#anyway ICP got me through this

[sirpiglin]

Day five: Chains.

Theme: Trans rights

[zombzgutzz]

what if........i was a zombie.........in real life................and it was COOL.........................

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Gamzee Makara from Homestuck vs Maeglin Lómion from The Silmarillion/The Fall Of Gondolin

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Gamzee Makara:

LOVE: - "Okay, so Gamzee is such a divisive character that I even hesitated on choosing "love". Sad clown with an absentee father raised in a fascist dictatorship. Was mind controlled into killing his friends and then mind controlled during a toxic relationship (or two). Suffers from addiction so fandom likes to go "Oh, how scary his withdraws are. Clearly being drugged up was the only thing keeping this THIRTEEN YEAR OLD from murdering his friends (who largely ignored him, insulted him, demeaned him and acted like they wanted nothing to do with him). Having one such friend gently touch his face didn't cure him of his issues (or the mind control) so obviously he is an irredeemable monster and an abuser. This is genetic." I know you've gotten tons of Vriska, so basically insert any of Vriska's apologists' points here." - "Gamzee is a complex character who is used as a puppet both by the other villains of Homestuck and by the arthur. Once someone takes a deeper look at him they might find a tragic character who had lots of chances where he could have gotten onto a better path but those chances were not able to be given or taken. On the flip side Gamzee suffers from some poor writing that leaves aspects of the character to based off poor stereotypes, he also lacks chances to show his internal character as thr story goes on and is treated like a tool by the story. He also killed some fan favorite characters and has a version of himself (homestuck is a multi timeline story) that abused a different fan favorite character." - "I know Vriska is the obvious pick for controversial HS blorbo, but consider: He is the world's shittiest boy. No one knows why he does the things he does he might just be a murderclown but he might be mind controlled or something no one knows and people have really strong opinions on him based on what they believe. He makes me very sad because I did think he was a cool character before he snapped." - "He was written so poorly 💔" - "when i was 12 i had a crush on him i was like a gamzee apologist and i was probably right i dont remember homestuck. i used to listen to icp and think wowww this is just like my clwon boyfriend and giggle and blush and kick my legs and i still do that with my fake boyfriend but hes not gamzee and its not icp and im not 12 but he kind of sounds like gamzee but thats because hes a smoker and he wouldnt listen to icp he likes techno. anyway i used to get so sad when people said they didnt like him because of the killings and i brought him up to my old therapist a couple times thats kind of funny looking back but i would do it again (but not with gamzee. with my fake chain smoker boyfriend who likes techno). anyway anyway my mom listens icp because her old friend from highschool who died was a juggalo and whenever i hear her listen to it i think about gamzee so i havent forgot about him yet. hes wasnt my favorite character thouhg my favorite character was the gemini one (i also had a crush on him when i was 12 i tried to lucid dream to see him once) (it didnt work). ok love you bye." - "-Funny clown -Cares about his friends -Absent parental figure :( -Did some murder but it wasn't his fault really he didn't have all of his mental faculties (see next point) -Got brainwashed by a universe-destroying god that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time through the form of a rapping marionette -The author(s) fucking hates him for some reason and retconned his previous characterization to make him a one-dimensional shitty villain and used canon text to make fun of fans who like him and no I'm not exaggerating -If I don't make him my blorbo who will"

Maeglin Lómion:

LOVE: - "LISTEN okay so he DID betray the city of Gondolin to the guy who literally invented evil, and that DID result in it getting destroyed and a whole bunch of people dying or being taken prisoner (which is probably worse in this instance), and also he DID attempt to throw his cousin's seven-year-old son off the city walls to his death during the attack. BUT. I love him. Also, and more substantially, a) he didn't go out of his way to betray the city, he was taken prisoner and threatened into it, b) he had an incredibly painful history with Gondolin involving both his parents' violent deaths happening like ten minutes after he arrived there, and he was legally not allowed to leave, and c) he was SO YOUNG (only 180! that's hardly anything for an elf!) and he is SO ANGSTY and INTERESTINGLY GOTH and SELF-HATING and I LOVE him. So." - "First of all he was LITERALLY CURSED TWICE OVER so there was NO WAY he was coming to a good end okay. Sure he had a crush on his cousin but he canonically didn't say anything and she only knew because she read his mind and he wasn't able to hide it from her. He had a major éowyn moment (iconic) and was trapped in cage after cage all his life and tbh after what he saw in the Nirnaeth I'm NOT surprised he voted to stay instead of go. Or just told the king what he wanted to hear. Anyway the POINT is that breaking under mental torment to morgoth, whose force and victory he'd seen firsthand, is NOT a moral failing, and idril started conspiring against him before he'd actually done anything wrong. The attempted murder was, admittedly, not great though. But he didn't even SUCCEED like c'mon he just got homoerotically yeeted from a cliff about it. In conclusion: maeglin did nothing wrong except all the things he did wrong, and the version in which he's most openly evil is also the one where both the narrative and the other elves are racist to him so like they had it coming"

[diazzvso]

okay, so time for a proper introduction post !

(dni list is at the bottom)

My name is devin, i have many nicknames so feel free to call me pretty much whatever you���d like, i’m not very picky. Anyways, i’m mexican, ftm (pronouns are he/him), and so painfully gay.

My main interest right now is thg/tbosas and scream.

Here are some of my show and movie interests.

The walking dead, proud and also sad to say i’ve been apart of the fandom since season two. proud because the experience was something else, sad because…the experience was something else😭. I love all of them so much but my top favorite characters are Michonne, Abraham, Rosita, and Gabriel.

The maze runner, god i got into that series the beginning of 2022 and let me tell you…those movies were all i could think about until late july. I’ve also started reading the books (i finally got the full series for my birthday!!) and while i’m still on book one, i know things from the other books and i’m so excited but scared at the same time. I ship newtmas, die hard newtmas stan, i cannot lie. My fav characters are Newt, Minho, Brenda, and Teresa.

The black phone, there will always be a special place in my heart for that movie.

Jane the virgin, DUDE IT’S SO…i’m currently rewatching it and i’m in season three. Abuela and Petra are my favs, i cannot lie. Also it’s kinda helping my spanish so at least there’s that.

Orange is the new black. I’m on season two and my god😭

Now my other interests…

Sharks. Sharks have been my fav thing since fifth grade. My favorite sharks are great whites, lemon sharks, and nurse sharks. I’m still learning, of course everyone is always learning but what i mean is i’m still somehow new to the scene. I actually plan on going to university for marine biology.

I love to paint, my brain and body like to make it difficult but i do love it. I’m currently working on a painting for my mother. It was supposed to be a wedding gift, but now it’s going to be a very late one. At least i’ve taken my time on it though.

Music, music is part of my life line istg. I love Novo Amor, Tom rosenthal, I prevail, ICP, lana del rey, AC/DC, Queen, Frankie Valli and the four seasons, and tomo. I grew up with “older parents” so there will always be love for 60’s-80’s music. Of course there are others, but yk.

Despite my firm belief that tiktok is a hellish place to be, it’s like i live there. I have an editing account, he’s been through many phases. Of course, what i edit most as of right now is the black phone - especially vance. Editing takes up so much of my time, but that’s going to change once i start this damn factory job.

DNI LIST !!

Pro-shippers are an immediate no, and anyone who “thirsts” or defends the grabber. Along with that, if you’re sexualizing children and such, consider that a very hard no, as well.

Homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc. are not welcome here and never will be. I want my account to be as safe as possible. I will not tolerate any of the above toward myself or others.

I don’t care too much on how old you are, unless you’re pushing thirty five or are thirteen and under. I’m seventeen.

[peachringwithpiss]

Inside Job music + dance hc

Ok so I was thinking about this earlier so now you guys have to deal

Reagan

I literally can only see her listening to the radio

Like flipping through stations everyday to fit her mood

She likes 2000s pop/punk though and has a youtube playlist of her favorite songs

What I'm trying to say is she's basic but will jam to MCR if given the chance

She does like the white woman shimmy but other than that cannot and does not dance lmao

Brett

80s rock like this is just canon

AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Journey, Guns N' Roses, Dave Matthews Band lmao

The whole nine yards

But just like imagine walking past the most unthreatening person in the office and hearing "welcome to the jungle" blasting out of his headphones

Since he was a goth/jock in high school he will also listen to shit like MCR with Reagan

90'S COUNTRY

LISTEN JUST HEAR ME OUT!!!!!!

Ok 1. Since he was born in the 90s I feel like thats what he would have been hearing on the radio and 2. YOURE GONNA LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME BRETT HAND WOULD NOT LISTEN TO GARTH BROOKS

His playlists are a fucking mess

We all saw the clip, he heard dance like no ones watching and took it heart

Like don't even try to insult him cus I'd like to see you do better with that much confidence

Anyway thats enough of Brett

Glenn

Glenn listens to SiriusXM ASHDLSKDHALDJDSL

Specifically Willie's Roadhouse

Like Johnny Cash vibes fr

He has an Amazon Music playlist that's just the American anthem on loop for 10 hours

He is secretly really into like dad rock/metal

So like Rob Zombie, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Nirvana

When he got divorced he blasted ABBA and Fleetwood bc they reminded him of his ex

He can square-dance nothing else

Andre

He has a playlist for literally any occasion

Disco/dance?- Camel by Camel (he would listen to it unironically), Funkytown, Earth Wind + Fire, Play That Funky Music

Girlboss(aka gigi)- Doja, cupcakKe, Lizzo, Nicki, Full Tac, Shakira, Lily Allen, Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, Yung Gravy

Sad- Mitski, Cody Fry, Hallelujah(shrek ver.), The Moldy Peaches

Random(aka myc lmao)- Soul Bossa Nova, icp, Oingo Boingo, the entire mlp discography, A Cruel Angel's Thesis, Dan Bull, The Living Tombstone

You get the gist they're all over the place, but he also has a curated playlist for everyone in the gang so give him the aux fr

I like to think he took ballroom lessons when he was younger so if ever needed he could do about any well known style

Other than that he dances about as well as you'd expect from someone who is constantly high

Gigi

I basically already said the gist of it in Andre's

She is the definition of Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss

What people dont know is that she is a total theater nerd

She has the entire 3 hours of Hamilton memorized and can recite it verbatim

In the heights? Yup. Rocky Horror? You bet your ass. Grease? Regrettably lmao

Her comfort movie is Dirty Dancing

She probably had an aneurysm when Mamma Mia came out

She photoshops her Spotify Wrapped every year, because having The Phantom Of The Opera in her top 5 isnt exactly on brand

Speaking of she can hit christines high notes lmao

The only person here that can actually dance

She eats and leaves no crumbs

Myc 💀

You know male manipulator music

Yeah that

Askaldhalksdfgds

MSI, ICP, Hollywood Undead, Filthy Frank

And like no one can tell if its ironic or not and theyre frankly too scared to ask

He also listens to like 80s era er0tic club music

So like Love Shack- The B-52s, Super Freak- Rick James, Girls on Film- Duran Duran, Carless Whisper- George Michael

I want you to look me in the eyes and explain to me how Myc would dance....

Thats right he can't............ not as a mushroom that is

As a human he'd tear that shit up are you kidding me

They would be one of those people that can dance when there's not music

Alpha-Beta

I'm only adding AB because ❤him❤

He would and could listen to hours of static he doesnt need to listen to music

But that doesnt mean if you took a radio down to him he'd be mad

(Ps he really like the friends theme song and if you told him there was an extended vers hed have a conniption)

Cannot dance because he has one arm and no legs, but even if he had legs he doubts he'd ever dance

Thats a lie this domestic bitchboy would 100% dance with a partner hes just an asshole

OMG this was my first time writing something like this, I hope y'all like it :)

[ceabu]

Okay, I'm a little too busy to type up a full analysis of "It's Alright", but I had this analysis here already typed up from a while ago, so here you are:

Okay so an animatic by BunnyTriesToAnimate YT got me listening to Gang of Youth’s “Achilles, Come Down” and thinking about all the Gamzee vibes it holds, so here is my half-rambling half-organized essay:

Why “Achilles, Come Down” has Soft Pale Gamkar Vibes:

You’re scaring us / And all of us / Some of us love you / Achilles, it’s not much but there’s proof

Gamzee terrifies everyone with the violence and general instability; not everyone loves him after his actions but Karkat still chooses to calm him rather than kill him

The lines “You crazy assed cosmonaut” and “The self is not so weightless / Nor whole and unbroken” are giving me strong Sopored Gamzee vibes

Hurt and grieve but don’t suffer alone / Engage with the pain as a motive

Gamzee grieving Tavros + Gamzee’s Abandonment Issues (“don’t suffer alone”)

Tonight of all nights / See how the most dangerous thing is to love / How you will heal and rise above

“The most dangerous thing is to love” giving me huge “Gamzee putting stock in people who abandon him (Goatdad) or don’t reciprocate (Tavros, initially)” vibes, AKA Gamzee’s Abandonment Issues; but that’s not to say Gamzee can’t rise above that hurt and get better.

And then the voice encouraging Achillies to jump can be likened to the voices Gamzee was hearing in withdrawal, with lines like “No audience could ever love you // You crave the applause” being so poignantly GAI.

And then lines like “your act is a ruse” or “Don’t listen to what you’ve consumed” have a sort of double meaning that applies to both Sopored and Withdrawal Gamzee; the sedated state he’s in when on the sopor isn’t really him, but neither is the murderous and unstable subjugglator struggling through withdrawal and a litany of other issues; Gamzee needs to stop poisoning himself on sopor and letting it cloud his mind, but he also needs to not listen to the voices telling him to murderize and subjugglate. And then “Just put down the bottle” also has a sort of double meaning to it—put down the sopor, put down the club.

“It’s chaos, confusion / And wholly unworthy / Of feeding and wholly untrue” being in reference to the voices and withdrawal and ICP video.

And then the next few verses, about not seeing any meaning in life, but one should grasp onto one anyway, because it’s more courageous to fight through and overcome , all ring of certain key aspects of Gamzee’s story—using sopor (and repression in general) to deal with the shitty situation with Goatdad, only for that to turn into an addiction and rot his pan into “conjecture and gloom”; being calmed down by Karkat being the “bells [ringing] deep in the soul.”

And then “Throw yourself… a triumph” just reeks of Gamzee daring to be more than his blood, more than the murderous rage that killed Equius and Nepeta, more than the pan-addled sopor addict who was too sedated/high to actually process what was happening around him.

Now, at this point, after a full 450 words of analysis, you might be wondering how, exactly, this is strictly related to Gamkar. Though this whole analysis is subjective, the major theme of the song is Achilles being talked down from the edge—which reeks of moirallegiance. Hence, Pale Gamkar. I end this overwrought analysis with this:

What vibes do you get from this song?

okay first of all.......that animatic really hurt lol like i actually felt really down after that ( can u guess the fucking reason aodishoasdgh )

but oh man u really had this laying around huh

i cant really add anything lmao other than yes i agree 100% with this

ur half-rambling half-organized essay was beautifully worded and if i were the teacher i would give u A+ ( u give letters as grades in america right?? asdohasd ) WITH SHINY STARS ALL AROUND

thank u for sharing this with me anon ( u 3 u ) mwah

[gyroshrike]

Okay so an animatic by BunnyTriesToAnimate YT got me listening to Gang of Youth’s “Achilles, Come Down” and thinking about all the Gamzee vibes it holds, so here is my half-rambling half-organized essay:

Why “Achilles, Come Down” has Soft Gamtav Vibes:

You’re scaring us / And all of us / Some of us love you / Achilles, it’s not much but there’s proof

Gamzee terrifies everyone with the violence and general instability; not everyone loves him after his actions but Karkat still chooses to calm him rather than kill him

The lines “You crazy assed cosmonaut” and “The self is not so weightless / Nor whole and unbroken” are giving me strong Sopored Gamzee vibes

Hurt and grieve but don’t suffer alone / Engage with the pain as a motive

Gamzee grieving Tavros + Gamzee’s Abandonment Issues (“don’t suffer alone”)

Today of all days / See how the most dangerous thing is to love / How you will heal and rise above

“The most dangerous thing is to love” giving me huge “Gamzee putting stock in people who abandon him (Goatdad) or don’t reciprocate (Tavros, initially)” vibes, AKA Gamzee’s Abandonment Issues; but that’s not to say Gamzee can’t rise above that hurt and get better.

And then the voice encouraging Achillies to jump can be likened to the voices Gamzee was hearing in withdrawal, with lines like “No audience could ever love you // You crave the applause” being so poignantly GAI.

And then lines like “your act is a ruse” or “Don’t listen to what you’ve consumed” have a sort of double meaning that applies to both Sopored and Withdrawal Gamzee; the sedated state he’s in when on the sopor isn’t really him, but neither is the murderous and unstable subjugglator struggling through withdrawal and a litany of other issues; Gamzee needs to stop poisoning himself on sopor and letting it cloud his mind, but he also needs to not listen to the voices telling him to murderize and subjugglate. And then “Just put down the bottle” also has a sort of double meaning to it—put down the sopor, put down the club.

“It’s chaos, confusion / And wholly unworthy / Of feeding and wholly untrue” being in reference to the voices and withdrawal and ICP video.

And then the next few verses, about not seeing any meaning in life, but one should grasp onto one anyway, because it’s more courageous to fight through and overcome , all ring of certain key aspects of Gamzee’s story—using sopor (and repression in general) to deal with the shitty situation with Goatdad, only for that to turn into an addiction and rot his pan into “conjecture and gloom”; being calmed down by Karkat being the “bells [ringing] deep in the soul.”

And then “Throw yourself… a triumph” just reeks of Gamzee daring to be more than his blood, more than the murderous rage that killed Equius and Nepeta, more than the pan-addled sopor addict who was too sedated/high to actually process what was happening around him.

Now, at this point, after a full 450 words of analysis, you might be wondering how, exactly, this is strictly related to Gamtav. And, well, it isn’t (well, besides the fact that the main singer is pretty clearly Patroclus, who was Achilles’ lover). This whole analysis is subjective; it’s based on the vibes I was getting. And so my linking of this song to Gamtav is the result of the aforementioned animatic coloring my thoughts that way; I listened to the full song with the image of Tavros talking Gamzee down from suicide in my head, so that’s how my head interpreted it—Tavros bringing Gamzee back from the edge, be it the edge of a roof or the edge of sanity. An argument could be made that this song leans more towards Pale Gamkar, but those weren’t the vibes I got out of the experience. Thus, I end this overwrought analysis with this:

What vibes do you get from this song?

First of all, I need to @bunnytriestoanimateyt because I think they'll be ecstatic with your analysis.

I HAVE seen that animatic. It's very nice. :D It's surprising though, because usually my brain jumps at the chance to ascribe songs to characters and this one it didn't do so as much. At the most, I think during the whole back and forth 'Be real and just jump' bit, I sometimes imagined Tavros talking to himself at the peak of his despair and self-doubt. Where it's the words of his own brain and maybe of Vriska telling him he's not worth anything, but he fights against it and tells himself he is worth something.

But dude, like, your analysis was super awesome to read. I really like the break down you have here and I'm flattered you felt inspired to send it to me.

Thinking on it now, it could maybe just even work as a Gamzee Quadrants song where both Tavros and Karkat sing to him. (I'm a sucker for animatics where one singer is turn into two, idk why LMAO).

[mytastessuck]

Gorillaz: Humanz

SHere it is, the comeback tour! I was so excited for this album, I sucked all the singles that came out before I could download the album. This album basically reminded me of the reasons I love Gorillaz. All of them. One particular reason a little too well...

Okay, let's get the elephant out of the room. This album is a bit controversial among the community for playing a little too hard to one of Gorillaz' strengths: showcasing cool artists. There are more than a few tracks where Damon doesn't even show up. Hell, my favorite track doesn't even have it on him. Me, I honestly don't care about that as long as I get to hear good music but for the rest of you die hard Gorillaz fans? Just think of this as a compilation album like NOW That's What I Call Alternative/Indie Hip-Hop/R&B/Electronica/Pop.

See? Rolls off the tongue. Now let's get started.

1. Intro: I Switched My Robot Off

Nice. Real ominous. Gorillaz really know how to build up a presentation. Feels like you're walking through the doors of the doors to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Anybody remember Legends of the Hidden Temple? Were there doors on that stage? Anyway, awesome.

10/10

2. Ascension

Holy hell, Vince really knocks it out of the park on this one. Different beat, nice flow, social commentary...He was not fucking around on this track. Damon's barely on the track but Vince makes up for it with his existential rhymes and chorus back-up. Man, Gorillaz has gotta take advantage of gospel more often.

9/10

3. Strobelite

That didn't take long, did it? Anyway, this is my favorite song on the album. Peven has an incredible voice, the music psychically compels you to dance and...that's it. Sometimes, well usually with me, you just need to go with Simple Yet Awesome. Have a good voice and a good beat. This song has both and I'm pretty sure that one day, a scientist will hear this song and will be inspired by it to cure diabetes.

100/10

4. Saturn Barz

Ah, the lead single from the album. Remember the 360 house, everyone? Yeah, you remember. Glad to have Gorillaz welcome back Reggae into their line-up with Popcaan manning the helms. He and Damon tag-team the eardrums with the power of dread as the instrumentation makes you feel like you're in a haunted house. Welcome back, guys.

25/10

5. Momentz

WELCOME BACK, GUYS! De La Soul returns to say some real shit about time and how you should, respect and stuff. Seriously, awesome track. Kicks so much ass and you can even dance to it as you wonder if this MOMENT will be one of the last times when you feel really happy. Nice...

9/10

6. Interlude: The Non-Conformist Oath

Hey, Steve Martin! I like to imagine a bunch of assholes listening to this and...just not getting it. Not us though. We get it. We're smart. Smarter than those guys...

10/10

7. Submission

This song had to grow on me but years after I got the album and after I learned to appreciate Danny Brown a little more like all humans should, this song became one of my favorites off the album. Don't worry Kelela, he doesn't carry the whole song. Her voice is so beautiful that it can calm a charging rhino or a coked-up Connor McGregor. These make the song a lot classier than it had any right being.

90/10

8. Charger

She's beauty, she's Grace...she's also Jones. Man, I haven't heard from this woman since Corporate Cannibal and she has clearly been keeping up practice. God, how can a woman's laughter both scare and arouse me? Damon's no slouch on this track either, singing about the monster that keeps us all tethered: the charger. I kid, I kid. Hey, did Damon really get a boner on stage when he sung this or are you guys messing with me? Message me if you know.

9/10

9. Interlude: Elevator Going Up

On a recent trip, I tried to go up the elevator but it was card-activated so a desk lady had to help me. That's it.

8/10

10. Andromeda

Damon has to do the heavy lifting here and his muscles have not completely wasted away from lack of use. He tells us to take in our heart and you know what? I did. I took this song directly in my heart...and my playlist.

50/10

11. Busted And Blue

Yeah, this song is a bummer. A good bummer. It's Broken's younger brother who joined the army to make his parents proud after he couldn't get into university like his older brother who managed to form a separate family with his squad and began to think that maybe he was good enough after all before his squad gets bombed and, as he lies legless dying painfully on the ground, a blue butterfly land directly on his outstretched busted hand...

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

10/10

12. Interlude: Talk Radio

You ever wonder how we get voices in machines? I know you think it's a complicated process but I know a dude who picked up the radio in his electric fan once. Think about it.

8/10

13. Carnival

Again, this song had to grow on me but one day, while I was thinking about Gamzee for a godforsaken reason, I thought "Geez, he talks about the Dark Carnival and the Dark Carnival isn't even some of ICP's best days. What's a good song about a carnival?" Anyway, Anthony can spin a person's mind and mind around just by singing. He's wild.

80/10

14. Let Me Out

Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Mavis was Vince's mother? She's not but that would be funny as well as cool. Her and Pusha T bang on the walls of this track as they rant about the politics at the time of this song. Yeah, they're talking about Trump. That car horn can't protect you forever, you orange bastard.

9/10

15. Interlude: Penthouse

Dear Penthouse: Hi. Does anyone check in on you, just you? I'm here to say I think you're important and you provide a necessary outlet for men to brag about being perverts. At least before the Youtube comment section existed.

Thanks for everything,

mytastessuck

8/10

16. Sex Murder Party

Ooooo, this track puts me in a funky mood. Like, there's a part but there's sex there...and MURDER. So you know it's an awesome party. Kick-ass, right? I know it's kick-ass. Keep dancing, people.

11/10

17. She's My Collar

Pretty sexy song. Gotta love people vauging about being used in a song. That's why we love Offspring, that's why we love Damon on his knees onstage. Hey, there was a post that said Noodle wrote this song about her girlfriend. That was an excellent post. Well done.

9/10

18. Interlude: The Elephant

I SAID GET OUT OF HERE, YOU BASTARD!

8/10

19. Hallelujah Money

Ah, the technical first single. Remember when they said that they weren't going to put this song on the album? Anyway, this is exactly the song we needed after The Incident occurred. Benjamin manages to calm down an entire populace while Damon just fearfully wonders what our future will be like...and he's in the UK. This song is one long terrifying lullaby to an entire country...until the end, anyway.

75/10

20. We Got The Power

A great way to remind listeners that no matter what's happening, no matter who's in charge, we have the power change everything. An excellent message for people who were still recovering from The Incident.

10/10

21. Interlude: New World

Okay, the bonus tracks. Should be nothing special here, right? Just some B-sides and I've never shown favoritism towards B-sides, right?

8/10

22. The Apprentice

A nice song from the same Rag n' Bone Man who brought us "Human". Zebra manages to lay down some nice rhymes as Ray BLK backs them both up with the force of her voice. These guys should form a team with how well they work together. Oh, they should make a virtual band! All they need to do is find an artist...

9/10

23. Halfway To The Halfway House

A very nice song if a bit overshadowed by the others on the album. Still, Peven can't be beat when it comes to crooning and he raises a song from a solid C to a B.

8/10

24. Out of Body

This song had to grow on me also but when it did...lord, this song is weird. Hypnotic suggestions, telephone tones, the song starts then Zebra jumps in to help then who is this person?! Why are people applauding?! Who are you people?! Why are there so many crows gathering outside my house?!

60/10

25. Ticker Tape

Well well well, look who's back. Damon returns with his old friend Kali to join the accuser of the vain Carly Simon to beg us to stay on the album. Sorry Damon, but I got places to do and people to go. There's nothing you can do to convince me to stick around after how long this album already is.

9/10

26. Circle of Friendz

Huh. Seems like a riot is going on. Weird for Gorillaz to get this real. What, this guy is just going to keep saying Circle of Friendz again and again? Is this supposed to affect me? Get real. It'll take a lot more than a nice voice and implications to...

To...

...

...Maybe I should listen to the album again.

11/10

Album score: 25/10

Damn, that took a while. Shouldn't be the case next week when we cover The Now Now. See you then!

[overtrolled-liveblog]

[2567]

FCG: I'VE GOT TO PULL IT TOGETHER. FCG: THINK BACK TO WHAT WE MIGHT HAVE DONE WRONG. FCG: BUT THE THING IS FCG: AS MUCH AS OUR PAST SELVES ARE A BUNCH OF STUBBORN UNLISTENING ASSHOLES FCG: I CAN'T EVEN REALLY IDENTIFY ANY MISTAKES WE MADE. FCG: IT WAS ALL PRETTY MUCH LIKE CLOCKWORK. FCG: A 600 HOUR CAMPAIGN TO COMPLETE A GAME LIKE THIS IS PRETTY GOOD IF YOU ASK ME.

600 hours is 25 days. They played this game for a month. [this post gets long, more after cut]

FCG: OH / THAT'S COOL. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE RESPONDED TO A MEMO THAT I CAN RECALL. YOU TOOK IT RIGHT DOWN TO THE WIRE. I WAS JUST ABOUT TO CLOSE THIS THING. CGA: Yeah I Know / I Wasnt Sure If I Was Going To / But Then I Noticed A Conversation In Which I Was A Participant / Which As It Turns Out Is The Conversation Taking Place Now / I Scanned It Briefly And Then Perused Other Memos For My Presence / I Found None And Returned To This One / But My Part Of The Conversation Was Gone / I Regarded This As A Prompt To Begin Typing And Record My Contributions Live / That Is How This Works Isnt It FCG: PRETTY MUCH. FOR A WHILE IT WAS FRUSTRATING. WHEN I DISCOVERED THE FEATURE I KIND OF BREEZED THROUGH ALL MY FUTURE MEMOS, NOT REALLY READING ALL OF THEM CAREFULLY OR THOROUGHLY. THEN I LOOKED AT IT AGAIN, AND THE WHOLE BOARD WAS GONE. BECAUSE IT WAS TIME TO MAKE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, SO I DID. AND THEN I KEPT MAKING MEMOS WITH ONLY FOGGY RECOLLECTIONS OF WHAT THEY CONTAINED. WHILE ALL THESE OTHER CHUMPS FROM DIFFERENT TIMES KEPT GIVING ME SHIT. INCLUDING MYSELF. BUT IT WAS ALL GOOD, BECAUSE AS I EVENTUALLY BECAME MY OWN FUTURE SELVES, AND GOT TO BE ON THE OTHER SIDES OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS. AND COULD DO MY PAST SELVES THE SERVICE OF INFORMING THEM HOW STUPID THEY WERE BEING. I STOPPED BOTHERING TRYING TO REMEMBER HOW ANY OF THESE MEMOS WENT.

This concept alone could have been the core of an entire webcomic, but instead it textures this one. Being able to converse with your future, and then conversing with your past knowing what past you said and what you will say if only vaguely is a unique sort of experience. You can leave messages for your future self in real life, but your future cannot contact you.

CGA: Its Just That I Have A Good Reason To Believe Magic Is Real / Our Ancient Predecessors Discovered How To Use It / But Then They May Have Surpassed Us In Skill By A Great Deal FCG: YOU PUT WAY TOO MUCH STOCK IN THAT RATTY OLD GUIDE. BUT ANYWAY NO, WE NEVER USED MAGIC. I MEAN, LET ME TRY TO PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE HOW RIDICULOUS THE WHOLE NOTION IS ANYWAY... ALL THIS SHIT IS PRACTICALLY MAGIC ANYWAY. BUT MORE LIKE GOOFY SCIENCEY MAGIC. YOU KNOW? CGA: Sure FCG: BUT EVERYTHING HERE IS KIND OF MAGIC IN A WAY, ISN'T IT. FORTUNE TELLING DREAM CLOUDS AND GOLDEN MOONS AND SHIT. IF YOU LOOK AROUND THERE'S MAGIC EVERYWHERE IN THIS BITCH. IT'S ALL AROUND US. MOTHER FUCKIN MIRACLES, RIGHT? CGA: Heh

ICP’s Miracles is a very memeable song but it isn’t a bad one, per se. It’s definitely based on an ethos of, i don’t know, non-examination. observe and recognize miracles, but don’t try to learn how they work

[disinvited-guest]

3/9/2020 Detroit

The venue staff were much better for this show, primarily because they were able to chill out just a little.  I’m not sure if they had gotten a sense of how harmless tmbg fans were from the night before, or if Flans, who had seemed a bit peeved at how uptight they were, gave someone an earful.  Either way, they still were a bit strict about some things, but much more relaxed than they had been.

As with the previous night, I was able to hear all of the soundcheck while waiting in line in the bar.  They were practicing a bunch of songs I hadn’t yet heard on the tour, all of which they did play during the show.  I heard Authenticity Trip, Memo to Human Resources, Number 3, and Man It’s So Loud In Here, and I just got more excited for each and every one.  The soundcheck changed to just individuals trying different things out for a while, and then that stopped and they started soundchecking With the Dark.  

The rest of the wait was relatively uneventful, and soon we were let inside.  To change things up, I found a spot squarely in front of the drum riser.  I think the security fence was set slightly closer to the stage than it had been the day before, but the added distance actually worked to my advantage today, as I could see more of the other side of the stage.  I always forget how much I enjoy shows from this side of the stage until I actually get there.  It’s different from over on the larger side of the stage, but that just makes it another type of wonderful.

Once again, the first set was the same Flood set from the last several nights, so the recap of the first set will be slightly shortened.  I have a few general notes before I begin. Fresh was wearing neon doce socks, and once again had his hair in pigtails.  This show was the first since Milwaukee where Dan was able to get through the first set without switching to his backup guitar.  Marty was absolutely on fire the whole set.  There were also a series of cold breezes coming from multiple directions towards the end of the set.

Coming onstage, Linnell was doing his wavy-armed walk to get up to his keyboard. During The Might Be Giants, Flans was apparently having a problem with his guitar, and desperately trying to get the crew’s attention while singing.  Eventually, towards the end of the song, he started singing “John Carter look at me” in place of the actual lyrics (the repeated “they might be giants” at the song’s conclusion).  It must have worked, because Flans stopped wildly gesturing offstage after that.  

After We Want a Rock, Linnell took the task of welcoming us to the show, before Flans made it up to the mic to tell everyone that it was an exciting day for him, “If you came to the show last night, you’ll notice that I just got a haircut.”  He called it one of the few perks of staying in the same city for two nights before launching into a detailed account of the event.

Apparently, his barber asked him what he was doing in town, “and, reluctantly, I told her the truth.”  He then told us that usually he lies, and that when a cab driver sees his guitar case and asks if he’s in a band he tells them “Yes, I’m in Fountains of Wayne.”  

He continued, saying that he has a “whole fanfiction thing going on” to explain why he doesn’t show up in photographs.

“When it turns out the cabbie is a Fountains of Wayne fan who’s like ‘I didn't see you on the album cover’” Linnell interjected.

“Yeah,” Flans agreed. “I’m just covering my tracks for the inevitable Google Search after.”

Getting back to his haircut story, Flans said “I told this woman I was in a band.  She did not ask me the name of the band but she did tell me the entire plot of the movie Queen.”

This got a huge laugh from the crowd, but Flans wasn’t done yet telling us his story.  The plot of the movie “lasted just about the entire haircut length.  Which was great.  I’ve gotta see that movie.”

He then moved to to explain the setup of the show, telling us they had put two songs from Flood in the second set “so that the friends that you dragged here will stick around.”

When Flans asked Linnell about his day, Linnell replied promptly “I’ve just been goofing off.”  He then told us that every other time they come to Detroit, he checks up on the city, and this time he found a lot more “boutique-y” stores downtown “and we’ve been informed that that is both good and horrible.” He concluded that he was “excited and disgusted” to see how Detroit comes along.

Flans told us that they were “standing in judgement” from 450 miles away.  Linnell agreed, but said the crowd was welcome to judge New York as well.“

But only from 450 miles,” Flans told him. “Those are the rules.”

Introducing the next song, Linnell told us it was off the Flood album, and that it was probably the second shortest song on the album.

“No spoilers, John!” Flans interrupted.

“No?”  Linnell continued “And here’s another spoiler: it contains unlicensed samples.  OOOH!”

“Now I beg you to shut up!”

“You guys ready for this?” Linnell asked, and they launched into Minimum Wage.

I think it was during Particle Man that Danny, backing up towards the drum riser while playing, bumped into it and sat down with a bit of a thump.  He stayed sitting there for a few measures before he got up again.  

After Hearing Aid, Flans came up to the mic and, without preamble, told us “So, then Queen fired their manager, and they had the opportunity to do Live Aid.  Which changed everything for them.  Because they rehearsed.”

Moving on to introducing the next song, Flans repeated his preamble from the day before about playing songs backwards, then told us they were embarking into uncharted territory “where the entertainment value is very low,” and that he hoped that our “thresholds of pleasure are set very finely tonight.”

He explained that they weren’t just flipping the chart, but playing what the sound recording backwards would sound like. “So if one was to reverse the live performance in front of you right now-if you could do that-it would reproduce the actual song, incredibly effectively.  If you could do that.  But you can’t, so we’re just gonna tell you that.”

He concluded “We’re not sure why we’re doing this, but we practiced it, and we’re committed to it, so we’re going to play it.”

He then introduced the members of the band individually.  We were asked to scream for Marty, and then for Danny, who Flans pointed out especially to the ladies. He introduced Dan as “on the electric guitar, with his eyes glued to the chart he made himself.”  While we cheered for Dan, Danny lifted his bass and pointed the neck of it at Dan as Flans continued “perhaps the finest electric guitarist in They Might Be Giants.”

“This song is called… Well it doesn’t really have a title,” Flans told us, and they started  Stilloob.  Maybe it was that they were getting more confident with it, but I do believe that this was their best performance yet!

Afterwards, Linnell responded to the crowd’s applause by saying thoughtfully “We should get you guys applaud before we play it, if we’re doing this correctly.”

“That was really the best applause that song has gotten thus far,” Flans decided. “You are really on the vanguard.”  He then predicted that in the future, when all songs are backwards, Stilloob will be seen as the ‘Rock Around The Clock’ of the movement.  He then imitated a person form the future explaining their musical tastes “I’m not into songs, man.  I’m into songs that are played in reverse.  I like digital, I like CD’s.  I like the sound of CD’s in reverse.  It’s got digital harshness, that’s what I like.”

Someone in the crowd shouted something, and Flans answered back that “I want to hear every word you’re saying, but part of me is saying we should resist that.”

Linnell introduced the next song as being the fastest sung in their entire repertoire (Letterbox), and Flans agreed, saying that they had officially entered the “stunt part of the program: stunt songs.”

After Lucky Ball and Chain, Flans admitted he was curious how many people had been to the show the night before.  Finding one person who had been he said directly to them “I just want to tell you that the second set is almost completely different.  But this part is music under glass.  We’re gonna tell the Queen jokes…” 

“As you know,” Linnell continued when Flans trailed off, “we’re doing the exact same raps, including what I’m saying right now. As we said last night.”

“I’m getting my hair cut every day,” Flans agreed.

Apparently this reminded Flans of their conversation from the start of the set, because he asked Linnell if he really hadn’t gone to a museum or something that day.

Linnell responded that he really had just goofed off but “A mystical thing happened to me.”  He then explained that he had a can of Faygo “my very first can of Faygo.”  This got laughs and cheers from the crowd, and Linnell responded “I know. I can feel the clown makeup just starting to grow on my face.”  

He tried to continue with his story, but Flans had gone upstage and grabbed a can of Faygo that had been sitting there, which he was now holding up, causing the crowd to start cheering once again.  He started to say something about it, but Linnell interrupted him “Let me finish the story, before you start in with your jokes.”  

“It’s taking too long, John,” Flans argued, “It’s taking too long.”

Linnell replied “Alright. Let’s just play the next song, forget it.  Nevermind.  It wasn’t that interesting anyway.”  The crowd reacted instantly, demanding the rest of the story, so Linnell finally got his chance to continue.  He had set the can of Faygo on a table and fallen asleep, then “I was awoken by the sound of it falling to the floor, but it was still upright.  And I thought, ‘I don't’ know what just happened, but there’s something special about this beverage.’”

“Do you think it was the ghost of Insane Clown Posse?” Flans asked, finally free to ‘start in with his jokes’, “Reaching out from before the grave?”

Linnell responded that, from what he knew, ICP wasn’t reluctant to spill Faygo so that didn’t seem likely.  Someone in the audience asked him what flavor it was, and he responded that it was Root Beer.  

This got some cheers and a lot of shouted responses from the crowd.  Flans, trying to get things back on track, seemed slightly annoyed by the shouts, and responded sarcastically “please, talk amongst yourselves for a little while.”

They played Hot Cha, then brought the topic right back to Faygo, with Linnell announcing “Hot Cha, ladies and gentlemen, sponsored by Faygo Root Beer.”

“I always thought that Fayo was like a cocktail put together by the Insane Clown Posse,” Flans admitted, once again holding his can of the stuff. “Then when I saw this I was like ‘Man, they are ripping them off!’  Lawsuit!”

He put the can down and then continued “But I guess it’s just… they really like soda.”

That, apparently, was the wrong thing to say in Detroit.  A few people in the crowd cried out “Pop!” “It’s pop!”  Other members of the crowd took up the cry, until the room buzzed with it.

Nobody on the stage had any clue what was going on, but realized the crowd was upset.  Flans tried to smooth things over, obviously confused “Understand...understand…”

“We are on the outside of this discussion,”  Linnell chimed in, coming to his aid.  “You guys know what it is…”

Flans, inspired, thought that the anger might be some sort of defense of ICP. “I just want to make it clear,”  he said, in a misdirected attempt to smooth things over, “that we are down with the clown.”

This got a laugh from the crowd, and a visibly relieved Flans continued “After that whole FBI thing, I was nervous they didn’t have enough representation.”

That might have been the end of the Beverage Wars, but a few determined people in the crowd started up the “Pop!” cry again, with a few people even beginning to chant it.

Flans, interrupted once again, looked out over the crowd and determined “It seems like fights are breaking out in the audience now, John.”

This stirred up the crowd even more.  Flans tried again to calm the crowd while still not sure what they were angry about “Guys, guys, guys…”

He was interrupted by Linnell, who had finally grasped what was going on, “Okay, okay, I get it!”  He explained to Flans “They say pop, we say soda.  It’s a different language.”  As soon as Linnell said the word  ‘pop’  emphasizing the final ‘p’ as if it was completely foreign to him, a huge cheer rose from the crowd.

Flans immediately turned this new information into a joking lecture on the cultural differences “We’re from New York City, that means we’re gonna get on stage late.  That’s the way it works!  People are different, everybody’s got their own thing.” This was all said in an overly-patient voice. “We would change, if we knew how to.”

Linnell, who seemed genuinely amused, chimed in with his thickest Boston accent “But you’ll be cryin’ when we’re havin’ our victory party later on.”

This got laughs from the crowd and Flans cracked a smile, replying in the same voice “At Boston Garden!”

“That’s right!”

“When I put my thumb in my eye.”

Linnell responded with a stadium-organ style scale from his keyboard.  There was a beat and both looked a shade embarrassed.  Eventually Linnell, recovering, said “Alright, here we go.  Another song,” and started them into Women and Men.  Linnell switched the words shipwreck and beachhead, singing them in the other’s place.

After Someone Keeps Moving My Chair, Flans stepped up with the picture disk in hand and asked Saul for a “big white spotlight you can throw on me.”  He told us he had forgotten to do this yesterday, but was reminded by their new t-shirt person and he promised us that if we bought the picture disk “you could make your money back on ebay right away.”

“We have been asked on social media if it’s  true that picture disks don’t sound as good as regular vinyl records,” Flans continued.  “And my first thought to write back is like ‘well what do you want it to sound like?’”  He admitted that picture disks didn’t sound quite as good but “they have PICTURES on them, which is I think the larger point.”  He then introduced the zoetrope on the back, saying they had sweetened the pot with it and promised us “a beautiful visual effect that will remind you of psychedelic drugs.”  He concluded by promising that this was “the best sounding zoetrope you will ever see.”  

After Whistling In the Dark, Linnell stopped them from moving on because “I just have something to say about that last song.”  He told us all that they do a lot of Flood songs slightly different from how they are on the record, and “I was reminded on this song that we completely changed where the big smash sound happens, ‘cause I saw someone in the audience doing it where it happens on the RECORD, and I was like ‘Oh NO!  Eugh, no!’”  

He then assured us that the live version was the correct one “We did it wrong on the record, and now we’re doing it the right way.”  

Flans chimed in with his own observations on the live version of the song, saying that playing familiar songs “at less 4-cup-of-coffee-in-the-studio tempos” gives him “the distinct impression that people just think we’re tired.  But there’s no explaining it.”  He then did his best impression of the part of the song in question “But it goes ‘Whistling in the dark BOMP, whistling in the dark-”

“It should do that, yeah,” Linnell interrupted.

“It’s a more musical way of doing it, that’s our best explanation” Flans continued.

This reminded Flans of the difference between the album and live versions of another Flood song.  Without telling us the title of the song, he explained that they had left out a verse when recording and “didn’t have enough juice, or whatever the term is, to tell the producer people, like ‘we have to redo it.’”  Explaining that he sang the missing verse in the live version of the song, he told us that during shows “People will be singing along and then when it gets to that verse, they just stop. ‘Cause nobody knows those words.  But we will, uhh-”

Flans had been distracted by a guy in the crowd shouting out the song’s title (Road Movie To Berlin), and responded “No spoilers, man! No spoilers!”  The end of this scolding was muffled as Flans lost the battle to keep from cracking up, then moved away from his mic stand for a moment. 

Linnell gave him time to recover by promising us “Just bear in mind , we’re older and smarter now than we were then, so this is the right version.”

“You came to the right show, people,” Flans agreed. “We know it’s disorienting when the bass drum is on the opposite beat.”

After Birdhouse, Flans turned Linnell’s accordion mic around to face the crowd.  “I just realized the song I was talking about is coming up next,”  he told us all.  “So I’ve turned the microphone around to you so we can slightly amplify the parts you can sing along to, to which we encourage!  And then don’t be afraid of the parts you don’t know.  It’s just a little bit different.”

People really took the invitation to sing along to heart, which made it all the more hilarious when, of course, they petered out during the King of Liars verse.

Nothing too noteworthy happened between sets, although I finally was able to successfully pinpoint the end of the new cue song.  They used the Godzilla Intro once again, with Linnell speaking over the end of it in his best creepy-TV-narrator voice “Hello...And welcome back.”

Flans introduced Marty on the electronic drums “nothing says unplugged better,” and then made the claim that “In the world of drummers, Marty is Faygo.”

 Flans was about to start the first song of the set, when he stopped and decided it needed a better introduction.  At this point, I was expecting the Quiet Storm to be identical to the others so far on the tour, so I was completely shocked with Flans explained “This song is the full-length version of a song that a fragment of it was on the album The Else, and we’re gonna perform the entire song called With the Dark.”

And then they performed it.  Even though I’d heard strains of them soundchecking it earlier, I hadn’t known it would be this version, or that it would be so beautiful to witness firsthand.

Moving back to more familiar ground, they played 2082 and then Flans introduced Wicked Little Critta, “Ladies  and Gentlemen we are now gonna move to the place where John and I first met.  It’s a song about New England and it features the Keyboard Stylings of Mr. John Linnell.”

Finishing out the Quiet Storm, they left the stage to a projection of the Gudetama’s Busy Days video, which was a welcome change from Underwater Woman, which they’d used at the last three shows I’d attended. The guys were all onstage before the video ended and Dan, who was apparently raring to go, started Damn Good Times the moment after the last note of the video had finished.  Flans didn’t make us sway along to Dan’s solo this time, but he did introduce him as the “King of Pop” beforehand, and demand a “sea of hands” midway through.

This began a truly amazing set.  The guys were all at the top of their game, and clearly enjoying themselves as well. They also played a lot of songs I hadn’t gotten to hear yet on this tour, starting right after Damn Good TImes as they went straight into Man It’s So Loud In Here.

Afterwards, Flans started to introduce the next song, claiming that it was on a compilation album of things they’d done during their 2015 Dial-A-Song year.  Pausing, he decided “No, it was before that.... It was on an album…that we made...What?”  This last bit was directed at Danny, who had come up next to him.  Danny said something urgently into his ear, likely the song listed next on the setlist, and Flans responded with a quiet “Oh..”  As Danny returned to his spot, Flans grabbed the mic with both hands and whispered into it “Fuuuucck.”  Raising his voice out of the whisper, he continued “I don’t even know what song we’re doing.”

Recovering his stage presence and pivoting topics, Flans said, as if he was picking up a story he’d just stopped telling a moment ago, “So, at a certain point Queen realized that if they wrote songs they could do WITH the audience, that it would be like a whole new way of getting everybody involved.  And that’s why this song was written.”

This was clearly meant as a graceful exit into the next song, but Linnell had more to say on the topic. “Except… I think he wasn’t wearing the fake teeth in the real story, right?  I’m pretty sure.”

“That mustache didn’t look real,” Flans told him.

“I saw the movie, actually,” Linnell admitted.

“Ohh,” Flans was a bit disappointed.  “How was the mustache?”

“I-You know- That guy’s a good actor,” Linnell replied, evading the question.

“And he’s a REALLY good singer,” Flans added.

Missing the sarcasm in Flans’ voice, Linnell said “He’s a good singer.  You’re not joking around.”

“I actually was joking around,” Flans told him.

“No-no, he’s good.”

“It’s Freddie Mercury,” Flans said flatly.

“But I think the guy can sing,” Linnell insisted. “The robot… The robot guy.”  This drew laughs from the crowd, which Linnell stoked by declaring “The robot guy!”  once again.

“My acting friends thought that the Oscar should go to Freddie Mercury,”  Flans said, as the crowd quieted.

“Oh really?” Linnell asked, “ To the….the robot guy, or to the real Freddie Mercury…”

“No, no, ‘cause he’s lip-synching along to the thing,” Flans clarified.

Linnell answered with a non-committal ‘oh’ and then, after an awkward moment of quiet, brought up that “I hate movies where you’re instructed to like something because members of the audience in the movie are going ‘This is good.’”  He completed his impression with a thumbs up and a nodding head.  “It drives  me crazy.  I don’t need a proxy on the screen,  I can decide for myself if something is good or not.”

This got a cheer and applause from one solitary member of the crowd.  Linnell pointed him out and thanked him for applauding, then Flans declared “This show is dedicated to that guy applauding,” they then finally got around to introducing the next song: Wearing a Raincoat.

From there they played Authenticity Trip, which is always an amazing song to watch live,  with Flans roaming around the stage to sing.  Introducing Curt as he came on the stage for the next song, Flans told us all “During the break, Curt informed us that in Oklahoma, where he grew up, they refer to all soda-pop...all cola... they refer to everything as Coke. So you just say, like ‘You want a coke? What kind? Orange?’ That’s how it works there.”

This got a reaction from the crowd, who grumbled at the term coke, and even started yelling out a few states where they used the word that way.  Flans concluded “There are regional differences everywhere ladies and gentlemen.  We’re just ambassadors of disinformation.”

“Which is a way of saying, you were hurting our feelings when you were yelling at us before,” Linnell explained, amused.

“When we saw there was a clamor, we just assumed it was Insane Clown Posse fans,” Flans confessed, “Your mind jumps to that in rock music.  We didn’t realise it was the whole pop versus soda thing.”  He then started growling deep in his throat in what I can only assume was an imitation of what the upset crowd had sounded like to them.

After watching Flans do that a few times, Linnell moved on with another story about crowds and pronunciations.  “I can’t remember if I’ve told you this,” he said, looking over at Flans briefly before addressing the crowd “but I had a solo act about twenty years ago and I had a song.  The name of the song was ‘Oregon is Bad’ and I played it in Oregon and people were not offended by the title of the song. They were really offended that I mispronounced the name of their state.  That was the- that’s why I had to leave in a hurry.  So, you know, I get it!”

“Somebody threw a bottle of Faygo through your windshield,” Flans added.

“Yeah, yeah,”  Linnell agreed with a laugh.  “So here’s another song not off of Flood.”

This led into Turn Around, and from there straight into Spy.  I absolutely love the intro to this song, especially during shows like this, where Curt feels like showing off a bit.  The ending was pretty standard for this tour.  Linnell used his ‘Take It to the Limit’ sample opposite of and over the band, at normal and slowed down speeds.  Flans did a bit of stuff with playing his guitar pressed up against his mic stand opposite the band, and worked in the crowd relatively successfully.  At one point, Flans started to indicate the band, but changed his mind part way through and stopped his hand.  Marty played anyway, which made some other members of the band play with him.  Everyone soon realized what had happened and all looked over at Marty, who must’ve been a bit distressed, because Flans indicated it was his bad at the time and actually went over behind the drum riser after the song to apologize to Marty. 

While Flans was dealing with that, the crowd became a bit restless and a few people started to shout out songs.  Flans, coming back up to the front, let them go on for a bit. Once the crowd had gone quiet, he commented sarcastically “I was just gonna wait here until someone requested the next song.”  This led to another flurry of requests, which Flans quashed with “Guys, guys, guys.  We really are from New York City.  People don’t- that whole request thing…”  

People were still shouting out requests, but Flans ignored them.  “It’s like, you know, feel good to a certain extent and then you draw the line.  Here’s a song about that.  It’s called Memo to Human Resources.”  Confession time:  I actually cried a little during this song.The song holds a very special place in my heart, and the live experience of it is overwhelmingly emotional for me.  

They followed up with Don’t Let’s Start, which is always super fun to watch Flans and Danny spin around during.  Dan and Curt returned to the stage and Flans, introducing them, tried on his announcer voice “CAESAR’S PALACE IS PROUD TO PRESENT…”

“That was the thing we did in Chicago, where the guy was like ‘I’M COMPLETELY SINCERE!’”  Linnell explained, “I’VE NEVER HEARD OF ANY OF THESE ACTS!”

“I’M YOUR DAD’S ALCOHOLIC FRIEND!”  Flans shot back “PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR HEY MUST BE GIANTS!”

This got a mix of laughter and applause from the crowd, which Flans responded to, still in the voice “KEEP IT GOING!  FOR AIN’T THEY GUNS.”

Seizing on the moment of quiet after that pronouncement, Danny began the intro to Museum of Idiots.  Four songs from Spine in one night!  Afterwards Flans briefly introduced Dan, and everyone else stepped back to let Dan begin his intro to Istanbul.  After a few fake endings, with some of Dan’s electric and a lot of Curt’s amazing everyone, Dan and Marty left the stage.  Flans thanked everybody for coming out and introduced the final song of the night as “the song I thought ended the first set for the last four nights,” Theme From Flood.

(Note:  I had no idea of this at the time of course, but Flans’ goodbye had a bit more emotion in it than is typical, and I’m guessing that at this point they were already rescheduling the rest of the April shows.)

Coming on for the first encore, the crowd was a bit rowdy, and Flans made the comment that “I once saw a guy defeated by a mic stand,” before they started the first song of the encore: Number Three!  During this song, Marty just plays his kick drum.  Danny, coming to the side of the drum riser, looked over at what Marty was doing and began copying his leg movement. It looked more than a bit silly, especially since Danny was grinning hugely up at Marty so he would notice.

“Mr. Dan Miller will be playing the keyboard on the next number,”  Flans announced

“Mr. Dan Mil-Ler,” Linnell repeated, with a bit of a call back to the announcers voices they had tried out earlier.

“YOUR DAD’S  ALCOHOLIC FRIEND IS ANNOUNCING MR. DAN MILLER ON THE KEYBOARDS,” Flans added, liking the idea.

“MISTER DANNY MY-LER,”  Linnell claimed.  Dropping the voice with a bit of a laugh, he started to ask “What was that thing where-”

Flans cut him off with a “DANNY MY-LER PLEASE MOVE YOUR CAR!”

Undeterred,  Linnell continued telling us about their sometimes trombone player Dan Levine.  Apparently, when he was playing in Frank Sinatra’s orchestra “he played that famous trombone solo in You Make me Feel So Young at which point Frank Sinatra said- this is the only time he’d ever called out our trombone player- ‘JOHNNY LEVINE!’”  Watching the crowd react, he concluded quietly, “you know, it’s the thought that counts.”

They finished out the first encore with “a song that we do”  Doctor Worm.  I think Dan finally had the keyboard settings figured out!  Just before the trumpet's final bit that ends the song, Linnell called out “Johnny Ramm!”

Coming back onstage for the second encore, they went right into She’s An Angel.  I hadn’t realized before, but Marty puts a tambourine on top of his hi hat for this song.  They went from Angel to The Guitar without any more of a pause than it took for Linnell to switch from accordion to keys.  Flans sang “is it Johnny Levine/ I don’t think so” during the first verse, and introduced Johnny Linnell and Johnny Ramm for an especially interesting and extended Future of Sound.  Everybody onstage was really going all out the whole song, including Dan doing what I can only describe as prancing while he played, and as they finished Flans thanked us all for coming one more time before leaving the stage.  

The rest of the band quickly followed him as the house mix began playing.  Except Danny that is, instead of leaving right away, he grabbed his setlist and walked over to me.  He had to step out onto the amp and lean across the aisle for me to reach it. I took it with a big smile, which he returned before heading offstage.

[shittyfandomimagines]

We Lost Us

Decided to make it a short series so this is just a “filler”

Word count: 1,282

Tag-list (sorry if I missed anyone): @peacedolantwins2

@van-horn-dashner

@cafe-sabor-a-chocolate-

@shawnmendes048

@laggyphone

@my-sweet-escape-from-the-world

@miclarodeluna

@jaysgotabadrep

@fanatic-af

I woke up quickly like someone who had a bad nightmare, except instead of being able to move, I was completely frozen. I had no way to move, it felt like my body was stuck to a bed.

“Ms. L/n, please stay still, we’re trying to help you. You were in a bad car wreck.” A nurse had leaned over to be in the view of my eyes, I felt my heart rate pick up as I remembered the last thing that happened.

I had heard the squealing of the tire but when I looked up I knew I was on the right side of the road, but I was still hit. I remember my head hitting the steering wheel. Oh fuck! My mom, my mom is waiting on me. No no. She’s all I have left, I hardly had friends and now I’m going fucking die all alone.

“Someone give her 1 CC of alprazolam, she needs to calm down. Her heart rate is too high.” I heard another nurse yell, soon a face was hovering back over mine. She had a flashlight as she checked my eyes, her face contorted some.

“Left eye is slow to reaction, someone page neurology now and tell the lab we’re coming!” The same nurse yelled, I tried to read her name tag but it was too blurry. I wanted to use my words but I felt like my head was too weak to make words. “She has a severely dislocated hip and ankle is too swollen. The hip can be relocated but the foots pulse is thready, we need x-rays now to see how bad it is before she loses it.” A different nurse says as I’m being pushed forcefully through the halls.

I started to feel droopy again, this time the pain was slowly fading, it must’ve been whatever the hell they used earlier. “You’ve gotta fight for me y/n, I called your mom and you’ve got to fight for her too.” The same nurse leaned down next to my ear, and for the first time, I felt the need to survive.

—-

I groaned as I tried to sit up but a hand pushed me down gently, I opened my eyes slowly to see my mom standing there with tears in her eyes. I wanted to talk but I felt like my mouth was full of cotton. I tapped my lips to indicate I needed water, she understood before pouring some from the pitcher on the portable table.

I sipped it slowly, my throat aching horribly. “Mommy,” I cried for the first time and she held me tightly, well not too tight. “Baby, I was scared to death. I was sitting in the chair when the nurse came running back, Dianne, our favorite. She made me finish my dialysis before I could even come to check on my baby girl.” She cried into my shoulder and I couldn’t wrap my arms around her any tighter, my body felt like jelly.

“I’m sorry mom.” I rested my head on her shoulder, feeling wires pressing between us two. “Hey it’s not your fault, the police stopped by and said the other driver was under the influence, it wasn’t your fault at all. No one died or anything.

You had pressure on your brain but they were able to use medicines to help. The wires are to monitor it, then you shattered your right ankle from trying to slam on the brake. They performed emergency surgery to fix the smaller pieces but there’s a splint on to heal the bigger bones.” She explained everything that had happened and I nodded.

“How long ago was the wreck?” The way she spoke about it made it seem like it was a while back. “Well, it’s been a few days now, the best part is that the media has no clue. You don’t have to worry about all the questions, no Shawn either.” She knew all about him, I tell her every single thing that happens in my life.

“Good, I don’t want him acting all buddy-buddy after we haven’t spoken,” I say as I settle back into the uncomfortable bed. I started to feel tired again and my mom could tell, so she stood up from the bed.

“Is it okay if I go get some clothes from home while you sleep?” She asks and I nod. “Go ahead, I’ll be fine.” I smile gently.

——

I felt the tug at my arm, expecting it to be my mom back from her house. I opened my eyes slowly to be faced with Shawn, my heart rate picking up quickly. I saw the tears in his eyes, the other hand that wasn’t on me was shaking with nerves.

“What are you doing here?” My voice snapped into Shawn’s own world. “Well, your mom was called into work and they had no one else, so she asked me to make sure you had a familiar face to wake up to.” He nervously explained. Did it have to be him? Mom is back to playing matchmaker again.

“Okay.” I moved my arm out of his grip.

“What happened to us? You’ve never acted this way to me.”

“Shawn, there was no point in us being friends anymore. You only hung out with me when Abigail was working, but when I needed you she did too. You chose your girlfriend, which is fine, but that used to be me. You told me the day that you two officially started dating that you wouldn’t get rid of me. Too late.”

“I never got rid of you! Yeah I didn’t have time for us but you’re still my best friend, you were the one who left. Who unfollowed me on Instagram and removed me from Snapchat. Blocked my number from your phone! You got rid of me because you didn’t confront this.”

I shook my head at his testimony, it made me want to laugh. Couldn’t he tell there was a reason I had to leave? I was the one being ignored so I might as well fucking leave it behind if nothing comes out of it.

“You gave me no reason to stay? There was no point in our friendship if you ignore me anyways. Blocking you didn’t change anything from the past 5 months.”

“You’re willing to give up 8 years of friendship because of it?”

“I didn’t want to lose you but there was no other option. I’d keep you in my life forever but there are restraints, no reason to press it further.”

My head started hurting, I felt like the back of my neck was on fire. My stomach started to hurt and I felt like I could vomit.

“You look as white as a ghost, fuck.”

“I don’t feel so good.” I reached over to grab the vomit bag, puking inside of it.

Shawn was rapidly pushing the nurse button, when they answered he explained what happened.

They came in as quickly as they could, checking my eyes and fever. They pulled the huge stand where the monitors on my head were connected to. “She has an elevated blood pressure so it’s affecting the ICP. Someone give her 3 CC’s of acetazolamide.” One nurse yelled and I sunk back into my bed.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” I heard Shawn’s voice and I nodded, I started to feel a little loopy as their medicine entered my bloodstream, if I had to guess, they’re trying to make me sleep through it.

“Y/n you’re going to sleep for a bit, your pressure is back up and we need to let your brain rest.”

“Oh, oka-“

[snowtimeisbesttime]

Thoughts and questions on Pesterquest Volume 6, routes 1 and 2! Aka the one where shit finally goes down.

-!!!! musics from the homestuck albums!!!! more concretely i'd say they’re from Alterniabound; Gamzee's is MiRaClEs, while I can't for the life of me remember how that Vriska theme was called but it's Good.

~ROUTE 1~

-The question of “does alternian seawater corrode humans (/friends)” is left for another day (considering the acid rain. it probably does corrode humans.)

-Gamzee warms up to MC almost immediately; which actually makes a lot of sense considering... later events.

-Why's his hive so shoddy, by the way? He's in the highest landdweller caste and benefits from the miracle of speedy online deliveries (when back in Hiveswap 1, Xefros mentioned that deliveries for rustbloods could take sweeps- then again Hiveswap (/Friendsim) is a very different time period than Hivebent, and one we'll hopefully learn more about soon!). As far as I remember trolls would have their hives built by carpenter drones very shortly after leaving the Caverns... how long has he been eating those pies again?

-what's the thing about MC that makes everybody go “hmm yes I am going to give Funky Chemical Substances to the alien now”. Seriously by this point I'm expecting Feferi to bust out a 6 pack of Drugs (soda) the second we even see her (as we all know, her mom bought them).

-We also get a pesterquest murderstuck!! Though iirc HS's murderstuck happened because Dave sent Gamzee an ICP video, not just because he ran out of slime pies... and here, he says that someone's been talking to him, and that we'll meet him soon...... (he does go for a lot longer without sopor in pesterquest though...)

(-also like. why wouldn't he get a pie's captcha code and alchemize more on the meteor??? like they had at least one alchemiter... were they too expensive?)

-We got the “okay ending” from that post i made yesterday: clown lore!! As well as our memories of Karako, briefly... he did make MC an honorary clown when he took them with him to the Dark Carnival, didn't he? (There's also the blood initiation (murder) they got in Chahut's bad route... i cant believe mc is double cloun)

-Once they remembered Karako, MC tried to zap to him, and ended up... somewhere nobody was ever supposed to see. A tunnel with a light at the end, where we got to see MC themself in third person and some random humanoid figure T-posing at us (though that was more of an A-pose); before getting zapped back to the main narrative, some time after leaving. ...Might Karako, our most baby clown, be dead when Hivebent happens? Highbloods are supposed to be very long lived, but we don't know just how long has it been since Friendsim's time... and of course, we've already seen him die once :(((.

-wait didn't karako also all but instantly befriend MC? As in, the only route of his that didn't end with friendship was the one where the drone took him...

-Somebody does NOT want MC to get their memories back. We also have more limits here than in Friendsim; if MC opens the mop closet instead of Gamzee, the universe straight up crashes, whereas the last time something like that happened it was more gradual (Boldir & Karako's routes)

-most importantly, we did Not get anything similar to the “cursed ending”, thank fuck.

~ROUTE 2~

-Vriska's good route in a word and several images of crying cats with heart emojis: aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

-trans vriska real!!!!

-Of course, we open with a callback to Ardata's route.

-MC manages to miss Vriska doing stuff with dice right in front of them and thinks she means a political campaign, but they're happy to help anyways- and Vriska's definitely happy to explain how FLARP works to them!

-Was that a Nepeta hint??? We know she lives in a cave and it seems that houses are very important focus points for MC's powers... blease let me see my daughter soon (also. when the fuck has vriska been to nepeta's hive??????)

-And we get a sweet sweet FLARP loredump, featuring classes and attributes and Interactivity!!! fuck now i wanna make my fantrolls stats

-The weird shit starts early on in this route- see MC's random reluctance to make more friends, the few monochoices before the route's Actual Big Choice, MC briefly thinking this is the first time they've been to Alternia, the actual literal punching of a hole through the fourth wall when they check out the warnings on the options menu (while vriska just waits for them to finish)...

-We get to give MC an actual name we can see in words! In a route where they explicitly have trouble seeing themselves as a distinct, unique entity...

-Vriska tries to use her powers to control MC and give them Epic Sword Skills- but all she can do to humans is make them fall asleep. (also it says that “the seven red dots of her prosthetic” glow- what prosthetic??? her glasses??? did she have a robot eye all this time???)

-Thanks to that we get to meet again with the Best Troll, Boldir!!! Who also speaks about a he who's fucking shit up here. Her presence in MC's mind (and maybe not only there) also helps us remember our friends, finally. Sadly we're separated by the strings way too soon... and immediately transported back to DS the first's house.

-What will you do? That's STILL the best fucking question anybody's ever asked. MC has the power to direct the narrative now, and what they'll do is FIX THIS.

-Not only do we get explicitly stated out that Spidermom's a piece of shit (as seen in the post i made yesterday), but MC also yeets her into Jade's volcano!!!!!!!! Now all Vriska needs to do is break free from all the boxes society's given her... (while her good route's great, both her bad routes are short and sad...)

-Vriska also joins the list of Trolls Who'd Benefit A Lot From Living In Earth C (As We Imagined It Before The Epilogues And All That), which includes Karkat and of course Daraya, amongst others.

-She looks up to Mindfang the rebel, too........

[comicsnas]

Wrath

WARNING FOR: referenced child abuse (briefly, 4 paragraphs in), blood and violence 2.7k words, so so so sorry mobile users

this is pretty sinister even for me, but i have to somehow get this goofy man from pacifist mcgee to dude who cuts icp in half on top of the white house >:3c

You don’t get angry often. You would say you have a certain base level of anger -- things are going wrong in the world, people are being treated poorly, the fate of humanity is constantly at stake, and that makes you some kind of angry. The kind that ignites a fire inside you and gets you to do things, get active and find innovative ways to protest and do whatever you can to thwart the looming threat of alien takeover. The kind of anger that makes you calm and level-headed, because you need to figure out how to do things smartly without getting yourself killed.

But you don’t get loud. You don’t yell. You despise violence -- it’s been necessary often, ever since you and Rose started seriously fighting against Crocker, but you don’t like doing it, and it’s no outlet for your anger, for you. It’s just something you have to do, and has nothing to do with anger.

And even so, you don’t get angry often.

You come from an angry home. Your parents, too, rarely yelled at you. Their anger was cold but volatile, quiet but physical. You carry the scars, still. You don’t get angry often.

Someone is tailing you, and you are furious.

It happens -- you’re a public figure, and people will sometimes follow you around in hopes of pictures, an autograph, or getting you to pay their college debt again (which you normally happily do). And sometimes, you get tailed for more sinister reasons too; this isn’t the first time, and now and then you even allow yourself to have fun with it, to climb up buildings and jump over rooftops whenever this happens, just to see how long they can keep up.

But right now, you are with Dirk.

You're on a walk with your baby brother in a stroller, and someone is tailing you, and that is a first. They don't seem like a fan or paparazzo either, because you noticed them several blocks ago, and they haven't approached or taken a picture of you the entire time. Which means that they're Crocker-affiliated. Which means that some violent asshole who's probably armed is currently stalking your seven months old infant brother. Which means that you feel just about ready to turn around and throw hands.

Of course, you don't. Because you are with Dirk. You're not going to be getting into fights while your kid is watching from his stroller, so you guess you… You just have to let this guy keep following you. They know where you live, anyway. You're aware of that. This dude isn't on a retcon mission -- this is an intimidation tactic.

She does that a lot, and you suppose it used to work. When you were new to LA, had just lost your eye and were trying to lay off the cocaine, it used to work. These days it just pisses you off. You don't want this guy near the baby.

You round another corner and sigh. Your apartment building is only two blocks away now. “Come on,” you say quietly as you lean down and pick Dirk up out of his stroller. “모험 나서자.” Someone else can have this stroller, you guess. You don't care. You have enough money to buy millions of strollers. You pull the carrier from the stroller and strap Dirk to your chest, then you leave it standing around on the sidewalk and start to scale the nearest building.

Dirk squeals. He can hold his own head up by now, so you’re not worried about that, but you still have to keep some distance between him and the wall you’re climbing. You’ve never freerun with your baby before, and you didn’t ever intend to do this, so it’s kind of new, but you’re dealing. You can’t strap him to your back instead. You feel anxious enough turning your own back on the man.

But the kid seems to be fine. He sounds excited, even. You can tell his little squeaks apart pretty well now, and he seems to be parsing this as just a new way of you bouncing him on your knee the way he likes to be bounced. Feet on somebody’s balcony, you grab a ledge and pull yourself up, the hint of a smile on your lips. Yeah, he might take after you.

From there, it doesn’t take you long to get back. Los Angeles is a hellhole, if anybody cares for your opinion, but it’s a hellhole you know your way around. It’s been years since you were this slow and careful while sneaking home over rooftops, but you can’t have anything happen to Dirk. You figure you’ll go in through the roof access, bolt your door as usual, put him down for a nap, and then… do something to wind down. You don’t know what yet. You might work out, or draw, or call John, or something. That should work. It’ll be fine. You’re getting your child home safe, and then you’ll calm down and the guy who tailed you will be gone, and you’ll forget about it. Until next time.

Your plan works for a while. You get to the roof access in peace. You reach your apartment on the top floor. You lock all the locks on your door behind you and put Dirk in his crib. You stay with him for a while, hum to him until he gets sleepy. This entire time, you have this feeling in your back -- this naked, vulnerable feeling, even though you know that nobody else is, can be, in here. Once Dirk is out, you swallow dryly. You walk through the hallway of your own apartment, strung tight, like you’re expecting someone to jump out at you from the kitchen any second now. You should call John, you think. You try to will yourself to call John.

You walk right to the apartment door, and wake the little screen next to it, to show you what’s going on on the other side of it. When you went in here, there was nobody outside. You figured you had lost the guy that was following you. But still, they know where you live.

He is standing outside the door, looking directly into the camera.

It’s the same man who tailed you -- you recognize the clothes, but now that you’re actually seeing his face for the first time today, you realize that you know him. He’s been here before, and last time he was, you messed him up pretty good.

“Boy, your face recovered real well, huh,” you tell the screen. He can’t hear you. Back then, you didn’t have a baby in the house yet, so you could just grab the sword you had haphazardly leaning against the wall next to the door. These days, it’s mounted on the wall a little higher, so Dirk can’t get it. You grab it, again. “We’ll see how brittle those bones got.”

You don’t like violence.

You don’t get angry often.

As you open your apartment door and give the man a look before climbing up the stairs towards the roof again, knowing he will follow you, there is a dark, cold pull in your chest. You think about how he had a gun on him last time, and how he probably has one on him now. You think about a gun being in direct vicinity of your seven months old baby brother. You think about how much you hate it when this feud between you, your sister, and Crocker starts affecting other people -- just recently, two scientists you were working with were killed by her. One had two children. You think about how innocent people get pulled into this, and you think about how one of these innocent people is your seven months old baby brother. You think about how you have no reason to believe that she would even think twice before harming a child, an infant. You think about how this guy just goes along with it, how he preys on you outside when you’re with your baby, and how he seems to be having fun doing it. You think about what could have happened to Dirk. You think about what he could have done to Dirk, and something ice cold and black curls tightly in your chest.

You want to hurt this person.

“So,” he says behind you. You listen to the door to the roof fall shut, then you turn around to face him. You think his nose might look a little different than it did before you broke it. That’s good. That feels good to know. “What’re we doing up here? You wanna have another talk, like last time?”

“Maybe,” you say. In your head, you try to come up with a plan, but all you can think about is that tight dark coil behind your ribs. “Why, you wanna get beat up again?”

“Well, you haven’t disarmed me so far,” he says. “So I like to think I’ll stand a better chance.”

He moves, and your body responds within the same second. By the time his gun is fully drawn, you have your sword in both of your hands. You’re a good seven feet apart, so he does technically have the advantage here, but you trust in yourself. You trust in the black thing in your chest.

“Did you have that on you while tailing my child?” you ask. You know the answer to this. You just want to hear that you’re right. You want this to be entirely justified. “Did you bring a goddamn gun when you were following my baby around?”

“Oh yeah, I did,” he says. He looks smug, arms outstretched, barrel pointed at you. Like he invented the thing. “Remember how you got him, Dave? That’s all thanks to us. Don’t you ever forget that. We gave little Dirk to you. And we won’t hesitate for a second to take him away again if we so please.”

You’re charging at him before the sentence is finished. You hear more than feel the shot being fired. The left side of your body is flung backwards, but you don’t stop coming at him. You adjust mid-step, angle yourself, and barrel your right shoulder into him instead. Unstoppable, you keep pushing him, until you can feel the impact of the roof access door hitting his back vibrate through your right arm. He’s still holding the gun. The barrel presses warm against your stomach. You feel your sword heavy in both arms.

“She wouldn’t want me to kill you,” he says, but you barely parse the words. All you can care about is how strained his voice sounds. “But we both know you’re some sort of vermin cockroach and would make it through somehow even if I shot you in the goddamn stomach, so you get back now or--”

You don’t think. Your body remembers on its own that if you want to break someone’s face when your hands are busy, you need to angle your head to smash the top of it against them, so you don’t damage your own face in the process. You can hear bones cracking against your skull. The gun clatters to the floor, and you kick it away.

When you look up, his face is covered in blood and looks about as angry as you feel. Satisfaction twists warm in your guts for wiping that smug look off of him, but it gets you inattentive just long enough for him to shove you back again. You catch your balance only three steps away from him, and watch his eyes dart around, looking for his gun. He can’t find it quick enough, and draws an almost comically huge hunting knife from his belt instead.

“Fine,” he says. Blood sprays from lips on the F sound. “Blades it is.”

Blades it is, and blades are home turf for you, and you wait for that to calm you down a little. It doesn’t. In fact, you lose patience for waiting about a second in, and rush to come at him again instead. Your left arm throbs when you move it to slash at him, and you can’t quite figure out why that is. You don’t care, anyway. Your hands are both still firmly attached to the handle, and that’s what matters.

He dodges and swings his knife at you, and you dodge too. He’s not bad, in his movement, but you can tell he’s more used to firearms. His posture is all wrong. The next time he tries to come for you, your sword leaves a long gash across his chest and he makes a noise that sounds like a pissed off cat.

“Where’s this gonna end, Dave?” he snarls at you from somewhere behind his grit, bloody teeth. We both know you won’t--”

Your foot hits him square in the stomach, and he crumples. He falls on his knees, then his side, and by the time he rolls on his back with a wheeze, you’re standing above him. He blinks, and you see only the white of his eyes, until he blinks again and stares up at you.

“We both know you won’t kill me.” What comes out of his throat sounds like more gravel than voice. “What, you’ll knock me out again, send me back, do it over? We gonna find ourselves here twice a year, you and me, Dave? There’s always gonna be someone following you, if you don’t learn to leave this alone. Always,” he coughs, gurgles. You feel the cool grip of the sword in your hands, “gonna be someone watching. Watching you. Watching Dirk. If you don’t drop this, Dave, where’s this gonna”

You bring your sword down. You feel and hear the blade cut through his throat. Windpipe, esophagus, arteries, veins, muscles. The impact vibrates through your arms. You don’t cut through the spine, you can tell. It doesn’t matter. A wet noise bubbles out of his mouth as his last breath leaves him in a wheeze. His eyes stare up at you, empty.

It’s pure reflex that makes you swallow. You pull your sword out and take a step back, waiting for your knees to give out, but they don’t. You’re not shaky, you don’t feel like throwing up -- nothing. You’ve never killed anyone before, never wanted to, kept looking for ways to handle this without killing. If it ever happened, you figured, it would be self defense.

You could have handled this without killing him. You have, before. You know this -- he knew this. You didn’t have to do this.

But you wanted to.

It’s this thought -- not the bloody sight of a man with a slashed throat, it’s the thought that you wanted to do this to him, that makes you shiver and groan quietly. That’s bad. This is bad. This doesn’t… You don’t remember what you were thinking. Were you thinking, at all? You can’t tell. You don’t remember. You’re on the roof above your apartment, where your baby sleeps, and there is a dead man lying in front of you.

Fuck, you don’t even know this guy’s name.

You close your eyes, take a breath. The air smells like blood. You shift your sword into your non-dominant right, and realize that your left hurts. When you look down, your sleeve is soaked in red. Right. Right, you remember a bit, now.

“Motherfucker shot me,” someone with your voice says. You shiver again. Your arm throbs when you reach into your pocket and pull out your phone and do what you always do when there’s trouble: you call your sister.

“Hello, Dawon.” Rose picks up after the second ring and the familiarity of her voice alone almost makes you cry. You have no idea what you’re feeling. It seems to be nothing and all at once, simultaneously.

“Rose,” you croak. Immediately, you can hear rustling on her end, like your tone is enough to make her get up and grab the nearest pair of shoes.

“I’m here,” she says. “What’s up?”

You take a breath. The words feel foreign in your brain, then your mouth. You say, “I just killed someone.”

“Stay where you are,” Rose says. “And send me your location. I’ll come help you with the body.”

[nightcoremoon]

I just got Mandela Effect'd

most of my music library is ripped from the cd collections of my mom (and her ex boyfriend), grandma, dad, and my dad's brother (and his best friend) and sister (and her son). most of them are big on rap and hip hop and they've in some combination given me a lot of stuff.

public enemy, wu tang clan, roots, tribe called quest, ice cube, dr dre, coolio, bone thugs, ice t, busta rhymes, cypress hill, snoop dogg, nate dogg, m.i.a., kurupt, run dmc, xzibit, 2pac, the notorious b.i.g., outkast, ludacris, eminem, tech n9ne, dmx, puff daddy, 2 chainz, kanye, lil jon, jay z, nicki minaj, kid cudi, childish gambino, and these don't really count but icp, beastie boys, bloodhound gang, and rage against the machine / prophets of rage, just to name some of what's all on my phone currently.

anyway one of the cds, specifically from my dad, and I know this for 100% fact, was the B Sides & Bootlegs album from Ice Cube. (weirdly enough itunes erased all the track info for the album, and converted the album the best of the carpenters into all japanese text). I'd skimmed through it because ice cube was a formulative part of my childhood (through his acting career lmao), and I could have sworn for absolute certainty that one of the songs was one more road to cross. "one more risk to take, gotta live my life like there's one more move to make". you know, that song. it was a banger.

I thought that song was by ice cube for years.

and then lol and behold whilst compiling a list of songs to play at work for the spring (the one I had already put together was mostly alice in chains, the birthday massacre, all that remains, and blind guardian, and was growing tired of hearing the same 1500 songs over and over again), I wanted to put in more rap and hip hop rather than grunge, dream pop, and metalcore (which I love but I like more variety even more).

so while scrolling through and adding select songs into the playlist I got into the dmx and saw one more road to cross. so I saw that and was like "hmm wow that's cool, he covered it" and I listened to it and was like

wait this is the original

wait that's not ice cube

wait *checks google*

wait ice cube didn't do that song

wat

anyway tl;dr IT WAS BERENSTEIN DAMMIT

[seenashwrite]

14.04 Round-Up

Here, have a Nash-Is-Running-On-Fumes round-up.

Disagree on Salem Ohio.  Shoulda gone Indiana. Why would you choose Salem, anyway? Given that this has nothing to do with witchy anything? Wait, does it?  [Post-show pseudo-addendum: Nope.]

Shocker. Like, THE Shocker, or... 😳  *ahem*

What is the fixation with giving characters the same/similar names? 

[Post-show pseudo-addendum: I get the shtick for the purposes of this episode, not entirely the point, keep reading] 

And I'm also not talking about super-duper-common names (Jane, Mary, etc.), I get how those would naturally come up over the course of 13/14 years. I mean they’re fixated on the same names for women that have more than a just-passing-through role. 

This chick is Sam, short for Samantha. So why not just call her Samantha? Especially given the tone of their conversation, we don’t typically revert to nicknames when we’re pissed, we typically dial it up to full first names (and for parents, to full first-and-middle). Nope, gotta be "Sam". And he said it three times. Three times in a conversation that maybe lasted a minute, to make sure we got it.

WE GOT IT

Welcome, Sam-Specifically-Not-Samantha! Meet Anna, Hannah, Anael, Jessica, Jo, Josie, Jody, Jessica, and Jo. Hope you don't die! PS: your hair is phenomenal.

I was about to say - I'd be in my room with all those people running around, too, archangel farts still bouncing around, or no.

So I take it Thundercats is DC property. Learn sumpin’ new every day (I will never need this knowledge)

You know, they *just* had a dinosaur toy come to life in Scooby. Writing wise, wish they'd have just said characters in general coming to life, would've covered the movie/comic spread and all the swag that comes with. Who wrote this? [checks] Oh fuck us, it's Perez.

Fortnite *vomit*

These outfits are fantastic, well-played, wardrobe.

"I don't know who Riley is. But cool." ---> Same, Dean-Who-May-Be-Michael-Faking. Same.

The gif of them ducking down in the car is gonna be precious.

[Post-show pseudo-addendum: Yup]

Why does Sam suddenly not know how to whip his jacket off and put pressure on a wound?

Goddamnit my food got here in time for me to miss the Dean-confronts-thing scene. Thank goodness for giffers and clippers. Though I still haven't gotten my Fluids gif from the Scooby ep. I want that gif.

Stewie is not breathing 27 times per minute. Just hire me. Let me deal with your medical shit. I ain't cheap, but I can be had.

"I like to watch movies where I know the bad guy's gonna lose"   ----> gooooood, Perez, you can doooo eeeeeeet (unless that was a script editor’s call, in which case ::sigh::)

See there now, Sam's calling her Samantha. Stewie could’ve just called her "Sam" once, that plus seeing her name come up on his phone is plenty, didn’t need three farging times in less than a minute at the top of the ep. No, I'm not letting this go.

Blood transfusers don't hang out in rando hospital rooms. It just ain't a hang-out, what-if, ya-never-can-tell type of jam.

This ep's pretty much squelched my Michael impersonating Dean option, might have to be in the Michael's hiding in his back molar camp. I say that because this is the most "Dean" he's acted thus far. I mean, I *guess* he could be accessing Dean's memories about the movies, but why lay it on so thick since Sam's not around to witness it? Doesn't matter, I don't know why I'm even going down this road, I don't trust this writer's room in the least to have a carefully crafted plan that they've shared with Jensen. Well, it's beyond trust - Jensen all but said it in that interview (go find it yourselves, I'm sleepy, and this sammich ain't gonna eat itself, but I love you)

I really want Samantha's hair, and now her flannel shirt. I like her and her personality about a million times more than Maggie, why couldn't she be Maggie? OH SHIT.  Samantha - I forgot to introduce you to two more members of the name game club, here's Magda and Maggie. [Post-show pseudo-addendum thanks to astute Nashooligan] We would also like to introduce you to Amelia and Amelia and also the Name Game Sorority’s den mother, Millie, who we aren’t quite sure should be included but are hedging our bets. Could be Millicent or Melissa, sure, but why not complete an Amelia trifecta? ---> I’m about to digress with a side note that has nothing to do with this ep, I just want to further cement how much you should trust my judgment: in my big story, this name shit infuriates me so much, it was a factor I considered when constructing Millie’s background. I made Millie come from a slightly posh background on her British mother’s side, and a military family life courtesy of her high-ranking American father. I searched for names that the nickname “Millie” could evolve from that I thought would sound appropriate with this somewhat upper-crust lifestyle, so I made her real name be Emeline (Em-ah-lynn for me, though I’ve heard the last part with a long “i”, too) which is a sweet and classy oldie-goldie jam I wish would come back. It’s Brit-y for her mom, allows for her dad to be the only one who calls her Millie til Henry comes along. Her brothers call her “Em”, which annoys her mom. My psychiatrist’s front office girl has this name (except double-M) but insists on going by “Em”. Not “Emma”, not “Emme”. Em. (As in Auntie Em, I just had a fever dream about little people who give out candy, and grown men dressed in costumes who like skipping down roads with young girls, and trees that throw apples, and flying monkeys, which are cool, but still.) I have found her to be idiotic in several respects over the years, and this decision was not a point in her favor. There, I’m done.

Stewie's respirations are not 115 per minute.

(I'm looking at the bottom feed, btw, in case you're wondering. His heart rate and rhythm is up near the top, BP would be bottom left and would be 2 numbers, and O2 sats max at 100. Also not art line nor ICP. I'll get a better look in gifs but pretty sure it's supposed to be his resps. Or else it is the sats and somebody's gotten their butterfingers on the training module. I mean regardless of their intent, 29 to 115′s a helluva spread for any vital sign unless it’s your heart rate whilst I’m doing CPR because straight up, I do happen to get after it pretty fierce when the occasion has arisen. Anyway, they are ass at this. All they have to do is ask. When Nashville the show was still in production, they asked us shit all the time. I’m revealing too much of my secret identity. Moving on.)

This is great, the cutting between movie and real life, high-five to editing.

Sam and Samantha are legit adorable in that scene.

HAHAHAHA hesitation elbow.

Nice cut to the movie commercial. I don't care for the reusing of all the same clips we just saw, I can't imagine there weren't extra little pieces of discarded scenes for editing to choose from, so... but otherwise, I dig it.

Thankfully, the M.E.’s stainless steel vegetable chopping knife was there in the morgue.🤨

I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally wish for a moment there, not even five seconds, when ol' boy was standing above him, we saw some Mikey flash across Dean's face with a touch - and I mean a *touch*, CG department, don't blow your whole wad per usual - of blue. That nobody sees, only the audience and the monster, have monster kinda pause, maybe look confused and hit his little button but this time it comes out with the tiniest lilt of a questioning upspeak on the last syllable, and nothing ultimately happens since Sam arrives, Dean shakes his drowsiness off, then proceed to choke hold, etc. It would fall in line with whatever route they're going (Mikey actively impersonating Dean/Mikey residuals left in Dean/Mikey passively hiding out in Dean), also be a nice audience tease.

I didn't think I needed to specify that I wanted mushrooms on this cheesesteak hoagie. On god, the world is completely falling apart.

That whole car convo was.... weird. The party memory story went on too long and was stupid as shit, sure, but the costume discussion is what I mean. And then the one it ended on was especially weird. Why not just end with a shot of the Impala and their conversation continuing with their voices fading away with the engine? End on a better duo than Thelma and Louise who, Perez, killed themselves by driving their car into a canyon. Hell, end on Scooby. I mean, you had the lunchbox which the camera held on for forever to make damn sure we all saw it, may as well double-down.

The doll's eyes should've flicked closed at the end. Missed opportunity.

Okay, cute little ep. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that this Perez kid can't have an original idea to save his life, though. Kinda taints it.  

Heh. Check it, yo - I brought things full damn circle.

You know.

Shocker. Taint.

HEY THERE YOU GO DEAN - duo Halloween costume!

My work here is done, see y'all next week.

[ishades]

See I think people should never be able to talk abt alpha rse if they ship her with her twin bc they’re always saying the most batshit things you’ll ever hear they’re obsessed with inc as a kink esp of the twin variety or else they wouldn’t always be talking about that woman from game of thrones and saying that’s rse

So to bypass any freaks from finding this I’m referring to alpha rse as Roslyn and alpha dve as david

She definitely has a fucked up sense of humor and is into the macabre but also she’s just 2000s fucked up like lowkey partly irony poisoned by the time David gets into contact with her and she definitely sizes him up like real sigma female shit and David is like “okay so yeah everything we have ever known is a lie but whatever we’re going to have a family in the future isn’t that nice? I’ll get a kickass little brother and you’re gonna have a gamer daughter lol”

And Roslyn is very much in denial about the worlds soon to be annihilation like “no this shit can’t be real if aliens were a thing I’d know”

And she has an existential crisis of proportions never before seen like she cannot deal with this shit “david what do you mean the icp are evil I got over my childhood fear of clowns after I got my first handjob to an icp song this is undoing years of progress for me here”

And he just fully ignores her comment like “okay yeah no they’re def evil and so is guy f🔥”

When they become famous no one could ever look at Roslyn and think that woman has had the worst 10 years of her life leading up to the publication of her critically acclaimed novel she plays up her actual self for the media just always a little extra

Posing with skulls like a shitty hamlet photo op for her magazine spreads and David hires fake body doubles to pretend to be him at conflicting times bc he loves controversy they’re both very much the dramatic siblings they are in canon but David actually is able to stand up and help her through her issues bc he’s got more insight and also he isn’t a teen stuck on a meteor hurtling through paradox space

Anyways Roslyn has fucked dozens of people in her life time mostly women and she definitely had a brief period of time where she was like “yeah I can sleep with women but I can’t ever fall in love with one but I could theoretically marry a man I guess” she’s definitely a lesbian but in denial about it for awhile

Whereas David is like “I really don’t care if I’m bi or gay I don’t have time to date and I’m not interested in the people who are into me. I just know I at least like men.” Anything beyond that doesn’t matter