Truly Madly Deeply

There are some things my brain simply refuses to process. Because although I’m not a man, I can still imagine how extraordinary it must feel at 46 to have built - through discipline, training, and consistency - an objectively beautiful body. Strong, proportional, almost textbook perfect. The kind of physique admired by thousands. What I struggle to imagine is reaching that point, looking at that body one day, and concluding that what it truly needed was something resembling a black marker line wrapped around the forearm.

(Someone fell asleep next to a Sharpie?)

As though, after all that careful construction, the final artistic direction was: “Greek statue, but make it slightly administrative".

. . . That, unfortunately, is where my imagination simply stops cooperating.

(The very idea of getting a tattoo at 46 already strikes me as faintly adolescent — but choosing a single LINE wrapped around the arm? As though humanity had somehow exhausted every other symbolic or artistic possibility available over the last several thousand years?) Oddly enough, it reminds me of that impulsive, mildly self-destructive cutting your own hair during an emotional crisis urge once so brilliantly described years ago by The Main Heroin ⤵️⤵️⤵️

. . . PS. I’m still choosing to believe that rope - sorry, line - was drawn with marker and will eventually wash off.

[Photos: The Main Character in the Caledonian Sleeper advertisement]

Also, genuine question: why do these campaigns - so transparently built around the popularity of the series - never feature HIM and HER together?

If you’re already capitalizing on the show’s fanbase, putting the two leads together would seem like the most obvious marketing jackpot imaginable.

. . .

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The new clips that hit Tumblr in the last few hours reveal another layer we didn’t have before, and for me it’s basically the final nail in the coffin.

What they initially tried to sell us was a very specific character: a private woman, age-appropriate, educated, a single mother, a tragic young widow. A compassionate, wholesome animal-therapy girl. Horse reiki. Soft-focus goodness. Someone who doesn’t seek the spotlight and only ended up in this situation “for love.”

And now it turns out… not really.

We all have skeletons in the closet, and I’m sure it’s not fun when people dig through yours and suddenly find an anti snoring ad. But it turns out our Steph didn’t just dabble in the model/singer/jewelry/designer/animal-therapy lanes. She also took a swing at acting, and not even in the distant past. If anything, it looks like it’s still an ambition she’s holding onto.

And that changes the entire question of what does she get out of this business arrangement with Sam.

Until now the benefit was vague. Attention, sure, but toward what? Now it’s obvious. This isn’t someone who accidentally wandered into a camera lens. This is someone who actively chased the lens. For her, this is a career opportunity.

Even if being “the wife of” wasn’t new to her, the truth is that hardly anyone actually knew who she was until last September. And suddenly she’s being searched, analyzed, praised, attacked, followed, and discussed across fandom spaces. And not only does it not scare her off, she seems to lean into it.

You don’t get that from horse therapy in Cork.

And this is why Tumblr matters in a way the other platforms don’t. Tumblr is her Simon Cowell. Tumblr is the one place that judges the performance instead of applauding on cue. If she wants the role to land, the criticism here is what she can’t ignore. That’s why it keeps getting answered.

So a sincere thank you to everyone who found those videos. They add a huge piece of context.

@craighnadonuts' recent post on *urv's encomiastic delerium about Madam Mao's polymath virtues inspired me to look a bit further into what obviously is adorned, yet empty prose:

An author? Crickey, how thought-provoking. We are then told that she wrote and published, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a children's book and donated all its profits to charity. If true, that would obviously be a solicitous, yet impossible to substantiate, gesture. At the time of writing this post, and with no other available data, perhaps calling it an 'intention' or a 'claim' would be more faithful to reality.

That being said, the book's existence can be traced:

[Source: https://www.amazon.com/When-Will-Hug-Again-Illustrated-ebook/dp/B088HFPK9D]

However, while the above information is factually accurate, I can't help but find the troll's message embarrassing and manipulative. Especially if we consider a wee detail that never made it into her post:

Like the famed days of Christmas, Madam Mao's book is twelve pages long. Kudos to the eagle-eyed friend who noticed this and alerted me - siempre, 💖.

Do twelve pages, out of which we must subtract the illustrations, an author make?

My question is honest. Its answer might be unsettling, though. Especially for the troll's audience, whose North Korean level of automatic praise is unparalleled, at least in this fandom.

All right. Enough with the applied dog studies. Let us move on to something nicer. Or rather, let us allow “Honey” to speak.

Have you watched that interview?

. . . Because the message basically boils down to this: “Back in high school we were inseparable best friends, constantly together, emotionally fused at the molecular level — and now that we all have completely separate adult lives, careers, partners, children, and responsibilities, our relationships are somehow even stronger".

Which is, of course, complete nonsense.

Anyone who possesses at least minimal social experience — and more than two brain cells — understands perfectly well that this is not how human relationships work.

Same situation here, I would argue.

And another question for the ladies: how many of you, while having a long-term partner and children (child...), spend substantial amounts of time hanging out with single, childless bachelors?

Exactly. . . .

And watching the Main Heroine stare at the Main Character with visible tension while he constructs these rather implausible narratives produces some extremely specific visual associations in my head.

. . . To be fair, though: after ten years, she does look at him more affectionately than before. But the tension remains. She still looks like someone anxiously monitoring every word in fear that he accidentally reveals too much.

. . .

And finally: that hotel bed with the messy pillows. Does it not evoke certain associations for anyone else?

😉

jessicaradloff14

“…convinced [them] to get a cat sitter lined up so they could fly out here and finally meet them.”

And since I have already descended into the archival depths of the Main Character’s X account (formerly Twitter), I must admit there is something strangely charming about that affectionate reference to the beloved 'wife' in the April 2016 entry.

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. . . While digging up these treasures, I do occasionally wonder when the Main Character will finally delete the account altogether, simply to prevent people from continuously resurrecting ghosts from the digital past.

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Maril and Caitriona being all cozy with their hubbies!! 😍❤️🫶🥰

Surely I’m not the only one who feels those answers to the pathetic babysitting question sounded entirely scripted, pre-planned, carefully rehearsed and memorized.

. . . What strikes me most about this exchange is how meticulously constructed it sounds. S. immediately references the one indisputably documented occasion on which he looked after C.’s cat — immortalized, conveniently enough, in a Twitter post from 2018 ⤵️⤵️⤵️

. . . Because, apparently, the underlying premise here is that anything not preserved on social media simply never happened at all.

Thus, we are invited to accept that across all these years there was precisely one occasion on which S. took care of Eddie. One solitary, publicly archived event.

C., meanwhile, vaguely recalls receiving a photo of S. and Eddie lying in HIS bed watching something.

What is curious is the hierarchy of memory at work here. The ownership of the bed remains crystal clear, while the broader context grows strangely indistinct. C. only vaguely recalls S. and Eddie watching something together, and has completely forgotten that this coincided with the first marathon she ever ran — the same marathon after which she was photographed with the alleged 'love of her life' holding her in that peculiarly awkward manner somewhere between the wrist and the palm.

And yet the bed remains vividly categorized. I’m sorry, but this entire exchange carries the unmistakable cadence of a rehearsed narrative. Not merely remembered, but consciously maintained.

She didn't say "congratulations to you and the show or Season 6 of Outlander. She said "to the two of you"!

"Believe what you want"

Sus palabras van por un lado y sus actos hacen gira mundial por otro y con este fandom tienen un problema, su problema no es mentir, es olvidar que la gente tiene memoria🥳

Their words go one way while their actions go on a world tour somewhere else, and with this fandom they have one problem: their issue isn’t lying, it’s forgetting that people have memories 🥳

When you ask AI about a situation 🤡🎪💩

Querido Sam:

Hay actores que entienden el pacto básico con un fandom: si millones de personas sostienen tu carrera durante años, al menos finges respeto el día que celebran aquello que aman. Y luego está el iluminado de turno, ese maestro del ego inflamado que decide dinamitar el “día especial” de Outlander con la delicadeza de una excavadora borracha.

Porque no bastaba con ausentarse. No. Había que hacerlo con esa mezcla exquisita de pasivo-agresividad, indiferencia premium y energía de “me debéis todo aunque os desprecie un poco”. El fandom preparando homenajes, tendencias, vídeos, mensajes emocionales… y el señor protagonista apareciendo como quien pisa accidentalmente una cucaracha: con hastío y cara de que le molesta que exista gente entusiasmada.

Hay talentos que brillan en pantalla y se apagan fuera de ella. Y luego están los que parecen disfrutar arruinando la ilusión ajena como deporte olímpico. Qué admirable habilidad para convertir una celebración colectiva en una nube tóxica de decepción. Casi poético: años interpretando a un personaje amado para terminar actuando como el villano en tiempo real.

Lo más cruel no es el sabotaje. Lo más cruel es esa arrogancia cómoda del que sabe que el fandom seguirá ahí, recogiendo las migajas de atención mientras él juega a ser demasiado importante para cuidar mínimamente a quienes lo elevaron. Una especie de emperador cansado mirando desde arriba a los plebeyos que todavía compran entradas, suscripciones y merchandising.

Y aun así, el fandom resistirá. Porque los fandoms sobreviven incluso a sus propios protagonistas. Lo irónico es que, cuando pase el ruido, Outlander seguirá significando algo para la gente… mientras ciertos egos acabarán siendo solo una anécdota amarga envuelta en entrevistas incómodas y desplantes reciclados.

Dear Sam:

There are actors who understand the basic deal with a fandom: if millions of people keep your career alive for years, you at least pretend to respect them on the day they celebrate the thing they love. And then there’s the enlightened one — the master of the overinflated ego who decides to blow up Outlander’s “special day” with the subtlety of a drunk bulldozer.

Because simply being absent wasn’t enough. No. It had to come wrapped in that exquisite blend of passive-aggressiveness, premium indifference, and “you owe me everything even though I barely tolerate you” energy. The fandom preparing tributes, trends, videos, emotional messages… while the leading man strolls in like someone who accidentally stepped on a cockroach: annoyed and inconvenienced by the existence of enthusiastic people.

Some talents shine on screen and switch off the moment the cameras stop rolling. And then there are those who seem to genuinely enjoy ruining other people’s excitement as if it were an Olympic sport. What an impressive skill — turning a collective celebration into a toxic cloud of disappointment. Almost poetic: spending years playing a beloved character only to become the villain in real life.

The cruelest part isn’t even the sabotage itself. It’s the comfortable arrogance of someone who knows the fandom will still be there, picking up scraps of attention while he plays the role of being far too important to show even the slightest care for the people who elevated him in the first place. Like some bored emperor looking down at the peasants still buying tickets, subscriptions, and merchandise.

And yet, the fandom will survive. Because fandoms outlive even their own protagonists. The irony is that, once the noise fades away, Outlander will still mean something to people… while certain egos will end up as nothing more than a bitter anecdote wrapped in awkward interviews and recycled disrespect.

Every new beginning comes from the end of some other beginning. Seneca

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