#HEY IT'S A BEGINNING OK

[somanyjacks]

After months of studying the language, last night I dreamed that I said a phrase in Japanese, effortlessly and with good diction, and that the person I was speaking to understood.

The phrase I said was, of course, "Sorry, my Japanese is not very good."

[starset-sarsaparilla]

fun fact: when i first went to the fort to kill caesar i completely forgot about the bunker. it was a stressful return trip

[ricky-mortis]

A portrait of Sir John Herschel because I‘m normal about Pulp Musicals

[crowfanity]

A few months ago I had a dream Blackquill broke into my house in the middle of the night and was just standing in my kitchen and my response was "I know I'm not in danger because it's just Blackquill, but the dude broke into my house and is just standing there ominously in the dark like a freak, so I feel like on principle, I should scream." Except I couldn't at first and all I managed to get out was a quiet "help" which my boyfriend heard and woke me up to ask if I was okay, and I had to explain to him that I was fine, just that my sleep paralysis demon was apparently Simon fucking Blackquill

[differenteagletragedy]

By the time Baxter turned 30, he was happy, more or less. He had a job he loved, a beautiful apartment filled with beautiful things. He'd gotten back into dancing and made time for it regularly. And he had friends -- friends that he'd made years ago and somehow, against all odds, managed to keep.

But some nights, after he left game night at Jude and Scott's, or after having dinner with Terry and Miranda, he felt lonely. Not in a profound sense like he'd been used to, but a little nagging ache telling him that he'd like someone to come home to when the day was over.

Then you came into the picture. And the ache became a throbbing need.

You worked at the office with him -- not with him directly, but he saw you often enough to start liking you. You were about five years younger than him, he figured, and so bright and funny and smart. And beautiful. So, so beautiful.

Baxter found himself incredibly drawn to you, but also scared to actually try for anything more than the easy, teasing friendship you eventually built together. What if he messed it up? What if he wouldn't be good for you? What if he did something to dull your light?

One night, months after the two of you began talking regularly, he ran into you after a later-than-usual night at the office. He'd stayed late, finishing up some work he'd needed to get done for an upcoming wedding, and you had been doing the same thing. Usually when he spoke to you, it was with coworkers and clients wandering around, but tonight was different. Tonight he had you all to himself.

He exchanged pleasantries with you in the hallway -- he asked what you were working on, made some idle chit chat, all while trying not to notice how much he wanted you. He was so focused on keeping his feelings in check that he accidentally tuned you out

"Hmm?" he asked as you looked at him expectantly. "I'm sorry, I seem to have spaced out for a moment."

"What are you thinking about so hard?" you asked. "Pretty rude, honestly."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "It wasn't my intention to be rude, I simply --"

He stopped talking when you started laughing. You were teasing him. Of course. But this only served to get him even more distracted, watching your easy smile, directed only at him. His eyes fixed in on your lips, and you stopped laughing.

"If you want to kiss me, you can," you told him, still with a smirk.

"Oh, I ... I didn't mean ..." he floundered, more flustered than he'd been in years. Maybe ever. "I mean, I would like to ... but I don't mean to ..."

You watched him start and stop and sputter and ramble before finally putting him out of his misery. You put your hands on his shoulders, then slid them down to grab onto the lapels of his jacket, pulling him in for a kiss.

It wasn't like any first kiss that he'd ever had. It was deep and almost impossibly intimate, with your tongue slipping into his mouth soon after your lips touched his. You used his jacket to pull him in closer, and he wrapped his arms around you, helpless to your advances but more than happy to have you take the lead.

When you finally pulled back, Baxter was a mess. Cheeks flushed, clothes wrinkled, heart pounding wildly -- but happy.

"Fix your hair," you told him, reaching out to ruffle his black locks. "You look wrecked."

With that, you turned and walked away. In a daze, he watched you walk away, down the hall and towards the main exit. Then you were gone.

Baxter had always known himself to be forward when it came to romance. But now, when it came to you, he had a feeling he wouldn't mind letting you take the lead.

[volaenii]

AFTER 8 MONTHS I FINALLY GOT IT!!

[gurorori]

tbh it's still crazy 2 see progressive (ie western slash european & american i guess? yanno wat i mean. places wher we r nawt radicalised & illegalised into it oblivion) audiences have such (understandably) high standards 4 queer media or even queer representation as a whole & won't take less than. like i understand it's cause ya can expect better so ya will, in sum cases ya can even demand better. but it's simply nawt an option 4 many of us.

like idk perhaps a bit too harsh of me 2 say but regardless of the political atmosphere there's still a difference between livin' in a place where ya still have rights, have pride & can walk into a store etc & find queer literature & rep & even merch, have resources 2 support yrself & find yr community. & a place where as much as wavin' a pride flag or even havin' a pride pin, OR G-D FORBID holdin' yer partner's hand WILL get ya arrested & jailed. an' yr lucky if ya don' get assaulted or killed be4 dat can happen 🫥

[prismaticpichu]

My mind has just realized something fantastical. I’ma GENUIS.

Sephiroth is called both a One-Winged Angel, and The Demon of Wutai. He’s both. He’s both! He’s a demonic angel! He’s good and evil, yet those titles are swapped based on his actual morality! He’s a Demon in Crisis Core and an Angel in, like, not Crisis Core! Ahh what symbolism! I think!

[boygirlctommy]

ive decided that andoras almost always has crazy makeup and wigs on simply bcus its fun for him. and everin doesnt see him without any of it on until after the birthday party debacle and loses it slightly bcus she thought that was his real hair the whole time wdym youre BALD (hes not bald his hair is just short)

[comas-are-for-sleeping]

anyway do u think deadpool and wolverine is on streaming yet i need to find that on a totally legal website soon

as of saturday night IT IS NOT !!! which sucks and they lied

i know it is on the totally legal website soaper.tv or whatever its called ;)

ok coming back to here after writing all the tags thirty tag limit?? that is wild to me i didnt know that existed

[dinoswordsb]

Thought of u

THIS IS AWESOME....HI MY SWEETIES

[dahtwitchi]

I have fever and have deliriously ended up thinking of Iruka and the concept of him having more fat on him than he much likes, he would be decently well trained under it all he just happen to be one of those. And also don't say no to a treat or fifteen while grading.

And then I thought that Tobirama just happen to think it looks nice and squeezable

Iruka can't quite comprehend chiseled tobirama find it distracting, Tobirama can't quite comprehend he said it out aloud. If he thought he was gonna be less distracted once he got to know it, he was wrong. And knowing Iruka knows somehow makes him feel more embarrassed.

[galacticlamps]

actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be

First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:

my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)

But letting that go...

I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)

On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.

(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)

At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.

To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.

So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.

And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?

anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)

[sweet-cuddlebug]

[Trying to read the epilogues of hs and homestuck^2]

[suffering]

[laptop]

[fagpulp]

i dont have to constantly repent i dont have to constantly repent i dont have to constantly repent

[lokh]

impulse shopping when u actually have money is so dangerous actually