#imho birthdays are fun

[megamixter]

My response to art block these days has been redrawing my old pieces to see how I've improved. It's a nice confidence boost!

See below for the originals, from 2022 and 2013 respectively.

Image is surprisingly not sad sad birthday time vent art, but is based on my favorite song from my favorite band! (...Which happens to be a song about sad sad birthday time). Song linked below if you want to vibe with it.

I kinda hated the purple void of a background, but it didn't feel right to change it in the redraw. This poor girl be stuck in the void forever I guess.

[Image ID: Three digital drawings of a brown cartoon lioness looking depressed in front of a birthday cake. One drawing is from 2023, one is from 2022, and the final one is from 2013.

In the 2023 image, the lioness is looking at a cupcake with white frosting, a green wrapper, and a single lit yellow candle. She is wearing a purple and green party hat and looking sadly at the cupcake. The background is a muted purple and grubby looking, and there is a banner on the wall with the words "It is my birthday" written in black stencil font.

In the 2022 image, the lioness is looking sadly at a white cake on a plate with four candles lit on top. She is wearing a purple and green party hat and has small white text next to her face that reads "It is my Birthday". The background is a dark purple with a dark vignette around the edge.

In the 2013 image, the lioness is looking sadly at a purple cake with a single lit purple candle on top. She is wearing a purple party hat and there is large script text next to her face that reads "It is my Birthday". The background is a muted purple. /End ID]

[vidavalor]

I just finished your amazing Fish meta and everyone should read this! OMG. Maybe this is also why the Titanic song is on Aziraphale's playlist? 😁

Thank you for reading it & for the kind words. 💕

🤣🤣🤣Yes, imho, it is why "My Heart Will Go On" is on it. It's not as random a choice as it seems. There is no greater ocean-related destructive sexual metaphor than The Titanic. I think it's on there purely for that reason. I also like the idea that they had great fun on a date to see that movie in 1997. The dialogue being so awful probably made for an especially quippy time. Are you going to draw me like one of your French girls when we get home, angel?

I think the Titanic being referenced is also in relation to Aziraphale calling The Meeting Ball a "night to remember", which is a phrase associated with the Titanic disaster-- and "a disaster" is also what Aziraphale called The Meeting Ball's parallel in S1, which was Warlock's birthday party. When he did, Crowley reassured him that he'd given the kids "a party to remember." In S2's mirror of S1, Crowley helps most of the people at The Meeting Ball forget it instead. But the overall idea of correlating apocalyptic things with disasters like The Titanic is tied to destructive sexual metaphor on another level in the story, like we were looking at in the Fish meta.

[deshima]

Last year my boyfriend and I managed to convince my sister in law to go with us to castlefest for a day. To sweeten the deal I made her a pirate outfit so that she could dress up ( which at castlefest is half the fun)

She was very happy with it and imho looked fabulous in it too. Unfortunately , although everyone had loads of fun, castlefest had a fairly cold and wet run last year, and she spend a lot of the time wearing a fairly frumpy grey hoodie over her outfit because she was cold. So this year I promised her on her birthday I would make her a matching pirate coat so that if this year was going to be cold again at least she would keep warm in style. And when I promie something to people I love I do my best to deliver. So barely one week until castlefest starts I have managed to finish that coat. Both the appliquéd stripes and all the endless buttons nearly drove me spare but I succeeded

At the base, the pattern is a double-breasted trenchcoat pattern I went to town with by making the lower part skirtlike by adding gores, making it hi-low, adding the ginormous sleeve cuffs that were the fashion during the pirate era and then of course adding all the bloody decorative details

[dutyworn]

I’ve talked about this before, but the trilogy takes longer on my blog than it does in canon. The first game takes at least a year (including the few weeks in the second game prologue), there are two years as per canon in between where Wren is dead, the second game takes at least a year, there’s six months in between as per canon where Wren is in Alliance jail, and the third game, most notably, takes at the very least six months (I think, canon tries to claim it’s a few weeks), but I’m very much up for all of the above being longer timelines as well, just not shorter. It makes more sense with forging the found family bonds with everyone, so these are my bare minimum times. If the Reaper War took literal centuries with the Protheans, I’m not going to be taking criticism in making the third game Reaper era last at minimum six months. They never wiped out the galactic civilisation in that short a timeframe anyway so imho it does not sound unrealistic at all.

So, if canon timeline is 2183 for first game (post April since Shepard is 29 and her birthday is April 11), 2085 for second and 2086 for third, for me, it’s 2183 for first game start and sometime after April 2184 when she dies, thus 2186 when she’s brought back, making Arrival and the aftermath in military custody 2187, making the Reaper attack on Earth the earliest at late 2187, but more realistically 2188, if I’m doing my math well enough.

On default I keep both her time being dead/rebuilt and Alliance jail canonical, but the actual game contents longer.

This is non-negotiable, unless you want to make the timeline even longer. Longer is fine. Shorter is not. Playing in verses where Wren is not in the Shepard role, I don’t mind either way - if you are playing "the Shepard", you get the final say in timelines. But in any verse where Wren is in the player character role, my timeline applies. If you’re someone hung up on canon dates enough this would spoil your fun in writing... sorry, we’re probably not going to write together? Because this isn’t flexible for me. It’s not fun to me to try to cram all the canon events into a timeline where I can’t see the canon friendships forging as deeply as they do.

[radarchives]

oh sweet, birthday??? congratulations!!!!!! not to be weird but, you just turned 25 today, and my mom turns 50 tomorrow... you are almost exactly half her age, which is always a funny bit of serendipity imho!

thanks! and oh, that's always fun! my mum is also almost exactly 30 years older than i am!

[cogbreath]

i don't think we've ever watched Shrek and we only really know about Farquad through memes, please tell us about him

OH MY GOODNESS. well this isnt gonna be an unbiased take. because he is my husband. so yeah.

anywayyy he's the ruler of duloc, and he rlly wants to be a king rather than a lord. so he gets a magic mirror to find him a princess he can marry to become a king (some ppl say that monarchy heirship doesnr work like this but i don't know anything.)

anyway imho hes like. such a ladies man. honestly. hes super charming and suave, he would definitely spoil his lover with affection and gifts and all in all treat them like the center of his world. (we see aspects of this with the way he acts towards princess fiona in the movie)

at the same time he is kind of arrogant and doesn't really care about anyone else. with his most well known quote "some of you may die, but its a sacrifice im willing to make"

personally i find his arrogance and selfishness rlly attractive and also kind of funny at times. hes very self confident. and adamant in saying he deserves what he thinks he deserves.

his voice is so beautiful and i love the way he speaks.

he doesnt like the fairytale creatures though and exhiles them from duloc. he wants everything the way he wants it. anyway exhiling them is how shrek got involved with everything because shreks swamp is just outside of the limits of duloc so thats where all the fairytale creatures went.

anyhow i feel all my compliments i make abt him are true because of the fact that fiona does seem quite charmed by him at first. only once it's revealed that hes quite short does she seem to change her mind. which is lame. but at the same time it means hes all mine to self ship with as i please :3 (which i do by means of my oc Allegro. who is his jester. heheh.)

oh also his first name is Maximus (iirc this is something that was mentioned only in shrek the musical so its dubiously canon but i accept it because. otherwise he doesnt have one.)

and apparently his birthday is april 15th! not sure where that came from though. its uncited on his wikipedia page but im willing to believe it because it gives me fun things to do on that day.

feel free to ask more. also my good friend @supivuokko knows a whole lot abt him too all kinds of small details and fun stuff. so u can ask them too if u'd like. :D

[leonardcohenofficial]

Was already planning to watch a 40s film tonight, but hadn’t settled on which one yet until I saw your posts about Jack Benny’s birthday and decided to watch To Be or Not to Be in honor of the occasion. I REALLY enjoyed it and it was so fun to put the face with the voice since I’ve only been listening to the radio show until now. Super glad I watched it and thanks a bunch for introducing me to his work! :))

YESSSSS omg i'm so glad you enjoyed it! imho to be or not to be is the best of his movies (i'm also just a big fan of lubitsch's approach to comedy) and his chemistry with carole lombard is just so good

[berenwrites]

Anyone Else Love Mission Impossible?

And I'm not talking Tom Cruise here, I'm talking the original series 1966 - 1973. This is my go-to, feel good re-watch show.

I've had the DVDs for years, but I bought myself the blu-ray set with birthday money and so, of course I am watching them all again.

If you watch enough episodes you begin to believe that five people with a plan can save the world. Really kind of a good feeling in the current day and age.

For those unfamiliar, Mission Impossible is an action series where the Impossible Mission team, led by Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) in season 1 and Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) for the other 6 seasons (and the 2 seasons of the 80s sequel), prevent foreign government or the mafia or hitmen or anyone bad, from getting their own way.

Each episode is a stand alone adventure (with maybe 1 double ep per season), so its easy to dip in and out without fear of having missed a vital plot point. Oh weekly episode shows how I miss thee.

If you or any of you IM force are caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self destruct in five seconds.

The first 5 seasons are the best IMHO, with clever plots. Season 6 & 7 are still fun, but they don't have the same intricacies as the previous ones and are very much US based, where as the other season pretend to be all over the world.

When I used to watch it in re-runs as a kid, I really thought Jim picked a different team for each mission, but in my defence I did only ever get to see an episode every now and then.🤣 And I had totally forgotten there was a different leader for the team in season 1.

No Seasons - 7

No Episodes - 172 (they made nice long seasons then)

Cast:

Steven Hill - Dan Briggs - S1 Barbara Bain - Cinnamon Carter - S1-3 Greg Morris - Barnard "Barney" Collier - S1-7 (and guested in 1980s) Peter Lupus - William "Willy" Armitage - S1-7 Peter Graves - Jim Phelps - S2-7 (and 1980s) Martin Landau - Rollin Hand - S1-3 Leonard Nimoy - Paris - S4-5 Lesley Ann Warren - Dana Lambert - S5 Sam Elliott - Dr. Doug Robert - S5 Lynda Day George - (Lisa) Casey - S6-7 Barbara Anderson - Mimi Davis - S7

This is well worth a watch if you get the chance. It's an uplifting kind of show where the good guys always win with the most outlandish plans.

Anyone else have fond memories of this show?

Forgot to add, my fav episode is s3e13 - The Mind of Stefan Miklos, but there are many others a close second.

Anyone have a fav episode you remember, even if it's just a vague recollection?

[katiajewelbox]

More fun in honour of Dilandau's birthday! Drink Costa Coffee, or else Dilandau will incinerate your village!

If you're in the UK you might be aware of the recent kerfuffle about an ad for Costa Coffee which features a transman character with visible top surgery scars. Some people don't like to see this kind of thing in mainstream advertising and there's been a lot of controversy about it being offensive to people who've had mastectomies for other reasons like breast cancer. Personally I'm fine with it but I can see why it may be controversial.

Here's my solution - put Dilandau in the ad instead! It shows gender diversity and makes potential customers think they'll be as cool as Dilandau if they drink Costa Coffee (which is actually a lot better than Starbucks IMHO).

My meme features official concept art of Dilandau with edits done in Canva.

Here is the original ad if anyone is curious... I want to know why he's surfing and drinking a Costa at the same time.

[carduelism]

Yooo Max my guy, happy birthday to [one of my] favourite artist moots!!! So glad I dmed you even though it was because I woke you up once and texted you to apologize, we've had some pretty rad conversations imho (never gonna forget how I made you tea one evening and stayed up till five am til I felt like I was in a delirious fever dream while writing to you) we haven't talked in a while but I hope you're doing well !! Ok anyways here's my gift; a fresh, low-quality, straight-out-of-the-oven photo of my cat on a card a card (that Viktor helped make so ty vita) Enjoy and have a great tday!!!

THANK YOU SM Vit n you did a very very good job on the cards and I love them very much <3 I need to get back in the habit of messaging you because I really do miss it, it was so fun and ur so great to talk tooo (still keeping my eye out for some orange tea over here in australia so I can finally try what that tea you made me tastes like)

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

Now that NaNoWriMo is over and my first draft of In Love and War has gained 154k, I’m going to take things more slowly again. Writing married Viktuuri shenanigans was a blast. I wrote so many cute, steamy, and romantic moments, but also scandals, Yuuri and Viktor playing babysitters, searching Viktor’s fan mail for a letter teenage Yuuri wrote to him—they even broke a bed, were chased by the press and got arrested once (don’t ask pls). I’m super proud I made so much progress on this fic, even though I covered only Yuuri and Viktor’s off-season adventures. Most of it was getting the idea on paper to see how it plays out, but that’s what NaNo is for imho.

I also squeezed in a short story for Yuuri’s birthday, which highlights the friendship between Yuuri and Phichit (Keeping the dream alive). It was my first attempt at writing about Yuuri’s time in Detroit, and it was fun to explore this particular part of his life. If you’re interested in this, please check it out!

Over the next few weeks, I will

edit the upcoming four chapters of Can You Hear My Heartbeat

read chapters 19 and 20 of CYHMH again and try to identify things that need improvement and correct them.

finish chapter 1 of my depressed Viktor prequel. I currently plan to post it on his birthday, but since December is such a busy month, it might take more time.

write the fic for YOI Daydreamer BB. I’m very much looking forward to this since I signed up for the event, but so far, all I have is a 2k-long outline due to NaNoWriMo.

start writing meta posts again. I've totally neglected this over my wips.

In Love and War will rest for a while. For now, the BB fic is my primary focus, and when it’s done, I’ll switch back to the sequels of CYHMH.

[dhampiravidi]

how movies have changed (since I was a kid in the 00s)

as a kid, the movie theater was The Fun Place. I was super-focused on school (which was the only thing I was good at, other than reading) so going to see a movie was the cheaper amusement park, pretty much. Back then, no one complained about the price of popcorn or tickets. Going to the movies could be a whole birthday event. My mom only suffered because I thought “Sharkboy and Lavagirl”, a very campy superhero movie, was an amazing thing that deserved rewatching.

By the end of elementary school/beginning of middle, every summer is Movie Season. The trailers that play during the commercials of shows hype up whatever’s coming out in June. This makes kids really look forward to getting out of school. My family went into several movies without real expectations, only knowing that their plots seemed interesting. We hardly felt that we wasted money.

I get a little older and all of a sudden, trailers are awkward. Like me, they don’t know how to properly introduce themselves to new people. They emphasize all the wrong parts. Some even reveal the plot twists, so there’s no suspense and therefore no reason to go see the movie.

Now we’re here. Some people take snacks in their purses/bags because theatre tickets already cost too much. (I especially hate IMAX; aside from being louder, it never feels like the movies are in better quality there.) Many, including myself, don’t even know what movies are out because we just stream all of our TV, and the ads on streaming are for technology or clothes. If I want to know what’s playing, I usually have to either Google it or read about it on ScreenRant (articles focused on media). Trailers are pretty underwhelming, IMHO. And the theatre closest to my house only shows movies from 10-3 now, since demand has dramatically decreased.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: if you, a Big Company, announces a show or movie, and people ACTUALLY SEEM EXCITED—fucking make that thing. People will pay for it, so you’ll make a decent profit. ALSO: learn how to make decent trailers, stop shelving things you already made, and remember that we’re called “the audience” for a reason.

[shinra-makonoid]

Too much stuff happening these days had me completely stop my medschool studies and I kinda hate it. One game was enough to completely put me out of it.

I know DA4 might not come before 2025, that means I'll have to be extra hard with myself to not just... Forsake my future studies for a mere dozen of hours of fun. It makes me worried, like I can't imagine how I'm gonna deal with it while I'm on my first year of medschool. Which is stupid, I'm not a highschooler.

I hope DA4 releases during summer 2024 so that I can brainlessly go through it and come back with determination for 2024 September, but seems unlikely sadly. FFXIV next expansion is planned for summer 2024 so that will be at least behind me (RIP savage raids I guess but honestly it's too much of a hassle to go through again imho, and I get bored of them too easily).

Why are so many good games happening these days and in the future? Makes me rethink my whole future, because when I play I'm like "oh yeah I could go on like this forever".

I know that, when it stops, I just want to hurt myself out of somekind of deep existential boredoom. Like I cannot stress out how much this state of nothingness hurts me and makes me want to scream out. It's either bliss with games that makes me forget about how meaningless everything is, or extreme existential pain. Well there are a couple of other problems going on that don't help but even if they weren't there I'd be suffering.

Anyway since I stopped, my motivation engine is gonna be hard to start up again, I'm like 3 weeks late on my planning. It's technically not such a big deal (because I planned a relatively soft study thing and also decided to drop biostatistics because the book I'm getting the lessons from is just extremely bad at explaining it and it just makes me anxious. There's a free study of epidemiology that I'm gonna take and that's probably going to be more understandable), but I'll have to work a little bit harder during my vacation, which is in two weeks and a half (and during it, my birthday).

Didn't even continue the anatomical boards I was checking, but it's also not really a big deal because it was mainly to test how to learn shit by heart, and it works pretty well so. The main goal was to find the good tools to learn by heart and I'm satisfied.

I still love the subjects so much, but it's like games are fast food meanwhile studying is like exercising. Idk how to explain it, but it's probably some kind of fast easy brain reward versus hard difficult brain reward.

I also need to think about next year's planning for studying, but I'll plan it to last until June, so that I can take July and August as being completely free to move out, do all the paper shit and also play games before saying good bye for a year. Year in which my number one priority will be the number one person in the class.

[greensparty]

2023 Northeast Comic Con Spring Edition Wrap-Up

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to cover the Northeast Comic Con (read my coverage here), a fun cool convention for lovers of comics, pop culture, and collectibles. Last Summer, I attended their 2022 Collectibles Extravaganza and it was my first convention since 2019. Felt good to be back!

Here is my lightning round of guests I got to speak with at this year’s con:

Roger Kabler is a funny comedian and in the last few years he has been doing the Robin Williams Experience, where he does his excellent Robin Williams impression. I spoke with him last Summer and he had just finished making an independent film Being Robin about his experience of returning to comedy after Robin Williams died. His film is doing some screenings and it’s worth checking out. See details here.

Cowboy Mach Bell is another celebrity I spoke with last Summer. He was the singer for the Joe Perry Project from 1982-1984 among many other bands and he has written some books about his experiences as well. Since last time I saw him, he has suffered some health issues, but I’m happy to say he’s back singing and his new band Mach Bell Experience are playing Geno’s Rock Club in Portland, ME this Sat. 3/18.

Melanie Chartoff is someone who has popped up in all corners of pop culture: acting, voiceover, author, coach, theater, TV, and film. I was a big fan as a teen of TV’s Parker Lewis Can’t Lose and she was so good as Principal Musso. A decade earlier she was a cast member on the sketch show Fridays along with Larry David, Michael Richards and more. But probably the funniest thing she did IMHO was the episodes of Seinfeld as Robin, George’s single-mom girlfriend. In “The Fire” episode, George attends the birthday for Robin’s son and upon the fear of a fire, he pushes everyone out of his way. I asked Melanie how she managed to keep a straight face in that episode and she replied “well, you know, I’m an actress, right?”. Well put! Robin later returned for the finale when Jerry and his friends were on trial.

Charlie Schlatter has been a highly prolific actor and voiceover since the 80s. I first became aware of him when he was the lead in 1988′s 18 Again, where he and his grandfather (played by George Burns) switch brains. It was actually one of my favorite brain-switcher movies of that era. I asked Charlie about making that film and he said “working with George Burns, to this day (I’m an old man now), but it was one of the best experiences of my life. He was the most generous and gracious human being you can imagine. It was like working with my true Grandfather everyday.” In 1990, Schlatter played the title character in the TV adaptation of Ferris Bueller. I told him I was a big fan of that TV show (it lasted 13 episodes) and he said “You were the one?” [laughs]. I was a big fan of the John Hughes movies Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which was showing the character on a day off, but it was cool to have a TV series that showed what the character was like in school on a typical day. He was very appreciative I enjoyed that show.

I first met Samantha Mathis at the 2015 Rock and Shock festival. She and I have a mutual friend in common and I reminded her at the Northeast Comic Con. In 2020, when I tweeted about the anniversary of Pump Up the Volume, which she starred in, she liked it on Twitter! She has appeared in tons of gems including that great episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where she sat next to Larry on the plan. This time I saw Ms. Mathis, I was excited to talk to her about working with John Woo on his 1996 film Broken Arrow. I mentioned that I actually made a film To Be John Woo (a tribute and parody of John Woo films). She was congratulatory when I told her Mr. Woo sent me a Christmas card the following year after he saw it! On working with Mr. Woo, she said “I was in awe of being in John Woo’s presence. It’s no secret that Quentin Tarantino heavily lifted from John Woo in the beginning of his career. So, I was just in awe of watching how he shot things. There was a sequence where he must’ve set up ten different cameras at different angles. I had just never seen someone use the camera that way before.” That movie was one of Woo’s early Hollywood movies and there’s some phenomenal action sequences in it.  

This convention is always a fun time! Big thanks to Gary Sohmers and his team as well as my friend comedian Ken Reid of the TV Guidance Counselor podcast (I was a guest in 2015) who hosted several panels at this year’s fest.

For info on Northeast Comic Con and there other events: https://necomiccons.com/

[deeahhnuh]

2022!

I've done this year-in-review thing since 2007! 2007-2012 are over on my old LiveJournal, and 2013-on are right here on my Tumblr. :)

I didn't do one of these for 2021, whoops, but that was a weird year for me anyway so let's just get things going again with - 2022! :)

What did you do in 2022 that you’d never done before?

Cut my own bangs! Okay, technically I did try giving myself bangs when I was like 13 or something, but that was a fail. This time, I have to say, they turned out very very nicely imho! I'm still quite shocked I (think I) pulled it off!

---

Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Never make any formal ones, but as usual for the New Year, I want to be sure to be careful and mindful about my health!

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Did anyone close to you give birth?

Two family friends - they're sisters! - gave birth to sweet baby boys like a month apart! Pure joy. ♥

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Did anyone close to you die?

No, thank goodness.

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What countries did you visit?

Ha, I'm quite the homebody - none

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What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?

I'm hugely grateful for what I do have, but I have to admit I do have some humble ambitions and hopes that I would like to work on making happen in 2023 - or at least get some kind of show on the road! :)

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What date(s) from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

April 2022 - I had my last appointment with my psychiatrist of almost 16 years, because he is retiring. I'll remember this date as it's all a bit of an end of an era! No words can ever sum up his incredibly positive influence on my life. So I'm sad, but more than anything, I'm just thankful that I had his care for as long as I did! ♥

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What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I didn't completely botch my bangs lol!

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What was your biggest failure?

I don't think I made any total goofs this year, yay!

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Did you suffer illness or injury?

Oh my goodness, I had to get a dang tooth extracted a few days after Thanksgiving! The oral surgeon was a magician or something: I had almost no pain afterward, so my biggest "issue" was just me making sure I followed the recovery instructions to the letter. Which I did, apparently; at the follow-up appointment, he said "I can tell you followed all the steps exactly!" :) Tldr: I'm doing fine now!

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What was the best thing you bought?

Music. And perfume; but music, man. I need it.

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Whose behavior merited celebration?

That oral surgeon, for one, lol!

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Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Not so much a behavior, but the perspective that COVID-19 is "over." Couldn't be me.

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Where did most of your money go?

Music. Perfume.

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What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Holidays and birthdays!

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What song will always remind you of 2022?

SOOOoooo many. Check out my 2022 list of my iPod (and Spotify) hits on my Spotify!

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Compared to this time last year (2021), are you:

Better, by at least a bit!

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What do you wish you’d done more of?

Listen to more new music releases, watch more new shows, see more new movies! There's always so much to discover!

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What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worry? But I'm so good at it, lol!

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How did you spend Christmas?

Fam and ham. Two good things that are great together!

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What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2022?

I don't think I was too much of a doofus this year, tbh!

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How many one-night stands?

Ha, zero

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What was your favorite TV program?

The stupid: cartoons (Family Guy and South Park: I have trash taste) and Real Housewives of wherever (and other Bravo fare)

The not stupid: Abbott Elementary, Better Call Saul, The Orville, Shining Vale, Only Murders in the Building, What We Do in the Shadows, The Patient. Also, Space Force. I know it was canceled (boo!), and it was panned a lot, but it was fun!

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How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022?

Business on top, pajamas on the bottom

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What kept you sane?

Music. Spotify is a gift and there's so much music to find! (But I do tend to listen to the same stuff all the time lol)

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Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Lol no

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What was the best book you read in 2022?

Lol I suck, nothing to report (again)

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What was your greatest musical discovery?

Not really a discovery, because I knew about it already, but I did buy, listen to, and love some old "winter editions" of the Ministry of Sound Addicted to Bass series of releases. A pointless thing to do! But I had a good time.

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What did you want and get?

Addicted to Bass winter editions! Nah, but for real, I have the things I need and I'm grateful about it! ♥

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What did you want and not get?

See above! I'm good. :)

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What was your favorite film of this year?

Watched a lot of great movies this year - see my Scrapbook! But my fave 2022 releases? Elvis was a spectacle and Bullet Train was bombastic fun. New-to-me faves? I've known about Crossing Delancey but hadn't seen the whole movie until this year - it's precious! So is You Can't Take It with You! And Educating Rita is adorable too. Doing a 180 from precious and adorable - Shadow of the Vampire, which is bonkers but kind of a delight. Finally, special shout-out to The Beatles: Get Back. It was incredible to see and I loved it!

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What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Visited with my bro & sis-in-law and parents and had a great time! 36!

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What three things would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Nah, I'm happy with what I've got. Whatever didn't pan out this year can always come through in the next, or the one after that. :)

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Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I'm reminded of little Mary and Violet in It's a Wonderful Life! Mary says "You like every boy," to which Violet just smiles and replies "What's wrong with that?" That's me, I'm Violet. Anyways, I dug Ringo in Get Back earlier in the year, then I didn't mind the Austin Butler buzz re: Elvis, and wrapped up the year thinking Michael Shannon ain't half bad for some reason. Who knows what next year will bring lol?

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What political issue stirred you the most?

It's all a mess!

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Who did you miss?

Family - those we've lost, and those who are simply not near. ♥

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What is a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022?

As usual - we need hope. We just do. I certainly do! :)

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What quote can be used to sum up your year?

Lol it's a South Park quote, but hear me out -

Butters: "I love life."

Stan: "Huh? But you just got dumped."

Butters: "Well yeah, and I'm sad, but at the same time I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt somethin' really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I'm feelin' is like a, beautiful sadness. I guess that sounds stupid."

Goth Kid 2: "Yeah."

Stan: "No. No, Butters, that doesn't sound stupid at all."

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So that was my 2022. Here's to 2023! Happy (early) New Year, Tumblr! :)

[meanscarletdeceiver]

Rheneas and the roller-coaster? (My apologies for inflicting this one on you)

Robin. What the hell did you just make me re-watch.

Heh heh. Actually, in all seriousness, it's imho... not horrible. It is however very bland. Like, I'd gotten through all of Season 7 once but I had no memory of this.

The plot is stupidly unbelievable—railway realism is thrown out the window. Then again it is far more plausible than "Rusty and the Boulder" sooooo...?

The episode simply feels like such a nothingburger than I can't even bring myself to detail all the ways in which it falls flat. Let's just agree that, well, it does. I get the sense it was written with the aim of doing Rheneas's character a long-overdue favor but in the end it's just filler.

Having stipulated, however, that this ep is a low point in season 7... there are actually a couple kudos I want to give it.

Mild kudos:

1) Hey, the "rollercoaster" runaway ride might have been silly and stupid... but it is kinda fun? A little? A pale shadow of the shenanigans of "Boulder," but I can tell the film crew were enjoying themselves. It seems obvious that Mitton wasn't really in charge of this one or, if he was, that he was entirely checked out. No, whoever directed this, you cannot make an interesting action sequence just by filming the whole thing with the camera tilted 90°... it takes a bit more than that.

But. Nevertheless. The detail of the props actually getting wet as they veer by the waterfall is such a nice touch:

This (live water!) ^ is the sort of thing that makes the model series so fun to watch, even when the writing is shit.

2) Is the writing all shit, though?

[Disclaimer: I feel the TVS has already established context/continuity in Season 6 for the NWR/Fat Controller having taken over the narrow-gauge railway and starting to make some drastic changes; we see the engines adjusting to a management style very different from what they experienced in the plots that were based on the books. So I take FC's and Rheneas's exchange in that spirit. He's trying to show a gentler side than "I'm going to shut down your entire line on a whim." Rheneas is especially keen to use this chance to prove himself to a somewhat capricious owner.]

On the one wheel, I sort of hate how this is another in a long line of episodes in this era that continue to baby-fy Rheneas and Skarloey (who are in need of kind, brave, clever Rusty to look after them in a cruel world).

On the other wheel, this particular story—if it is considered strictly on its own, and not in that sad, sorry context—I feel does a plausible job of characterizing Rheneas? Who is not an easy character to work with, since even Rev. Awdry left him quite undeveloped.

I can see people (probably yourself among them?) preferring other interpretations of Rheneas. But honestly... this one is valid. If you need him to have some sort of weakness or flaw to motivate a story, "fears he's not exciting enough to be of interest to a train full of kids" feels legitimate. In RWS, one of his things was very much always seeming to be overshadowed by Skarloey's charisma. He's the quieter and more serious of the pair, and while he gamely gives it a go he's also nervous and not at all comfortable when the Thin Controller puts him on the spot to give a little speech on his birthday.

The "insecurity" motive gets way overused in TVS, of course—but as of Season 7 it wasn't quite overused yet. And, obviously it would be stupid to have Rheneas feel he's not up to most jobs, given that at this point he's got over a hundred years of badassery under his boiler bands. But the specific charge of "this is a very special day for the kiddos; make sure it's memorable for them!"... like okay, I can actually roll with this and easily believe in a Rheneas that's secretly going, Well, fuck. Then why didn't you have literally anyone else do it? I'm not the entertaining one.

*insert cute image of Rheneas licking his thumb and quickly flipping a handbook entitled How To Be Fun*

Sooooo... yeah. It's not a good episode. But I don't actually find it dire. It's within the usual range of Season 7 bland.

(Which I used to think was the worst... until I watched the next few seasons. At least Season 7 bland was still short and sweet, clocking in at under 6 minutes a pop!)