super duper mediocre

Student 1: How does he do that???

Since the 1960s, Australian free to air TV channels have had to match quotas for how much local content they show, which is currently 55%. So when I was growing up in the 90s before streaming existed, it was normal to have local kids' shows like Play School followed by Sesame Street, or the local (very weird) Round the Twist on one channel and The Simpsons on another.

Thing is, it's cheaper to buy the rights to air something made overseas than it is to make original content here, so local stuff isn't always the best quality. While it's normal to hear Australian accents in our news, sports, soap operas or bizarre kids' shows, the bigger budget movies are mostly from elsewhere. And there's obviously a big difference between those mediums when it comes to film quality, sound design, effects, etc. Even at the cinema less than 10% of films are Australian. So, an American or British accent became synonymous with a certain style of media, a certain level of polish.

I imagine that for people growing up more recently that this effect is even stronger. The ratio of local to overseas content is very different on subscription/cable and streaming services. Apparently Netflix's Australian catalogue is only 1.6% local. Imagine if 98.4% of what's available to watch was full of voices that don't sound like yours.

The first time I can remember hearing an Australian accent in a big budget movie was Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You. it was like a sudden void in space. Or an object inexplicably manifesting itself in an otherwise empty room. Everyone else on screen was a movie-person running around doing movie-person-things, and then he appeared as a sole Real Person. He sounded like a friend. A neighbour. Someone I might overhear on the bus. Even when I rewatch the movie years later, his non-accent is still heartbreakingly thrilling.

Instead this man looked at his beloved and said, “who did it?”

And she replied “Zeus,” accepting he probably wouldn’t believe her.

And then he sighed, strapped his sandals back on and said, “I’ll be back before the baby is born.”

“Where are you-?”

“The lord of the sky came into my house, molested my wife in my bed and ate my food. I am going to settle the score.”

“Darling, he’ll kill you.”

“The pathway up Olympus is guarded by dozens of traps and perils strong enough to thwart even the Titans. How are we going to get past all of…” the shepherd boy with golden eagle feathers gestured uselessly at the slopes above them, particularly the herd of eight-legged goats snorting fire.

“There’s a way around,” Yiorgos said, though he was not specifically asked. But he had been the first to begin the march on Olympus, and so felt obligated to take the lead whenever possible, “In the stories there’‘s always a way around whatever obstacles the Gods place in our way.”

He hadn’t meant the words to come out as a question, but they had that lilt to them none-the-less. And even though he hadn’t meant it to be a question, much less a question directed at anyone specific, it was directed at one all the same. Just as the eagle-feathered shepherd boy’s had.

“Way I heard it,” a woman’s voice said. Rough with the Mycenaean Greek equivalent of a backwoods accent, and with the depth of a farmer’s wife who straps cattle to her back to carry to market, “there’s a back path. Hidden behind an invisible door that only one key in the world can open.”  Everyone’s eyes had turned to the broad older woman in heavy shawl sitting amidst supplies in the foremost cart. “Least, that’s what my grand-mammy always told me.” she added after a moment of dozens of eyes on her.

“Oh, we were so foolish!” That was Lydia, a lithe waif of a woman, many months pregnant, sitting opposite the seamstress in the wagon. “Of course there’d be a.. a quest. They’d keep such a key in the depths of Tartarus or in the golden chariot of Apollo, or, or-”

“Or”, the older woman cut her off in a voice both firm, but much gentler than she used on anyone else, “he’s like all husbands and has been promising to move the key someplace better for the past three thousand years but hasn’t gotten around to it.”  She gestured vaguely to the hillside, “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was under, say, that bush right over there.”

How long til Steve's like "why is there always screaming?"

Eddie stomping on tables doing his little non-conformist dance with, like, Springsteen's I'm on Fire on loop in his brain.

Steve's concussions, the headaches, the chaos. He's alone in the dark, trying to sound out what the screams are saying to distract himself from the pain.

Eddie's got The Beachboys and ABBA and Springsteen cassettes hidden under his mattress because once you're a little boy who wasn't loved, even reformed under the unconditional love of Wayne Munson, you don't take love for granted at all, and he'll be damned if he's not gunna know everything about anything his soulmate loved.

Steve keeping little pencil mark tallies on the corner of his desk at home for how many times a week the song in his head changes.

An Iron Maiden song Eddie loved for a day catches for some reason, and he hears it back in his own head for the next two weeks and he's fucking giddy with it.

Steve fixated, gets really good at deciphering the screams, knows the full lyrics of every song by the end of the first night he hears them. Keeps him company at home.

Once, Eddie's picking Dustin up from Steve's. Steve waits out on the driveway with Dustin, talking shit and fucking off, Eddie pulls up. When Dustin climbs in, he shuts the door, windows are down, Steve pokes his head in to acknowledge Eddie, hears the song. It's been on loop in his head for three days. He knows every word. They don't always catch for that long. He looks up at Eddie. Blinks.

Eddie's caught for a second, by the look on Steve's face. Dustin's shuffling through his bag, looking for a miniature he wants to show Eddie, but Steve's lips quirk up a little. And then he says, "doubt sunk itself in you, it's teeth and talons through, you're living catch two two, deluding."

Steve watches Eddie's eyes flick to his radio, then back to Steve.

"This ones lasted a few days?" Steve says quietly.

Eddie's eyes drop to Dustin, then back up to Steve. He grins. "Modern witchhunt, mass hysteria. Fits, huh?"

"Yeah," Steve smiles. "Little bit."

Dustin pulls out his figure, starts rambling to Eddie, pauses, nods and says "later, Steve," before he's on about his figure again, talking a mile a minute.

Eddie laughs. He leans over the console. Grins innocently at Steve. He taps his temple. "We'll talk about why this caught you later, big boy."

some girls who took selfies in the woods with paper cutouts on hatpins: that seems reasonable

Doyle was SO CONVINCED that Houdini had legit magic powers and could turn into smoke or some shit to escape things and Houdini was like “no seriously it’s a trick let me show you how it works” and Doyle was all “it hurts me that you won’t trust me with this secret”

gentle with me