#and the radio drama?

[tyrianluda]

Harlan Ellison's voice acting for A.M. is fucking me up oh my god

(analysis in the tags)

[averytirednerd]

[gaywaren]

changyang’s newest hualian fanarts!

[nhura]

QUICK NO ONE'S LOOKING

(See readmore for thoughts, cope, bonus, etc.)

Anyone else up thinking about Ratio's big, strong, secure arms and how warm and all-consuming they could be in a hug or embrace. :/ Anyway

I just wanted to draw them being cute and seizing a sliver of a moment where they could have some PDA silly time without actually having any eyes on them. They're public figures and working adults with very clear boundaries between public persona and private life (to varying degrees of "in a sad way"), so while it may be in Aventurine's nature to constantly blur lines for various agendas and self-preservation (read: play "the flirt" without an aligned goal), I believe that in an actual relationship they'd be fairly private.

It's kind of fun to break your own rules, though! Ratio would be more upset about the consequences, though. He's a little bit of a hypocrite, which is devastating for someone of such discipline, but nobody's perfect.

I'm of the mentality of, "If you're tired of working on it, then just post it!", so here are some fun peripherals that I didn't feel like adding:

Some staff in the background sweeping up to evoke a blended sense of fragile privacy and liminal time.

A laptop on the aquarium/bar/counter because there's something fascinating about seeing people on their work laptops in public.

The rest of their clothes (casual friday)

[lady-bee-holmes]

Really wish that we could start distinguishing podcasts from audio dramas. I hate calling my little stories podcasts, because the assumption is that it’s two dudes talking about politics or economics. Like, no, buddy, I am listening to a guy experience the Horrors with a full plotline, not Michael and Josh talk about society for three hours

[khookn]

me when I combine my first ever childhood game with my favourite camper in total drama idk

[spacebubblehomebase]

RADIOAPPLE COTL AU!

"What do you do when a mere scapegoat becomes so enamored with the God Of Death that they actually look forward to dying again and again just to see Him?"

"What do you do when said God Of Death yearns for the sacrificial lamb's PERMANENT DEATH and this very thought is actually the reason He smiles at them?"

"But it's only because He wants to own them FOREVER the only way He knows how??? ...For His Vessel's soul to be HIS to keep."

Basically, this is my COTL Radioapple AU idea! (NOTE: Read it all over again! This time, just the yellow highlighted words for a different experience and perspective on things! 😉 Trust me on this.) -Bubbly💙

[colourstreakgryffin]

Hello, Happy Valentine's Day, first of all and second, I always liked the idea of Alastor dating a relative of the Overlords, so could you make Alastor dating Zestial's granddaughter? q(≧▽≦q)🌻

OMFG. I can tell Zestial will be a pissed off grandpappy with his granddaughter and just wanting to keep us away from Al! Haha! I love this! Sorry, kinda short!

Alastor- Rose Drop

Needless to say… your grandfather isn’t happy about this. He is the only family you have in Hell and as a result, Zestial is protective over you. Wanting you to stay safe and away from specific threats…

So when you begin dating Alastor, Zestial is pissed off and already on the Radio Demon’s case. He is demanding to know why and for Alastor to explain himself, already threatening to throw hands if he dares try manipulate you

Zestial may be your grandfather but he acts more like your father than he actually is. It’s not like you hate your grandfather… you really do love him dearly, you just wish he wouldn’t be so naggy and involved in your life

Alastor is a gentleman at his core so he treats his girlfriend with much respect, he is protective but he doesn’t suffocate you and he likes to hold your hand as you two walk. Of course, you have your grandfather over your shoulder the entire time

Alastor is quite patient. Believe it or not, he won’t ever get annoyed by your protective and guarding grandfather but instead, he’ll establish boundaries with Zestial and asks him to not treat you like a child, further fuelling your passionate love for the Radio Demon

Alastor can handle the fact and respect the fact Zestial is the only family you have and you’re quite close to him, and his behaviours is understandable but he doesn’t want Zestial to ruin your relationship so he will make sure everybody walks out happy

Alastor wants your grandfather’s permission and blessing so when you two tell Zestial about your relationship properly, Alastor sucks up to him to get the right to date you. He wants everything to go well, he wants both of you to be happy

Alastor finds you beautiful, constantly calling you as such. You do resemble your Overlord grandfather very well and he doesn’t even care if it seems off, he loves you and he wants your attention, hence why he is doing all this

Zestial may not be happy about the fact you’re dating his fellow Overlord but he won’t ever try break this up. He can see from across the room just how much you two like each other and he is happy for you

Alastor is kissy and affectionate in front of the other Overlords, it’s quite cute to see a man like him so sweet and doting. He loves you and he can’t keep it to himself, you’re his little very old-fashioned glowy vampire~!

“Oh. My dear, would you like to come out to the café with me? I had spoken to your old man, he said it was all good for us. Now, may we?”

[ufofrommarss]

Someone radioed these omens.

[darkacademiaarchivist]

I put together these podcast recommendations based on books a while ago, enjoy (they also work the other way around, I highly recommend these books, I made it my life's mission to make people read radio silence, it's SUCH a great book and it got me into Welcome to Night Vale and podcasts in general. Thank you Alice Oseman)

i'm never good at summarizing things but I tried my best lol

[chronicbeans]

I freaking love seeing the arguments lol. I've never seen this many people talking about aroace people before and it's over a demonic deer man that's a cannibal. Genuinely wouldn't have it any other way it's funny imo. Anyway here's how I feel as an aroace summarized.

I just want to see someone write him as like... idk demisexual/demiromantic or aegosexual or something. More ace-spectrum and aro-sprctrum identities, alongside aroace, deserve representation too! I wanna see those interpretations of the character dangnabbit! Well, if you want it done, just gotta do it yourself I guess. Lol

[craitluke]

hanleia enjoyers come forth

[beano-no-know69]

hey can anyone give me recs for good spooky audio dramas?

Also bonus points if there’s gays in it (although honestly at this point I go into podcasts assuming there will be, and am hardly ever wrong)

Ones I’ve liked and listened to are: the Magnus archives, the box, king falls am, old gods of Appalachia, darkest night, limetown, spines, the bright sessions, wolf 359, all the public radio alliance ones, Alice isn’t dead, archive 81, life after, the message, the far meridian, the bridge, mirrors, the 12:37, penumbra, strange case of starship iris, girl in space, the leap year society, Mabel, and the white vault

[mothsshoes]

radio omens husbands bc i just listened to it the other day to cope

[s1x-foot-deep]

scene from the radio drama+Great Soft Jelly-Thing concepts

[akilahia]

Thinking about IHNMAIMS in pretty much all of its forms.

Specifically Ted and Ellen. Obviously in the Game their relationship is very different from the short story/comic/radio drama, with Ted being in love with Ellen(although it’s evident it’s because she is the only woman left alive). In the game he shows devotion to her, he is willing to push past his usual methods of flirtation and find other ways to get what he needs.

But in the other adaptions his feelings towards Ellen are mixed. I think his unique backstory with being so dependent on women to live a happier and more lavish life style, significantly effect how he views Ellen beyond AM’s tampering

Throughout the short story Ted constantly thinks ill of Ellen. Even though prior to being placed in this hell, she had only had sex twice before. But she is the last woman alive on earth. The video game(while following a different plot line(still one that is extremely tragic and literally made me cry)) expresses that even before Ellen’s assualr she had little to no interest in sex. She would never have had sex with the four men if it weren’t for

1. AM

2. Being the Last women alive

3. AM’s deliberate tampering

In a world where characters like Benny have been so permanently physically marked as a form of torture by AM, something like sex, is not as extreme in comparison(at least from Ted’s perspective). However to be the last woman alive, with minimal interest in sex, to be tampered with in such a way, is such a horrific form of torture.

I’m going to shift a way from this for a second to talk about Ted’s backstory for the video game. I understand that the videogame makes changes in terms of backstory for some of the characters(like Benny), so we can’t claim Ted’s backstory for the game is even remotely close to whatever it might have been for the short story. However, I still think can provide interesting context to his behavior towards Ellen.

Starting off, he really isn’t the cool rich guy that he played himself off to be when life was still normal. He never came from money, he was poor and he was forced to work and couldn’t go to school. However he was good looking which is resulted in older woman being attracted to him. And when he was NINETEEN, one older woman gave him her husband’s money and offered him the chance to travel and live in luxury.

Now this probably isn’t important, or was even taken into consideration by the game makers, but I was curious as to what the possible age gap between this older woman and Ted could be. The were together for 5 years, then she died

She died specifically of an aneurysm, which according to Google typically happens between the ages of 30 to 60. There is all this stuff with the Cold War and ww3 and I was going to try to do all this math with it but it’s too late for that and not relevant to the point I’m trying to make. But I’m just going to do some simple mental math and estimate that it might have been late 60’s or early 70’s when the older woman and Ted first got into a relationship. As I’m assuming everything went to shit in 1995 since that’s when the game came out, and 25 years had passed after he met the woman. Also this makes sense as Ted’s grandfather sold the farm due to the Great Depression, since most people married and had kids young, I’m going to be generous and say grandpa was 30 in 1929, and Ted’s mother or father was 9, then 10-12 years later Ted was born. Then 19 years later it would be about the 60’s or 70’s.

I am going to presume that the older woman had been married to her husband for at least 15 years. So it might have been 50’s at the earliest possibility. And the average age people married at then was when they were in their 20’s. So when she met Ted she was AT THE EARLIEST 35. Making her at least 16 years older than Ted when the first got together. But also worth noting that they do specifically mention older. So if we look on the higher side of the typical ages for aneurisms she could have been 55 when they first met(as the 5 years would pass making her 60) so she could have been 36 years older than him.

This seriously isn’t relevant to the actual point I’m trying to make with Ellen and Ted but I got sucked in. I guess I just wanted to highlight that Ted did not have the power in this relationship, he was young and poor, while she was old and rich, and I can imagine how that kind of relationship would impact him.

The next thing I want to note is the use of the word ‘lover’.

Though it can be used in a strictly romantic non intimate sense, I think it is used in the sexual way here.

Especially with the provided context of two different definitions of the word ‘lover’ both highlighting it’s connotations with sexual relationships

Furthermore, Ted’s relationship with the older woman is essentially just a sugar baby relationship. She is letting him experience things he never could have without her money. She teaches him how to act as a socialite and gets him used to the high life.

In connection to the sexual elements above, there was a video I wanted to link here but I can’t find it anywhere anymore. It was a YouTube video with a bunch of sugar babies discussing their experiences. And one woman confides that you really won’t make much money if you are in a platonic or non intimate romantic relationship with your sugar parent. If you want to make money and live richly, you have to preform sexual favors.

Now it’s hard to say if this was the only relationship with an older woman that Ted had been in. But regardless of whether it was one woman or a billion, using his body in order to get something that he wants has become an important asset to Ted; As seen in the castle with the maid and the witch. His love for Ellen(in the video game) helps him break past this fatal flaw of his, despite AM’s obvious temptations to make him fail.

Even if this stuff was in anyone’s minds when they wrote Ted’s backstory but I think it’s extremely important to note, especially as we return to my main point.

As stated before, Ted views Ellen negatively due to her promiscuity, despite the desire(felt really gross typing this word in this context) being placed in her as a form of torture by AM. She also is a woman, and Ted’s life has been spent around using and being used by women, so definitely lots of conflicting stuff there. Additionally Ted’s experiences with sexual relations are shown to be based in being transactional.

When he agrees with Ellen to go to the caves to get the food, she rewards him by being intimate with him to show her gratitude. Ted sees it as her ‘using him.’ (From the Radio Drama, I was going to post the clip but I could only post one video in a tumblr post apparently)

In the comic, after this encounter he questions her motivations. What she got out of it, once again thinking transactionally. But her response

“Does there have to be a reason”

Really gets to me. Especially after looking at all this intertextual context. Thinking about video game Ted’s backstory with book Ted’s thoughts and behaviors, he is shown to always think there is some kind of catch. No one is doing something without getting something in return, especially if that thing is kindness.

Ted is so intensely paranoid(as seen in all versions). I think by pairing up the backstory for the game with the short story/comic/radio drama it’s evident to see how heavily affected he is by it.

He thinks he has been tormented less by AM, making him paranoid of the others, contributing towards his behavior towards Ellen. Yet despite everything from the past and all of AM’s tampering, he still finds comfort with Ellen. Her unfaltering kindness manages to reach him even when he dismisses it as a farce. She doesn’t hate him or the others for how they’ve treated her, she still wants to help them. He still cares for her and the others. But he is filled with so much fear. He even apologizes to her.

I feel like at that point in the Radio drama marks a shift. Ted has made a realization about AM and it’s a lot for him, but Ellen is there for him. It’s a genuinely sincere act of kindness from her where she doesn’t ask or expect anything in return. They have some kind of connection. Once again blending the different versions, I think that this moment between them comes together in the end when they kill the other victims together. They don’t speak to each other, they just do it quickly and he kills her. And here he doesn’t refer to her by any degrading names. In the comic he holds her. Like how in the radio drama she held him.

Overall I just wanted to point out how well all these versions really mix to provide so much more behind each character. The backstories for the video game allow the reader to understand book Ted’s actions and relationships from a new angle.

The is was super duper major mess of a ramble. It’s now 3 am and I have a migraine, so I’m done for tonight. I might clean this up another time or make another post about Video game Ted with context to his backstory since I didn’t include the events from the video game in here.

Once again these are just my thoughts and beliefs on how I think the video game backstory for Ted provides interesting context for Book Ted. I know that both stories play out differently and both Ted’s act differently so please don’t get angry if you disagree with the message of stuff I said

mini sequel post about video game Ted