#i'll miss being 25. it's a very nice number

[thelvadams]

woop i'm 26 🎉🥳

[annkous]

Lesson 25 is here! This week we solve Asmo's inner turmoil and finally find out why Barbatos hates Solomon's guts so much.

We got "eternal" for the rhythm games, too!

We start where we left off on lesson 24: entering the garden among Barbatos and Solomon looking for Little D. Nº5 to help Asmo.

Barbatos starts saying he remembers visiting Solomon in the human world, and Solomon begins to show signs that he remembers something. Then he says he remembers the when, just not the what, and Barbatos just gets more pissed off.

lmfao but finally, Barbatos gets to the crux of the matter: he went to visit Solomon and saw a list of all the demons Solomon had made pacts with...

And he was number eight.

That's all. That's literally the whole reason he's mad at Solomon. He's jealous and hurt due to a list. Holy shit.

Solomon tries to clarify he wrote them down without any order in particular, that he wrote them just as they came to mind. Someone save him he's making it worse.

Sorry Sol I love you I swear but I chose to back up Barbatos for fun

All this build-up for this. Incredible. I remember seeing people theorizing Barbatos' anger had something to do with time traveling shenanigans too. I was not expecting that. I prefer it over the feud he has with Thirteen, though, I know if it'd been about food I would've been disappointed. This is way funnier and you honestly don't see it coming ngl.

Back to the more pressing matter, Little D. Nº5 finds you, following Barbatos' indignation about being a "mediocre middle number", and without any previous warning, teleports all of you, it included, somewhere else...

That somewhere turns out to be Asmo's subsconscious, just like Mammon.

Asmo's on top of a throne, with Mammon, Levi, Satan, Beel and Belphie serving him around. They don't speak, they remain quiet even in front of you and Solomon points out they look worn out and exhausted, but Asmo doesn't seem to care. However when you ask him if "is this truly what you want?" you get points with him ;; hang in there, Asmo.

For now, however, he only has eyes for you and himself. He tries to beckon you, but you can resist. If you do, you win points with Barb and Sol.

Lucifer is missing from the group, though, and Barbatos notices.

Barbatos teleports both you and Solomon away to wherever Lucifer is, leaving him alone to fend Asmodeus.

You arrive in a weird dark forest, with a nice background music too.

Now that would be an interesting idea to explore, but I'll tell you here and now that sadly, no, we won't :( when asking Solomon, he just says this place might be so deep in Asmo's mind, not even he knows it exists. Mostly bevause this place doesn't "fit" Asmo.

You two have to look for Lucifer, though, because he seems important to Asmo just as he was to Mammon.

Yeah they do, despite all their bickering they really love their older brother.

After trekking for a bit you find a cabin in the woods, and lo and behold, Luci is there. You ask him why he's there, and he tells you he was a sorcerer that used to work under Asmo, until Asmo banished him for telling Asmo he was not beautiful, "not as you are now."

He asks about Asmo, so you can tell him you've just seen him or that you're going back to see him. Lucifer simpy gives you an apple to give to Asmo, and that's all you get from that little visit. Solomon, sensing it's the key for this, takes you both back to the castle where Asmo was.

Nor Asmo nor Barbatos are in sight, though, only the brothers and Little D. However, when you ask to see Asmo, the Little D. doesn't take it very well and does a 180 on you, commanding the brothers to get you.

Solomon, being our current knight in shining armor, tells you to run and go save Asmo while he covers you. We don't have a choice here, so we just run for it, leaving Solomon behind like this, probably.

We finally reach Asmo, who's alone in his room. There's no sign of Barbatos anywhere.

Asmo's delighted you came to "see" him, and continues to try and make you profess your undying love for him and that he's first above anyone else. Gotta snap him out of it.

We remember the whole Barbatos convo with Solomon about not being on top of the list here, too, and we use it to try and get to Asmo.

But it's not working very well...

He's about to lock you up (oh boy) when the apple Lucifer gave you falls to the floor. Asmo spots it immediately, realizing it's one of Lucifer's apples, Apparently, it's one of his favourite things, sp he takes a bite... and suddenly feels very, very sleepy.

Oh no.

Lucifer, always on time. Colorized.

The scene just ends there... and switches to this.

In hindsight I should've seen it coming tbh.

Basically, Asmo has fallen asleep forever. Lucifer has put him to sleep, granting his wish to remain forever beautiful by never aging.

Little D. Nº5 is inconsolable, and crying out as if he were Asmodeus himself. He keeps sobbing about how he doesn't want this, and how he wants to go back to his brothers :( Barbatos and Solomon think he's mixed with Asmo's feelings, or that he's embodied Asmo himself. In any case, what he feels is what Asmo wants, and him crying is just like Asmo crying.

But here we know how Snow White goes (at least the modified children's tale version...), so we step up to save Asmo.

I love the forehead option for them so much you have no idea-. I'm always surprised when they go on about love and I think I'm going to have to show romantic love towards one of them no matter what, and then I'm given a platonic option for it. I love that it's an option, even if I prefer the romantic type.

Whatever kiss you choose, it works, and you wake up back in the garden where Little D. Nº5 last teleported you. You're back with Solomon, Barbatos and the Little D, who's just snoring on the ground. It's adorable, but you have to go check on Asmo, so off we go to the House of Lamentation.

There's a bit of a commotion there, though.

If we think about the previous lesson with its chat + videocall at the end, we'll remember that all the brothers were talking about taking a little payback by drawing on Asmo's face as he slept.

Well, he's awake and yelling at everyone, so you can guess what's happening lmao

It is said (and proven) that Asmo's even scarier than Satan when angry. Also gotta love Lucifer smoothly avoiding his part in all this mess. Big brained asshole.

However your arrival makes Asmo flip completely. He's grateful you've saved him ;u; and offers to do anything in exchange.

So of course, we ask for a pact, bamboozling almost everyone else who's present. They don't think Asmo's gonna do it, but he does it in a heartbeat. WELL, TWO PACTS DOWN, I GUESS.

The end of the lesson starts, once more, with the brothers and you all enjoying breakfast together, but this time Lucifer ends up delivering a lecture that has everyone rolling their eyes and giving you pleading looks so you save them from this torture.

Asmo offers to team up with you to prank Lucifer. So you accept, obviously, because they're menaces and you can't really say no to them. Spoiled, the lot of them.

Anyways, you get to choose what prank befalls the poor man. I chose kitty speak. It was hilarious.

But now he's pissed off, obviously, so you all have to book it. A lighthearted end for this lesson. There's no clear hint (that I've seen) about who's the next demon that's going to succumb to his sin, so either they're moving to a mini interlude in our pact-making or they're leaving it as a surprise.

But we still have a videocall at the end of the normal story, plus the extra lesson and the bit at the end of the hard mode, so let's get to it.

The videocall is between Barbatos, Luke and Solomon, where Solomon apologizes for summoning Barbatos away when he was with Luke back in the previous lesson (when he needed help subduing Asmodeus). Solomon offers to pay Luke back for the scare by either helping him bake again or to make him a cake himself. Luke fights for his life trying to dissuade Solomon from cooking anything at all lmao. The call isall lighthearted and adorable.

Critically acclaimed.......... w-was this a ffxiv reference???? Hello?????? I mean English isn't my native language but I've never seen those two words used to talk about a living person before omg

The extra lesson takes place when Asmo wakes up in his bed after the whole ordeal, realizing how everyone's responsible for waking him up. He really wants to go to them and apologize, so he does.

Except, as we already know, his face is painted, so the brothers are having a hard time holding back their laughter, and it's not until Asmo finally sees his face that all hell breaks loose and the moment is lost lmao.

Then comes my favourite, the extra scene unlocked in hard mode. It's called "Butler for a Day".

You're sitting in the garden with Asmo and Barbatos while they're just talking about Solomon.

They also rip him a new one.

Barbatos asks you to please not be like Solomon now that you also have pacts, and to be considerate towards your demons. Sir this isn't our first rodeo sjdfsf

Here comes the kick, though: Solomon went begging to Barbatos to forgive him, saying he'd do anything to get back on his good graces, so Barbatos made him be Diavolo's butler for a day.

We actually see Solomon chasing Diavolo around, who seems to be having fun too lmao of course he would.

At least after this they should be on better terms...

And that's all for this week!

I, hm. I feel it wasn't as "deep" as Mammon's chapter, but maybe it's because they touched on Asmo's homesickness back at the beginning of Nightbringer. I liked that chapter of his a lot and how he was written there. Still, I sometimes feel they don't really know how to grasp Asmo beyond his "I want to be loved by everyone" thing. They could've delved a bit deeped in the whole "dark forest" part and how Asmo isn't always happy and probably gets tired of keeping up a smile for the sake of everyone (and himself too), but they just left it there. Maybe it's just me, that I haven't fully grasped everything in this chapter, but it's how I feel after finishing this one. I did like the start of Asmo's predicament, though, in lesson 24, with Solomon having to step in and actually fight him to stop him. The resolution doesn't feel as fulfilling as Mammon's did, and it makes me a bit sad for Asmo.

Asmo's really close with Lucifer, too. I don't know, I feel there's wasted potential ;;

Since there's no hint for who's next, I guess we can only wait...

Stay safe and don't forget to stretch <3

Edit: WELL LESSON 26 IS OUT SO WE KNOW WHO'S NEXT

[droughtofapathy]

"Welcome to the Theatre": Diary of a Broadway Baby

Picnic at Hanging Rock

July 25, 2024 | Joe's Pub | Late Night | Concert | New Musical | 1H

I feel like I should stop going to new musical showcases at Joe's Pub just because the cast includes hot older women...

Jokes aside, as far as concert presentations go, this was one of the more promising new works I've seen. The music is lovely enough, and the lyrics didn't have me balking. The young cast really committed to looking as youthful as humanly possible, because while I know they're all probably in their early twenties, they looked fifteen. Kind of horrifying, but I digress. And they sounded so young with that immature bright tone (save for Lorna Courtney, who didn't feel she had to make herself sound twelve so that was nice), but that's the point, so I'll get over it.

The way the show added book/story context to the songs wasn't particularly effective, in my opinion. Had I not known the basic premise of the source material, I'd have been lost when suddenly on the third song they're looking for the missing schoolgirls and teacher with no other warning. The whole thing came in at just under an hour, so that's a relief because far too many of these showcases have 37 songs that all sound identical. This one had a good variety of melodies, but my main critique is in what songs there are and who sings them. New musicals--and this is more true of shows from lesser known and/or inexperienced writers--seem to be allergic to the idea that the songs don't need to be asides. What I mean is that creatives all seem to be writing a series of soliloquies with almost no connection between characters. In the case of this show, there were at least five characters that appeared for one singular song and never showed up again. Which begs the question, why are they here? What is their narrative purpose? Why are we treated to a solo less about plot momentum and more about their inner conflicts and introspection when ultimately they don't return and we don't care who or what they want?

The French teacher, for example, gets the "11 o'clock" number with brilliant vocals by Lauren Molina (who, incidentally, I've never seen with her clothes on). But she hasn't been seen or heard in any song prior to this moment, so why does she get the climax? Her song is also functionally similar to the math teacher's number (Pearl Sun), and there's very little reason why they shouldn't be combined or even cut (and isn't it a shocker that I'm advocating for fewer adult woman roles?). Katrina Lenk as the headmistress has her one number and then bye-bye (though what a number...wow...) As for the girls, they're all indistinguishable from one another. They sing as a homogenous group and while maybe that's the point, it also means they're unmemorable and unlikely to earn audience favor. And the two men? Why? Who cares? Leave.

As a song cycle, it may work. I like the music. I'd like to see a fully-staged production because maybe the book is really strong. But with an hour's-worth of songs, it leaves little for book scenes and I worry the music would only serve to bring the story to a grinding halt each time. The little context we were given before each song didn't include any potential blocking or setting the scene.

A fine enough evening, but points off for also being a late-night 9:30 show. I had to be out that late for this?

Verdict: Enjoyable, But Left No Lasting Impression

A Note on Ratings

[cantsayidont]

Superman Misses the Point

One of the frustrating things about being interested in old or otherwise obscure media is that sometimes, somebody will popularize a really bad take on that thing, and it's hard to critique or even just complain about the bad take because too few people are familiar with the original. This extends to insulting homages (e.g., the loathsome THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR, of which the less said the better), offensive pastiches (e.g., Tom King's horrific MR. MIRACLE comic), and misguided remakes and adaptations of various kinds.

I regret to say that one of the latter is this much-praised 2019–2020 miniseries by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru:

This story is an adaptation of perhaps the most famous storyline of the 1940s ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN radio series, "The Clan of the Fiery Cross," originally aired on the Mutual network in June–July 1946. It also borrows a big chunk of another famous radio storyline, "Superman vs. the Atom Man," originally broadcast between September and December 1945. I use the word "famous" advisedly because the number of people who have heard OF these stories exceeds by a considerable margin the number of people who've actually HEARD them, although all episodes of both storylines survive, and the "Atom Man" story was released some years ago on CD and cassette with a nice booklet about the history of the Superman radio show.

Yang HAS clearly listened to both radio storylines, and his essay "Superman and Me" (included as an afterword in the trade paperback version of SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN) gives a pretty good overview of the context of the "Fiery Cross" story.

In SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN, he directly adapts some parts of the radio stories while making some significant changes to others. Some of his changes are improvements, but some are not, and ultimately serve to rather badly undermine the point of the original storyline.

It's unfortunate because "The Clan of the Fiery Cross" is one of the most potent of the numerous pro-tolerance stories presented in the ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN radio series during this period. It followed only a few weeks after a 25-part serial called "The Hate Mongers," and was followed over the next two and a half years by, among others, "George Latimer, Crooked Political Boss" (in which a right-wing political fixer orders state troopers to turn tommyguns on a crowd of veteran protestors and then frames a Jewish veteran for attempted murder); "Knights of the White Carnation" (about another hate group murdering people in Metropolis); and "The Man Without a Face" (about an escaped Nazi war criminal trying to eliminate a young concentration camp survivor who's the only one able to identify him).

What makes "Fiery Cross" stand out is that it really doesn't pull a lot of punches. Some of the radio show's other storylines of similar bent are very cautious; they criticize prejudice against someone "of a different race" rather than saying "Black" or "Chinese," and "goes to a different church" rather than saying "Jewish" (even when that's what they mean), which ends up kind of blunting the point. By contrast, the Clan of the Fiery Cross is plainly meant to represent the KKK, both through references to Klan rituals (apparently courtesy of information provided by reporter Stetson Kennedy) and in the things they do, which include burning a cross on a Chinese family's lawn and attempting to tar and feather their kid! There's not a lot of hedging except in the name of the organization, which wasn't fooling anyone.

To explain how Yang's treatment of this story goes sideways, it's necessary to explain some finer points about the storylines, including the endings of the two versions, so I'll put that behind the cut.

The basic premise of the radio storyline is that young Tommy Lee, a Chinese-American high school student who's also a pitcher on the baseball team of Unity House (an interfaith youth center that figures in a number of radio storylines), becomes a target of the Clan of the Fiery Cross for two reasons: an innocent accident involving another player, a loudmouth named Chuck Riggs whose uncle Matt is secretly the Clan's Grand Scorpion, and the fact that Tommy's father, a well-known bacteriologist, has just taken a well-paying new job with the city health department that another Clansman, Jennings, had expected to get as a political favor.

After terrorizing the Lees, most of the Clan's "action committee" is captured by Superman and arrested, whereupon the now-unmasked Clansmen immediately begin squealing on one another. However, Matt Riggs manages to escape, and goes to find the Clan's "Grand Imperial Mogul," Segret (or Cedric) Wilson, hoping to call in reinforcements from the Clan's national organization.

This leads to the radio storyline's arguably most provocative point: Wilson reveals that the Clan of the Fiery Cross is really just a pyramid scheme, raking in millions by giving thousands of rubes someone else to blame for their own failings, which means true-believer Riggs is both a sucker and a liability. Wilson nearly shoots Riggs, who kills him instead.

In SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN, there's a similar confrontation between Riggs and Wilson, but with a significantly different upshot:

So, rather than a more or less real organization with a credible (if reprehensible) goal and all-too-real methods, the comic suddenly becomes about making super-weapons to fight Superman, taking a hard swerve from reality to fantasy.

I should note here that part of what Yang has tried to do with his adaptation of this story is to make the point that Superman himself is an immigrant. That's something the radio series does NOT do and that Superman media in general has mostly gone out of its way to avoid, sometimes in really distasteful ways, but it is a natural enough move in a story like this. Yang's strategy for accomplishing that involves some major departures from the radio continuity that I find jarring, but that's a complaint rather than a critique.

The problem, as I see it, is that when you're talking about immigration, racism, and racial violence, making it ABOUT Superman kind of loses the plot. Superman is a character who doesn't have any real-world analogue: He's a super-powered man from another planet who does impossible good deeds on a daily basis. Even to the extent that he is "real" within the context of these stories, a) he is for all intents and purposes a white man; b) he is never going to be in any really serious physical danger, due both to his powers and plot armor; and c) he consistently upholds and defends the status quo in useful, dramatic, public ways. Thus, Superman's experience as an immigrant is never going to be remotely comparable to the experience of immigrants of color and their children, and suggesting that it would be is honestly kind of insulting.

Additionally, the way modern comics and comics-based media try to create straw man arguments about mistrust of Superman is more than a little ridiculous. As presented in the radio show, Superman would be capable of laying waste to Metropolis in a matter of hours, and there wouldn't be much anybody could do about it; the fact that Superman is always selfless and always trustworthy (and that you can always safely assume he's selfless and trustworthy) is really the most fantastical aspect of the whole mythos. It's perfectly reasonable for people to be nervous about Superman, and the assertion that only Bad People would be uncomfortable about his unchecked personal power does not bear close analysis even within the dubious politics of superhero stories.

Anyway! Returning to the radio storyline: After killing Wilson, Matt Riggs returns to Metropolis, where he tries to convince his rapidly dwindling pool of cronies to help him murder Tommy Lee, Jimmy Olsen, and his own nephew so they can't testify against the Clan or Riggs. In the climactic sequence, Superman captures Riggs at a Unity House-Metropolis High baseball game just in time to prevent Riggs from shooting the three boys with a high-powered rifle. Riggs at this point in the story doesn't have any grand scheme other than not getting caught and silencing witnesses who could send him to prison; I imagine if he succeeded in that, his next step would be to turn on his fellow Clansmen for chickening out, but he obviously hasn't thought that far ahead.

In SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN, Riggs instead shows up at the baseball stadium in full Klan regalia, unmasked and armed with Kryptonite-powered weapons to fight Superman, whom he publicly "outs" as both an immigrant and an extraterrestrial:

After using his Kryptonite-powered weaponry to knock Superman around for a few pages, Riggs reveals that he's wearing an explosive vest and intends to martyr himself to make Metropolis pay for harboring Superman, or something:

After Superman destroys his explosive vest, Riggs stabs Superman with a Kryptonite knife, but Superman manages not to drop him, so Riggs survives to be arrested. Afterwards, Metropolis embraces Superman's immigrant status, and the Lee family lives happily ever after.

(There's a cute coda with Lois Lane offering Tommy Lee's younger sister Roberta a cub reporter job with the DAILY PLANET.)

I'm trying hard not to kvetch too much about the various departures from the radio continuity (for instance, in the radio show, Superman being from another planet was already public knowledge by the time of this story, and in fact, Lois revealing that information in a DAILY PLANET story directly precipitated the whole Atom Man saga!), which I don't love, but which I'm willing to accept as Yang's authorial prerogative.

However, I can't help but regard the revised ending as a real weakening of the original radio storyline. The radio story is not ultimately about Superman; he functions mainly as a plot device. It's about how a vicious white supremacist nearly causes a great deal of harm before learning that even his own white supremacist superiors consider him a deluded sucker who's only useful as a revenue-generator, and who in the end probably goes to prison for attempted murder, discredited and shunned even by his erstwhile brethren. In making the story ABOUT Superman, Yang ends up validating Riggs and the Klan in a way I'm certain he did not intend; the villains now have a "real" plan (raising money to protect Metropolis and America from the threat of Superman), and Riggs gets to make a big speech that will probably win him more support even if he ends up in prison.

The damage Yang's changes do to the intent of the story goes beyond that to weaken the basic logic of the plot. In the radio storyline, there's nothing sinister about the health department or Dr. Lee's job; he's singled out because a Clan member, Will Jennings, wanted his job (which Jennings later admits he wasn't actually even qualified for). In the comic, Jennings is Lee's coworker and one of Wilson's cronies in the secret plot taking place in the health department basement (in which Dr. Lee is an apparently unwitting pawn). If Wilson himself hired Lee and Lee was contributing to his scheme, knowingly or not, why have the Klan burn a cross on his lawn? I think we're supposed to read it as Riggs being a loose cannon, but if Wilson is right there and Riggs' actions are messing with the plan, why wouldn't he rein him in sooner? (In the radio storyline, Wilson lives in another state, and until Riggs shows up at his door, he hasn't been directly involved in anything that's been going on except presumably to cash checks.)

Not only does this make little sense, it undermines a recurring theme of this and the other anti-bigotry radio stories: that bigotry is often tied to, if not driven by, mundane material concerns, whether it's wanting to control who gets cushy state jobs (as in the "George Latimer" storyline) or jealousy over a desirable job or a position on a team. THAT is all too real, and not a bad lesson for a radio show like THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN.

Yang injects a heavy dose of feel-good uplift to the end of his version, but it leaves me wondering what the point was supposed to be, which is NOT a great takeaway for a book entitled SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN.

Some of the changes to the story are fine: In particular, Yang fleshes out the Lee family in a way they're really not in the radio show, and there are moments that both ring true and serve the themes of the story, like a scene where Roberta is invited to the movies by some white friends only to realize the movie is a FLASH GORDON pastiche with a Yellow Peril menace as the villain. However, on the big stuff, Yang drops the ball, which is really a shame.

If you've read SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN, or even thought about reading it, I strongly encourage you to listen to the actual "Clan of the Fiery Cross" radio storyline. You can find the 16 episodes online easily enough, and a number of people have edited the storyline together into a single audio file with commercials, introductions, and recaps deleted, which brings the whole thing down to a relatively digestible two hours and 50-some minutes. (At that, it's only a little longer than the awful Zack Snyder live-action Superman features, and a much better use of your time.)

The "Atom Man" story is also excellent — it has a few lulls along the way, but it's one of the most interesting and exciting Superman stories of any era, with genuine suspense, many twists and turns, a thoroughly risible villain (voiced by radio actor Mason Adams, also a regular on INNER SANCTUM), and an appropriately spectacular finale. However, the whole saga (including the introductory storyline where the world learns of Kryptonite) is 51 quarter-hour episodes, so it represents a much bigger time commitment even in edited form.

[pipermca]

Very Quick TFCon 2023 Recap!

This past weekend I attended TCCon 2023 in Toronto! This is the first convention I've attended since the start of the pandemic (aside from a couple of very local ones) and it was so good. I love being among my people, the geeks. :) Spouse also attended with me; he is only a TF fan by osmosis (seeing how enthusiastic I am about stuff makes him happy about it too), but he enjoys the vibe of sci-fi and adjacent cons. He also claims to have had a good time.

Before we left, I was concerned about a few things: catching Covid again, boarding the cat, dealing with the disaster that flying in Canada has become lately, etc. We masked up anytime we were in con space, and I remain hopeful that our recent infections acted like a booster against catching it again. If we make it to this Sunday without coming down with it, I'll consider it a success.

Before I have to go to work tomorrow, I wanted to get my thoughts down about how the con went: the amazing, the good, and the disappointing.

The Amazing

Friends. Being able to catch up with (and in some cases meet!) other TF fans who I've chatted with online over the years is always amazing. I honestly don't want to start naming names because then I'll forget someone and feel bad. There is something special about being able to put a face to an online name.

If you were there and I missed you, I am so sorry. I tried, I honestly did. But I am an incredibly awkwardly shy potato in person, and I could only shove myself out of my introvert shell so much to message people and say "LET'S MEET NOW." Sometimes I depend on other people to say "PIPER! LET'S MEET NOW" because otherwise I dither and dither until the weekend is over and the chance is gone. :(

Thank you to everyone who put up with me; I love you guys. <3

The Pros. I steeled myself and went to the three pros who I wanted to talk to: Alex Milne, James Roberts, and Jack Lawrence. Alex was selling copies of Hot Motor Oil (omg book number two is INSANE and I cackled over it repeatedly), so while he was sketching in my copy I was able to thank him for the commission he did for me a while back. He said some very nice things about my choice! but it's important for me to thank people in person for the commissions they do for me. :3 Same thing with Jack; I got a commission from him just a little while ago, and I LOVE it. He was also very nice, even though I was only at his table to thank him and not buy anything. >.> (Next time I need to bring larger print protectors; his prints were GORGEOUS but there was no way I'd be able to get them home safely.)

And I bought some scripts from James; I've been dying to read the annotated ones because I am interested in writing my own scripts, and I wanted to see how he put his together and the thoughts behind them. I was able to tell him about how it was fanfic that led me to MTMTE which led me back into the TF fandom after a 25+ year absence, and he was really happy to hear that. (And commented about how the message that fanfic can bring in new fans needs to get back to the IP holders...)

The Costumes. Briefly, AMAZING costumes this year. I got some good pictures of some of them, but the creativity out there is fantastic.

The Good.

The Loot. I got a decent amount of stuff this year, and thanks to Spouse tagging along I was able to bring back a bit more than usual. And some of the stuff was for him, so he got something out of it too. :3

Non-TF Meetups. By happenstance, a coworker of mine lives in the area, as does some WoW guildies that Spouse knows. We'd never met any of these people in person, so we made time for that and I'm happy we did. Also, not having to go downtown? Priceless. XD

Cat Boarding. We boarded our new cat while we were away, and it went well! She is very adaptable, and I'm glad that they liked her. This was sort of a test run for longer vacations, and now I feel comfortable leaving her there for longer periods of time.

The Disappointing

The Pros I Didn't Meet. See: awkward potato. I did want to say hello Frank Todaro (he has a very good moustache by the way) and tell him in person how much I enjoyed his work on WFC (as Starscream and Rattrap - but Starscream specifically was great), but there was always someone at his table when I went by, and I'm an awkward potato, and I (?) didn't really want an autograph but felt bad just going and talking to him without buying something like I did to Jack, so I didn't talk to him. And David Kaye ALWAYS had a huge lineup so that was totally out.

No Toyhax? I was hoping that Toyhax would be there so I could buy some decals for the car (ones I ALMOST bought in 2019 but didn't, and I've regretted it ever since.) But they were not at the con. (I also kind of wanted some other sticker sets.) I've checked their website and I think the car decals in 2019 were being sold by someone just sharing their table but I can't remember who, so - blah. Too bad.

Travel Shenanigans. It all worked out in the end, but our trip to Toronto was a little... interesting thanks to some computer glitches with the airline. It added stress to me that I didn't need. 

Writing. Hahhahahaaa! No writing was done over the weekend. Zero words written. I was either too busy, or too tired. :/

Health Issues. I won't get into it much here, but attending the convention made me realize that I am still suffering some effects from the Covid infection I had at the end of May. I have a doctor's appointment in a few weeks so I can let her know about it, but we'll see if there's anything they can actually do. -.-;

And that was TFCon 2023! I hope I can attend again next year; this really was a great experience.

[thetreetzar]

asks 1-49

(no pressure I just thought youd enjoy answeing all of them bc I certainly do, also im genuinely curious)

Thank you!

This is a lot, so I'll put it under a cut

1. I kind of get freckles in the summer

2. I like tea and coffee. I like milk and sugar in both, but really only like coffee if it has loads of sugar.

3. Talking in Your Sleep from the FNAF movie

4. Not sure how I sleep. I seem to wiggle around. Once managed to very nicely unbury a blanket and correctly position it in my sleep

5. I sometimes will have stuffies on my bed

6. I prefer drawing silly little doodles

7. 1-3 blankets. Need a weighted blanket and then I'll have a quilt/blanket or two if it is cold

8. Favorite bands/artist are The Longest Johns, Uamee, and Hozier

9. My birthday is July 19th

10. I am 5 feet tall

11. My eyes are blue/green/grey-ish but I just say blue on my ID

12. My mutuals (especially June), My in-person friends, and Tom Scott

13. Changes in routine, not being able to live on my own, the future, <hj>the kids at my school</hj>

14. I like blue

15. I love winter and snow and the cold (I overheat too easily for other seasons)

16. I would love to have tattoos. Maybe like a trans thing on my thigh and definitely some nonsensical little guys

17. I think piercings would be fun. I have kind of thought about angel bites/fangs, industrial/helix, eyebrow, and septum. (I would not turn down those spin for a free piercing things)

18. The last person I've texted is my dad

19. My best (and longest) friend is Momo. I've known them since September 2014.

20. I miss Toys R Us, ketchup chips, and some friends I've lost touch with

21. My day has been good. I am making progress in cleaning

22. I got maybe like 6 hours of sleep last night

23. Aliens probably exist somewhere in the universe

24. I don't remember when the last time I cried was, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with my parents arguing and my brother and I being in the middle of it (my parents are restarting marriage counseling soon, don't worry)

25. I liked 2005-2010, it was nice being a little kid

26. Childish things I like include kids meals, the fun stuff made for babies, baby snacks like the puffs and Cheetos

27. I like too many books, but Louise Jenson is a great author, Because Internet was great, and I'm currently reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series

28. How am I? Absolutely terrified of graduating high school and being a Real Adult™️ 😀

29. Oh it can take forever for me to decide things. My strategy is that if it passes peer review and/or still seems like a good idea after a week or two than I should do it

30. I am looking forward to duck club on thursdays

31. I can't wait to get top surgery! (Hope to get it before 26 so I can still be on my parent's insurance)

32. If I could go anywhere, I'd go to Toys R Us/Canada and to visit my friends and mutuals

33. I sleep with the door closed because my cat Loki is not to be trusted

34. I like roses (trans flower) and sunflowers (tasty seeds)

35. I derive great serotonin from my mutuals <3

36. I like my middle name, now that I've chosen it myself

37. I love all animals

38. I don't think I have any proper phobias, just a lot of anxiety

39. It is easy for me to stay up late, however I can no longer be fine staying up late and getting up early the next day

40. I haven't really been to the beach. I prefer partly cloudy, like sunny but not hot or too warm

41. My favorite cartoon is Natural Habitat Shorts

42. Five of my favorite blogs are @one-time-i-dreamt @alltimemathhater @70snasagay @hrkrkrwpfrbrbrlablblblblwhitooap @shiftythrifting (sorry if being tagged in this annoyed anyone)

43. I have a younger brother

44. Probably my friends and mutuals are the last people I've said "I love you" to

45. I'd die for my pets, friends, and mutuals

46. I need a weighted blanket and probably also a snack when I'm sad

47. I have both my cell and landline numbers memorized

48. I feel I could trust my friends Momo and Vennie with my life

49. The last text I sent is asking where my dad parked

Thank you for the ask, and for reading this far if you have

[jodilin65]

I was reading an article about the perception of old age and how it changes depending on how old we are, and it’s so true. When you’re under 25, you see 50 years old as ancient, and when you’re my age, you see 70 years old as elderly.

I've been very tired all day. I didn't sleep well last night. I definitely don't sleep well when I don't take Benadryl. Even taking Ibuprofen helps me sleep better. I thought of taking something, but then I figured I'd be woken up by storms, so it would be pointless. I wasn't woken up today, but tomorrow I'm almost certainly going to be. This really sucks. At this time of year, I'm wondering why we moved here. I miss being out in the country with more space around me and quieter skies, free from thunder and planes. I don't mind thunderstorms at all when I'm awake, but every time I'm on nights during storm season, it's a struggle. I don't understand why my husband can sleep through thunder without a sound machine, and I can't. As tired as I am, I'm trying to get as much cleaning and other things done as I can because tomorrow is going to be worse. I wish there was a way to flip my schedule. I don't understand how one of my exes could work rotating shifts like she did.

Believe it or not, even though I don't have a normal TSH, it looks like cutting carbs and sugar may slowly cause weight loss after all. This both pleases and scares me. It would really help my health in many ways, but because of the medication, I worry about it bringing back all that anxiety. I asked Jessie how much weight she's ever lost or gained on the medication and if she's ever had to adjust her dose because of it. From everything I've gathered from her, she's never had the kind of problem on this medication that I've had and could still have if I'm not careful. I've got the perimenopause out of the equation but not the sensitivity to the medication. I'm not completely sure I'll lose weight, though. I'm more sure that I'll never gain any more in my life than that I'll lose. If I ever gained more, something would have to be wrong because I don't intend to eat more and move less.

My new g-strings are a bit big but comfortable. The adjustable tie-dye set will be good for under shorts and pants, while the other brand will be comfortable for sleeping. When I'm wearing dresses, I still prefer a full-coverage style so I don't get a wedgie from the dress every time I bend over or stand up. Perhaps that's TMI, but you know how it is—I write for me first, LOL.

I'm allergic to cats and don't care for them as pets due to their claws, jumping, and smelly litter boxes, but they are adorable. Even when they're on sheets. The new polyester sheet and pillowcases are adorable! Now let's see how long they last before they pill. I can't believe they could pill any faster than the last two sets I got, which I'm now annoyed to have wasted money on. I should have just gotten these cheaper, prettier sheets from Temu instead of the pricey ones on Amazon. They feel nicer too—they have a smoother, less wooly feel to them.

I'm not sure about my new trimmer yet. The electrolysis has thinned out the number of hairs I have and thinned the remaining hairs, but I don't think it's ever going to completely eliminate them. Maybe I just don't do it enough. I forget or get lazy at times. It's not exactly a professional-grade tool either.

I'm kind of surprised I can do video chats with Mia. I could have sworn that was a premium feature, and it even says that it is.

I found that the quickest way to finish my latch-hook rug, because it's so boring to do, is to work on it while I watch TV. I couldn't drill or color while watching TV because I would need to look away from the screen too much.

Most people don't want to know the future. They don't want to know when they're going to die, how, or what's going to happen in their future. I'm different, though. I spent 58 years not knowing most things, so it would be a nice change of pace if I could know some things. Maybe not everything, but some things. I would really like to know if we're ever going to move or not because that would affect my goals. I would be more tempted to save for certain home improvement projects if I thought we weren’t going anywhere. I can kind of see where if we saved enough, we might have options in the future, but I don't know for sure. I guess it would depend on a lot of things, like the housing market and where it was and that sort of thing.

[thegongoozlerreacts]

Welcome Home: Homewarming Update

ok so. yes i KNOW its been like several weeks already since this has been first updated and im very much late to the party (thankfully not late enough to have missed everything) but i was soooo freaking busy since the update dropped, and now i finally have the time to check it out!!!! lets GOOO!!!

spoilers under the cut

so number one thing i noticed: new link and in fact, new site domain (is that what its called?? well my point is that it's no longer being hosted by wix which yeah, that makes sense)

another thing i noticed is there are no more bug videos and doodle audio (aww)

i havent checked if the askew letter links still work but i will check now

ok just checked and nope! does not work, which means most of the secret links prior to this website change are no longer working (unsure if they'll be added back later on, but i hope they will) it's not too bothersome that they're gone, since im sure they've all been uploaded somewhere on YouTube, but it's more fun going to the actual links myself hehe

anyways! moving on to the actual update

Christmas!! or, as they call it, Homewarming

the little doodles are cute, however I am a bit suspicious of the star with its red eye (but the ham is most suspicious, what's it doing there in a tree?!?!?)

interesting placement for this tree, since it is boxing in a letter

i wonder if that means there's some new secret links? i'll take note of it

now, let's head over to the News page

he is presenting jello to me

so the post regarding the actual update is dated as December 25 2023, followed by a correction where the person says they're unsure how they made that mistake

lolol nice we got Christmas in spring

anyways, it says that there are toys, more cookbook pages, AND more vinyl records!! excited to check these out!!

let's head on over to the Merchandise page

??? CIGARETTES????

bro 😭😭 who thought it was a good idea to sell child-friendly tobacco pipes,,, thats crazy,,, also another brand mention: Hooplah cigarettes

ok so among the website changes, there's also some changes to old stuff, such as the telephone (the layout for the audio is different, and it seems Wally's audio is no longer there (not even hidden, like before)

new cookbook pages!

the first ten pages are of various hotdogs with one-sentence puns about them,, incredible

this one is my favorite LMFAOOO

DD: OH NO !!!

the crispy sweets pancakes look like they'll give me diabetes

the single pea in gelatin recipe is singlehandedly the funniest recipe i've ever seen because like,,, you made a whole gelatin, and you put just a single pea in the center of it,, just one.. LMFAOOOO

Julie's gelatin just. makes you put in a whole MUG in the gelatin?!??!?!? a mug full of hot cocoa??!? at least Frank's gelatin is edible all throughout?!?!?!

bye i saw 'Poppy Partridge' and the picture of a turkey and i was like '?? yOU COOKED HER???' but then i read the full title and it says it's a bird-free birdseed turkey LMFAO

perfect. the best recipe in this whole cookbook, im sure

there's a cigarette here?? even tho this isnt the smoking merch?? its a book??

so the book is a catalogue for toys and merch they were selling during the holidays, very cool

hELP THEY LOOK SO SILLY

what did they do to my boys 😭😭 his forehead is MASSIVE

lowkey tho i want that Julie Build-Your-Own-Game Kit cuz like wow, that is a bunch of toys in that one kit n its really cheap????

oh my god i just realized. the Marlo logo looks like a swirly eye inside a house what the hell

anywyas now its time for the radio advertisement ft. Santa himself

hmm interesting how the ad ends in glitchy noises upon saying Eddie's name, the only one who was not mentioned with a specific set unlike the others (tho that may not be that important of a detail)

next up is another storybook record! featuring Wally singing a song??!? awesoem

sorry im laughing at the absolute difference in tone and energy between the Narrator and Wally

Narrator's got a boisterous loud voice and then cut to Wally in his little low-energy voice LMFAO

Barnaby and Wally are so cute together <333

FRANK: How I would say what? JULIE: What who would the huh?

LMFAO the way Julie said her line was way too funny

FRANK: (Frank greets Wally Warmly, but is cold with Barnaby.) Hello, Wally. Barnaby. BARNABY: (Said in a similar tone mockingly.) Hiya Jewels! Frank.

Frank and Barnaby fighting is honestly one of the funniest dynamics in the whole Neighborhood to me

Julie goes into hibernation?? legit ??? nice

HELP ME WALLY JUST DEADPAN SAYING 'Shush.' TO BARNABY'S LOUD ASS VOICE LMFAOOAOA

i dont think the 'Caninus Coccinellidae' is a real bug that exists, since i tried searching it up and only got coccinellidae in general i wonder what exactly this insect is, since the word 'caninus' means it relates to canines or dogs a dog ladybug sounds like a very interesting creature

help did Howdy somehow sneak an advertisement for his store in the narrator's script 😭😭 incredible

i really like Howdy's voice, its really fitting for him

SALLY IS CLIMBING THE TREE?????

she's climbing it to stay the biggest star in town LMFAO

is she just gonna be there the whole season or something??? at least her outfit slays???

i love how dramatic Sally is but like girlie dont fall off the tree??!??!?!

oh Santa Claus mention

this talk about food is making me hungry LOL

wait did the narrator just say that all the neighborhood's been accounted for?? but what about Eddie??? he hasnt shown up??

what the hell?? what's that weird noise in the back of Wally saying 'How can that be?' is it a voice? it kinda sounds like its saying something

well this was a very cute story (still wondering where Eddie is)

after this is audio of Wally singing!! more Wally singing!! very cool

and now we've got an album of (almost) everyone else singing too!

interestingly, there's a drawing of an envelope on the audio tab thing i wonder if thats important

Sally's really good at singing actually all their singing voices are really good

SALLY: Juliette, I fell from the sky, you fell from a house... LMFAO they're so silly

next up is a track featuring Howdy's family? oooh

i cant believe his mom and dad are named 'Hiya' and 'Biya' respectively,,, amazing,, is the rest of the family gonna be named with words used for greetings and farewells??

his brother is named Latter tho oh,, Latter like 'later' like 'see ya later' because his sister and brother are named Seeya and Latter and wow,,,, amazing

also Howdy's clear favorites LMFAO

ok i kinda feel bad for Latter that Howdy likes his brother-in-law more than his own brother 😭

also?? Seeya and Beeya's kids being named Howdo and Youdo??? amazing lmao

also its interesting how on the album cover you can see how Howdy's parents and his sister have wings but theyre still caterpillars???

i think its really funny that there's just some random person there named 'Sue' who isnt even part of the family LMFAOO

also the grandma being named Sally Tations is really clever i think

Barnaby showing up at the end only adds fuel to the fire of my Barnaby x Howdy ship

and now its the tobacco pipe merch that absolutely baffles me

the ad audio features Barnaby and Howdy advertising it to Howdy's nephews,,,,, at least theyre not letting them smoke for real?????

now we got a Frank solo album where he sings a song about hibernation, cute

Even if I might not be able to see you, I know it’s for the best, I can’t keep you,

OUCH? this song is kinda sad what the fuck 😭😭 aww Frank :(((

more merchandise after this is some greeting cards for homewarming that are very cute, but not much to see other than a hibernating Julie and Barnaby and Wally being besties

after that is a crispy sweets frosted cereal, that apparently has a holiday-themed decoder ring?? with Eddie?? hmmm interesting

OH MY GOD. THE LITTLE DRAWINGS ALL OVER THE SITE ARE FOR THIS DECODER RING???

but whats the key?? is it just this as it is on the box? is there another clue on the site?

ok i think first i will finish checking all the pages before going around and looking for the symbols

checking the guestbook, and while you still cant submit anything new, it seems there also is just... no more guestbook?? thats too bad

theres new Homewarming stickers!! i love them theyre so cute!! everyone in a snowglobe doing things that we've heard them doing in the storybook audios! nice nice

nothing new in media, the 'whats welcome home' page, and the about us page (besides the Homewarming symbols)

oh actually something notable about the About Us page is that there is no longer any of the glitchy overlayed text, which makes sense since they mention in the News page that the website is free of bugs and glitches

aww everyone's homes in The Neighborhood page are all Homewarming-themed now! hmm except for Home and Eddie's post office

well, you can see a decorated Home when you enter the page but the Post Office being the only not decorated even a bit is interesting,,, Eddie also wasnt in the Homewarming Storybook Record,,, hmmmm

i dont know if it means anything but it is interesting

the staff only version of The Playfellow Exhibition is no longer on the site (or if it is i cant find it)

well it seems like i've gone through every new thing besides the secret code, which i think might be a link, since on the guestbook page there were 3 symbols that looked like a genie's lamp, which translates to 'w' so its probably a link

actually, now that im looking at it closer its probably like. a cup like the one that pours out gravy in the dinner scene in Coraline

ok im pretty sure i've got all the symbols scattered over the site, but i have NO idea what order they should be in

i, o, m, a, a, r, e, t, y, g, y, e, r, f, s, n, e, w, n, w, w, w, y

maybe instead of a link its a scrambled message?

ok i honestly have no idea where to go from here so,,, searching the internet it is !!

OK!!! since i am so incredibly late to the party, i've found the secret code on the internet kakakka

it is this https://www.awayfrompryingeyes.net

oh that makes sense,,, its a phrase that was similar to one used in the news update about Homewarming "Don’t you feel at peace exploring these pages? Free from worry? From prying eyes?"

very very interesting! lets check it out

very very interesting indeed,, ok so basically this site is gonna be an archive for the secrets from before, and all entries are signed 'W' which is very interesting too

the person writing these seem to be the creator of the site? or at least someone who manages the site

lets check out the evidence thats been archived here so far

ok so i think these evidences are actually NEW things which is cool! presumably past secrets (such as the bug videos, doodle audios, askew letters and others) will be added onto here at some point in time

now lets listen to this phone call that 'W' has gotten from Wally himself

so Wally is singing Toyland again

i wonder if there will ever come a time where we can be able to respond or communicate with Wally

he mentions that Barnaby will be here soon hmm tbh when the site first launched i had read some theories that maybe Wally was literally physically isolated from the rest of the neighborhood (something to do with the so below stuff i think?) but if Wally is being a reliable narrator (as in, he's telling the truth that Barnaby really is gonna visit him soon), then that disproves that

he seems to be left alone most of the time tho i think?? well at least now during Homewarming season since he said everyone's busy

he might not be physically isolated from the rest of the neighborhood, but he probably still feels pretty lonely :((

anyways, the next evidence is under 'commercials' i wonder what this will be

omg??? animated stuff??? thats so cool :000 an animated commercial for crispy sweets, incredible

oh! a commercial for the cookbook why is there just. a ham?? under the tree ?? i think the one single pea on a plate is the funniest gag ever

Wally's ball and cup,,,, what does it say about me that even tho its not real i still want it??? its said to be made by the 'you-wont-believe-it' company, which is interesting since im pretty sure so far the only companies noted to be involved with Welcome Home is Playfellow, Marlo, and the crispy sweet cereal so now we've got another affiliation (oh and the cigarette brand, Hooplah)

commercial for the "Homewarming Harmonies for Hearth and Home" Album, featuring a duet with Frank and Poppy!! Poppy's voice sounds really good also the Homewarming tree is made of food???

A COMMERCIAL FEATURING EDDIE ?? Eddie who has been suspiciously absent from the Homewarming festivities??

ah i see... Eddie's been working during Homewarming huh? maybe thats why the Post Office isnt decorated and he wasnt in the storybook record? cuz he was working??? no but thats weird,, Wally and Barnaby were walking around so surely they wouldve at least bumped into him delivering stuff?? maybe he was in his post office then?

an ad-break card with Frank and Sally, cute cute i remember there was a similar holiday-themed 'we'll be right back' card with Frank and Julie decorating a cake, i wonder if that will appear here?

OH?? a commercial featuring Barnaby's mom?? aww ok their dynamic is cute (even if its just a commercial for eggnog)

OMG ANOTHER ANIMATED COMMERCIAL WITH HOWDY AND BARNABY its for the cigarettes LOL

EDDIE AGAIN oH NO I FEEL SO BAD FOR HIM IS HE ALONE ON THE HOLIDAYS??? SO HE'S JUST BEEN IN THE POST OFFICE THIS WHOLE TIME BY HIMSELF???? PLEASE,,,, EDDIE GO OUTSIDE or someone like. go inside or call this man i cant take the idea of Eddie being alone wtf?!??!?!?

and now an ad-break card with Poppy and Julie

and now what i think is a continuation of the commercial for the Homewarming album

NOOOOOOOO EDDIE....... GO OUTSIDE JUST DONT WORK...... PLEASE..... someone give this man something to deliver GAH he's mad ?!??! Eddie Dear please go outside (SOMEONE TALK TO THIS MAN) he's played several games of tic-tac-toe by himself,,,, my guy,,,, go on that walk thank you

the fact that Eddie isnt in ANY of these commercials,, oh my god,,,,,,,

another continuation for the Homewarming album

Sally, Julie, and Poppy singing together,,, thats so cute,,

i cant. everyone hanging out together in these commercials with no Eddie in sight i feel so bad

FRANK AND SALLY FIGHTING?!??!

is this a commercial for sleeping pills????? im ??? this show is so so crazy like ?? the in-universe show i mean,, cuz what?? they got so many merchandise and records and a bunch of brand deals and its all just been wiped?!??!?! like ?? what happened???

oh no time to dwell on that we got Sally and Eddie lets go he's getting some social interaction

lets go he has a happy ending he's at the party !!!

ok i read ahead in the transcript and oh no im afraid now ?? Eddie?? hello?? Eddie are you ok?? i dont think this man is ok he needs help oh my god what is this

im scared LOL this was not a good idea to do at 3 am im really unnerved right now but mostly i think this guy needs help someone please help him

something about reality is shattering for him i think??? maybe ?? its the way the video is going back and forth between live-action scenes and a drawing of Eddie's face (and Home's eyes)

jesus that was a jumpscare with Frank's voice coming in out of the silence

ah its still all glitchy and distorted i dont know what's the correct term for what Eddie is experiencing but he is NOT having a good time

FRANK SWITCHING FROM CALLING HIM 'MR. DEAR' TO 'EDDIE' HAS ME ILL being in Eddie's perspective with static in the ears while he's looking down is so. i dont know how to explain it but its uncomfortable and unnerving (which is probably what he's feeling)

the fact that he only looks up after Frank probably shook his shoulders or something to get his attention ughdjskdhfkjdssjkjkew (cuz his arms are outstretched when the camera pans up to look at his face/when Eddie looks up at Frank)

bro that was a jumpscare with the narrator after like,, that whole segment i guess

so rewatching that last bit when Eddie seems to be like. present enough to respond/say something or be aware of whats going on i guess, the screen gets less glitchy and distorted and thats like a nice detail

so thats why Eddie’s been kinda just,, missing from the Homewarming on the actual site

i hope Eddie turns out ok :(((( PLEASE THIS STORY NEEDS TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING OR I WILL CRY SO HARD THAT I WILL TRANSFORM INTO AN OYSTER

interestingly W’s note after the compiled commercials says that “the show never appeared beyond clips of Eddie Dear”

so all those segments with Eddie were, i guess, the ‘holiday special’ that the commercials were interrupting and all

thats so so crazy,, im so late to the party but i honestly dont even know where to begin with all of that but like. im rooting for you Eddie !!!!!

well thats it for now, until the next update! make sure to wave up high, neighbors

[grapecaseschoices]

hullo! can I ask for 2, 13 & 25 for Alana, Ori and Pierre 👀💜

2) What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

Alana: That she loves drama. She loves the Tea. She isn't as heinous about it as Hiyam. But she is lowkey nosey and very curious. So she's always like 'peep this 👀👀👀' to herself.

Ori: How low his self esteem is / can get. Like he can be self depreciating at times and always makes the jokes, so some people might figure it out but I think it may be hard to miss with how he's so easy going and friendly.

Pierre: He can be quite mischievous. He likes to tease and doesn't mind puns. He pokes a little with a small smirk. Its not all straight laced wide eyed emojiness.

13) If you met your OC, would the two of you get along?

Alana: I think we would be friendly. I think she is too nice and gentle for me. I think we are also both so introverted [at times] that it might not get deep. But I think so.

Ori: I feel I answered this. But I think so. I feel he might be TOO hype for me but he's a bean. And Ori gets along with most people -- except for his parents and Blake, so. I'm good.

Pierre: No. He's a cop.

25) What is your favorite thing about your OC?

Alana: I think her poise and how she tries to hold onto it even when she is flustered or overwhelmed. She is very polite and the fact that she's naturally sweet adds a hint of sincerity to that where it could come off cold.

Ori: He is naive. Sjsnjdg In a sense. He is just so determined to see the bright side and approach things with good humor. He's also just a cuddly bear.

Pierre: He is so structured. And very rarely does he let his emotions get in the way of that... but not in a cold way. He still manages to hold onto optimism and concern while being very practical.

[an-asuryampasya]

[imitates unholy shrieks for exactly 3.4 seconds]

(this is me rambling into the void)

aaaaaah I hate pre-college blues so much. I'm used to feeling them whenever I had to leave home for insti back during my undergrad - and that was when I had to go back to a campus I already loved.

This time there's spicy new flavours to these blues - it's a new city, my accommodation situation isn't sorted yet, I'm desperately hoping I haven't made a mistake in putting fight to switch to this field, and the campus is fucking tiny. Mostly though, it's the city that's getting to me. I'm not the biggest fan of big cities because of the weird way they make me feel. And this city in particular is so cold and the nights are so dark and the streets are notoriously unsafe - and the current wet, sloshy weather is doing nothing to bolster my confidence. I'm just feeling so bleak about this whole affair. And it's just. Disheartening. No matter how much I cribbed about engg, I can't deny that life on campus made up for it. I mean, I loved living here SO much. Honestly made the four years of engg + two nightmarish years of inter before it worth it. Insti was just, everything. Now that I'm outta there, I'm absolutely going to be romanticizing the fuck out of it, even more than I did when I was *living* there.

Here though? It's a very niche field so the institute is understandably tiny. And I fucking hate the city already, despite being here barely a week cumulative so far. The course I'm apprehensive about, because it's so niche. I'm scared I'll live to regret it. At least with my undergrad I had the confidence that switching out of the engg field is relatively very easy. This though? So specialised my career will be exclusively tied to the heritage/museum sector. I don't know if I really understand what I'm signing up for?

And this place is so expensive. It's insane. It makes me feel so stupidly guilty despite the fact that my parents are fine with my purchases since I'm just buying stuff I'll *need*.

Also ambiguity. I never deal well with ambiguity and right now everything about my accomodation is still up in the air.

I just want to curl up and cry except the food here is all so heavy that curling up too tight will probably make me throw up.

also also: hindi numbers??? are so stupid??? I'm sure they'll make more sense to a Hindi-speaker but my English-y/Telugu-y wired brain hates them. Both Telugu and English have a pretty standardized way of dealing with numbers: if you need to 21, it's the word for 'twenty' followed by the word for 'one'. Very nice system, holds well no matter how long the number gets. Hindi, the diva that it is, can't keep it simple, can it? First, there's a bunch of numbers getting new words that don't follow any system and need to be learnt by heart, like 150 and 25. Then there's the general rule for double digits, in which it's the unit's digit followed by the ten's digit (so 21 will be read as 1-20, not 20-1). But then three digits go back to the usual policy of hundred's digit being first, so 321 will be read as 300-1-20. Assuming, of course, it's not a special little number like 250 which is "two and a half hundred", for some reason. Also "two and a half" isn't said that way, it's given a brand new name. But three and a half is called "three and a half" with no special name.

fucking die, Hindi.

hmm. turns out Hindi bashing makes me feel better.

....unsurprising, tbh. I think this city will actually manage to make me miss Telugu once my parents leave. Because at least back in insti English was the lingua franca, even if Hindi was super common. Also it was a top engg college so, y'know, couldn't have avoided having at least a few Telugu classmates if I tried.

Here though, not the case. It's also likely that my peers and profs will prefer dipping liberally into Hindi along with English and unlike insti, I don't think I can necessarily count on them confirming first that Hindi works for all. I can deal with Hindi in classes, but it's the shift from asking if it's alright to assuming it's alright that will be :[

also. I wonder if I'll ever call this new institute 'insti'. I don't think so? I feel like insti is a name that should be reserved for places like my undergrad campus and ilk. This tiny institute /can't/ take the place of insti. Sacrilege.

Insti my beloved <3

(yes, I can be weirdly attached to reliving my undergrad days because I barely graduated a month ago, shush)

okay time for me to abruptly stop here and hit the sack because I am thoroughly sleep deprived and that probably isn't helping my bleak outlook.

[aquilaaktuk]

-- Not proofread. I wrote this in a fit of rage while also being extremely ill. If I said something stupid or something that doesn't make sense lmk and I'll clarify.

I always knew that Helluva Boss would have a lot of morally reprehensible actions from the main cast featured in it, after all, it's set in hell. Also, you can show something in your series, and so long as it's shown to be a bad thing, then it's okay, because you're not actively glorifying the bad thing.

So imagine my surprise when the first episode of season two of Helluva Boss comes out and it not only romanticises slavery, but also makes Stolas look like a good person who hasn't done anything wrong besides neglect his daughter but it's okay now they made up.

The slavery thing is definitely the worst, I mean it was not addressed at ALL. Paimon literally buys Blitzø for the day and the show makes it look all good and fun, with the kids running around having a grand old time. It doesn't even come up later that Blitzø was forced to take away from his own enjoyment to literally steal from royalty for his father.

By the way I used to really like Stolas. I thought he was really fun to watch, if a bit cringeworthy at times, but that's the point right. He hadn't seen Blitzø since they were actual children, then when he suddenly appears at a party Stolas is in some 25 years later, Stolas' first thought isn't "oh my god! An old friend! How has life treated you?!". Stolas' first thought is "oh you turned up because you want to fuck me".

"but he was drunk!!!" Well, for one, alcohol sets in fast, but not THAT fast. Also being drunk doesn't equate to being horny. Most people aren't horny drunks.

Okay let's assume its magical hell alcohol and stolas being a magical hell bird can absorb it instantly and is now drunk. That doesn't make his reaction okay. Nor does it give the show any excuse to make it look like anything other than horrifying.

Blitzø is there to steal Stolas' book. Blitzø does not want to fuck stolas. Blitzø could not care less about stolas. He just wants his book. Stolas' misses Blitzø terribly. Stolas' is obviously drunk. Blitzø knows this, and still just really wants the book. Blitzø entertains stolas because he just needs to keep him busy enough to not realise he is stealing his book. Blitzø successfully steals the book and can leave RIGHT NOW. Stolas' says something that makes Blitzø feel bad and decide to TURN AROUND even though he is VERY CLOSE to achieving what he set out to do, and fuck a guy he has not seen nor cared about for the better part of 25 years because he FELT BAD. There's a word for what is happening, and we all know it.

First, Stolas is drunk, Blitzø is sober, Blitzø can definitely consent, whereas Stolas cannot. Second, Blitzø doesn't want to fuck Stolas, but Stolas, in his drunken stupor, says something that makes Blitzø feel bad and fuck him so he doesn't feel guilty anymore.

I'm not the authority on the topic, but I'm of the mind that Blitzø, however reluctantly, took advantage of Stolas. It was VERY obvious that the guy was drunk, and that Blitzø only actually did it to calm his own feelings of guilt. Some guy you knew 25 years ago drunkenly telling you how nice it is to finally be able to so intimately know his only friend is NOT consent. And I am disgusted at how many fans are saying it's cute and awkward or cringey, and that despite all this we CONTINUE to see people genuinely enjoy the Stolitz ship. I used to like it too! NOT ANYMORE.

Alright this is a lot more fickle than everything above but it pissed me off the same.

Let's ignore the shitty musical number, if you want a character half-crying-half-singing listen to Frustration Tears from Centaurworld, that's far superior.

Nein, I want to focus on the shows insistence on villainising Stella. Is she completely innocent? No! She hired a hitman on her husband! That's not something good people do! Obviously! However. We need to consider her side of the arrangement, since the show obviously fails to do so. For the following exercise we will be ignoring the latter half of this new episode where Stella tries to physically abuse Stolas. I have a reason for this, and I'll get to it later.

Stolas isn't happy about the marriage arrangement, and we can assume Stella isn't either. They're both obviously very different types of people, with Stolas being much more introverted and has simple pleasures. Spending time with his daughter, bad latin-american soap operas, academia (presumably). Stella is much more extroverted and all about appearances, which isn't inherently bad. She likes hosting lavish parties and gossiping with friends and something we can all agree on is that she values reputation. Her own AND that of her family. Which again, isn't an inherently bad thing. If someone has a bad reputation it's probably for good reason.

So knowing all this, how do you think Stella would react knowing that her husband (who she didn't even really agree to marry, again, she's a victim of this arranged marriage too, as much as the show likes to gloss over that fact) who is married to her, and of high status, not only CHEATED on her, but cheated on her with the lowest ranking type of demon in hell. Is it classist as hell? YES. Are classist main characters common in HB? ALSO YES. If we want to make Stella look like a bad person because of her classism then we need to do the same about Blitzø.

Anyway, if knowledge that Stolas, a member of the Goesha family, who is MARRIED and has a DAUGHTER, CHEATED on his wife with an imp, it would DECIMATE not just his reputation, but also Stella's, Octavia's, AND the rest of their family's. Stella is NOT in the wrong for wanting to try and protect her and her family's reputation and then getting angry at Stolas when he does it WHILE her friends are over. She's also not in the wrong for being bitter about being in an arranged marriage. Is saying horrible things about a husband you were forced to marry that you really don't want much to do with (and the feeling is mutual) to your friends bad? Yes. Obviously. She's horrible for that. Stolas isn't any better for ruining one of the things that Stella values most, and being consciously aware of it.

And here's the thing. I really truly personally believe that if Stolas was willing to communicate that he wanted to see other people to Stella, she might've let him. The big problem in their relationship is communication. They do not fucking talk. If Stella was that disappointed with Stolas' performance in bed she should have told him and they could have worked something out. She did not choose to need to sleep with this guy, she could have acknowledged it and they could have spoken and found a way to make it more enjoyable for them both. Stolas is no better. If he was that miserable in his relationship, then he could have just TOLD Stella that he wanted to see someone discretely on the side, and she might've been okay with that so long as it was kept extremely private so as to not get out. She might've even been relieved! Because then he'd be out more and she could spend more time with her friends who she obviously massively prefers.

They're not good people at all, and they actively brought out the worst in each other during their marriage and all of it could've easily been rectified if they were just willing to talk and the shows absolute insistence that Stella is the villain and evil is absolutely disheartening to me. Because she's also a victim of this arranged marriage. Nobody ENJOYS being that unhappy. She isn't staying in because she likes disappointing sex and a husband who won't stand up for himself. She's staying in because leaving would shatter her and her family's reputation and she is willing to endure the discomfort if it means everyone else sees them in a positive light.

And now I get back to Stella trying to hit Stolas. I think this is SO hilariously shallow of the crew to put in, and quite literally ONLY exists to make Stella look like the villain in the story. She hired a hitman on Blitzø, we didn't need to personal touch of actually trying to hurt him personally. It's extremely out of character for her. If she wanted to backhand Stolas, she would hire someone to do it for her. Because if the knowledge got out that she actively hit Stolas, then her reputation would be in tatters. If she hired someone to do it, then just about anyone else with money could be blamed. YES she is bad for hiring Striker, but forcing her to hit Stolas for... Dramatic effect? just to make her look like the villain is the worst thing they could've done to her character. She deserved so much better. Not as a person, but as a character. The writers here have absolutely NOT done her justice.

Am I still a massive fan of HB? Kind of yeah. I will still be watching all the new episodes as they come out because I still thinks it's a decent show despite its uh... Flaws. I'm just very disappointed with how this new season is starting. Hopefully the following episodes will be far superior, because this has got to be the single worse episode of HB to date.

[literallyshiv]

what r ur main character age hcs 👀! by main i mean your regular hcs

HEEHEE i was already halfway through a draft of this when i got this message get ready for a really long answer. for clarity's sake, all birth years are based on the succesion universe starting in fall 2018 and ending up in summer 2019 at the end of season three

starting with what we know for certain: kendall is 40 (born in spring 1979) and logan is 80 (b. 1938), making logan 40 when kendall was born.

with roman and shiv, i was a youngest sibling roman truther until i found out that the writers actually have shiv as the youngest (and also specifically said in the pilot script that roman is 38 lol), SO, the closest i can get to remedy this making them irish twins, roman age 37 (october 1981) and shiv age 36 (september 1982). they would have been in the same grade of school throughout their childhood.

connor is a little bit harder because of alan ruck's age, and while characters and actors don't have to be the same age, i absolutely cannot see him playing any younger than mid fifties. i like to put a definitive number on things though, so I'll say 55 (b. 1963), so that would make logan 25 when connor was born and i could see logan following the traditional route for when he was raised to marry and start a family early on in life. plus it makes connor about eighteen years older than shiv and roman, which i think works out nicely for him to have gone off to college just as shiv and roman were born and graduate just in time to come back into their lives when they are just old enough to have conscious memories and play a significant part in raising them

where this REALLY gets fun for me is to take ewan and marianne into account, because i think it's very fun to imagine that marianne and connor were close throughout their childhood. so what we know about logan and ewan's youth is that ewan is the older brother, and at some point he enlisted in the military during the vietnam war, according to logan, with the motivation to impress some girl. SO. i think that it easily could check out that ewan saw his younger brother get married and have a child before he did, felt extra motivation to commit to a partner himself, and enlist in the military while he was with the woman who would be marianne's mother.

im making this up wholecloth at this point, but i like the idea of him being with his girlfriend/wife while still serving in the war but occasionally coming home, and she becomes pregnant while he's still active, so she relies a lot on logan's family to help with her responsibilities on top of raising a child while ewan is away. this also provides a really good basis for the rift between logan and ewan because his entire motivation for enlisting in the first place would have been with the end goal of starting his own family, and then he misses out on a significant amount of that because he's on duty while his wife and child are in canada meanwhile logan IS there while ewan's child is growing up. and just for extra pizazz, lets say ewan was still active when logan starts waystar (we know that logan has been ceo of waystar for 50 years, making him 30 when it he started the company) and throw in one more year of active duty for logan to get the business off the ground to really rub salt in the wound.

to sort out the years: 1963 connor is born, 1964 ewan enlists, 1965 ewan gets married and they become pregnant, 1966 marianne is born, 1968 waystar is formally started, and 1969 ewan finishes his time in the military. SO: when ewan returns to canada to stay this time, he missed the first three years of his child growing up, his wife and daughter have spent the majority of the time with logan's family, and on top of it all logan has started a burgeoning business. that'd be a strong basis for ewan to harbor some bitterness for logan i think, even if their actual falling out doesnt occur for several more years, possibly decades, after all of that goes down.

ALRIGHT. MOVING ON. in the pilot script, we get the following ages: greg early 20s, shiv late 20s, tom late 30s. obviously i don't think these are accurate to what the character ended up being, but i do think the age gaps remained relatively the same, with each of them being just under a decade older. i already said i put shiv at 36, and i like to stick with ten years between her and tom, so i have him at 46 turning 47 soon (b. 1972)

with greg i like to imagine he specifically hasn't hit 30 yet mostly because i think it's funny to imagine the ordeal of his actual thirtieth birthday happening. i also already said i have marianne born in 1966 and i imagine she and greg's dad weren't initially together for very long given the whole "he's gay" thing, (timeline-wise it would also check out if his motivation for being with her was the homophobia towards young gay men in the late 80s early 90s), but then she gets pregnant and he feels some commitment to not just abandon her (and, personally, I don't think he ever straight up abandoned her and greg. they probably had a somewhat painful seperation given how greg never mentions him throughout the series but he does mention his mother, but i don't think he was some deadbeat or that he left to 'go to the store' and never came back. again— im entirely making this up lol this is just the version of events that exist in my mind) SO all that said, i think greg turned 28 sometime over the course of the series so far, putting his birthday in late 1990 or early 1991, making marianne 25 when she had him.

AND FINALLY. honorable mention to willa who we have no context for her age whatsoever other than the actress's age. i have her at 31 (b. 1987)— i think she's at the age where she's starting to think about the long term sustainability of escorting for her personally (whether she'll be able to continue making as much money as she does now), which makes the idea of committing to be exclusive with connor much more appealing in spite of the fact that she doesn't seem too excited about the prospect of doing so in season one

[grantiskeith]

The Garden Path to Hell (William x reader) Pt1

Words: 1.4k

"Here's a pipe for you sir Price is 5 and 2 sir Can you see the garden, It's just a lovely garden I'll take you there, I know the path so well. To hell" -Garden Path to Hell, Mystery of Edwin Drood I was one year in. I had my 25 acres of part woods, part hedge garden for one year now and it finally had started to take shape. French style hedges lined the paths, rose bushes and hydrangeas created a beautiful garden. Complete with one greenhouse. Only working on the weekends made this project take forever but by August, it looked great. I had saved for this property and had worked hard at work to finance it. However, it could look better. Someone had dropped $15,000 into the donation box, and I just couldn't take that money. I pulled a clover out from the center of the gravel path heading back to the greenhouse and my car. The sun had just disappeared from the horizon. My gravel paths were lined with lights creating a beautiful nighttime display of plants in the dark. A sight I thought I was enjoying alone. My heart started beating in my head, was that a person walking toward me or just a shadow? "Hello?" I asked, potentially to the figure in my imagination. "Good Evening" a soft voice spoke back to me. In this part of the country, you don't tress pass on someone's property unless you're prepared to get shot. Tonight, I was more scared of him. "Hi! Can I help you?" I replied in the costumer service voice you typically use when someone has a gun. "I apologize for intruding on your land at such a late hour" his voice was so smooth but jarringly German. He walked a bit closed and I took a few steps back. "Oh I appear to have frightened you, please forgive me." "Is there something you're here for?" I tried to sound firm but my voice was shaking. I took a deep breath. "I figured we should finally meet. This land, which you have purchased a year ago yes? Boarders my own land. There to the east." "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!" I said, relaxing a bit more, "you're the neighbor I haven't met yet. The lot with 550 acres of wood land?" "Yes that is mine, a beautiful land which I share with my family, along with a few other properties in the area" "It's nice to meet you" I held out my hand for a shake. "William Solaire" he took my hand in his and gently kissed the top of it, "It's a pleasure and an honor to meet the creator of this beautiful garden." "Oh" I stuttered. I felt my face get red and all the blood in my body rushed. It was so flattering that I almost ignored how cold and heavy his hand felt. "Thank you, it's been a passion project of mind this summer." "I would be honored if an artist as skilled as yourself would allow me to walk the paths with you." He almost seemed to bow in his posture. "I would love to" He crooked his arm, offering me his elbow. Stranger danger, personal safety, and instinct all seemed to melt away in a second. My breath had caught up to me and I just couldn't think of a reason not to take his arm. My hand gently curled around his bicep in a very old fashioned style. "You clearly have an eye for hedge gardens, the precision in the landscaping rivals the traditional Gardens of Versailles" he said leading me down the path were the flower garden ends and the knee high hedge began. "You flatter me, Mr. Solaire please. I know full well the many flaws. I should ask you, are you the secret donor? Someone left a sizeable amount of money for my land, and I do believe it was you" I turned to look at him. "Ah, you have caught me. I wanted to see it invested in a worthy project such as this" "Mr. Solaire, I cannot in good faith accept that amount of money as a gift. And being in the poessaion of that money, I am unable to morally spend it on a private garden." I let go of his arm but I continued to walk next to him. "It is a gift for you, please use it as you please." his voice was so insistent but still calm. He gave me a smile. It looked so genuine but there was something missing from his eyes. "You and me are to be friends I hope, please call me William." "I think what I please, William, is to return

the money to you." "If you insist, I understand. But may I suggest one thought" he smiled and notioned around to the garden, "I would like to make an investment in you, consider it a downpayment for you to expand the grandiose of your land. Maybe even surpass the gardens of Versailles" he laughed. "Well, I did want to add a few statues and possibly a water feature." I thought to myself. He offered his elbow again. We walked a few more steps together in silence. He guided me around the labyrinth of landscaping I had dedicated my weekends to. "Tell me, how did you come to aquire your acres?" He broke the silence. "I'll speak honestly, as you likely know this land has been vacant for some time so it was quite cheap" I thought for a second. "Maybe you could tell me why, the agent almost begged me to buy it" "Really?" William nodded "I started receiving letters from people in the near by town warning me about this land. Some people even told me it was haunted and that's why no one ever bought it. I believe that is ridiculous, the only thing that goes bump in the night are the raccoons I catch in my compost" That earned a very German laugh from William. "I was told stories of people who bought this land and were never seen again. There's no house because entire construction crews would disappear overnight. Can you believe that?" "I have heard the rumors as well. These woods do hide dangers but none of the magnitue the towns people share with you" William's smirk was lit up by the light poles above him. "That being said, I came to meet you with a specific task in mind." My heart starting pounding again, suddenly remembering his position as a stranger. "I came to warn you and prevent any of those dreadful rumors from coming true. There are wild animals that cross my land onto yours occasionally, wolves, coyotes, even a few people. You should not be alone at night and you should not trust anyone you see on your land. I am grateful you trusted me long enough to share this with you." My face was red and flustered. Is this a threat? Is this an attempt to have me sell my land? Was the money a bribe? "I would like to give you my personal cellular number. If you ever see anyone on... I deeply apologize, I had no intention on scaring or upsetting you" he spoke very quietly, almost so I had to listen closely. "I have taken care of this property for a year, on my own for a year. Forgive my free speech, but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I am not sure where you have been and why we have not met but I have not needed any protection this entire time." He stopped for a moment, clearly unsure of what to say. He turned around and admired a rose on a bush. A sign of vulnerability. He turned around again. "I do not for a moment doubt your capabilities, forgive my Faux Pas if I implied as such. I am simply offering a criminally belated hand in friendship." He reached into his breast pocket and handed me a simple black and white business card. "Please call me if you see anything on your land without your permission. I would like to see you last far longer on this land than the previous owner." I took it and slipped it in my pocket. I took a breath, "thank you" I told him. "I have enjoyed our walk but it is very late and I need to be returning to my car" "Let me walk you back down this lovely garden path. It's such a lovely garden." The crickets and cicadas sung loud into the night while I spent a few more minutes with a new friend.

[mowu-moment]

i feel controversial & i care too much, so here's my des rocs complete tierlist

ranked list & reasoning (ish) under the cut

1. WAYNE: hoholy shit wayne. can hardly put into words how explosive this one is to me. the intro sets a Whole Mood before swiftly (& cleanly) smacking it down into an Absolute Banger and i don't use the term lightly. very hard not to scream along with it. only detriment is that wayne the person is kinda an ass in the mmc video but that's no qualm

2. POS: basically the same thing as wayne (oh both have great lyrics btw, this one more so), only gets points knocked for being 2 minutes long and having 30 seconds of that being intro & outro. go danny give us nothing

3. WHY WHY WHY: there's a theme among my top picks--they're all hard-hitting w/ killer guitar. the lyrics are absolute batshit in a good way, but the chorus is a lil flat & i feel like in general it just needed a touch more spice to score the top spot. or maybe it's just seniority & it'll have a coup a few months out idk

4. DEAD RINGER: similar killer guitar & lyrics but this one is Groovy as Hell. don't particularly like his singing in this one & it's too repetitive if i'm feeling grumpy but there's something so magic about after the bridge. top 10 songs to twirl a flag to

5. NOTHING PERSONAL: the minute long outro irks me & it's a little bit empty but plays into that well. groovy, great lyrics, the Sexiest Guitar Solo of the lot, the screaming's a minus but it does have an emotion there. not entirely sure what one but it's there.

6. LET ME LIVE / LET ME DIE: his first time being all over the goddamn place, history was made. amazing guitar, a little worse lyrics than 1-4 i'll admit, the intro Slays me both in a good and bad way. must be a joy to play live where he can just drag out that intro & bridge as long as feels right. at least i liked it in the digital concert like that. would actually kill me in a physical concert, imagine how much stomping gets going to that beat. bonus points for presumable cowbell

7. PIECES: for once not this high for the guitar & lyrics, they're both kinda basic. idk what's about this one but it just takes me to a separate dimension & i love it so much for that. really fills those earholes. also a bit of personal meaning, heard it for the first time on the day we moved into the house i'm currently split-custody-living in (is that tmi?) & the first music video of his i saw. man i love some spaghetti on the wall

8. SLO: basically the same as dead ringer, but knocked points for a kinda lame outro & the subject matter being a little less interesting to me. still lovely.

9. HANGING BY A THREAD: not my normal fare really & the way that the ends of the verses don't really fit in the pacing of them is bleh, but it's just so reminiscent of the songs my brother puts on whenever we hang out together that it just makes me all warm & fuzzy. it's also nicely put together which is something i'll have to start saying for. the later list.

10. SUICIDE ROMANTICS: this is where i start griping about head voice & higher pitches in general. don't like em so the pre-chorus is a lil annoying. also not my normal fare but it's tender & the ending is awe-striking. imo better live where he's loud on that last line before the final chorus. not enough to bump it up though. shoutouts to love and a smoking gun, i still am dying to hear that one

11. THE PAST HAS PASSED AWAY: my favorite lyrics out of the first 2 ep's. only thing wrong with it really is the bridge getting kinda repetitive. love that last chorus heehoo. same schpeel as the Banger Category

12. MMC: this one's lower than the rest of the Bangers for being pop punk which is something the radio has made me dislike, i guess. that trope with the guitar in the second half of the chorus just kills me so much. improves greatly during & after the bridge, love that lil ragtime piano. generally the same bit as before but i do love him doing something un-romance-related. yeah fuck the establishment!

13. THE DEVIL INSIDE: reminds me A Lot of the electronic-ish cassettes i've got from the early 90's but that's just me. this one will probably move up as i get more used to it, but only a little bit. the first part of the second verse makes me like. genuinely uncomfy? but the second part of it's fantastic. ending's ass though what happened to the instrumence. bonus points for using 'reverie' that's an SAT word (maybe). good singing but returning to the gripe at higher pitches, just a little bit though

14. THIS IS OUR LIFE: feels shockingly generic for a des rocs song tbh but there's nothing really wrong with that. adore the bridge. singing's alright. kinda miffed that he doesn't pronounce the 'f' in the second 'life' in the chorus, but it makes sense here. that sort of thing won't later so i'm bringing it up now. guitar's nothing spectacular but fits nicely into the song, probably one of the most cohesive of his (especially in recent history).

15. OUTTA MY MIND: really lives in the same space as slo and dead ringer do in my head (most likely the 'songs to twirl a flag to' zone), but this is by far the worst of the three for when i'm grumpy. just. Very repetitive. back to great lyrics here but it's kinda hard to pick them out (i've heard the song at least 100 times by now & i'm still missing a few lines). still groovin'

16. RUBY WITH THE SHARPEST LIES: what the fuck actually goes on in this song by the way? not the premise or whatever it's just. so all over the place. the verses are incredible but bringing in another vocalist just for one line kills me. bridge is really cool but that one part i don't remember where it is, the one that alternates basically nothing & an Electronic Piano Chord blaring at ya? ruins it. partially anyhow. also can someone tell the people on genius that it's 'carved it in my skin' not 'crawled down in my skin'

17. GIVE ME THE NIGHT: same repetitive issue as outta my mind but it's not groovy enough to save it, shame. feels like a trial run of all the wackshit stuff he's been doing recently, with the additional vocal bits at the end & the kinda weird lyrics. it still has a place in my heart don't get me wrong but it's just fallen in favor of stuff that Commits to banger or batshit (or actually pulls off both strongly, yyy). oh yeah nice guitar alright singing etc etc

18. USED TO THE DARKNESS: similar story to give me the night. i love it i do, but it's just lackluster nowadays. also remember that under-pronunciation thing i brought up in this is our life? this is where that comes back. rampant i tell you! that second verse he just doesn't finish the words & i hate it!

19. DON'T HURT ME: i honestly don't know why this one isn't in D. the chorus bit where he just cuts it short is irksome. the lyrics aren't anything special. i don't know what i like about it. but i can tell it does exactly what it set out to do if that makes sense. respect, respect. and using missile in an analogy, he's getting creative with the vocab

20. LIVING PROOF: kinda got a vendetta against this one i think? i don't know why i hate this one but i do. it's just kinda, blah. like the perfect sort of thing to nightcore up. sentiment's lovely & i do love the lyrics even if they aren't impressive but like. it bores me to an extent

21. TICK (LIVE): separating the version i heard in the digital concert just to give it some credit, this one was actually kinda nice. another one with a nice sentiment & what he was going for is great. no clue what the second part of the second verse has to do with any of this though. and it also begins our final group, the songs that just feel empty. like there's not nearly enough going on. this one's alright though i was just hoping the studio version would add some flair. you can see where that one is though.

22. IMAGINARY FRIENDS: also got a vendetta against pop. kinda hate the sentiment here (contrast!), the chorus just falls short of what the verses prime me for, head voice is rampant, and yet i still swing along to it. it's infectious props to him. love the outro though, monkey laugh and all.

23. MAYBE, I: another empty one, like it's a four-note progression what is that. love his singing in it, and the chorus parts do round it out, but like. eh? it doesn't even give me much to say.

24. BORN TO LOSE: another flop on the chorus! too smooth i say! and i absolutely Despise the pitch-shifting thing going on. not something i was expecting him to express so points there, lyrics are nothing fancy to my Literary Mind though. initially good singing but the chorus he's just sloppy over it. the instrumental is lovely but the vocals just throw it so hard into the bin which is a right shame. fuck that outro too i hate that gimmick

25. I KNOW: here's where the bad batshit comes in. singing is some of his worst imo, does the other-vocalist thing for that bridge, genre i'm not fond of, just a soup of Stuff I Don't Like. not one i'd kill someone over putting as #1 like i can see where it comes from but. mmmmmhhhh bad. cover does NOT help his case.

26. HVY MTL DRMR: empirically i should put this one higher. but the chorus flops so goddamn hard it deserves to be in the bottom of the barrel. the verses are lovely for what he was doing back then! but then just... nothing!

27. RABBIT HOLE: i was so excited for this name but it's just sad boi hours playlist curated by some corporation you hate. probably the most nothing of them all, genuinely where are the instruments. what happened. was this one just shoehorned in as the final track just to pump numbers up. and i swear he had some autotune or something which only makes his voice worse it's fantastic naturally. also that's not what a rabbit hole is! that's not the idiom! a rabbit hole is when you go on a wikipedia spiral from jennifer lopez to group theory! not when you just have a shitty night's sleep or whatever this is! i'm not just miffed i'm downright annoyed

28. TICK (STUDIO): what the fuck happened des. how did you release this. it sounds like a 3rd grader singing for the school talent show it's so out of rhythm. singing's honestly kinda bad & the instrumental has the same problems i talked about in the live version. the last chorus is fine, i guess, but no i don't forgive him for what he did to tick.

[casmybelovedass]

The Destiel Folder: Season 10

[Season 4; Season 5; Season 6; Season 7; Season 8; Season 9]

Episode 1:

Cas is slowly dying, practically naked, in a bed, and the first thing he says when talking about Dean is "I miss him" (6:35), with a soft smile. "Why would he just disappear?"

... I'm sorry but If Cas Were A Woman, this would look like a scene from a movie or something, where the wife talks to a friend over the phone about her missing husband. JUST SAYING

Crowley: "The girl seemed nice. Slightly damaged. I could see the old you falling for that." (9:29) uhm... who else is "nice and slightly" damaged? I don't know... CASTIEL??!!!

So... these two men (actors Todd Mann and Brad Mann) we see with the DemonGang, are real life twins (9:14).

At (27:18), Crowley states him and Dean did "extroardinary things to triplets" ... and, well, the only twins with a possible other sibling we see are... them

And this is not the first time we hear about Dean doing "things to triplets" with a buddy of his (15x07)... and the first time he was NOT a demon... so, there's that. And triplets don't necessarily mean "all females"

Cas, while talking about the good things that come with choices, mentions "hope, love, dreams" (39:06), and Hannah points out that "those are human things". Human things...

Cas is talking about his own personal experiences with creating chaos, so those are the things he felt after rebelling for... Dean... WOW. ICWAW, it would totally be read it as a reference to Dean. A romantic one. Fight me

Episode 2:

Cas is dying, just got back from a fight that left him wounded, doesn't have enough power to heal himself, is on a mission to restore Heaven, and once again he chooses to go save Dean (9:35), and the way rage builds in his eyes when learning Dean has become a demon. Look at this shit

I might be crazy, but this feels like a touching metaphor to me:

"I think you don't know what you want. Tell me, Dean. What are you? A demon? [...] Maybe you're human. [...] Why don't you do us all a great, big favor... and pick a bloody side!" (22:22)

METAPHOR

Episode 3:

We are reminded that, even tho in terrible conditions, on the verge of death, Cas is willing to risk it all to save Dean, and is devastated by the thought of Dean not making it (4:47 - 5:17)

This is so funny to me, I'm sorry, but Cas is so visibly uncomfortable with Hannah touching him, it's hilarious (15:58)

"I've been around humans for long enough to see how easily distractions occur. Emotions, feelings... They're dangerous temptations." (22:32) like rebelling against your own kind, destroying your home, falling... all for a human?

"I'm trying to keep our priorities clear." Moments earlier, Cas listed "Getting to Dean" (22:17) before anything else. In fact, Hannah says "I am very clear of my priorities... and yours." = Dean (23:00)

Cas is not sure whether the cure will kill Dean or not, and in any case, he wraps his arms around him, and softly says "It's over... Dean it's over." (35:40) as if hushing him to sleep, in what could have been their last moments together... wow. Think about this ICWAW

"Well, I can see his point. Only humans can feel real joy, but... also such profound pain. This is easier." (36:17) Look at the way Sam is looking at Cas looking at Dean

BITCH OKAY!!

SAM KNOWS

POSSIBILE future Empty reference "real joy"

Cas already stated he misses being human, but knows how fragile they are in both body and spirit:

Castiel really wants to be with Dean. For real. But maybe he thinks (see season 9) him being an angel is an obstacle to their feelings.

Only by being human he can truly be happy (MMMMMMHH SEASON 15), but isn't sure he could handle the pain that comes with it. A possible rejection, the thought of Dean dying, him leaving Dean... MMMMHHHHH

"You look terrible." [...] "Well, you, on the other hand, you... *checks out Cas* Looking good." (39:09) full homo right there. Also parallel with Ketch in 13x18 ("You don't look good." "Yeah, well, you're not my type, either.")

The way they are looking at each other here... man.

Cas is so happy to have Dean back, and Dean looks hurt about Cas leaving so soon.

"So... so, you're back?" "At least temporarily." (39:27) bitch, you know that's not what he ment.

In all of this, Cas is trying to make Dean feel better about the whole situation (DAT SMILE 40:18), and Dean replies with "I'm glad you're back, man.", basically no-homoing himself...

Cas starts walking out of the room, but stops and turns back [insert concerned husband here] (40:27), and Dean has that hopeful look in his eyes, like Cas is going to stay, and the hurtful look comes back as soon as Cas is gone

Episode 4:

"On your knees!" "Wow, I'm awfully flattered-" (34:33) SASSY BI DEAN IS THE DEAN WE DESERVE

Episode 5:

Fucking kill me NOW!!! Dean's reaction to Destiel is PRICELESS!! And even before he learns what that is, he just looks at the girls playing him and Cas and... freezes for a moment (13:18) And the eyebrow raise thingy at (13:34)... what's going on in your brain, Dean?

I'd like to point out that the Italian translation for "You can't spell 'subtext' without S-E-X" is, for once, AMAZING:

"It's just that... their bond is so strong it has subtext of a... sexual nature."

THANK YOU ITALIAN DUB! JUST THIS ONCE, THANK YOU! (13:43)

Also at (9:44) Dean immediately reacts to the implication of Wincest subtext, shutting it down and telling the girls to take a step back, but with Destiel he is like... alright

... this is so fucking cute, (25:54) Dean adjusts the girl playing Cas' tie so that it's messed up like the real Cas'. ADORABLE

SAM SHIPS IT (13:57) and is teasing the SHIT out of Dean, who reacts like someone being teased about their crush. Just saying (14:08 - 14:52) [AND THIS HAPPENS IN FRONT OF A PINK-BLUE WALL]

"I know I have expressed some differences of opinion regarding this version of Supernatural." (26:44) ... oookay meta? *turns to "Cas"* "And I want you to put as much sub into that text as you possibly can." ... oKAY?!

Episode 7:

Cas being extremely uncomfortable with women is too fucking funny to me (5:03 - 12:51)

Episode 9:

(15:13) Alright, so, this is a date... what now? Anyway, nice bi flannel, Dean. And the little sweet smiles you two are giving each other? So fucking precious (16:01)

"I ain't exactly a role model." "That's not true." (16:07) how Dean looks at Cas right after that? BABIES!

"How are you, Dean?" "Fine." "*I-call-bullshit look*" "I'm great!" "No, you're not." (16:18) #MARRIED

As Cas is choke-holding a guy, Dean, clearly amused (almost proudly), says "I'd do what he says." (22:17) Like that time with Raphael in 5x03, Dean likes it when Cas gets rough

Episode 10:

Shut the fuck up and marry each other already so you can finally actually BE the old married couple™️ you ALREADY ARE (22:17)

This is the "My husband is so FUCKING STUPID" look (22:30)

"I was hoping you might reach out to her." "... Me? I'm probably the last person she'd want to hear from." [...] "All I know... is she won't talk to me." (23:03) #MARRIED, PARENTS, PERIODT

Shut the fuck up. Cas is the dad trying to figure out technology (23:36) "I'll text you her number. I like texting. Emotions!" DAD

Cas worries about Dean like a wife would with an alcoholic husband

Of all the things Dean could be MAD about at Metateon... the first thing he can think of is him stealing Cas' grace (31:33) (okay, maybe he is going in chronological order but STILL)

Episode 11:

[I AM SO SO SO SORRY BUT DEAN USED THE ALIAS "PRESLEY" (18:55) I AM NOT OKAY]

Episode 14:

Have this deleted scene: Castiel and Crowley bitching over Dean, and Crowley calling Dean Cas' boyfriend

This is some hell of a goodbye-eye-love-making scene (26:57)

Cain compares himself to Dean... and CAS TO HIS WIFE COLLETTE [PARALLELS]

"You're living my life in reverse [...]

First you'd kill Crowley. You'd get it done, no remorse. (Cain had been killing his descendants, for whom he didn't care much)

And then you'd kill the angel, Castiel. Now, that one... that, I suspect, would hurt something awful. [And than Sam is Able, bla bla...]"

AM I WRONG?! YOU'RE GONNA LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THAT I'M WRONG??!!!

Dean gives the First Blade to Cas... oKAY (37:10)

Worried brother-in-laws (41:27)

Episode 16:

This is such a good source of hidden meanings scene! Dean starts his "confession" as a scam. Everything he says at first is to attract the spirit.

He starts talking about seeing lots of women, not being able to control himself, and being sick of it. Then the real confession begins...

Dean feels he's going to die soon, and fears not death itself, but what he would be missing from his life.

"There's things... people, feelings that I... I would experience differently than I had before. Or even for the first time." (25:28) and the priest believes Dean is talking about love.

Well... "people, feelings"... who could he be referring to? Does Dean want love all of a sudden? People he wants to experience for the first time... uhmmmm... Is Dean opening up to his attraction to MEN??!! Or one angel in particular?

ICWAW we would guess Dean was talking about Cas

"Who mixes their blood and bones into paint? No woman has ever done that for me." (39:19) UHM- Dean, what about

6x20 "He has bled, died bla bla bla for us",

7x21 "I'm always happy to bleed for the Winchesters" or

9x22 "You just gave up an entire army for one guy"

ICWAW we would ALL roll our eyes at this statement and scream CAS

THE GUY BLED, LOST HIS HOME, REBELLED, DIED FOR YOU!! HE REBUILT YOU PIECE BY PIECE FROM HELL- SAVED YOU DOZENS OF TIMES!!!

Episode 17:

About saving Dean from the Mark: "We won't- (free Metatron)" "Yes, you will... because you're desperate." (9:44) Hannah knows. Let's remark that

"All I'm getting from you is... colours." (14:26) bitch he is a walking 🌈PRIDE FLAG🏳️‍🌈

Notice how, when we get a Sam-Cas centred episode, we don't get the same interactions with Dean-Cas? Why this?

Dean is always ready to call Cas a "brother", but the only one true bromance here is Sam and Cas'. There are no longing stares, no weird sexual filled dialogue nor tension, NO LONGING STARES

Facts, my people. Facts

Episode 18:

"You killed my friend." "Oh, pff, Dean is fine, mostly. Can't you get past that?" "Never." (12:39)

Charlie being excited about meeting Dean's famous boyfriend is WHOLESOME (37:34)

To have Cas back, 100%, safe and sound, is a win for Dean (38:58) and the face Cas makes after Dean hits him with another no-homo "It's good to have you back, pal." is "UHH not this again". Charlie already ships it

Episode 20:

A #MARRIED couple and their daughter. NO ARGUMENTS VALID (7:06)

Look at how they enter the motel (16:22)

OH MY GOOOOOD!!! #PARENTS coming back home from shopping!! THE HAND ON THE SHOULDER!!! Also

"Happy birthday. I got it at the Hot Topical" DAD

Dean: "Imma head back over there." Cas: "I'm coming with you." Claire: "I'm coming with you too." (17:24) #FAMILY

A fucking family comedy about a dad confronting the daughter's boyfriend and the other dad scolding him:

"What did you do to him?" "I didn't lay a hand on him!" "Dean, that isn't exactly true." "... Well, I didn't kill the guy." (17:14)

Surprisingly enough, this is not the first nor last time Dean acts like a dad to a lost child (AND TWO OF THESE TIMES THE KID IS SOMEHOW RELATED TO CAS) (21:54)

Episode 22:

C: "Claire, you are not going out there. [...] It's too dangerous. I can't let anything happen to you." D: "Claire, you're not going." C: "You're not either, Dean." D: "What?" (19:29)

#FAMILY DON'T TALK TO ME!

"No fighting. [...] Both of you." AAAAAA

This doesn't fucking matter, but Dean just said "... for the ladies. Or the fellas. I don't judge." (36:23)

Cas' speech to Dean... wow. "So if there's even a small chance that we can save you... I won't let you walk out of this room." (39:20)

I hate this scene. (40:11)

Dean is overwhelmed by Charlie's death, Sam and Cas' betrayal, the Mark changing him and all the other shit.

The Mark is taking over, and Dean can't (and won't) help it. Cas knows it. He doesn't want to hurt Dean. He is not even resisting. Doesn't put up a fight.

And just like Colette with Cain, Castiel only asks Dean one thing: "Stop." (40:38) [9x11]

Parallel to 8x07:

The only thing that stops Cas from killing Dean, is him begging, clutching onto his sleeve.

"Dean... please..." (41:08) Cas pleading Dean, clutching to his arm, makes him resist the urge to kill him.

Episode 23:

You can find gifs and the script of some deleted (destiel) scenes in this post by @charlie-minion

As the Mark eats Dean... he starts feeling guilt for the people he hurt... first on the list: Cas (14:54)

(This gif is not mine)

Well... what a season.

[Season 11>>]