#which makes the fact that i take the time to make these transcripts funnier i think. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pinof · 4 years

Text

Under the cut is the full transcript for The British Get Talking Podcast episode on October 8, 2020 with Dan!

[Interviewer:] Hello everyone! I'm Kylie Pentelow and here we are again. This is the second series of the "Britain Get Talking" podcast from ITV where I talk to some amazing people who open up about the mental well being. Today, Dan Howell is a YouTube star. He rose to fame through his comedy videos that have had more than a billion views. More recently, he's opened up on his YouTube channel about depression and his video "Basically I'm Gay" has had eleven million views. Dan is now writing a book about mental health and is an ambassador for YoungMinds. Dan is obviously funny, but he's also clever and sensitive. To me, it seems he's using his huge profile among young people to really make a difference. I loved talking to Dan and I hope you like listening to this podcast too. Dan, thanks so much for speaking to me today! How are you?

[Dan:] I am a big fan of saying "I'm fine." And that is the absolute worst, most British answer to that question that anyone can give. And it's what people say all the time. And, you know, for me, it's definitely- It's something that instantly says way too much. *laughs* Doesn't it? I mean, you can write a whole essay about "I'm fine" as an answer. "Oh, I don't want to inconvenience you. Oh, I don't want to bore you by talking about whatever I'm going through." And that's very me. I accept that one of my flaws is I don't want to put something on the other person. I don't want to start a whole thing that might bore them. I don't want to sound like I'm moaning, so I'll just go, "I'm fine!" And usually the tone in which I say "I'm fine" immediately betrays the fact that I'm- You know, might be clearly very stressed about something. *laughs*

[Interviewer:] Do you think your kind of friends would pick up or people you know would say, "Oh wait, you sure?" or would they delve deeper?

[Dan:] Everybody I know! They just look at me like, "Okay, Dan." *laughs* Cool, okay. So in ten minutes, we'll be talking about how you actually feel. We just need to get through the kind of ice breaking- Cause, you know, I'm that introvert and I'm quite socially awkward so it takes a while to melt the ice to get through to whatever's there.

[Interviewer:] You're hugely successful! You rose to fame with your YouTube videos. They are very funny!

[Dan:] Mhm. *laughs* Thank you!

[Interviewer:] But you have a few small serious ones in there recently. And you've spoken very openly about your depression. What prompted you to do it in the first place?

[Dan:] Yeah, so that was quite a journey. In case anyone doesn't know- Uh, hi, my name is Daniel Howell. *laughs* And as you say, I was mainly known for being somebody who uploaded comedy videos to YouTube. Which I think, Kylie, is something you and I have in common! I'm aware that you have some toes in the YouTube space.

[Interviewer:] Yeah! Oh my goodness. Back in the day, yeah.

[Dan:] Look at us! We got one toe in traditional media and the other in the Internet.

[Interviewer:] I love this. *laughs*

[Dan:] So yeah, these videos- They were something that I started when I was a teenager and they were just kind of comedy videos about everyday things. So I had like rants about how annoying people are at the airport or what it's like going on public transport. And then I'd, you know, move onto talking about things that people were arguing about in TV shows. It was all very funny. It was all very relatable. And as time went on, I started to be a bit more personal with the stories I was telling. I was saying, "You know what? I'm actually going to tell you today about the time I got fired." It was an awful time in my life but usually the things that are really awful are very funny to laugh at. And people liked that because I was sharing something personal. It was intimate. It made it even funnier because it was real and it was awful. You know, comedy is just tragedy and someone saying you're allowed to laugh at it. And it was in 2017- I'd gone through a few years where I really started to think about my own mental health seriously for the first time. Because I had quite an upsetting childhood, as someone who grew up gay. And I had a lot of issues with depression and various things and really had just never thought about it in my life until any point. And it was only when I was in my mid-twenties that for the very first time, I stepped back and I was like, "You know what? I'm feeling like this and this is something. It's not right and I should do something about it. I came to terms with the fact that I really had been struggling with depression for a very long time. And this is something that's obviously- It's quite hard to firstly accept on a personal level and then to tell anyone about: your friends and family. And for me, I was in this strange place because I had this career as this comedian who was known for sharing these things from my life and being very open and having this great relationship with my audience. And yet, it felt like there was this huge, kind of big secret dark cloud in my life that people didn't know about. And it was especially strange for someone who performs on stage and you know, who did jobs like the one I did on Radio One. And it felt like all the time, I was acting very funny. I was acting very happy and really there was this whole other side to me. And I just decided that for several reasons really, I had to get it out there just so people would know this fundamental thing about me so they'd understand a bit more about my story. But also that I felt, even in 2017, there was so much misconception around discussing mental health and what depression is. And so many people out there that felt like they needed to have this conversation held in a public place. So it was absolutely terrifying for me. But I decided to make one of my typical, you know, comedy videos where I tell stories and I talk about my opinions. Except I opened up about my depression and it was an absolutely huge moment in my life. And I remember being terrified when I hit that upload button. And the response I got was just so much more positive and powerful than I could've ever imagined. Not only because people were saying, "This is so much more compelling because it's real and you're being honest. But so many people had never really had depression explained to them? They were like, "I have loved ones that go through this. I have friends and I've seen it and now I understand it more." And so many other people said, "This is me. I was sat watching this." So people were saying, "I've been struggling with this for years and I didn't know how to talk about it to my family." Other people were saying, "I didn't even know this was me. Now I'm seeing it for the first time." And that really- You know, it was a moment that changed my life in my career for sure.

[Interviewer:] The thing I think you do really well in it is explain the difference between feeling sad and feeling depressed. Can you just explain that?

[Dan:] Well, we all feel sad many times. You know, we can watch a Disney movie and feel sad. *laughs* If something sad happens. But depression is when you notice for a long time that things aren't right. If you're not enjoying the things you should be enjoying. If you're having a real struggle just maintaining the basic things you should be doing: getting out of bed, feeding yourself, opening the curtains. If you feel like you've sunken into a hole. If you're not enjoying the things that you're doing. If you just don't have the energy- You don't want to socialize anymore. Then it's not just that you're feeling sad because an event. It may be that you are depressed and this isn't something that may just blow over. It's something that you need to really acknowledge and then do something to fix.

[Interviewer:] You also talk about how it affects things like your diet as well. Like that was quite a surprise to me. Sometimes you might feel like you might not want to eat at all. Sometimes you eat to try to make yourself feel better.

[Dan:] Absolutely. Yeah, some people when they feel depressed, they just can't eat because you know- I mean, cooking's an effort. I'm one of those people that hates cooking. I mean, I love eating. I hate cooking. So yeah. *laughs*

[Interviewer:] I'm with you.

[Dan:] And this was me sometimes. I would just go, "I don't want to cook." And then I would lay in bed all day and I wouldn't eat. And then another day, I would be feeling, you know, so self indulgent, I'd be like, "I'm going to order just the most decadent, gross amount of pizza no human should be able to consume in one sitting." And then do that just to fill the hole inside my soul with carbohydrates. And that may make you feel good for about ten minutes and then when you're digesting it all the next day, you realize that it's actually just another kind of self destructive behavior.

[Interviewer:] You also talk about medication as well, which I think was really brave. Cause even though lots of people might talk about feeling depressed, they don't share that they're talking any medication for it. In fact, the other day, my close friend shared with me that she was taking antidepressants. And I've known her for a decade and she's never told me that. Actually, it was because she's been listening to this podcast, which is great that she felt that she could share that. But do you think that is important to get the whole kind of picture out there?

[Dan:] I think there's a big stigma around taking medication, which is strange as an absolutely huge amount of the population are taking medication for all kinds of things. And antidepressants are very common. And of course we're saying this knowing that anyone listening- You should always consult a professional. Go to your doctor. Speak to them. For some people, medication works. For some people, it doesn't. It's one of many options but it's definitely something that- It can have big effects on how you behave. On how you need to live day to day. And you shouldn't be afraid of telling people that. It doesn't mean that you're broken. *laughs* It means that you're taking a step to try and get help and be better. And it's brave to share that, so I would encourage anyone that feels bad about the fact that they take medication to try to be more casually open about it. Which I appreciate can be really difficult because it just has this knock on effect of making everyone less ashamed.

[Interviewer:] What was that, kind of, first step like for you? Was it speaking to your family? Or was it going to the doctor when you sought professional help?

[Dan:] Well, the first time I sought professional help I think was when I was at University. I was going through a really hard- Kind of quarter life crisis time where I was thinking, "Oh, what am I doing with my life? Why am I enjoying what I'm doing?" And I just realized that I wasn't functioning on a day to day level. *laughs* And I spoke to one of the counselors at University and this was a positive experience. You know, sometimes if people talk about their mental health at their work place or their University, you hear these horror stories. I had one of those good examples where there was this lovely lady and she said, "It sounds like you have depression and if you need to take some time out of school to do that, then that's the right thing to do." And then I went to the doctor and then you know, we spoke and he said, "Yes, it sounds like this." And that was the first time I acknowledged it. And the first time for the few years, I kind of acknowledged it but I didn't actively work on it that much. And as I said, it was a few years later, when I was in my mid-twenties, when I was like, "No. If this is my normal, this isn't right. And it's something I need to make an effort to pull myself out of."

[Interviewer:] You are writing a book at the moment about this, aren't you? I wonder how that's been because sometimes, it's great, isn't it? To talk about stuff and other times, you actually just wanna be a bit quiet and deal with things, you know, in your own way. But I wonder whether a book has kind of open more things up for you.

[Dan:] Yeah, I mean, you know- Talk about coming out of the closet. Which is something I also literally did. *laughs*

[Interviewer:] We'll talk about that in a sec. *laughs*

[Dan:] Yeah, so the book is called "You Will Get Through This Night" and it is coming out in May next year. So it's only around preorder now, but people can find it on Amazon if they're interested. And it's quite wild for someone like me to write it. The book is a hand book. It's a tool for people to understand their mental health and to make changes to their improve their lives. And the idea behind it is that we are all kind of in this state where as humans in our modern society, there's various things that we feel ashamed to talk about. There's a stigma approaching various things. If we do certain things, we're viewed as weak. We don't want to admit certain things to ourselves and this is about breaking down all of those things and going, "Actually, all of these behaviors that so many of us do day to day are self destructive. These attitudes we have towards these certain things are totally wrong. We need to change the way we think about these things. We need to forgive ourselves slightly more. We need to be more patient." And also just understanding how all the things you do on a day to day basis affect your mental health. Sleep, exercise, socializing. Every single time you have a thought, you need to check that thought and go, "Am I being completely unreasonable and putting myself in a position where I'm going to have a crazy amount of stress or if I'm going to make myself really anxious." And the hope is that with this book, a lot of people will realize, "Oh my god, I do all of these things day to day and I had no idea what profound effect all of these things had on my life." I'm spicing it up slightly by obviously sharing my personal journey- *laughs* With all of these things and as you say- That is quite, uh, a strange experience for me because I- It's obviously been extremely helpful. I mean, it's been blowing my mind just writing this book. The whole thing done in consultation with a qualified psychologist, so obviously I know what I'm talking about when I'm giving this advice. And when I was reading all of the theory for me to turn into this book, I was just sat there myself- *laughs* As I would hope people would be when they read it thinking, "Oh my god, I'm awful! I need to give myself a break. We do all of these things all the time? And I'm making myself feel like this for no reason? That's crazy!" And came to saying, "Right, on this topic, I'm going to share with you what my journey has been dealing with this. Here's my stories about it. It's been simultaneously quite cathartic and to be honest, quite difficult revisiting a lot of these things. Especially if you go through things when you're younger or if you feel that there's certain things that you've moved past from. Then it can be quite upsetting to revisit these things and whilst initially, it was quite a jump to get into that, it definitely makes you realize that confronting things with a clear head, with the best of intentions and some honesty looking at yourself- It really makes you feel a lot better on the other side.

[Interviewer:] How do you cope with doing what you do because the industry you've chosen to work in- Not only like putting yourself out there on YouTube, but also saying, "I'm funny. Look at me, I'm going to make you laugh." You know, that must put a lot of pressure on you. But also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing it can sometimes it can be a bit solitary as well? How do you deal with all of that going on?

[Dan:] Oh god, yeah. I picked as a complete introvert with crippling social anxiety and mild agoraphobia- I picked the absolute worst career possible. *laughs*

[Interviewer:] Yeah!

[Dan:] But maybe, that's why the material is so honest. *laughs* You know? That's why I have so much to work with. I think that, you know, there is an element of being forced to confront your demons that probably helps accelerate my internal growth process. And especially from the comedy perspective, there is a fine line between saying, "I'm going to open myself up for people to laugh at my stories and kind of appreciating that I need to save a bit vulnerability." And it- You know, it was crazy. I made a video called "Trying To Live My Truth" about the concept of authenticity and how in life, if generally, if we aren't being authentic- And this isn't just doing a career that we love. It may be being honest in the relationships that we have day to day in really being true to ourselves about what we want to be doing, where we want to be. If you kind of lie to yourself and go, "Oh, I'm just going to do this for a bit to do here. I'm only having a relationship with these people for now." Eventually, it'll get to you and it will wear you down. That was a really hard thing for me to talk about because I was saying, "There's so many aspects of my life where right now, I feel like I'm not being authentic and I'm realizing it's really taking a toll of me. So some people may have to appreciate that I'm going to have to tell them things and I may not be the person that they thought I was but this is something that I have to do if I need to be happier."

[Interviewer:] We talked earlier about how, you know, you've done some more serious videos. But actually, even your video about depression is really funny. And obviously it's really great to be talking about mental health but we need to not be too worthy about it, don't we? And just- I was watching that video feeling really connected to what you were saying and then a second later, I was laughing out loud and actually, it reminded me a bit of "After Life"- Ricky Gervais' show. I don't know if you watch that but.

[Dan:] *laughs* Yeah, definitely.

[Interviewer:] It's that very fine line that- You know, in one of his scenes, I remember when he was talking to his dad that I was crying and then literally the next second, I was laughing out loud. And I just felt- That's such a positive thing that you do and is that a real conscious thing that you do?

[Dan:] I mean, my default is to always kind of break the tension by making people laugh. And there's a side to that like, "Okay, we can laugh about it but eventually we're going to have to be a bit serious." So you need a bit of both but I think especially when talking about these difficult topics, just making it funny- It breaks that ice. And often by pointing out the silly things that happen as a result of these things, you know, I've been making fun of the fact that I'm depressed all day and my friend's just like pouring popcorn all over my head. Like, "Come on! Enjoy the things that you used to enjoy." It's like okay, that's really silly. That's really goofy. And it's like- But it kind of is silly, you know? And then me kind of taking a step back and realizing, "Yeah, me lounging around in bed all day. Yeah me being afraid to go outside for this reason or that." There are little things that are relatable. They're just a bit silly. And when you can laugh at that- I mean, just laughing or smiling once. We can talk about the health of people with depression. Sometimes putting on a bit of comedy and watching something can really save the day. So I think that there's a real benefit to even the most difficult topics, finding something to make people laugh. It makes it easier.

[Interviewer:] Let's talk about your video that's- I don't know how many millions of views it's got. "Basically I'm Gay." Tell me about that video and why that was important to make.

[Dan:] So that was essentially a coming out video. I mean, I would say it was the biggest moment of my life in a lot of ways. Because I've had a real struggle with sexuality my entire life. I think I've known, on some level, that I was some kind of gay since I was a small child. And I had an incredibly difficult time in school with bullying. I had difficult relationships with some of my family members and it was honestly- It was quite traumatic and I never really realized it because I got used to that state of just accepting that this is the way things are and getting on with it to survive. Kind of very extreme version of the British stiff upper lip to get -on with it. And it was only really when I reached kind of 27/28 when I was like, "Oh my god. No, this is awful! *laughs* I've got so much baggage. I've got a heathrow carousel in my cupboard over here." It was terrible. And I ran away from this entire subject of sexuality because it was just difficult. And there was so much wrapped up in it. And for any courage that it took me for me to talk about mental health or even just, you know, terrible things that happened to me that may be embarrassing when I'm on stage in a little routine or something. For me to not just talk publicly about my sexuality and everything that went into it but just to accept it myself was a huge journey. And you know, it's called internalized homophobia and it's basically from growing up in such a homophobic environment. I was brainwashed, really, to kind of hate myself and not accept the fact of who I was. And this was such a huge part of my mental health- My entire life. To the point where I only acknowledge it truly a few months before I made that video. I think when I was talking about that authenticity thing, I was just like, "I'm a sham." I was on a world tour with my friend. We did a stage show and went to eighteen countries. Think we met about fifty thousand people at these little meet and greets before the shows. And so many people would come up to me and they would be so honest. Some people would cry and they'd just say, "You opening up about depression gave me the strength to turn my life around." Or, "You talking about athenticity made me quit my job." There were other people that said, "I want to come out to my parents just because you talked about being authentic and about your mental health and these things." And I felt like a complete fraud because here I was- I was supposed to be this guy who made the funny videos but at the same time, I was talking about these topics and I was being open about myself. And I was just like, "The hugest thing is still completely hidden and it's something that I know I'm hiding from myself." And I just felt like I couldn't do it anymore. So I uploaded this video saying, "I really just need to think about how I can be more authentic because I felt like I've hit this road block in my life where I just can't continue. I've done it for too long. I've put it off and I just feel like in every aspect of my life, I've hit that wall. And until I break through it, I just can't do anything." And I basically disappeared from the Internet for about a year. And in that year, it was a complete journey where I said, I needed to acknowledge it for myself. I realized if I ever wanted to talk about this publicly, there's so many things I need to do. I need to come out to my family. I need to tell friends. I need to think about how it's going to affect my work life and I really just went on this complete crash course of a life wrecking in the start of 2019. *laughs* And it was a huge journey. As I said, I'm this huge socially awkward person so the idea of coming out to my family. Oh, I just couldn't do it. It was just awful. I remember it was Boxing Day 2018 and all my family were just sat watching "Chicken Run" or something. And I was like, "I'm gonna do it. I have to do it at some point, you know? I have to tell the family." And it's this awful thing coming out- It's like nobody wants it to be a big deal. *laughs* It's just because that we live in this world where people are presumed to be straight, it's not like gay people want to cause a big scene by coming out. They have to. Because no matter what, when you tell somebody, it's going to be a big surprise usually. So I'm the last person that wanted to make it all about me. God, I just want to blend into the background. I was thinking, "I'm going to have to completely blow up this Christmas." And I couldn't do it. So I thought that was the perfect opportunity and it's gone now. My family- For about two months, I was just like, "Aw, I ruined it. I ruined it. That was my one chance."

[Interviewer:] Oh gosh, that must have been so stressful! You're just carrying that around.

[Dan:] Oh, it was awful! Yeah and then I went for dinner with my mum. And I was like, "Okay, intimate. I'll do this." And then again, I was like, "I don't want to ruin my mum's birthday by making it all about me." *laughs* Then I left having failed to do it then and I went, "Right, this is getting stupid now." So you know what I did? I wrote an email to all of my family. Just CC'd them on an email and just said, "Hi. Basically I'm gay. Let me know if you want to talk about it. Bye!" And I just hit send and closed my laptop. That is very much- That is the Dan Howell strategy of throwing the hand grenade, closing the door, and going, "Whoops!" And then I got the phone calls and you know, thankfully I think that we're living in a much more kinder, accepting world than we did twenty years ago. I think that we can see when it comes to all kinds of things- The world is getting a lot more smarter and educated and just accepting and more kind. So the reception that I got from my family in 2019 was very kind and loving accepting. And it was really kind of wonderful. It felt like this huge, colossal weight had been lifted from me where I felt like there was this wall between me and my family my entire life, where there was just something that was unsaid. Something that would've explained so much. A fundamental part of who I was. It was so important to get that out there. And as you said earlier, just you know, as someone that as a public figure. As an entertainer who talks about myself for my career, getting this out there? I don't know. It was just absolutely profound so I spent months and months writing this video. And for people that don't know, you'd expect a YouTube video to be a twenty second video of a cat falling down the stairs or something. I ended up putting this forty five minute- *laughs* It was basically a stand up special that I filmed in my office. It was dense. I was like, "Look, if I'm going to talk about sexuality, I've got say strap yourselves in people." And yeah, the moment I hit go on that, it transformed my entire life. It was really just this feeling of this pressure lifting all around me and it felt like age 28, that I finally alive for the first time. And my life had only just begun. Because only now was I actually out there. People knew who I was and I could kind of begin living authentically in world where people actually knew who I was. And that's crazy.

[Interviewer:] Do you wished you'd done it earlier or do you think it was the right time?

[Dan:] *sighs* I do wish I did it earlier. What I would say to anybody- You may be somebody queer in the closet thinking about doing this or you may just be someone who wants to open up to your loved ones about the fact that you may be depressed. Or you just want to be honest about the things in your life saying, "You know what? I really hate my job and it's ruining my life." Or something about the relationships in the life or the friendships. They're just not working. You cannot sit on these things forever. Confronting them an be so difficult. I mean, look at me. I basically went into a cave for a year- *laughs* And had the most socially awkward time ever dealing with it. And it was so difficult but I cannot tell you how free it felt afterwards. So that's definitely something I want everybody listening to this to take away.

[Interviewer:] Did you look at the comments on the video? And if you did, what were they like?

[Dan:] Yeah. I mean, I try not to- *laughs* You know, see what people are saying about me too much but I did. It was all very nice and as I say, you know, I wish I would've done it earlier in my life but I don't think I could've done it earlier in my life. And I didn't. And that was for a reason. I just couldn't have. I just wasn't in the place to. I did it when I did and thankfully we're in a world now that's so much better. And my audience that I have is so kind and loving and accepting. Because you know, I cultivated a following of people that liked me being open about mental health and sharing the most awkward, stupid stories from my life. So when I shared the biggest thing, what was there waiting for me was a community of people that were there to be supportive. And that was just- You know, I feel so lucky that I had that really positive experience. So just like the depression video, people were saying, "I feel seen by this." Or, "I now finally understand what it's like for gay people in a way that I didn't before. I can talk to my mum. I can show my mum this. I'm straight and I had no idea. This is amazing." And just to see that a byproduct of me being honest about myself managed to help people- It really, you know, it helps! *laughs* Cause it's safe to say that I've struggled a lot. I'm someone that is very, very good at beating myself up. I don't ever taking a win. People always say that about me. If something goes very well, they'll be like, "How'd it go Dan?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah. It was alright." "What do you mean? It went great?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah! It's fine." *laughs* So yeah definitely, I feel very lucky it's gone as well as it did.

[Interviewer:] You're an ambassador for YoungMinds as well and you know, you're obviously speaking out, "Hey!" And for your YouTube videos. Do you think there is still a stigma particularly attached to young people and mental health?

[Dan:] I think that definitely young people- When you get into teenage years, everyone's very defensive and they're very aggressive. And I think that a lot of people go into- Especially the school environment feeling scared. They don't want to be judged by other people. They don't want to seem weak. They're proactively feeling scared and defensive and aggressive to protect themselves from being harmed by people cause you're just so scared. So definitely. People don't want to admit that they have anxiety. I think that young queer people might not feel like you know, "I can't do this now. It's not worth the risk." And I think that the YoungMinds charity, which is part of the Royal Foundation that Harry and Will support, does such amazing jobs cause they not only create material to help young people understand, "If you're feeling like this, you might have anxiety. That's not normal. And here's how to help." But they also reach out to parents to say, "This is how you can observe these things that may be happening in your family and realize it may be silent. It may not be talking about it. It may be this huge issue happening right in front of you." And as well, they're helping the schools cause I think it's definitely safe to say that schools could do it a lot better in protecting mental health of the young people that go to them. So it's definitely one of the off shoots of me opening up about depression. Being apart of this amazing charity that does such great work. It helps me sleep at night.

[Interviewer:] And we'll hear, um, about an appeal actually to raise money for mental health including Mind and YoungMinds in a minute. It's so important, isn't it? That they exist. That they're even out there for us.

[Dan:] It's a lifeline for people because I think that anyone who struggled with any mental health issue listening to this would know that that one conversation- That first conversation. First olive branch that you get reaching out to you. That could be what saves your life. So it may feel like, "Oh, we've talked about this enough. Doesn't everyone know about mental health right now?" And there may be someone listening to this that's going, "You know what? That's me. I've got that thing that I haven't shared yet. I need to have that conversation. I need to have that one moment where someone listens to me, acknowledges how I feel." And definitely, it's just such a huge part of everyone's life. And it's completely silent. There's still so much more to do.

[Interviewer:] I hate this word, Dan, but I'm gonna say it. It sounds like you've been on a real journey. *laughs* I can't think of a better word.

[Dan:] *laughs* Oh no. I've been full hobbit there and back again, yeah. It's been a real around the world adventure. And you can watch it all on the internet, god.

[Interviewer:] I wonder if you could talk about kind of just the lowest point but then the kind of real highs. Cause then, at the moment, it sounds like you're in a really good place.

[Dan:] I mean, I'm definitely in a better place. I think that none of us should ever feel like we've solved all our issues and we're fine. You know, that was me, age 22. I was like, "Cool! Apparently I've got depression. That's fine. I know what to do it." It's like no, you need to- You need to make an effort. You need to really think about all the things in your life. You need to talk to a doctor. I think that, you know, for me- My lowest point was definitely when I was teenager. There was a point where I actually tried to take my own life because the struggles that I had with my sexuality were just so extreme within my friend group and school and everything that I was hearing from the world. I just really felt like, "I'm broken. This is not right." I looked at the world around me and I thought, "There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere else. I know everything." So it was that impulse impulse is what I think people in this situation feel. Where they just think, "This isn't about anyone and this isn't a rational decision, but I just feel like there's nowhere to go. And I need to hit the escape hatch." And I was so wrong because as I got older and time progressed, I just realized that the world is so big. And even if you feel like you're trapped in a situation, time can change everything. And if I just knew how much the world would change. How much my life would change. Not just with my career, but just moving to a different city. Meeting new people. I wasn't stuck. There was nothing like that and that was definitely the lowest point. And I feel so glad that I managed to make through that time. And the fact that you know, I made it through all these years and- *laughs* This journey that I went on. Kind of very publicly. Going from like- I think I even made a YouTube video just before I got a job at Radio One saying, "I'm going to drop out of Law School to try to make it as an entertainer." And everyone at the time was like, "You're an idiot. What are you doing? What?!" *laughs* Cause this before anyone had a career on the internet, you know? They were like, "Okay,so the BBC wants to give you this job. That's kind of cool. But are you sure you don't want to be a lawyer? That seems cool." My granddad was not happy.

[Interviewer:] I'm bet. *laughs*

[Dan:] You can see this whole journey and you know, from doing everything I did with Radio One to writing a book and to end up in a position where me just going on the journey that I need to go on personally ends up being shared with the world- That can do something for other people is just a bonus that makes me feel just really happy. Not just personally, but for the state that the world is in.

[Interviewer:] Aw Dan, it's been so nice chatting to you today. Thank you so much for your time.

[Dan:] It's been really nice. It's been like a therapy session. It's very cathartic! [Interviewer:] That's good! I'm for me. Great! Dan, thanks so much.

[Dan:] Thank you very much. Have a nice day, everyone.

#dan and phil #daniel howell #danisnotonfire #dan howell

365 notes · View notes

goose-books · 3 years

Photo

goose-books productions: a 2020 review

view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template

transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h

january

i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.

enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.

Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”

Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”

“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.

“Exactly,” Augustus says.

“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.

“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”

It isn’t.

february

in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”

it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL

Someone was going to die on these steps.

This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.

It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.

march

in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)

INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?

[PAUSE.]

DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.

[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]

NONA: That’s right.

MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.

DEE: We’re using her stove.

NONA: To make pasta.

DEE: Do you want some?

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

INDRAJIT: No.

april

and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.

iv: control

They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.

People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.

may

in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.

ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -

HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.

ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.

HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

[PAUSE.]

ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.

He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.

God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.

june

okay, honestly, i should talk about ��night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!

RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.

So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.

july

every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.

“Do you… plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”

Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.

“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.

“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”

Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.

august

this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.

You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.

You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.

So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.

There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.

september

i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...

It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.

(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)

Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.

But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.

october

...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

november

and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)

“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”

Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.

Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.

“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”

december

and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)

i kill the beast and drop down to my knees, my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue, and for a moment these scarred hands shake free, and hold a world unfurled for me anew. but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find; fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare. my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind; the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there. and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE— O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.

i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)

a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:

(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color

thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!

#max.txt #and that's a wrap!!! what a goddamn year.#okay. breath in. tags:#quark tag #third eye tag #(i think there are like. two posts in that one?)#amt tag #darkling tag #tmr tag #vvvid tag #wow that was a lot of text. if you read all this... [blows you a kiss] thank you!#max actually writes #year in review

15 notes · View notes

purekesseltrash · 3 years

Note

This is my final ask talking about BTD so it has to be perfect, I literally created a google doc so I wouldnt fuck it up before I sent it

Shoji replaying a song over and over while doing a task reminded me of when I listened to “Ophelia” by The Lumineers on repeat while drinking coffee on my kitchen counter and lemme tell ya, I’ve been chasing that high ever since

Yeah knowing you'd have *some* family but not all of them after coming out sucks major ass but its the truth, I'm ever so grateful that the only person who would react negatively that I know would be my maternal Grandmother whos a narcissistic bitch who I haven't spoken to in years so like, i dont give a shit what she thinks but I know that it would be hard on Shoji seeing how family oriented he is in this story and him knowing his relationships with his siblings and parents would be rocky makes my heart break for him

OOOOO BITCHHHHHH HES TEXTING HIMMMMMMM

That went over a lot smoother than I thought it would, I mean i'm incredibly happy that they’re like, getting together, but I honestly expected it to be more drawn out

Awww Tokoyami getting their as fast as he could and Shoji being soft for domestic Tokoyami

Sweet jesus I can relate to Shoji just randomly thanking his friend for being his friend, the amount of times I’ve wanted to just ominously text my friends a “thank you for everything” is too many to count

I LOVE GRITTY, HE REMINDS ME OF MY CAT WHOS A MAINE COON (his names Chewie if you're interested)

I knew Mic would suck at cooking, its just so him

I practically squealed at Shoji changing Tokoyami’s contact name to Fumikage

Okay, little background story, I keep a list in my notes app of headcanons for Tokoyami and literally one of them on there says word for word “Dogs absolutely love him and he loves them right back” so im SO GLAD you made him a dog person, making him a cat person seems like the easy route

LAWYER MOM IS INTRODUCED i honestly didn't picture her as a blonde but now I see it

Tokoyami’s mom being incredibly enthusiastic reminds me a lot of my mom, she always get excited when people have pride flags hanging up and suggested we get a pride flag so that made me appreciate my mama more than I already have been

I swear to god my eyes got as big as saucers hearing the part about cheesecake because I'm from New Hartford and forgot Hartford was a different city.

I can just picture Aizawa SLAMMING the brakes and whipping his head around, hair flying, as he looks at Shoji

“And he let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding” how much more cliche could you get, not gonna lie that made me laugh

All right I have to confess something. I've skipped every transcript of Put Your Sticks Up because I was impatient and wanted to get to the story. Now you know my biggest secret, I always felt bad but would get frustrated cause I wanted to hear ‘bout my boys.

The last precious worm ask! I am finally on my laptop so I can give this the proper attention.

Ngl, when my head isn't working, I will just put on one song and play it over and over and over and over and over until something comes into my head. My ShinOji fic 'Gold Rush' came from that. Still not sure how I managed to make a somewhat decent fic out of a song about gentrification but my mind is a wild and wonderful place.

Yeah, Shouji goes through it with his family. One thing that I can say though is that as Shouji starts to get more and more successful with his art, Tokoyami starts to spitefully send articles and reviews written on his work to his parent's house. He never gets a response but doesn't expect to, he just feels like they should see how amazing their son is, goddamnit. The one day, a letter comes back. Tokoyami opens it, expecting it to be them telling him to knock it off and instead, one of the pictures has been sent back with 'This is beautiful' written in pen, an arrow pointing to one of his vases. Tokoyami then has to show it to Shouji and explain what he did. Shouji cries basically all night. That starts a very, very tenuous back and forth with his mom.

Gonna put the rest of this under a break because it's gonna be long

You should have seen my first outline if you thought this was quick with them figuring it out. Basically, the only reason that Tokoyami broke it off in the first place was because he didn't see that there was a chance of it working. They worked so well otherwise. Amazing chemistry, complimentary senses of humor, Tokoyami didn't want to break it off at all. He just felt like he had to because otherwise they were both going to get more hurt. So when Shouji was like 'okay, but actually I do want to try this', he was all in.

Ojiro is legit Shouji's first real friend. Which is really really sad given that they met when they were eighteen but Shouji never really got a chance to do anything normal.

Maine Coons rule and Chewie is an excellent name for them. I was going to name their cat after Marie Phillipe Poulin, the greatest women's hockey player ever, but I decided that Gritty would be funnier. Mic as a bad cook is deeply satisfying, I picture him being like me, just all 'okay but I just do enough to make something to survive on and uh.... who needs all the details and stuff'.

The name change actually came from my beta. They asked why his contact was still Western Civ Tutor in the beginning of the chapter and I was like 'oooo, great way to show how they have changed'.

And maaaaaaaaaan. I'm sorry but how is someone who is a bird gonna like a cat. Nah. Tokoyami is a dog person. They do go on to get a dog. They were going to get a Shiba Inu or something catlike until Kenta came through with a hound puppy that he'd found in the rain while on his route and just dumps it in Shouji's lap like 'Surprise!'. They name it Lu after Roberto Luongo, famed goalie. The dog is a goddamned menace and Shouji ends up having to take it to classes and learn about dog training so they can all keep their sanity. He ends up loving Lu the most. (I do some part time dog training so I had to throw that in)

Tokoyami dyes his hair. He's actually a mousy blond under the dye like his mama. And yeah, my parents are hella supportive too. I figured it would be healthy for one of them to have accepting parents.

Aizawa was pretty pissed, ngl. For all that he should know better, he got caught up in the same shit that coaches tend to slip into, which is a responsibility because they have someone with potential that they must mold and then when they go on to do amazing things, they can feel a part of it. But then he realizes where he fucked up and how he was so busy seeing Shouji the hockey player that he couldn't see Shouji the person.

Listen, it's my fanfic, so I'm gonna get as cheesy as I damn well please. I'd written a super cheesy ending for the end of 'Black Sun' and was waffling on keeping it until somebody was like 'it's a fic, be as cheesy as you want'. I can has my cheese, as a treat.

WHAT IN THE FUCK WORM. HOW CONFUSED HAVE YOU BEEN THIS ENTIRE TIME?!?!?! this legit made me laugh out loud when I read it. GO BACK AND READ MIC'S SHOW!!! I set up so much stuff to try and prepare the reader to understand the emotional stakes, not to mention the basic facts of hockey! That being said, I get the feeling.

Thank you for this last super mega grande worm ask, sorry that it took me so long, I wanted to be able to give it my full attention. <3

#btd

4 notes · View notes

ladyhistorypod · 4 years

Text

Episode 4: Let’s Ms. Behave

Sources:

Charlotte Corday

The British Museum

Brooklyn Museum

Find A Grave

History Channel

UCL Art Museum

Encyclopedia Womannica (Podcast)

The Blonding of Charlotte Corday

Giulia Tofana

Wut. (Podcast)

History Collection

Historical Post

Medium

Mike Dash

Virginia Hill

The Mob Museum

Encyclopedia of Chicago

Alabama

Further reading/watching: The Damned Don’t Cry (1950 film), Bugsy's Baby: The Secret Life of Mob Queen Virginia Hill (eye roll from Alana), Virginia Hill (1974 film)

Click below for a full transcript of the episode!

Lexi: A brief warning about the following episode of Lady History: this episode contains sensitive topics, such as suicide and murder. If you or someone you know needs help, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. To learn more, visit suicidepreventionhotline.org

Alana: I think my therapist is listening to our podcast.

Haley: Wait what really?

Alana: Yeah. Because I was looking at like our dem– like our listenership and it said a bunch of people in Arlington and I don't know that many people in Arlington. I know like my mom's... my parents’ like family friend from… my dad like went to high school with them and then they introduced my parents and we call her my Arlington mom and so I was like oh maybe it's her but that's too many people to just be her and I think my therapist lives in Arlington and I told her about this so shout out Dr. Sterman.

Haley: I would love–

Alana: If you’re listening.

Haley: –Your next session she's like ‘by the way I don't listen to your podcast’ even though... and just like out herself from… not super listening but also listening we just had…

Alana: I might bring it up. I'm seeing her on Tuesday, virtually obviously, but I’m seeing her on Tuesday.

Haley: ‘Just wondering, do you listen to my podcast?’

Alana: Well I'm going to talk about how like ‘oh I started my podcast and it's doing this this and this for my mental health’ and then be like… just see if she says she’s listening.

Haley: I feel like she wouldn’t though. I feel like she wouldn’t just to…

Alana: I don’t know if she would.

Lexi: Does that cross the like professional boundary?

Haley: Yeah…

Alana: Is that a HIPAA violation?

Lexi: Is it though? It’s only a podcast

Haley: Well none of us are in the medical field.

Lexi: No. We are not.

Alana: Let us know.

Haley: So we can’t have a definitive answer. But I can see someone–

Lexi: Hey if you're in the medical field or are a certified therapist please email us at [email protected] and let us know if listening to your patient’s podcast violates HIPAA.

(Alana laughing)

Lexi: Thank you. You can also email other stuff there. Don't, don't– you don't have to be a doctor to email us.

Alana: No. I also I have a– because you can do asks on Tumblr, and I have our ask page for the Tumblr– Lady History pod dot tumblr dot com– I have… you can suggest a lady.

Lexi: Please, suggest ladies.

Haley: I would love that.

Lexi: Please suggest ladies to us at Lady History pod dot tumblr dot com.

Alana: You can also DM us, and as previously mentioned if you DM the Instagram that's Lexi and if you DM the Twitter that's me and they're both at LadyHistoryPod. We're gonna plug that again at the end so it's just a constant cycle.

Haley: No one can slide into my DMs. I'll just use one of… if you want to slide into my DMs, use like, the Twitter and just be like this is for Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots and they’ll know it’s for me.

Lexi: Okay if you DM or email any of the accounts, if you need the message to go to Haley, please use that name only. Any messages directed to Haley will not be given to her.

Alana: We’ll be like ‘who’s Haley?’

Lexi: So go back–

Haley: I don’t even know what I said. I forgot.

Lexi: No, so go back–

Alana: Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots and I will never forget it.

Lexi: Just go back, listen to that however many times you need to to get it in your brain, and then use that when you address Haley in any of your communication to our general inbox.

Alana: Hang on, my light went away because I have to go change Haley’s contact info in my phone.

(Lexi and Alana laughing)

Haley: I really hate if like I am interviewed for a job and they’re like… ‘so… Twinklebear McPuss-n-Boots…

(Lexi laughing)

Alana: It was Sprinklebear

Lexi: You didn’t even get it right. She can’t even–

Alana: Sprinkle… Sprinklebear…

(Lexi laughing)

Haley: I used to have a crush on Puss-n-Boots when Shrek first came out.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History, the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. I’m the next best thing to being in the same room as Lexi. Lexi, what's the name of your favorite plant?

Lexi: My favorite plant is probably a pothos. Just really cute, a cute plant, a good plant, grows well, grows well in my climate, has not failed me, has not died, so that is why I love the pothos.

Alana: And also in the virtual studio is Haley. Haley, how’s the weather?

Haley: It's quite gloomy. I am in San Francisco so we're still dealing with the wildfires. But I think it's just Karl the fog today.

Alana: Karl the fog?

Haley: Yeah the San Francisco like fog that just like looms over this bay area is called Karl. He even has a Twitter, a whole kids’ picture book. Karl the fog.

Alana: That's giving me An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green vibes.

Haley: And also, oh, the SF MOMA… the new building of it is Karl the fog. It doesn't– it looks kind of like a… like an old time steam iron, like on an ironing board. But it's like meant to be Karl the fog. Or like blend in. Karl just mushes his way through San Francisco.

Alana: Oh my god that's incredible.

Haley: Yes.

Alana: And I'm Alana and I theme my canvas tote bags based on event.

Lexi Nice. Solid.

Alana: Thank you.

Haley: So can I tickle your tastebuds with a fun fact?

Lexi: Oh… oh, tickle away.

Alana (whispering): Tickle your tastebuds…

Speaker 1: This is either going to be like the best thing I've ever created because like– let me just give you a side note: I thought of this joke while taking shower and was cracking up for ten minutes.

(Alana laughing)

Haley: It's either– it's probably gonna flop. But, with this fun fact– it’s kind of setting the mood for our crime theme and it's about the guillotine and the family of the guillotine, Dr. Joseph– I think his name’s like Ignace? It looks like Ignatio, but it’s like Ignace Guillotin– was so horrified that like their family member invented such like a horrible thing, and if you don't know what the guillotine is, it is basically a big sharp knife that comes down from a pulley, will slice your head off, used in many executions– that they appeal to the French government to change the name and the French government just took it to a step higher and was like no we won't change the name but we will make it one of like the official ways of executing people. more s– to the point that the last execution was like in the 1970s. And this is like across Europe and at least for France it was in 1977. So this is where it gets to my cringy joke because I've used this before. If you want a sick burn while your parents are talking about their childhood and they grew up in like the 60s, 70s, you can just go ‘Pft, the land and time of the guillotine. Such heathens.’ And I like this more than the… the burn that goes like ‘when the dinosaurs roamed’ because dinos just like didn't live when humans lived and it always made me so mad where it’s like I learned that the dinosaurs were born millions of years ago but we have this like iconic just… execution machine that was used for so so long and no one realizes that this was just used until the 70s as a humane way of execution, which like I won't even get into that whole argument. There's so much of a rabbit hole of whether the like guillotine was humane or not. But it's just– it's almost funnier because like it did happen this was an ironic like ‘oh you’re so old you’re like a dinosaur’ this is like ‘you were born when the guillotine was used!’

Alana: Because that's like a burn but it's also true.

Lexi: Yeah. That's the worst kind of burn, I– I mean the best kind of burn because it hurts the worst.

Haley: I once said it to my dad because he was like talking about something when he was like younger and I was like the guillotine just looked at me and was like ‘excuse me?’ I was like ‘you lived during the time of the guillotine, heathen.’ And he was like ‘well…”

Alana: It's true!

Haley: Because he was like ‘no that's like the Middle Ages’ and I was like ‘let me school you on some facts. And that actually is a great segue into my first gal.

Alana: Alright, let's go Haley.

Haley: Uh, so my gal, like Artemisia, we have another one with her own movie. It's an unfortunate movie because I couldn't find it anywhere, but who am I talking about… Charlotte Corday. And other names include… side note, I don’t speak French, I speak Spanish. Please don’t come after me, with my horrible horrible French pronunciations, I had my boyfriend, who speaks some French, pronounce them to me… probably didn't remember anything that he said to me. Her other names are Corday d’Armont, Marie-Anne Charlotte, and now her like more modern name is Charlotte Corday the Assassin. So I love Charlotte as a topic, because other podcasts, like crime, history, women's studies, have covered her to an extent. Like I– you'll see in the show notes I like I've even used her– thanks, Encyclopedia Womannica. But on the other hand, not many people know about her. And they don't even know like her influence with the French Revolution because I've been in like many discussions about like history of crime or what like– the world history that we had to take, and I asked like about her and my even like my history teachers like ‘I don't know who that is’ and everyone just gave me that blank face and it's like wait a minute, this is weird, why isn't this covered. So of course, I'm going to cover it. And let's crack this case wide open before we do a deep dive and go over just like some historical background and some of the people be talking about because I don't want you guys to be lost in this whole mumbo jumbo. So Charlotte was a Girondin sympathizer– again, my French is not good– she came from a family of impoverished aristocrats from a little town outside of Paris, France. And as a noble family she was given the opportunity to go to a formal education, but really this formal education came because her mother and one of her sisters died. And her father was just so grief-stricken and also just couldn't handle the now need to raise two daughters, so he sent them to a Roman Catholic convent so they could get a formal education. During this formal education of hers, she learned about French politics, history of France, and was able to mold her own theories and just ideas about the world around her. Thus, she became a French moderate Republican party member during 1791 and 1793 and this is during the French Revolution.

Alana: I'm guessing that moderate Republican back then doesn't mean the same thing that moderate Republican means now.

Haley: No, not at all. I'll explain more. So that's– this is exactly why I wanted to do our whole kind of let's see the players let's name some names and let's go over some history because just looking at her based on just the woman it's very hard to understand why she's one, seen as a hero; two, seen as a murderous assassin which both are correct in a way.

Lexi: I mean, goals. No I’m just kidding. I’m not condoning murder.

Haley: No so that's basically where she's at in the scope of where she grew up and what role she’ll play in the French Revolution, or what side she was on. And she's also mainly known for murdering Jordian Jean-Paul Marat, and he was on the other side he was Jordian so she was very opposed to his ideals. So again like Alana said is this kind of like what our U. S. politics is like? No, this isn't the Republican Party. However we have two extreme sides and people on one extreme, people on another extreme. That is very much similar. And he was an outspoken leader of the French Revolution to the point where he was the founder of a popular journal, deputy of Paris to the convention, opposed legislation that would hurt the other side, empower him and to Charlotte and other Girondan followers. So now that we cover the big picture ideas and we know the players and we know how extreme both these sides are, let's do our deep dive. She was committed to fighting the Girondist side of the revolution, posing the radical Jacobin faction. So this was right before the Reign of Terror, and why I mention this is because all her actions were to stop a civil war; and the Reign of Terror was a part of the French Revolution that kind of like started the first French Republic and culminated in a series of massacres and like many many public executions. So this is what she tried to stop from happening in French society. However, her whole story and what role she played in the revolution actually caused the Reign of Terror. So that's why for me as– in high school was like why aren't we talking about her and now we're gonna talk about her now. So, we come to the point where our victim Marat was continuing his train of like bloodshed, and was responsible for utter catastrophe, and putting a lot of lives in danger of like the French– like the French people were just terrified of him, to an extent. And that’s why Charlotte just hated him. He was seen as definitely one of the leaders of this one extreme side that had to be taken out. So that's exactly what she kind of planned to do. And she was not in Paris, she was still in another city outside of Paris, France. So, Charlotte stabbed him while he was taking a bath; and that's really the punch line of like her whole story. If you do like a quick Google search you'll get a lot of stuff for her and even in some textbooks that I tried to look at it was just like Charlotte Corday assassin… stabbed Marat in the heart. Really, she stabbed him in a planned assassin while he was taking a bath. I'm gonna just go through the accounts of this whole story because they're not really pieced together in one area and I'm going to piece them together now so you can understand why he was like in a bathtub, why she stabbed him, and so on. Because this just sounds so strange and it's really strange to see this as your history. So the planned assassin started because she wanted, like I said, to stop from a civil war happening in France, and she truly believed that to do this you have to kill one of the leaders; and also to an extent make the other side seem strong in that way. Like if you kill one of the leaders, you prove that the other side is just as strong or stronger. So she originally planned to kill him at a Bastille Day parade to make a huge show of it and this was on July 14th 1793. Unfortunately, or fortunately for her plans in a sense the event was just like it either didn't happen or it became apparent that Marat was not going to be at that public event. So she quickly had to say okay what else can I do, how can… what will be the next step to kill him. On July 13th, so the day before this event was supposed to happen, she was able to get a meet and greet with him or just gain access to him by saying and promising to betray her political side and give some insider secrets– like name names, basically become a traitor. And Marat was like cool you're definitely high up in the Girondin side of it, let you like, come into our area, we’ll hold– like we’ll basically keep you hostage, in a sense, like that's the feel I got… like Marat was also like come to our side because if anything happens you'll be on our turf; and she did. She was like cool, great. You don't know I'm gonna kill you, you think I'm gonna come and like give you all my secrets and then you'll protect me in a way. So Marat was having this meeting in the bathtub, but this was a very normal occurrence for him because he had a terrible skin disease or infection that he would just be in the bath all the time, like the water soothed him. So he was just very vulnerable, but that was his normal state– like nothing was wrong with him taking a meeting in the tub… so like she could be alone with him. It would be more weird if they were just walking around in the streets together. And instead of having this whole conversation that Charlotte said she would, she took this knife out of her bodice that she was just like hiding there and stabbed him in the chest.

Haley: He died almost immediately; and she actually waited for the police to come. She did not run away– she waited and confessed, essentially. She was proud of what she did, she wanted this assassination like the public assassin– assassination to still have some sort of effect on the public to show that her side did it to the other side, she is responsible for ma–Marat, and she did it as this political leader, in a sense. So at the trial, she allegedly proclaimed ‘I killed one man to save a hundred thousand’ and she kept reiterating that this was in fact a planned assassination, this wasn't out of passion. She took some thought, even wrote down like accounts and like had this whole… I saw like some people called it a journal or like statement– different written statements basically on her thoughts of an upcoming civil war and what she thought she was doing to help prevent that. She was also able, before the trial she was able to write down like write a letter and write her thoughts, feelings, concerns to her father. So her father was still alive and was able to get this kinda like last testimony of hers. And of course during this trial because she did essentially plead guilty… she was ordered to be executed via guillotine just four days after the murder; so July 17th 1793. And another quote from a lawyer from all this whole trial came from I think this was a man named Vergniaud, but I couldn't find this quote as in from like a reputable source as yes this was him, so could have been just another lawyer and not this guy. However, someone as a witness to this whole trial on this whole ordeal said ‘She is leading us to our death, but she is showing us how to die’ and it was because he, as a lawyer, saw this whole thing, saw her whole plan, and knew okay this is going to become a massive shit show. Like this won't end well. She is not preventing a civil war; she actually just started a whole other battle. However, she is showing us how to die with dignity, and showing how to like own up to the actions and just just die. Essentially die because a lot of people through the Reign of Terror did die. So you thought I'd be done– and I know this is gonna be my longest but this is such a great great story– because now we get into her overall death legacy, and we do know a lot of things, unlike Amelia Earhart where we just don't know what happened to her after death. A lot of this we still have artifacts and evidence of. She overall became this French savior, like the savior of French society in her circle. Months after her death, there are just so many portraits of her in different scenarios; short hair, long hair– like I needed to go back and make sure these were the same Charlotte Corday and if there could have been multiple Charlotte's just to make sure that these images looked so vastly different. And it was because people wanted to show that she was just this holy woman and ladies now weren't the ones who are supposed to be stuck in the kitchen with raising the kids. They had the power to do something in life and in society, but they also had a spin on it, so like– like I said, she was seen as a savior, this holy woman, goddess… like they even used her Christian name so Marie-Anne Charlotte, which she– to my knowledge, and to my research didn't necessarily go by that name. But there are definitely images of that name and her with very fair skin, white, brunette hair, looking very womanly and accentuating her womanly features. So that really pissed off the other side. Like all Marat’s supporters, they were absolutely flabbergasted that she was getting such a reputation. They thought this can't be happening; she just murdered one of our political leaders, and she was executed for it, why is everyone trying to kind of put this holy cap on her. And yes, that worked to an extent, like their outcry, because like yes she did murder someone. But it didn't help enough, and there were women in French society who did try to distance themselves from her and just for ideas of what women should be like. But, Charlotte did such a good job at like the legend of her as a woman, even before she died, that it didn't matter. Like I read an article about whether she had blonde hair or chestnut brown hair from a 2004 academic article; like this is still being discussed. And she had a part of her reputation– like she knew that whether it started a civil war or not she needed to form her own reputation. And there's even accounts that she witnessed the paintings and drawings of her that would be published and printed post-execution, and she gave comments. She was like no no no no, make me look more like a schoolgirl; or like make me more with curly hair. I don't really know the specifics but it was documented that she would give kind of suggestions on how she would look like. So while she did it, she tried so hard to like make herself look like this holy woman, and yes it did work. Marat, when he died, one of his very close friends, Jacques-Louis David painted the classic portrait or classic image, not portrait The Death of Marat, which is capturing the scene of his death and that is still considered like a classic image and the classic picture from– especially from the French Revolution. So I don't– I don't want to go as far as saying either Charlotte's portrayed as this holy one or this heinous, murderous, like scoundrel because both of them have lasted to this point in history that no one can make up their mind whether this was like a good thing that happened or a bad thing that happened. And I don’t even– I don’t even want to put out like in the universe whether we should have the discussion; if we should say like yes or no. I just wanna give you the facts and let you kind of like decide but that is Charlotte Corday.

Lexi: She is very interesting.

Alana: Yeah that's real cool. That's fun. That was a good transition for… from the guillotine to…

Lexi: Yes, good choice.

Alana: Charlotte Corday. I’m glad we let you go first.

Lexi: Alana hit us. Hit us with it. Don't hit us please don't hit me.

Alana: I won’t hit you. Okay so I will be talking about Giulia Tofana. Um.. Ooooh Haley's face, I'm so excited. I feel like– I hope I do this justice. Oh no. She is Giulia but it’s spelled G-I-U because she's Italian. Okay. So. I like to give credit as we've seen in the past like where I have first found out about my stories. And so I first found out about Ms. Tofana– I should I should call her Giulia not Ms. Tofana because there’s another Tofana, her mother’s name is also Tofana. I heard about this for the first time on Wut. W-U-T which is another great edutainment podcast by women. I'm gonna promo them without needing a sponsorship or a collab because women supporting women. So if you like us, go check them out. That was fun. They're not specifically women's history they're just kind of fun facts in general so not as niche as us but still pretty cool. And then I heard about that podcast from my friend Jesse on Twitter… I think we're friends I don't know I think we're friends… so shout out to Jesse. So Giulia Tofana, G-I-U because she's Italian, lived in the seventeenth century. Exact dates are kind of weird because she was a woman and not highborn. Best guess she was born in Palermo in Sicily. Her mother was executed for poisoning her father, possibly because he was abusive. This is a thing– like a running theme that we’ll see it later. Also later, Giulia's husband died mysteriously, probably also poisoned, probably also abusive. So she moved to Rome at some point in the 1630s-ish, probably, as a widow with her daughter to sell cosmetics and be apothecaries and poison people. Dun dun dun…

Alana: So women in the seventeenth century have so many options. They can be sex workers, they can be essentially auctioned off to almost always abuse of older men and then later if their husbands died become respected widows. Those are your options. So many! So many options! What– how are you going to pick, so many things.

Lexi: The amount of choices is staggering.

Alana: Paralyzed by choice, really. My sources call these women ‘aspiring windows’ as if they are gold diggers and not battered women with no escape. I love– I love that like my running theme is criticizing my sources. That's my thing. Giulia crafted essentially her own poison. Created her own poison, or what by all accounts… she was the one who came up with this. Between like her and her mother and her daughter they came up with this poison called aqua tofana, named after her. It's a combination of arsenic and belladonna and lead, which are things that are already in cosmetics at the time but not quite lethal, still have problems, but not lethal unless they're ingested. And so having these things on a vanity looks totally normal. And so Giulia, as someone who experienced abuse, who had watched her mother get executed for defending herself, essentially… I am not condoning murder, and I know it's never good to say something at the beginning of a sentence like ‘I'm not condoning murder’ and then doing ‘but’... I feel like… there are no options.

Lexi: Self defense.

Alana: Self defense.

Lexi: And it seems very clear– again, we don't know the whole situation but it seems very clear that she was in a bad situation.

Alana: A bad situation. Yeah

Lexi: We are not the judge, jury, or the executioner so we can't say.

Alana: So she, having probably been abused and having watched her mother probably been abused and watched her mother get executed for essentially defending herself… she's going to help these other women get out of their marriages in such a way that it can't be traced. Because this poisoning with this mixture of belladonna and arsenic and lead, it takes really long for someone to die. Really long is like two to three days, but it also looks like natural causes or another illness which always happened in the 1600s. People got sick and died and that was just normal. And it gave these men time to get their affairs in order and to confess their sins and in a very Catholic area at a very Catholic time you like automatically got into heaven as long as you confessed your sins. So since these people had time to confess their sins, our murderess wouldn't have to feel so guilty that she was condemning her husband to hell even though he was probably hurting her. It only takes four to six drops to kill someone, depending on their size and all of that other stuff. And another side fact, side fun fact: Mozart, who nobody knows how Mozart died, Mozart wholeheartedly believed that he was poisoned with aqua tofana, but nobody knows. I feel so good that Haley is just nodding fervently. I feel like I'm doing a good job. Thank you for that.

Haley: I've awkwardly read so much on arsenic poisoning. Just so much so, but yes you are correct. There are probably just so many people who died of arsenic poison in the 1600s because autopsies weren’t like what we have today where you can do a toxicology, so so many people would seem like they were getting ill, because a lot of the times it just looks like a common cold or flu-like symptoms, they just weren't feeling good. But then they would die so now people do toxicology because it's a thirty year old man with no pre-existing conditions. But when you're talking about it in the 1600s it's like ‘oh they got sick we don't have modern medicine to help out.’

Alana: Nobody knows what's happening, essentially. It's like ‘oh no another person got sick.’ So Giulia Tofana sold this with her daughter and some employees at this family business, essentially, which is a weird way to think about it– that the family business is murder. They operated like this for about fifty years, for decades. And… at least the estimated number is something like six hundred plus people died because she sold their wives poison. But she got caught, and legend has it– and there are so many foggy details but this seems way too specific so I think like somebody exaggerated but, one of her clients who had bought the aqua tofana to poison her husband had poisoned a bowl of soup but decided, ‘no, I can’t. I can’t kill someone’ and dramatically knocked it out of his hand. And that's where I am thinking this… somebody exaggerated. Somebody made this up because that's way too specific. But she stopped her husband from eating the soup and confessed her crimes and turned in Giulia Tofana and her daughter and their three employees at the business. And all of them were executed. Under torture, of course, it's the seventeenth century, she turned on a bunch of her clients as well. So a bunch of her clients were also executed. Some of them were not executed, because they claimed that they didn't know that it was poison and it was just ‘oh no, I spilled some of my lotion in my husband’s soup… Oops. Oopsie poopsies I’m only like fourteen I don't know any better.’ I made myself laugh with that one I’m sorry. But those people were spared. So there is something to… was Giulia a hero, was she a murderess, could both of those things be true…

Lexi: Was she an anti-hero?

Alana: She's kind of an anti-hero. I think that's what we’re going for.

Haley: I like that, I like anti-hero.

Alana: I think– I also think like–

Lexi: Like a Robin Hood, but murder.

Alana: Batman, but murder. Does Batman kill people?

Lexi: Robin Hood stole things, he didn't kill anyone. This is like the Robin Hood of murdering people.

Alana: Sure.

Lexi: It's like murder the rich, give to the wife?

Alana: Vigilante!

Lexi: I don't know. Vigilante murder, yeah.

Haley: So far we’re on the track of like ‘our criminals are good, question mark?’

(Alana laughing)

Lexi: Mine was definitely a criminal, but we'll get in that.

Alana: Well, I am done. So, Lexi let’s get into that.

Lexi: What a segue! Okay. So my lady, though definitely also had a lot of background trauma as it seems that a lot of these ladies had definitely did crime. So we'll just jump in. Have you guys ever heard of the queen of the mob?

Haley: Yes. I'm so excited that you're doing this one.

Alana: Maybe. You'll have to tell me her name.

Lexi: Okay.

Haley: This is truly like my favorite episodes so far, and I like hate when people like get really into criminals like some people, like for Jeffrey Dahmer, people love him, think he's like the most beautiful man, same with Ted Bundy, and that's not where my head is at.

Lexi: That’s creepy.

Haley: I have a true fascination with the history of crime, death, medicine, and how our society perceives it now. When I say I love these people or I love these stories that is not where I'm going.

Lexi: You're not doing the whole crime fandom crush thing.

Haley: No.

Alana: I have seen people get like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer's signatures tattooed on themselves.

Lexi: That’s creepy.

Haley: Yeah

Lexi: And I don't condone that.

Alana: No we don't like that.

Lexi: But you can be interested in crime especially because as someone who has taken courses in the forensic realm… and who likes bones, and likes that kind of thing, I think you can be interested in the human phenomenon.

Alana: As academics.

Haley: That’s where we’re at for me.

Alana: Not as fanatics.

Lexi: Yes, yes.

Haley: I was listening to like you guys speak and kind of like going back in my head like oh, I seem like such a psycho when I’m like ‘I love Charlotte’ like she is just a fascinating human.

(Alana laughing)

Lexi: Well now we’ve clarified which is good.

Haley: She assassinated someone. And assassinations aren’t swell.

Lexi: But like when you think about like what is interesting on TV, or like what is interesting in our fiction, it's because humans have a general interest. So–

Haley: I wanna write a whole paper on that. Just truly that whole concept.

Lexi: So the queen of the mob, Virginia Hill. You can learn about her at the Mob Museum, people are really really fascinated with her and her story is really interesting. And she was born on August 26, 1916 in a place called Lipscomb, Alabama. I might have said that wrong, you know general– general reminder I say things wrong sometimes. She was born on her father's horse farm. Her father was abusive and he actually beat her and her siblings when they were children and one day she got really fed up with him attacking her and her little siblings so she hit him with a hot skillet in self defense. At the age of fourteen, Virginia married a man named George and three years later the couple moved to Chicago. When they got there she dumped him because you realize the world is a lot bigger than her hometown in Alabama, and so seventeen year old Virginia wanted to start her life anew. At the time, the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, which is a World's Fair style event, and it was conceived to bring hope in the wake of the Great Depression that was happening. So Virginia took a job dancing, like as a shimmy dancer, so she had a really unique–

Alana: What– what does shimmy dancer mean? Like a go-go dancer? Like a str– like what?

Lexi: I think you dance shimmy like you shake back and forth and you wear tassels, I believe.

Alana: Dream job.

Lexi: But someone feel free to correct me.

Haley: Yeah, I was thinking one of those 1920s cigarette girls.

Lexi: Yeah that could probably be it because this is a similar era.

Haley: Like they would have like the thing that went over them holding a plate platter like tray that they would just like walk around, dance around, and you can buy stuff from them.

Lexi: Yeah. It could possibly be akin to that. When the fair ended, Virginia became a waitress at one of Al Capone's old haunts the San Carlo Italian Village, which is a restaurant not a town. I had to Google that. Though Capone was at that time in prison, he went to prison in 1931, the community of criminals that he had built was still thriving, and it was– it was in this role as a waitress serving tables of America’s mobsters that Virginia met the man who would change her life. His name was Joe Epstein. He was an accountant and bookkeeper for Capone's crime family, and he took a liking to Virginia’s style, and that doesn't mean like her physical attractiveness… she had a certain style of a way that she talked to the mobsters, and she seemed to really have like a no-nonsense kind of ability to deal with the mobsters, which is really unique in a girl so young. So he felt he could trust her, and he took her on as a money launderer for his racketeering. She laundered the money by placing large bets on horses in Chicago's racetracks. She later moved into betting scams which is basically when she learned how from Joe to collect bets on fixed boxing matches. So the matches will be predetermined, but she would encourage people to bet the losing side. Virginia didn't just launder money. Joe taught her how to dress and act like a rich woman, and used her to cross state lines with stolen furs, jewels, and other items, because of course no one would suspect a nice, rich lady of stealing things and crossing state lines with them. The craziest part is that this all happened before Virginia even turned twenty. So by the age of twenty she was wearing really wealthy clothes, working really wealthy circles, and basically was a part of the mob. Over time, Hill became a trusted cash carrier, money launderer, and information gatherer for Joe and the rest of Capone's crew. She had many rich boyfriends and often used these relationships to benefit her mob family. In one instance she dated an oil tycoon named Major Riddle. No, you cannot make up this name, and yes, I wrote in my script to pause for insane laughter but no one is laughing. I think his name is hilarious.

Haley: I think that’s the best name ever.

Alana: We're on meat. We're on mute. Lexi that's why we're not laughing you didn't... they won’t be able to see the face that I made.

Lexi: Yeah. That's true. I forgot. Well anyway she dated this oil tycoon Mr. Riddle and she convinced him to give her money for investments that were like completely fake and she took that money back to her boy Joe. And Hill used her womanly charm, and by that I mean she seduced men. And through these methods she was able to obtain valuable information for her mob bros. Joe encourage Virginia to move out east to build connections between Chicago and New York crime syndicates. In New York, she laundered money and met many more men including a Mexican night club dancer named excuse my pronunciation, if this is wrong, Miguelito Valdez. At some point Virginia marriedValdez to help him maintain his residence in the United States. And then Virginia, at the same time as this marriage, had an on and off affair with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel who is a really famous leader in organized crime.The pair is well known to have real chemistry so this wasn't just considered to be a case of her seducing someone. They think that she genuinely liked him And unfortunately at the time Bugsy was married to another woman. In 1940, he was sent to jail on a murder charge. While Bugsy was in jail, Virginia tricked Valdez into signing divorce papers. And it was all very “90 day fiance” of her if you ask me. It is unclear if it was through her marriage or not but at some point Virginia had become very fluent in Spanish. She used her newfound language skills to begin trafficking drugs particularly heroin from Mexico to Chicago. In the 1940s, she attempted to start a career acting in Hollywood while transferring cash from New York to Chicago to LA. Meanwhile, Bugsy was setting up his new crime life in Las Vegas which he believed was the new up and coming resort destination for Americans and in hindsight he was probably right. He wanted Virginia to join him and she did but mainly only to spy on his activities and report back to her other mob leaders like Joe. Unfortunately, Bugsy’s biggest dreams were dashed when his resort project the “Flamingo” failed. He had drowned too much money into elabore improvements to the resort and lost cash when lucky winners struck it big in his casino. In a desperate attempt to save the business, he closed the casino and reopened the Flamingo as a hotel only, which sadly was unsuccessful, because we all know how Vegas went. Hill received orders to leave Las Vegas, so she did. 12 days later, someone shot Bugsy dead in their home. In 1950, Virginia went to a ski resort in Idaho, which I didn’t know you could ski in Idaho, but apparently you can. And she fell in love with an instructor named Hans Hauser. Again, very “90 Day Fiance” of her. Though she was still laundering money and Hauser was not a criminal, he still wanted to marry her. The couple eloped and had a son named Peter. Later that year, Virginia was subpoenaed to appear in a trial on organized crime which would be shown on National TV. She arrived like a star, dressed from head to toe in expensive clothing and jewelry. As a witness, she served her crime family well, evading details and giving vague, basic answers to in depth questions. She used creative lies to explain away all the cash she had laundered, explaining how she had bet money on horses to win her initial cash. She also insisted that most of her wealth came from gifts of suitors, or as we would probably call them today her sugar daddies. Now quick side note- this kinda gives me vibes of the musical Chicago and that song about the main character’s testimony, where she basically used her charm and virtue as a woman to get out of murder. “Well I can’t help it sir, I am just so beautiful men flock to me and give me free things.” On the stand, Virinigia denied that her male friends and lovers were racketeers. When the investigators caught her in her lies, she simply denied knowledge of the nature of their work. “But I never knew anything about their business” she would say. She denied her ability to have any financial knowledge, you know, because she was a lady, and ladies don’t do money things.

Alana: Ladies don’t money.

Lexi: Ladies never money.

Alana: Women be shopping but women don’t be money.

Haley: I love the comparison, like this whole story cuz this is so much like Charlotte. Both of these ladies are trying to be like, “Oh women do this, this is how women look, look how beautiful we are.

Lexi: That’s the vibe. That’s the vibe she was going for. The investigators were still suspicious, it did not work. Because, you know, it was about to be the sixties I mean it was the fifties but was about to be the sixties and so women were going to be liberated. As Virginia left the trial, she cursed out the press and she punched a reporter in the face. Then as she got her car she told reporters she hoped an atomic bomb would be dropped on them, which I think is a timely thing to say. This was right after World War II. That- That’s a big insult. That’s really mean. Virginia and Hans then realized that they needed to leave America so they moved to Europe. The IRS was still on Virginia's tail and she knew she could not return to the States ever again. She met up with her old boyfriends and colleagues while they were in Europe and it was clear she still received money from her life's consistent characters like Joe. In the nineteen sixties Virginia and her family settled in Austria and her mental health rapidly declined.

Viriginia had suffered with her mental health through most of her adult life, getting hooked on sleeping pills and almost dying from a sleeping pill overdose on at least one occasion. Her life was turbulent, her trauma was intense, and she survived at least three separate suicide attempts. On cold, winter’s day, March 24th, 1966, in Austria, Virginia took her own life. Pedestrians taking a walk along the water found her body, laying in the snow, along with a note stating the reason for her death, “I am tired of life”. Her husband Hans also took his own life, passing in 1974. Their son Peter, who would go on to become an American soldier and veterean of the Vietnam War, died in a car accident 20 years later. The family is buried together, in Salzburg, Austria. To this day, some crime enthusiasts believe Virginia may have been murdered, force fed pills as a method to hide a murder as suicide of someone with a history of mental illness. Though her apparent struggles with her mental health throughout her life really suggest this theory is unlikely. I think Virginia can teach us a lot, for starters I think the importance of mental health help is something her legacy can teach us. Virginia had a horrible childhood and instead of getting help she needed, she was married off and eventually she was convinced to do crime. She spent a lot of her life struggling, and it's possible some for mental health issues stem from that early trauma. I think Virginia can teach us a lot, for starters I think the importance of mental health help is something her legacy can teach us. Virginia had a horrible childhood, and instead of getting the help she needed, she was married off. She spent a lot of her life struggling, and it is possible some of her mental health issues stemmed from that early trauma. I think Virginia also teaches us that it took more than men to make the Mobs of early and mid century America function. Virginia was often called the mistress of the mob, but that’s not fair- she wasn’t a mistress of the mob, she was a member of the mob. Women, both those whose stories are recorded and those whose stories were forgotten, played central roles in organized crime. So maybe next time you think about famous figures like Al Capone, think of the women like Virginia Hill who supported the crimes too. And that’s why we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of women’s history, because there are so many stories that go untold.

Alana: That was so beautiful.

Haley: That was mind blowing.

Lexi: Thank you! I am gonna leave in you guys calling it beautiful too!

Alana: That was incredible.

Lexi: I really thought about that really hard.

Alana: Holy shit!

Haley: I truly love that like all our stories had a moral like that the ending for Alana was also just like you have to face that you're a killer that's a no no and like Lexi here with mental health and then me being like it's not all black and white you’re both bad people!

Alana: Nuance and context is like my mantra these days.

Lexi: That’s academics.

Haley: Yes.

Alana: Nuance and context as academics.

Lexi As people who studied at a university. Oh my.

Alana: I have a bachelor's degree.

Lexi: Mhmm. Is this podcast just proof to your parents that you got a bachelor's degree?

Alana: No, they paid for it.

Lexi: They know.

Alana: They know.

Lexi: They suffered.

(Alana laughing)

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on lady history pod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review or tell your friends, and if you don’t like the show, keep it to yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra you can find her on Instagram and Twitter at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, Garageband, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time on Lady History.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on Lady History: we're going to be in the kitchen cooking up some great stories about famous women chefs and cooks alike.

Alana: WHERE WE BELONG.

Lexi: In the kitchen.

Alana: /s.

3 notes · View notes

geejaysmith · 5 years

Photo

Kat and I have amazing conversations sometimes and I felt they had to be shared. Also, alienfuckers, dad jokes, Maxwell’s alternative lifestyle and other headcanons, and Ace Attorney: Doug Eiffel edition. Full transcript under the cut.

Gill [Yesterday at 6:05 PM]: On an Unrelated topic: after the finale the crew remembers "OH YEAH, EIFFEL ACTUALLY HAD A FACE-TO-FACE CONVERSATION WITH ALIENS" and now in addition to all the other reasons to want him to Remember they're really freakin' curious to know how that went

Kat [Yesterday at 6:11 PM]: Minkowski: so what did they look like Eiffel: me (They do seem to like his body, they had a few models to choose from when talking to Cutter.)

Gill [Yesterday at 6:13 PM]: Eiffel, probably: at least the aliens think I'm cool I know what was meant by that but your phrasing made me think "In a shocking turn of events, it is the aliens who are attracted to the human." The aliens... are alienfuckers

Kat [Yesterday at 6:17 PM]: I don't think that's their jam but that WOULD be just his luck

Gill [Yesterday at 6:18 PM]: It is unlikely, but also: it would be hilarious

Kat [Yesterday at 6:21 PM]: the aliens keep sending me mental sexts and i crave death

Gill [Yesterday at 6:22 PM]: And lo another shitpost transforms into a fanfic concept, like a humble irradiated lizard becoming Godzilla: "would you fuck your clone?"

Kat [Yesterday at 6:28 PM]: leave him alone has the man not suffered enough

Gill [Yesterday at 6:28 PM]: No

Kat [Yesterday at 6:29 PM]: sigh

Gill [Yesterday at 6:29 PM]: Dance for my amusement, Douglas And also because I earnestly suspect that in the case of Eiffel and an interested alien-consciousness-in-the-form-of-a-Xerox-copy-of-him the answer would end up being "yes"

Kat [Yesterday at 6:34 PM]: idk i feel like it'd be more like "Oh what you spend two fucking years trying to drag us into the star because you can't be assed to make an appearance but you'll teleport across the galaxy for a booty call? Fuck you and I mean that figuratively" later sluts

Gill [Yesterday at 6:36 PM]: Bob is a bad datemate Is this entire train of thought brought on by the fact I still think of the person who expressed they shipped Bob/Eiffel in the tags of the "Take your double to Disneyland" post? Perhaps

Kat [Yesterday at 6:39 PM]: i don't know that you can have this at the same time as 'what if the aliens' bodies are still the people suppressed' without it getting Fucked Up but that's your perogative I guess as long as I don't have to hear about it family can't walk w me tonight so i need to hit the treadmill for a bit. ttyl

Gill [Yesterday at 6:41 PM]: See u in a bit! But ah yes, I hadn't thought of that til you brought it up Points at one explanation of Dear Listener manifestations for some ideas, points at a different explanation for ideas that would become unintentionally Pretty Fucked Up under the first explanation Although there is comedy potential to be found in Eiffel and Eiffel-2 having the "are we down with this" conversation In the /Justin McElroy voice, "someone just discovered they have ~the world's worst fetish~" sense

Kat [Yesterday at 7:33 PM]: a different terrible concept: eiffel with his pop culture references restored will likely be called upon to testify at the united nations

Gill [Yesterday at 7:37 PM]: O h g o d Ace Attorney: Doug Eiffel edition

Kat [Yesterday at 7:46 PM]: i mean they're gonna have to tell the world SOMEHOW and i'd think the international court would want to know and he's the one with the subconscious recall implanted sidenote if the DL can do that mental transfer could they have just... asked them to reupload whatever their most recent scan of eiffel was there are so many ways around this that's why it failed to get much of an emotional rxn from me

Gill [Yesterday at 7:47 PM]: Minkowski and Lovelace trying to get him to practice his testimony bc if they hit enough subconscious recall triggers they can at LEAST get thru an explanation of the aliens without Eiffel going off into a tangent Once they're off the Dear Listeners' script though all bets are off

Kat [Yesterday at 7:48 PM]: here's a list of preplanned questions your honor we're not responsible if you ask anything else

Gill [Yesterday at 7:51 PM]: Eiffel, maybe: now Goddard didn't send up us there to bring home any xenomorphs but let me tell you, with the Decima project? They might as WELL have let a facehugger get up close and personal with me The translators rapidly swapping notes on late 70's sci-of cinema because a handful of them actually know what he's talking about

Kat [Yesterday at 7:54 PM]: Minkowski headdesking behind him Eiffel English isn't most of these people's first languages

Gill [Yesterday at 7:57 PM]: The news cameras are all dead-focused on Eiffel. He's hit his stride and is picking up steam. "And it was right around the time I was coughing up my liquefied respiratory system that I thought to myself, gee, I'd MUCH rather get a face of alien wing-wong than deal with this!" Minkowski is off to the side. She is visibly restraining herself. No poker face in the world can hide how hard she is longing for death. Whether it is hers or Eiffel's is a subject of contentious debate.

Kat [Yesterday at 7:58 PM]: someone at an elementary school: hey Garcia, is that your dad

Gill [Yesterday at 8:01 PM]: Anne, who was four the last time she saw her father in person, gets one look at the man weaving an intricate Star Wars metaphor out of crimes against humanity and recognizes him instantly, but signs back "I have never seen this guy before in my life."

Kat [Yesterday at 8:04 PM]: good call kiddo

============

Gill [Yesterday at 8:10 PM]: Honestly I love the concept that no matter how much Eiffel may drive them up the wall sometimes the rest of the crew would meet Anne and immediately be ready to kill a man for her sake

Kat [Yesterday at 8:15 PM]: as far as we know he's the only crewmember with kids women in the military... it wouldn't be easy even if you wanted one, which idk if any of them did

Gill [Yesterday at 8:15 PM]: Wait wait, brainwave: it is actually AMAZING that Minkowski had no idea Eiffel had a child because... does he seem like the kind of guy. Who would ever resist a Dad Joke.

Kat [Yesterday at 8:15 PM]: haha fair

Gill [Yesterday at 8:16 PM]: Eiffel: Actually, I have amazing self-restraint when I choose to exercise it. (Various noises of disbelief.) Eiffel: have you ever heard me tell a dad joke? No? I rest my case

Kat [Yesterday at 8:21 PM]: biggest plot hole of the series more like it was too painful a memory but still

Gill [Yesterday at 8:22 PM]: If he ever patches that connection it'll open the floodgates

Kat [Yesterday at 8:26 PM]: He'll become the Maes Hughes of the gang, except with fewer war crimes

Gill [Yesterday at 8:27 PM]: ...has anyone on this crew done war crimes? SI-5 excepted of course, they have obviously done war crimes

Kat [Yesterday at 8:32 PM]: yeah SI5 is war crime central I'm not sure about some of the other stuff executing a prisoner? idk about Minkowski

Gill [Yesterday at 8:32 PM]: Also my thought

Kat [Yesterday at 8:32 PM]: she wasn't a formal pow though it was an ongoing engagement I don't know the rules

Gill [Yesterday at 8:32 PM]: Minkowski Has Done One (1) War Crime (Goddard Futuristics attempts to bring that against her in the court case only for Maxwell to stroll in like lol what's up gang)

Kat [Yesterday at 8:37 PM]: does Goddard in its current incarnation last long enough to sue anyone i mean i think you could sue them for attempted genocide

Gill [Yesterday at 8:38 PM]: Look I have had one semester of business law You were the one who almost went to law school Also re: other characters being parents, the only one I could see going kiiiinda either way on the subject is Lovelace and it wouldn't have been terribly high on her priority list prior to the Hephaestus mission I can see characters having the opinion that they could see Minkowski as a mom but she and her husband both strike me as understanding themselves and one another as being more career-oriented

Kat [Yesterday at 8:44 PM]: yeah if she wanted to rise in the ranks of the military... that would probably be a strike against her

Gill [Yesterday at 8:44 PM] And the implication she's got a Complex about her parents having both left promising careers to raise her Also, Lovelace: Well I always said I could see myself settling down someday, maybe have a family if I met the right person, but when I took the job with Goddard it was legally dubious whether I could actually do that- Eiffel: Because you're an alien? Eiffel: Eiffel: ...wait a sec

Kat [Yesterday at 8:54 PM]: ha It's ok to be gay in space

Gill [Yesterday at 8:56 PM]: Alternatively it's Hera who said that bc didn't connect those dots right away, meanwhile Eiffel saw Lovelace in a flannel shirt once and Knew Immediately Eiffel may be dumb but somehow his Bi-Fi has yet to fail him

Kat [Yesterday at 8:59 PM]: Hera doesn't grasp human sexuality nuances

Gill [Yesterday at 9:01 PM]: Funny addition to above thought: Eiffel put together that Jacobi was gay after like three days on the Urania, was the only one on the Hephaestus crew to do so, and just never felt it was relevant to bring up Hera, my child... you have much to learn (Also, Hera, probably: I'm experimenting at the moment, I'm looking for a torrent so I can download lesbianism)

Kat [Yesterday at 9:04 PM]: I don't know which option is funnier, that Jacobi is just Really Fucking Obvious but Eiffel was the only one paying attention or that it was super subtle and everyone's like How Did You Do That lovelace's righteous fury overwhelmed her gaydar, she was too mad to go 'same hat'

Gill [Yesterday at 9:07 PM]: Eiffel: I have something to confess to all of you... Jacobi: Eiffel literally not a single person on this ship is straight Eiffel: Oh I was just going to recount a PG version of my wild younger days, let's just say I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two.

Kat [Yesterday at 9:07 PM]: Jacobi on Earth: Just matched with myself on Grinder a-fucking-GAIN

Gill [Yesterday at 9:10 PM]: Jacobi: Oh I definitely picked up on it but who wants to go playing into stereotypes by speculating on what may or may not be a promiscuous history? Eiffel: Promiscuous? Look I've got notches in my belt but mostly I just ended up laying in somebody's bathtub at a house party while just conscious enough to nod along to someone else's relationship drama. Eiffel: to several sororities, I was the Gay Bathtub Wizard.

Kat [Yesterday at 9:11 PM]: Maxwell on day one of orientation: So if SI5 is paramilitary what's their stance on alternative lifestyles? Jacobi: I was recruited in a gay bar.

Gill [Yesterday at 9:12 PM]: Her asking the question has my brain going in several different directions

Kat [Yesterday at 9:13 PM]: I think she was recruited right after dadt was repealed... if obama exists in this universe fantasy obama

Gill [Yesterday at 9:15 PM]: One part of my brain: Maxwell is also gay Another part of my brain: Maxwell is exclusively attracted to nonhuman persons Yet another part of my brain, most adjacent to number #2: Maxwell voice, who in their right mind would build a robot that can't fuck? The 4th part of my brain: Maxwell wants to know how chill they'll be with her living exclusively off energy drinks and frozen yogurt for weeks at a time

Kat [Yesterday at 9:15 PM]: honestly I figured whatever it was it was MUCH weirder than just being gay

Gill [Yesterday at 9:15 PM]: Maxwell: I have plans to take over the world with my army of battle bots and rule as their robot queen.

Kat [Yesterday at 9:16 PM]: Maxwell: wait if you were recruited in a gay bar does that mean our boss frequents those or did he just go there to get you Jacobi: Believe me the question haunts me also Jacobi: sounds great i'm in

Gill [Yesterday at 9:16 PM]: Or, Maxwell: I am not joking for an instant when I say that I for one welcome our alien overlords "When I was 13 I tried to get myself abducted by aliens" except it's not a joke it's an actual minor headcanon of mine Also I almost typed "adopted" rather than "abducted" which shows you why Alana would probably want to do that

Kat [Yesterday at 9:19 PM]: she did say she's on bad terms with her family

Gill [Yesterday at 9:20 PM]: She grew up a pastor's kid in a tiny rural town in Montana, hearing that they don't get along is the furthest thing from a surprise to me. The surprise is that Maxwell has a restraining order against them

Kat [Yesterday at 9:21 PM]: tht implies the court found reasonable cause to issue one wack anyway i had a long day, i'm gonna call it a night

Gill [Yesterday at 9:21 PM]: o/ But yeah that Maxwell empathizes with nonhumans, apparently more than with most regular humans, that makes perfect sense to me I can see her frustration with the AI Ethics board in her last job Expressing Their Concerns and her suppressing flashbacks to many a Creationist rant, and trying to keep her eye from twitching visibly, and no I am not projecting I am just coloring in blank spaces in the narrative with my relevant life experience

#wolf 359 #conversations with kat #deliverusfromsburb

37 notes · View notes

originallonemagpie · 6 years

Text

2018 Book Log #5- Red Dwarf: Backwards, by Rob Grant

It's so long since I read the previous two books that I'd forgotten about Better Than Life, and this picks up directly from the end of that. Fortunately it's a good standalone take on some of the classic situations for our characters – who are all spot-on, as you'd expect from the co-creator of the show, and more so than they were in the books (well, the first one, anyway) written by both creators...

This is good fun, with amusing and effective use of some suitable SF ideas, plenty of well-paced hooks and exciting cliffhangers to keep the reader interested, and both familiar enough to be comfortable for fans of the show, and fresh enough to be fun for others, and to keep fans surprised even if they know the episodes. Grant mixes the situational ingredients nicely, providing a solid and satisfying arc, and suitable conclusion (it didn't help production of the book, I suppose, that it was started by both creators, but they split and Doug Naylor wrote a rival third-book-of-the-trilogy, The Last Human, which thoroughly contradicts this one and doesn't follow on from the previous books)

On the downside, there are plenty of proofing errors, and an annoying tendency for the writer to swtich POVs and even writing styles within paragraphs, but never quite enough to work as a flowing range of pastiches; rather the prose in the latter half (especially the wandering Westernisms in the Gunmen of the Apocalypse finale) feels more like lazy standup transcription. Also, it feels a little padded in places- some of the gags that worked best by inference, letting the audience draw the inevitable conclusion in their own time, are laboured here to no real purpose, especially in the Backwards reality. They neither make the gags any funnier, (nor really less so), or even really any more gross, just longer and slower.

There are some incorrect spellings too, and a vast overuse of “span” instead of “spun”, which I found personally annoying; you can use both for a lot of things, but they're not 100% interchangeable, and “Lister span the top off the flask” doesn't work. In fact it's so prevalent that when, at one point, the Cat “spun his guns” back into their holsters, it stands out glaringly – and then a few pages later he “span” thm back. Argh.

But overall, it felt like good Red Dwarf, it flowed, it made sense, the characters were good, and I did enjoy it a lot.

#books #recreational reading #red dwarf #backwards #rob grant #book log

2 notes · View notes

psi-psina · 7 years

Text

The Hounds of Baskerville read-through

Pt two, Dartmoor. [pt one]

(this post is a direct continuation of pt one)

Credits to Ariane DeVere once again for her transcripts.

They head to Dartmoor in silence, and begin by scouting out the area to get an idea of what they’re dealing with here. John points out Baskerville and Dewer’s Hollow, and Sherlock asks what the skull and crossbones are. A minefield? “Guess they’ve always been keen to keep people out.” …Clearly.

Sherlock…I’m begging, why do you keep lining your hearts with explosives. 😩

They work at a distance from each other, Sherlock high above on the rocks, John alone on the ground. Playing on this thread in series 2 of a literal GULF separating the two of them, simultaneously calling back the mirror-case of The Hiker & The Driver, and foreshadowing Sherlock’s suicide off Bart’s.

Then they arrive at Cross Key’s Inn. On their way in they pass a small group of tourists gathered around young Fletcher as he goes about his business of selling them on the lurid idea of the Hound escaped from Baskerville. They share an awkward moment as Sherlock protectively adjusts his coat as they pass the group and John gives him the Eyes before looking away.

John and Sherlock enter the inn, and Fletcher dons the monster mask to excite the tourists as, elsewhere, Henry grimaces as he remembers during a session with Lousie. Another very thematic transition, as Fletcher’s lighthearted joke turns into Henry’s nightmare. Louise is positioned in this scene identically to John in 221B, in a mirror, dressed in matching colours:

Mirrors. :)

Henry (Sherlock) just says that that part of the memory doesn’t change. It’s always the same. But there’s something else now; two words. Liberty and In. Sherlock himself will complete this phrase for his mirror shortly:

Liberty in death, the only true freedom.

Back at the inn now, finally some John action! John is taking care of practicalities and getting them a room at the bar as Sherlock loiters in the background eavesdropping. I love this scene sooooooo much.

Look at this:

…Cocks

sldkjfnas Look they are the ones who do this all the time I am just observing. Anyway, with all the nice background undertones about food and meat and.... . cocks creating a nice ambience (and the nice phallic beer taps?? lmao) as John get’s them a room, it’s not hard to guess what...what might be on John’s mind at this prospect of sharing a room with Sherl. So of course, Gary warmly says he’s sorry they couldn’t do John and Sherlock a double room, and John starts to say (and perhaps remind himself) that things aren’t like that between them, but Gary just smiles knowingly and John gives it up and pays him. They mirror each other with their “Ta’s”, and while Gary’s back is turned John spots an invoice for the. . . . . . meat supplies.

The meat supplies for the gay owners of the vegetarian inn for feeding their (secret) ”hound” sdkjfnaksdf. John nicks the invoice for later.

Now, Billy and Gary are simple romantic mirrors for Sherlock and John, but MORE PERTINENTLY they are CLEARLY conduits for Messer's Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, like...The curly Scottish bloke and his partner, the camp gay ginger! Not the culprits per se, just some blokes jumping on the opportunity to add some spice to their business! Playing on the local legend! Lovely amiable fellows who are nonetheless lying through their teeth about the ‘Hound’ right to the very end! The audacity! These shameless self-inserts! Also like, just more evidence that John is Steven’s self-insert and Sherlock is Mark’s asdkjf.

Anyway, John moves the subject to Baskerville (❤️) and the skull and crossbones out on the moor, hopefully asking Gary, “Pirates?”

MYCROFT: “My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher and yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?” JOHN: “I don’t know.” MYCROFT: “Neither do I. But initially, he wanted to be a pirate.”

It’s the skull and crossbones that baby Sherlock wears...when he plays pirates...

;___; JOHHHNNNNNNN. IT IS PIRATES!! He loves him!! He knows!! He just doesn’t know that he knows!! 😭 ALLOW HIMMMM!!!

But, nothing so sweet or soulful to be found at Baskerville. :( Right now, this shit IS a minefield. Gary says No no, it’s the Great Grimpen Minefield, home to the Baskerville (❤️) “testing site” that’s been going on so long unchecked that no one really knows what the hell’s in there anymore. :( Ugh, tell me about it. John takes this in and asks, a bit more warily, “Explosives?” And Gary warns him, oh no no, not just explosives, break into that heart and if you’re lucky, you just get blown up. In case you were planning a nice wee stroll. :( And unfortunately, John is not one of the lucky ones.

So…to start with this is literally ALL that is on John’s mind this entire season, he is completely obsessed and pining to DEATH because he is being tormented by some VERY strong misgivings and conflicted feelings about Sherlock which are sadly both sensible and very well founded:

SHERLOCK (rolling his eyes): Yes, if I wanted poetry, I’d read John’s emails to his girlfriends. Much funnier.

SHERLOCK: Yes, good. Skipping to the night that your dad was violently killed. Where did that happen?

SHERLOCK: ...and then there was the one with the spots; and then the one with the nose; and then ... who was after the boring teacher?

SHERLOCK: The shade of red echoes her lipstick – either an unconscious association or one that she’s deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has lurrrve on her mind. The fact that she’s serious about him is clear from the fact she’s giving him a gift at all. That would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn...

And this is just a few examples from these two episodes, this isn’t even getting into the shit Sherlock does in series one that this is building off of, and this is also BEFORE Sherlock starts doing REALLY fucked up shit to him like attempting to drug him and gaslighting him in a lab experiment, or making John watch as he commits suicide off a building and allowing John to mourn for two whole years. Sherlock emotionally humiliates John, he humiliates other people in front of him, he manipulates him and is downright cruel to him at least once in basically every episode bar probably the first two, in which Sherlock more just takes him for granted and swings kinda relentlessly between pursuing and then rejecting him. John desperately wants Sherlock to be the the warm-hearted, caring, playful, funny (pirate ;_;) person he sometimes glimpses behind the facade, but he’s increasingly convinced he’s kidding himself, and just seeing what he wants to see because he’s besotted and lonely.

Anyway, Gary goes on to say that all that morbid Baskerville stuff buggers up tourism a bit, scares people off, so thank god for the demon Hound. God bless Henry and his hound from hell, made them a nice little industry off it. :) John then asks Gary if he’s ever seen the Hound and Gary says he hasn’t, but goes on to say that Fletcher has, motioning right at Sherlock, and by extension Fletcher who is standing just behind him in the entrance.

“He runs the walks, the monster walks.” “That’s handy. For trade.”

“Did wonders for Devon tourism.”

This gets Sherlock’s attention and he exits the inn to go after Fletcher. John is looking a bit distracted, eyes wandering around a bit as he gazes after Sherlock’s retreating figure with a rather amorous look…

God…But as Sherlock exits John’s line of vision a clear warning pops into focus:

Beware the Hound, John. Keep those wandering thoughts (and eyes) in check. Don’t want to get savaged. :(

Young Billy, the camp Sherlock mirror to John’s Gary, appears behind the bar and he and Gary start bantering their Hound (the cheek!!). John looks down and smiles to himself at their easy intimacy. Billy teases Gary about his snoring then asks John, “Is your’s a snorer?” And John immediately asks if they have any food. Crisps? Anything? It’s not like all the scenarios running through his head at the idea of sharing a room with his beau wasn’t bad enough, now he’s thinking about Sherlock softly snoring...in his arms…ugh that one made him hungry. He gets a drink to wash his chips down with (presuming he can get any...he never has much luck with food), since he’s halfway through a stout when he joins Sherlock outside. Needs a stiff drink after…all that.

Back with Sherlock, he takes a gamble on Fletcher being a gambler, he gets into ‘disguise’ and approaches Fletcher as a skeptical but intrigued tourist, attempting a blasé demeanour but just coming off as awkward as he tries to broach it, like he’s a bit scared Fletcher might actually have something. Fletcher gets very cagey and Sherlock asks if he has any proof which is enough to scare Fletcher off, until John appears and Sherlock turns it all into a game, which Fletcher can’t resist. He pulls out his phone and shows Sherlock a pic of an ordinary dog, which Sherlock sneers at, and taunts “Sorry John, I win.” Then Fletcher starts going on about the hollow, much like Henry was in 221B, but Sherlock still remains unconvinced. That is, until Fletcher tells them a Ghost Story, and pulls out a plaster cast of a large paw print. Sherlock is spooked now, and shies away from it a bit, eyeing it resentfully as he’s obliged to pay John. John takes another swig of beer as he eyes off Fletcher, and happily takes Sherlock’s money.

Approaching Baskerville, we are bombarded with signs signalling danger and secrecy, dogs roaming around, and men with guns. Baskerville has some strong parallels to Sherrinford, another top secret "facility” cum heart-dungeon that’s home to an escaped mayhem-causing monster that Sherlock has to confront. Sherrinford? Baskerville 2.0 tbh. Sherlock uses Mycroft’s ID to get them inside, which is absolute nonsense because Mycroft’s face is clearly on the ID lmao. Mycroft, of course, has full access to Baskerville (❤️) and “all areas” because he’s that aspect of Sherlock; The Clever One, the brain without a heart, the iceman persona, the detached puzzle solver, order, rationality, Mr. Caring-is-not-an-advantage etc. And this is the guy who’s In Charge. For fuck’s sake, Sherlock. Thank god he starts to reject alla that nonsense in The Sign of Three.

Anyway, John is anxious about all this, and quips

JOHN: Caught in five minutes. “Oh, hi, we just thought we’d come and have a wander round your top secret weapons base.” “Really? Great! Come in – kettle’s just boiled.” That’s if we don’t get shot.

John (rightly) does not anticipate any hospitality in Sherlock’s ‘ole heart, and is rather worried they might just get shot.

They drive on in and hop out of the car both seeming a bit trepidatious and are swiftly met by Corporal Lyons, who is a bit flustered by their presence and immediately asks if they’re “in trouble”. Because Baskerville (❤️) just doesn’t get inspected you see. It just isn’t done. John’s eyes wander over the attractive young Corporal and he swiftly pulls rank, getting them inside easily as a contrite Lyons scuttles to obey and give them the ~full tour~ and Sherlock is unable to completely hide his appreciation for his…Captain John Watson.

They go inside and Lyons takes them underground into the main lab. Sherlock asks Lyons about the animals they keep down here and gets all ominous about it as the ‘monsters’ inside Baskerville mill all around the lab.

“Phone Lestrade! Tell him there’s an escaped rabbit!”

FLUFFY FRIENDS. I like the way they frame the monkey’s and rabbits to look monstrous, really adds to the utter absurdity of it all. As the boys look around, Frankland exits the gas chamber and approaches them, all smiles and affability, hidden in plain sight, just like Moriarty.

FRANKLAND: Ah, new faces, how nice. Careful you don’t get stuck here, though. I only came to fix a tap!

SHERLOCK: James Moriarty is for hire. PROSECUTING BARRISTER: A tradesman? SHERLOCK: Yes. PROSECUTING BARRISTER: But not the sort who’d fix your heating. SHERLOCK: No, the sort who’d plant a bomb or stage an assassination, but I’m sure he’d make a pretty decent job of your boiler.

Lol. Frankland (Moriarty) only came to Baskerville (❤️) to fix a ‘leak’ but then…he got stuck in there…and now he’s a full blown virus 😩 Frankland gets some ominous villain treatment as he retreats and John then asks Lyons what it is that they actually do in this place;

LYONS: I thought you’d know, sir, this being an inspection. JOHN: Well, I’m not an expert, am I?

Lyons dodges John’s questions by acting like he should already know all that, then answers as imprecisely as possible. They head further on into Baskerville, now entering a lab in which they meet one Doctor Stapleton, another John mirror and one of my favourite instances of John’s bisexual coding lol. She’s another Doctor, same physical type, fair-haired, wearing a button-down cardigan and has a young daughter.

Sherlock asks what her role at Baskerville is, to which she snorts in amusement and says she’s not free to say, to which Sherlock reacts rather strongly?

Like even John is bewildered. Why do you suggest she remains that way Sherlock, hmm? Hmm? I have no idea if this is just a coincidence, but the phrasing along with Sherlock’s response just stuck out to me, especially since these are both Mark’s episodes.

She then says

STAPLETON: I have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. I like to mix things up – genes, mostly; now and again, actual fingers. SHERLOCK: Stapleton. Knew I knew your name. STAPLETON: Doubt it.

This quip about Stapleton’s (= John’s) name happens right after she ambiguously says she “likes to mix things up”. Genes mostly but also, actual fingers. Has a rather, wide field, you might say. And she’s (required to be) very secretive (private) about it.

And then we get to the crux of the matter, Sherlock quips dramatically about coincidence then holds up his moleskin on which he’s written…Bluebell.

In the end, Sherlock breaks into Baskerville to find out why Bluebell had to die.

SHERLOCK: Why did Bluebell have to die, Doctor Stapleton? JOHN: The rabbit? SHERLOCK: Disappeared from inside a locked hutch, which was always suggestive. JOHN: The rabbit? SHERLOCK: Clearly an inside job. STAPLETON: Oh, you reckon. SHERLOCK: Why? Because it glowed in the dark?

“Why did I have to die, John?” CLEARLY AN INSIDE JOB. OH YOU RECKON. Sherlock’s halfway there, but we'll return to this later on, as this isn’t pertinent until John speaks to Stapleton after he’s drugged. This is just set-up for that. For now, Sherlock looks at his watch and hightails it outta there with a very indignant and confused John on his heels.

JOHN: Did we just break into a military base to investigate a rabbit?

Well…………….yeah. You did. :(

Elsewhere, the ‘security breach’ slowly makes it’s way to Mycroft who apparently receives word of this ~national security breach~ via text message and literally just rolls his eyes at his phone and sends Sherlock a text. Like, I’m laughing my ass off, did people really ever think this show was ‘realistic’. It’s NONSENSE. No one but Mycroft is involved or even notified because this is all a dumb heart-metaphor, which is also why the only action Mycroft takes is to send down Sherlock’s ‘handler’ to look after him lmao. The only thing they have ever cared about are their dumb metaphors (that I love! So much!). Sherlock just laughs at the text and says Mycroft’s getting sloppy (has he ever NOT been though…this is the question) as they rush toward the elevator, in which they conveniently bump into Frankland again. Back on ground level, they run into the stern and impressive Major Barrymore, who is quite outraged that Sherlock has staged an inspection.

BARRYMORE: The whole point of Baskerville (❤️) was to eliminate this kind of bureaucratic nonsense... SHERLOCK: I’m so sorry, Major. BARRYMORE: Inspections?! SHERLOCK: New policy. Can’t remain unmonitored forever. Goodness knows what you’d get up to.

“The whole point of Baskerville (❤️) was to eliminate this kind of bureaucratic nonsense...” Like...is this some meta-fictional yelling on Mark’s part about the heartrooms or what :/ And like, I get it, the heartrooms etc WERE no doubt intended to subvert the ‘bureaucratic nonsense’ that would inevitably swamp the first gay Holmes adaptation and allow them to tell the story they wanted to tell relatively undetected, but I’m with Sherlock on this one lmao. These fuckers have been running around unmonitored for TOO LONG and they can’t keep getting away with it! Enough is enough! Um, anyway, they’re interrupted as Lyons sets the heart-alarms off despite the intruders being like, right there with them, and just says ‘ID unauthorised’. Sherlock hands over Mycroft’s ID and just as Barrymore is about to skewer them, Frankland intervenes and is able to persuade Barrymore that Sherlock is in fact Mycroft Holmes (I guess. Since Mycroft is basically just The Brain anyway), and get them off the hook. This scene is a clusterfuck to me and one of the few where I can’t really tell if there’s anything going on because there’s no context and I can’t stand watching it because of the alarms. Like the scene with Jaqui, I feel like it’s mostly just setup for the second trip to Baskerville.

Frankland walks them out and seeks to ingratiate himself with them and insert himself into the investigation although Sherlock is clearly still on edge. He gushes about the hat, saying Sherlock’s almost unrecognisable without it (tell me about it) as Sherlock crankily says that stupid hat wasn’t his hat. (I take it anyone reading this is familiar with the meaning of the hat, but if you haven’t seen it the tjlce video explains it well). He then compliments John on his blog, “the pink thing” and “that one about The Aluminium Crutch”*[1] and with the mention of THAT debacle Sherlock abruptly changes the subject. Frankland says he knew Henry’s dad better than Henry himself and that he had all sorts of “mad theories” about Baskerville (❤️) but was nonetheless a good friend. He gives Sherlock his number, and says to give him a call if he can help with Henry.

Frankland throws some shade at Stapleton after they joke about killing Sherlock again and then they part ways. As soon as they’re alone, John immediately asks Sherlock what all that about the rabbit was, and Sherlock doesn’t answer. He smirks to himself knowingly, then flips his collar up and pulls his coat protectively around himself (in my opinion). His acts of defensiveness are so tiny, man, it breaks my heart. John, (pining to DEATH!) already wound up from being led down this rabbit hole blind, blurts out

JOHN: Oh, please, can we not do this, this time. SHERLOCK: Do what? JOHN: You, being all…mysterious with your, cheekbones, ’n turning your coat collar up so you look cool. SHERLOCK: I don’t do that! JOHN: Yeah you do.

John is simultaneously endeared and exasperated by this behaviour, but mostly he’s just dying of frustration with all his own pent up desires for his friend.

But Sherlock doesn’t really take well to stuff like this, because he think’s John’s straight. And he hates himself, so obviously he’s never gonna see affection in being teased like this (at least, certainly not the kind he wants) by a ‘mate’ with whom he’s secretly in love. I’m quite sure all he see’s here is the blokey prodding, y’know; posh boy public school with your cheekbones and high collar. A joke. A laugh. It grates at him. These micro-misunderstandings? Death.

The sexual tension continues as they sit in the car together, making awkward eye-contact and immediately looking away from each other before John brings up Bluebell again. Sherlock speculates that Jaqui made Bluebell glow with a fluorescent gene and concludes that as we know she performs “secret experiments” on bunnies, the question is now whether she’s been “working on something deadlier than a bluebell”. As we know, the answer to that question is…no. So John makes a joke.

“To be fair that is quite a wide field.”

John cracks a bi joke RIGHT THERE…AT Sherlock…he’s flirting at him again! Twice in less than five minutes! Sherlock is stumped and perhaps kinda suspicious of another joke at his expense and John just looks away and smirks to himself. I am sorry but I love this so much, John is just like, I’ve had enough of this mysterious asshole it’s MY turn to be a cryptic bitch for once! Aksjndf.

Likes to mix things up….has quite a wide field…dis bisexuelle coding, Mark! ❤️

They arrive at Henry’s house and there is a pertinent moment here that’s been deleted from the episode (perhaps because it’s too obvious), but the script snippet is included in The Sherlock Chronicles:

Sherlock asks John for his money back while they wait for Henry to answer the door, and John rebuffs him, claiming Sherlock owes him. >.< You can see Sherlock is kinda crabby when they cut to him as Henry opens the door:

Uh...tense. They head inside and John looks around, quite surprised, and asks Henry a bit tactlessly,

And this is Sherlock’s reaction:

Hooo boy. TENSE.

In the kitchen, Sherlock helps himself to Henry’s sugar as Henry tells them about the words he remembers, Liberty In, and Sherlock supplies the complete phrase. Henry asks “What now then?” and Sherlock supplies them with The Plan, as he tries to drink his sweetened coffee, which he’s having some trouble swallowing. :(

It’s not to his taste! He just doesn’t do coffee ok.

SHERLOCK: We take you back out onto the moor. See if anything attacks you.

John laughs and acts peeved about Sherlock’s recklessness and Sherlock snaps at him quietly. Got any better ideas? He concludes that if there is a monster out there, the only thing to do is find out where it lives. Time to face his fears at the scene of the crime.

*[1] - writemeastoryofsolitude’s meta “The Mystery of The Aluminium Crutch, or How Sherlock Holmes Fell in Love” has a lot of great insight’s about this particular blog post, I haven’t read it in years and from what I remember I certainly wouldn’t parse it like that myself, but it gives you a pretty good idea. :)

tagging any interested parties again :) @sarahthecoat @impossibleleaf @northstargrassmaiden @devoursjohnlock @gosherlocked @love-in-mind-palace @221bloodnun, @johnlockiseternal, @tjlcisthenewsexy etc

#sherlock #tjlc #johnlock #sherlock meta #my meta #the next part (umqra)...is my fave

20 notes · View notes

resbang-bookclub · 7 years

Text

AMA Transcript: Reluctant Company 2

This weekend, @sandmancircus dropped by to chat about her 2016 Resbang: Reluctant Company 2! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: What was the hardest and most rewarding parts of your processes? And how did you get/develop your ideas?

Sand: The hardest part was definitely the ending, because endings are balls and I can never seem to get them right or do them justice in my opinion - this time included. The most rewarding is probably writing in the jokes, because I will giggle to myself because I think I'm funny. But also, completing something I've been working on for upwards of 3 years is also super rewarding.

Q: What was your favorite scene to write?

Sand: Fav scene would maybe be the scene with Mifune? No spoilers cuz again, I think I'm funnier than I am and don't want to ruin anything, but I was snorting when I wrote it.

Q: Do you find it easier to write from Free or Eruka's POV, or are both about the same?

Sand: I really like writing from Eruka's point of view because she is sassy and a coward and mildly evil.

Q: What made you decide to be such a perfect phenomenal person and write a sequel for Resbang?

Sand: Because I am an imperfect horrible person and didn't totally completely finish my last years Resbang because I had to cut it off. I was hoping no mods would read my last years and notice it wasn't finished but then MARSH DID and I was like fucking Marsh.

Q: Did you have a writing playlist or character/theme playlists or anything?

Sand: Not for any particular reason besides the fact that I really liked it and needed mood music, I listened to this song a bunch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MHZ3GwPRqA.

Q: Okay I love the end that just has -- well you don't want spoilers but... surprise bye bye. Were you always planning to end that way?

Sand: More or less, yes.

Q: Since this was a sequel that was apparently in the works since the first part, was the planning process pretty easy? Like, did you know a lot of what was going to happen already? Did you have any written already?

Sand: When I first came up with the idea 4-ish years ago? it was slightly different but the outcome was always the same. I would have liked to draw it out a bit more though. I had NONE written lol, because I am a procrastinating procrastinator who procrastinates. I knew the ending, which helped, but getting there needed adjusting because I had made some plot twists that weren't in the initial plan. Some things were planned and some things I just started writing when I sat down, it was funny like that.

Q: Where did the original idea for this fic come from? Or what made you decide to tell this story, outta curiosity?

Sand: Several years ago, I was driving with my dad down a highway in BC that gets super snowy and icy and dangerous and he was like, "All you need to survive here if your car breaks down is a match and a sleeping bag." Still not sure I believe him, but the result was FIC IDEA. I can't remember if that line ever got/stayed in the fic, though I had planned mandatory snuggles around it. I think it was originally for SoMa? But I switched and it felt better.

Q: Got any other fics in the works? :wink:

Sand: No fics in the works (for the first time in YEARS) until Reverb.

Q: Were there any scenes that ended up getting cut out? Or stuff that just didnt make it into the final product?

Sand: There were scenes that didn't fit as I had added a plot twist, but aside from that, most things got in, though again, I wish I could've fleshed certain things out a bit more than I did. But time, man. I mean I say that, but without the Resbang deadlines I'm pretty sure it would've never gotten done.

Q: Was it hard returning to the thing a year later? Do you think that gap changed the final product in any big ways?

Sand: Yeah, I forgot half of what was written lol. As for if it changed - I'm sure it would've been different. A bunch of what I wrote kinda appeared in my mind at the moment and as I was dealing with different stuff. I'm sure I would have written it/developed ideas differently, if that makes sense? I did try to write it, but I kept failing without the structure.

Q: I have to ask how you came up with your version of Angela and Mifune. I laughed. A lot.

Sand: Aah Angela and Mifune. As it was a UA type thing, I wanted to continue stuffing in as many characters as I could (B*S and Blair were initially going to be in it as well) and I wanted to make them a bit wonky. Angela just turned out how she did naturally but Mifune was a bit of a spur of the moment thing. He's essentially the same with an added quirk and I wanted to see if I could write him in character despite his... quirk. They were fun.

Q: Is there anything you would want to change from the first fic, now that you've completed the sequel?

Sand: Uuummm, not really. I mostly wish I could have written them as one, but I'm happy that they're done now. More or less one of my fav things that I've written.

Q: Sarah, do you outline?

Sand: Lol no. OUTLINING IS FOR NERDS AND SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE.

Q: What is your writing process like?

Sand: I keep a list of general scenes I need for the skeleton of the fic and another list for clever dialogue lines/jokes I think up while I'm on the toilet or something. When I wrote chapter fics, I always had 1 chapter unpublished while I was writing in case I needed to change something. Take me back to those days. I would delete thousands and thousands of words and rewrite to make things fit. Kept things flowing at least.

Q: Gawd the amount of rewriting you did for the first Resbang...

Sand: THAT'S RIGHT. I sent you two first chapters to edit. Omg I was the worst.

---

Thanks to Sand for stoppin’ by! Stay tuned for more transcripts!!

#AMA transcripts #resbang book club #rbbc #resbang

7 notes · View notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

I'VE BEEN PONDERING THING

If you really want to score big, the place to focus is the margin of the margin: the territories only recently captured from the insiders. All the most successful people I know. And yet he seems pretty commanding, doesn't he? Venture funding works like gears. Inefficient software isn't gross. Organic growth seems to yield better technology and richer founders than the big bang method. That is certainly a good goal, but in general this is not an irrational fear: it really is hard to do on demand, or b use them only to fill up a larger round led by someone else. Many investors will ask how much you're planning to raise a large round and risk losing the investors you already have if you can't raise the full amount. This is a safe technique so long as there is no try. You notice a door that's ajar, and you just have to fill it in.

The exciting thing about the Internet is that it's such a risky environment. And since the danger of responsibilities is not just a negotiating trick; it's how you both should be operating. And yet I think the worst danger of committees is that they haven't tried to generate them. When I say there may only be a few languages, I'm not including domain-specific little languages. Which means that even if we're generous to ourselves and assume that YC can on average triple a startup's expected value, and it's true for software too. What happened? The eminent generally respond to the shortage of time by turning into managers.

You just have to realize in time that you're near death. We're taking on some consulting projects, but we're going to keep working on the company to do it all yourself. Startups almost never get it right the first time someone asks him. In Apple's case the garage story is a bit of an urban legend. Hygienic macros are intended to protect me from variable capture, among other things, because some offset their schedules to prevent this. He meant the Mac and its documentation and even packaging—such is the nature of obsession should be insanely well designed and manufactured. Even if you're designing something for the most part, is that you have to design what the user needs, who is this for and what do they need in order to seem rich. It was a theoretical exercise, an attempt to create a successful company? Angels are better at appreciating novel ideas, because you can represent them as lists: the integer n could be represented as a list of n things, this work is done by the people who want them.

What's gross is a language in which the best work is done by the people who discover them are looked down on by everyone, including themselves. For example, why should there be a connection between humor and misfortune? Instead of sitting in your grubby apartment listening to users complain about bugs in your software, but are your software. Sometimes we advise founders of B2B startups to take over-engagement to an extreme, and to be good for writing throwaway programs, which are mostly big ones. Seeing the system in use by real users—people they don't know—gives them lots of new ideas. One recently told me that his copy of CLTL falls open to the section format. But it seemed worth spoiling the atmosphere if I could save some of the hardest questions founders face. I don't mean to imply that good design has to be modified to: stay upwind for as long as you can, then when some act the rest have to. Even if all you care about is what happens in the next ten feet, this is a lowly sort of thing should have been online. And if you just ask that question, and the de facto censorship imposed by publishers is a useful if imperfect filter. It's like the sort of pork-barrel project where a town gets money from the state government to renovate a vacant building as a high-tech incubator, as if it were merely lack of the right sort of office space that had till now prevented the town from becoming a startup hub.

How long do they expect it to continue. Partly because the most important thing is not to make them. A rounds still work that way, even if this causes some breakage. Languages are notation. If you rehearse a prewritten speech enough, you can choose when you raise money from them on an uncapped convertible note with an MFN clause. But in retrospect that was the optimal path to dominating a big market. You just have to fill it in. For example, if an investor seems interested, don't just let them sit. This focus on the grooves in the chocolate bar—the places where tasks are divided when they're split between several people. As I was doing it I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other kind of difficulty can be eliminated. When an investment scores spectacularly, as Google did for Kleiner and Sequoia, it generates a lot of people, and since they're the customer you can take your time. Whereas an obscure angel who won't invest much, but will be easy to ignore; a few might even snicker at it.

The electronic parts distributors are trying to squash them to keep their monopoly pricing. Lexical closures provide a way to finesse our way out of the gate that you want to do dangerous and unsavory things. Founders overestimate their chances of raising more money. It's this fact that makes programing languages a good idea, and what to do. If I already have momentum on some project, I can work in plain sight and they don't realize how much deeper bloggers can dig than journalists, how much more interesting a democratic news site can be than a front page controlled by editors, and how much funnier a bunch of declarations. And then they panic. In a hundred years. He tried to sound indignant, but he wouldn't have returned at all if he'd realized Microsoft was going to increase productivity dramatically. The latest hot language, Python, and Ruby. There is one case where the two strategies give conflicting advice is when you have a lot. If 98% of the time but occasionally cut someone up and bury them in your backyard, you're a bad guy.

They know their audience. So some or all of the employees to take less salary is a weak solution that will only work when the problem isn't too bad. During the railroad boom, but the most successful startups it's a necessary part of the compensation is in the same position; he doesn't have majority control of Microsoft; in principle he also has to convince instead of commanding. Even VCs do it. Dating sites are a prime example. Design is not just the mechanics of it, but at every point till you're profitable. To make something good, you have to be on the way out. These ideas didn't just seem small. You're thinking out loud. The reason I didn't take money from investors is harder than that.

They're not impressed by one's job title, for example. It does not, for example. He Won't Tell You about Sex, or something like that. The electronic parts distributors are trying to squash them to keep their monopoly pricing. But even if what you're building really is great, getting users will always be pushing you toward the bottom. It feels that way for everyone. The organic growth method is exemplified by the VC-backed, heavily marketed startup. After 15 cycles of preparing startups for investors and then watching how they do, I can now look at a program and ask, is there any overall theme? Their format is convenient, especially when you're generating code, to have operators that take any number of arguments.

Thanks to Sangam Pant, Shiro Kawai, Emmett Shear, and Eric Raymond for sharing their expertise on this topic.

0 notes

seo75074 · 5 years

Text

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

Transcript

This transcript is sponsored by our transcript partner – Rev – Get $10 off your first order

John Jantsch: If you’ve been in marketing any time at all, you’ve lived through some seismic shifts or rebellions in the things that have come along. The internet, search, social media, all these things have changed how we go to market. And there’s a new marketing rebellion; quite frankly, the thing that has changed the most is the way people buy. In this episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, a visit with Mark Schaefer. He’s the author of Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins.

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is your host, John Jantsch, and my guest today is Mark Schaefer. He is a columnist, teacher, speaker, author, podcaster, and we’re going to talk about his latest book, Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins. So, Mark, thanks for joining us.

Mark Schaefer: Oh, it’s always a delight to catch up with you, John.

John Jantsch: Well, I think you and Tom Webster have a show. Is it still called The Marketing Companion? Forgive me if that’s not right.

Mark Schaefer: Yes.

John Jantsch: Yes.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah, Marketing Companion, sure.

John Jantsch: And I was … I got to be on your show, which was a lot of fun, and I said off-air and I’ll say it now on the air, you guys are a lot funnier than me. I really enjoy some of the pranks and the gags that you guys come up with. You give that a lot of thought and make it a lot of fun.

Mark Schaefer: Well, we try to be entertaining, that’s sort of our thing. And I’d like to take credit for it, but Tom is just hilarious, so we kind of go with that.

John Jantsch: He has a unique point of view, doesn’t he?

Mark Schaefer: So funny, so funny.

John Jantsch: So, you and I have been … I’ll just tell people this, my listeners know this, but you and I have been doing this for like 30 years or so in some capacity in marketing. And I’d like to be the first to say that this is not the first rebellion that I’ve participated in in marketing.

Mark Schaefer: Right.

John Jantsch: I mean, if you think about it, I mean, there’s a whole bunch of mini-rebellions, right? I mean, the internet certainly changed marketing, search dependency changed it, the fact that we can now collaborate and do business all over the globe changed it, social media came and changed it again. And now, what’s the marketing rebellion that we’re facing today?

Mark Schaefer: Well, I think you set it up very good, John, is that there’s almost been like a continuous rebellion. But the thing about it, you can either be fearful about it or you can say, “This is a lot of fun.” And I remember all those rebellions, especially the internet, and I kind of point that out as the second rebellion. So the first rebellion was sort of in the 1920s, 1930s, when advertising and marketing just started, and advertising at the beginning basically was lies. And so there was a rebellion against lies, and it became eventually a crime to lie in your advertising.

Then the second rebellion, I was in the middle of that because the internet came. Back before the internet, you made money on the secrets. That’s how you sold a car, that’s how you sold insurance, and then … I can remember those days, and I don’t know if any of your listeners will remember, there was this thing called a reverse auction, and some of these commodity buyers used the internet to get all their suppliers online, and then bid against each other in real time on the internet. It was terrifying, it was crazy, because basically, negotiations were over, because secrets were over.

And so that was … I lump the whole internet thing, social media, into this idea of … It was the end of secrets. And today, the rebellion that we’re in is the end of control. For me, this is really hard to accept, it’s hard to get my head around it. And I’ll remember there was this piece of research that I read from McKinsey that basically was saying, “The sales funnel is gone, loyalty is over. It’s a waste of money to spend money on loyalty programs anymore.” And I’m reading this, I’m thinking, “I’ve been in marketing more than 30 years. This is what I do.” But there’s a … And it’s not just McKinsey, it’s all over.

The research is compelling, and many of your listeners are probably right in the middle of it, that we’re in a shop-around society. People own the customer journey. The customers are the marketers now, because when you and I were growing up in business, we controlled the message, because an ad or some sort of marketing program, that’s the only way customers could learn about us. Today, they learn from each other, they share with each other, and that’s what they believe, that’s what they trust, and that’s what works.

And so this suggests that for marketers today, we have to think about, how do we become invited to those conversations? The messaging, the control, the sales funnel isn’t working like it used to. Certainly, ads don’t work like they used to. How do you thrive and survive in this environment when the customer is the marketer, the customer is in control? And that’s the challenge I present with the book.

John Jantsch: Before we get to how, I mean, let’s put this out there. Everyone except a cynical marketer is probably going to suggest this is better for the customer.

Mark Schaefer: Oh, absolutely. One of the points I make in the book is that the customers have always won these rebellions. When the customers said, “No more lies,” then there were laws that were made, and when they said, “No more secrets,” I mean, there are no more secrets. And the customers are basically saying, “Respect us. We don’t … Stop the spam, stop the robocalling, stop the email blasts, stop the lead nurturing and all this stuff that we hate. Just stop it.”

And look, you know, the thing about technology and a lot of these things that have caused these problems is it’s so intoxicating. That’s not because technology is bad, it’s because technology is good. It’s so easy, it’s so cheap, and it’s so easy to think, “Oh, just for $9.99, we can get a list of a million emails and blast all these people, and if we just get one sales, it’s going to pay it off.” And that’s sort of the way marketing churns today, and every time we do that, we’re isolating ourselves, we’re disenfranchising ourselves from customers, and the customers don’t want it, and they’re going to win. Eventually, they’re going to win, so we need to be proactive about this and think about, how do we change our mindset, change our culture to adopt and really serve customers in the way they want to be served?

John Jantsch: I’ve heard you say this comment, and this has got to just … In fact, I know it does. It’s so counterintuitive, it runs so counter to how people think about marketing their businesses that they’re having trouble wrapping their heads around it. And the statement is that two-thirds of our marketing is not our marketing.

Mark Schaefer: Well, it’s undeniable. And I know that this is a controversial opinion, but I back everything up in the book with research, and this was a study, believe it or not, that first came out in 2009. And when it came out, it really sort of shook the rafters of the business world, and then it kind of went away. And then, as you see how the world plays out, you sort of see this happening. And then I saw research from Deloitte and from Accenture and from Pew about how this sales funnel is going away, and how it’s changing.

And then McKinsey came out with sort of an updated study, and they identified, oh, I think it … I can’t remember the exact number. I want to say it was 135,000 customer journeys they analyzed, and they basically said that, look, the marketing and advertising is having very little impact, that the customer owns the journey, and no two are alike. And recent research from Google, Google has put out a few white papers in the last 6 to 12 months that have basically said the same thing. Even on search, even when people are looking for the same thing, it’s a tangled mess. There is no lockstep customer journey. There is no sales funnel anymore.

And of course, one of the things I emphasize in the book is, look, there are always exceptions. Some businesses and some industries are different from others. But this was across … McKinsey said they looked at 80 different industries, and they said in 90% of the cases, there is no loyalty, there is no … There’s basically no sales funnel to speak of, and there’s no loyalty. And I’m in the same place you are. I’m in the same place your listeners were. This is, like, shaking me to the core. There was literally a point, John, when I was researching this book, where I almost kind of lost my breath and just sat there and thought, “I don’t know what it means to be a marketer anymore.”

This requires … If you look at what’s going on, if you look at this research, it requires a radically different mindset, a radically different approach. It redefines what it means to be a marketer today, and it took me a while to accept that.

John Jantsch: One of the things about research studies that … You know, I don’t care who’s doing it, McKinsey or whoever’s doing it. I think there’s a bias that’s hard to measure, and here’s what I mean by that, that they talk about, you know, “Across industries, 17% of customers are loyal, and investing in sales funnels and loyalty programs is a waste of time.” Now, is that because of the way we’re doing them, that we’re wasting our time? And I guess what my contention is, is there a way to do what we might … I mean, is there a way to create customer loyalty that’s so radically different than what we’re doing today and calling customer loyalty, that would actually drive those numbers up? We all know companies, I’m sure you have companies that you’re extremely loyal to, and I am as well, because they do things so differently. And I wonder if a lot of these surveys just measure the fact that there’s a lot of crap marketing.

Mark Schaefer: Well, that’s exactly what it’s measuring. That’s precisely what it’s saying. And there was a clue in that McKinsey study, and they said the reason this is happening is because there’s no longer any emotional attachment to these brands, and people are forming … You know, trust, this is a well-known study by Edelman, the Trust Barometer that they come out with every year, and trust in businesses, brands, and advertising has declined 10 years in a row.

But who do people trust? They trust each other, they trust their neighbors, they trust industry experts. Trust in entrepreneurs, by the way, is very high. And a lot of people roll their eyes when you talk about influencers, but influencers are simply people on the web who are trusted and beloved, and people look at them as if they’re friends. I’m sure you experience this. You may not consider yourself a, you know, air quote, unquote, “influencer,” but people who you don’t even know probably leave you comments and say, “John, I really trust your advice, I love your books. You influenced my business and my life.”

It’s this idea that we have to become part of these conversations, but you can’t really buy your way in like you used to. You know, 20 or 25 years ago, you could buy your way in, because advertising was the only way people had to really discover your product, or have discussions about your product. But today, people have all the power in the palm of their hand. It used to be a brand was something we told you, a company told you, and today a brand is what people tell each other. And so we’ve got to find a way to embed ourselves in those conversations, and there’s lots of ideas in the book on how to do that.

John Jantsch: So, the subtitle of the book, The Most Human Company Wins.

Mark Schaefer: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Jantsch: You know, there was a point in time in one of these past rebellions where social media was actually supposed to make that happen. What happened?

Mark Schaefer: Well, you and I were there at the beginning, and what happened was, I think at first, companies did get it, and they really embraced it, and it was like this amazing thing that happened, that customers were talking back. And companies thought, “Well, okay, we’ll try that, we’ll talk back, we’ll join these conversations,” and there were real people having real conversations. And then companies kind of did what they always do, they’re like, “Oh, well, we can make this simpler because we can automate things, and we can create these algorithms.” And the human voice was replaced with personas, and the heart and the compassion of our human voices were replaced by these soulless messages, and social media today has sort of been a way to just become another form of advertising and weaponizing influencers, and that’s about it.

The only companies that are having some sort of substantial, meaningful impact on social media are the ones that are sort of reclaiming a human voice, and not an advertising agency providing legally approved snarky quips. I think people are getting tired of that. I think that hopefully that phase is going to be over soon. It just looks like a company trying too hard. People can sense that, they can sniff out a fake in 280 characters. Basically, companies just try to automate everything. They try to cut costs, try to cut the humans out of it, in search of the marketing easy button, “Let’s use technology.” And those days are over, they just are. It’s not a message that’s easy to hear, but that’s not what’s going to work anymore.

John Jantsch: A mutual friend of ours, Jay Baer, has a new book called … Or, fairly new book called Talk Triggers. I know you’re aware of it, and I had Jay on the show, and he mentioned me on the YouTube broadcast today, so I have to throw him a bone, so that’s why I’m working him into today’s show. No, but, you know, one of the things about that book is that he’s saying we have to create these moments to get people to talk about us.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: And if you read through the book, the moments are all human-centered.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: You know, it’s not because somebody had, like, red in their logo that people are talking about it, it’s they did something that was exceptional and surprising.

Mark Schaefer: Something that’s conversational, something that will spark, something that delights people and surprises them. And I think Jay and I sort of do this dance together, from really the beginning. We’re sort of thinking about the same things, we’re sort of thinking of … We both enjoy thinking about what’s next, and how all these pieces come together, and in many ways, our two books are companion pieces. I spend quite a bit of time in my book talking about word-of-mouth marketing, without getting into the tactical piece that Jay covers in his book. So I think they’re 100% compatible. I talk about the larger trend of what the heck is going on, and why we need to do this, and then you can pick up Jay’s book and say, “Oh, yeah, okay, now I see what Mark’s talking about.”

John Jantsch: One of my favorite lines in your book, or it’s actually, I think it’s a subhead, is that “the greatest companies make fans of their fans.” How do we do that?

Mark Schaefer: Yeah, you know, John, I was so, so fortunate in this book to interview some of the greatest marketers, and that quote came from a marketing hero of mine, Fabio Tambosi. He was with Nike, he’s now with Adidas in Germany. And this part of the book talks about how marketing has to become artisanal. It’s not the perfect word, but marketing almost has to be, appear like it’s local, like it’s craftsmanlike, like it’s part of the local community, it has personality, and that you have to be fans of your fans on a local level. People don’t believe companies anymore. You know, people that say, “Oh, look at us, we’ve stopped polluting. Oh, look at us, we’ve hired more women.” This is basically saying, “Look at us, we’re normal.”

John Jantsch: Or “We’re not as screwed up as we used to be.”

Mark Schaefer: Yeah. “Look, we’ve stopped being bad.” That’s not marketing, all right? What people what to see is that they want to see what you’re doing that impacts me and my community. And another great quote in the book from Fabio is that today, you can’t be in a community. You have to be of a community. You have to be down in the streets, in the neighborhoods. You have to relate to people on a local level. You have to be a fan of your fans, you have to be where the work and the action is actually happening. Marketing takes place in meetings and at the tip of a shovel.

And I’ll tell you, it’s extraordinarily hard for a big company to do that, and you can see these cataclysmic shifts going on right now, with companies like Procter & Gamble, that they know they’ve got to be doing this. And some are going to win, and some are going to lose, but everybody has to pay attention. Everybody has to know about these trends and make up their own minds about what it means for your own business.

John Jantsch: You tell some good stories and good examples of brands that you think are doing it right. I’m going to go out on a limb here, this is not very manly what I’m getting ready to say, but I don’t get YETI.

Mark Schaefer: I don’t get YETI either. I don’t.

John Jantsch: But yet you can go into a gift store and they’ve got them, the hardware store’s got them, the fishing tackle store’s got them. I mean, people are nuts about them.

Mark Schaefer: Well, and for your listeners, especially your listeners who are outside of America, I mean, YETI is this … It started out as a premium cooler. So, you could buy a cooler for your ice, probably for $29; they’re selling these things for $400, and they’ve just introduced a $1,300 cooler. And they’ve now extended into other products like coffee mugs, and … So, I live in an area of America that enjoys hunting and fishing, you know, there’s a lot of outdoorsmen here, and I started noticing people wearing hats and putting even stickers on their car that say YETI. And I thought, “Isn’t that a cooler?” It’s a cooler, it’s a freaking ice cooler. Why are people supporting this brand?

So, the story in the book is absolutely fascinating, and I love it, because it shows how you can even take a commodity product like an ice cooler and truly, sincerely build a community of emotional support and love for a cooler. But the same lesson applies, John. They are not in a community; they are not participating in some community. They are of the community. They are outdoorsmen. Everything they do lives and breathes outdoors, you know, people who love the outdoors. So it’s a great, great inspirational case study. I still could never bring myself to wear a hat that promotes a cooler. That is not part of my personal value set. But thousands and thousands of people are doing it, the brand has become a sensation, and it’s a great example, a perfect example of how to win in the marketing rebellion.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think you could safely say they’re no longer selling coolers.

Mark Schaefer: They’re selling a lifestyle, really. I mean, that’s … Marketing is emotion, it’s always been emotion. But here’s the difference: In the old days, we used to build an emotion to a product, because it worked really well, or because our parents used it, or because maybe we like the smell. And of course, it still works that way to some extent. But today, we build these emotional attachments to people, more than products or attributions of a product.

And I think one of the main points of the book is that in the old days, our businesses and brands were built through an accumulation of human impressions, and going forward, it’s going to be built through an accumulation of human impressions. We’re going to listen to people, we’re going to trust people, we’re going to love people, and the products that they represent, and that’s … If you look at YETI, it’s the owners. If you look at Glossier, by the way, I think Glossier is the single best case study today in a company that was built from the ground up to win in this world where the customer is the marketer. It’s a skincare and makeup company, probably beyond startup at this point. But this is built through a person. She started out as a blogger, and just built this love, and built this engagement and this emotion and this community through her blog, and now it’s a multimillion-dollar business. It’s the hottest skincare business out there right now, built from social media up.

Now, how does L’Oréal recreate that? I don’t know. I really don’t know, and experts I talk to in the field who are sort of in this marketing rebellion era with me, this human era of human-centered marketing. L’Oréal is not built on human-centered marketing, it’s built on a huge relationship with an ad agency, and Glossier is built on this human-centered marketing. That’s what’s going to win in the future.

We see Procter & Gamble trying to make moves into this human-centered marketing. I just saw that they just bought a company, a small company that has built their consumer products on this human-centered idea. So Procter & Gamble is basically saying, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” So anyway, it’s going to be an interesting … You know, we’re in for another cataclysm.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think one of the things that we sometimes forget, too, is that a new generation of companies will come along, and they’ll do the new generation, and then they’ll be the next thing, and they’ll be the next L’Oréals of some fashion.

Mark Schaefer: And I think this new generation, it’s just second nature to them, because if you look at the way we’ve sort of automated marketing, and commoditized marketing, and made it soulless, they’re looking at it like, “Who would do that? Who would do that? That’s not what I like.” And from their perspective, it makes so much sense. So we’ve got to get out of our bubble and look at the real world and real life, and we do not have a choice. We have got to make the change.

John Jantsch: Visiting with Mark Schaefer, the author of Marketing Rebellion. Mark, it was awesome to catch up with you again. Where can people find more about you, your work, and pick up a copy of Marketing Rebellion?

Mark Schaefer: Well, you can find everything about me at

https://ift.tt/2IEp6nT

#Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

0 notes

bathrem22032 · 5 years

Text

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

Transcript

This transcript is sponsored by our transcript partner – Rev – Get $10 off your first order

Mark Schaefer: Oh, it’s always a delight to catch up with you, John.

John Jantsch: Well, I think you and Tom Webster have a show. Is it still called The Marketing Companion? Forgive me if that’s not right.

Mark Schaefer: Yes.

John Jantsch: Yes.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah, Marketing Companion, sure.

Mark Schaefer: Well, we try to be entertaining, that’s sort of our thing. And I’d like to take credit for it, but Tom is just hilarious, so we kind of go with that.

John Jantsch: He has a unique point of view, doesn’t he?

Mark Schaefer: So funny, so funny.

Mark Schaefer: Right.

John Jantsch: Before we get to how, I mean, let’s put this out there. Everyone except a cynical marketer is probably going to suggest this is better for the customer.

John Jantsch: So, the subtitle of the book, The Most Human Company Wins.

Mark Schaefer: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Jantsch: You know, there was a point in time in one of these past rebellions where social media was actually supposed to make that happen. What happened?

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: And if you read through the book, the moments are all human-centered.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: You know, it’s not because somebody had, like, red in their logo that people are talking about it, it’s they did something that was exceptional and surprising.

John Jantsch: One of my favorite lines in your book, or it’s actually, I think it’s a subhead, is that “the greatest companies make fans of their fans.” How do we do that?

John Jantsch: Or “We’re not as screwed up as we used to be.”

Mark Schaefer: I don’t get YETI either. I don’t.

John Jantsch: But yet you can go into a gift store and they’ve got them, the hardware store’s got them, the fishing tackle store’s got them. I mean, people are nuts about them.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think you could safely say they’re no longer selling coolers.

Mark Schaefer: Well, you can find everything about me at

https://ift.tt/2IEp6nT

#Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

0 notes

inetmrktng75247 · 5 years

Text

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

Transcript

This transcript is sponsored by our transcript partner – Rev – Get $10 off your first order

Mark Schaefer: Oh, it’s always a delight to catch up with you, John.

John Jantsch: Well, I think you and Tom Webster have a show. Is it still called The Marketing Companion? Forgive me if that’s not right.

Mark Schaefer: Yes.

John Jantsch: Yes.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah, Marketing Companion, sure.

Mark Schaefer: Well, we try to be entertaining, that’s sort of our thing. And I’d like to take credit for it, but Tom is just hilarious, so we kind of go with that.

John Jantsch: He has a unique point of view, doesn’t he?

Mark Schaefer: So funny, so funny.

Mark Schaefer: Right.

John Jantsch: Before we get to how, I mean, let’s put this out there. Everyone except a cynical marketer is probably going to suggest this is better for the customer.

John Jantsch: So, the subtitle of the book, The Most Human Company Wins.

Mark Schaefer: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Jantsch: You know, there was a point in time in one of these past rebellions where social media was actually supposed to make that happen. What happened?

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: And if you read through the book, the moments are all human-centered.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: You know, it’s not because somebody had, like, red in their logo that people are talking about it, it’s they did something that was exceptional and surprising.

John Jantsch: One of my favorite lines in your book, or it’s actually, I think it’s a subhead, is that “the greatest companies make fans of their fans.” How do we do that?

John Jantsch: Or “We’re not as screwed up as we used to be.”

Mark Schaefer: I don’t get YETI either. I don’t.

John Jantsch: But yet you can go into a gift store and they’ve got them, the hardware store’s got them, the fishing tackle store’s got them. I mean, people are nuts about them.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think you could safely say they’re no longer selling coolers.

Mark Schaefer: Well, you can find everything about me at

https://ift.tt/2IEp6nT

#Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

0 notes

seo19107 · 5 years

Text

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

Transcript

This transcript is sponsored by our transcript partner – Rev – Get $10 off your first order

Mark Schaefer: Oh, it’s always a delight to catch up with you, John.

John Jantsch: Well, I think you and Tom Webster have a show. Is it still called The Marketing Companion? Forgive me if that’s not right.

Mark Schaefer: Yes.

John Jantsch: Yes.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah, Marketing Companion, sure.

Mark Schaefer: Well, we try to be entertaining, that’s sort of our thing. And I’d like to take credit for it, but Tom is just hilarious, so we kind of go with that.

John Jantsch: He has a unique point of view, doesn’t he?

Mark Schaefer: So funny, so funny.

Mark Schaefer: Right.

John Jantsch: Before we get to how, I mean, let’s put this out there. Everyone except a cynical marketer is probably going to suggest this is better for the customer.

John Jantsch: So, the subtitle of the book, The Most Human Company Wins.

Mark Schaefer: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Jantsch: You know, there was a point in time in one of these past rebellions where social media was actually supposed to make that happen. What happened?

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: And if you read through the book, the moments are all human-centered.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: You know, it’s not because somebody had, like, red in their logo that people are talking about it, it’s they did something that was exceptional and surprising.

John Jantsch: One of my favorite lines in your book, or it’s actually, I think it’s a subhead, is that “the greatest companies make fans of their fans.” How do we do that?

John Jantsch: Or “We’re not as screwed up as we used to be.”

Mark Schaefer: I don’t get YETI either. I don’t.

John Jantsch: But yet you can go into a gift store and they’ve got them, the hardware store’s got them, the fishing tackle store’s got them. I mean, people are nuts about them.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think you could safely say they’re no longer selling coolers.

Mark Schaefer: Well, you can find everything about me at

https://ift.tt/2IEp6nT

#Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

0 notes

constructionsworkr3053 · 5 years

Text

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

Transcript

This transcript is sponsored by our transcript partner – Rev – Get $10 off your first order

Mark Schaefer: Oh, it’s always a delight to catch up with you, John.

John Jantsch: Well, I think you and Tom Webster have a show. Is it still called The Marketing Companion? Forgive me if that’s not right.

Mark Schaefer: Yes.

John Jantsch: Yes.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah, Marketing Companion, sure.

Mark Schaefer: Well, we try to be entertaining, that’s sort of our thing. And I’d like to take credit for it, but Tom is just hilarious, so we kind of go with that.

John Jantsch: He has a unique point of view, doesn’t he?

Mark Schaefer: So funny, so funny.

Mark Schaefer: Right.

John Jantsch: Before we get to how, I mean, let’s put this out there. Everyone except a cynical marketer is probably going to suggest this is better for the customer.

John Jantsch: So, the subtitle of the book, The Most Human Company Wins.

Mark Schaefer: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Jantsch: You know, there was a point in time in one of these past rebellions where social media was actually supposed to make that happen. What happened?

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: And if you read through the book, the moments are all human-centered.

Mark Schaefer: Yeah.

John Jantsch: You know, it’s not because somebody had, like, red in their logo that people are talking about it, it’s they did something that was exceptional and surprising.

John Jantsch: One of my favorite lines in your book, or it’s actually, I think it’s a subhead, is that “the greatest companies make fans of their fans.” How do we do that?

John Jantsch: Or “We’re not as screwed up as we used to be.”

Mark Schaefer: I don’t get YETI either. I don’t.

John Jantsch: But yet you can go into a gift store and they’ve got them, the hardware store’s got them, the fishing tackle store’s got them. I mean, people are nuts about them.

John Jantsch: Well, and I think you could safely say they’re no longer selling coolers.

Mark Schaefer: Well, you can find everything about me at

https://ift.tt/2IEp6nT

#Transcript of How Businesses Can Survive the Latest Marketing Rebellion

0 notes