Thought

so i've said before that i trust jacob and connor and hudson to protect us from the worst mischaracterizations of TLG and i realize i actually mean something very specific about that from my perspective as a director* (*of like. community theater. but listen)

as a director, your job is to make the whole piece, cohesively, come together under a single vision. good directors understand that the way to accomplish that is not by being a tyrant who bends everyone to your whims, it's by choosing collaborators that you trust to co-create the work and deferring to their expertise. great directors understand that actors are also collaborators: they are subject matter experts who have been hired to do the job of bringing a particular character to life. (most directors are not great. most directors treat actors like paper dolls that are there to execute their vision.) jacob has been super clear that he sees it this way, and that he respects and appreciates the vision actors have for their characters. this is an enormous part of what makes the show so fucking good. when we say what did they put in this show, it's actually "trust in your actors as artistic collaborators." you hire someone who knows more about lights than you to do the lighting, you hire someone who knows more about sound mixing than you to do the sound mixing, and you hire hudson williams so that he can understand more about shane hollander than you do, because you can't hold it all in your head

and we could be reassured by the fact that these particular actors love their characters, yes, but it's not just about defending the characters (which they'll probably want to do)-- they have to understand them. smart and good actors don't let you get away with incoherent characterization, because their whole job is to make sense of who this character is, and if the character is doing things that aren't true to who they are, they need to either update their understanding or the script/staging needs to change. and let me tell you, actors are so annoying about this. they're relentless! sometimes i'm like "please stop cornering me to ask why you say this, you say it because it's written in the script, we've been at rehearsal for eight hours and i'm trying to get to the bathroom." but good actors, actors who care, will persist because they cannot give a good performance if their character makes no sense.

this is true even with characters the actor doesn't particularly like. the last full-length play i directed was full of a cast of characters so morally rancid, so motivated by bigotry above all else, that i went in hating most of them. but having the actors there means there is someone whose job it is, someone whose subject matter expertise that i hired them to do, to understand this character. not necessarily to like them! and not to justify their actions in some kind of cheap tragic-backstory way, if they're good actors. just to understand them as a real person and not a hollow caricature that's only saying that because it's written on the page.

Then Neil awkwardly began to look away, seeking some solace in Andrew's imperturbable face, while the child continued to stare at him, barely blinking. What troubled Neil most was that he couldn't understand the child's expression. Children's facial expressions are usually predictable—fear, disgust, embarrassment, curiosity. Neil encountered similar expressions almost daily and had long since stopped paying attention, but this child's face was completely expressionless.

Eventually, the boy's mother noticed her child's intense attention, smiled nervously at Neil, and sheepishly asked her son in German (hoping they wouldn't understand) why he was staring so inappropriately. The boy sincerely replied, "He's so handsome."

I’m sorry your romantic foibles were overshadowed by a big ass atomic lizard thing.

Edit: this post is blowing up so I’m gonna shamelessly plug my art account. Follow me and I’ll draw the Godzilla lesbians @thenonbinaryfriendnamedcrumb

They're always in and out of the water – lake swims, pool swims, hot tub, showers – so doing his curl routine each time would be crazy when he could be spending that precious time sucking his boyfriend's dick.

Shane's not the biggest fan of how Ilya's styling products feel. He'll tolerate it, but Ilya can tell by his face that the texture isn't his favourite. Less product = more hair touching.

Shane's hands are always in his hair. When they're kissing. When they're watching a movie. When they fuck. When Ilya sits with his head in Shane's lap. When they're napping on the couch together. Shane's hands are usually full of a handful of Ilya's curls.

Shane seems to really like it. One time Shane said Ilya's fluffy hair made him look like a duckling and he's been chasing that high ever since.

Like. Clearly you have not tried to pay the bills on book sales.

We definitely need to reform the copyright system so they actually protect small creators instead of Disney, but a state of total anarchy has never yet been demonstrated to protect the vulnerable. In the absence of regulation, the strong oppress the weak. Bad regulation only helps them oppress the weak more, but no regulation is not the answer.

That pretty much solves the problem. Everything else is just details. Disney shouldn't be able to own a copyright and the copyright for Mickey Mouse should have ceased to exist when he died.

We could maybe maybe do something to the effect of a creator being able to pass copyright to an heir on their death, but I don't think that's actually that important, and it needs to be an actual human and not a company. What's most important is that Josh D'Amaro (current Disney CEO) shouldn't have a say in shit because he's not the artist. If the artist who draws a character decides to take their art and go home Disney should be fucked, so they should treat their artists well.

I legit think the writer of a book shouldn't be able to sell copyright to a movie studio, because then they cannot be pressured into doing so. Peter S. Beagle had to fight for literal decades to get paid for The Last Unicorn movie because he got ripped off by the studio. That couldn't happen if the studio couldn't give him a contract to sign but instead had to just give him money and a director and let him control the entire process and take their percentage of the money he makes on his work.

it. You didn’t make it, you

don’t own it. Simple.

Like, on any given roadie the people sharing walls with the Hollanovs can expect to overhear:

- One side of phone calls between Shane and his mother where every third word is FUCK and Shane's voice gets higher the more he works himself up about whatever league drama is pissing him off that week

- Ilya yelling in Russian (Non sex reasons) (He and Svetlana are talking about Matheson in Colorado. Again.)

- Ilya gets hay fever real bad in Seattle and spends an entire night sneezing at EAR SPLITTING volume, each sneeze followed by a, "AHH!" from Shane as he is startled awake. Again.

- The Christmas wish lists of every Pike child and how they're going to be divvy'd up for the year. This conversation takes place in September.

- "I'm telling you, the penalty kill could be a work of fucking art if Haas--oh fuck, right there, don't stop--"

- As stated before, an objectively obnoxious amount of showering is happening. At one point LaPointe turns to Bood and says something to the effect of, "Crazy that Hollander takes TWO showers after every game, I guess he really is superstitious," and Bood just. Chooses not to engage.

- A thunderous and almighty BANG. This is the sound of Ilya's suitcase hitting the floor after it inevitably slides off the bed.

- "Shaaaaane, look at the livestream from the dog hotel--look at how cute! She is so sleepy, she's holding her banana like a baaaaby--"

- Vin Diesel's voice, unimaginably loud, at one AM

- Russian Yelling (Non sex reasons) (Sasha did something stupid)

- "Unh unh unh UNH UNH UNH--" (Squeak. Squeak.)

- Celtics game. Twenty minutes beforehand: "Fuck, Shane, how do I get ESPN on the stupid--Roku stick thing--"

- "Okay, look, your dad played the word veer--is not real word, right? Like, deer with a V? It's real? Shane, we can't let your dad win--no, it's not cheating, he gets Yuna's help--"

- Stuff about Rose Landry's upcoming film that they should probably all sign NDAs for even thinking about.

- Russian Yelling (Sex reasons. Probably. It sounds...ardent.)

- One time, for an entire night, silence. The day immediately preceeding this night and the morning immediately after are best left unspoken about.

- The sound of Shane's fuckass electric toothbrush for WAY too long. Seriously man it cannot be healthy to brush your teeth for that lo--oh. Got it. Okay. Where are my earbuds.

- "I mean, it's not like I'm sixteen anymore, right? It's just that sometimes I think she looks at me and sees a fucking kid still, and I get it, I get it--and fuck, babe, I know it's not fair to feel this way, she's the only mom I'll ever have, and you don't even--ugh--"

- "I'm so terribly sorry the hotel misplaced your bags, Mister Rozanov. If there's any way that we can...make it up to you..." [Giggle. Kissing sound. Kissing sound. Moan.]

anyway, that’s how the internet spends a year speculating that ilya rozanov and cliff marleau have explored each others bodies. they are so all over each other and constantly tweeting gay shit about each other that ilya’s time with shane barely even gets a second glance. the first time ilya drags shane out to meet cliff, a photo gets posted on twitter and everyone is like “poor shane having to third wheel these two #ally”.

at the same time, leaving socks about while they're fuckbuddies is one thing, but potentially pushing Famously Neurotic Shane Hollander when they're married and living together and permanent in a way that Ilya could lose?

maybe Shane has a stressful day and goes OFF at Ilya about his damn socks, slams all the doors until he's in a car driving away so he can calm himself down and after he comes home, it takes a while but, he notices there are never ANY clothes anywhere other than the hamper. even Shane's clothes disappear before they MIGHT hit the floor. come to think of it, the dishes are always done, flat surfaces are clean and clear of clutter, the hardwood floors are consistently spotless despite the dog hair that Shane is constantly vacuuming free of rugs and fabric furniture.

then one night he wakes up to a crash downstairs and Ilya's side of the bed is cold and Shane goes to investigate only to find Ilya cursing softing at something that was knocked over in an attempt to not step on Anya and he's holding a swiffer and the counter cleaners are still out and... is that wood polish? what the fuck? why are you crying? im not gonna divorce you over socks, what the fuck? you spent our entire 'lovers' phase intentionally antagonizing me and i married you, why would- you were polishing the BOOK SHELVES that is entirely unnecessary, love, no NO, put DOWN the swiffer, no dont worry about tidying away the cleaning supplies we'll get to it tomorrow, i wanna suck your brain out of your dick until you forget your name in favor of mine then go back to sleep cuddling my husband, who i love and have loved for a long - if undetermined - amount of time and who i will continue to love until we're too old to suck each other's dicks, which will only happen cause we're so riddled with arthritis that we physically cant.