#but everything thinks i am in sweden now

[charliemwrites]

Since I’ve been going pretty hard on dark fics lately….

Who’s up for some childhood friend Simon?

In his worst moments, when he thinks of his inevitable premature and violent end, he hopes that he’ll be able to hold out long enough to die in your arms. Even if they have to fly him straight from the battlegrounds to you, lay him in the grass outside your flat, he wants your face and voice that puts him to his final sleep.

Most moments aren’t his worst moments. But he still thinks of you and prepares. Everything is going to you, of course. Price knows. You’ll get Simon’s tags, his mask, a flag. You’ll get a letter.

He started one night after you two reunited, a little drunk from a thank-fuck-we-survived post mission celebration. It’s a little wobbly and ramble in some places, but never threw it out - never reread it either. Finished it in one hour, three pages long.

He’s added onto it since then. On hard night, nights he misses you. When he’s nostalgic and tipsy, when he wakes up from nightmares soaked in your blood. It’s about 12 pages now. Different colors of ink, different types of pages. Even one slanted and awkward because his writing hand was broken so he had to use the other.

He doesn’t bring it home to you with him. Doesn’t want you to accidentally discover it and think it’s something else. It stays where Johnny will find it if the worst happens; Simon trusts him to give it to you.

He never really thought about it the other way round. Couldn’t stand to face the prospect again. Not when he can feel the bullet scar beneath your shirt sometimes, or sees you rubbing at it in cold weather.

(He doesn’t consider it his worst moments but he knows you would - that he’d crawl in that grave with you.)

But it’s almost happened again. You’re sitting caddy-corner to him at a briefing table, listening to Price as he explains the situation. Simon’s watching you watching Price. Your shoulders are relaxed, fingers fiddling with your temporary access card. Not nervous, just occupied while you focus.

You’re not worried at all. Simon feels like he’s falling apart right here. One shake of the stupid uneven table and all his pieces will just slide apart into a useless pile.

Without looking away, your hand slides across the table and hooks around his. He doesnt startle - he’s ghost right now, and ghost is rock solid - but his fingers twitch around yours. You shoot him a quick smile and then refocus on Price, picking at a worn patch on the skeleton design of Simon’s glove.

Duct tape for a collapsing soul.

Price concludes, “You’ll stay here, safe and sound with an escort.”

Simon speaks up for the first time in what feels like days.

“I’m not bein’ deployed, skipper. Not right now.”

Price snorts. “‘Course not. You’re on leave with little miss here in sweden.”

“Sweden,” Simon repeats, unimpressed. Not one of the Laswell’s better lies.

“Land of tall blondes,” you chime.

“No one else knows I’m a blond.”

You shrug. “Their loss.”

Simon snorts, you grin, and Price dismisses you both in short order.

You’re staying in Simon’s room; the captain didn’t even offer you temporary quarters. Not that you minded, happy to toss your things amongst his and climb into his bed.

He cleans his favorite gun impulsively at the desk while you futz around on his computer - probably investigating the latest set of unreleased movies he bribed from Laswell.

“You get ten minutes of brooding left and then we’re getting food and watching a movie.”

He scowls down at the magazine, oiled cloth in hand.

“I’m not brooding.”

“It’s like you have your own lighting. I swear those shadows are darker next to you.”

“That’s just how light works.”

“Oh it would have been so much cooler if you said, like, ‘I am the shadows’.”

He pauses, casts you a long, flat look. You beam.

“Ooh, yeah, with that face too! C’mon, say it!”

He blows out a dramatic breath, then grumpily repeats, “I am the shadows.”

You laugh, hopping up from the bed to approach. He shifts his gear out of the way, clearing a space for you to lean against his desk, your knee touching his.

“Im alright, Si. There’s nowhere safer I could be.”

He sets the pieces in his hands aside, flexes his fingers spasmodically.

“Could just not know me. Anywhere would be safer than knowing me.”

You click your tongue, purely derisive. “That’s stupid.”

“That’s just facts, babes.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s your guilt complex. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here.”

He arches his eyebrows - not that you’ll be able to see it past the mask. But you know him well enough to just know.

“Right here?” he challenges. “On a military base? With who fuckin’ knows out to get you? Just because you lived two doors down from me in kindergarten?”

You sigh, that one that tells him you’re employing extra patience purely out of love and experience.

“Right here, Si. Wherever you are,” you confirm.

“Should cut your losses,” he says, trying his best impression of the machine he became after he lost everyone but you. He’s never felt less protected in the mask.

As always, you see right through him.

“A bullet couldn’t take me from you, Simon Riley. The ‘Ghost’ doesn’t stand a chance.” You curl your fingers around the back of his neck, duck down until your forehead knocks against the hard mask’s. “Because it’s me n’ you ‘til the sun stops rising.”

An oath made of picked daisies and shared blood. The weight of it presses on his chest so hard he feels buried again. Layers of earth crushing him, you up above, the only heaven he knows or needs.

“Me ‘n you,” he rasps.

You let him stay like that another moment. Absorbing the warmth of your fingertips, crept beneath the edge of the balaclava. Breathing with you until he’s sure you’re synched. Heart, breath, blood, down to the firing of your neurons.

“Alright, no more brooding. You’ll feel better with some food.”

Simon exhales, sloughing off the gloom and pessimism that weighs on Ghost’s shoulders. You’re here, right here. Nothing will happen to you when he’s still breathing.

“Think I have a few more minutes.”

“Nah, it compounds when I brood with you.”

“You brood like a rainbow broods.”

You snort and flick at his mask, tugging him up with you towards the door. He lets himself settle, listening to your cheerful babble all the way to the mess.

[alexiabae]

ONE DAY; fridolina rolfö x fem!reader

Summary: frido calls y/n after the semifinal match against spain.

Warnings: sad frido, fluff. short.

Note: English is not my first language.

Frido bites her bottom lip, sitting far away from her national teammates. She unblocked her phone and saw a lot of missed calls from her family, friends and Y/N.

She leaned her back on the wall, hearing the distant quiet chat between some of them. The blonde pressed the button to start a FaceTime call. She wants to forget everything that happened right now and talk with her favourite person.

"Hii, love." Y/N's face approached after a few seconds. She was giving her a sad smile, her eyes looking red, accentuating her colour eyes.

"I'm the only one who loses. What is your excuse?" Frido asked in a raspy voice, a tiny smile decorating her lips.

Y/N shakes her head, chuckling softly. "Well, my excuse is seeing you cry." She confessed, shrugging.

The blonde bites a little too hard on her lower lip, holding her own tears for this confession. Something really hard to do when she cried recently.

"Sorry..." Frido muttered, closing her eyes briefly and inevitably a tear rolled for her left cheek.

"You don't have to apologize, mi amor. You have the right to cry and feel sad." Y/N said firm in a soft voice.

Frido gives her one of her famous smiles, showing all her teeth, this time adorned by her tears. "I told you how much I love you?" She asked, watching between her blurred vision how Y/N shakes her head slowly.

"Something I heard..." Y/N giggles. "Frido... I know you are disappointed," Y/N started to say, looking at her with a serious but soft look. Frido swallows, nodding with her head briefly. "You were hopeful and I'm not gonna lie... I was too. I don't care if I am from Spain or not. You know what I think about Spain in this tournament..." Y/N bites her bottom lip, not wanting to let out any tears right now. "Just remember this encounter and make a promise to come back and do it until the final. Because I know you can. Sweden can do it." Y/N finished, clearing her throat to swallow the lump formed there.

A sob escapes from Frido's lips, hiding with a hand her eyes, letting all the tears out. "I p-promise you t-that." She stammered, wiping her tears with the palm of her hand that covered her eyes before.

"I know. You won the League's title, nationals cups, you just won the champions league... Do you think that you can't win the euro or the world cup? Because I'm sure if it's not the two, some of them could be." Y/N reassured her, smiling widely when Frido chuckled.

"We can be like Irene..." Frido trailed off, a silly smile playing on her lips. She saw how her girlfriend frowned, confused. "With a toddler around us." She clarified, enjoying the new colour on Y/N's cheeks.

"Do you not have enough with your young teammates?" Y/N whispered, making Frido laugh.

Frido shakes her head, still smiling. She stopped crying at this point. "Nop."

"What about Lucy?" This makes her laugh more. "She's like a child."

"I know." Frido said between laughs. "I'm not saying that it needed to happen. But, I see myself with you and a little you." The blonde admitted, shrugging.

"Well, I prefer a little Frido." Y/N admitted too, a new shape of red decorating her cheeks.

The Swedish blonde smirked. "I like these new propositions."

"I'm in love with an idiot." Y/N muttered, earning the laugh from the striker. Then, the Spanish looks up.

It's when Frido pays attention to where Y/N is. Well, she didn't know where she was, and Frido is trying to figure it out.

"Where are you? I don't recognise it." Frido asked, curiously.

Y/N looks down again, looking briefly at her sides. "I'm going to my mom's." Y/N lied, trying not to show her surroundings. "I need to hang up now. I will call you in a few minutes." She announced.

"Okay...?" Frido said, a little confused. "If you don't call in said time, I will." She said, making Y/N laughs this time.

The Spanish hung up and walked into the tunnel, accompanied by Pernille. "She is so in love." The Danish woman hummed, smirking mischievously.

"Shut up. You are too." Y/N muttered, looking down.

"From your girlfriend?" Pernille asked, smugly.

"No! Y-You understand me." Y/N stammered, hitting Pernille's arm, making her laugh.

"Yes, but I love teasing you." The forward admitted, approaching the door they were searching. "I'm going to text Magda." She said, grabbing her phone.

Y/N waited by her side, watching the people walk up and down the tunnel. For her luck, the Spanish girls are in their changing room, celebrating the pass to the final.

The door opening behind her, gained her attention. Magda opened it, her face displaying all what she was feeling in that moment, but a tiny smile grew up when she saw Y/N.

"Nice to see you again, kiddo." Magda said in a raspy voice, wrapping an arm around Y/N's shoulder and hugging her.

Y/N rolled her eyes, hugging her too. "You are older than me for only three years"

"Whatever you said, kiddo." Magda said, separating from the hug and pecking Pernille's lips.

"You two are insoportable." Y/N muttered, crossing her arms.

The couple turned to look at her with teasing smirks and smugly expressions while they were still hugging.

"Let's go inside." Magda said, taking off her arms from Pernille and grabbing her hand, she gets inside, Y/N following.

Y/N saw how devastated the girls are. Some of them are sitting together, giving each other encouragement words, others just comforting each other and others are alone. She saw how Hanna raised her head and crossed her gaze with hers, a look of surprise decorating her features.

"Hello." Y/N greeted, waving with her hand.

"Hey..." Hanna greeted her, still shocked. "Sorry, I'm in shock. I'm not waiting for you at this moment." She laughed nervously. Then, the blonde wrapped her arms around her neck. Y/N wrapped her arms around her too, giving a soft pat on her back.

"I believe in this team." Y/N simply said. She gave her an apologetic smile when they separated, wiping Hanna's tears.

"She is over there." Hanna muttered, indicating with a move of her head in the direction.

Y/N thanked her and kissed her forehead, walking slowly towards the young Swedish said. She saw Frido sitting on a bench, both elbows leaning on her knees, her face hiding by her hands. She walked towards her and sat down, watching her.

Frido noticed someone sitting next to her, but she doesn't pay too much attention, she just keeps trying to focus on another thing while she waits for Y/N to call her. Her knee bounced a little.

Y/N passed her tongue to her lips, a funny expression on her eyes. "You know... It's a little rude for you to not show interest in the person who sits down next to you."

The blonde blinked a few times while raising her head to look at the new voice. "W-What are you d-doing here?" Frido asked, looking astonished.

The Spanish shrugged and soon a squeal escaped from her mouth because Frido lifted her from her seat to her lap and proceeded to hug her, hiding her head on Y/N's neck and wrapping her arms around her torso.

"You don't answered me." Frido said in a muffled voice.

"I came to surprise you. I don't tell you because when I landed here, you started to play. So I contacted P and Magda and we agreed that P would come for me at the airport." Y/N explained.

"I missed you." The Swedish whispered, kissing her neck and raising her head, she was met by Y/N's gaze.

"Me too." Y/N muttered, looking at how Frido's blue eyes lit up. When the blonde travels her gaze towards Y/N's lips, the other decides to not lose time and break the little space.

It was slow, a chaste kiss. Y/N putting on her hands on Frido's cheeks and when it intensifies, a groan escapes from their mouths.

"Please, the public affection that you two are showing kept it in private!" Magda exclaims with clear intentions to tease her friends.

Frido without saying anything, stood up, making Y/N to wrap her legs on her waist and without breaking the kiss, the blonde walked to an empty cubicle. Some whistles were heard by her teammates.

"I'm not going to have sex with you, here." Y/N murmured on her lips, pecking it a few times.

"I can wait until we are alone." Frido said, smiling by Y/N's kisses on her face. She leaned Y/N's back on the door when she closed it.

"How are you?" Y/N asked, caressing Frido's cheeks with her thumbs.

"I will be better." Frido muttered, closing her eyes and enjoying Y/N's touch.

Y/N pecked her nose, seeing how the player scrunched her nose.

"I like that jersey, by the way." Y/N commented, leaning her head aside with a lipped smile.

Frido looks down to see her new jersey. "Forget about it. The only colour you would see me in red is when I wear a barça jersey. Yellow always."

"Is maroon. Not red." Y/N hummed, laughing when she saw how Frido rolled her eyes.

"Whatever, you understand me." Frido shut her kissing her again.

"Couple, we need to go now." Pernille interrupted them from the other side.

"Would you come with me to Sweden?" Frido asked, ignoring the warning by her friend.

Y/N nods. "Yes, but only a week. Later I need to come back to Barcelona."

Frido pouted. "No! You will stay with me until I come back to Barcelona." She stubbornly said, frowning.

"They are ignoring me." They heard how Pernille commented to someone. Y/N bits a laugh when she sees how Frido groans softly.

Y/N, still with her hands on her face, bring it towards her and give her a long kiss. "Definitely later we will search our first child." Frido comments, laughing hard for Y/N's reaction.

[bogkeep]

Would you recommend the SSSS comic? I know little of it beside the very beautiful artstyle and premise

to answer the question of if i would recommend SSSS as a comic: yes, yes i would.

a description for those who don't know: Stand Still Stay Silent is a post-apocalyptic horror + adventure webcomic set in the nordics (norway, sweden, denmark, finland, iceland) that have been isolated from the rest of the world and gone back to their old gods. the the world outside of safe zones is full of trolls and beasts - humans and mammals that got infected by a horrible virus and turned into monsters. the story follows a ragtag crew that ventures into the old world (derelict denmark) on an expedition to collect books.

the comic updated every workday until it concluded in 2022, and consists of two Adventures. the creator had plans for many adventures with these characters in this world, but ended it after two when she wanted to take a new direction with her life.

what i love about it:

- the art is GORGEOUS. it's been a huge source of inspiration for me. open any page and it's a masterpiece, and you will ask yourself "how the FUCK did she update this FIVE DAYS A WEEK"

- the characters are wonderful and endearing. i just, i love them so much. i am so thankful lalli hotakainen exists he is one of my #1 blorbos forever

- the world is so cool. the blend of chunky sci-fi and norse mythology fantasy magic slaps. it goes so hard. i fell so hard for this comic when i got to the big ferry ship with a viking style dragon head prow added to it. it's everything

- it really really gets nordic cultures. it's difficult to explain all the dynamics and nuances but it just gets it. it brings me as a scandinavian a lot of joy to read a story that speaks to my heart this way. the attitudes, the language barriers, the cultural differences... it was so refreshing to me in a media landscape dominated by american stories. when the pandemic hit, i decided to reread the comic because i found such an odd comfort in seeing how it depicted the scandinavian countries reacting to, well, a pandemic.

- there's kittycats

what i don't like about it:

- the most glaring and obvious flaw is that everyone in the comic is white. there's not a single character of color anywhere, not even i background shots or the prologue. there's no mention of the saami people (the indigenous people of northern europe), either. i believe this was done in ignorance more than malicious intent, but the implications are Extremely Bad and it's been bothering me (AND MANY OTHERS) since day 1. that is the number one caveat i will give to anyone wanting to check this comic out. i've been in the discourse trenches and i am not going to excuse this. it's just bad!

- you can tell in the middle of adventure 2 that the creator has kind of lost interest in the work, around the time when she found jesus i guess. like, very few people can keep up work on the same creative project for years and years and years and i think it's fine that she wanted to drop it, but it's a bit sad to see the comic dragged to its end like a limp corpse, and feeling like the creator no longer really cares about the characters.

- minna sundberg has said and done some questionable things, presumably gotten somewhat radicalised over time, and has also converted to hardcore christianity which is what her new works are about. there's nothing about this in SSSS - there is a moment of christianity represented in the story in a sort of mythological sense, just like the other religions, but this was written before minna's conversion. her new works... are a Choice. i have much to say about them, and i have, and im not gonna rehash it now.

SO YEAH hopefully this will help you take an Informed Choice! i got into this comic in 2015 and was deep in the fandom and it's for better or for worse part of my soul foundation now.

i also recommend A Redtail's Dream, minna's "practice comic" before SSSS, based on finnish mythology and the kalevala.

[slavghoul]

Interview from Sweden Rock Magazine 6/2023

In which Tobias talks about Phantomime, his inner little evil dictator, and why he'll never be like Bruce Springsteen, among other things.

You've just released another cover EP. I always thought that Ghost would be like Metallica and become known for picking up lesser-known songs, making them their own, and playing one or two covers at every show. You were on your way to that with first The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" and then with Roky Erickson's "If You Have Ghosts." After that, you released a bunch of covers, but in recent years, you've almost only played "Enter Sandman" live.

In the beginning, and especially up until 2015, the choice to play covers was not in exchange for original songs, but it was because we simply needed songs to play live. We played 'Here Comes the Sun' to fill out our set. We only had one album, and it was only 30 minutes long or something.

But "Here Comes the Sun" must have given you a taste for it since it worked so fantastically well live.

Yes, absolutely. We actually plan to play it again at some point because I think we can do a really great version of it now that our lineup better matches the sound of the song. The last time we played it was so long ago that we still used a lot of backing tracks and stuff. I think we can play it better now. But did you imagine that we would do covers of Saint Vitus, Trouble, and Coven?

No. Unlike Metallica, you didn't start with hard rock covers...

No, no.

...but with "Here Comes the Sun" and then "If You Have Ghosts," which became a big song in its own way, but "Enter Sandman" is a completely different type of cover.

Exactly, it has a completely different purpose. I think it's a good song, and it became a fun thing. There was clarity in why we played it and what was important about it. We don't do it anymore, not because we don't believe in the purpose, but it had its time. Now, "Jesus He Knows Me" is the most fun to incorporate because now we've embraced it as our own song. I feel like I have so much else, and I don't want to be... I mean, some people think it's a lot of fun, and Bruce Springsteen does a lot of covers at the end of a concert. A lot of cool rock 'n' roll classics. People enjoy it, and it's great. Disturbed also does that and plays "Highway to Hell" and "Run to the Hills" or whatever they do. It's a fun way to end a concert, but I don't know, I have a fondness for dramaturgy. That's why I could never do a Bruce Springsteen. I can't go on stage and just say, "Hey, what do you want to hear?" and then improvise. It's a show, and everything fits together tightly. I've been sitting here with our lighting technician for five days. We sit all day and just program lights based on the smallest damn beat so that it fits and so that we know that the guitarist will come out and switch to that guitar for the next song. It's this song, and he will come out there, and then we have to change these lights in the dark so that it's red on him there. Then it's not possible to have a "cover hour" at the end where we just turn on the lights and play Judas Priest. But if we do a Judas Priest cover at some point that feels really relevant and we can do it really well, then I have no problem arranging the lights and incorporating it into the context. Metallica is much more rock 'n' roll, they are much more "loose" than what we are... than I am. They have the ability to just go out and more or less turn on the lights in the room and play "Am I evil?", "Whiskey in a jar," "Blitzkrieg," and "Breadfan," and the happiest of all is me. I love when that happens, but I don't want to do it with Ghost. But sure, if in 30 years we have recorded a bunch of fun covers, maybe it could be a fun thing to do a tour with just a bunch of that.

How funny that you say "if we have recorded a bunch of fun covers." Ghost has already recorded a bunch of covers, so aren't they fun?

Haha! Yeah, yeah, but we're still building, of course. We're talking a lot about this, me and my agents and management. When is the time to do things? When should we take advantage? What is a "downplay" for us today? A "downplay" is very clear if you're Metallica. Everyone knows that when they come and perform, it's at least at the Globe Arena, sold out for at least two nights without any problem, and at their biggest, it's now two nights at Ullevi. For them, a clear "downplay" would be if they come and play at Göta Lejon again. There's a clarity there, and it's something they can indulge in.

Explain it so that people understand. What is a "downplay"?

A "downplay" is when a big band plays at a small venue. Like the Rolling Stones when they played at Circus. It's a clear "downplay," and there's a clarity there where you know that "now when I go and see the Rolling Stones at Circus, they won't have their big stage, they won't do this, and they'll just come up and play a bunch of really obscure stuff." Then there's a clarity. It's not something for everyone who just wants to hear the big hits.

And are there plans to do this?

If everything goes as planned and if there's still an interest in it in the future, I would think it would be really fun to intentionally and clearly reshape the show. To do something different on the side that isn't meant for these bigger things that we're currently trying to find our "pacing" in.

The first time I interviewed you was in 2011 at a sushi place in Stockholm.

Was it that long ago?

Yes, we met at the central station in Stockholm, and you had just had your first meeting with Nicholas Johansson at Universal, so this was before he signed you.

Okay, so it was the same day then? Oh, damn.

It became a full page in Expressen, and you said that you want to take Ghost to where Rammstein is. Now you've said the same thing again, but Rammstein no longer plays at the Globe Arena and instead does three nights at Ullevi. It feels like you're constantly shaping Ghost based on Rammstein. What will you do when you've reached three nights at Ullevi?

I hope one never becomes completely satisfied. The perfectionist in me is frustrated every day on tour when things don't turn out as good as I had envisioned. But I also have a cutoff point... There's a point every day when I try to see the glass as half full when it comes to perfection before the concert, and I know something is wrong. If I know that a spotlight operator doesn't seem to understand the show, it's an irritation that might continue during the concert because someone keeps missing their cues, that is, what they're supposed to do. You can tell they don't know the show. It's super annoying. It's the kind of thing that both I and everyone on stage feel, and we're all aware of it. Everyone has been made aware of what we're trying to achieve. We've arranged the whole show based on the idea that "when you come up those stairs, you will be visible, and then you will see what you're doing because a light will shine on you." If that doesn't happen, there's a risk that the person simply won't see what they're doing and will fall off. It happens. There's a lot of that kind of thing that's highly orchestrated with very narrow margins, and it has to be right. But I usually reach a point where it's like, "Now the concert is over. Everyone did their best, even that idiot up there who missed all their cues. Everyone did their best, and the audience doesn't seem to have left and demanded their money back, so you have to see it as a damn good result." That's how I try to approach it every day because, in the end, "no matter what, this is so much cooler than working a regular job," haha! I'm where I want to be, doing what I want to do. Then I have this little circus director Nazi inside me as well, screaming and wanting things to be a certain way. But I also laugh easily, so it's about constantly trying to balance everything and see it as always moving forward. But it also means that I know that even the day when or if we stand there at Ullevi and do a concert ourselves, it won't be exactly as I imagined. Something new will happen, and if we have the show I want, it will rain like hell or something. That's always how it is. Metallica's Lars also told me that when we were on tour together: "It's incredible. Even at our level, there are still things that happen that make us go, 'Damn, we're not quite there yet!'" But that's the thing. I don't think pirates become pirates just to come home and sit with the treasure. It was the piracy itself that was quite fun.

Now I'm going to say something provocative. This is Ghost's worst cover so far. I don't even like the original.

Which one?

"Phantom of the Opera."

Okay, haha!

Yeah, I got the laugh I wanted to be able to print, haha!

Well, haha! Don't you like the album or the song?

I'm not a big Iron Maiden fan, and I don't consider the Paul Di'Anno era sacred.

I love Iron Maiden and think the first two albums are really cool, but they got their act together when Bruce Dickinson joined. It was with "The Number of the Beast" that they became an arena band and started sounding really damn good. I know it's like swearing in church. It made me feel a bit inspired and made me think that if I were to do something with Iron Maiden, it damn well had to be something from those first albums. They have two albums with really proggy stuff and quirky arrangements, and you can really tell they had a bit of time and that they were low-budget recordings. That gets me going. Paul Di'Anno sings, and I love Paul Di'Anno. He's really cool, has a great voice, and sings with a lot of sloppiness. He soars and flies melodically - just the fact that "I know I'll do that in a different way." I've always liked "Phantom of the Opera," but for a long time in my life, before I really figured out how to count, I didn't quite understand how to play the intro. Not tonally, but I didn't get how to count in the intro. That was such a thing that one day when I suddenly figured it out, I thought, "Damn, I want to play this song someday." You miss it because on the album, you don't hear how great the intro is.

Is it you playing?

Yes, although Fredrik "Kulle" Åkesson (Opeth) is also playing. But I recorded all the demos, I play bass on the record, and I recorded all the guitars first.

Did Kulle do all the guitar solos on the EP?

Well, mostly, with one exception.

It's a very shreddy EP with a lot of flashy guitar solos.

Yes, exactly, there are quite a lot of guitar solos. Generally, this is how it works when we work: I compose the solos. When I write solos, it's not just a bunch of bends, but it's a melody. I'm very influenced by Kirk Hammett, especially how he played on "Ride the Lightning," "Master of Puppets," "...And Justice for All," and even on the black album. Every time he plays solos, they are melodies. He comes into the song and more or less plays another song within the song, and it's very hummable. It's not incredibly difficult stuff, and that's roughly my school of soloism. I like to compose the solos so that they turn out the way I want, but I myself am not a great shredder. There are a lot of tricks in the studio where I sit and play something over and over again, and then you can cut it in. And then you can slow down the speed, and then I can record it and make it perfect. But the result is that when I say, "It should go like this," Kulle listens to it and says, "Yeah, I can do that part a bit differently. Then I can do it this way to make it even faster." He plays solos from start to finish with his highly trained fingers. He has that whole thing in his DNA, while I'm more of a songwriter and composer.

But you play a solo on the EP, right?

I don't know if we kept it. I don't fucking know because we changed a lot of things.

Because you said that Kulle plays all the solos except one.

It could be a thing, but I don't remember if we changed it or not. But if we take "Phantom of the Opera," there are quite a few different guitar parts in it, purely guitar-wise. It's that fairly standardized Iron Maiden thing where there are two lead guitars playing melodies together. That's one thing, and then there was a slightly bluesy solo at a place where I added some storming Rachmaninoff piano that's absolutely not in the original. I thought it should be a bit of a stormy sea, and then there's a part with two guitars playing the same thing simultaneously, and then a solo duel starts. On the original album, it's Dave Murray and Dennis Stratton playing, and their solo duel is just okay. I don't think it's that great. Sorry, Iron Maiden fans, but in terms of solos, Iron Maiden really got good the day Adrian Smith joined. Adrian Smith is the one playing all the cool solos. I'm really sorry, Dave Murray, but that's just how it is! I know what Kulle has to go through because as a soloist, it's quite tough to constantly be told what to play, and then he has to do tricks and improve things. So, I said, "In this solo duel, you can pretty much play whatever you want from here to there, but I don't want you to challenge me because it will be a bad match. It'll be Carl Hamilton against Woody Allen, and that's not fun. We'll bring in Lasse Johansson from Candlemass." I love Candlemass, I love Lasse's guitar playing, and I know that Kulle loves Lasse. I just sat there, and they got to do their things, and you can hear that it's a bit more improvised. It's more Kulle when he gets to play his stuff, and it's nice.

I want to highlight a cover that turned out great on the EP: Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero." It feels quite suitable to cover because At The Movies also did a fantastic version of it with Ronnie Atkins on vocals.

Actually, I haven't heard it at all. I must have missed it.

Ghosts' version turned out really well, but isn't it too obvious to cover a big song, so to speak?

I would be a bit opportunistic and say this: it probably depends on how it lands. We stuck our necks out the day we were going to play "Enter Sandman" at our concert. It was one thing on TV because that's what it was (at the TV4-broadcasted "Polar Music Prize" in 2018), but you know that this is like playing "Smoke on the Water," "I Wanna Rock," or "Ace of Spades." It's one of those songs that is too well-known in a way. It can feel pancake-like, but it went well, and I feel that "We Don't Need Another Hero" could also become such a song, provided that the audience likes it. But it's not a song that you want to take up five minutes of the concert if it's not super fun.

And how do you know if the audience likes it?

The easiest way is to test it live. But you'll notice when the album comes out. If everyone mentions all the other songs and not that one, then maybe not many people are interested. Also, we usually do this sometimes during rehearsals: "We rehearse it and see how it sounds. How does it feel? How does it feel to play? Does it stick? Do we play it nicely? Does it work live?" I believe that if we fast forward to a huge presumed Ullevi [stadium] in the future, it's a fantastically cool song to play.

[carppediem]

I just came across this interview Käärijä gave for an Estonian magazine before the Tallinn gig and thought I'd share it with y'all! He talks about saving money to buy a house, why he quit drinking etc. Also, there are some new interesting things he said about Tommy 👀

Since the article is behind a paywall (and in Estonian) I've put a rough, heavily Google-assisted translation under the cut 👇

There are a few minutes left until the concert. How do you feel?

I feel great, but I'm a little tired because I didn't sleep well.

Did you have a party yesterday?

No party, I'm focused on the European tour. Yesterday was a live in Sweden, from there I flew to Finland at five o'clock in the morning and from there to here. But I'm one hundred percent ready for a show. It doesn't matter how tired I am, I give my best on stage.

You recently released the single 'It's Crazy, It's Party' with Tommy Cash. When Tommy met the members of the band Little Big, they drank a lot of vodka. What did you and Tommy drink?

Haha, I haven't had a drink with Tommy yet.

Not even a Pina Colada?

No. Maybe someday Tommy and I will have a drink, although I don't think he drinks much. And you know, I don't drink anymore either. I stopped drinking a month ago. I need to keep my energy up. When you give as many concerts as I do now, you have to take care of yourself. Drinking and performing hand in hand is extremely difficult both physically and mentally, not to mention how bad it affects the vocal cords. I had the biggest hangover of my life this summer, which put the brakes on my drinking. I went to a music festival with a friend where we drank too much. The next day I had to perform at the same festival. The hangover was so bad that I really didn't know how to get myself on stage with the terrible feeling and the summer heat. But I pulled myself together and did the show. This experience is also one of the reasons why I don't drink anymore.

What kind of person is Tommy?

He is a visionary and very witty - a lot of fun with him. And of course he's cute. I think we have something in common, like we both have our own style. Tommy surprises with crazy outfits: extraordinary hairstyles, extravagant clothing, which are complemented by boleros. In short, insane costumes.

After Eurovision, you started a real concert rally - you gave 51 concerts in the summer alone. Do you want to become a millionaire?

Of course I do! One day I will definitely be a millionaire. I don't keep track of how much money I have in the bank and how much I'm short of six figures. But yes, I'm trying to collect a million euros.

Will the goal be met this year?

No, not yet. It will still take a few years. I've had an insane amount of performances after Eurovision, because I was like a kid in a candy store who wants everything at once, but by now I've drawn the line because I can't perform everywhere. I also set myself a price tag, below which I will not allow myself to go anywhere. If you do 300 shows a year, you're screwed.

What do you spend your money on?

I don't just spend it on pretty things. I have a definite goal in mind - I want to buy a house in Finland. Maybe in the future also real estate in Thailand, we'll see. I don't need a Rolex or any luxury, I don't care about that.

What has been the most difficult thing for you since Eurovision?

Everyone in Finland now knows who I am. It's hard and tiring because I no longer have my own private space at all. I can't just go to the store, to a concert, or to a hockey game, people will immediately come up to me and start taking pictures. I hate when they don't politely ask for permission to do this, but immediately start clicking.

What has been the best?

It's great to see people hear 'Cha Cha Cha' and be happy. Or when they hear the name Käärijä and their face breaks into laughter - it's a powerful feeling. And of course to see how happy my family is about this achievement. And me too!

[groenendaelfic]

do you think wille will/should abdícate in the future or do you think he’ll become king one day?

The way this is worded I am 99.9 percent sure this is one of my friends trolling me, but I'll bite anyway even if it is, so strap in, because I have many messy, convoluted THOUGHTS. (in case it isn't sorry for presuming Anon and thanks for your question and being curious about my opinion)

The reason why I think this is a friendly troll ask is because you can't make this an or question and I have been very vocal about that in the past. I mean you can, Young Royals fandom is doing it all the time everywhere, but you shouldn't and yes I'll keep being nitpicky about that.

Why? Because In the context of monarchies and royalty the word abdication only applies to crowned monarchs and yes it does make a difference.

Let me use a (simplified) irl example: Harry didn't abdicate, William can't abdicate (yet), only Charles can and only now that he's king. Charles could have given up his rights to the throne in favor of William when he was still Prince of Wales, but that wouldn't have been an abdication, not if he had done it before becoming King himself.

The same is true for Wilhelm. Wilhelm can only abdicate after ascending the throne. If he's not king, it's not an abdication.

Yes I'll keep harking on about this until the end of my days, because while it might not seem like a big deal what word you use here, it actually makes a big difference legally and politically and on all levels if it's a crowned monarch and head of state formally abdicating or if it's an heir giving up their place in the line of succession.

So what we're actually all discussing here (most of the time) is should Wilhelm give up his place in the line of succession and right to the throne, and my immediate reaction to that (after no, never, but also he's sixteen, it's way to soon for any of that) is, how and in what way?

We're all rooting for Wilhelm and want him to be happy, of course we are. Wilhelm is my absolute favorite, but I hate this trend in the fandom that's romanticizing what everyone likes to call "'Wille's abdication" or abolishing the monarchy in general, because just because "it's right", doesn't mean it's in any way easily or quickly done in a "haha and now Sweden no longer has a monarchy" kind of way. That's not how it works.

Don't get me wrong, I'll never romanticize the monarchy or any other systems enforcing hierarchies and inequality, not in irl nor in any of my fics. Tax billionaires until they aren't anymore, eat the rich and yes, of course get rid of all monarchies, but you can't just go "lol no longer a prince", especially when like Wilhelm, you're still a teenager and can't make a properly informed decision about what you're doing.

Now before you all come at me with pitchforks, of course teenagers can tell right from wrong and make informed decisions, but Wilhelm grew up not only with immense privilege, but also extremely sheltered and in a bubble. Yes he started out his first semester of 'high school' in a public school, but I promise you the majority of his classmates' parents weren't plumbers or tax accountants.

Wilhelm has no idea of real life, not even rich people real life. He doesn't go to the store or buy his own clothes, and neither do his parents, nor do they randomly go to restaurants or whatever. Wille has never been able to go out in public without being photographed and noticed and everyone making a fuss, and he has no idea how most things work because there's always staff doing everything for him quietly and in the background.

If, and I say if, Wilhelm is sure he wants to step back from his role, then he should still wait until his early to mid twenties before doing so, because doing so is complicated and not something he can change his mind about later. Also he needs to learn about normal life first.

But I digress. Lets say Wilhelm does want to give up the throne. He's brought it up himself as a possibility when he was still desperately trying to get Simon back in any way he could. That still makes him a prince and a duke.

He'd still be a member of the royal family/house (I hate how that seems to be used synonymously in English). Not being king wouldn't mean he wouldn't be expected to become a working member of the royal family once he's an adult, except now there'll be a different monarch, one he'll have to obey within the family hierarchy, and chances are it'll be August.

Okay, so we take this a step further. Wilhelm gives up his rights to the throne and doesn't become a working royal, but that would mean betraying his family (his words) and stepping away from them. Not just his parents but everything he's grown up with and everything he knows. And he'd still be a prince and a duke.

Wilhelm will never be Joe Average Wille (is Harry now? Was Diana? and neither of them were next in line), no matter how much he might want to, especially not after S02E06 and I know I've said it before but I'll say it again: he'll keep being hounded, he'll keep being seen as royalty, and the only thing that'll change is who pays for his security.

(which btw the security thing is no joke, I know Wilhelm has no Diana levels of celebrity yet, but he's now the first openly queer modern royal and heir to the Swedish throne, there will be significant international media interest and it will stay, especially now with smart phones being able to capture his every move, and I'm old enough to remember the shit show that happened when Diana no longer had official protection officers and police protection and it was not fun, hounded is an understatement and professional 24/7 security is expensive and private security will never be as good as those who also have government/Security Service resources)

Also I firmly believe that what Wilhelm hates is not being royalty or the future king, but being forced into a role, handed a script and expected to perform without any of his own input.

When that changes, and it will, his attitude towards it will also change.

People argue that he'll be happier once he gives up his place in the line of succession, but I disagree.

I think he might have been happier had he been born a normal kid, but also maybe not because then he'd be a very different person, so there's no telling, but he'd always live with the guilt of betraying his family and heritage, and people, both well meaning and not, will never let him forget that.

Yes he struggles now, and I don't want to make light of his struggles, but every teenager struggles with their identity and place in life and things will be different once he's grown up and more secure in himself.

My 'ideal' fantasy solution were this irl would be for Wilhelm to become the last King and to work with the government to ensure a smooth transition once he retires, because abolishing the Swedish monarchy is complicated, but do I think that'll actually happen? No. Because that's not the kind of person Wilhelm is.

Also Wilhelm has been born to immense wealth, privilege and soft power, all three of which he will to a degree keep all his life no matter what happens.

Of course he needs to put his own mental health and wellbeing first, and I'm aware that he never asked for any of this, but he still has it, and with that comes a duty, and I think it'd be absolutely selfish of him to just take that wealth, privilege and soft power and to let the "common people" deal with the mess he left behind, because let's not kid ourselves, if he announces he'll give up his throne tomorrow and sticks with it until he's eighteen and beyond, do you really think people in power won't do anything they can to keep the system in place?

Kristina loves her son and wants what's best for him, even if she's not the best parent, but she'll not dismantle the system for him.

She knew what August had done, and she still would've rather had him as heir instead of even so much as considering anything else.

The Royal Court most certainly won't, and even if the elected government wouldn't be opposed to getting rid of the monarchy (if, there's a chance but not a guarantee, depending who is in power when that happens), that's not the end of it.

You can't abolish the monarchy and keep the nobility (edit: as it's been pointed out you can in theory, but my point is that the nobility won't be happy about it because it's a threat to them as well, and not just socially, and why would a Sweden in the 21st century do one but not the other, elites don't like changes in the status quo, even if at first glance it doesn't directly affect them, and this does), and there will be plenty of people, both obscenely rich and averagely well off people, who will do their utmost to keep their position of privilege.

It will not only become a matter of equality, Sweden is one of the most egalitarian countries in the world. It'll be about history and heritage and tradition.

It'll be a giant mess and if it wants any chance of succeeding, it'll need someone in power to actively work towards it, someone whose position the monarchists and traditionalists and conservatives respect, and that has to be a King Wilhelm, not a Crown Prince Wilhelm or a Prince Wilhelm or a Joe Average Wille who took his wealth and privilege and soft power and ran away because he chose to be selfish and leave a system in place no one was better able to do something about than him.

Now of course I'm once again talking about an adult Wilhelm, canon Wilhelm is still a teenager and shouldn't have to deal with or worry about any of that, and he gets to want to be selfish, because he's sixteen, but he won't always be sixteen, and when he isn't any longer his outlook will have changed as well.

Now we come to another point though, and that is that Wilhelm is not a revolutionary. He has his own head and a temper and doesn't want to blindly do as he's told, but he's not the kind of person who goes and topples a system.

I don't even think Simon is. He wouldn't mind the monarchy being abolished, sure, but I don't think he has the energy to become a political activist and to fight the system all his life, especially in a life without Wilhelm.

With Wilhelm it's different, there I'm sure he'll use the power he has for good. He'd be aware that he can change things and do his best to choose his engagements carefully should he become a member of the royal family.

That said, in time I don't think Wilhelm will mind being King, not if he also gets to be with Simon at the same time, and I don't think he should give up his place in the line of succession.

Finally, and most importantly, because we're talking about a TV show and a fic fandom here and not irl, I love playing with the idea of the Royal Court, the Swedish upper class, and all the conservatives and monarchists having to (figuratively) bow and scrape to an openly queer, headstrong monarch and the gay, biracial love of his life who also happens to be the son of a poor, immigrant single mother, because that is a very, very cathartic thought, and so yeah, King Wilhelm and Prince/Duke/King Consort Simon all the way, always.

That's what drew me to this show in the first place, a queer Crown Prince, and not a random queer teenager going about his normal life. There're plenty of other (great) shows for that.

[holyprincenerd]

A Few Thoughts Regarding Why the ESC Jury is SO Dysfunctional

I’m going to cut right to the chase: The judgement criteria for the jury make literally no sense once you stop and think about them. They quite literally cause trolley problem after trolley problem. As a reminder, these are the criteria the jury was supposed to use to judge the performances this year:

composition and originality of the song,

quality of the performance on stage,

vocal capacity of the performer(s),

overall impression of the act.

Let’s start simple - vocal capacity of the performer(s):

As everyone’s aware, this year, we had many talented vocalists participating in the competition: A few examples are Sweden, Norway, France, Cyprus, Spain, Estonia, Albania and Portugal. They all came swinging with their vocalists. Notice something funny about this list of countries?

It’s based entirely upon the assumption that the ability to belt or the usage of one’s head voice is what defines someone’s vocal capacity. Here’s why this is a problem: Assuming that belting as an example is the peak performance of singing means to ignore other, arguably harder and more demanding techniques that are more unconventional sounding to the mainstream ear. A hilariously good example of this would be growling. It require a lot, and I mean a lot of technical prowess and control over your voice, and is thus arguably harder than say belting, as an example. Seriously. Try to growl. Right now. I bet most of you have noticed that you literally can’t growl without sounding hilariously pathetic. If you did manage to let out a decent growl, now try to sing while growling. Pick any song you like, and go for it. Pretty hard, right? And guess what! We had someone doing that this year, and being phenomenal at it.

Too bad they came last in the competition.

That’s right, if we’re going to start judging vocal abilities here, arguably the most vocally capable singer was Chris Harms. There are multiple parts in Blood and Glitter where he uses the growling technique. Not only that, but du-du-dum! He also belts during the song, and does so wonderfully. So, based on this, clearly, he was the most vocally talented artist out of the bunch, right? (Obviously, I am 100% simplifying things here, but bear with me for a bit.) He does everything that the previously mentioned group did, and more. Arguably we could also say that alongside him Alessandra is carrying the torch of the most vocally capable performer, as she does have that one whistle tone in her song (if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, don’t worry, we’ll get to that later).

However, this gets even more complicated than singing techniques, how hard they are to master, and how many of them you use in your song.

You see, we can’t really judge someone’s vocal capacity and compare them with the other contestants, when many of these artists were performing songs in different genres. Here are some of the genres represented during the Eurovision finale of 2023:

Metal

Industrial metal

Progressive metal

Rock

Alternative rock

Progressive rock

Pop rock

Pop

Dance-pop

House-pop

Latin-pop

Hyperpop

Chanson

Flamenco

Disco-house

Electronic

R&B

Rap

Schlager

Tractor (lol)

With this many genres, different singing techniques are more appropriate for some songs than others. So this is no longer even a question about comparing each contestant’s vocal abilities with one another (which is a problem, since you know, this is a competition), but rather who performs well within their own genre. Suddenly, we can add almost every contestant to the list of competent vocal performances. For those of you who are wondering, yes, even Käärijä came through with his vocal performance, especially in the first half of the song.

While we’re on the topic of Käärijä (and we won’t leave him for a bit), how are the juries supposed to judge the vocals of rap performances that are more heavily reliant on the enunciation of words than the vocals themselves, if the song’s not in English? Part of the reason Cha Cha Cha works so well is because of the way Käärijä raps certain lines or even words. How is any other jury, except the Finnish one, (who’re not allowed to vote for him,) supposed to catch something like how good the ”Ja mä jatkan kunnes en enää pysy tuolissa niinku” part sounds to a Finnish ear? Specifically the words kunnes, en and enää, are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that one singular line due to the rhythm and enunciation. Can a jury member who doesn’t understand Finnish catch onto the way he allows the first two words to almost melt into each other while pronouncing the last word ridiculously fast to create a very specific rhythm? I’m sure some jury members would notice that, but it’s just as likely to go completely unnoticed unless you’re familiar with the language.

Next, composition and originality of the song:

Again, we have a clear victor here: Cha Cha Cha is by far the most ”original” out of these songs (despite the Electric Cowboy plagiarism accusations, and it’s all thanks to the fact that the song does a genre based one-eighty by the end). I mean, hello? Blending industrial metal, rap, hyperpop and Finnish schlager? This is such a strange combination of genres, it becomes its own entity. And somehow it works. Personally, I’d say this is at least in part due to the melodic hook that repeats literally throughout the song. Those beeps and boops you hear after the first line of the song? They keep repeating themselves, in the chorus in the ”Cha, cha cha, cha cha cha cha” portion, and in the schlager part of the song, though there, the melody is cut in half and only the last three keys are present in the ”Niinku cha cha cha” parts and in the lines that end with an ”aa-aa-haa.” (So, ”Niinku cha cha cha, enkä pelkääkään tätä maailmaa-aa-haa” etc.) Obviously, we get to hear the melody in its entirety once again in the final cha chas. Brilliant! Douze point. Sometimes less is more, and I can’t believe I am saying that about fucking Cha Cha Cha but here we are. Simplicity is king.

Now, on the other hand, we could say that most of the pop entries are not original in the slightest. We could argue that there is literally nothing original about repeating the same pop formula and the same chord progressions which can be found in most pop songs. This is why Tattoo, Solo, Unicorn, I Wrote a Song, Break a Broken Heart, etc, are getting compared to other pop songs and accused of plagiarism: Pop music just is that generic in its building blocks. It’s also why we could argue that they’re not particularly noteworthy in their compositions.

And while we’re still on the topic of originality, songs that are tied to a specific genre are practically screwed. No one’s going to reinvent genres like cha-cha-chá, waltz or mambo here, unless they step away from what identifies these genres, the rhythm. If the rhythm isn’t there, it’s not a cha-cha-chá, waltz or mambo song. You wanna blend salsa and reggaeton? Too bad, salsaton is already a thing! Should everyone start doing what Käärijä and his team did, and mix a minimum of four genres with a somewhat unusual structure in order to be ”original”? What even is originality in the context of composition, really? There are only so many chords and chord progressions to use, there’s practically no way to actually be original, which is also why the topic of plagiarism is so fucking complicated when it comes to music in specific.

Anyway, let’s move on to the quality of the performance on stage:

To avoid making a lengthy repetition of the previous point, let’s keep this short: Depending on the genre of the song, a certain type of performance is going to be more appropriate than another. Imagine Alika having a performance like Let 3, or Teya and Salena performing like La Zarra. What’s that? It’s the taste of good ol’ thematic and tonal dissonance. Each song is elevated by a performance that matches that song in specific, and the artists can either perform well or fuck up. Again, this becomes a trolley problem, where the juries have to ask themselves: ”Do we value a performance like Joker Out’s above a performance like Luke Black’s?” When both perform well, it’s hard to compare them because they’re playing in two completely different ballparks.

Finally, the overall impression of the act:

Literally what the fuck does that even mean? This is actually just a preference question. Unless someone fucks up tremendously, everyone should be getting points for this. And that’s the core issue here. Because we’re dealing with such a large variety of different artists, different genres, different languages, it becomes impossible to judge them fairly against each other. Do we value belting above growling? Trolley problem. Do we value pop above metal or rock? Trolley problem. You get the point.

”Okay, but obviously the juries are basing their votes upon objectivity and looking at the whole package,” someone might say, and if they do, they’ve missed the point: There is no objectivity here, and because of that, there is no comparing whole packages either. Literally the only way to be objective about this is if everyone has an identical performance; same song, same staging, same camerawork, same choreography. And that’s not the point of the ESC. We’re supposed to be celebrating our individual cultures and our differences. Variety is quite literally required for this contest to work the way it’s intended to. At the end of the day, music is art, and art can be many things. You can’t argue that EAEA is more artistic than Mama ŚČ! (or vice versa) without opening a philosophical can of worms that is way too big for this silly competition. You can’t say Tattoo is objectively better than Cha Cha Cha (or vice versa), because, again, the songs shine in different criteria and are playing in two completely different ballparks. As a matter of fact, their ballparks exist on completely different planets. There are too many variables at play here for anyone to logically be able to be objective. And that’s when this becomes a question of voting based on opinion and personal taste (you know, if the concept of jury darlings hasn’t made this obvious enough). And personal taste is what the audience is supposed to base their votes upon.

Oh, and before I forget to touch upon that, Alessandra: According to some tabloids, her vocals were struggling during the jury show, and that’s why she in specific didn’t receive as many points from the jury as she probably should and could have otherwise. And that’s ridiculously unfair. Why should the jury and the audience base their judgements of an act on two completely different performances? As Käärijä has said in many interviews, each performance is unique and its own entity. Shit happens. Sometimes your vocals are struggling, other times a wire tries to murder you, etcetera. It’s actually bizarre that we don’t give our votes based on the same performance.

So yeah, shitty system, does not work, 0/10. Zéro point in French.

[ynbabe]

Titans x Male reader

Dick: Every time I hear someone talking about updog, I’m torn between not wanting to fall for it and wanting to help them complete their joke.

Kory: Okay, but what is updog?

Rachel : Updog is a long sausage in a bun, often served with ketchup, mustard, onions, and/or relish.

Gar: Not, that’s a hot dog. An updog is when a new version or patch of an application is released.

Jason: No, that's an update. You’re thinking of the fourth largest city in Sweden.

M/N: Surely, that’s Uppsala, where’s updog is the giant spider in Harry Potter.

Dick: That’s Aragog. Updog is a symbol conventionally used for an arbitrarily small number in analysis proofs.

Gar: You’re thinking of epsilon. Updog is an upward-moving air current.

Rachel : No, that’s an updraft. An updog is the modern version of a henway.

Kory: What’s a henway??

Dick: Oh, about five pounds.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Dick: If you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it’s venomous.

Kory: What if it bites me and it dies!?

Rachel : Then you’re poisonous. Jesus Christ, Kory, learn to listen.

Gar: What if it bites itself and I die?

Jason: That’s voodoo.

M/N: What if it bites me and someone else dies?

Kory: That’s correlation, not causation.

Gar: What if we bite each other, and neither of us die?

Jason: That’s kinky.

Dick: Oh my God.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Dick: I CAN'T DO IT!

Kory, laughing: I CAN'T EITHER!

Dick: I CANT FUCKING DO IT ANYMORE

Rachel, saw them walking in: WELL I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, YOU CAN EITHER GIVE UP NOW, OR YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT. BECAUSE WE CERTAINLY CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT YOU, AND WE KNOW YOU CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT US.

Dick:

Dick: I appreciate it,

Dick: BUT LOOK WHAT WE'RE DEALING WITH-

Gar, was the man in the chair: Dick-

Dick: YOU GOTTA DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE!

Gar: Dick we gotta-

Dick: YOU GOTTA DRAW A FUCKING LINE IN THE SAND. YOU GOTTA MAKE A STATEMENT.

Dick: YOU GOTTA LOOK INSIDE YOURSELF AND SAY 'What am I willing to put up with today?'

Dick, motioning to M/N and Jason covered in blood, standing in his room’s doorway like the shinning twins: NOT FUCKING THIS

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

*Jason is cooking*

M/N: Any chance that’s for me?

Jason: It’s for Gar. I’m planning on making some bad choices tonight, and I need him on my side.

Kory, preparing the med bay: I never realized the forethought that went into being a disappointment.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

M/N: I just ended a two year relationship.

Jason: Oh, fuck. You good?

M/N: Hm? Oh yeah, I’m fine. It wasn’t my relationship.

*Gar and Rachel fighting from across the room*

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Jason: Do you think different paints have different tastes?

Gar: They do.

M/N: ...Why did you say that with such certainty?

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Jason: Come on, I wasn't that drunk last night.

Gar: You were flirting with M/N.

Jason: So what? He’s my boyfriend .

Gar: You asked him if he was single.

Jason:

Gar: And then you cried when he said he wasn’t.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Jason: What if mayonnaise came in cans?

M/N: Well, that would suck because you can't microwave metal.

Gar: DICK!!! M/N AND JASON ARE BEING WEIRD AGAIN

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Gar, trying a new recipie: Please bring home PURIFIED water with NO minerals added for taste

Jason, being a bastard: We got spring water

Gar: NO.

M/N, bastard^2 : with EXTRA minerals

Jason: it's like licking a stalagmite

Gar: DON'T COME HOME.

M/N: Mmmmm cave water

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Gar: I woke up and chose VIOLENCE. I WILL COMMIT ARSON AND BURN EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND!!! I AM ANGRY-

M/N: Awwww, you're so adorable! Give me a hug~

Gar: Wh- What? NO, YOURE SUPPOSED TO BE SCARED OF ME! TREMBLE BEFORE MY WRATH-

Jason, recording: This is so cute.

GUYS!! I just rewatched Titans after a yearrrr and I swear to god idk why Gar is so underrated. He has such a great character arc and he is absolutely HILARIOUS. also I just realised he became like all the male role models he had in his life, like when he used to live with the Doom Patrol, Larry and Cliff were the primary caretakers, they would make the food and give emotional support and then Dick, he was basically a dad to him and Rachel

[omarera]

Below is a long text. The reason I share this is that I think the article below gives a great insight into Swedish culture and debate climate and views of celebrities taking stands in political issues. I think it is a good to read for those who demand the Swedish cast to actively speak out on different political issues.

It also touches upon Sigge and Alex podcast. I am frustrated to see the polarization and cancel culture and also the narrative of Sigge as a Zionist based on that he followed some Insta accounts. And also Edvin and Felicia being labeled Zionists by association. Maybe the article can give some perspectives.

Sigge Eklund is a provocative person, and his and Alex Schulman’s pod is both popular and controversial. You kind of either love them or hate them, or both. They are both authors, both outspoken what I would call leftists, Alex for example write columns that are very leftist. They are also quite full of themselves and can be very condescending to others and also take ideas and concepts to extremes to prove points. Their takes are often debated. There is a bit of irony in that they have received criticism for not standing up for Israel and stated they were against Hamas attack and now Sigge also being accused of being a Zionists. Sigge is criticized from both sides.

With that said, below is a translation of an article from SvD, one of Swedens large morning papers. It discusses Swedes silence. It shows how celebrities that do speak up are treated in Sweden. Let’s just say they are shot down. Swedes don’t have a tradition of appreciating celebrities to speak up on subjects they are not fully educated on. It’s so easy to get lost. But also that we need to talk about but it’s so damn difficult.

The article below is from Nov 25th 2023. It’s also important to consider when reading it. I still think it showcase Swedish culture really well and our debate climate and view on celebs speaking up and how polarized and infected and hard the long ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict (now genocide) is for us to discuss.

link to article it’s probably locked for non-subscribers.

“That's why I keep quiet about the war"

During a dinner Björn Werner (the author of the article) was at recently, the question came up. The one that not only cuts through the public debate but is strong enough to tear apart friendships and social nets and relationships.

Alex Schulman's voice chokes with anxiety. He stabs himself. And stakes himself again.

"It freezes me now when I hear you're going to talk about it."

Now it must be done. Sigge Eklund has taken the plunge. They will talk about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

It's fast. Just a few minutes. A gentle ripple in a podcast of over an hour. Like few others in public Sweden, the two men are otherwise always carefree open with what they think and feel. Bridges to important colleagues, friends and acquaintances are burned in every other episode. They do everything for the content. But not now.

It is at the very beginning of the war. Barely a week since Hamas kidnapped women, children and the elderly and brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis. Israel's intense bombing campaign has only been going on for a few days. Nevertheless, the Swedish debate about the Israel-Palestine conflict is so feverish that the two seasoned authors and media men prefer not to talk about it.

"I hardly think it can be done without arousing so much hatred that in the end it won't be worth it," Schulman continues.

Eklund basically agrees:

"I've really felt at a loss for words," he replies and goes on to explain that it's not because he doesn't have anything to say, but that he himself doesn't know exactly what he's going to say once he starts. The feelings are too strong.

It is, of course, easy to call the podduo cowards. That they want to wriggle out of this deeply polarized conflict without clashing with anyone – whether listeners or advertisers. But in that case they are not alone.

There are many who, for social and understandable reasons, avoid the question. The price of taking a stand can be very high. For one thing, what one says can be taken out of one's mouth and reshaped into something grotesque and ugly. For one thing, the risk of losing control over one's own emotions is great. Then it is easy to end up wrong. To say wrong.

An abyss you like to avoid thinking about and talking about, if you can.

During a dinner I attended recently, the question came up. Someone admitted that he "sympathizes with Israel's cause here." Another then raised his hand: "I don't agree with that, and I think we should leave it like that, so it will be nicer." The entire table nodded in agreement. Everyone exhaled. A similar dynamic exists in the group chats I'm in, which have morphed from lively, fun conversations to cautious, polite flirting. Everyone sees the dark clouds towering. Nobody wants to see the rain fall.

A lot of this depends, I think, on the complexity of the situation. The vast majority of people outside the Israel-Palestine conflict are touchingly in agreement that it is terrible for all innocent people to die, regardless of nationality. It is all the more difficult to navigate beyond this single, self-evident opinion. Because one needs to have one after all. In everything else it is more difficult. They are looking for a scapegoat. The violence can't just happen? It must be someone's fault. Demanding a ceasefire also leads to the natural follow-up question: and then?

In both the issue of guilt and in the conversation about the future, dangers lurk wherever you turn: those who rush forward without a map and compass risk quickly running into both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic cuts.

Not that it is necessarily easier for those who actually take the time to read up on the issue. Is it about a multi-thousand-year European oppression of Jews? That Arab leaders have consistently refused to accept Israel's existence since the UN proclaimed the state in 1948? Is it the fault of the many Jewish settlers who drove Palestinians from their homes? Arab countries that in turn expelled Jews from theirs? That Palestinians by both Israel and Arab countries are used as a real political playing cards? Netanyahu? Hamas? It's just a matter of choosing. Everything is right – at the same time.

Whatever you think, however educated you are, there is always a weighty opinion that speaks for the opposite of what you have come to.

The situation is bizarre. Despite the fact that there is a terrible conflict going on where innocent children are killed daily, it is therefore a socially viable, perhaps even wise, strategy to just keep quiet.

the public also has results on how it goes for those who speak first and think later. When 160 celebrities signed a petition to stop the bombing of Gaza, they came under fire for not showing the same commitment during Hamas' massacre of Israelis. Artist Stina Wollter's star now appears to be falling after she mixed up her commitment to Palestinian children with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. And the competence of the Green Party's Märta Stenevis is being questioned because she liked Stina Wollter's (not entirely clear) apology.

It is quite unusual for external events to cut so deeply into interpersonal relationships. Not least in the consensus-seeking country Sweden, which is otherwise known for its lukewarm political temperament. While the 1968 movement in Paris led to street battles between students and police, the student movement in Stockholm occupied its own union building. When Sweden, after 200 years of non-alignment, joins NATO, everyone just sighs amicably. The war in Ukraine has, if anything, acted as a unifying force, where people from left to right could confidently state that the world in this particular case really is black and white.

But there is a force in the Israel-Palestine conflict that is strong enough to tear apart the social net and relationships. Partly because of the horrific images we are all exposed to, but also because of the historically deeply infected nature of the issue. It's all starting to resemble the climate of debate in Britain about Brexit, which went to such levels that the prestigious British etiquette magazine Tatler raised the topic as one of twelve things you absolutely should not talk about at the dinner table.

Anyone who puts their faith in the ability of public discourse to unravel complex events also has nothing to gain from the issue of Israel-Palestine. The ongoing debate has quickly degenerated into a hopeless meta-debate about who thinks the most "wrong". The amount of constructive, well-read and nuanced posts that have been put forward since Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel's subsequent bombing of Gaza can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Expressen's Per Wirtén succeeds, through a combination of solid humanism and understanding of the matter, to tackle the subject in a dignified way. Another is SvD's Elaf Ali, who from his personal perspective testifies to the polarization in the Swedish debate.

But - the more texts are about things that could just as easily take place at a dinner with a lost footing. There and in social media, the waves are high. Are leftists anti-Semitic because they react more strongly to Israel's attacks than to Hamas? Are right-wing debaters really Islamophobes, because they so fervently defend Israel while at the same time advocating cooperation with the newly anti-Semitic SD?

Who is foolish enough to stick their head into this hornet's nest willingly?

Maybe Alex and Sigge are doing the only reasonable thing. Despite one's instincts screaming to react when news of dead children sweeps by, there is not much to say – because hardly anything can be said without being taken as revenue for something else. But the question is whether it is even possible to be silent. According to today's twisted logic, there is also something to be said.

Shortly after "Alex and Sigge's podcast" was published, the right-wing comedian Aron Flam responded to X (recently on Twitter): "So Alex Schulman cannot condemn murder, torture and rape? Hard to say anything about murdering women, young, old, pregnant, babies? Speaking. He who is otherwise so full of goodness.”

And it hasn't stopped there. In a later episode, both podcasts return to the consequences of not taking a stand. Their social media inboxes are overflowing with anger.

Swedes are one of the world's most educated peoples, and at least until very recently formally non-aligned. The majority have few personal connections to either the millennial suffering of Jews or the Palestinian people's quest for their own state formation.

If even a remote, frostbitten nation of newly urbanized farmers can't pull themselves together, who can? If even we can't talk to each other, then who can?

[bitchinbarzal]

with or without | elias pettersson

summary; you don’t need elias and you let him know that

loosely based off that one scene in fifty shades of grey lol

-

You stared at the word infront of your face, tears blurring your vision and your hands shaking.

pregnant.

The clearblue in your hand told you so clearly, you were pregnant.

“Holy shit, what the fuck!” You cried, throwing the test across the bathroom floor.

A million thoughts ran through your mind with each sob you let out.

“This can’t be happening, how is this happening!” You screamed to nobody in particular.

“Oh my god, I have to tell Elias” you mumbled, slowly coming to the realisation that this wasn’t just your baby, that this wasn’t just you.

This wasn’t just your life this news absolutely rocked, it was his.

It was his hockey career, his social life, everything.

You chose to not deal with it, opting to go to sleep and make it a tomorrow problem.

The problem was however still there in the morning. You were living in bliss ignorance for a few moments until you picked up your phone and saw a text from Elias.

from: elias 🖤

morning my love! miss you, call me when you get up!

The text had been sent hours prior, with the time zone difference in Sweden to Vancouver. A whole nine hour time difference between you both in the time that Elias was at home in the off-season.

Situating yourself further up the bed and grabbing your water from the table to take a sip before you grabbed your phone to FaceTime him.

It rang a few times before you saw his face pop up on the screen, smiling at you.

“Älsking!” He exclaimed.

“Hi ‘lias i miss you”

“I miss you more my love! You should come here, soon! My family have been asking for you” he says before looking up his brother on the other side of the phone.

You take that pause to think, to remember you need to speak to him. You have very pressing news to tell him.

“Actually I’m thinking of coming out!” You exclaim, taking Elias by shock.

“You are?” “Yeah! I think it will be nice!”

Elias is so excited, booking your flight for you and walking you through everything you’ll need for coming over. His family are similar, so happy to hear you’d agreed to come over to Sweden and spend time with them.

You hadn’t been able to just up and leave Vancouver when Elias did due to work commitments and they were upset when you told them.

You were set to fly in a little over a week, opting to make a doctors appointment prior to that just to check everything and make sure you were actually pregnant.

“Congratulations! You’re a little over sixteen weeks pregnant so about four months!” Your doctor exclaims, your eyes go wide.

She registers this and tones down her excitement “I am a little worried you’re so far along and haven’t been taking any supplements and have you been drinking at all? Still taking your contraceptive?”

“Drinking… yeah I had a pretty wild night after the Canucks went to the second round of the playoff’s” you said but quickly added “that was it!”

She chuckled “As long as it isn’t a normal thing we shouldn’t see any major damage to baby and just so long as you don’t going forward”

You nodded “Yes, thanks”

“Would you like to hear and see baby?” She asked, grabbing the sonography machine over and you nodded.

She trailed the device over your stomach until you heard it.

thump, thump, thump

“Oh my god-“ you mumbled, tears lining your eyes.

The doctor paused the video for you while excusing herself to go and print your sonogram for you.

You took a video of it on your phone, sniffling could be heard in the background while you mumbled

“That’s our baby, hi baby”

Once you’d been handed your prescriptions, been cleared for travel and given your print off’s you went to pack.

Now more than ever you were prepared to tell Elias. 

You were going to be parents!

The flight to Stockholm was a breeze considering you slept most of it. When you landed Elias was standing at arrivals waiting for you with a giant smile plastered on his face.

You launched yourself into his arms, feeling at home for those moments. You’d missed him so much.

“I’m so glad you’re here!”

“Me too, I’ve missed you too much”

“Me also”

Elias took the long way home, showing you everything he possibly could although you hadn’t forgotten it all since you’d been here the year prior.

“You look tired darling” Elias mumbled from the drivers seat, reaching over to hold your hand.

You gave him a soft smile “I’m just not feeling well lately, ‘lias is all”

“Well i will take you home and you can sleep. Napping always makes it better” you responded with a soft chuckle and leaned further back into your seat.

When you arrived back at the house the rest of the family were out, allowing you to unpack and catch up.

Elias sat on the bed next to you, babbling on about everything he’d been getting up to, how his brother was and his parents along with everything he had in store for your stay.

You felt guilty seeing how happy he is to have you here while you only traveled with ulterior motives.

“Let me help” he says, reaching into your suitcase and pulling out shirts to put into his drawers.

You were facing the dresser, putting down your makeup bag and hen Elias said

“y/n? What is this?” You turned, expecting to see him holding up some of your lingerie or something. Instead, you found him holding up your sonogram photo’s in his hand.

Your mouth dropped open, trying to find something to say.

He repeated again “y/n I asked what this is!”

He knew, he knew what it was.

That’s why he was so upset.

“Elias… please” you mumbled, your emotions bubbling.

He scoffed, standing and closing the gap between you both.

He was a lot taller than you and now with his puffed chest and straightened stature he was scaring you.

The pictures were still in his hand “What is this!”

“It’s a baby! Elias, it’s so obviously a baby, our baby!” You cried.

His silence was deafening and your sobs were the only thing filling the space.

“No” is all Elias said.

“No?” You questioned, sniffling “What do you mean, no!”

He shook his head, dropping the photos onto the bed “No, no we won’t! We can’t! I don’t want it”

Your eyes narrowed “You- you don’t want it? It’s not a puppy! It’s not a new pair of skates Elias! This is our baby!”

He also narrowed his eyes at you at spat “No” before turning and leaving the room.

You stood in shock for moments before you collapsed onto the bed, head in hands with a sob.

You don’t remember falling asleep but you were woken by Elias’ mother hours later, alerting you to come down for dinner.

“Sorry, I must’ve fallen asleep” you apologize and she smiled, rubbing your cheek.

“Jet-lag darling, our Elias gets like that coming back from Vancouver too”

Dinner was awkward to say the least but you’re sure that it was only you and Elias who could sense the tension. You hardly made eye contact and didn’t speak to eachother much.

Luckily, Elias’ parents were filling the silence with questions about work.

You’d excused yourself after dinner, claiming more jet lag and needing to sleep some more.

“Goodnight sweetheart, sleep well! we will see you in the morning!” His mother, kissed your forehead and sent you off upstairs.

You didn’t get to sleep, laying on the bed thinking about everything.

Elias came in around midnight and you pretending to be asleep then. Slipping in beside you, you heard him let out a loud sigh.

“I know you’re not asleep” he said, staring up at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to talk Elias… I’m tired” you mumbled back, still turned off the edge of the bed.

“I’m not ready to be dad, how could you expect me to be ready to be a dad? I’m in the prime of my career” he continued, ignoring your request.

You sighed, turning to sit up “I don’t expect you to be ready Elias! But this has happened-“

“We can do something!” “No! No we can’t! I’m almost four months pregnant Elias, this isn’t an easy fix!”

His eyes went wide, this new information clearly settling on him.

“Look, you’re not happy about this baby… I got that” You started, your voice cracking slightly “I’m not ecstatic either given the timing and your less than accepting reaction. But babies happen when you have sex, Elias and we tend to do a lot of that!”

You pulled the comforter from off your legs and stepped out the bed

“So we can either do this together, or I’ll do it without you” you said finally, turning to leave the room.

You had hoped he’d call out after you, chase you down or something, anything.

He didn’t.

You found yourself in Emil’s old bedroom, laying down on the bed scrolling on your phone booking a flight back to Vancouver.

You never fell asleep. After you’d booked the flight you lay there a while before getting up to pack whatever you could pack quietly.

Elias was fast asleep when you entered, opening drawers and re-packing what you had unpacked earlier in the day and getting changed out of your pyjamas.

When crouched down to pick up your shoes you found the sonogram photos that Elias had thrown down earlier in the day.

Picking them up your fingers traced over it and you mumbled “we’ve got this kiddo”

Taking the photo’s you placed them softly on the pillow where you should’ve been sleeping.

You called an Uber to take you to the airport, not wanting to alert anyone or give the family any opportunity to question what was going on.

You were waiting to board your flight when your phone went off, buzzing away in your pocket.

Pulling it out to see an array of texts from Elias.

from: elias 🖤

where are you?

where is your stuff?

please answer my calls!

you don’t know your way around! please let me know where you are!

y/n please call me

There were calls and texts from Fanny, Emil and his mom too.

You text him mom, opting to let her know you were safe.

to: irene pettersson

hi, I’m sorry to worry you all. I’m ok! I’m at the airport going home to vancouver. I will call to let you know I land. thank you for everything irene!

At home, Elias’ mother was staring holes in his head after she had received your message.

She hadn’t told anyone you had text yet, allowing Elias to worry a little more. She knew this was his fault somehow. Like mothers do, she could sense the tension yesterday at dinner and she heard the arguing last night.

Just before you boarded your flight you sent Elias a text.

to: elias 🖤

I’m fine. you don’t need to worry.

The text made him more anxious, his mind running through the places you could go and now you were on your flight and your phone was turned off his calls wouldn’t even go through.

“I don’t know where she is!” He cried, head in his hands.

Irene decided to speak then “She is ok”

“You don’t know that Irene” his father spoke, clearly siding with his sons upset state.

“She’s going back to Canada” is all she said, Elias looked up at his mother.

“She’s- you knew? Did she tell you?”

Nodding curtly she responded “Yes, she text my phone”

“And you didn’t tell me!” He shouted, standing now “I could be there! I could have gone to her!”

She only shrugged “She obviously didn’t want you to, my boy… why do you think she left?” Before walking out of the room.

Elias stormed up the stairs, unaware of what to do now but overcome with emotions.

Slamming the door to his room and throwing himself onto the bed like a child. Laying down he felt something rustle under his head.

Reaching under he felt something, pulling it out he came face to face with the sonogram photo you’d left behind. He looked contently at it for a moment before he found his finger tracing over the shape of the baby’s face.

“You have my nose” he mumbled “Your mama’s is much nicer”

Elias then turned to pick up his phone again, to text you, noticing you’d sent a message it must have been before you boarded.

from: my love 🤍

with or without you. I know which way I’d rather.

There was an attachment to the text, It was a video, started black until Elias heard the thumping on the other end and the moving shape of a baby on the screen you were recording in what looked like a doctors office.

He was about to turn off his phone until he heard your voice “that’s our baby, hi baby” on the phone.

He hadn’t realised that he was crying until the tears dropped onto his phone screen. Staring at the now frozen image he mumbled

“What have I done?”

[kiuda]

DREAMBLR CENSUS 2023

Hi, hello and welcome everyone to the 2023 Dreamblr census results! 

Let me start by thanking all of you for taking part - I love looking at statistics like that and making this has been a real joy. I hope at least some of you will find the results interesting as well <3

So, first things first - some numbers. 353 people have taken part in the census. There are over 350 people that say ‘yes I am a part of Dreamblr’. That’s amazing! I am so happy to see this community thrive :D 

Now let’s get to the questions.

What continent are you from?

One of the more straightforward questions on this census. 

The results are not surprising in the slightest - over 85% of the people that have taken the survey are from North America or Europe. 5.9% come from South America, 4.8% from Asia, 1.7% from Australia and Oceania. 4 people decided not to answer and thus became citizens of Antarctica and one person comes from Africa.

What country are you from (optional)?

Before we get to the statistics, it’s important to mention a couple of things. First of all - this question was optional. The survey site let you pass without putting anything in and the question itself had the word ‘optional’ in it. Despite that 2 of the 4 people that chose Antarctica also wrote in the countries they lived in. All in all 270 out of the 353 people decided to answer this question.

Second of all. 

Americans.

For the love of everything holy. 

Please. PLEASE. Decide on one way to call your country.

As I was using google forms, the survey was sensitive to lower- and upper-case letters, which meant that in the end there were 25 versions of the your country’s name, including (but not limited) to: America, Murica (including ‘eagle noise’ once), the U.S, The U.S., u.s, U.S.A., U.S.A, United States, united states, United States of America, United states of america, US, Us, us, USA, USA! and u s of a. 

Special shoutout to the person who just wrote in ‘Arizona’ as well. 

In the end the top 10 (eh kind of) most popular countries on the survey were……

Drumroll please!!

USA - 133 

Canada - 26

Germany - 17

Poland & UK - 8

Brazil - 7

England - 6

Russia - 5

Chile, France, Sweden and the Netherlands - each with 4

As you can see, I have decided to treat ‘England’ and ‘UK’ as two different answers, since that’s how the survey responders decided to specify their countries.

What age are you?

Another straightforward question. Over 70% of us are between 18 and 25 years old. 13 are 31-45 years old and 8 people decided not to specify their age. 1 person has declared to be over 45 years old. You can see all the answers on this awesome pie chart as well!

I think it’s pretty cool how while a lot of us are young adults or even still teenagers, there are also older fandom enjoyers among us :D I hope you are all enjoying your time!!

When did you join the fandom?

First of the more fandom-specific questions. And probably the first question, where the answers genuinely surprised me!

A lot of us are OGs! Either having joined in 2019 or early/late 2020! Those people remember it all - the beginning of Dream SMP, the first vlog, Antfrost’s coming out and even the beginning of manhunts in some cases!

Out of the rest, early 2021 was another popular entry point to the fandom. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone either - it was still during the pandemic, probably the peak of Dream’s (and Dream Team’s/Dream SMP’s popularity). 

9 people did not remember when they joined the fandom.

Similarly, 9 people are newbies! They’ve joined us in late 2022, while 23 joined in early 2022. 

No one has joined in 2023 yet. (or haven’t seen the census. also possible.)

Who is your main?

This is a question that I could have made better in hindsight. I think a better answer than ‘I can’t decide’ would be ‘I like them all equally’, since I was assuming that all participants of the census did like the Dream Team members either way. It’s not a big mistake, just a small note I wanted to add.

To most likely no one’s surprise - the most popular person among Dreamblr’s population is Dream (224), followed by George (63) and Sapnap (15). 51 participants couldn’t decide on one of them.

Who do you watch besides the DTeam the most (out of other mcyts)? Please list 3 people max.

This question caused more problems than I'd imagined. Guys. I was asking about other MCYT (aka Minecraft Youtubers and Streamers) besides the DTeam. That means that I had to unfortunately eliminate some answers, the most popular out of which was Hasan, who I don’t think has ever played Minecraft before.

To answer some of you, who had some doubts about who counts as a MCYT….

Yes, Wilbur Soot does count.

Yes, Charlie Slimecicle also counts.

Yes, Hermits also count.

I am also counting Ludwig, since he did make Minecraft content.

PeteZahHutt also counts.

Corpse Husband counts as well, since he is technically a DSMP member.

RTGame counts as well - again, Minecraft content on his channel.

Again - Hasan does not count.

So now, without further ado… The top 10 most popular answers!

I have also not counted answers that went over 3 people (as in, I have only counted the first 3 names).

If any of you were wondering - 8 people really wish Hasan did play Minecraft.

Which Dream content is the best content?

Another easy question with an easy answer, where most people either prefer Dream’s Youtube content or just love it all.

Quick shout out to the two people who love Dream’s music the most and two who prefer other content than specified in the survey. 

What got you into the fandom?

The toughest question to count. I did not expect so many different answers, so in the end I’ve decided to sort all the answers into a few categories (and I am sorry about that I know it’s not the best way to go about it, but here you guys can see all the answers to the question in an google spreadsheet if you want to).

dnf (answers included: ao3, heatwaves, dnf compilations on youtube or tiktok…)

manhunts (answers included: youtube recommendation of manhunts, binge watching manhunts…)

art (answers included: sad-ist animations, art in general, cosplays…)

lore (answers included: Dream SMP, lore vods…)

Other MCYT creators (answers included: SMP live, wilbur soot’s videos…)

Friend/family member recommendation

Among us streams

Twitter (answers included: seeing drama, twitter trending page…)

Other Dream Team content (answers included: other Dteam videos, tiktoks by them…)

Fandom (answers included: a tumblr mutual started posting about them, tiktok compilations, youtube compilations…)

Hot (answers included: found George/Sapnap hot)

I don’t remember

And finally. The last question of the census. The one we all have been wondering about.

Have you been here since before the face reveal?

As it turns out…

Only 2 people joined us since the face reveal!

The rest of us has known about this community and about Dream earlier and was waiting the day of the face reveal impatiently.

And that’s it! Thank you once again for taking part, hopefully my rambling won’t make this post too boring to read!

Have a great day/night! <3

[mercysong-tardis]

Meeting Alex Kingston in Moll Flanders cosplay at FanX 2023

Just over a year ago, a little birdy (@now-theres-a-spoiler-for-you) informed me that to the best of her knowledge, Alex Kingston had never seen a Moll Flanders cosplayer. And as an avid appreciator of the Miniseries, I took it upon myself to become the first.

The Miniseries, "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders" (1996) of which Alex Kingston starred in alongside Daniel Craig, was Alex's major breakout role which led to her role on ER and her subsequent claim to fame. So considering the prevolence, I had to make it special.

I put in a LOT of work researching, sourcing fabric, internet deep-diving, and reading before I ever got started on the dress. The actual hard work of sewing the dress took a few months to make once the initial homework was done. Undergarments? Structuring? Patterns? All of these took a lot of guesswork on my part.

The original was created by costume designer, Trisha Biggar (Which if you are in the costuming community you will know her as the designer of Padme Amidala's wardrobe and the designer for Outlander) for the 1996 miniseries. The dress was constructed of fabric Trisha Thrifted in the 1960s in Sweden, most of which I am fairly certain is Indian Fabric specifically used for Banarasi Sarees. The dress is inspired by a common silhouette from the 1670s London England, based on common evening gowns worn at the time. Considering the substantial trade happening between India and England at that time, it makes sense that a dress is fine as this would’ve been historically constructed with Banarasi silk.

The original evening gown:

Sadly, I cannot afford to construct a dress entirely out of silk in this American economy, so sourced much of my fabric overseas and while I was in Egypt and Israel this summer. The rest of it was either Thrifted or appliquéd by hand by me. All of the notions and ribbons were Thrifted. I believe in doing everything possible to keep cosplay sustainable. There is a video on my TikTok which goes into detail on my construction process.

But once the dress was done, I was ecstatic, and It was time to debut it at a convention. The morning of Thursday FanX SLC, I got some pictures (in my River wig to preserve my curled hair) and this is how they turned out...

Then it was time to show The Queenston herself. I had been a little bit stressed that she wouldn't recognise the dress or wouldn't be very interested, but I held out hope.

Spoiler Alert; I had NOTHING to worry about.

Before I got to Alex, I got an autograph from Karen Gillan, who's table was next to Alex's. While in line, I was staring in awe at Alex, as she was just under twenty feet away. In between people, Alex glanced up to the crowd, then did a double take, and leaned over her table to see me through the crowd. Her mouth dropped open, she pointed straight at me, and she got all excited, and mouthed “You! Moll Flanders! Wow!” Time slowed down and I froze until I gave her a big smile (and I think a thumbs up?) and I was so starstruck that I was convinced I was hallucinating until she added “you look amazing!” still smiling, before going back to the next person. 

When I got to her table, she greeted me as Moll,and she said she'd "Never ever, ever seen a Moll cosplayer!" and I got to tell her that I made the dress. Alex absolutely loved my Moll Flanders cosplay. She told me it was the first one she’d ever seen. She was so sweet. I wasn’t anxious at all. I was so excited to finally meet her but I didn’t cry. I was actually so relaxed, which came as a surprise, as I have a track record of being emotionally overwhelmed and crying in front of Celebrities.

She was so nice and was so impressed with the dress. We got a Photo together and she ended up grabbing the shackles (is it even Alex Kingston without a cheeky touch?)

Then she signed my Making of Moll Flanders book and she flipped through it “oh this really takes me back. This was my favorite dress. The red velvet one. It was quite warm. I loved the big hat!”

For reference this is the dress she was talking about:

Then she looked up back at my dress and asked me “aren’t they fun to wear? Don’t you feel sexy?”

I said yes.

I was a liar.

I was actually incredibly uncomfortable but I would NEVER SAY THAT TO THE QUEENSTON.

So I just smiled and said yes. (I did feel sexy but 17 hours tightlaced in 1670s stays is not fun to wear)

Then at the photo op, Alex played with my hair XD

So that is the story of my most insane cosplay yet! I hope you enjoyed all you people out there on the internet.

[bluedalahorse]

Hi! I hope everyone is doing well. I am popping up to let you know that I’m alive, that there’s a lot going on, that I still love YR, and that I’m thinking about boundaries and priorities.

I loved Young Royals season three. I especially love how it engaged with the legacy of Erik and the systems of Hillerska. I love that it took the idea of the legal system providing catharsis and that it threw that out the window. I love the way characters got words for what they were going through, how Felice got to name the racism happening to her and August got words to name his disordered eating. Most of all I loved the way Lisa wrote Sara’s relationship with her father and her reconciliation with Simon. That meant so much to me, and I can’t wait to imagine a future for the Eriksson siblings.

Here is a brief list of things I loved about the finale. They were all written in the afterglow of seeing the episode. I stand by them. Especially how much I loved Wille’s ending, and what happened there.

In the coming weeks, I’m sure there’ll be stuff I’m more critical of or don’t feel as strongly about. I especially have mixed feelings about the way Lisa seemed to structure 3.5 in a way that mimics the emotional roller coaster of trauma. I’m not really focusing on that stuff here or now, because I don’t want to. But it’s on my mind, and I don’t know if I’ll end up posting about it here and elsewhere.

At present this post isn’t rebloggable or tagged with much of anything. That’s because I’m trying to figure out the best way moving forward with tumblr. I don’t know if I want to delete this blog and abandon it entirely, but the pressure to present a curated version of myself is too much, and is a pretty big trigger for things like rejection sensitivity and anxiety. The pace here is also too fast and there is no way to keep up with everything, and (forgive me for this cardinal sin in tumblr-land) I wish I had some easier way to not see the same sets of gifs a hundred times with the same commentary. I’m experimenting with slower ways of doing fandom, where I can enjoy myself more.

I do, however, want a way to get the cultural footnotes for Young Royals, especially when they help me write better fic and create better fanworks. I know there’s some pretty darn useful posts about how lines get translated and various holidays and traditions (and looking forward I would like to know more about universities in Sweden, and how the monarchy works and such.) So I want to be able to find the stuff I need without having to spend as much time on what I don’t need. The resource posts people make are truly helpful.

And I also have some other fannish things I want to see here, like Les Mis and Interview with the Vampire. And the memes are nice. I miss the memes.

Before I make the decision about how I engage, I think it will be useful for me to know my priorities. So I’ve thought about them a bit, and I want to make the decisions that align with my priorities. Here’s what I want to focus on moving forward:

I want to spend more time creating. The thing that has always brought me the most genuine joy in this fandom is writing fic. YRS3 ended in a place of possibility for so many characters, and I want to keep writing about them and learning about them that way. (I won’t even lie, of course most of my ideas are about August—August and Kristina working on their intergenerational cousin relationship, August getting pulled into weekly DND sessions with Wille and Simon so they can all get better at being human together while pretending to be elves or something, August doing the personal and liberatory work that allows him and Sara to one day have a Second Chance Romance with they’re older, even August/Nils because oh boy did that season give me ideas about them I never knew I had.) One of my goals is to cut down on browsing time significantly so that I spend more time writing, especially so I can finish Heart and Homeland. I think it’ll make me happier.

I want to spend more time helping others create. Some of the most meaningful experiences I had in this fandom involved being a beta reader or hearing out another person’s fic ideas, and getting to live in that space of creation and collaboration. For that reason, I’d like to still make new YR connections on occasion, especially with people who wanna share their writing process with me. Tumblr may or may not be a place to do that. I’m still figuring out where stuff should happen.

I want analysis to be something I do as part of my creative process, and that’s it. I don’t know if this is fully true, but it felt like ten years ago there was more fandom meta focused on what fans wanted to write in their fanfics, and how their interpretations of canon led to them creating cool art. There was some meta that was about how to interpret canon “correctly” but that wasn’t the priority. Now, it feels like—and this is true even outside of YR fandom, so this is no reflection on YR specifically—there is more emphasis on having the “correct” interpretation of canon. About getting it right, and having the right predictions and interpretations. It feels competitive in a way that wears me down. From this point forward, when posting analysis, I’m going to ask myself, is this furthering my creative pursuits and my understanding of the writing process more generally, or am I just trying to win an argument? If the answer is just to win, then I’m not going to post my argument. That runs counter to my goals.

I don’t want to engage in any space where anonymous discourse flourishes. Even when well-intentioned. Being away for a while was clarifying for me on that point. Turns out one of the biggest triggers for my anxiety and shame are extensive, heated conversations where I don’t know who is saying what and who I can trust. Spaces where there’s a lot of anon conversation are probably going to be ones I block and unfollow first moving forward. It just seems like a good baseline for how I engage.

So this is where I am as of now. I’ll probably continue to hold off on doing much posting in the coming days, but I did want to poke my head up for air for a second to let people know what the state of everything is.

Here’s one picture of the plushes for the road:

And here’s a picture of the waffles I ate on finale day:

Oh, to have cloudberry jam and time spent with friends. These things are truly joyous.

[balloons-and-shadows]

* Swedish Culture *

As my exchange semester is coming to an end, I want to share with you what learned about Sweden the last 6 months

Trains drive on the left side of the tracks. On dagen H, everyone switched from driving on the left side to the right side, except for trains. Swedes will look at you funny for bringing that up.

On every product there is a detailed description of how each part of the product should be recycled. We need to do that everywhere.

Fika <33333333

There are no rules for biking here. It is chaos. As a Dutch person I'm very confused

Love to the academic quarter that allows me to be 15 minutes late to every lecture

I think Gävlebocken is a tradition we need to keep. Especially the burning part of it.

Why does everything close so early during the weekends??? What am I supposed to do??

Ikea has my heart. And a lot of my money.

Sun setting at 14.30 makes me want to eat dinner so early already

Also, the cold makes my hair literally so static? Does anyone know what to do about it?

I can never live without kanelbullar again

The amount of lactosefree options there are everywhere! Love it!

Swedes will be sitting outside of a café even when it is -2 degrees. I have the utmost respect for them.

Why do you close everything for the winter? What am I supposed to do now??

The Ikea stereotype is no joke. Everything I own is from Ikea. Everything my friends own is from Ikea.

I miss cheap alcohol :(

Where are there random loose chairs and tables in your trains? Where do they come from? Why are they there?

Affordable housing <333

Little kids in their little snowsuits with their little snowboots are the cutest thing ever

In small towns, you can find like 7 different Japanese restaurants. Nothing else tho.

Kötbullar are so cheap. I love them. I buy them all the time.

I need to know, why are you so obsessed with Thailand as a country?? I need answers.

I'm not made to withstand -15 degrees. No Swede bats an eye.

Also, choirs are a very big thing??? I wish I could sing well.

Did I already mention kanelbullar? <33333

People ask you if you've already been to the ABBA museum. You have not. You are also not planning on going. Still, people ask you.

The Vasa Museum is a very controversial topic.

The red barns you see everywhere are painted with animal blood. You like to point that out to everyone who comes to visit you.

You have not seen the sun in days. You live on vitamin D-supplements and nothing else

Icehockey looks 75% of the time like very aggressive flirting. You know, like the kdramas

You are sitting in the bus quietly. There are people checking the tickets. You have a ticket. Suddenly, there are 4 people standing over you checking your ticket. There's only 5 people in the bus.

16.00 is rush hour. That is very early.

People will not move out of the way for you. Not in the supermarket, not on the train or on the pavement. There have been many times I have had to walk on the road because people will not move for you.

What is lingonberry and why do you put it in everything?

Why do your parties start and end so early?? Why is 4.00 considered "late"?

Just like the Vasa museum, Gamla Uppsala is a very controversial topic.

Tiny rocks are strewn over the street to combat the ice and snow. They get stuck in your shoes. There is a tiny rock collection on the floor of the hallway now.

It is -20 degrees Celsius outside. You see a dude wearing kaki shorts.

Tomten has my heart. He is so tiny.

Student discounts <3333

[hazellevessque]

what exactly is young royals about? (feel free to ramble on and create an extremely long post I am very curious)

Oh I am so glad you asked this. I’m not sure whether you want spoilers or not so I’ll do the non-spoiler version.

Ok so basically there’s this guy named Wilhelm (but pretty much only his parents and the press call him that. Everyone else calls him Wille). He’s the Prince of Sweden. And he’s basically a “Party Prince.” He begged his parents to let him go to public high school, so he made a bunch of friends there. One day he and his friends decided to sneak into a club (because Party Prince) (he’s 16 btw) and everyone is recording him because… he’s the Prince. Then he asks this one guy to leave him alone, but the guy doesn’t. They end up getting into a fight. Everyone in the club starts recording and it turns into this big Royal Family Scandal™️

The Royal Court makes Wille publicly apologize and a part of that apology is saying that he is going to start going to this fancy private school called Hillerska. It’s where his older brother (Erik, he’s 20) went and where his cousin (August, 18) is currently attending. And Wille is NOT happy about it. He basically spends the next 15 minutes of the show complaining and being pissed off at the world.

Erik drops him off at Hillerska and we meet August, who’s pretty much a jerk. Erik tells Wille that everything he does affects the royal family and that he should start being more responsible. Wille, Erik, and August go to this ceremony that the school set up for Wille to join because he’s the Prince and special treatment ig. The chorus has a song, and there’s a boy who has a solo in the song. His name is Simon. Wille basically can’t take his eyes off him.

Now, here’s the thing about Simon. Everyone at Hillerska is filthy rich. But not Simon. He’s a non-res, so he commutes to school ever morning instead of staying at the boarding school. The only reason he’s at this school is because his sister, Sara got bullied at her old public school so much for her autism and ADHD that she was held back a grade. She was so scared to go to school that she didn’t have enough attendance to pass. Their mom sent her to Hillerska so she could have a fresh start, and Simon followed because he didn’t want her to be alone. Simon hates everything about Hillerska and has no friends. He’s also a part of a working class and pretty poor. His dad is an alcoholic and drug addict, and his parents divorced a few years ago.

August and his friends want to have a whole party to welcome Wille. But they need booze because high school party. (I’ve been to one hs party in my life and left after 30 minutes because I hated it). They’re like “Oh. Simon is poor. He probably knows a dealer” or something like that. Basically they say that if Simon gets them the booze then they’ll allow him and Sara to the party. Simon doesn’t care, but he knows Sara really wants to make friends, and he thinks that she might be able to at this party. He agrees.

Basically, Simon goes to his dad for the booze without his family knowing, his dad gives it to him, and Simon and Sara go to the party. Wille and Simon somehow end up hanging out because Wills doesn’t like August or his bitchy friends. They leave the party and have a talk outside, but Wille is pretty drunk so he’s just saying all this shit and Simon is just laughing at him. August tries to find Wille but Wille makes Simon and him duck and they end up really close while this happens.

They become friends and then Wille goes through this whole gay crisis because he feels so different around this person???? And it’s not like his other friendships???? And he’s freaking out????

Meanwhile Sara met this girl named Felice at the party, who’s Wille’s childhood friend and now goes to Hillerska. They become friends to and she invites Simon and her to this movie night all the Hillerska kids are having.

Wille’s gay crisis is still going strong and he literally prompts his hand for Simon to hold it during the jump scares (it’s a horror movie) and Simon ends up holding his hand. Wille’s crisis continues but like dude you brought that upon yourself. (And he’s also thinking about how this would effect the royal family and everything) and he leaves the movie room and has a panic attack in the hallway.

Simon follows to make sure he’s okay and they end up kissing (hooray!!!) but not really hooray because the next day Wille goes to Simon in the music room and is like “IM NOT GAY THAT WAS A MISTAKE IM NOT GAY CAN WE PLEASE STILL BE FRIENDS I JUST DONT LIKE BOYS” (which is a lie. Wille I know what you are) (He’s an unlabeled icon btw)

(Also side note this is why everyone calls the music rooom homophobic. Something terrible always happens to Wille and Simon in that room)

But then he really thinks about it and is like “fuck the royal court I’m in love with this boy” and they start dating in secret. (Not really dating because they constantly get sidetracked because this really terrible thing happens to Wille that comes out of NOWHERE which I will not share because spoilers)

And it’s really hard because the royal court does NOT approve of this endeavor because Simon is not only a boy but a POOR boy (gasp) and there’s also all this other drama going on because August likes Felice, Felice likes Wille (she doesn’t really she only likes the idea of a Prince) and Wille is in love with Simon (I’m trying to hard to explain this to you without spoilers)

There are also a BUNCH of subplots which I will not be explaining because it’ll take forever

Yeah that’s basically the show and it’s heartbreaking because of all the pressures the royal court puts on Wille and his relationship with Simon and it’s a lot for him. And all this stuff is going on with Simon’s family and it’s so so so sad. The series finale comes out next Monday.

Anyways I’m happy to give you a version with spoilers if you want

[eteisvalssi]

i promised to post some thoughts from both of the concert days at kulttuuritalo so i'm gonna be putting them under a read more :)

saturday 2.3.

i arrived at the venue some time before 9 am

i feel like i always say this but the people that i hang out with at concerts and while queueing are always super nice. i got to know new people, meet mutuals and hang out with so many people i'd gotten to know at previous gigs i'd been to

just remembered that i think i forgot to thank @king-krisu for letting me tag along to their apartment to warm up my pizza that tasted like cardboard so i'm doing it now, kiitos!

buying hand and foot warmers for the queueing was the best purchase ever

when we were let inside, the staff was apparently not informed on where the cloakroom was actually open and if people who were over 18 but didn't have the ticket could go to the +18 side and everything was just a mess and ppl were running around and didn't know where to go

i did get front row on kris' side and it was actually my first time there, i'd always been on jan and nace's side before that

i've listened to pilvet pilvet for a while now and i was so happy to actually see them live, couldn't ask for a better opener

jc stewart was also very good! i'd never heard of him or his songs before but i tried to learn some of them before the gig lol

i feel like we've all seen so much from the soundcheck and gigs from videos and photos that i don't really have that much to add

when kiki came to put the setlist right in front of us we were like no it can't be this short they're definitely gonna play more songs. and they didn't 🥲

it was so nice to see them all actually move around a lot more now that they could

kris kicked straight towards me multiple times during the show and i kept thinking what have i done to deserve this

i completely fell in love with šta bih ja and bluza was so good too!!!

jan and bojan playing the piano <3

as the first gig on tour i kinda felt like they were still warming up after not performing for a while but still it was so good and i loved this concert so much

after the concert i went out with some friends i first met at the gig in tampere on the nordic tour :)

sunday 3.3.

i was supposed to go hang out in the queue for the day but i slept so bad and i was honestly in a bad mood because of that so i just stayed in bed for the whole day until it was time to leave to the venue with my friend and we were there just before the doors opened

i already posted my friend's thoughts from the show as a non-fan and you can find it here

i have a lot of thoughts that i wrote down on monday about going to a concert as a fan with a non-fan vs. alone but i'm not gonna be yapping about it in this post

i was kinda far back and i'm short so i didn't really see that well and i made the mistake of wearing a hoodie instead of what i was planning to wear so it was also extremely hot

this setlist was more to my taste with barve oceana and padam

the new song took me straight on a cruise ship to sweden

when they announced ruisrock the response of the audience was so loud!

i had a fan with me and i was fanning myself during vse kar vem and i just saw bojan looking at me kinda worried but when he saw me singing along he smiled and i almost started crying

i feel like they were more relaxed during this concert and that's understandable with the first concert being more of a rehearsal as the first concert of the whole tour

when we got out literally everyone was freaking out about everything that happened and saying how much better it was than yesterday

i was so tired and felt kinda sick that we just went to get some food after sitting down for a while and then i went back to my hotel room and that was it

overall i had a such a fun weekend! thanks to everyone who i spent time with <3 would've loved to talk to even more of you guys! next up is london and of course ruisrock in the summer :)