#it's funny when people forget billy was also just a kid

[fanatics4l]

if you, as a child, have to practically raise another child who is in no way biologically related to you and is only around because your biological mother abandoned you, therefore resulting in the marriage between a random woman and your abusive father, you would be pissed off at everything too.

if you, as a child, have to look after some random kid who barely listens to you and constantly gets you in trouble with your harmful father, you would be an asshole too.

if you, as a child, are forced to babysit another child when you can be spending that time doing your own teenage shit, you would dislike that child too.

if you, as a vulnerable child, are raised by a terrible father and have to witness a mother being loving towards her daughter every day when you don't have that anymore (especially when said mother turns the other way while your father hits you), you would be bitter about everything too.

if you were moved miles away from your home, away from your mother and everything you love, and are tossed into some random town in the middle of nowhere with a woman you never wanted as a mother and a girl you never wanted as a sister, you would act out too.

[bugeyedfreaks]

Hi, hello! I have something to say.

For the fandom and the rowdyruff boys. I went through your page and found myself agreeing hardcore with a lot of your opinions about the fandom and ppgxrrb.

First of all, I have absolutely no idea of who came up with Butch growing up to be a massive pervert. Going off the show, wouldn't technically all three of the boys be massive perverts? They are all misogynistic slime balls who see girls as inferior.

Some things I think the fandom gets right; the boys are pretty. at least cute. For two reasons, 1; they are splitting images of the girls, so if the boys are ugly then so are the girls. 2, canonically, Bubbles has admitted that she finds Boomer "cute." Also despite the ass kicking handed to the girls in the first appearance of the rrb, Blossom and Bubbles fawn at the prospect of having kissed a boy.

Then again they kissed Harry.

Also, I think a good argument is kid rrb IS cute, but they get that sort of golden child treatment where all 3 of them just eventually end up burning out. They don't care to keep up with themselves and with how gross and mysoginistic they are, they become very unattractive very quickly. They rot, basically. Also if they were discord mods, they'd have kittens they brag their rrb title too.

I will also argue that there is nuance in the boys. Boomer atleast, which is funny because he is the least popular rrb. There are many instances where he is depicted as "naive", "child like" and even "gentle." Like yeah, he was the guy who wrote "Flowers are pretty... dumb" but when he was revived from Him, he was waving at butterflies and being taken advantage of by his brothers. If you wanna go deeper, in the comic the boys actually team up with the girls in one instance.

Still, I see the rowdyruff boys in the same vein as the gang green gang. It's like trying to defend Billy because he has that one episode where he saves the girls after setting them up, but it's like people forget that the girls still had to pummel him because... in the grand scheme of things, the guy is a shitty person! The rrb suffer from major pretty privellege and being the hetero counterparts of the girls, age included. Forget all the other side characters like Elmer, Mitch, Robin even mike! No the gorls grow up to want the boys because, 'they can change them!' Oh my gosh Bubbles suffers drastically from this.

And "the reds" are so toxic it's sad. It's like every fic with them is angsty and incredibly shallow. I never get why Blossom spends so much time running back to Brick. Oh yeah! It's because he's so big and hot now, with fiery red hair and a masculine jaw line, and is cunning and calculative and he suffers from severe mommy issues. He needs a woman like Blossom to show him how much of a prick he is! To put him in his place and tell other women off who have interest in him, because how could a woman lower her standards so much for a punk, Blossom would never (#FEMINISM). Then arranging "private visits" with him so they can make out and talk about how arrogant they both are because "ooh. We're so bad for each other but it feels soooo good. So deep. so bad."

I love how the fandom pretends Blossom is above it all, but still some how succumbs to him. "She can fix him guys! No really! We just have to make Blossom into an absolute self-contradicting prude and have Brick loosen up because... convenience!"

And people seriously bend the hell out of Butch to get him to work with Buttercup, more than 90% of the fics basically make him into a Mitch stand in with powers but this one is hotter2.0. bUTCH LITERALLY HAS NO CHARACTER AND HONESTLY, Buttercup has been repulsed by him many times. She'd yeet that guy so fast, and yet, somehow, the greens are the most popular couple I CAN NOOOOOOOOOT. Like how... really. Why does Butch get so much fanon development? The fandom tries so hard to make him into this character he simply is not! Like even going to the city of clipsville episode, the most salacious thing the fucker has done is "looked at a magazine and whistled!" But like how come Buttercup is so smitten by this that she never, once, snaps out of her "attraction" to the guy? Was this not the same issue Buttercup suffered from ACE.

Wouldn't the idea of being taken advantage of by a villain, turn Buttercup off!?

I just can not imagine Buttercup tolerating Butch- unless he is super hot now and she's internally attracted to him, because nobody gets her like this deprived fuck boy who is misunderstood, and actually a romantic guy who cares about her under it all and blood thirsty- excpet when Buttercup is around, because Buttercup can fix him and "he knows not to mess with her!"

It was so funny seeing the push back for the cw's take, when literally reading that script reminded me of all the fanfics I have had to dig through for YEARS now. I was just thinking "but isn't this what you guys WANT?" And some people were even fretting that it'd attract unwanted parts of society to the fandom. Um. I don't know if the ppg fandom is aware of this, but the fandom is already FLOODED with unwated fans, from fetish artists, to those Pintresest face claim boards that remind me of RIVERDALE, the games have already started!

That one slip of a comic, that was supposed to be a joke, of the boys handing the girls flowers and asking to be their boyfriends is way too meta.

Oh, wow, I didn’t know a lot about how some of the pairings are portrayed (obviously, since I don’t really explore that side of the fandom often) but… well, some of that certainly gave me psychic damage, especially the Blossom stuff. 🤢 I can’t even begin to express the pain I felt from reading all of that but this is the closest I can attempt to describe it with:

I agree that all of the boys would be huge pervs, but I think Butch at least being the perviest would track. If, being Buttercup’s counterpart, he also expresses extremes in his primal emotions, that would just be another primal emotion he’d express to the extreme. Just in super gross ways no girl would ever find appealing.

As for Billy, I will sort of defend him because, out of the entire gang, he has a peanut brain (affectionate), and I think, without the influence of the other guys, he would be a good boy. He still definitely needed to get punished for what he did to the girls though. 🤣 But yeah, I think the main difference between the GGG and the RRB is that, if separated, the GGG could… potentially… be good, and have been shown to have varied nuance, whereas the RRB are Pure Evil and Like That no matter what, and there’s like 100% less nuance to them.

But you’re so right about the CW thing, it really did feel a bit like the kind of stuff people have been writing for years. Also, yeah, wow, despite PPG fandom being rather fractured, it has unfortunately already suffered from a lot of, to put it politely, unpleasantness. If “unwanted” fans flooded in… well, what else is new? 😮‍💨

…man, there was a lot here, and I appreciate it all, and agree with a lot of it. Thank you for the ask! 💖

[carefulfears]

here are some direct links to archived jackson entries on ghouli that i was able to find:

dream disease apocalypse (he's so dramaaaa just like his father fr)

mississippi delta waves (i loved this one, i thought it was so interesting)

encounter i (monster fanfiction)

knives out (encounter ii) (monster fanfiction)

mobius strip tease ("and i realized i was trapped, doomed to repeat this bewildering cycle" welcome to the family ouroboros, kid!)

4H00. after rust. (monster fanfiction)

this screaming skull is archived here (and here) and is his main post about scully. ("I focus on her eyes. I always remembered that much – kind eyes. Blue eyes. Red hair. Of which I have neither. These are recessive genes.")

and i found a more comprehensive archive of the site at beyondthesea.it/ghouli.net

including you are the living key in a dying function, which is a story (?) about a kid named billy mullen who has strange abilities that his parents don't understand, who was adopted.

But mother, that was reserved for private, quiet moments between her and Steven, when Billy was out of the house or asleep. This is when they would talk about her... When he was mature enough to comprehend, they were going to tell Billy he was adopted. It had been a closed adoption, so there wasn’t anything they could tell him about his birth mother, but they thought it would be important for him to know that he was not their biological child. However, it was now clear that he’d already acquired some innate knowledge of it, and this scared Janet.

and in the future we shall not thrive, in which he refers to himself as "some emo kid," which really cracks me up. (also, "I’m looking at you, paranoid subscribers of The Truth Squad with Tad O’Malley" is soo funny to me. his bio mom and dad being the people who started that rumor in question.)

from 3H00. after dark.: "Some signs of life inside the independent gas station with the tilted, squeaky windmill. It’s closed, but he sees some movement inside."

your imploding cells has some nauseating implications, depending on how literally/autobiographical you take it...

How much longer before he could go home? They weren’t sure. Just a few more tests. He thinks they’re afraid of him now. The doctors won’t come inside his room. No one comes in to play with him anymore. He hasn’t seen his dad in a long time. Did they forget about him here?

and melt, it said (monster fanfiction)

[lovingbradshawafterdark]

Devil on Deathwood Drive Chapter 0 - I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire

Bradley Bradshaw x Jake seresin x Fem!reader

Summary: The start of the 50s is a very turbulent time, and you’re trying to live life how you want to; the peaceful postwar life you want is soon flipped on its head. Meanwhile, in the 80s, Jake tries to find his place when he runs into Bradley Bradshaw. 

Warnings: mentions of not-so-great expectations because of the 50s and vague mentions of torture and death, but they are there. Light sexual themes and mentions of sex within this chapter that will become more explicit as the series progresses. This is going to be an 80s sci-fi horror au, I promise. 18+ minors DNI

A/n: big thank you to @desert-fern, and @sarahsmi13s for helping me with this project, plus for funsies tags @sebsxphia and @lovelybucky1 also @lewmagoo because I did and oopsie and posted this to the wrong blog. Let's get into it! also, please tell me your thoughts on this series 

Series masterlist | Next part

New Mexico May 1950

A strange sense of peace, yet a sense of fear, had swept through. Five years since the war ended, yet there was a slight unease. You remembered your daddy serving during it all; he missed a lot of your growing up, missing several birthdays. He barely even recognized him, and he barely recognized you. His service during the war had hardened him. All the fear you tried to shove back down in you, there would be peace even if you had to force yourself to believe so. A hidden sense of fear lurked in every household, families waiting for the call to arms to return, for sons and husbands to be snatched once more. But it didn’t come. Being forced to grow up early made you want some time to figure out what you wanted, but the overwhelming pressure to find someone to marry, settle down, and have kids. It was all so much to take that many had turned their head away from you.

You laughed as you were handed another beer, not that you were drinking anything but playing along. They were the only people who wouldn’t pick on or bully you.  Everyone was seemingly making out or just drinking or getting high. You were a wallflower, seemingly at this small bond fire. People only handed you things, ignoring your existence. You jumped as Billy elbowed you, “Hey, what was that for!”

Billy had been your best friend since elementary school, he was always getting into trouble, and you were always getting him out of it. His brother was drafted but never made it home, leaving poor Billy to pick up the pieces his older brother left behind. When your mother had heard what happened to John, she could only tell you she was glad she had no sons. You could barely remember half of the boys who never made it home. Most were specks in your memory now.

“Can’t have you be a space case,” he teased before grabbing you by the arm, “c’mon, I found something” You giggled as he pulled you away from everyone, running up the slight hill. That’s when you saw a small glowing object buried in the ground. You stared in awe as Billy approached it, not phased by the strange aura you felt.  

“Are you sure this is safe?” A sudden uneasiness filled your body as the strange thing began to glow even brighter.

“Relax, I touched it earlier, and it did nothing. Just come down here” You sheepishly nodded at Billy before slowly descending the hill. The uneasiness only worsened the closer you got. Billy smiled as you looked down at it, mesmerized as it began to pulse, “Pretty, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” you don’t know what came over you. What was once a feeling of uncertainty became your head feeling funny. You watched as it went from blue to a deep red. You bent down and looked at it even closer, forgetting about Billy being next to you.

“Sunburst?” Billy asked as he saw you go to touch it. The ground beneath you felt very warm. The pad of your thumb touched it, and you immediately flinched at the sudden burning sensation. Billy pulled you away as your whole body started to burn up. It felt like you were on fire as you began to scream. You saw the horrified look in Billy’s eyes, both of you surrounded by a blazing fire. You reached your hand out towards his face, and the last thing you heard was his screams and those at the bonfire beyond the hill.

***

You screamed and cried, tears burning across your cheeks as the men carried you towards a car. A tall, slender blonde man stood next to it. Burns covered your body now. Your eyes are bleary as you are pushed closer to him. His green eyes make your stomach churn. The whole town had turned against you, Billy nowhere in sight. However, the charred remains of the others at the bonfire were still littering the side of the road. No one could identify or touch them as they were still hot.

“This girl?” The men behind you nodded and backed away slowly. Your hands were still cuffed, trying desperately to melt them. Your parents stood off to the sides, not daring to look you in the eyes.

“Can you get the devil out of her, doctor?” Your mother asked softly, and you looked at her with fear.

“Yes, but I’m afraid I can’t do it here. I’ll need to take her to my lab” The man clapped his hand together, and suddenly another pair of men came from behind him and approached you, “while she’s in my care, I will make sure she receives the best care possible.”

Two months later - Colorado (July)

You wailed as flames erupted from your hands, your body about giving out from malnutrition. You saw a woman taking notes, glancing up every once in and while.

“It seems your abilities activate based on anger and desperation,” she mumbled, hair tied back in a perfect bun.  You were breathing heavily as the machine retracted itself from you, “however, I’m afraid I’m going to have to run more tests” She smiled. Something wicked, burn marks covered your hands, palms blackened and charred.

“Please, no, please, I can’t” Tears streamed down your cheeks, hot and warm, as you begged her to stop for today. She only caressed your cheek and wiped your tears away. Your eyes panicked as you felt the machine turn back on as sharp electric shocks ran throughout your body, the hope of escape slowly fleeting.

Five months later - Colorado (January)

Your cell was cold as you lay there. You hadn’t moved in days. You are freezing despite the unconscious attempt your body made to heat you. There was no escape, no cure, only physical pain and mental distress. You slowly sat up, body covered in faded burns. You heard someone walking, heels clicking with each step. You prepared for the worst, waiting for the yelling and other punishments. However, you heard something slide under your cell, hitting your feet.  You looked up, and a shadowy figure stood before you, face hidden.

“Think it’s about time we get you out of here…sunburst.”

July 1985

Bradley never invited strangers into his van, let alone would have slept with one of them. The blonde who lay before him, Jake, was still coming down. Jake was new to this traveling deal and was new to being a nomad.  

“Alright, gotta get going,” Bradley said, zipping himself back up; Jake still didn’t move. “You high or what?”

“Sorry” Jake stood up quickly, his frail slender body illuminated by moonlight. Jake started to dress himself, and Bradley had a lingering question.

“Where ya from again?” Jake froze, not being able to look Bradley in the eye. He knew he must have known.

“Texas…” Jake answered meekly, his gaze focused on the moon outside, cigarettes hanging out the back pocket of his jeans. There was no way Bradley didn’t know who he was or who his family was.

“You just look familiar” Bradley couldn’t place it, many people called him a bit slow with the times, but Jake had this look about him. A look Bradley couldn’t help but feel familiar with.

“People always say I got a familiar face” Jake still couldn't face him. Bradley eyed Jake’s backpack, and he could see the small rations of food.

“You don't have much…” Bradley whispered, his heart sinking.

Don't fall for the puppy eyes.

“Can I...stay with you for a bit?” Jake asked, finally looking at Bradley, eyes pleading. Bradley tried his hardest to say no, but…

“Sure,” Bradley caved…he never caved. He saw Jake’s eyes light up, and there was no going back now.

“Thanks, man! You won't regret it!”

July 1986

Bradley had grown to regret it only slightly. Jake had filled out more, way more buff, and way more…

“You're being too loud,” Bradley grunted as Jake had a premature climax. Jake only laughed as Bradley’s hips faltered, finally spilling inside the poor man. Jake pulled the hair from his sweaty forehead. “Also, when will you get that dirt off your face?”

“What dirt?”  Jake asked confusedly, tilting his head. Bradley smirked before licking his thumb.

“Right here!” Bradley rubbed his thumb along Jake’s peach fuzz—his attempt to grow a mustache was Bradley’s favorite way to tease him. Jake hissed as he pulled away from Bradley. Bradley grunted at the feeling as Jake folded his arms.

“Not funny…” Jake huffed. It hadn't taken Bradley long to figure out who Jake was or who he belonged to. Bradley cleaned himself off as Jake sulked. His temper knew no bounds.

“Pretty funny to me, now come on, we gotta get back on the road,” Bradley said as he opened the Vans door. Sunlight blinding him almost, Jake grumpily followed as they looked out at the view they had.

“We’ll hit the venue by the afternoon if we’re lucky…then we leave Colorado Quickly!” Jake said, pulling out the map. “We go down Deathwood Drive, and it's easy-”

“We aren't taking that road,” Bradley said with a glare, his mind flashing back. Jake frowned. He knew why.

“Listen, man, and it's just an old superstition-”

“We aren't going down, and that's final!” Bradley yelled as he put his foot on the gas, making Jake jolt forward.

“Okay! Fine! We don't have to go down it,” Jake sighed as Bradley slowed down, turning up the radio as Everybody Loves Somebody by Dean Martin played. “God, this is so cheesy it makes me sick,” Jake groaned as Bradley chuckled.

“I find it quite romantic,” Bradley said, sticking his tongue out. Jake just turned his head away and leaned against the window. He would get Bradley down that road; something was calling out to him.

Likes are apperciated but Reblogs and likes mean the world!

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

According to the dictionary, home is a place. A property you can buy or sell. A place where people or animals live and are cared for by people who are not their relations or owners. Someone or something's place of origin.

(It was night once again, both of them at Steve's because his parents are never there and hers are just happy she isn't spending all her nights at home, and neither of them sleeping because they were never sleeping, and also neither of them partying because Robin had never liked alcohol or unpredictability and loud music gave her a migraine. Steve isn't sure what he was doing. Maybe trying to fall asleep, maybe staring aimless at the ceiling. He remembers what Robin was doing, though. He always remembers Robin. He makes the effort, for her. Maybe also for himself, a bit. He remembers thinking "she always bites her lower when she is concentrating", as if he hadn't had that same thought a hundred and a thousand times before. He remembers thinking, "i need to remember what her hair looks like, in the moonlight", although the actual hair evades him. He knows what it must have looked like, spends more than enough time with her to know everything by heart, but he doesn't remember how it looked like that night specifically.)

According to the dictionary, his home is Hawkins. And he supposes that he does, indeed, know this town he was born into. He knows the streets and the establishments and even most of the people. He gets greeted by name when he enters the public pool, or the diner, or the arcade, or the library. He knows the places kids and teens go to to hide from their parents, pretending their parents didn't sneak into the exact same places to hide from theirs. But it is more of a side-effect than anything. He does not know Hawkins on purpose. He does not make an active effort to keep every little detail in his mind. He does not feel a sense of loss when he forgets one of the streetnames, even if it is only for a moment. He does not know Hawkins so intimately he feels it in his bones, does not know it in a way no one else does. Hawkins does not know who he is in a way not even himself can fully comprehend. He does not trust these houses or these cars or these trees.

(it had been before chrissy and patrick and eddie but after hopper and billy. she'd had a spanish dictionary in her hands, the english one laying besides her left thigh. "i survived the actual russian secret service", had been her deadpan answer upon his worries regarding the lack of light and the tiny letters. They'd always found it funny, the way Robin's parents were always so relieved when she returned messy-haired and bleary-eyed, completely unaware that the bags under her eyes were the result of studying the language she hadn't picked in Highschool.)

If Hawkins were his home, he supposes he would be mourning it. The cracked streets, the destroyed houses. He feels annoyance, mostly. It is inconvenient, having to watch his step whenever he leaves the house or skip over every crack too wide to evade.

(She'd put the spanish dictionary to the side, picked up the English one instead and opened it on a random page. "What does "home" mean?". He voice had been rough after hours without use, words slightly slurred due to the lack of sleep and the late hour of the night. "What?". He thinks she'd retied her hair after that, annoyed at the whisps that kept fluttering into her face. "The definition, dingus" had been the reply, her lips motioning to the thick book on her lap. "What do you think Mr. Oxford would define the term "home" as?" Steve doesn't remember what he answered because that is not the important part.

They played the game until they fell asleep, searching for more and more obscure words, and they comforted each other when the nightmares woke them up again. "do not", he'd thought, more fierce and desperate than before "do not forget it. Don't you dare let this feeling slip your mind. Keep it here, even if nothing else, remember this")

He looks at her, and he remembers. He never forgets, but sometimes it slips his mind to make an active effort, to do it on purpose. Steve knows people are much more fragile than buildings, but he still takes her hand. He feels the sweat and the callouses and the dirt and the heat. He feels the light cut she got four days ago, mostly healed by now, and thinks, with purpose, remember this.

[motownfiction]

mold

In the summer of 2001, the only thing Sadie’s kids want to hear is the Shrek soundtrack.

She’s not really sure how they got here. Like every other family with children between the ages of three and eleven, they saw Shrek at the theater. They liked it enough. Billy, who’s three, really liked the big red dragon. So when they came upon the soundtrack at Borders a couple months back, Sadie bought it. She remembers thinking the music was pretty fun.

Actually, she remembers Sam saying the music was pretty fun. And if there’s one thing you take Sam’s word about, it’s music.

The kids, as it turns out, have a lot more in common with Sam than Sadie ever assumed. Because they also enjoy the Shrek soundtrack. They enjoy it so much that they miss out on all the new hits of the summer. Years from now, Sadie will discover they weren’t missing much (Who could forget that Atomic Kitten cover of “Eternal Flame,” except for everyone?), but for now, she’s drowning in hell. And hell sounds like “All Star” by Smash Mouth.

It gets worse when the kids learn the lyrics to the song. Even Michael, who normally hates poppy songs like this one, seems into it. He thinks it’s funny.

“Really?” Sadie asks. “You think it’s funny to sing the same song over and over and over while your mother graciously drives you to and from your friends’ houses? To and from the pool? To and from the restaurants you want to go to?”

But Michael doesn’t answer. None of the kids do. Because “All Star” is playing, and they’re singing.

Some-BODY once told me / the WOOOORLD is gonna roll me …

Sadie sighs and accepts her fate at the red light. This is what life is like. Life is schlepping three kids to and from their various schools, activities, and appointments, all with Smash Mouth playing in the background. No, the foreground. It’s too loud to ever be the background.

She thinks back to when she was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. Before she fell asleep, she used to dream about a life like this one. A life where she married Daniel (which happened), where they had kids (which happened), where she was involved with every aspect of their caretaking (which she is). It’s just that when she imagined driving her kids around metro Detroit back then, she imagined them listening to “Take It on the Run,” to make fun of Daniel, who always hated that song. And to be fair, they do that.

At least, they did before the Shrek soundtrack came into their lives.

The light turns green, and All Star whines the chorus.

And all that glitter is go-wold! / Only shooting stars break the mo-wold …

Sadie grits her teeth. What in the world were they thinking, putting an extra W sound in words that have never needed an extra W sound? She’s never written a song before, but she’s pretty sure that if you have to add in extra W sounds, you should probably go back to the drawing board.

“Mommy?”

Sadie jumps herself out of her thoughts. She spots Rosemary in the rearview mirror, a question in her eyes. She looks so much like Daniel, but there’s a little gleam in her eyes that’s very Sadie. Curious about everything. Wondering, wandering.

“What’s up, Rose?”

“What does that mean?” she asks. “Break the mold? Is that like bread?”

“Or penicillin,” Michael cuts in, almost certainly to remind everyone that’s the word that won him the spelling bee this past school year.

“Pencil in,” Billy says, so he can be part of the conversation.

“Mommy?”

Sadie sighs.

“The mold is, like, what people do to fit in,” she says. “It’s when people do what’s expected of them. Do you know what that means?”

Rosemary nods.

“When you act right,” she says.

“Or when you act like people think is right,” she says. “Anyway, when you break the mold, you decide that those expectations aren’t working for you. So you stand out because you’re unique. You do something new. It’s actually a good thing.”

Rosemary nods.

“I wanna break the mold,” she says.

“And I’m sure you will,” Sadie says. “You’re the kind of person who would.”

Rosemary grins, and for a second, she looks more like a Doyle than a DeLuca. Sadie’s heart soars. All summer long, she’s wondered what she did to deserve a bunch of kids who only want to listen to the Shrek soundtrack. But that’s not what she should have seen.

When she was a kid, all she wanted was to find her way into that mold. Sadie wanted to do everything right, everything normal, everything that a girl was supposed to grow up and do. All the things she thought she could want, she put on hold because what if she missed her opportunity for something normal? And she can’t be sorry for the things she chose. She got these kids. These kids who have their whole lives ahead of them … who can forge their own paths without clinging to expectations, no matter how shiny and romantic and normal they seem.

And maybe she wishes she didn’t have to thank the Shrek soundtrack for that.

But it’s better than nothing.

(part of @nosebleedclub july challenge -- day xxiv! watch as a woman tries to catch up with a bygone era)

[lila-rae]

Ok so :

He said he doesn't get nervous when he meets fellow actors, but he gets excited because they share the same passion/do the same thing for living. He does get starstruck when he meet athletes tho, because he's fascinated by their skill set.

He hung out with Dev Patel at the Bafta after party in 2017 and loved it, and Nikki and Dev's mom spend the night chatting too. And what was funny about that night was that Nikki was so happy for Tom, she got extra drunk and was hangover the next day and had to pass security but had metal pins in her hair and didn't took it out, so she had to pass the metal detector so many times at the airport lol.

He talked about getting Harry to work in the Song marketing team. In total, the videos he made have been watched 12 millions times apparently so he's super proud of him. And even The Rock contacted Tom's team bc he wan he liked the videos and wanted to hire Harry but they said no because Harry's always with Tom haha.

He misses dancing so much. Sometimes he wants to attend dance classes but he knows he's gonna get filmed by someone if he goes there (☹️).

He also talked about having a sixth sense when he's out, he knows when people are filming/seeing him. But now he manage to master the ability to ignore people when they scream his name in the street. But Harry is annoying because whenever this happens, Harry stops him and say "hey Tom someone just said your name".

They talked about Dom asking him to not do LSB (again), but he's really happy he did it and he did it with Z so they were able to support each other because they were both extra nervous.

One time he had to present Naomi Watts for her career award. He was in Palm springs in a hotel with Nikki and was dressing up. He wore a tight suit and he was so itchy, he was complaining and said he wanted to wear jeans instead. Nikki got mad and gave him her tights so he could wear them underneath lol. He also forgot Armani shoes that they lend him for the event at the hotel, and very recently Nikki brought it up during an argument which make Tom laughs, because Mom never forget anything

He sometimes calls restaurant and pretend to be his own assistant, talk with an American accent and manage to get it that way.

The period between finishing Billy Elliott and getting into his rugby school was really tough because he was marginalized, he wasn't the cool kid at all and basically lived the lonely Peter Parker life. He mentally felt few years older than everyone else, while physically looking 3 years younger. When he became more successful, he unfortunately lost some friends due to jealousy. He's happy he got Haz and Tuwaine though because they've been supportive since the beginning

He was so nervous for the first night as Billy Elliott. Because everyone he knew was in the audience (his parents invited everyone).

His proud of Paddy's acting career now. He was supposed to be in The Impossible with him apparently but he was too young so they didn't think it was a good idea.

They talked about Tom and Harry short film "Last Call" they filmed last year. Lindsey Duncan plays Tom's mom. Harry is an amazing director according to Tom.

Look at you fully taking one for the team.

[jumpscaregoose]

x laws propaganda time

alright this is the big one buckle in nerds

@ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma poll crash course in x laws and also lyserg diethel. all encompassing longpost, tangents included

this is probably going to be too monolithic to work as propaganda but I can do what I want

(read more for courtesy because. abomination)

we’ll begin with some light housekeeping!

Shaman King 101 real quick for those unaware: shamans are people who can see and communicate with ghosts and spirits. every 500 years there’s a big tournament to decide who gets the biggest, bestest spirit, the Great Spirit. there are two versions of SK, 2001 (a heavily manga divergent anime adaptation considered to be better on both nostalgia and writing principles) and the 2021/manga version (written by this guy hiroyuki takei who’s really not the best at writing plots and tends to forget important details. this one’s his intent for better or worse and is more canon).

IMPORTANT TERMS (that I use here but forgot to explain first oops)

spirit ally: a shaman’s primary spirit they use for combat and various tasks

over soul: putting a spirit into a physical medium to allow them to interact with the living world

mana/furyoku: interchangable english and japanese terms for a shaman’s power level. can be measured numerically

shaman king: the person who has the great spirit as their spirit ally

the original shaman king manga was written by a man named hiroyuki takei. takei is. certainly a writer ever. he’s very good at writing fun characters and character dynamics. he character designs and art are very nice (when he’s not being stupid with them. there are some CHOICES). he is very bad at most other things. like remembering timelines and plot details. or research. I will be referring to him occasionally

my area of expertise is the manga version, so assume anything I mention is from that one unless otherwise stated (most general statements do apply to both). HOWEVER, there are some x laws related things that are SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT (more traumatic) in 2001, and I will bring those up as well.

the main antagonist is this guy hao, an onmyoji from 1000 years ago who reincarnated himself to become god (the shaman king). also btw an onmoyji is a type of spiritual leader person who practiced the traditional chinese wuxing (five element) concept, that’s important later. the main protagonist is his twin brother/split part of his soul yoh. they’re really interesting but not the point of this post so 

enter lyserg diethel, blorbo no. 1 for this poll (I highly recoommend starting to type his name into your search engine and clicking on the first chemical looking thing that comes up in autocomplete. I could just tell you but it’s way funnier if you find this out how I did)

when we meet lyserg he’s 14 years old (I think. the SK timeline is very broken around this part of the story and dates can vary by a couple years) and he’s joined the shaman fight (big plot tournament) to get revenge on hao, who killed his parents and burned his house down when he was 6. also he’s british, uses dowsing with a pendulum, and his spirit ally is the fairy morphine (funny if you looked up the thing from before), who’s been his friend for his entire life (comes up in trauma later keep notes). he’s also frequently depicted with poppies in the manga (infuriating when combined with the name thing and morphine. why. why is he named that. why he not opioid. this makes me so irrationally upset). lyserg meets the protagonist gang (yoh, this gay emo kid, gay emo kid’s shonen rival boyfriend, and this other guy with a hilarious running gag of summoning this guy billy with magic hitchhiking powers all the time in 2001. it’s implied hitchhiking guy and billy make out once. this show is insane). lyserg’s goal at this point is to find strong allies to beat hao, so he tries to invoke the let’s-fight-to-become-friends trope and it does work but not until he gets decked in the face for being an idiot and pays for everyone’s hospital bills. which are a thing because btw everyone got dropped out of a plane into new mexico breaking bad style for a tournament test.

while journeying with the protagonist gang, they encounter one of hao’s minions, a man named boris tepes dracula. boris is able to use his spirit ally to possess people and temporarily turn them into his vampire minions. the concept of becoming a servant to hao is so horrific to lyserg that, in the 2001 version, he begs yoh to kill him if he ever becomes one. with 100% sincerity. spoiler alert he does at one point, does not get killed, and is confused. this is also when the main event of this poll shows up.

X LAWS BACKSTORY INTERLUDE!

back in the day there were these two dudes luchist and marco lasso. marco was an orphan who grew up at luchist’s family orphanage and they had a very close paternal relationship. so close that they founded an independent supercar dealership together. enter hao, here to find minions for the shaman fight in what was at this point probably about 10 years! arson and murder! the car dealership and orphanage get burnt down, and luchist and marco swear lifelong vengeance on a kid who couldn’t have been more than 5 years old and form the x laws. they gather more people who also think a small child is the ultimate evil, including… who’s that? our next competitor!

iron maiden jeanne, blorbo no. 2 for this poll!

jeanne was a young orphan girl on the streets of mont saint michel in france (my high school functions teacher claimed to have almost drowned in quicksand there writing his name during low tide), that marco and luchist picked to become their ultimate weapon and convinced her she was sent from god to defeat hao. key point here: iron maiden jeanne is genuinely just some random little girl, no divine connection beyond that of the average shaman of her power level. and about that power level. manga/2021 shaman king has this weird little detail, where if a shaman dies or is gravely injured, their numerical power level (I’m glad 2001 only brought in numbers to surprise us with hao’s strength later on, because aaaaaaa) will increase drastically. the x laws exploit this system by having jeanne swear and oath on an iron maiden (the fake medieval torture device, not the band) and stay inside it almost 24/7. real spikes, too. blood pours out of it during her introduction.

being so close to death for probably half her life has given her immense power, and her spirit ally is shamash, the god/spirit who… issued the first laws to the babylonians in mesopotamia? wasn’t the x laws supposed to be a catholic thing?

don’t. worry. about it. normal Takei things.

real quick on religious imagery: the x laws’ over souls are “angels” these robot things (think eva unit but #aesthetic #angelcore or whatever) that they activate by shooting guns. can range from small handguns to bazookas. the second ed of the 2021 anime is also this:

take it as you will (I love the 2021 eds so much btw, my favourite pieces of shaman king animation. ed 1 for the win)

jeanne’s over souls are all also medieval torture devices (of various levels of accuracy), for example guillotines, gibbets, and the statue of apega

(also, when I say “god” in this, unless I’m referring to hao, the great spirit, or winning the shaman fight, I just mean a powerful spirit ally. it’s weird and confuses even me)

and while we’re talking about jeanne, she’s clearly named after joan d'arc, the revolutionary who heard visions from the archangel micheal on mont saint michel. jeanne wholeheartedly believes she was sent by god to defeat hao, and in the x laws’ twisted views of justice

all those who stand in their way are irredeemable sinners who deserve their gruesome deaths. the x laws are justice incarnate. hao is the ultimate evil who must be defeated at all costs (hao is spotted doing such things as. hanging out with his adoptive little sister/daughter on top of big rocks. engaging in polite conversation with his brother at coffee shops and hot springs. eating a baguette at their match. taunting his brother’s fiancée over a book)

returning to the timeline, the x laws appear and immediately kill boris (turn him into actual dust and all). resident good boy yoh and the other protagonist guys are obviously icked out, because they’d just shonen battled boris, learned his tragic backstory, and taken him out as a threat. lyserg, however, is entranced by the x laws and their gun angel robots… gun angels… angels with…

no…

*I am pulled away from my computer and executed by the comedy police*

anyways, this is the start of a somewhat out of place shakespearean tragedy for our boy. is comparing hiroyuki goddamn takei to william shakespeare a stretch? yes. so much of a stretch. does it feel right in this case? also yes. this is the start of a beautiful, fascinating, deeply frustrating spiral (this character arc has made several people I know hate lyserg diethel at some point lol)

our guys make the final walk to their destination awkwardly walking behind the x laws, who are pissed they didn’t do a murder. eventually they separate and we randomly meet god in southwest colorado. god as in the great spirit in this case. some plot shit happens and lyserg ends up separated from the rest of the protagonist gang, and he wanders into the x laws. there’s this absolutely heartbreaking scene of lyserg, this young boy mourning his parents, crying into marco’s shoulder to ask him if, just maybe, the x laws can defeat hao. and because this is a cult he says yes.

the reveal of lyserg joining the x laws is another very nice and painful scene. it’s been heavily implied to have happened (see above) but had not yet been confirmed. it’s a really good scene but I think you can only really catch the ~Vibes~ by seeing it so

important context: the guy getting sliced was lyserg’s opponent in an officially sanctioned tournament match, where you absolutely do NOT have to kill people. this is after around 3 months of being with the x laws (in the dumb manga timeline. holy shit I hate the manga timeline. in 2001 it’s different, I think it’s even less time)

so, in roughly 3 months with this group, our boy went from “standard anime revenge plot” to “actual cult member. who will kill people”. like he was fucked up before but not in a godly way. also there’s more fucked up now.

real quick jeanne thing. in the manga, most of the x laws get killed by hao (either in a tournament or while shooting a giant space laser at him, setting off a criminally underutilized subplot). some more shit happens, and jeanne ends up discovering that she’s not sent from god, but just and ordinary girl. she is surprisingly unfazed by this. I blame takei

the 2001 and manga versions both have a mutually exclusive godly fucked up thing about them so we’ll be going over those after a quick word from our sponsor: child abuse! yeah lyserg gets slapped around a lot. for not being 100% murder cult 100% of the time. it’s fucked up in a godly way yeah.

in the 2001 version, the spiral is even worse, including lyserg abandoning morphine (best friend fairy who he had a whole filler episode getting back from some goons. that morphine). and he doesn’t really stop being culty and the worst until the very end. and he’s also a lot MORE culty and the worst. he straight up kidnaps someone to use them as bait in an elaborate plan to send hao’s soul to the shadowrealm called the Gate of Babylon, this thing that’ll send everyone in a small vicinities’ souls there. I’m gonna be honest I forgot the details and the wiki was really unhelpful but that’s the gist. he does eventually get less cultish in 2001 though.

in the manga lyserg goes to hell. this isn’t actually that weird for shaman king, I haven’t mentioned it yet but at this point in the manga death has kind of lost all meaning (this comes up with a jeanne thing later. do I need to touch on red crimson jeanne in here? not really. but I’m gonna. “world is mine” -hatsune miku). 4 other guys go to hell at the same time as him he isn’t special. BUT. the hells in shaman king are pretty clearly tied to past events of their beholder’s lives, or worries they might have. for example, a character who’s hometown was flooded when they were young goes to a flooded forest (for THREE PANELS. justice for the hororen hells). lyserg’s hell is london, what looks like some weird time dilated tudor/modern london crossover (or someone not knowing what london looks like). in weird london, lyserg is attacked by a demon he calls Mastema (who, according to my beloved wikipedia, is a fallen archangel and the personification of hatred) takei clearly did at least that much research for once, because Mastema follows lyserg wherever he goes and only attacks when he thinks of his parent’s deaths and his hatred for hao. at one point, he does this to try and defeat it…

…and immediately gets pummeled

now, I’m not entirely sure this was intentional, but like. becoming an “angel” to defeat something. and that doesn’t work. 2+2, people. he comes back from hell btw. death has no meaning and all

in 2021 there’s also this scene where yoh comes to visit lyserg (because he’s the goodest boy ever and is worried about his friend) and jeanne shows up to ask yoh to join the x laws. he refuses, and she immediately switches from hello friend join us to well. murder

and we should also probably talk about zeruel. zeruel, according to google and evangelion, means “arm of god”. zeruel is the angel lyserg recieves as part of the x laws (and who he ditches morphine for in 2001). zeruel itself isn’t really that relevant overall but I felt I had to bring it up. in the manga he uses zeruel (car form) and morphine to form his armoured over soul, mastema dolkeem (flames of enmity)

oh right

five warriors

is a thing

so

in the manga, they introduce this concept of the five warriors, each representing one element (annoyingly, not the actual wuxing elements but instead water, earth, fire, air, and lightning?). hao’s spirit ally throughout the series has been the spirit of fire (there are spirits for each element btw) so it’s poetic that lyserg gets the flames of enmity and fire, or something.

let’s talk about the impermance of death in shaman king real quick. for most of the second half of the manga, death has basically no meaning

oh shit I just realized I forgot to mention jeanne can resurrect the dead. she can do that btw

the death-has-no-meaning train gets started when jeanne brings this one emo guy who died for emo reasons back from the dead and it’s introduced as a concept. over the course of shaman king that emo guy dies. four times. the entire main cast has died at least once (we will get to that later). by the end there is no reason to leave someone dead at all, and doing so would be really fucking stupid. guess what happens to jeanne in red crimson (shaman king spinoff manga. also the best shaman king spinoff manga my beloved)? she dies. permanently

(this screenshot was apparently what broke the post? jeanne dying too powerful for tumblr?)

it’s an ok (?) ending to her character arc (and shows how fucked up she got from the whole child cult leader thing) but it irks me somehow (there’s also a scene in the manga after jeanne discovers she’s not sent from god where she refers to suicide as “there being no act more wicked”)

resurrect my girl

jeanne’s whole thing in red crimson annoys me to no end and if I went off about it here you wouldn’t believe that red crimson is Good Actually. so I won’t. but just know that the wasted potential is off the charts

and now, for what feels like a technicality to me: asakura hao kills everyone!

at the end of the manga, hao becomes god. he also proceeds to attempt his genocide of the human race and offs the entire main cast almost instantly. it is my favourite scene in shaman king ever and I love it dearly. what matters here is that both of our guys here got killed by god himself. that’s also godly trauma. the fact that THAT’S in a lil footnote shows how fucked up everything else is tbh

and uh that’s all I can think of for lyserg and jeanne religious trauma. if you’re curious just ask me somehow and I will be glad to infodump

but really you should just go shaman king (I recommend reading the manga first and then watching 2001. the reboot anime too if you really like the story but it’s just the manga but worse)

do it

there’s some bullshit and bad writing in there but it’s still pretty good (and stupid)

[thestobingirlie]

fr crying didn’t realize how many days i met this sit without answering 😭

yeah people really do love making nuclear families even when they don’t even realize that they’re making it nuclear! YES!! the age matters when trying to do that with the father figure. yes hopper as steve’s father figure makes sense because he is also a father and his age. steve being dustin’s father figure makes no sense because steve is not even nineteen when when dustin meets him.

scoops troops supremacy! let’s go 🎉💅

yeah i get not being invested in the parents because they pop up so little. the wheelers’ parents are more able to be thought about tho because they keep popping up. but i love that you think about steve’s parents. and yeah i agree those are two completely different things about forgetting the parents’ existence vs saying that teens are parental figures.

same max and steve are so important to me too! fr breaks my heart too when people push them aside - they are siblings. same i die a little inside when they just leave out steve and max’s relationship.

literally, steve’s a teenager, he’s not anyone’s mother or father. the mum jokes are funny, but when people honestly think steve is someone’s parent, it’s kinda weird. it’s especially funny to me, because when everyone’s in their 30s, they’ll all be like four years apart, just a group of friends in their 30s. that’s not a huge age difference, whereas hopper will always be decades older than the kids/teens.

i try to care about the wheelers, but every since karen went after billy, she just grosses me out. i like ted more than her lol.

max and steve mean more to me than most other relationships in the show. literally can’t fathom when people tear them apart.

[kittyphoenix12-xx]

Hi!

About that why did you get billy hate poll... Personally i dont post about billy or harringrove so i never had any hate targeted at me, and i cant vote in zhe poll because of it. BUT i had to block so many accounts and tags because i couldnt go into the billy hargrove tag without encountering these mile long posts about how awful we all are. I know you know these posts too well, so i wont detail how according to the antis we are all racist assholes. The worst part is that when i first joined the fandom i saw so many of these that i almost believed them. You know, when a bunch of people are all saying the same bs but you start to doubt yourself, it really sucked. It effected me enough thst i had a hard time "confessing" to my real-life (aka not online) friends who are casual fans of the show that he was my favourite character. And the funny part is most of them couldnt even care less, cause being such a passionate anti for a fictional character and writing 10k essays on how awful that FICTIONAL CHARATER is and therefore his fans and the actor too IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOUR! It is as chronicly online as it gets. There was only one friend of mine who was suprised and since she is a very opinionated person started to explain to me how SHE COULD NEVER LOVE HIM and she is suprised that i care about him. I tried to explain to her that i know that he behaves like an asshole but its due to his background and i believe would he have gotten the same treatment as steve he could have been redeemed, i was hit with the classic tonedeath answer:

Well my home life wasnt sunshine and puppies either but i dont go around beating up kids

At that point i just gave up in arguing honestly and then i felt like an idiot for not putting up more of a fight, cause this made it feel like her argument i agreed with. God.

I love billy so much, but all this negativity that comes with being in the fandom just drains me.

my dear anon, you are absolutely correct and i hope you have a lovely day.

i confess that when i first watched stranger things, i didn't like billy that much. and i handled that by not engaging with media about him, you know, like a normal person. this was just after s2 came out so i wasn't active on tumblr, i wasn't writing fanfiction, i wasn't in the fandom (and I'm glad let me tell you). but i was also thirteen and related to max more than billy, but the older i got, the more mature and aware i became of just the world in general.

in my humble opinion, the vocal billy antis are ignorant. they don't want to a conversation, they don't want to discuss nuance or entertain the idea of people unlearning things.

we've reached a place in this world where racism and homophobia and ableism are so prevalent that people forget that these things are taught and can therefore be unleant. because a lot of the real life people don't want to unlearn, or can't.

and that idea as spread into fandom spaces. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but the fact that people's response to children/teenagers saying racist/homophobic things is to immediately call for their death is a bad thing actually. and yes, it's spread to characters as well.

it's all performative. i made that poll just to see how performative antis are and, yeah, the results aren't great.

another thing i've noticed about people in general is that they tend to hate characters that exhibit their *embarassing* flaws. media that has racist/homophobic characters in the bad positions aren't really loved by people who hold those views.

^^^^ i think this summarises what i'm trying to say. no one wants to be the bad guy, so when they see something that forces them to confront that part of them, they push it away, deny it.

billy/harringrove stans have been harrassed, told to kill ourselves, called slurs and yet the people who say those things think they're right because they can't fathom being wrong.

so, anon, what i've learnt from my six months in this fandom, is to embrace it. yea billy was going to hit the kids with his car, i actively encourage that now. yea billy was going to kill everyone, he should've killed them all.

but no matter what, we love and support each other. so feel free to ramble in my ask box whenever, start posting on your blog about billy, do whatever you want.

they don't matter to us. they can't matter to us. fandom should be safe and it should be fun and those people are making themselves miserable. and that isn't our fault and it isn't our problem.

[burtonbabygirlguster]

how comfortable i would feel with different stranger things characters

Argyle

8/10

he would be 10/10 but i’d be scared he’d mention what i’ve told him when he was high

i’ve got no idea if being high works like that tho???

but i’d be panicking very hard

like he’s probably use my preferred name instead of my deadname and i’d be like 🧍

would offer me weed to help with my skin picking problems or my mouth pain

fuck you braces and nails

Robin

10/10

we can ramble to each other :)

my best moments with my friends is of us rambling to each-other and getting off topic every other sentence

she’s very funny we could laugh about anything it’d be great

and i’m also queer so like..yeah, gay people flock together type shit

Eddie

6.5/10

the cafeteria scene scared me, i’d constantly think he’s about to..like..jump on my sandwich

also he’s too extroverted for me im sorry

i can’t handle that type of attention anywhere near me

he’d probably look at what i was drawing or something and show everyone 🧍

and i’ve got too much anxiety for that soooo…

Steve

7.5/10

i can’t really explain in

like, yes, i’d be comfortable, but constantly tense, expecting something, at the same time

like i said, can’t really explain it, sorry lmfao

Jonathan

13/10

would make me feel good about myself

between my fashion, music, general interests, being trans and gay, i’d be the Hawkins high punching bag

i already was at my middle school some? like nothing physical but constant shit, it was this group of kids constantly coming over to the tree i hung by and shouting slurs and jesus blah blah

plus the usual barking and being called emo in the halls

anyway

he could tell when i’m about to have a breakdown, whatever i’m feeling honestly

the only person i think i’d EVER be comfortable sharing how i actually feel with

he would never judge me

i think he’d like my stupidity and chaos, i usually get really insecure about it but he’d be nice :))

the only way i can interact with a movie/show is to vocally talk about it and my family (reasonably) gets mad but i think he’d enjoy hearing what i think and how i perceive whatever we’d be watching

even outside of movies, they don’t really like hearing me ramble or talk

and if one person did like it, another one would interrupt and they’d forget about me

even my general family issues, he’d be there to listen, and relate on a lot

i also love photography so we could have fun with that!!!

overall he’d be the biggest comfort ever

Nancy

2/10

i’m sorry but i wouldn’t be all that comfortable

i think the biggest thing was how she treated robin

and since i act like robin with the rambling and such, i really think she would not like me

opposite of Jonathan

she’d only get annoyed and i feel like she’d just act like my family when it comes to how i express myself, and would make me feel like shit

maybe she’d actually be really cool once i got to know her

but everything that the shows given me is her pushing away barb, the love triangle, being rude to robin, and supernatural stress, so not quite sure :p

Jason

-3/10

i don’t even need to explain

i would be called slurs and beat up

he was ready to break Gareths fingers

which i guess me just being casual vs him hunting a guy are definitely different situations

but i feel like he’d break something

i’d definitely be a suspect of joint murder forces with eddie lmfao

Billy

-3/10

same thing with jason

but pretty sure he’d also body-shame me

unless if we were around people

but still -3/10

Will

12/10

Same thing as Jonathan

but i’m closer to wills age so i think it’d be better :)

plus he at least used to play with legos and i fucking love legos

also we could draw DnD characters together!!

he’s gonna love my literal dragonborn himbo that wears sunglasses

i’d love to be in a byers-hopper family campaign with him :))

gays flock together again

Lucas

11/10

he’s super duper fucking nice and would always be considerate of everything

would not judge me

except in a funny way

he could help me out if i ever had relationship issues

he can climb trees i think? i feel like he climbed one in season one or two

if he can, i’d love to go tree climbing with him

i used to play basketball so we could play together!!

he’s awesome

Dustin

8/10

i can’t really explain why he’s only 8

i would, however, love to go and open curiosity doors and do random shit

i’m gonna train demodogs with him

would love to tease steve with him

El

8/10

nothing really special, just chill :)

again, would love to do a whole family campaign

i’d like making fun presentations with her like she did for the school project

would enjoy doing stuff like how she and max did, i love clothes shopping, because i can express myself- and that was the whole point for her clothes shopping!

i’d absolutely love to do that with her :))

Max

7.3/10

would maybe make fun of me a little bit?

sometimes in a funny friend way but sometimes in an actual way

i don’t think i’d be able to tell which is which so i’d be sad each time🧍

would love being chaotic with her and torturing mike (i’m sorry mike)

pulling pranks on everyone definitely

Mike

depends which season

1-2 is 10/10

3-4 is slowly declining…

i’m very childish (although i am a child so doesn’t really count) and i love doing thing how will does, and i’d too, be asking to play

would feel the worst feeling if he ever yelled at me like he did to will :(

although that’s on byler drama, so he wouldn’t yell at me like that

would make me feel both appreciated and highly judged

it switches every day honestly

but season 1-2 would be great <3

after he gets his byler drama sorted out he’d be back to 10/10

Erica

depends if she’s insulting me or not

but if she’s insulting me then i probably did something first so it’d be my fault

but overall she’d be super cool to hang with!

and she’s super smart- if i pay her, maybe she’ll do my math homework 😭

i haven’t nt watched my little pony in years (and obviously not the 80s one she watched) but i think i’d watch it so we could talk bout it

and talk with dustin too about it

cause he watches my little pony too

Joyce

6/10

As great a mom as she is, she barley ever payed attention to Jonathan

like, never

i would trust her to save me, yeah, absolutely, she’d do anything

but like i said with Jonathan..

overall though i suppose really good, she’d be fun to hang out with

Jim

4.5/10

dudes SCARY

yells too much

i’m generally spooked by older people, especially older men sooo yeah 🧍

that wouldn’t help

would constantly feel like a disappointment even if that’s not what he wanted

every so often a really good moment

maybe a heart to heart that’d boost him up a few numbers

Murray

4/10

as funny as he is, if he started talking about my relationship, i’d punch him

not actually i’m a coward but i’d mentally punch him

if he never talked about relationships then he could be a good 8/10 or something

nothing too special even then, just casual

Bob

9/10

gets -1 point because old men scare me lmfao

other than that i’d love to play his brain games and learn about the radios and such

great guy :((

would love to have him as an uncle :))

would like to listen to me ramble!

he jon and i can have camera sessions

Owens

7/10

again, -1 point for old man

but specifically during season four i kinda wished i had a dad a lil bit like him

i think the food got to me

and him trying to go against brenner

“kiddo” hit me hard

would not enjoy in the other seasons tho, no trust, thus no comfort at all

Mr Clark

9/10

once more, -1 for old man

but he’s super nice to the kids 😭

and always helps them solve the Upsidedown mystery of the year

where was he this season????

only teacher i could actually go up to and ask for help

would LOVE to have him as a dad

he’d also definitely enjoy to hear my ramblings, especially if they’ve got anything to do with science

i ramble about time travel and mythological creatures a lot (especially dragons and how they would have been) and i’d think he’d enjoy ny special interests of curiosity doors

Alexi

9/10

would love to go to the fair with him and get all the stuffed animals

and watch cartoons and eat slushes i think it’d be great fun

wanna have murray deal with both of us

harhar the old man will never know what hit him

[awesome-opossum-after-hours]

stranger things rewatch details/thoughts pt 3 (s3 ep1-s3 ep8)

-El kept the baby mask from her sister and its up in her room!

- she also has a large poster of a bird on a beach

- the first store when they walk into Starcourt has a very creative name. "Camera Repair"

- the girl behind Max in the movie theater is MAD annoyed at them. they talk (before the movie starts), and she shushes them. they pass snacks, and she shushes them. rude

-the Scoops Ahoy menu sign quite literally calls it an "Ocean of Flavors"

-i wonder if Will remembers much of the events of s2, or at least the possesion/exorcism. it seems to flood back to him in the theater

-ah wait, Yurtle WAS relocated! totally forgot, could've sworn he was a goner.

-poor "lard-ass". hope he's okay

-Hopper's hatred of Mike is too funny I kinda hope it continues, even if he does loosen up

-god Hopper reminds me so much of my dad. he went as him for Halloween a few years back, and I was s3 El :)

-did Dustin follow Steve's advice in getting Suzie? pretend not to care?

-a buck 25 for a scoop of ice cream sounds fantastic

-a lot of cosplayers forget this with "Scoops Ahoy" Robin but the letters on the You Rule/You Suck board are multicolored. red underneath, black traced slightly off. in Graphics that's a technique used to create a 3D effect, and I'd like to think that was her intention bc she seemed that artsy :)

-God I adore how much you can see the amount of love in Hop's eyes when he's watching Joyce help a customer. when will someone look at me like that oml

-Joyce and Bob were watching Fraiser in the flashback

- Mike has some serious nerve telling the father of his girlfriend and the goddamn Chief of Police that he's a "lying piece of shit"

-Max calls Lucas "Don Juan" 🥺

-if you watch the first Russian message scene with English captions it gives away what it says lmao

-Hopper joyfully singing along to You Don't Mess Around With Jim owns my heart

-Steve already HAD chesthair in s3. you can see it if he leans over in the Scoops uniform ;) do with that what you will

-Lucas is continuing his streak of winning Max back after her dumping him. 6 and 0

- when El and Max are playing the spying version of Spin the Bottle, the people on the wheel are Dustin, Mr Clarke, Mrs Wheeler, Mr Wheeler, Steve, Nancy, and (of course) Billy

- Will's persona of "Will the Wise" is a LOT more assertive than he normally is. bet that'll come in clutch in s5

- Hopper has no shame opening the door in just a towel lmao

- happy screams...

-Max using the iconic 80s phrase "ugh, gag me with a spoon!"

- I completely forgot the whole "Dustin wanting Steve and Robin to date" thing happened before s4

-Robin was apparently a theater kid (which made her "weird" in the Old Steve's standards). she also played soccer

-still not over how Mike and Lucas mock Will's DnD game and act all bored with it and then continue to play DnD really seriously in high school

-the whole "Robin being a lesbian and Steve her emotional support himbo" decision really WAS last minute bc there's a few hints pretty early in the season that would normally lead to 2 characters eventually falling in love (aka- on the rooftop of Starcourt when they have to duck down to avoid the Russians, Steve and Robin do the whole "unintentionally holding hands in danger" thing)

-the way Billy is standing and acting in the scene in Heather's house is INSANELY similar to Henry Creel in the rainbow room (down to the creepy smile and the hands clasped in front)

-Hopper breaks the mayor's nose. guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, blood relation or not

- "if you die, I die" - said Dustin, with total seriousness, to Steve. this better NOT be foreshadowing

-when El wears Sarah's hairtie as a bracelet, it covers up her number tattoo

-oh my GOD Jonathan getting whacked with the hospital stool looked WAYYYYY more brutal than I remember... how the hell did he not get paralyzed

-at first i thought that Hopper's eventual escape route from the machine explosion was adding afterwards for Plot Armor, but that's not true! when the Scoops Troop is running from the Russians they take the same escape route underneath the machine

-the door out to Murray's wonderful little "backyard" says "Keep Door Closed"

-I don't blame Alexei, cherry slurpees are far superior to strawberry

-Erica being a total math genius is something that HAS to be brought up again

-when Robin spits in the Russian's face, he says "you're going to regret that, suchka". suchka, translating in the subtitles as "little bitch"

-after the hospital, everyone must've taken a well needed shower before heading to Hop's cabin

-i would die for Karen Wheeler's FunFair dress

-can we talk about the fact that other than El, Dustin is the only kid to ever K1LL SOMEONE??? I mean maybe he just got wiped out but that Russian doctor looked very not alive

-did Todd ever get his car back

-the answer is hopefully no. screw Todd, Steve's her daddy now

-I think if I had to choose one of these monsters to NEVER have to fuck with ever it'd be the flesh monster. sure Vecna can kill you from your own mind but something about fighting melted humans/rats feels so very wrong and traumatizing

-Steve's been in a vehicle poorly driven by children twice

-if Joyce doesn't stick to this Detective Byers plan in s5 I'm gonna cry

-also I need to physically SEE the Enzo's date, even if it's a flashback

-Dustin and Erica staying at the hill means that they had no way of knowing if the Griswold Family was alive, or whether or not Steve and Robin were headed on a su1c1de mission

-I'd be shittin me britches if i was in that mall no lie

- the flesh monster mind flayer must have some sort of eyes in its tentacles because it tried to catch a mannequin that was wearing El's outfit

-662608004 was the code Murray wrote, but the real password was 662607004. all he got wrong was the 7. come on Bald Eagle

-they straight up left Max, El, and Mike at the mall

-according to Hopper, gunfire is the universal language for "EVERYBODY OUT!"

-Max and Billy lived on 4819 Cherry Hill Lane

-on that TV ad, when they suggest a rise in Satanism is cursing the town, they zoom in on a Dungeon Master's Handbook

-the epilogue says it's 3 months after the 4th of July, AKA October. but it's implied that the party is still just them, so maybe they joined the Hellfire Club in the middle of the year

-Dustin doesn't wear his hat when he's sad

-someone actually bought the Byers' house. fuck that, man I'd firmly believe it's cursed

-was El staying in Will's room? because she's seen packing up her stuff but the Byers only had a 3 bedroom house

-we all know that Steve wears lipgloss this season but I'm also convinced that Mike is in the epilogue

-Mike didn't seem to enjoy that goodbye kiss as much as he was expecting...

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I created this blog on August 11, 2020. At that time, I had barely started my journey into British comedy. I mean, some stuff I’d known for most of my life. My dad showed me the Monty Python movies + Flying Circus when I was much too young to understand them, but just barely old enough to find anything at all funny in them, enough to insist on watching them over and over, until I got old enough to get more out of it. I think I may have actually been too young to understand quite a bit of the English language when he first showed me Mr. Bean, but I could still understand some of the slapstick stuff. I was slightly older, but still quite young (maybe 8 or 9) when he got me into the shows of which my parents had every episode on DVD, and I’d watch them over and over and over for years: Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Ripping Yarns, Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister.

My dad showed me The Thick of It not long after it first started airing, when I was around 15 years old. I quickly became hooked. A while later, he took me to see In the Loop in our local independent theatre, just after it was first released. My Armando Iannucci obsession grew from there.

My dad had all of The Goon Show on cassette tapes, and he used to play that on road trips when I was a kid. He also had a CD of The Complete Beyond the Fringe, as well as Alan Bennett monologues, all of which I used to love. He had Billy Connolly CDs that I didn’t understand, and VHS tapes of The Secret Policeman’s Ball that I basically memorized.

And of course there was Douglas Adams. When I was about 10-12 years old, my dad read me all his books. I could have read them by myself, but I enjoyed the shared experience, so we sat in the living room while he read them out loud. All five Hitchhiker’s Guide books, both Dirk Gently books, Last Chance to See, and The Salman of Doubt. The Meaning of Liff books I read on my own.

And Radio 4, I can’t forget about Radio 4. He got me into The News Quiz and The Now Show in about 2009, and I’ve been listening to those ever since. And there was frequently some Radio 4 comedy or other playing in his car when I was a teenager.

The point is that Britcom wasn’t completely new to me in 2020. My dad had raised me on it. I didn’t understand everything about it from a younger age, but I at least knew how some of it worked. In early March 2020, I happened across s01e01 of Taskmaster on YouTube, and said, “Oh look, British comedy, like that other stuff I like. I wonder what this is?” Then Romesh Ranganathan threw the watermelon the floor, and it was the funniest fucking thing I’d ever seen in my life. By complete coincidence, about a week later, the world happened to end. Leaving me with enough time to watch every episode of Taskmaster, but that wasn’t enough, I loved it so much that I wanted more time with those people. So I Googled them, and found that a lot of my favourite Taskmaster people could be found on other panel shows regularly. But many of these were long-running panel shows, with more than 100 episodes, and obviously I didn’t have time to watch all that. But then I remembered that the world had just ended, and I could watch whatever the hell I liked.

So I watched every episode of Taskmaster, and then every single episode of WILTY and 8 Out of 10 Cats and Catsdown. And then I watched every episode of Mock the Week and Big Fat Quizzes, and I created this blog in the middle of that.

I made a list of panel shows + sitcoms I wanted to watch. It took me a couple of years to work through that list. It added QI + Amstell-and-later-era Buzzcocks to my long-running panel shows, as well as a lot of other sitcoms and sketch shows and shorter panel shows and other TV shows (Russell Howard’s Good News/Russell Howard Hour, Mash Report, New World Order) and books and radio shows and collections of stand-up sets. I went through that entire list, while posting on this blog about my progress.

It was about a year ago that I finished all the stuff on that list, and then got into The Bugle. I went from there into being more interested in stand-up than in panel shows or sitcoms, and that’s pretty well led to where I am now. I first bought a Bandcamp recording by a man named Daniel Kitson in June 2022, and I have not known peace since. That led directly to August 2022, when I came across that video of those people taking apart a cow on stage, and I have definitely not known peace since I found that.

Part of my original Britcom list involved all 126 hours of the 2006-2008 episodes of the Russell Howard and Jon Richardson BBC 6 Music radio show. Russell left the show in 2008 because he basically got too famous to keep it up, and Jon kept running episodes, co-hosted with Matt Forde and various other guests, for the next few years. I’ve listened to every episode of those Jon and Russell years, but none from later. I actually have all the post-Russell era of that radio show downloaded to my hard drive, but I have not listened to them. It’s too depressing.

That’s the actual point of this post. All that other stuff is just background to the actual point. The background establishes my credentials, that I know British comedy. You know that stereotype that all autistic people are eight-year-old white boys who are obsessed with trains? Well I am an eight-year-old white boy, and these are my trains.

So I can say with certainty that I have checked, I’ve checked thoroughly and carefully, I’ve checked all of the comedy in Britain. And I can confirm that the saddest thing that’s ever happened in all of British comedy is the single fact I know about the Jon Richardson era of that radio show (which I know because someone on this website told me, I still haven’t listened to the episodes), which is that the first song he chose to play in the first episode he ever hosted post-Russell Howard was I Can Do It Without You by Kaiser Chiefs.

I wrote this entire post because that song just came up in my YouTube recommendations, and then I remembered that fact, and I would like to explain how qualified I am to say that that is the most depressing thing that has ever happened in British comedy. I mean, I realize we have a more recent thing that’s obviously objectively sadder and also indirectly involved Jon Richardson:

And, you know, Rik Mayall was cool. The last episode in season 4 of Blackadder was pretty rough. But nope, sorry, the saddest thing to ever happen in British comedy is Swindon-era Jon Richardson ending Russell Howard’s last radio episode by saying good luck but it’s fine and he doesn’t even need him, and then playing a Kaiser Chiefs song on the next episode. Whatever bad directions Russell Howard’s gone since, and whatever comparatively less bad but maybe not ideal directions Jon Richardson’s gone since, they will always have the time 126 hours of buildup led to the playing of a Kaiser Chiefs song somehow being one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard of.

(I’m like… sort of joking. I mean I’m joking about it being literally worse than Sean Lock dying. But it’s genuinely pretty fucking depressing. Fucking hell.)

[elliebartlets]

Tagged by @thievesandtraitors to list my 10 favorite movies. These aren’t in any order.

My Cousin Vinny - My family and I quote this movie all the time. It’s probably more funny than half the comedies out there. Lawyers have said it’s one of the more realistic courtroom movies, which is interesting.

Dirty Dancing - 2 words: Patrick Swayze 🥵 I also love the songs and the dance numbers. It’s just a fun movie. (Except for like one scene.)

Mamma Mia - my fun, comfort musical. What else is there to say?

Shrek - yeah yeah I know everyone on the internet is obsessed with Shrek. And they should be. I know the word iconic gets thrown around a lot, but Shrek is iconic. The animation held up, the humor is funny for adults and kids, the soundtrack has great songs and when I hear them outside of the movie I always associate them with the scenes their in. It also took four years to make. Iconic.

Easy A - I feel like a lot of people don’t like this movie (at least on here) because of Emma Stone but I just love it. I remember it came out when I was still in Catholic school and I harbored a lot of prude, uptight views and I remember telling my friend I didn’t wanna see it in theaters cause it’s a slut and movie. Lol thank God I’m not like that anymore.

Tangled - my favorite Disney princess movie!! I was so obsessed with it when it came out. I remember when Frozen came out and everyone and their mother was obsessed with it. I was like, um did you guys forget Tangled? Leagues better than Frozen.

Rocky Horror Picture Show - not a movie, an experience. I was not prepared. Watched it 3 times the first week I saw it.

Catch Me If You Can - I’ve seen this one a lot. Plus I love movies based on real stories. This is one of the few Leonardo DiCaprio movies I’ve seen. Plus it’s got Martin Sheen (the first thing I ever saw him in lol) and Amy Adams in smaller roles

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation - I only watch this around Christmas time, but it’s still one of my favorites. Also very quotable.

13 Going on 30 - I’ve seen this movie countless times. I don’t remember when I first saw it but it’s been in my life for a while, so it just brings me nostalgia whenever I watch it. I just love messages of “don’t wish your life away, growing up isn’t what you think it is” because it’s so fucking true! This is shown when Jenna goes home and tries to become a teenager again while Vienna by Billy Joel plays in the background. I think most people can relate to that (maybe not being exactly 13 or going home, but wanting to be younger or do it all over again.) I also love the scene where she is pitching nostalgia “we need to remember what used to be good” for their new magazine look Not only cause it’s true but it fits with me being nostalgic watching the movie.

I tag @claudiajcregg @joytothegirls (don’t feel like you have to!)

[generic-lab-assistant]

8, 10, 31, 17, 43, 37

Theres no character for this so I’ll just so the two characters I’ve been drawing the most- Ralph & Pam!

8.

Ralph considers himself friendly, and thinks that people don’t understand him a lot of the time, even though sometimes he says kinda outta pocket stuff

Pam considers herself friendly too, but is the type of person/talking gator to say something that people might take as friendly when she really meant it mean, or (in human form), will say something that sounds flirty but she just means it jokingly or nicely

10.

Ralph likes very stupid jokes, honestly if it makes a little kid laugh then it’ll probably make him laugh, but he also sometimes finds oddly disturbing situations funny because he doesn’t take in the whole thing at first

Pam thinks biting sarcasm and sometimes kinda hurtful jokes are funny, but she will definitely laugh at some stupid shit too, most of the time she’ll think she’s being funny when really she might’ve been a bit mean.

17.

Ralph is soft for almost everyone, but his best friends are Ollie & Pam, so he’s always really nice to them. He finds it easy to be soft and friendly to people, but sometimes (either by his own stubborness, like with Billy, or because they’re a genuinely awful motherfucker) he will be more rude or less friendly with them.

Pam is soft for any kid who reminds her of her own- like Ollie (despite pretty much abandoning most of them throughout her life), and for some of the farmhouse residents, mainly Ralph and surprisingly Invasion, the others she’s very apathetic towards most of the time.

31.

Ralph would probably forget to bring one, and then just put a tablecloth over himself in all honestly

Pam (gator form), would wear a pig mask to make fun of Invasion; Pam (human form) would wear a gator mask because she is also technically a gator and it would match her clothes

37.

Ralph would’ve probably been kidnapped by someone as a stupid prank (or by Nat, if that was the case then he would be very happy to see her), with anyone else though he would start freaking the fuck out and probs eventually pass out

Idk who would kidnap Pam, at least her as a gator because that would be kind of a challenge, but she’s calculated and smart enough that she’d be able to find some kind of way out, and probably bite someone too

43.

I don’t know anything about DND so I’m sorry but I got nothin’

[echoing-oursong]

hi hello for the otp meme thing i would like to give you something more creative than stranger things but. tbh. i have no idea what else you’re into. so. stranger things!!

Lol I totally get that you don’t know what I’m into. Legit have been mainly posting stranger things rn and every once in a while I’ll reblog about other things. Fun fact: I mainly made this blog so that I could see a lot of supernatural (the show) content which suddenly turned into so many different things. I once reblogged a lot of avatar: the last airbender and a few things of bbc merlin and some other things here and there. Anyway sorry for explaining that lol

Low key otp: controversial lol but I’m gonna say mileven. I totally get why they should breakup but a lot of their problems that they go through with the ship is just valid. Like El questioning if she’s a superhero and how Mike perceives her since she has been only useful to other people (mainly men) because of her powers for a good chunk of her life. The duffer bros just don’t take care to solve their problems and always writes angst for them and pushes the ship as el is a major main character. Honestly I think that they get way too much hate from other people. The duffer bros just don’t know how to write their romantic relationship.

High key notp= anything with billy and anything with Steve/kids. I’m so sorry that you have to see that last one but yes it does exist and it makes me want to clean my eyes out. I just realized that this was created by fanon/fandom so sorry if you strictly wanted canon

(Softly) don’t notp= jancy and stancy. Look Nancy just needs to stay single for a lil bit cuz like I love her but she does/says very questionable things to them. And she just hurts them and doesn’t apologize despite knowing that she hurt her romantic partner. I was gonna add fanon for this but I’ll just go with this answer lol

High key otp but I’m scared of saying it because it’s not a popular choice= going with fanon so I once had this big brain thought of a poly between Joyce and hopper and Bob. And I high key ship them but since bob’s dead and the main poly is between the teens I just don’t say it. Their power and potential is so there and it’s amazing!!! Literally I think I just started thinking about it once and ever since them I’ve been hooked sooo. Bob just sassing hopper in the lab when they had to figure everything out with the power was so funny. Also all of them deserve love and they all love each other so much! Even tho bob was helping before, he was also so concerned when he found out that hopper was in danger. And can you just imagine Jonathan and Will’s reactions to this like lenlxkxkxbx. They would be so confused but also be happy that their mom has so much love in her life.

High key otp and anyone on my tumblr knows it= the thing is that idk if everyone knows it but lumax. I feel like I post and reblog content about them the most so hopefully I’m right with that lol. Maybe a side of jopper like I forget how much of them I actually reblog/post about sooo