#and they played a normal version of the song in the background of an episode. but it immediately turned into Bertie in my head lol

[figureofdismay]

i've had Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster's garbled version of Goodnight Vienna stuck in my head, and have done for 4 or 5 days, it is no longer endearing 😩

[avisisisis]

Rottmnt Headcanons!! (2)

Leo listens to girl in red because April once forced him to and he fell in love with all the songs. When hanging out, they put girl in red in the background.

Raph has a lot of plushies from his childhood. He doesn't play with them anymore, but they're still they're and he would never give them up (haha just like me fr!!)

There was this one time where the turtles wanted pizza and instead of just ordering like any normal person they crashed a stranger's kitchen and stole every pizza related thing. It's still an unsolved crime.

Donnie always had problem with touching, but it got a lot worse after the movie. Now he doesn't let anyone hug him, slap him or anything. Especially on his shell. He feels bad for flinching when people try to hug him. The others tell him that they don't mind and they get it. He's really grateful for that.

When they were younger, Splinter got these really depressing episodes where he couldn't even get out of bed. Raph was the one to take care of them when this happened. The worst ones could last weeks.

Splinter didn't want to get attached to the turtles, so he tried to be as distant as possible whole still being a good caretaker. Also, he gave them as much freedom as possible because of how he didn't have any growing up, but since he never wanted to be with his grandfather he didn't think they would want to be with him. Which is why he was so surprised when four little children came into his room crying because he wouldn't play with them.

After explaining the whole future thing to Casey, she ran into the Lair, deciding to test her son. He passed immediately.

The twins have their own version of the Lair Games which they play everyday to decide who's the oldest. It can change from rock papper scissors to a fight to the death (Raph always stops them before they actually do anything).

The boys chose their own names. Splinter was reading them a book, and Donnie mentioned the fact that they don't have actual names, just weird color nicknames. So, Splinter tells them to find a name they like and make it their own. They decided to go by the names they have now because they wanted to match.

They all love Brooklyn 99 because I love Brooklyn 99.

Everytime they talk about “the family”, they include April, because she's their sister.

There was this one time where April didn't have anyone to go to the school dance with so Leo joined the school a few months before and went with her using Sunita's cloaking brooch (he had to fight Donnie because he also wanted to go to school).

Mikey tried to give Big Mama a redemption arc like he did with Draxum, but he didn't manage to fully do it so they now visit eachother once a week while still fighting whenever they're on duty.

The Krang is basically the only thing Leo won't joke about. They found out when Donnie said that “the last fun thing I did was two months ago and it was becoming a fucking Krang spaceship” and Leo stared at him for the next ten minutes.

Whenever Mikey or Leo go quiet, Raph is alone and Donnie is handling dangerous weapons without adult supervision it's because something is going down.

April is the only one who has a normal sleep schedule because her mom won't let her stay awake too late.

Mayhem thinks the family is stupid, but he loves them anyway. Sometimes.

Raph screamed when Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago kissed and everyone else worried.

Leo and Raph are basically the scene where Jake says “if I run at Terry he'll most likely catch me in his arms”. Raph would catch anyone else, but it's only Leo the one who throws himself at him.

April goes to the Lair almost everyday and complains about school with any of the boys. They always listen to her rants.

Leo figured out that he had adhd when April told him that she thought he had it. He never got the chance to get an actual diagnosis so he felt like he wasn't even if the sings were all there and he could see them.

Sunita found everyone a therapist at the Hidden City. Her name's Charlie and they all like her.

Donnie likes to threaten people he doesn't like. He also threatens Leo, but he doesn't actually mean them.

Because of being in contact with eachother when they were mutated, the turtles have traits of the other's species. That's why Donnie can go into his shell, why he has purple marks, why Raph's isn't as spiny as he should be, why their colors are different from the original species, etc.

Red eared sliders comunicate with vibrations, so Leo does this really low vibration thing when he feels happy, pleased or just when he's in a good mood that April calls purring no matter how much he complains about it.

[gaygoetia]

Background Details in Helluva Boss S1 E6 - Truth Seekers

Moxxie's Fractured Skull

Not sure whether or not this is even purposeful but when Moxxie and Blitzo are electrocuted at the beginning of the episode you can see a small fracture in Moxxie's skull just above his eye.

There's no visible injury there in Moxxie's normal design but the fracture could be a reference to the childhood abuse he suffered at his father's hands, as shown in flashback in S2 E3 when Crimson smacks Moxxie's head against a concrete block.

If that was the intention it works well on a metaphorical level as a representation of the hidden trauma that Moxxie's holding inside. Or it could be an animation error.

The Hallucinations

I'm gonna keep this section fairly brief for now as I'm considering doing a full analysis of the hallucinations in a separate post some other time. But I did want to just draw attention to the fact that Blitzo's forehead tattoo, the heart on Fizz's hat and the beauty mark on Verosika's cheek are all replaced with a broken heart symbol in Blitzo's hallucination - though interestingly Blitzo's turns back to normal when he reaches Stolas at the top of the stairs.

In Moxxie's hallucination Blitzo has the same broken heart symbol on his forehead but it didn't show up anywhere else that I noticed. The half-mask that Blitzo wears is also of course a reference to Phantom of the Opera (one of many that show up in various Moxxie scenes)

D.H.O.R.K.S Offices

There were several fun details in the background of the D.H.O.R.K.S building including signs stating "SPICY WIRES", "0 days since last incident" and "!ATTENTION! No Magicians Permitted"

The agent manning the security cameras has a post-it on his desk with a To-List containing "Call Mom?", "Divorce Wife" and "Join demonzarerealdating.cum"

And in addition to the "Truth Bomb" button on the interrogation room control panel there are buttons saying "Haha Gas" "Bitch Juice" and two buttons which appear to say "Duck" and "Soup".

Blitzo's Shit

Once again, Blitzo has a new phone case. This one says "Thot Patrol"

Also in case you missed it, Blitzo's comically large rocket shooter says "My Dick" on it and the missile it shoots is labelled "Pussy Destroyer".

Stolas

Before Stolas is physically summoned, he can be seen in the reflection of the TV, looming ominously behind the D.H.O.R.K.S agents.

Also something I personally didn't notice until this scene is that Stolas' name is written in the outer ring of his seal.

Also a cool non-visual detail in this scene is that the music playing is an ominous instrumental version of the song Stolas sings in S2 E1.

Blitzo's Horse Thing

And of course this post wouldn't be complete without an update on Blitzo's horse obsession.

The first demon sighting that the D.H.O.R.K.S have recorded shows Blitzo sneaking into a field of mortal horses.

Additionally, the label on Blitzo's Emergency Bag shows a picture of a horse shooting a gun. The bag also includes the I.M.P logo, Blitzo's classic poor spelling and what might be a demonic blood stain.

That's it for episode 6 but you can see all my other Helluva Boss background details posts here.

[riddlerosehearts]

Okay now EYE must ask you - how are you liking BG3??? How far are you?? Tell me about your Tav!!!! (Please and thank you <3)

hi!! 💖 i only started the game a few days ago and it was an impulse decision i made after having previously told a friend of mine that i definitely wanted to play it but that it'd probably take me a while to get around to it (and, because i thought i wouldn't play anytime soon i hadn't really been trying to avoid spoilers). but, i have the PC version and while it generally runs just fine, my computer is kind of slow and the game is so big that it took hours to download and install. so i kind of went ahead and started to come up with a whole character idea during that time LOL. sorry if my explanations of things get a bit too rambly/disorganized. i'm actually not very far in the game at all yet, i've been spending a ton of time doing stuff in the druids grove and i'm supposed to go find halsin but i haven't even gotten karlach in my party yet! i've recruited all the main companions except for her but i am excited to meet her. gonna put the rest of this under a cut for length.

my only background with DND is that i listened to the first campaign of the adventure zone and i've watched the legends of vox machina show. i also have a friend who's super into her own DND campaign and another friend who's told me a lot about dimension 20, specifically fantasy high--and i've considered trying it out for her but haven't gotten around to it yet! i think she actually told me the same thing about the episode lengths making it easier to get into than critical role, because i had tried critical role and it was just so long that i couldn't stick with it. but, yeah, i've also looked at the forgotten realms wiki a bit but i've never actually played DND. i have played skyrim and final fantasy 14 and some other similar RPGs with customizable blank-slate protagonists, and in those types of games i always have to make OCs to roleplay as--usually i'll think up a basic idea to start with and then flesh the character out as i get into the game. they're never really self-inserts but i do often project onto them a little.

so, in games like these my first character is usually an elf that specializes in elemental/destructive magic. idk why, that's just what i've always liked. in ff14 i started out as a black mage without knowing it was the hardest class to play LMAO. soooo i went into this planning to create a high elf sorcerer, but as i started writing out ideas and thinking about what to do, i ended up creating a half-high elf bard. they're transmasc/nonbinary and in my head they use he/they pronouns, but i picked the nb option in the character creator and that causes npcs to actually use they/them in dialogue which i think is so cool. i love that the character creator is so inclusive in regards to gender.

anyway, i named them elenion, which is something i took from the lord of the rings universe because i'm a huge nerd. in LOTR it's an elvish word that basically means "of the stars". here's a couple screenshots i took when i first started. let's just ignore the fact that this hairstyle clips into elf ears (and also that the face preset is from a mod i downloaded).

i didn't really give him a tragic backstory or even the most interesting story haha--i'm wanting to do something bigger and angstier with another character on a second playthrough when i'm more familiar with the lore and world of the game. and i'll probably also end up changing or expanding on some things about this character later, but for now i just kind of made a normal guy with normal problems. i had this idea that his father, a human who attracted the attention of a beautiful elf woman, was also a bard and was a very successful musician in his youth. so elenion has always shared his father's passion and dreamed of being like him, being able to effortlessly tell incredible tales and inspire crowds of people through song, but no matter how much he studies and practices he never feels good enough. if he seems confident it's usually just because he's gotten really good at faking it. he's also pretty reserved and often avoids having to talk about himself by asking a lot of questions. see, i kind of wanted to specifically find a way to not roleplay the usual sort of loud, flirty, goofy bard, lol. not that i dislike those kinds of characters or anything though!

however, bards are meant to be super charismatic, witty, and persuasive and of course the game strongly encourages that with the dialogue options and skill bonuses you get. so my way of explaining this is to have elenion be a bit like raine from the owl house, in that they may be shy, but they're very firm in their ideals and are no pushover when it comes to protecting themself or their allies. they're clever and have a snarky side to them, and they're genuinely friendly and caring in a way that gives them a sense of quiet charisma. which reminds me that one of the spells i gave them at the start was sleep, and it's made me imagine that when they were a kid they tried calming a crying baby by playing a lullaby on their lute and accidentally ended up casting their first spell.

oh, and, i also wasn't really sure at first where in the world i wanted elenion to come from but i decided on something pretty quickly after getting multiple of those dialogue options suggesting that the protagonist is baldurian! i pictured them growing up in a somewhat small town with their family but moving to baldur's gate as an adult, hoping that if they left the comfort of their home and started to journey out into the world a little they'd eventually find their spark and become the bard they wanted to be. unfortunately they've had little luck so far because even after all this time they can't see that maybe their whole fixation on trying to be just like their father and achieve the exact same kind of success that he had is holding them back. the fact that their father died the year after they moved away hasn't helped either. and now, in the middle of traveling to a historical site that they'd wanted to see in person and use as inspiration for a song, they've been abducted by mindflayers and are struggling with the massive upheaval that this has brought into their relatively mundane life.

so. yeah. my tav for this first playthrough may not be the most unique or exciting character but i like him! i like figuring out what kind of choices he'll make and thinking up new ideas for what he likes and how he sees the world. also, i find it funny how in your reply to my ask you said you thought you'd be into gale but then you fell for astarion--because i thought that i'd be all over the edgy, brooding, snarky vampire man, but it turns out gale is so charming and funny that i'm probably going to romance him first. i'm also pretty intrigued by shadowheart and wyll but i'm so early in the game that i can't even say who i think my overall favorite companion will be because they all seem so interesting!! even karlach despite the fact that i haven't actually met her yet, i've seen a bunch of cool gifsets of her and my brother told me he's been romancing her on his playthrough. i really need to go find her soon.

i'm sure you can tell from everything i wrote here that i am definitely enjoying the game LOL. i can already tell that there's just so many different things to do and see, that i will both need and want to do a lot of different playthroughs and that it's going to be something that sticks with me. nothing wrong with using guides and walkthroughs btw! i do it too because i'm worried about missing too many things and have the world's worst sense of direction even with a minimap. honestly i probably need to look up some guides for certain mechanics that i don't feel like i've really figured out yet. there's a sarcophagus trap in the ruins early in the game that got me SO stuck and got my whole party wiped and then i looked up a video and found out you could turn off the whole trap system by pushing a switch... i felt so stupid askjdfgf.

anyway, i think this got to be way too long of a reply so i will stop here! but if you ever wanna tell me more about your tav or anything definitely feel free to and i hope you're having an awesome day!

[just-1other-nerd]

Good Omens live blog ep. 7

The engine starter thing he held in the season 1 finale when he stopped time and Aziraphale held the flaming sword was something he had the whole time as the architect?! I love this detail!

The way Aziraphale was so irritated when Crowley only had eyes for the universe, he's like "I thought you were talking about me", like we, the fandom, decided that the Blitz was the moment Aziraphale fell in love but you can't tell me he didn't have a crush right there

The consistent character of Crowley being like, "If it ends in 6000 years, what's even the point of it?" when it's said in season 1 episode 1 that he hasn't got anything against Armageddon in general but doesn't actually want it to happen, just to actually take part in saving everything all. But I also see his rebellious spirit in the opening sequence. And the callback/foreshadowing of the "I only ever asked questions" bit is great

O my God! Crowley did the wing thing first! Losing my mind!

Aziraphale renting the shop to Maggie is so sweet (and I love that "You don't own me" is playing in the background)

The bit about the government people meeting in this park just keeps coming back, I love it

Crowley is wearing a snake belt!

That hug made my skin crawl

Imagine just having a normal day and then you open the door and your naked ex-boss is standing right in front of you, what a nightmare

Funny how objectively Crowley is a loser who lives in his car but it still feels like he is having the upper hand when he's talking to Shax. Also, how schadenfroh he is about Gabriel is in trouble, at least for now...

What is up with that fly in the box?

Crowley knows Aziraphale so well, and he likes to brag about it

Strings version of Bohemian Rhapsody playing, yesss

The way our demon immediately offers his help

Nooooo, Maggie made a move, but Nina has a partner

The way Crowley just wants to be safe and together with Aziraphale... and they argue like a married couple

He tries so hard to control himself and to be not so impulsive, but Aziraphale just makes him too emotional, so he can't...

Isn't the pub on the box of matches the one from the "everyday" thing? Btw, Michael only waited for Gabriel to be out of the way, I just know it

"Extreme sanctions", that's so clever of the writers and the marketing team! Also Beelzebub is a vibe

I relate a lot to Maggie. Also, Lindsay sounds toxic

Queen song!

They even apologise like husbands! The dance kills me, also I guess the angel knows more than just the gavotte

Husbands plotting, slay kings, slay

Noooo, they know!

Imma go watch the next one...

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

ST Season 2 Wardrobe Analysis

Eleven & Hopper

If you have not read my analyses for season 1, the first one can be found here, but the gist of it is:

El has yet to figure out who she is as a person and spent season 1 trying on the clothes of other people like she was trying on their lives.

Pink and blue are colors used together to show the expected and the "normal," showing up profusely in the Wheeler household and wardrobe.

FLASHBACKS

To start off, this flashback from episode 3 presents us with general trends we're going to see for each character. Hopper in a plaid flannel and El with layering. It's also pretty clear that El's wearing whatever she's been given. This being very early on in her stay with Hopper, the clothes have no character at all. They don't even have color. They are absolutely void of personality.

We see El wearing a white thermal in another flashback, something else that will become a trend, so I love seeing its origin here. Hopper's shirt is abnormally plain. He tends to wear plaids, pretty much whenever he's out of uniform. I actually struggled with why he's in solid red, so to help answer that, I hunted for the song playing in the background. And I was disgusted to find that it is "Papa" from the season 1 soundtrack, which plays during this scene:

I hate that. It does sound like a slightly different version of the track with a little less distortion, but this is supposed to be about clothes. So El is experiencing this flashback after finding out her mother is alive and in the scene, Hopper is telling El her mother is "gone." I don't think Hopper's dishonesty (that isn't even technically a lie) and Brenner's horrific behavior in the above scene can be even remotely compared, but El is feeling lonely and sorrowful in both sequences and is being offered the wrong kind of comfort by a father figure. So coming back around to the red shirt, this is the first "red flag" in their relationship. It's the moment Hopper chooses not to be honest, and a lot of the struggle between them later stems from this. And this red flag imagery isn't only in the shirt. It's the lighting.

EPISODE 1

On to the present day. I'm going to come back to El's look here later, so I'm not going to say much now, just that this outfit is once again lacking color or prints.

EPISODE 2

I'm getting sidetracked again, but I just want to shout out the cinematography for a second. Utilizing the same camera placement really emphasizes the mundanity, the feeling of doing the same thing over and over again with no change (EACH LIFE A FADED LESSER COPY OF THE ONE BEFORE), that El has been feeling. Okay, I was joking with that quote, but I could write a whole analysis about how that's exactly how El was feeling here.

El's finally wearing some color and print, but continuing the pattern from season 1 (dressing like the people around her), she's now dressed just like Hopper. They're both in jeans and flannel in brown, beige, blue, and orange/red. I find the above screenshot of them at the table together interesting because Hopper's navy shirt heavily contrasts him against the walls while El blends in more. The curtains behind her even contain the same shades of orange and blue as her shirt. She appears to be fading (*cough* each day a faded lesser copy) into Hopper's house, which is precisely how she feels. Hopper, on the other hand, matches his home but isn't part of the woodwork.

EPISODE 3

Remember the pink and blue thing I said? This blanket really sticks out in this cabin. El is sleeping with a pink(?) stuffed rabbit(?) as well. There's no way to really know if Hopper bought these things for El or if they were Sara's, so I'll look at it both ways.

They were Sara's: if these were once Sara's belongings, this is yet another example of El trying on other people's lives. In this case, she is trying on the role of Hopper's daughter, but they haven't actually come to an understanding yet, so this still feels like a role she's playing and not a genuine part of her identity.

They're new: if Hopper bought these things for El, this is an indication that he doesn't understand or know her yet. It shows the lack of communication in their current relationship.

Either way, these items feel like dressing. They stick out in the house. Them being in nuclear family coloring shows that Hopper is trying to insert his old understanding of family into this new situation rather than trying to work out something fresh with El.

El is wearing a dainty pastel floral print on her pj thermal, which fits in with the bedding. But then she gets dressed for the day.

And what I love about this is that she didn't change her clothes. She just put this very boyish t-shirt on top of the floral top (that she slept in). This is a trend we'll see her repeat. She spends the episode adding layers. The thermals, as I mentioned before, are fairly common for her. They feel like a truly EL piece of clothing (and this may be a season 2 analysis, but just think about the last shot of her from season 4: alone, determined, all layers but the thermal shed). But she stacks other things on top of the thermals all the time. The t-shirt and then a plaid jacket (plaid being an element of Hopper) that show that she's covering herself by emulating other people or by bending herself to their expectations or desires.

EPISODE 4

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?????

She's wearing a tiny-floral-printed thermal under a blue v-neck under a flannel. In S2E4 El makes the decision to hunt down her mom, setting out on her own, making a huge life-changing decision for herself. Acting with agency and leaving behind her father figure. In S4E3, she makes another huge decision, this time to get her powers back, leaving Mike behind. And in S4E7, she leaves NINA to save her friends against Brenner's advisement, taking agency again and leaving behind a father figure again. And the season 4 outfit resembles this one from season 2 remarkably.

*Side note that this is the same flannel from episode 2

EPISODE 5

El goes to find her mom in episode 5. She is wearing the same outfit she wore in episode 1, plus the flannel from episodes 2 and 4. Plus the jacket from episode 3. What this tells us is that El doesn't have a lot of clothes. Or maybe that El doesn't care about her clothes. Or that El has a few items of clothes she likes a lot and clings to. I think it's likely a combination of all of that. She came from the lab where she never had a variety and never got to choose. I think the way she mixes and matches a few items is her trying different things on a very small scale, but she's also drawing inspiration from the only person around her.

When she goes to find her mother, Becky is notably wearing the Colors of Conformity. She was pretty disbelieving in season 1 when Joyce and Hopper came to visit, but this time around, she is actually willing to listen to El. However, she is not fully trusting and calls the Hawkins PD to let them know El is there, causing El to run off. Her use of this color palette feels like a way of telling us that Becky is trying to force herself into normalcy despite the circumstances she is living with.

EPISODE 7

The makeover episode. This is yet another example of El getting dressed up in somebody else's clothes. Kali tries to bring El into her group, something El is initially interested in. She feels like she's been repeatedly set aside, lied to, and ignored, so she is naturally drawn to this idea of community. But joining the group means changing herself, which she tries to do (visually demonstrated via makeover), but ultimately decides against.

EPISODE 9

Hopper has been wearing scrubs since episode 6. But for the finale, he changes into jeans and puts on his Hawkins PD jacket (over the scrubs shirt). This is a jumble of everything he's worn all season: his own clothes, the scrubs, and the uniform. He has been struggling with juggling the various aspects of his life all season. He has his job, then he has the lab, and he has his home life. All of these are kept separate. At the lab, he has the Joyce and Will part of his life. At home, he has the El part of his life. And at work, all of that is a secret. But with his relationship with El out in the open and her returning to the lab with him, these separate identities he's been trying to maintain finally get to mesh.

Remember me making a whole thing out of the red shirt earlier? Lol imagine me when I got to the end and saw him wearing solid red again. Losing it. Don't worry, Papa isn't playing, but hey, how 'bout that line, "Congratulations, Pops?" While this is definitely a positive, feel-good scene versus the rather sad one before, both are turning points in the Hopper-El relationship. What we saw before was the start of dishonesty and what we're seeing here is the introduction of legitimacy. Do I actually think these two scenes are being compared intentionally by using red shirts? No, not really. But that's where my brain is.

Another connection I made that is very unlikely to have been intentional is the v-neck. That's not something we've seen him wear before, except:

And Hopper was, likely without even realizing it, rather parental towards Will during the lab scenes. Not in terms of making decisions or imposing, but by the care and support he offered. Plus, if we return to his wacky combo outfit from earlier, the v-neck sweater really is something of a combination between his usual wardrobe and the scrubs. So that blend of his worlds stuck.

I feel like it sounds like I'm mega-stretching here, but this is just my read, not necessarily what I think the wardrobe department decided. And I'm feeling compelled to defend that.

I talked a little about this dress when I discussed Mike's Snow Ball outfit. The grey of her dress matches his sweater and the red of her belt/polka dots matches his tie. Them matching one another is a very simple way of showing that they are focused on each other.

I am dying to know who picked this dress out, though. Where did it come from? Who shopped for it? Hopper? Or is this like when he had someone else go buy a shirt for him in season 3? I'm just...so curious. What we DO know is that it wasn't El because Hopper had to convince Owens to let her out for this one night. She was not on a dress shopping spree. So as we come to the conclusion of season 2, we have still not seen El's own sense of style. I do think her hair here is really interesting. It's similar to the way Kali and co had it slicked back, but it's curly too. It's her hairstyles from season 2 (flashback hair excluded) combined.

This is Hopper's second outfit since he reunited with El and also does not contain any plaid. If I hadn't already seen season 4, I'd guess that this meant that the plaid signified his single loner-in-the-woods era and now that it's over, he isn't wearing flannels anymore. However, his season 4 finale look contained one, so I'm full of shit I guess. Can't win 'em all. I have no other hypotheses about this outfit.

Other Season 2 Wardrobe Analyses: Mike & Will Nancy, Jonathan, & Steve Lucas, Max, & Dustin

[prettybluelites]

I Love My Baby, I've Loved Him So Long

Watched the first episodes of OFMD S2 and I started making a playlist of the main music from each episode. Obviously it starts with Nina Simone's "I Love My Baby," a song with which I was not familiar, but wow, seemed a good choice for a slow-motion reunion tumble into the sand. Checked out the lyrics and...

I love my baby I've loved him so long

Okay, so far so good...

I love my baby I've loved him since he was born Yes, ah, born to be together, just lovely

Now, sweet baby is gone And done me, oh, so wrong

Oh. Oh no. Wait a sec.

I love you baby Tell the whole wide world there's nothing I wouldn't do

Ummm why do I feel like this isn't Stede's POV anymore Long live my crying tongue Tell the whole wide world there's nothing I wouldn't do

Oh this is getting a bit dark...

Come on back baby Now understand Come on my baby Why you walked away in the rain? Come back and hold me And take me by my hand Come back baby and take me by the hand Don't you know I love you baby Don't you understand, no

Okay, that's just normal amounts of sad, but still clearly not the POV of the person who left and then went on an odyssey to find the Loved One again.

Just say you love me And we'll go to the preacherman UM WHAT

Just say you love me And before him we'll stand Oh god oh god

We'll live our lives together As we go hand in hand Just say you love me We'll go to the preacherman Don't you know I love you baby Long live my crying tongue And we'll live our lives together As we go hand in hand

So right away, on first watch, something I noticed and loved about that whole sequence was that even though it's a dream, even though it's stylized and romanticized and idealized, we see those bits of Stede's subconscious creeping through, showing that he is not at all 100% confident that this dream version is the way their reunion would play out. Izzy calling him a twat with his dying breath was funny as hell, but hi, lingering insecurities much? Stede and Ed embrace in the sand, and instead of relaxing into it, they share those few tentative, discrepant lines of dialogue - "You mad?" "I knew you'd find me" - that's that subconscious dream-scramble thing where your mind just tries to plug something in that will sort of make sense. And then the fact that the song playing in the background is clearly from the POV of the jilted lover, not the returning one - looks like a big ol' red flag (sorry, had to) that all is not well. A second side to that same coin is something many people have already pointed out: as these first 3 episodes play out, we get to see that Stede really does know Ed and understand him on a deep level. Maybe deep down, so deep it only bubbles up in a dream, Stede recognizes that he and Ed weren't exactly on the same page after their kiss, and that their reunion is going to come with the weight of everything Ed's been through since they saw each other last.

Stede just wants Ed to acknowledge that he's been waiting for Stede to come back; Ed wants Stede to acknowledge that he wants to spend their lives together.

ETA: I also wonder if it was intentional that the long slide up into the first phrase is reminiscent of the long slide up into the first phrase of Etta James's "At Last," which is, of course, a very common first-dance-as-newlyweds selection.

I know, probably reading way too much into it, but whatever, there you go.

[frostyreturns]

The Hobbit (1977) Review

Since there has been no new Middle Earth media since the Hobbit movie trilogy I thought it was a good time to revisit this classic from the late 70's. Since the books cannot be improved upon, and the movies were done in the exact right way at the exact right time...there's no need for there to be any new movies or tv shows based out of Tolkiens middle earth. Thankfully this indisputable fact is acknowedged by everyone and no future Tolkien projects are even in the works. This as a fan is something to be thankful for because any Tolkien work produced today would be absolutely cancerous and the kind of thing that nobody should or would want to watch. And so it is into the past fans must look for a good time in middle earth.

I've read the Hobbit three times in my life, normally I only ever read a book once, maybe twice if I really liked it so to have read a book 3 times means I not only consider it to be a very good book…I consider it to be one of the best books ever written, a book that's near perfect. A book that was as enjoyable as a child as it was as a full grown adult. I've also played the hobbit video game a couple times, and of course watched the Hobbit movies a few times as well. This 1970's cartoon version of the story however I have never seen before now. Partly the reason I avoided it was because the interpretation seemed different than both what I had seen from Peter Jackson which I loved and from what I myself imagined from the books themselves. Particularly I did not care for the character designs at all. Bilbo in particular looks like a giant frog that just somehow has white skin instead of green. Elrond was the weirdest with a weird sparkly halo that surrounded his face, and Gollum was a weird homunculus fish creature, Smaug looked more like a cat wolf hybrid than a dragon. The wood elves looked like goblins on stilts and had a weird accent that was part Indian, part Russian and part French. Even the spiders look like crosses between spiders, rabbits and bats. The characters faces look somehow both creepy and severe while also being cartoonish and silly. It's a bizarre merger between a fantastic art style and horrible design choices. However character designs aside the rest of the art looks terrific and I love it. The backgrounds look phenomenal and everything looks painstakingly drawn with great care and detail.

The sound quality isn't great and at times it can be hard to hear what the voice actors are saying, the voice acting is also not very good. It's almost more like it's an audiobook being read to you with visuals than it is a movie. It comes across like it could be just one guy sitting there with the book in his lap doing all the voices himself, the way a teacher or a parent would read a book to children. Smaug for example sounds like a bored old man waking up from a nap. The background music however is very good and suits the story and the art. The foreground music and original songs I don't care for though. Although I do finally get the reference from the Lemmywinks episode of South park though. I half expected Biblo to have to answer the catatafish riddles. It just doesn't work for me as a musical.

The pacing is also a little strange, you've barely been introduced to any of the characters and already ten minutes into the story and they are up to the part of the book where they run into the trolls. Which also look kind of stupid. Actually now that I look the art somewhat reminds me of a studio Ghibli anime, it looks like it had to have been animated in Japan at least. It's also got the signature classic cartoon style of the Rankin and Bass Christmas specials. It's like a combination of studio Ghibli anime and Rankin Bass holiday cartoon special. I'm not sure if I expect Totoro to show up or if I expected it to be animated with stop motion puppets.

The movie doesn't spend much time on major parts of the story, things are glossed over probably for time and animation costs. Major plot points are treated like slight diversions and some are resolved in minutes. At the approximate 45 minute mark they are dealing with the spiders, which leaves only about 30 minutes for the encounter with the wood elves, the stay in lake town, the journey into the mountain, the encounter with smaug, the death of Smaug, the battle of the five armies and the conclusion and journey home. That's a lot to stuff into 30 minutes. It's like the opposite of the problem with the Hobbit movie trilogy which stretched things out too much.

One other weird thing was the song placement, at one point there were lyrics about the trolls debating how to kill the dwarves but it was played during their escape from the goblins with the Eagles much later on in the story.

All in all I think this is a weird vestige from the stories past, something interesting if not anachronistic to watch once if you've never seen it before or as a way to introduce kids to the story. However I don't think it's good enough to be considered a definitive version of the story. I didn't hate it, it was okay and I can see myself liking it if I had watched it as a kid.

[so-far-frogs-and-oscar]

W 2022 roku na moim blogu pojawiło się 3205 postów

O 3149 postów więcej niż w 2021!

174 utworzone posty (5%)

3031 zreblogowanych postów (95%)

Najczęściej reblogowane blogi:

@thoughtkick

@nikita-mearss

@funnytwittertweets

@i-love-frogs-but-loki-more

@gayshipsandanxiety

252 moje posty w 2022 miały tagi

#disney – 108 postów

#disney+ – 81 postów

#disney plus – 79 postów

#marvel – 73 posty

#mcu – 57 postów

#marvel cinematic universe – 40 postów

#our flag means death – 30 postów

#what we do in the shadows – 30 postów

#wwdits – 29 postów

#ofmd – 27 postów

Najdłuższy tag: 132 znaki

#i know people compare loki to tyrion but i genuinely think he's more like theon in the fact that they're literally both hostages....

Moje najpopularniejsze posty w 2022:

Nr 5

It's really interesting that future ofmd fans will just see episode 10 and play another episode right away as if nothing had happened

1382 notki (opublikowane w 6 czerwca 2022)

Nr 4

Okay but that fish lady from Encanto has kept her dead fish for 10 years to sing a song with it

1696 notek (opublikowanych w 22 stycznia 2022)

Nr 3

ONLINE THINGS THAT HELP ME ON UNIVERSITY, because someone may need it

resoomer.com –> summarizes the text (you can set your native language)

wordcount.com –> counts words in document

speechinminutes.com –> counts how long it will take to read the prepared text (you can also set whether you speak slowly, quickly or normally)

essaytopicgenerator.com –> generates the topic of the essay based on keywords (the field or type of essay can also be included)

researchgate.net –> free texts that can be referred to in the essay

academia.edu –> free texts that can be referred to in the essay

Google Drive / Microsoft OneDrive and Office365 –> free cloud with tools to make slides, documents etc.

sites.google.com –> make free, simple website without any skills

carrd.co –> make free, simple and pretty website without any skills (max. 100 elements)

Online converters –> change file type to different file type

icons8.com –> free icons (for slides, sites etc.)

remove.bg –> remove background from photo

loader.to –> download YouTube video or playlist as video or sound files

forms.google.com –> make simple form/poll/quiz/etc.

quizlet.com –> make flashcards and test yourself (some things are only in pro version now)

Streaming services –> documentary films, educational podcasts etc.

artsandculture.google.com –> explore art, online museum tours etc.

plantsnap.com –> recognizes plants and mushrooms

ecosia.org –> web browser, but they plant trees when you use it

tunemymusic.com –> transfers music playlist (or text song list) to another service

shazam.com –> recognizes songs

slidesgo.com –> slides templates

Darkling Dark Mode –> dark mode for Google Chrome

Darkling Dark Mode –> dark mode for Microsoft Edge

thesaurus.com –> finds synonyms (you can easily find similar websites in your native language)

Apple reminders, google calendar etc. –> help organize

Online libraries –> free books

html-online.com –> write html, css and javascript online

supercook.com –> shows recipes with things you have at home

Przeczytaj całość

2024 notki (opublikowane w 10 sierpnia 2022)

Nr 2

Matt Murdock: *literally one of the biggest marvel sluts* Me: *loving him in the most innocent kind of love and giggling while looking at him*

Ironic shit

2924 notki (opublikowane w 7 października 2022)

Mój post nr 1 w 2022

Yeah, I'm fine

*Types "<character name> x reader" into tumblr search bar*

6068 notek (opublikowanych w 25 sierpnia 2022)

Zobacz Przegląd roku 2022 już teraz →

[ultraericthered]

Anime Update V2 23

Noragami Aragoto - Hiyori got back her memories of Yato and Yukine back all of a sudden, making me wonder all the more what the point of that amnesia episode even was. Ebisu wants to control Phantoms in order to turn them into assets for humanity to prevent misfortune. Kazuma frees the Gods of Fortune while Hiyori and Yukine head to Underworld, where Ebisu (who we find out had been working together with Hiiro for some time, much to Yato's dismay) is ensnared by his demented mother. Yato too might be ensnared if he insists on rescuing him...

Hunter x Hunter - Got down to some Nen Training at the Arena Tower. Events were pretty much the same between both versions, though I gotta say that Master Wing’s voice in the first series’ dub does not suit him. He sounds like a Paul Eiding character, which doesn’t fit the design nearly as well as Ezra Weisz does in the later series’ dub. On the flipside, the voice for that sexy pale skinned lady with the piercings sounded better in the 1999 dub vs the 2011 dub.

Fruits Basket - Not much to compare between the episodes that introduce Ayame Sohma since, again, they were pretty much the same between both versions. The following episodes, however...

2001: For whatever reason, this anime swapped the order of events so that Momiji revealing his past to Tohru at the hospital came after the cemetary picnic instead of the night prior to it. It works, but makes the episode feel like two separate stories in both acts that just share a common theme. And between this and the Tale Of The Most Foolish Traveler, Kimberly Grant clearly did her best voice acting in quiet, subdued moments rather than forced pushes for extravaggent emotion. Still sounds girly, but at least she made me feel things!

2019: When I saw that the Momiji content was ocurring midway through the episode, I was actually worried it’d throw me off, like early into the episode was spent preparing for the anniversary of Kyoko’s death but then this Momiji stuff interrupts and then it’s back to focus on Kyoko’s death at the cemetary! But this time what tied it all together was something the first anime didn’t show since they cut these subplots out entirely - Yuki remembers that he was the boy who’d given Tohru the baseball cap as he led her back to her mother all those years ago, while Kyo, for whatever reason, tells a sleeping Tohru that “he’s sorry.” Based on a repressed memory, perhaps?

Rozen Maiden - Watched the first two episodes of the second season, where Jun and his doll companions are just living what’s become their normal lives except that Shinku is plagued by guilt-induced nightmares concerning Suigintou, the 7th Rozen Maiden doll, Barasuishou, appears before her and Jun, as does a Hisoka-sounding white rabbit demon, and there’s a shady pair of men in town running a doll-maker shop. And clearly, these will all connect!

Revolutionary Girl Utena - Sailor Moon alumni are true masters at Formula. Saw it in Sailor Moon itself, saw it in Star Driver, and it’s just as apparant in Utena - we’ve still got the fruity Student Council meetings up high with the random background shit that goes on, the weird ass shadow plays, and the duels, we previously had the Mikage Seminar elevator rides and Utena’s regular therapy sessions with Akio, and we now have Akio and Touga giving people nightly rides across the streetlight-lit highway in Akio’s car, where those given the ride realize that Akio is End Of The World but don’t actually get to say that. Speaking of Akio, holy shit he is just a loathsome, incestuous rapist and an abuser as well as a master manipulator and I want to see that car crash so he can die in a fire. Duels I’ve seen so far were against Saionji and Miki, and they’ve actually changed up the ZETTAI! UNMEI! MOKUSHIROKU! segments so that Utena takes an elevator up with Anthy rather than climb that stairway, and the song itself has been remixed. We’re definitely in the third inning!

Love Live! Nijigasaki School Idol Club S2 - Got the time for three episodes of this, all of them serving to reinforce yet again how much better this season is compared to both the first season and the ALL STARS source material. The first one centered around Shioriko, delving into why she was put off of wanting to pursue a School Idol career and what pushes her to finally give it a try, the second one wrapped up the Idol Festival with not only another astonishing and badass moment from Lanzhu and some great character growth for Yu, but a truly magical number from the whole club, and finally came Episode 9, which true to the original series’ form, was the best one seen yet. Not only did it deliver a climax and payoff for Lanzhu’s arc, but it gave us more from her American composer friend Mia Taylor, who turns out is a bigger jerk than Lanzhu in a lot of ways and so lacking in self worth that she can’t detach Lanzhu’s career from her own, but once inspired by a talk with Rina, she’s able redefine herself, her dream, and the career path she wants to take while also convincing Lanzhu to not give up on her own dreams and career. No longer are they business partners, but friends/rivals as School Idols.

The climax at the airport really got to me on an emotional level. It was sort of like an inversion of the original series’ first season finale’s notoriously bullshit climax where rather than one girl being selfish in stopping a friend from leaving, it’s all the girls stopping Lanzhu from leaving due to selfish and cowardly reasons. She’d insisted on being a “solo idol” who keeps herself in an invisible circle to lord over all others outside of it that she wouldn’t let in close to her not because she really believed that was the best approach for an idol - she was convinced that anyone she let get close would end up leaving her anyway, so this was a coping mechanism to ease loneliness. The point made about Lanzhu also works on a meta level - just as she was she the push needed to improve the Idol Club and make them all better idols, she was the key piece needed to make this pale Jukki Hanada imitation into a good Love Live! series in its own right.

Also, Mia’s musical number blew my mind. She sings American!

MAR - In the interval period between rounds of the War Games, we got some key moments like Ginta revealing to everyone what he’d learned during his training - that he is the son of The Boss, Nanashi’s past and why he fights the Chess Pieces revealed (and we finally addressed those two thieves who work for him - I really don’t get why they were such a thing early in the series only to totally fizzle out of prominence once Nanashi was introduced), and Phantom sets a cruel trap for Ginta where he returns to him as his “Tom” character, on the run from the Chess Pieces and scared out of his mind, only for Peta to “kill” him right in front of Ginta, all to fuel his emotionaly fury at the Chess Pieces as he’s to continue fighting them so that the inevitable knife twist when he finally does face Phantom will hurt more. Completely arbitary sadism. Fuck you, Phantom. Burn in Hell!

AMC: Moriarty The Patriot - Watched two episodes, “A Rare Breed” and “The Dancer On The Bridge”. And I gotta say, both were the first cases thus far of me thinking “Liam Did Nothing Wrong Here.” The first one was sketchier since it’s a cold-blooded, premeditated murder, but the murder victim (voiced by Chris Sabat) was just such a despicable cretin who was making his servants life Hell and allowed their child to die even when he could’ve saved him, it was hard not to love the heck out of the sweet, cold vengeance that Liam served him. In the second one, there’s no ambiguity at all - Liam didn’t technically “murder” the guy, he had his pal Sebastian Moran shoot around him until he slipped and fell off the bridge to his watery grave all on his own. Dude was also an Asshole Victim who caused an innocent girl to die that exact same way, so it was very karmic.

AND

Happy Sugar Life - The first half of the episode was a different episode altogether from what followed, as it was from the POV of this random douchey, perverted, entitled sketch artist whose apartment Satou and Shio are still living in...because Satou murdered him. It’s his remains that were in those body bags. The second half, as I’d demanded, gave me more Asahi, showing us his budding relationship with Shouko and what a sweet boy he is, making the knowledge of what’s to come and the moral lines he will end up crossing in his obsession with getting his Shio all the more tragic. But the most distressing part was, surprisingly enough, what goes on with Mitsuboshi, a character I can barely stomache yet also feel the most immense pity for due to how damaged and in need of help and healing he is. And in this, he recognizes how fucked up he is and internally vows to clean up his act, and even that he struggles with...but then Satou comes along and preys upon his weakness, making appeals to his pedophilic lust for Shio and promising him that he’ll get to spend close and personal time with her should he assist her in getting rid of Asahi. This girl is so. effing. diabolical, it’s amazing. And then Asahi gets a call related to Shio, from Mitsuboshi no doubt...

[wenellyb]

Is Sambucky Canon or Not?

TL;DR: Yes, it is

I've seen some people saying that they only see friendship between Sam and Bucky, and I can understand that. Because depending on your education, the environment you grew up and the kind of media you’re usually exposed to, you will have a different interpretation of different situations, in real life or in TV. Just let me insert a short story before I dive into the Sambucky topic:

My best friend's uncle is in his fifties and has been living with his roommate (a man) for more than 10 years. They lived together, went on holidays together but officially were just roommates. My best friend wondered if they were a couple, but never talked about it to her parents because it wasn't her business. Two years ago, they decided to come out and get married. My best friend's parents and his parents were genuinely surprised, they were not expecting that, at all, not even a little bit. Let me tell you that it didn’t even cross their mind that it was a possibility, at all. For them, it had always just been two men who had decided to live together because they were single. And preferred to have a roommate rather than living alone.

What I want to say with this story is that people will see what they want to see, or what they're used to see, or what they were raised to see. It’s human.

What I mean is that you will have different perception of a same event, depending on your own circumstances. And I think the writers of TFATWS were counting on that a little bit when it came to Sam and Bucky’s relationship. They obviously didn't want to make some big announcement or big love declaration.

And yes, of course, I have my own circumstances as well, influencing the way I see things. I have shipped SamBucky since Civil War, when they were supposedly enemies. I never expected anything to happen between them on screen. But then they got a show together and I was so so happy about it but I didn't expect anything other than friendship between them.

I was perfectly fine with that because a show was already more than enough: my man Sam Wilson was becoming Captain America, the show was great, the characters were great, their interactions were great, and this wasn't a love story anyway but a superhero show. I thought that here was no way the showrunners would ever go there. I changed my mind after episode 5. I tried to stay objective, but it was clear to me that the writers were hinting at a relationship that went beyond friendship between Sam and Bucky. In some of my previous posts, I explained that there are some scenes and writing choices that make absolutely no sense if you read them as a scene between two friends. I can link them if anyone’s interested.

Side note: I would like to know if one person on this website can tell me what was up with Bucky's behavior with Torres (in episode 5)? What other explanation is there, if not jealousy? It's a scene they chose to keep, so it was probably written this way, there must be a reason. Please I’m begging someone explain it to me. I'm genuinely asking, because otherwise that scene alone is canon Sambucky.

After episode 5, I was convinced they would make Sambucky canon, one way or the other and I started speculating about the ways they could do it. What I said was that if they did make Sambucky canon, they would do it in a very subtle way, in order not to make it too obvious because that’s generally how Marvel movies deal with love stories. And also because they wouldn’t want to scare away their homophobic audience ( I guess Disney needs their money...who knows)

So here are the scenes of how I imagined SamBucky becoming canon and the comparison with reality:

1.

- What I thought we could get : AJ and Cass calling Bucky "Uncle Bucky" - What we got: AJ and Cass running up to Bucky and playing with him. This point is interesting because it’s also related to the point I made about how the environment you grew up in influences your perception of things. I grew up in a big family and I know that, at least in my family, kids don't run up to an adult like that just because it's their uncle’s friend or just because he's nice... There's a real bond there. They haven't seen Bucky just that one time when he slept on the couch. They're obviously close. But some people might just see this as kids being kids. Also, if you watch at how the kids were fake punching him, they were really coordinated with Bucky. They have done this plenty of times. 2.

What I thought we could see: A non-explicit scene where we were supposed to draw our own conclusions. I thought they could show us Bucky staying over for the night, and the last scene would be an empty couch, meaning we would have to understand that Bucky slept in Sam's room this time.

-What we got: Bucky arriving in Sam's car ( A few people on Tumblr pointed out that it was the car Sam was driving in episode 1) So here again we have a scene that a lot of people will not notice. But they still chose to put it there. 3.

What I thought could happen: Sam asking Bucky to stay in Delacroix

What we got: Bucky wrapping things up in New York, as if he was leaving the city for good and coming to Sam's party as if he already knew everyone there. You can read my take on this here. 4. What I thought could happen: The scene in the trailer where we see them looking in the same direction and then we get a shot from very far away where they're holding hands but it’s not so obvious because they are being filmed from a disctance. -What we got: The scene in trailer and then a blurry shot of Sam holding Bucky and then fondling with his neck to find the best spot to rest his hand on. So none of the scenes I was imagining happened exactly like I had imagined, but it felt like all of them happened but in a different versions, which is still crazy to me. If it had been only one scene. I could probably understand the people who see them as just friends. Actually, I still do understand the people who see them as just friends, because everyone has their own interpretation. What I am saying is that they are NOT being portrayed as just friends. There are TOO many scenes in the 6 episodes for it to be a coincidence. One or 2 would be ok but friendship doesn’t explain everything:

The therapy scene (not the therapy scene itself since it was improvised) but the therapist saying she had heard a lot about Sam and wanting them to do a couples’ therapy

Bucky following Sam no matter what

Sam saying ok as soon as Bucky says "do it for me"

Sam asking "what about Bucky?"

Bucky starting to touch Sam whenever he has the chance

Bucky being the one to bringing the suit for Sam

The boat repairing montage

Bucky wanting to stay at Sam's place, when a hotel room would have been more comfortable than a couch

The second day of boat repair in closed quarters with an intense staring scene.

And there are so many other scenes, soft touches, looks,...

These writing choices are not a coincidence, it’s not involuntary, and it’s not fan service ( Fan service is the roll in the flower field scene, or the therapy session). This is them telling a story.

Let’s not even talk about the scenes in Endgame:

Sam comforting bucky at Tony’s funeral

Sam looking up to Bucky for approval before accepting the shield from Steve.

So yes, Sam and Bucky are canon in the sense that Peter and Gamora were canon in the first movie, or Wanda and Vision were canon in Captain Civil War. Meaning that there was no big moment, kiss or anything, but the show is consistently throwing elements clearly showing Sam and Bucky as a romantic item and hinting at a lot more than friendship between them.

It is normal that some people have a different opinion. Because it is extremely rare, in big productions like this to have two male leads with romantic feelings towards each other, so not a lot people who see it will interpret it as such (I don't think it ever happened). You’ll see what you’re used to seeing.

I guess it also depends on what you expect from a love story. For me, the storyline between the characters, their scenes, their chemistry, the way their feelings towards each other are described, are the most important. The kiss scene is just there as a bonus, but I don't need it when the love story is told perfectly. If you’re used to seeing love stories with many kissing scenes, that’s what you will be expecting to see in most love stories.

If you're only used to seeing male friendships in superhero or action movies. The 1000th time you see men interacting in that type of movie or show, you are more likely to assume it is a friendship and nothing more, no matter how many codes and tropes usually associated with romantic movies, the writers and show makers are using.

Add to that the conviction that Disney would never approve Sambucky in a million years, and there you go, I can understand the people who see only friendship.

But, just think about it, if we had the same show, same scenes, same dialogues, but minus the action scenes and the project was being marketed as an Indie movie, would you think they were just friends or a blossoming couple?

If you read Sambucky’s relationship like a friendship: some scenes don't make sense. If you read it like a developing romantic relationship: it all makes sense. "When you hear hoofs, think horse, not zebra" If a writer or a film director chooses a last scene with a romantic setting and the two leads are staring at a sunset, smiling repeatedly at each other and then walking away together with one of them touching the other's neck, with a love song in the background, maybe friendship isn't the first thought they had in mind.

Some people may say “I see them as just friends” and other people may say “ I see them as lovers” and both are fine, because people have different perceptions, and that’s ok.

What I am saying is this post is that the show and the writers are portraying them as more than just friends, they’re portraying them as two characters who are romantically involved.

Perceive what you want but that’s how they are being presented in the show.

Bucky’s therapist said that the exercise she gave them was for couples who want to figure out what kind of life they want to build together. Then, the show ends with Sam and Bucky, staring at a sunset together, looking in the same direction.

“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. “  - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

What else do you need???

This show had more romance than half of the Marvel projects out there. Not every love story needs a kiss (for now...)

We'll see in their next projects which direction the writers want to go with this. But since it was said that the writer on the movie is the same as the writer from episode 5, there's no doubt in my mind that we'll keep seeing this dynamic. I don't think they would have made the same choices if this had been a movie. But I won't complain that we got this. I hope they keep this going even if it stays subtle like in the show. Just hope they will add one explicit scene where one of the characters acknowledges their relationship. But even if we only ever get this show, it’s already a great love story. Let me know what you guys think and sorry for the typos and grammar mistakes, I was tired when I wrote the last part. I hope it still makes sense!

If you think they're only being portrayed as friends let me know why! I would also like to know about the way you see this!

[aspoonofsugar]

Red and Gray in a Black and White World

Carmen Sandiego likes playing with colors.

In particular, VILE is black, while ACME is white.

This is why Carmen’s codename is Black Sheep, which later becomes ironic when she grows to be VILE’s literal “black sheep” and their thorn in the side. At the same time, Shadowsan too has a codename suggesting something dark in color. Of course, his name also foreshadows that he is the one protecting Carmen from the shadows.

Similarly, the ACME’s agent closest to Carmen is Julia Argent aka “silver”. She is not completely “white” and she is able to see the complexity of the world, differently from Devinaux and Zari.

As a matter of fact the whole point is that Carmen refuses a black and white vision of things. She doesn’t want to join VILE, but she doesn’t want to be a part of ACME either:

She wants to use her “wicked skills” for good.

This is a fitting theme for a show whose aim is to help kids learn about geography and how rich Earth is. It conveys the idea of complexity.

In other words, Carmen explores the world and its wonders at her own pace and with her own rules. This is expressed by her color being “red”. Everything about her is red. Her codename, her clothes and even her adoptive family:

Similarly, Gray is another character, who is neither black nor white, but (obviously) gray (duh).

This is made clear in Chief’s speech above and his moral complexity is also what makes his dynamic with Carmen so interesting.

“GRAY” AND “BLACK SHEEP”: NOT MY NAME ANYMORE

Carmen and Gray’s relationship is one of mutual attraction (platonic or romantic does not matter), but also of conflict.

They want the other by their side:

But they can’t agree on which side they should both be:

This is because they both refuse a part of the other. This refusal is well expressed through the name symbolism of both characters.

On one hand Gray keeps calling Carmen Black Sheep:

He refuses her new identity because he does not understand it:

On the other hand Carmen refuses Gray’s VILE persona, but also his civilian one.

This is interesting because her refusal of “Crackle” is something Carmen does willingly:

She does not genuinely understand it, just like Gray does not understand her being Carmen Sandiego.

At the same time, though, Carmen somehow also refuses Gray’s civilian identity and keeps calling him Gray instead of Graham:

Even if the brainwashing makes their friendship easier, Carmen still feels something is amiss. The person in front of her is not really “Gray”, but somehow a “white” version of him. It is not by chance that she is able to partially rebuild their past relationship by involving him in a dangerous mission:

And in this mission Carmen needs Gray’s “wicked skills” that are still a part of him. She becomes Gray’s link to his previous world:

Just like he is the one who symbolically introduces her to what truly means to be a criminal:

And to its harsher aspects:

At the same time, it is interesting that when brainwashed Carmen still refuses the codename Crackle:

And she only uses it when she thinks he has betrayed her:

In that moment it is as if Gray truly became “black” for her and changed from her partner in crime to an enemy.

In short, both characters can’t truly pintpoint who the other really is.

Who is Carmen really? And is Gray good or bad?

The answers to these questions are difficult because Carmen and Gray themselves are not sure until the end of the series.

THE MISSING MATRIOSKA AND BROKEN LIGHTS

Carmen does not know who she is, while Gray is caught up between his wish to be a criminal and his empathic side.

These internal conflicts are well conveyed through specific motifs linked to the two characters.

Firstly, Carmen’s journey of self-discovery is commented by the burnt matrioskas motif:

The matrioskas are what links Carmen to her biological family. They’re the only things she has had since she was born and it is later revealed they’re a toy her father used to calm her down.

At the same time, the matrioskas symbolize Carmen herself. Like her “oldest traveling companions”, she too is made of multiple identities who live inside her and change as she grows. She starts as Lambkins, grows into Carmen Sandiego and finally discovers her identity in  the finale:

Both in terms of her origins and who she wants to be:

The missing matrioska represents both. On one hand it is the link to Carmen’s past and it is symbolically the smallest one (like a baby). On the other hand seeing it makes Carmen remember who she wants to be.

In short, the matrioska is Carmen’s missing piece both when it comes to who she was and to who she will be.

As far as Gray is concerned, him being caught between “light” and “darkness” is conveyed by his electrician’s motif:

Gray’s criminal career started when a light bulb went off. This is an ironic inversion of a light bulb switching on when one has an idea. Still, it also symbolizes a fall to darkness. Gray’s job was supposed to switch lights on, but he chooses to turn them off, so that he can steal.

This motif comes back in season 2 ep 7 where Carmen’s mission is to stop Doctor Bellum from causing dangerous black-outs. This is tied once again to Gray’s character. As a matter of fact not only the objective is to avoid physical blackouts, but also to stop Graham turning back into Crackle once again. The blackout which must be avoided is the one of Gray’s personality.

At the same time, this motif is not as straightforward as it may seem:

As a matter of fact the whole reason Gray has turned into Graham is a metaphorical “black-out”. This is an interesting idea. Gray has left criminality and can have a new beginning and Carmen sees it as a positive thing. However, this whole new identity is a lie built through brainwashing:

Carmen has good intentions and is ultimately proven right about Gray’s good nature. However, she is still ready to accept a persona constructed through an unethical method.

She meets an idealized version of Gray, she realizes something is missing, but still accepts it. This is why she needs to see this illusion shatter and to confront the real Gray once more.

This happens when Gray gets his memories back:

The one on the Himalaya is the second real confrontation between Carmen and Gray after the one on the train.

At this point, we are shown how they have changed and how they have not.

On one hand Carmen is finally forced to accept that Graham was nothing, but an illusion:

However, she does not completely give up on Gray:

Even if confronted with the truth she still hopes Gray will change. It is just that this change to be true should happen because of her friend’s free will and not through a coercion.

On the other hand Gray has grown enough to accept Carmen:

And to realize she will never come back to VILE. However, he still begs her to stop fighting the organization. In short, he has grown a little, but is still asking Carmen to give up on her life mission, just like she wants him to give up on criminality.

The two characters have clearly grown closer, but they are still unable to see eye to eye and this is why they end the episode as enemies, despite this:

There is clearly affection between them, but this affection is not enough to let them overcome their rift. At least not in that moment.

THE FLYING DUTCH AND THE RED PHANTOM

In season 4 ep 4, while Gray is about to make his choice, we hear a song from The Flying Dutch in the background. This is not a surprise because Graham and Carmen’s relationship has also an Opera motif.

Graham works in a operahouse and famous operas pieces comment his relationship with Carmen while brainwashed. They meet at The Carmen, are reunited through The Swan Lake and finally Graham turns into Crackle again while The Flying Dutch is playing.

This last opera is important not only for Graham’s story, but also for Gray’s overall arc. As a matter of fact the story of this opera is one whose main theme is about how love leads to redemption.

This is precisely what happens to Gray in the end.

In particular, he finds himself in the position Carmen was just a while before: he meets an idealized version of Carmen.

Brainwashed Carmen is who Gray has wanted Carmen to be all along. She is loyal to VILE, close to him and in love with stealing.

However, despite Gray having all he ever wanted he quickly realizes he does not like it at all:

Black Sheep realizes she does not want anything to do with VILE after she sees how the organization has transformed Gray.

Similarly, Gray decides to betray VILE after he sees what they did to Carmen. This is interesting because, while Carmen refuses to work both for VILE and for ACME, Gray ends up working for both.

Anyway, in the end Gray leaves VILE out of love.

Not only that, but he shows to have been influenced by Carmen on a deeper level:

It is because of this that Gray survives his final confrontation with his old classmate.

All in all, Gray manages to save himself and he and Shadowsan are the two people that helped Carmen to save herself the most.

At the same time, Gray and Carmen’s story ends on a bittersweet note. They have both hurted each other, but still clearly love each other:

Despite this, they are avoiding each other. This is not something new, if anything Gray’s final choice:

Perfectly mirrors Carmen’s one in the first season:

Both times the two characters decide that the best thing for the other is for them to walk out from their lives. However, I think that both times this is wrong.

Carmen’s decision is later on proven wrong by how the story develops. Gray would have never truly changed if Carmen had not walked in his life again and he would have stayed prisoner of a lie forever.

Gray’s decision happens at the end of the story and seems to be built on this idea:

The idea is that Carmen deserves a normal life. She deserves to stop being a symbol aka Carmen Sandiego and to become a person. She can now live a normal life and meet her mother.

However, even if it seems Carmen will do just that and she even disbands her gang aka her adoptive family, in the end we are shown this:

Carmen has not given up on being Carmen Sandiego and on fighting criminality. Whatever happened after she met her mother, she goes back to her previous identity. This is because Carmen Sandiego is not just a mask she has worn all this time, but it is genuinelly a part of who she is. The difference between the beginning and the end is that Carmen previously was Carmen Sandiego because she did not know who she was, while now she is because she knows.

Carmen will always be both a good person and a thief. She is both and ironically she has told us (and Gray) this since the very beginning:

Because of this, Gray’s worrying he will make Carmen’s life complicated if he even just contacts her is probably false.

Anyway, in the end their relationship has an open ending, but both characters have both realized who they are and who they want to be and they have done so with the other’s help.

[dankovskaya]

☕️ teen titans go!

This is a good one because I have an inordinate amount of thoughts on it. At first I was definitely part of the crowd that was like "grrr we wanted teen titans back but not like this grr!!!!!!!!" because I was like. 13. So for that reason I planned on having nothing to do with it. BUT my little brother was the perfect age to watch it and it became his television program of choice at some point meaning I basically had no choice but to watch it (plus the bonding of. Us both having a Teen Titans program to be enamored with in childhood) and. Well I have no idea how many seasons there are altogether now or if it's even still running but I'd say I've definitely seen every episode from at LEAST the first 3 seasons multiple times. Both actively watching and passively in the background. So a lot of it is very grating and childish and borderline unbearable which are some of the big complaints people usually have on account of it being. You know. A show for small children. But a lot of it is also genuinely fun and cute some of the jokes really do land and a lot of the (many many) songs in it have NOOOOO business being as good as they are LMAO. Plus the little obscure-ish comics references they throw in for jokes or in the background are fun to pick up on and make me feel like a Real Comics Fan or whatever. I also just like to see tiny silly versions of characters I like it's why I still play the odd Lego game from time to time LOL.

And what's even funnier is that by the time Teen Titans Go! To The Movies (2018) came out my brother had largely outgrown it and thought it was annoying but I was literally completely 100% deadset on seeing it and dragged my family out to the theatres possibly even on opening weekend I don't remember. The ticket lady or whatever was deliberately like "Enjoy the movie!" to my brother because he was you know the only actual child present in the group and he was sooo mad at me because she thought we were seeing it for him when we were really seeing it for me. Hehe. I don't even really remember it now but I do remember enjoying it LMFAO.

But yes if I think about it using my actual brain which you should never never do. I am bothered by it fundamentally for the same reasons I am bothered by the original series which I still love for nostalgia reasons but which haunts and vexes me nonetheless. It's largely responsible for the destruction of Kory's character and design as well as all the design and age related disasters that have befallen Raven over the years (also clearly the basis of all the lame Garth designs too 😭) so I can never forgive it for that. I also fully blame the phenomenon of Raven being paired off with DAMIAN of all people on the little uh "robrae" moments in the original TT. HOWEVER. Specific to teen titans go. I do enjoy the inverse dynamic between Starfire and Robin wherein he is the one desperately and borderline horrifically in love with her while she kind of does not give a fuck and swerves him on every possible occasion. Once again. Cathartic. Great. I think this is a normal length of response for the topic.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Funkin' Sides (FNF/Sanders Sides mod concept)

As a disclaimer I have absolutely no mod-making experience/motivation so this'll stay as just a concept.

Summary: C!Thomas has lost touch with his singing passion, and it's up to BF to help him regain that confidence. But to do so, he must journey into the Mindscape and confront each aspect of his personality one by one.

This would be a total revamp of all the weeks, with new songs, characters, secrets, and animated cutscenes. Each Core Side will have their own week.

..........

Week T (Thomas)

Song: Personality

Location: Apartment Living Room (real world).

Synopsis: Thomas introduces himself and explains his Sides to BF, deciding to do a warm-up rap battle.

If Personality is finished on Hard, additional dialogue alludes to the Dark Sides and a hint on how to unlock their weeks (but he discourages BF from doing so).

"I wouldn't be too harsh on Patton or Roman. Unless you're prepared for..things you might not wanna see, hear, or experience."

The rest of the weeks and how they'd play out are under cut.

Beware of spoilers for Working Through Intrusive Thoughts and other recent TSides episodes

Week L (Logan)

Songs: Logical, Teacher, Clairvoyance, Ignorance (secret)

Location: Commons Room (Mindscape)

Synopsis: After introducing himself, Logan attempts to add BF's lingo to a flashcard, but discards it upon being questioned. He warns that he's not the most musical Side but tries his best as this serves to help Thomas.

Secret: Typing 01134 during Clairvoyance for the first time interrupts it as Logan becomes confused and annoyed that they're going off-schedule. Asking BF if he's trying to "cheat" and choosing "Yes" (or typing the same code in subsequent playthroughs) in a dialogue prompt angers him and makes the "Orange Side" take over, turning his eyes orange and the screen an orange hue.

Gameplay Mechanics (Orange Notes): During Ignorance, hitting orange arrows shakes the screen and angers BF, making him unable to focus, taking away 10% of his health.

Ignorance is similar to Clairvoyance but set to Very Hard. After beating it, it's permanently available in Freeplay.

Week P (Patton)

Songs: Morals, Pop, Selflessness, Amphibbing (secret)

Location: Nostalgic/Patton's room

Synopsis: Patton greets BF as "kiddo" and gleefully accepts the singing challenge, making a few cheesy puns before they start.

Secret: When Week P is selected after beating it on any difficulty, there's a small chance a frog will be on his shoulder. Clicking on it (a cursor appears when hovering over the sprite) unlocks the song in Freeplay.

Amphibbing Synopsis: In an alternative timeline, this replaces Selflessness. BF apparently caught Patton on a bad day, as he feels distressed over losing. But when he's goaded into a final match, he turns into his giant frog form. He feels guilty but BF apologizes first. The two decide to sing to help him get back to normal.

Week R (Roman)

Songs: Creativity, Passion, Royalty

Location: Mindpalace Theatre (similar to normal Week 1's stage but fancier).

Synopsis: Roman boasts about his own singing abilities and decides to accept BF's challenge, transforming the Commons Room into an extravagant theatre to "set the stage" for this glorious battle. BF also gains a gold microphone like his.

Unique Animations: His expressions get more annoyed as he keeps losing, eventually drawing out his sword as Passion ends and swings it around throughout Royalty.

Post-Royalty Cutscene: In the end he lets his pride go and allows BF to win. Thanks to him he feels confident that Thomas can sing again. And he warns him of "one last hurdle" to jump over.

Week V (Virgil)

Songs: Anxious, Aversion, Acceptance

Location: Virgil's room

Synopsis: Being the natural source of Thomas' low confidence. BF vows to help him regain this, not just to help Thomas but also the anxious Side personally.

Unique Animations: During Anxious and Aversion, Virgil is sitting on the stairs with the whole background being nearly dark, but it becomes progressively brighter. During Acceptance, he is more confident and smiles, standing up. His eyeshadow also becomes a shimmering lavender color.

Secret Week/Week R̶̤͎̾̎ͅ (Remus)

Songs: Intrusive, Repent, Nightmare

Criteria: Beating Royalty on Hard.

Location: Mindpalace Theatre (destroyed)

Synopsis: Remus knocks out Roman and turns the stage into a nightmarish version. He claims it's his turn to "have some fun" and makes an obligatory "blue balls" joke before beginning.

Gameplay Mechanics (Unpredictability): Due to Remus' world-manipulating nature, he can hinder BF's progress in several ways:

Intrusive (Tentacle): An octopus tentacle randomly throws trash across the screen as a distraction. Items can hit BF's icon and lower his health by a small amount.

Repent (Vine Notes): Notes wrapped in bloody vines take away 20% of BF's health if hit.

Nightmare (Intrusive!GF): In addition to the above, an illusion of GF is made (similar to Nico from WTIT) as a last-ditch effort, draining BF's health by 0.5% when it's Remus' turn. Both him and the GF share the same vocals and poses. The illusion gradually fades near the song's end.

All (Creepy Atmosphere): The lower BF's health is, the darker/greener the screen overlay becomes.

Secret Week/Week J (Janus)

Songs: Deception, Lies Lies Lies, Selfishness

Criteria: Beating Selflessness on Hard

Location: Garden of Eden (imaginary)

Synopsis: Janus tries misleading BF into thinking Thomas is using his singing talent for his own personal gain. But when BF isn't persuaded Janus decides to test him and see how well he's done.

Gameplay Mechanic (Hungry Snake): Occasionally, a gold snake will "eat" a portion of BF's side of the health bar, slowly stretching towards him. The player would have to keep the icon away from the serpent's mouth or else it's an instant game over. During Selfishness the snake may stretch to consume 90% of the health bar

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (January 12/2021) - The Bathwater Mishap

After a couple weeks off, Antfrost has made his return at last!

Needless to say, there’s a lot to be filled in on. L’manberg’s now a crater, the Dream SMP faction’s future is ambiguous, and the Badlands’ power remains strong as ever. 

But after Bad gives him the run-down, things start to go a bit off the rails when Skeppy comes online...

---

- Ponk continues his project from yesterday of a collection of gravestones/shrines to various people

- He tells chat that he is, in fact, a descendant of Helga. He and Lazar are descendants of the people from the Village That Went Mad. 

- Fundy leads Friend around through the ruins doing hijinks with maps and item frames.

- Fundy roleplays a western scene with Friend and a picture of George. 

- Afterwards, he walks around with Friend and talks to him a bit (he seems to be fluent in sheep-speak)

- Friend insults Sally and Fundy gets upset at him, trying to establish some boundaries for touchy subjects.

- Fundy brings Friend back to the ruins and returns him to safety.

- Fundy then goes to prank Ponk’s Casino. Ponk comes online.

- Ponk dies to the fall trap.

- Fundy does a fashion show with Ponk, walking down the catwalk. Fundy returns Ponk’s Yeezys and Ponk runs away. Fundy then realizes that Ponk still has Fundy’s boots.

- Ponk comes back and tells Fundy to follow him. He leads him to the Graveyard, saying “you will have your own spot.” Ponk instructs Fundy to kiss the Helga shrine to pay respects. He walks Fundy through the other shrines.

- Finally, Ponk shows Fundy the Sacrifice shrine. Fundy pays his respects.

Ponk: You will be here soon ;)

He then logs off in the shrine, leaving Fundy alone in the Graveyard.

- Fundy says he never dies. He has nine lives, he’s a cat! Well, part cat.

Apparently Fundy is 1/3 cat...oh wait, that’d only be three lives.

- Either way, Fundy wants to finish pranking Ponk

- Fundy explains that he wants to bring everyone together by making everyone hate him, so that they’ll work together. He won’t get what he wants, but at least everyone will be united. 

- He said that while he worked under Schlatt, he thought initially that Schlatt had a good plan for the country. He says that every President was going for the right things, but had their flaws within themselves that brought them down.

Wilbur went insane, Schlatt was focused on his own goals, and Tubbo never wanted any war, and those three things led them to falling into pitfalls.

Schlatt was good for certain reasons, but overall it’s hard to say.

- Fundy then says that he sees Wilbur as someone who left him alone in the world to rot alone. He doesn’t see himself as the one who betrayed Wilbur, but rather that Wilbur betrayed him by exploding L’manburg and leaving him with no father.

- On resurrecting Wilbur, Fundy says that Wilbur could be resurrected at any point -- if it works, even! Say it does work, though: 

“Do we even want that? Let’s be real, ‘cause like, Wilbur’s the cause of everything. Wilbur’s the one who started L’manburg, right? Getting Wilbur back is just gonna repeat the cycle. Ghostbur’s not done anyone harm, been friendly to everyone...might as well bring back Schlatt! ...Might as well bring back L’manburg! Like...do we need it? Is it good? Right? I don’t think it is, chat...I think it’s good the way it is.”

- Character Fundy is canonically in his 20s.

- Fundy finishes his Cube above the Casino.

- He says he’d like to create a new noteblock song on the SMP, but might have to destroy the Able Sisters Theme at the Jungle Base in order to use its materials. He heads to the Jungle Base and plays it a final time, but decides not to destroy it today. Maybe some other day.

- Antfrost has returned to the server after a two-week break! He’s missed...quite a bit.

- Badboyhalo gives Ant a tour. He’s surprised by the state of the Community House, but nothing compares to the shock of seeing the crater for the first time.

- He asks Bad about the state of the factions. If there’s no more L’manburg to lay claim to the crater, and the Dream SMP has no more enemy to oppose and has faded into the background once more, then...

The server is ripe for the taking, isn’t it?

Perhaps this is a good opportunity for the Badlands to grow in power.

- Bad then suggests they visit the Egg. Bad shows Ant the chamber, and how it’s completely full to the brim with vines at this point. Ant isn’t impressed with the job Bad’s been doing to keep the Egg at bay.

- Skeppy comes online. He does the fastest costume change the Dream SMP’s ever seen and becomes Red Skeppy for the Blood Vines Arc to continue. He asks to see the Egg and then starts making his way towards it.

- Bad, Ant and Skeppy all go down to the Egg chamber. Skeppy, once in the chamber, starts hyperventilating and yelling loudly. He logs off inside the chamber and Bad and Ant freak out.

- Ant says that he suspects the Egg and Skeppy have become too intertwined...and says that Skeppy might have to be put down. Bad protests strongly, but Ant insists that it would be a mercy killing.

- Bad says that instead, they should just let Skeppy stay in the chamber and let him live with the Egg for good. Ant says that’s no way to live.

- Ant says that they should take a vote with the rest of the Council. If they vote to kill Skeppy, Ant says that Bad can be the one to do it.

- Bad tries to suggest they try killing Eret instead. Or maybe it doesn’t have to be Eret, but killing any other person! Perhaps every other person on the SMP besides Skeppy, even!

- Ant suspects that the Egg is influencing Bad and brings him to Church Prime to be cleansed. Eret comes over to see what’s happening and Ant tells him to run. There’s a brief chase scene before they come back to Church Prime.

- Eret asks, if they need to kill someone for an experiment, why can’t it be Bad? After more debate, Eret then suggests the possibility of covering Skeppy in Ghostbur’s blue. If the blue can calm down other people, could it possibly calm down Skeppy as well? Badboyhalo suggests holy bathwater.

- Red Skeppy comes back online and comes to Church Prime to drink the Badboyhalo Bathwater.

- Skeppy drinks the bathwater and turns into a horrifying combination monstrosity of Skeppy and Badboyhalo. Skeppy starts talking like Bad, saying “muffins” in every sentence.

- They give Bad-Skeppy a picture of Catboy Skeppy and he seems to like it, putting it in his Enderchest.

- Skeppy drinks more bathwater, then turns into an “Evil?” version of Badboyhalo that swears

- Since Skeppy becomes more and more “Bad” with each bottle of Bad’s bathwater, Ant asks if Bad has any of Skeppy’s bathwater and Bad says the pools might have some.

- Skeppy drinks that water, but instead turns into a horrifying fusion of Bad, Dream, George, Antfrost and Sapnap, who’ve been in those pools. Trance Music for Racing Game starts playing.

DUDUDUDU

- The four attempt to brew the ultimate Skeppy Potion to get him back to normal, but Skeppy has disappeared again.

- Skeppy seems to have left for good this time, and the four are left wondering if they’ll be able to get him back another day.

For now, it seems the Manhunt amalgamation will roam unchecked...

- Ant gives Bad a Catboy Halo picture as a gift for Skeppy.

---

Upcoming Events:

- Council of the Egg Meeting

- Futuristic Tales From the SMP episode

[yourfavouritetragedy]

I was adding onto the DSMP Actor AU post, but it turned into Wilbur musician AU, haha rip me, and I only know SBI anyways so here’s a separate post. (It goes back to actor AU at the end.) It’s hypothetically still in the same universe though, and obviously inspired by it. If anything’s phrased weirdly, it’s cuz this was originally an addition to that. 

tbh I kinda adhered to their IRL careers too much compared to the OP but whatever it’s fine. 

Also frick the “Dream SMP” for not having a better title lmaooo

Wilbur is an indie artist really on the come up

Your City Gave Me Asthma was pretty good for a first release, popular with both new fans and fans of his acting.

He had starred in a short mystery/thriller-ish series that started off disguised as a normal sitcom: Chilly in Lincolnshire {Editor Wilbur ARG}

It had a prominent release because of Jack Massey’s involvement and previous fame, but production was abruptly scrapped before it tied everything up with a bow on top, so to speak. It’s still unclear if this was actually planned in order to tell the story the way they way wanted. 

Even before that, critics had mixed reviews, either applauding the storytelling and acting or calling it “irrationally confusing, an amateurish attempt to box unconventional storytelling into a conventional medium.”

Also SootHouse was a sitcom that achieved a cult following during the two seasons it ran before cancellation. Either you’re a fan or you’re never heard of it, and people constantly forget Wilbur was in it. 

(He was a few other old shows on his resume too. Wilbur always focuses on the newest project, so everyone always forgets about what he was in before.) 

Maybe I Was Boring EP was initially just bonus tracks on his website, but his fans liked it so much he gave it a wider release

In between, he had a few comedy songs go viral on youtube. Everybody was so confused when they realized it was the same Wilbur as musician/actor Wilbur. He laughed about it in an interview, saying “How many Wilburs do you know?” 

That’s when it came out that “Wilbur Soot” was actually a stage name. (”Ha, fair, only one.” “Make that zero-- my name’s not really Wilbur.”)

He kinda disappeared after that?? Didn’t do anything, really inactive on social media. It was semi-confirmed that he was both working on his mental health and prepping some stuff (music, auditions).

But anyways he just released a series of singles, combined into Digital Love {E-girl trilogy}-- he’s transformed his image yet again, but this time he does take ownership of all his past ventures.

The release of Digital Love bridges the end of SMP Earth and the beginning Dream SMP. 

But before that there was MCC and the other stuff.

They are shows where celebrities team up do stuff-- you know the type 

but Minecraft Monday is still inexplicably Minecraft Monday. Some Youtuber just managed to get all these up and coming celebrities to play a Minecraft tournament. 

And that’s where the Sleepy Bois (minus Tommy) met IRL so that’s where they meet here. 

SMP Earth, like Minecraft Manhunts, is also a former show they were on. I’m going to call it World Domination. Don’t @ me; I know that’s trash lol. 

They and the Dream Team met up because of their shared fanbases and were even talking a crossover, but it didn’t really work that well for the stories so they scrapped it

They make a non-canon cross over episode anyways {no IRL equivalent, I think}

Everybody loves the cons. Everytime there’s a con, five friendships are made and eight ideas are created. 

Techno backstory time

He’s done a lot of long running, though not exactly popular, serials and sitcoms: Blitz, Survival Games, and Sky Wars. 

Winstreak: 1000 {Bed Wars 1000 winstreak} was so popular they made a second season, but it never got as big as the first. He worked nearly exclusively with Hypixel Studios. 

He was doing lots of random content for their new Sky World universe {Skyblock} -- the small studio was big on experimentation -- , when a fictional documentary, The Great Potato War, went proper viral. 

They made two sequels WHILE he was doing those celebrity team challenge shows and then World Domination, and they were actually good sequels.

Got a reputation for being shallow and a sell-out, but he makes a joke of it so much he gets away with it and constantly self-promos.

Also a kinda scary to work with for the first time because of how single-minded he can get, but once you realize how socially awkward he is it’s okay.  

Now that’s he’s in a lot of stuff with worldbuilding, he practically has the wikis memorized. 

Tommy mainly did limited series and movies before World Domination, where he met the SBI.

He’d had been a fan of Wilbur for a while, and was super star-struck at first, but got over it really quickly in his Tommy style

He still is a total fanboy at concerts and whenever a new music video drops. “I’m friends with the guy! I know him, Wilbur Soot!” “Tommy, you’re famous too.” “Yeah, cuz I’m practically in the video!” “No--” 

Wilbur takes Tommy to one of his concerts and he’s so hyped the entire time, especially to go behind the scenes and on the stage. 

Sometimes he gets stressed about the pressure of being a child star, but Techno, Philza, and Wilbur promise to stand by him and they make him feel protected 

One time Wilbur’s drunk and almost hands Tommy a drink before swearing and going, “You’re a bloody child! You can’t have that! God, what would Philza think?” Tommy’s not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

Philza laughs at the story and actually lets Tommy try a little in a more controlled, responsible situation. Tommy texts his mum first, and then hates the drink anyways. (”This is rubbish! I am a man, but I’m not drinking this!” Techno: “Alcohol is disappointing. I drink orphan’s tears instead.” “Techno WHAT--”)

Philza had been the star of a zombie apocalypse show: Golden Core 

He did canonically die to a child zombie in the movie version. Yes, they made a movie version of the TV show, because the Golden Core franchise actually has had many other shows {other hardcore series}. 

Everybody tries to get the child zombie props near him because of that (they’re puppets)

He’s done a lot of other things, like in the original actor AU post, but none of them came close in popularity. 

He gives the rest of the SBI the knowledge he’s gained from being in the biz for so long. 

There’s also a running joke about SBI meaning “Spy Boys Incorporated” and them starring in a comedy spy movie

The fans would very much actually like this to happen. There’s so many fanons for it (maybe I’ll write one....) 

Back to the DSMP. Maybe I’ll call it Dreamland or smth. 

Wilbur constantly asks Tommy if he’s okay after any difficult scenes

Especially when they were hanging out together a lot in the exile arc.

All the brother scenes were cut because Wilbur kept breaking down and crying in them.

Sometimes people actually ask Techno and Tommy if they’re actually brothers. Tommy tries to go along with it half the time on the basis of “it’s be funny,” so there’s a subset of casual fans that genuinely don’t know. 

After Alivebur was killed off, Wilbur was going to leave the show to concentrate on his music

But he missed the SMP and hanging so much that he just showed up on set one day saying “I’m a ghost now,” and everyone just rolled with it

Alivebur was so popular that, seeing that Wilbur was willing, they decided to bring him back for Season 3. He’s been avoiding doing heavy scenes, but he still seems really invested and like he wants to come back to the show.

Wilbur talks with Techno about writing and lore a lot

it’s one the few times Wilbur actually seems like the older one

Wilbur attempted to get a D&D group going in the cast, but the show was already close enough, with the amount of improvisation they can get by with

Tommy’s Pigstep cover happened, but the background was Philza clapping barely in time with just Wilbur on bass instead (and of course Techno’s “BAHP”s)

It was a charity stream. They had put on their costumes (clothes only) for a previous goal. 

This one was simply called “We rap.”

Some people were almost disappointed that Tommy was the only one actually rapping, but he was so funny it made up for it. 

Okay I spent the whole morning on this and it got way too long but I think I’m finally out of ideas. sorry haha hope you enjoyed! ^_^