#Harold Jig

[gremoria411]

A part of me really wants the next Gundam AU to have a fantasy setting.

Like, they’ve already made a bunch of designs that are just crying out for a fantasy aesthetic - Grazes and Reginlazes look like Knights, and I’ve always found the Barbatos Lupus to have a wizard vibe. I’m obviously biased in favour of Iron Blooded Orphans here, but Zeta and Reconguista in G both have a ton of units that look just as appropriate for a kings court as they do to a spaceship dock. Heck, we just had a series that focuses around the concept of Witches. It’s not like it’d be much of a leap either, between quantum brainwaves, newtypes and GUND-format machines present in other series.

But then another part of me’s just like “Yeah, but Aura Battler Dunbine and The Vision of Escaflowne haven’t gone anywhere, and they are very good fantasy mech settings.”

So I think what I really want is just for the military-industrial complex to be represented by WIZARDS.

[magratpudifoot]

Finished 6 October 2024:

The Two Gentleman of Verona - William Shakespeare

My new-to-me Shakespeare reading process is pretty involved*, so I haven't been able to do it properly in the last five years of moving and having all my books in storage. But I mostly have my books back and have set a goal for myself to read all the plays I haven't before by April 2026, so we're starting at the beginning of my Shakespeare TBR list.

I did actually read this play in my undergrad class, but that was at least 15 years ago, and the class was awful. I honestly think if it had been the same professor with the three of us who paid attention and maybe a couple of grad students, it would have been really good, but it was a 3 hr Monday night class, and EVERY SINGLE SESSION he would have to explain what having horns on one's head meant. One time I took pity on him and raised my hand to say, "I think it's interesting that all of Feste's songs are really morbid." And he latched onto it in a way that I wasn't quite expecting: "YES! Tell me more!!" Alas, this was YEARS before I actually took this on as a personal research interest, so I was not at all expecting to suddenly be the focus of the class--this was the first time the whole semester anyone actually volunteered an opinion--so I let the poor guy down with "I don't know...I just thought it was interesting..."

Anyway, yes, I know I read this in that class because my copy of the text had annotations in my handwriting, in the type of ink I used to prefer before it became impossible to find**. But I had ZERO memory of any part of the play, except a vague sense that I must have been really excited to Know Something about the story from dramatis personae because I read a lot of Greek mythology as a kid. (I was actually in another class that same semester where we would have been reading Ovid's Metamorphosis right around the same time, but I think it was probably the Hercules Animated Series that taught me what to expect from Proteus. Or Young Hercules. It may have been Young Hercules.)

So, sure, I read this play before, allegedly, but I am treating it as one I hadn't read. And if you know anything about Shakespeare's body of work, it's probably no surprise that my main takeaway this time was "Okay, yeah, I get why no one has even really tried to bring this one back." I think there were good ideas, interesting impulses, and I spent a lot of time thinking about The Importance of Being Earnest, but I'm not sure that there is any satisfactory way to stage the final act, or any way to stage it without the final act and still call it the same play.

It should surprise no one that Speed and Silvia are my favorites. It is perhaps shocking that Posthumus is still my most hated Shakespearean male love interest when Proteus and Valentine are both right there. If I were to write fix it fic, I'm not sure if I would have Julia stay in Verona with Lucetta (who she instructed to make her clothes that she thinks she would look best in, don't think I didn't read too much into THAT), or have her and Silvia return to Milan together and leave everyone else in the forrest.

* I read from the Norton Shakespeare while listening to Arkangel recordings, and then follow up with the entries in Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare and Harold Bloom's Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human--not because I particularly trust either of them as Shakespeare scholars, but because I find arguing with others about what does and does not work for me in classic literature helps me process, and there's no one better for arguing with than Bloom. Of COURSE he likes Launce. OF COURSE. I hope Will Kempe does a little jig every time Bloom sits down to write. I used to also supplement my Shakespeare reads with Dr. Johnson's notes, but I cannot find my copy now and am not sure it wasn't a casualty of Moldpocalypse. I am going to go out to the storage closet again one of these days and see again if I can find it, because that historical midpoint commentary is excellent to have.

** The shitty blue Bic pens with the "comfort grips" and the hollow plastic tubes and the ink that kind of smelled like you should ventilate the room probably.

[tropiyas]

martin o'donnell panel notes (he broke down the Halo CE theme with a music analysis youtuber 12Tone)

was for mac showcase

no audio engine - had to play it in sync manually via audio

knew they wanted orchestra + singing

orchestra: 4 violin 2 cello

vocals: him + 3 guys who did mr clean jingle

backing tracks (percussion etc) were samples

they wanted gregorian/ancient from the start

the start hook-y melody decision (the chant):

4 phrases inspired by....... yesterday paul mccartney.... in dorian scale

dorian scale recap: just the minor scale except a raised 6th (lowkey removes the somber darkness and makes it more ambiguous towards excitement(?))

q: why?

a: atmosphere for halo - ancient+epic+mysterious

he friends with koji kondo and other composers

most music was platform dependent back then (understandable, 8bit and other restrictions) - he didn't like those limitations so mostly jumped in when Halo / Mac / late 90s music could be more like Film

big cello fan

*deserved

Halo CE theme breakdown:

Vibe - ancient+epic+mysterious obv but then

check it out - it was NOT really a fully fledged idea intentionally at first, not even meant to be THE Halo theme - originally it was just a Showcase piece for the Mac World. Funny how that works out!!!!

master chief was originally Future Soldier (more of a hero unit back when the game was a 3rd person strategy one) before he was actually a character

Original Game Goal was Seamless World (1999 pretty insane to think abt - even tho it is more common now [with BotW and RDR2])

original request - 2 or 3 minutes LOL (they didn't know what the demo length was gonna be). So he writes a 3 minute track that has smushiness at the start and back so that nothing is missing (yeah the melody is Slow like that)

Showcase ended up being 3 minutes, good. The structure might not have been that [vague] / smushy if he worked more directly with the demo's sequencing and length.

epic stuff had to be more upbeat - the higher pace one was lowkey irish jig themed

Panelist / Audience vibe that we received from Halo theme: kind of Lonely? Solitude / "ozymandias" style.

before focusing on Future Soldier - the alien planet that he was being chased in and getting into the Warthog, turned out that way

great things abt art -> a lot of meaning is emergent (not originally intended) but that doesn't mean that it CAN'T add depth

he personally conducted the chanting - gregorian chanting is monks in cathedral w/ reverb so no strict meter or tempo for what happens. bravado (vince) - give and take

surprised cat face "halo is a religious game" SO TRUE

Drums Breakdown:

- tone being low register - low DUKUKUKUD DUKUDUNKUN drums

- choice reasoning: "I thought they would be cool"

- rhythm: panelist relates it to america west side story drums

- compound rhythms (instead of splitting it to duples (2), split it into 3, but then overlay the 2 on that end of the measure)

- "polyrhythmic"

- first time it was written; first music was 4:4 with triplets

- then 12:8 and conducted in 4

- (sorry don't remember my high school music classes that much)

Strings Breakdown:

- dun dun dun DUNNN

- melodic structure is "simple," just starts low and goes high

- [kinda reminds me of Megalovania except that one walks down]

- "this makes a great metal piece if you've heard people do covers of it"

- (um YEAH MJOLNIR COVER⁉️)

- in college he did a paper on the inventor of leitmotif - symphany fantastique (referencing his enamored with)

- the melody for that song was complex

- you can't develop with a complicated leitmotif

- Harold in Italy - this next piece was short and could be developed

- "the effect of melody is something that gets in your head and stays in there" (easier to hook audience in)

- [like Megalovania]

- strings keep the compound meter that the drums introduced

- to get the drive and aggression and thrust (pause?) - he wrote the cellos to do the OCTIVE Jump and go back and forth. he wanted to hear the ROSIN

- not classical string playing method... When some people read the music they split the cellos! even though it's supposed to jump on the SAME cello. That's WIPPY

- sloppy in a good way (pause⁉️)

- [but yeah it's very human I agree and that makes the piece IT]

- next string line - the backing whole high notes violins crescendoing

- it's the same walk from E to A but then IT KEEPS GOING

- low cello - minor (not dorian) but then the high strings are back to dorian i.e. that one note C#

- gregorian usually not dorian(?)

- mo likes ambiguous scales - dorian scale and the likes are not so explicitly "minor is sad, major is happy"

- enjoys writing to stick specifically to a scale that gives you chords that are non common in contemporary music

- bringing dorian to the high strings after cello is basically a "we're so back" measure.

- he likes that it's a minor key with major subdominant and a minor dominant

- rock and roll influence

- snsnss

- second string phrase

- full sending irish jig - sea shanty vibe

- halo was a damn water level this whole time??

- tidbit: master chief is the highest noncommissioned role you could reach

-

vocals

- the high backing vocals are less gregorian but more wailing

- "idk why, but thought it would be more mysterious and alien to have gregoian monks and then adding arabic wailing"

- he asked if one of the singers could do that kind of chanting - this was the last thing recorded for the theme

- martin tried doing it and he was the one who actually kept it in

- he brought them two versions - wailing vs no wailing (bungie loved the wailing one) (martin was embarrassed because it was his high voice)

- [kind of like how megalovania has that countermelody near the end of the song]

rest of the song:

- the UPDOWN violins with no percussion

- harmony

- starts E Dorian then rhythm stop - the string melody is in G minor woah

- panelist: "why a weird chord"

- martin: "I don't know"

- audience: *claps*

- *he just wanted to move off the E

- since we weren't even in E minor in the first place, moving to G minor it's WOAH

last last segment

- looked at the parallel 4ths "dundundun dun"

- inner voice goes down a step, next voice goes up a step

- oblique and countering motion (this is starting to go over my head) makes cool chords as a result of changing the motion of the notes itself

- MUSIC........

- halo 2 OST takes influence from this kind of motion

- basically taking his piano playing style to cello / strings players and forcing motion, making them sweat

- diminution of original theme - it's two bars per thing but then it removes the second sustained bar (more energetic)

takeaways - sometimes your goat just does it

woke takeaways - only very slightly critical abt using gregorian/arabic chants just to add to the Uniqueness / "alien" feel even tho those are just like. Other People. (but it's so far detached and not meant to be a direct correlation, does it even count?)

[ginger-snap-talkin-nonsense]

Seen any good silent films?

Yes!!!

Okay so when talking about silent comedies everyone talks about Charlie Chaplin and his iconic character, "The Tramp". Now don't get me wrong The Tramp is a really interesting piece of movie history and paved the way for satire in filmed.comedy as we know it, but I found the actual comedy of his silent stint a little lacking because it was so focused on its satire, which he got to do better in the talkies (The Great Dictator is absolutely beautiful).

So then we get Buster Keaton who I found to be a bit of a dick. In his two films I watched-"The General" and "Seven Chances" he isn't exactly funny so much as he's a stuntman doing cool things (and in Seven Chances case he's also actively racist which the other silent comedies I've seen managed to near entirely avoid, even The General which was literally pro Confederate). Now his stunts and the money he put into his work was mind blowing. Man destroyed a train for Christ sake that's cool, but he clearly wasn't a comedian at heart.

The best of his work I saw was 'Sherlock Jr.' Which showed his hand. The man liked to make high concept art pieces, and added comedy to them so people would pay him to see them, but comedy was never his primary focus.

NOW OF YOU WANNA TALK FUNNY, LETS TALK HAROLD LLOYD

Harold Lloyd did the least of the big 3 comedians of the time as he just couldn't cut it in the talkies and didn't want to put his life at more risk than he already had doing crazy stunts. So he's the least remembered of the 3, yet if you ask me easily the funniest. His comedy is timeless-both the physical comedy AND the situational comedy.

I've seen two of his films-"Safety Last" and "The Freshman" and both were utterly hysterical.

The first is a classic 'guy down on his luck working at a department store and trying to convince the girl he's more wealthy than he is' and the whole thing is just scene after scene of shenanigans! He gets to work early but falls asleep on a truck so wakes up in the middle of town and has to hitch a ride back but he's late and doesn't want the smooth boss to know so he's gotta sneak in as a mannequin without getting caught which scares a guy and so on!

It's just funny physical bits and situations that remind you that even back then we were all goin through the same shit. Hating the retail grind and not having money and pushing cops over for the funny and climbing 30 stories on a building to win a thousand dollars.

AND THEN THE FRESHMAN IS THE SAME SHTICK BUT ITS COLLEGE SHENANIGANS

SPECIFICALLY A BIG DORK COSPLAYING AS HIS FAVORITE MOVIE CHARACTER TO BE COOL AND EVERYONE CLOWNING ON HIM

HIS OWN DAD CLOWNS ON HIS NAME ITS PEAK FUCKING COMEDY HE DOES DUMB LITTLE JIG EVERYTIME HE MEETS SOMEONE ITS SOME TIKTOK COMEDY I STG

Also he was one of the first people to utilize speeding up walking footage to make the shot funnier and again, it's so endearing knowing we've found the same shit funny since the beginning of film.

Do yourself a favor, watch The Freshman and if you love it-which you will- watch Safety Last. It's just a pure delightful comedy experience.

[alexis-royce]

I posted 3,426 times in 2022

That's 2,300 more posts than 2021!

268 posts created (8%)

3,158 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@decodad

@birdybirdnerd

@detectivehole

@chinchillasinunison

@alexis-royce

I tagged 2,374 of my posts in 2022

Only 31% of my posts had no tags

#lupin iii - 342 posts

#the stanley parable - 275 posts

#jigen - 189 posts

#picshuas - 142 posts

#deadly premonition - 67 posts

#jiglup - 66 posts

#fallen london - 60 posts

#lupin - 56 posts

#zenigata - 49 posts

#disco elysium - 48 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#secondly mega-screwed because harold knows the concrete answers behind a ton of stuff that i am purposefully leaving open to interpretation

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The Jig is Up, and the loot's yours for the taking! Our free Jigen Daisuke Dating Sim is ready to play. Help Lupin III win over Jigen’s trust, without getting Jigen fed up at Lupin's constant BS. Can you complete the legendary partnership?

We are pleased to present:

Over 22k words,

Multiple paths through each of our three chapters,

One True End, with several alternates along the way,

Casual conversation mechanics, with stats like "Trust" and "Patience,"

A soundtrack that includes brand-new arrangements of classic songs from the history of Lupin the Third,

An art style painted in traditional watercolor and gouache,

And more!

Download it right now, over on itch.io!

519 notes - Posted June 29, 2022

#4

Become ungovernable

549 notes - Posted May 4, 2022

#3

No ulterior motives behind this visit at all, Akechi.

Final version here!

613 notes - Posted August 29, 2022

#2

The Narrator renders his in-game model with a realistic endoskeleton full of moving parts that nobody can see through the skin texture and modeled clothing fabric, and it's so resource heavy and crammed with polygons that the game crashes instantly when he tries to load it

645 notes - Posted May 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Peace and quiet in the broom closet?

943 notes - Posted May 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[ask-the-scary-mauri-pals]

The Mauri Pals 10th Anniversary!!!

Thanks for the party, guys!

No problem, bro!

Yeah, it's no issue.

🎵Happy happy birthday, it's a special day, to you from The Toyland Gang, let's have a partay!🎵

N̵o̷w̶ ̸t̷h̴i̸s̵.̸.̶.̵.̸.̵I̷s̷ ̸e̵p̴i̶c̷.̸ ̷I̷n̶f̸a̶c̸t̷,̴ ̶I̵ ̴m̸i̴g̶h̴t̷ ̷j̶u̸s̸t̷.̸.̵

(=

T̶̼̅ḩ̴̃i̵̘̚s̴̲͊ ̸̢̔ì̶̘s̶̥͂,̸̰̊ ̷̰̒ĭ̷ͅṋ̷͝d̶̻͆e̴̙͂e̵̢̍ḏ̸̔,̷͚̅ ̴̜̉"̶͙͌e̸͙̔p̴̣̌į̷̓c̵̠̈́"̴̿ͅ.̵̙̓

Ȕ̴̮̠͔̤̀͊h̶̢̡̬̖̅̑͂͝ḩ̵̥̾̎̐́h̷̢̧͚̱̾̅͐͠.̶̪̘̬͑́̐̚.̵͍̰̿͂.̷̱̃͌̈́

*Carlos does a little jig, as he is too introverted to speak.*

Wait...Where's the other Mauri?

If you don't mind me asking, did you get me something?

Uhh...

*Carl telekinetically grabs a caterpillar*.

Here.

...This is....

AMAZING!!! Thanks, you guys!

I'm gonna name you...Harold!

[burntcopper]

Theatre list 2022

Best of Enemies (Young Vic)* Nutcracker (St Petersburg ballet) Street Scene (Kurt Weill) (Teatro Real Madrid) Private Lives (Hall for Cornwall) Verdi's Rigoletto: On the Lake (Bregenz Festival) Carmen (Sydney Harbour) The Dante Project (Royal Ballet) Madame Butterfly (Sydney Harbour) Groan-ups (Hall for Cornwall) Kiss Me Kate (BBC Proms) Aida (Sydney Harbour) Ludovico Einaudi : The Elements Around the World in 80 Days (Rain or Shine) The Collaboration (Young Vic)* Cyrano de Bergerac (Harold Pinter)* Bill Bailey Larks in Transit (ROH) Everybody's Talking About Jamie (Hall for Cornwall) The Play What I Wrote (Birmingham Rep) Rumplestiltskin (Ballet Lorent) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre henry iv part 1 (rsc 2014) Macbeth (Globe) Bonnie and Clyde (Arts Theatre)* Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Hall for Cornwall) (2nd half) Wine Night (Lona Theatre, AMATA) HMS Pinafore (ENO) Oklahoma (Young Vic) Magic Goes Wrong (Hall for Cornwall)* Kate Rusby (Hall for Cornwall) La Bayadere (Royal Balllet) Ladies of Letters (Hall for Cornwall)* Rough Girls (Lyric Belfast) The Recruiting Officer (Rain or Shine) Much Ado (National Theatre)* Much Ado (Blewbury) The Tempest (Globe)* Prisoner C33 Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre)* I, Joan (Globe) The Tempest (Globe) Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* Six (Hall for Cornwall)* Richard iii (rsc) Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Hall for Cornwall)* The Seagull (Harold Pinter) Wuthering Heights (Bristol Old Vic) Nutcracker! (Bourne) White Christmas (Hall for Cornwall) Sleeping Beauty (Bourne) (Theatre Royal Plymouth) Gods of the Game (Grange Park Opera) Treasure Island (Hall for Cornwall) Henry V (Globe)* Hex (National Theatre) A Christmas Carol:  A Ghost Story (Nottingham Playhouse) As You Like It (sohoplace)*

Best 12

Best of Enemies (Young Vic)* The Collaboration (Young Vic)* Cyrano de Bergerac (Harold Pinter)* Bonnie and Clyde (Arts Theatre)* Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* Much Ado (National Theatre)* The Tempest (Globe)* Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre)* Six (Hall for Cornwall)* Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Hall for Cornwall)* Henry V (Globe)* As You Like It (sohoplace)*

Best of Enemies : Hi we're going to examine ego and the birth of modern media and political commentary and identity and ... yes that is Andy Warhol, everyone else at the party is trying to ignore him too.

The Collaboration: Art! Reawakening artistic impulses!  Connection with the world! Tunes!  Paul Bettany!

Cyrano de Bergerac: Words, desire, the power of words, rap battles, being a dick because you can, falling for people, depth of emotion, James McAvoy's thighs (my view for the first ten minutes) and Christian and Cyrano falling for each other as well and MY HEART.

Bonnie and Clyde: We're gonna heist and we're going for fame and tomorrow doesn't exist.

Much Ado (Globe): It's Italy post-war.  We're all horny as hell, everyone is beautiful, the coppers are trying to kill us laughing via shenanigans, will you please get out of my shrubbery, and ladsladslads is it gay to wrestle your mates this much?

Much Ado (NT) : Setting:  Grand Budapest Hotel. Challenge:  ice cream toppings and pec popping. Glam as fuck. *mwah*. (not as good as Globe, Beatrice and Benedick were more weirdos who band together than banter, but achingly glam)

The Tempest (Globe): The Island is the spanish riviera, everyone is Brits who think they're better than the natives, Prospero's in a yellow budgie smuggler and it turns out this is actually a comedy, Lionesses win so they have to re-jig the Three Lions lyrics mid-run in glorious fashion and Prospero is absolutely a fuckhead slavemaster.

Jack Absolute Flies Again: WW2 farce! malapropisms delivered so perfectly you nearly kill the audience!  ukeleles!

Six: The ushers will dance and you can't stop us.  And yes everyone's favourites are the Annes.  Sorry not Sorry.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo:  The boys are back, they're en pointe and they're glorious.

Henry V (Globe): Henry goes full psychopath to the point that Jude Law's been left in the dust in scary Hals and I didn't think I'd ever say *that*.  When the usual comedic bits leave a hole in your soul.

As You Like It (sohoplace): Sorry, hearing actors.  Rose Ayling-Ellis has put a cherry on top of why Celia should be played by a deaf actor. (see Globe and Nadia Nadarajah) Entire cast flirting with the pianist should be encouraged.  Also: Alfie Enoch needs to go full ham more often. New best stage direction as provided by the subtitles; *pianist improvises frantically*

'Fuck off, keep fucking off, and fuck off again, you’re boring and tiresome and self-involved and why the fuck should I care about you?’ Award:

Aside from all the classical opera (I keep trying.  I fail.  This is just not a genre I can handle.  Decent tunes on occasion, lots of plodding pageantry and singing at people rather than advancing the plot. Though Gods of the Game was pretty decent by virtue of the fact that it kept employing opera tunes footie fans use but for adverts and the chorus of fans. Toreador as the jingle tune for a burger advert the lead is doing?  NICE.) Wuthering Heights.  Quite brilliant staging, and I thought it would be the Emma Rice-ness turning me off in this but no, it was the Bronte.  I literally just want to yell 'fucking leave, don't come back' at everyone.  The Emma Rice twiddly dance and music numbers were actually pretty good.

[mixamorphosis]

Blog post and linked up tracklist [HERE]

Tracklist

Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - Wake Up Everybody (Psychemagick Edit) (Self Released)

LTJ - Light (It's A Small World Disco)

Paul McCartney & Wings - Let 'Em In (Dicky Trisco & Innerwest Soul Edit) (Unknown Label)

The Dead Rose Music Co. - Listen (Unknown Label)

Hristo - Heat Market (Common Edit)

Eddie C - From Afar (Red Motorbike)

Toto - Africa (LNTG Mix) (Tuff Cuts)

Keni Burke - Risin' To The Top (Matthew Kyle Edit) (Self Released)

Marvin & Guy - Alma Sagha (Self Released)

Mary Jane Girls - All Night Long (Unknown Edit) (Unknown Label)

Steely Dan - The Fez (Laura Ingalis WTF Is A Fez Edit?) (Self Released)

Marv N' Gaye - Make Me Wanna Holler (Magic Hat Edit) (Unknown Label)

Bill Withers - The Same Love (Whiskey Barons Edit) (Unknown Label)

Timmy Thomas - Why Can't We Live Together? (Block Party Edit) (EMI)

David Bowie - Fame (Mojo Filter Cognito Dub) (Self Released)

Capannis - Miracles (V Edit) (Unknown Label)

Stevie Wonder - I Wish (Spaghetti Legs Re-jig) (Self Released)

George McCrae - I Get Lifted (Mischief Brew Edit) (Unknown Label)

Download available via [Hearthis]

[death-by-mercury]

The Red Special 🎸

•••

The neck

The neck is made from a piece of mahogany cut from the remains of a century-old fireplace, and is mirror-smooth after 50 years of use.

Although its nut width is a pretty standard 46mm, it is a truly massive palmful. Yet it’s still eminently playable, and the fact that it’s never been refretted beggars belief.

The scratchplate

The scratchplate was traced and hand-cut by Brian from a single sheet of black Perspex and, although it’s taken quite a battering over its 50-year life, it’s in reasonable condition.

That said, it’s among the most fragile parts of the guitar, and the surrounds are replacements, made by Greg Fryer out of 3mm thick black acrylic in 1998

Switching

The switching system follows a concept that Brian came up with to give as many tonal options as possible.

The book shows the array in detail and also features several original plans that illustrate the workings of the switches. The ‘May Star’ was inlaid by Greg Fryer in 1998 to fill a hole in the scratchplate that had been left by the removal of a Vox fuzz unit Brian had installed very early on.

The Fingerboard

The fingerboard is oak, stained black and coated with numerous layers of clear Rustins coating. It has a 7.25-inch radius that was meticulously hand-shaped by Brian, using planes, jigs and lots of sandpaper, and now resembles glass in both its feel and appearance.

As is well known, the 16 fret markers are hand-shaped mother-of-pearl shirt buttons, and Brian still possesses a handful of the spares that were liberated from his mother’s sewing box.

The Knobs

The original knobs were replaced by these ones made by Brian on a lathe just before Queen formed, around 1970.

The sliver of yellow tape is a very recent addition and allows Brian to see where the knob is set during low stage lighting.

Vibrato

During late 1963, the vibrato underwent extensive testing and four refinements, even before being fitted to the guitar.

The tailpiece pivots on a case-hardened knife edge, and two springs taken from some motorcycle valves are set behind it to pull the strings back to pitch. It’s a truly frictionless system that hasn’t needed any adjustment in 50 years.

Bridge and pickups

The bridge was made from a single piece of aluminium found in Harold May’s workshop, and Brian filed and shaped it to a scrupulously-planned design before slicing it into six pieces. It’s still original, although the roller saddles certainly aren’t – the book details the inventive process involved in their manufacture.

After experiments with making his own pickups proved ultimately unsuccessful, Brian bought three Tri-Sonic single coils from the Burns music store, which at that time was located under the Centre Point building in Tottenham Court Road. The damage on the bridge pickup’s casing, caused by Brian’s sixpence picks, has all occurred since 1998.

Zero fret

Brian’s first guitar, an Egmond acoustic, had a zero fret, so he adapted the idea for the Red Special.

The strings float within the nut slots, and tuning stability is maximised by the straight string-pull of the three-a-side headstock. The zero fret itself has been replaced over the years, and Brian keeps a box of spares close by.

The neck join

Contrary to wisdom perpetuated in the darker parts of the internet, this bolt and screw array actually secures one end of the 3/16th steel truss rod, rather than being solely responsible for holding the neck.

The neck is further stabilised by two hefty screws set in the neck mahogany between the bridge and middle pickups and screwed into the guitar’s central oak insert below. The book uses photographs and the original plans to explain this marriage in full detail.

•••

In pictures: Brian May's Red Special up close

By Guitarist magazine 

Via musicradar

[100yearoldcomics]

July 23, 1922 The Katzenjammer Kids by Harold Knerr

TOP PANEL [ID: The Kids are set adrift on an ice flow in some Arctic ocean. Fritz lights a campfire and warms his hands while Hans holds the reins of a polar bear he's managed to leash with a rope. The bear paddles to panel right. /end] Hans: Atta boy, Alexander! Ve soon get to Africa vare der climate iss more varmer!

MAIN COMIC [ID: The crew of Long John Silver's ship and the Katzenjammers look over the side of the ship into the waters. A lone polar bear floats by on an ice floe. John's sailors are lowered down in a lifeboat with a harpoon. /end] Captain: Chimminy! Dot boy vould make a dod-gasted fine rug for der parlor! Long John: The boys are gonna grab him! Fritz: Iss it a bolar bear? Hans: It looks more like a mockingboid!

[ID: The sailors hogtie the polar bear and bring it up on deck, where it lies dripping wet and furious. The rest of the crew admires the captive beast as the Kids walk off together, laughing and planning something. /end] Captain: Dot's vot I call dum-goozled good bizness! To-night, it gifs plum duff for eferyvun! Sailor: He wuz a tough customer! Long John: Tie him up below an' we'll skin him tomorrow! Bear: Gr-r-r-r!

[ID: Mama sits in her room below deck, happily sewing a patch into a handkerchief. The Kids sneak off behind her, dragging a polar bear skin rug behind them. /end] Mama: Iss you studying your jomography like I said it? Hans: Ve chust came in to get der book! Fritz: Ve vant to see if der South Polar iss vest or east uf der North Poler!

[ID: The polar bear seems to escape from below deck, scaring the wits out of Long John and the sailor currently manning the wheel. Look closely, though, and we can see the legs of the Kids underneath the bear's belly. /end] Bear: Gr-r-r-rump! Sailor: Jumpin' gee-whilikens! Long John: Holy mackerel!

[ID: The Kids reveal themselves under the bearskin rug. Long John laughs heartily while his crewmate perches warily atop the wheel. /end] Fritz: It's only us! Hans: Chust try it vunce on Der Captain und vatch him get a fit! Sailor: Well, I'll be jig-swiggled! Long John: Haw! Haw! Haw! That's a good 'un an' ye can lay to that!

[ID: The Kids help the steering sailor into the bearskin rug as Long John gleefully walks off. /end] Hans: Don't forget to say "Gr-r-r," ven he comes! Fritz: You should say it mit a Spinish accent! Sailor: It'll be a good 'un on old whiskers! Long John: I'll get the old boy on deck!

[ID: Long John leads Der Captain and der Inspector up on deck, where they're horrified to see what they think is a polar bear steering the ship. The Kids giggle as they run off in the background. /end] Bear: Gr-r-r-r-oo-oof! Captain: Hellup! Fetch quick der gun, Chon! Long John: Hee! Hee! Har!

[ID: The sailor, laughing, reveals himself. Der Captain and der Inspector give him the stink eye while John stifles giggles. /end] Sailor: Har! Har! Har! Just a little kiddin', Cap! Captain: Say! Did I maybe bring a ding-goozled, empty noodle joke-maker on der cruise? Stop it, or it gifs a punch in der jaw! Long John: The ol' boy's sore!

[ID: The Kids lean in through portholes in the side of the room where the real polar bear is tied up. Fritz chats with the growling bear as Hans cuts his leash with a knife. /end] Hans: Alexander, der vorld iss yours! Fritz: Tomorrow, maybe you vill be a rug! But to-day, if you iss smart, you iss better as a pair uf kinks! Bear: Gr-r-r-r-r!

[ID: John, der Inspector and der Captain sit around a card table, smoking cigars and playing cards. They turn around and glare at the polar bear as it stalks into the game room. /end] Long John: Cut that out an' get back on deck! Inspector: Iss ve playing Pinochle or chust hafing a conwention? Captain: Dod-rot my binnacles! Am I der Captain uf dis dum-foozled ship or ain'd it? Bear: Gr-r-r-r!

[ID: Der Captain takes the ashtray where his still-smoking cigar sits and hits the bear over the head with it. /end] Inspector: Cut ouid der conwersation und play cards! Captain: Vunce for all und all for vunce, cut ouid der monkey bizness und stay on der gum-svoggled deck!

[ID: Der Captain, badly bruised with some fresh growing lumps atop his head and his clothes torn to shreds, perches atop the mast of the ship, angrily glaring at the deck below. Seabirds sail through the sky on either side of him as the sun sets. /end] Sailor #1: All right, Cap! We got 'im! Sailor #2: You kin come down! He's tied up! Captain: Und NOW it gifs a moider!

[unreleased-gta-vi-npc]

why did people in the 50s always dance like they were in a silly goofy mood? whats so fucking funny harold? nukes? doing a little jig to polio? peopole from the 50s disgust me

[kevrocksicehouse]

Harold Lloyd the bespectacled silent comedian who risked life and limb for laughs, would have been 128 years old today. A couple of great films (and one bizarre oddity):

The Boy in Safety Last. D: Harold Lloyd (1923). Lloyd didn’t have Chaplin’s pathos or Keaton’s deadpan, but he did have an acrobatic slapstick ingenuity, a gift for playing naïve “go-getters” (putting him in touch with the 1920s American zeitgeist) and almost no fear. In his fourth feature (after almost a hundred shorts) he’s a department store clerk who, after a number of misadventures, convinces his boss to let him promote the store by climbing their skyscraper (he means for an experience climber to sub but in a hilarious running joke, it doesn’t work out that way) What follows is a classic piece of slapstick suspense as heart-stopping as it is hilarious, as Lloyd contends with pigeons, a mouse on his leg, windows opening out on him and a weathervane that recalls Poe’s Pendulum, leading us to wonder not just whether the character will make it through in one piece, but whether Lloyd will. And the still of him hanging onto a clock face that’s slowly coming apart is a comedy icon.

Harold Lamb in The Freshman.D: Harold Lloyd (1925). Lloyd is a fresh-faced kid looking to be the “Big Man on Campus” like his (fictional) hero “Lester Laurel” (Lloyd emulates him with a half-jig greeting and by introducing himself with “I’m just a regular fellow, call me Speedy,” the films funniest running joke). When he attends Tate college (“A football stadium with a college attached”) he tries to win popularity by joining the football team where after being used as a human tackle dummy, and becoming the waterboy, he gets sent in at the big game and comically, improbably….. well you know the rest. This first big sports comedy was Lloyd’s biggest success and enormously influential to comics from the Marx Brothers through Jerry Lewis and Adam Sandler. And it led to………

Harold Diddlebock in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. D: Preston Sturges (1947). Sturges changed The Freshman hero’s surname to Diddlebock, had him offered a job right after the big game, and kept him in a dead-end position for twenty-two years in this bizarre sequel with a plot that moves from a Kafkaesque business satire, to a precursor of The Hangover (Diddlebock’s taking his first cocktail, fixed by a poetic bartender [Edgar Kennedy], is one of Sturges comic masterpieces) to a tribute/satire of Lloyd’s optimism where he finds success but only after our hero finds himself dangling from a rope attached to the collar of a circus lion walking along a skyscrapers ledge. The film is a chaotic mess, but trust me – you gotta see it.

[adriftwoods]

okay so here’s what ive come up with so far for a quell!aubrey au. major taz amnesty spoilers btw

the quell is a lot more mobile and has a greater role in the upkeep of sylvain in this au. she and sylvain are like the yin to the other’s yang, as there can be no creation without destruction. the quell is why people on sylvain can become ghosts after death, and she is present to serve as a balancing force for sylvain.

she resides in her blood-red ruby fragment for years, and falls in love with the Little family just as sylvain did in canon. she lets herself be reborn in their baby girl, hoping to protect her and maybe, just maybe, find her way back home.

Aubrey Little is a very special little girl. she’s also a bit.... strange. some would call her weird, or creepy, but she’s not actively malicious at all. she’s quiet, reserved, and levelheaded. she’s not pessimistic, but she is more of a realist. she grasps the concepts of pain and death  much better than most would expect from a child, and it’s a bit unsettling to those who don’t know her well. she’s still happy, and makes friends easily with those who get used to her slightly off-putting exterior. she’s good at reading people, especially after spending more time with them. she is known as an understanding person, who can seem a bit somber at times.

she isn’t easy to upset, but when she breaks down, she breaks down hard. her outbursts are rare and intense, and it sometimes causes her to do or say things she regrets later. the silver lining to this is that she quickly develops emotional maturity and skill with apologizing as she grows up and tries to improve her coping mechanisms and processing of emotions.

Aubrey adopts more of a goth aesthetic instead of punk rock. she grows up with her role models being wednesday addams and coraline jones. instead of fire-based magic tricks, she becomes interested in witchy, occult magic. she has a respectful interest for the paranormal, and this is what brings her to kepler during a bit of soul-searching after the death of her mother, who passed away due to what was assumed to be a badly-timed carbon monoxide buildup in their home that had been undetected due to a pair of burglars disabling all of the house alarms. Aubrey and her father had been downstairs, investigating the commotion from the intruders, and had both lost conciousness. by the time they had woken up outside, it was too late for Aubrey’s mother.

while in kepler, Aubrey spends a lot of time in the woods. she befriends rangers Duck and Juno, despite the fact that they met when Aubrey wandered into a restricted section of the woods. during one of her excursions, she runs into a monster. it was like a twisted, awful, horribly large bear. she sees it in the distance and flees without another look. the first sign of civilization is the amnesty lodge. she rushes inside, and the woman in charge introduces herself as Mama, and asks what on earth had scared the daylights out of Aubrey. she tries to explain what she saw in the woods, but Mama brushes it off as just a regular bear that she hadn’t quite seen right. reluctantly, Aubrey accepts the explanation, but she’s still wary of going back out into the night. Mama offers her a room for as long as she needs it and has Barclay make her a warm meal.

Aubrey is still curious about what she saw in the woods. the next day, she goes back out to explore, despite herself. she makes her way to where she saw the bear-thing, but it’s nowhere to be found. she does, however, discover an injured rabbit on the forest floor. it has no physical wounds, but it’s breathing shallowly, as if close to death. then, Aubrey feels something..... odd. she somehow knows what the rabbit is feeling, that his life is draining, fading, still terrified of the unnatural, bear-like creature that had been trying to assimilate him into the mass of animals that made up its form. the monster had been interrupted, at the last second, when it sensed a young woman nearby, and it had not returned to finish the job.

Aubrey is gripped, then, by some sort of power inside her she had never noticed before. she kneels next to the rabbit, cradles him in her arms, and then in her very being. the rabbit changes then, going from brown to stark white except for a bit of black around his eyes, which become a deep red. he nuzzles into Aubrey, who feels now that the rabbit is stable again, and also linked to her. she smiles down at him, before they are both startled by a voice.

“Alright missy, the jig is up,” Mama says, approaching her. “I know magic when I see it. Now how long have you been on this planet, what other trouble have you caused, and why haven’t you come to the lodge?”

Aubrey tilts her head, confused. “What do you mean?” She stands, still holding the rabbit. “I really, honestly don’t know what I just did. And, as far as I know, I’ve been on this planet for... ever, actually.”

After a bit of explanation, Aubrey learns from a rather reluctant Mama about sylvain, and the archway, and the abominations. Mama is frustrated, and then downright flabbergasted that Aubrey is somehow human, yet performed sylvan magic without even realizing. Aubrey becomes part of the family, though, and settles in with the other sylphs rather easily after a bit of apprehension. She names her new rabbit friend professor Harold Valentine.

[tomeandflickcorner]

Umbrella Academy Rewatch 1x09

1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08

Last episode left us with a pretty big cliffhanger, with Allison grievously injured.  So how does this episode resolve that?

Before we get to that resolution, the episode gives us a flashback to 1993, before Reginald started suppressing Vanya’s powers with her medication.  Back then, Vanya appeared to be a bit of a picky eater, absolutely refusing to eat her oatmeal.  Can’t say I blame her, of course.  I never cared for oatmeal, either.  But, rather than meet her halfway and come up with an alternative nutritious breakfast that she would eat (because it’s completely okay to not like certain foods), the nannies Reginald hired to take care of the Hargreeves Siblings’ daily needs attempted to use every trick in the book to force her to eat her oatmeal. This always led to Vanya’s powers bursting out of her, resulting in the hired nannies all meeting an untimely end, much to Reginald’s disappointment.  So, after losing an undetermined number of nannies, Reginald ended up constructing Grace, who the Hargreeves Siblings would eventually view as their mother.  When Grace attempted to get Young Vanya to eat her oatmeal, she was sent flying across the room like all the other nannies.  But, since Grace was a robot, she could simply get back to her feet and dust herself off, completely unfazed.  The sight of Grace being able to readjust her head, which had been knocked 180 degrees around when she collided with the far wall, manages to scare Young Vanya into obedience, with her wordlessly eating her oatmeal as Reginald looked on in satisfaction.

We then flash forward to the present day.  Harold/Leonard has brought Vanya back to his place after the incident at the cabin.  He announces that they have to hurry and pack up their things, as they’re going to have to go on the run.  Although, when he notices that Vanya is still in shock over what just happened, he brings her into the bathroom to clean her up, seeing as she’s still covered in Allison’s blood.  As Harold/Leonard washes the blood off Vanya’s hands, he tells her that the other Hargreeves Siblings will surely view her as an enemy now and come after her to avenge Allison’s death.  Vanya is still a bit shell-shocked, but she doesn’t share that viewpoint.  She’s sure that, if she just explains to her brothers that it had just been an accident, then they’ll understand.  Harold/Leonard, however, tells her that he’s the only one on her side, the only one who sees how special she is, and how her brothers will never understand.  Which is a pretty chilling line, considering working to completely isolate someone from their friends and family is practically the first chapter in the abusive relationship handbook.

Elsewhere, the Hargreeves Brothers have brought the injured Allison back to the Umbrella Academy mansion.  Which doesn’t seem like the most logical destination.  Why didn’t they just bring her to the hospital?  Considering Allison was losing a a lot of blood, time was clearly of the essence. I’m willing to wager that hospital we saw in the last episode was closer to Grandma Jenkins’ cottage than the mansion was.  Regardless of how it doesn’t make much logical sense, they carry Allison inside, where Grace is quick to start administering first aid.  Grace announces that, for Allison to survive, someone is going to have to donate some blood.  Immediately, all the Hargreeves Brothers volunteer.    Though Pogo informs Luther that, due to Reginald’s serum that had given him his ape body, his blood is more compatible with Pogo than to Allison.  Pogo also states Klaus’ blood is likewise off the table, as his blood is too contaminated with drugs.  (Question- does Pogo not realize Klaus has achieved sobriety?  So doesn’t that mean his blood is clean now?  Or do the chemicals from drugs remain in the blood for a longer period of time?   Granted, I do see from the website for the American Red Cross that people who used intravenous drugs must wait three months before they can be allowed to donate blood, but I don’t recall any evidence that Klaus took heroin or anything like it.  We only saw him popping pills.)  In any event, Diego is the one who is selected to donate his blood, even though he faints at the sight of the needle.  Which is rather unusual, when you think about it.  The man whose entire schtick is throwing knives can’t handle needles?  How’s that for irony?

A little while later, Klaus is in his room, searching for something.  Ghost Ben appears and is clearly disappointed when he learns that Klaus is looking for more drugs.  And he doesn’t hesitate to voice that disappointment, stating that Klaus has finally managed to achieve sobriety for the first time in a while and questions why he’d just throw it all away.  To this, Klaus vents his frustrations.  Yes, he managed to get sober, but what’s the point of staying that way?  He hasn’t been able to make contact with Dave and his siblings still treat him like a screwup.  (Perhaps Pogo turning down his offer to donate his blood for Allison hurt him more than he let on.)  Klaus says that if nobody takes him seriously anyway, then he’d rather just be numb.  Ghost Ben tells Klaus that he’s tired of seeing him give in to defeat and that he’s better than that.  He even goes so far as to say that Dave knew he was better than that, too. But Klaus still doesn’t listen and ends up popping some pills into his mouth.  Before Klaus can swallow, however, Ghost Ben punches him hard across the face, resulting in the pills flying out of his mouth. This act visibly stuns both of them.  Because, as we’ve already established, Ben is a ghost.  He’s not physically there, and therefore cannot make direct contact with anyone.  Episode 7 even highlighted this fact by showing us that Klaus could walk right though him.  So how was Ghost Ben’s fist able to connect with Klaus just now?  Ghost Ben surmises that it must have been Klaus who made it possible.  Does this have something to do with Klaus’ true potential that Reginald hinted at during Klaus’ out-of-body experience?

Downstairs, The Hargreeves Brothers are discussing their next move.  Diego is fully ready to go after Harold/Leonard, believing that he was responsible to Allison’s injury, and that it’s imperative that they do whatever they can to save Vanya from him.  Number 5, on the other hand, while he does say he’s concerned for Vanya’s safety, believes their first priority should be taking down Harold Jenkins, as the apocalypse is supposed to happen that very day.  And if they can’t stop it, Vanya will die anyway, along with everyone else in the world.  So Diego and Number 5 start to head out to find Harold/Leonard.  Klaus, still trying to wrap his head around what had happened with him and Ghost Ben, tries to duck out.  But Diego indirectly threatens him into tagging along by throwing one of his knives at him, with the knife just barely missing Klaus’ crotch.  

Over at Harold/Leonard’s place, Vanya is unable to stop reliving her last terrible interaction with Allison.  Trying to settle her nerves, she heads over to the sink to splash some water on her face.  But when she reaches for a towel to dry off, she ends up knocking Harold/Leonard’s bag off the counter, causing Reginald’s stolen journal to slip out.  When Vanya opens the journal to read it, she finds all the information Reginald had written about her.  She instantly realizes that, if Harold/Leonard had that journal in his possession, it means he must have known all about her powers this the whole time.  And that means he was just manipulating her from the very start.  So she confronts Harold/Leonard about the matter.  Harold/Leonard tries to worm his way out of it by spouting off a bunch of flowery lines, about how Reginald had been afraid of her and put her on those pills because he didn’t believe she could learn to control him, how he was the only one who believed in her and embraced her for who she really was, etc. etc.  But it seems that Vanya’s trust in him has been broken.  Remembering what Allison had tried to tell her before, she asks him who Harold Jenkins is.  Realizing the jig is up, Harold/Leonard drops the nice guy act and, when Vanya tries to get away, he physically stops her while angrily asking her what her family ever did her her, as well as asking her who helped her get first chair in the orchestra.  He asks if she really believed the spot opened up on its own, all but directly admitting that he murdered Helen to pave the way for Vanya.  Naturally, Vanya is horrified by this revelation and tries even harder to get away from him.  In the end, when Harold/Leonard realizes that he’s forever lost his physiological grip on Vanya, he begins deriding her, stating that perhaps Reginald had been right.  Perhaps she really was too weak and pathetic to control her own powers.  As you might expect, Harold/Leonard’s cruel berating leads to Vanya tapping into her powers, with her creating a whirlwind of multiple sharp objects that collides with Harold/Leonard, resulting in his death.  Vanya looks coldly down at his body and walks out without even shedding a tear.

Sometime later, Diego, Klaus and Number 5 find Harold/Leonard’s body.  Number 5 tries out the glass eye he’s been carrying around for all this time by inserting it into Harold/Leonard’s empty eye socket.  In doing so, he confirms that this is indeed the man who was supposed to have brought about the apocalypse.  So, now that he’s dead, it looks like they don’t have to worry about that anymore.  But Number 5 isn’t satisfied.  He can’t accept it had been this easy, and wonders who killed Harold/Leonard.  He then teleports off as Klaus suggests finding Vanya so they can ask her about it.  Diego figures she might have headed back to the Umbrella Academy mansion, so they decide to go back there.

Back at the mansion, Grace has finished tending to Allison’s injury, as Luther keeps vigil nearby.  It seems as if Allison will live, but Grace announces her vocal cords were badly damaged, and there’s no way to tell if she’ll be able to talk again.  Pogo suggests that Luther go get some rest, but Luther snubs the advice, announcing that Pogo is the last one he’d take advice from.  It’s clear he’s still angry at Pogo for keeping so many secrets from them.  Once they’re alone, Luther apologies to the unconscious Allison for not being there when she needed him, realizing that, if he had gone with her, Diego and Number 5 when they headed out to find Harold Jenkins instead of staying behind to look for his old moon mission reports, Allison wouldn’t have had to go off on her own.

Meanwhile, since they’ve determined Vanya hadn’t shown up at the mansion, Diego decides to head off again.  He still wants to settle his score with Hazel and Cha-Cha.  After he leaves, Number 5 starts grilling Klaus, asking him if Reginald told him anything more about the apocalypse when he’d spoken to him during Klaus’ out-of-body experience.  However, Klaus only wants to figure out more about how to continue to advance his ability, as he’s concluded that the fact that Ghost Ben was able to punch him had something to do with Reginald’s hint that Klaus’ true power went beyond simply communicating with the dead.  So he tries to ask Number 5 how he managed to figure out how to time travel on top of his ability to teleport.  As this conversation continues, Klaus informs Number 5 that they’re both addicts.  Number 5 denies this, but Klaus insists it is true- Number 5 has become addicted to stopping the apocalypse.  So much so that, now that it looks as if they’ve successfully stopped it, Number 5 is unable to accept that, as he no longer has a purpose in life.

Of course, we can’t forget we also have the subplot with Hazel, Cha-Cha and Agnes to deal with.  Agnes arrives back at her motel room at the bird sanctuary.  Hearing someone in the bathroom, she grows elated, thinking that Hazel had returned.  Only for her to find it isn’t Hazel.  Cha-Cha has managed to track her down.  Valiantly, Agnes tries to tell her that Hazel left her and isn’t coming back, but it’s clear Cha-Cha doesn’t buy it.

Hazel, not knowing the danger Agnes is in, comes to the Umbrella Academy mansion to seek an audience with Number 5.  Number 5 allows Hazel to come in and they begin to talk civilly for a bit.  But right when Number 5 asks him directly why he’s there, Hazel doesn’t get a chance to answer.  Because Diego appears quite literally out of nowhere and begins whaling on Hazel.  At first, Number 5 tries to tell Diego to calm down and just give Hazel a chance to speak, but Diego is past the point of being reasoned with.  So Number 5 just sits back and watches the fight continue for a bit.  (Hazel, to his credit, manages to get a few good hits in himself.)  Eventually, though, Number 5 decides things have gone on long enough, and he interferes, breaking up the fight by smashing some glass object over Diego’s head, knocking him out. Now that he’s able to get a word in edgewise, Hazel announces that he’s left The Commission and wants to volunteer to help stop the apocalypse.  Number 5 tells him that it’s too late, as the apocalypse has been successfully prevented with Harold Jenkins’ death.  So Hazel breaths a sigh of relief, knowing he can now have a long, happy life with Agnes.  He and Number 5 then elect to part ways in peace, with them wishing each other luck with the rest of their lives.  Before Hazel leaves, however, Number 5 announces that he has one last question for his former adversary- which of them killed Detective Patch.  Hazel states that Cha-Cha was the one who murdered her.  He then gives Number 5 the gun Cha-Cha used to kill her so Diego’s name could be cleared.  When Diego wakes up again, Hazel is long gone.  Number 5 tells him that, now that the apocalypse has been prevented, its time to stop fighting.  But Diego’s rage hasn’t subsided, still wanting to go after Hazel.  Even after Number 5 tells him that Cha-Cha was the one who killed Detective Patch, Diego insists it doesn’t matter, as Hazel was also there that night.  Therefore, in Diego’s eyes, Hazel is equally guilty.  But in the end, Number 5 is able to talk sense into Diego by helping him remember that the thing he liked best about Detective Patch was that she always saw the good inside people.  So him killing Hazel and Cha-Cha would be a poor way to honor her memory.  With his point made, Number 5 leaves the room with Delores, leaving Diego with Cha-Cha and Hazel’s guns, which could be used to clear his name, as ballistics would match the bullets found at the crime scene with the ones used in Cha-Cha’s gun.

We then see Vanya has returned to her apartment,  Upon her arrival, she listens to the messages on her answering machine.  As a result, she finally is able to hear the voicemail Allison left her a few episodes ago, about how she only wanted to be a good sister to her, and that she loves her.  Hearing this message, combined with the fact that Vanya thinks she killed Allison, leaves her devastated, especially when she sees the strings on her violin bow are still stained with Allison’s blood.  She breaks down into tears, sobbing openly.

Back at the Umbrella Academy mansion, Allison has regained consciousness.  But because of the damage to her vocal cords, she cannot speak, as Grace predicted.  So she signals to Luther, who is still keeping vigil at her side, for a pen and paper.  When he complies, Allison hurriedly writes him a message, attempting to inform him that Vanya actually has powers.  Luther doesn’t really understand what Allison is trying to say, but Pogo, who had been within earshot, decides that there’s no point in keeping it covered up anymore.  So he tells Luther the truth about Vanya.

So, by the time Vanya is able to bring herself to return to the mansion herself, Luther knows all about what really happened.  And he is the one who meets her upon her arrival.  He tells her that Allison survived, and Vanya is relieved by this.  She then explains that she and Allison had gotten into an argument and things had simply gotten out of control.  Vanya tells Luther that she hadn’t meant to hurt Allison, and that it had been an accident.  Luther assures her that he knows it was an accident, and then holds out his arms in a clear invitation for a hug.  Tearfully, Vanya moves into the hug, once again saying she was sorry.

But then, things abruptly go downhill, as Luther immediately starts squeezing Vanya, utilizing his super strength against her until she passes out.  When Vanya comes to again, she is nothing short of horrified to find herself in the same soundproof room Reginald placed her in when she was 4.  When she sees Luther, Diego and Klaus standing outside the room, she tries to call out to them.  But because the room is soundproofed, they cannot hear what she’s saying, and she also can’t hear them.

Outside, it seems that Luther has already told Diego and Klaus about Vanya’s powers.  They are both in disbelief at the revelation.  However, it soon becomes clear that they are both against the idea of keeping Vanya locked up like this.  After all, this is their sister, who always cried when they stepped on ants as kids.   Diego declares that if Vanya does indeed have powers, it’s obvious that she needs their help now.  And they can’t help her if she’s locked in a cage.  Klaus is in agreement with this sentiment, adding that Vanya is most likely struggling with her new power, which must be scary for her to deal with after years of believing she was ordinary.  Allison, who has also made her way down to the soundproof room, states through written message that she wants Luther to let Vanya out of her cell, too, stating that what happened had been her own fault, not Vanya’s.  But, despite all of this, Luther digs his heels in, stating Vanya is a danger to herself and others.  So she must stay put until they know how to deal with it.  He then all but forces Allison and his brothers to walk away, leaving Vanya alone as she pounds on the door, screaming that she’s sorry.

Okay.  I gotta say this.  I was pretty much on the fence about him up until this point, neither liking or hating him.  But this moment made up my mind about him.  Out of all the Hargreeves Siblings, Luther is the one I like the least.  I don’t care if he was trying to think about what was best for everyone.  I don’t care if he was just trying to keep everyone safe.  At the end of the day, Luther is supposed to be the leader of the team.  But this scene made it clear to me that he is the worst candidate for team leader.  Because a real leader isn’t just about being the one in charge and forcing everyone to go along with your decisions.  A true leader also has to listen to the rest of their teammates.   And if the rest of your team is all in agreement about something, you don’t get to just overrule them as if your word automatically vetoes theirs.  So much for sentiment they had back in Episode 4, when they were deciding things with a vote.  Because if they were still honoring those rules, then Luther would be outvoted.  Yes, Number 5 wasn’t around to voice his thoughts on the matter, but I have a hard time believing that Number 5 would be okay with Luther’s decision to lock Vanya up like this.  Especially since it was established in the first episode that he and Vanya were once pretty close themselves.  After all, when Number 5 disappeared when he got trapped in the future,  Vanya was the one who left the lights on for him in case he ever came back during the night, also leaving out a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich for him every night.  And it was Vanya who Number 5 sought refuge with following his run-in with the first batch of temporal assassins at Griddy’s Donuts.  But even IF Number 5 sided with Luther on this one, it would still have been three to two in favor of letting Vanya out.  But instead, Luther is all ‘I’m team leader, so I get to have the final say in everything.’ As far as I’m concerned, Luther is going to have to perform a pretty epic makeup for this before he can be redeemed in my eyes.

Anyway, another drama is going down elsewhere.  Hazel arrives back at the bird sanctuary to rejoin Agnes.  But when he enters their motel room, he is met with a chilling scene.  Cha-Cha has tied Anges to a chair positioned in front of the hot tub embedded in the motel room floor.  All Cha-Cha has to do is pull the rope she’s holding, and Agnes will be pulled back into the hot tub to drown.  Hazel tells Cha-Cha that she can do whatever she wants to him, as long as she lets Agnes go.  To this, Cha-Cha states that she fully intends to kill him, but first, she’s going to make him watch as Agnes dies.  Before Cha-Cha can do anything, however, Hazel lunges forward and a full-on fist fight erupts between him and Cha-Cha, with both of them during a deaf ear to Agnes’ pleas for them to stop.  After this goes on for a while, Cha-Cha manages to get the upper hand over Hazel, wrapping a cord around his throat until he no longer has the energy to fight back.  She then leaves Hazel lying on the floor, gasping for breath, and heads back to Agnes, instructing him to watch as she forces her back into the hot tub.

Before Agnes can hit the surface of the water, however, time suddenly stops and everything freezing in place, with only Hazel and Cha-Cha being able to move about.  As Hazel and Cha-Cha look around in confusion, the door to the motel room opens and The Handler strides in, announcing they really screwed things up.  Not sure how she survived the exploding grenade with nothing but a scar, but whatever.

As this episode comes to a close, we see the Hargeeves Siblings as they try to take stock of everything that’s happened.  Luther tries to convince Allison that he did what he had to do, but she’s not having it, proceeding to give him the cold shoulder.  (Good!  He deserves it!)  Diego is sitting alone in the kitchen playing with a lucky rabbit’s foot that I guess belonged to Detective Patch, only looking up when Grace places a plate of smiley faced pancakes in front of him.  Klaus is in his room, attempting to play pat-a-cake with Ghost Ben in an effort to try and make physical contact with him again.  And Number 5 brings Delores back to the department store where he found her.  As he gets ready to leave her there, he makes a heartfelt goodbye speech to her, with him talking about how they’d been through a lot together and that he’ll never forget her.  As he turns and walks away, he requests one of the people working at the department store to give Delores something new to wear, stating she likes sequins. Naturally, the department store worker is visibly confused by this but says nothing.

But then, as the episode wraps up, we see Vanya down in the soundproof room.  As she gives into despair, she has some sort of mental breakdown, with her reflection on the glass door being replaced by the image of her younger self.  The Young Vanya Hallucination declares that the others are still scared of them and their power.  The hallucination, apparently voicing Vanya’s darkest thoughts, encourages Vanya to accept the fact that the other Hargreeves Siblings are just like Reginald and will keep her down there forever, so the only thing they can do is embrace who they are.  That’s when Vanya notices there is one sound the soundproof room cannot muffle- the sound of her own heartbeat.  So she ends up using that sound to activate her power, successfully breaking herself out of her cell.  The sound of the door to the soundproof room crashing down is so loud, it can be heard throughout the mansion, with Luther instantly realizing what it means.

Final notes/questions

Seriously, how did The Handler survive the explosion?

What’s going to happen with Hazel and Cha-Cha?  And will Agnes make it out okay?

Boy, Luther really botched that one.  He should had listened to Diego, Klaus and Allison.  Now Vanya is on the warpath.

No, I’m sorry, I’m still peeved with Luther.  After all the indications that Reginald was the worst person in making judgement calls (sending Luther up to the moon for no real reason other than just giving him something to do, committing suicide and making it look like a murder mystery to trick everyone to reunite and lying to them all about Vanya’s powers, among other things), and was therefore not someone anyone should be emulating, he still thought copying his methods by locking Vanya up in the soundproof room was the way to go?

Is Klaus going to be able to master his new ability?

[thevoilinauttheory]

OC Pub Crawl - Danny and Amosis

Danny Harold

Somehow, someway, your character has found themselves on a pub crawl. What do they do?  

Bold the choice that applies the most for each pub.

Pub 1

Huddles in a corner staring wide-eyed at the group and wonders how they got there in the first place | Sits off to the side, sipping something non-alcoholic and watches the antics | Cheerfully sits with the group and drinks their first round | Calls for a round of shots to get the party started | Hangs our near the center of things, telling stories and cracking jokes

Pub 2

Finds a new corner to huddle in, growing increasingly concerned as the drinks flow | Relents and orders a glass of wine whisky to nurse through the next ice age | Laughs and chats with the group, drinking the drinks and enjoying the camaraderie | Is off flirting and chatting someone (or a few someones) up | Has made friends with the pub’s musician and is on stage singing and/or dancing a jig

Pub 3

Has been kidnapped by a roving gang of pirates (ironically also on a pub crawl of their own) | On a third glass fifth shot of wine whisky and starting to let flow all sorts of interesting self details | Has managed to spontaneously get half the bar to sing a drinking song | Has hooked up, proposed, and split up at least twice thus far and is working on their rebound third | Disappeared into a back alley with a shady looking character leaving assurances of picking something up to “liven things up a little”

Pub 4

After being adopted as their impromptu mascot, is now being ferried around by the pirates on a makeshift palanquin as their “Pirate Queen” | Beyond wine drunk and keeps losing layers because it’s “too hot” | Is engaging in some cross group friendly rivalry in the ages old combination of booze and hurling sharp objects at a target (or has ended up in one or four bar fights) | Passed out in the gutter halfway to the fourth pub | Whether it is incendiaries or herding the entire crew onto an impromptu dragon flight, whatever surprise is planned will be memorable

Amosis

Pub 1

Huddles in a corner staring wide-eyed at the group and wonders how they got there in the first place | Sits off to the side, sipping something non-alcoholic and watches the antics | Cheerfully sits with the group and drinks their first round | Calls for a round of shots to get the party started | Hangs our near the center of things, telling stories and cracking jokes

Pub 2

Finds a new corner to huddle in, growing increasingly concerned as the drinks flow | Relents and orders a glass of wine to nurse through the next ice age | Laughs and chats with the group, drinking the drinks and enjoying the camaraderie | Is off flirting and chatting someone (or a few someones) up | Has made friends with the pub’s musician and is on stage singing and/or dancing a jig

Pub 3

Has been kidnapped by a roving gang of pirates (ironically also on a pub crawl of their own) | On a third glass of wine and starting to let flow all sorts of interesting self details | Has managed to spontaneously get half the bar to sing a drinking song | Has hooked up, proposed, and split up at least twice thus far and is working on their rebound third | Disappeared into a back alley with a shady looking character leaving assurances of picking something up to “liven things up a little”

Pub 4

After being adopted as their impromptu mascot, is now being ferried around by the pirates on a makeshift palanquin as their “Pirate Queen” | Beyond wine drunk and keeps losing layers because it’s “too hot” | Is engaging in some cross group friendly rivalry in the ages old combination of booze and hurling sharp objects at a target | Passed out in the gutter halfway to the fourth pub | Whether it is incendiaries or herding the entire crew onto an impromptu dragon flight, whatever surprise is planned will be memorable

(Amosis can’t taste alcohol for plot-related reasons, and thus... he usually ends up drinking too much. Not to mention that he can’t hold it well at all.)

Tagged by: @ren-roelanberry! Thank you so much~

Tagging!: @jasleh (for Jarexx!), @cadrenebula (for Destiny and/or Stefan!), @littlestcreampuff, @amdapori (for Caelia!), aaaaannnd continuing to spam @ahlis-xiv and @home-halone with shit.

[shookethbrooketh]

stars

chapter 8

a mere few months ago, the world seemed to him to be so dark that the stars must have been a ruse, but now he sat on the countryside and admired them for what they were: a fantastically put together puzzle of distant, beautiful sparkles. there were more of them than dan could ever count, and each one was a bit different. it was awe inspiring.

summary: dan grew up in a normal 1930s london family with his parents and little brother. everything was completely and utterly normal… until the bombs started dropping. When dan was fifteen his father went off to war, and when he was sixteen he and his brother hayden were sent off to a foster family in rural england. he looked up at the stars and couldn’t help but wonder how something that beautiful could exist in such a broken world. just when he thought things would never get better, dan met phil, and he became the shining star of his life. but when phil turned eighteen and went off to war, dan couldn’t help but wonder when, if ever, the stars would twinkle the same way again.

rating: t

genre: angst, fluff, history au, strangers to lovers, teenagers

whole fic warnings: warfare (not descriptive), bombings, fire, panic attacks, ptsd, seizures, homophobia, death chapter warnings: n/a

chapter word count: 1.4k total word count: 11.0k

read it on ao3 read it on wattpad fic masterlist

Winter passed slowly but surely. It was the worst winter Dan could remember, weather-wise; it never went a week without a significant snowfall. Dan was aching to get back out and learn more about driving from Phil, but the ground was always to slick, too wet, or too... white.

The snow didn’t stop Dan from enjoying the winter, though. He, Phil, and Hayden routinely made a trip outside to have a snowball fight; by the end of the season, their board had a victory county showing Hayden topping both the older boys by five matches. They would’ve been a bit embarrassed, but they had to admit they let him win once or twice.

In January, Phil’s eighteenth birthday had come and gone. Dan, as he tended to be, was scared that Phil would suddenly mature and abandon him in childhood. The party rolled around, and they spent some extra rations to bake a cake. A few of Phil’s friends were invited over, but Dan was close with them, so it didn’t bother him.

So why was he so scared of being left out? Something in him was convincing him that when the party was over he and his friends would go out for a smoke or a drink and leave the young Dan behind. Dan was a bit sick of being left behind.

But as the party came to a close, the boys gathered around the radio and danced just as Dan and Phil would always do. They jumped and jigged around as if they were in a bar, but without the alcohol. Dan, his entire life, had been a boy forced to act like a men. These were men acting like boys. In that time, Dan decided the world needed more of those.

As the winter droned on, Dan and Phil grew closer and closer at fireside, to the point where they spent almost every weekend night up talking until at least midnight. By the end of February, Dan felt as if Phil must have been the closest friend he’d ever had. There was a certain bond between them that he had never felt with anyone else, something that made them almost inseparable.

When March came around and the snow began to melt, Dan couldn’t wait to return to the one thing that brought them together on the first night they met: driving.

In reality, they could’ve been driving throughout the winter, but they were both a bit intimidated by the weather. Dan could barely drive when it was warm and sunny; he definitely didn’t need a harder course.

So when the birds began to chirp and the grass grew green, their first after dinner activity was to hop behind the wheel.

“Do you even remember how to do this?” Phil asked.

“Uh,” Dan stuttered, searching for the ignition. “I don’t think I did this part last time.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Phil said. “You do think you can handle driving up the hill without taking out any fences, don’t you?”

Dan jokingly stared off into the distance to appear in deep thought. “You know, I think I’ll be okay.”

“Just turn the key.”

Dan did as he was told and the truck revved to a start. Dan shifted it into drive and slowly put his foot on the gas. He carefully maneuvered his way through the fencing up towards the tree on the hill, picking up speed once he reached the slope. It wasn’t long before he peaked the hill and rolled to a lazy stop a bit too close to the tree for comfort.

“That could’ve gone a lot worse,” Phil said, and they both laughed.

They drove around the field for a bit longer, Phil teaching Dan more fundamentals of driving. Every now and then he’d ask a question Phil wouldn’t know the answer to, and Dan would laugh at him. He’d lightly hit him, throwing the truck slightly off course, and respond with, “This is why I don’t have my license yet.” Eventually the sun set, and Dan asked if they should return back to the house.

“Actually, let’s head back to the tree,” Phil said, his freckles smiling in the dark of night. “It’s a beautiful night.”

Dan drove the truck back up to the tree, and Phil hopped out and jogged over to it. “Turn off the headlights!” he shouted, and Dan turned the truck off and ran after him.

“What’re you doing?”

“Climbing the tree, of course!”

Dan couldn’t help but smile at him. “Why?”

“I did it all the time when I was a kid; the view up here is fantastic!”

Phil was already halfway up the budding tree and quickly approaching the only branch Dan thought could hold his weight. He truly did seem to be an expert at the sport, reaching the branch within the next ten seconds.

“What’re you waiting for?” he asked, gesturing in the dark for Dan to climb up behind him.

“I can barely see!”

“That’s half the fun!” Dan couldn’t see much, but he could see Phil’s toothy smile. He sighed and carefully, and quite slowly, made his way up behind Phil. His entire body shook as he inched his way up the tree, and his awkward limbs were hugging the trunk as he reached Phil’s branch.

“Well, scoot over then,” he said, and Phil gracefully moved just enough to leave room for Dan to remain near the comfort of the trunk. Dan all too carefully sat himself down beside Phil, and his body finally began to relax. He looked around, his eyes beginning to adjust to the darkness. He could see rolling hills and a glimmering array of lights in the distance. “Where is that?”

“That’s the town, where our school is. Isn’t it wild?”

“You know, Phil, it is.” Dan directed his attention to the stars overhead, blocked only by a few bare branches. “Wow,” he said. “Look at the stars.”

“They’re really nice, aren’t they?” Phil asked peacefully. He seemed to suddenly come out of his lulled trance and turned towards Dan. “You didn’t see them much in London, did you?”

Dan bit his lip, thinking back to his last night in the city. “Only once.” He shuddered at the thought. Yet, as he thought more about it, he warmed up to it. A mere few months ago, the world seemed to him to be so dark that the stars must have been a ruse, but now he sat on the countryside and admired them for what they were: a fantastically put together puzzle of distant, beautiful sparkles. There were more of them than he could ever count, and each one was a bit different. It was awe inspiring.

“Well, I’m glad you can see them now,” Phil said, throwing his arm over Dan’s shoulder and shaking him around a bit.

“Phil, we’re on a branch!”

“Relax, it’s fine; I promise.” He pulled Dan a bit closer, and Dan rested his head on the taller boy’s shoulder. “I’ve got you.”

They sat on that branch for a few moments, sharing body heat and admiring the world around them. Dan couldn’t help but enjoy the position; he liked having Phil close to him a bit more than he’d have liked to admit. The embrace inspired a some more thoughts that he decided best to push down for the time being. Dan was deep in his own thoughts when suddenly Phil fell out of his grasp.

“Phil!” Dan shouted, his heart rate spiking.

“Down here!” he shouted. “It’s not a bad jump; I do it all the time!”

“Yeah, well, I’ll climb down.”

“Suit yourself.”

The two drove back down to the house and slid inside silently, as it appeared Hayden had already gone to bed.

They waved to Margo and Harold listening to the radio and made their way up the stairs, each giving a quiet goodnight and going their separate ways into their rooms. Dan put on his pajamas and climbed into bed, but he didn’t sleep for a while. He had repressed a few thoughts on the tree branch, and he decided it was about time that he pull them back out.