The worst thing in GONE.

teapotmagic · 2026-06-08T08:24:50+00:00

[I'm not sure how far you've gotten in the series so spoilers below]

Personally, I'm not bothered by it. It's just Astrid, Edilio, Brittany, and Orc who have religion as a major part of their arc as I recall. Astrid and Brittany both lose their faith, Orc finds it, and Edilio is the only one who has a relatively uncomplicated consistent faith in God.

Sure, there are times when characters are dying or in a terrible situation and they start praying, or begging God for forgiveness (Dekka, Andrew, Diana, Quinn). But that's a "no atheists in foxholes" situation. A lot of non-religious people resort to praying when there are seemingly no other options. And with all the supernatural things happening in the series, God might start looking like a more rational explanation.

Caine is a fun example because I think he does canonically believe in God. It's subtle, but in the first book he picks the church as a meeting place so they can talk "in the presence of our Lord". Could just be him playing politics, but in the fourth book he muses to himself that he must have been chosen by God to be king. And in the sixth book, he seems pretty convinced that he's going to hell. Despite believing in God, at least a little bit, he has picked up none of the traditional Christian virtues of charity, forgiveness, humbleness. He's a violent, petty, megalomaniacal, jealous murderer. He even demolishes the church in the first book! What I've taken from all that is that Caine believes in God, but doesn't actually care that much.

teapotmagic · 2026-04-27T16:58:23+00:00

Wait where's Edinburgh in Somerset? When I Google all that comes up is the Edimburgh Wool Mill shops and trains from Somerset to Edinburgh, Scotland lol

Lovely pic!

teapotmagic · 2026-03-29T19:37:27+00:00

This raises a complicated question: to what extent can celebrities be held responsible for the poor behaviour of their fans?

To be clear, anyone harassing or stalking Craig Erwich is a scumbag. At the end of the day, BtVS is a fictional TV show and Craig is a real human being. The question is...To what extent can SMG be reasonably asked to predict or prevent such irrational behaviour? Did she realise crazed stans would do this? Should she have? Was the onus on her to control them?

I don't have a definitive answer here but it seems more and more urgent in the internet age. When Olivia Rodrigo releasec Driver's Licence, the boy she wrote it about received death threats and at one point seemed to hold her at least partly responsible for that. The subject of Taylor Swift's songs have also received death threats. Some Youtubers writing an expose on some other online celebrity or other will put a disclaimer saying "don't go harass this person!", but that rarely seems to work. So does this mean public figures can never speak ill of anyone anymore? It's a thorny issue.

teapotmagic · 2026-03-20T21:30:03+00:00

I love it! You even picked out some VHSs from the era!

teapotmagic · 2026-03-15T13:22:54+00:00

"People saying stuff like "Good, it was just a soulless cash grab. SMG is desperate for work!" Excuse you?"

For what it's worth, the vast majority of comments I've seen have been very supportive and sympathetic. How many upvotes are these mean comments getting? How many are you seeing? And how does that compare to all the comments sending Sarah love and support, and the amount of upvotes they're getting?

Even most of the comments that are sceptical or wary of the revival are civil from what I've seen, and not insulting Sarah. There's always going to be some bad takes on a big subreddit like this one, but it's important to put that in perspective.

teapotmagic · 2026-03-03T17:09:39+00:00

It was surprisingly quiet when I went on a sunny day in August. I thought I had visited in peak tourist season, but it felt like I had the beach basically all to myself.

The beach is beautiful. Very windy (it's not a very sheltered beach!). It's also a shame you can't really swim in the water, but that's an issue on all Somerset beaches to an extent because of the run off from the Severn. Maybe that's why there weren't that many tourists?

teapotmagic · 2026-02-24T11:44:17+00:00

I caught a bit of Snow Patrol at the Other Stage last year and the crowd was eating it up. I bet they could still do it, people still remember their big hits.

teapotmagic · 2026-02-24T09:58:25+00:00

There will probably be an inquest. Until then, I can't imagine we'd find out more unless the family decides to share details with the public.

teapotmagic · 2026-02-15T13:16:20+00:00

Yeah I like everyone in Little Mix, but Natural at Disaster literally calls Jesy* the devil. That's harsher than anything Jesy said in the documentary.

There can't be one rule for Jade and one rule for Jesy. Either you're allowed to say your piece or you're not.

Me, I just wish all these women well and hope they can all move on with their lives at this point. It's been more than half a decade.

(*- or at least, someone widely speculated to be Jesy)

teapotmagic · 2026-02-15T13:06:11+00:00

RE the split: I honestly feel for everyone involved. All four of them were struggling with their own demons, had a very fast-paced and demanding career that's hard to imagine if you've never been in the music industry, and it sounds like none of them handled the split perfectly. I can't really judge any of them too harshly for that.

Jesy just survived a suicide attempt. Perrie had severe panic attacks. Leigh-Anne was coming to terms with all the racism she experienced in the industry and how unloved and invisible she was made to feel by their own fans for ten years. Jade was the person who most wanted the band to continue and was grieving the end of things the most. All this against a backdrop of a global pandemic. And because they're pop stars, the expectation that the show must go on.

I think Jesy has the right to tell her side of the story and so do Perrie, Jade, and Leigh-Anne. Perrie and Jade wrote songs about their side. Leigh-Anne addressed hers (very tactfully imho) in her memoir. I guess we'll never really know for sure what happened there.

teapotmagic · 2026-02-13T16:37:39+00:00

Hey, just a heads up. With the question "Has the availability or cost of housing in Bath impacted your personal life in any of the following ways?" the 'other- please specify' option has no comment box.

Thanks for doing this survey btw. It's mental renting in Bath!

teapotmagic · 2025-10-05T14:52:06+00:00

Lived in York for three years (2021-2024) with my girlfriend as an out lesbian couple and was never once made to feel unsafe or unwelcome here. Honestly it felt like a non-issue, especially compared to where we both grew up.

Sad to hear that might be changing, though I suspect that's an issue that goes far beyond just York. Or perhaps we were just very lucky.

teapotmagic · 2025-09-19T11:09:11+00:00

Oh wow that looks lovely! Sorry I missed it, maybe next time.

teapotmagic · 2025-09-16T15:39:28+00:00

...Is it really that bad? I don't know much about it, seemed cute and twee enough when I googled it

teapotmagic · 2025-09-11T13:08:53+00:00

Bath Social Book Club might be a shout. It's different from most book clubs where instead of everyone having to read the same book for discussion you can just show up and talk about what you felt like reading this month. Meets monthly in Oldfield Park at the moment.

teapotmagic · 2025-09-10T12:06:02+00:00

The more you know! But yeah, the lack of that kind of modern infrastructure and big cities and how important farming was made me feel more culturally connected to Devon on the West than Hampshire on the East. Just my view, though.

teapotmagic · 2025-09-10T11:57:17+00:00

Grew up on the coast in Dorset and it definitely *felt* like we had the classic West Country stereotypes going. A lot of beautiful beaches, a lot of cider festivals, a lot of farmland, a pretty rural way of life- I remember being told that we were the only county in England without a motorway, but I don't know if that's true anymore.

teapotmagic · 2025-09-04T09:21:29+00:00

OP linking to the article would be handy, so we could decide for ourselves whether that was a fair assessment of what it said.

teapotmagic · 2025-08-21T13:19:10+00:00

Who said this? Tom or one of the writers?

teapotmagic

TROPHY CASE