#i found this on my homepage so why not

[sandumilfshou]

so i was interested in ao3's stats and found a post from 2013 where they were celebrating breaking 200,000 registered users. that number according to the ao3 homepage is now over 7 million! personally my account was founded 10/10/2012, so im curious:

feel free to reblog with your founding date in the tags (can be found in your profile info)

im purposefully making the non registered answers more vague bc bby why... get an account!

[yeoldenews]

A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency-Era Names

I recently received a message from a historical romance writer asking if I knew any good resources for finding historically accurate Regency-era names for their characters.

Not knowing any off the top of my head, I dug around online a bit and found there really isn’t much out there. The vast majority of search results were Buzzfeed-style listicles which range from accurate-adjacent to really, really, really bad.

I did find a few blog posts with fairly decent name lists, but noticed that even these have very little indication as to each name’s relative popularity as those statistical breakdowns really don't exist.

I began writing up a response with this information, but then I (being a research addict who was currently snowed in after a blizzard) thought hey - if there aren’t any good resources out there why not make one myself?

As I lacked any compiled data to work from, I had to do my own data wrangling on this project. Due to this fact, I limited the scope to what I thought would be the most useful for writers who focus on this era, namely - people of a marriageable age living in the wealthiest areas of London.

So with this in mind - I went through period records and compiled the names of 25,000 couples who were married in the City of Westminster (which includes Mayfair, St. James and Hyde Park) between 1804 to 1821.

So let’s see what all that data tells us…

To begin - I think it’s hard for us in the modern world with our wide and varied abundance of first names to conceive of just how POPULAR popular names of the past were.

If you were to take a modern sample of 25-year-old (born in 1998) American women, the most common name would be Emily with 1.35% of the total population. If you were to add the next four most popular names (Hannah, Samantha, Sarah and Ashley) these top five names would bring you to 5.5% of the total population. (source: Social Security Administration)

If you were to do the same survey in Regency London - the most common name would be Mary with 19.2% of the population. Add the next four most popular names (Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane) and with just 5 names you would have covered 62% of all women.

To hit 62% of the population in the modern survey it would take the top 400 names.

The top five Regency men’s names (John, William, Thomas, James and George) have nearly identical statistics as the women’s names.

I struggled for the better part of a week with how to present my findings, as a big list in alphabetical order really fails to get across the popularity factor and also isn’t the most tumblr-compatible format. And then my YouTube homepage recommended a random video of someone ranking all the books they’d read last year - and so I present…

The Regency Name Popularity Tier List

The Tiers

S+ - 10% of the population or greater. There is no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. 52% of the population had one of these 7 names.

S - 2-10%. There is still no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. Names in this percentage range in the past have included Mary and William in the 1880s and Jennifer in the late 1970s (topped out at 4%).

A - 1-2%. The top five modern names usually fall in this range. Kids with these names would probably include their last initial in class to avoid confusion. (1998 examples: Emily, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Christopher, Brandon.)

B - .3-1%. Very common names. Would fall in the top 50 modern names. You would most likely know at least 1 person with these names. (1998 examples: Jessica, Megan, Allison, Justin, Ryan, Eric)

C - .17-.3%. Common names. Would fall in the modern top 100. You would probably know someone with these names, or at least know of them. (1998 examples: Chloe, Grace, Vanessa, Sean, Spencer, Seth)

D - .06-.17%. Less common names. In the modern top 250. You may not personally know someone with these names, but you’re aware of them. (1998 examples: Faith, Cassidy, Summer, Griffin, Dustin, Colby)

E - .02-.06%. Uncommon names. You’re aware these are names, but they are not common. Unusual enough they may be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Calista, Skye, Precious, Fabian, Justice, Lorenzo)

F - .01-.02%. Rare names. You may have heard of these names, but you probably don’t know anyone with one. Extremely unusual, and would likely be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Emerald, Lourdes, Serenity, Dario, Tavian, Adonis)

G - Very rare names. There are only a handful of people with these names in the entire country. You’ve never met anyone with this name.

H - Virtually non-existent. Names that theoretically could have existed in the Regency period (their original source pre-dates the early 19th century) but I found fewer than five (and often no) period examples of them being used in Regency England. (Example names taken from romance novels and online Regency name lists.)

Just to once again reinforce how POPULAR popular names were before we get to the tier lists - statistically, in a ballroom of 100 people in Regency London: 80 would have names from tiers S+/S. An additional 15 people would have names from tiers A/B and C. 4 of the remaining 5 would have names from D/E. Only one would have a name from below tier E.

Women's Names

S+ Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah      

S - Jane, Mary Ann+, Hannah, Susannah, Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Charlotte, Maria

A - Frances, Harriet, Sophia, Eleanor, Rebecca

B - Alice, Amelia, Bridget~, Caroline, Eliza, Esther, Isabella, Louisa, Lucy, Lydia, Phoebe, Rachel, Susan

C - Ellen, Fanny*, Grace, Henrietta, Hester, Jemima, Matilda, Priscilla

D - Abigail, Agnes, Amy, Augusta, Barbara, Betsy*, Betty*, Cecilia, Christiana, Clarissa, Deborah, Diana, Dinah, Dorothy, Emily, Emma, Georgiana, Helen, Janet^, Joanna, Johanna, Judith, Julia, Kezia, Kitty*, Letitia, Nancy*, Ruth, Winifred>

E - Arabella, Celia, Charity, Clara, Cordelia, Dorcas, Eve, Georgina, Honor, Honora, Jennet^, Jessie*^, Joan, Joyce, Juliana, Juliet, Lavinia, Leah, Margery, Marian, Marianne, Marie, Mercy, Miriam, Naomi, Patience, Penelope, Philadelphia, Phillis, Prudence, Rhoda, Rosanna, Rose, Rosetta, Rosina, Sabina, Selina, Sylvia, Theodosia, Theresa

F - (selected) Alicia, Bethia, Euphemia, Frederica, Helena, Leonora, Mariana, Millicent, Mirah, Olivia, Philippa, Rosamund, Sybella, Tabitha, Temperance, Theophila, Thomasin, Tryphena, Ursula, Virtue, Wilhelmina

G - (selected) Adelaide, Alethia, Angelina, Cassandra, Cherry, Constance, Delilah, Dorinda, Drusilla, Eva, Happy, Jessica, Josephine, Laura, Minerva, Octavia, Parthenia, Theodora, Violet, Zipporah

H - Alberta, Alexandra, Amber, Ashley, Calliope, Calpurnia, Chloe, Cressida, Cynthia, Daisy, Daphne, Elaine, Eloise, Estella, Lilian, Lilias, Francesca, Gabriella, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hermione, Hyacinth, Inez, Iris, Kathleen, Madeline, Maude, Melody, Portia, Seabright, Seraphina, Sienna, Verity

Men's Names

S+ John, William, Thomas

S - James, George, Joseph, Richard, Robert, Charles, Henry, Edward, Samuel

A - Benjamin, (Mother’s/Grandmother’s maiden name used as first name)#

B - Alexander^, Andrew, Daniel, David>, Edmund, Francis, Frederick, Isaac, Matthew, Michael, Patrick~, Peter, Philip, Stephen, Timothy

C - Abraham, Anthony, Christopher, Hugh>, Jeremiah, Jonathan, Nathaniel, Walter

D - Adam, Arthur, Bartholomew, Cornelius, Dennis, Evan>, Jacob, Job, Josiah, Joshua, Lawrence, Lewis, Luke, Mark, Martin, Moses, Nicholas, Owen>, Paul, Ralph, Simon

E - Aaron, Alfred, Allen, Ambrose, Amos, Archibald, Augustin, Augustus, Barnard, Barney, Bernard, Bryan, Caleb, Christian, Clement, Colin, Duncan^, Ebenezer, Edwin, Emanuel, Felix, Gabriel, Gerard, Gilbert, Giles, Griffith, Harry*, Herbert, Humphrey, Israel, Jabez, Jesse, Joel, Jonas, Lancelot, Matthias, Maurice, Miles, Oliver, Rees, Reuben, Roger, Rowland, Solomon, Theophilus, Valentine, Zachariah

F - (selected) Abel, Barnabus, Benedict, Connor, Elijah, Ernest, Gideon, Godfrey, Gregory, Hector, Horace, Horatio, Isaiah, Jasper, Levi, Marmaduke, Noah, Percival, Shadrach, Vincent

G - (selected) Albion, Darius, Christmas, Cleophas, Enoch, Ethelbert, Gavin, Griffin, Hercules, Hugo, Innocent, Justin, Maximilian, Methuselah, Peregrine, Phineas, Roland, Sebastian, Sylvester, Theodore, Titus, Zephaniah

H - Albinus, Americus, Cassian, Dominic, Eric, Milo, Rollo, Trevor, Tristan, Waldo, Xavier

# Men were sometimes given a family surname (most often their mother's or grandmother's maiden name) as their first name - the most famous example of this being Fitzwilliam Darcy. If you were to combine all surname-based first names as a single 'name' this is where the practice would rank.

*Rank as a given name, not a nickname

+If you count Mary Ann as a separate name from Mary - Mary would remain in S+ even without the Mary Anns included

~Primarily used by people of Irish descent

^Primarily used by people of Scottish descent

>Primarily used by people of Welsh descent

I was going to continue on and write about why Regency-era first names were so uniform, discuss historically accurate surnames, nicknames, and include a little guide to finding 'unique' names that are still historically accurate - but this post is already very, very long, so that will have to wait for a later date.

If anyone has any questions/comments/clarifications in the meantime feel free to message me.

Methodology notes: All data is from marriage records covering six parishes in the City of Westminster between 1804 and 1821. The total sample size was 50,950 individuals.

I chose marriage records rather than births/baptisms as I wanted to focus on individuals who were adults during the Regency era rather than newborns. I think many people make the mistake when researching historical names by using baby name data for the year their story takes place rather than 20 to 30 years prior, and I wanted to avoid that. If you are writing a story that takes place in 1930 you don’t want to research the top names for 1930, you need to be looking at 1910 or earlier if you are naming adult characters.

I combined (for my own sanity) names that are pronounced identically but have minor spelling differences: i.e. the data for Catherine also includes Catharines and Katherines, Susannah includes Susannas, Phoebe includes Phebes, etc.

The compound 'Mother's/Grandmother's maiden name used as first name' designation is an educated guesstimate based on what I recognized as known surnames, as I do not hate myself enough to go through 25,000+ individuals and confirm their mother's maiden names. So if the tally includes any individuals who just happened to be named Fitzroy/Hastings/Townsend/etc. because their parents liked the sound of it and not due to any familial relations - my bad.

I did a small comparative survey of 5,000 individuals in several rural communities in Rutland and Staffordshire (chosen because they had the cleanest data I could find and I was lazy) to see if there were any significant differences between urban and rural naming practices and found the results to be very similar. The most noticeable difference I observed was that the S+ tier names were even MORE popular in rural areas than in London. In Rutland between 1810 and 1820 Elizabeths comprised 21.4% of all brides vs. 15.3% in the London survey. All other S+ names also saw increases of between 1% and 6%. I also observed that the rural communities I surveyed saw a small, but noticeable and fairly consistent, increase in the use of names with Biblical origins.

Sources of the records I used for my survey: 

Ancestry.com. England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1988 [database on-line].

Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 [database on-line].

[embarrasingmf]

₊˚ෆ | old wishes | S.B

SUMMARY: Ben decides to look some stuff up on Hughie’s laptop, finding how different certain videos are nowadays.

WORD COUNT: 900.

WARNINGS: not proofread, suggestive / 18+, mention of porn bc its ben and someone suggested this idea, use of Y/N, swearing.

A/N: SORRY FOR NOT POSTING, I WENT TO THE HOSPITAL OVER THE WEEKEND N I’VE BEEN SUPER BUSY W COLLEGE😣 new theme so that means new text color!

part one! | part two!

After wrapping up a mission with Butcher and everyone else, you tiredly trudged into the little office hideout.

You made a beeline for the worn out couch sitting by a big window overviewing the city, plopping down onto it with a weary sigh.

Leaning your head back and closing your eyes, it didn’t even take a minute until someone ran up to you.

“Y/N! You gotta help me-“ Hughie said in a worried tone.

You lifted your head to meet his gaze, and he must’ve seen your annoyance because he mumbled an apology.

“What is it?” You questioned with a grumble.

“It’s Ben.” Hughie said simply. “He stole my computer to uh, ‘research some stuff’ as he said.”

You scoffed, waving a hand dimissively to brush him off. “He’s probably tryin’ to figure out how your laptop works more.”

“I would think that too!” He quickly defended.

“If I didn’t hear noises coming from his room later…” Hughie added as an afterthought.

That got your attention, and you immediately shot up.

“What?! He stole your laptop to look that shit up?!” You exclaimed, immediately knowing what Ben was talking about.

Hughie nodded, “yeah. So I was wondering if you could get my—“

He didn’t even have time to finish his sentence before you got up from the couch and stormed off to Ben’s room.

—————————————————————————

You prepared yourself for the sight of Ben possibly getting himself off while watching some porn video he had found on the web when you barged into his room.

…but you didn’t find that.

You found Ben leaned back against the headboard of his rather tiny twin size bed that barely fit him, an irritated expression on his face.

“Ben. What are you doing?” He immediately perked up hearing your voice at his doorway, his eyebrows raising.

“Oh thank fuck you’re here. I need someone to complain to. C’mere.” Ben motioned to the side of the bed, and you reluctantly walked over to be greeted by the sight of two people going at it like animals.

“I mean, I knew porn changed over the years, but I didn’t think it changed this much.” Ben complained with a groan, gesturing to the screen.

You uncomfortably nodded, looking back at Ben.

“Why don’t you give this back to Hughie? He needs it.” You reached out for the laptop, but Ben snatched it away.

“Hell no. Not ‘till I’m done complaining.”

You sighed, shoulders sagging as you knew you wouldn’t be able to convince him. You snapped a hand in his direction in gesture for him to go on with his ranting.

“First off, this girl is moaning so fuckin’ loud. Back then, the moans were natural, y’know what I’m saying?” Ben flashed you a cheek smirk.

“And these things they’re doing are weird as hell. I’ve seen this one guy spit into the other girls mouth.” Ben huffed.

“It was kinda hot,” He added. “But still weird as hell!”

You shook your head, rolling your eyes. “Okay I get it, now can I bring Hughie his laptop back?”

“Nope! Not until I find a good one.” Ben chuckled as he returned to the homepage of the site and started scrolling.

“Ben—“ You tried to protest, but Ben held up a finger to shut you up; which worked, pathetic as it sounds.

—————————————————————————

You awkwardly sat in some chair you pulled up next to Ben while he watched a few videos before making a comment about how bad or weird they were before continuing on his quest for a good video.

Within those minutes, you tried to convince Ben to give you the laptop so you could return it to its rightful owner; all which fell on deaf ears.

It wasn’t until you got an idea — a slightly evil idea — that you started to lose hope.

Said idea was to lie to Ben and tell him that if he continued to use that site, that he’d give Hughie’s laptop a virus and it wouldn’t be able to be used anymore.

“Hey, Ben.” You said, easily getting his attention.

“I think you should really get off that site, you might give his laptop a virus.”

“A virus?” Ben tilted his head to the side like some cat or dog. “Like it’ll get sick?”

“No, Ben.” You sighed at his obliviousness. “Like Hughie won’t be able to use it anymore.”

Ben’s face fell.

“You mean I won’t be able to look stuff up on that bitch’s computer?” He asked incredulously.

You shook your head, holding back a laugh at his shock.

“Nope. You can’t use Hughie’s computer anymore if that happens.”

Ben scoffed, as if the idea was stupid, and closed the tab before handing the laptop to you.

You grabbed the laptop and watched him cross his arms, chuckling under your breath.

“Well I’m gonna go give this back to Hughie, okay?” Ben nodded.

You quickly walked out and located Hughie, holding out the laptop for him.

“Thanks, Y/N! but how did you get him to give it up?” Hughie couldn’t help but be curious.

“I may or may not have told a little white lie about how you’d get a virus on your computer and it’d be unuseable in the future.” You explained with a grin.

Hughie let out a laugh, shaking his head. “And I’m guessing he didn’t even get suspicious about it?”

“Nope.”

—————————————————————————

feedback n reblogs r appreciated! :3

[gigidragonbbxxx]

The Dark Side of Loass + motivation

I was on my daily reddit scroll while sipping my morning coffee when I saw something extremely disgusting on my homepage.

It was a manifestation success story by a man who claimed to have manifested his "perfect" gf - the kicker? She's underaged and he is a fully grown man.

The post has been deleted but the original poster's account is still up, as is his comment history. In his comments he details how he essentially used SATS and shot a message to someone he saw in discord. Apparently she is 15, lives with him due to an abusive situation, and yes they are s******y active. Apparently he treats her very well (he even mentioned bringing her to school YUCK) and buys her a lot of stuff and she's happy.

Let me make this clear:

a girl in an abusive home situation is not "saved" by an adult man taking advantage of it in the guise of "improving" her life situation while subjecting her to doing physical things she cannot consent to because she is not a damn adult.

I did some digging and it was not very long until I saw his first-ever comment about it and it was worse than I thought. I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt like maybe he visualized for a perfect gf and he didn't know she was a minor. Well, that says more about me than anything bc yes I found out that he had specified that he wanted her underaged. He literally says in the comment "specifcs that could get me in trouble". He made a lot of comments about her body, etc. and quite literally said something along the lines of "I'm her savior and shes my obsessed loving gf". Keep in mind...one of the titles this man used (he posted twice in diff subreddits) was "I manifested a s** s****e". So. Yup. He's a whole p*do.

I will not be sharing links as I don't want to give that horrible man any more traction but if you read all that and said to yourself, but Gigi whats that got to do with the dark side of the law of assumption? and why would you say there's a dark side to it?

The truth is that the law isn't dark at all, the evil part of the law is the people who use it for evil.

This is why good things can happen to horrible people.

This is why you see villains win.

They may have an amazing self-concept OR they just are under the assumption that NO MATTER HOW HORRIBLE THEY ARE THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT EVEN IF ITS FUCKED UP AND MORALLY TWISTED.

It's why you see nepo babies who aren't talented get shit handed to them - THEY EXPECT IT BECAUSE OF WHAT? WHO. THEY. ARE. SO CHANGE YOUR INNER SELF. EMBODY THAT CONFIDENCE.

This is why I wanted to share that story with you, it is to motivate you: if you know you're a better person than that horrible man, WHY CAN'T YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU WANT TOO?

Shouldn't you deserve even more for being good?

Stop thinking you don't deserve things bc guess what? People who are genuinely criminals are out here manifesting - so stay on your zoom and FOCUS. SATURATE. DISCIPLINE. COMMIT.

and let's all collectively agree to pray for that girl. I'm honestly gonna affirm that she gets saved and ends up in a situation where she is protected, loved, and away from predators.

Do not let evil win. Use it to remind yourself that the law is about BELIEF not FEELING.

with a heavy heart, xx, gigi

[mermaidfanficlibrary]

Stickers for you! | Wriothesley x Male reader

Characters: Wriothesley

Summary: You convinced Wriothesley to use your stickers on him, now you cant speak

Warnings: None other than Wriothesley's rizz

a/n: This idea came to me when I found a character. ai on my homepage. I know another Ai inspired one but I can't the idea is to cute!! Here's the bot.

You were sitting in the Duke’s office in the Fortress of Meropide. You were only there to visit him because Wriothesley is always so busy, you decided to travel down and surprise him with a visit. You turned your head as you stopped rocking his chair at his desk, seeing him walk into his office. You ran down the stairs and hugged him tightly. He was taken aback as Wriothesley looked down to see you nuzzling his chest. 

He chuckled and brought a hand to pet your hair ever so gently. Wriothesley let the both of you sit in silence as you soaked up his touch. He was so happy that you were here because he had been having a stressful day. He had to deal with a tone of new whiney inmates, so seeing you was a complete breath of fresh air. You always were whenever something stressful happened to him. 

He looked at you as you hugged him even tighter. Wriothesley let out a breathy chuckle, feeling your grip on him grow a bit tighter. He rested his chin in between the crook of your neck, a soft smile gracing his features. Wriothesley relaxed into your hug, hugging back with the same amount of strength. He whispered ever so softly into your ear, curious as to why you were there. 

“My darling dear, why are you here in the Fortress of Meropide? This is no place for my sweet darling to be. Unless you did something wrong. Did you do something wrong, dear?”

You pulled away softly as you looked at him with very excited e/c eyes, shaking your head at his question. You started to jump up and down slightly, not being able to contain how happy you felt at the moment. Wriothesley could only smirk at how excited you looked right now. He loved how you could be so overwhelmingly happy just to see him. You hid a bag, that Wriothesley had just noticed you carrying, behind your back.

“I wanted to come see you! I got bored at home and I had an idea for something that I wanted to do right away!”

He raised an eyebrow, seemingly intrigued by what you wanted to do with him. He was even more curious about what you were hiding in the bag. He tried to get closer to you, hoping to catch a peak, but you only step back slightly. His face morphed into a joking annoyance as his curiosity was peaked. He slung his arms around your neck, trying to bring you closer to him. 

“Oh? And what that might be?”

You pulled the bag from out of your back as you beamed at him. He felt his heartbeat quicken, overwhelmed with how cute you were acting. He tried to pull what was in the bag, but you pulled it away from him before he could reveal the content. He jokingly pouted, his curiosity begging him to just rip the bag out from your grasps and look in. Wriothesly had more self-control, and just listened to you, but blushed at the command you had given him. 

“It’s a secret! Now take off your shirt!”

He reluctantly slipped his shirt off, revealing his well toned chest. You pulled him to the floor as you sat in front of him. His eyes marveled at the amount of sticker packets that you started to pull out of the bag. Wriothesley smiled at you, knowing exactly where this was going, but couldn’t help but gently blush as you touched his bare chest. He shivered slightly, feeling both your cold fingers and the sticker being placed on him, and as soon as he blinked he was completely covered in all kinds of stickers. 

“Y/n, don’t you think this is enough stickers?”

You had shook your head slightly, your hair swaying along with it, which he couldn’t help but find cute. He snickered softly as you denied his observation of the amount of stickers that had now covered his chest and stomach. Your face was so focused, yet another moment that Wriothesley had found so cute. You responded to him with a soft tone, seemingly so focused on covering him from head to toe in stickers. He kept his eyes on you, studying every movement as you paused putting stickers on him to respond to his question. 

“Nope! Now sit still! There are a few more I want to add.”

He watched you place even more stickers upon his chest and stomach. Most of them were quite silly and he didn’t understand the appeal. Seeing you happy was more important to him, though, so he didn’t need to understand. Once you took a long pause on placing stickers on him, Wriothesly had picked up one of the pages and placed one on your forehead. You blushed as you felt him place even more stickers upon your face. 

“Seems like it's my turn to cover you in stickers, my dear.”

He purred out, seemingly happy with the moment he is sharing with you. You blushed as you raised an eyebrow at his comment. Before you could ask what he meant, Wriothesley had brought a heart shaped sticker to your mouth, keeping it closed. He chuckled lowly, smiling at you with a pleased gaze. He kissed your lips as the heart shaped sticker kept them closed. 

“There, now we both are covered in stickers. 

You tried to giggle at his silly actions, but it was muffled by the sticker that he had placed onto your lips. He smiled at you, loving this moment with you. He didn’t want it to end, but of course the moment that thought popped into his head, someone had to interrupt it. Sigewinne had bursted into the office, desperately calling for Wriothesley. He grumbled, putting his shirt back on and leaving, giving you a gentle kiss on your cheek. 

“We’ll pick this up later, just wait for me. Alright dear?” 

You nodded as you tried to smile, the heart shaped sticker preventing you from doing so. He chuckled once more as he walked down the steps to meet with Sigewinne to see what needed his attention so badly. You sat in his chair once more to wait for him to come back. Before he could, you had fallen asleep on his desk, the sticker still on your mouth. It started to fall off and once Wriothesley was back he just smiled at you, picked you up, and placed him on his lap as you both cuddled on his chair. 

“Thank you for coming to see me, Y/n. I really needed it.”

Do not repost or translate without my explicit permission! Reblogs are welcome!

[pascals-doll]

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[love-kurdt]

Swooping, Sloping, Cursive Letters: 10

word count: 637

PLEASE READ THIS IS ME TRYING FIRST, AS THIS STORY RELIES HEAVILY UPON THE CONTEXT OF TIMT

June 11, 1988

Dear Will,

It’s 2:03am right now, and I can’t fall asleep. You may be asking, “Why can’t you fall asleep, Michael?” Well, William, I can’t fall asleep because I keep thinking about how much I want to kiss you. And in case you didn’t know, I want to kiss you a lot.

I think about you and those fucking gorgeous lips almost every waking moment. And the urge to follow through with my desire to kiss you always gets stronger whenever you’re in the room. Which is unfortunate, since you’re always in the room now— specifically my room, because it’s summer, so of course we’re hanging out every day. We made that stupid promise to dedicate one-on-one time to just the two of us. If only “one-on-one” was synonymous with “you-on-me.” Or “me-on-you”…? Either would work for me, honestly. But there’s something about the thought of you straddling me and leaning your entire body weight onto me that makes me weak in the knees. I’m kind of glad your mom wanted you home tonight, because there’s only so long I can refrain from lunging into your space and holding your face in between my hands and

—

I swear to God you’re in my walls, Will. Because the second I went down the horniest tangent these letters have ever seen, your voice came through on my walkie, asking if I was still awake. Your breathing sounded congested and labored, like you’d just been crying. Of course, I threw my pen down onto my desk and answered. You told me you’d had a nightmare, and that I was the first person you thought of after you woke up. I know this is kind of fucked up, but I felt a small sense of pride that you hadn’t gone to El or Jonathan first. But then you told me that your nightmare had been about me, and that pride was instantly ripped out of my chest. Before I could apologize for anything Nightmare Mike could have said or done, you told me that I had been cursed by Vecna and you couldn’t save me in time. You broke down in the middle of describing my bones snapping, and all I wanted to do was hold you and tell you that it was okay, that I’m still here. So I did.

I snuck out and biked over to your house, climbed the trellis below your bedroom window, and knocked. You let me in with wide eyes, and I just stood there for a second, catching my breath. I am not athletic at all. I can’t say the same about you; your muscle definition in the tank top you were wearing made me feel a little dizzy. But this was not the time for pining, so I took a step towards you and pulled you in for a hug. You smushed your entire face into my sternum, and I could feel new tears wetting my shirt. I just held you tighter, rubbing my hand up and down your back as you cried. A while later, you pulled back to apologize, but I reassured you that it was okay before smoothing your bangs back and kissing you on the forehead. I thought you’d freak out at my impulsivity (at least, that’s what I was doing, internally), but you just smiled up at me and hugged me again. You probably chalked it up to me being a good friend. And I’m glad you think so. I’m trying to be a better friend.

I eventually had to go back home, since my parents are dragging me to see Nana tomorrow (today?) and they’d be mad if they found my room empty in the morning. I wish I could’ve stayed. I promise I’ll make it up to you sometime.

Love,

Mike

-

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[shakingparadigm]

For the ask game: Hyuna!!🔥

HI TOON THANK YOU!!

favorite thing about them:

Man, what's not to like... she's just a fantastic character all around, probably the most likeable character in my personal opinion! I love her perserverance and her incredibly strong sense of self. Her character design is also just so incredible, probably the most unique and distinct character in the cast (shades?? almost 6ft?? abs??? a prosthetic leg???)

She's just so badass.... save me noona......

least favorite thing about them:

I don't really have anything that I dislike about Hyuna honestly. Maybe a cause of concern would be her habits of drinking and smoking but hey she's grown and reclaiming her freedom so really she can do whatever she wants with her life!

favorite line:

This might be a weird one but "A bird is set free​" from All-In has always stood out to me. It carries a certain feeling and just perfectly encapsulates Hyuna. The shot that's presented during this line is one of my favorite Hyuna frames too.

(Honorable Mention: "c-cheers!" man I love Hyuna.)

brOTP:

MIZI AND TILL!!! I love the idea of Till acting as an adopted little brother to Hyuna (is this a Hyunwoo coping mechanism? Who knows). Of course her fellow rebels Dewey and Isaac as well! I also think Hyuna and Ivan would get along (suprisingly enough). She'd have a hard time figuring him out at first, but eventually they'd warm up to each other and probably be gym buddies or something.

OTP:

Hyuluka is the given of course since they're paired together.... while I don't have any particularly strong feelings about it in a romantic sense I find their relationship incredibly interesting to analyze and think about. Hyuluka and Ivantill are really in the same boat of obssessive perfect guy x rebel who does not like them back 😭

A ship that I genuinely do find adorable (and super underrated) is offrec/actor Hyuluka!! Offrec Luka seems much more chill and down-to-earth but also kinda jaded because he had to go through the whole idol thing which he hated. Offrec Hyuna is bright, innocent and the youngest of the cast which I find really cute.... there's this one offrec fancomic I like where Luka gets flustered because Hyuna approached him and then immediately deflating when he finds out she just wanted an autograph 😭 cute

nOTP:

Honestly haven't seen many other Hyuna ships besides Hyuluka.

random headcanon:

Hyuna has accidentally seriously fucked people over with her voice mimicry talent. At one point she was begged to stop doing it because she kept freaking people out.

unpopular opinion:

Okay, this one is a bit long and kind of less an opinion and more of a story, but I will admit that at first I really did not like All-In. LISTEN TO ME OKAY SAVE THE GUILLOTINE FOR LATER.

I fell off of Alien Stage after ROUND 5. I saw ROUND 1 and ROUND 2 and while I found them interesting, I didn't really think about them that much. ROUND 5 was the only one that caught my attention enough for me to come back to the video maybe 4 or 5 times after my first watch, even searching about Alien Stage on social media and stuff. Still, I wasn't too invested yet.

When I saw All-In freshly released on my Youtube page I was like "oh hey it's this thing again. there's a new one? okay" and out of curiosity I watched it.

I don't know what it was, but something about All-In just did not click with me at first 😭 I remember feeling as though it sounded kind of dissonant? Like something was a bit off with the instrumental, maybe it sounded a little low in volume or something. The rhythm of the song threw me off a little and I could not for the life of me explain why. This is purely personal by the way, I'm no professional music analyst or anything, it just seemed weird to me personally at first.

But that's the thing. Because I found it so strangely off, I kept coming back to the video (it helped that the visuals were absolutely banging). Everytime it showed up on my homepage I would just sit there and watch it entranced like a zombie and I couldn't even explain why. At one point I woke up at 1AM, opened my phone, and watched All-In completely unmoving expressionless unblinking in the dark of my room, then shut the phone off and immediately knocked out again. Once again I cannot explain this. That video had me in an absolute chokehold no joke. Eventually I started to understand it more and it really grew on me, to the point where I played it in the shower on loop and then proceeded to start the rest of my days with the damn thing. I began to get curious about the deeper aspects of Alien Stage, took the plunge, and now we're here.

Anyways, that's the story of how my opinion on All-In went from "this sounds kinda off" to "this is the best thing to ever be created by human hands". All-In is now one of my most favorite ALNST songs and Hyuna absolutely killed it in her debut video. Sorry I couldn't understand the true extent of your genius back then queen, but at least I do now.

song i associate with them:

Eight by Sleeping At Last

When I see fragile things, helpless things, broken things,

I see the familiar

I was little, I was weak, I was perfect, too

Now I'm a broken mirror

But I can't let you see all that I have to lose

All I've lost in the fight to protect it

I can't let you in, I swore never again

I can't afford to let myself be blindsided

favorite picture of them:

It's come to my attention that Hyuna was being taken away by the guards. I didn't notice because she just looked so cool in this shot 😭

[badgraph1csghost]

Help your friendly neighbourhood web developer get a new chair! 😃

I know there's a lot of hardship in the world right now and I feel bad having to ask for help, but my decade-old office chair finally broke down yesterday and I really need a new one. My entire livelihood is doing stuff on the computer, so you can understand why I need a chair.

I've found a new one from Staples, and it only costs $79 US, plus taxes and shipping, so I figure on about $100 total.

I have 5 music albums available on itch.io, each one costs $10 US. Since itch doesn't have previews like bandcamp used to, you can visit my website to preview them. For just listening to, it's $10 per album. If you want to license the album for streaming, it's $35 (just change the number at checkout from 10 to 35). For commercial licensing, it's a little more complicated, so see my website for details.

Otherwise, you can just throw money at me on k0-f1 if you prefer. The link for that is on my site's homepage.

My itch.io page: badgraph1csghost.itch.io My website: badgraph1csghost.neocities.org/albums/

A hundred dollars isn't much! We can do this! Thank you so much for reading and listening!🩷🩷🩷🩷

Currently: $57 / $100 |----[]----| (edited 7 September 2024) thanks for all your help so far!💙💙💙

[armageddon-generation]

Justice for Brandon Routh: Everything Cut From Superman Returns that makes it Great

Ultimately it's good Superman Returns didn't get sequels because of Bryan Singer & Kevin Spacey, but I'm kinda obsessed with the forgotten middle-child of Supes' movies, and it's infuriating how the movie's thematic spine and most of its best character-beats got cut.

The Theatrical Cut of Returns is literally half a movie. Brandon Routh deserved so much better.

Sources:

Deleted scene compilation (+Return to Krypton)

The Shooting Script (available to buy)

Superman Homepage deleted shots Page 1 and Page 2    

Novelisation by Marv Wolfman (this, the graphic novel & junior novelisation all used the 2005 shooting script.)

Superman Returns: The Visual Guide (available to buy)

Chew Chan comic art

Requiem for Krypton: Making Superman Returns

Prequel Comics (based on scenes from early drafts, with stories by writers Singer, Dougherty & Harris):

Prequel Comic #2: Ma Kent

Prequel Comic #3: Lex Luthor

Prequel Comic #4: Lois Lane

Comic book recap

‘78 opened with a boy narrating an issue of Action Comics. Returns pulled back red theatre drapes on a comic narrated by Clois’ son, Jason. 

Actor Tristan Lake is recording the voiceover in Requiem for Krypton

From the Script (p.1):

RED THEATRE CURTAINS, drawn shut. The kind found in classic movie houses of yesteryear. The slowly open ... the film flickers to life, fading in on an old comic-book

SUPERMAN. A BOY'S HAND reaches into frame and opens it.

JASON (V.O.): On a distant planet orbiting a red sun, a wise scientist predicted his world's imminent destruction. Despite overwhelming evidence, his pleas to evacuate the planet were ignored, leaving him and his wife no choice...

He turns the page to a panel of JOR-EL and his wife, LARA

JASON (V.O.) (CONT'D): ...but to place their only son into a spaceship and launch it to another galaxy, in hopes of finding the child a new home. A child destined to become Earth's greatest protector...

“In Golden Age style art, Kal-El is placed in the rocket by Jor-El and Lara, comes to Earth, grows up with the Kents, & learns that he possessed amazing powers.”

The script cuts the Smallville part because it’s covered later in flashback.

5 years on, Superman has been mythologised. In-universe, to kids he seems as make-believe as comic books are to us.

This develops Jason’s POV of Superman. He was supposed to have this comic (from 'Uncle Jimmy') when he meets Clark in The Daily Planet

This could be why Smallville was cut; the public only knows about Krypton

The opening scene of Gertrude Vanderworth’s death was originally replaced by:

Prequel: Lex in prison 

Lex’s cell is covered in Daily Planet clippings. He nonologues to henchman Stanford

LEX: I didn’t get you visiting privileges to my private suite so I could repeat myself … My work was more than mere greed … It’s a calling. Why can’t they see the danger? He’s a vanguard for an invasion of super-powered beings. I knew. I always knew. Making sure there was a line of defence against him. The Conquistadors carried a plague that decimated entire civilisations. Who knows what kind of spaceborne diseases he carried? Oh, they may not appreciate my genius now, but they will worship me for delivering them from this menace they so affectionately embrace.

Kitty Kowalski & Gertrude Vanderworth

Lex has a medical exam before his release. His henchwoman Kitty is the nurse. She flirts with him but complains Superman is all Lex thinks about 

Lex burns his old toupé to “cleanse” himself

In flashback, Kitty sees Lex kill an inmate in self-defence. Lex threatens her to protect his perfect record. But Kitty says she’s his “biggest fan” & anger becomes lust 

This is in The Visual Guide (p.26):

"She witnessed Lex murder a fellow inmate. Kitty refused to squeal to the guards, and she and Lex made clear their attraction for each-other."

Kitty is the Vanderworth widow's maid & suggests Lex write to her

She doesn’t like the name Kitty: “My name is Katherine”

An imaginary Superman hovers above, watching Lex leave prison.

Gertrude Vanderworth is waiting outside:

LEX: Gertrude! I’m dying in here. I’m dying without you. Please, take me home. If only you could imagine the grotesque living conditions I’ve been exposed to, dear, sweet Gertrude. You’ve rescued me from Dante’s Inferno, from the depths of human depravity.

Shows how prison changed Gene Hackman’s Lex into Returns’ philosophical maniac

Characterizes Kitty as Lex’s ‘Harley Quinn-lite’ & makes her more active

Stronger explanation for Lex's escape than Clark missing his court date 

The comic's final panel is Lex looking up at the imaginary Superman in the sky, zooming out into space, then leading into...

The Opening Titles as Clark’s journey to Krypton:

(from the Script):

“Stars interspersed with DAILY PLANET HEADLINES tracing Superman’s history, many by LOIS LANE;

“METEOR SHOWER BAFFLES SCIENTISTS”

“CAPED WONDER STUNS CITY”

“I SPENT THE NIGHT WITH SUPERMAN”

“SUPERMAN STOPS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND, LEX LUTHOR”

“LEX GETS LIFE THANKS TO MAN OF STEEL: SWEARS REVENGE”

“ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER KRYPTON INTACT – SIGNS OF LIFE FOUND”

And then the biggest headline of them all:

“SUPERMAN DISAPPEARS”

More headlines follow as the world is besieged … war, famine, crime. Soon, these headlines push Superman to the back pages. Within years, he’s all but faded from public consciousness. Finally, one last headline:

“WILL HE EVER RETURN?”

IS IT KRYPTON? (p.12), LUTHOR GETS LIFE (p.24) & VANDERWORTH TOPS THE FORTUNE 500!! (p.22) are in The Visual Guide

This gives the indulgent title-sequence a purpose. It sets up the consequences of Clark leaving, his history with Lois & Lex, Krypton’s discovery, and the Vanderworth fortune Lex will steal

This transitions into:

Return to Krypton

Concept art by Ben Proctor

The script describes “the remnants of this great civilisation… cities, monuments… all made from the same crystal technology” not in the filmed scene

Clark finds the House of El crest in the “VALLEY OF THE ELDERS . . . a VAST CANYON OF CRYSTAL MONOLITHS arranged in a circle” with more family crests.

Clark's escape is more visceral (Script pp.2-3):

“GIANT SLABS whiz by ... thousands of pieces of glowing kryptonite are hurtling towards him ... Parts [of Clark’s ship] shatter and break off ... The crystal immediately GROWS BACK ... more kryptonite smashes against the window, cracking it. Crystals work quickly to repair the damage, but it keeps coming.”

The filmed version puts Vibes over story: 

The Valley of Elders returns on Lex’s New Krypton in the finale. 

Without the other House crests the El one feels random

Showing Krypton's achievements validates Lex’s plan to resurrect it.

Clark’s ship self-repairing introduces ‘growing’ crystals immediately

Opening an action beat is important because the next one isn’t for 40 mins

Famously, this scene cost $10 million. Videographer Rob Burnett said:

“This was always meant to be the original opening [it] explained why he was so weak when Martha found him [&] that Kal-El sweats in the presence of kryptonite which Luthor notices later ... It wasn't cut until some last-minute test screenings … people unfamiliar with Donner's Superman films & Kryptonian crystals/tech found this dialogue-less opening confusing & uninteresting”

To solve this dialogue problem it was suggested Clark bring his mother Lara's memory crystal with him. She would narrate Krypton's history as Clark explored, contrasting its past glory with its current ruin. But the scene was already finished & Singer decided:

I didn’t feel it ... No-one told me to do it. I had no time restrictions or pressure whatsoever. I just felt the movie doesn’t need this."

But Marv Wolfman did something similar when retelling Jor El and Lara sending Clark away in Chapter 1 of his novelisation:

“It had been a timeless city, strong and powerful. It survived the vast armies of three great nations waging war on its bloodied streets. It stood proud as the signing place of an everlasting peace . . . [Lara] spent her early years dreaming of living where Krypton’s earliest founders had once walked, did not want to believe that this magnificence and all it stood for would soon be gone. She had spent her first year out of university touring the city . . . She trekked out to the Valley of the Elders . . . the fabled roads that Sor-El, Kol-Ar and Pol-As, the chosen representatives from the three warring nations, must’ve taken when they created the original laws of humanity that governed Krypton. From the ground, those crystal monolith towers, reflecting the full spectrum of light, looked to Lara like hands raised in reverential prayer. Kryptonopolis had been grown from a single crystal more than 10,000 years before ... shaped by the earliest Kryptonians into vast cities millions of buildings strong"

The Visual Guide also explains the Valley of the Elders is “Where Sor-El, Kol-Ar, and Pol-Us established the laws that governed Krypton" (p.79)

This is a great parallel to ‘78's opening. That was Clark’s origin. Returns is him mourning

Seeing Krypton contextualizes Clark’s arc. We understand his alienation instead of being alienated by him

It bookends the movie with New Krypton, and gives Returns’ oft-mocked climax ‘Superman Lifts a Big Thing’, thematic weight: Clark is excising the grief that drove him from Earth

Lara's narration about the wonders of Krypton both heightens the tragedy & establishes what their tech can achieve, crucial to Lex's plan

Writer Dan Harris said:

“Lex Luthor’s trying to turn this world [Earth] into the dead world, the place [Clark] can’t live, so it becomes a person’s search for identity and home and their place in the universe.” (The Shooting Script interviews p.27)

Martha Kent and Ben Hubbard play Scrabble 

Martha spells ‘Alienation’ (THEMES!!) & touching Clark’s name carved into the table is lovely visual storytelling

Ben is there when Clark crashes. Martha stops him calling the cops.

BEN: Martha-

MARTHA: (firm) Tomorrow. Bingo.

She looks at him, stonefaced. He takes another look outside – and at her, and realizes what’s happening. He sighs and shakes his head.

BEN: A meteorite?

She nods.

BEN (CONT’D): Martha Kent, I knew you’d be trouble

There’s a blooper of this scene in Requiem for Krypton & it's mentioned in The Visual Guide (p.20)

Gertrude Vanderworth's death, and Lex stealing her fortune, is shown after Clark passes out in Martha’s arms when he crashes, followed by Lex taking the yacht to the Arctic

Lex Finding the Fortress

Cool details about the Fortress' warm crystals & creating protective weather patterns, explaining the storm around New Krypton in the finale

While exploring the Fortress they find Clark's garage:

From The Visual Guide:

"Lex lingers in a cavernous chamber he dubs 'the garage', where he sees evidence of the construction and launch of Superman's spaceship"

KITTY: So did he?

LEX: Did he what?

KITTY: Take off for his homeworld?

LEX: (looking at Stanford) Well… We gave him a little push.

In the novelisation (p.89)

Lex’s First Experiment

After plundering the Fortress, Lex would test the crystal immediately- “he created a kind of giant Fortress of Solitude in the ice” (Script interviews p.28), destroying the original. Such a great way to raise the stakes!

Extended Clark waking in his childhood room

Clark waking to his starry ceiling & the Kent family photos give his return more emotional heft

Extended Young Clark’s first flight, 

Which leads into…

 “Little Secret”- Clark finds the Kryptonian ship as a boy

From The Visual Guide (p.11): “When he holds the Father Crystal, Clark feels a primal connection to the vanished world of his ancestors”. Martha’s prequel comic shows Jor El & Lara reflected in the crystal.

The Father Crystal is the key to Lex’s plan, so it's important to see its importance to Clark.

'Little Secret' leads into: 

Martha Kent Prequel: The Kents tell the truth

The Kents find Clark on the cellar steps with the Father Crystal, staring at his ship.

They talk in the kitchen:

MARTHA: … I wish we could tell you more… well, anything about your real parents

CLARK: You are my real parents. Those other people, the ones that gave me away… They mean nothing to me. [he bends a fork in half]

JONATHAN: I understand that you feel that way now, Clark. But I have something to show you. [He leaves the room to get something]

CLARK:Ma, I- I… Am I even human? Am I some sort of monster?MARTHA: Clark Kent, bite your tongue! You are our son and we love you. That’s all that matters.

JONATHAN: Clark? This is yours. You were wrapped in it when we found you.

He gives Clark the cloth he was wrapped in when they found him - blue fabric with the “S” shield

This is a big change from ‘78, where Clark didn’t find the Father Crystal until after Jonathan dies. Martha wasn’t there & they didn't discuss it. The Fortress of Solitude made his suit.

Clark's anxiety is more in-line with MoS (“Can’t I just keep pretending to be your son?” / “You are my son.”). Rejecting Krypton is important, as his adult desire for a home drives him from Earth

Here we see Clark feel the alienation he fears for Jason in his final speech ("you will be different..."). Parenting is a big theme of Returns

Clark reads Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman in the Kent barn 

In the script, Clark taking the tarp off his ship leads into the Little Secret flashback- which the deleted scene cuts around. The shots following him back to farmhouse include this voiceover (Script pp.13-14):

LOIS LANE (V.O.): For five long years, the world has stared into the sky, waiting, hoping, and praying for his return. We have spent our days asking where he went, debated why he left, and wondered if he’s even alive…

People have always longed for gods, messiahs, and saviors to swoop down from the sky and deliver them from their troubles. But in the end, these saviors always leave, and we are faced with the same troubles that were there from the beginning.

So, instead of facing them ourselves, we wait for the savior to return. But the savior never does, and we realize it was better had he never come at all.

Reading WTWDNS is referenced in The Visual Guide (p.29)

Articulating Lois’ POV makes her more than a bitter ex. Even the Junior novelisation has this!

In the Theatrical Cut Clark returns to the Daily Planet trying to reclaim the old status quo, until he learns Lois has a family. Here, he faces consequences for leaving before learning Lois has moved on, so he’s less selfishly motivated, and returns to the Planet to actively reconcile with her

Parallels Young!Clark finding the Father Crystal- the inciting moment of ‘78’s plot

Martha encourages Clark to return to Metropolis / Clark meets Ben Hubbard 

This is a cute scene, humanizing Clark

Martha is selling the farm & moving to Montana

(Script p. 76), cut dialogue in purple

MARTHA: Clark, dear… No one will ever replace your father. But, Ben and I have found something special. Together. And, well, this might all come as a shock…

Clark gives her a look. Just level with me.

MARTHA: I’m selling the farm. We’re moving to Montana.

CLARK: Montana?

MARTHA: The lakes are great. And we love the fishing.

CLARK: Fishing?!

MARTHA: Clark, you’ve been gone a long time. And not even you can stop the world from spinning.

In the novelisation (p.76)

Building this subplot from a background character from ‘78 is neat.

It expands Returns’ narrow emotional scope: It's not just Lois moving on

Superman suit in Clark’s case & changing in The Daily Planet closet 

As Clark puts his suitcase in the janitor’s closet he opens it, revealing his Superman costume & a Kent family photo.

So, when he rips his shirt open there’s "NOTHING. Where's his suit? He panics, then remembers." . He must change in the Daily Planet janitor’s closet. As he leaves he "catches a glimpse of his reflection in a window -- he's still wearing GLASSES" (the Script p.44)

Love Superman in glasses as a metaphor for the transition from Clark to Supes. 

The Theatrical cut emphasizes Lois’ POV of Superman’s return but this is more balanced & impactful for Clark 

Lex and Stanford discuss Superman’s return

When Lex learns Superman is back he & Stanford discuss luring him away. You can see Stanford running to catch up with Lex before the Theatrical scene cuts away. Deleted dialogue in purple:

STANFORD: So, what are we going to do?

LEX: You’re going to modify it and attach it to the stern, I don’t care of the instructions are in Russian

STANFORD: You know what I mean, Lex. He’s not stupid. How long do you think it’s going to take him to trace all that stuff back to me– and you. He was supposed to die up there.

Stanford paces. Lex clenches, obviously stressed. He hears the WHIMPERING of Gertrude’s dog. 

Infuriated, Lex hurls the newspaper at it but misses. Enraged, Lex snatches a heavy crystal off the desk, when he STOPS. He stares at something on the NEWSPAPER

Lex bends down and picks up the paper. He smiles, and hands it to Stanford.

LEX: Stanford, you worry too much.

Stanford looks at the article, intrigued.

“WORLD’S LARGEST COLLECTION OF METEORITES TO EXHIBIT AT METROPOLIS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY”

Lex & Stanford faking Krypton’s discovery makes all Clark's problems his fault. Clark did nearly die, & it makes Lex a more formidable villain

It makes the plot more cohesive 

Clark being tricked by his nemesis > ‘he just left lol’

Lex’s desperation gives him depth. Stealing Kryptonite is now a response to Superman, where in the Theatrical cut it’s so underplayed it seems like just the next step of his plan.

Stanford and The Daily Planet

I can’t find it, but Mr. Sunday Movies  cites an interview where the actor revealed Stanford was a disgraced Daily Planet science correspondent, & wrote the articles about Krypton. 

More plot cohesion, connecting The Daily Planet & Lex plots. If Lois recognises Stanford when she’s on Lex's yacht, she could figure out Clark was tricked, helping her forgive him. 

Extended Clois outside The Daily Planet

Deleted dialogue in purple, (Script pp.58-60):

CLARK: Well … Maybe saying goodbye was so hard because he didn’t know whether it would be goodbye for a little while … or goodbye forever.

Lois doesn’t seem to be listening

CLARK (CONT’D, QUIETER): And maybe he had to go and he wanted to say goodbye, but he couldn’t find the guts to do it, because maybe if he saw you, even one last time… Well, maybe he was afraid that if he even looked at you just… once… he would never be able to… leave (beat) Maybe it was too difficult for him.

. . .

CLARK: So… Do you want to grab a quick bite? Catch up? My treat.

LOIS: Oh I’d love to, but Daddy took the car and it’s my turn to ‘cook’ the family dinner, which means I’ve got just enough time to get back to the ‘suburbs’ and order the Chinese

CLARK: Suburbs?

LOIS: Yeah, we have a really nice place on the river. You should drop in sometime.

CLARK: I’d love to.

Brandon performs this dialogue for a screentest in Requiem for Krypton

Much better reason for Clark not saying goodbye. Corny, but if your gonna justify an OOC decision, do it with the romance at the heart of your movie. 

Lois is much nicer & less dismissive of Clark. Theatrical Lois seems to actively dislike him.

Hints Lois feels stifled as a suburban mom

Lois Prequel: Writing Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman

The ‘Lois at home’ scene begins with a flashback:

Perry tells Lois to write a piece for the 5th anniversary of Superman leaving. She struggles with writer’s block at home, & goes out to smoke. She thinks Clark blows out her lighter, but she’s imagining it & realizes she must move on. That night she writes WTWDNS

Then Richard asks about I Spent the Night With Superman, then Clark is revealed to be watching at the end of the scene.

[After Clark flies away, Script p.63]

Lois picks up some food, then suddenly stops and turns to the window, staring into their backyard. Beat.

RICHARD: Lois? You okay?

Lois snaps out of it.

LOIS: Yeah, sorry. Hey, didn’t I have four won-ton’s?

Jason stuffs a won-ton into his mouth.

LOIS (CONT’D): JASON!

Lois & Richard dive, trying to snatch it from his mouth

A cute Jason moment, & Lois ‘sensing’ Clark makes his spying a little less creepy, selling their 'stracrossed lovers' connection

Superman On Patrol

Two scenes are omitted from the script (p.64) before the ‘Bulletproof’ bank robbery. Presumably they formed a full crime-fighting montage, like in ‘78.

The Visual Guide describes two cut sequences that perfectly fill that gap (p. 60):

“In Switzerland, he saved 12 stranded climbers from the peak of the Matterhorn. In Venice, he prevented the famous canals from flooding the city streets. Superman seems to be everywhere at once, but nowhere is he more prominent than in Metropolis…”

Full Deli Robbery Segment

MONTAGE REPORTER #3: Sir, after he captured the men trying to rob your Deli, did he do or say anything?

DELI OWNER: He tried the hummus. He said he liked it – and Superman never lies!

More action! More wholesome Superman! Expanding the scope of the movie beyond Metropolis!

Lex’s Plan

Higher-key Kryptonite heist where Lex’s gang fool guards and witnesses

The movie needs more energy. Like the stolen missile earlier, in the Theatrical Cut Lex’s plan is afterthought bullet-points 

When Kitty returns to Lex after Superman saves her, the stolen missile is being disassembled. Lex takes its explosive & the kryptonite he’ll stab Clark with 

Lois Prequel: Why she resents Superman and meeting Richard

After Perry demands Lois interview Superman we flashback to him doing the same thing after Krypton was found:

But Superman never shows. Months pass until “the world had to admit” he was gone.

The world turned to Lois as their 'Superman expert.'

JIMMY: Miss Lane. You okay?

LOIS: I will be once Perry lets me cover something over than Superman. He left. He's gone, and maybe he's never coming back. How many different ways can I write that?

JIMMY: I know Miss Lane. I miss him too.

The world refusing to let Lois move on by pigeon-holing her as ‘Superman’s Girlfriend’ is important context.

Now Perry refusing to let Lois cover the blackout is part of a sexist cycle she’s fought for years

Lois escapes to the roof for a smoke: "Even as the days kept passing, I held out hope. I mean, he never disappointed me before, right?'

Richard White introduces himself just like Clark:

RICHARD: Those things will kill you, you know. Hello, Lois. I'm Richard White.

LOIS: White, huh? Did Perry even read past your last name on your resume?

RICHARD: I won't deny what it looks like, but my uncle hired me because I'm damn good at what I do. And with you I see wasted talent. The Superman story is old news. The Planet's best reporter should be used elsewhere.

LOIS: You're certainly more insightful than you look, White.

Directly parallels Richard and Clark

And contrasts the rooftop interview with Superman immediately afterwards; we now know she waited here for Clark to return every night until she met Richard

Clark Visits the Fortress of Solitude

When Clark visits the Fortress of Solitude he has cut voiceover (Script p.89):

SUPERMAN (V.O.): Father... It’s been a long time since I’ve come to you… But I’ve never felt so alone.

EXT. FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE - SAME TIME

Superman lands & approaches the console. The crystal has been taken. WITH A VOICE ECHOING THROUGH THE ARCTIC LIKE THUNDER:

SUPERMAN: FATHER!!!

FATHER!!! Is OTT but important when Superman has so little dialogue

Clark is now clearly driven to the Fortress by Lois’ rejection. In The Theatrical Cut, he just checks in because it’s time for Plot to happen.

Losing Jor-El emphasizes the theme of parenthood- Clark loses a father as he gains a son- & justifies Jor El’s voiceover later

Lex's Fortress

In an earlier draft, Clark found the new Fortress Lex grew in his first experiment, and "Clark sunk it and put it underwater"

Originally “Richard & Lois flew there with Clark to investigate & take pictures" (Script interviews p.28) but later on these became satellite pictures that were delivered to the Planet. Lois saw them & understood what Clark had lost.

Lois seeing & understanding Cark's losses is important

Clark destroying Lex's Fortress would be an impressive action beat & Returns is desperate for those. Showing Lex's impact through action!

Extended dialogue on the yacht explaining Lex’s plan

LEX: It’s not just an island. It’s an entirely new continent. Virtually indestructible and self-sustaining. For lack of a better name, it’s Krypton. An extinct world, reborn on our own.

LEX: I’ll have ADVANCED alien technology thousands of years beyond anything anyone could throw at me. Weapons, vehicles, you name it. 

Gives New Krypton more credibility & makes Lex's plan more concrete, especially after Return to Krypton showcased Kryptonian tech

Saving Metropolis

Earlier drafts of the ‘Saving Metropolis’ sequence had “monster waves surging in every direction” (The Visual Guide p.70) Dan Harris also mentioned "waves coming in" and Clark “pulling a subway train out [of the ground]”. (Script interviews p.28) The script omits several sections that could fit these moments.

The script includes Clark saving people from cars set on fire by the gas explosion.

Again, Returns copies ‘78, but that earthquake was way bigger - a dam explodes, a bridge collapses, a train derails. Clark shifts tectonic plates to stop it.

Perry White meets Superman

I understand why this was cut but it’s still cool

The Missile Explosive

After Jason kills Brutus, the deleted scene of Lex finding Brutus’ body is followed by (Script pp.113-114):

INT. YACHT - PANTRY Lois & Jason sit against the far wall, exhausted & worried. The door swings open, revealing LEX. He looks at Jason & winks.

LEX: Catch.

He tosses SOMETHING into the room, wrapped in the handkerchief. It rolls towards Jason’s feet. LOIS CHARGES just as Lex slams the door. Jason removes Lex’s handkerchief, revealing the EXPLOSIVE from  the missile.

LOIS: Honey… don’t move.

Lois is panicked, searching for any way to get rid of the explosive. Finally; a SMALL AIR DUCT. She kneels & pulls at the VENT COVER. It won’t budge. She looks around & finds a LARGE METALLIC SOUP LADLE.  SHE JAMS THE LADLE INTO THE VENT, using it like a crowbar. 

JASON: Mommy?

LOIS: JASON DON’T MOVE!

Lois strains to pry the vent away. After what seems like an eternity, it finally pops off. She approaches Jason VERY CAREFULLY.

LOIS (CONT’D): Okay Honey, stay still…

Lois THROWS IT into the air duct … grabs Jason & rushes him to the other side of the room. The explosive drops down a series of air ducts … Silence. Lois and Jason open their eyes, relieved.

Then – BOOOOOOM! THE BLAST ROCKS THE ROOM. A burst of flame shoots from the vent. Lois shields Jason. The flames are followed by a GEYSER OF SEAWATER. The room is tipped upward. Water is streaming in. Lois tumbles backwards into the water, struggling to reach Jason, but she’s STUCK.

ANGLE UNDERWATER: Lois’ leg tangled in a LIFE PRESERVER.

LOIS: HELP ME! Oh God…

Water floods into her mouth. She disappears under the surface when the DOOR is RIPPED OPEN, AND THE SILHOUETTE OF A MAN STEPS INTO THE ROOM. He dives underwater.

The man rips Lois’ leg free from the cables and pulls her to safety. Lois finally opens her eyes and comes face to face with… RICHARD. She and Jason are stunned.

LOIS (CONT’D): How –How did you get here?

RICHARD: (obviously…) I flew.

Lex’s response to Superman’s son here is more appropriate & threatening.

Another setup & payoff with the missile explosive gives the film more structure. Plot, y'know?

Makes Lois more active

Richard/Clark parallels

Jason recognizes Clark 

[in the seaplane after Superman saves them from the yacht]

Jason curiously looks up at Superman.

JASON: Hey, you look just like–

SUPERMAN: (Cutting him off) Can you fly?

For a moment, it looks like Superman is speaking to Jason – then he turns his head to Richard.

Also in the novelisation (p.285)

More Jason/Clark connection & more payoffs (Jason suspected Clark's identity after seeing him next to Superman on TV earlier)

Context: New Krypton

The script describes it as “almost identical to the ruins of Krypton ... Unlike the ruins, this place feels like it could be full of life – what he hoped to find when he went to Krypton,” with buildings “resembling the Fortress of Solitude”.  made of the Fortress’ glowing white crystals, presenting the facade of life.

Clark confronts Lex in “an exact reproduction of the Kryptonian VALLEY OF ELDERS" (where we saw the El Crest in Return to Krypton). Flickering x-ray vision reveals “IN THE GROUND AND WALLS are pockets and veins of kryptonite” 

From The Visual Guide (p.79):

“New Krypton recreates its planet of origin according to an ancient blueprint, beginning with the vanished capital of Kryptonopolis ... [it] will eventually replicate the towering face of Mount Argo, the bottomless depths of the Xan Chasm, & the polished dome of the Krypton Science Council”

Superman hears something else in the wind, coming from inside the structure: a VOICE. Faint, but familiar. Maybe JOR-EL? LARA? It’s joined by other ghostly whispers before another familiar voice calls out:

LEX (O.S.): See anything familiar?

The ghostly whispers are a cool detail

Now New Krypton is literally a ‘dead world resurrected’, not just some land, & will terraform the whole planet. It brings the movie full-circle- Krypton followed Clark home

After beating a powerless Clark, Lex reveals the truth

LEX (CONT’D): Look, buddy. We sent you there to die, but ya’ had to come back…

Superman looks at Lex, his expression turning from agony to realization.

LEX (CONT’D): Oh yeah. All those photos? Those stories about Krypton still existing? It was me. (Beat) And him.

ANGLE ON: Stanford.

LEX (CONT’D): Thankfully the press doesn’t check facts like they used to. (Beat) Hey, you took away five years of my life. I just returned the favor.

In the novelisation (p.297) & literally every other adaptation of the story. Why the fuck would you cut it?

As Clark drowns:

“Crystals are growing towards him from every direction. ALL GLOWING GREEN from Kryptonite. He tries swimming to the surface, but he’s too weak. He’s trapped ... A mesh of crystal walls are closing in around him, over him like a tomb."

The tomb is a thematically resonant image (New Krypton = graveyard) & heightens the crystals’ threat

Jason ‘senses’ Clark instead of seeing him from the plane window

In the script, Jason wants to help Clark too- not just Lois & Richard deciding.

Jason looks out the window, pointing down to the water.

JASON: There.

He turns to Lois. Beat. She can’t see anything.

LOIS: You’re sure?

Jason nods. He’s certain.

While Clark in hospital, Lois names ‘New Krypton’

it's gone “into orbit somewhere between Mars & Jupiter. Supposedly it’s laced with Kryptonite & still growing”. 

Again, creates a thematic bookend with 'Old Krypton' in the beginning

Outside the Hospital

Ben Hubbard waits with Martha Kent- you can see his shoulder next to her in the Theatrical Cut

There are shots of Lois, Jason & Martha talking while they're in the crowd- presumably Martha offering support without Lois knowing who she is

Martha meets her grandson! The two mothers of Kryptonian sons talk!

Bringing Martha & Ben back ties the Smallville section of the movie back into the plot

Final Clois Exchange

SUPERMAN: Thank you, Lois.

Tears well in her eyes, struggling for something to say.

SUPERMAN (CONT’D): It’s alright.

It’s what she’s wanted and needed to hear for years.

It’s such a small thing, but gives Clois closure, and Clark more lines

OTHER CHANGES

Color-grade: Returns’ drab sepia look ruins beautiful cinematography. The original color-grade in the teaser trailer (which is like 70% deleted footage) is much better, as is this color-corrected shuttle sequence

A tighter edit to compensate for the action-light script. They went for a classic, unhurried edit, but you could shave multiple seconds off most shots without losing anything. The Superman Restored fanedit re-inserts 25 mins of deleted scenes and is still 8 mins shorter than the Theatrical Cut

Tldr;

Returns is inherently slow-paced. Even with a faster edit, adding all this would push it past 3 hours. Regardless, Singer shot his own film in the foot because his priorities were wrong: Outlined above is a more balanced, cohesive story with richer themes. The Lex and Krypton subplots are complete. Clark feels like the main character, & Lois is more sympathetic. 

Brandon deserved so much more.

[lovesosweeet]

KNOW IT ALL x THE BAND CAMINO

part 1

a calum hood songfic

Tillie Beckett isn’t known for sticking around, and maybe that’s why touring had come so naturally to her, even as an amateur when she first began as an opener for 5 Seconds of Summer a few years ago… hopping from city to city, bed to bed, hookup to hookup. She broke hearts and left messes behind. And she didn’t care about it all, too wrapped up in whatever whirlwind she found herself in next.

The habits became religion as she propelled to stardom. Her music — angsty, energetic, unapologetic, and unpolished — took the charts by storm following her self-titled album’s debut. Her words were raw and honest, and they resonated with her audience, with upbeat and electric sounds that even the grouchiest and grumpiest of listeners couldn’t help but nod along to. It was the perfect mix of relatable and catchy, and that’s what made her the perfect opener for 5SOS.

Ashton had found Tillie’s videos on Instagram, where she often teased her emotional and early versions of songs she was writing. Her raspy voice caught his attention quickly, and he became a follower very early on, before she’d gone viral… which, she has done several times now. When 5SOS was prepping their latest tour, he threw Tillie’s name out as his top choice as an opener, and the rest of the band quickly supported it after they watched her cover of their very own, very old song “Lost Boy” and put a fresh spin on it. It was a song that the band themselves had honestly forgotten about that she gave an entirely new life. They were hooked and called her just hours after Ashton’s initial suggestion to offer her the spot.

Her friendship with the Australian quartet was forged in what, at the time, seemed to be an unbreakable bond. She was invited to dinner at Luke’s house to review the plans, the money, and all the other logistics of the tour, but the nitty gritty was long forgotten as the five of them stayed up until the sun rose the next day, just talking, jamming, drinking, and smoking the stars out of the sky.

She and Calum weren’t instant friends, at least, not the way she was with Michael. Tillie and Michael had bonded instantly over being gamers with an affinity for ever changing hair colors. He could also dress in her wardrobe and no one would’ve been able to guess that they weren’t his clothes, that is, if her clothes were big enough to fit the 6-foot-something Australian giant, since she was a mere 5 feet tall.

But, her friendship with Michael isn’t what landed her on the cover of tabloids.

No, the pictures of hers and Calum’s necks covered in matching bruises were what landed on the homepages of gossip websites. The videos of her and Calum whispering in what they thought were private corners of dive bars spread like wildfire amongst their somewhat overlapping fan bases. Them stumbling down the cobblestoned sidewalks of Montreal, hand in hand, for an impromptu “bachelor party” for Michael littered their tagged photos on Instagram for weeks.

It was a pair nobody expected but nobody questioned. It wasn’t predictable but it made sense.

At least, it did to Calum.

part 2

my masterlist! :)

—

A/N: hi i’m actually quite stoked about this one?!?!! sorry to anyone who wanted a self insert i personally feel more comfy in the OC x RP world and that technically won my poll! feels easier to separate as fiction/“characters” :)

[vikenticomeshome]

The Cyberchase Homepage Through the Years: part 2 (January 6, 2005 through February 10, 2007)

I decided to pick up where I left off on my earlier post documenting the Cyberchase homepage over the years. Here is a capture from January 6th, 2005. The page is now back to normal after Starlight Night 2004. We now have an advertisement for "Cyberchase: The Quest".

On January 30th, 2005, we got the Valentines Day design again. Cyberchase had wrapped Season 3 in December of 2004, and they wouldn't start airing Season 4 until April, so I suppose they didn't have anything new to promote just yet. I only just noticed that Matt is holding a flower as part of this artwork. I'm a bit surprised that neither of the girls are holding anything.

They went back to advertising Cyberchase: The Quest by February 20, 2005.

On April 6th, 2005, Digit started advertising "Know Your Dough", which was all about teaching children about money management.

This capture from June 28th, 2005 shows an advertisement for "Quest 2: Race for Radopolis".

On July 21, 2005, we got this promotion for Hacker's secret.

This was referring to the main part of the "Transformatron Story Arc", as it discussed the four episodes where The Hacker was assembling the Transformatron. This was also where Slider was reunited with his dad.

Season 4 Episode 2: "The Icky Factor"

Season 4 Episode 3: "Penguin Tears"

Season 4 Episode 4: "Past Perfect Prediction"

Season 4 Epsiode 5: "Measure for Measure"

I may do a separate post talking about the promotional content, as it is no longer on the PBS Kids website, but I have recovered most of it for the FlashPoint Archive Project. Unfortunately, that video preview was in RealPlayer, and those files are lost now. But, the rest of it is now preserved.

By August 7th, 2005, the "Hacker's Secret" promotion was gone. At that point they didn't have any advertisement in the bottom right corner. Fun fact, the file names refer to this bottom-right-corner advertisement as a "bug", regardless of what was being advertised. This would have been in reference to bottom-right-corner station IDs that you would see on television channels.

I found a capture from September 30th, 2005 where they re-worked the page. The background is the same, but they've added new screens, kicked out Buzz and Delete, and now we get a count-down for new episodes, which are given a more prominent place. There is also a mention of a contest for 2005. It looks like another Intel partnership where winners would get laptop computers, similar to the 2004 contest. I need to dig around and see what can be retrieved from that and make a separate post.

It's October 13th, 2005, and we get a Halloween version of the site. It looks like they just recycled it from last year. It is a bit of a shame, as I liked the new screen arrangement.

And then, when November 2nd, 2005 rolled around, we are back to the advertisement for Cyberchase: The Quest.

Here we see a capture from December 5th, 2005, and its a little bit confusing. The kids are all dressed up in their winter wear, and we have Cybersite Penguia as our backdrop. It looks nice until you start thinking about it.

At first, I thought the kids had lugged the terminals and computer screens out there for this winter photoshoot. But then I saw the whole-ass balcony was also out there. How would they get that all that way to Penguia? Portal? Why would Motherboard agree to that? Was she in a particularly silly mood? And why were Buzz and Delete invited to this photoshoot? I think this is a Star Trek Holodeck type of situation where they haven't left the original room, and they are just simulating Penguia.

And now, we have this capture from December 10th, 2005, where Bianca makes a cameo to announce the winners of the 2005 contest. I don't think the kids have noticed her yet. Otherwise, they would be very surprised.

And now, it is January 18th, 2006, and we get a promotion for Cyberchase Super Science coming in 12 days. I don't remember what this was off the top of my head.

It is now February 2nd, 2006. The winter theme is gone, and the screens have been shifted around again to advertise "Cyberchase: The Quest 3" (the top left Cyber-beast), and "Cyberchase Super Science".

This was an initiative that focused on kids designing, creating, and customizing things. This is something else that I need to make a separate post on at some point, depending on what I am able to recover. I can see that we have a link to "Cyberspace News Issue #3", which is a little confusing. The "Hacker's Secret" promotion gave us an un-numbered issue of "Cyberspace News", which I assume was Issue #1. I don't remember seeing an issue #2 anywhere. I need to look into that.

This capture from April 10th, 2006, shows the "Know Your Dough" advertisement has returned. Maybe the kids spent too much money on the screens and needed a refresher.

An June 15th, 2006, we get a promotion for "My Cyberchase Summer", pushing aside the Cyberchase Super Science promotion. This new promotion does feature The Hacker, and he would do something like that. This section had a list of the different episodes that were going to air during the summer of 2006, and they included activities to go along with them. Maybe I'll make a separate post all about this section later.

It is now September 25, 2006. They finally kicked The Hacker off the screen and replaced him with a promotion for "My Big Idea".

This was an initiative where parents could submit videos of their children working on inventions. This page talks about the invention videos being put up on the website and potentially aired on TV. The TV airing would have been part of "Cyberchase: My Big Idea", which was a two-hour special hosted by Harry and Bianca. The special used four episodes aired in a row, and Harry and Bianca would show up in-between them to talk about inventions and show the clips of the kids. I need to see if this is still around somewhere.

Here we go. It is October 23rd, 2006, and the site has had a major redesign. They had been serving Flash games for years now, but now the homepage interface is all Flash. Additionally, the kids get idle animations. I can post a still image, but that can only show so much when the whole point is that the site is full of animations now. This particular page is advertising the new episodes coming in February, the character gallery where they put artwork submitted by viewers, a Starlight Night theme, and an advertisement for "Cyberchase: The Quest.

Delete shows up if you click on this door.

Uh oh! Buzz and The Hacker have gotten into wherever this place is. If we don't count The Hacker appearing on a screen or advertising bug, I think this is the first time The Hacker has shown up "for real" on the homepage. Maybe the Cybersquad should do something about that.

Hey, I just wanted to point out that it is February 2nd, 2007, and the kids haven't taken down their Starlight decorations yet. https://web.archive.org/web/20070202023432/http://pbskids.org:80/cyberchase/index.html

They did them down sometime between February 2nd and February 8th.

I think this is a fair place to stop for right now, before I hit the image or character limit.

[wh-news]

ㅤㅤㅤAs Halloween approaches, a new update to the website of Welcome Home has arrived—how exciting!

ㅤㅤㅤIn this post, I’ll go over all the new secrets added on the 13th of October to the website of Welcome Home, a psychological horror project created by Clown (otherwise known as partycoffin). ㅤㅤㅤThings such as all the sources I used and special mentions will be listed in the bibliography section in order to avoid cluttering the post!

→ document ver. // og. website! // previous update ←

WARNING !! Heavy spoilers for Welcome Home lay ahead!

ㅤㅤㅤI encourage you to experience the website for yourself before reading this, as it'll take from the experience you'd have otherwise!

★ TABLE OF CONTENTS

What's New? 1.- Welcome Home page 2.- News 3.- Merchandise 4.- Transcripts 5.- Your Neighborhood 6.- Stickers

Final Thoughts

Bibliography

What’s New?

1.- Welcome Home page

ㅤㅤㅤJust like in the previous update, the changes are clear as soon as you step in:  the Home gif that welcomes us just like before now is adorned with Halloween theme, with spooky garden decorations —such as a friendly scarecrow and a cute blue pumpkin—, and a witch hat decorating Home’s roof.  But fear not—the previous gif isn’t gone!  These Halloween decorations are nothing but an overlaid image on top of the original one, aptly titled “dressup.png.”

ㅤㅤㅤHeading to the homepage, we find our favorite neighbor, Wally, now sits on the usual rock wearing a devil costume, with matching pants and cardigan, the filename now being “HappyHalloween!!”.  The theme continues with the drawings on the rock itself, now being of a pumpkin, a purple spider, and a smiley Home; and the tree, its leaf having turned orange and its log a brighter shade of purple.

ㅤㅤㅤThe same drawings starts being drawn on the screen as before, so we continue to the website’s update section:

ㅤㅤㅤThere, our friendly neighbor awaits sitting on the frame of the updates window with the same costume as before.  On the window itself, the gif has been swapped with a pumpkin-shaped tree ornament.  In its text we can find the offset “Y” like in previous updates —previously from the word “you,” now from the word “holidays”—, as it's crucial for the code to access some of the secret pages of the website, such as the “try again” pages (x, x, x), the slightly changed 404 Error page that leads to the “duet” audio, and our first look into the “answer” pages, which I talked about in my previous update document.

ㅤㅤㅤIt also encourages us to go read the news section, so that’s where we’ll go next.

2.- News

ㅤㅤㅤHeading now straight to the News page, we can find the familiar faces of the neighborhood’s favorite duo: Frank and Julie, still decorating the page with their sparkles and their stunning outfits.  Right below them, a new update telling us about the WHRP’s new findings: a few pages of a cookbook, which were restored surprisingly well—followed by an eerie, unpleased message to whoever their “source” is, reading “Our source has yet to send the full book. I don’t understand why. What is it worth to leave it out? Ripping out pages… What a waste. It takes so long to get everything off of them. Still, we’re patient, aren’t we. If you are reading this, please hurry.”

ㅤㅤㅤThe next finding is a Wally Darling Halloween Costume, of which we’ll see more later in the Merchandise section.  Last but not least, a new storybook record has been found, following the previous one titled “Eddie’s Big Lift”!

ㅤㅤㅤFollowing this, they mention how they’ve placed their full attention to something seemingly fundamental to the full restoration of Welcome Home, after this a somewhat off putting quote.  “What is it, I hear you pleading! Clawing at your screens just as we have! Coughing, headaches, nausea- I know. I know.”  Continuing as if nothing, they end the note by saying “Until then, have a happy Halloween!  Don’t forget to wave down below!”

ㅤㅤㅤAnd with that, we’re free to continue to the next section:  Merchandise.

3.- Merchandise

ㅤㅤㅤJust as mentioned in the News section, we scroll down to find a new section for the cookbook, counting with 4 images—all with a watermark reading “THE WELCOME HOME RESTORATION PROJECT,” a first for the website.  Here, we see recipes for “smiling treats,” cupcakes, and caramel apples, all using ingredients provided by the same company —Crispy SweetsTM— that produced the Welcome Home themed cereals seen in the previous update.

ㅤㅤㅤNext, the storybook record:  titled "Happy Haunting to Boo and Yours!”, endorsed by Crispy Sweets and produced by Marlo, it tells the story of the neighbors' Halloween party presumably located at Sally’s house, as she seems to be the host.  A narrator accompanies us throughout the storybook’s 19 minutes and 43 seconds, interacting directly only with Sally when she interrupts their explanation.

ㅤㅤㅤAlthough it states that a particular audio rip skips at 16:56 and quickly jumps past Sally’s dialogue to 18:51, unlike the WHRP we, as the audience, are able to hear her story.  I provided a full transcript, including this part, in this document.

ㅤㅤㅤA few things to note of the Vinyl Cover is that, when the update first came out, it had the same watermark of the cookbook plastered all over it, and only Sally’s face could be visible.  Also, at the bottom of the image, there is text that reads “Sponsored by Crispy Sweets,” Marlo’s logo, and “Copyright © Playfellow Workshop (illegible) the U.S.A.”

ㅤㅤㅤScrolling a bit further, we finally find the official Wally Darling Halloween costume mentioned in the News section: a rather comical-looking costume of unknown manufacturer that kids could wear, with the same drawing found in the homepage printed in the chest area.  Alongside it a Wally Darling mask with cutout circles in its eyes, so that the wearer would be able to see.

4.- Transcripts

ㅤㅤㅤGoing straight to the transcripts for the storybook record, as everything else seems to be in place, we’re surprised with nothing else than a new bug button, this time a pumpkin-lantern-themed candy spider, its filename aptly being “candy.gif,” making this the second bug with a filename other than random letters and numbers—the first being at the bottom of the homepage, titled “teeheehee.gif."  We can see a similar candy in Clown’s Tumblr, being Home-themed.

ㅤㅤㅤClicking on it will take us to a video named “00,” that belongs to what seems to be a new category, differentiated by the window title “listen.”  The previous category was titled “answer,” with a similar if not identical style of video, being seemingly recorded with a camera presumably being held by Wally Darling himself.

ㅤㅤㅤThis time, we can see a table filled with Halloween themed decorations and sweets, as well as the same baskets with the neighbors’ faces as seen in the cook book’s cover, in Merchandise.  To the left, a plate with a candy apple, which we’ll later discover belongs to Barnaby.  We hear the neighbors talking before Barnaby appears, trying to escape Sally’s lecture about Commedia dell’Arte —from where the character she’s dressed as, Pedrolino, comes from, being one of the first professional theaters originated in Italy, popularized in Europe between the 16th and 17th centuries—.

ㅤㅤㅤThey keep talking about it, when the video starts glitching, becoming brighter and darker at random, being covered in discolored static.  Not long after the video starts glitching harder, zooming in for a second to Frank’s basket before going back to normal, Barnaby’s candy apple seemingly moving on its own, now with a bite-sized chunk taken from it.  Barnaby approaches the camera —and therefore, Wally—, before realizing what happened to his snack, playfully teasing the others about it.

ㅤㅤㅤHowever, aside from the video’s distortion, there’s something off with the transcript itself: this is the first time, to my knowledge, that it shows personality and emotion, in lines such as “[Visual ID: Something… Has happened to the apple. A bite has been taken out of it, I think.],” and “[There is a brief pause. What is he doing.]”

5.- Your Neighborhood

ㅤㅤㅤMoving right along, we head to the Neighborhood, where some small changes have been made to some of the neighbors’ profiles.  Being that this update is Halloween themed, they all now have a brief segment related to the storybook record!

ㅤㅤㅤStarting with Julie, it reads: “In the storybook record, “Happy Haunting to Boo and Yours,” it is implied Julie and Frank could be a couple,” which is matching with Frank’s as theirs states “In the storybook record, “Happy Haunting to Boo and Yours,” it is implied Frank and Julie could be a couple.”

ㅤㅤㅤAlthough this will probably alert many fans as it did me, I’d like to point at a Tumblr post Clown made back in 2020: here, they mention homophobia and ableism being parts of the story, as they’re part of his own life and growth as a person.  Although old, and although these themes might not be implemented to the story in the same way Clown had planned back then, they might still be a part of it.  

ㅤㅤㅤFollowing with Howdy: “In the storybook record, “Happy Haunting to Boo and Yours,” it is implied that Howdy's antennae may have a mechanic that allowed them to move.”  We can also see this portrayed in the vinyl cover for it, in Merchandise.

ㅤㅤㅤLast but not least, the (literal) star of the show, Sally: “In the storybook record, "Happy Haunting to Boo and Yours," Sally Starlet invented a Halloween-esque holiday called the Macabre Menagerie of Monstorous Mischief Making,” which to her dismay Barnaby nicknamed “Terror n’ Treats.”

6.- Stickers

ㅤㅤㅤGoing, finally, to our last page: stickers!  As seen around in other pages of the website, all the sprites —except for Home’s— have gotten a halloween version, showing off their terrific costumes: Wally, as stated before, as a devil; Julie as a witch; Frank as a vampire, Howdy as a ghost (using his 100% on sale mattress); Poppy as a pumpkin; Eddie as Frankenstein, being the only one alongside Sally whose costume changed from the previous canon Halloween art we had, aside from minor changes; Barnaby as a werewolf (or were-beagle, as he calls himself); and Sally as Pedrolino.

ㅤㅤㅤHere, I’d like to give some more info about Pedrolino and the Commedia dell’Arte.  As said before, it was an early form of professional theater, originated from Italy, that was popular in Europe between the 16th and 17th centuries.  Characterized by masked “types,” characters usually represented fixed social types and character archetypes.  These were usually exaggerated.

ㅤㅤㅤAs for Pedrolino, he was a servant characterized by being simpleminded, honest, and cowardly.  He was of the "low", rustic class, and tended to be the victim of other's pranks.  Unlike most of the other characters, he usually played without a mask, painting his face white instead; when he did use one, it was one that only covered his eyes.  This was because his role used to vary depending on the play, so the expressions were left to the actor.  He was mute, or spoke very rarely; when he did speak, it was with the vocabulary level of a 2 year old.

ㅤㅤㅤSally specifically states that everyone was dressing up as something they’re not, so she chose her “opposite.”

Final Thoughts

ㅤㅤㅤAlthough short —or “bite-sized,” as said by Clown in this post—, this update provided interesting insight on Sally’s character and the neighbors’ relationships and dynamics, giving us also a lot of small things that can be used for the puzzle that is the bigger picture; plus, a lot of new, lovely art of the whole cast that I’m sure all of us greatly enjoyed.  Hearing their voices again is always a nice thing, especially in these spooky times.   ㅤㅤㅤOther than that, something seems to be off with whoever is writing for the website…  I wonder what it is.  

ㅤㅤㅤI’d also like to use this section to, like Clown, shout out some of the people that worked on this update!  Those would be…

@/downydig, who did the vinyl cover and the cook book art; @/rudeboimonster, who produced the Wally Darling costume; @/hollowtones, the narrator for “Happy Haunting to Boo and Yours!”; @/kmodoposts, in charge of composing the track for the storybook record; @/kindestegg, who made all the spooky sprites that adorn the website; And the voice actors: @/friendlyfrankenstein, @/syntheticcharmva, @/cyberscraps, @/GinaM9816, @/tunnelva, and @/modmad!

ㅤㅤㅤWith nothing else to say, it's time to wave goodbye… ㅤㅤㅤUntil then, have a happy Halloween!

ㅤㅤㅤDon’t forget to wave down below!

Bibliography

Clown (2022) Welcome Home | ClownIllustrations Sage (2023) Sage’s WH Resources !! Matt Parker (2014) Commedia Character Research - Pedrolino The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2023) Pedrolino Wikipedia (2023) Commedia dell’arte Clown (2023) Hello, you!

[axel-skz]

Tears

A/N: loads going on but this kept swirling in my mind so here we are. The song roulette here gives us GET LIT! Hope yall are doing well and let’s hope it takes me less time for the next story lmao

You had been crying and you wanted to find a private spot. You remembered a place that you had been to with Chan and you went back there at night. It was a regular spot for you now.

It was by a river.

You were having your moment. The vibes were there.

Then everything was ruined and terror struck you when you saw car lights in the parking lot. You heard the engine turn off and you watched to see who it was.

There appeared a very concerned Bang Chan. You face palmed as he finally located you and made his way over.

‘CHANNIE! YOU’RE RUINING MY DRAMATIC MOMENT!’

‘I’ve been having a dramatic moment of my own looking for you,’ he sighed as he sat next to you.

‘How’d you know I’d be here?’

‘I’d say it was because I’m smart and figured it out but I did no such thing. We share locations on find my.’

You sighed, ‘wow, I did this to myself.’

‘Ok, enough sighing. This is dangerous, Y/N. If you wanted to come out here, you could’ve just told me. I would’ve brought you out here but kept a little space and let you have your moment. That way I know you would be safe.’

‘Forgive me if I don’t want to let you know every time I’m having a breakdown,’ you squinted at him.

‘Why shouldn’t you? I’m your best friend?’ He seemed genuinely flabbergasted.

‘You don’t have to know every single thing about me!’

‘What?! Where is this even coming from?!’

‘WHAT IF YOU’RE THE REASON I’M HAVING THE BREAKDOWN?! IT WON’T HELP TO SEE YOU! WILL IT?!’

He was taken aback. He sat staring at you in silence for a minute. Like he was looking for what he could say, ‘I…’

‘I’m sorry… for yelling…’ you looked away, ‘I thought id be okay… that I’d be alright with just being friends but…’

He sighed, ‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, if I were to be with someone, I’d like for it to be you. But the problems still stand. I’m always busy and if everything went south then we could lose our friendship.’

You huffed, ‘yeah I know but if anyone can figure it out, it’s us.’

‘Is it really worth the risk?’

You looked at him with a straight face, ‘I don’t know but if I see another person who’s all over you, I might just become a murderer. I know us being together wont change much since we can’t tell people but we’ll know…’

‘You know what… I get it. I don’t like to admit how much it annoys me when you’re back stage and whoever is walking past keeps talking to you. The way they smile and check you out,’ he huffed.

You looked off, ‘so what now?’

‘I guess there isn’t much choice,’ he looked at you with a slight smile.

‘Mhm? And what does that mean?’

‘Well, I don’t think you’ll have to come back here because of me again for a while.’

With all the warm fuzzy feelings and sweet looks, you guys got together.

A/N: please like and comment and reblog. Now, um, I have a confession.

Chan: mhm?

No no no! You turn around and plug your ears!

Chan: WHY?!

BECAUSE IT’S EMBARRASSING AND YOU NEED TO GO!

Chan: wow. Ok. Thought we were closer then that…

Yeah yeah, get your old ass far away right now please. Love you!

*he marches inside*

Ok, so, I wasn’t on insta for ages cus I took it off my homepage on my ipad and forgot it existed. But like, not the point. I still managed to find out my boys made their own instagram pages before the 24 hour mark. And do you know what I did when I found out?

…

I CRIED! I followed them all and then I CRIED! There’s something wrong with me.

Chan from inside: awh, that’s so cute!

YOU SHOULD NOT BE LISTENING! I WILL GET SEUNGMIN ON YOU!

Chan: no please don’t! I only have today to relax!

[themessengervevo]

Hello everyone! Before I begin, I have to say I very much thank everyone who shared my story around. It may not be much, but it could lead to something more. Thank you for doing that.

Since my goal with my original post was to not only address my sudden unfair banning from the platform but to also give attention to other problems with this platform, I decided to give this operation a catchy name of sorts. You can call it

Operation Take That!

or anything else really. Hopefully that will give this movement more of an identity.

In other news though, I may have discovered some very peculiar bugs that affect the Youtube experience for me, and I'll show these in this post to give bugfix suggestions. For the sake of clarity, and also because I like old stuff, I will be showing these screenshots with CustomTube enabled. It's an extension for Chrome and Firefox that changes the look of the Youtube layout to older ones, specifically mid 2014 in this case.

First on my examination will be the home page. For this and other instances, I will be comparing how a banned user sees a page with the same tab but in a container so as to show how a normal user sees the same page. So how does the home page should usually look like? It should look as shown here:

Notice the sidebar on the left. Now lets compare it with the non-container homepage, and see what we get:

You can immediately see how the sidebar is gone. Why? If you can't login into a youtube account, why remove the sidebar? It still wouldnt let you sign in anyway because you are terminated. It is simply unnessesary!

Now lets move onto the watch page, and see how that is different, here is a screengrab of a random video I took from the home page in the container:

Again, notice the sidebar, but also the Like and Dislike buttons and the row of buttons from "About" to "More". Lets also compare the comments section, here is how it looks in container:

Great, right? Now lets see how those two look without container:

Notice how wrong everything looks? The lack of sidebar again, the misshapen Like button, the Save button here is the default one, the Share button has been replaced with a number, and the More button has three dots underneath it. Odd right? Lets see the comment section now:

Oh wait, there is no comment section here, because it's stuck in a loading loop! Again, why does this need to happen when you get banned? This is just unnessesary again!

Here's some other issues that I know of or found that I feel like need to be fixed:

The Like and Dislike buttons in comment sections lead to the sign in, unlike the ones under the video itself.

There's been performance issues for users of Firefox, including an intentional 5-second slowdown and big lag. The lag one in particular seems to be happening to everyone, not just me with an almost decade-old laptop at this point. Some speculate these changes were made by Google as part of a tactic to get non-Chrome users to, well, use Chrome, and see it as just plain being greedy. I think so too.

Occasionally, when I enter the home page from a watch page, the tab assumes I am logged in and shows my pfp and notification bell and all. I can click the pfp to open what would be the menu there, but is stuck in an endless loop. As well, the page im on shows a "Something went wrong" error. Very weird. That needs to be fixed too I think.

Again, please reblog and share this post around to not only hear my story but to hear my criticisms and suggestions too. I might make more of these posts to show how bad Youtube's getting as a platform. Also I am still considering whether to get a Boosty or not. Maybe even a Ko-fi if they allow that. Again, thank you for your support so far, I couldn't be more happy to hear your thoughts on this, and if any of you had or have the same experience I'm having, please reach out!

- Thank you, The Messenger.

[entertext]

HGSN Riddle Game: ❴Horrifying Mountain Village❵ Kubitachi Village Was Too Crazy ....

--

This is a translation of the riddle game that was recently released as part of the promotion for the vol. 3 release. The story does not feature any of the main characters or connect to the main story at all, but it does have a tiny little lore teaser at the end, so I decided to translate it.

Solving all the riddles gets you a desktop wallpaper or mobile wallpaper depending on your browser type. The riddles should be relatively easy if you know some Japanese, and there are hints, so give it a try if you can.

This translation will spoil all the riddle answers so don't read it if you want to try the riddles yourself!!

==

I'm a fledgling Youtuber.

Although I'm aiming to become a paranormal/occult Youtuber with over 1 million subscribers, right now my subscriber count is only around 70.

For my next video, I want to make something that will really blow up.

Thinking that, I idly scrolled through an occult aggregator site, when I found an eerie place name.

"Kubitachi"

There's definitely something there - well, maybe.

For now, why don't I check it out? ... To Kubitachi it is.

There are 4 riddles on the homepage. For each riddle, click the black 解答 button to enter the answers

壱 (One)

Once I pass through this forest, I'll arrive at Kubitachi.

The overgrown trees blocked out the light of the sun, and even though it was daytime, the surroundings were terribly dim.

Expecting to encounter something along the way, I kept the camera running as I proceeded through the forest.

Then, from behind me, the faint sound of a hoarse voice reached my ears.

"Nounuki-sama..."

When I turned around, countless characters were floating in the air.

Riddle 1: "Nounuki-sama..."

Answer: ナニカ (SOMETHING)

I dashed out of the forest, stumbling on the way.

What the hell was that...!?

There was definitely SOMETHING of an unknown nature in that forest.

Though I was breathing heavily, I checked my camera.

But the video showed only footage of a perfectly ordinary forest.

弐 (Two)

I arrived at Kubitachi.

Although the streets were deserted, as I got closer to the heart of the settlement, the number of people I passed increased.

There was a woman staring straight at me.

When I tried to start a conversation with her, with an unexpected candor, she started telling me about the rumours in Kubitachi.

The bizzare death of an elderly woman.

The mountain you must never enter.

The hair youkai that appears in the bath.

And more. It was truly quite varied.

Riddle 2: "What do you feel?"

Answer: シセン (GAZE)

When I tried to ask for more details on the mountain, her face suddenly became stern and she warned me never to go there. It wouldn't be good to ask any further.

Thanking her, I left and looked up the mountain near Kubitachi on the internet.

Apparently, there's been no end to the number of disappearances on that mountain going way back, according to what I found.

In other words, as an occult Youtuber, it's a place I have no choice but to go to.

Suddenly, I felt a piercing GAZE and raised my head to look around, but there was nobody there.

参 (Three)

I kept out of sight and snuck towards the mountain.

With the camera on, I followed the path uphill.

The sound of the frogs was loud.

Besides occasionally passing by what looked like a hokora from time to time, I went forwards without seeing anything unusual.

Riddle 3: Mountain Maze

Answer: 空 (EMPTY)

I reached the mountaintop without running into anything at all.

There's no mysterious presence or anything. It's completely EMPTY.

Almost as if "something" had already completely disappeared from this place.

What a let-down.

The color of the sky is tinged with red.

It's almost sundown. Better get back down the mountain soon and head to the inn.

肆 (Four)

Reaching the inn, first things first was to take a bath and wash off all the sweat from hiking.

When I immersed myself in the hot water, all my thoughts and my tiredness quickly melted away.

The moment I tried to get out of the water, I saw black lines reflected on the water's surface.

Before my eyes, the lines gathered and created some kind of shape.

As if I was paralyzed, I could only move my eyes as my sight was drawn towards it.

Those black lines were hair.

Riddle 4: GNILIEC SI REWSNA EHT

Answer: テンジョウ (CEILING)

As soon as I blinked, there was no longer anything there. When I looked up at the CEILING in a panic, I thought I caught a glimpse of hair disappearing in the corner of my eye.

Suddenly, the rumour that I had heard today about the hair youkai in the bath crossed my mind.

I must have just been seeing things due to all those stories I heard.

Trying to convince myself of this, I decided to go to bed.

After solving all 4 riddles, head to back to the homepage to find the last riddle at the bottom

?????

From the pitch black darkness, a light slowly spread out.

I heard the hoarse voice from that forest say:

"Nounuki-sama..."

What on earth is this...?

Riddle ?????: IT'S STILL HERE. FIRST START SEARCHING.

Answer: だるまづか (DARUMAZUKA)

Breathing heavily, I jumped out of bed.

A dream. One like a nightmare.

But the characters "DARUMAZUKA" were burned into the back of my eyes.

There's no question that "something" exists in Kubitachi.

Forget the video, I don't want to be involved any longer.

I'm done filming. I'll head home immediately in the morning.

--

The next morning, I flew out of the inn and onto the road home.

Although I took a lot of footage, none of it shows anything definitive.

This won't make for a good video.

I couldn't stop thinking about it so I looked up "DARUMAZUKA".

"Darumazuka* Tunnel" - a haunted site in Kibougayama, the town neighboring Kubitachi.

I don't know why, but I'm seized with the feeling that I have to go there.

I can't shake the notion that I'm being called to that place.

Even though I already went through such horrifying things...

A few days later, I decided I would go to Darumazuka Tunnel.

END

(* - 達磨塚 - "daruma" + "mound/grave")

Click the ??? button at the bottom to get the wallpapers