#also no I won't review the first half but I might keep this up till the finale or smth

[the-gayest-show]

just finished all the remainder of the episodes of fop a new wish that i didn't finish (so crocker to the future to lost in fairy world) and i really liked it!

overall, banger after banger this show really is a fun one, nickelodeon better give em a s2 PLEASE THIS IS THE ONLY CURRENTLY RUNNING SHOW I HAVE-

episode reviews below!

Crocker to the Future: genuinely loved all the parascience things. I do 100% feel like that award for preserving in the face of adversity or whatever truly belonged to Crocker. my guy was at this for like. 10+ years! AND THAT"S JUST THE OG FAIRLY ODDPARENTS!!! MY GUY WAS ON HIS "fairies are real!!! trust me!!" thing for ENOUGH TIME FOR FOP A NEW WISH TO TAKE PLACE!!!!!! i'm so glad he (sort of) got to have the award in that ghost containment thing.

AJ in the episode was interesting but honestly major L for AJ. I thought he'd be like the next einstein, not a parascience mf. maybe Timmy Turner fucked him up a bit, who knows...

Battle of the Dimmsonian: Genuinely felt bad for Peri here. Like DUDE. You are stuck with this asshole kid (Dev I love you but be nicer plss) who just sorta demands things from Peri like all the damn time? poor kid. Reminds me of what Remy Buxaplenty had with his godparent but at least wandisimo had a semi-similar personality so it kind of worked. Not saying that Peri and Dev don't work, it might since Dev has been shown to be nice underneath but I can't stand the blatant mistreatment for now.

But also, damnnnn he IMMEDIATELY recognizes his parents and goes "oh shit" it's crazy how he managed to do that when they're fidget toys on a kid's backpack.

I also liked the whole back and forth thing ("Mom? Dad?" "Son?" etc), Cosmo being the only one to not do that is so true for him.

I wonder if Peri not seeing Cosmo and Wanda was intentional, we'll see!

Patty Possum's Party Playground: I almost thought this episode was gonna be like Five Night's At Freddy's or somethign with the animatronics but I guess not! I liked Patty Possum, she's so rad! I can defo see why Winn liked skateboarding after that. I love Cosmo and Wanda being certified idiots in this episode. They took "you can't use magic" seriously (as seriously as "oh Wanda shrunk into the claw machine so we could actually get a prize" can be) and stuck BOTH of their wands in the claw machine. If there's anything I love about this show, it's Cosmo and Wanda being two halves of a whole idiot. Truly can't function without magic fr fr I liked the gag of Hazel's dad literally being punctual as hell. That scene where he's like "oh it only takes 29 min and 30 seconds to get there" and then it hits 7:30 and he's panicking is so real (what if I headcanoned him as autistic. what then? just like me fr fr).

A Date To Remember: A really cute episode where Hazel essentially has to compete against Cupid (who looks like a baby now, I guess they got rid of his looks from the main series and gave them to Peri lol) [look how they untwinkified my boy /j] to make sure Hazel's parents fall back in love again. The ending where the parents think it was just another puppet show was crazy, wasn't expecting that tbh!

Lost In Fairy World: WE GOT THE FAIRY TRIO INTERACTING LET'S GOOOOOOO

It seems like their dynamic is basically just over protective coddling parents vs their son who really doesn't like it. But despite what I used to think before seeing this episode (that maybe Peri had some kind of resentment or something) it doesn't seem that way? Peri seems to like his parents overall and maybe even might enjoy the affection (if it weren't for the godkids there), but I get why he turned off the tracker and such. My guy wants independence! You go boy! Them sneaking in to Jorgan's office was really funny and stuff. I hope we'll see them all together in the next episodes because I like their dynamic and want to see where it goes!

Dev and Hazel were great here too! Dev is still kind of an ass to Peri but not as much which is an improvement! I like how he gets that "dimmadome face" or whatever it was called where he basically looks as deranged as his dad. Like father, like son I guess. Dev and Hazel actually having fun together is a step up from where they used to be, it seems like they solved their argument somehow. Dev sort of took that to mean that they weren't friends anymore, poor thing.

Dev taking advantage of the loopholes is so smart lol, Peri having a crisis and his parents like "AWWW, baby's first loophole wish!" is crazy.

The rule that "you can only go to fairy world if you're being tested by jorgan" doesn't really make sense if you think about original FOP though. Timmy got to go there almost recreationally! Dude probably attended like 90% of all fairy world events and shit and he was the talk for the town for an entire episode! Make it make sense!!!

Overall tho I LOVED these and they were enjoyable af. Would watch again. Judging by what I saw for descriptions of the next episodes, Peri's anti fairy (or Foop, now known as Irep, which if you ask me doesn't have the same ring to it) will be working with Dev? Crazy. Anyways yeah I had a lot of fun and woah this post got kinda long

[shinygoku]

Retrospective of my Beatles Albums Retrospectives

I'm not sure how to write a snappier title than that! Anyway...

12 Albums, 4 Bugs, 1 Band. And me, having a look, listen and a think at their work and writing it up~ However, while I successfully got each review out in time for the First of each month, I can't say everything was necessarily up to the standard deserved by such a body of work. But then, I also think most of what I said still holds, so this is also a summary as well as a few little corrections or instances where I may've changed my mind on individual songs. I wanna keep my original, possibly flawed, ones unedited to better compare now, and possibly again in the future ;3

Here's a link for each instalment:

Please Please Me

With the Beatles

A Hard Day's Night

Beatles for Sale

Help!

Rubber Soul

Revolver

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Magical Mystery Tour

The Beatles (The White Album)

Let it Be

Abbey Road

And now I'll summarise each, with the Moniker I assigned them with each review. Which I now see was originally to indicate the quality, and became more esoteric and tailor made in time lmao XD;;

Please Please Me – Decent!

Decent feels a bit like faint praise for my liking, and if I were trying to arrange the Albums by quality order, PPM would not be the lowest! It's charming and impressive and I docked too many points on the covers just as they didn't write 'em. As someone who can never see a live performance by 'em, let alone a Cavern Era type gig, this is all the more novel and valuable <3 Therefore I'm bestowing upon it a new moniker of Foundational !

With the Beatles – Improvement

Again I'm annoyed at how simplistic that is, and its not giving due credit to either it or PPM. The same flaws with my approach to covers apply too, but at least 3 of those are actually stand outs on this assortment (Please Mr Postman, Till There Was You, Devil in her Heart), and the Originals that I like most, It Won't Be Long and All My Loving, are absolute bangers. As with PPM, I will give it a new one-word summary... this shall be Elaboration

A Hard Day's Night – Uneven

Yeah, that one still holds up, and it does still irk me how the weaker half of the album drags the iconic and really nice songs down. And part of it is the passage of time and standards shifting, but there's a quiet undercurrent of spite, even in the prettier songs, which I find a little irksome. Like how If I Fell, in the midst of a serenade, finds the time to comment on how the Ex will suffer..... yay? Oh, John!

Beatles for Sale – Burnout Album

I mean, that's literally what it was XD;; However again I have a lot of fondness for it, and the covers ain't all my cuppa tea but I dig several anyway. However I kinda wanna drop 8 Days A Week from my Best 3 grouping and instead put I'll Follow The Sun there. Ironic as IFTS has a similar surprise spite section but 8 Days is indeed more paint by numbers for these here Bug Boys.

Help! – Promising

I think this is where The Beatles reach the perfection of "Old Beatles" style. The themes aren't that distant but everything's refined. The only song I outright think is out of place is Dizzy Miss Lizzy, and I think that was brought in as a quick replacement when they couldn't get Wait up to standard, everything else seems more intentional, even if I'm not wild on all of them. The titular song is bizarrely underrated for a well known number, and Yesterday foreshadows the more varied instrument use and genre dabbling.

Rubber Soul – Amazing

This might be my favourite of the albums, albeit not The Best and some of the numbers here are outclassed by later songs with the same theme, and yet I really dig this Experience. I came down pretty hard on Run For Your Life, but the tedious truth is that it's still an absolute banger, just one where I feel I gotta write an apology to Women after grooving to it. It's the first album I'd consider No-Skips, the first to use a Sitar (for better or for worse lol) and also the first song with a Girl Main Character, so there's lots of fun to be had here :3c

Revolver – Revolutionary

While Revolver leaves a high water mark, it's one I find to be polarised between songs I absolutely love and ones which I kind of dislike. And of course, this is the point where the Sounds become newer and less orthodox and more noteworthy. Unfortunately I am still not impressed by George's whopping 3 songs here =w=;;; – But I find it quite telling that a fab bit of rock in the form of And Your Bird Can Sing gets lost in the shuffle of other landmark songs from one album. So like, a very valid fave album for many, but I prefer a couple others~

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band – Intelligent

This one is a bit of a paradox. It's a very strong, impressive album. However for some reason it was the one most touted as The Greatest, which I would disagree with. But, the backlash to the hyperbole also goes too far and doesn't give this fun musical experiment and proto-Concept its flowers, which it does actually deserve! Not as The Greatest Of All Time, but as a look at The Beatles, Edwardian Style, and Liverpool itself, through glass coloured by cool and varied music. And getting robbed of Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane is a shame, but this does still have A Day In The Life as the grand finale!

Magical Mystery Tour – Eclectic .....oops

I... didn't notice at the time that I used the same Snappy One Liner for two albums! In a row! Oh my god!! (In my defence, it does fit both, but the idea was to have a different one for each! Fuck!). Retconning this one as Esoteric instead ^w^;;;;;

Anyway yeah. The MMT (Soundtrack Album) got pumped up with two incredible singles, and All You Need Is Love, and also Baby You're A Rich Man [which I've warmed up to a bit since, but not fully lol]. But they weren't really supposed to be there... As for the songs that were part of the Strange TV Special's soundtrack, it's pretty harmonious and themed, with interesting choices like a lyricless (but not vocal-less, there seems to be A Cappella chanting) song in the form of Flying, and a horrible dirge that I can't stand listening to with Blue Jay Way. But the Paul and the John songs here shine very brightly~

The Beatles [The White Album] – Eclectic

Yeah, I mean. This is the very definition of Eclectic, ain't it? Like Revolver in the polarised song types, but MOOORE. More songs, more wildly varied tones, more duds that I outright avoid, but still more absolute bangers. But!! More duds, or songs that jar so harshly with my own musical preferences, at least, that I have a harder time with this one. If I was feeling more generous, I'd say there's more for everyone, but I also like the Beatles when they make songs that sound Good, y'know? Not to box them into a genre but this feels like Quantity at the cost of Quality.

Let it Be – Sombre

HOWEVER all the criticism I have for the White Album is pretty minor compared to this somewhat underwhelming assortment. Which would have sounded a lot better if it didn't have a deranged, vile, disgusting, scummy, moronic, abusive, terrible excuse of a human being and record producer pissing all over it. BAD.

Y'see, some of the songs are really nice, some are just alright but, ghhhhh, I actively avoid listening to this whole thing and the stupid ass "wall of sound" claptrap. 'Oooh let's cover all the actual music with loud blaring orchestra so the actual compositions are hidden from ears' ...you can tell The Industry was up its own ass that drowning out the real music was seen as a good move. Insane, and not in a fun way, it just makes me angry and sad.

Abbey Road – The Best

Fortunately, the REAL last album by The Beatles is a tour de force of amazing, uplifting, thoughtful and indeed very catchy numbers~ I've only talked about it recently, and at quite a length too, so I won't repeat myself too much here. But it really is their strongest Whole Album of the lot, so even the songs I find weakest are still extremely popular (Maxwell's Silver Hammer, which I think is overrated lol) and enjoyable. And, god, what a Beautiful finale it is!!

💎✨

But before I wrap this up, I wanna highlight the Hidden Gems (or in some cases, most underrated song) of each album... using the Cool Taglines I made for said albums [don't worry, it's in the same order too lmao] !!

Foundational: Misery

The world is treating me baaaaaad, Miiiisery! And yet this is so dang catchy it doesn't feel like a downer, even when the lyrics are very explicit XD An early Original, written for someone else but not taken up, and I think the Bugs made their own version more uptempo than the song as originally presented.

Elaboration: Devil In Her Heart

But her eyes they tantalize! A strong showing from George and a really catchy song. Prolly partially overshadowed as it's a cover (as I've been guilty of too lol), but I always dig this one and the unorthodox cadence to the lyrics.

Uneven: I'm Happy Just To Dance With You

I don't wanna kiss or hold your hand... See, I don't have any Anti-George bias, just the sitar leaves me cooler lmao – but anyway! THIS song is sweet and warm, the only time John wrote a song specifically for George to perform, and something I think oughta have been done more! But this deserves more of a spotlight~

Burnout: No Reply

I know that you saw me, cause I looked up to see, your face ! I wondered if the first song on an album could qualify as Underrated, but I think Beatles For Sale as a whole is, and what attention it does get is pooled mostly into I'll follow the Sun, so yeah, I'm giving this its flowers! I'm A Loser also deserves more attention, for the record.

Promising: Act Naturally

They're gonna put me in the Movies, they're gonna make a big star outta me! Another incredibly strong cover, seemingly tailor made for Ringo to sing, given his charisma on the screen, his Catholic-Stained-Glass Sad Eyes and his own fondness for the Country and Western style. And it's one I go to often as I think he has a lovely singing voice and this is Peak Ringo <3

Amazing: Wait

'Till I come back to your side, we'll forget the tears we cried. I don't have that much to say, but knowing Wait was meant to be on Help! but they postponed it, I think it was worth the........ [title drop]. The drums here are also super underrated, and the maraca sure makes itself known~

Revolutionary: And Your Bird Can Sing

You tell me that you've heard every sound there is, and your bird can swing... This is, in my opinion, THE most underrated, overlooked song on an extremely popular record by the most famous band ever, and yet it's absolutely flawless. The guitar shredding and harmonies are insane here, in a very good way!

Intelligent: Lovely Rita

In a cap, she looked much older, and the bag across her shoulder, made her look a little like a Military Man... Innuendo heavy as this may be, there's oodles of charm in this one. It's hard to pinpoint an underrated song on this album, but this has a good balance of being really strong and yet getting less airtime.

Esoteric: Your Mother Should Know

Let's all get up and dance to a song, that was a hit before your Mother was born... That's right, this song is a strangely endearing spin on "your mom" lines. Well, that and connecting with the Older Generation for knowledge that's otherwise easily lost... so while the lack of lyrical variation may seem simplistic, it has enough hidden depth and infectious rhythm that does indeed make it easier to get up and dance to~

Eclectic: I Will

Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to, I will. This one is (quite rightly) loved by those who have heard it, but it seems to avoid a lot of Radars too! Maybe as White Album's overly long list of songs makes people black out between the more famous or infamous instalments. This is a song that many long to be longer... but oh god, the lyrics hit different when thinking about the Beatles Meta ;~;

Sombre: The Long And Winding Road NAKED

Literally any song and version without Shitty Wall Of Sound. Sorry. The better songs are well known already and the lesser songs are lesser for good reason :v but for the one I selected, yeah it's one of Paul's most emotionally raw and yet beautiful works, as it's supposed to be presented and yet the defaced one gets more airplay, undeserved as it is. So this version is of it is massively slept on. The wild and windy night, that the rain washed away, has left a pool of tears, crying for the day...

The Best Album: Because

Because the wind is high, it blows my mind... Hey look, a thematic link to my previous one! Again, every song here is a strong one, even real dark horse selections like Sun King, or ones that were in the medley like Golden Slumbers. I'm selecting Because as both another John song for a more balanced list, but also it is one that kinda slips between the cracks, compared to ones about The Sun, or Hammers, or Octopus Botany. And of course, it's beautiful in its own right~

🪲🪲🪲🪲

Well, that's 5 pages of retrospective and elaboration! It was more in depth than I expected lmao, but it was a lotta fun to revisit, all the moreso when the PPM stuff was written a whole year ago...!

Neeeext time on Bug Boys 2025: I'm still not sure to be honest XD;; - I think it's between Early Singles and the film version of AHDN, but I won't tie myself to one just yet. Still, as always I want it to be posted on the First of the Month, so tune back in when February begins~

[savrenim]

hi hi hi. so I just got into the Hamilton fandom, I swear I am four years late where did everybody go, and, well. I am apparently a hamburr shipper. bcs that is my life now. anyway I saw your fic ifmlam and I swear it is my favourite of all the fics I've ever read (and trust me I've read literally thousands). I love it so so much, how do you write fics like that??? I cried about four times during the whole thing, I stayed up till 4am reading it even when I had to wake up at 7 because it is just. that. good. I could not stop thinking about it for days afterwards and ifmlam has just ruined me. I can't think of listen to Hamilton without thinking of ifmlam anymore.

on to my qursttion: is it abandoned? of course it's perfectly FINE if it is. don't let anyone tell u differently, your fic is YOURS and u are amazing.

but pls I really need closure from ur fic, it has been haunting me if its abandoned or ongoing and I've read ur other fics and they are just chefskiss and thank you so much for writing them all. thank you thank you thank you, I will never be able to thank you enough for writing this fic and for everything it's done for me. I am probably thousands of miles away but I am sending you virtual jugs through a co.puter screen right now.

(don't feel pressured to reply to this or update it flam, I know how overwhelming it can get with so many messages and after a while u get desensitized to it. u can literally reply "thx. itfmlam is abandoned" and I would still be amazingly star struck. anyway has gotten way too long and I need to sleep and I'm sorry u probably won't see this so I'm just talking to myself right now but bye!!)

and thank you so so much for writing itfmlam.

aaaah hello anon!

thank you so so much???? I am so??? honored??? that ifmlam rates so highly to you, and also that you've read my other fics??????

the answer to the "is ifmlam abandoned" question is probably the worst possible one, which is pretty much "I do want to finish it, both for the folks that still want closure as well as it bothers to me have abandoned projects that are in the public eye/ already partially published, but also, it is last on my current writing projects list"

my current actually active writing projects list, kind of in order of priority, is

I'm literally three chapters away from being Actually Fully Done with the not-quite-first-not-quite-second let's call it 1.5th draft of an actual?? full?? original?? novel?? Opus which of course then goes out to beta readers and then gets who-knows-how-much edited and then maybe beta readers again if a lot does change and then a copyeditor my mom, my copyeditor is my mom, and maybe my little brother he's one of the betas but is very good at catching typos and then I!!! get to publish it!!!! which is the single thing I am most excited for!!!!!!!!! this should be closed up in the next week or two, and then take a while for people to actually read the draft and get back to me.

I really desperately want to finish my open-but-like-90%-written fic, which means we raise it up, the final chapter of to the bottom of the river bc I realized that it was kind of incomplete, and the second chapter of a buried and a burning flame because any more work there will need to wait until the author publishes the next book in the series. this should be closed up in the next month or two.

Speedwrite the draft of the second book of the Opus series so that hopefully by the time book 1 edits are happening, I have an almost complete draft of the second book. this is mostly me side-eyeing myself about taking nearly four years to write the first book, but that is solidly in part because I had so many other open projects which point 2 is about clearing that docket. this should be done in the next year.

And then just have my major projects be, at least until books 1-5 are written and published, books 1-5 of that because that is arguably the first major 'plot arc' of the series, so if I'm looking for a pause point on writing, that's probably where to stop.

There are two or three other short side projects (a weird fun second person short story tentatively titled witch-queen, a collection of four short stories Memoirs about a not-so-evil necromancer and the shenanigans he gets up to trying to rule a kingdom, working title Perfectly Normal Recipe Blog which is a collaborative project about a perfectly normal recipe blog that definitely doesn't include anything out of the normal) that will happen when they happen

There are other projects that are on the backburner -- The Numanok Files, a series of probably 12-15 short novellas about a mercenary/ bounty hunter esque person in space whose specialty is dealing with hauntings, but, like, 80% of their jobs is actually "you are effectively a space home inspector pointing out faulty wiring reacting to solar flares/ there's a weird alien fungus/ it's carbon monoxide okay change your atmosphere filters" and 20% of it is punching ghosts; there's a post-post apocalypse novel that I want to write that I know characters and general pacing and half the setting but need to work out the other half and figure out how much aesthetic I want to commit to; there's Strangeside7 aka spacerace book that is my reaction to how much I love how Redline the anime movie commits itself to "no we are about a race, like 60% of the screentime is just fully going to be an utterly ridiculous sci fi space race"; there's even a ridiculous YA trilogy that I would have to completely transplant the setting but might end up writing because the interplay between angel-physics and physics-physics was one of my favorite things in the world. and I guess the weird ridiculous technically a sequel series to ifmlam that was going to be published as original books that was basically me having fun with 'okay I fucking love star wars prequels old rotting space bureaucracy galactic republic style' except with seers and that also still might happen because it does have some of the coolest sci fi concepts and honestly I thiiiink that's all?

but the tl;dr of that timeline is I'm trying to finish a punch of projects Right Now, so that I can write books 2-5 of Opus, and then when I'm done that (which honestly, my average fiction-writing output is close to 100k a year. if I'm concentrating purely on one project, and writing books that are about 100k, we are talking four years. although my job situation is super up in the air in that period and writing might get put solidly on the backburner as I try to make it in academia, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I will re-evaluate which projects go next, and that's when ifmlam is likely to come up for review.

I do not have any expectations that I will make it as an original author. I'm planning on posting all of my stuff online for free, but, like. it is incredibly difficult to convince people to try out even a piece of free and easily accessibly original work even if one has a huge following, I am a very small fanfiction author, and from what I can tell the majority of the people who are interested in my work are mostly interested in me finishing ifmlam. writing is a hobby for me, and while I'm writing mostly for me--and hence the for me bit at least for the next five years is pretty solidly going to be this series that I am deeply excited about and have sunk my heart and soul into every single aspect of--I'm human, and I don't really like shouting into the void, and I expect if I spend five years publishing to absolutely no response I will either stop writing for a while and do other things gods know my life is busy enough, return to fandom in general to write some other fanfic about whatever I get deeply into, or return to a work that I actually get response to. so ifmlam will probably start getting worked on a bit at that point one way or another. unless, of course, we are in the incredibly rare timeline in which I do make it as an original author, there are people who are deeply hyped for my original works and an actual demand for them, in which case as you may have noticed there are enough ideas there to keep me busy for a decade or two, and they will just get my full attention instead of fanfiction*. in this timeline, I will do what I was considering doing a few years ago, which is officially declare ifmlam otherwise abandoned and make one more giant chapter update which is a full and cleaned up outline of what I was going to write, interspersed with the scenes already written, and have ifmlam be given at least that closure.

*I want to make it clear that I very much love fanfiction and am proud to have been a fanfiction author and in my heart of hearts would keep writing it forever, I just also have a lot of ideas for characters and settings and magic systems and Aesthetics and I have been biting at the bit to write something that is //mine// and all mine and only mine for a while, I don't see original work as superior so much as there are a dozen fandoms that I am currently in and bursting to make content about except oops these fandoms currently only exist in my head, and I want to correct that

of course given how much as writing is my vent activity and I write what I'm in the mood for, there's a chance I'll feel ifmlam cravings before then, just... expect it to take a couple of years for an update, but also for there to be an update one way of another in a couple of years? but as for right now, I'm turning to original writing, because that is what brings me joy.

but I am really deeply honored that it brought you so much joy!!! and while I will never publish spoilers in a public place, if you message me off anon I am perfectly happy to give a run-down of my current plans for the ending, bc I know "wait a couple years and see" is not the most satisfactory of answers! and hey maybe you'll be like me and once you've given Opus a try you'll decide you like it better too, it does have Seers although they are deeply different Seers than in ifmlam but imo it's very gay and fun and at least politics on one side