out that "If I lost the ticket to heaven, then you lost it too". It is a tandem jump, like it will be in the new show too.

It’s interesting that Rhett initially thinks it’s not true that he lost his ticket to heaven. First of all, are these two guys truly irreligious or non-Christian now? ‘Cause they talk about little else 😅 Anyway, his initial denial in my opinion comes down to the fact that he still explores all themes of Christianity, he consumes all content, all diverse interpretations of it, he looks for answers. I have said it before, I don’t believe his basic reason for abandoning the faith was the evolution and scientific achievements not adding up. The main reason was probably even for him what Link said it was about himself; that the religion was closing the door to certain kinds of love. Rhett has described himself as a hopeful agnostic, which means he would want to return, once he finds the answers he seeks. In other words, they abandoned their faith so that it would not abandon them first (like a “you are not kicking me out, I am leaving on my own” type of thing) and at least Rhett would probably return to it if he knew he truly would be accepted in the way he is.

Another interesting thing is that there is a mutual blaming following. Rhett's response bites a little, he says "If I lost it, then you lost it too. How do YOU feel about that?", I sense a slight bitterness in there, a veiled accusation. And Link promptly mutters "'t is your fault, 't is your fault". So he responds with an accusation that it was Rhett's fault they both lost heaven. Link’s response is the most baffling to me, unless he just instinctively responded to Rhett’s implied accusation in the same way, without thinking it much. It baffles me because like I have explained in my analysis posts, it always seemed like Link would be the one to be initially “blamed” between the two. Unless Link considers Rhett’s existence the whole culprit for Link’s feelings “deviating”, you know. But most likely it was just instinctively deflecting and returning the blame… Unless we have gotten something that wrong and Rhett was the initiator. This would actually be in character for him, however based on all their scripts and previous discussions, it just does not seem to have been the case. Surprisingly, it seems it was Link. So, Link’s response here was a little odd.

You know, they have talked about the same thing before but it landed on a different conclusion - that of ending up in heaven (by God’s mistake). This is a transcript from the notorious GMMORE #1904 with the Valentine compliments.

Link: I love remembering the time we died together; this is heaven.

Rhett: ……. Oh wow. Because I killed you and you killed me?

Link: Yeah, right. Right. We killed each other. I don’t think you go to heaven when you kill your friend.

Rhett: No, if you kill each other at exactly the right time, God doesn’t have time to make a decision and he’s like “Okay!”. (laughs)

Link: (laughing but somewhat meaningfully) Good ol’ God.

Rhett: (laughs harder) Yeah, that’s how it works. You gotta kill each other, you gotta die at exactly the same time, he’s like “Ah they cancel each other out, let them in”.

Link: (still more meaningful about it) How are we gonna do that, I wonder?

Rhett: How are we gonna kill each other?

Link: Yes…. I think we need a spike and we both need to run at it.

Rhett: No, you know the thing in, it’s the pressurised CO2 thing in that Cohen Brothers movie “No Country For Old Men”, that they kill the cows with?

Link: You are talking about a cattle prod.

(…)

This is about the same thing. Link mentions as something he loved remembering doing with Rhett “dying together” - and their present at the time was their heaven, according to him. Of course, Rhett makes the discussion sillier and tries to come up with the mechanics it would take to actually be in the heaven after such a thing. Link, who’s more serious about this, plays along but only to press out of Rhett an answer regarding how they could kill each other at the same time (they use future tense, however in the beginning Link used the past sense; the mutual killing had already happened). Link was hoping for an enlightening comparison there and they both offered it. Link compared their mutual killing to both running together onto a spike and Rhett compared it to Bardem’s prod in the movie and he commented later that they both should attach each end of it to their foreheads. They both came up with an elongated thing that penetrated them one way or another. This was how they killed each other and died together and their lived reality at the time was their heaven but in a future discussion about the real heaven the very same thing is what prevents them from entering it.

In the loft video, they talk about the real heaven and they don’t equate it to their present life so Link reasons Rhett has lost this heaven. Rhett then exposes the similarities to the conversation above, saying that the “missing the heaven” situation is completely mutual and they exchange blames for it, exactly like - you made me lose heaven, - no you did. You killed me. No, you killed me.

[maconthepen]

the silence.

2014.

“He’s a provider. He’s calm,” the woman says. I would not call her a friend. She is a drinking buddy, an acquaintance, a person who occasionally says certain things just to shock me. This isn’t one of those things. This is advice. “If you two break up, it will be because you wanted it. You’ll be the person blowing everything up.”

2013.

“I love you,” I say. I am crying because I’m tipsy and in love, and I cannot possibly hold it in anymore. It is the moment they told me about in the story books. The ‘you’ll just know’ moment. Part of me knows it’s too early — three weeks! It’s no time at all. Still, I just know. He gives me a hug and does not say it back.

2014.

On our three-month anniversary, he turns to me, bright-eyed and sweaty, after we have sex. I tell him, again — I have never stopped telling him — that I love him. He whispers it back onto my lips. I am so happy that I don’t realise it sounds like all the advice columns I read growing up in the sealed sections of a teen magazine: don’t say it too fast, don’t wait too long. Three months is perfect, give or take.

2017.

I cannot remember his entire response to the question, “When did you know it was me?” but I do remember he used the phrase, “You seemed like a good option.” Later, I am listening to a snippet of some stitched misogynistic podcast on TikTok. “What is she bringing to the table?” ask the men. “Why should I consider her an option?”

2018.

At his family’s dinner table, I spend all of dinner listening to the sounds that aren’t a dreadful silence: a knife scraping against a plate, the mastication of a dry chicken breast, the pouring of wine into my glass, which I am downing too quickly. I thank his mother for the meal. After her, “Oh, you’re welcome. It’s nothing,” we are the only two people to have spoken until the plates are empty.

2023.

When our new dining table arrives in our new flat, I get through thirty seconds of dinner before I ask, “Mind if I pop some music on?” The sound of eating is unbearable to me.

2022.

We are flipping through some unofficial, blurry wedding photos on his cousin’s phone when an unflattering one of me comes up. It is taken from below and behind my chair, and I am laughing at something so hard that my head is thrown back, but I am slouched in a way I wouldn’t be if I knew a camera was on me. Before he can stop it, my husband makes a short sound, an urgh of disgust. I can feel his guilt smothering me afterwards when he takes me to bed.

2023.

I am fat. I take some time off work due to stress. He nods at my coffee cup one morning and says, “Now you’ve got the time, you’re not considering giving up any bad habits?”

I know it is not the coffee he’s talking about.

We have sex later with the lights off, and when I ask if there’s anything he wants to try in bed, the answer is an awkward silence.

I fill in the gaps myself. It’s far worse than any kink he might have thrown at me.

Yesterday.

“I think I want to book driving lessons soon,” I mention over a beer. “But I'll need to get a stable job again first.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he says. “I’ll put it on the card. If you want them, you should go for it.”

It’s a lovely thing for him to say, and so I utter a thank you. Unbeknownst to him, I am thinking about good men who provide and wives who are provided for.

Today.

“You’ll be the person who blows everything up,” I remember, washing the dishes in a rage. I am enraged at myself for not doing them earlier, at him for not doing them at all. I am furious at the silence that has blanketed my life. I cannot believe I am so conscious of myself talking these days.

I sound so loud in this house, but I want to be louder.

I want to be an explosion.

[9w1ft]

hi,I'm really confused by and curious about these lyrics in anti-hero:

“I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money，

She thinks I left them in the will”

would you please be so kind to explain it for me,especially the “daughter in law”part,love you so so much~~₍˄·͈༝·͈˄*₎◞ ̑̑

hi! i am not sure if have anything insightful to add but i’ll explain how i see it. she’s singing about having a dream where she has a kid who is married to a woman—in the music video i think the implication is that she has two sons and one of them is married to a woman, which would make her taylor’s daughter in law.

this daughter in law, taylor sings, kills her thinking that taylor will have wrote them into her will, meaning she will get money after killing her. and in the music video, i think the will says she leaves everything to her cats? and the song goes “the family gathers round to read it (the will) and then someone screams out, she’s laughing up at us from hell!” presumably because she didn’t leave them any assets.

i think this part of the song and mv are included in order to accentuate the anxiety and fears taylor has surrounding how the people she love might view her, and how she might grow to view these people as well. this comes up in more than a few recent songs. afterglow, or the great war, for example. where taylor sing about feeling betrayed by a loved one when that was not the case. i think it also helps drive home why scott b selling her masters to scooter hurt so deeply. because it is her greatest fears realized. it’s (i believe) the “ultimate betrayal” that taylor and jack talk about during the long pond studio sessions part about my tears ricochet.

there’s a part in the anti hero mv where she’s mentally conditioning herself to believe the phrase “everyone will betray you” and so the dream is another example of those fears realized, in a way. that her family have in fact betrayed her (being killed by her daughter in law), and on the flip side that she one upped them by assuming they would betray her and leaving them out of the will in the first place.. it’s scary to know that your neuroses hurt your loved ones and also scary to have dreams of your neuroses being right.

i also think it’s implied that she fears that her children will grow up into people she may not like. that they leach off of her (chad seems to be making a living as a nepo baby podcaster), for example.

i also know there’s an interpretation of the mv where the children can be seen to represent different factions of the fandom. preston swifties, chad gaylors, kimber kaylors? i think that was it? and i get a kick out of that and in general i think the interpretation leads to some meaningful conclusions, like that we all have flaws, or that taylor is often the one mainly causing a lot of the infighting and it’s sort of silly that we all blame one another, among other things. that’s all nice and meaningful for us. but i do think it’s also important to consider how there could be some literal truth to taylor’s anxieties as they relate to the subject of family. taylor didn’t just go through a sad dad rock phase for everyone to conclude that these things are all actually about us.

[merlions]

The more I research things in relation to magnus protocol the more I'm just like utterly filled with that classic emotion known as "holy shit Jonny Sims did his motherfuckin RESEARCH for this bad baby *smacks side of podcast*"

I feel like in doing any research at all on any topic, I'm finding myself sucked with black hole force into a wikipedia hole and end up accidentally reverse engineering this like, massive writing research tree from the listening side. It's been so implausibly frequent and intricate to have one topic just happen to link to yet ANOTHER eerily related topic that I'm starting to second guess myself, like am I seeing connections where there are none???

But like idk I think there's just SO MUCH and every seemingly unrelated leaf actually does, in fact, end up connecting back to a branch that does seem intimitely related to the tree (...as it were.)(fuckin. Can't talk about trees no more. Fuck u Isaac Newton. Fuckin apple head. Dog apple head fuck. Calcinate ur god damn laboratory) but it's just like the largest kudzu on the fucking planet and there are so many god damn leafs and branches I can't even see a damn quarter of the whole picture, even just considering the historical and alchemical research, before even considering the fictional plot and worldbuilding and how that's tying the irl stuff and TMA stuff and its own stuff together and !! (Is Georgie...???)

And through all of that. I have learned much. And I can say I know for certain now two things.

One: I thought I knew what alchemy was and what its purpose was, and at least a couple of things about it. I did not!

Two: it is infinitely funny that literally right after the Hooke episode (#19) when I was doing research on just Hooke and Micrographia, I said, in total and utter ignorance of any importance this phrasing might have: "[this episode is] Sprinkling mint seeds of Spooky History Research on the fertile but barren golf course of my mind".

I hope Jonny and Alex saw that and got a little chuckle. "Wow this guy really is gonna flip his fuckin lid when he finds out about the steps of alchemy. Like, oh I dunno, Separation! For example" WELL I DID!!! I did flip my lid.

TMagP ep so potent in its in-world 17th century lore drop that it caused me to briefly see into the future. Supernatural cosmic horror writing so choice that it manifests real actual spooky happenings in the real world. wait isnt that a john carpenter film

anyways I'm mostly writing this just to get it out of my own head, bc I feel like I'm losing my mind like I've stepped into a twilight zone episode and I need to find a way back to my original dimension somehow. but also if u read this and are intrigued by what i mean by any of it. i strongly encourage starting some wikipedia holing of ur own. start with literally anything on any topic mentioned in protocol. but esp looking into Sam's comment to Celia in TMP 19, about "spiritual substitution of elements". and know that this will take u on a magical internet journey from which you may return, but not unchanged

[rusquared]

Life, rudely, interrupts my mourning.

Walking up and down my most familiar part of the city, podcast blaring in my ears lest any Silence creep in, I am rudely interrupted by the fireflies coming alight. It’s a gentle twinkle, a passing flicker in one’s periphery, and so you feel compelled to look. Even the rainbow, just faintly visible outside my window after a brief thunderstorm - or the remnants of that lighting to the east half an hour later, illuminating clouds that looked something out of a childhood film - they interrupt me. They interrupt me.

Back to schedule, I pass by a science building and I think, “I should’ve gone there more often.” Or I think of the emails still left unread and go, “I shouldn’t be in this position.” or the uncomfortable envy that occasionally takes over, that I know to be selfish and cruel, but tantalizing nonetheless. This is my daily routine, permeating every moment, interrupted just briefly by the Present.

Sometimes I get sick of mourning Me (the perfect, untouchable, lovable Me) and I turn to other avenues. A piece of art that will occupy my time (I have emails to send, I have work to do) or even the occasional poem, never really written out of joy anymore. Or a paper flower, a crane (I haven’t called my mother in two months).  A dog greeting me in boundless joy every morning  because I can manage the bare minimum of kissing her soft head.

Walking downhill from my evening walk, and determinedly ignoring any person whose silhouette could be someone I know (and therefore someone who will hear of my failure), I read an essay on mourning. Actual mourning, mind you. Of death that is not simply the loss of a possible self, but the loss of a person you could touch and hug and tease relentlessly over a misspoken phrase. I have not, thus far, become familiar with that sort of mourning. I know it will arrive, I can only hope for it to take its time.

But the essay was still gripping. I haven’t even finished it, but it’s echoes are already becoming noticeable in the way I write this poem tonight.  Twice during this reading I paused, took a screenshot, and thought of the story that I love. And immediately I was filled with a slight shame. This beautiful piece on loss and love was probably not meant to be shared with a fictional name by someone who spends most of their waking hours avoiding reality. I wasn’t the target audience, though I know and fear that I one day will be. When that day comes, I wonder if my mourning of Me will finally cease, become silly and ridiculous. How could I mourn a nonexistent self when I’ve lost someone I actually knew and loved?

I digress. The slight chill of the rain is still in the air and the dog once again welcomed me home with her tail wagging furiously. I still have a laundry list of tasks and I still have the aching guilt of shame. Or the aching shame of guilt. The terms tend to get juggled around in my head. I know there is no point in dreaming every minute of a life re-done, much better, a regression, if you will (hah). I only have this life and its mundane hurt, the way the clock doesn’t humor my desperate attempts to stop it, the way the days on the calendar got lost to me even as I was acutely aware of them. Even as I stared at the calendar.

There we go. I’m back on track, fireflies and stories be damned. My imagination is once again active and if you could only see the beautiful plans I have for when that time machine is complete. A life of no mourning except the inevitable mourning that will take its time, because I asked it to. 

I want to draw again.

[n7punk]

i was watching a video on plagarism in cosplay and the girl making the video managed to put into words something that i've kind of struggled with and tbh am still struggling to adapt to my "field" but. it bugs me so i want to try. also i should say this wicked isn't a problem it has happened to me all of Twice (one from each end) but someone finally summarized why it felt the way it did.

basically, a couple times people have commented on a fic of mine likening it to another that exists. sometimes these are innocuous and even lead me to people with similar headcanons and interpretations of the character as me. sometimes i don't like the other fic so it feels less flattering, but it's by no fault of how the comment itself is written. i've actually written a comment similar to this once and hope it didn't come across as naggy, but i found out someone else used the same prompt as me for catradora, so i basically left a comment about how funny it was that two people saw that inspiration source and went "ah yes, this could be catradora." it was supposed to be a "like sees like" kind of salute (as well as an acknowledgement that i hadn't seen their fic before as i don't go in the tags often), but i've since gotten comments that i think are trying to at least toe the line of doing the same thing and felt off (bitter, self-promotey, whatever) to me, so i retroactively worry about how they felt about it.

but really this post is about the time i had someone say "is this fic actually inspired by [other fic]" and it was 1) something i'd never heard of and 2) insulting.

so why is it insulting, what did the video finally put into words for me?

when someone accuses you of copying, using/having the same idea as someone else, etc, it is insulting the creative process and labor it took to make it. It's saying that you didn't/couldn't come up with that yourself, that you didn't develop and nurture it and plan out all the impacts this event/plot/au etc would have on the characters; that any time and effort and love you put into it never actually existed because you just stole it from someone else. it's essentially accusing you of being chatgpt, putting someone else's hard work in as input and cranking something cheap and less valuable out instead. they don't care about the work you put in anymore.

like, when i did the bachelorette au, it was straight up inspired by one that existed and i openly sourced that because it deserved it, but even then i still spent hours reading recaps of the show, previously had an interest in the franchise from podcasts, went and read interviews to get an idea of the general timelines, etc. I put a lot of work - my work, unique work, creative work - into crafting an au that, in reality, only shares the phrase "bachelorette au" with the initial source of inspiration (again, a source i love and am happy to credit anyway). if someone else wants to write a cosplay au for catradora, even if they think to do it because they read mine, as long as they're not copying the plot, backstory, etc, i think that would be super cool! honestly, i'd be flattered to be an inspiration source for that, just like i'm flattered when someone takes on one of my headcanons. it's just the basics of how creativity works. no idea, no matter how much it may feel like it, comes from nowhere. you start watching a vintage car tiktok and it puts you on a train of thoughts that eventually leads you to "lol but adora bent over the hood of her broken down car" and then you build that out until it is its own world with plot, backstory, and characters who have been tweaked by living in this different environment.

anyway, i know i've been incredibly unconcise but it boils down to creativity being a lot of effort and it doesn't feel good when people claim you didn't put in all that effort ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ man this post could have been so much shorter. should i edit it. aw fuck i have to be at work at nine tomorrow. yeah no lmao

[conlangery]

Hello, I hope this message finds you well,

I'm a massive fan of the podcast! I don't know who else to ask conlang related questions. I found this pdf by Rick Morneau, Designing an Artificial Language: Vocabulary Design, on fiat lingua. Do you know if there are any more materials about vocab design like this? I don't want to create a clone of english/japanese/esperanto with fake words, and the field of linguistics is so deep and theoretical that I want to create something realistic, more realistic than a naming language (however I fear sound changes are to complicated for me) I have copies of Morphosyntax and The Art of Grammar and even Linguistics for Dummies, so I think I understand the basics but creating a language from scratch isn't normal. I think I'm not enjoying it because I don't understand the science enough but at a certain point the science is too dense for a rookie. If expert linguists can't agree on the definition of a sentence how am I suppose to make a whole language? How do nouns/verbs/adjectives/phrases/clauses/questions work? I guess I'm just overwhelmed, sorry this turned into a bummer.

best

Listen, there is definitely a learning curve to conlanging. You don’t have to get a PhD to get started, but it is helpful to have a good foundation in linguistics.

I might suggest you look more into resources made specifically for conlanging, as they’ll tend to approach it in terms of how you can use these ideas creatively. Books like The Art of Language Invention or The Language Construction Kit come to mind, or Biblaridion’s YouTube series How to Make a Language.

I don’t have other resources in mind specifically teaching vocabulary creation. Two tools I use are CLICS, which is a database of related concepts that will show you which meanings tend to have related words, and DatSemShift, which is more about words changing meaning, but also includes polysemies. I find that having their data to look at helps me find interesting opportunities for derivation and extra meanings that can help break out of the relex. Wiktionary is great, too, if you go to the translation section and happen to find a lot of good translations to compare definitions.

But the best way to learn is to just do it. Start creating a language and share bits in the community for feedback. As you find yourself needing to understand some structure or wanting to add some feature, research that in detail. You’ll find yourself going on Wikipedia dives and eventually reading academic papers (there’s lots of open access linguistics) just about the thing you’re interested in.

If you want a resource that can help you actually create a conlang step by step, Jessie Peterson’s Conlang Year project may be helpful. Don’t worry about catching up. Just do the daily tasks at your own pace. It’s meant to give you something small to do every day for the whole year.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I've listened to the last couple of episodes of the Ed Gamble and Matthew Crosby show on Radio X, because for the last two weeks it's been the Matthew Crosby and Nish Kumar show, and I really really like listening to Nish Kumar talk. That podcast is one of the few where I've decided I will pick and choose and listen to a few episodes if they have on someone I particularly like, without feeling obligated to listen to every episode (of the few shows that I've set out as exceptions to my completism rule, two are Crosby-based as Pappy's is another one, though I know at some point I will end up going through all of Pappy's Fun Club). And for most of the episodes of the Gamble/Crosby podcast I've heard, the guest who drew me to that episode was Nish Kumar.

I do like listening to Ed Gamble talk as well, it was no slight on him that this week I picked two episodes where he was away (being replaced by Nish) to jump into that radio show. But I think I am getting enough Ed Gamble from other sources right now. Spent yesterday going between the Crosby/Kumar thing, and listening to Ed Gamble... hopefully not really physically attack a guy until he drew blood during a podcast recording in 2008. I mean, I'm pretty sure they were just pretending on that. Hitting something else to make the sound effect. But they put in a lot of fairly believable detail on that lie. I mean. There's no way that was real. Physical assault is an actual crime, and you can't commit crimes on podcasts, even if it's 2007. It had to be a lie. The Ray Peacock Podcast is sure an experience.

Anyway. As I'm getting more than enough Ed Gamble, possibly too much Ed Gamble, from my Ray Peacock Podcast completist run, it was nice to have the much more chill, just jump into an occasional episode of Matthew Crosby on Radio X to balance it out. And these couple were fun. It was also nice to hear from Producer Vin again, who is the best. I have decided he's the best one. He's one-upped Chris Skinner off The Bugle as my favourite in that role.

Anyway, I have dedicated much of this blog before to cataloguing comedian football gossip, so here's some more of it:

I enjoyed that greatly, as I do any clip in the more specific sub-genre of comedian football stories called: Nish Kumar's trash talk:

Of all the comedy events that I don't get to see because of the Atlantic Ocean, those yearly Alex Horne-organized Chicken vs. Egg comedian football matches are pretty high on my list of things I'd most like to see. I see why they don't film those, but I still wish they would.

I love the phrase "Achilles Brain". I might start using that, in real life. There are many terms we use to describe athletes who perform much better in practice than in competition because they struggle with the mental game. My old coach used to call them "head cases", which I found quite offensive, as a person in that category. I guess the term wouldn't necessarily have been offensive if he hadn't specifically meant it in an offensive way. But if you're going to be offensive about it, it's much better to go all the way and be over-the-top offensive for comedic effect about it, and go with Achilles Brain. I'm going to start telling athletes they have to work on their Achilles Brain.

Good chat, Nish. Every time I hear Matthew Crosby talk I'm reminded of how much I like Matthew Crosby. Also, for anyone listening to this without context who may be concerned, I am genuinely sure that Ed Gamble didn't break a guy's nose during a podcast record in 2007. They just fairly convincingly pretended he did. But I do not recommend listening to the Ray Peacock Podcast. It's very funny and I'm hugely enjoying it and I recommend it to absolutely no one.

[samithefungus]

Warren with a platonic relationship with reader who tends to tease him (like bringing up embarrassing moments) in a annoying older sibling way without any real malice. (Bonus if Warren knows some embarrassing moments about the reader and teases them back.)

Thanks Anon for the request, hope you like it <3

Warren x Reader (Platonic)

WARNINGS: Nothing this time

-You've known Warren since you were little

-Your parents were friends, so you basically grew up together, as if you were brothers

-You are older than he and these makes you remember a lot of embarrassing things he did when he was young

-You used this to your advantage to tease him

-Once you followed him when he was supposed to teach the trio and in the middle of his lesson you said, "Hey Warren, if you're an eagle why don't you show us how you fly?"

- "I haven't my wings yet, so I can't fly" he replied.

-That's what you wanted him to say, so you said, "That's not what you told me when you tried to fly by jumping off a low wall and falling face to the ground ."

-You caused a little laughter and saw Warren blush and shout at you, "I WAS 10 YEARS OLD, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT I NEED WINGS TO FLY!!!"

-You could tell Warren was a little hurt, so you treated him to a restaurant-style meal to make it up to him.

-Sometimes you like to remind him that he's not an eagle just to annoy him, and the conversations are like:

- "Hey Warren, you know you're not an eagle" you say.

- "Yes I am" he replies to you.

- "No, you're a Worm" you say again

- "Eagle" he replied.

- "Worm" you counter.

-And you continue like this until one of the two gets tired, generally it's you since because Warren is really determined to consider himself an eagle

-You have an embarassing picture of him when he was in elementary school and sometimes, when you remember that this picture existence, you send it to Warren without saying anything just to annoy him

-Once you left your phone unattended and he deleted it from the gallery, fortunately you managed to retrieve it and once you got home you spammed it to him in your chat 

-Doing a calculation you must have sent it to him about 100 times that night; Warren had to beg you to stop

-Plus when you two were little you were taller then Warren and now.....You're still taller than him, that's why you enjoy teasing him about it

- "Warren, where are you? I can't see you!" you say while Warren, visibly irritated, stands a few centimeters below you

-Sometimes you rest your elbow on his head just because you know he doesn't want you to.

-There is a reminder....Warren might get his revenge and sometimes he does.

-In fact, he also knows some embarrassing things about you.

-For example, one night you were teasing him a little, as usual....

- "Warren, do you remember that time you wet your pants twice in one day," you said.

- "At least I didn't do that during the school play," he replied.

-You pretended to feel offended about it only to make him feel bad, and you do it

-Warren apologized 10 minutes later almost in tears for touching your 'sensitive moment'

-You felt guilty and then you apologized too.

-Sometimes when you're teasing him and he's had enough he starts saying "Okay, Stop!" and then continues with phrases like "Real friends don't say/do these things," just because he knows it annoys you

-But other than that you love each other.

-You're best friends...You consider yourselves almost brothers

-You two has a set of nicknames for each other that can be either cute or mean

-You know everything about each other...And in sometimes this can seem a little 'creepy'

-When one of you is feeling sick or down, the other will do his best to make him feel better

-Once you got sick and Warren, in order to take care of you, got sick too.

-You are obliged to listen to his podcast, but if you don't want to, that's okay.....Don't worry about poor Warren's feelings

-Please listen that podcast

-You spend a lot of time together, which is why some people think you are a couple

-Both of you deny it by saying, "Ew no, he's like a brother to me" or something like that

-Even though you tease each other you two have a great relationship of friendship and brotherhood and neither of you imagine your life without the other

[waterspoutskies]

NBC made a pair of podcast series' about my childhood hometown area.

Ok, I've been formatting this post for a hot minute but given the timing. The primaries start in two weeks. It is three weeks to Super Tuesday. And I am beginning to be sorely worried.

I'm not so steady on how to phrase this, how to explain the sheer magnitude of how and why this election matters So Very Much. (And maybe that's why I'm writing this so late at night with the fog of medication settling in.) But I will try.

I am originally from Texas- North Texas, specifically, and Northeast Tarrant County to really zoom in the lens. I grew up on the cutting edge of both gifted student and disability accessible programs, surrounded by teachers who taught us we could and would go anywhere, supported by parents who loved and fought for our futures. We lived in an idyll. An American dreamscape.

There was a battleground brewing underneath it all.

For you see, this is conservative, (majority) white, christian, suburban North Texas. And the same school where our valedictorian is gay and our prom queen is lesbian harbored the quiet laboratory for pushing intolerance to the masses- One upset megachurch attendee at a time.

First it was Southlake.

In the Southlake podcast, the topics and recordings include blatant, overt racism. They include explicit and vulgar language. There are points recounting anti-LGBTQ+ commentary, racial slurs, deriding mental illnesses, the whole nine yards. Every episode comes with a necessary warning preceding the vicious parts.

And then, god help me, it was my quiet, tolerant, always insulated hometown. Grapevine.

In the Grapevine podcast, the topics and recordings include anti-LGBTQ+ commentary of all levels. They cover conversion therapy, deadnaming, homophobia. They cover how parents ruined lives and careers for their own interest. Anything that you have seen spouted online is fair game. As with Southlake, every episode comes with a necessary warning preceding the vicious parts.

I cannot and will not make anyone listen to/read (transcripts are available for each episode) these, but I hope people will.

In short, the sum is that we do not win. In Southlake, white supremacy wins. In Grapevine, evangelical nonsense wins.

And I need people to understand that this is the kind of thing at stake in the elections this year. This is my hometown. This is where my classmates took our educational opportunities and made them political weapons. This is where the same people who shook my hand and smiled so brightly as I campaigned against them are those who want my friends in conversion therapy, run out of town, or dead.

Some of the students highlighted within these podcasts are friends and acquaintances of mine. My best friend and I walk one student's dogs when their family is on vacation. Another plays the 7 foot something war-axe wielding barbarian in our D&D campaign.

Mercifully, we have or are able to get out. But there are so many who are not as close or free to escape as we were.

So please, please, do not skip this election. Do not stay at home. Do not think your vote does not matter, because it does. Every inch we can claw back, from the municipal to the legislative to making our anger known in the primaries, it matters. This starts in your town, and yes, it does goes all the way up. But there are so. many. steps, and offices, and intervening laws, and political entities in between here and the White House. And if there is anywhere you can throw in a wrench or shock the system, you should.

A lot of queer kids in my hometown high school will thank you.

(I think, following this, I'm going to go back and try to explain a little more of the situation and the buildup to how we've gotten here, how this has been bubbling up to the surface for years longer than the last four. But not now, and not in this post. I just needed to get this out there.)

[cuntservant]

Аня, привет! У меня есть вопрос - it's fine if you don't want to answer!

Since I'm nonbinary myself, I wanted to ask how you refer to yourself in russian? or if you know which options people use? most google results i found are from 4-5 years ago so i'm not sure if they're up to date

спасибо большое 💙

hi, renée, it's all good! i am actually thrilled to have an opportunity to rant

the other day i was listening to a podcast with a russian comedian who recently came out as non-binary, and they said they were never able to fully comprehend just how thoroughly grammatically gendered the russian language is before deciding to go by different pronouns... and i've never felt more understood lol

this is going to be kind of long, because i love to talk about languages, but i'm also not an actual linguist, so excuse me if some of my wording is off

so, there are two most common options that i know of:

the first one is они/их, the equivalent of the english they/them

russian-speaking people often have the same old complaint about it being "strictly plural", But when referring to someone with the formal "you" ("вы"), which is the same word as the plural "you", the endings of the verbs are the same too (hence, a phrase like "Как вы себя чувствуете?" ("How are you feeling?") could be used for a singular person and no one would bat an eye)*, so it certainly has potential! it becomes much trickier when you're talking in first person, though, especially in past tense, as sentences like "Я чувствовали себя отлично" ("I felt great") sound "wrong" and grammatically incorrect to an unprepared ear

the second one is оно/его, the equivalent of the english it/its

yet again, the same complaint about it being intended for inanimate objects, and, therefore, dehumanizing. but we need to remember that while words like "солнце" (sun), "яблоко" (apple) or "одеяло" (blanket) are referred to as "оно", there are also words that mean inanimate objects that are referred to as "она" ("she"), like "стена" (wall), or as "он" ("he"), like "ковёр" (rug), and that doesn't suddenly make them living things. neither does it depend on anything more than "idk, it just sounded right" — like, nobody's going to argue that a rug somehow has more masculine qualities than a wall. so, i say we are certainly capable of moving past that

there are also always neopronouns, but i don't think i'm qualified enough to talk about them, so i just won't

that leaves us with two options that both sound strange at first, but start to feel more organic the more you hear it and the more you use it. or, in other words, language is ever-evolving, and we need to quit being little bitches about it

that being said, i go by она/её in russian — the funny thing about being bilingual is that seemingly equivalent things sometimes don't feel the same at all. i'm way more comfortable with она/её than i am with she/her. though, i've noticed that i'm not a huge fan of strangers using it, so i ask to be referred to by the formal "you" and just try to avoid using the first person past tense verbs by using passive voice or Rephrasing™ instead. i wish i could use они/их for myself, but i'm not ready for all the explaining it requires, at least yet

*i also came up with a different example, but i'm not sure how it classifies lol. anyway, sentences like, for example, "i was told" translate the same way as "they told me" — "мне сказали". even if it was just one person. all the more reasons to get over the fear of the singular "они"!

[sinistersinister]

front seat freestyle

what i think of on long drives, when i'm stressed, or when i need to get to sleep. for reasons that are both funny and make sense, i started developing this fantasy three years ago, when i was working in a warehouse overnight. we weren't allowed music or podcasts, which only stopped me from listening when the guard walked by. but nothing was powerful enough to block out the loudness of that factory. to keep my mind focused on something else so i wouldn't have a meltdown, i told myself a story.

PART 1: 30 Second Positive Affirmation Break

I have been told to tail a powerful man. Titan of industry. Let's call him Mr. X. For the first part of the assignment, I take a job at his factory, both to test the waters for salting and because I want to get a good idea of the scale of the operation. I am a face among hundreds of thousands, like one of the workers in Metropolis. Totally, I think, interchangeable with any other worker. Plus he probably never visits the factory floor.

The other part of my assignment is playing the role of a glamorous socialite, going to his parties and being nice to him. Yes yes I know they'd probably get two people to do this job IRL but my fantasy involves genius-level competence on my part such that I'm the ONLY woman for the job. Plus the other people in my org have their hands full I guess. I bravely have decided to take on overtime. I play both the alluring socialite and the anonymous worker.

So one day at the factory, Mr. X DOES visit. Annual inspection or something. He comes and visits my miserable, sweaty little sorting pen. He does not recognize me as the socialite in the corner at his parties. Not yet.

Mr. X MIGHT in his late 30s, but his age is ambiguous. He could be 31, he could be 50. He's not unattractive, just kind of bland? But bland in a way that's slightly off. As if the blandness was calculated. He's like how people who try to dress like 'Gray Men' stand out because normal people like to look a bit showy. I try to focus on his features but they are malleable in my head.

He stands behind me, making pretext of showing me a new #technologyinnovation. Instead he presses into my back as I'm reaching up, wrapping his arms around me. He mutters how well I'm sorting things. It's a joke to him. He sniffs my hair like he's as much affected by my fear, anger, and powerlessness as he is my body. I'd say "as if I were part of his factory, like an object," but that's not true. Mr. X doesn't do this to his machines. I am unique because I can suffer and he likes it. He could do it to any other worker but it needs to be something alive. He likes his meat alive. He's only playing the role of an entitled douchebag. 'Entitlement' means a person doesn't need to think a second thought, that they just assume the world is for them. This man considers everything. He knows what he's doing is wrong. That's why he gets off on it.

I can feel his erection through both our clothes. He has one hand across my chest, proprietary, and one hand wandering in between my legs. My leggings are a thin material and he's stuck his two longest fingers into the space between the front of my thighs. I'm shaking, fighting the urge to wheel around and punch him. The effort is immense, but I can't break character. He must suspect I am acting, because he says things that might deliberately provoke someone working against him. Describes how he's going to lay off so many people this season. How he's buying a yacht. Again, he's playing an evil role that belies far worse evil. His fingers seem to brush my clit on accident. I give the exact amount of sadness I think a normie might give. It would be weird to remain expressionless right? Someone who's never used the phrase "profit is exploited labor-power" would still be sad to hear about layoffs right? I frown and say something like "Oh no, how sad!" And he laughs and yanks my hair so I'm looking up at him. He's searching for something, anything in my eyes that would suggest hidden motive. His reaction is initially ambiguous. Apparently I pass his test, because he gropes me one more time and shoves me back to my workspace.

He steps away. I feel the absence of his weight and I think he's satisfied. Just a little violation of boundaries reminding me of my place and then off to continue his tour. I congratulate myself for not blowing my cover. But then I heard the belt buckle. "Keep working," he tells me. I do. As I work, he tells me about his routine. At this point I think he assumes I'm a normie but one he's interested in fucking with (as I am, he tells me, pretty). He's telling me about how he always comes to his factories to sexually humiliate people. It's his very favorite thing to do. I'm his second stop that day. I hear him stutter over a word and I start to turn around to see why. "Keep your fucking eyes ahead," Mr. X says. I do. His breathing gets rougher and he continues. His monologue gets very grandiose "--And there's not a thing anybody will do to stop me, because I am untouchable. I'll cut down the last tree in the forest with the corpse of a baby panda just to see this world --ngh-- cry." He's jacking off, I realize. "I'll pull people from my factories and nobody will notice at first. And then they'll start talking about me like peasants talk about their feudal lord. QAnon? Their imaginations are too small. I'll start stealing people and draining them of their blood like Elizabeth Báthory, and none of you weak fucks would do a-anything to stop me." I feel something wet hit the widest part of my ass through my work leggings. There's enough that at first I fear he's pissing on me, but he's just prolific. He wipes his cock off on the edge of my shirt. There are a few seconds where all I hear is the ever-present drone of the machines, and his slowing breath. "Of course, the real sick thing is that none of us are even Satanists or ritual demon worshippers. We're painfully normal, if venal. We don't believe in magic or adrenochrome. We only use blood because it's fun to see people die," he says, voice clear and chipper. As if all he'd been doing was telling me about the new health and wellness features on the automated onboarding system.

"Peter Thiel wishes..." I think I hear Mr. X mutter darkly as he clicks the gate shut.