#he's really good at doing podcasts i think! like you can tell from his conversational skills he has good experience

[christhopersturniolo]

୨ PODCAST ୧

summary: matt leaves the podcast because of his brother's jokes, and y/n comforts him.

warnings: cussing, sad, fluff

notes: this fanfic was a request! also english is not my first language so im sorry about any mistake

୨୧

The day with the Triplets has been a little stressful, specially for Matt. Each time he spoke, his brothers would joke saying that he was being way too ‘depressed’ and ‘miserable’. Or Nick would always answer with ‘Yeah, yeah nobody wants to hear about that shit’.

Now, after they invited me to their podcast, here I am, sitting next to my boyfriend, holding his hand gently.

As Chris and Nick keep talking over their brother, calling him ‘Miserable Matt’ I could see him getting more annoyed, his eyes watering, and it feels like I'm the only one seeing his discomfort.

I don’t really know what to do, cause obviously his brothers are just joking, and I'm not sure how to intervene without making things awkward.

They keep teasing him over and over.

“I'm not going to sit here for like another 55 minutes or some shit.” Matt’s voice getting slowly lower.

“What? What was that? That mumble? I can’t understand you.” The older triplet mocks him, but he tries to ignore it. “Ok go ahead-“

“Now you are ‘mumble Matt’ too” Chris laughs after Nick’s comment. “It's like I can't even understand what you are saying, sounds like rocks rolling down a hill, your voice”

I try to end the conversation "Can we just-" Before I can finish, Chris and Nick burst into laughter "Can we start the podcast?" I try again, but Matt lets out a heavy sigh.

Nick continues “it literally sounds like an avalanch coming out of your mouth” Matt gets up aggressively, starting to leave the room “I’m not doing this shit anymore.”

“Oh come on Matt!” Chris says chucking. They laugh some more as I just think of what to do. I get up from my seat, hurrying after him “Hey.. Matt..” I begin, attempting to catch his attention. However, before I could reach him, he gets in his room, and slams the door in my face, leaving me standing outside. I'm sure this is not just about the stupid jokes they were making.

I hesitate for a moment before making any move, thinking if I should open the door, i’m sorry, but I can't just ignore the urge to check on him.

With a deep breath, I reach out and calmly push the door open. Inside, I find Matt lying on his bed, his face buried in his pillow, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“Can we talk love?” I say quietly closing the door behind me.

He lifts his head, his eyes red and puffy, his expression a mixture of sadness and anger. "What do you want?" His voice defensive.

Ignoring his tone, I move closer and sit on the bed.

With a gentle touch, I reach out and place my hand on his back, offering a silent gesture of comfort. For a moment, we sit in silence, until I interrupt it.

“Can you tell me what has been going on lately?” I ask softly, my voice filled with concern.

“Nothings going on” He sniffs, still with his face in the pillow “I’m fine” His voice barely above a whisper.

I shake my head, not trusting his words. "You don't seem fine to me" He stays silent, I take a deep breath.

I adjust my position, leaning against the headboard of the bed. I decide to take a different approach instead of talking “Come here..” I pat the spot next to me, in sign for him to come closer “Let's just cuddle for a bit."

He completely stops acting rude in the moment I suggest it, Matt scoots closer, laying his head on my chest, his arms around my waist. I stroke his smooth brown hair. I kiss the top of his head. We stay like this for some good ten minutes.

He presses his face into the crook of my neck and whispers with a shaky voice “I’m just so fucked up..”

Gently, I cupped his cheeks, lifting his head from my neck, making him look into my eyes “Matt.. Why do you say that?”

"I just.. I don't know" He admits. "I'm just so fucking exhausted of feeling like this all the time..”

I sigh, I hate seeing him in this state. “Since when do you feel like that?” I wait patiently for Matt's response, he looks away.

“I don’t know.. For some long time now.. I guess I've been trying to push it away, but it just keeps coming back, over and over.” As he spoke, I could see the pain in his eyes.

"I'm sorry I couldn't see it sooner babe.." I whisper, reaching out to gently brush away his tears. "I should have known something was wrong." I kiss his forehead.

He shakes his head "It's not your fault" He murmurs "I don’t want you to worry"

I wrap my arms around him, holding him close. "But I do worry, Matt" I confess softly. "I care about you more than anything."

He buries his face deeper into my chest. "I love you so much.." He whispers, his voice muffled by the fabric of my shirt.

"I love you too.." I whisper back in his ear, squeezing him tightly.

୨୧

sorry this is so short 😭😭

tags: @muwapsturniolo

#chris sturniolo #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo smut #sturniolo smut #fanfic #christopher sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #sturniolo triplets x reader #sturniolo x reader #st

[visenyaism]

I’m SO glad you called Ned an “enabler”.

Ned gets so much praise (and hate ??) for warning Cersei before wanting to sell her out to her rapist but I disagree with that praise. No one looks at the patriarchal violence lurking beneath. You know exactly the nature of the man you’re dealing with, you saw him slapped Cersei so hard she fell to the floor and threatening to slap her again, and you think giving one flimsy warning will be enough ?? Ned is absolutely a misogynistic fool. When Robert comes back from his hunt he’ll tell Robert the truth and he thinks Cersei will have enough time to flee with her guard and children and retinue ??

“Wherever you go, Robert’s wrath will follow you”, Ned knows that sooner or later (in a few weeks, a few months), Cersei and her children will be slaughtered, he just postponed their deaths. Ned would have received a letter informing him that Robert eventually murdered Cersei and her children and think “how could this have happened ? At least, I wasn’t the one holding the knife so I don’t have their blood on my hands.”

@translannisters and @kristevanstark have much more coherent thoughts about this than me on their very fun deeply excellent asoiaf podcast but yeah in AGOT ned ends up taking this almost wife-like role (stay with me here) with robert where he’s trying to gently guide robert into doing the right thing without ever setting hard boundaries or really flat-out saying no. And ned resents cersei for not being as good at this with her abusive husband as he is. you can really see it in that conversation with cersei where he straight up says well anyone (like me) would’ve been happy to marry robert why couldn’t you have just been better because as a fellow robert baratheon dickrider he refuses to acknowledge that there IS no “doing better” at gently guiding this chaotic abusive man with absolute power into doing the right thing when he does not want to.

ned stark is a HUGE enabler of robert with a big case of “i refuse to see it” syndrome. him watching robert hit cersei and not intervene is like when stannis watched robert hit joffrey and didn’t intervene or all of the standing by as atrocities happened that people like Jaime Lannister and Arthur Dayne did. It’s absolutely an essential part of his character but i think it can be hard to see because we only see him through his wife and children and vassal house’s eyes who still very much see him as a perfect martyr figure.

#wow is this ANOTHER thing cersei pov gets right. just like her based Baelor and Jon Arryn hating #asoiaf

[tarragonthedragon]

so I'm in the office when I hear it. the EIC, in the corner, my manager's manager, lights up the batsignal and voices a cry for aid:

"is anyone here who speaks Welsh?"

immediately, all heads turn to Charles' desk. Charles is Welsh. Charles takes several days to recover from the shock every time someone on a National Trust podcast mispronounces Llanidloes. surely Charles will answer the call.

Charles, the bloody nerve of him, is on Annual Leave to spend the Easter holidays with his son.

at this point I realise that several heads, including my manager's, are turning to me.

I do not speak Welsh.

I was brought up by a Welsh speaker, my grandmother, but given that we live in London and noone else in the family speaks Welsh, I only really picked up the most basic of family pleasantries. I can say cheers and goodnight, I can offer and order hot beverages, and I can answer the six questions people immediately ask when they find out you speak even a little bit of Welsh (the answer to all of these is as far as I can tell, yes but nobody says that. yes but it's baby talk. yes but it was a marketing scam. you know the ones)

I also have a master's degree in, amongst other things, medieval Welsh. as attention turns to me, I weigh up the possibility that the EIC needs someone to urgently translate Culhwch ac Olwen into modern English.

it seems unlikely. however, my CV says I have basic Welsh, and I need this job, so I head to the EICs desk with the thudding tread of someone bound for the gallows

further context-- 90% of my job is combing through business documents for aside phrases indicating business changes. this takes a lot of cross-referencing and close reading. I find this hard in my native language. I find it extremely hard in languages I'm fluent in. the idea of doing it in Welsh, a language where my conversation options are limited to "good morrow sir! the English advance on our left flank!" or "Mr fishy likes to swim", fills me with fathomless dread. in my head, I am writing my application to the next job.

the EIC turns a page around on the desk. "how do you pronounce this?"

I look at the word, relief beginning to sink in. Welsh is phonetic. even if I don't know this word, I can read it.

I do a double take. "Dai?"

"are you sure?" the EIC asks. "should I call Charles on his holidays just to check?"

"it's Dai," I repeat.

"it's not different if it's Welsh?"

I have absolutely no idea what she thinks the Welsh are doing to innocent vowel sounds that the English are not already doing. "it's Dai. like Dai Llewellyn."

"it's the same every time?"

"... yes"

"oh good." the EIC puts away her sheet and lets me go back to my desk.

as I sit down, the news editor at the next desk looks up. "so," he asks. "is it true that the Welsh for jellyfish is

#Welsh #cymraeg #the wonderful world of journalism

[kirain]

oh God I hope, those ‘how dare you pick Gale?!’ anons, don’t annoy you too much or sour Astarion for you. Both are great romances and I’m glad Gale gets some love as well.

Admittedly, Astarion fans have kind of been souring his character for me, but I'm trying very hard not to let that happen. My friend and I were actually talking about this yesterday, funny enough. She's an Astarion fan, but she admits the hateful energy people have for Gale is pretty hypocritical, because everything people hate about him also blatantly applies to Astarion. The insecurity, the emotional outbursts, the trauma, the arrogance—they're literally two sides of the same coin, and liking them shouldn't be a competition.

When I first met Astarion, we didn't really vibe, but I was content with his character ... until I started getting anons and comments on Tumblr, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube from people bashing Gale; calling him an incel, possessive, selfish, etc., and all in comparison to Astarion, for some reason. It seems like every time I write a nice comment or analysis of Gale, I'm challenged by Astarion fans who berate me for liking Gale more. Or for romancing him at all. I've received the weirdest comments, from people saying Gale supposedly abused Mystra (even though he's the victim in an unfair power dynamic) to someone telling me his grooming "isn't a big deal" because he was probably in his late teens to early twenties the first time Mystra "slept" with him. 😕

Someone even told me he's like an alcoholic who can't stop drinking, and as someone who grew up with an alcoholic father, that's both insulting and completely incorrect. You can't just walk away from an addiction after one conversation, the way Gale can. I know it's just a game and normally I enjoy a good debate, but some of the comments I've received are downright feral, to the point that I'm hit with ad hominems and accusations. I like Gale, therefore I must be a horrible person, stupid, an incel-lover, a glutton for abuse, etc.

There are entire subreddits and YouTube videos dedicated to hating on Gale, as if he's the main villain of the game or something. And even more scary, some fans have taken their discourse to the actors directly. Apparently when Tim Downie was on Neil Newbon's podcast, people in the comments were calling him an incel and telling Neil not to give him a platform. Tim is just a nerdy British guy with a wife and kids, he probably doesn't even know what an "incel" is. Luckily the mods caught most of it and banned a lot of users, but the comments were getting spammed with Gale hate.

But I'm trying not to take it out on Astarion, as I know it's not really fair for me to do so. I also know this is probably just a vocal minority of vicious fans that don't represent the community as a whole. Plus, I think Neil Newbon did an incredible job and he seems like a genuinely nice person. I don't want to hate his character, especially since I know Astarion can change. In fact, I just finished his personal quest and found his little "thank you for saving me" speech to be quite sweet and heartfelt. And thank you for your kindness. You're the first person who's told me you enjoy both characters and that you appreciate both of their romances, so that restores some of my faith. ❤

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #astarion #neil newbon #tim downie #discourse

[tenebraevesper]

Not So Different (Sonic and Shadow’s Interactions With Metal Sonic)

After listening to Sonic_Speed’s podcast regarding Sonic the Hedgehog IDW, in particular Issue #12: The Cost of The Battle For Angel Island, I came to a little realization. Apparently, both Sonic and Shadow tried to convince Metal Sonic to defect from Eggman and live his own life at some point.

You’ll see what I mean, but first - a recap.

After his defeat as Master Overlord, Metal Sonic is beaten up. Sonic has Tails fix him (weapons deactivated, obviously) and they wake Metal Sonic up.

Metal Sonic attempts to attack Sonic, but he’s not in any shape to fight. Sonic then tells Metal how the fight is over, and with Eggman gone, Metal can now live his life on his own; be his own person, or robot. He isn’t asking him to be best friends, but he wants to call a truce and co-exist peacefully.

Metal Sonic is taken aback, stares at Sonic for a moment, then just slaps his hand away and rushes out, his answer being a clear “No”. I had been talking about this, but to keep it short, Sonic sees Metal as a person, not just a weapon of destruction and he really wants Metal to live his life without being Eggman’s enforcer.

This isn’t the first time someone tried to give a chance to Metal Sonic, as Shadow did the same way before:

This takes place in Sonic Universe Issue #1: Living Weapons, with Shadow referencing the events that took place during Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie) Issue #195: Hedgehog Havoc (Part 1) and Issue #196: Hedgehog Havoc (Part 2), as well as Sonic X, Issue #40: The End.

During their tussle, they end up in the Sol Dimension, Blaze’s world, with Shadow trying to talk to Metal Sonic. He calls him a thinking machine, a living weapon, just like himself, but he believes that there is more to Metal Sonic and that he shouldn’t let Doctor Eggman use him.

Metal Sonic’s response to this is to kick him on the head and hoping he’d drown. Once again, the answer is a clear “No”. Honestly, I really love the parallels here, and this little conversation even continues later on.

In Sonic IDW, Sonic once again addresses Metal Sonic in Issue #26: All Or Nothing (Part 1):

At this point, the Metal Virus has consumed the whole world, and Sonic and his friends (and Eggman and Metal) are on Angel Island, trying to find a way to save it. Sonic is frustrated at Metal Sonic for not following his advice to abandon Eggman. He saw him as someone similar to Omega and Gemerl, and it irks him that Metal just had to go back to Eggman.

Eggman overhears this conversation and tells Sonic that, no matter what he did, Metal was programmed to seek battle and conquest, so Metal wouldn’t have taken Sonic’s advice no matter what, even if Eggman wasn’t around to restore Metal Sonic.

Meanwhile, in Sonic Universe, Shadow has met Blaze and Marine, getting himself involved in another battle with Metal Sonic:

He once again tries to appeal to Metal Sonic, saying how it doesn’t have to be this way and believes that Metal was just being led astray by Eggman. He wants Metal to put behind his past as a weapon and help Shadow save the world.

Metal responds that, just like Shadow’s function is to protect his world, Metal Sonic’s function is to serve Eggman and nothing is going to change that, which is why he will destroy Shadow.

I think it’s really fascinating that at some point, both Shadow and Sonic tried to take the same approach in convincing Metal Sonic to do good instead of follow Eggman’s orders. Both fail, but it’s the thought that counts.

Also, before you go telling me how I shouldn’t be comparing Archie!Shadow and IDW!Sonic since it’s two different continuities, note that they’re both written by the same writer, Ian Flynn, and Archie!Shadow is basically 06!Shadow before Sega started to get stricter with their mandates.

So, yeah, both have failed in their attempts to redeem Metal Sonic, but amazingly, they actually manage to convince a different Eggman robot to turn their life around:

Shadow with Omega in Sonic Universe Issue #3: Old Soldiers...

...and Sonic with Mecha Sonic in the Scrapnik Island Miniseries Issue #4: Scrapnik Island (Part 4).

Honestly, it is quite fascinating. I guess Sonic and Shadow are not so different after all.

#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer (Masterlist)

#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer #sonic idw #sonic archie #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #metal sonic #dr eggman #miles tails prower #blaze the cat #marine the raccoon #e-123 omega #mecha sonic

[the-conversation-pod]

In Your Lavender: The Wedding Plan Episode

AND WE'RE BACK!

We originally planned to discuss Wedding Plan alongside a few other shows but abandoned that quickly when we realized we both had a lot to say about this show. Come join us as we discuss whether MAME has shown growth, what it means that the lavender marriage term has existed for over 130 years, the importance of lesbians in this story, and the fundamental nature of the closet.

If you've been missing how heated Ben gets, now's your chance!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

01:16 - Intro 03:00 - Wedding Plan and MAME's Previous Crimes 15:18 - Realities of the Closet and Fandom Misunderstanding of the Show 29:23 - Things We Love About Wedding Plan and Final Ratings 37:26 - And Another Thing! The Wedding Plan Special

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes. When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

01:16 - Intro

NiNi

Welcome, welcome. [sighs] Go ahead.

Ben

Oh no, it's fine, you said welcome, I'm not going to do it this time. They won't get it for the Wedding Plan episode.

NiNi

[laughs] All right. Welcome, welcome to the—

Ben

I'm just kidding! And we're back!

[both laugh]

NiNi

Welcome! to the episode that was supposed to be a secret admirers episode, but instead is now the Wedding Plan episode, because everything else was a bit crap. We wanted to talk about this because we could not believe that this came fully formed from the head of MAME, of all the creatives. We were shocked, I think, but…the fandom was also kind of shocked, and we'll delve a little bit into how that played out when we get into the segment but, when I looked at the trailer I was like, ‘mm, okay, this could be cute.’ Did not expect to be…devastated, emotionally [laughs] at certain points.

Ben

I don't really think I watched the trailer properly. I went in a little bit hostile, because MAME’s got a whole thing for boundary crossing. And I was worried going in that this show was just going to be about some rich guy punking around his wedding planner, and then like, cheating on his wife. And that's not the show we got at all.

NiNi

Let’s dive into it so you can hear what we had to say!

03:00 - Wedding Plan and MAME’s previous crimes

NiNi

We are talking all things Wedding Plan. Now Ben, you and I had agreed sometime back that no matter what happened we were never going to talk about a MAME show on the podcast. And here we are [laughs] talking about a MAME show! And there's a really good reason for that. 

Let's start by talking about what Wedding Plan is about. Ben, do the honors.

Ben

Wedding Plan is a story about a wedding planner named Namnuea, who is the ace at his event planning company, and a fan of McDonald's, who very much sponsored this show. He is tasked with planning the wedding for a very attractive man and his soon-to-be wife. Complications ensue immediately, because their wedding is coming up in three months and these two have no idea what they want to do for their wedding, and only the groom is the one making the choices. 

We can tell very quickly that the groom, Sailom, is flirting with Namnuea; Namnuea is not stupid and picks up on this. The attraction between them is very mutual, but the complications around him being a client and a groom frustrate Namnuea. The reveals that eventually come out make this show to be way more than just a closet case trying to hit on his wedding planner.

NiNi

Reveal the reveals, because I feel like it's impossible to talk about this show in any meaningful way without knowing what the twist is.

Ben

Right! So Sailom and Yiwa, his bride, are in a lavender wedding. So for well over one hundred and forty years, we've had a term to describe queer people choosing to present themselves as heterosexually entwined for mutual benefit and safety. In this case, Sailom and Yiwa hail from fairly wealthy families that are extremely restrictive. The two of them recognized their own queerness at a very young age, and understood that they needed to hide that information. While on a trip in Europe the two of them recognized the queerness in each other when they both had a strong emotional reaction to seeing two women publicly kiss. And then became each other's best fucking friends for life, and decided to protect each other. Yiwa ends up developing a very meaningful romance with a woman named Marine, and she convinces Sailom to marry her so that they can both get out from under their families. They have a long-term plan to divorce. 

So when Sailom is flirting with Namnuea, Yiwa is 100% aware of it, and extremely supportive of it, because she doesn't want her friend, who she treats like a brother, to be lonely all the time.

NiNi

That basically sums it up in terms of the mechanics of the plot. But guys, the reason that we're here talking about a MAME show, is, this hit me right in the fucking throat, man. It was so real, in a way that I've never gotten from a MAME show. It felt like MAME almost apologizing to BL for some of the shit that she's done? It felt like MAME trying to gain some understanding and learn some shit, and show that she had learned some shit?

Ben

Just so that we get a bunch of stuff out on the table for listeners: what are some things that MAME has done that you think she should apologize for? [laughs]

NiNi

Ah, [laughs] where do I even begin? MAME work tends to lean very heavily into…traumatizing already traumatized people? I have mixed feelings about a lot of MAME’s work. There are sometimes I'm just like, oh fuck you. And then there's sometimes where they're like, I see where you're trying to go with this but you didn't have the skill. And then there are times I'm just like, ma’am, get the hell out. Something like this that I don't have any mixed feelings about, I just feel strongly positive about it…it's never happened to me before with her work, not ever. And it made me recalibrate in my head—a little bit, because it's still only one show—maybe where I should place MAME as a creative.

Ben

I have a list.

[both laugh]

NiNi

Go on ahead! Read!

Ben

Let's start with Love By Chance. There are four goddamn couples in Love By Chance. Only one couple is remotely stable! We really only talk about Ae and Pete, because we do not need to talk about the other three. MAME loves to question the line between crossing boundaries and romance. There’s Tin and Can, who were the focus of Love By Chance 2—

NiNi

Which I did not watch.

Ben

Then there's Kengkla and Techno, and Kengkla is paying Techno's brother for information on him to eventually date rape him—I mean, that happened in Love By Chance! Then there's Tum and Tar, who are brothers, and Tar was a victim of horrendous acts by a character from TharnType. Moving on to TharnType, a show that I will not watch, for multiple reasons, some of them fandom related that we are not going to get into in this podcast. But the idea that Tharn is going to teach Type that he's actually into men without his consent? Yikes. I don't care how it ends up resolving. The wall is real fucking high for me on that one.

Ben

Didn't they have a spinoff with the other guys from Don't Say No? I'm not talking about that. Then we get to Love in the Air, which I mostly enjoyed, but why do both of the ukes in that show have to get kidnapped in their final episodes? [laughs] Why? It's so unnecessary! Rain and Sky were straight up kidnapped as the final complication of their show. It's insane.

NiNi

I did not watch Love in the Air. So every time you say that I'm just like, ‘that's a thing that actually happened?’

Ben

So this is the difference with Wedding Plan. Wedding Plan is so straightforward. There is no major complication to Wedding Plan. Everything that happens in this show flows naturally from the base conceit that two people involved in a lavender wedding are dealing with some difficulties and frustrations as that approaches, and then make logical choices for their characters, in response to everything that's going on. 

And it kind of surprised me how much I ended up really loving this show. It's interesting for me that Yiwa and Marine’s relationship is the reason why the wedding is occurring. I've never really cared about heterosexual weddings in a lot of these shows and stories that I watch, but I feel so much about the way Lom and Yiwa care about each other and protect each other. Lom is agreeing to this sham wedding that's going to eventually lead to a bunch of complications in his life, because he's trying to protect his friend. 

Normally in a story like this, there'd be all this tension about the groom struggling with his sexual identity, and what he wants for himself, and the girl's going to get hurt along the way—‘he feels loyal to the girl, we can't just do her like that!’ In this show, Lom is withholding information about the specifics about his relationship with Yiwa from Namnuea because he's protecting her. The crux of the romantic drama of this show was about a gay man in the closet protecting a gay woman in the closet.

NiNi

Yiwa and Marine's relationship is the key to the whole story, but the relationship between Yiwa and Sailom is the core relationship. The fact that they're doing this for each other, the fact that they care about each other so deeply, the fact that they basically decided long ago that they were the people who mattered to each other…and then as people come into their lives who are maybe somebody they might be interested in building a life with, it becomes a decision for everybody as to whether this person gets let in. I would have loved to see how it went when Yiwa decided that she wanted to be with Marine. I understand that's not the point of this particular story, but I would have been fascinated to see how that played out. 

By the time we join the story Marine’s on the inside. She's 100% bought in. Marine has made the decision to be in the closet with Yiwa, which is sad in one way, but it's so freeing for them in another, because of what Sailom has done for them. They can be happy. And they are happy! They're happy and they're in love, and they're part of this family of the two of them and Sailom. It made me smile just watching them be with each other as a family unit. And then Lom meeting Nuea. When you're going to bring somebody into a secret like that, you have to be 100% sure. And not just you, everybody has to be on board with it. [laughs] It's not polyamorous, but it's—polyamoresque [laughs] I guess is the best way to describe it. Everybody has to be on board with what's happening. It's not just a question of ‘do I like this person?’ It's a question of ‘is this person a safe person?’ It's a question of ‘do the other people involved in this like this person?’ It's a question of ‘is this a person who I can share this secret with?’ but it's also, as it comes down to later in the story, a question of Lom knowing that he couldn't ask. He couldn't ask Nuea to be a part of the secret. He could just tell Nuea what was happening, and he could just hope and pray—and I don't even think that he dared to hope. And I think that's what the crying was about when Nuea decided that he was going to become part of the family? Lom broke down when Nuea said to him, ‘I'm going to help you keep your secret.’ Because he knew he couldn't ask it of him. And the fact that he freely offered it just brought Lom to tears.

15:18 - Realities of the closet and fandom misunderstanding the show

NiNi

This show is amazing. The show is emotionally sound, the show is beautiful, and I got so mad [laughs] watching this show get misunderstood. And if I was mad, Ben was incandescent. [laughs] 

Ben, you take the floor and tell ‘em why you mad, son.

Ben

I'm going to talk about the closet for a little bit. It felt like a lot of the people who are reacting to this show have not been in the closet. I was in the closet for 11 years. Your brain does not work in the same way on the inside, and I'm going to say frankly to anybody who thought Lom should have told Namnuea a lot sooner than he did? When you've been in the closet for 13 years, you do not tell someone you have a crush on, in two months of knowing them. Not when the stakes are as high as they are. The reason they're in the closet is because there will be severe and painful consequences for failing to maintain a heteronormative status quo. 

The big thing that separates Lom from Namnuea is, Namnuea is out. The truth about who Namnuea is cannot harm him. Namnuea develops feelings for Lom, and tells his boss. And she says, ‘there's nothing wrong with you having a crush on the guy, like he's hot. You know what the professional boundaries are though, do you need me to step in and take care of this for you?’ and Namnuea said no. When Namnuea fell for Lom, before they hooked up, he called his mom and said, ‘mom I think I fucked up.’ And she's like, ‘sometimes we fuck up baby boy, come home if you need me.’ And after he hooked up with Lom that's what he did! He went home, and he told his mom flat out: ‘the thing I told you about? Yeah I think I went too far.’ And she held him, and let him be a mess about it, because she understood that he already knew that he put himself in a really untenable situation, and she didn't pile on. They protected him. Namnuea can be honest about who he is, and whenever he tells the people who matter to him about something that happened, they close ranks around him and protect him. At the point at which Lom is trying to chase after Namnuea, every woman in his life pulled out their claws and was ready to slit that man's throat. They were all ready to throw hands with this man! 

But when you're in the closet, your brain doesn't work right. You are under constant surveillance to maintain the heteronormative veneer over your life. The show does not make this hypothetical. Their friends and family are snapping pictures of them in public, and questioning every relationship they have with someone other than Lom and Yiwa. Lom is sitting at the table with Marine—Yiwa stepped away for a work call, and someone’s snapping a photo like, ‘why is Lom on a date with this other girl? She's trying to steal Lom from your daughter.’ Or ‘I saw Yiwa hanging out with her best friend, are they gay? I took some pictures and now I'm telling your mom.’ When you look at the reason why these two are so vigilant about being in the closet, that's literally what they're experiencing! It's super heavy-handed in this show, but it is exactly the kind of shit that I lived through. Being in the closet because you know that there are consequences and there are dangers breeds hypervigilance. 

And I'm going to say it really plainly: all of the really negative takes I saw about Lom that were really unsympathetic to what this man went through? Made me, as a 30-something year old gay man who survived being closeted, really extremely uncomfortable. And I really need you to reckon with whatever you were going through that made you turn on a closeted gay man, and view him as the evil aggressor party in this particular relationship. Because goddamn! 

The reason why he chose Namnuea to be his wedding planner was because he had a crush on him! And when you're in the closet you need plausible deniability. Lom is toeing the line. He can hang out with Namnuea and flirt with him, because he's talking to his wedding planner. Nobody's going to question him being around a gay man, because he's his wedding planner! And that's what the homos do, is they plan events for the rest of us! Because they're very good at it. The reason why he's being an irritating client is because he wants Namnuea to talk to him more. If he's a good client, Namnuea’s not gonna talk to him! Because Namnuea’s professional, and busy. 

And Lom admits it. He says in episode…6 I believe, because I just rewatched again, that hiring Namnuea was just, in his mind, a little bit of fun before he got married. He would flirt with the guy that he had a crush on, even if it's a little fucked up to do that, and have a little fun before his wedding. He was not expecting to fall in love with Namnuea. But he's got a competency kink! And Namnuea is so good at his job. And he likes his job! He likes seeing people happy at the things that he planned for them, and he takes care of people. Lom loves these things in Namnuea. This even played out in their sex. He was happy that Namnuea was not a virgin. Very tasteful, sir.

NiNi

It being MAME, I will confess, that up until maybe somewhere around the beginning to middle of episode 4? I wasn't sure where they were going with this.

Ben

Let me tell you, I was waiting for her to do some convoluted bullshit as of episode 7. [laughs] They're like, ‘the bride’s run off!’ and I'm like, there's really only one way this should play out. Closeted people make plans. Yiwa is also not stupid. There’s this moment in episode 6—and this is again intentional, the editing on this show is actually really crisp. We get the really poignant scene on the bridge, where Lom talks about the knowing, and Namnuea’s like, ‘we need to fuck right now.’ And then, if you have access to iQiYi, they did! And then we get the scene where Namnuea agrees to be in the relationship, and all that that means. 

The very next scene is Yiwa’s mom showing up at Marine's apartment to accost her and slap her. Which is immediately followed by Yiwa running back to the condo, and the way she enters that apartment? She genuinely thought that Marine might have left her. For as happy as they seem, Yiwa never underestimates or undervalues the stress that she's putting Marine under. When she enters the room and Marine hasn't run away, but is just laying in bed, clearly spent from all of this? That's the moment that breaks Yiwa. And then we flash forward three weeks to the wedding, and she's run off with Marine and leaves a note. 

Lom knows her! He was not phased by this at all, when—after he's done putting on his jilted groom act, he's laughing. He's like, ‘I know what that cheeky girl did, I can't believe she did this without telling me. Look at this stupid note! I can read between the lines.’ [laughs] And then they call her, and she's like, ‘I knew you would understand my note. That's my boy, don't fuck this up! I'll take this on for you.’ Yiwa takes on the social pariah role here, of being the lesbian who ran away the day of the wedding, leaving Lom at the altar, ‘how dare she?’ 

The power here is that Yiwa doesn't give a fuck anymore. That's the whole thing about heteronormative shame: it only matters where you can exert that influence over people. Yiwa and Marine said, we cannot exist the way we want to, so we are leaving and going somewhere else. That is a choice a lot of us choose to make: to leave our home communities, to go build community with other people elsewhere. And then she gives Lom the ability to spin that, to soft launch his relationship with Nuea. Because they don't come out as a couple for like six months after that. They put on the act of Lom being a drunken mess for months—he's fine. He's just spraying alcohol on himself and then going to work with his hair unkempt.

NiNi

Episode 7’s so delightful. But anyway, continue.

Ben

And he's just hanging out with Nuea, and he just tells people, ‘yeah, we bonded over the wedding stuff because we had a lot of work to do really quickly for the wedding, and you know he felt sympathy for me afterwards. And he took care of me at a really difficult time, and I feel comfortable with him. I loved Yiwa, she was the only woman I was ever willing to marry.’ 

Not a lie! But also not the exact truth.

NiNi

I loved the big lie at the end, because it was basically Lom, Yiwa, and everybody in the situation putting two giant middle fingers up at their society, and the people around them. Aside from the people who, as you rightly said, would have protected them anyway. So all the women in Nuea’s life, and the people who he works with at the wedding planning company—basically the people who earned the right to know the truth know the truth. And everybody else gets two giant fucking middle fingers and the big lie.

Ben

It's a little bit like the ending with Bad Buddy, about them breaking up publicly but still being together? It's the same question: who is allowed to know? Something for you to think about, if you didn't get this show and you hated Lom and all this sort of stuff—ask yourself if the queer people in your life trust you. Would you be brought in? Would you be trusted with this information? Lom's mother realizes along the way what was going on the whole time, because she's not stupid. And she says quite plainly—because Lom has not properly come out to her yet, he's been hinting at it, he's like, I feel comfortable with him—and she says, ‘I'm still doing what I need to do to process this, but just promise me you won't leave.’ 

What she recognized is that she was playing a zero sum game that she could lose. That her son could make the same choice as Yiwa. She recognized that he and Yiwa were likely withholding important information about themselves, from their parents, for a really long time. And that can be really unsettling. It's something I went through in my family when I started coming out, that people were very put off by how I just…hid hugely important portions of my life from them, for most of my life. And she recognized that if she pushed too hard, she would get nothing.

NiNi

It really is the Bad Buddy conundrum, because this is where their parents are at the end, where they know, but if they're not willing to fully be on board? Then they don't get to fully know. And they don't get to be fully involved. Lom's mom knows, but until and unless she's willing to wholeheartedly accept Nuea there will always be now, at this point, a barrier between her and her son. All she can ask of him is that he doesn't leave. But beyond that, she doesn't get to ask anything of him, until and unless she is ready to fully accept every part of who he is. I can't believe that came from MAME's pen.

29:23 - Things we love about Wedding Plan and final ratings

Ben

Something else I really love—I really love the community around Nuea, particularly his family. I love when he goes back to Chiang Mai, and he sees that his little cousin is also out and proud now and has a hot boyfriend. And I love that Sun, Ryu’s boyfriend, is immediately engaged in in-law solidarity with Sailom. Nuea’s family hates him, and he's like, ‘valid.’ Like, ‘If you want to stay here, you got to work.’ ‘Okay.’ And he just works. Nuea's family is protecting Nuea from someone who they think doesn't respect him. Everything mean that they're doing to Sailom is because they are protecting Nuea, and it's really not that much, what they're asking. They're basically just giving him a difficult time, until Nuea decides what to do with him. But Sun is helping him the whole time, he's like, ‘this family's very difficult, I got you bro.’ And that pairs really well with the phone call that Nuea has with Yiwa and Marine, where Yiwa is like, ‘Lom and I do love each other. That is my ride or die: it's been me and him for a long time. I'm not going to pretend that he is not the most important man in my life, but he's not who I'm building my future with.’ 

And I love that for Yiwa and Sailom, it is love between them. The heteros just misread it. They don't have to fake an admiration for each other. I love that Marine talks to Nuea, and talks about the sincerity of their feelings, and how she's okay, at this point. Because she's the only person that Nuea can really accept any sort of perspective from, and I'm really glad that they had that moment and that was just them.

NiNi

I love that in that moment she doesn't try to convince him of anything. She just says, ‘I can't tell you what to do. This is a crazy situation: here's what I accepted about this, here's why I accepted it. These people are good people.’

Ben

Right! She says their love is sincere.

NiNi

‘Yeah, but whatever decision you make I completely get, because I made my choice. You're gonna have to make your own choice as well.’ She spoke to Nuea very candidly, and I truly appreciated that, and I think that Nuea definitely appreciated that too.

Ben

I love the reveal about Sailom's hands always being cold because he was nervous.

NiNi

Ehhhh [laughs] It was one of those romance things that I'm just like ‘eh!’ about, but it was adorable. It was.

Ben

I really like Pak in this role. A lot of the times when MAME writes her ukes, they tend to be a little bit on the demure side, and they usually need a stern counterbalancing presence for them? I really like that Nuea did not need that at all. I also liked how queer Namnuea felt. He very much feels like a gay boy.

NiNi

I love stories about love and family, and this is one of the ultimate love and family stories. For me, and I can't believe I'm saying this, when it comes to love and family, it's going maybe a half step behind Moonlight Chicken this year for me? I can't believe that just came out of my mouth about a MAME show. But that's really truly how I feel about it. For me, it was a 10.

Ben

I ended up giving this show a 9.5. It's one of the ones that's going to linger with me for a while, and I think a big part of it was just how much everyone else really hated the show. I think we went into this show with a lot of MAME blinders on—I knowingly went into the show hostile. I don't really like a lot of what MAME does. But, respectfully, watching a MAME show—the writer famous for writing romances about boundary crossing—and being mad that her characters are crossing boundaries? Is a little bit disingenuous of a place to write your criticism from. That's her shtick. 

Nuea crosses those boundaries too! Nuea had agency, and I really resent the way a lot of the takes damsel him and make him seem powerless. He's not! He is the one with all the power here. It's why Sailom is pouring everything he can into, every time he says ‘I like you, Nuea.’ Sailom is such a sap, and y'all really hated that man. And I really need y'all to reckon with that. Like if you listened to us and you hated Sailom, please, examine your life. [laughs]

NiNi

I have a smidge of sympathy up until episode 4, for anybody who struggled a little bit with Sailom. But only up until episode 4. Because somewhere to the beginning, middle of episode 4, it was very clear what they were driving towards? And then at the end of episode 4 when Sailom and Nuea hook up for the first time, I said to myself, ‘Okay. I see where this is going.’ And then when they get to Chiang Mai, and Sailom finally tells Nuea what happens, because Marine and Yiwa have given their okay, and Nuea said, ‘Duh. Clearly that's what's going on, I already knew that.’ Nuea wasn't fooled by Sailom.

Ben

No, Nuea basically guessed 90% of it accurately. The only thing he didn't really guess, was that they were both in on it. Let me say this as well while we're here: in terms of queer solidarity, Namnuea never once outed Yiwa when he caught her out with Marine. He did not mention that once. Not at all. He ain't tell none of his hoes. He ain’t tell none of his people. He caught those two out, was like ‘oh shit, is my gaydar broken?’ And then he didn't say shit about that. He didn't even hold that up in his whole thing with Sailom. And I respect the fuck out of that man for that, because that’s not his thing to say.

NiNi

The show is amazing.

Ben

It really is.

NiNi

It's, for me, an easy cruise into some type of VIIB Award at the end of the year.

Ben

It's gonna be a difficult year for us, when we're sorting out acknowledging the incredible work that's been done, but this is one of them.

NiNi

Delightful, emotional, deeply gratifying, deeply satisfying. Ben gave this a 9.5, I gave it a 10, let's call it a 9.75.

Ben

It can get a 10 from The Conversation.

NiNi

You heard it here first, folks: Ben says it can get a 10 from The Conversation. MAME gets a 10 from us, and nobody is more surprised than us—

Ben

It’s true.

NiNi

—that that is a thing that happened [laughs] on this show.

Ben

I feel so intense about this show. I get so mad about the discourse around Sailom. He's one of those characters, like, if you don't like him? I don't like you. Fuck off.

[both laugh]

NiNi

And that’s…a word!

37:26 - And another thing! The Wedding Plan special

Ben

And we're back! I have so much more to say, I am not through. [laughs]

NiNi

So before we get into Ben's ‘and another thing!...’ Let's talk a little bit about the Wedding Plan special, because there was a special episode, that cost $8.

Ben

[laughs] I paid $7 for my rental.

NiNi

However much it costs, it costs money. Which I'm slightly salty about because MAME had McDonald's money on this, she didn't need ours.

Ben

In her defense, she has done this on literally every show. Except for Love by Chance…and Don't Say No.

NiNi

McDonald's money. That's all I'm going to say.

Ben

And she cashed in! Good for her.

NiNi

[laughs] Anyway, so let's talk a little bit about the Wedding Plan special. Ben, tell the people what it was about.

Ben

The show's fucking called Wedding Plan. It was the fucking wedding, guys, let’s—we're not going to beat around the fucking bush on this one. It was the wedding for the gays! It was really beautiful. The basic premise is, the guys have been dating properly for what feels like a year, year and a half at this point. They're taking a trip to go back to see Namnuea's family. Before they leave, they have one final check-in with Lom's mom, where she meets Nuea properly as Lom's boyfriend. She doesn't take it very well, but Sailom does not give a shit. 

Meanwhile Sailom is working with Wiwa Square to organize a secret wedding for Namnuea. Hilariously, Im still does not like Sailom, and I thought that was an excellent character detail. So they go and travel back to the north, and Sailom has Nuea taking him around—I think they were in Chiang Mai?—to check out sites and locations while everyone else has moved to Namnuea's house to set up for this wedding that Namnuea doesn't know about. Lom proposes to him, they end up having the wedding the next day. It's this incredibly beautiful ceremony, it’s very traditional Thai, I believe. There's more I want to say about some of the stuff that happened at the wedding, but that's the basic premise: Lom organizes a wedding for Namnuea, and his friends plan it in secret. Which I actually think is lovely for a wedding planner, that he didn't have to plan his own wedding.

NiNi

That's the crux of it. You guys know, I am not the one the two or the three for these weddings. I believe in marriage. I believe in the importance of marriage. I am generally not a fan of the weddings. But, this one? It was beautiful, I do have to say. It was a beautiful wedding, everything around the wedding was beautiful. When I was talking about Wedding Plan in the main part of the show, I was talking about how much I love love and family. And that was what the wedding episode was about, it was love and family. Yiwa and Marine were there at the wedding, being Sailom's family, because while his mom is starting to come around to Nuea, she's still not there yet. So she doesn't get to be a part of this. So Yiwa and Marine are his family. They show up for him. They are hosting on his behalf. It's beautiful. It's just so beautiful.

Ben

I did not praise Pakpai enough in our recording; Pakpai’s reaction, as Nuea, to Yiwa appearing before him, for this wedding that he had just found out about? Is one of the most perfect expressions I’ve seen all year.

NiNi

Because he hasn't seen them since they left for England.

Ben

I am a gay boy who believes in community. And believes in gay people taking care of each other. And that means that I have worked in solidarity with lesbians. And it is such a beautiful thing for me, in this year of really good shows, to see two lesbians in a critical role in the lives of gay men. There's something so special about the unconditional, ride or die love between Yiwa and Lom, and how that extends to Marine and Nuea, and creates this very special little family unit. I cannot overstate how important it is to me that Nuea almost cried because he was overwhelmed with emotion getting to see Yiwa in front of him again, and for a wedding that he had just found out about. That was his first reaction: awe, and then he burst into tears because he loved her so much and had missed her for that long. That is so beautiful! 

As for the other things in the special…The ceremony itself is really beautiful. There's a lot of really great moments in there. There's this very special moment between Namnuea and Im, where she comes to pay respects, and he takes her hand, and he says ‘I love you’ in this way that conveys a very special history between the two of them? That sent me over the edge and I burst into tears right away. [laughs] I do not know what those two have been through together, but that ‘I love you’ was one of the most effective I love yous I have ever experienced in this genre, and it was not between romantic leads at all.

NiNi

We always go up for the non-romantic I love yous in BL. lt's the Jim and Li Ming thing all over again. Namnuea’s co-workers being there for him at his wedding, the way that they put it together for him, the way that Marine and Yiwa stepped in to be Lom's family, the way Nuea’s actual family stepped in as well. There's a gorgeous scene, after the actual wedding ceremony, where they do—I suppose this is another traditional part of a Thai wedding, which is a bedding?—where Nuea's parents are with them in the room, and talking to them about love and commitment and marriage, and that's the part that put me into tears.

Ben

It was really funny, because like we had not really seen any of the dads in the show. Moms were a big deal in the show. Nuea’s dad is just this sweet man! It was overwhelming for me, how just beautifully sweet this man was, and the way he was pouring love out to Sailom, because he's like, ‘I never thought Nuea would get to have this.’ Nuea, the wedding planner, who spends so much of his time trying to make sure other people's dreams come true? I was floored by his dad just being there: ‘I just wanted my son to be happy, and I'm so thankful that you were able to do that for him.’ And I was like, ‘I don't know who you are sir, but good job!’

NiNi

It was really really gorgeous, and just so many other things…also the stuff that's happening between Sailom and Nuea. The way that Sailom proposes, and the way that Nuea knew it was coming but he still got surprised by the way that it happened? That was gorgeous. And then again, after the wedding and after the bedding, when it's just the two of them in the room, and Nuea does the thing where he pays respect to his husband? And says that that's something that he always wanted to do? The way that these two take marriage so seriously, and especially the way that Nuea feels about it. Because like I said, Nuea is a wedding planner; he sees weddings every day. He sees these rituals and ceremonies and everything every day. And I can just imagine him sitting thinking to himself, ‘one day, one day, and this is something that I want to do with my husband, and this is something that I want to do with my husband’—I can just imagine that. And then meeting Sailom and falling in love with Sailom and actually getting to marry Sailom, and being able to do that, and the way that he is so emotional about that. Mmh! Got me right in the feels. 

The reason that I tend not to like weddings is because a lot of the time I find them so artificial, so stage managed and overproduced. I'm talking about this not just in terms of weddings in fiction, but weddings in real life. So, watching something so sincere, something so genuine, something so personal… t’s a production, yes, all weddings are, but it was real! Everything about it was so real, it was so emotional, it was so…[sigh] it was great. It was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I cried more than once watching the special. It just added to the joy of discovering Wedding Plan and this whole little universe and these characters.

Ben

There was a lot of little stuff happening around that. Like, one of the things that I think MAME is actually pretty good at, is really caring about her supporting cast in a useful way? She's very good about understanding why that character is there. There's Yiwa and Marine getting to have a private moment, being a little bit sad that they didn't get to have this, a Thai wedding with the people who love them around them. And I like that they got to have, like a quiet bitter moment about that. And I like that they didn't put that on Lom and Nuea, it's not something that they need to be consoled about, it's just one of those things that hurts about being queer sometimes, and that's part of the choice they made. They did take on that hurt, to give the boys a chance to be together, but it still hurt, and I like that the show never forgot that. This show cared about its lesbians, they mattered to this story, they weren't there just to check off boxes to make sure that we covered all of our bases. They were still telling their story. 

I love Sun and Ryu listening at their goddamn bedroom, and then having to be chased off. Great comedy. But also I loved it, I loved that there were younger gays excited about gays slightly older than them getting to have their moment together. It was such a special execution of that. 

I genuinely like that the Wedding Plan special episode is treated as a special episode. I like where the show ends for itself. I like thinking about the wedding as a special epilogue for the story, and not necessarily as the actual finale of the story. I think it's better as epilogue content.

NiNi

I have to agree! So all in all, when it comes down to Wedding Plan, looking back at it now, I think we definitely stand by how we felt about it. I think that… I have, you know Ben has, gotten even more in love with it? And even more, I think, defensive and vocal about it, because it's good! It's just good. And I don't like people saying it's not! That's it for me.

Ben

This is the number 4 or 5 show of the year for me.

NiNi

Yeah, there you have it.

Ben

Currently it's behind—in no specific order because we're not at the VIIB Awards yet—Moonlight Chicken, My School President, La Pluie, and probably The Eighth Sense? It's that good! 

I am in this genre for queer cinephile reasons. I am here to connect with people for gay reasons. I'm not in this for, like, taboo, or to see cute boys kiss each other because it's titillating in and of itself. I exist as a queer person, it informs my decisions on the regular, and it was such a relief to see characters that were not incidentally gay, so that we can imagine two idols bumpin’ uglies. 

I really love Sailom and Namnuea so much. Sailom got updated to blorbo status so quickly. Every week I'll just send NiNi a gif of Sailom and be like, ‘they really hated this man!’

[both laugh]

NiNi

He's not even kidding, this literally happens.

Ben

[laughs] It’ll just, just be a great gif that somebody made of Sailom and I’ll be like, ‘they really hated this man!’ 

Something else I want to say quite plainly here, and I would like you, as listeners of the podcast to reckon with this—and I would really like to talk about this, so please talk to me on Tumblr about this: Part of why I think Wedding Plan did not hit for people, is that Namnuea doesn't look like a girl, and doesn't behave like a girl. He behaves like a kind of femme man, and he feels very gay, in a way that is distinctly masculine. Additionally, the show doesn't really conform to a seme-uke dynamic very well, because Namnuea does seme things—like I noticed in episode 2 that he does a kabedon on Sailom. And I know that bothered a lot of the people who are obsessed with loyalty to the tropes. Namnuea is so self-assured, and I don't necessarily think that that resonated for the people who are in this for BL reasons and for regular romance beats. And I wonder a lot if that was their big problem. 

I would really like to have a secondary conversation with the folks who listen to us about this particular dynamic, because I do think it's worth us unpacking why people—as much shit that gets talked about MAME—refused to engage with the show. This is legitimately one of the top queer narratives of the year. And we snubbed this show. I have watched people talk shit about MAME and her writing for five fucking years, and when she writes a whole show that is basically the byproduct of all of our feedback, we snubbed it! When MAME returns to her roots, I don't want to hear none of y’all who snubbed Wedding Plan saying a goddamn thing about her.

NiNi

I'm so mad at you for saying when MAME returns to her roots. Like this was clearly a fluke. 

Ben

She's gonna be like Jafar! She's going to be like, ‘let's see how snakelike I can be, bitches!’

NiNi

So you definitely are of the view that this is not a change for MAME, this is just a detour.

Ben

I don't know! I don't know, like I was not expecting Wedding Plan. This show has so much goddamn heart to it, and it was gay! In a real way!

NiNi

I think you need to start subscribing to my vibes-based scoring method.

Ben

What? Absolutely not! 

[both laugh] 

Nah, it's always about the recommends. Legitimately, it's a 10 recommend. Everyone needs to go fucking watch this show. This is essential viewing for this year. This show represents a fascinating growth point for MAME; because we've criticized her for five years and she made something that is one of the most wholesome gay things I have ever watched in the genre. And we snubbed it, and threw it away. 

To the cast of Wedding Plan: you all did a fantastic job, and I hope you all had a really fun time together. I want to thank every single one of you for the work you all did, because you all collectively created one of the most compelling community support systems I've ever seen in queer TV, truly. Especially to all of the women who are on that cast. BL women get messed around a lot, and don't often get to do a lot of great stuff, and every single one of you did a fantastic job.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on the Wedding Plan episode. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Y’all better watch this fucking show. Peace.

[both laugh]

#podcast #lgbtq #wedding plan #wedding plan the series #thai bl #bl series #MAME #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #on art #season 3 #fall #fall series

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 14th April ✨

Oh my god, the audio sure did drama this week!!  

👻 @tellnotalespod (S2E7.5) HOW did none of us put this together sooner?! Oh my god, what an absolutely INCREDIBLE little twist. I love the undercurrent of hopeful resilience in Tell No Tales (Leo is going to get with the programme really soon 🤞) and I am screaming, crying and throwing up imagining the end of season reunion 😭 HOWEVER, don’t think I missed for a second that Riley is asking for another packet of painkillers . . . it would be so like him to think that 16 paracetamol is two doses of paracetamol but still! He needs to be okay!!

🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (147) hhhhh what a GOOD episode. There’s something different about the horror of season 4 that I want someone with a literature degree to talk to me about for hours. Can we please talk about how the murder victim had a treble clef carved into them . . . i.e. the symbol at the start of a piece of music. It’S SO CLEVER I love the intricate details of this show!!!!! And, can we also talk about how emotional I feel about Clem (namer of everything) is in love with Shelby (has a cat named Cat). There’s something in that which is giving me palpitations. 

🦀 @thesiltverses (39) You wouldn’t think one would be happy to have silt in their ears, but I am!! I’ve missed this story so much and I loved the twist in this episode. Carson has practically wrapped Shrue in a bow and handed them to Carpenter and Hayward. I can’t WAIT for that conversation. 

🧳 Travelling Light @monstrousproductions (17) Oh this is so beautiful! Do humans do this with ice?? I think we should 1000% do this with ice! I don’t have voting privileges (yet 💸) but I think they should go easy on their foes in the snowball fight. I would love to see how adorably smug Óli is if allowed to win 🥺

🤴 Inco @itmeblog (S3E20-34) If anyone takes SAWA away from Nova again I am going to throw HANDS. I’ve always considered SAWA to be endearingly overbearing with her prompts to Nova but we got such a good glimpse of how vital she is in the library/archives and I love her 😭

♦️@grottopod (8) Grotto finale! I loved the music at the start of this episode and it was so satisfying to hear David get to express some of his frustrations. Season two sounds like it’s going to be wild. 

⚔️ @camlannpod (7) This episode KILLED me. Here are the quotes that made me scream: “GWEN: You can’t love the mental illness out of someone.”  (10/10, true, valid, hurts) “PERRY: Eat a dick, Kay.” (11/10 the crowd goes WILD) “RHIANNON: (calling to the group as they leave) Cousin. About your lover. You didn’t fail him. You just needed more time.” (1/10 OW?????? OW OW WHY? OW!!!!) “MORGAN: You’re just as bad as Arthur. Worse. At least he was honest about it.” (??/10 JAW ON THE FLOOR) I need this podcast forever 🥺

🖥️ The Magnus Protocol (11) Oooh I liked this episode!! I love it when you’re left to fill in the blanks in a horror story - my mind is still whirring through so many awful scenarios. 

🍎 @notquitedeadpod (XXXIV-XXXV) ah! I’ve accidentally caught up to Not Quite Dead! What will my Sunday afternoons look like now?? There were so many moments in these eps which made me laugh but I’m mostly just so in awe of how complex and real these characters are. Neige genuinely feels 10000 years old and shaped by the trauma of each of them. I need to check the release schedule because I cannot wait for more!! 

Have a good week of listening, everyone! 🌈

#audio drama sunday #tell no tales #hfth spoilers #tsv spoilers #travelling light #inco #tmagp spoilers #camlann #not quite dead #the grotto

[a-queer-seminarian]

Hey Avery, I love this blog and the binary-breakers blog. They’ve both been a great help to me as I reconstruct my faith. But I’m struggling with something: my fiancé and I are scheduled to light an advent candle during the Sunday morning service at his church. Initially I was really looking forward to it, but by chance I was curious about how old Mary was when she bore Jesus, and when I looked it up I learned she could have been anywhere from 13-16. Moreover, some traditions put Joseph as being much, much older. It’s just hard not to think in a very . . . sinister direction when considering that context, especially as far as God’s role in this is concerned. What did you learn about this topic in seminary, if anything? Is there any hope that my “problematic” interpretation is unnecessary/invalid?

Hi there! I think it's lovely y'all are going to light an advent candle tomorrow, and I hope it's a meaningful experience! I also totally get your dismay about Mary's age at Jesus's birth.

To start with the facts: yes, Mary was almost certainly a teenager when betrothed to Joseph. The Bible doesn't give any confirmation of her age, but in both ancient Jewish culture and Roman culture, girls were usually married off not too many years after they started menstruating.

When it comes to Joseph's age, I do have some slightly relieving news — he's unlikely to have been the old man he's often depicted as in medieval art. (I actually had a fascinating conversation on this topic with queer Catholic art historian Amy Neville on my podcast that you can read or listen to here!) He almost certainly would have been older than Mary, but it's uncertain how much older.

In ancient Jewish culture, the "ideal" marriage was actually one between a man and a woman who were both in their teens, with an expectation that a man marry by age 20. Being able to support a wife & kids was a key indicator of manhood, so men were expected to get married as young as they could. But in practice, it was more common for men to marry in their late 20s / by age 30, which does mean that their wives would often be a good ten or fifteen years younger than they were.

The Bible doesn't tell us what age Joseph was when he and Mary were betrothed, but it's unlikely he was older than 30, just as it's unlikely she was older than 18.

So maybe that's not quite as discomfiting as the image of a much older Joseph, but by our modern standards, it's still pedophilia. So what do we make of that? And what did God think of that??

__

I believe it is an act of faith to be troubled by elements of scripture that should be troubling, rather than shrugging them off as being "God's will" just because they're in the Bible. I highly recommend Rachel Held Evans' book Inspired on this topic, which has a whole chapter on grappling with difficult biblical texts (you can read a long passage from it here).

While exploring our emotions and giving them holy space, it is also important to accept that biblical cultures are two thousand or more years old — the ancient world had completely different understandings of morality from us. That doesn't mean we shrug off displays of sexism or xenophobia in scripture — bigotry is bigotry, whether an ancient iteration or what we have today — but learning about biblical cultures enriches our understanding of why certain things, like slavery or women having little say in whom they marry, are present in the Bible (and often completely taken for granted by its human authors). It can help us distinguish between what is truly God-ordained, versus what the humans writing down their experience of God presume is God-ordained.

I appreciate how womanist theologian Wil Gafney explores the complexity of appreciating the Bible as an ancient human text while looking for Divine truth "between the lines":

“There is liberation in the gospel even though it is sometimes obscured by the structures of power that benefit from holding people captive. There is also a story in and between the lines of and behind the text we hold so dear that points to a liberation that not even the authors and editors of scripture were able to see clearly or, see their way to record.

Jesus was a rabbi, he would have never wanted us to cling to the letters and syntax of these texts as though they were his very body and blood but rather, his spirit and the Spirit of God, blow through them, ruffling and disturbing them and permitting us to read new truths in and out of them and, not lose sight of the ancient stories that are also part of our shared heritage."

___

When it comes to Mary's young age when betrothed to Joseph and approached by Gabriel to request her "yes" to carrying God's child, your question of God's "role" in that is a vital one to ask.

In Mary's world, a woman without a kyrios, a man to be her protector, was in a very precarious position. Mary has to be betrothed to someone in her teens. We don't know whether God "approves" of this cultural practice, but we can see how God works within this custom to ensure Mary's security throughout her life:

when Joseph plans to divorce her after she becomes pregnant with Jesus, God sends an angel to persuade him to stick by her;

when Jesus is dying on the cross, he ensures that his beloved will protect Mary after he's gone.

Throughout scripture, God largely seems to operate within a people's cultural expectations (with key exceptions, like how God insists Their people treat foreigners the same as members of the group, or when God warns against giving the people a king just because that's what all the other nations have). That's what I see here. Mary must have a husband to be secure in her culture, and I imagine God ensuring that that husband will be one who will treat her well.

__

Then there's the question of God espousing Mary — of the Holy Spirit "overshadowing" her so that she conceives Jesus. What exactly is this "overshadowing" act? Why is God getting a teen girl pregnant?

Again, Rev. Wil Gafney provides words that wrestle out the good news with this complexity. When reading Luke 1, she urges us to sit with our distress at the image of a powerful "male" figure (Gabriel) approaching a teen girl to tell her what's going to happen to her body:

"Sit with me in this moment, this uncomfortable moment, before rushing to find proof of her consent, or argue that contemporary notions of consent do not apply to ancient texts, or God knew she’d say yes so it was prophetic, or contend that (human) gender does not apply to divine beings, Gabriel or God, and the Holy Spirit is feminine anyway. Hold those thoughts and just sit in the moment with this young woman."

Our distress is holy; it shows our connection to a fellow human being, our thirst for justice. Honor what you feel, don't discard your emotions, even while you join them to sociohistorical understanding.

I highly recommend you read Gafney's whole article, but here's a little more from it that balances ancient culture with modern ethics:

"Yet in a world which did not necessarily recognize her sole ownership of her body and did not understand our notions of consent and rape, this very young woman had the dignity, courage, and temerity to question a messenger of the Living God about what would happen to her body before giving her consent. That is important. That gets lost when we rush to her capitulation. Before Mary said, “yes,” she said, “wait a minute, explain this to me.” ... Did the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary say, “me too?” Perhaps not. A close reading shows her presumably powerless in every way but sufficiently empowered to talk back to the emissary of God, determine for herself, and grant what consent she could no matter the power of the One asking. And yet in that moment after being told by someone else what would happen to her body, she became not just the Mother of God, but the holy sister to those of us who do say, “Me too.” "

Because Mary was a teen girl, an impoverished Palestinian Jew living under empire, she can extend solidarity to people across all time who experience similar oppression, whose bodily autonomy is equally precarious. Just as her son, God in human flesh, extends solidarity to all who have ever been arrested or executed under an unjust state through his crucifixion. Divine power is expressed in and through those whom the world denigrates and discards — that's why God chose Mary, and why Mary in turn chose God.

Sorry this got so long and has a lot of complex stuff to wrestle with. I honor your courage to ask the hard questions, and I hope you are able to take time throughout Advent to keep pondering! There are no easy answers, but wrestling can yield a blessing.

#mary tag #advent #annunciation #reading and studying the Bible

[waltwhitmansbeard]

13 "I want you. All of you" with vaxleth :3

13. "I want you. All of you." this is not at all in the spirit of the prompt but oh well, this is what we got. this is grow with the flow!

"Am I annoying?"

Vax blinks, his brain struggling to make the switch away from the podcast episode he's editing. "What?"

Keyleth leans back against the kitchen counter, fingers fidgeting with a vine of the pothos she's repotting. She's not looking at him. "I was just...never mind." She turns back to her potting tools.

"Hey, wait, no." Vax shoves himself out of his chair and crosses over to her. He reaches around to still her hand, which is haphazardly troweling soil around the roots of the pothos. "Talk to me."

She sighs and drops the trowel. "Sometimes...sometimes I don't get why we're together."

Vax's heart stops beating in his chest. This conversation has the potential to go horrifically wrong; if she's about to break up with him, Vax is sure he won't survive it. He takes her hand in his and gently spins her to face him. Her cheeks are already red with embarrassment. "Do you...not want to be? Together?"

Keyleth's eyes finally snap to his. "No! I mean yes! Yes, I do!"

The feeling is slowly starting to creep back into his extremities. "Okay, some intense emotional whiplash happening here, Kiki."

"Ugh, this is what I mean!" She slips out from between him and the counter and begins pacing toward the bed. "I'm not good at this, the talking and the knowing what to say and the..." Her hands gesticulate wildly. "...being a person."

Vax feels like he's going crazy. "Babe...you literally have a podcast."

"That's different," she says dismissively, spinning around to pace back. "I can talk about plants, or baking, or, or Simon, but..." She stops in front of him, eyes wide, searching. "Do you ever feel like you're not a real person?"

She's looking at him with a desperation that he can feel but not understand. The fact of the matter is that he has no idea what she's talking about. Vax has always felt incredible real, incredibly human, incredibly alive. Every dumbfuck decision he's ever made has been in wild pursuit of some feeling, of lust or adrenaline or curiosity or boredom—he has always sought out the richest, fullest life. When Vax steps out onto the city street, he feels connected, like he's one fish in a school too big to comprehend, but hey, at least he can see the people he's swimming alongside.

He knows that Keyleth struggles with that sometimes, the connection, the understanding. But he never knew that she doesn't feel real. He takes her hand and pulls her toward their little loveseat. "I don't feel like that, no." They sit, and Vax pulls her head under his chin. "But can you tell me what it feels like?"

Keyleth sniffles and burrows against his chest. "It feels like...I don't know. Like everyone I know is a complete, complex person with dreams and plans and feelings, and I'm like...a houseplant they water sometimes. I absorb the light, and I grow a little, but I'm still potted where I am."

"Okay. So...you feel like your friends are moving on without you? Leaving you behind?"

"No, I..." She presses her fingers into her eyes. "I'm not making sense."

She's not, but Vax doesn't want to say that. So instead he says, "I may not get it, but I think I do get you. Maybe not perfectly, or completely, but I know the person you are—kind, compassionate, funny, diligent, cranky when it's past your bedtime—and I love you. And I want you. All of you. Even the parts of you that you don't think are real. Because I know they're real. I'm holding them right now."

"I believe you," she whispers. "I just don't know how to make it feel real."

Vax hums and begins to play with the fingers of one of her hands. "You know, sometimes, when I haven't really been looking after myself and it's late and I'm not feeling so hot, I look at you and I think, 'Hey, you need to get the fuck away from her before you ruin her life like you've ruined everything else you've ever loved.' And it really, really sucks, because I don't want to get away from you. I love you."

"I don't want you to get away from me, either," she murmurs, squeezes his fingers.

"And I know that. I know that that's true, and you mean it, and it's real. But it doesn't feel real, not in the moment. So I tell myself it's real anyway, and it's a lie, because I don't believe it, but I've found that if I just tell the lie to myself enough times, there's a good chance I start to believe it."

They sit in silence for a while, listening to each other's breathing and the hum of the dishwasher and Simon rumbling purrs in the window. Vax would gnaw off his own arm to know what Keyleth's thinking, but he knows he's got to give her the time she needs to untangle the roots of her thoughts. Eventually she says, "I don't know...if it works like that. If I can lie to myself the way you can. But I do know that I feel...more real with you. Like I'm not an actor on a stage, but a person living a life. It feels good."

He kisses the top of her head. "Good. I'm glad. Because I, for one, am a big fan of the life we've got going, and I really want you to like it, too."

"I do." She looks up, smiling unsurely. "I like you."

"Thank the gods, otherwise this would be super awkward." And he kisses her, and he hopes she can feel in his lips all the things he is too fumbling and too unsure to say.

#ask #ravendruid #critical role #critical role fic #cr fic #my fic #grow with the flow au #critical role au #cr au #vox machina au #vaxleth au

[laurasimonsdaughter]

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. And such an obvious solution! This place was basically her dream apartment, but it required two flatmates to make it affordable. Chris wanted to get out of his noisy basement room, Ev was making their first big move away from their pack and they were both worried about finding anyone that would want to live with them. It was perfect! Because surely all that stuff about vampires and werewolves being at each other’s throats was just prejudiced nonsense and of course two of the people that liked her most would also like each other.

At least, that was what two-months-ago Yule had thought. Present-day Yule had very different thoughts on the matter. Not so much about the prejudice stuff, not even about the liking each other stuff, but very much about this being a good idea.

“Oh my god, Yule, he’s going to hate me forever,” Ev groaned on Wednesday, lying face first on Yule’s bed.

“No he won’t.”

“He will.” Ev let out a suffering growl. “He was so upset over his socks being gone!”

“Just his left socks,” Yule hummed, as if that should be any consolation. “Which you didn’t know was a thing for vampires, and he did leave them lying around in the bathroom. You were trying to be nice, doing laundry for us all. I appreciated it.”

Ev was capable of sounding very much like a sad puppy. “He already didn’t like me,” they mumble unhappily into the pillow.

“That’s not true, Ev.”

“Is too. Whenever it’s anywhere near full moon he just avoids me.”

“Not on purpose I’m sure. He likes you fine, Ev, I promise. He’s just…not used to living with people.”

“People like me, you mean.”

“People that aren’t dead, I mean,” Yule said deliberately. She sat down on the edge of her bed and stroked through her friend’s wild hair. That, at least, could always be depended upon to make them feel better.

There were no such shortcuts with Chris. Which was a pity, because Yule really thought she needed some.

---

“It’s absolutely mortifying. What must they think of me,” Chris lamented on Monday.

“I can tell you what they think. They think that you didn’t realise werewolves could hear high frequencies in music.”

“I woke them up. In the middle of the night.”

“Ev is up in the middle of the night all the time, Chris.”

“It is the principle of the thing!”

Yule sighed. “Will you at least sit down instead of hovering on the doorstep? I’ve asked you inside several times.”

“I’m not hovering.”

“You are, just not literally. Please sit down.”

Chris took a single, uncomfortable step into the room. “…there is no other seat than your bed.”

Oh bless him. Yule moved from her desk chair to her bed. “There.”

“Thank you.” It was incredible how prim and proper he managed to sit on a swivelling chair. Surely that was something he must have absorbed from other vampires. Chris wasn’t that old.

Yule gave him an encouraging smile. “Ev won’t hold it against you, I’m certain.”

He let out a miserable sigh. “I had hoped to improve their opinion of me, not worsen it.”

No, not this again. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“Surely you’ve noticed they disappear whenever I’ve fed. They can’t even stand to look at me.”

“Chris, Ev eats unspeakable things every month. I promise you they’re not squeamish about blood.”

Judging from Chris’ expression that was not at all comforting and probably meant, in his mind, that Ev was only squeamish about him. But that was a conversation Yule was absolutely not ready to have.

“So,” she said, rising from her bed with determined energy. “How have you been getting on with that podcast idea where you sarcastically review biographies of people you knew?”

She really needed to work on her list of distracting topics, or she’d never make it through the week.

[Read the whole pining disaster on AO3.]

#and they were flatmates #laura drabbles #vampire/werewolf

[frozen-snowflakesandsunflowers]

Episode 2: Games and Questions 💬

Cover edited by me

This episode is where the drama begins! It picks up on Elsa's decisions made at the end of Frozen 2 and also on Anna's willingness to befriend anyone without knowing who they really are.

The episode picks up where the previous one left off, when Elsa arrives and extinguishes the fire. Disa is amazed upon seeing Elsa's powers in action for the first time. When Disa came to visit first, when they were little, Anna told her about Elsa's powers, making her the first to know about Elsa's powers. They thankfully see some of the artifacts and books are still fine despite the fire.

After setting off the fire Elsa takes Anna out of the room to talk about what just happened. Elsa tells Anna off gently for allowing anyone to the archive. Then suddenly a Sankerhus fellow pops in to ask something from Anna and Anna acts as if she knows who he is. After the stranger leaves Elsa is quick to point out that Anna doesn't know who he is. To prove her point she asks about his last name. Anna makes up a name hesitantly but Elsa again notices she's lying. Familiar? That's because it's a reference to Kristoff asking about Hans' last name to which Anna replied “Of the Southern Isles ”. Anna gives in and says she's just doing what Elsa told her to do and to let Elsa trust her as she knows what she's doing. Elsa does make a point that the castle feels like a never ending banquet given a while other kingdom is mixed in with Arendelle. But then my favourite part of the episode, Anna can see Elsa misses being Queen! Anna tells Elsa, “Come on Elsa, admit you miss this”, and Elsa replies “You know I actually do”. For a fan who was a little down when Elsa stepped down as Queen (but isn't much anymore - a coming post explains why) and who hates seeing people say Elsa hated being Queen etc, I am really happy they showed this side of Elsa. It's not that Elsa didn't want it to be Queen but rather she didn't expect to be Queen so soon. Not only because of her parents deaths but mostly because she had to focus on controlling her powers and most of all her fear. Her part in "For the first time in forever" says it all. She always feared hurting innocent people with these dangerous powers and to rule hiding them would be hard given you meet and greet a lot of people. Elsa stepped down because she couldn't rule and look after the forest at the same time and she knew Anna would do great as Queen and it would reward her for having saved Elsa, Northuldra and Arendelle. So you ask why does Northuldra need protecting now? Well it's been trapped years under mist so it needs support in regaining its strength and now that more magic is revealed to the world, she knows it can attract people who want to study it, use it, control it, kill it, etc, as she suspects Disa doing here. I didn't for a minute expect Elsa to ever recall her days as Queen, but deep down inside I did want it to happen. It puts a close to those who think she didn't like being Queen or didn't love Arendelle. Elsa continues to say she's just so used to doing this alone. By that she means she knew what decisions were to be made and how to do them. She never needs help with Queenly pressures. She's not saying Anna isn't a good ruler or she isn't capable of making good decisions but rather saying that she misses it, but despite that she gave Anna the crown for a reason and trusts her to do what's best for Arendelle. So if you can't tell already I really loved this conversation between them.

I don't know how this story will turn out but I don't expect Anna stepping down or anything as big or important as that anyway because those things wouldn't be in the podcast I don't think.

Moving on, Disa barges in and then Olaf takes her to dinner. Olaf is so Olaf here. I love it. At the dinner table Anna suggests playing a game where you ask Questions related to your partner's Question. Kristoff and Sven go first, again voice actors are doing a great job at capturing the characters and original voice actors essence. Elsa and Disa are up next and this is when the tables turn and my second favourite moment on the episode begins! Disa asks Elsa why she wanted to see Arendelle's material and Disa asks why she left Arendelle. Elsa asks back why she's so interested in Arendelle to which Disa replies, why aren't you Queen of Arendelle. Elsa asks what she's getting at. As tensions rise, thunders rage and rain pours. Kristoff asks if Elsa's been in touch with Gale today, to which she replies not lately. The episode ends there with tensions rising between a former and current Queen suspecting each other.

So what we can make out here is Elsa suspects Disa of stealing Arendelle's knowledge of magic and using it for her own good. Disa however seems to be accusing Elsa of treason or betraying her own kingdom.. I'm not too sure but I think she's trying to show Elsa's disloyalty to her kingdom. Disa is intrigued by Elsa's magic and the forest's too.. I have a feeling Disa will take some of what is saved from the fire and use it to experiment with her science skills which will cause some kind of chaos but that's just a guess. I could be completely wrong about Disa going full villain.

I predict that Disa is the one causing chaos in the enchanted forest with the machines. The machines are all scientific but they're built with copper which Wolfgang is obsessed with. It could be that Weselton's copper is advanced. She doesn't like magic, she fears it, finds it strange and hence studies it to see if this is a threat or a gift to society. So perhaps she's experimenting in the forest. But I could be totally wrong. But Wolfagang seems like a weird yet innocent man who is genuinely trying to rectify his uncle's actions.

On another note as much as I wanted and some have theorized I don't think Hans is Wolfgang. His voice is different, and he's so crazy about copper and has two pet magpies that apparently can talk plus he knits. He definitely sounds like the nephew of the Duke. I mean would Hans go all out with the magpies and obsession with copper? But I do hope he appears at some point. If not in this season, then the next otherwise than save it for the movie as I do have a bit of hope for his appearance in Frozen 3, but that's for another post.

These episodes have actually been more fun than I imagined. It's interesting, it's fun, it references the two movies, the voice actors nail the original voice actors*. If the story goes down well in the other episodes, then Disney is pulling it off with the podcasts, if not then Disney should reconsider what part of the story they tell through podcasts. I'm excited to see how these will lead up to Frozen 3. I'm not too focused on the supposed theme of Science Vs Nature because story wise it's going great so far. I like a bit of drama because out of that you get reveals which play a part in the story.

But here are the downers to it so far. It seems like it's focused on Disa and Wolfagang while the main characters just play other supporting roles in their journey. When it was being promoted, it was about Elsa, Anna and the lot so it was kinda misleading.

But then again, I think perhaps this event might change Elsa and Anna's perspective on strangers, royal or not. I think they are showing Elsa and Anna learning to trust the right way. And maybe this might help with Hans' redemption if he reappears in Frozen 3. Because if Wolfagang is a genuinely nice man, it may make Elsa and Anna slightly open to forgiving past enemies. I think that's why the Duke's nephew was introduced here and why they could be saving Hans for the movie.

* If you didn't know already, the original cast aren't voicing this I'm assuming because of prep for Frozen 3 or perhaps to give a different feel to the podcasts then the movies. So a new cast is voicing them.

When the other episodes release we'll get further information on what Frozen 3 could be about and where the story is heading.

#disney frozen #frozen #frozen 2 #frozen 3 #elsa #anna #kristoff #sven #Olaf #frozen podcast #frozen forces of nature #forces of nature #frozen: forces of nature

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

Picdrop podcast - with Jens Koch (2019)

with a big thank you to @struwwelzeter for finding the link, an (imo) very interesting podcast with Jens Koch on his work, being in prison in Iran for a few months and working with his idols, Rammstein.

The podcast host is Andreas Chudowski, himself also a photographer (mostly of politicians etc), who in each episode invites a colleague who works in a specific 'niche' of the photography business. Jens is listed as celebrity photographer, and indeed agrees that is his niche and that what he loves to do: meet celebrities and make pretty photos 🌺

Celebrities

Around 0h20 the conversation moves to 'who was nice to work with and who wasn't', Jens mentions Lady Gaga as someone who was really nice to work with, she was very interested in the shoot etc, Pamela Anderson was a bit more work, demanding a specific lighting setup, which Jens' dad made at home (because he likes to tinker with equipment), then when Pamela saw the light she almost stormed out again, fortunately a shoot happened, but Pamela demanded to see the photos right after and deleted a few pictures herself without hesitation (fortunately Pamela didn't know there is revovery software for deleted photos, and the one that is currently shown in Jens' portfolio of her is one she hasn't approved 😇) but in general that wasn't a bad shoot either. Jens mentions the worst experiences were the ones of which we don't know he did a shoot with, because the photos never worked out or never happened.

He has one male US celebrity who he can think of as having done a shoot, but not liking the experience, but he doesn't want to name him, the person is generally regarded a ladies' favorite (Jens doesn't understand why). interviewer: George Clooney? Jens: no, he is out of my league. I: Brad Pitt then? Jens: no, haven't photographed him either. Then the interviewer gives up because those are the only two US celebs he can think of; in the rest of the podcast the name Brad Pitt is mentioned more often, but this is always in the context of 'some person that wasn't easy to work with, and whose name we don't know, so we'll just call him Brad Pitt, though it isn't Brad Pitt'.

Somewhere at the first part he mentions he's not really a women's photographer, but still has some good experiences. Not Angela Merkel though..both guys agree that she is pretty difficult to photograph, always the same pose, and she doesn't really like to have her picture taken, but knows it's part of her job (well, was at the time) so she goes along with it, but after a few pictures, always says 'we're done now, right'? Jens mentions he admires Andreas Muehe's set of photographs of Angela, he took a very original approach and that worked really well.

How did he become a photographer

How did Jens get into the photography business, did he start, like so many, as an assistant to another photographer? No, he is a self made man, he always admired the glossy photos in US magazines, started making photos in Cologne for a magazine as freelancer, coming in in the morning with several others, hoping there would be an assignment. Then the cards with assignments for that day would be handed out, each photographer got one, did the shoot, and hoped it would be good enough to get in the magazine and get paid. He never was an assistant (0h36) and thinks that that worked out fine, because you often see that assistants learn photography only in the way their 'teacher' did it, and you can tell from their style.

From that he got more assignments, got called by other magazines to do shoots as well. Typically his clients are magazines like Bild or Focus who do an interview with a celebrity, Jens is asked to do the 'interview photo', and he always tries to get the celebrity to do a portrait photo as well. This means that he often doesn't have much time with the celebrity, not even always an assistant with him, and he needs to make sure the celebrity is in a good mood, engaged, willing to being photographed. If the interview is in a hotelroom, he often sets up his stuff in a separate room that he hires for the day, and the celeb ('promi' in german) just pops in and out. One of the secrets to keeping them engaged is do your homework, work out what they like and talk to them about that. Find music they like and put that on, so the celeb enjoys the experience. It doesn't always work out, but many times it does.

And sometimes, like with David Hasselhoff, who to Jens has always been a big celebrity (Jens being born in East-Germany, in Leipzig (1981), and David Hasselhoff was huge in Germany in his youth), he is basically always 'on'. Both photographers muse that he basically became the persona that we see in the photographs, and now is that way away from the spotlight or the camera lense too.

Apart from his freelance work for interviews he also has a studio now where he chooses himself who to shoot. But the magazine work has always been how he really became known in the business. Nowadays though, celebs and their PR people hire photographers themselves, do a promo-shoot at home, and those photographs are then distributed to magazines to use, so the interview-photography almost doesn't happen anymore.

Iran

At 1h19 the conversation turns to an episode that surprised the interviewer when he was doing his research on Jens, and he asked Jens if it was okay to talk about it: in 2010 Jens and his colleague went for an interview to Iran, were arrested and spend 4 months in jail there. They were going for a serious interview, Jens tagged along because he wanted to do something different for a change. Jens says it was the biggest mistake he made in his life, and they pretty much knew that it was, even when they started their journey. What happened was that as a journalist you need a special journalist-visa to work in Iran. They applied for it and didn't get it. And then they decided to just go anyway. Well while they were doing the interview, the police came in, asked for their visa, and they didn't have it...and then they were locked up. Surprisingly Jens says "It wasn't as bad as you would think", which throws the interviewer off a bit, because he was thinking it would be a life-altering experience, making you want to work with Amnesty International and similar, and wonders if this is a coping mechanism for Jens or if he really moved on. Jens agrees that it may be a coping mechanism to say that, but that he also realises he didn't have as bad an experience as you might think when you hear stories of political prisoners. They were given good food, were treated decently and were comfortable, yes ofcourse they were still locked up and not allowed to go where they wanted, but they just got on with it. And then one day they were told to pack their things and it turned out a German politician was there to pick them up, and only a few hours later he was back in Prenzlauer Berg, going shopping. The interviewer tries to get psychological about it, but Jens doesn't really 'bite', Jens says he's probably too shallow for the deep thoughts (interviewer interjects with "i didn't say that" Jens "no, but i did, because i am"), and he just looks at the nice things in life. You really get a feeling that for Jens it really isn't a topic anymore.

Rammstein

At 1h39 they come to another big theme: Rammstein. Jens was a life long fan of the band. Living in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, where many of the band live too, he had obviously seen them out on the streets, but never spoken to them in a 'Never meet your heroes, because it can only disappoint' kind of way. But when he was asked in an interview a few years back who he really wanted to phtograph one day he said "Till Lindemann of Rammstein". Well as it so happened, he got a call from a friend of his who said "You know what, I'm involved in a video with Rammstein". And Jens was like "you have got to get me in there", so Jens said to the video team that he happened to be in South-Africa (which was no coincidence ofcourse), and if he could come over to do a few pics (think even for free). So that happened, and he did more than a few pics. From that his name got from the video team to band management, and a little later Rolling Stone called about wanting to do a dual cover with Rammstein, white and black. Jens would have been totally happy to do just an interview photo for them (Rolling Stone is normally not one of his clients), but they offered the cover shoot, so obviously he took it. And then he got to do a bigger shoot even, and thought up several setups (for instance one where the band were all holding a puppy). As a fan Jens obviously knew Olaf Heine's work (1h50) with Rammstein, but wanted to do different things. And the band were very lovable ('allerliebst') east-guys (although Jens and the interviewer, both from the east, agree it shouldn't really make a difference being from west or east, the both agree it still does), very easy to work with. And then they called asking if he wanted to do the tour photography for them. At the time of the interview the 2019 European tour has just finished. As a fan Jens had bought tickets to go to the shows in Berlin anyway, but now he got to shoot all the concerts, he only had time off at the last show, because the band didn't want that photographed, and that was the first time he really got to see the show 🌺

Words of wisdom

This being a photographer podcast, the guest is always asked if he had tips for listeners. Jens has to think a bit about that, because he got where he got by working hard and taking opportunities, but he concludes with "Be nice to people, and maintain a good relationships with your contacts, the people you meet and work with". 🌺

#podcasts #picdrop #jens koch #rammstein

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Wesley Crusher

By Ames

Grab your favorite hideous sweater! It’s time to talk about Wesley Crusher. He’s one of the most polarizing characters on TNG, with a lot of hate directed his way, but he also has a number of great Trek moments which we on A Star to Steer Her By are going to sort through today!

We can probably blame Gene Roddenberry for making this character so insufferable, especially in the first season when he seemed to have the easy solution for the engineering problem of any given episode. Gene designed him to characterize a person’s infinite potential and then slapdashedly shoehorned him into every place he could, and you’ll notice that right after the big writers room turnover, the child prodigy started feeling more like a character and less like a cheat code. Scroll on for the list below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (warp over to timestamp 57:36) for all the dirt. Just unplug your nanite experiment first.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Don’t shut up, Wesley While I’ll give Wesley the deserved scrutiny in a moment for the absurd number of times in season one of TNG that he saved the day, we do have to give him some credit for figuring out that Lore was impersonating Data in “Datalore.” Even while pretty much everyone on the crew was telling him to shut up, Wes had it all figured out and topped it off by beaming Lore into space.

Double dumbass on you! Wesley actually does get to shine during “Coming of Age,” an episode that really uses his youth to its advantage by having him take the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. And he gets pretty far! He even figures out that Rondon is a Zaldan, so Wesley realizes that apologizing for getting run into himself is the wrong reaction for that culture and comes away looking like a badass.

Teamwork makes the dream work Speaking of “Coming of Age,” Wesley is also this close to solving the dynamics relationships test first when he helps Mordock figure it out too. Wesley’s natural affinity for helping his crewmates is more important to him than getting the top score, which TAC Officer Chang takes into consideration in the final results. I’m not sure it helped much, but it’s a good character moment.

You never forget your first “I'm never going to feel this way about anyone else,” Wesley says to Guinan after watching his first crush leave in “The Dauphin.” Strangely, it’s a very mature little conversation considering Wesley was ready to write Salia off as some kind of alien monster earlier in the episode. But he learns to accept her differences, score some relationship experience points, and get his first smooch.

The minute you walk through that door they’re your team Slowly, the show starts putting Wesley in more age-appropriate situations in which he isn’t just saving the day, so it’s fitting for him to be overwhelmed when leading his first committee in “Pen Pals.” His team member Davies effectively takes over because Wes initially lacks confidence, but he soon takes charge and they work together to save Drema IV. Go team!

You told me to improvise During the war games in “Peak Performance,” Wesley thinks outside the box and retrieves one of his many, many experiments from the Enterprise to use on the less advantaged Hathaway. While Riker initially accuses young Crusher of cheating, no one said he couldn’t sneak tools off the other ship, and it’s that kind of ingenuity that could be useful in a fight.

Begin by letting go of your guilt, Wesley His mother Beverly may be on full display in “Remember Me” as we discussed last week, but Wesley also gets some interesting development. Back in “Where No One Has Gone Before” the Traveler saw potential in the child prodigy, and when the two of them use their special powers here to open the door for Dr. Crusher to return from the warp bubble, we witness some of that weird potential get unlocked.

I’ve done it all because I want you to be proud of me We joke a lot on the podcast that Picard is secretly Wesley’s father, and it’s mostly for laughs. But when we get touching scenes between the two of them like the one in “Final Mission,” we think we may be onto something. Stranded on a planet without water, Wesley keeps an injured Picard alive (can’t say the same for Dirgo, but whatever), fueling paternity theories for years to come.

I just lost the game After Wesley leaves the crew after “Final Mission,” his appearances are more methodical, and thus his character feels more and more appropriate each time. In “The Game,” he’s just visiting but his tendency to see how things work helps him and Lefler to discover that the video game everyone’s playing is actually harmful before the whole crew turns on them.

I would like to add something to my testimony We get even more glimpses of how far Wesley has come when he’s attending Starfleet Academy in “The First Duty.” All of Nova Squadron has lied about the circumstances of Josh Albert’s flight accident, and it’s Wesley who comes clean in the end because he can’t bear the guilt and the dishonesty of covering up their nefarious actions. Take that, Locarno!

These people deserve better than to be removed from their homes We found Picard’s actions inexcusable and entirely out of character in “Journey’s End” but you know who was actually on point? Wesley freakin’ Crusher. How on earth the boy was the only Starfleet-adjacent person to actually try to defend the colonists on Dorvan V is beyond us. It strikes us as opposing Federation ideals to force the colonists to move, and Wes knows that.

I had to find my own path Finally, it is a fabulous resolution to the Wesley Crusher character for him to decide on his own to leave Starfleet and go with the Traveler to discover his true potential in “Journey’s End.” For too many kids, it’s the parents who put pressure on them to walk certain paths, and we celebrate Wes for finding his own. Ya know, until he’s randomly back in Starfleet for that cut scene from Nemesis for some reason.

—

Worst moments

Wesley Saves the Day! Okay, I’m gonna lump all the obnoxious “Wesley Saves the Day!” instances into one blurb because it’s so damn repetitive. Every single time, Wesley – a child amidst some of Starfleet’s best of the best – figures out some impossible engineering problem before any of the adults in the room can, and we got so tired of it. 

Whether it’s by getting drunk and taking over engineering only to use his reverse tractor beam in “The Naked Now,” or saving the day with the Traveler in “Where No One Has Gone Before,” or spotting Picard’s brain scan from across the room and deducing there are Ferengi shenanigans afoot in “The Battle,” or cracking the lock on the holodeck door while La Forge had already admitted defeat in “The Big Goodbye,” or seeing through Lore’s disguise as we mentioned above while all the adults in the room tell him to shut up in “Datalore,” or probably a ton of others all from the first season, it was clear no one knew how to write him except as some kind of magical prodigy. Alakazam!

Keep off the grass It’s all the more clear that having a child character on the crew is just a cringey idea in “Justice.” Sure, it could have been anyone who broke the stringent rules of the Edo, but just the fact that it’s Wesley gallumphing through a flower bed like an uncoordinated doofus, destroying it utterly, makes us roll our eyes and seriously wish they’d let them execute the brat. 

Frosty the no-no man Let us not forget that it was Wesley who hit the captain with a snowball in “Angel One,” an immature and obnoxious little scene that seems to prove Picard’s point that letting children run roughshod all over the ship is an inconvenience at best and a liability at worst. And it happens to be the latter in this episode, because he ends up getting the whole ship sick with some disease!

Drug Abuse Resistance Education is futile! While we can go on about Wesley’s whole exchange with Tasha about drug addiction in “Symbiosis,” what’s most egregious is how sheltered and clueless Wesley (normally some kind of child genius) has to be to not understand how narcotics work in the first place. It’s such a forced scene that we can just feel the Reagan Era war on drugs sentimentality written all over.

I guess leaving’s gotten easy for you It’s easy to find fault with “The Outrageous Okona” – it is my least favorite TNG episode, after all. Literally everyone in this episode is annoying, and as usual, that includes Wesley who first idolizes the charming rogue, then seems really judgey of his independent and carefree lifestyle, and finally he sasses the guy into making him conclude the soap opera plot of the episode.

How do you tell each other apart? It’s a pretty cheap joke when Wesley meets Mendon in “A Matter of Honor” and mistakes him for Mordock, whom we met in “Coming of Age.” I can’t tell if the writers were trying to make a racist “you people all look alike” kind of gag, but regardless, it makes Wesley look like an idiot for not knowing anything about Benzites and Benzite culture.

Klingons hate surprise parties Everything Wesley does in “The Icarus Factor” is annoying. He blathers like a maniac at the impatient Klingon, but then takes that impatience to assume something greater is going on than just being fed up with an obnoxious tween like anyone else would be. But to make things more exasperating, the little twerp is right, as he always is, and throws Worf an Age of Ascension party. Ugh.

I think that everything that’s been going wrong might be my fault It’s not until season three that, instead of saving the day as he did so many times already, Wesley actually screws up big by releasing the nanites in “Evolution.” While it’s refreshing to see Wes finally admit to some kind of flaw, his escaped nanites end up taking over the ship and start attacking people. And what’s worse is that he tries to lie about it until Guinan catches him!

Broccoli on the side You’ll remember this from La Forge’s spotlight as well, but Geordi reveals in “Hollow Pursuits” that it was Wesley who initiated the cruel nickname “Broccoli” for Lt. Barclay. Wes, you might still be a child, but you’re in a room with adults so stop acting like one! I don’t know what’s worse: being such a dick to one of your coworkers, or all the adults in the room condoning it.

I’m the one trapped in the bubble As if his misadventure in “Evolution” weren’t enough, Wesley botches another science experiment in “Remember Me” and nearly gets his mother killed in a pocket dimension! I know we just gave him some credit for bringing her back (though I mostly give that credit to the Traveler), someone’s got to stop letting Wes hook shit up to the warp core just because he’s the CMO’s kid! Nepotism much?

The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth Here’s another Wesley moment that ended up on both lists because as much as we can see the character growth and lesson learned when he comes clean in “The First Duty,” it also needs to be said that he is fully prepared to follow Nick Locarno like a little sheep. Wesley almost certainly wouldn’t have done the right thing in the end if Picard hadn’t basically threatened him first!

You are out! Auf wiedersehen! Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t poopoo Wesley’s fashion choices. Again. It’s a trainwreck of a fashion show. Sweater after sweater – all oversized, hideously patterned, and monstrously ugly. Ames has the full write up in an early blogpost: Wesley's Sweaters: An Unfashionable Collection, but this coral nightmare from “Where No One Has Gone Before” might take the cake.

—

Well, we’re off to go exploring with the Traveler, so that’s gonna wrap things up for this one. We’re back next week with more characters to spotlight and also more Enterprise to watch over on the podcast, which you can find on SoundCloud or wherever you listen. You can also get our help on your Academy entrance exams over on Facebook and Twitter, and watch out for those flowers!

#star trek #star trek podcast #podcast #wesley crusher #the next generation #datalore #coming of age #the dauphin #pen pals #peak performance #remember me #final mission #the game #the first duty #journey's end #the naked now #where no one has gone before #the big goodbye #the battle #justice #angel one #symbiosis #the outrageous okona #a matter honor #the icarus factor #evolution #hollow pursuits #sweaters #project runway #wil wheaton

[undiscovered-horizon]

Dating TASM!Peter Parker

We all love the nerdy and cute wall-crawler

When it comes to dating, he's winging like 90% of it

Makes me think of "2 poor kids" by Ruth B

I will gladly elaborate:

He doesn't have the confidence to casually come up to you and ask you out, so he waits for a good opportunity to arise

And it's just his luck that the gods of love and romance are on his side

For science class, the teacher paired you up with Peter for some project because the two of you wrote essays on similar topics

So now not only does he have an opportunity to get closer to you, he is kind of obliged to

You get some take out and go to his house to get some work done

Aunt May gives him a thumbs up when you're not looking, agreeing with his choice because you're cute af

He's sweating buckets, not gonna lie. His objective is to come off suave but Peter's basically screaming inside his head

You point out his Star Wars posters and, to his surprise, start a conversation about the franchise with him

Peter is in his geeky element and gets visibly more comfortable immediately

Guys, you were supposed to be doing a science project not discussing the movies and video games from the recent decade

You've done barely any school work and it's already evening, Peter offers to walk you home

And the conversation just doesn't stop

Just like his heart palpitations because he's crushing hard on you

You're not only beautiful but a generally cool person??? His heart might give out

The two of you quickly become inseparable and everyone already assumes you're dating and the two of you, being the idiots in love that you are, pretend that you're oblivious to the rumors and curious whispers

Your first kiss is like a chick-flick tbh

You're working on the science project, sitting at the desk in his bedroom, so basically you're smashed against each other because there isn't much space

Peter and you quietly discuss something until you realize there are maybe a few inches between your faces

The two of you just timidly lean it and softly peck each other’s lips. Then again. And again. Until the timidnes is gone and you’re tugging at each other’s hair

Exchanging comic books

Making playlists/mixtapes for each other that you listen to together

Like riding the bus, sharing earphones and playing songs that remind you of each other or that you both like

Listening to podcasts about science and/or unsolved mysteries

He's definitely secretly watching romcoms as "research" because he wants to be that boyfriend, you know?

Sharing your lunches

Making out in the library

Inside jokes that are basically you quoting nerdy shit at each other (very cute)

"Hello there"

"General Parker"

You wear his hoodies and jackets a lot

His "photography practice" is basically making whole photo albums of you

You learn about his wall-crawling alter ego when he knocks on your window one night, face bloodied and bruised, not really knowing who else to ask for help

He's apologizing profusely while you're trying to take care of his injuries which is hard because he gestures a lot explaining things to you

Peter thinks you're gonna drop him but instead you admit that he's the coolest person you know

And that's how you have become his accomplice

Covering for Peter when someone questions his sudden, prolonged disappearance or bruises

If you had a habit of killing the odd spiders that appear in your room, now you feel a little weird about it and just try to push yourself through catching the arachnid and letting it out of the window

"study dates" but you end up falling asleep on him while he's reading academic textbooks

Which proves difficult because you look so adorable and the domestic affection is making his heart perform olympics-grade gymnastics

Sometimes you can tell he's trying really hard to be the rom-com dream boyfriend and although it melts your heart that he cares so much, you remind him that he's the perfect boyfriend just as he is

One of you always has a weird-ass question ready for the other and no matter how ridiculous, you have an actual discussion about it

Movie nights but really yall just want to cuddle

You exchange a lot of random soft pecks

Cute quiet moments when one of you is laying in the other's lap and you either just stare lovingly at each other or have dismembered conversations because you're more focused on each other than the talking

He's always there to help you study but you are distracting tbh

Dates on rooftops or other high places where it's just the two of you and the beautiful landscape of New York

Eating pizza on top of Chrysler Building

Making out on rooftops of skyscrapers? Yes please

Feeding each other snacks

Peter throws you over his shoulder just for shits and giggles

If you even suggest you might be tired, he's giving you a piggyback ride

You’re Spider-Man’s number 1 fan

And Peter loses it one day when you show up in a Spider-Man hoodie and ask him if he likes it

His arm is always around your shoulders or waist

Holding hands while you’re doing homework or reading something for class

Sometimes he brings you flowers which might or might not be a little crumpled because he had them in his backpack while swinging through New York

Stay-in dates when you eat junk food and play video games

Either cheating or cuddling, depends on the game

Calling each other "babe" or "love"

Sharing dessert

Aunt May sometimes spies on the two of you sharing ice cream or a piece of cake in the kitchen and she’s fangirling because yall cute

Serious discussions about cake flavours

Speaking of aunt May, she’s grown used to the fact that Peter’s either not at home or he’s home with you

Sometimes you sleep over and those are the mornings that it’s you and Peter making aunt May breakfast instead of the other way around

Unless it’s a weekend and you two sleep in till noon

You’re worried about Peter when he’s out saving the city and so he texts you he’s alright when he comes back home

#fanfiction #fanfic #imagine #scenario #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #marvel imagine #marvel scenario #spider-man #marvel spiderman #spiderman #the amazing spiderman #spider man imagine #spider man scenario #spider man x reader #the amazing spider man #amazing spiderman #tasm!peter parker imagine #tasm!peter parker x reader #tasm!peter fluff #tasm!peter parker #tasm!peter x you #tasm!peter x y/n #tasm!peter imagine #tasm!peter x reader #andrew!peter imagine #andrew!spiderman #andrew!peter x you #andrew!peter fanfiction

[prettyisasprettydoes1306]

                   THE PLAYER'S CLUB

TEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Watch out for women who prefer to be on top majority of the time.

2. Never give a woman the keys to your place.

3. A woman can't use you if you use her FIRST.

4.Stay away from women who ask what you do work. (GOLD DIGGIN ASS HOES!)

5. DO NO COMMIT, no matter how good the sex is.

6. Stay clear of women who don't reciprocate after you give them head. ( First Come Last Served Disease )

7. Avoid intimate and personal conversations. ( Past Relationships, Emotions ,Family background etc..)

8. Before you get carried away with a women make sure she knows that NO FEELINGS WILL BE INVOLVED whatsoever!

9. We never " make love," it's always casual sex.

10. Always! ALWAYS! WRAP IT UP!

Andre " Dre "Carter

Micah Jones

Corey King

Tremani " Trey" Lucas

Chapter One

" How you doing everybody! We are back at it again today with one of our most anticipated podcasts! My name is Big Mike and to my left of me we have the beautiful Sasha Day and on my right we have my guy Tommy G. First off if you are new to our podcast let me say Welcome to Toxic Talk. Exclusively for the mature and toxic minds only! Yesterday's guest has had you men and women blowing up our Instagram DM's with questions for us and today's guest!" Big Mike said as he sat over the mic opening up the show.

" Now just to catch you up to speed we had our female guest Avery come in and chat with us for a bit here about the sistas protecting themselves out here in the dating and relationship world and it uh got a little heated. Even I had to say she had me really looking at us like damn y'all are we that bad?!"

" YES!" Sasha said laughing.

"  Before we get started I'm gonna go to the Quick Call List so you can speak on your thoughts a little bit more about yesterday's conversation."

He leaned back in the chair rubbing his chin. " Thank you for holding Mase. What were your thoughts about yesterday's conversation?"

" I think women are taking it hard for nothing. Men are men and are always gonna be MEN! They can't expect us to always be perfect. Not all men who have cheated on their girls are playa's. Good men stray, bad men stray. Doesn't mean were all fucked up!" Sasha sat back rolling her eyes hearing the mans opinion.

" Whew we choosing violence this good ole Friday, huh Mase?" He laughed.

" So tell me where do you fall in that category?"

"A man who takes advantage of sexual opportunity's that's too good to pass up."

" I mean you could put it that way. But I highly doubt any women would see it that way. Thanks for the call man." He exited out the call and moving on right to the next.

" Alright Charlie, what you thinking man?"

" Uh it definitely gave me a lot to think about and I definitely think she made some points."

" Hmph ok, like?"

"It's all about what you want out your situation. I don't want my woman seeing any other man and I'm more than positive she wouldn't want me seeing another woman. The factor is exclusiveness. I'm hers and she's mine. Nowadays it seems like nobody really wants to be committed for real just want the perks of a relationship but also the freedom to do what they want too."

" THANK YOU! A man with some damn sense!" Sasha chimed in.

" You definitely saying alot there my brotha and I definitely agree with you about the things that you said. Thanks for the call man!"

" Now that we are all caught up to speed today's guest has just arrived." He said giving giving him an introduction. Taking a seat in the open chair next to Sasha. He was someone she was extremely thought of as a MAN. He was too good looking. She crossed her legs just at the sight of his plump limps envisioning them across her body.

She heard that he was just as arrogant as he was good looking. He was a one time divorcé and had a reputation for switching woman like how he switched clothes. He was truly the last of a dying breed. A lot of his opinions came from too many years of experience.

Trying to control her stares at him to keep them at a minimum so she wouldn't look thirsty she occupied herself in her phone.

Now she could fully see how women fell so easy for him regardless of the filth that came out of his mouth. This was a man who used his own experiences to always tell fellows dudes how it was nothing wrong with being a player and accepting it for what it is. Teaching them all how to avoid unwanted commitments.

" Welcome to the show, Dre." Sasha spoke swiftly into the mic.

Dre flashed his billion dollar smile. " Thank y'all for having me."

" How you doing today my brother?" Big Mike asked as the two dapped each other up.

" I'm good man. I'm good. I can't complain at all. Thanks for having me." Dre said as he took a sip from his Essentia water bottle.

"Alright so let's get into to it!"

Chapter 2 is here

@novaniskye @thegifstories @miyuhpapayuh @cecereads209

#let me know what you think