#The Avalon World Tour

[kerakitty]

I love Gargoyles, but whose idea was it to write out 2/3rds of the main cast for all but one episode of a 22 episode arc? Kingdom was a great episode and all, but it was nowhere near enough to balance out the other 21 episodes and it shouldn't have come halfway through the arc. Goliath and Elisa had already been missing for days by the time the Avalon 3-parter was over. Why didn't Kingdom happen then? And why were there no other episodes exploring what the other 2/3rds of the clan did while Goliath and Elisa were gone?

Where's the episode where Hudson has to grapple with possibly having outlived yet another younger member of the clan? Where's the episode where Lex laments that even with 20th century technology (including this fancy new thing called the internet), he still can't find a trace of his missing family? Where's the episode where Broadway finds some time-sensitive clue to Goliath and Elisa's whereabouts but the clan can't act on it in time because Xanatos decided to take advantage of Goliath's absence?

The lack of the majority of the Manhattan Clan is made worse by the fact that, at least in my opinion, the gargoyle the show focuses on almost solely in this arc is the least interesting one. Nothing against Goliath, but the Trio and Hudson are infinitely more interesting to watch than he is. And it is taking this man way too damn long to learn the lesson that sticking to tradition when it hurts your loved ones is a bad idea. Tevye learned the same lesson in way less time, and not because Fiddler on the Roof is a short play.

TLDR; The Avalon World Tour Arc needed less world touring and more Manhattan Clan.

[m00nveil]

w101 housing advices from a somewhat seasoned house decorator that no one asked for

#1: GET YOUR CRAFTING LEVEL THE FUCK UP !!!!! and never ever ever sell your reagents. ever. the gold isn't worth it. there are so many amazing housing recipes you can buy and craft (torald wayfinder in northguard grizzleheim and perry in sky city lemuria for example).

#2: if you have limited resources like me, keep looking around in the bazaar for items. sometimes people sell some insanely good items! many of my best items come from the bazaar. and NEVER second guess whether you're gonna buy an item or not, cause people won't hesitate to snatch it. if you see it and like it, buy it.

#3: advanced move will save your life. when i discovered it i swear to god my life changed. if you click on an object you'll see a yellow arrow next to its name on the right. USE THAT!!! you can move objects wherever you wanna without having to deal with the grid, rotate them however you want except vertically, and make objects smaller or bigger. you can create a whole new thing from a bunch of items, like i created a fridge using alhazred's repository. note that this feature is only available for wizards lvl 15 and above.

#4: don't ignore the furniture set bundles in the crowns shop. i'm sure no one does but i still gotta say it. they're literally one of the most useful things for house decorating. the school and world furniture sets can all be bought for 22500 gold and there's so many amazing items in those. i especially recommend the khrysalis furniture sets and the myth and balance furniture sets, but all of them are gorgeous.

#5: some items can serve as alternative walls, for example dworgyn's fireplace and bookshelf from the death furniture sets. you can go absolutely crazy with them.

#6: keep going around worlds and find their furniture shops. all the worlds have a furniture shop/seller except avalon, khrysalis and mirage as far as i know, but i might be wrong. many of these furniture shops have some great items that you can utilize even if your crafting level isn't high. wallaru specifically has one of my favorite sofas in the game ever, the ice dwarf sofa.

#7: if you're ever in need for a teleporter or a few, go farm the painted spider in zafaria!

#8: don't forget to rate castles in castle tours so you can craft the regal and invisible floors and walls! you can find the recipes for those from angelica windspar in the castle tours building. you can apply wallpapers and floors to the regal ones, and they're especially useful for decorations, however they can get very buggy. you need to rate 100 castles to get the castle auditor rank to craft these.

#9: you can turn fish tanks invisible with castle magic and the fish won't disappear, so it looks like the fish are just floating. you can make custom aquariums!

#10: you can put house guests on bread crumbs and you can alter their behaviors too! they don't really change much, but setting their behavior to "sad" will show their death animation. if you need someone kneeling or laying down, it's perfect.

[kaibutsushidousha]

To be honest, your discussion of Minase's positive and negative qualities piqued my interest. What do you think are the main recurring fgo writers' strong and weak points? Also where would you rank the lilim harlot event?

For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.

I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.

Minase was already detailed in his own post.

Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.

Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?

And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.

Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).

And the answer to "Where would I rank the Lilim Harlot event" is 1st place.

[allwaswell16]

A fic rec of One Direction fics with a male/female relationship as the main relationship as requested in this ask. If you enjoy the fics please leave kudos and comments for the writers! You can find my other fic recs here. Happy reading!

- Louis/Harry -

♀️ More/Everything (series) by goddess_julie

(E, 83k, kidfic) An alternate universe fic told out of sequence, following Harry, girl!Louis, girl!Zayn, Liam and Niall from University to adulthood wherein Harry and Louis have children and get married, Liam and Zayn date other people and pine from afar and Niall finds his own true love when he's not expecting it.

♀️ Just a Touch of Your Love (series) by justyrae / @astorytotellyourfriends

(E, 48k, model/actor ) It was supposed to be a week away for Louis to have some peace and quiet.

♀️ faith in the future (series) by shiptattou / @wecantalktomorrow

(E, 28k, rockstar Louis) snapshots of their love captured through the lyrics and songs from Faith in the Future and the Faith in the Future era

♀️ Groupie Love by Anonymous

(E, 24k, canon Louis) In other words, Louis is a rock star on a world tour and Harry is a regular attendee. They could never work.

♀️ daydream déjá vu by by stylescantstop

(NR, 11k, friends to lovers) When a simple Sunday night suddenly turns heated and messy, Harry and Louis finally acknowledge their feelings for one another and let their friendship bloom into something more.

♀️ Give a Little, Get a Little by QuickedWeen / @becomeawendybird

(E, 10k, sex magic) The newest addition to the annual Renaissance Faire's jousting tournament is Dame Louis of Avalon. She loves the faire, but more importantly, she loves the fact that she now has a regular acting gig. What she doesn't expect is that there's real magic in the air in the form of a shop keeper who sells some rather unusual souvenirs.

♀️ you can be my lover, i can be your love by @wildhalos 

(E, 9k, friends to lovers) the one where Louis may have accidentally fondled his best friend, and it's not weird unless they make it weird. Harry's almost positive. She swears.

♀️ We Are The Lucky Ones, Dear by @eyesofshinigami

(E, 8k, X Factor)  the one where Harry and his girlfriend Louis audition for the X Factor and take on the world--together.

♀️ Just Take The Leap (And You're Free) by patdkitten / @babyarcanacasey

(M, 5k, fantasy) Louis is a dragonrider, hiding the fact she's really a woman and hiding the fact she'd really, really like to be flown by Prince Harry.

♀️ Strangers by vanity

(NR, 5k, age difference) Harry meets Louis at a cafe and their story begins.

♀️ it's just a shimmy and a shake by underwaternow

(M, 4k, high school) Louis doesn't mean to kick off Year 11 by throwing the athletic department and the entire parents’ committee into a frenzy over the matter of a girl playing football, but somehow that's exactly what she does.

♀️ Haze-y Night by Anonymous

(E, 2k, uni) Harry goes through a long standing fraternity ritual.

♀️ Have a Happy Period. by kotabear24 / @kotabear-24

(G, 2k, touring) In the confusing, emotional, and dangerous world of periods and PMS, this is the one in which Harry gets it right.

♀️ loopholes by Anonymous

(E, 2k, religious guilt) Together since high school, Harry and Louis took sacred vows of purity together as a pledge to wait until marriage. They can't have sex, but that doesn't mean they can't do other things.

♀️ The Smoke In Your Lungs by fanshae

(E, 2k, pwp) Harry and Louis have a day off. Cue recreational drug usage. 

♀️ forever ain't half the time (i wanna spend with you) by birdiemma

(E, 2k, accidental pregnancy) girl!louis finding out she's pregnant; fluff and smut ensue.

♀️ New Best Day Of My Life by hostagesfic

(NR, 2k, pwp) "Not m’fault you insist on going to sleep like this," he mutters- Louis isn’t sure, but she has a vague suspicion that the words would sound more like an unintelligible grumble to the untrained ear.

♀️ Another Night to be Harry’s by Anonymous

(E, 953 words, fwb) They were so compatible, Harry and her. It was why he always came back for more and why she let him. Taking things beyond sex had just never happened.

- Rare Pairs -

♀️ just follow my smile by carissima

(M, 5k, Zayn/Liam) Liam doesn’t even blink when his last piece of toast disappears from his plate. He’d smothered it in raspberry jam like he usually does, because then he gets to see Zayn take that first bite of stolen toast and smile sleepily at him in gratitude. And he doesn’t mind all that much, even though he’d prefer peanut butter.

♀️ Stable Hand by yeah_alright / @uhoh-but-yeah-alright

(M, 3k, Harry/Louis, Louis/Zayn) Harry and Zayn are wealthy ladies of leisure who bond over their shared interests, namely: dressage and cheating on their awful husbands with the gorgeous young stable boy.

♀️ Jaerie's Kinktober: Virginity by @jaerie

(E, 1k, Harry/Louis/Liam/William Tomlinson) Harry is finally ready to lose her virginity. All her friends are up for the task.

[vicky82gargoylesfan]

Wooo finally something to cheer me up a bit after being an emotional wreck for the last couple of days.

Here's the 5 page preview of issue 1 of Gargoyles Quest, out next Wednesday.

Awesome to see Jade and Turquesa again and they're still on there Avalon World Tour, wait, that means they've been on that tour a year now.

[mogwai-movie-house]

The Best Album Per Year for Sixty Years

No-one asked for it, of course, but I do like making lists, so here's me pondering what have been the best Long Players in the album artform the past 60 years. I originally tried to keep it to just one per year, but many years that proved impossible: when listing multiple albums I have tried ranking them with the one I feel narrowly edges out the others first, and I use lower case to indicate an album that is not at the same level as others on the list but was the best I've heard from that time.

Feel free to have fun with the list and make up your own.

----------------

1962 Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan 1963 The Freewheelin' - Bob Dylan 1964 another side of - bob dylan 1965 Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan 1966 Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys / Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan / Revolver - The Beatles 1967 Magical Mystery Tour - The Beatles / The Velvet Underground & Nico / Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme - Simon & Garfunkel / Safe As Milk - Captain Beefheart 1968 Astral Weeks - Van Morrison / The White Album - The Beatles / Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel / We're Only In It For The Money/Lumpy Gravy - Frank Zappa 1969 Let It Bleed - The Rolling Stones / Abbey Road - The Beatles / In A Silent Way - Miles Davis 1970 Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel / Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon 1971 Imagine - John Lennon / Blue - Joni Mitchell / What's Goin' On - Marvin Gaye/ 2 - Moondog 1972 Exile On Main Street - The Rolling Stones / Discover America - Van Dyke Parks / Clear Spot - Captain Beefheart / Ege Bam Yasi - Can 1973 Raw Power - Iggy And The Stooges 1974 Blood On The Tracks - Bob Dylan 1975 Horses - Patti Smith / Discreet Music - Brian Eno / Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd / Velvet Donkey - Ivor Cutler 1976 The Ramones - The Ramones 1977 Low - David Bowie / New Boots & Panties - Ian Dury / Marquee Moon - Television / 77 - Talking Heads 1978 Music For Airports - Brian Eno / This Year's Model - Elvis Costello / Third (Sister Lovers) - Big Star / More Songs About Music & Food - Talking Heads 1979 Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division/ Fear of Music - Talking Heads / Into The Music - Van Morrison / Sheik Yerbouti - Frank Zappa / Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young 1980 Remain In Light - Talking Heads / Closer - Joy Division / One Trick Pony - Paul Simon / Common One - Van Morrison 1981 Faith - The Cure 1982 Thriller - Michael Jackson / 1999 - Prince / 4 - Peter Gabriel / Too Rye Ay - Dexys Midnight Runners / Big Science - Laurie Anderson / Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen 1983 Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits / Murmur - R.E.M. / Hearts & Bones - Paul Simon / Off The Bone - The Cramps 1984 Purple Rain - Prince & The Revolution / Hatful Of Hollow - The Smiths / Various Positions - Leonard Cohen / Reckoning - R.E.M. / The Unforgettable Fire - U2 1985 Don't Stand Me Down - Dexys Midnight Runners / Rain Dogs - Tom Waits / Around The World In A Day - Prince & The Revolution / Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega / Hounds of Love - Kate Bush / Hunting High & Low - A-ha 1986 Parade - Prince & The Revolution / So - Peter Gabriel / The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths / Graceland - Paul Simon / Steve McQueen - Prefab Sprout / Blood & Chocolate/King of America - Elvis Costello 1987 Sign O The Times - Prince / The Joshua Tree - U2 / Strangeways Here We Come - The Smiths / Actually - Pet Shop Boys / Tango In The Night - Fleetwood Mac 1988 Irish Heartbeat - Van Morrison & The Chieftains / Green - R.E.M. / Viva Hate - Morrissey / The Serpent's Egg - Dead Can Dance / Surfer Rosa - Pixies / Naked - Talking Heads / Introspective - Pet Shop Boys / I'm Your Man - Leonard Cohen / Blue Bell Knoll - Cocteau Twins 1989 Disintegration - The Cure / Technique - New Order / Doolittle - The Pixies / Oh Mercy - Bob Dylan / Avalon Sunset - Van Morrison / Rei Momo - David Byrne / Behaviour - Pet Shop Boys / Candleland - Ian McCulloch 1990 Extricate - The Fall / The Good Son - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Songs For Drella - Lou Reed & John Cale / Jonathan Goes Country - Jonathan Richman 1991 Screamadelica - Primal Scream / Achtung Baby - U2 / The Bootleg Boxset - Bob Dylan 1992 It's A Shame About Ray - The Lemonheads / Henry's Dream - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Automatic For The People - R.E.M. / Good As I Been To You - Bob Dylan / The Future - Leonard Cohen 1993 Debut - Bjork / Dubnobasswithmyheadman - Underworld / Exile In Guyville - Liz Phair / Neroli - Brian Eno / Come On Feel - The Lemonheads / Zooropa - U2 / Vena Cava - Diamanda Galas

1994 Selected Ambient Works Vol. II - Aphex Twin / Toward The Within - Dead Can Dance / Let Love In - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Dummy - Portishead / Autogeddon - Julian Cope / Vauxhall & I - Morrissey 1995 Anthology - The Beatles / The Ugly One With The Jewels - Laurie Anderson 1996 Boys For Pele - Tori Amos 1997 Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space - Spiritualized / The Boatman's Call - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Time Out Of Mind - Bob Dylan / Vanishing Point - Primal Scream 1998 Up - R.E.M. / I'm So Confused - Jonathan Richman 1999 Play - Moby / I See A Darkness - Bonnie Prince Billy 2000 XTRMNTR - Primal Scream / All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2 / The Marshall Mathers LP - Eminem / Kid A - Radiohead / KY - Lemon Jelly 2001 Vespertine - Bjork / Love & Theft - Bob Dylan / No More Shall We Part - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 2002 The Eminem Show - Eminem 2003 Room On Fire - The Strokes / The Man Comes Around/Unearthed - Johnny Cash / The Wind - Warren Zevon 2004 Has Been - William Shatner / How To Dismantle An Atom Bomb - U2 / You Are The Quarry - Morrissey / The Milk-Eyed Mender - Joanna Newsom / Smile - Brian Wilson 2005 Another Day On Earth - Brian Eno / Le Fil - Camille 2006 Modern Times - Bob Dylan / Surprise - Paul Simon / Love - The Beatles 2007 for emma, forever ago - bon iver 2008 vampire weekend - vampire weekend 2009 No Line On The Horizon - U2 / The XX - The XX 2010 show me the face - michelle gurevich 2011 Angles - The Strokes / So Beautiful or So What - Paul Simon 2012 Life Is People - Bill Fay / Old Ideas - Leonard Cohen 2013 Comedown Machine - The Strokes / Crimson Red - Prefab Sprout 2014 Ghost Stories - Coldplay / 1989 - Taylor Swift 2015 ★ - David Bowie 2016 Lover, Beloved - Suzanne Vega / Stranger To Stranger - Paul Simon 2017 American Dream - LCD Soundsystem / antisocialites - alvvays 2018 music for installations - brian eno 2019 weezer (teal album) - weezer 2020 rough & rowdy ways - bob dylan 2021 happier than ever - billie eilish 2022 dragon new warm mountain i believe in you - big thief

[iamthespineofmybook]

ahoi,

what’s the Golem-episode in Gargoyles?

You referred to the animated show from the 90s, right?

Yes. The episode (28th of season 2) is actually entitled "Golem," and took place during the World Tour Arc. In short, Goliath, Elisa, Bronx, and Angela row into Prague as the next location where Avalon has decided they Need To Be, and wind up getting tangled up in events centering on the titular Golem of Prague.

The episode even includes a flashback to the original legend, with the Hebrew used in the episode provided by an actual rabbi.

[fyeahdprian]

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The Dream Reborn World Tour 2024 Paris

Avalon

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Nerves

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Peanut Butter and Tears

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Don't Go Insane

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Scaredy Cat

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Ballroom Extravaganza

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Send off

.

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[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4.5/5

Book Blurb:

#1 New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Bracken is back with the electrifying sequel to SILVER IN THE BONE, in which fresh betrayal ignites ancient magic to wake the dead, and a cursed girl with no magic of her own must put the past to rest.

With the dream of Avalon in ruins, Tamsin and her friends are all that stands in the way of Lord Death's plans to unleash the horrors of Anwnn on the world of the living. As the Wild Hunt carves a bloody path across continents, Tamsin is mustering allies, tracking down powerful artifacts, and traversing into new otherlands in search of a way to stop him.

Legend tells of a “Mirror of Beasts,” powerful enough to trap even Lord Death in its accursed glass, but the mirror is not all that it seems. Tamsin must confront her own darkest secrets if she hopes to tap the mirror's strength to defeat her enemies.

Arthurian legend bleeds into contemporary action, and scars of the past are torn open anew by a starcrossed love that refuses to go quietly. This riveting conclusion to the Silver in the Bone duology will hold you in its thrall until the very last page.

Review:

The finale in the magical story filled with betrayal, ancient magic, curses, and romance. This is a sequel in the duology and picks up right where the first book left off, Tamsin is freshly betrayed by the one boy she loves and now has unleashed the Lord Death's plans onto the world. Tamsin and her friends have to find a way to stop him before it's too late and Tamsin is still trying to find a way to save her brother... who just happened to have joined Lord Death's side and left her, oh and did I mention her previously thought to have been dead father is very much alive (he resurrected) and is younger and is telling her he came back for her to break a curse that is on her??? Not to mention said boy who broke her heart and betrayed her and left her and her friends for dead in a terrifying world is now back and determined to make amends? Saving the world isn't going to be easy but dealing with feelings might be even harder. Tamsin just wants to save her friends, save her brother, and stop the evil she's unleashed... she does not want to deal with her now returned father, she definitely does not want to deal with Emrys who has returned and is sticking by her side trying to make amends, and she definitely does not want to face the fact that she still is very much in love with him. Trust is broken and mended, an adventure of a lifetime awaits, and the fate of the world rests in the hands of Tamsin and her friends. This series was an absolute blast to read, it's got a touch of Arthurian legend and a whole fresh take on the classic elements of the story. I absolutely adored the characters and the complex relationships. Seeing Tamsin grow from who she was in the first book to who she ends up being in this book was fantastic. I loved how the story wrapped up and would absolutely recommend this series to anyone who enjoys Arthurian stories with a fresh take!

Release Date: July 30,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

Book purchase: Amazon

Author Info: Author Website

Book Tour: TBR and Beyond

*Thanks Netgalley and TBR Beyond Tours and Random House Children's | Knopf Books for Young Readers for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review and to be part of the book tour*

[dorksidefiker]

Weird little Gargoyles headcanon

It wasn't until after Angela went on the World Tour that she realized how unhappy she was on Avalon. She didn't HATE it, but she was terribly bored, and during her childhood, she made several attempts at joining Tom on his adventures out in the rest of the world.

This includes just turning up when he'd leave, asking, begging, and hiding in the boat.

She's never been happier than when she became part of the Manhattan Clan.

[storyofwhoiam]

🙌 NPC for Leah

Send a “🙌” and I’ll introduce you to an NPC related to my Muse. | @shcftingpieces

Branson Jacobs is Leah's father and a musician. He was a founding member and drummer for rock band, San Avalon. Over the years, the band's music evolved from a raw, edgy sound to a fusion of classic rock and punk. San Avalon's journey included world tours, headlining music festivals, and several of their albums achieving gold and platinum certifications. Branson was instrumental in getting the band through challenging periods of creative differences and personal conflicts. While San Avalon are no longer active, Branson continues to write songs, and collaborate with other musicians. Many of their songs hold a special place in Leah's heart.

Growing up, Leah was immersed in the music industry. As a father, Branson loved the opportunity to introduce Leah to a wide range of musical genres. From a very young age, Leah was brought along to shows and sometimes on tour with the band, and, as she got older, they attended gigs together.

Whilst music is his first love, a close second is his love of baseball, particularly the LA Dodgers. He has a near encyclopaedic knowledge; able to recite player stats and Dodgers' lore with impressive detail. Branson took a young Leah to games whenever he was home and able to, and passed his love for the sport onto her.

He has a calm and charismatic demeanour, and an outgoing personality. He didn't always get to be around as much as Leah might've liked whilst she was a child, but he's supportive of her and her career, and a constant source of inspiration for her. His knowledge of the music industry is a valuable resource that he readily shares, and his understanding the pressures and expectations that come with being in the spotlight make him a vital support.

[ofgreyskies]

welcome to the show : the archives is a compilation uploaded to the greymatter soundcloud on december 31, 2023. the compilation includes three tracks produced by grey and used for transitions and vcrs for his 2023 solo world tour welcome to the show.

THE GODS CAN BLEED // written & produced by greymatter

MITO REBORN // written & produced by greymatter

AVALON INTERLUDE - BAND VERSION // written & produced by greymatter

[darkmasterofcupcakes]

My Favorite Episodes of the Gargoyles World Tour Arc

Exactly what the title says, I guess? Though I guess I should clarify that this is only counting episodes that happen after the end of “Avalon, Part 3″ and the start of “The Gathering, Part 2″, since I know some people considering those multiparters part of the arc, but for me, they’re kind of like a prologue and epilogue, respectively. 

Also, the episodes aren’t going to be in order of how much I enjoy them, since I’ll probably save that for a later post (or possibly a tier list if I can find one). It’s literally just them in the order that they aired.

Shadows of the Past

Sanctuary

M.I.A.

Kingdom

Grief

Walkabout

Mark of the Panther

Pendragon

Eye of the Storm

The Green

Ill Met By Moonlight

Future Tense

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I’ve just listened to The Bugle 4211, from November 2021, the first (and so far, only) episode to feature Stewart Lee. He was on there alongside Felicity Ward, with host Andy Zaltzman, and it was really good. I don’t know how they got Stewart Lee to do it; he explained at the beginning that he used to not understand the point of podcasts, but then did a few during the pandemic, and now he sort of gets it, it’s just talking to people. Which is sort of an explanation, I guess.

Lee/Zaltzman is a relatively rare but interesting combination. They’re weirdly similar in a few ways, wildly different in others, they fit together quite well in a few ways, and not at all in others. When they talk to each other, there’s a strong sense that they quite like each other, but are also both very uncomfortable. In a Taskmaster podcast episode that was discussing season 5, Ed Gamble once pointed out that it’s weird to know Mark Watson and Alex Horne have been friends for years, because every time they interact on screen, it seems like they’re meeting for the first time. Nish Kumar replied: “No, it’s like they’re meeting for the second time, and something really bad happened the first time.” That’s the best description I’ve heard that captures how fucking awkward it feels to hear Andy Zaltzman and Stewart Lee try to interact with each other. It’s not a perfect comparison because they’re not Alex Horne/Mark Watson level of close friends, but they clearly like each other, and this somehow does not translate to any ability to have a natural-sounding conversation in a professional setting. It’s fucking great and I could listen to it all day.

I based this on the three times I’ve heard them interact, separated by approximately ten-year intervals. One is when Andy Zaltzman came on Stewart Lee’s radio show in July 2003, which I think is the earliest recording I’ve ever heard of Andy Zaltzman. Then you have Andy Zaltzman’s bits on Stewart Lee’s Alternative Comedy Experience, from 2013, in which Andy did some stand-up bits and some interviews with Stewart. Then there’s this Bugle episode from 2021. So it’s not quite perfectly spaced out, but it looks like approximately every ten years, Andy Zaltzman and Stewart Lee sit down in a room somewhere, have a really awkward conversation, and record and publish it.

From those previous interactions, I learned that Andy Zaltzman opened for Stewart Lee in Andy’s very early days, and that they lived together during the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, during which Stewart Lee was amazed by Andy Zaltzman’s ability to spent absolutely all of his time watching sports. This was discussed during Andy Zaltzman’s phase of finding every joke he possibly could that compared sports to religion (I have a recording on my phone of Andy Zaltzman saying “May the sport have mercy on your soul” during a Bugle episode from the 2012 Olympics, and a couple of months ago I played it before watching final matches at the national championships, which I thought was a hilarious thing to do), and he expressed sympathy that “You don’t have sport in your heart, Stewart”, and therefore Stewart Lee has to just walk around experiencing the real world instead of escaping into this fake one. I have never heard anyone who understands the purpose of sports (or, possibly, religion) as well as Andy Zaltzman.

In this Bugle episode, they talked a bit more about early times Andy Zaltzman and Stewart Lee worked together, when they went on tour together in 2000. Stewart Lee got in a dig at Avalon (which he did not mention by name, but did tell Andy it was “the management company you’re still with”, with an amazing amount of disdain in his voice), saying they’d failed to properly organize that tour, by, among other things, not telling the venues that Stewart Lee had a support act. So they’d get places and no one would know Andy was supposed to perform, and often this meant he didn’t perform, so Andy Zaltzman didn’t so much open for Stewart Lee in 2000, as just follow him around the country for a few weeks.

I find that interesting, as it’s a very early version of Andy Zaltzman, pre-Zaltzman and Oliver, even. Andy Zaltzman did his first solo Edinburgh show in 2001 (which got nominated for Best Newcomer, so it can’t have been bad, but from the way he’s described that show since, it was definitely before he’d figured out what he wanted to do with his comedy), and the first time he performed at that festival at all was in 1999, when he was a finalist in the So You Think You’re Funny thing with Josie Long, Russell Howard, David O’Doherty, and Jimmy Carr. Which David O’Doherty won. This is veering off topic, I just think it’s an interesting bit of history. John Oliver did his first solo Edinburgh show in 2002, where he and Andy appeared in each other’s shows doing little bits, and just after that they started hosting Political Animal together and after that they did joint shows. So that puts it in context a bit. 2000 was before Zaltzman and Oliver, before Andy Zaltzman had figured out where his comedy was going, he followed Stewart Lee around the country in a wildly disorganized tour.

I sort of knew most of that already, and I also knew that Stewart Lee quit stand-up for a few years, in between his “double act with Richard Herring” era, and his “King of alternative comedy” era. The new thing I learned from this Bugle episode was that it was during that mess of a tour with Andy that Stewart Lee decided to quit comedy. He told that story on The Bugle, to which Andy replied, “I have that effect on people.” Which I enjoyed hearing, because I made that exact joke in a post I made last week, about how it’s a good thing Andy Zaltzman learned that he has pitch-perfect chemistry with John Oliver and got himself into that double act and then held onto it for as many years as he possibly could even when one person moved across an ocean, because Andy Zaltzman is so fucking awkward that this wouldn’t work with anyone else. Case in point, Daniel Kitson’s story about how he once chopped the head off a pig just because that seemed less uncomfortable than just hanging out with Andy Zaltzman for an evening, and sure Kitson said that incident occurred because of other stuff, but I’m pretty sure Andy Zaltzman just has that effect on people, making things so awkward that they have to chop up farm animals or quit comedy.

I often don’t quite know what to make of Stewart Lee, I think I’ve only recently started to figure it out a bit. I only watched him for the first time about a year ago, saw his Comedy Vehicle thing and all his DVDs/specials. It’s very funny, it’s definitely very funny. But I couldn’t tell how much of it he meant. At first I thought he really was that abrasive, and then I worked out that it’s clearly completely a character, he never means anything he says. I then slowly saw and heard enough other things by him to come back around to seeing that at least some of it does come from reality, but an exaggerated version of it.

He did an excellent two-hour interview on the Comedian’s Comedian podcast, which cleared up a lot of my questions about how real the character is. I also heard him on the WTF podcast, which tells you just how interested I was in hearing Stewart Lee talk while not “in character” on stage, because I cannot stand Mark Maron. But it was a really interesting hour of hearing Stewart Lee talk about his history and intentions and where he’s coming from, so it was worth listening to Maron for a bit. In the last few months I’ve also heard some other performances by Stewart Lee, when he was just on stage and not being filmed for TV or anything, they were quite different and it sort of bridges the gap between the guy on the DVDs and a vaguely real person. I think I can sort of put all that together to have some idea of where Stewart Lee is coming from.

Anyway, I say all that because it made me find this episode of The Bugle extra interesting, that it’s another side of Stewart Lee, one I haven’t heard very much before. Stewart Lee not “in character” on stage, also not doing his own thing or talking about himself, but trying to fit into someone else’s format. It was quite awkward, and very entertaining.

A big part of Stewart Lee’s persona is it’s really hard to tell when he’s being sincere, so this episode was interesting for the amount of sincerity it featured. Like this exchange, in which every word from Stewart Lee sounded disarmingly sincere, Andy Zaltzman sounded caught off guard by his serious response to a joke, and there was a forced change in the tone of the discussion because Stewart Lee was genuinely upset:

Andy Zaltzman: So for 1.1 billion dollars, you could either save the Congo Basin Rainforest, or you could get the broadcast rights for three months of Premier League football. So, I mean it shows how seriously we’re taking this shit now.

Stewart Lee: Is that true?

Andy Zaltzman [laughing]: Yeah.

Stewart Lee [not laughing at all]: That is the most depressing thing, I… I… God. I… that’s not, that’s just…

Andy Zaltzman: I know you’re a sport skeptic, of course, Stewart…

Stewart Lee: No, but… just the thought that… if you stopped three months football, you could save an entire rainforest…

I cannot emphasize enough how much Stewart Lee was not kidding here, they had to awkwardly change the topic. Felicity Ward jumped in to say it doesn’t work that way, because the pandemic stopped football for three months and the rainforest didn’t get saved, and it sounded like she was saying it just to calm Stewart Lee down a bit because this fact had upset him so much (she was right, obviously money spent on football doesn’t just get sent straight to the rainforest when games are canceled so this wouldn’t happen on a practical level, but still, it could theoretically happen).

Throughout the episode Lee didn’t seem quite able to match the tone that everyone else was taking, and Andy Zaltzman isn’t great at modulating his tone to match a guest’s at the best of times, so the whole thing was a delightfully mismatched mess. He kept cutting through Andy’s irony, which is weird, because irony is normally Stewart Lee’s whole thing, shouting at audiences but not really meaning it and things like that. But in this podcast episode, it’s like he was told this is a real-life conversation, and he was determined to make it that way, pointing out the reality behind jokes that rather rely on not having their reality pointed out. At one point, Stewart Lee responded to one of Andy Zaltzman’s jokes with the words “I know you’re making a satirical point, but…”, and just those words made me laugh out loud because they perfectly encapsulated the conversation, as he went off on another explanation about how actually though, this is the way things should be, like for real.

I’ve said before that I really enjoy the running joke about Andy Zaltzman’s lack of knowledge of pop culture, celebrity culture, or other bullshit things that surround anything like that. This comes up a lot when they get younger Bugle co-hosts on, and they enjoy talking about Lil’ Nas X or whatever and seeing Andy genuinely confused. One time Andy made a Black Eyed Peas reference in an episode with Nish Kumar on it, and Nish immediately demanded “How do you know about the Black Eyed Peas?”, sounded genuinely indignant, like that reference was a betrayal of who he knew Andy Zaltzman to be. Like Andy Zaltzman is meant to be the oasis of not following any of that kind of bullshit, and if he starts knowing about Black Eyed Peas, then nowhere is safe. Andy explained that he didn’t know who they were and had just looked stuff up for that joke and one of their songs came up, and I shared the relief in Nish’s voice when he said “Oh, good.”

Given that, I find it hilarious that in this case, Stewart Lee managed to out-“clueless about pointless bullshit” Andy Zaltzman, by saying to Andy late in the episode: “Can I just say that you asked us to look at the following headline: ‘Squid Game Crypto-Currency Scammers Vanish with 3.3 Million’, and then the sub-heading for it was: ‘Crypto Coin-Riding Squid Game High Craters After Dizzying Rally.’ I don’t know what any of that is about. I don’t know what any of it means. I don’t know what crypto-currency is. I don’t really know what Squid Game is, I suspected it was some game that Boris Johnson used to play at Eton. But I don’t really know what that is, and I didn’t really think there was time for me to understand it, and then have a funny opinion about it.”

At the end, Felicity Ward plugged the stuff she was working on, which she explained was a trilogy: one show about pregnancy, one about childbirth, and one about new parenthood. “Wow. That is an extremely ambitious and worthwhile thing to do. I mean, it’s really great. And it flies in the face of contemporary trends, of reducing all comedy content to a shareable seven-second clip. To come out of the gate of this with a Dune-style trilogy, it’s really impressive. Congratulations.”

That’s something that the character of Stewart Lee would get very upset about, shouting at the audience about reductive contemporary comedy trends, and last year, I’d have seen him do that and said “Okay, that’s a character he’s playing.” But this was said with 100% sincerity, and everything else aside, I have so much respect for that opinion. I’ve worked out that some of the underlying bits of the Stewart Lee character are real, like the respect for the history that created today’s comedy landscape and anger about people’s ignorance of it, and the disrespect for short shareable clip-able bullshit. Both opinions that I happen to strongly share and enjoy hearing him express, especially when he’s out of character and clearly means it. I mean, I’m not particularly interested in a comedy trilogy about pregnancy and childbirth and parenthood, because it’s not my favourite topic. But if Felicity Ward ever comes out with a trilogy on just about any other subject, I’ll check it out. (And to go off topic again, if anyone is for some reason interested in other trilogies by comedians who appear on the Bugle, Alice Fraser has an absolutely excellent one available to download for free.)

Stewart Lee also made a bunch of News Quiz references throughout the episode; a show that had been hosted by Andy Zaltzman for a year or so by then. Meaning I’ve heard about a year’s worth of Bugle episodes from after Andy started hosting the News Quiz, and Bugle guests reference Andy’s News Quiz hosting very occasionally, but not often. Stewart Lee referenced it a bunch of times in one episode, comparing Andy on The Bugle to Andy on the News Quiz, even though I’m fairly sure Stewart Lee has not appeared on the News Quiz since Andy started hosting it (he’s been on it a bit in the past, but not recently, I don’t think), so this wasn’t a job or anything, he clearly just actually listens to the News Quiz and that’s what he thinks about when he sees Andy Zaltzman. Which is pretty cool.

I think when I started this post I meant for it to build toward some sort of point, but I now can’t remember what that point was. The point is that I enjoyed Stewart Lee’s appearance on The Bugle. And I’m sorry that people keep spending money on soccer instead of rainforests.

[lynati]

(Thank Frank Paur for that!) ...Have you watched season 2 yet? You get more designs to appreciate as the "Avalon World Tour" progresses.

I recently watched Gargoyles for the first time, and I immediately knew I had to draw them because every single gargoyle design on this show kicks ass.

[vicky82gargoylesfan]

My Thoughts on Gargoyles Quest issue 1 Questions

Great first issue

I Was pretty surprised that Jade and Turquesa were still on there Avalon world tour, for over a year now!!!! But as they couldn't brings there pendants onto the island, they had to turn to stone during some of the day on Avalon and 1 hour on Avalon is 1 day in the real world. They certainly would of lost a lot of days spending it on Avalon

I bet Zafiro and Obsidiana are pretty worried about them.

They arrive in Argentina and so does Demona, who's after Odin's spear. We don't see what happens next as then it jumps from June to July. I expect we see a flash back in the next issue.

Lol at the Gathering of the Gargoyles Guild and Goliath is there, this is obviously a reference to the 1st Gathering of Gargoyles convention. I went to 2 of them, 2008 and 2009.

I wasn't expecting to see Antoinette so soon, loved the exchange between her and Elisa, hopefully see more of this.

Gnash and Lex spending time with Alex is pretty cute.

Hudson having a heart to heart moment with the egg was adorable. I like that Brooklyn and Katana were watching.

Broadway and Angela are discussing the guest list for there commitment ceremony. Broadway would like Matt, the Maza's, including the Labyrinth clan there. Angela would like her Avalon clan there but that could be a problem but hopefully they can come, maybe with help from Titania and Oberon.

Also Angela does mention Demona but not to attend (well that could end badly if she did, lol) but at least to let her know. Love the cut to Coldstone's face, so it's pretty obvious he's going to tell her but that could be a big mistake because if Demona already knows, then they know Coldstone is a traitor.

Love the confrontation between Demona and Thailog, we haven't seen them together since the The Reckoning.

Demona knows Thailog has joined the Illuminati and wants him to get something in exchange for 1% of the company. Which is the Hand of Valmont. Valmont appeared in the SLG series he had his hand Severed by Brooklyn.

So these new 3 keys to power have a connection to the old 3 keys of power, Eye of Odin - Odin's Spear, The Grimorum Arcanorum - The Hand of Valmont. So the 3rd key to power is connected to the Phoenix Gate.

Vinnie's back, if you remember (he has a new Job in Japan and it's possible he's working for Taro) and he has a proposition for Goliath.

There is a little trouble at the event but Elisa helps take down the bloke with a taser as she is still suspended.

The Mayan's turn up and Bronx senses them.

I have seen the preview for issue 2 but I thought it was best not to post it yet.

Can't wait for the next issue