#and then This year i got around to making that rigby post

[whumpster-fire]

Leading Thieves Say Millennials and Zoomers "Ruining the Crime Industry"

A variety of criminals have spoken out over the past few weeks, saying that crime just doesn't pay like it used to because Millennials and Gen-Z-ers are so broke, they have nothing of value to steal.

Stephen "Fingers" Gilligan, Pickpocket: Pickpocketing has been on the decline in America for a while, but it's getting ridiculous now. Nobody carries cash anymore, and even cards aren't paying out. The other day I stole a wallet with five debit cards, and all but one of them declined. The last one had just enough to buy a Sierra Mist from a vending machine. That was my second best score all week. The best was a $40 Olive Garden gift card and a crumpled, discolored $5 bill that I had to use archeological techniques to retrieve without it disintegrating in my hand.

Burt Crustman, Mugger: Man, nobody walks through dark alleys at night since the pandemic hit, and when they do? Jackshit. The only valuable anyone under 40's got on them these days is their phone. Admittedly lotsa people have $3000 phones, but you know what the market for fencing iPhones is like? It's shit! Everybody's buying new phones because their phone's the only nice thing they can afford!

Monty Derailleur, Bike Thief: Well the bike theft business would be going good, if people ever used the bikes they bought. The sales are high, but the fact of the matter is, the bike lanes around here are shitty or nonexistent, there's no room to take them on the bus, and there's no bike racks so everybody knows it's gonna get stolen.

Jerry Rigby, Car Thief: I don't know what you're talking about, Grand Theft Auto is booming. There's $75,000 pickups, $60,000 SUVs, $100,000 Teslas, and most people can't even afford to buy a used car legally so fencing's never been easier. The reason it's hard for those of us in the business is twofold. First, too many people living out of their cars. Second, the competition. You see a nice car parked somewhere, you gotta be on it like that, or the fucking illegal towing rackets will beat you to it. It's nearly impossible to make a living as an independent car thief.

Dwayne Pipe, Burglar: The only reason to be breaking and entering in the post-Pandemic years if to use somebody's shower. I swear to god, half the time when I break into a place, the only furniture is a mattress on the floor and a mid-sized computer monitor as a TV, and those are only good for scrap because with planned obsolescence the way it is, they have a life expectancy of about 6 weeks after theft. To be honest with you, I'm running a loss on most jobs. The only reason I haven't gone straight is because all the legal jobs pay jackshit too. That, and I really like replacing people's family photos with pictures of Nicholas Cage.

Brittlyghn McKannyck, Shoplifter: Shoplifting these days is a hobby, not a career. Half the time the stores are too understaffed to even stock the shelves, and if they're not, everything's locked up. I had to get a guy to unlock a magnetic tag on a box of Crispix the other day. If I didn't live with my parents, there's absolutely no way shoplifting full time would be viable.

Norman Gore, Master Hacker and Identity Thief: Scamming people out of their financial info or cracking passwords has never been easier, but the scores just aren't worth it. I keep getting into bank accounts that pending overdraft fees. It's pathetic. I have to leave the lights off so my hacker den's only lit by the monitors, and type on three or four keyboards at once to hack enough people to make ends meet.

Jack Gazebo, Digital Pirate: Oh my fucking God, people, stop paying for streaming! Learn to torrent! I'm telling you, man, this generation just doesn't have the technological literacy to pirate media.

Captain Tom Stillcutt, Analog Pirate: Let me tell ye something, matey, it be a sad day for piracy. No more galleons laden low with gold doubloons, rum, and exotic spices, nay, it be all scurvy container ships full o' mass produced plastic now. Me last prize was a forty foot container loaded full of over a hundred thousand Funko Pops, en route from the East Indies. The worst part of it was as the cap'n I gets a double share o' the booty, whether I want it or not. I've been makin' one walk the plank every day, and my cabin's still full of the blasted things. Shiver my timbers, I hate these damned Zoomers! At least the ones in me crew are happy.

Geraldo Cardamom IV, Gentleman Thief: The economy's just horrible for heists these days. Art heists? Jewelry theft? All the rich idiots are blowing their money on crypto, NFTs, and custom furniture from hipster woodworking YouTubers. Nobody just has a gallery in their house with priceless antiques in glass cases below a conveniently placed skylight, or millions of dollars in cash and gold bullion in vaults behind secret doors with seven different elaborate locking mechanisms anymore. Nobody secures their valuables with networks of criss crossing laser motion sensors. The only guys with that kind of money are assholes like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, and they don't have the sense of style for that. They just hire a bunch of assholes with guns.

Carmen San Diego, Legend: You must be joking, right? The reason I retired is because the infrastructure in this country is so dilapidated it's impossible to move it without it disintegrating. My last heist was "stealing" the World's Largest Pothole in Lansing, Michigan. I lifted the entire six lane wide, fifteen foot deep pothole out of the ground, disassembled it, and shipped it across the country to a warehouse in Las Vegas, then filled in the hole with pristine asphalt so it looked like it was never there. Nobody investigated. Nobody came after me. The city threw a parade in my honor. It didn't even take a month before my record holding pothole was dethroned by one in Cleveland, leaving me with nothing but a bunch of dirt, crumbling asphalt, and broken dreams. That's when I realized it was time to call it quits. Well, maybe the Bass Pro Shops Pyramid, but it already looks stupid enough in the middle of Tennessee that the only way stealing it would be funny is if I put it in the original Memphis.

#shitpost #the wide world of crime

[clueingforbeggs]

Lyrics are in the original description, but in case Tumblr/YouTube doesn't like you clicking on the embed (which it doesn't like me doing), I'll put them below the cut as well.

(opening: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) It was 60 years ago today Lady Lambert got the show to play And I know it's had its ups and downs But there's a reason why it's still around So let me introduce to you The man who kicked it off in style... Billy Hartnell's Cranky Time Lord Band...

(I Am The Walrus) I am Who and Who are You and where is Sue And take your business elsewhere See how I flick this real specific switch, See how we fly Not lyin'

Prehistoric caveman Fire from the cave of skulls Superstitious witches Never been a hero Funny thing is fear it Makes companions of us all I M not Foreman We're on a tour, man I am the Doctor Hmm? Doctor Who?

Static city, Thals are pretty, Polycarbon mutants run the show See how they talk in adenoidal squawks See how we rise I'm dyin'...

Me and Marco Polo... in the court of Kublai Khan Sacrifical Aztecs, 'nachronistic priestess Open up the door mid-flight And now we're very small

I'm the original (you might say) I am the first one (sort of) I am the Doctor - Hmm? Doctor Who?

Post-apocalyptic London Where a love can bloom One day I'll come back, I really will, Until then have a pleasant time.

Bye Susan Foreman More is in store, man I am the Doctor, Hmm Doctor Who? Hm Doc-

(Eleanor Rigby) Bennett and Vicki Trapped on a planet where no hope for rescue is clear No one comes near 'Cept for Koquillion. He's a big monster who threatens them never to leave Would you believe? They are the same people And Barbara shot your dog

(Tomorrow Never Knows) Relax into the vibe of ancient Rome Such a hot party... fires are starting And float like the Menoptera do at home Flitting smartly... ('no') over Zarbii... The warriors with crosses in their eyes They are crusading... they are crusading So run before the Dalek fleet arrives Evil is scheming... Ian is leaving... Barbara is leaving... someday we'll be memeing

(spoken) 'London 1965!' (someday we'll be memeing) 'London 1965!' (today we are memeing) 'London 1965!'

(Eleanor Rigby) Steven the pilot Stuck on a planet of hostile geodesic domes Heck of a home Hifi the panda His only friend and the only thing helping him deal He's not even real

(paperback writer) Excuse me mister, where did you get that? It's the year 1066 and all that You're gear and fab, but cannot yet fab gears So who brought the watch? well, I doubt it was a Normandic settler it's the time meddler... It's the time of legends, and if we're on course, gonna see a few guys about a horse Vicki's fallen for a boy from Troy She should read a play and that play should be Troilus and Cressida May the gods bless ya... It's the Myth Makers... it's the myth makers...

(Yellow Submarine) Sara Kingdom kept the peace Katarina never saw the like in Greece As companions, they're unmatched But I wouldn't get too attached They won't live through the Dalek's Masterplan The Dalek's Masterplan The Dalek's Masterplan

(I Am The Walrus) Hmm? Doctor Who? Hmm? Doctor Who? Some Caucasian dude with Asian clothes made me play Towers of Hanoi See how they clown, take Billy Bunter down, I'm just a hand... I'm dying...

Where's the nearest dentist? Let's check the OK corral. Steven's going savage, WOTAN in the tower Pleased to meet you, Polly, Ben, won't see this face for long I'm the original (you might say) I am the first one (sort of) I am the Doctor - Hmm what's that who? Hmm what's that who? Quite right... Everybody loves one... everybody loves one... Everybody keep warm... everybody keep warm... Everybody keep warm... everybody keep warm...

(Spoken) 'Oh, Barbara' 'Now you've squashed my favourite Beatles'

#doctor who #the beatles #Youtube

[castingcomets]

I even gave one of my ocs a pussy snorkelling hat in one of her outfits because of it - amii

YAAAAAAY !!!

#i should say by now then that p*ssy-snorkeling hat is my brothers creation in way #years ago he and my other sibling were playing some mario game in the basement too late at night and there was a boo in goggles #i think it was almost like a mini game?u had to work with this boo in goggles #and my brother kept calling the goggles his ''p*ssy-snorkeling goggles'' and when he read the boo's dialogue out loud he would throw that in #and it was evidently so funny that i heard abt it the next day #fast forward 2 last year my other sibling comes up the stairs wearing an old orange hat i had made on a loom years prior. bc it was cold out #and for whatever reason i was like OMG. it's a p*ssy-snorkeling hat!! bc i just rememebred it #and then like within the week we ended up watching season 4 regualr show amd saw rigby's hat for the first time #i was like OMG!!! his p*ssy-snorkeling hat!! bc it was a dumpy orange hat like the one i had made on th loom #and then This year i got around to making that rigby post #so now we all know......the legend #Altho Now i classify p*ssy-snorkeling hats as those bright neon orange hats that u wear w camo for some counterintuitive reason

[no-reply95]

Jealous Guys

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while now is the different ways jealousy manifested for John and Paul over the course of their friendship.

I’m going to look at John and Paul in turn and have a look at some of the key ways jealousy appeared, before, during and after the Beatles period. This will be a looooong post so if you want to go on deep dive keep reading below.

John

Jealousy was something that John acknowledged as a big part of his personality, as far as I’m aware, he only acknowledged his jealousy publicly in terms of his relationship with Yoko but I believe jealousy was a feature of all of John’s major relationships. John’s first real partnership was with Pete Shotton, his childhood best friend, and Pete has outlined how John’s jealousy and possessiveness was a feature in their friendship with them falling out when Pete first started showing interest in girls and with John acting out when Pete started to spend more time with other friends, instead of him, here Pete recounts John’s reflection on this period of their friendship:

“Years later John confessed to having felt acutely jealous throughout that interlude: “I was scared shitless I’d lost you after our fight in science class, when you starting playing with David Jones. I really thought I’d gone too far with you that time.“

Pete Shotton, John Lennon: In My Life , 1983

Pete’s recollections establish a pattern in John’s life of acting out due to a fear of abandonment and losing those who are closest to him so it’s not surprising that once John had formed a strong bond with Paul that would stir similar fears in him. 

Below I’ve categorised the groups of people that were the focus of John’s jealousy and have picked one person from each group as an example:

Family - Jim McCartney

Paul’s family was and continues to be a big part of his life. From the outset of their friendship, John was made aware of how important Jim was to Paul and vice versa. John and Paul had to skip school to hang out together because Jim wouldn’t have John in their house initially and John confessed his resentment of Jim’s influence over Paul’s life. It appears that after some time John grew tired of having to contend with Jim for the position of the most important person in Paul’s life, and this culminated in John giving Paul a pseudo ultimatum as John discussed in 1971:

“But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he fucking dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, "I need a steady career." We couldn't believe it… “So I told him on the phone, "Either come or you're out." So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me”

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

Friends - Mal Evans

Throughout the active years of the band it was typical of them to refer to each other as their best friends and, given the lives they led, I think the simple fact that no one else could understand what it was like to be a Beatle would have meant they all shared a special bond. However, they all had friendships outside of the band and this was something that could cause issues for John when it came to Paul.

According to Tune In, Mal initially became friends with Paul during the band's initial shows at the Cavern Club then, after a suggestion from George, Mal became a part of the Beatles entourage thereafter. Mal had friendships with all the Beatles, as part of their inner circle, but from his comments it appears John took umbrage with the closeness of Mal’s friendship with Paul:

“Paul would suddenly come in with this circle saying, “This is Magical Mystery Tour, will you write that bit?” And I was choked that he’d arranged it all with Mal anyway, for a kickoff, and had all this idea going”

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

Mal also comes up when John discusses his recollections of the writing of Eleanor Rigby:

“So rather than ask me, “John, do these lyrics—” Because by that period, he didn’t want to say that – to me. Okay? So what he would say was, “Hey, you guys, finish off the lyrics,”... “ Now, I sat there with Mal Evans, a road manager who was a telephone installer, and Neil Aspinall, who was a not-completed student accountant who became our road manager. And I was insulted and hurt that he’d thrown it out in the air”...” There might be a version that they contributed, but there isn’t a line in there that they put in.“

Playboy interview, David Sheff 1980

John’s discomfort with the closeness of Paul’s relationship with Mal was something that wasn’t lost on Mal’s wife Lil:

“He was always at their beck and call. He was a nice fella to have around, so much so that it could provoke little jealousies within the band. When I met Yoko years after Mal died, she said John had told her he’d been very jealous at one point of Mal’s relationship with Paul.”

Lil Evans interview with Ray Connolly, 2005

Love interests - Linda McCartney

Throughout their friendship both John and Paul had quite a few love interests, which (to varying degrees) prompted jealousy between them.

Although John displayed jealousy of a few of Paul’s love interests this was no more apparent than with Paul’s first wife Linda McCartney, which is confirmed by both John’s words and actions regarding Linda and her partnership with Paul:

“"Then Klein informed Lennon that McCartney had secretly been increasing his stake in Northern Songs. ‘John flew into a rage,’ recalled Apple executive Peter Brown. ‘At one point I thought he was really going to hit Paul, but he managed to calm himself down.’ One unconfirmed report of this meeting had Lennon leaping towards Linda McCartney, his fists raised in her face"

Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money

"Int: When did you first meet her [Linda]? John: The first time I saw her was after that press conference to announce Apple in America. We were just going back to the airport and she was in the car with us. I didn't think she was particularly attractive, I wondered what he was bothering having her in the car for. A bit too tweedy, you know. But she sat in the car and took photographs and that was it. And the next minute she's married him."

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

“I was reading your letter and wondering what middle aged cranky Beatle fan wrote it... "What the hell—it’s Linda! . . . Linda— if you don’t care what I say—shut up!—let Paul write—or whatever.”

"Of course, the money angle is important—to all of us—especially after all the petty shit that came from your insane family/in laws—and GOD HELP YOU OUT, PAUL—see you in two years—I reckon you’ll be out then"

Draft letter from John Lennon to Linda McCartney, circa 1971

"The presumption is a) the Beatles would get together again or are even thinking about it and b) if they got together, John and Yoko split, Paul and Linda split"

John (with Yoko) talks to John Fielding on Weekend World, 1973

"John often speculated on why Paul and Linda remained married while, at the same time, resenting their evident happiness, to the extent that he had Green do a tarot reading to ensure him that Paul and Linda were really secretly miserable and were going to divorce within a year"

According to Fred Seaman and John Green, source

Paul

Of course jealousy wasn't a one-way street in the Lennon-McCartney relationship. Unlike with John, for Paul I'm focusing more on the key people I believe his jealousy, regarding John, was directed to:

Stuart Sutcliffe

John met Stu at Art College and struck up a really close friendship with him. At the point that John met Stu, John had already become friends with Paul so Paul felt threatened when Stu entered the picture:

"When he [Stu] came into the band, around Christmas of 1959, we were a little jealous of him; it was something I didn’t deal with very well. We were always slightly jealous of John’s other friendships.

When Stuart came in, it felt as if he was taking the position away from George and me. We had to take a bit of a back seat."

Paul McCartney, Anthology 2000

"Paul was saying something about Stu’s girl – he was jealous because she was a great girl, and Stu hit him, on stage. And Stu wasn’t a violent guy at all."

John Lennon, 1967 Anthology 2000

"I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good and I’d believe him. We were awful to him sometimes. Especially Paul, always picking on him. I used to explain afterwards that we didn’t dislike him, really."

John Lennon, The Beatles Hunter Davies 1968

Yoko Ono

Of all the relationships I've already discussed, the relationship and jealousy displayed from Paul towards Yoko is probably the most widely discussed in Beatles historiography and general discourse. From the official start of Yoko's relationship with John in 1968 it was clear that Paul resented her presence in John's life and her proximity to the band:

"He even sent them [John and Yoko] a hate letter once, unsigned, typed. I brought it in with the morning mail. Paul put most of his fan mail in a big basket and let it sit for weeks, but John and Yoko opened every piece. When they got to the anonymous note, they looked puzzled, looking at each other with genuine pain in their eyes. ‘You and your Jap tart think you’re hot shit’, it said."

Francie Schwartz, Body Count 1972

"Cause she’s [Yoko] very much to do with it from John’s angle, that’s the thing, you know. And I – the thing is that I – there’s— Again, like, there’s always only two answers. One is to fight it, and fight her, and try and get The Beatles back to four people without Yoko, and sort of ask her to sit down at the board meetings. Or else, the other thing is to just realize that she’s there, you know. And he’s not gonna sort of – split with her, just for our sakes."

Paul McCartney, Let It Be Sessions, 1969

"I told John on the phone the other day that at the beginning of last year I was annoyed with him. I was jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the break-up of a great musical partnership. It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me."

Paul McCartney, interview with Ray Connolly, 1970

What are the similarities and differences in the way jealousy manifested for John and Paul?

I think it's obvious but bears repeating that both John and Paul displayed jealousy towards other people who they felt would threaten their relationship so that's central to all the instances I have flagged, Jim, Mal, Linda, Stu, Yoko all posed real or imagined threats to John and Paul's partnership.

However, you'll note that I included more sources to display John's jealousy regarding Paul and that I categorised John's jealousy targets whereas I only pulled out two key individuals for Paul, this isn't to say that John was more jealous than Paul was, as jealousy isn't something you can quantify, but to highlight my opinion that Paul's jealousy regarding John was more targeted than John's jealousy regarding Paul. I think what stands out to me is that, I think generally Stu and Yoko are held up as the prime examples of Paul's jealousy of other people getting close to John, as far as we know, Paul never had significant issues with other people who formed close relationships with John like Pete Shotton, Cynthia Lennon, Magic Alex etc., why was that? I think that Paul was more threatened when he felt that John was replacing him so by bringing Stu into the band (even though he wasn't a musician) and Yoko into the studio (one instance where Paul was especially hurt was when John gave Paul's line in The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill to Yoko to sing), Paul perhaps felt that his place as John's primary collaborator was in jeopardy and that he could lose a partnership that had become central to his self-worth as a person - that, I believe, was when his jealousy was most likely to rise to the fore. John, on the other hand, had a much wider range of targets when it came to jealousy regarding Paul, why was John jealous of Linda? Linda wasn't trying to replace John as Paul's collaborator, if anything she wanted the Lennon-McCartney partnership to be stronger. Why was John jealous of Mal? Mal wasn't a musician, Mal was a huge fan of the band and constantly worked to fulfil their requests, so why was John so threatened by his friendship with Paul? For me, John's jealousy regarding Paul was more than just a fear of directly being replaced, I believe John's jealousy was fundamentally triggered by a fear of abandonment. I think the childhood trauma John experienced, of being left by both his parents, meant that whenever any of his close friendships and relationships were threatened, or he felt that someone close to him may leave him, he would act out. John fell out with his childhood best friend Pete when he got a girlfriend, John hit Cynthia when he saw her dancing with Stu, John was rude to several of Paul's love interests and ultimately John never fully accepted Paul's relationship with Linda because, although he could see that she could offer Paul the family life he always wanted, John didn't want Linda to take Paul away and give him a family that meant that Paul would no longer be able to prioritise John in his life as he had in the past.

Ultimately, we'll never know all the ways that jealousy factored into John and Paul's relationship with each other and those around them, as I'm sure it impacted several relationships in more complex ways than I can articulate (i.e. I suspect jealousy played a part in Paul's initial resentment of Brian but they grew closer over time so maybe Paul's jealousy lessened over time or Brian became less of a threat?). I do think it's important to consider that jealousy was present on both sides and was likely a factor in the breakdown of John and Paul's relationship, the breakdown of the Beatles and was a continued factor in disrupting reconciliations between John and Paul into the 70s and 1980.

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #john and paul #paul and linda #john and yoko #jealous guy #linda mccartney #yoko ono #stuart sutcliffe #mal evans #jim mccartney #brian epstein #long post #thoughts

[appleb18]

I Wanted Believe in Steven (A Critical Steven Universe Post)

Steven Universe, a popular show that has won the hearts of so many people. It had good songs, talks about mental health and relationships, a lovable cast of characters and it’s revolutionary for representing LGBT. As the show finally wraps up with Steven Universe: Future being the series finale, I want to say this… I used to believe in Steven Universe. I truly got into it when it first came out and then I started to appreciate it more as the show progressed even with the flaws. However, as time moved on, the show’s flaws have outweighed the strengths, making my enjoyment decline and become critical and nitpicky towards it. So I believe it’s time to point out the many problems with the show.

The Glory Days of Steven Universe 

Before I begin ranting about the show, I want to talk about when I actually liked Steven Universe back in seasons 1-3. It was when everyone actually enjoyed the show before it went downhill. 

- So before Steven became really annoying, I actually liked him when he was developing in season 1. He was very immature at first but he gradually grew. He became a member of the Crystal Gems and finally summoned his shield. 

- Peridot’s redemption was handled very well and I enjoyed her character throughout the whole show.

- The show once balanced filler and plot. 

- I enjoyed the Crystal Gems chemistry back in seasons 1 - 3. They acted like a family with Garnet being the wise guardian, Pearl being overprotective, Amethyst laidback and Steven maturing.

- The songs are great.

- The messages are relatable such as “Love Letter.” Garnet tells Jamie that love-at-first-sight doesn’t work. It takes time and a lot of work. You must know the person first before you begin to love someone.  

Those are the reasons why I enjoyed the show back in the day. Now it’s time to talk about how the Crewniverse messed up everything. 

Inconsistencies. Are. Everywhere 

Steven Universe is well known for having no consistency and that’s one of the major problems with the show. While I can forgive season 1 animation because let’s face it, not every show has good animation like Phineas and Ferb. Though having characters go off-model consistently gets really irritating to watch. It’s irritating because most of them are professional storyboard artists and yet they’re doing a very sloppy job.

The reason behind unprofessional animation is Rebecca Sugar wanted her crew to have artistic freedom and have their own stylistic choice. They can draw whatever they want as long as the viewers can recognize the characters. There are many problems with this. 

While it’s nice to see the artist's own style it doesn’t work with a cartoon that’s story-driven. You’ll probably argue that some shows like Adventure Time and American Dragon go off-model. However, it’s just redesigned and they stick with it till the very end of their respective series. 

Also, shows like Ren and Stimpy and Flapjack go off-model because for comedic effect.

So stylistic choice doesn’t mean artists can draw whatever they want. It means that a character has their own style. 

Terrance and Philip from South Park 

Elmore characters from The Amazing World of Gumball 

Each of them has a unique character design. It’s not the Korean animator's fault for it, they’re given what the Crewniverse drew, trace it and just animate it and they can’t fix their errors. What makes it upsetting is that animation pilots and shorts made by a single person or independent team with very little funding have more consistent and appealing animation than Steven Universe. 

I ain’t an animator, but I know when animation goes off-model. Sadly, it’s not just inconsistent art that the show suffers from, but inconsistent writing and discontinuity as well.

Such as in “Are You My Dad?” Aquamarine and Topaz knocked out Steven and then she abandoned him while they took Lars, Sadie, Onion, Jamie, and Connie. Then in “I Am My Mom” they lure him and The Crystal Gems out for information to find Greg. So if you wanted to get information to find him, why didn’t they just grab him when he was knocked out? 

Also, why did Aquamarine agree to Steven’s terms? Her wand is the most broken weapon in the show. She could’ve grabbed everyone including The Crystal Gems.

Garnet couldn’t tell Steven about her future vision because it wanted him to go more? If she just told him about Greg's capture, he would have understood. Also, she gave him future visions in “Jailbreak,” “Snow day” and “Future Boy Zoltron.” Why didn’t she do that for that kind of situation? 

The Crystal Gems, who have special abilities, summon weapons and powers that fought Gems and Corrupted Gems and yet they were beaten by a freaking Steven Catus, Really? 

We saw Lapis control the freaking ocean in “Mirror Gem”, “Ocean Gem” and “Why So Blue”, so why didn’t she use that to remove the injector?

After 6,000 years of waiting for Pink Diamond, Spinel got news about her Diamond and that she gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven. It changed her appearance from happy go lucky to edgy. Now she wants vengeance. So I’m wondering how was she able to get an injector and a scythe, then go to Earth in under a few hours? 

In “Giant Woman,” Pearl explains that two gems have to decide to fuse together and they have to sync with each other to do it. In “Change Your Mind,” Steven fuses with the Crystal Gems midair while they are in their gem state.

How the hell did Connie get affected by Blue Diamond’s pathokinesis when Lapis Lazuli arrived in “Reunited”? 

She was fine when BD did it the first time.

Mean Lapis and Bluebird are still on the loose. I know most shows leave things unanswered but you can’t leave two villains out there. They can still do harm to others 

I really wish the Crewniverse showed more professionalism because there are so many errors in the show and some of them are so simple to fix, yet they don’t and that’s what I call lazy. 

The Cast of Characters Don’t Do Much

I used to like the cast of characters, even the humans I enjoyed watching. When season 4 - Future came in, they got ruined. Most of them don’t do much in the show. I feel like they got sidelined because the Crewniverse had no idea what to do with them. 

Let’s first talk about The citizens of Beach City and how they are the most boring characters in the show. At first, they weren’t so bad because they did have a role to play in the story like when The Cool Kids talked to Steven about his mother when he found out that she was a war criminal and he blamed himself for his mother not being around anymore. They also helped him not get scolded by The Crystal Gems when they found Peridot’s escape pod. 

There’s even some slice-of-life episodes that I did enjoy watching such as

“Sadie’s Song” 

 And “Historical Fiction”

But now they don’t react to any Gem situation anymore. They just stand around and serve no purpose to the plot. Look at “Future”, throughout the whole epilogue mini-series, the humans didn’t do a dang thing in the series. For example, The Cool Kids, Lars, Sadie, and Shep don’t talk to Steven about his mental health when he was about to crush them with his force field. It just makes it feel that they don’t care about him or oblivious about that experience

Then they didn’t do squat when Steven became a monster and I know they're just humans but their friends and the show focus on them a lot, so they have to use them. It made me wonder why they even focus on them in season 4 and season 5 if they're not going to serve their purpose in the story. 

Now let's talk about the more interesting characters and how the Crewniverse wasted them. Many Gems and few human characters (Lars, Greg, Connie) get them characters to grow, face struggles and have moments that can make a character likable. After all that, the Crewniverse had no idea what to do so they just left them. 

Peridot’s redemption was well written. from season 1 - season 3. From a villain that has unknown technology and feels more alien than the Crystal Gems to a member of the Crystal Gem. As much as I love her development and she’s my favorite, however, she doesn’t do much in the show. Most shows that give a lot of development to a character are part of the main cast but in Steven Universe's case, she gets put in the barn with Lapis Lazuli and does nothing. She’s never involved in major story arcs such as she didn’t come along to help Steven to get his dad back in Zoo Arc and didn’t help with beach city citizens getting kidnapped in Wanted Arc. 

Even in the Pink Diamond Arc, she has no part to play. All she was in that arc was a punchline and a hyperactive character with no defining moments. While it’s nice she has a new outfit, it doesn’t change anything. 

Peridot had the potential to be a really great character but she got wasted because they had no idea what to do with her.

Pearl and Garnet never got their own character arc. When they fused with Steven to become Rainbow Quartz 2.0 and Sunstone it was rushed. I know they didn’t have time to do their arcs but if they cut townie episodes and focused on their bond it would’ve felt more impactful for him to fuse with them. Season 4 could’ve been Garnet and Season 5 could’ve been Pearl. Just look at Amethyst where she finds mutual respect and love for Steven and that’s really great to see. With them, we don’t have a moment like that.

A good example of using characters is Regular Show. They used their characters pretty well, giving each of them a good amount of screen time. 

Benson’s drum solo 

Getting to know more about Skips history

Muscle Man setting his ashes free at Great Trucker Graveyard 

High Five Ghost reunited with his love interest 

Pop’s proving that he’s part of the guys for Guys Night 

Rigby graduates high school

Mordecai painting for Benson

And what I like the most about is they all have a moment together as best friends. Such as in “Parkie Rewards,” although Benson doesn’t win an award, the gang made their very own award and paper trophy. Benson made a speech about how he appreciated his staff workers. 

I really wish Steven Universe had something like that and I really wanted to see more of Lapis, Garnet, Amethyst, and Bismuth but sadly the writers aren’t giving them much to do anymore. 

A Shift of Pacing 

Steven Universe really wants to tell a story like most cartoon shows are doing such as Over the Garden Wall, Adventure Time, Owl House and many more. They keep adding episodic episodes in the middle of unresolved conflict and have the concluding rushed. An example of this is the Cluster arc. 

Peridot tells The Crystal Gems that the Cluster will emerge at any time… AT ANY TIME! So the gang planned to create a gem drill to destroy it to save the Earth. So instead of working on the drill, they kept delaying it like 

Garnet told her story to Steven of how Ruby and Sapphire met 

Celebrating Steven’s birthday 

Peridot processing on becoming a “Crystal Gem”

I know Peridot was working on the drill and I like Peridot’s redemption but it’s a life or death situation. You can’t do other things when the Cluster can emerge at any time. The way they resolved the arc was really rushed. The Crystal Gems finally locate the whereabouts of Malachite and so Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl go to Watermelon Island and fuse to Alexandrite to defeat her. Then the Cluster emerges and it’s up to Steven and Peridot to deal with it. Instead of destroying the Cluster, he talks to it and it stops itself from emerging by bubbling itself. The way the writers conclude the arc was so anticlimactic and rushed. It ended two major plots, Malachite and Cluster in two episodes and Steven just talking to it was ridiculous. The Cluster arc should’ve at least had two episodes and Malachite should’ve come after the event because she was briefly mentioned in three episodes. 

Adventure Time has a mini-series that primarily focuses on plots. It resolves conflicts and it doesn’t waste any time such as Islands, Stakes, and Elements. 

People tend to blame the network for the inconsistent schedule and hiatus. While it may be true, however, it’s not really a big issue with the show. Gravity Falls isn’t consistent with its schedule but it has better pacing than Steven Universe. From Nov. 26, 2014 - Feb 16, 2015, the ep “Northwest Mansion Noir” was released, another month of waiting for “Not What He Seems.” Then we have to wait for four months, July 13th, 2015, for “The Tale of Two Stans.” Then there’s Steven Universe where we have to wait for six months for the next episode and it is just Towney episodes and it doesn’t even matter to the plot. So I pretty much don’t understand why people are complaining about the Steven Universe hiatus when Gravity Falls, a well-written show, has a hiatus as well. 

They could’ve had a well-written story if only they weren't so focused on the human side of Steven and cut most of the filler out. 

Action Doesn’t Have Consequences 

In most shows, movies, and video games, characters will make rash decisions that have other characters disagree and even have a bit of a falling out.  

Look at Gravity Falls “Land Before Swine.” Stanley doesn’t like Mabel’s pet pig, Waddles, and he left him outside when there was a Pterodactyl in town. Stan left Waddles unattended and caused him to get captured.

Soos messed up a lot in the episode. Without thinking, he barged in as Dipper developed the film which ruined a good picture of the dinosaur.

He tries to be optimistic when Mabel finds out Stanley left him out however it ineffective when he ravels the yarn back up and thus cut the clear path and accidentally break the lamb

To prove their worth is by Stanley fights the pterodactyl to save Waddles 

And Soos and Dipper make up when he apologizes and he admits he made mistakes.  Dipper and Mabel then took Soos advice to follow his lead and walk in a straight line as for dinosaurs' eyes are so far apart and that it can’t see in front of itself and the plan went well. 

So with Steven Universe, most characters in the show have done pretty terrible things and the show never atoned for their actions. 

In “Island Adventure”, Sadie trapped Lars and Steven on an island by hid the Gem portal with leaves so she can hit on him.  Although she saved his life by poofing the gem monster with a pointy stick, it doesn’t help the fact that she trapped them for a month! It is also idiotic that the show treats Lars as he’s the bad guy where in reality, Sadie is! 

Amethyst, although I do like her character development in the show, however, she did pretty a messed up thing and they never resolved it. In “Maximum Capacity”, Greg finds out that he’s missing the fireworks and Amethyst shapeshifts from Steven to Greg to cheer him up. She changes back and gets mad at him for not spending time with her. So she shapeshifts to Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond which causes Greg to look away and it’s the second time she has done it, and then Steven comes in to stop and question both of them. Amethyst feels guilty and left. So in order to make things up, she came up with an idea to clean that the Crystal Gems can clean out Greg storage. So this is really messed up. She shapeshifted as his wife and not only it scarred Greg but Steven as well and yet the writers never decided on how they can properly make it up. That’s so horrible. 

Lapis Lazuli took the Earth's water, almost killed Connie, broke Peridot's tape recorder and called it garbage, and she took the barn. When she finally comes back to help the Crystal Gems to fight against the Diamonds. Her response to everyone was “hey”. She never apologized for anything she has done. I know she has PTSD but it doesn’t excuse her actions. 

The only character that actually feels guilty and has to make amends of her wrongdoing is Pearl. She deceived Garnet by keeping rebuilding Gem communicator so she can fuse with her to form Sardonyx to make herself feel better. Steven and Amethyst find out and spill the beans which gets Garnet mad and Pearl feels guilty. In the last episode of the Sardonyx arc, they get trapped by Peridot. When they were about to get crushed, they two finally talk and Pearl apologizes to her and calls herself “just a pearl” and Garnet tells her you are your own gem and that makes her feel better and fused to Sardonyx once again. 

Now it’s time to talk about the second major gripe with the show that everyone has and it’s the Diamonds being redeemed. The Diamonds are tyrannical fascist dictators that caused genocide many species, colonized many worlds, corrupt gems, shatter gems that don’t obey, have an army, gems that are off-color are put to the underground, and force fused shattered gems into a Cluster. After what they have done, you think they need to pay, right? Unfortunately, since Rebecca Sugar said ``there are no villains' ' and the show is about empathy, the Diamonds, especially White Diamond, get a clean slate. So it’s fine to have a villain be sympathetic and have a sad backstory, it makes them more human but having them redeemed is something you should never ever do, especially what they’ve done. They have very little screen time to show their development and have doubts about their empire. 

Then they made them worse when in Steven Universe: “The Movie” and “Future” 

In Steven Universe: “The Movie”, The Diamonds become clingy aunties to Steven and tell them don’t do evil things anymore like calling other species “equal lifeforms”, disband their arms and not shatter gems.

In Steven Universe: “Future”, The Diamonds abilities have a completely opposite effect towards Gems such as 

Yellow Diamond’s ability to change from poofing gems to fixing 

Blue Diamond’s ability to change from sad blue orbs to happy blue clouds 

White Diamond's ability changed from manipulation to control her for a brief moment. 

Having them become good and having emotions won’t cut it. They can’t atone for what they’ve done for the past millions of being fascist dictators and just saying “I’m a good Diamond now” can’t wipe away their past actions. It doesn’t work like that! 

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, A SHOW FOR LITTLE GIRLS, have a better-written villain redemption than Steven Universe and I ain’t kidding. Discord was the main antagonist for “Return of Harmony”. All he wanted to do is cause chaos. He was defeated by the mane six at the end of the second part of the episode.

In season 3, “Keep Calm and Flutter On”, Discord was reformed by Fluttershy because Princess Celestia believes he can be a good ally and knows that she can do it. 

Throughout season 4, everyone still doesn’t trust him even though he’s friends with Fluttershy.

In the season 4 finale, he sided with Tirek and he betrayed them because he thought he’ll be rewarded for it. 

Then he was betrayed by him. After Tirek and Twilight fought, she gave up her magic to save her friends, including Discord. It made him realize that friendship is more precious than anything of what he’ll give him and that’s when he’s been fully accepted as a friend to the mane six. 

I also want to talk about Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond. While many fans in the community and the Crewniverse always point that she’s terrible and I agree she is. Such as leaving Spinel for 3,000 years, cracked her first Pink Pearl, abandoned her Diamond duties to be free, started a Gem war that cost many Gems to shatter to pursue her own goal, bubbled Bismuth, gems got corrupted, and left Steven with the burden. It is indeed bad but when compared to the Diamonds, she’s more of a saint than them. At least she does develop, doesn’t shatter gems and save the Earth from the Diamonds. 

With story pacing being all over, villains and even characters aren’t paying for their actions and a cast of characters aren’t doing much, what’s the most problematic of the show? Well, it’s a combination of all my problems into one and that is…

Steven “Center Of” Universe

The major problem with the show, the one that brings down the show a lot and it’s Steven Omnipresence. First off, I don’t mind when a show has a protagonist point-of-view like Ben 10, Phineas and Ferb, Over the Garden Wall, etc. As long as it's written well and keeps the story moving, it’s fine but with Steven Universe, it has tons of problems. Steven's point-of-view is the cause of all its flaws and I can’t stress it enough about it. 

So let’s first talk about the obvious one and how it’s only Steven's perspective. The problem with this is we only see things if Steven is there to witness it. The show introduces a fascinating world of Gems and yet the show doesn’t dive into that because Steven doesn’t care about and all he does is hang around Beach City. Steven will never explore unless he chooses to and some major plot points are offscreen which you should never do, especially it’s a story-driven show. An example of this is “Wanted Arc’” and yes I’m using it the third time as my example because it really is a terrible arc. When Steven comes back home, he had some information about Homeworld, discovered that there’s a mystery about Pink Diamond shattering, Off Colours, Steven can bring back people from the dead and Lars in space. With all that, what does Steven do? Nothing. Throughout his adventure in space, he never mentions it to the Crystal Gems and instead of that being the main focus, it’s townies and Connie. While Steven is doing Beach City fluff, Lars is actually progressing the plot by him developing and escaping Homeworld with the Off Colours. I truly wonder why the Crewniverse believes that Beach City is more important than Gems? 

They got interesting lore and I truly want them to explore it more but they had to waste all that and have the most major plot points be offscreen for Steven's perspective. 

The second problem with Steven p.o.v is his contestant presence. The show will always be about him, no other characters get the spotlight or do anything unless he’s there. There’s rarely a scene that doesn’t have Steven and it’s frustrating when there’s a well-rounded cast of characters that I want to see more than him. We’ll never see them interact with other characters nor explore different parts of the world. Other shows have done it such as 

Amazing World of Gumball - “The World”

Adventure Time - “Varmints” 

Avatar: The Last Airbender - “Zuko Alone” 

Rick and Morty - “Tales From the Citadel”

Imagine how great it will be if explore more of the cast like  

Uncorrupt Gem characters and Curley Lapis going by their day in Little Homeschool. 

Lars becoming a space pirate 

Lapis and Peridot becoming friends 

Pearl meeting up with Mystery Girl

Volleyball recovering from her trauma

Ruby and Sapphire being their own individuals 

They got a lovable cast of characters that I want the show to further explore and yet the Crewniverse don’t do anything with them and that’s such a missed opportunity.  

Then the third most egregious problem with Steven p.o.v is he’s the communicator. The show tries to message that talking things will work but no one really talks to each other unless it’s Steven. Characters barely make their opinion or a chance to speak for themselves while Steven's opinion will and shall always be in the right and we barely see characters talking to one another. Examples of these are…

When Steven bubbles Bismuth, Pearl and Garnet don't say a thing and just let him. They don't question why he did or lash him out for it. They just went along with it. Steven decided to unbubble her in “Made of Honor “ for a wedding without talking to anyone else about it and again, they still haven’t asked questions and they just went along with it. 

In “Reunited”, instead of Crystal Gems look at each other to find their strength like Garnet telling Pearl she’s her own Pearl, Pearl telling Amethyst she’s isn’t an accident, and they tell Garnet that she’s a great leader, Steven has to remind them what they are supposed to be. 

Blue and Yellow had issues with the Gem Empire but too afraid to say to White Diamond. Until Steven arrived and that’s when they tried talking to her.

The Diamonds become good because Steven tells them being a fascist dictator is bad and they agree. They disbanded the Gem Empire and changed their abilities to help Gems under two years. 

Steven made Pearl talk to Amethyst. 

The message the show tries to tell that people should communicate is completely flawed because rather than have other characters improve their lives by talking to one another, they made Steven the messiah that every character looks up to. Steven will change your mind and you have no choice in the matter. 

Conclusion

With the end of Steven Universe, I  want to say that this show could’ve been better. Steven Universe was created by Rebecca Sugar, a former storyboard artist for Adventure Time and the one who mainly writes episodes about Marceline and wrote songs for the show. When she announced that she's left AT to make her show, I was excited and had such high hopes for it. I really want this show to succeed and it could’ve been the next Adventure Time, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic or Gravity Falls but sadly it failed to do so. The show flaws outshined it the strength by it was handled unprofessionally, wasted their characters, the pacing is all over the place, no character pay for their past actions and Steven’s point-of-view. I don’t think it’s the worst show I’ve ever watched nor a masterpiece, it's just a disappointingly average show in my personal opinion. I hope Rebecca Sugar and her crew not just see this as their progressive show by representing LGBT and messaging but also see what they would have approved of on the show and how they could’ve made it better. I had a lot of good memories when I first watched the show. It had the potential to be better but it never filled the promises they made.  

#Steven Universe #Steven Universe The Movie #Steven Universe Future #SU Spoilers #SU Critical #SU Criticism #Steven Quartz Universe #Greg Universe #Pearl #Garnet #Ruby and Sapphire #Amethyst #Rose Quartz #Pink Diamond #Yellow Diamond #Blue Diamond #White Diamond #Connie Maheswaran #Peridot #Lapis Lazuli #Bismuth #Spinel

[gumnut-logic]

Another favourite scene

I’m writing more Kermadec fic and had to read back to fact check what I had written before and came across this scene. It had me smiling, so I thought I’d post it here in the hope it would cause a few more smiles.

There’s a little shippyness in this, so if that is not your thing...

Five brothers, camped on a rocky beach on Macauley Island (photo above, though by 2060, the vegetation has returned, so add pokey trees to the picture) at sunset of Day Two in their voyage home. Brothers will be brothers :D

-o-o-o-

It was a very satisfied group of brothers who watched the sun dip below the horizon sometime later. The cube temperature had been lowered, but not entirely extinguished. They weren’t in tropical latitudes yet and although the days were warm, the nights got chilly. The sea breeze was gentle and the ocean only mumbled against the rocks.

Virgil had slipped into bit of a stupor, his body determined to digest and removing resources from his brain to do it. Consequently, he missed the beginning of the conversation between his brothers while he stared after the disappearing sun.

“So how long has this been going on?”

“It is just a bit of friendly recreation, Alan.”

A Gordon snort. “Yeah, John, but how friendly and what kind of recreation?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Gordon.”

“I’m only following yours, spacebro.”

“There is nothing untoward occurring between Captain O’Bannon and myself.”

“Ooh, ‘untoward’ no, but there are two lonely space souls stuck up there together, none other than each other’s company.”

This time it was Scott’s snort. “Oh, only the resident AI who sees and hears all, and about twenty-odd GDF specialists.”

“Oh, yes, Eos!” Virgil arched an eyebrow as he realised his fishbrother was tapping his collar comms. “Hey, Eos, are you willing to share the goss on your Dad and Captain Ridley O’Bannon.”

“Hello, Gordon. What would you like to know?”

“Does John have a ‘thing’ for the girl next door?”

“Most definitely.”

“Eos!” John shot up ramrod straight in his seat as Gordon cracked up laughing.

“It is true, John. You have sixteen processors, four electronic clipboards and twenty-three bottles of moisturiser set aside for Captain O’Bannon. These are all things you have for the girl next door.”

Virgil couldn’t help himself and had to smother a laugh.

The expression on Gordon’s face was a mixture of confusion and incredulity. “Twenty-three bottles of moisturiser?”

“It is her favourite brand and she was unable to purchase it before beginning her last rotation, so I acquired some for her.” He glared at his aquanaut brother. “Just like friends do.”

“But twenty-three bottles?” Even Scott was staring at John as if he was a little weirded out.

“You obviously like her. Why don’t you ask her out?” Trust Gordon to poke the issue further.

John shrugged. “Hasn’t come up.”

Gordon groaned. “Really?” His hands dropped to his knees. “I thought it would be obvious.”

John’s glare was acidic. “I can’t see why you can talk. How long did it take you to ask Penny out? Hmm, let me think, oh, yes, that’s right. You didn’t. She asked you.”

“Hey, I was bedridden!”

“Excuses, excuses...”

“Well, at least I’m making progress. Please tell me at least one of you guys has a possibility in your back pocket. Hell, we’re all tough and buff and saving people. Hasn’t anyone swooned for any of you?” Gordon’s eyes raked around the circle and to Virgil’s horror landed on him. “What about you, Virg. You and Tin have a bit of thing happening, don’t you?”

His heart missed a beat. “What? No!”

“Virg and Kayo? Are you kidding me?” Alan was glaring at Gordon, but then seemed to second guess himself and turned that glare on Virgil. “She’s our sister, bro.”

Virgil held up his hands. “Hey, it wasn’t me who postulated the idea.”

“Postulated? Really, Virg? Me thinks you be hiding behind a dictionary.”

“Shut up, Gordon.”

“I think he doth protest too much.”

“I think you should look into the fact she is spending the next month with Wayne Rigby and not entirely for mission related reasons.”

There was no satisfaction in seeing Gordon freeze like that, or Scott’s “What?”

“She’s with us for New Years, but then it is onto Siberia on the third of January. Something about the possibility of a Chaos Crew tech lab infiltration.” Virgil grabbed the carafe of hot chocolate off the heat cube and poured himself a good dose. He ignored the voice in the back of his head that wished it was something ever so much stronger.

“She hasn’t told me about any mission.” Scott was frowning at him.

Virgil hid behind his mug. “Only just came in apparently. She only mentioned it in passing while she was saying goodbye. I have no doubt she will brief you when we get home.”

Gordon was staring at him. He opened his mouth but failed to say anything.

Virgil took another sip and just stared straight back. It took a moment, but eventually Gordon appeared to shake it off, frowning just a little before turning to Scott. “What about you, bro? You’ve always been our leader in the girlfriend department. What’s the count now?”

“Thirty-two.” John was smug behind his own mug of hot chocolate.

His eldest brother shifted in his seat as if suddenly uncomfortable. “Okay, I’m with Virgil on this - shut up, Gordon.”

Gordon held up his hands in all his innocent glory. “Hey, I’m just brotherly bonding around the fire.”

“Go bond with the volcano.” John’s voice was dry. “Or a whale, I hear a few pass through on occasion.”

“Hey, you were the one keeping count.”

“I can’t help it, I’m good with numbers.”

Virgil snorted. “Not good enough. You’re at least two out.”

The glare Scott shot him could have scorched his hair off.

“Don’t worry, Scott, I’m not going to tell them about Petunia.”

“Virgil!”

“What?”

“Shut it or lose it.”

“Hey, I said I wasn’t going to tell them.”

“Tell us what?” Both Alan and Gordon were about ready to fall off their chairs with glee.

John just rolled his eyes.

“About Petunia.”

“Who is Petunia?”

“You’re an idiot, Virg.” Scott’s glare was becoming more resigned and flatter by the second. “I am so gonna let them know about Gertrude now.”

Virgil snorted. “As if I’d care. She really wanted you anyway.”

“Not true, you were her favourite.”

“Yeah, sure, she’d turn to anyone who would give her what she wanted. I just had it more often than you.”

“You planned it that way.”

“I thought you of all people would appreciate a few tactics. With you around, I need all the help I can get.”

“What?”

Okay, so that had come out a little too serious for Petunia talk, but then Virgil’s count was far smaller than thirty-two or thirty-four depending on how you counted. Early on he had tried to get out and about like his eldest brother, but honestly it wasn’t in him. He wasn’t a one-nighter like Scott. Besides standing next to the heir of Tracy Industries, tall and female magnet was like trying to catch moths while standing next to a bug zapper.

“Virgil?”

“Petunia was a goose.”

“What?!” It was choral from both Alan and Gordon and quickly followed by a “Virgil!” from Scott.

“She used to follow him around everywhere about the farm. It was hilarious.

“Yeah, well, Gertrude was goat and she once ate Virgil’s pants. He’s lucky he didn’t lose more.”

Scott and Virgil glared at each other across the heat cube while Gordon and Alan played eyeball tennis between them.

John just drank his chocolate, a vaguely amused expression on his face.

Virgil held his brother’s furious gaze as long as he could, but he had to bite his lip. The moment he realised Scott was doing the same, it became oh so much harder.

Two seconds later he cracked up laughing. Scott followed not a moment after and both of them laughed even harder when they caught sight of the expressions on Gordon and Alan’s faces.

Virgil laughed so hard he had to hold his stitches in place.

Which of course Scott saw and it drew the night to a close as big brother shifted gears into smother brother.

They cleared off the island leaving no mark behind. Gordon clucking like a hen and claiming death threats from Melissa Fisher if they left anything behind.

Making it back to the boat in the dark was easily done, but awkward and a little painful for Virgil and by the time he made it to his bed, he was worn out.

Regardless, he didn’t fall asleep immediately, despite the gentle rocking of the boat. Thoughts of what could be, what could have been and what he actually wanted bounced around the inside of his skull.

It took a long time for them to fall quiet.

-o-o-o-

We’ll be home for Christmas

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Alan Tracy #kermadec fic

[currentlyprocrastinating]

🖊 I want Rigby knowledge please

Qjavdjsj okii- 👉🏻👈🏻

Hmm...

During the time that her parents were missing, she continually refused to accept the possibility of their deaths. Pretty much the whole 6 or so years of their absence, she was working on a way to find them, to find out what happened to them. It was shortly after their disappearances that she found their warehouse, which was basically a dream for a tech nerd like Rigby. The warehouse allowed her the resources to search for them, among several other things.

Her cousin, Matvei, was her guardian in their absence. Banter between them is fun to write; she’ll make some witty comment or take something he says literally (on purpose) and he’ll roll his eyes or give her a Look. He doesn’t know about her powers, though, not until she’s around 16. Oh, and, as fun as they are to write together, they also can’t stand living in the same place, so Matvei got her an apartment about a block away from him after she proved that she could live on her own. He visits at least once a week, typically on Sundays (and he brings lunch; he’s a good cook). They have almost daily calls, too.

Not exactly the best idea, but cut him some slack, lol, he’s trying, and he did what he could to ensure it won’t be detrimental to Rigby. And, like I said, he checks in often, and he would absolutely make her live with him again if things weren’t going well.

[original post]

#rifters #rigby #matvei #417 says stuff #ask game #thanks for the ask ^^ #original characters #original story #marmar-shii

[buddha-in-disguise]

A full of fucking swearing long post about the shitstain that is Dominic Cummings. Plus where I can find them, at the end I will link fucking sources, just in case anyone wants to try and say otherwise.

Also, if you do start @ me over him, I'm blocking your fucking cunt of an arse. Clear enough?

Good. Then let's begin.

As a nation, we can be a fairly mild mannered lot. At least collectively. But as of now, the majority of Britons are a mass of anger. So much so, I've even agreed with pundits like Piers Fucking Morgan! That alone is distressing enough, but Dominic Cummings has pissed off just about everyone.

But first a little background on this heaping pile of shit.

Dominic Cummings was one of the main instigators of Leave Campaign in regards Brexit. Now for those who don't know or haven't cared until now, not only were they found to be in breach of the electoral law, Dominic himself was also found in contempt of Parliament when they tried to find out if Vote Leave used fake news to help achieve their goal.

To add to this, he took around 200k of subsidies from the EU for his properties. So a known lying fucking hypocrite.

Even before that, he was advisor to Gove, that spineless fucking weasel who has been out today spouting even more fucking bollocks over this. Funny that.

Don't think for a minute being Gove's Special Advisor meant Cummings was liked by others in the Tory Party. Cummings was pretty much despised by a lot in Government at the time. David 'Pig fucker' Cameron called him a career psychopath.

Fast forward to 2019. Cummings is now Special Advisor to another spineless fucking cunt known as the Prime Minister Boris Johnson. BJ was never in control. Anyone watching what was going on knew that the moment Cummings had Javid's one aide uncermoniously marched out of her job, using armed police no less.

Only problem was, he had no authority to do that.

But never fear, BJ decided to change the rules, so lo and behold, he didn't break any rules (seeing a pattern here yet?)

So fast forward to the last few days. Now newspapers were reporting that Dominic Cummings drove his COVID-19 symptomatic wife, with a 4 year old in the same enclosed vehicle, some 260 miles to his parents location in Durham.

Oh now comes the fun part, and why as a nation we are all beyond extremely miffed, and fucking pissed off!

The offical guidance was anyone in a household with someone displaying symptoms (tested or not) was to stay the fuck at home. There was one exception to this rule. One. Extreme risk to life.

So Cummings took the decision to go and drive for fucking childcare reasons.

A man with his wealth, privilege and even with family in fucking London, couldn't do it at his home, but had to drive (thus risking his own child because of viral load you're going to get in an enclosed vehicle), himself and others (because he had to stop. Tell me of anyone with a 4 year old in the car they wouldn't be stopping anywhere?)

So anyway, they take a fucking jolly jaunt up to his parents.

But hold on, a Minister recently resigned for breaking lockdown rules. So why in the ever loving fuck was Cummings not resigning or being fired?

I don't know what Cummings has on BJ, but I suspect it makes wanting to fuck a dead pig seem like child play. Because not only isn't he fired, good old Jolly BJ comes out and fully defends and supports his senior advisor (who is unelected as well, just to add salt to that wound).

So by following his fatherly instincts (the fucking laughable defence given, when BJ couldn't even say how many fucking kids he has) and acting with integrity, (someone please give these fucking morons a dictionary), Cummings was given a free pass.

And then a load of fucking MP's including cabinet ministers all piled in saying how great a father he is, how it was exceptional circumstances that made him do it, you're all overreacting you terrible ingrate you, blah, blah, more horse shit, blah!

So, now all of those families who actually followed the fucking rules, and did what the government said are now being told, oh sure. You could've attended the funeral of your loved ones. Gone halfway across country to get child care for your kids, and so on and so fucking forth.

So basically saying, hah the jokes on you.

A few grumbles came out from the odd Tory, who might not have grown a spine, but were looking less like jelly (jello) being nailed to the wall, and more like thick fucking custard. A little more substance to them, but still slopping around with no spine.

We have a bank holiday coming up, and unusually good weather forecast, because as every Brit knows, Bank Holidays are normally shit weather wise. And a lot of people saying, fuck me if Cummings can do this, so can we. And all pile into cars for days out as if nothing had changed! No masks, no social distancing. Zilch. Great innit.

No it fucking isn't! The virus doesn't take a holiday you fucking morons!

So back to the other mess. Cummings now gives a press conference in the fucking rose garden of No.10. Also likely in breach of the rules, but as we know, he really doesn't give a flying fuck about rules now does he.

First of all he was 30 minutes late (you would've been sanctioned , therefore getting no money, for weeks, probably months if on benefits and did the same thing thanks to this government). But he eventually rolls up, looking slightly less like he's been dragged through a hedge backwards, but still looking like a dogs arse. Actually sorry dogs, you don't deserve that comparison. I'm really sorry!!

Anyway, here he is, about to fill us with more bullshit.

The shit now isn't just hitting the fan. In the immortal words of Terry Pratchett, The Midden has now hit the Windmill.

Cummings is trying to explain why he did what he did, oh and now we have the added delight of him being caught going out to a location some 30 miles from the family home, which is another breach of the law!

He sat there, and said, the public aren't angry at me, they're angry because of how the media have reported it. Woe is me, they're making me out to be the bad guy in all this .... blah fucking boo hoo blah.

This was supposed to calm us down.

Dear reader.

It. Did. Not.

So journalist after journalist (Beth Rigby gave a fucking masterclass) actually didn't let him get away with it.

These weren't just questions or accusations. They threw proof at him! Despite the collective rage, it was glorious to see them do it. If this was when stocks were still in use in the town square, Cummings would've been covered in excrement and anything else to hand. That shit was blown back so fast, it was hard to keep up.

Anyway, without going into too much here, his excuses ranged from he didn't feel safe because of demos outside his home (unverified and strangely enough, no neighbours reporting any disturbances either. Funny that),

Then, having gone to great lengths to say he drove up to his parents to keep his kid safe, he explains the additional trip he got caught out on was taken to test his eyesight, which had been affected because of being unwell with Covid19.

So not only is it highly fucking illegal to drive while impaired (including if eyesight is impaired) in this country, you decided to take your wife and kid, who you wanted to protect, not for a little jaunt down the road, but on a 60 mile fucking round trip.

Oh, and he hadn't stopped on the 260 mile trip up there, but his kid needed a stop on the way home, so a less than 60 mile trip required a stop. Yeah. Strange how that works.

He still kept blaming the media. Still kept up the woe is me, it was exceptional circumstances, and so on. Must get sore lips there Cummings, with the amount of smoke you try to blow up peoples arses.

So, to end it all, he has flatly refused to resign. No need to even consider it. The public will be jolly good chaps in all of this and see my side of things.

No we won't, you motherfucking cunt!

So this morning, various people including Gove are still making excuses for this fucking shitstain.

I now wish Cummings is fired, but better yet, thrown out of our universe, so he can never ever be seen again. But I've seen more spine on a fucking snake that I have Boris Johnson, who is just as much to blame in all this.

Before I end, we also had an infamous Tweet from someone in the Civil Service, who knew they were torpedoing their career. I'm including a screen shot. It was taken down, but it was genuine. Whoever they were, you deserve all the applause and a fucking medal!

Oh and a few sources for this and the cuntface Cummings. But you know, just Google the fucker. You can find this and much more.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44856992

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47712040

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/10/dominic-cummings-owns-farm-got-eu-subsidy

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/18/david-cameron-dominic-cummings-career-psychopath

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-boris-johnson-cabinet-minister-aides-civil-service-sajid-javid-a9109836.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52782913

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52553229

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-52792200

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52793991

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/dominic-cummings-trip-county-durham-18306147

https://www.gov.uk/driving-eyesight-rules

[somarysueme]

WicDiv Thoughts, some overly personal

stiiiiiillllll can’t really put together my feelings about the end and epilogue.  I will say that I liked the ending and epilogue more than I expected to*, and the longer I sit on it, I find more things to like about it.

(* Except for everything about Baal and Mini)

That said, there’s still that huge, unpleasant gap between what I wanted/expected this comic was supposed to be, and what it actually intended/was. I wrote this post after 43 (the “everyone does the thing” chapter), using bits of a half-written reaction to 39 ("Laura did the thing” chapter) to talk about that gap. I decided to sit on it til everything was said and done Just In Case, but I mostly still agree with what I’d written. 

So Here Are My Thoughts

The full pantheon abdicating! This is basically where I expected us to go. Since 39 it seems like the natural place for the story to be headed. Laura’s revelations, along with the Daddy Forgive Us special made it clear that the only way out of the game was not to play it. I was kinda luke warm on that concept, but it made sense for where the story was at that point. I was waiting to see how it actually played out before getting fussy about it.

I give him a C for execution here. Maybe a C+. 

I thought Dio’s moment was great. Jon’s was beautiful. Inanna’s I definitely could have gotten behind if he’d actually gotten to have any of that arc on the page instead of getting put on a bus 30 chapters ago. 

The rest range from “meh” to “yikes.”

I could have liked this, I wanted to like this. Given how much “OKAY” has been miles more thoughtful than Mothering Invention, I was genuinely hoping to like this. I would have loved to see these kids find something more important than godhood to live for. But that’s not what we got.

We did get them realizing that being a god is not worth dying for. Which is good!  And essential! And basically the central conceit of this comic! 

But.

But...  

I really wanted to see our cast value their lives period. And while there was some of that, there was far more of seeing them be humbled. We saw them beaten down until they had no choice but to admit they Were Not Special (or at least, were not as special as they thought). I was hoping for them to find a capacity to value their lives because their lives have value whether or not they are special, but instead it was a story about being humbled, and I guess to me, I just can’t see that what young queer artists need is help being humbled. They need help being valued as people, they need the internal presence of self to command that value be respected, and they need the external support to give them a fighting chance at that.  And not to be That Fan, but that fighting chance doesn’t come from individual actions. It comes from worker solidarity and respect for labor as labor.  It just doesn’t work for me to have a series around the exploitation and consumption of young talent and leave anything material about money and labor practices out of the material.

(McKelvie’s My (6000 F) pantheon has unionized joke, but unironically.)

Anyway this comic was all about Don’t Let This Happen To You.  And that’s a good start, but I was hoping for it to be so much more than that. It could be that this is me looking at WicDiv and wanting it to say something broader about specialness and creativity and mental illness and exploitation. 

(There’s a lot to be unpacked wrt presenting itself as a story about the whole world through all of human history, while also intending to be  psuedoautobiographical for a very specific set of circumstances. But that’s not this post.)

It’s weird because like, Fandemonium already delivered masterfully on Laura learning to value herself outside of godhood.  Laura’s last pre-apoptheosis soliloquy about “I can’t save any of them, but I can still help them” was one of those wham moments that really cemented this book’s place in my heart. Living through Fandemonium and realizing that the gods were people, and needed actual love and support from people who cared about them as people, and that just being a decent friend is something worth living for, fuck!! That’s good shit!! That’s fucking excellent!! 

And for the rest of WicDiv’s run, I was always waiting for the story to get back to that place, but it never really did. 

 (ETA AFTER 45 IS OUT: ok fine I fucking love that Laura saved Luci. Big Gay Hero Girl drags naughty non-devil out of hell and they kiss, fucking A+. But “can’t save but CAN help” is still something I wish the comic had followed up on more. The friendship thing got touched on a little bit too,  but never in a way I found as satisfying as Fandemonium.)

So anyway Luci going Full Diva. Her future is this and her future is nothing.

The longer I chew on it, the more I like it, and the more it seems like the inevitable place for Elanor Rigby’s story to go. It’s a good continuation from where we last saw her have any scrap of agency, but also frustrating in that “the lat time we saw her have any scrap of agency” was basically the entire comic ago. It was jarring to have her go from [One Sassy Line Per Issue] to [Maybe I’m The Final Boss]. Her story suffered deeply suffered from all the time she spent off screen. But despite all that, I’m very much really looking forward to whatever the fuck Laura Wilson’s going to do about this. 

I’m trying not to get my hopes up for Talk Her Down ending. It seems perfectly in line with this series to end with the moral of “sometimes, no matter how kind or brave or caring you are, people you love pick their addictions over living.” That’s a song I’ve already heard live and in person, and I don’t really want or need to hear anyone else’s studio cover.

Uh final thought on 43 is.... Minanke DOES seem to count herself as part of the 12, which still lines up with my Emily Was Also A Fake God theory (Fauxmaterasu theory? Nokami hypothesis? Amaterasuspicion?) but it does seem unlikely to actually be a Thing between now and the epilogue. shrug.

(ETA AGAIN: I had to write out my feelings on 39 and Laura’s own abdication (unpotheosis?) to properly respond to 43. So here’s a draft of another unpublished post that I fleshed out.)

I have extremely mixed feelings about chapter 39. 

First Feeling: thank fuck the pregnancy plot is over. 

Second feeling: establishing abdication as an option established a nice overarching shape to this book. Things have felt directionless for many chapters, but this does make it seem like we are back on some kind of track.

Third Feeling: kinda liking abdication as a general direction for endgame.  For most of the series, I was hoping the whole that there actually was Something Important about the recurrence, but since it's clear now that it’s basically all lies, I like this this angle well enough.

Strongest Feeling: hell fucking yes to Laura’s shaved head. 

(Tangential Feeling: buzzing your own head is good and you should think about doing it. Doing it for catharsis in a moment of crisis is A-OK, but I did it once just because I felt like it and it was fucking great. banishing your high maintenance hair does not cure depression, but it does give you back an hour of personal upkeep every day and the fuzzy head is wonderful to touch.)

Contrary to most of the fandom, though, I absolutely loathed Laura’s monologue here, and the context that it puts around her not-choice. There’s a lot of shitty Hot Takes out there about how mental illness and addition and creation intersect. A lot of people will suggest that being unhealthy makes you a better artist, and what’s more that being a better artist is worth being unhealthy.  This series is unambiguously and steadfastly against that message, which is one of the absolute best and most important things about it!  I don’t want to diminish that.

But that all said, seeing Laura alone in the dark describing “an addicts moment of clarity” was... jesus it was all kinds of personally painful and upsetting. It hurt real bad, and not in the way I though I had agreed to be hurt. And I’m not sure how to spell out why.

I have thousands and thousands of words on why it struck such a sour cord in me, but a lions share can be summed up with “fuck absolutely every story where a Troubled Girl just needed to get traumatized/humiliated/humbled enough to Realize How Bad She Was Being.” Double fuck this one in particular for showing the girl getting over addiction/mental illness by literally sitting alone in the dark thinking about how much she fucked up.  That story is tired, and cruel, and dangerous, and thank Christ I encountered this comic at 30 and not 19 because I would have swallowed it down with all the other poison that Helpful Adults fed me.

But yeah though, her shaved look is fucking adorable as shit.  Neither she nor Britany made any hair mistakes.

ETA ULTIMATE: That last bit is the one thing in this post I don’t quite still stand by. By the end, it’s clear that the above wasn’t at all the story this book was trying to tell at all. I thought WicDiv was trying to tell some Epic Truths, Hard-Facts-About-Human-Nature shit. But despite the sweeping setup (All Across The World and Through All Of History) the book was using a complex allegory for a very specific situation (Selling Your Soul and Name and Life To Creative-Industrial Machines), and that made it muddy.  

(Insert Principal Skinner meme here “Am I out of touch? Was I simply interrogating the text from the wrong perspective?  No, it’s the original creators who are wrong!”)

I’m from a family of mentally ill, addiction-prone, recovering-Catholic artists.  Laura is in my blood. Half the people I love are Laura.  I have Laura’s painting on my wall and her books on my shelf. I’ve sat with Laura’s mother a few years after Laura’s death, as her father now slowly dying in the next room, and listened to her music for the first time. (It was good. It was really good.  And I never even knew.)

These experiences colored my read, but how could they not?  

I do now, I think, understand what Gillen was trying to say- the addiction he was talking about was to stardom, the attention and accolades, and free pass to make your own shit be everyone else’s problem. I understand now that the “art” that the gods made was always supposed to be Not Real Art, that there was no true “message” from their songs- all noise, no signal. It was never about Laura’s art, or even Laura as an artist.  And that was unpleasant to reconcile.

Because when you're Laura, or Elanor, or any of them, life doesn’t have to grant your ill-advised wish before it fucks your head and kills you. Sometimes you fight as hard as you can with every fiber of your being and you’re still in Hell. Sometimes you’re doing all the Meetings and self-reflection and therapy you can manage and you’re still a Destroyer. But the shit you create while you’re down there is worthy of creating. What you do with your too-short, too-fucked time matters. A fucked up life was still worth living because it was your life to live. And... I guess, from the story presented in Faust Act and Fandemonium, I sort of thought that this was what WicDiv was supposed to be talking about. I thought it was going to be about doing something good even when life is fucking you. But instead it is a cautionary tale that  that suggests you could have stopped getting fucked at any time if you had just gotten over yourself and said the magic words.

We spent half the comic watching Laura drag herself through the mud. Half the comic was focused on Her Mistakes, when so little of her circumstances were actually her fault. “Punish Ophelia until she gets over herself” is not at all what WicDiv meant to be about. I imagine the creators would be aghast to hear that’s what I got out of it. But the text is what the text is.  While it is intended (and successful!) at being many other very good things, this one really bad thing is still part of that mix, and that sucks.

Maybe I should have picked up on the discrepancy between my read and the intent sooner. Probably I should have just done myself a favor and stop reading once I did.

2016, 2017 while my life was going a bit to shit, this comic was exactly what I needed. Being in the fandom made my life better and helped me meet cool new friends and get through some of the hardest shit to happen to me since I was a kid. Then in 2018, it slid into source of frustration and soured promise. Now at the end I have no idea if I liked it or not. 

But that’s fine, now that it’s done. The ink is dry, the ritual is over. It’s just a comic book now.  Some pictures I still love and some words I don’t always agree with. A lot of noise, arguable amounts of signal, but not a song I want to play on loop anymore.

I have no real conclusion to draw here. I respect at how firmly WicDiv rejects dark and unhealthy parts of being a professional creator- especially unhealthy things that are generally just accepted as Common Wisdom. I don’t think it took enough care in spelling out what it was rejecting, though, and I do think it was remiss in not finding good healthy things to embrace as an alternative.

All of the above notwithstanding, I have to give it credit for delivering almost exactly what I wanted in terms of lesbian nonsense. That ain’t nothing.

I give this series ?????/∞ and am happy to be safely clear of Kieron Gillen’s Wild Ride

#wicdiv #wicdiv spoilers #somewhat negative #its a mixed bag tbh

[written-rebellion]

Perfect Distractions

A/N: Weelcommee back to your 2 post a week schedule! In case you missed my little note last week, since we’re back into what’s expected to be an excruciatingly long Droughtlander, I’ve got you covered with twice the amount of disgustingly adorable fluff with your two favourite PD!nerds LOL

And what better way to ring in the new/old posting schedule with some celebratory smut? (i.e.: verra nsfw down below). Enjoy!!

Jamie gets inspired by a song, Claire’s stuck between a rock and a Jamie-place, and as always, the facts of this fanfic are contrived specifically to make fluffy university/modern-day au scenarios. Please let me know what you think!

Part One: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] | Part Two: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Three: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Four: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Five: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Six: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Seven: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Eight: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Nine: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Ten: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Eleven: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Twelve: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [ Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Thirteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Fourteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] Part Fifteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Sixteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Seventeen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Eighteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Nineteen: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] | Part Twenty: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Twenty-One: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] | Part Twenty-Two: [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

Part Twenty-Two: Here, There and Everywhere | Chapter 4

“Our dear Mrs. Bug sends her regards once again,” Jamie said with a laugh as he came in with this week’s spoils.

“Bless that woman,” Claire said, coming from the kitchen to greet Jamie in the front hall. She bit her lip, eyeing the hefty bag of treats swinging from his wrist.

“And how was the…” she trailed off, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

“She wrote ye a wee list of tips for the next attempt, and a new recipe to try. It’s in the bag too,” he said, crossing the hall towards her and depositing said bag by the key table on the way.

“God bless Mrs. Bu—mmph!”

In the seconds it took for him to make it to her, Jamie had his arms wound around her waist, bending his head and kissing her deeply. Stunned for only a moment, she pressed herself into him with a soft hum as her hand slid up his chest.

She could almost taste his urgency, in no way an unfamiliar nor unwelcome feeling, but just slightly curious in its catalyst. Her chuckle broke them apart, but Jamie’s arms didn’t let her go very far.

“What on earth have you been up to, then?” she said, idly running her fingers through the shorter hair at his nape.

“Mrs. Bug—” She raised an eyebrow and he laughed, kissing her nose. “—was playing Beatles songs in her parlour. I heard one and thought of ye.”

“If you—mmm—say Eleanor Rigby, I will step right out of your arms this instant.”

They were so close, she could feel the laugh trembling in his stomach. His eyes though, were that dark, deep blue that rippled gooseflesh down her arm, every part of her body seeming to rise to meet his.

She took barely a breath before he buried his nose into the crook of her neck, gently scraping his stubble against her smooth skin.

“It reminded me,” he went on, unbothered, “that we’ve somewhat set aside our to-do list in the midst of this domestic bubble we’ve made, aye?”

His nipping at her neck was more than a little distracting so it took her a moment to register what he’d said, and another yet to catch her breath.

“What—hmm—what to-do list is that, love?”

He dragged his lips back up her skin, wasting no time in delving his tongue in to look for hers.

“The one we started right here on the floor.”

Quite involuntarily, her cheeks flushed red at the recollection that seemed to start from below her navel and set her blood to a boil.

“Oh aye?” she said, teasing.

“Aye.”

“What song could dear Mrs. Bug have been playing to get you—mmh!”

He canted his hips against hers and she could feel the length of him pressed into her thigh.

Jamie Fraser, she had found, could not – even by the farthest stretch of imagination – carry anything remotely close to a tune. On the rarest of occasions, songs came out as deep, tone-deaf chanting that, while still endearing, had no business being called music.

That being said, there was something in the current rumble of his voice, the edge of his accent, and the way he punctuated each word with torturous kisses down her neck and into her chest as he slowly unbuttoned her shirt.

“I want her everywhere, and if she’s beside me I know I’d need never care.”

Claire was wriggling madly in his arms as he trailed pure heat across the expanse of her skin. What had she been doing before this? Setting out tonight’s take-out, surely.

“But to love her is to need her everywhere.”

Her thoughts grasped for hazy straws, then fizzled out completely as he pushed her bra aside and caught her nipple between his teeth.

“Wait, wait—” she gasped.

She yanked at the short curls behind his head, dragging him back to face her.

She answered before he could ask.

“We’ve already done it here.”

He smirked.

“Aye, we have… We could always—”

“Nope,” she said quickly at the sight if his insinuating eyebrow. “I already told you, we are not having sex in Uncle Lamb’s study.”

He sighed, but otherwise looked unperturbed.

“I’ll have ye bent over a desk sometime, lass,” he murmured and she rolled her eyes at him.

They must of looked positively insane: her locked in his arms, in varying states of undress and general dishevelment as they very civilly discussed where they might decide to ravish each other in their own goddamn home.

“Have we done all the bedrooms?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Twice.”

“Hmph, perhaps we’ve finished the list after all.” He shrugged, all the more unbothered like a dog who knew quite well that a meal was inevitable. “Shall we go for round 3 then, Sassenach?”

She ran through her mental layout of the estate, conjuring up the strangest mix of childhood memories and those of slightly more adult fare.

Then it came to her and in seconds, she made a half-hearted attempt at buttoning her shirt (rendered useless by Jamie’s kisses getting in the way) and headed to the far east corner of the second floor.

“There’s this—ahh!—S-side staircase to the attic,” she said by means of explanation, even as Jamie took every opportunity to press her into walls and assault her neck with small bites and kisses. “I was terrified of it as a child so I d-didn’t think to—mmm—mention—Jamie!”

He’d made a quick undoing of her shirt once again, pushing her against the door leading to said side staircase and blindly fumbling for the handle.

“Aye, ye can give me the backstory during dinner, mo graidgh,” he rasped out over Claire’s shuddering laugh at him.

He regarded her, his intent clear and present as the door clicked open and he pressed her up against the adjacent wall, hiking her skirt up as he wrapped her leg around his hip.

Claire groaned, feeling how hard he was through his jeans. Their eyes met for an instant just long enough for that familiar electric spark to arc between them and then, no words were necessary.

It was a tight fit, the swell of Jamie’s chest leaving just barely enough space for Claire to grind against him. Even so, he wedged his hand between them to run a finger over her panties, humming in approval before he unzipped his fly and slide home.

“Jesus God,” Jamie moaned, “I’ve been thinking about ye all day, mo chridhe. About this.” He pushed especially deep into her and Claire’s head flew back, thudding dully against the stone wall.

Claire squirmed, well and truly caught between the cool stone and the scalding fire pulsing between them. The scrape of the wall reminded her of the alleyway in the town by Lallybroch. Almost a whole year ago, yet the sheer power and need in Jamie – in both of them – hadn’t changed.

Her gasps and sighs were quickly veering into whimpers and sobs with each thrust, until Jamie bent to lift her other knee up and press her completely into both him and the wall. Her long moan bounced against the walls and they both stilled for a moment, listening to it echo up the staircase and into the attic.

“That’s new,” she muttered, knowing – or rather, feeling – that Jamie agreed, if the hardening cock between her legs was any indication.

And if it wasn’t, Jamie’s eager redoubled attempts to fill the corridor with their shared moans and screams certainly were.

She clenched her thighs around his hips, pushing her back against the wall to meet him thrust for thrust as he buried his face into her neck.

“Come, mo nighean donn,” he murmured into her skin, sinking his teeth into her collarbone as his hips sped up on the precipice of his own release. “Let me hear ye.”

And she did, loud and unhinged as it made its bouncing ascent up the staircase, much like how Claire’s soul felt as Jamie groaned and spilled into her.

Light as air and thoroughly rapturous.

“This…” Jamie began breathlessly after some time, his heaving chest trapping hers against the wall and making it all the more difficult to catch her breath. “This may be my new favourite place.”

Claire stifled her giggles into his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck as she counted the seconds before his strength gave out.

It was 5.

In an attempt to keep her from hitting the ground, Jamie twisted and fell through the open door onto his back. They met nose-to-nose, and Claire smiled hesitantly at him, wholly disregarding the fact that she was straddling him and that he was very much still inside her.

He looked up at her, deep blue no longer dark with intent, but swirling and fathomless, and utterly star-struck.

With eyes as honest as those, Claire knew she didn’t need words. After all, for all where love is, the speaking is unnecessary.

His hand rose to tuck her hair behind her ear, cupping the swell of her cheek before pulling her down to his lips.

Meanwhile, the take-out in the kitchen got very cold.

[End of Part 22]

Read Part 23

#outlander #outlander fanfiction #outlander fanfic #jamie x claire #perfect distractions au #lemon #;nsfw #wr writing

[daggerzine]

Outrun the Sun……Kelly Haigh talks about how it all started and where it’s going.

It was random really….I had posted some cd covers of a 90’s/00’s Canadian indie rock/pop band Ashley Park and tagged author/musician Michael White who played drums on one of the records. From there a few comments came from a Kelly Haigh, a name I remembered as being in the band and she appeared on a few of the bands record covers, too. I then friended her on Facebook and asked if she had any records out under her own name, which she did. One cd (Country Western Star featuring Kelly and Frances the singing dog!) and a book filled with Kelly’s amazing, expressive art that includes a cd (Post Apocalyptic Valentines) both of which I quickly ordered.  The music leans heavily toward the country genre, which after hearing some Uncle Tupelo and Gram Parsons records in the early 90’s was a genre I dove into as well. Not having ever met Kelly in person she definitely seems like someone who dances to the beat of her own drum, a unique talent for sure. I then thought she’d be a person to find out more about as being part of Ashley Park and her own solo records that she’d have an interesting story, which she does so I sent her some questions that she graciously answered.  Read on dear readers and discover the magic that is Kelly Haigh!

  Where were did you grow up? Tell us a little about your childhood.

I grew up with my mom and two little brothers in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We spent summers on my Grandma's farm in Ontario, and so much of my inspiration and love of outdoors has come from those times. My dad was also a truck driver, so sometimes I got to ride with him in his big rig truck where we'd listen to all kinds of great old country music. When I was quite young, he once told me about one of his truck trips where he came upon quite a bad accident. He and his driving partner had gotten out of their truck to set up flares in the dark of night, and he tripped over a man's body. When there was enough light, he went back to check on that man's body, and he saw the man's head had been taken clean off! I asked if he also found the man's head, and my dad said no. On subsequent family road trips, I'd hound my dad to tell me where that accident had been, because I thought if I watched closely enough, I might find that man's head! I recently asked my dad if he thought that man's head had ever been found. He said, 'Don't be ridiculous, it probably smashed to pieces like a pumpkin.' I asked why he let me think I might find it by watching out the car window. He said because it kept me quiet for long enough he could have some peace and quiet. ha! But that was the start of my fascination with death and taxidermy. I couldn't bear to part with my first pet hamster when I was 11. The cold wintery ground prevented me from digging him a grave, so I skinned him. I still have his fuzzy little hide. I nearly became a taxidermist, my dad had an apprenticeship set up for me when I turned 19, but I decided instead to become a hairdresser. 

 Was your childhood musical? Did you parents/siblings/relatives play any instruments or were they big music fans?

Nobody I knew played any instruments, but we always had alot of records around. My parents were both big music fans. My mom loved Rolling Stones and Diana Ross and the Supremes, and my dad favoured classic country like George Jones, and Dolly Parton. I used to put a yellow tea towel over my head to pretend I had blonde hair, and I'd sing all Dolly's songs, hoping one day I could be a singer, only I was painfully shy. Whenever we were in the car with my mom, we'd all sing along to whatever music was on her car stereo!

 Do you remember the first record you bought with your own money?

If memory serves, the first record I bought with my own money was the soundtrack to Grease. I had been given a record player for Christmas, and it was SO exciting to have a turntable of my own! 

 At certain point did you ever get into the punk and/or  new wave scene?

No. That just wasn't for me!

 Prior to Ashley Park had you been in any bands?

No. I taught myself how to play guitar when I was a teenager. I'd sit in my bedroom with my dog and practice playing and singing for hours and hours. But I just never could bring myself to sing or play in front of anyone. I was just too shy. 

  Please tell us about how you met Terry Miles and became part of Ashley Park?

Terry was my significant other for nearly 15 years. When we first moved in together, he put that band together. I asked if I could be part of his band, and he said no. Then his keyboard player quit the band right before a trip to Austin Texas to play South by Southwest. He said if I could learn to play keyboards, I could be in the band. I had two weeks. He showed me what chords looked like on the keyboard, and told me what chords were in each song. I worked my butt off, and that was the start of my music career! We recorded at home, and I got to sing on some of the songs, and play some keyboards on a few tracks as well.    

        What was the best part about being in Ashley Park? Did you guys play out often?

The best part of being in Ashley Park was just getting to be part of something musical. I learned so much about recording and writing songs from Terry! Our drummer was Gregory. He's in a band called Sloan now. He was always very encouraging and supportive as well. We didn't play often, but we did get to play a few shows in our hometown of Vancouver, (including opening for the Soft Boys), and as well, we got to tour England! That was challenging, but exciting. We were also on a UK record label called Loose Records, and they sent us some music from some of their other artists including Neko Case. Of course I loved her, and her music led me to discovering and meeting her friend Carolyn Mark, who has become a dear friend of mine, and a huge inspiration to me. And that has led to a whole other life of music now, so many years later... 

  How did Ashley Park end?

Terry became disenchanted with music. He wanted to make movies, and direct films, which he has, with some good success. He also went on to make podcasts, which are very successful, (including Tanis, Rabbits, and the Black Tapes). He always said we'd record another record, but I knew it was something he likely wouldn't make time for. Ashley Park didn't so much end as just fade away... Though, Terry has the music available online, and he's started to record a bit of music on his own for his podcasts. 

  Tell us about your solo career. Was Country Western Star your first solo record? How did it come about?

Country Western Star was my first attempt at writing songs and recording. I got to put into action all that I learned from watching Ashley Park songs come into being! I had a rough patch in life, evolution can be painful! So I took my heartbreak and turned it into art! Little songs would come to me each night as I slept, I'd wake up and write them down and record them. I played every instrument on the album. It was huge challenge, but seeing Terry do it, I thought that was just how you created songs! The record was kind of meant to be like a play, little snippets of scenes that hopefully come together to tell a story. Also, it was a bit of a love letter to my dog Frances. My most loyal and loving companion of the past 13 years. 

 Who is the person(s) behind Darling Music? I’ve got some other fine records on that label.

Terry created and ran Darling Music... He did put out some fine records, including the Solarists, (songs by our friend Cam McLellan, who is SO talented, and a visual artist as well)!

 Please tell us about your book that came out a few years ago Post Apocalyptic Valentines (this also included a cd of more of Kelly’s music). How long have you been painting? Who/what are some of your biggest inspirations?

After recording my Country Western Star album, I wanted to record another album. This time, though, I wanted to have some friends who are FAR more talented, play some instruments, and sing with me. It was a really fun thing, and I had a ball making this book and album. I initially wanted to record a set amount of songs, and have a painting and short story to go with each. That was too ambitious, as it turned out, and the project evolved into just including many of my works, and some short stories I did write for this book, which connect to some of the songs. I knew I would have to make something that would stand out, in order to sell some copies. It was becoming clear fewer and fewer people wanted to buy another jewel case copy of a cd. 

I've been painting and drawing for pretty much my whole life. I have a pair of paintings I got back after my grandparents passed away. My grandmother had kept these little paintings, darkened skies, owls sitting waiting while their prey, dear little mice, sit unaware of their impending doom. Life is my inspiration. There is so much beauty around us, which sometimes comes packaged with the biggest heartbreaks and ugliness. I always try to paint lovely things with a touch of ugly, and ugly things with a hint of beauty. There is one artist in particular, Ray Caesar, who inspires me the most. His works are beyond incredible, but as a human, he is a kind, and generous man. Generosity of spirit and encouragement. He found me on MySpace (remember that?) hee hee, and sent me the nicest note that made me want to keep painting. 

Just one of Kelly’s fabulous pieces of art. 

 Name some bands/musicians from your neck of the woods who we need to hear?

My bestest pal, an incredible steel guitar/guitar player (and singer) Jimmy Roy, who plays music with me every Sunday night at a local music and dinner club called the Revel Room, also plays with a band called Petunia and the Vipers. Another band, Viper Central, every musician in those bands are so talented. Carolyn Mark is also one you must hear! My own sweetheart, Don Clark has a record up on Bandcamp that is pretty great! Two of most incredible guitar player friends, Paul Rigby and Paul Pigat have recorded together, Pigby... Kitty and the Rooster are pretty fantastic! As well as the Modelos! Also Geoff Berner I got to paint a couple of his album covers (A couple of Carolyn Mark’s as well, so I’m partial to their music as I listened to it so much as I worked on creating the album art) These are some I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll think of more later, and feel badly for forgetting... 

 How about a few of your current favorite bands/records (from anywhere)?

I have to be honest, I mostly listen to old time country music, and Elvis Presley. Stuff like that. I don't hear much current music, aside from friends who play locally! I do like to hear a little Camera Obscura sometimes! 

 What are your top 10 desert island discs?

Here's the funny thing about how music has changed... No longer going to buy copies of albums, but searching out music by artist, I don't know album titles really, for the music I listen to! I mean, a few I do, but the 10 artists' recordings I'd need to have would be as follows, 

1 Elvis Presley

2 Buck Owens and the Buckaroos

3 Melvin Endsley

4 Wynn Stewart

5 Dolly Parton with Porter Wagoner

6 Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty

7 Anita Carter

8 Patsy Cline

9 Marvin Rainwater

10 George Jones and Tammy Wynette 

 What’s next? Will there be another record soon? Another book, perhaps?

For sure I'd LOVE to get into a studio with Jimmy Roy, and our band, the Murderbirds! We have SO many amazing friends who could play on it with us! We have a lot of songs written, so hopefully soon we can get this going! I think it would have to come in another book for sure! I'm not sure yet what that might look like!

 Any closing comments? Final thoughts? Anything you wanted to mention that I forgot to ask?

Final thought... I think people should sing every day, even if it's just in the shower! Nothing brings as much joy, in my opinion, as music. It can bring people together in so many ways. It can build memories, help us feel connected to others, to ideas, to feelings, and to ourselves. <3 

 www.kellyhaigh.com

www.northern-electric.ca 

[littlelllusionmachine]

I think the last time I was genuinely happy was the first two years of my college experience, which puts us at about 2007-2009. 

When I was a kid, it was a rare treat to see my father. He worked in Manhattan, which, for being all of 12 miles away, may as well have been a different world. He worked long hours and more often than not he’d get more sleep if he just stayed at his office and slept rather than coming home. So, for the duration of whatever film they were either filming or editing in post, there’d be long stretches when I wouldn’t see him. 

He’d have the occasional weekend where he’d come home. Maybe I’d be off from school the next day. I don’t remember the specifics as this was the early-mid 90s. On these occasions, when he had to just drop off a drive or whatever, he’d ask me if I wanted to come to work with him. I’d always say yes, because it seemed very exciting to me - being on film sets, potentially meeting famous actors, getting to know the industry. I decided fairly early on I wanted to be part of it. 

After what seemed like hours - it was always dark when we left - we’d go home. I want to say it was around midnight - at least it felt that way to me, who was no older than 8. As we reach the bridge, he says to me on one specific ride home; “Look at it. It’s kind of like a jewelry box, right? Do you see how it sparkles?” He was talking about the buildings abutting the west side highway - and the entirety of the New York City skyline as we drove further on. It stuck with me. One of those things, a really great day - in spite of me having no recollection at all of what we did - and that one comment he made while I was in a semi-conscious stupor. 

I always wanted to go back to the city. It was where I was born, where I had friends at one point - there was nothing bad associated with it.  Being asked if I wanted to drop a reel off to someone was like being asked if I wanted to go to an amusement park. When I got to high school I took a film class and one of the projects was to film a music video set to a song of your choice. I had no friends at the time, so was at a shortage of actors -- simple solution; go to Manhattan, film from this incredible wealth of people going on with their lives. This was in a freshly post-9/11 world, so things weren’t quite the same as I remembered. . Police presence in the Port Authority. Things like that. But people continued with their humdrum day to day routine like it was nothing. I was envious of it. I did the video to Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles. 

When it came to selecting a college, I had two options: A local school, which was considered very good, or an art school in Manhattan - also very good, but 20k more than the other school per semester. I put a 500$ deposit down on the local school before deciding last minute I’d continue to be unhappy if I went there. I still, to this day, with over 10k left on my loans, believe I made the right choice. I don’t think I’d be alive if I went to the other school. 

I took the bus into the city. The bus goes on these couple-story-high ramps before stopping to let people off into the port authority. You get a good view of 9th avenue and some other areas, consequently ----  . . . The first month, going in to school, equally as tired as I was when I was a kid (It was, on some days, 7 in the morning. . )  . . I had one thought; it’s beautiful. The same as that jewelry box. No longer lit up, no longer sparkling like diamonds, but retaining that same ‘magical’ aura. This feeling faded over time, but even now, looking down on those streets, I have to smile to myself a bit. 

My mother has always been overprotective. When it was finally time to go to school that first year I was given a strict set of instructions to follow: take this bus, go on this train, transfer to this one, and walk this way. Do not look at the map under any circumstances or they’ll know you don’t belong. We ran through it the week prior to the first week of school together. On the first day I called to say I had forgotten everything, though I had figured it out. I don’t think she was pleased with me. 

I continued to do this for a few weeks before realizing I could walk the two miles faster than the subway could take me, so, I started to do it. I felt good, walking. Exploring. If I had time I’d take a different street. In the two miles you go through all kinds of neighbourhoods. One street could mean the difference between a “bad” and “good” area. I wanted to see them all. 

She came to accept this, but not before giving a warning: Don’t go to the Bronx. Don’t go too far uptown. That kind of thing. 

By my third year I had explored Harlem. I explored some of the area of the Bronx by the zoo. I got yelled at for both. I have walked from the southernmost point to the northernmost in all my travels. Last month I explored the Bronx further. I got another concerned lecture. I am 10+ years an adult. 

What does any of this have to do with the song above?

I had a playlist, which exists to this day (in a slightly different incarnation) entitled “For Subway/Walking”. Songs I enjoyed that had a nice beat to walk to, that’d keep me entertained. Simple. This song was one of the many on it.

Early on in my travels I discovered the Chelsea Hotel:

Which has an entirely different aura from the rest of the city. It’s huge, daunting - doesn’t really seem to belong where it is. There’s a pharmacy and a gym like a block away. Nothing makes sense in the area, but the hotel is a bit of a landmark. It’s one of those things that are so seemingly out of place, it’s like if you walk in through the doors there’ll be a whole new dimension to explore. I never went in, though I’d go out of my way to walk past the hotel every time I had a class on the west side. On certain days it’d look slightly different - not sure if it was how the sun lit it up, the general ‘feel’ of the area that day or what. . I took pictures every now and then, often looking the same, but I just had a need to keep that days memory in some kind of archive. 

The Chelsea Hotel has been the home to many celebrities over the years. Ginsberg resided there. Once there was a banner hanging out of one of the windows asking to “bring back the poets” - I snapped a photo of that. 2001: A Space Oddity was written in those walls. Nancy Spungen was killed there. There’s just such a rich history to it. There’s an entire section on wikipedia about the notable residents. 

It’s also a hotel where the Libertines recorded some music, The Babyshambles Sessions, in New York. 

I have a couple memories, listening to my playlist while walking past that hotel. . . Nothing specific, just walking - listening to the songs. Especially the one up above. And it’s some of the best memories of my life. I was finally where I wanted to be, listening to music that made me feel good, by a beautiful building where the band members once stood. I didn’t really pay much attention to the lyrics, it was more about a mood and it served its purpose. 

Which is ironic, because the song is about. . . 

. . . .”Carl once said to Pete "its either the top of the world or the bottom of the canal" - he had a big fear of wasting his life and ending up eating cold beans out of a tin and watching daytime telly on a fuzzy TV - they grew to call this concept 'death on the stairs' - the miserable state that some people become, and that’s what this song is about.”

That’s exactly where I fucking am. I discovered grubhub and the allure of not having to cook or do anything for myself without the “risk” of using a phone and placing an order. I work, I work my second job, and I watch late night cartoons and occasionally fall asleep on the sofa. Sometimes I work, then immediately come home and go to sleep in spite of it being like 6p. 

I never intended on living this long, so that was never a fear of mine. I had this premonition my entire life, like every since I decided I wanted to do something in the art field. I’d get my job, be miserable doing it, and eventually give myself alcohol poisoning before dying in some bar or in the street at 3 am between the ages of 26 and 27. So I never planned past that point. 

Here I am, never once getting a job in my field of choice to be miserable doing as to be the catalyst for my eventual death. I am older than 27. I am working, at least the one job, at the same place I have been working since 2010 -- a job I only got so I could afford the bus/subway to get into the city in the first place. And I am still miserable, but I am not even allowed that (dare I say? ) romanticized artists death. 

This is Death on the Stairs. I have managed to corrupt one of my last happy memories.

Now my parents are planning on moving. My dad is no longer in the film industry so there’s no reason to be paying the ridiculous taxes and fees involved with being in a suburb of the city. Everything is cheaper out west. Unfortunately, so is the scope of the people’s world --- I asked a realtor how to get to the city with public transportation and he stated he wasn’t fully sure. 

I don’t have anywhere to return to. The last time I was in the city, a guy in a ski mask was waiting on the subway platform. He got very close to my face and it scared the fuck out of me. I no longer travel with a knife or anything like that since one of them was confiscated from me years ago (again, post 9/11 world) -- it was just one of those things, as I’m recalling my mother; don’t go here, here, or there . . . you don’t belong. It was the first time I even had the thought that maybe she was right. And that was terrifying since that’s the only place I ever felt like I did belong. And even then, it was the anonymity that drew me to it. Nobody cares about you and. . . you’re not going to care about anybody. And even there, I felt, while on that platform, I didn’t belong. I did not tell her about this incident. 

I don’t want to move. I don’t want to let go of this thought; maybe I will be happy. Maybe I can get over the crippling social anxiety. Maybe I can find the time to sit down, assemble a portfolio, and put myself out there. Maybe I can get a job doing something I love. Maybe I can earn enough so I can get to a point where my parents won’t be scared shitless about my future; how I can’t support myself. How I don’t seem to have any aspirations. How I just don’t belong. The truth is I never belonged here, either - that’s what made New York so alluring to me in the first place. Now I am losing everything. 

I have been thinking a lot about killing myself lately. It’s not that I have any plans to go through with it, and I am not saying this as a desperate act of ‘I need help/attention’ or ‘Call someone’ -- nothing like that, no. On the contrary.  It’s just something that has been at the back of my mind. It’s hard going through the day when you’re being instructed to just go fuck off. Just die or something. My only solace is that my view is already from the bottom of that canal and all I can see is the lingering silhouette of the Chelsea. But it’s getting further away. Regardless, I suppose up is the only way to go --

And in the interim, it’s nice to reflect on those moments of happiness. Even if they are so far out of reach. 

[no-reply95]

So I listened to the Something About the Beatles (SATB) latest podcast today, titled “Dear Friend” with the topic of conversation John and Paul’s relationship in the 1970s. So I was thinking that this would be great because I feel like the primary things talked about when the John/Paul 1970s dynamic is discussed is Lennon Remembers, How Do You Sleep and the PlayBoy interview, maybe they’ll throw in the Lost Weekend for balance if they’re feeling so inclined... I’m obviously exaggerating here but... Firstly, before I start my rant, SATB is a good podcast, they usually have great guests (Erin Torkelson Weber the MVP of course), cover interesting topics and Robert Rodriguez is a good host who’s good at challenging things in the story that don’t ring true.

However, I feel like throughout the Beatles active years and into the post break-up years there’s a narrative that has been established that so many people are wedded to, to the point that it’s part of the orthodoxy of the band. In my opinion the narrative is that from first meeting up until the moment that John died Paul was always doing everything to be John’s BFF, he was always trying to be closest to John, no matter what John said or did, Paul would always be the one to try and mend fences and throughout the 70s he was doing whatever he could to end up back working with John. I don’t think this narrative is completely wrong but I think it’s uneven mainly because, in all this, Paul’s importance to John is completely glossed over and John’s manoeuvring to ensure that he was the most important person in Paul’s life is completely missed. So, I just want to highlight some of the instances off the top of my head where I feel that John showed how much he needed to be prioritised in Paul’s life and how much he wanted to mend fences post break-up, that I feel don’t get talked about often enough:

1) John’s competition with Jim McCartney: There’s a lot of stock put into the John-Paul-Stu triangle but that obscures a weird triangle that, maybe Paul wasn’t even aware of, but I think definitely existed which is John-Paul-Jim. By all accounts Jim didn’t want John around and was against John and Paul’s friendship. Jim had a lot of influence over Paul and had a lot of sway as his sole parent once Mary died and I think John was resentful of that. We all know about the ultimatum John gave Paul when he took the job (that Jim implored him to get) which jeopardised his commitment to the band. In John’s eyes and own words, Paul choosing to quit his job to commit fully to the band was Paul choosing John over his dad. No one (in books I’ve only seen Joshua Wolf Shenk discuss this) discusses how Jim was effectively John’s Stu, someone that obstructed his closeness and ability to influence Paul to the point that over a decade later, post break up, John saw Paul focusing on the band as a victory over his dad. John had a jealously of Paul’s closeness and prioritisation of his family that would rear its head further down the road but, by and large, I rarely see this discussed.

2) John’s jealousy of Paul’s other close friendships: On this front, we hear ad nauseam, about Paul’s jealousy of Stu, which is fine because, even without Paul acknowledging it, it’s obvious from space that Paul was jealous of Stu’s closeness to John but we never hear about John’s jealousy of Paul’s other close friendships. All the Beatles were close to Mal Evans but I think Paul was especially close to him (he was the first Beatle to befriend Mal, Mal lived with him at Cavendish for some time, Mal helped Paul write some songs etc.) which got to John. In John’s own words when discussing Magical Mystery Tour he was “choked” when he found out that Paul had come up with the idea with Mal and Mal’s widow has said that Yoko told her that John had told her (whew Chinese whispers time) that he was jealous of Mal’s friendship with Paul... Then there’s Tara Browne, it’s interesting that despite Tara apparently being really friendly and outgoing John never took to him. Maybe it was because Tara was upper class. Maybe it was because after pestering him for months, Paul chose to do LSD with Tara instead of with John and the rest of the band. Maybe it was because Paul invited Tara up to Liverpool, right after Christmas, to hang out with his family resulting in the infamous moped crash. If I put my tin foil hat on, in “A Day in the Life” when John’s reaction to the death of a man in a car crash is “to laugh” is that meaningful? The song is thought to reference Tara but does that passage give us a glimpse into how John saw Tara? If he’s laughing about Tara dying then it sounds like he really didn’t like him, possibly due to his close friendship with Paul.

3) John’s resentment of Paul’s romantic partners: So this one is interesting... There are quite a few examples to walk through so here goes. We have the incident in Hamburg where Paul is in bed with a woman and John (in the aftermath of Stu’s death and probably high on prellies) comes charging in attacking the girl, cutting up her clothes and basically scares her out of the room, maybe that was just the prellies but there seems to be too much of a pattern to ignore. Then there’s Jane of course, we don’t know a ton about John’s interactions with Jane over the years but it’s interesting that he makes a terrible first impression with her (asking her to describe how girls masturbate) and it seems that their relationship is cordial at best going forward (note how Jane and Paul never go on holiday alone with John and Cynthia in the same way George and Ringo did with their respective partners). Peggy Lipton also tells the story about how when she came to hang out with Paul in 1965, John was really rude to her out of nowhere and asked “what she was doing there” and she seemed to think that John couldn’t understand why Paul wanted to take her to dinner if all he was going to do was fuck her. Then, there’s Linda... John consistently gives interviews in the early 70s when he talks about how in a few years Paul will wake up and leave Linda, according to Ray Connolly John couldn’t believe that Paul was staying faithful to Linda and then there’s other weird occurrences in that late 60s/early 70s period. There’s the fan who claims seeing John about to hit a pregnant Linda before Paul stepped in, there’s John rushing to get married as soon as Paul does (8 days later I think which is WILD to me), there’s John describing Paul’s wedding as a “funeral” in ‘71... What does all this tell us? That John was too busy replacing Paul with Yoko to care about Paul anymore? In my book, it’s John’s fears being realised that Paul would always prioritise his family over him when push came to shove, in John’s mind he had won when he was competing with Jim for Paul but once Linda came into the picture and gave Paul the family he always wanted, I think in John’s mind, it was game over. Maybe if Paul had divorced Linda in the 70s (like John predicted) they would have worked together more, we’ll never know, but in a similar way to Yoko, Linda was a wedge in John’s relationship to Paul.

4) John’s attempts post break-up to reach out to Paul: We hear a lot about Paul reaching out to John in the 70s and not engaging with the feuding anymore, it’s Paul that decides not to respond in kind to HDYS, it’s Paul that invites John to the Venus and Mars sessions, it’s Paul going to the Dakota to see/try to see John, it’s always Paul seemingly who misses John and wants to reestablish their relationship. However, according to May Pang, John was happy to do Bangladesh if Paul was doing it too. According to Ray Connolly, John gave him a letter to give to Paul, in the hopes that Paul would call him. According to Paul and other people involved in the One to One concert, John asked Paul to appear with him during his performance in ‘72. And in the face of the backlash from HDYS, John’s the one going around calling Paul his best friend ,other than Yoko, and sending him Beatles bootlegs for Christmas.

All this is to say that John and Paul did not have this one sided relationship where only Paul cared and wanted them to repair things or where only Paul was looking to manoeuvre a situation so he was closest to John, John also wanted to be the closest person in Paul’s life, he was jealously protective of their partnership (see his angry reaction to Paul not coming to him and only him to help with Eleanor Rigby) he also seemed to fear losing Paul to his family which may have happened in his mind, who knows. Because John’s most famous post Beatles interviews have him bashing Paul and Paul’s had 40 years to talk about how much he loved John, there’s this view that Paul loved John more than John loved Paul or that John loved Paul until Yoko came in the picture, at which point Paul was no longer relevant. If Paul meant nothing to John anymore, why did he even bother writing HDYS, if he was so tuned out he wouldn’t have been bothered by Ram, none of the critics were so why was John all over that album more than a Paul is Dead truther?! Why did Yoko block Paul’s calls to John, they were happy to hang out with Ringo, what was so threatening about Paul? Why, according to Robert Rosen, were John’s diaries full of his obsessions about Paul?? We’ll never know a lot of the answers to these questions but I would love it if more podcasts even acknowledged that these questions exist and acknowledged that Paul was such a huge part of John’s life till his dying day: “we have our ups and downs but I would do anything for Paul and I think he would do anything for me” John Lennon December 8 1980.

Apologies for the rant it seems listening to Beatles podcasts always seems to set me off! But SATB is a good podcast, just feel that there are so many interesting conversations that get missed in favour of the usual narrative time and time again, so close but no cigar!

Thanks to @onesweetdreampodcast and @anotherkindofmindpod for being the only podcast I’ve heard to date brave enough to discuss these questions, I think doing that will give us a much better understanding of the Beatles and how their story unfolded.

By the way most of what I referenced above can be found in @amoralto incredible blog, have fun!

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #john and paul #something about the beatles #dear friend #jealous guy #complex relationships #thoughts #my rants

[theaudioplaza]

The Last Word: George Clinton on Alien Encounters, Trump’s Lack of Funk

Parliament-Funkadelic founder George Clinton is an irreplaceable walking museum of American musical history, with a career that began in Fifties doo-wop (the Parliaments were originally a Newark, N.J., singing group), and continues all the way to Kendrick-era hip-hop and beyond. Clinton put out an excellent, memorably titled memoir, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?, in 2014, and he suggests he’s already done enough additional living for another book – though he’s more focused on an upcoming documentary and a new album. He called in for a characteristically amusing and enlightening Last Word interview while on the road for his latest tour, which is set to run through April.

Who are the funkiest people who ever lived? When I’m just tryna funk, it’s gonna be the Staple Singers, man – Pop Staples. And Ray Charles. Ray could take “Eleanor Rigby” and make that funky. He ends up doing that to anything – to me, that’s raw funk. And then [Motown session bassist] James Jamerson – that is a musician.

Parliament-Funkadelic legend on why he admires Flying Lotus and Thundercat, how hip-hop saved his career, and what’s next

And who is the least funky person alive? Oh, my God! [Laughs] Probably Trump. Can’t be no funk in the Trump! [Pauses] He ain’t gonna like that.

Where did the idea of “free your mind and your ass will follow” come from? And do you stand by the advice? I think I was just saying it as a stream of consciousness, you know? But as I get older, I see it as the same thing as “Let go and use the Force, Luke.” If your head ain’t right, everything you try to fix is going to be messed up, ’cause your brain is what you need to fix it.

Same idea as “Maggot Brain,” really. Yeah, same thing! Same thing. If you got maggots in your brain, everything you think is gonna be rotten.

What advice would you give your younger self? Stop looking for anything else to be LSD. If you knew that it was never gonna be like that first hit, you could’ve stopped a long time ago.

So you never regretted LSD? As soon as Woodstock happened, LSD was over. It became commercial, $5 a tab. Then that mind-manipulation thing it did became dangerous because anybody could program your ass when you’re on it.

How do you feel about white artists doing black music? I’d bite off the Beatles, or anybody else. It’s all one world, one planet and one groove. You’re supposed to learn from each other, blend from each other, and it moves around like that. You see that rocket ship leave yesterday? We can maybe leave this planet. We gonna be dealing with aliens. You think black and white gonna be a problem? Wait till you start running into motherfuckers with three or four dicks! Bug-eyed motherfuckers! They could be ready to party, or they could be ready to eat us. We don’t know, but we’ve got to get over this shit of not getting along with each other.

You and Bootsy Collins had an alien encounter, right? Yeah, and we wasn’t high. A light hit the car, and a substance like mercury out of the thermometer rolled up the side of the car.

Liquid metal that moved, like in Terminator 2? That’s exactly what it looked like.

How have you been able to find such consistently great musicians over the years? They usually be out of the box, but still appealing. Somebody you can’t control, or won’t do it normal. I learned that anything that get on your nerves – the parents don’t like, the old musicians don’t like, and kids seem to be liking it – that’s usually the shit. But you then have to learn how to balance it. It can’t go all up into the crazy, ’cause that’s what you’re flirting with.

Parliament came from your doo-wop quartet, the Parliaments. You’ve said when doo-wop was dying, you were sad but excited to see what was next, right? Even though I loved the Fifties doo-wop, you couldn’t hold on to it. You had to change, or you was gon’ be antique real quick, like the Ink Spots. And then we were at Motown and you had the Rolling Stones, simple rock & roll became the new thing. So we turned the volume up and got slick, almost jazzy musicians – Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, Bootsy playing simple, but making it smooth and brand-new – with the concept of clones or whatever we was talking about.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of this country? I’m optimistic about it, because whatever happened, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. If He did it, He did it all. You just have to figure your way how to dance your way out of your constriction. And pray, have faith and all that shit.

Would you be cool with a hologram of yourself going on tour after you’re no longer with us? I already made a hologram. I did it with the whole band. Maybe they can have it start performing in Vegas or some shit. I wanted to give something to my family.

What do you want people to say about you when you’re gone? He made me sick, but he gave me the antidote.

rollingstone.com | @hiattb

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INTERVIEW WITH JAMES POLLITT FROM SOSEITY

What are your names and what do you do in the band?

Hi!! I'm James Pollitt and I, write, as well as being lead vocalist in Soseity, (and I'll probably a little bit of keyboard once I get good enough) Lucas Rigby is on drums, Cam Stephenson is on bass and Ben Moore is on guitar and they both do vocals too.

How did you meet each other?

Ahah it's actually quite a funny one how me and Cam met, he messaged me, maybe 18 months ago now, asking me where I got my penny board from. I started doing a bit of promotion for his band at the time, The Strays, and eventually I started Soseity with him and his best mate Tom Braithwaite. Together, we wrote ITILY and Lover That I Lost (mainly them though to be fair, I just wrote some lyrics over those beautiful instrumentals). I owe them a lot to be honest, Tom's left but without him and Cam I would never have had the confidence to do anything with my songs. Just before Tom left, we pulled in Lucas, who I knew through a mutual friend. And then we replaced Tom with Ben, who I'd met through Instagram. It's worked out quite well really to be honest like, me, Cam and Ben are all at the same uni so that's bare deece.  It's all just mad for me, being in a band and that. I just proper love these lads man.

How old are you and what are your birthdays?

I had to proper hit up the lads and ask them this not gonna lie to ya rkid. Cam's is in May, the 29th I think? Don't quote me on that though ahah. He's just started uni and he's 18. Me and Ben are a year older, in our second year at Uni, I'm born on the 18th June (expecting bday presents off people now that I've said that) and Ben is born on 5th August. Lucas is the baby of the group, he's just started college, he's only 16 the lil cutie and his bday is 10th July.

What are your favourite colours?

My personal favourite colour is sort of a turquoisey colour. I've always been a fan of blue (being a lifelong City fan, I feel like my dad would have killed me if it had been red aha) not too sure about the other lads, but that's the colour we're using a lot recently so I'm guessing they can't hate it too much.

Why did you decide to form a band?

Well I've been writing songs for a while now, maybe 5 or 6 years, and eventually I felt like I wanted to get something that I'd written out there. I felt like I had a lot to say, maybe some of its shite but hopefully there's some good in there. I didn't wanna put stuff out when I was 15/16, because I really struggled with my confidence and self-esteem a lot at school. I had really bad acne, I was really awkward and shy, to be honest, I just wasn't really happy with myself as a person, I think that's reflected in the early stuff I wrote. Not gonna lie, I kind of looked like a potato until maybe like I was 16, school really wasn't a good time for me. When I got my Instagram, at the start of college, I felt a bit more confident in myself generally, as well as in my songs, and my voice. But I wouldn't have said I was ready to put them out there. Cam and Tom gave me that final push to get my songs out there, or at least attempt to do something with it. Being in a band gives me a bit more confidence. I just hope people like it. I really hope they do...

How did you choose the name Soseity?

'Soseity'... Well this is where it gets a little pretentious, sorry, ah, erm so basically me and my sister were looking at starting a clothing company. She wanted to use the name Ipseity which is Latin for 'selfhood', I wanted Soseity. The clothing company never happened but I kept the name as I thought it was kinda cool...

'Seity', I think, is ancient Greek for individuality, and I feel like there's a lot of people who just wanna be sheep in the world, it's like, kind of a play on the fact that there's not much individuality in society. I hope that doesn't sound too cuntish? I feel like it does aha.

What genre of music do you make?

I mean yeah, I'm not really sure how I'd describe it. I wanna kinda break genres and do different things. Having done promotion for quite a while now, I feel like where a lot of bands go wrong is it's all a bit too similar, with their songs all being slightly 'samey' and also a bit too much like what's already out there, like I can't even tell you how much I've heard "these sound proper like Catfish, or the 1975 or the Smiths" when introducing the band's I've worked with to people, and like that's okay, but I don't really wanna be a tribute band. Is that too rude to say??? I don't know man I don't wanna upset anybody but I just wanna do something cool and a bit different...

I've taken influence from different bands (mainly bands like The Cure and The Smiths because they talk about things that matter and I fully love that) from 80's/00's pop, blues, from newer bands that to me, stand out, bands on the new indie-pop wave like HUNNY, Clay, Phoebe Green and King No-One, I love their lyricism, I love what they're doing man. Along with other bands like SWMRS, Bulletproof Bomb, Carnival Club and Field Medic (and a few others man, there's a few too many to mention) they, they're all a bit different and I love that man. Also like anybody who follows my twitter (painfully for them, sorry) kinda knows I love grime and 50's music as well. Basically I'm not sure what vibes we'll go with but I know there's a mix of heavy shit, indie, things about my mental health struggles, political stuff and a few norty little love ballads (who doesn't love a good ballad) aha.

What are the inspirations behind your songs?

I mean there's a lot of different inspirations, but basically I want to make music that matters, I feel like anybody can write a half-decent love song, but I kinda wanna say something important with my lyrics. Saying that, I've literally just been dumped after a very long-term relationship with a girl who I've been madly in love with for basically my entire teenage life, that's still a bit tender, my heart's a bit broken, so expect some stuff that's a bit lovey dovey and sad. It was one of those where I really did think we'd get married and it would last forever, maybe that's naïve, and I guess she didn't feel that way, as sad as it is. but yeah, like anyway all the songs I've written about her and us over the last 5 years or so, will hopefully be coming out soonish,  I just hope that's not too awkward for her, or for me (they are quite heartfelt ahhh)... A lot of my inspiration comes from my own life, my vulnerability, my struggles with mental health issues, and obviously I'm a History And Politics Degree student, there's a lot of politics and references to global events, as I said I wanna talk about important things like, otherwise, for me, there's no point...

If you guys gain like thousands of fans will you use your platform of fans to promote things that are important to you like politics and to promote stuff that needs to be shown awareness to such as; mental health; and sexual assault within the music and acting industry and outside of the industry in the real world?

Yeah man, that's proper important to me. I've been sexually harassed at so many gigs and assaulted on a few occasions, like I said before I've just got out of a long-term relationship, but I think, as it is with boys, there's a few horrible people who simply don't think the rules apply to them, I've never understood why people just assume that they can touch people up, or act like a dickhead, it's so grim. I wasn't ever gonna be about cheating and I certainly didn't want my dick grabbed when I was trying to start a pit or like just have some fun with my mates. When we start gigging, people who sexually assault will be blacklisted. They can fuck off I don't care. Obviously mental health issues are a huge part of who I am. Previous work with Yellow4Change and my yellow heart project, along with my own issues, really shape who I am and what I wanna talk about in my music, songs like The Bridge, which I posted an acapella snippet of on Twitter, are really like a little flood of my emotions. Music has really helped me through my problems and I hope my music can help people through theirs. Politics, although I'm worried about the engagement level and market for it, is a massive thing to me. I think people don't realise that the world around them is politics. It's not just a vote or a leader. From the doctor's appointment they moan about, the roads they drive on, to the price of gas and electric, politics is everything. I want to help people to see how important politics really it is, without sounding too much like a preachy prick.

When do you plan on releasing music?

Well I've got to apologise about that. The songs should have been out ages and ages ago and I really have fucked that and I'm sorry to anybody who cares and wants to listen. They'll be out soon and I'll keep putting previews on twitter and insta. Sorry everybody, love you...

Do you want to stay anything to the people who already support you?

Erm, I don't really think many people will care at this point. But just be kind, everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle man. Be there for people and just yeah, be kind.

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