#like we see it a LITTLE in SOME eps and audios but it’s not really explored???

[macbethz]

I am very invested in the idea of River song as like…a clinical psychopath. And one literally trained and brainwashed to be an assassin at that. which is what canon claims she is but it rarely characterizes her that way especially post-Mel. I think it would be interesting if she genuinely had low empathy and a non-intuitive sense of right and wrong but uses this kind of overly flirtatious, femme fatale persona to mask that because firstly she was trained that way and secondly she thinks it makes her seem more like a “real person.”

And I think her connection to the doctor (especially 11, who I think has a really unique relationship to both having a masked personality and intimacy as a whole) becomes even more layered because they are both these outsiders almost play-acting the way they think human relationships are supposed to go. This version of River would be especially drawn to the doctor because he’s the only person who can really get her nontraditional understanding of love, something she can’t intuitively feel but has learned and basically only feels for him and her parents.

[astridthevalkyrie]

cw: afab reader + she/her pronouns, creepy stuff, yandere ig??, very very very brief and extremely mild use of phone as a vibrator, if you've seen gravity falls this is inspired by the soos and the real girl ep 💀

You pause and exit out of the app right as you open up the video call link, ignoring the twinge of guilt you feel at leaving during such a steamy scene. It's not real, you remind yourself, like you have a million times in the past month. A part of you wants to find the coziest corner of this library and play until you've leveled up all the memories you can and gone on all nine claw machine dates you're allowed to, but it's time to unplug.

Besides, you have an actual date.

"Hey!" your boyfriend greets as soon as the video loads up, grinning when he sees your face. "Are you in the library?"

"Yeah. Booked a room all for you," you tease, setting your phone down to focus on your laptop.

"Wow, I'm flattered. So what's been up lately?"

You sigh. "Nothing much. Same old boring stuff. What about you?"

He starts talking about his new job, the entire reason that you and he have been long-distance for the past few months. You're not going to lie to yourself—it's rough. It feels like torture, not being able to see him and hold him and kiss him. You've really, really missed him. That's probably why you've turned to dating sims of all things in the first place.

Your phone buzzes while he's talking, and your eyes flick over to the screen.

new text from alien boy <3

Your brows furrow in confusion. This app doesn't notify you about new texts, because they only come through while you're on the app itself. And you never just get texts, unless you've leveled up on affinity, which you haven't in the past half hour.

Whatever. Probably some new feature or event you don't know about yet. You turn your attention back to your boyfriend.

"—And my break will be in two weeks," he finishes his story, then smiles. "Which means in two weeks I'll be seeing you, pretty girl."

Eyes lighting up, you lean in so you can blow him a light kiss. "I can't wait. I already have the whole weekend planned out. We'll go to the park, the museum—I thought we could go canoeing if you wanted to—"

Once again, your phone buzzes.

alien boy <3: didn't we have plans that weekend?

Your stomach flips unpleasantly.

Huh?

"What is it?" your boyfriend asks, noticing your struck expression.

"N-nothing, just—this app I downloaded, it gave me a super weird notification. For a second, I thought it was, like, listening to me."

He chuckles. "Creepy. What app is it?"

"Nothing," you say quickly, not sure if you should even tell your boyfriend that you've found solace in fictional characters during his absence. "Just some stupid game."

This time when your phone buzzes, you jump a little in your seat.

It's not a text. Someone's calling you. Your shoulders almost sag until you notice there's no name on the caller id, just a small spaceship emoji.

"What the hell," you mutter under your breath, putting one finger up to the camera. Your boyfriend nods in understanding, leaning back and muting himself while you swipe and answer the call. "Hello?"

No answer.

"Hello-o-o?"

Still nothing. You almost hang up, until the barest of sounds makes your ears perk up. If you strain them and press the phone so close it's smushing your cheek, you can hear something. It sounds like someone whispering, but you can't make out anything.

"Hello? Um, your audio is super low, I can barely hear you. Hello? Can you hear me?"

With no change, you hang up, frustrated. It might be a prank call. You're in the library on a Friday night and there's barely anyone here, one of your friends might've thought it was hilarious to mess with you.

"Spam call." You shrug uneasily, slipping the phone down between your thighs this time instead of on the table. He nods in understanding, then starts saying something.

"You're still on mute, sweetheart, I can't hear you."

He makes an oh face, then leans forward a bit to use the mouse. After a few seconds, though, his eyes narrow in focus and he shakes his head. He looks up, mouthing can you hear me now?

"Nope. Can you still hear me?"

An affirmative nod. Weird. It's still showing that he's muted on your end. "What, is it not clicking?"

You see him look back up to the screen, whether to nod or shake his head, you don't find out, because the screen glitches out for a moment, and all you see is a door.

You shriek, clamping a hand over your mouth.

His face is back in front of you again, and you still can't hear him, but he clearly sees how freaked out you are, because he tilts his head up concernedly, as though to ask you what's wrong.

You didn't scream because of the glitch.

You screamed because you've visited your boyfriend at his new place before, and that door was his door.

"Can you hear me? Is your door locked?" He only looks more confused, shaking his head like you're the one who's muted now.

Your phone lights up before you can grab it and call him, and you gasp when it buzzes against your core and doesn't stop buzzing. It doesn't vibrate this much when you get a call, and there is no call on the home screen, nor text, nor any kind of notification. It feels like it presses itself into your skin more, and you grip the table with one hand at the brief jolt of pleasure before snatching it and unlocking the screen.

Before you can click the phone app, Love&Deepspace opens. You groan in frustration, trying to swipe up to no avail. Did you accidentally click on it? It wasn't even in the list of apps on your main page.

Movement from your laptop catches your eye. Your boyfriend's looking forward, but not at the camera. He's looking at—at something, and he backs up in his chair, looking terrified all of a sudden.

"What is it?" you say as loud as you can, but even if he does hear you, he doesn't respond, and instead, his mouth falls open in a silent scream.

The screen goes black, and then so does the entire library.

"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit." You look back down at your phone, ready to crack it if it doesn't swipe up and get out of this stupid app—

There's no one there.

Your heart stutters in its chest.

There's always someone in the Destiny Cafe.

There's no one there.

And on the little white armchair in the background, there's a dark streak of red dripping down and staining the cloth.

"What the fuck," you whisper, eyes wide. Your laptop screen flickers.

The facetime has been replaced by grey-blonde hair, that gently brushes against baby blue eyes with a soft, unassuming smile.

"You shouldn't pause me," he coos, "now, where were we?"

a/n: i hope no one tells me that people don't put their phones between their thighs while sitting bc i very much do. also. i'm talking to a guy on FT in the library tomorrow. hope i don't have gift of foresight. or maybe i hope i do muwahahaha. this is actually mad goofy and not scary at all

[swallowtailed]

palisade 62 / finalisade side b track 6

on palisade!

one thing about fatt, they can stick a landing. more specifically austin and jack by their powers combined can stick a fucking landing. tbh let me talk about the outro first, actually:

stunning final track. loved hearing it morph from the palisade theme into other tunes.

a joy to hear from parti one last time!! probably my favorite npc of this season.

and to lift back out into the frame of perfect imperfect as hosted by layer luxurious (broadcasting from the planet of palisade, which is a lovely touch)—it’s my audio drama past coming out, but i do so love a diegetic radio show. we were promised that we would hear the end of the perfect millennium! and we did! satisfying.

i wasn’t sold on the plot of this sortie, but janine brought it home—has been bringing it home all arc. her work in this finale has been really, really cool. super solid science fiction. going from questlandia back into armor astir felt like an odd zigzag—much like dipping into and back out of the mirage—but the thread of blossoming sentiences was very strong.

(would like to take time to dig into the thematic structure of this season, now that it's over, but for now i am just pointing at it)

god, just knowing that brnine survived, and continued the fight… that's a win. closing on them bantering with thisbe was, i agree, the perfect final image.

brnine’s gravity clock changing to “thisbe is an important part of my life”... thisbe saying they’re a good captain and asking to watch a movie, and brnine immediately teasing her… they’re friends ;-;

also—season about grief—it was jokes, but thisbe saying “i was stating a fact, i wasn’t mourning” and brnine replying “sounded like mourning to me”, and ending palisade on that exchange… a good note of closure on that theme, i felt.

there’s been a lot of excellent character work this season—brnine, thisbe, cori, figure, jesset, and august all stand out to me. i’m trying not to make this post too long but man. genuinely incredible stuff.

perennial blooming again with thisbe’s gift of the pollen was really lovely. as was all the imagery in that scene

thisbe throwing sixes to speak with perennial was so Dice Game. one last little bit of serendipity for the road.

also thisbe being integrated with various different ways of being is very “it’s not a field it’s a garden” to me

i am looking forward to seeing how they treat this new phase of the divine cycle, because a transformation like that of the divine arbor would be devastating to a lot of lifeways & ecologies. it is far from the only time this has happened in the divine cycle! but it’s a great chance to concretize that. kudzu and other invasive species were raised in a previous ep; i’m also reminded of area x from jeff vandermeer’s annihilation. what i would like to see: a focus on new social forms, cf scavengers reign. fatt typically does not dig into ecologies, land relationships, etc, but perhaps they will look more in that direction in the divine arbor’s new world? who knows. either way i’m gonna be sitting here talking about ecological readings because unfortunately i do think it’s important and relevant lmao. (while i’m talking on the season scale, this is something i really want to see in sangfielle as well. which is a setting that even more deserves some time spent on the land.)

cori’s scene with elle was great. her storyline this season has been so fun—losing none of the bravado, but coming more into herself. i thought she was gonna give elle some of her blood but a ritual knife is probably a better gift.

can’t wait to see where they’re at next divine cycle season!!

“if only you could get five more minutes” made me laugh

glad that levi made it out! starcrossed is a wild name for a team led by a guy who kicked off his career by defeating the fear of death—kinda thumbing his nose at fate—but it seems like he’s pulling it off so far.

can local plant-based organizing be a viable alternative to galactic capitalism? i sure fuckin hope so!!

leap vanishing with present would have been extremely space opera

perennial blue ribbon…

i did overall really enjoy this season. i think it’s their best yet, for character work and executing on big ideas. a sharper take on twilight mirage. it’s dense but it has momentum. they really do get better every season imo... like my season ranking does kinda just go directly up in chronological order

god. palisade.

stay tuned~

(also, while we’re here, thanks for reading! this is something like the sixtieth of these weekly palisade ep posts, which is wild. it’s been a weird year and a half, personally—a lot of time in motion—but tuning into palisade every week and then thinking and discussing together has been really fun. so shoutouts!)

[chemicallywrit]

What a week in audio drama! Happy Audio Drama Sunday folks, can we talk about some episodes????

🎥 @thesiltverses comes through once again with an absolute banger. Val is chilling—Val has always been chilling—but this week seeing her vulnerable was somehow. Worse. Hey Chuck??? Run, maybe? And if you’re lucky a treason charge will be the best you can hope for. Don’t think too hard about the worst.

🌄 @midnightburgr my beloved, I love you Midnight Burger. I adore the Hood’s Pocket crew and how delightfully normal they are in the face of time-traveling cowboy outlaws. This show continues to bring the wittiness and smarts firmly alongside compassion. It’s so beautiful.

👁️ Why must you hurt me, @hellofromthehallowoods? We’ve heard Nikignik in some bad emotional spots before, but this ep was three kinds of heartbreaking. Can we talk about the sound Nikignik made—

🚬 I feel like @radio-outcast’s strength is their expert combo of the surreal and the tangible, and that’s doubly true when our heroes are trapped in an illusion as they have been for a minute. It makes it all scarier what happens to Helix at the end of the story, and all the more a relief when the happy ending comes. For now. Enemies abound and surround our heroes, but they will carry on.

🐍 There’s no show like the Magnus Protocol to make me just so so scared of a tiny hole a squirrel made. Like I yelped aloud. That team knows how to hecking GET you. And in the office romance department, I find whatever Alice has going in mighty compelling. I’m sure that will be totally fine.

🚀 I started @jumpleadsscifi this week and I am honestly delighted. I love a sitcom, and I’ve finished episode five, which means we’re to my favorite part of the sitcom: getting just a little bit sad with it. Jump Leads is about two underqualified star trek-like officers whose job it is to fix time and space—though mostly they just mess around. I love it.

🔎 YOU WERE ALL RIGHT ABOUT SHERLOCK & CO. This is what I wish BBC Sherlock was. This means everything to me. I’m obsessed. I’m barely even finished with the first episode. It’s amazing. THE MUSIC.

🐰In Inn Between news, I’m about to ruin all y’all’s lives, and in Re: Dracula news, WE ARE BACK BAYBEE. In The Dead news, Run Rabbit will be back this week! We also are finishing up recording the next story for The Dead, which I’m so excited about. Stay tuned!

For real, this month is looking a little thin, and if you felt like giving me a tip, it would really go a long way. Thank you! See you next week!

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 7th April ✨

Happy #AudioDramaSunday! I’ve had such a long week - here’s what made it better!🌈

👻 @tellnotalespod (S2E7) I loved the April Fool’s episode, it really brightened up my day. And the main ep was lovely too. I do so love a parakeet and the idea that some kids can actually see ghosts 🥺 but what the hell was Frank doing at the end there? Please can this be the thing that pushes Leo back into Julia’s (arms) and Riley’s circle of friendship????? Please! 

🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (146) Danielle!!!!! I am rubbing my grubby little hands together waiting for more information on how Clem and Danielle came to be Like That. The fun thing about this ?time skip is that it makes me want to be omnipresent in the narrative too. I need to know what’s happening to everyone everywhere!! 

🎙️WTNV (245) Maybe I have father-related trauma, but I am HUNGRY for the Grandad Gershwin lore.

🏛 @the-mistholme-museum (FRANTIC) ohh I was wondering when the Queen was going to make an appearance (Hero is too good not to be featured LBR) but now it’s happened I’m scared!! I think the next episode is the finale and I have no idea what kind of ending is going to emerge! 

🔎 @224bbaker Fawx and Stallion released the second part of their Q+A which was so much fun to listen to. We love self-indulgent show runners, particularly when we all want the same things (AKA lava-filled cage matches). Please be really cool and intelligent like me and support the S2 crowdfund! I need the case of the Birthday Boy or I’ll perish. 

🍾 @ameliapodcast (30) This was such a cute episode!! Not going to lie, if the first human voice I heard was Amelia’s, I wouldn’t be mad! Not sure that they’re going to get them back as a client though . . . 

🍎 @notquitedeadpod (XXX-XXXII) help, oh my god, listening to Alfie talk to Cas is actually destroying me emotionally 😭 I hate how evasive (and manipulative??) Neige is being. I KNOW there’s something huge that hasn’t yet been revealed and I’m not ready to find out what that is!

Hope everyone has had a good week! I'm so excited for more Camlann next week and I think The Silt Verses is returning too!! 

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Season 1 EP 5 review

Episode 5 of the anime came out and we got to see Kabru!!! My boy Kabru!!! Oh right there was other stuff after the first five minutes.

KABRU THOUGH!!!

I don't actually have a lot to say about this episode. I thought it was competent, although as always characters standing around and talking, or doing simple tasks like eating, are just not Trigger's strong point.

Has anybody deciphered the language that Kui is using in the backgrounds? SO HAPPY that her glyphs are here now, instead of the Japanese in the first episode. I've tried to figure out what they are, but I'm honestly stumped. Seems like a combination of Norse runes, Greek letters, Cuneiform and Sanskrit...

Was NOT a fan of the way they overdid Kabru scaring Mikbell. It's really not a joke that's even that funny, so I think the lighting change and drama of it was really overselling it. Would have been much better if it was like in the manga, some childish, light-hearted ribbing between friends while they get ready to leave.

Although it was VERY VERY funny, I was also not a fan of the youtube-poop-esque zoom out on Marcille when she sees the treasure bugs. Like Laios' galaxy brain moment, comedic edits like this remind me that I'm watching a TV show, instead of allowing me to be immersed in the historical fantasy world. If I wanted modern jokes I'd be watching an Isekai where the characters are in a video game, not Dungeon Meshi.

I think they could have gotten an equally good laugh just from doing a simple zoom out.

I love the way they're depicting Laios. You can clearly see all the red flags his friends are picking up on and how he might be scary to others, but he's also very sympathetic and sweet.

All the Japanese VA's are doing a great job. I liked Kabru's Japanese voice a little better than his English voice just because I think he did a better job capturing Kabru's dual nature - he started out very sweet and cute, and then dropped his timbre noticeably once he was no longer sweet-talking someone. The English voice actor meanwhile felt like their voice basically stayed the same the entire episode.

THE DUB

This is still the better way to watch the show, the subtitles are SO lacking that they make the story harder to follow. The dub script, meanwhile, does a much better job. I wonder if there's a way to watch it with Japanese audio and the English dub subtitles?

BangZoom continues to make interesting casting decisions that make me VERY curious to see how they're going to handle the elves when they finally arrive.

Kabru, Daya and Kuro are all voiced by black voice actors! Rin's voice actress is Asian American, and Namari's voice actress is nonbinary. They all sound fantastic and I'm excited to hear them develop their characters as the series progresses.

Obviously Kabru isn't black, he's Indian, but Zon also isn't black, so I appreciate casting people of color to play characters of color (?) or at least, characters that are minorities? It feels like that's what they're trying to do.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Daya is very much not a minority or a character of color... I suppose that would be a case of race-blind casting? Which is also a good practice, getting new, underutilized talent into the industry... But obviously not a part of the previous point. Regardless, she sounds great.

Again, REALLY wonder how this will influence their casting decisions with the elves. Wonder if any of this was done with instruction from Trigger or Kui, or if it's 100% BangZoom operating on their own.

[ultranos]

Hello,

You mention some podcast you love once in a while and I gotta tell you they are usually very good recs and have made me discover some great ones. Do you have a rec list somewhere, or a few podcasts you'd like to give a shoutout to ?

Thanks a lot !

Sure! I don't have a rec list, but I'll make one now here of what's in my general rotation (or was, if it's a limited series):

Ongoing

Behind the Bastards (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/) A podcast about the worst people in all of history, hosted by Robert Evans (former war correspondent and Cracked.com writer). My current binge-listen, it's highly engaging on some of the most difficult to process subject matter there is, that being human atrocities and the people who commit them. It's a deep dive into the history and background of these people that in every case that reminds us that all too often "history's greatest monsters"...are just people. (As a note, Evans acknowledges fucked-up things as fucked up, but he doesn't pretend they didn't occur)

This Podcast Will Kill You (https://thispodcastwillkillyou.com/) A podcast about diseases and epidemiology, as well as other medical mysteries. Each episode will go over the biology of a disease or condition, the history of it, and the current state of where we stand with it in the world. Also, each episode comes with an original cocktail and mocktail recipe.

Criminal (https://thisiscriminal.com/) The only true crime podcast I listen to, hosted by Phoebe Judge, the woman with the most soothing podcast voice ever. It's a podcast about crime, but unlike a lot of true crime podcasts, it's just as likely to be a story about the victim or the people caught in the middle as it is the actual perpetrator.

5-4 (https://www.fivefourpod.com/) "A podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks." Three lawyers dissect and analyze SCOTUS cases, and not just present ones, that illustrate just how reactionary and adversarial the Court has been throughout almost all it's history.

Noble Blood (https://www.grimandmild.com/nobleblood) Host Dana Schwartz takes you on a trip each episode into the lives, bad decisions, and usually very bloody ends of many of history's royals and nobility.

You're Wrong About (https://yourewrongabout.com/) Events, people, and phenomenon from the semi-recent past that have been miscast in the public understanding. From McDonalds Hot Coffee to Princess Diana to Sinead O'Connor. Also you'll probably learn more about the Satanic Panic than you ever thought about before.

If Books Could Kill (https://www.ifbookspod.com/) Does the idea of "two hosts ripping into really terrible nonfiction bestsellers that have causes some really harmful ideas to spread" sound entertaining? Because that's pretty much what this is. You're not going to look at airport books the same way again.

Queer as Fact (https://www.queerasfact.com/) Four Australian historians explore queer historical topics and figures from all over the world and from different time periods. The research is often damn good, especially considering how thin on the ground sources can be, and they take pains to not limit themselves to the usual Eurocentric view of history.

99% Invisible (https://99percentinvisible.org/) Probably the longest-running podcast in my rotation, host Roman Mars and crew say it's a podcast about design. It's probably more accurate to say it's about the design and impact of the things we don't usually see or think about, the little things we take for granted that have been designed and developed and have had a profound impact on people's lives, in both the hyperlocal and global sense.

Limited Series

Ars Paradoxica (https://arsparadoxica.com/) Sci-fi audio serial drama. Time-travel, the Cold War, secret agencies, and human choices.

The Big Dig (https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/the-big-dig) 9-ep series produced by GBH hosted by Ian Coss about how Boston's Big Dig happened. It's also about American infrastructure and politics, and how the local sometimes is the national.

[starshipqstar]

On a supportive queer fandom, community, and making our first ever animation

Making the Starship Q Star animation has largely been wonderful - we got to make a show we love and learnt a LOT. As two writers new to producing the format (Lauren had only written for kids animation) - it was a huge learning curve. A learning cliff if you will. Whilst we had to cut a lot out for time and budget, we're really proud of how they turned out within the constraints. And by the end? Lauren and I coloured most of the final episode and I did all the compositing and VFX myself (all in Toon Boom Harmony - a program neither of us had used a few months before).

Animation is also still a bit of a boys club - so we committed to finding a design and animation team that was diverse as possible, and reflected what the project was about. I'm proud to say that we managed that (out of our cast & crew of 24, only 3 were cis-men - and most were queer). We also gave opportunities to diverse creatives who hadn't had jobs in the industry before - and have since seen some of them use the experience to get more paid work. You simply love to see it! All of the cast and crew are incredibly special and brought amazing things to the show - an absolute dream team.

It hasn't been easy at all - animation is a LOT of work, and the budget didn't allow for all the support we probably needed, so it was months of unpaid work for the two if us, and a number of weeks working 15-20 hour days to get it done. But we bloody well did it!

But since the show has been out, it's been a bit of a... reality check? Having been immersed in the audio drama community with Starship thus far - we perhaps got a little too used to how incredible supportive (and perhaps queer?) everyone is.

Another animation project is part of the same initiative as we are, and it was one of the first projects released. The creator is a really lovely and talented guy who has made a special show we really enjoyed. His show went kind of viral - which is AWESOME! It's great! However due to his experience on certain other projects... some of the fans of his show... aren't necessarily our audience? And the nature of the initiative means only some projects get chosen to make more.

The first comment on YouTube a few minutes after the Ep 1 of Starship Q Star was published was "make more [the other show]". Then our socials started getting homophobic and really negative comments (and trust me I have spent a long time curating that tiktok algorithm lol). At first I thought it was weird or maybe it was just because we were being shared by a third party so the wrong audience were finding us - but then they also included comments like "[the other show] is better".

I honestly find it odd that some fans take it upon themselves to do stuff like this. Making art is hard! And liking one thing better than something else doesn't mean you have to actively hate that something else! There's room for us all to succeed (well, once we take care of that pesky thing called capitalism). And maybe remember that when it's an indie project the people who made the thing are usually the ones running the socials lol.

We are so grateful to have had so many incredible people love and champion the show in both audio and animated format. And we feel so lucky to be a part of both the queer and audio drama community (yes I know that venn diagram is a circle) - it truly is such a special supportive environment that lifts one other up.

Anyway, I'll probably delete this (way too earnest - eww) but thanks to all the lovely ones out there. We really love and appreciate all of you and all the nice comments and messages and shares. Means the world!

[karmicbias]

Ghoul Week night 1, success!

Unmasked ghouls below the cut.

I'm exhilarated and exhausted but wow, what an evening! Scroll to the end if you're just here for the good Chris photo - I want to remember as much as I can about the night which means trying to write everything important now before I go to sleep.

Opener, Blaqk Audio? Amazing. The lead singer seemed to be pleasantly surprised by the audience's energy and got realllll up close and personal with the front row. Fun music, I'm definitely going to add them to my rotation.

Debated leaving my spot during their set in hopes of catching Chris at the bar or something but my gut said I wouldn't be able to get back easily enough and it wouldn't be good time to chat anyway, so I stayed. As soon as the opening set ended and the crew started switching around the gear for Sisters, I spotted Chris pretty much immediately, setting up his station at Doctor Avalanche. I was in about the fourth row and made heart hands up high and pointed at him and he shot me a quick grin and a peace sign.

Sisters of Mercy were great! I'd heard that the last tour was kinda a let down but there was plenty of energy tonight! Ben Christo has incredible hair and arms and got lots of cheers from the audience throughout. Their other guitarist, Kai, also got lots of cheers especially on his 12-string.

Funnily enough Chris's onstage presence is the most subdued in the band (other than the frames of his sunglasses - everyone comes out wearing them but his glow under the blacklights). He's in the back and mostly just stands there stoically while Eldritch and the guitarists sing and strut. Crowd was packed pretty tight by the end and we were all good and sweaty which tbh means we were having a great time.

Once the encore wrapped I got back outside quickly for fresh air (yay small venues) and to see if it looked likely that I'd be able to catch Chris by the tour bus. A tiny crowd, maybe a dozen folks, seemed to also be waiting and security was chatting and not running anyone off so I decided to give it a go.

Waited for maybe a half hour without much activity other than pizzas being delivered and trash being taken out when I look up from my phone and spot someone hauling a couple of armfuls of stuff to the bus - and it's Chris! I call out his name and he gives a little half wave and a gesture that seemed to mean, I'll be back in a minute. So I wait.

Next thing I know he's ambling over! I've rehearsed this enough in my head that I don't freak out. I show him the pin of his cat, Rosie, that he shipped with the album I ordered from him, which he was delighted to see, and ask if he'd mind taking a picture. He agrees immediately and slings an arm around me. I follow his lead, i guess, and put my arm around his waist??

The conversation was going really smoothly and we spent a few minutes sharing various cat photos on our phones (classic), and I even had a natural opening to mention the show at 54 Below later this week, which he said he was bummed to be missing by one night with the Sisters tour schedule. Chatted about Enter the Vortex and he had a big laugh when I mentioned I was excited to see what Mad/Dylan wears for the show.

I told him how much I was enjoying the Kitchen Disco albums and he said there's one more coming next month. We talked for a good bit about his motivation for recording them and how the project started as an EP, then grew into an album, and eventually four albums.

At some point he apologized to me repeatedly for taking a minute to respond to a text, but as far as I was concerned he was taking time out of his evening for me so it wasn't a big deal.

I'm sure we chatted about some other stuff but I have to admit that I probably don't remember all of it... I would have stayed and waited to see if Ben came out but it was getting late, and I needed to get the friend I went with home before midnight.

Regardless, I'm so so happy I went and that I waited! The music was all absolutely fantastic and I got to meet someone I really admire, and tell him how much I appreciate his work.

A very good night.

[purplerakath]

Dissecting an Adaptation - A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

Adaptation is one of those weird topics. It's 'bad' because it changes things. But if it doesn't change things, its still bad. A no win scenario as you turn one thing into itself from a new angle. And a lot of the time people don't look at why it made changes, or what those changes do. Or how those changes play into the nature of the story.

TV, Film, Books, Comics, and Video Games have different tools, different rules, and different ways to do the same thing: tell a story.

This will have spoilers for both the first book, and the for season one of the series. I won't spend a lot of time on changes that impact books 2 and 3 (there are some) and won't go far enough to really qualify as spoilers for those two works.

Adaptations of Structure

The biggest change is the tools a work has to use, and the costs those tools have to use, which covers a lot of the bigger changes in the first season.

(I read the US version of the books, but won't be discussing anything to do with how those read differently from the international version.)

The books switch between three forms of writing over the course of it, narrative prose as normal for a novel, log entries written in character for Pip, and interview transcripts/text exchanges. These change the flow of how the book reads as they are written in different styles. They're very good for a written book, but won't do nearly as much good in a TV show.

Even just stopping for Pip to listen to a full interview wouldn't actually do much visually in an audio-visual medium like TV.

Which covers why almost everything from those is missing. The interviews Pippa does are all done in narrative without a break to a new format to make it clear what's going on. And this is, overall, fine. As much as Pippa's catfishing email exchanges are really good for showing how clever and duplicitous Pip can be, they don't play well in video.

Adaptations of Tempo

Books can cover a longer space of time than a TV show does, TV shows want some continuity of motion. Nothing as exact as 24's 1:1 time flow, but you want an episode to be days not weeks. A season to be months not years (back when seasons were 20+ episodes and not 6-8 episodes).

Which is bad if you're, say, unraveling a mystery. And you want the story to circle back to previous lies, previous interesting characters who graduate to suspects. Lies that become motives. But six episodes means we can't spend too much time chasing our tails.

This also means that a lot of characters who are there to fill space... can just be rolled into another character. Chloe Burch's role in the story being rolled into Nat's character is a good example of this. Ant Lowe being exiled from Pip's friend group is another good one.

There are problems, Stanley Forbes is entirely absent from this version. Similarly we don't see Mr. Singh or Mrs. Bell. And Jason isn't remarried. These all matter to a degree, but they also don't matter right now. And the room for these characters to show up in later seasons (if renewed) is there, so they will be around when we need them.

It's just a little bit of a problem.

Adaptations of Tone

Books have a tougher time with subtext, probably due to them just being text. You have what's there, and nothing else. The audiobook has a fullcast so there might be some read directions on dialog, but you can't rely on that to tell you anything if you're reading the paperback or an epub. So a lot less of it can be about what isn't there.

But when you have actors you can do so much with things that aren't being said out loud. The difference between Book 1 Pipravi as a relationship and Season 1 Pipravi is huge. The book didn't focus on Pip's feelings about Ravi outside of how he was impacted by the case, series Pip is awkwardly trying to work out her emotions over this boy pretty much out of ep 2 and it doesn't stop until she tells him to shut up in Ep 6.

Emma also brings a different sort of intensity to Pip than Book Pip seems to contain. Pip in the book is headstrong, certain of herself (until facts break her), but her need to solve this case is a little less clear in the book (where she's doing this because she thinks its right) vs the show where it's something inside her she has to struggle with.

The other tonal shifts are one of who gets treated kinder by which version of the story. Andie of course is a lot more complex in the books, while the series paints her as a well meaning terrible person. Changing her relationship with Nat is a pretty big one (and really the only shift in the series a fully dislike).

Meanwhile the book spends a lot of time treating Elliot Ward like a good man in a bad situation, that what he did was all moments of weakness and he didn't mean to. The series more firmly paints him as a man with a darkness he hasn't come to grips with, his breakdown in the books makes him less monster than the show. In turn Naomi is given more moments of helping Pip in the series, to lessen her hand in Sal's fate, making her less villainous in Pip's eyes.

These changes on who is framed in kinder light is fairly small on paper, but huge in practice. Changes born (in part) from the tempo of the series being faster. Naomi dodges Pip's questions more in the book, turning her into a more valid suspect. While in the series she's so desperate to tell anyone what happened she let's it slip in the first episode.

Overall...

Each version does different things well, most of the changes I find indifferent. Because as much as the changes are changes, adding the parameter of acting to it means that they can make characters like Max and Daniel skin crawlingly creepy. And while later books Max is very, very creepy, that's because of what Pip knows not how he was written.

While Henry Ashton knew exactly what he was playing and exactly how to sell it with just his presence on set. And that's got it's own value too.

[savagebisand]

I'm gonna say this and make my peace with it but I am frequently reminded as someone watching from week to week when it comes to Only Friends, that it is so easy in a series like this to find yourself accidentally having bias toward some characters, pairings etc. It's very important that we always remain open to alternate perspective and that we remain able to pick out nuances in our favourites. Critique them when they cause trouble or make a bad choice and cheer for them when they find moments of happiness. For today, I am going to speak primarily about Sand because I've already seen a lot of a sentiment on YouTube mostly that he is justified in his scheming to reveal BostonTop and drag Ray into it and yet Ray is vilified for lashing out and pushing Sand off him in the same episode.

We have really got to stop woobifying characters like Nick and Sand and even Ray or Mew because we see them as the most traumatised or the ones with the uncaring lovers. None of them were meant to be the "innocent" character amongst the darkness. JoJo has always said all these characters are flawed and live in shades of grey.

I'm getting real tired of seeing Sand constantly elevated above Ray because one has to be worse than the other for some reason? Or seeing TopMew and SandRay pitted against each other when both have tormented romances. We can note the difference in how the relationships are developing without attacking one or the other. Sand can be the kindest and most sensible character in this series and he can still be morally reprehensible and wrong in other ways. Mew can be caring and hesitant and only want what's best for his friends and still get it wrong sometimes not out of spite but simply because he just doesn't know better.

We do not have to pretend that Sand is in the right when he isn't because we don't want to lose the Sand as a good person label. He IS a good person..he's also wrong for the mess he indirectly caused this ep. Y'all I'm a Sand stan, this blog is sandified all over. The man is me coded. He's a mirror to my soul for me. And I will still sit here and hold him accountable just as much as I would do for Ray when Ray fucks up. He made some Choices this episode and they were Bad. He prioritised his vengeance against Top over Rays emotions regarding Mew and that is Unkind.

Ray was Unkind to lash out at him and push him as well but to act like Ray was unjustified and deserves to be vilified for it is just... it don't sit right with me. He stooped as low as Sand did, he hit right where he knew it would hurt. It was tit for tat. The second Ray went into that meet up where Sand showed him the audio, you could sense Ray knew he was being used as a middle man. That shit hurts. This is the person he's been vulnerable with finally and he just got treated once again, by him, as someone easily influenced and gullible.

Sand used clever words to make it sound like he was doing this for Ray but it was heat of the moment. He was thinking purely of making Top taste his own medicine and eat his words. He wanted Top to lose Mew to prove the point that Top doesn't always get what he wants. Bonus if it meant Sand got Ray and could prove Top even more wrong because "who have you got?" Well now he has him. But honestly Ray was just a prize at the end of a long game Sand wanted to play there for a second.

It can be equally true that when he saw Ray was going to rain hell upon the group, he became more concerned as in his moment of Seeing Red he thought only Top would get hurt. He under estimated the fall out a truth like this would cause for everyone in that clique. Tell one harsh truth and a million more come pouring out. Ray got hurt because of this little ploy and he got a nasty awakening that oh yeah Ray is more important than some contest with Top, it can be equally true that he cares about Ray when Top isn't clouding his judgement and actions. That he didn't want Ray to endanger himself. That he would follow Ray and get him to a hospital safe after Ray angrily tries to take himself home under the influence because he feels betrayed, a black sheep to his friends.

But like it or not some of Sands actions this episode were still laced with calculation and manipulation and involved using others like chess pieces such as Ray and Nick, two people he normally cares about more than anyone. That moment when he smashed up his phone intentionally to get his hands on Nick's? Batshit insane behaviour. He was high tempered and irrational and he made a very big mistake because as I've said before these characters are portrayed as human young adults and it's what we do. No one is perfect 100% of the time. We all have a capacity for bad inside of us that most of the time we tamper. Sand was not able to in this instance. He caused mass destruction in a butterfly effect of one choice he made way before Ray caused more fallout with the truths he spilled.

Sands actions. Sands choices. Not just Rays or Mews. And don't get me wrong Ray was wrong too, he shouldn't have brought April and Cheum into it just to further a point. He should have just let Mew handle Top alone at home. But to be fair he'd spent all day and night being ignored by his friends for not being as blind in love as them, biting his tongue when Ton played along to insinuations over Nick and still got treated kindly after outright saying he had an ice cold heart when Ray knew just how true that was. Dealing with Ton making his emotions for Mew the butt of a joke again, belittling him. Sand using him to get back at Top and lying to Rays face or stonewalling him after they'd spent a week connecting more.

So it's no surprise he went since we're being honest tonight anyway maybe you all need to see you aren't perfect either. Sand set the spark that started this fire this time around. It's alright. All of them went too far and crossed lines. None are worse than the others. This show is not a competition between which partner in this couple is worse or more fucked up than the other. It is showing its audience what it looks like when two fucked up, flawed, morally grey, young adult and queer people fall into relationships and friendships. All of the couples are equally as wrong as each other for behaviours they exhibit when together.

It's subjective of course, everyone's personal level of what's wrong and what's acceptable is different and that's what makes this interesting. Something a character does may not be going too far for one viewer whilst for another it's absolutely appalling. The beauty of media. But let's not get so caught in picking teams that we lose our critical lens when we consume media. You can be rooting for Nick or Boston or Top or Sand or Ray or Mew! A combination! Have favourites! By all means pick people you'd love to see overcome these messy dramas and challenges they face. Just don't throw rocks at glass houses.

[mythserene]

Mark Lewisohn really wants to overturn narratives and “Get Back” accidentally gave us incredible insight into how little it takes to make him smoothly and confidently wrong

Great AKOM. Maybe too good because it left basically nothing to add on the primary topic. This show followed my own notes more than any so far—but I had not caught the John quote being about the Maharishi—chef's kiss. 👩‍🍳💋

However... it does give me a chance to riff off something they touched on that I've also been thinking about for awhile: Mark Lewisohn's big desire to overturn narratives, and how wrong he gets it when he runs into a fact check we can all see with our own eyes.

Pre-“Get Back” Mark Lewisohn previewed some of the narratives he was itching to overturn, and off the top explained that no one had really told the Get Back sessions correctly. By trying to ingest all that Nagra audio on a sort of anniversary-tribute calendar schedule—(which is insane, impossible, and hubristic beyond words)—he was prepared to make news on a few fronts. (All clips of him are from 2019.)

First of all, no one has told the "Get Back" sessions story right. Yet.

But after binging the Nagras once the expert is ready to “write it differently”

Redeeming Magic Alex

In this tweet is a hidden wink-wink-hint at the new Magic Alex storyline Lewisohn was queuing up. Although if he hadn't tipped us off in the podcast the “not so bad then” would be meaningless. As it is, we have the key.

Magic Alex has been slandered, his studio was fine, and the Nagras — especially George's good vibes — prove it.

Honestly, just imagine what we would be reading from him if “Get Back” didn't exist. This is the flimsy nonsense he builds entire storylines around. Because he prioritizes flipping narratives second only to deifying John. And like a reporter with a thesis he interviews and searches out sources to prop up that thesis. But unlike a reporter he has no checks. No imperative to give competing evidence. Answers to no one. Is wholly opaque about sources. And most certainly doesn't concern himself with adhering to even the most basic UK and US ethical guidelines for historians.

And so this is possibly the best peek we will ever get into how his process works and just how incredibly flimsy it is.

Paul didn't want to go up on the roof—he was the one who had to be persuaded—because it wasn't enough of a climax

Apparently even Anthology was trying to pull the wool over our eyes about Paul and the rooftop concert, but Lewisohn was ready to rewrite history and tell the truth about Paul not wanting to go up on the roof.

The last clip isn't of Mark Lewisohn, but references him as an expert. The final arbiter of fact. And it fits. Because at this point if Mark Lewisohn says it, no matter how ridiculous it is, it becomes cannon. And it pains me to see anyone—especially Beatles' fans—parroting nonsense and looking foolish.

Mark Lewisohn, heroin expert

It is so clear that Mark Lewisohn is going to handle John and Yoko's heroin issue by feigned expertise blended with apologia and creepy idolatry. (See Prellies in Tune In.) How he thinks he's expert enough to opine on the effects of heroin is beyond me, but that's never stopped him before. I really don't think he ever even questions himself or his superior knowledge of anything, despite zero experience or study. His expertise at extricating John from all hard truths is enough, and will make us all stupider. (Also playing now because I am inching up to pointing out something on those Nagras.)

Repeating Mark Lewisohn: the "Two Junkies" interview (where John literally had to stop to throw up) was from a heroin hangover because John and Yoko weren't messed up enough to actually be doing heroin on set

*I posted this last night and Tumblr disappeared 90% of the post then wouldn't let me post more audio because it counted the disappeared audio against me. Therefore I forced myself to repost it this morning before listening to the bonus (Womak/Mal Evans) AKOM I've been so looking forward to and may now go revel in my reward without guilt. 😌

[being-of-rain]

73 Yards is an episode of Doctor Who. Kinda.

They just put a little horror movie in the middle of the season! And I enjoyed it! I think a big reason I'm really enjoying this season is that it's taking some big swings, trying some unique stuff. Of course I wish we had 13 episodes, but I'd rather 8 episodes that get experimental with it than a hundred by-the-numbers stories (Sorry Nick Briggs). (Sorry for the drive-by at Nick Briggs, it's just hard to resist sometimes).

This episode certainly took advantage of the supernatural available to it, as I hoped this season would. And by playing into the rules of horror (and Doctor Who is allowed to be any genre it wants,) it left a lot up to interpretation, which was very interesting and had my girlfriend and I discussing it for a while after it ended. I thought it was drawing some connection between ancient curses and right-wing politics, which is fair. And watching Ruby weaponise her ancient Welsh curse to make the prime minister resign was very funny and satisfying. I think I saw people somewhere talk about how a common thread through a lot of the situations and horrors was isolation and ostracism, which is a thread I want to pull on next time I watch it. Which might not be soon, because (as I might expect from RTD,) this was a bit bleak for me to be a common rewatch. But I love seeing people's various theories on the episode, keep 'em coming.

As for Ruby... I hate to say it, but I don't think this episode really endeared her to me more than any other. She's still a great performance by Millie Gibson (the youngest-looking 40 year old on the planet, bless this show,) and she's still a very capable protagonist. But personally, I'm just not getting anything more interesting than that from her. I'm glad the show so far hasn't been putting a crazy amount of stress on the fact she's adopted, but it hasn't given her any issues to replace that. I've seen people read some interesting stuff into her after this episode, but I didn't get any of it from the episode itself. I didn't even really know what she was thinking while she was growing old alone; you can assume 'sad,' but the episode didn't pause to give me anything more than assumptions. I should move on instead of saying this every episode, but I was hoping this ep would change my mind. Maybe she's one of the rare companions I just won't really click with. Or maybe, like Ryan, she'll become my favourite just before she leaves. Then again, aren't we getting a second companion next season? I'd love a new dynamic.

What else? Kate! She was a pleasant surprise, being as helpful as ever (sorry Kate) and making this her 10th episode! Which feels weird to say about a character who's had like 48 episodes of her own spin-off audio show. Oh but you know what else is weird to say? Kate's line "I think this timeline might be suspended along your event." What are you talking about Kate?? How would you even know that?! I assume the line's there to future-proof the episode against later Dr Who plots interfering with this one, but since when does Dr Who care about that. The line feels so out-of-place and meta (as well as kind of spoiling the ending by immediately making me think 'oh so this whole timeline is going to get undone then,') that I think they shouldn't have bothered.

Anything else to say? It felt a little weird that the episode takes a stand against the stereotype of rural Welsh people being isolated and insular by having a bunch of rural Welsh people be cruel to a nice person just because she's an outsider. Oh and they acknowledged Susan Twist's appearance in each episode then, I'm curious what that will turn into.

Speaking of season mysteries, I keep seeing the fan-theory 'they're in a TV show' turn up everywhere online. Which is a cool idea that Dr Who could pull off, but I've yet to see a single piece of convincing evidence for it. Keep coming up with bizarre and unsupported theories Who fans, don't ever change.

Oh and here's a really niche and petty complaint! I wish the show would stop using the phrase 'perception filter'. I think when it was first used, in series 3 I think, it was about something relatively specific, technology that Time Lords use to make something not draw attention (unless attention is drawn to it). But since then the phrase has been rolled out for shape-changing, invisibility, natural abilities as well as technology by any species under the suns, it can affect your memories, and hey now magic Welsh curses use it too. Personally, I think it's lost all meaning and feels a lot more like cheap and lazy writing than worldbuilding.

Okay! Those thoughts turned into me saying I loved the episode then listed a bunch of very petty complaints. But I did love it! More magic please. Maybe slightly happier one.

I'm not sure there's anything in the second half of this season I'm really hyped for, but after enjoying the first half a lot, I'm curious what'll turn up!

[stickthisbig]

Deadlands and Accents

Context: I went to grad school for linguistic anthropology. I'm also a born and raised Southerner; the majority of the time that I've lived somewhere else was in California.

So this post was initially much, much, much longer and got into why we can't say whether the West sounded Southern and the evidence ag'in it. There was just so much. Just so much.

"Sabine, can you really tell anything from the first episode?" Come here. Closer. Do you know how fucking long three hours is? I gave a whole-ass paper at the AAAs one year on thirty minutes of data. Maybe we revisit this later, but believe me. We've already heard a lot.

Anyway here's my analysis by player of the accents from ep 1 of Deadlands. Also it has audio of me reading my favorite Southern political speech. The original version of this post was a drunken ramble on Discord where I ranked the players, but it did feel a little catty, so I'm just going to take them in no particular order:

Literally Everyone Else In The West

Honestly, Andy's all over the place and has heavily leaned into "here's a voice that sounds olde tymey", which makes some of his characters, particularly Arlo, sound like audio animatronics. However, he's the DM and he can do what he wants. 7/10

Garnet

Iconic for just not doing an accent at all. 10/10.

Edie

Right. So. Here's the thing.

Ellen is just doing Dolly Parton. Like it's straight up and down Southern Belle. It's not very good, but it's identifiable.

You have to be really careful when you do just a regular accent that many people have. I am going to say this as delicately as I can: because of a lack of cultural understanding about how Southern women sound, Edie comes off as a raging bitch.

It turned out I couldn't be very delicate.

Ellen is just being Ellen; she is a very helpful person who is very deliberate when she explains herself in game. The way she's deploying the accent with it is making my Southern brain glitch, because that's how Southern Belles talk when they want you to go fuck yourself. The more carefully a Southerner explains themselves, the closer they are to snapping their tether. I know that Ellen does not mean to sound as pissed off as she does. I absolutely can't unhear it.

It's not very good and also it makes my brain hurt so… 3/10?

Silas

You can't fool me, I know Clint Eastwood when I hear it. I cannot understand what Silas is saying worth a good goddamn. 1/10 and that's a pity point because I actually do want to see what happens with Silas

Delacy

Really liking Luke's choices here. He's made a very smart move by mostly changing vocabulary and prosody, rather than the much, much harder phonology and syntax, and then layering the rasp over it to clean up the edges. It does make my throat hurt a little, so 9/10

Nate

So it's my understanding, and I haven't watched it yet but I should because it sounds charming, that Nate's voice is the one Johnny used for their letsplay of Frog Detective. Because of this, I think that the consensus that Nate is Benoit Blanc is probably dead on.

A lot of people agree that Benoit Blanc is Foghorn Leghorn. They're completely wrong, and let me now explain in tedious detail why, because the fact of the matter is SO much more interesting.

Now, we can all agree that Daniel Craig was just fuckin freestyling it, but crucially, he wouldn't sound like he does if he wasn't doing something specific. He is doing a specific voice that we all immediately recognized as "wily older Southern man who doesn't take too kindly to this type of nonsense." He's not doing Kentucky Colonel; he's doing Simple Country Lawyer.

Simple Country Lawyer is very popular in media- Tiny Attorney from Venture Bros, the Hyper Chicken from Futurama, any number of serious films from earlier periods. The newest version I found was this clip from Game Changer. Here's what makes it so interesting: Simple Country Lawyer is a very real register of Southern English, one that crosses dialects. I had friends who went to law school in the early 2010's who studied it. For decades it was the gold standard for both rhetoric and courtroom discourse.

It also preserves really interesting features that have fallen out of most Southern Englishes. Most Southerners used to be /r/-less, a thing that they shared with English people, but the last speakers of SAE with non-rhoticity (they delete R's) largely died in the past twenty years. Simple Country Lawyer is non-rhotic. For example, in most Southern Englishes, the word "power" is pronounced as one syllable, like powr. In Simple Country Lawyer, it's pronounced pow-a.

It was way easier to explain this if I just recorded some of it, so here you go:

The thing is that most people who aren't conversant with that register do end up sounding like they're melting. Johnny absolutely has not escaped this. 7/10 for the accent, 20/10 for letting me talk about one of my favorite registers

So there are my opinions. We will see if they hold, but three hours is a shitload of data, so.

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 14th April ✨

Oh my god, the audio sure did drama this week!!  

👻 @tellnotalespod (S2E7.5) HOW did none of us put this together sooner?! Oh my god, what an absolutely INCREDIBLE little twist. I love the undercurrent of hopeful resilience in Tell No Tales (Leo is going to get with the programme really soon 🤞) and I am screaming, crying and throwing up imagining the end of season reunion 😭 HOWEVER, don’t think I missed for a second that Riley is asking for another packet of painkillers . . . it would be so like him to think that 16 paracetamol is two doses of paracetamol but still! He needs to be okay!!

🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (147) hhhhh what a GOOD episode. There’s something different about the horror of season 4 that I want someone with a literature degree to talk to me about for hours. Can we please talk about how the murder victim had a treble clef carved into them . . . i.e. the symbol at the start of a piece of music. It’S SO CLEVER I love the intricate details of this show!!!!! And, can we also talk about how emotional I feel about Clem (namer of everything) is in love with Shelby (has a cat named Cat). There’s something in that which is giving me palpitations. 

🦀 @thesiltverses (39) You wouldn’t think one would be happy to have silt in their ears, but I am!! I’ve missed this story so much and I loved the twist in this episode. Carson has practically wrapped Shrue in a bow and handed them to Carpenter and Hayward. I can’t WAIT for that conversation. 

🧳 Travelling Light @monstrousproductions (17) Oh this is so beautiful! Do humans do this with ice?? I think we should 1000% do this with ice! I don’t have voting privileges (yet 💸) but I think they should go easy on their foes in the snowball fight. I would love to see how adorably smug Óli is if allowed to win 🥺

🤴 Inco @itmeblog (S3E20-34) If anyone takes SAWA away from Nova again I am going to throw HANDS. I’ve always considered SAWA to be endearingly overbearing with her prompts to Nova but we got such a good glimpse of how vital she is in the library/archives and I love her 😭

♦️@grottopod (8) Grotto finale! I loved the music at the start of this episode and it was so satisfying to hear David get to express some of his frustrations. Season two sounds like it’s going to be wild. 

⚔️ @camlannpod (7) This episode KILLED me. Here are the quotes that made me scream: “GWEN: You can’t love the mental illness out of someone.”  (10/10, true, valid, hurts) “PERRY: Eat a dick, Kay.” (11/10 the crowd goes WILD) “RHIANNON: (calling to the group as they leave) Cousin. About your lover. You didn’t fail him. You just needed more time.” (1/10 OW?????? OW OW WHY? OW!!!!) “MORGAN: You’re just as bad as Arthur. Worse. At least he was honest about it.” (??/10 JAW ON THE FLOOR) I need this podcast forever 🥺

🖥️ The Magnus Protocol (11) Oooh I liked this episode!! I love it when you’re left to fill in the blanks in a horror story - my mind is still whirring through so many awful scenarios. 

🍎 @notquitedeadpod (XXXIV-XXXV) ah! I’ve accidentally caught up to Not Quite Dead! What will my Sunday afternoons look like now?? There were so many moments in these eps which made me laugh but I’m mostly just so in awe of how complex and real these characters are. Neige genuinely feels 10000 years old and shaped by the trauma of each of them. I need to check the release schedule because I cannot wait for more!! 

Have a good week of listening, everyone! 🌈

[todorroki]

Love Sea ep 1 thoughts

a little ramble/unorganized post of thoughts on ep 1 of love sea. so i watched the first ep twice, since the first time i was partially live tweeting some of my reactions and missed a few things. i enjoyed it!! quite a bit too, mostly bc i love fortpeat and i'll gobble up absolutely anything they're in. as with mame stories, in order to enjoy them to the fullest, my brain is off, my fujin glasses are on.

first off: gorgeous shots, even more gorgeous setting. i Love bright colors, and this island is really giving just that. like... NATURE!! so much green from the trees and the underwater shots are so good as well. i'm gonna be a little sad when they return to the city. not sure what episode this will land on but my guess is around ep 4? if they keep the pacing as it is right now.

this was a solid first episode. we get introduced to the main cast, their jobs, and a bit of their personality. and the end of the episode gives a glimpse of tongrak's trauma and a preview of the looming problem that should come to light as the series progresses. i'm honestly Very curious how they're going to handle the main conflict, if they're going to take anything out or change it. i am open to what changes they May do since i've already seen a (in my opinion) good change they made for the last scene on the boat.

in the novel, tongrak actually slaps mut when he tries to wipe his tears. yes, full on bitch slap to the face. which, honestly, when i read that part, i looked up from my phone and was like "ok...but why....." so i'm glad they took it out. i'm not mad about having a slap scene in general, but it seemed like a weird reaction (to me), even with the knowledge of WHY rak behaves the way he does. no spoilers, but i had that ????? reaction more than once throughout the novel so hopefully they're able to better translate book scenes to screen. i'll keep my expectations measured regardless.

i'm also wondering if they're going to have conner show up since we have his voice. not gonna lie, i was 90% expecting them to have silence on the other side when talking to conner on the phone. sorry for not believing in u mame lol.. and speaking of PHONE CALLS, idk if i'm traumatized from LITA but i audibly Cheered when i heard proper phone call audio effects. can u tell my expectations for the audio direction were in the ground lmao. and i'm still holding my breath bc LITA had proper call audio in the first ep but dropped it later. praying for consistency over here.

putting my fears aside, PEAT'S STYLING IN THIS SERIES!!! he looks sooo good. and fort in that wetsuit ho my god... so many good visuals here. also i know i read the novel, but i was still completely unprepared for the tongrak attempted seduction scene... i knew it would happen but i wasn't ready to see it with my eyeballs!!! that was WAY more skin than i expected. earlier this week, peat was saying we'd get to see his thighs in ep 1. SIR, we saw much more than that!!! got me screaming at 10am. fortpeat are doing so well here. fort is in his element completely with mahasamut, and peat does vulnerability so so well. i'm excited to see them in more emotional scenes.

now for extra scattered thoughts below ↓

i'm just glad for the brighter setting to see peat's eyes in the light. BEAUTIFUL

2. love sand in the corner of mook's desk and test love on the floor! i enjoy the mame universe easter eggs.

3. the live laugh love-esque font made me laugh sorry

4. MMY WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET THIS PHOTOSET IN PREMIUM HD

5. tongrak is stronger than me. if someone started reading my wip i'd shut my screen so fast

anyways i'm VERY excited to see more fortpeat in action. i wrote this post to keep track of my own thoughts, but if you found this and happened to read it, thank you for your time!!