#fun fact I actually started making that second image back in 2023

[aezraofficial]

(Originally uploaded to YouTube on January 18th, 2025.)

they were all late to the barber appointment 👹

[ag-updates-and-archives]

L.S. Dunes are Like Magick in Chicago

by Ashlyn Siples | April 26th , 2025

All images are from L.S. Dunes - Like Magick Tour in Chicago, IL on 4/26/25.

[part 1]

Melodic post-hardcore rock band L.S. Dunes stopped by The Outset in Chicago on April 26th, bringing along their friends in Plague Vendor and From Indian Lakes.

First in line for the night was Plague Vendor, a post-punk band from Whittier, California. If I could only use one word to describe their sound and stage presence, I’d choose “groovy.” Vocalist Brandon Blaine was all over the stage - taking his clothes off, dancing with the microphone, somersaulting around, and doing handstands. Blaine also spent a fair amount of time up on the barricade, leaning over into the crowd to sing into their faces. It was clear that they’d won over the crowd pretty quickly, based on all the smiles from those who were in it.

From Indian Lakes followed up next, a band with such a contrast in vibes to the first that vocalist Joey Vannucchi even commented on how much he loved it when lineups would put artists like that in succession. From Indian Lakes is an indie rock band out of California, and if you’re looking for a mellow, almost trancelike vibe, then they’re the band for you. Their stage setup also helped to settle in their vibe, with soft colorful lighting, fog machines, and potentially even burning actual incense on stage, though I couldn’t get a good enough look to fully confirm that fact. Vannuchi also commented on the fact that it was fun to be on tour with L.S. Dunes as they are “a bunch of legends,” and that he gets to talk to the guys from bands he has a lot of core memories associated with, and they have to talk back to him.

First starting as a way to make music and pass time together during the COVID-19 pandemic, L.S. Dunes has quickly made a mark on the scene. With their first public debut at Riot Fest in 2022, without any publicity or an inclination to let anyone know that they were anything more than “a group of old friends with a mutual admiration for one another,” L.S. Dunes was bound to grab people’s attention from the start. Their surprise lineup consists of at least one person that anyone at Riot Fest that year had heard of before, featuring Anthony Green (vocals), Frank Iero (guitar), Travis Stever (guitar), Tim Payne (bass), and Tucker Rule (drums). 

The Like Magick tour celebrates the band’s recently released second album, Violet, which was well represented throughout the setlist. The night started with the tour title track “Like Magick” and into Riot Fest-debuted single “Fatal Deluxe” before throwing us back to a single released in 2023, “Benadryl Subreddit,” which ramped up the crowdsurfing that had already begun. One crowdsurfer in particular ended up in the air between songs, to which Green told them they had won a free t-shirt thanks to their accidental timing. The fans were singing loudly all night long, but a couple of songs (“Grey Veins” and “2022) off their first record, Past Lives, proved to be the loudest of the night.

L.S. Dunes is a band that’s fun to watch, even if you don’t know all the songs, thanks to the high energy they bring to the stage. Green in particular makes the most of his time up there, throwing the mic into the crowd, hopping down to the barricade to hold people’s hands, and dancing around as if no one’s watching. At one point, he even managed to hold the entire microphone stand in the air with just his mouth - something I don’t think my teeth could withstand. The energy on stage was reflected by the crowd - something which Green took the time to thank them for, saying, “thanks for bringing so much hype energy out here,” and even commenting that it was one of the best nights on tour before leaving the stage.

L.S. Dunes has only a few dates left on this tour as they make their way through the Great Plains and over to the West Coast, so if you’re interested in checking them out, be sure to head over to their website and grab tickets ASAP! Or, you can follow any of these bands on social media to keep an eye out for what they’re doing next:

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals - Jingle Bell Rock

Voiceplay weren't originally planning to release any proper full-length video for December last year (2023), just a Mini or two, as they were busy in November due to a special performance with the band Chicago. They asked their Patrons for song suggestions for Minis, and then put the three most popular suggestions into a poll for people to vote on. Jingle Bell Rock won out with 55% of the votes, but then a Patron provided a suggestion of doing it "Mean Girls style". Initially the guys were confused, (as was I when I first read the video title when the Premiere appeared) - was there some different musical styling that they weren't aware of? But they soon realised that "Mean Girls style" was referring to the iconic dance scene from the 2004 movie. And so, on the 16th of December, 2023, we got a proper video, not just a Mini, with plenty of absurdity and "Voiceplay brand of dumb", courtesy of Layne! (Layne was in charge of both the arrangement and the video, and is also co-credited for creative direction along with Tony).

Now please don't kill me, but I've never actually watched Mean Girls (*GASP*). However, I know a fair bit about it just from it being popular on Tumblr and the internet in general, and I know this specific scene in the movie quite well, as my dad and I would watch the clip of it every year in December. I have also rewatched the original scene before starting this post, because I'm gonna be doing screenshot comparisons! For one thing, this isn't a super long video, so I'm not worried about image limit, and for another, VoicePlay put a lot of effort into recreating this scene as closely as possible (albeit with some, er, aesthetic alterations 😜), so I wanna prove it, because why not!

Anyway, that's a fair bit of introductory stuff already, so I'll leave my other notes/commentary/thoughts for during the actual video talk bit. Let's get into this!

Making a shot from this little opening bit as the thumbnail was one heck of a choice ngl. Maybe they couldn't be bothered finding a better shot from the video, or maybe they just wanted to keep most of the video as a surprise for viewers, idk, but I was so confused from the thumbnail-title combo when the premiere appeared!😂

Also if you don't already know from the video description, this was all filmed on Tony's iPhone! (Doesn't mean it was all handheld though - tripods/stands for phones exist!). It was because VoicePlay were without a cameraguy for like 2-3 months, because their old one moved states.

So instead of doing any sort of "sexy santa/santa's helper" costumes like in the original, Layne decided that he and the others would be dressing up as characters from Christmas movies! Cesar as Buddy The Elf (perfect casting and also gets off easiest in the outfit department, lol), Layne as The Grinch, Geoff as Oogie Boogie (duh), and Eli as Santa/Sandy

(Also fun fact: the Oogie Boogie costume is the same one that Tony wore for his very brief appearance in VoicePlay's Kidnap The Sandy Claws video! (Also it's pretty hot to wear apparently, and Geoff had to tie his hair back to get the head/hood fitted properly, before he ended up asking for a wig cap, rip))

Also if you don't know the original scene, the original line after "but I'm always on your left!" is "that was when there were three of us, and now the tallest go in the middle", but here, the tallest (Layne/Grinchy and Geoff/Oogie Boogie) already are in the middle, so it's switched out for "now the fat one goes in the middle" (also watch for Eli's/Santa's quick surprised reaction to that line, lol)

(Also not a visual thing, but if you haven't picked up on it already, the announcer doing the "please welcome to the stage" bit is also Layne)

I know I didn't mention it in all my rambling at the start, but yes, shoutout to Adriana Arellano who is also in this video! (And blonde now!). This is her fifth full-length collaboration with the group, and second for a Christmas video! (Third if you count the Frozen 2 Medley).

Also do you recognise the set? Again? I'll say more later, but those curtains were almost definitely added in post-production I'll tell ya that!

Can't recreate the OG scene without an audience, and so we haveone! That just happens to also include the VoicePlay guys themselves! (Geoff must've been sharing his cloning machine around! 😜😆

Huldra has a video on her channel I believe saying who's who in the audience here, but they're also all credited in the description, so I'll list them here for you!

Standing up at the back: Michelle Arellano (Adriana's mum)

Back row: Eli, Ashley Jacobson (Eli's wife), Asher Jacobson (the baby that Ashley is holding; Eli's new son who was born in November last year!), Eileen McCarthy (don't know who she is), and Gayle Stein (Layne's mum).

Middle row: Franchezca Buiser (in shadow behind Cesar) (production assistant for Kathy/VoicePlay), Cyndi Stein (the blonde one behind Layne) (Layne's wife), Christina Arellano (Adriana's sister), and Adriana

And of course in the front row: Cesar, Layne, Kathy, and Geoff!

(Oh and "The Grinch" waving to Layne and him waving back (in the O.G. scene it's Gretchen waving to Jason) was definitely a cute touch)

Cyndi absolutely killed it playing Amy Poehler's part in the scene here, but wow already the similarities are stronger than I realized!

Totally the same picture! 🤣

So long as everyone had a good time, amirite? 😁

Pfft, Geoff acting shocked/scandalised, as if he hasn't done more than that in his Way Down video! 😆

Cesar is having the best time, and we love that for him honestly <3

Cyndi also really got into it! Stan! (She and Layne really are perfect for each other huh - same energies!)

Not a recreation of any bit in the original, but I love the little moment of Eileen and Gayle looking at each other in what can at best be called "great shock/surprise" 😂

Firstly, I love how they managed to include Ariana as a lead singer while still keeping with the original "plotline", by having a 'reveal' that Adriana was just lip-syncing to the boombox track, (still her vocals of course), which is revealed when it gets kicked and starts glitching.

Second of all, I love Cesar's attitude of "when in doubt, Remain Cute". Iconic 😂👌

Lol rip, had to happen! (And in the BTS video, they actually kinda show how this bit was done!)

Somehow I feel like Cyndi had the most fun out of anyone in this video shoot 😝

At this point I might as well make note of something you'd be forgiven for not immediately realizing - or perhaps not at all! And that is the fact that they're not actually on a stage! They made it look like one with the use of clever directions and camera anglings for the audience shots, but yeah no that's the same set VoicePlay used in 2022 for Christmas Don't Be Late, and the same set Geoff used that same year for Way Down, and it's totally flat! No stage!

And that's about all I have to say for Jingle Bell Rock actually! (No I'm not including the end bit - I do have some standards! 😂). That brings us up to date with VoicePlay's Christmas videos, but we're not even halfway into my 12 Days of Christmas In July miniseries! Next up, a couple of bonus VoicePlay Visuals posts, and then we'll be jumping over to Geoff's solo stuff! See you again soon!

[catboybiologist]

Gather round children, for I'll tell you a tale of niche subreddit history

Way back in the primordial days, shittydarksouls was made by two main people. One became inactive but still on the mod team, and the other became a homophobic piece of shit who fostered a homophobic subreddit culture. Lots of unfunny "dark souls but bad thing is gay" type memes. Until guy #1 stepped back in, kicked out the homophobic guy, and put in a super awesome queer positive mod team- which included e_0 and sammieagnes, both bi guys afaik.

But here's the thing. A lot of the old homophobic memes were still around, but since the mods were cracking down on homophobia, they mutated into queer positive versions of themselves. There's a couple instances of this, but the biggest transition was:

Dex builds=gay (bad)

Dex builds=gay (good)

Dex builds had a reputation for being the kinda thing that overly sweaty PvPers built, but it also includes weeb weapons and also just flashy and fun weapons.

Shittydarksouls, now being a queer positive shitposting subreddit about a game series that prominently features a gender fucked AMAB femboy/enby in the form of gwyndolin(difficult to deduce exactly what in game), was also right at the front lines during the internet femboy obsession of 2019-2021 or so.

These memes converged, and for a small period of time, people were literally just posting pictures of random Instagram femboys with captions like "average dex build".

Enter ✨me✨.

I'd been aware of the subreddit well before my femboy days, and lurked frequently. But right as this meme wave was happening to the subreddit in 2022 or so, I was using my fairly new CatboyBiologist reddit account to explore femininity through that early 2020s femboy craz.

I realized that I had the potential to do something great.

The "make image post" button called to me like a goddamn green goblin mask.

I posted several more similar pictures to the subreddit throughout the rest of 2022:

Fun fact, one of these pics was taken the day my masters thesis manuscript was approved.

Sammieagnes and e_0 LOVED it, leading to that flair. Me and e_0 did DM a bit and he's a really cool dude!!!

These were also the first posts that actually made me something different than just another femboy poster, and when I showed up in comments sections on 196 or elsewhere, I have people start saying things like "hey wait a second aren't you the dark souls femboy?" People on both shittydarksouls and 196 started to actually fucking recognize me from that, which is still weird.

Some shit went down in my personal life in early 2023 and I got scared off of dressing femme for a while, but when reddit started migrating to Tumblr, it felt like as good an excuse as any, so I started femboy posting again. People who knew me from shittydarksouls and 196 is where I got most of initial followers.

The femboy thing lasted about two months on Tumblr before I started HRT LOL

Was that cringe? Am I talking about my fucking subreddit femboy days as some kind of fame thing? Cuz that would be stupid, I hope it doesn't come out that way I just think all this is funny

Idk if you know but you’re a flair in a very specific reddit community i stumbled into

Never thought I'd see the day that people forgot about my fromsoft thighposting arc and the public simping of the SDS mod team