I'm mecurtin on dreamwidth and AO3, doctorscience on twitter/xitter and on bluesky & elsewhere. I would have been doctorscience on tumblr but it was taken.
I'm a Fandom Old. Like, over 60 Earth years old. If this freaks you out, go elsewhere. It does not freak me out to have conversations with people young enough to be my children or (theoretical) grandchildren.
I drifted away from Tumblr for a few years, and have now come back in the wake of Good Omens Season 2. I'm using this almost all for Good Omens fan stuff, with just a bit of cats and other animals and occasional politics & Judaism thrown in. Right now what personal stuff I post is on dreamwidth under friends lock.
My Good Omens Meta and other meta I hold dear, filed together for easy reference
My prediction for Season 3: Imagine There's No Heaven & followup
A Grand Unified Theory of Season 2: The Banana Fish Theory
Banana Fish defined
The Kiss Is a Body Swap: the Evidence
Crowley in Heaven: Go Up There and Make Some Trouble
@nadjabea on Crowley and Aziraphale never broke up
General Meta
@ao3cassandraic on Kayfabe, an extremely important organizing principle
Season 1 Meta
in response to @mouseonamoose, fandom ignores that Aziraphale is trying not to become a killer during the End Times, and that Crowley is pushing him to be one
Crowley Meta
Why is Crowley more of a mess than Aziraphale at the start of S2?
Why Is Crowley So Angry?
Follow-up: Not so much a theory as a disordered mess
@justhereforthemeta on Crowley's tactical turtleneck
Crowley the Hacker
Aziraphale Meta
Significance of the Pub Chest Touch
This is an angel who is DTF
On the Resurrectionists, inspired by @ineffablefood
@ineffablefood's London Date Night 1941 analysis of Aziraphale as unreliable narrator. Brilliant, I completely agree.
@createserenity on how Aziraphale feel about Crowley saying "I won't leave you on your own" ... and then he does. I added a reblog about how this might connect to Aziraphale's desire to be gentle, & that Crowley' doesn't seem to get it
@azirapherale on did Aziraphale actually Fall at the end of the Job minisode? to which I added corroborating info about his waistcoat back
Bentley Meta
from @embracing-the-ineffable on the transformation of Bentley 1.0, Crowley's Car, into 2.0, Our Car
Okay, so. We could not possibly have been satisfied by GO3. That was never going to happen, not after the first accusation dropped. We all had our own things that we wanted, our own versions of How It Should Go, and the more we learned, the longer we had to wait, the more anxious we got, and the more we each wanted our own particular Ending.
I'm old. I've been through The Disappointment, and even The Outrage, many many many times and this won't be the last. I can handle it. The chief thing I remember about the day this one hit -- and I realize that this is not the Morally Correct reaction, so don't pile on me about it; a human being's first reaction is extremely unlikely to be Morally Correct and anyone judging anyone else for that is hurling stones through their own glass walls -- was that I was never, ever going to get what I wanted, the thing that had seen me through the Final Fifteen.
I thought, and once having thought it I desperately wanted it, that S3 could be the story of Escaping the Cult from someone who Escaped the Cult. A story about religious trauma from someone whose whole life was founded in religious trauma; and at the same time, performing an act of piety and mourning for their friend; and at the same time identifying with that friend by using the character who represented him to work out that trauma; and at the same time using the character who represented himself to deal with the memory-eating disease that ate his friend; all using the framework of the story his friend had wanted to tell.
It could have been glorious.
And even if, as so often happens, as is so much more likely to happen with glorious conceptions than with mundane ones, the reach exceeded the grasp and it failed in significant ways, it would be so interesting, and create an edifice in the world of story that could be built on by others. That's how arts advance; it's how the world advances.
But my vision was a false one, because that guy never did escape the cult, did he?
So anyway, I have known a long time that I would not be satisfied, and I have come to terms with it, so perhaps it is easier for me to be generous and to see what we got for what it is: the extreme effort of a handful of dedicated people who love the story and the characters and the audience and 50% of the original author, to salvage what they could from the wreckage of the work that would be all that was left if we stopped forever on the Final Fifteen.
It is so, so imperfect, but it is imperfect in a way I recognize. There is a point in creation in which a story (and probably other works, too, this is just the one I know) consists of a series of bright, perfect, shining fragments, and the work of making the story is the work of building everything that connects these fragments into a unified, slightly less bright, less perfect, less shining whole. It's a hard job.
The people who made GO3 had a handful of these fragments and very little else, but they worked, desperately hard, in the face of immense difficulty, to build the connecting material. But they simply didn't have the resources. They were clearly digging for change in the seat cushions to pay for the raw materials of filmed media, for the sets and the costumes and the extras and the FX and the editing and the everything. Working with the devil platform, Amazon, they were strapped for runtime in which to develop the connections and pay off everything that was set up in S2, even if they had understood everything that was set up. Most of all, they did not have the unifying vision necessary to make a cohesive whole, nor the experience and skill to render that vision accessible to others, if they'd had it.
When that guy was, quite legitimately and necessarily, booted from finishing the project, most of the resources needed to finish the project went with him.
But by gosh, these people worked so hard to bring us what they could out of this wreck, cobbling it together with duct tape and baling wire.
One of the people I watched with remarked that there were no layers here to dig through, and that is so true. Without the unifying vision, there was nothing to build the layers on, and no time for them to grow organically. Even S2, with all its flaws, had layers and resulted in an outburst of engagement, striving to dig them all out and see where they were going and what the possibilities were. We were still able, as an audience, to respond to S2 in a way we won't be able to do with S3.
But I'm glad the effort was made.
Because the book was just right, and S1 was just right. We could and did engage thoughtfully and emotionally and creatively with them. Doing bad things in one's personal life does not remover one's ability to do good work, and yeah, the guy did good work. (Still does, I suppose. I won't be reading any but I never did read as much of him as other people did.) I worked through a lot old unprocessed Sunday School baggage, and then a lot of unprocessed Toxic Workplace baggage, writing fanfic for S1, in a way that the book had never sparked, so I am glad -- I am even grateful to That Guy, which doesn't mean I forgive him; how could I ever forgive him when I am not one of those he hurt? -- that S1 exists. The book and S1 were and are complete works of art on their own and deservedly celebrated. What follows did not touch them, let alone spoil them.
But S2 had 2nd Book of Trilogy syndrome really bad. It can not stand or fall on it's own. I have always said that it lived or died with S3; and without an S3 to stand or fall with, it was an open wound. We could engage with it, but we could not resolve with it. It hung out in limbo, eternally incomplete. An unhealable wound in our inner Fisher Kings.
Now, at least, we have a whole to deal with. We have a handful of gems we can pick out from the unsatisfying matrix of that whole, and play with for ourselves. The fix-it fics for this are going to be epic. You can get a lot of creative energy out of a work that had potential but isn't actually Good Enough, and more power to you, when you do!
Or, we can package up S2 and S3 together and put them away, and just have the book and S1. We are the audience; we have the power to ignore a chunk that doesn't work for us. We can take what we need, and leave the rest.
Either way, we will not have to sweep around S2 in our mental housekeeping anymore. We can be done with that.
So yeah, I am glad we have it and I'm glad I watched it. I am unabashedly grateful to everyone involved in it. I can't even regret what Could Have Been, that shining work I glimpsed in my head, because it would have been a lie, and having it would not be worth letting that guy ever have power over other people again.
And if you learn nothing else from all this, as a creator, learn this: If you can't behave ethically for the sake of right and wrong, or your own sake, or the sake of other people, do it for the sake of your work, that it not be poisoned by your actions.
biggest take-aways from the not-quite-portland martha wells "platform decay" signing:
1. she takes a lot of inspiration from her father, who was a wwii POW in a nazi camp apparently
2. someone brought up a terrific point about the similarity between murderbot and incarcerated people (and is trying to get the books into the hands of prisoners they work with! so cool!); martha hadn't made that explicit connection herself but it was still a cool moment. truly the power of art there!
3. some weirdo probably-cis guy ended the q&a with a horrible question that he/him'd murderbot and asked if it would fall in love with a "female" bot (?????) and martha said murderbot is already in a romantic relationship with ART, although she said it wasn't romantic the way humans would define it and certainly wasn't sexual. (altho she is aware of the fanfiction and finds it funny, and reassured everyone she has been in Fandom enough that nothing anyone could do would shock her, haha.)
4. someone asked a question about preservation as a "communist utopia," and the age gap (a gen x woman versus a younger-trending audience) was pretty apparent since the soviet union and American cultural attitudes towards that very much color her thoughts on the word "communist." But she made a pretty powerful point about preservation not qualifying as a "utopia" considering their attitude towards bots, and she identified it more as "hopepunk or solarpunk." and pointed out that dystopias are... well, we are in one in the US.
Overall she really is just so charming and cool. And most people in the audience were thoughtful and respectful!
The chosen photo wrongs the Chipping Sparrow, my personal fave. This gives you a better idea of its charm:
As All About Birds says, it's a "crisp, pretty sparrow", with an unstreaked belly and a bright chestnut-colored cap. It's smaller than most other sparrows, but tolerant of humans. Easy to see, easy to identify, it feels "friendly" without being dependent.
Like many <a href="https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2017/07/lightning-ridge-opalised-fossils/">fossils from Lightning Ridge</a> when the original bone was mineralized the stone that replaced it was *opal*.
It's a long one, lads. Buckle up, get comfy, but the circus is in town for its final run. Ambient music as you read can be found here or here, take your pick. Get popcorn. Get snacks and water and a blanket.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Wednesday 22nd May
7.12am
Household favourite and queen of our hearts Pippa Crerar of the Guardian (her who did the investigative journalism that revealed PartyGate to the world) reports that UK inflation fell to a mere, paltry 2.3% in April. The lowest level in three years! Huzzah! But … still smaller than the decline that was expected.
Nonetheless, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Cunt whoops I'm so sorry I meant Cunt haha whoops said it again make a big fuss about how brilliant this news is, and how it shows that they are Good At Maffs after all that trouble with Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, who defined themselves as being Good At Maffs and then obliterated the economy in a single day. Remember that! Good times. But hey, look, THIS PM/Grand Vizier combo are great at this! Inflation has fallen! Stop looking at the predicted rate! A fall is still a fall!
Crerar wonders whether people will actually feel better off, though – prices and mortgage rates are still high, after all. Food for thought.
10.04am
Jeremy Hunt is asked on the Today programme whether Sunak will call a general election.
Now, the logic here is that the government is likely to do better in an election if the economy’s improving; which, SunakCunt are now shrieking from the rooftops. So, is now the time? It's a win, and they've had so few of those, but historically people really do like to fall for the right wing = better economy myth...
BUT – the Tories are doing so very badly in the polls. Journalists favour the idea of an autumn election. Tories do better when the weather’s bad, because fewer people go out and vote.
“Well that’s a matter for the prime minister, it’s not a matter for me,” says Cunt.
... Well. Not ruling it out, then? Diddorol.
10.30am
It's Wednesday, aka the date that Tory cabinet ministers have their weekly meeting. They are duly sent the agenda.
There is no mention at all of an election announcement, nor any plan for an election.
Fair enough! 'Twas an idle thought. Plus, it would actually be bad timing from a logistical perspective - David Cameron, Foreign Secretary and Bae of Pigs, is currently flying out to Albania for an important international meeting, and Jeremy Cunt is on TV all day today - ITV next.
12.18pm
Sunak is asked at Prime Minister’s Questions whether he’ll call a general election. He doesn’t rule it out.
12.56pm
Fun tweet alert!
2.31pm
Pippa Crerar asked Sunak’s press secretary whether he was calling an election. She refused to comment.
Surely it’s a terrible time to call an election! Everyone hates them! But suddenly …
A Cabinet meeting is scheduled for 4.15pm. David Hameron suddenly u-turns in Albania and comes straight back home, his meeting un-met. Jeremy Cunt cancels his ITV appearance. The afternoon meeting is cancelled. Number 10 stops responding to journalists. Manifesto work has stepped up. Sunak’s chief-of-staff is spotted wearing a suit and tie WHICH IS UNUSUAL. Senior ministers have spent the last few days doubling down on dividing lines. And Tory bosses had a meeting this week to discuss how much money they could spend before a summer election.
The UK press sense blood in the water.
3pm
Okay.
There’s something you need to understand:
People suspect Rishi Sunak doesn’t actually want to live in the UK. He’d prefer to be in California. He’s here because he’s an MP.
You need to know this to understand this truly historic incident.
Nadine Dorries has produced a good tweet.
...
...
...
No, we all need to sit with this one for a minute
(For the record... to us, that is an excellent joke. But I strongly suspect she wasn't joking and was trying to make a catty accusation instead, which coincidentally appeared like a roast.
Scientists are referring to this as Stopped Clock Syndrome.)
5.17pm
With great dignity, Rishi Sunak stands outside Number 10 and announces a general election on 4 July.
And by “great dignity”, I mean he’s soaked by rain, while “Things Can Only Get Better” plays in the background courtesy of an anti-Tory protestor with a big speaker and a dream; the song adopted by he Labour Party for the 1997 election, where Tony Blair famously won a landslide victory after 18 years of Tory rule. Eventually, the volume of it is raised so high Sunak is, on more than one level, drowned out.
5.37pm
According to Gabriel Pogrund of the Times, Labour can’t believe Number 10 allowed this to happen.
One Labour insider texts: “Umbrellas are woke”
6.06pm
Good tweet alert!
8pm
A later Guardian article reports that Sunak greeted around a hundred Tory activists – still wearing the same rain-soaked trousers from the announcement.
No word at all on why he doesn't have aides capable of fetching him dry trousers. Perhaps those, too, are woke.
8.14pm
A Sky News reporter is at Sunak’s campaign launch. But, bafflingly, he’s forcibly removed. Extraordinary scenes
Elanor's Pro Tip: Removing a journalist may not be the best PR move for the start of an election trail.
8.27pm
9.36pm
A GBNews reporter claims that some Tory MPs are trying desperately to replace Sunak as leader in order to call off the general election. For this to work, they’d need a vote of no confidence before the dissolution of parliament on Thursday 30 May. Except actually, that would have to happen before the proroguing of parliament on Friday 24 May.
So … this won’t work. But how very incredible - and hilarious - that they’re trying.
10.39pm
Let's take a look at the evening headlines!
A great start to Sunak’s campaign, with newspapers - including the Tory giant The Telegraph - celebrating the triumphant launch of his campaign:
Well! WHAT a day! Let's see how Thursday goes.
Thursday 23 May
8.00am
The BBC takes a moment to gleefully throw off the shackles of political oppression of the last 12 years to reveal that Rishi Sunak's announcement of a July election, the single most important announcement for a sitting government, the most sensitive and vitally-timed event in their calendar...
Was a total surprise to the rest of the party.
Tory party MPs found out when we did that they were about to have to campaign again. For a snap GE. Three weeks after having just done it for the council elections, in which they experienced the greatest single loss of their councillors in history. Even the damn meeting agenda was fake.
Still. Perhaps this explains the lack of umbrella or trousers.
9.09am
Nigel Farage confirms he will NOT stand at the general election.
*pause for applause*
That’s because he’s helping Trump get re-elected in the US right now.
*pause for screams*
This is good news for the Tories! And the rest of Britain, actually (commiserations to America. Please shoot him). Farage’s right-wing populist party - Reform UK - is the spiritual successor to UKIP and the Brexit Party, who’ve been splitting the right-wing vote for years. Farage is popular; it’s bad news for Reform if he’s not part of their campaign, but simply fantastic news for those of us who think queer folks, women and people of colour deserve human rights.
9.19am
According to BBC News and others, Sunak has hired Isaac Levido, the election strategist behind the Tories’ landslide win in 2019. Levido knows his stuff, and advised Sunak to stick with an autumn election.
Sunak ignored this advice. Lol.
9.20am
In the Guardian, Sunak says there WON’T be planes of immigrants flying to Rwanda before the general election. Good news for those of us who think it’s monstrous to deport immigrants to countries with unsafe governments. Bad news for Tory voters who were hoping to get racists to vote for them.
Now, this is particularly funny, because promising to deport refugees to Rwanda in spite of overwhelming legal opposition on human rights grounds is probably the single hill that the Tories have chosen to commit genocide on. This bill has been in and out of every court in the land since they promised it in 2019. It's been on again off again more than a tawdry tabloid romance. But, they finally managed to push it through, and the first planes were set to fly in July.
This means! That Sunak's strongest cards going into the election were the drop in inflation, and the Rwanda bill. He could sell it as "In spite of those bleeding heart liberals, we persevered and managed to tenaciously get rid of these browns and thus fulfilled our promise", and the fact that it won't actually affect the immigration numbers wouldn't be clear until after the election. And make no mistake, it is VITAL that those planes fly before any election - quoth one influential Conservative MP on the right of the party to the BBC:
“I know what question you’re going to ask us again and again. "You’ll say we’ve been banging on about Rwanda for years and we’ve only managed to fly one migrant out there - and we paid him to go”.
It took a single day for that gamble to dramatically fail.
Lol. Lmao, even. One might almost say rofl.
9.21am
Sunak is emphasising his own role in managing the economy.
The Guardian’s Rowena Mason points out that it might be better to sell this as a Tory victory rather than a Sunak victory, considering how badly Sunak’s doing as an individual in the polls.
10.45am
I'm obviously giving a lot of attention here to the funniest and most ridiculous stuff, but let’s take a moment to celebrate some genuinely brilliant journalism:
0_o
The whole article’s worth reading. It confirms that at least one more hi-vis wearer was a Tory councillor in disguise (in this case Ben Hall-Evans). Perhaps this is why they started by removing all the real journalists.
12.42pm
Sunak’s campaign takes him to a brewery in Wales! He attempts some Bonding With The Working Man and asks the workers if they’re excited for the football.
Top tip: if you don’t realise the country you’re in hasn’t qualified for the Euros, maybe don’t even mention the subject.
6.55pm
... here is a new problem. Ish.
As mentioned, three weeks ago, England held local council elections. In that time, the Tories lost over half their councillors; an unprecedented and staggering loss in one event. We are all still bathing in the schadenfreude.
But, many of those then left the party (probably fairly, actually - monsters though Tories are, that cannot have been fun.) But, the way politics in the UK works is that when you vote, you don't vote for the party - you vote for your local representative, and then it's a numbers game as to which party gets to rule. This means, with this sudden last-minute possibly-impulsively-declared-by-one-soggy-madman election now six weeks away, those candidates all need replacing so that the Tories will have a shot at getting the numbers they need to form a majority government.
Channel 4’s Paul McNamara reports that Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats. The deadline’s tight for this – and apparently, joining the lengthening list of people who weren't informed of this stupid election plan, Tory associations are livid at being left so unprepared.
Now, a lot of these seats are Labour strongholds, so you don’t necessarily need more than a token Tory candidate for them. Phew! A great relief.
But some of them are actually good Tory seats. Uh oh! Basildon, Bury St Edmunds, Wellingborough and Rushden … It’s a bad hit to the Tories to have so little time to find good candidates for these seats.
8.59pm
Labour launch a campaign video. It’s long, but the message is, “Remember life before the Tories got into power? Wasn’t it BRILLIANT?”
And to prove how great 2009 was, they’ve included a clip of David Tennant’s Dr Who saying “I don’t want to go.”
Lol.
9.57pm
Filmmaker Richard Cubitt jokily suggests he could stand as a Tory candidate, and immediately defect to Labour as soon as possible once elected.
I don’t know if the deadline’s closed, but I am now speaking to the chat. Lads: the time will never be better. Do it. Tell the Tories you'll stand for them. Immediately defect. You have the opportunity to do the funniest thing. Be the rot in the barrel. The time is now.
ANYWAY. Oh boy. Day one of campaigning was quite bad. Ah well! Onwards and upwards for Wali Heb Broli. Let's see what Friday brings.
And of course: the losses are staggering (100 candidates!), but it could be worse.
At least it's not senior MPs.
Friday 24 May
7.00am
Over 70 MPs confirm they will not be standing for re-election.
7.35am
It’ll be lovely to see this election get rid of some truly awful Tories. But no need to wait that long! John Redwood stands down. I haven't mentioned him before, but let's look at his clownface eggshell.
He opposed reducing the age of consent for homosexuality in 1994 and 1999, he voted to keep Section 28 in 2003, he opposed same sex marriage, he voted to reintroduce the death penalty in 1988, 1990 and 1994, he’s argued against Greta Thunberg over the UK’s climate emissions.
Although English, he became Secretary of State for Wales in 1993, and at a Tory conference, had to mime badly to the Welsh national anthem which he hadn’t bothered learning. In 1995, he cheated Wales out of a £100 million grant by returning it unspent to the treasury, so it could go back to England.
So, John – if by some fantastically rare chance you’re somehow reading this – it’s wonderful to see you step down. I wish you a very warm fuck you. And I hope the rest of your life is absolutely horrible and filled with immeasurable pain. Kisses.
7.58am
Vicky Spratt of the i newspaper announces that, with an election announced, the Renters’ Reform won’t pass.
This is a big deal, actually - this was a rare good promise in the Tories’ 2019 manifesto to protect renters by ending no-fault evictions. A good promise! With cross-parliamentary support, only slowed as much as it was because most Tory backbenchers are landlords and so tried to block it. But the fighting raged on, and it was finally agreed.
And now it’s broken. Wasting months of work by stakeholders, and thus forming another election promise that would have sailed through if only the election hadn't been called for July.
8.09am
Jeremy Corbyn – remember him? Former Labour leader, who was expelled from the Labour party in 2020 – confirms he’ll be standing as an independent. He’s continued to be a member of Labour despite being an independent MP – but standing against Labour in an election means he’ll have his membership revoked too.
9.26am
So where are we at? How do you reckon the normal Tories in the party are faring? Do you think they're positive of a win? Do you think they expect to lose?
Great Guardian article here:
Gloom, resignation, but also a show of fighting spirit as PM’s troops weigh up the odds on re-election
Highlights - one government minister happened to bump into his equivalent opposition member, and immediately thrust his official folder towards them, saying, “You might as well have this now.”
Another Tory MP hugged a Labour colleague and cast their arm around the room. “Good luck. This is all yours.”
One Tory backbencher was asked if it was a good idea to call an election. “It’s a disaster. I can’t understand it.”
Even when they’re being optimistic, the Tories seem a little glum. One long-standing MP said: “Of course I’m going to fight it, I don’t believe in just giving up like the prime minister has obviously decided to.”
A former minister raises an interesting point. It’s not long, after all, since the Tories suffered those major defeats at the local council elections. That's impacted the number of candidates, of course - but, local canvassing is largely done, on all parts of the political spectrum, but activist volunteers.
That loss was three weeks ago. If you were a volunteer who just spent weeks knocking on the doors of your neighbours and community, trying to convince them to vote for the dead horse, and then lost – maybe you won’t feel like hitting the streets again so soon. Maybe you'd prefer to be able to meet your neighbours' eyes when you bump into them in the bread slicing queue at Morrisons.
Some MPs have even admitted they won’t be cancelling holiday plans to fight the election. On top of that, there's over 70 MPs that have already confirmed they’re quitting and won’t be seeking re-election!!! Absolute scenes.
Interestingly, some anti-Sunak Tories report frustration. They reckon they were close to calling a vote of no-confidence, in the hopes of replacing Sunak with a different leader. No idea if this is true – and if true, whether Sunak knew it. But given the panicked speed at which it seems to have been called...
11.08am
The campaign takes Rishi Sunak to the Titanic Quarter, to be interviewed by Belfast Live.
Elanor's Pro Tip: if you’re the leader of a failing political party, maybe don’t let journalists interview you on a site named after history’s most famous sinking ship.
11.57am
How’s the campaign going, Rishi?
Oh, Rishi. Looks like someone else is not meeting anyone's eyes in the bread-slicing queue.
1.12pm
Politics UK reports that 75 Tory MPs are now standing down at the election – the same number of Tories who stood down ahead of the 1997 election.
2.49pm
Sunak’s campaign takes him on board an aeroplane.
Elanor's Pro Tip: if you’re the leader of a failing political party, maybe don’t be photographed in front of an exit sign.
7.07pm
MICHAEL GOVE ANNOUNCES HE’S STANDING DOWN AS AN MP!
I could honestly use that gif like seventeen times in this write up. You can all thank me for my restraint in choosing just one.
The 79th Tory to do so at this election – an all-time record exodus. Hey gang, would you like to see some familiar names joining him in this?
Theresa May
Sajid Javid
Dominic Raab
Matt Hancock
Ben Wallace
Nadhim Zahawi.
It’s just … not a great sign for the party, is it? That so many prominent MPs don’t reckon it’s worth sticking around.
7.50pm
Hey, remember those parody videos of Hitler getting angry with funny subtitles? Someone made a good Sunak one:
10.48pm
The Guardian’s Kiran Stacey reports that Sunak will retreat from the campaign trail, spending the next day at home.
Honestly... that's probably best. Let him recover from the bread excitement.
10.50pm
We round off the day with Andrea Leadsom announcing she too is standing down as an MP. Bye, bitch.
WHAT A DAY! Still, Saturday will probably be better.
Saturday 25 May
12am
New episode of Doctor Who drops! It contains Welsh faeries. I later write a post explaining this. You're all welcome. Back to the circus.
10.06am
Good tweet alert!
11.14am
Keir Starmer promises to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 if he wins the election.
2.43pm
Hey remember how David Hameron was supposed to be in Albania? And actually went there? And then had to come back because of Rishi's totally-planned-for election announcement?
The Mirror reports that David Cameron spent £60,000 of taxpayers’ money getting to Albania for that trip. He was there for 89 minutes, before he had to come back in light of the general election announcement.
This means it cost the country £674 a minute for Cameron to be in Albania for about as long as it takes to watch The Lion King.
6.14pm
Labour and the Tories put candidates forward for 650 seats in a general election.
Of course, that's not quite all of them. The Times’ Patrick Maguire understands that Labour have only 13 candidates left to select, which is pretty good. The Tories are missing slightly more than that.
They need to find around 190.
(The number is rising. Chat, you know what to do.)
9.29pm
According to the Telegraph, Theresa May has said if she was still PM she would have used an umbrella to declare the election.
She probably would have, too.
10.11pm
Now then!!! Gather round boys and girls and all the rest!
Remember: the election was called based upon the following main cards in Sunak's hand:
The Rwanda bill
Inflation falling
The Renter's Reform Bill
Inflation fell, but not by as much as it should have. The Rwanda plan fell through a day later. The election itself has blocked the Renter's Reform bill.
Rishi needs a new set of promises stat, in order to shore up votes from his most important bastions of support. What can he offer?
The evening brings the answer!
At 10.11pm - note the time - in spite of having taken the day off, Sunak promises mandatory national service for every 18 year old if he wins the election. Either a year-long army placement, or a weekend a month volunteering for a year.
Sounds like a good pledge, if you’re hoping to motivate 18-year-olds to vote against you.
10.16pm
The Financial Times’ Jim Pickard reveals that the National Citizen Service (David Cameron’s legacy project) had its funding slashed by two-thirds in a 2022 review of government youth funding - when the chancellor was Rishi Sunak.
Five minutes. That’s how long it took a journalist to melt Sunak’s new pledge.
Still; Tories never let facts get in the way.
10.27pm
Politics UK reports that leaked documents suggest teenagers would be jailed for refusing this national service.
11.47pm
Sunak's bad ideas generator works hard, but the meme makers of the internet work harder:
Still. Sunday is a day of rest! Hopefully Sunday will be better.
Sunday 26 May
9.50am
Let’s check the Sunday tweets.
Starting to think whoever is in charge of optics for Rishi Sunak may be a Labour plant.
10.21am
Fantastic tweet alert:
I Agree With Gabby
3pm
And then... PLOT TWIST!!!
FT’s Lucy Fisher reports that Sunak’s national service pledge - including assigning up to 30,000 18-year-olds to the military - was rejected this week by one of his own defence ministers.
Defence personnel minister Andrew Murrison warned of a hit to morale, headcount and resources if “potentially unwilling national service recruits” were introduced alongside Britain’s professional armed forces.
EVEN THE ARMY DON'T WANT THIS.
6.47pm
And then:
Incredible story from Gabriel Pogrund of the Times.
St Paul’s School, if you haven't heard of it, is an expensive and famous private school in England somewhere (I forget where and don't care). As with other private schools, they’d be subject post-election to a Labour plan to remove their VAT exemption.
Tory MP Greg Hands took matters into his own Greg hands, and messaged the school’s parents’ WhatsApp group to try and drum up anti-Labour sentiment.
I can see the logic. These are parents with money, who have chosen to send their children to a private school that often means an easy track into politics generally and the Tory party specifically. I see why he thought he was safe.
Tumblrs, he was not safe.
Parents intervened, complaining about Hands spamming the chat, and claiming his use of the chat was “inappropriate”.
One parent messaged: “Can we stop assuming everyone is a Tory in this group. A return to more morality, less corruption and more social conscience in British politics is not something to oppose necessarily.”
Another expressed that some parents will “feel it is hard to defend private schools being vat exempt.”
Ouch. Swing and a miss, Greg Hands.
Anyway. New week, new campaigning. I am writing this on Tuesday, and so our tale is nearly at an end for now; so let's see what happened on Monday.
Monday 27 May (Yesterday)
7.40am
Britain's teenagers respond to the national service plan. I love this tweet and the video it reposts:
And here, for your viewing pleasure, is the video:
8.17am
Tory MP Steve Baker (more on him later) actually tweets a public criticism of Sunak’s national service plan. You might be thinking "Well yes, obviously"! But no! For you see, when approaching elections, parties need to be united. Divided parties generally find it harder to win elections.
Naughty Steve.
8.41am
Foreign Office Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan, having seen the absolute shambles of Sunak’s campaigning, wakes up this fine Monday morn and invites him to hold her beer.
Appearing on Times Radio, she’s asked whether the parents of teenagers could be prosecuted if the teens refuse to take up national service.
And she doesn’t rule it out.
NO BUT WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT ARE YOU DOING ANNE-MARIE. IS THIS YOUR FIRST DAY OUT OF THE HOUSE.
Parents are NOT prosecuted for any wrongdoing of their ADULT CHILDREN. How do you not understand this basic legal concept. The answer to that question was “no”! You say “no” because it makes your party more likely to be elected, and you say “no” because the answer is no.
Oh dear. What a gaffe, as the papers say. Gosh, I really hope Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s gaffe stays contained.
8.56am
The Telegraph duly reports that parents of 18-year-olds might be fined if their children refuse national service.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s gaffe did not stay contained.
10.55am
Looks like the Tories are unhappy that the press revealed that Sunak took a day off from campaigning.
But that’s okay, they have a new strategy! Reported by Politico, they’ve decided to suggest that Keir Starmer is too old to be a good Prime Minister.
They called him “weary” yesterday afternoon;
Tory Party Chair Richard Holden says it’s “bizarre” for Starmer to rest at home the day before a speech (but not for Rishi to - ? You know what, never mind);
A Tory aide tells the Sun that Starmer should be dubbed “Sir Sleepy” (what a Zinger, as those conscripted into national service say);
Another Tory aide calls Starmer “Sleepy Keir” according to the FT.
Keir Starmer is 61 years old.
11.17am
Let's check Tory candidate numbers!!!
Now last we looked it was 190, but obviously, as this is possibly their most urgent priority, they've been working flat out and recruiting across the land and so they have, fair play, managed to reduce that number.
The Spectator therefore reports that the Tories have 12 days to select 160 candidates. Would you like to see the maths?
This means, on average, they need to select one candidate every 100 minutes. Which is slightly less time than it takes to watch Toy Story 3.
#ChatYouKnowWhatToDo
12.41pm
The FT’s Lucy Fisher reports that Tory HQ has accidentally sent out an email criticising Tory MPs for failing to campaign, and warning of financial concerns in some seats.
Cannot stress this enough: even if the Tory campaign was going really well and they were predicting a landslide their way, this would be a terrible blow.
5.02pm
The Mirror reports that Tory MP Steve Baker is on holiday in Greece. That’s pretty irresponsible, isn’t it? What does Baker have to say for himself?
"The Prime Minister told everyone we could go on holiday and then called a snap election. So I've chosen to do my campaign work in Greece."
… this is the greatest Tory campaign in history.
(And once again... when exactly did you decide to do this, Rishi?)
5.15pm
In an absolutely baffling move whose motives I still cannot entirely fathom, Tory MP Lucy Allan - a repugnant, malignant liar of a woman who once altered an email from a constituent so she could claim it contained a death threat against her - is suspended by the party, for telling voters in her ward to vote for Reform UK instead of the Tories.
...
...
...
...wwwhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
6.18pm
Good tweet alert! Here's political journalist Jonn Elledge:
6.30pm
Meanwhile, a Tory chooses to contact journalist Theo Usherwood over WhatsApp, criticising the election strategist Isaac Levido:
Now this is particularly interesting, because Levido is the guy who managed to swing the last GE to BlowJo, even though Labour were riding high on Corbyn. And I don't know, maybe he is actually shit at this and all that was luck.
I just... wouldn't have said he was the reason for this one going the way it is. Necessarily.
Finally, let's finish off Monday with a last good tweet:
10.06pm
***
That's all for now, folks! Thank you for reading, enjoy the circus playing out this week!
oh my god, I didn’t think there were any surviving versions of this post left
For those who weren’t around in the Deep Lore times, this is one of the relics of the editable post era. This post has THE SINGLE HIGHEST NOTES of ANY post on this site, bar none, but with more than a dozen variations. Every single post you’ve ever seen with more than 3 million notes has been a different version of this one.
This is the “Dean’s Gym Shorts” post. This is the Flubber post. This is the original “Reblog if you support gay people” post. it was ALL of them. before half the site got nuked, it had even more notes than it has now - at one point, well over 15 million, and that was years ago.
This, with no exaggeration, is the ONE TRUE heritage post
this works best with mass market paperbacks, for that reason i have my fiction split into alternating shelves of hardback/trade and mass market paperbacks.
on a paperback shelf, put a riser in the back. you make this out of a two-by-four (or any scrap wood you have hanging around) and a couple of bricks (bricks are cheap! like $0.25 a pop!). just put two brick in the back corners of the shelf, then put the two-by-four on top of the bricks, and you got a riser.
now you can have a back row of books raised up high enough that you can see them over the front row. and if your shelves are deep enough or you don’t mind your books sticking out a bit, you can set the front row laying down for max visibility like so:
Violence: A Writer’s Guide: This is not about writing technique. It is an introduction to the world of violence. To the parts that people don’t understand. The parts that books and movies get wrong. Not just the mechanics, but how people who live in a violent world think and feel about what they do and what they see done.
Hurting Your Characters: HURTING YOUR CHARACTERS discusses the immediate effect of trauma on the body, its physiologic response, including the types of nerve fibers and the sensations they convey, and how injuries feel to the character. This book also presents a simplified overview of the expected recovery times for the injuries discussed in young, otherwise healthy individuals.
Body Trauma: A writer’s guide to wounds and injuries. Body Trauma explains what happens to body organs and bones maimed by accident or intent and the small window of opportunity for emergency treatment. Research what happens in a hospital operating room and the personnel who initiate treatment. Use these facts to bring added realism to your stories and novels.
10 B.S. Medical Tropes that Need to Die TODAY…and What to Do Instead: Written by a paramedic and writer with a decade of experience, 10 BS Medical Tropes covers exactly that: clichéd and inaccurate tropes that not only ruin books, they have the potential to hurt real people in the real world.
Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction: Increase Realism. Raise the Stakes. Tell Better Stories. Maim Your Characters is the definitive guide to using wounds and injuries to their greatest effect in your story. Learn not only the six critical parts of an injury plot, but more importantly, how to make sure that the injury you’re inflicting matters.
Blood on the Page: This handy resource is a must-have guide for writers whose characters live on the edge of danger. If you like easy-to-follow tools, expert opinions from someone with firsthand knowledge, and you don’t mind a bit of fictional bodily harm, then you’ll love Samantha Keel’s invaluable handbook
So so honored to get THREE separate mentions in this list! (I haven’t read the first few, but the first one sounds fascinating!)
To differentiate the last 3, which are mine:
10 BS Tropes: this is how not to piss off medical folks in storytelling. It is short, and it was free the last I checked.
Maim Your Characters: this is a guide to injury as a plot structure tool. As in, how and when do you make the most out of a good character thrashing, from a plot perspective?
Blood on the Page is the book that tells you how long a specific injury might take to heal, what the character would go through, and details about their treatment.
Also, if cash is an issue, most of Blood on the Page and Maim Your Characters is available in my blog archives if you can navigate the hellsite. (The #masterposts tag is your best bet). And 10 BS Tropes was free the last I checked!
(Since I’ve had people ask: I priced the books so that, last I checked, I earn equivalent royalties whether you buy paperbacks or digital.)
xoxo, Aunt Scripty
P.S.: While I no longer answer asks about specific scenarios or injuries, I’m happy to answer questions about the books themselves via DM or ask box. Including the “hey I want this but REALLY can’t afford it could you PDF me?” ones.
We don't have healthcare for everyone because of racism.
To have healthcare for *every*one would mean Black people getting something good as much as White people. Because Black (and other non-White) people are poorer, on average, than White people, universal healthcare would (apparently) benefit them more than it would benefit White people.
Universal healthcare would still be better for White people than not having it. But -- it would clearly benefit Black people. And the past 8 years+ have taught me, conclusively, that at least 55% of US White people (by latest count) would *literally* rather die than improve the lives of Black people. If that wasn't true, they wouldn't vote for Trump.
For the US, the first answer to "why don't we have this good thing?" is *always* "Racism". That is the default, the baseline. Only after you've looked at racism as an explanation do you get to consider other motivations.
