#and it's not COMPLETELY atrocious quality like the one on youtube

[dennisboobs]

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - "Friends"

↳ Dennis + The Gang being "friends"

#iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #dennis reynolds #charlie kelly #mac mcdonald #dee reynolds #frank reynolds #i'm sorry for gleet (glenn feet) #i mostly just wanted a gif of dennis slapping frank's bald head #and the charden hug #because i found it on vimeo posted by the actual director of the promo #and it's not COMPLETELY atrocious quality like the one on youtube #deandra reynolds #the gang #ada speaks #ada's gifs

[dykemerrilll]

ep 6 rewatch time!!

“why mention the number of men, lieutenant?” — fitzjames follows this by invoking tunbaaq and clearly implying that the bear was the only real threat to the men’s lives. at this point he is still woefully naive — unlike (sort of) goodsir & crozier, fitzjames never even has an inkling that they may have brought their doom with them (even though of all the characters he is the one who most certainly brought their own doom, which is not a coincidence). like god love him fj lives in a beautiful world where the british empire is completely unquestionable (more on this later re his death, i think). but he is also completely unwilling, at this stage, to entertain the notion that some men will die because of their food & illness situation, even though he has also already started to think about leaving the ships. this is down more to his naivety in the classic sense, which is in many ways really his most endearing trait, ironically. (in this respect, as i will undoubtedly make a separate post about at some point, he is a really interesting parallel to goodsir).

i’ve only just noticed it but irving’s hair is atrocious. he looks like a late 00s youtuber.

subject of memoirs again (cf. jane franklin). interesting that fitzjames broaches this as a question of plain truth — ie blanky explaining how ross’s men almost mutinied would contradict ross’s “truth”. which obviously puts blanky in a seriously difficult position of having to essentially call a previous superior, a knight of the realm, and all-round extremely important man a liar (and you can see on his face that blanky knows this). and fj, who again really has the intelligence of a spoon, never even considers this. he’s such a good example of complete buy-in to the victorian class system despite the ways in which he has been personally victimised by it (and his earlier treatment of crozier reflects this too).

probably also relevant that a) fj has no previous arctic experience, so he’s never been in a situation where that system might break down, unlike blanky, crozier and mcdonald (crucially, three characters explicitly shown to have some level of disregard for class barriers) and b) fj also does not have a single onscreen positive relationship with his men in the way that crozier has with blanky, little (to a degree) or jopson. even, actually, crozier & little’s relationship is important here because while it’s not always totally positive it is one that’s marked by a certain level of respect that transcends class or rank. the fact that we never see one of these for fj is proooobably in the main because he’s like, fourth main character behind crozier hickey and goodsir (and like well behind them as well) but regardless it paints a verrrry interesting picture of the quality of fj’s leadership. (also note that franklin, fitzjames’ model for captaincy, did not have this either).

this whole conversation is really interesting too firstly because it foreshadows really everything that happens: “scurvy was already us is” — this also in the episode where i think we find out fitzjames has scurvy? — and “what little love we had [was] the only thing keeping us civil” which really is just the thesis statement of the show isn’t it. bridgens and peglar it’s your time to shine.

also you can tell that blanky is still exceedingly bitter about the whole fury beach experience. and also that he thinks fitzjames needs to hear this (which he does). cause fj is also like deeply troubled by this in a way that i don’t reeally think crozier would be (although ultimately the fact that crozier doesn’t really seem to foresee hickey’s mutiny doesn’t serve him well and reflects other kinds of character flaws). and of course this raises the really interesting question of how much fj pulling the boats later was down to pure self-interest rather than any level of sympathy for the men. which in turn raises the question of how much that even matters; the major theme of fitzjames’ character arc is identity and whether actions or intentions/origins matter more in who a person is. bridgens tells fj he was a good captain when he dies; does it matter if this is because fj was trying so hard to be? and does it in turn matter if that was because he cared about his men or himself? ultimately i do think this question is left unanswered but the show broadly leads us to the conclusion that all that really matters are actions — how one “measures up” you could say

also insane that i am noticing this level of detail but fitzjames has a nervous tic of clenching his hand — given the importance of hand symbolism i am recording this here in case it may become important later

EMERGENCY CROSS-DRESSING SUPPLIES WOO. yet again let us all acknowledge that when blanky said ‘give your men something to keep them going or they might brutally murder you’ fitzjames’ reponse was ‘okay yaaaay party time :3’. queeeen of party city she would’ve LOVED the club

the mask scene is craazy. first level, okay obviously fitzjames wears a mask cause he’s secretly a bastard blah blah. second level though — it’s a female mask, and i wonder if aside from the obvious interpretation of Gender, this actually says something about how fitzjames does adopt a kind of female role as a defense mechanism. i mean, “i’ll not let francis’s melancholy touch you, i’ll not have it” is such a typical Wife thing to say to franklin that we joke about it but it also bears analysing in its own regard, as does the fact that fitzjames is definitely much more comfortable playing second to male commanding figures than commanding in his own right, even though he is at a point in his career where he could easily be commanding a less important ship himself. the stray parallels between him and sophia are interesting in terms of his relationship with crozier generally but also serve to position him firmly in a Wife role throughout the text, as crozier’s second. the attributes he relies on are also stereotypically female ones; charm, reading people socially, even physical attractiveness. there’s a really interesting tension in the fact that he leans into and sometimes even desires this role, but also chafes against it and resents himself for being a fake. moreover the third level of this is that fitzjames’ whole identity is ultimately fake, right down to his name, and any of his masculinist achievements (glory in the opium wars!), having been achieved under this name, are rendered suspect. because of the circumstances of his birth any persona fitzjames adopts would be fake, however it was gendered, the lottery was rigged against him from the start, so it’s not as straightforward as just “oh he resents this role that he was put into” but more so that any role that fitzjames performs in society, however it was gendered, would never fit properly. he can properly fulfil neither a male role nor a female one. this episode begins to set up a thesis that will be properly delivered on in episode 8. fourth level, which is obviously hinted at here but again fully crystallises post episode 8 reveal, is that given the absolute loathing fitzjames has for his true self, he longs to actually be the mask. this interpretation is supported by the body-as-a-cage stuff he’s got going on later when he realises he’s bleeding.

also. putting my asoiaf hat on for a second. bastard as a separate gender in a society in which gender is inherently linked to property

jopson mummy issues moment. also jopson class moments!! like as much as it’s a moving scene jopson doesn’t really have the option to withold this information from crozier. so he owes his captain everything including his identity, you know? his mother taking laudunum specifically is relevant as well because opium, of course, is and remains a weapon of colonialism.

“i don’t like to hear a woman laughing now” jopson misogyny moments too!!

“how do you feel?” “like christ, with more nails” — well you can’t all be christ allegories, pick one

also obviously this like textually positions crozier as jopson’s mother, right, which is soo interesting happening right after james fitzjames gender moments of all time. fitzjames being Wifed by the text obviously only has salience when crozier takes the position of father; so for him to be paralleled to jopson’s mother right after it’s implied fitzjames might purposely occupy that wife role and both desire and resent it demonstrates just how accidental any gender role is, rather than essential. happening at this point in the narrative it also heralds the slow breakdown, for better or worse, of the trappings of victorian civilisation.

the carnivale idea coming from fitzjames is also interesting because it’s a classic festival of misrule, ie one in which traditional hierarchies break down. gender is one but that’s way less important here than class. officers socialise alongside the crew for once, traditional reserve falls away (irving gets hammered, fitzjames crowdsurfs etc). and it comes right after the start of this episode where we see just how uncomfortable fitzjames is with any real criticism of the class system.

hickey touching heather’s brain — the squelchy noise of this transitions seamlessly into jacko eating the lead-poisoned food so great foreshadowing there. but it also obviously demonstrates hickey’s growing unwillingness to abide by the very basic rules of civilised behaviour (bodily autonomy) and his sheer curiosity about what lies beyond them. while the accidental features of civilisation are critiqued, the text ultimately reasserts some of them — namely human fellowship and mutual respect. covering heather’s brain is pretty consistently shown to be a clear rule on the erebus, one that everyone follows because seeing his brain is too much if a violation both for heather and those who see it. similarly, cannibalism in the way hickey performs it is a violation both of the eaten and the eater, and this his first step to get to that point.

the fact that hickey & billy also continue to chat throughout all of this really makes me so sad. like yeah they’ve a really complex relationship but also on a basic level they just really get on and naturally gravitate towards each other.

once again this is the worst day at the office little’s ever had

hartnell & hickey’s conversation: great insight into victorian morals. hartnell is, of all of crozier’s crew, probably the most loyal to him as a person despite not being friends (so obviously blanky doesn’t count here). this intimacy is quite literally achieved through violence; it’s only after crozier has hartnell flogged that hartnell becomes so loyal. and ultimately it doesn’t save hartnell at all, he still dies in crozier’s arms

hickey doesn’t answer as to why he didn’t rat armitage out for coming with them to capture silna — is it because he didn’t want to rat out a fellow crewmember or because he wanted the credit for what he thought was gonna get him crozier’s approval?

“well francis will decide — yes, it does seem inescapable now.” GREAT example of what i was saying earlier about fitzjames being much more comfortable standing behind another commanding figure.

collins calling goodsir dr! a person is defined by their actions more than their position — goodsir acts like a doctor so he is one.

first time i watched this i disliked stanley a lot for this, and like yeah he sucks but he also does try and give collins something he just doesn’t know how. stanley also is one of the characters who clings the most to the class system, so it’s pretty telling that he doesn’t survive this episode and also that he is the one who destroys the carnivale

he didn’t even wear that dress that’s how unnecessary this whole thing was. i mean look he is also not the only one who wears a dress to the carnivale and like again. festival of misrule it’s a classic. but also come on. also there’s something about the blood falling on the mask

of fucking course de veoux is wearing the racist mask

fitzjames as britannia is so good. i think in the modern era he would probably advocate for conscription for all genders or something equally unhinged.

WAIT! when unnamed marine feeds private heather he helps him swallow the food…

the fact that silna after her failed attempt to become tunbaaq’s shaman goes back to the ships…either it’s because she needs help and this is the only place she can go, or to warn them, probably both, but either way they do not deserve her.

hickey stabbing mcdonald is so. fucking. sad. mostly because i liked mcdonald but also because it’s hickey’s first onscreen kill and he didn’t like. really mean it

tozer losing heather is also so sad

it’s tempting to read the carnivale’s destruction as showing it was all a bad idea and any inversion will be punished but that’s too straightforward imo. i think it’s much more that this is the final destruction of all of the trappings of class and hierarchy that have really been at the forefront this episode. not totally, but like — once you’ve had the carnivale you can’t really go back to strict hierarchy. instead you have to forge a new way of being, going (literally) into a new dawn. again this why i think it’s so telling that stanley dies this ep because his identity and very being is so tied up in that hierarchy that he literally could not go on in a world where it didn’t exist.

#the terror #writing this meant this episode took me about an hour and a half to actually watch it’s one of my favourites

[kronim195]

Oddworld Soulstorm criticisms

I'll preface by saying that I am thoroughly enjoying the game for the most part, but so far there are a lot of nagging issues that keep taking me out of it.

Let's start with glitches:

The first glitch is a very minor cosmetic one. At the end of level 2, in the cutscene with Alf, he is clipping through the character stoopy. There is also an audio glitch here, where the hoards of Mudokons can still be heard even after they've left.

Onto the more serious glitches: Sligs. Sometimes, after you've alerted Sligs and the status goes back to calm, they will not continue patrolling back and forth. Instead they will sometimes just stand in place indefinitely. This often makes progression impossible.

Another glitch I've noticed is that sometimes Mudokon followers don't hide in lockers when you do. One or two will often stand in place, and end up killed, through no fault of the players. This also alerts the sligs, causing the previous glitch to happen as well. Needless to say, it's infuriating.

I was softlocked in level 6, losing an hour of progress. This happened when I entered a door, thinking it was a secret path. It for some reason took me back to a segment I had already completed. The segment wasn't very long or hard, so I didn't mind too much, but when I got back to where I was, the elevator was gone, with no lever or button to call it. I was completely stuck.

That's it for glitches. Now I wanna talk about two other issues I have so far:

In-game cutscenes are unskippable. I'm not referring to the movies that play between levels. I mean the cutscenes that occur during a level, like the previously mentioned one with Alf and Stoopy. I've noticed that these go on for at least a minute, disrupting the flow of gameplay significantly. This will make it a pain when replaying these levels. There is absolutely no reason why these scenes shouldn't be skippable.

The last gripe I wanna talk about has to do with the voices of the Mudokons. Apparently, they were voiced by youtubers and internet people, and well...it shows. The acting isn't bad, that's not the issue I have here. The issue is that these people were obviously not recorded in a professional studio. They all sound like they're using very different microphones, in very different recording environments. The result, is that they all sound inconsistent to the characters who were recorded professionally like Abe, and the quality is often pretty bad. One in particular was just atrocious sounding. This is the sort of thing I would expect from an amateur project like a mod. In the final product of an official release, it is completely unacceptable and I have no idea how this made it into the game.

#oddworld

[the-musical-cc]

A story of me losing my shit with voice acting trivia because what else would I be doing with my life:

-Started out as ‘Let’s check out City Hunter. It’s from the same author as Cat’s Eye, which I like, and Yuuko mentions liking it too.’ and watching random clips I found in youtube for hours

-Then it was ‘Hey, didn’t she say she specially liked a specific character? let’s check that character.’ and I proceeded to laugh my ass off realizing the character she specially liked was a mild-mannered, unassuming, glasses-wearing character with dark hair who did the household chores around the house. (She certainly has a type.)

-Went to watch clips of said character and the minute he opened his mouth I was like ‘Hold on a second- BES??!?!?!’ so I went to IMBD to check on the cast list and yup, it was Hideyuki Tanaka. My curiosity sated, I went back to keep watching the clips.

-Somehow was able to recognize Harulu herself, Yoko Asagawa from clips of her character moaning. I’d like to know WHY my brain knows how she sounds when she’s moaning, but there it is.

-But now something’s bugging me and suddenly I remember Makimura, the character Yuuko likes, shares a voice actor with Fujitaka, Sakura’s dad. And I’m not positive but since he IS related to Clow it’s possible they actually share a voice actor? I recall Clow far better with his mexican dub voice or in the best of cases his voice in the Holic Kei CD dramas so I wasn’t sure.

-(I was just kind of pumped thinking this may be one of CLAMP’s more direct hints at Yuuko and Clow’s relationship as something romantic- aside the whole simping her to the point of bending logic, anyway.)

-But no, the IMBD says it’s Kazuo Hayashi. Still, I noticed he didn’t appear in the Tsubasa cast list, instead, there we had Yu Mizushima.

-So now I had to make a comparison to know which one it was that did the CD Drama or whether it was someone completely different. Found the CD dramas again (Which wasn’t that hard) and then went to find a suitable audio sample of Mizushima that I could compare, which led me through some twisted passages that I couldn’t help but lose my shit on thinking about Clow. Finally, I head-desked for a bit when I realized probably the easiest way was to check on the Tsubasa anime itself.

-I writhed on the loor for a bit before, though, because while in general I like Tsubasa, the anime is terrible as an adaptation, has a slow, repetitive and tortuous pacing and the animation and art-style kind of give me hives. The soundtrack still slams though.

-IMBD listed a ton of episodes in which Clow SUPPOSEDLY appeared but I couldn’t find him with a quick exploration so I had to sit though them, skipping where it was appropriate (The pacing is TRULY atrocious, good grief) to try and find clips of him speaking which... was taking so long I simply went for the one episode I CLEARLY remembered having Clow in it which was that one where they retconed their ‘People were magically brought back to life’ anime!only storyline.

-But big surprise, when I heard him, he clearly wasn’t the same person voicing Clow in the CD drama. Not even close enough that I could consider this was just hinting at the passage of some time, or that Clow spoke differently to Sakura than Yuuko.

-So, a much quicker search for CCS Clow clips later, I’m still not entirely convinced it’s the same person voicing him there and in the CD drama because it doesn’t quite sound the same- but let’s take in account the drama was done in the mid 2000′s whereas CCS was airing in the late 90s so the differences could be due to recording equipment and the quality of the clips I find as well as the actor getting older.

-Anyway, at this point I’m ready to accept it’s probably Kazuo Hayashi in the CD drama, I just don’t know for sure.

-But then I went to check more credits for him in voice-acting hoping to find something newer that could let me make another comparison to make SURE it’s him doing Clow in the CD Drama and at this point I’ve completely forgotten I started out checking City Hunter clips for shits and giggles.

-And guess what my dumb ass missed and I’m so damn mad at myself for not joining the dots before. I was like ‘That name rings a bell’ from the start but didn’t think of checking why, and suddenly, it’s glaring at me from the list of his voicing credits. SPACE RUNAWAY IDEON. Hayashi voices Gije. What’s more, the moment I make the mental comparison with Gije- yep, that’s him. But JUST TO BE THOROUGH, I went to my Ideon episode folder to find the scenes where he talks to Sheryl, as they’re the ones where he’s more tender. It’s definitely the same person and by this point I’m a quivery mess- IT ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO IDEON WITH ME DOESN’T IT??

-But there’s more. The other anime I inevitably end up putting into everything I like- Saint Seiya. There’s a credit for Hayashi there too: Hound Asterion- aka that guy that ties Marin head-down on the coast to lure Seiya into fighting with him.

-Which lead to me losing my shit in the kitchen with my dogs coming to check on me because I’m laughing hysterically like ‘ISN’T IT ENOUGH THAT YOU FUCKED REALITY YOU ASSHOLE YOU HAD TO PLAY RISK BONDAGE WITH MARIN AND START THE WAR THAT ENDED THE UNIVERSE’ until my stomach hurt and I had to lie down.

-And that’s the story of how I somehow ended up losing 5 hours of my life without realizing.

-Don’t ask if I’m OK, I don’t know.

#xxxholic #CLAMP #Cardcaptor sakura #Space Runaway Ideon #City Hunter #this is one of those times where I have to seriously wonder if I don't have ADHD because... wow

[janiedean]

stevetomjohn(.)tumblr(.)com/post/125974550995/so-i-just-saw-an-article-today-on-npr-about-how stevetomjohn(.)tumblr(.)com/post/124713803865/operainthearchives-fizzylimon What do think about this? Because while I agree that opera companies should avoid blackface and stereotypical portayal of non-Western cultures, I think that color-blind casting is the better choice, not only for the quality of the performance (more people to choose from, more chances to get the better voice for the role) part 1

But also for the minorities involved: if an opera house decides to include e.g. Aida in their season and they can choose from X sopranos among which one is a black woman, they’re going to put her in Aida, while the white women will have more choice (so, type-casting). Also, if the ethnicity of characters like Otello is important to the point of requiring a black man singing his part, you have to select the rest of the cast accordingly, so the other roles can be played only by white part or white-passing singers? (Not considering that if you find a black tenor who can play Otello well, you can’t still put him in every single Otello performance, you’re going to wreck his voice on the top of not giving him the opportunity of a satifying and wide repoertoire). I believe that there’s a racism problem even in the opera world, but I think that people should advocate to a more equal selection in all roles, not just the ones with POC.

........ good fucking grief.

okay, first thing of all, this person is completely living in a fantasy world if he thinks that people will stop performing both otello and/or aida based on the lead characters’s ethnicity. period. especially aida which is an extremely popular opera, and I don’t even like it personally, it’s one of the few verdi operas I’m very meh on, but like...... opera theaters need revenue because they’re almost always in the red not in the green, and popular verdi operas are sure revenue 100%, and if people think theaters won’t perform aida out of political correctness ESPECIALLY when it’s full of stuff singers die to do they’re delusional. period. and as far as othello is concerned is absolutely a demanding role (and not just verdi - rossini’s never gets performed because you need three tenors and there’s one singer in the world - gregory kunde - who can sing both verdi and rossini’s role, says all) and if you send people who can’t sing it properly to do it, you ruin their voice. and assuming that you can’t stage one of verdi’s best operas which is also a revenue and which bass singers die to perform in (IAGO’S PART GUYS) out of that is also equally idiotic. never mind that saying that those parts never went to black singers is ridiculous because I didn’t dream up leontyne price singing aida AND IT WAS IN WHAT THE SIXTIES OR THE SEVENTIES I mean let’s be real. it’s not that opera companies don’t employ poc singers on purpose, it’s that it’s not a given they’ll find poc singers with the right skills. also otello is not a role that young singers usually take on so you’d need to have someone who’s had a long career or at least enough to let their voice mature.

NOW, with that stated, I 100% agree with you and pretty much with what the person who was not OP was saying (admittedly I was rolling my eyes so much at halfway through that I skimmed but I think I got the gist), but the point is: we should avoid blackface - I mean, we all know othello’s supposed to be black even if he’s not we can play along without putting make-up on the singer -, we should do accurate productions (though I mean, I think they were complaining about butterfly or smth and like I hate puccini so I’m not an expert but at some point I found out that he actually did extensive research and the japanese back in the day loved it and I’m pretty sure that a while ago in italy they had a japanese director do the opera with japanese singers and so on and they perform it in japan so.... IT’S DOABLE AND IT’S NOT INHERENTLY RACIST even if to me the plot of that opera is atrocious but to each their own) and we definitely should have more nonwhite/poc singers in the opera world (though I mean if you watch videos of those singing competitions like that one in wales or that bi-yearly one in germany most of the singers are poc, a while ago I was wasting time on youtube and found out some a++++ five south-african singers both male and female who were amazing and I think a couple won so things are changing albeit slowly), but solving the problem by not doing blind casting is ridiculous because at that point it means that if you do idk l’italiana in algeri the poc singer can only be mustafa or his right hand man... and.... that’d be kind of sterotypical since it’s not like roles for poc people in opera were ALWAYS non-stereotypical. like, if we take just mozart, we could have poc playing just... mitridate, I suppose, MAYBE, the bad guys in serraglio and MAAAYBE sarastro in the magic flute?? MAYBE? ah, no, and monostatos. I mean, that’s not.... much of a repertoire??? (also I personally dislike productions where monostatos is suddenly ‘ugly’ and not black because I thought that the point was showing that others saw him as a monster and he had feelings too but NEVER MIND) instead last time I watched it from the ROH papageno was an absolutely handsome and charming half-caribbean guy who also sang amazingly

and that’s for mozart, but idk for rossini you’d just have the turkish/algerians from italiana and turco in italia or the people from semiramide, but semiramide is hard af to sing and you should find an all-around appropriate cast TWICE because you’d need the secondary company as you pointed out. and I mean I just saw that one of my fave bass singers who is russian is up to play assur at the MET, now he can’t do that because assur was persian and he’s russian?? samuel ramey’s career then would have been dead from the beginning because he played both assur and attila and he certainly wasn’t a hun? I mean, where do you actually find a race-appropriate attila anyway since it could be anyone from a russian to a mongolian at this point? like, if you don’t do blind casting you’re also confining POCs to roles that might or might not be stereotypical and leave most to the white people in question and honestly..... why? I’ve seen excellent chinese and korean singers around, and especially when there’s no ethnicity required (in theory) then just cast whoever. but as you said then if you do otello then the only black singer can be otello and everyone else can’t? I can’t have a chinese iago then, even if the chinese singer has the perfect voice for it? and like, juan diego flòrez couldn’t have played ANY role he ever was famous for because he’s peruvian and no one in operas is peruvian??? kathleen battle who is/was (I think she’s retired) one of my favorite sopranos is black and she played adina and rosina and susanna and a bunch of main leads back in the 80s, she shouldn’t have because sure as fuck l’elisir d’amore’s protagonist wasn’t black? come on.

like, the point is that you have to make sure more people have access to opera so more people want to become opera singers so you have more variety when you choose/audition and you can also do accurate casting when it’s required (ie aida), but you also can’t limit the singers. I mean, doing aida for sopranos is very good on a CV, if you get cast for it you shouldn’t take it because you’re not historically accurate? so we can’t have a chinese aida? or a mexican aida? why not? and maybe a black singer wants to do aida but also might want to play other parts? leontyne price or kathleen battle or pretty yende (just the first three coming to mind but there’s a lot more around) didn’t just play POC roles and I doubt they hate it. like, what that OP doesn’t get is that opera is also about what you get to sing, not the goddamned plot, because half of the opera plots in existence are hardly high literature. I mean, any soprano wants to sing violetta from la traviata because it looks great on your CV and is basically the top notch you can get with that work, no one gives a fuck what color violetta is. and there’s been non-white violettas for that matter. any bass wants to sing iago because it’s a good part, any tenor wants to play calaf  regardless of where he comes from because if you sing all’alba vincerò properly you bring the house down and same for rigoletto/the duke of mantua, and any baritone wants a shot at un ballo in maschera because that’s the only opera where he does encores and not the tenor XDD like ffs one of my favorite tenors who isn’t really a big bane is half french and half vietnamese and I saw him live once and fell in love TM and he was playing... don ottavio? IN PRAGUE? I mean don ottavio is spanish, not french-vietnamese, and no one cared? like the point is that you should have operas where everyone can sing and that are done respectfully and preferably with appropriate singers if  there’s the availability and if they have the right voice and it’s valid for every opera - I mean I’d totally be okay with an italiana in algeri where mustafa is white and lindoro is black WHO CARES [actually I saw one where mustafa was italian and lindoro was chinese soooo] -, not where you gatekeep what operas get to be sung by whom. idk according to this person polish singers can’t sing eugene onegin because it’s all russians?? srsly??

and other than that, OP knows kind of fucking nothing about what they’re talking about because:

if he wants canon lead poc roles for men there’s not just verdi’s othello, there’s rossini’s othello, then there’s assur from semiramide and actually all of semiramide as stated above should have a persian cast, there’s selim from rossini’s turco in italia and mustafa/haly from l’italiana who are algerian, there’s she sultan and osmin from mozart’s abduction from the serraglio (osmin mostly has an a++++ part), monostatos from magic flute (kinda stereotypical tho but I think a good direction could make it work very well), maometto II/mohamed II from rossini’s maometto II/le siege de corinthe (same opera different language), the pharaoh and his son from ALL the goddamned operas about moses that have ever been written first and foremost rossini’s mosè in egitto and the french version, plus verdi’s nabucco also has persians vs jewish people so I mean ALSO THE JEWISH PEOPLE FROM NABUCCO AND MOSE’ and so on if you consider jewish people poc, THEN there’s the fucking tenor from LOMBARDI ALLA PRIMA CROCIATA who’s **pagan**/muslim so definitely poc in theory and I’m not counting puccini bc I hate puccini but in theory turandot is all pocs, ALL OF THEM, and butterfly is all japanese and one american (WOW NOW ALL THE AMERICANS CAN ONLY SING PINKERTON I AM SAD FOR YOU AMERICAN TENORS), and ah yeah attila from verdi’s same-title opera is obviously hun.

if he wants canon lead poc female roles as stated above: FUCKING TURANDOT, semiramide plus retinue, elvira from italiana in algeri might not be lead but she’s important af, both female leads in nabucco, ulrica from un ballo in maschera (where it was actually a plot point that she was discriminated because she was black and characters in-verse pointed out it was shitty), if you want to go all the way then il trovatore has supposed to have an entire choir of roma travelers + azucena (and azucena is terrible but people would pay to sing her role BECAUSE IT’S A GOOD ROLE, and btw the last leonora I saw live was... japanese I think), zaida from turco in italia, ZELMIRA from rossini’s zelmira actually EVERYONE IS POC IN THERE TOO same as aureliano in palmira excluding the romans and ah yeah there’s also rossini’s ciro in babilonia where again it’s all poc technically. ah and cleopatra from haendel’s julius caesar I guess, if you assume she’s dark skinned, but julius caesar is one of those things I never could watch entirely without sleeping so idek but I mean...

I mean, I’m fairly sure that I didn’t even get all of them and half of those roles could absolutely be played by black people - algerians aren’t necessarily light-skinned and egyptians aren’t either - and anyway ULRICA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BLACK EXPLICITLY but if we can’t find a black ulrica then we don’t do il ballo in maschera anymore when the main three roles are not hers?? I mean seriously let’s be real, taking operas out of performance for etnical correctness is unfeasible.

but again, OP other than not knowing the above obviously has only ever heard of extremely famous shit because if you say the only roles for black men and women are othello and aida you haven’t even scratched the surface just as verdi is concerned never mind everyone else in opera history.

obviously it’d be lovely to have all those roles sung by ethnically-accurate people but opera never was about accuracy in any way shape or form so maybe we should make sure everyone gets to sing everything according to their vocal abilities. maybe.

also it also depends on where the hell you are because of course a theater in the US will have more choice of poc singers and one in italy less, and still with that I’ve seen plenty of poc singers just at the rome theater never mind others. times are changing in the good direction already, let’s just keep on going that way maybe?

#opera tag #opera shitposting #racism cw #sigh #i can't with these people #but opera tumblr is hell #after i had to read that 'don giovanni cast without poc is a thing that is horrid on principle' i'm just like #yeah sure thing #Anonymous #ask post

[drakorn]

Top 10 GOOD Things about the Broadway Production of Tanz der Vampire

Recently, I have been thinking about the Broadway Production of Tanz der Vampire again and couldn’t help but imagine: What could have been? Well, we could have had Tanz be one of the most successful international musicals in the world, in the ranks of Phantom and Les Mis no less (which it already is in Europe), but what could have been if the Broadway production actually was good? I have thought about certain scenes and production designs again and well...some of the things present in the Broadway run actually still resemble the original intentions of keeping it faithful to the source material. So...there is two hands full of actually pretty decent things about the production in general.

Hear me out! 

I am in no way defending the Broadway Production, I still think this is the worst thing that could ever happen to any musical adaptation. That doesn’t mean however that there aren’t some merits...right? To be fair, it’s getting increasingly depressing to write about the good stuff, because you keep thinking “What COULD have been?” So, without further ado, let’s dive into the Top 10 GOOD things about the Broadway Production of Tanz der Vampire, “Dance of the Vampires”.

10 - The Bombastic Orchestra

Ok, we all know that this goes without saying, but when something gets put on at a Broadway theatre, you can BET that one thing is and always will be delivered: The quality of the music. While Dance of the Vampires is a shitty show, it still has the perk that it includes a lot of the original Steinmann orchestration and compositions. When an actual Tanz song comes up in the Broadway production, the music actually sounds really decent. I would even dare to say it sounds on par with the Vienna orchestra. Stage Entertainment has had a MASSIVE problem with orchestras and it it really shows in the musical quality of the show. However, if Broadway can do one thing right, it’s definitely the orchestra.

9 - The Set Design

Set design is another massive key to a successful musical production. Yes, of course, sound is essential, but when someone only hears the CD, the set design is often a thing that convinces them to go and see it live. I respect the modern approach to theatre of minimalistic set, however, I think that this logic definitely does not apply to musical theatre. Musical theatre is an another plain altogether, it calls for visuals, it calls for big moments. While the costume department of the Broadway Tanz production was...uhh...very questionable 

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WE DIDN’T NEED TO SEE THAT AGAIN! MY MEMORIES ARE STILL FRESH!

Hmpf, anyway, what I meant to say: While the costumes are not the greatest, the set design itself is speaking completely different languages. While there is certainly some VERY quriky choices in that matter too (The Garlic Festival poster, the castle gate that looks like it’s straight from a child’s playmobil game), there are also some very impressive things to behold. For every goofy garlic poster, we have this gloomy ruin in the middle of a forest, for every playmobil castle gate we have a blood red moon rising over a sea of mist. It is SUCH a shame that the set design is significantly better than anything story-related. If I had to sum up the Broadway Tanz experience in one gif, it would be this one:

“...but the effects were decent.”

8 - Choosing the Minskoff Theatre as the venue

Again, this is a very “What could have been?” topic. For all that it was worth, the Minskoff Theatre was an excellent choice to put on Tanz der Vampire. It’s a gigantic venue and, very importantly, allows for a lot of effects. There are tons of trapdoors and equipment that is just just MADE for a vampire show. How could would it have been to see Krolock and his vampires disappear from the stage (he does that at the end of the Vienna version, but just imagine how this effect could have been milked). 

Just LOOK at this theatre. It even has the perfect opportunity for the characters to walk through the audience! Why this wasn’t taken advantage of during the Broadway Tanz production...I don’t know. The Lion King is also showing at this very theatre, so we know how incredibly impressive the shows there can be! If Tanz der Vampire would have been faithfully portrayed at the Minskoff Theatre, it would have truly been a sight to behold.

7 - Casting René Auberjonois as Professor Abronsius

Whoever saw the Broadway Tanz undoubtedly noticed that Abronsius was made significantly unfunnier. In fact, it seems like most of the funny stuff was absorbed by Krolock, which created a very not-well side-effect. However, the actor himself, René Auberjonois, was actually a very nice choice for Abronsius. Whenever he actually HAD a funny moment, he made full use of it. If Tanz der Vampire would have maintained its original spirit, he would have actually been ideal for the role! And just LOOK AT HIM

While it’s not the exact Einstein of the original production, I can still see Abronsius by just looking at this guy! He might have even been the oldest Professor at that time because he was born in 1940 and could still sing and act the part. Professor Abronsius would have therefore also been cast by a person actually closer to his age. Just imagine what could have been... I really wish he would have been doing more stage work in the past, he certainly has the talent.

6 - Angels Arise

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiit! Hear me out, guys! You must be thinking “WHAT? How can he SERIOUSLY talk about the scene where...well, THIS happens

and STILL say it’s good?!” Well, I’m not talking about the scene itself, I’m talking about the song that features in this scene. Angels Arise was a completely new addition to the other Tanz songs. And...well...what can I say? The song itself is actually really good! If it weren’t for that atrocious scene placement, this might have been one of the better scenes. How do I know this? Because there is a recording of this song, which doesn’t feature any of the goofy visuals:

When you listen to the song itself, it is actually pretty touching and melancholic, as well as beautiful at the same time. I would even go as far as encouraging this song to be included into the original Tanz production. If you take this song and place it into a fitting moment in the actual Tanz storyline, I’m certain it could fit in quite nicely!

5 - Casting Max von Essen as Alfred

Again, we are talking about incredibly wasted potential here. When choosing the actors, Max von Essen was actually a very solid choice for the role of the not-so-fearless protagonist. First of all, he can certainly look the part:

And also, he can certainly act the part! Unfortunately, the Broadway run completely butchered his role to such an extend that he wasn’t even the main character anymore. However, a funny side effect of this was that Alfred came across as MUCH more brave and responsible. But he still maintained that positive Alfred attitude. If the original version would have been performed, Max von Essen would have made a FANTASTIC Alfred. He has proven to be certainly capable for the part with what was given to him. Currently, he is performing in Anastasia as Cover Gleb, as far as I’m aware, and he deserves all the praise!

4 - Für Sarah

Thankfully, there is a couple of scenes in the Broadway production that isn’t straight up awful. Für Sarah is pretty much the only scene in all of Act 2 that was done right. It actually really captures the spirit of the original and truly gives Max von Essen his time to shine as Alfred. There is actually a pretty good clip of it on YouTube, which just shows how good this could have been if the original version was faithfully adapted:

Oh, Max von Essen, you deserve to perform Alfred as he was originally intended. 

3 - Das Gebet

Of course, Act 1 also has this ONE scene that is actually done well, even excellent if I may say! Of course, I’m talking about Das Gebet. Oh, I’m not talking about Draußen ist Freiheit and Die Rote Stiefel, because they had some serious flaws within them, I’m just talking about Das Gebet. Once we get through this cringy transition between Die Roten Stiefel and Das Gebet, the song itself is actually done well, and I mean REALLY well! Rebecca, Alfred and Magda are outside and start the song, the entire stage goes dark and snow begins to fall from the sky, we see several small groups of people coming together, only aided with a few spotlights, gradually forming into a group and singing a song about light in the darkness. The orchestra really puts all of their skill into this song and the result is great!

Just skip forward to the 9:20 mark and see for yourself. It really makes you also feel melancholic because all of this talent is wasted in an otherwise awful show. And it also gives you the glimpse of an idea of how magical and beutiful Tanz der Vampire could have been if it were properly adapted.

2 - Casting Mandy Gonzalez as Sarah

Of course this had to be on the list. For me personally, the best possible casting decision for this show was Mandy Gonzalez as Sarah. 

She definitely looks the part and SOUNDS the part. All of her songs she sang to the most, she was really the saving grace in many of the scenes. During Totale Finsternis for instance, you can really see how she is just TRYING to safe the song. You just have to feel sorry for her when she’s on stage with...whoever Michael Crawford portrays there, it’s definitely not Krolock. She gives it her all and makes the best out of the atrocious material she was given. If Tanz der Vampire would have been adapted faithfully, she might have very well be one of the best Sarahs ever. Talk about wasted potential here. She was so good in this show, but the show wasn’t good to her. She is currently playing Angelica Schulyer in Hamilton and boy, does she deserve the praise!

And the number one thing that was actually good about the Broadway production of Tanz der Vampire is...

1 - That one theory that makes the entire thing almost bearable

Ok, this needs a bit of explanation. So, there has been this theory circling around for a bit, I don’t really know who exactly started it, but that’s how it goes: So, what happened in the VERY first scene? Well, Sarah and her friends are strolling through the woods of course. BUT...WHAT exactly are they picking up and eating on the spot?

The weird things start happening RIGHT after they have consumed those shrooms. A group of hippie-like goth vampires storms out of the forest, Krolock’s coffin shoots out of the floor like a rocket, all of that...so, this theory suggests that the ENTIRE musical was just Sarah being high as fuck. That’s why she is the main character of the show, that’s why Krolock speaks in this weird Italian accent, that’s why all of those confusing things happen to her. Just imagine her walking through the forest, high on mushrooms, just IMAGINING all of the musical’s events. Or better, she experiences an encounter with Krolock, who is still the gothic malevolent being from the original musical, but she just keeps seeing him as this weird Italian dude. It’s the funniest joke of the entire thing and it’s not even intentional! 

So, there we are! Those were my Top 10 GOOD things about the Broadway Production of Tanz der Vampire. It was NOT easy making this VERY controversial list. Now...who wants a Top 10 WORST things list? 

#Tanz der Vampire #Dance of the Vampires #Musical #The only good parts #Mandy Gonzalez #Max von Essen #Broadway #What could have been... #René Auberjonois

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff: One of My Favorite Stand in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Bad Shit for Legit Quid

Killer Crime at A Cut Cost

Bad Actions for Little Money

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Crass Act for A Cheap Pound

Atrocities for Little to No Fund

Bad Stuff At A Discounted Rate

Hurtful Actions for Table Scraps

Shady Business At Low Expense

Bad Things for Dastardly Benefits

Untimely Crimes for Under a Dime

Unclean Undoings for Frugal Fees

Scummy Shit for Practically Nothing

Performing Crime for Under A Dime

Neferious Acts at A Negligible Worth

Unlawful Hobbies for Pocket Change

Ferocious Feats For Favorable Fees

Deviant Dances for Dang Little Money

Grim Requests at a Pretty Decent Deal

Filthy Favors for Next to Fuckin’ Nothing

Gross Performances Done At Low Trade

Wicked Works Wrought Without Expense

Terrible Trials Done at an Affordable Cost

Despicable Acts At A Really Good Discount

Filthy Acts Performed at a Reasonable Price

Atrocious Actions Done for Frugal Individuals

Illegal Doings Finished Done at a Few Dollars

Antagonistic Actions at a Altruistic Acceptance

Shitty Shenanigans at A Small Service Charge

Unclean Performances for Low Monetary Gain

Naughty Notions Negated At Neglectable Prices

Not Good Things Accomplished At Minimum Wage

Displeasing Undertakings Performed for Low Prices

Irreverent Actions Acted Out At An Economic Range

Mucky Activities Allowed For An Abnormally Low Cost

Anarchic Actions Acted Upon at an Insignificant Expense

Gross Performances Acted Out For Pennies On the Dollar

Unclean Acts Within Exceptionally Minimal Monetary Value

Unlawful Actions Committed for Those With A Tight Budget

Awful Things at The Low, Low Funding of Next To No Money

Unsavory Doings Performed at a Marginally Low Asking Price

Unacceptable Nefarious Doings for A Price Lower Than Usual

Disrespectful Unsanitary Behavior At a Little to No Greenbacks

Erroneous Errands Executed Excluding Expensive Expenditures

Questionable Tasks Completed for A Rather Low Monetary Value

Abhorrent Schemes Created at An Extremely Fashionable Bargain

Not Good Things Happening At Not Very High Economic Expenses

Immoral Interactions for Inadequate Inconsequential Indemnification

Atrocious Actions Admitted for An Amazingly Low Sum of Unmarked Bills

Unclean Objectives for The Notion of Receiving Low Quality Monetization

Generally Unaccepted Actions Accomplished for A Small Amount Of Cash

Dastardly Wrongdoings Under The Contract of Measly Currency Exchange

Terrible Actions Done at A Reasonably Inexpensive Try Separate Payments

Despicable Things Done at the Cost of a Really Affordable Amount of Change

Extremely Bad Acts Seen By Society as Such Realized at An Incredibly Low Cent

Despicable Performances at a Discounted Price of 0.99 + 5.99 Shipping and Handling

Disrespectful Dealings with Unsanitary Conditions at A Low Abundance of Payment in Return

Morally Depraved Activity Exacted at A Monetary Value Less Than Perhaps a Double Digit Variable

Jobs That are Considered Vile By Society Affordable By The Common Man at an Extremely Low Trade Value

Downright Disgusting Things, Even By Criminal Standards, Committed Just for The Amount of Money You Can Earn On YouTube

Unreasonable Bad Acts, Such as Theft and Murder, Punishable Under a Court of Law, Done By Criminals in Order to Gain A Low Sum of Money Agreed by Both Parties

Learning Things for Free at An Unsponsored Cost Which is Deemed Unholy to The Eyes of The Public in Which One Pays Little to None Opposed to Paying a Grand Amount Like His Peers

Actions Done Willingly That Do Not Conform To Laws Or Regulations Of The Land of Which They Inhabit And Will Result In Punishment If Discovered Finished At A Extremely Discounted Trade Amount

Tasks Deemed Unlawful by Society Which Would Most Definitely Earn You a High Level of Hatred and Disrespect Among The Public Acquired By An Astoundingly Low, Nearing Significant Level of Payment

Causes That are Labeled Archaic and Despicable by a Majority of World Governments That Are Executed for a Price Considered More Than Reasonable, as The One Requesting These Actions Be Carried Out Wouldn't Expect The Aforementioned Acts to Be Carried Out at Such a Low Margin of A Figure

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba #steel ball run #d4c #awesome #Good Stuff #roy macintosh

[whimzea-blog]

Day to Night 1/2

Title: Day to Night

Author: whimzea

Pairing: Zane/Heath

Summary: Heath and Zane's Valentine's Day is very different than last year's.

Also up on AO3 here. (I needed a break from Better than Sex, so...yeah. Here dis.)

***

February 10

Zane and Heath were at Todd's house. They had just filmed a bit with Scotty, who had kicked them out of his room as soon as they had finished so he could edit.

It's not you, it's content, he had said before slamming the door in their face.

Youtubers.

"Hey, remember last year, on Valentine's Day, when we hung out at the apartment? That was fun, right?"

Heath was sitting on the counter now, eating an apple. Zane was in perfect range to get sprayed with Red Delicious as he asked the question. He grimaced.

"You guys gonna do that again this year?" Todd asked, wiping his face with a towel. He had just come back from a run, had stripped his t-shirt off, and was drinking a protein shake while sweat clung to his perfect body. Zane hated him.

"I mean, yeah? We don't have any girls to spend it with," Heath answered. He didn't look at Zane.

Technically, Heath was right. Neither he nor Zane had a girlfriend this year. He didn't mention that he and Zane happened to be dating each other, but they were still very on the down-low. Only one person in the whole world knew, and only because he had walked in on them fooling around in Heath's bedroom.

Poor Kam.

And guys didn't go out for Valentine's Day with each other, anyways...did they? Zane didn't know very many gay guys to ask.

Valentine's Day had always seemed like it was meant for girls, with the flowers and whatnot. What the fuck did he care about roses and candles?

He could fuck with chocolates, though.

"Aw, well, I'm sure you guys will have fun," Todd said, polishing off his shake.

"What about you? You want in? Boys' night?" Heath asked, his voice hopeful.

"I have a girlfriend, bro."

"Oh yeah." None of them had ever seen Todd's girlfriend, but he assured them that she was very real. Zane and Heath had theories to the contrary, but that was for another time.

Heath chewed thoughtfully. "What about Jay?"

"Girlfriend," Zane and Todd answered in unison.

"Joe?"

"Girlfriend."

"Dommy D?"

"Girlfriend."

Heath thought harder. Scott, David, Kam, Jason, fuck, even Alex Ernst all had girlfriends now. Gabbie, Carly, and Erin were all seeing someone. Elijah and Christine were in London.

"Durte Dom?" Heath said hesitantly.

"Fuck no," Zane said immediately. He hated that kid. If there was one way to make your subscriber count go down...plus, he was fucking gross.

Heath opened his mouth to speak a couple more times, but closed it each time. Zane couldn't think of anyone else, either.

"Well, looks like it's going to be Coffee Talk: Valentine's Day Edition," Todd said, shrugging. "Could be worse."

He saluted them and walked off to his room. Heath sighed.

"You don't have to sound so fuckin' disappointed," Zane said, punching Heath lightly in the arm. "We'll have a good time."

Heath rolled his eyes and grabbed the keys to his new truck, jumping off the counter. "Have to spend every other day with your scraggly ass, and now Valentine's Day too."

Zane watched Heath walk to the front door. He didn't know whether or not his feelings should be hurt.

Heath turned when he realized Zane wasn't following him. "Let's go get coffee, bitch."

Zane grinned. He guessed not.

******

February 14

Zane's eyes blinked open.

Sun was streaming through his bedroom window, a cool California breeze following it in. Game of Thrones was still playing on the TV from their marathon last night. It was unlike them to fall asleep during their favorite show, but yesterday had been brutal. Zane guessed they had probably filmed twelve hours total.

He looked down. Heath was curled against his side, one of his arms thrown over his chest, his head tucked almost into his armpit. He was snoring.

Zane looked at his watch. 9:30am. Thirty more minutes, and then he'd get up. Get Heath up. But for now, he was cozy as fuck.

He wrapped his arm around Heath and pulled him closer to his side. He let his hand settle on the small of Heath's back, under his shirt.

BANG BANG BANG.

Heath was startled awake, sitting up fast and looking wildly around him.

Zane sighed. So much for thirty more minutes.

"You homos decent?" Kam shouted through the door, banging on it a few more times.

"Yeah," Zane called after a few seconds, sitting up. Heath rubbed his eyes violently with his fists, trying to become conscious.

Kam barged in, a bag thrown over his shoulder. "So Meghan and I are going to Palm Springs last minute. Won't be back until tomorrow night. Make sure you water my plants- it's Saturday."

Zane managed to nod. Heath was staring at Kam, unable to figure out how someone could have that much energy.

Ten seconds later Kam slammed the front door behind him, leaving Zane and Heath alone in an empty apartment for the next 36 hours.

This occurred to Zane as Heath flopped back down on the bed, groaning.

"Fuckin' asshole, coulda just texted us that instead of waking us up." Heath grabbed the fleece blanket at the edge of the bed and wrapped it around himself, rolling over a few times to make himself into a blanket burrito.

Zane knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. He was energized, all of a sudden. The whole apartment, all to themselves. Complete privacy. For once.

Zane padded out to the kitchen and put on the coffee before heading to the bathroom. He showered quickly, avoiding the itching feeling he had to put a hand on his dick. Not yet.

It wasn't until he was dressed, swiping through the notifications on his phone waiting for his toast to be ready when he remembered that it was Valentine's Day.

It was why they had spent twelve hours filming yesterday, trying to get everyone's vlogs shot so they didn't have to work today. But Zane and Heath hadn't talked about after that time in Todd's kitchen, and it wasn't truly on his radar.

Except now, seeing everyone's cute posts, it sort of was. He wondered if Heath remembered.

He poured a cup of coffee for Heath, fixing it all up, before bringing it into his bedroom. Heath was snoring again, still wrapped up in his blanket.

Zane shook Heath's shoulder until the other man woke. Heath whined.

"Coffee," Zane offered, holding it under Heath's nose.

Heath reluctantly opened one eye, then the other, and set up, wrestling with the blanket to free his arms. He accepted the coffee and took a sip.

"Mmmm." That was about as articulate Zane expected him to be, so he turned to leave to go water the plants while Heath became a real person. But Heath grabbed on to his hand before he could go, tugging on it.

"Yes?"

Heath didn't respond, but after glancing out the open bedroom door into the very empty apartment, turned back to Zane and gave him what Zane had come to know as Heath's "I want you to kiss me" face. It strangely did not really involve his lips, but was all in his eyes.

Zane obliged, leaning down to place a soft kiss on Heath's lips. Zane knew better than to attempt to give Heath a proper kiss, as his morning breath was absolutely atrocious (even covered up by coffee) but it seemed to do the trick. Heath smiled and continued to sip.

*****

Two hours later Zane was sitting on the couch editing when Heath, freshly showered and dressed, joined him.

For a Saturday, it had already been productive as fuck. Zane had eaten breakfast, watered the plants, had clean clothes spinning in the dryer, and had made significant progress on editing Monday's vlog. So when Heath sat beside him and nuzzled into his neck, he didn't feel bad about shutting the computer, setting it aside, and pulling Heath into his arms.

Heath was considerably lighter since finally getting on board with Kam's healthy eating suggestions, and it was much easier to get him settled comfortably facing Zane, straddling Zane's lap, his arms wrapped around Zane's neck.

Now that Heath's breath smelled like Colgate and not ass, Zane kissed him with gusto. He ran his hands along Heath's flanks and back under his shirt, letting Heath explore his mouth with his tongue. Zane marveled at the emptiness of their apartment, how the only thing he could hear was the sound of their lips meeting and Heath's soft moans of pleasure.

For once, their kisses weren’t frantic. They were long and deep and left Zane totally breathless, and Heath’s lips swollen and bruised. He could take his time to suck on the spot below Heath’s ear (and Todd could be damned, because his neck kissed gave Heath way more than the heebie jeebies) his collarbone, his throat.

Heath leaned back, sliding his hands under Zane’s t-shirt and lifting it up past his pecs. He whined, tugging on it, and Zane followed orders, lifting his arms so Heath could pull the shirt over Zane’s head and fling it on the other side of the couch. Heath tugged off his own shirt and pressed his chest into Zane’s, kissing him and rubbing against him like a cat.

Zane had been amused to learn that Heath was obsessed with his body hair. The way he had found out, though, had been something out of a sitcom.

About a month ago, they had been fooling around in Heath’s bed, and Heath had rubbed against him, much like he was doing now. Zane had been too busy to do any sort of manscaping that month, so he had been approaching Tom Selleck levels of chest hair.

This was not really an issue, usually. Except a month ago, Heath had nipple rings. And nipple rings and long chest hair definitely do not mix.

It wasn’t until Zane had felt a sharp pain near his left nipple that he looked down. Heath tried to pull away, and Zane gasped as he felt the pain again. Heath flopped on top of Zane.

“I think...my nipple ring...is caught in your chest hair.”

“Christ,” Zane said. Then he laughed.

Heath couldn’t help but join, and soon they were a breathless and still giggling, semi-hard and still stuck together.

“Fuck, can we vlog this? This is quality content,” Zane choked out, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Not on your life.” Heath slid a hand between them, and after a few moments and one chest hair ripped out later, they were unstuck.

“Maybe it’s time for me to actually wax...like, everything, not just a strip or two for clickbait,” Zane mused, looking down at his torso.

“No,” Heath said quickly. So quickly that Zane raised an eyebrow, and Heath blushed.

Hmm. Zane filed this information away for future use.

“I mean, that would really hurt, right?” Heath tried, but his argument seemed sort of weak, especially considering that he had already started to play with Zane’s chest hair again.

“Not as much as getting one of our nipples ripped out,” Zane reasoned.

“I’ll just take the rings out. I’m getting tired of them anyway,” Heath offered, still unable to look Zane in the eye.

Zane considered this. While he liked to play with Heath’s rings, and Heath liked to have them play with, it seemed like the hair was the more valuable commodity.

Plus, it would hurt like hell to get waxed.

Now, a month later, with Heath pressed impossibly close, Zane appreciated Heath’s sacrifice even more.

Zane slid his hands down the back of Heath’s shorts and into his Hanes, grabbing two handfuls of ass. Zane could feel Heath’s cock jump at the touch, and his own hard cock was pleased to feel Heath’s hands at his fly, trying to undo his zipper.

Zane had a mind to pick Heath up and haul him to the bedroom…

...when his phone rang.

“Ignore it,” Heath breathed into his ear as he finally pulled out Zane’s dick from his pants, giving it a nice hard stroke.

“Nnghhh,” Zane responded articulately.

Heath was in full-on sex kitten mode now, slipping off Zane’s lap so he could kneel in front of him. Heath licked his lips before pulling Zane forward, settling in between his legs so he could get his mouth on Zane’s cock.

“Fuck,” Zane groaned. He looked down. The visual was extraordinary. Zane’s cock was an average length, but it was thick, and Heath’s lips stretched perfectly over it, taking it all, tasting it all, wrecking Zane with his tongue.

Zane again thought about moving this into the bedroom, but there was no way he was gonna interrupt this for one fucking second. It was too good. When did Heath get so good at sucking cock?

Thirty seconds later, his phone rang again.

“Come on,” Zane whined, frustrated.

Heath pulled off Zane’s cock with a pop. “Ignore it.”

“I can’t. It might be my mom. She usually won’t stop if it’s something important.”

Heath sighed and sat back on his haunches while Zane dug in his pocket to retrieve his phone.

“It’s David.”

Heath rolled his eyes. “Typical. Ignore it.”

Zane hesitated. “Baby, we don’t make enough money on our own to ignore a call from David Dobrik.”

Heath couldn’t argue with that. Zane answered the phone. “Yeah?”

Heath looked longingly at Zane’s cock. Well, he didn’t have to talk, right?

“I mean, yeah, I guess we can but I thought - oh fuck-” Zane gasped. Heath grinned around his cock.

“Oh, I just, stubbed my toe, walking around. You know how I am,” Zane said, laughing awkwardly. Zane gave Heath a “you fucking bitch” look, but Heath just shrugged.

“Yeah, yeah, um, we’ll be there. Sure. Gotta go. Bye.” Zane hung up and exhaled, tangling his fingers in Heath’s hair.

“You’re gonna kill me,” Zane groaned. Heath hummed, sending lovely vibrations through his dick. He shuddered.

Ten minutes later, and he was in nirvana. This was by far the best head he had ever gotten, and from a man who had only sucked a cock three times in his life.

He guessed this was just one of Heath’s many hidden talents.

Or he just really liked Heath. And Heath’s mouth. But mostly Heath.

“Gonna come,” he breathed, but Heath continued on as he was. His orgasm hit him like a ton of bricks, and he pumped into Heath’s mouth for what seemed like an eternity.

“Jesus fuck,” he sighed, collapsing back onto the sofa. Heath smiled smugly and wiped his mouth.

“So, what did David want?”

#zeath #zane and heath #ficlet

[tobns]

so even though i literally owe no one a single explanation, i wanted to take a second while i’m not doing much of anything and...ramble, i guess, about the last month or so. feel free to look at it under the cut, and even if you don’t read all of it, just peep at the first paragraph, it’s for you!

i guess i’ll preface this by saying TO ALL OF THE NEW PEOPLE WHO’VE FOLLOWED ME OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS: hi hello welcome to my blog i’m em and i love you, you are very special and worthy and amazing and i hope you enjoy my blog and the shit i post and know i consider you a friend and am here for you always if you ever wanna talk or need someone to vent to about literally anything from real world problems to fandom feels, i got you ♡

before i begin, if you read ANY part of this below pretty pretty please send asks in my inbox telling me what you think, alright??? ‘cause i do need opinions on some stuff below, so thank you thank you thank you in advance!!!

moving along!

so, number one: as you can probably tell, writing has been kinda slim to none around here lately, and i really don’t know what to tell y’all. i don’t have any kind of grand “oh i’ve been away!” excuse, my reasoning is pretty straightforward — my motivation has been low, i’ve been putting a little more time into exploring solo muses/characters, and as of the last week or so, completely had it with certain, toxic as hell fandoms. one of my really good friends makes youtube videos and she made a video this last week i resonated so much with, where she basically talked about how she was turning youtube into a chore and wasn’t having any fun with it. she was making layouts and trying to pep herself into actually Doing Shit and when the time came, she was completely disappointed with the quality or couldn’t bring herself to finish, and i was screaming “why is this my life??” the whole damn time because i absolutely could relate to it. watching that video made me realize that a) i was turning my fic writing/video editing into something like a chore, i was beating myself up when i didn’t do something on time and could never get it done when i forced myself to work on stuff and that’s so the wrong way to go about it, and b) i’m just not really passionate about what i’m writing now. i’m not. do i love cdg/grey’s? yes, i do, and i still have every intention to finish that story. but like i said, i realized earlier that this is not my job. no one other than myself is forcing me to crank out updates, and the reason i force myself to crank out these updates is because i’m scared that if i take time away from my stuff, when i come back to it, i’ve lost a readership. and it’s incredibly, incredibly hard finding a balance — i want an audience because what’s the point in sharing my shit if no one else is looking, but at the same time i also want to take my time with stories on days where i don’t feel motivated and want to be a little lazy and still maintain that readership, not have them jump ship. i and i’ve had it happen and it completely stripped my desire to even WRITE for a fandom away, and i love grey’s too much to ever want that to happen. but of course, lately all i feel inspired to write is slexie, which died out five years ago, so my readers are slim as is. see my dilemma? it’s a hard, hard thing for me to find a perfect balance with because i either work myself into the ground or neglect it entirely, but it all comes back to the root of this: i’ve come back to terms with the fact that this is not my job, i’m not answering to anyone other than me, i don’t have a paycheck on the line, i’m not under any other restrictions other than the ones i set for myself, and i’m just overall too hard on myself when it comes to something THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. it’s supposed to be FUN. FANDOM. IS. SUPPOSED. TO. BE. FUN.

and so that’s what i’m trying to do. have fun. write the stuff i want to write because i want to write it, not because i’m feeling obligated or pressuring myself to, but because i’m passionate about it and i want to write it. the saying’s true, if you’re passionate about what you’re putting your effort into, it shows, and i think that is certainly true for all of the fics that have seen any sort of remote success, save for a couple. when my heart’s in the right place, the reactions reflect, and even though that’s a very fucking blind process for me to trust, i’m gonna trust it. 

therefore, i have a fewwwwww little things i wanna let you know about if you do follow my creations

i’ll start with the short one: videos. 

i have not been inspired to make another fucking video because, once again, i keep comparing my shit to others and just not having fun, making it into a job and thinking more about the destination rather than the journey (a very big problem i have that i’m trying to work on). if i’m passionate about it, expect me to edit it. it may not be the greatest, most wonderful video on youtube you’ve EVER SEEN, but i just wanna edit stuff that makes me happy. expect videos for fics that i’ll touch on below, expect videos with more of my favorite musicians and shows and just less of the shit i don’t really want to edit. (this is me, repeating this phrase a lot in order for it to sink into my brain and register okay)

and...now for the not so short one (i’m trying to make this as spaced out, brief and organized as possible for your reading convenience if you’re still fucking reading this lmao): fics.

cdg is the only fic i am going to go forward with updating right now out of all the ones you see on my fic page (which i’m gonna update soon) i got a super sweet review a few days ago that really made me want to keep moving forward. when you’ll see an update? i can’t say. i’m gonna rework some of my outlines and then go from there, but it will be updated. have no fear. xx

i really don’t know if any of you remember/are interested, but ever since 2013, i’ve had an ongoing fic series (the only thing i’ve ever written a sequel for EVER) that’s a hunger games x avengers crossover. the first one is atrocious, honestly, second one is only slightly better, but i’m on the third sequel and lately, i’ve just been dying to do more with it, since i’m actually feeling good about the mcu again with spiderman and the new trailer releases? the fic’s called cataclysm, you can read the first chapter (from a year ago lmao) here if you’d like; to me, this was my fun way of combining super special fandoms for me together. basically, if you want a synopsis of what i did (back 4 years ago) was essentially write katniss into the mcu films. i wrote lights out four years ago and it is...cringe, there’s a good story there if you overlook my shitty deliverance, and i’ve always been pretty proud of the tone inferno took on, even if there’s some stuff i’d like to edit and whatnot. i’m going to try and continue on with cataclysm because it’s what i’m really pumped about right now, and i’ve got a few little things i’d love for y’all to help me with:

#1 — i obviously post this on ffnet, would you like me to also post cataclysm updates to ao3?

which leads into this — if i post to ao3, would you want me to import the other two stories into ao3 as well? fair warning: i’d probably give a solid day to tweaking and editing lights out and that’s it, i could take that fic apart and rewrite it to be much better but that’s simply not something i’m interested in nor do i want to spend my time on. like i said, i wrote it 4 years ago. it’s no longer my best, it’s kind of incredibly rough around the edges, and could i have done better with crafting the storylines and making things feel a little more natural? yeah, especially now that i’ve worked her into 3+ movie storylines and have had the practice. but that’s beside the point. you’d have to essentially take it as it is and i’d probably disable comments on the first two for my own sake of mind — ao3 gives me a lot of stress and it’s why i don’t like updating on there (oh look, more confessionals!) because i feel an immense load of pressure to impress and write up to a certain bar instead of writing true to my voice. 

please don’t expect any sg fics out of me for awhile. i haven’t talked much about this since the implosion of the fandom, but i’m just not comfortable right now touching any of it with a ten foot pole. like i said, it’s not fun for me, i don’t wanna write it and i’m not about to force myself and be miserable. 

depending on where i get, i have plenty of slexie/japril fic ideas that i’d love to put into use, and we’ll see how things go!

so yeah, basically, what you should take away from this is that i’m putting a fucking finish on stressing myself out so much; i’m going to go back to focusing more on the process instead of the result, and i’m just gonna have fun with shit. i look back on my posts 5 years ago when i was writing thg fanfics and god, while i was a mess, i could tell how much fun i was having in the process and i just wanna get back to that? and that’s what i’m gonna do

i love you guys, i love creating stuff and sharing it with you guys, and i love this blog. xxxx

#update #fanfiction #the hunger games #avengers #grey's anatomy #seriously if you read anything past the little message at the beginning i hope you know i fucking appreciate you xo

[kalematsuba]

Kale’s gonna take a sec to recommend to you guys his favorite Youtube series

If you guys are like me and are nostalgic for the 80s/90s anime of your childhood/teenhood - that you saw on TV and/or rented from the video store without your parents knowing what it was - and remember just how hilariously bad some of the dubs and plots were, you need to do yourself a favor and watch BennettTheSage’s series Anime Abandon on youtube

I actually can’t think of a youtube series that has made me laugh more than this one, and harder - like, Bennett has a true, genuine appreciation for older anime, but really knows how to completely take the piss out of it. He always reviews the dub versions because his big shtick is making fun of how badly north american licensing/dubbing companies butchered them. Whether he be making fun of how ridiculous the direction of the anime itself is, or the ridiculous tropes/fanservice, or how terribly adapted/translated it was for a western audience, his jokes are just. so well written and timed and have sometimes left me in tears. There are also times where he talks endearingly about stuff he really likes, too - but even those are not without their fair criticisms.  A lot of his commentary and actual criticisms of the anime themselves have really gone a long way in teaching me what to do and what not to do for my own series, 1989nk.

I will warn though that he does make the occasional csa/rape callout/joke because of the tropes in some of the anime he covers (though its always very clear that he’s AGAINST it, not making light of it, i promise) and he can sometimes be a little uninformed on other political/social issues (like lgbt stuff - for example using outdated terms for things), but he’s never blatantly offensive for laughs. He’s pretty conscientious, or tries to be (Which is why I like him and actually find him funny, tbh)  I believe he also usually gives warnings about potentially triggering content at the beginning of his videos, as some of the anime he covers are just outright offensive for the sake of being offensive. (The Mad Bull 34 episodes are fucking hysterically funny, but god is that anime fucking atrociously offensive and awful and trust me, Bennett thinks so too)

 His series is actually what brought back my love for retro anime in full force, so I really wanted to share it with you guys. The fact that he shares and jokes about both the good and the bad is so weirdly educational - not to mention he often prefaces his episodes with like, trivia and actual knowledge about the anime themselves, the artists, the directors, etc. The fact that he definitely loves and knows what he’s talking about and is not just making fun of anime because “lul anime sux” is DEFINITELY a big draw. 

My recommendation is to start from his newer episodes and work your way backward. A couple of my favorite episodes are the Video Girl Ai episode and the Venus Wars episode. 

Please give them a watch when you have the time! Bennett produces such quality content and his channel isn’t like. SUPER popular or anything, so I wanted to give him a promo.

#bennett the sage #anime abandon #youtube #kale's nerd chronicles #csa mention// #rape mention//

[infotainmentplus-blog]

Honor 7S review: Your grandma deserves better With the Honor 10, Honor created a smartphone that challenged a lot of flagships at a very affordable mid-range price tag. The OEM has proven itself to be a master of efficiency in engineering and highly competitive in lower price categories. This is Honor’s cheapest phone yet. So, what happens when that same company takes on the budget market? What can we expect for a measly 99 pounds (~$129)? Let’s find out in this Honor 7S review. Let’s just say it’s best not to get your hopes up. Don't get your hopes up Design and features: Plain Jane Let’s start with the design. You should expect a number of concessions in a phone costing 99 pounds, and this one’s got plenty. This is a very plastic phone with a generic design. It’s also quite thick, which may not be an issue depending on your preferences – but it further betrays the phone’s budget nature. It’s not necessarily ugly, though. In fact it actually looks fairly solid — I really like the rounded edges. It’s not even close to premium, but it’s certainly acceptable. The screen is 5.45 inches, with a 1,440 x 720 resolution. A sub-1080p screen is pretty rare these days, even at this price. That said, the 18:9 aspect ratio and 73 percent screen-to-body ratio make it feel at least somewhat modern. From purely a design standpoint, this is a well-made budget device with sensible cost cutting compromises. Unfortunately, the average design is one of the device’s best aspects. Features: None to speak of Another moderately good aspect of the 7s is its 3,020mAh battery. It isn’t absurdly big, but does very well with the chipset and the low-res screen. I’ve gotten 8 hours of screen-on time with basic usage, which is pretty darn good. Taxing the CPU and connectivity will drain it a lot faster. You’re really looking at just over a day when it comes to more intensive use. There’s no fingerprint scanner here, which is a bit of a blow. There’s no face detection either, so you really are left with only the basic PIN or password for your security. Hello, old friend The 7s uses Micro-USB. Nicer features like water resistance, NFC, and wireless charging are missing — all perfectly fair and to be expected (even if the AWOL fingerprint scanner stings a bit). What strikes me as a really cheap move on the other hand is the complete lack of a speaker grill. The 7S instead uses the phone speaker for media and notifications, which creates a lot of distortion at higher volumes. It’s useful if you want to kick a YouTube habit, but otherwise actually quite unpleasant. Coupled with the 720p screen, this really isn’t a good option for media consumption. I’ve used plenty of cheap devices but none completely lacking a speaker grill! It’s only got 16GB of storage, which meant I actually had to pick and choose which apps I wanted to transfer from my previous device. This really isn’t a good option for media consumption However, there is expandable storage up to 256GB, so you’ll at least be able to store a lot of data there. Still, 16GB is very limiting, especially considering the apps that need to be installed on internal storage. There’s dual SIM, which I know will please a lot of people. Performance: Low specs meets bloated OS I’m just going to come out with it: the Honor 7S is not an impressive phone — even taking into account the low price. The Honor 7S packs a low-end Mediatek MT6739 processor, and a minimal 2GB of RAM. That’s certainly not an impressive showing on paper, but the actual real-world performance somehow manages to fall short of even the most modest expectations. Response time, load times, browsing, and smoothness all take a serious hit. Often, you’ll hit a key and wait a fraction of a second for it to respond. You’ll spend a fair amount of time looking at splash screens while apps load, or wondering if the phone’s crashed. It’s not uncommon to find basic animations freezing mid-way through. Pretty much any time the Swiftkey keyboard pops up (the pre-installed default), you’ll get a brief blank space underneath your current app. I’ve actually become bored waiting for my photos to open up. Even trying to use the wallpaper app for photos was a chore. Technically it supports split screen multitasking, but I wouldn’t bother. While most other lower end devices can handle most games just fine, the Honor 7S is not the device for you if you plan on playing 3D titles with decent performance. Even a favorite 2D title of mine — Run Gun, Jump Gun — runs in slow-mo as though everything is taking place under water. PUBG doesn’t work due to a glitch. There’s no gyroscope sensor either, so 360-degree content is off limits and VR is definitely a no go. It probably wouldn’t have the horsepower to run it anyway. It really isn’t any fun to use The performance should be better than this, even given the hardware. I suspect the issue may have something to do with the Color OS UI layer, the amount of bloat (especially egregious given the small amount of space), and a lack of optimization. The Honor 10 made up for software bloat with its Kirin 970, and some potential AI RAM management. The Honor 7S is an experiment in combining poor software optimization with sub-par hardware, and it really isn’t any fun to use. The default Huawei launcher is not pretty, but at least you can change it Phones aren’t just luxuries anymore — they’re essential tools for most of us. When you can’t rely on your device to open up the camera, maps, or even contacts quickly, you have a problem. It at least works well as a phone. Call quality was good and the phone allows turning the volume on the earpiece up extra loud to drown out background noise. It’s a nice touch, though clearly only included to sidestep the need for a speaker. Camera: Meh Believe it or not, I take no pleasure in writing a negative reviews (well, maybe just a little bit). I was really hoping the camera might be this phone’s saving grace. Honor has a habit of sticking feature-packed cameras into even its cheaper models. That’s not the case here. All the Honor 7x’s fun options have been stripped out of the app, including the pro mode and light painting. You get a few fun filters, but it’s otherwise a basic, stripped-down affair. As a result, the camera gets very little support. The good news is that the rear shooter here is 13MP, which is respectable. The selfie camera is also not bad at 5MP — it even comes with an LED light. Unfortunately, photos are dark, lack detail, and often come out blurry due to the lack of stabilization. White balance is all over the place, and a lot of shots just don’t work because of that. Low light performance is also poor, and the aperture is fairly narrow at f/2.2, limiting the depth of field effects that you can achieve. It’s not atrocious — I have seen worse. If you take a lot of photos, you’ll probably want to bring your camera along too. You won’t be hanging these on your wall. Video is available at 1080p, but seeing as there’s no gyroscope, you shouldn’t be surprised to find that there’s no stabilization here either resulting in some pretty shaky footage. Bottom line: There’s better out there I usually aim to use a phone for at least a week before writing a review , so I can give it a fair chance and catch any kinks not immediately apparent. To be completely honest, I gave up after a few days with the Honor 7S — it was simply too frustrating to use. There were already enough “kinks” for me to make up my mind. This might all seem a little unfair. Maybe it comes across as a rant (my apologies). I am perfectly aware that you shouldn’t expect the world for 99 pounds. However, other devices out offer far more impressive specs, features, and performance that cost a similar amount. Take the OPPO Realme 1 that I reviewed recently. The base model costs $110 and it comes with a better screen, more RAM, face detection, a glass back, faster processor, bigger battery, and (gasp!) speaker grill. For 50 pounds (~$65) more, you could get something like the Moto G6 Play or a host of other much more compelling devices. I could live with the design and the lack of high-end features. Even the low resolution would be fine; the sluggishness is just too much. The sound quality is also actively unpleasant. To conclude this Honor 7S review, I just can’t recommend this device. So that’s it for our Honor 7S review. If it weren’t for the poor performance, I could suggest this as a gift for your Grandma or someone else who doesn’t need any high-end features. As it is, I wouldn’t wish this on your Grandma. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2A2Zn4d

[theindycarblog-blog]

A Rant: IndyCar on ABC

Thank God ABC’s portion of the IndyCar season is over for the rest of the season and the television coverage now moves to NBCSN. ABC’s coverage of IndyCar is just atrocious. It is a literal joke and often infuriates the diehard fans. There are several key factors as to why ABC’s IndyCar coverage is so awful, and here’s my thoughts on what makes ABC’s coverage so bad.

1: Too many commercials. I took count of the commercial breaks that occurred during yesterdays Race #2 from Detroit (without the ones during the red flag period, more on that in a minute,) and here’s what the breakdown of commercials looked like: (SBS means that that set of commercials were shown “side-by-side” with the race coverage taking a small part of the screen.)

Lap 5 (SBS), 13, 18 (SBS), 25 (SBS), 30, 36 (SBS), 42 (SBS), 50, 54 (SBS) and 58 (SBS). So, not counting the red flag period, that’s ten commercial periods across a 70 lap race. That’s an average of a commercial every 7 laps, and most commercials lasted about two laps, so that means we get to see about 5 laps of racing before we get assaulted with more commercials. I know that, especially in this time in history, money rules the world and commercials help keep the broadcast going, but holy hell. That was absurd, and it’s ALWAYS like that. It’s so hard to keep up with a race when we go to commercial every 5 laps. And another thing: during that red flag period, there were three commercial breaks, which is totally understandable since there was absolutely nothing going on. BUT, two of those commercial breaks were the “side-by-side” commercial breaks which meant that half of our TV screen showed commercials while the other half showed the cars stopped in the pit lane. Why the hell can’t we get SBS commercials DURING the race instead of during a red flag or a caution period? It happens frequently where we are under caution and ABC decides to take a commercial break and go “side-by-side.” What sense does that make? That just means that we have to deal with a full-on commercial break during green flag running. It’s just absurd to me that we barely get to enjoy our race because ABC feels the need to promote their new stupid shows every 10-minutes. (Also, does Steve Harvey REALLY need another show?)

2: The people behind the scenes, who choose what pictures the fans see, miss A LOT of action. Next season, when ABC comes back, I challenge anyone at home to pay attention to the ticker at the top of the screen that shows the positions of the drivers. You will notice that positions change under green flag conditions without a pitstop occurring, and ABC will never show a replay of that pass. I fully understand that it’s impossible to catch every single pass live as it happens, but the least they could do is show us a replay. Apparently at the end of yesterdays 2nd Detroit race, Conor Daly got shoved out of the groove and fell from 10th down to 12th. The fans at home never even had a clue that that event occurred. The only reason I found out about it was because Conor tweeted about it after the race. I shouldn’t be discovering things like that after the race on twitter. Where’s the replay? And this isn’t an isolated incident. For example, a lot of people thought that this years race at St. Pete was a little boring, but I disagree. I was paying close attention to the ticker at the top of the screen and I saw a lot of position changes that we never got to see a replay of. So ABC may have showed us a boring race, but a boring race is not what occurred in St. Pete this past March. What a shame that the product is right there before their eyes, but they fail to present that product to the fans at home.

3: The Broadcast Booth: This is usually the main talking point with fans about ABC’s coverage. Here’s my opinion, Allen Bestwick is a really good broadcaster when he’s with the right people. We’ve seen this when he was the lead broadcaster for NASCAR on NBC with Wally Dallenbach Jr. and Benny Parsons. He’s enthusiastic and understands auto racing, he does a great job presenting the product to the fans. The problem with ABC, in my eyes, lies with one of the driver-analysts. I may not have the popular opinion on this, but Scott Goodyear is not the problem. Is he a little boring to listen to? Yes, he is. However, when Allen asks Scott a question, Scott gives a very educated and insightful response. When I listen to Scott Goodyear, I feel like I’ve learned something. And that’s all you could ever want from a driver analyst. I’ve really grown to respect Goodyear because of his work in the booth over the years. The problem with ABC’s booth is solely on Eddie Cheever. I don’t even know where to begin with this guy. First of all, he’s extremely arrogant. Just because he won the Indy 500, (during the IRL-era without a major team/major talent to compete against, just saying,) he thinks that his opinion and his feedback is way more important than anyone else’s thoughts. Plus, it’s really annoying when I’m watching the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and every five seconds, I hear Eddie Cheever talk about how when so-and-so leads the race, it’s helping them for when they come to Indianapolis for the 500. WHAT?! How the HELL does leading a race at St. Pete give them an advantage for the Indy 500? It doesn’t! And I don’t care what Eddie says, when the St. Pete race is going on, I guarantee you that Rossi isn’t talking to his engineer about what their fuel strategy is going to be during the Indy 500. These drivers and teams are always focusing on the task at hand, and when they’re at a street circuit, they are definitely not strategizing/planning for Indianapolis. MAYBE some of what the teams do at St. Pete can help them for the Indy road course, but not the oval. He’s so caught up in his own little world that he refuses to acknowledge what’s clearly shown on the TV screen. For example, at the Indianapolis 500 this year, we had just gone to the red flag because there needed to be repair work done to the catch fence from Scott Dixon’s horrifying wreck. And Eddie Cheever tries to claim that Dixon didn’t hit the fence, he just bounced off the top of the SAFER barrier. Even Allen Bestwick had to inform Eddie that of course he hit the fence, because why else would there be a huge hole in the fence? I’m paraphrasing, but go on YouTube and, sadly, you can find that conversation. I wish I was kidding, I really wish I was. When Cheever talks, I feel less intelligent. I’m surprised that Allen Bestwick can still speak in complete sentences after dealing with Eddie for the past four seasons. The guy needs to take his pompous attitude and retire so he can go sit on his front porch, and he can complain about how when Graham Rahal laps RHR with 10 laps to go, that means that, “the race is over.” 

At least the pit reporters, for the most part, are very good. Jon Beekhuis should be in the booth to replace Cheever. I’ve learned a lot from Jon, he does an outstanding job bringing the product to the fans. Dr. Jerry Punch is very good, but unfortunately it looks like ESPN let him go, which is very sad. He was’t amazing as a lead broadcaster, but he was a very good pit reporter. It’s sad to see him be let go like that. I never really liked Rick DeBruhl, but I don’t think he should be fired. I never felt like I learned anything from him, but that’s just my opinion on him. 

When you review this article, you can see that ABC’s coverage really is just a mess. I understand, no coverage is perfect. Sometimes NBCSN can have frequent commercials as well, but at least the quality of their product, in my opinion, makes up for that. It seems like they never miss any excitement. They’ll show battles towards the midfield that ABC ignores and we always see replays of passes that were missed live. Leigh Diffey always finds exciting battles going on in the pack, Townsend Bell always gives great and interesting feedback, and ditto for Paul Tracy. Listening to Paul and Townsend debate strategies and on track battles is always entertaining. Even their back-up crew for when one of those three is out is pretty solid. I’m not the biggest fan of Rick Allen, but he does a good job. David Hobbs is great, Steve Matchett is even better. Also, I really like those rare times when we get to see Brian Till call the race, same with Kevin Lee. Then Jon Beekhuis also does pit reporter work for them, and Robin Miller is in the pits, too. NBCSN’s broadcast crew is absolutely stacked! Even their backups are people I would love to listen to on a weekly basis. Hopefully, ABC watches NBCSN’s coverage for the rest of the season and learns a thing or two (very doubtful though.) 

#indycar #indy 500 #st petersburg #long beach #grand prix #abc #nbcsn #motorsport #auto racing