#but i'm very proud to finally post a gifset!!

[tartagliove]

crying over the new image editor because that yamada-kun gifset is the first one I've posted on it and that was such a painful experience c':

[chickenstrangers]

2023 gifs in review tag game

tagged by @khaotunq (here!) to post my favorite/most popular gifs throughout the year. thank you!!🩵🩵🩵

I only started making gifs partway through this year, so there was a big learning curve and i still think i'm pretty newbie but it has been a lot of fun and it's nice looking back on how much i think i've improved, though i have so much left to learn next year

i am going to ramble too much because this is my post, fair warning, forgive my self indulgence

april

this was the very beginning, back in the photopea days before i tried photoshop (i am still quite fond of photopea, 1. because it is free and 2, for stills i think it's just as good as photoshop, but i could never figure out how to make gifs look good with its dithering system. i have seen some remarkable gifmakers using photopea tho so that's a my limited skill problem, and i'm glad i used it to dip my toes into the process!)

i only posted 1 set for abaab this month which looks not good but is still a very fun scene, but this was not actually the first thing i made (see below).

may

most popular: msp finale, tinn knowing all the words to gun's song <3

favorite: moonlight chicken, my first ever gifset and the reason i got into gifmaking because i wanted to capture the way moonlight chicken visually returned to locations and shots to underline its theme of loneliness being replaced by community, which is the mlc repetitions series

june

most popular & favorite: kiss me again (2018) and the lovely way june say's goodby to his friends (i learned how to add text to gifs for this one, and not only that but timed text! i thought it would get like 5 notes. it's very messy and doesn't look great, but i'm proud that i learned something with it, and i think its very funny and that's all that matters to me)

july

it's photoshop time now!! photoshop beloved you make such beautiful gifs and also you are So Slow and my computer cannot handle you.

most popular: only friends original trailer set

favorite: jimwen looking at each other set (the start of my most belovedest of series, the followup to the first ever meta i wrote)

august

most popular: part 1 of the can't i look at you edits, cool tones edition

favorite: part 2 of the can't i look at you edits, warm toned edition (i love them both but this has two of my all time favorite wen faces)

hey its my profile picture and also i find it very funny that the Os line up with his eyes, and the second gif i love how impossibly happy they look

september

my busiest month in terms of gifs, in large part due to only friends

most popular: topmew and fire

favorite: alanwen poetry edit i spent soooo long learning keyframes for the heartbeat effect and then the ghosting effect was a happy accident thank you person in the background walking past at the right moment

(i also love my charn laws of attraction set because he was a surprise favorite character this year, i loved collecting the quotes for how he speaks of himself)

october

most popular: only friends sandray finale parallel set (it is. very very close to 1k which is. so many).

favorite: he's coming to me edit because it was so fun to make for @dudeyuri

november

most popular: not me sean and black getting along super duper well!

favorite: moonlight chicken haunted house edit, accompanying this meta/creative writing thing. i loved choosing liminal feeling shots for it and i liked how the simple typography turned out

december

most popular: a little jim and wen set i am very fond of

favorite: the moonlight chicken new years set i posted today. i love this little chicken diner

hey look i managed to mention moonlight chicken almost every month (i swear, i watched so many favorite shows this year but i loved making mlc gifs so much)

and that's that! thanks for reading if anyone read til the end.

no pressure tags for some amazingly talented creators who have made some of my favorite sets this year (if you feel like talking about some of your highlights, whether monthly or not, because you all make so much incredible work and i'd love to hear about it) : @hoppipolla @sollucets @icouldhyperfixatehim @celestial-sapphicss @chinzhilla @krystaljungs @moonkhao and anyone who wants to, consider yourself tagged <3

[boysbeloving]

Happy 1st Anniversary of KinnPorsche the Series!! 🎉 🎊 🥳 🥂

allow me to be emotional a bit (i say this as if i'm not emotional over the series and the actors every other day lol)

kinn and porsche are SO precious to me...as individuals and as a couple...i relate to kinn a lot: his struggles with a parent, his crushing sense of duty, trying to fit into the world he's forced to be a part of, him not always knowing how to communicate feelings...i had talked about it a bit here about how soft he is despite everything around him and ya...kinn is extremely close to my heart because of these things...i see myself in him (barring the killings and sadly barring the butt sex too)

porsche is just....SO MUCH lol!!!! if i spend time with him i would need 3 to 5 business days to get my energy levels back! but i understand his love for his brother and relate to how he's fiercely protective of him (i'm the same with my sister...but she's older than me)

and ofc mile and apo

man i related a little too much with apo's early life struggles lol...him being told to always 'correct' himself, him feeling disconnected with who he is made to be, being subjected to casual homophobia at workplace (he talked about these things in the On That Day interview and that press con that had happened with the entire cast)...the fact that he felt so unhappy coming back home from the US...it broke my heart and it hit a little too close actually...i had talked about this a bit here (i feel apo is queer coded) coz it reminded me of things that had happened in my life quite recently at that time and the fact that both apo and i were still going strong gave me a sense of kinship with him (hahha 'kinn'ship haahhhaha)...i ofc don't have a mile who has been a positive and happy addition to apo's life since he came back but i am making efforts to have those positive and happy additions in my life

and one of these positive and happy additions happens to be the kpts fandom....y'all....it is SO AMAZING TO BE PART OF THE FANDOM.....y'all are SO TALENTED! the art, the gifs, the meta, the fics, the vids, the polls, the thoughts on the characters, the crackposts, the textposts, the fandom archivers! i'm so thankful to all of you...each and every single one of you

and lbr we've had our fair share of trials and tribulations but because i'm only on tumblr and not on any other social media sites, it has been generally a brilliant experience...i have made such great friends, have talked to a bunch of you, received amazing mile thirst traps in my inbox, have been entirely inappropriate in writing my shameless tags in posts, have openly admitted to my armpit and armpit hair fetish (i made armpit appreciation gifsets ffs), have again very openly talked about my other kinks as well (i think y'all know 🙈) (the armpit fetish admission has led to a beautiful friendship that i cherish <3 and my thirsty tags have led me to meet my feral twin <3)

personally as well i felt like investing myself more into the fandom and the series and the characters and the actors....it made me do things that i had not done before! i talked to fellow fans actively, i made gifs (low quality and using free software lol but i'm actually happy with them), i wrote stuff, like i legit made an ao3 and wrote some stuff lol! i have not done that before and again it is primarily for me and i'm proud of myself for doing these things y'know

last but not the least, kinnporsche the series gave me my thai husband: mile phakphum romsaithong .... and for this alone, it is the best thing out there in the world 🙈🤣

the anniversary of my foray into the series will be next month (it was mile's asscrack that convinced me to finally watch the series that kept trending on tumblr from time to time) but let me be emotional today too

thanks y'all and happy 1st anniversary!

[catgrassplantdad]

New Year's Ask Game for Fic Writers 🤍

I was tagged by a couple of pals to do this a few days ago, and i'm finally getting to it! thank you @ardent-fox @suzy-queued @energievie 🖤

To close out 2023…

1) What fic did you have the most fun writing this year and why? Or, if you can’t decide, what was most fun about writing this year for you?

the most fun i had was while writing honeycomb, because julissa @heymrspatel and i got to play with our horny psychic link again and it was the BEST.

2) What’s a scene/story that you finished and felt “wow, I really accomplished that, that actually went so well”?

let them see. writing ian and mickey fucking with an audience and making it believable was HARD. i'm still not sure how well i accomplished that, but i'm proud of it.

3) What helped provide the most inspiration for stories, if anything? Was it poetry? A song on repeat? A gorgeous gifset? A walk outside? A book you read that made you want to change everything? Whatever it was! Tell all.

i listened to infinite granite by deafheaven on repeat. i just think it's beautiful, and it's good music for zoning out and imagining. lyrics from that album sometimes serve as working titles for my fics before they get real titles, and in fact i did name a fic after lyrics from that album. waiting in the light

4) What is something you want to share about what you’ve written this year? A particular line, a comment that made you feel really good, a scene that was difficult to write — you get to choose! What do you wish someone would ask you about when it comes to what you’ve written?

i just wanna talk about feels like a dream. setting the atmosphere for that was so fun. i wrote it so quickly, i could see it all so clearly in my head. i wanna talk about ian sucking on mickey's tongue. i wanna talk about the moment ian puts the collar on mickey and how he gets him to tell him why he wants it. i wanna talk about how ian talks to him and takes care of him and makes him feel owned. i wanna talk about how mickey sucks ian's dick like he needs it to live. i wanna talk about how important the atmosphere is in that moment, how even they felt like they didn't want to move too quickly and disturb what they had built up that night. i wanna talk about how mickey's so sleepy while ian's fucking him that he wonders if his orgasm is going to jerk him awake or make him even more sleepy and blissed out. oh god, and mickey calling ian daddy throughout. i just think it's sexy. i wrote it in september but i posted it at the very end of kinktober when people were likely just burnt out on it, but it's there and it's dreamy and it's kinky and i like it.

And to start off 2024…

1) Do you have any writing/creation goals for the year? What are they?

yes! i just want to post more fics. i still want to participate in kinktober and i want to format it differently this year. i want to write a multichapter au as well.

2) Is there a fic or idea that you’re really excited to be able to continue to work on in the new year (shout out to my fellow fic writing folks who take forever to finish wips, sometimes it’s nice to be able to continue working on something even if you wish you’d gotten it done! Now you get even MORE time with it!)

yeah, that multichapter au idea! i had written quite a bit for it and i HATED the direction it was going in and it made me want to scrap the whole thing. i had a helpful conversation about it with bee a few weeks ago and i've got new ideas for it, so really i want to tackle that. it just feels daunting because i've written thousands of words that i feel like i need to get rid of. i basically need to start over to make it work. but it'll happen!

3) What’s something new in your writing you want to try/are going to try? A different writing style? Different fandom? Darker works? Fluffier? Longer or shorter?

baby's first au! also i think i mentioned this before but i wanna try writing destiel smut. like deeply emotional, feral, inhuman, otherworldly reunion fucking. we'll see if i ever get to it though.

4) What’s something you love about your own writing that you will continue to appreciate in the new year?

i think i'm good at writing physical sensation. i find smut really fun and i think i'm pretty good at it. not just because i'm good at describing physical sensation, but for all kinds of reasons. i think i'm reasonably good at keeping ian and mickey in character while they're doing all kinds of things, and i like that. i think i'm good at setting a tone and atmosphere. i don't know man i just like it to be a sensory experience, and i think it often is.

i'm late but i'll tag a few people anyway! @whatwouldmickeydo @whatthebodygraspsnot @gallawitchxx @sisitrip @thisdivorce if you guys are interested in playing/haven't done this yet 💚

[dearemma]

hi! do you have any tips on sharpening? my photoshop cs5 is messing with my old settings a bit and i'm looking for new ways of sharpening so it looks clean, and i loved your last snw gifset! thank u! <3

oh, hi!! thank you <3

oh god, the terror of sharpening. i recently had to create new sharpen settings cause i've started to use 2160 rips for my snw gifsets and it took me a while to find something that didn't make their faces look way too smooth, or, worse, overly sharpen it!!

i'm not the best at explaining things, so i wanted to see if i could find the tutorial i used to build my sharpen settings but i can't! i did however find this one here from @completeresources which seems similar and very easy to follow! i like to both sharpen and add a bit of blur to my gifs so they look crisp without looking grainy.

there are my current settings:

i recommend choosing a scene that you've colored before and isn't too hard so you can play around. i made various versions of the same gif as i was trying to find what i needed.

to give you a feel of what this does, i thought i'd remake one of the gifs of my last gifset as i still had the screencap folders on my desktop!

i choose the uhura scene cause i thought it was the gif which looked best.

here is the gif without any sharpen, only my coloring:

now let's look at the final result, using the action i screenshotted above:

look how better it looks! see how her eyes look very clear, and so does her skin. compare her lips, her cheeks, the gleam of her eyeshadow! look at her eyelashes!!

sharpen makes a huge difference!

but, take a look at the original gif! it already looks kind of good. why? cause i'm using 2160 and that's a game changer! that is what truly makes my gifs look so clear, not any special talent or trick!

cause i'm insane i also have the 1080 version saved, so i thought i'd take a look at the difference.

i ended up using the same sharpen settings as the one i posted above (i have a different action for 1080 gifs, but the 2160 action honestly looked better this time).

1080 rip using the same sharpen settings as above:

it looks pretty! i would post this without any problem and cry about how happy i am with the result because i am proud of it! but go back and look at the 2160 sharpened version, look how clearer the pixels look!

so yeah!! this my sharpening process, hope this helped you somewhat, i know i'm not the best at explaining things, so if you have any questions, please feel free to yell at me in the dms!!

[sirtadcooper]

12, 14, 16 ❤️

Hi there! Thank you for these questions - any excuse to ramble about editing.

12. What gifset made you feel the happiest to work on? (link)

There's perhaps some irony in this, but this edit of Crozier and Fitzjames. I was knee-deep in a Terror fixation at the time, and finally feeling inspired to make and edit after a few months of nothing. The idea I had for the edit is almost exactly what I ended up posting, which is unusual for me. I was able to locate good quality screencaps and cut out and colour what I needed to cut out and colour. I was happy because I was editing again, happy because the editing was going smoothly. The point of that edit is to make as many people cry as possible, but I had fun making it, and that's the main thing.

14. What gifset was the most difficult to make? (link)

This edit of Fourteen and Donna turned into a bit of a nightmare, actually, and not in a way that I expected. Two specials deep into the 60th Anniversary, I was very much in the mood to make a Doctor Who edit. I didn't really have an idea, but I coloured that promo photo of Donna and Fourteen and then fiddled around in Photoshop until I came up with the rotating galaxy idea. I did not know, however, that rotating a layer in Photoshop reduces its quality. I was animating the background by duplicating it and rotating the layer by one degree as I went along, leaving me with a stack of slightly different layers. By layer 40 the starry background was a blurry mess. I just didn't understand it. I had to delete all of my rotated layers, and I found another starry background, this time with light trails, but by layer 50 it was also a mess. I still don't know why that happened, but I realised that I could get away with rotating the light trailed stars by about 30 degrees and they looked like they were moving more than they actually are. The finished edit is only three frames or so.

16. Do you have a favourite gifset you made this year? (link)

I'm still very proud of this edit of Silver and Flint. The screencaps of the scene I wanted to use didn't lend themselves to being cut out and coloured very easily, so I decided to just use them as they were. I like the balance I managed to achieve between the two parts. I remember the struggle I had with the second half especially, trying to get that text to look right. When I finally came up with the idea of using the Gaussian blur and flickering animation on both Silver's "shadow" and the text I was over the moon. I think it looks great and also tells a story. I always try to shove as much symbolism into my edits as possible.

gifmakers (and editors) asks | send me an ask

[bustyasianbeautiespod]

Episode 52 Transcript: Who is Devin?

[intro guitar music]

G: Hello, my name is Grey.

C: And my name is Crystal.

G: And this is Busty Asian Beauties, a Supernatural commentary podcast, where I, someone who has seen this show several times…

C: And I, someone who only knows about Supernatural through social media, discuss every single episode of Supernatural from start to finish. Also, we are both Asian.

G: Both Asian! For today's episode, we will be discussing Season 3, Episode 8: “A Very Supernatural Christmas,” written by Jeremy Carver, directed by Jay Miller Tobin.

C: I did not know this was written by Jeremy Carver.

G: I also did not know.

C: I thought it was pretty good, but also, it was written by Jeremy Carver. So actually, maybe it was bad.

G: I had so much fun watching this. And you know how like, back in season 1, I would cry at every episode?

C: Yeah.

G: And then season 2, I just stopped. And then season 3 is just like, "whatever"? I cried this episode.

C: Aww!

G: Oh, yeah, I was like, at the end scene, I was like, crying. So that was cool. It was effective in that way. And then the rest of the episode is also effective in that it's entertaining. Like, I was not bored. So yeah, a win.

The violence scenes this episode are well and truly violent. And I love that.

C: Oh, yeah. I watched this with my ex-fiancee because I was at her house earlier today, and like, yeah, she's a big fan of fingernail removal-

G: Yeah!

C: - and so am I, so yeah. That was fun.

G: Yeah. I love it when Sam Winchester is hurt and crying and screaming. [C laughs]

C: Yeah. And I do mean that sexually. [G laughs]

G: I mean, it's fascinating to me because they do it this episode, and then actually, like, many, many seasons later, in “Last Holiday,” it's kind of a holiday episode, so it's kind of a Christmas episode in a way, they also remove his fingernail.

C: I have heard this.

G: So yeah, callback! Yeah. So that's super fun.

C: And it's like, a seemingly nice older woman in both cases with a cheerful disposition. So yeah, it really is the same episode.

G: Mm-hm. Yeah. That one was written by-

C: It was the guy who wrote “Scoobynatural,” I know.

G: No,  “Scoobynatural” was written by outsiders!

C: Yeah, no, I think “Last Holiday” was also written by an outsider.

G: No!

C: Are you sure?

G: It was written by fucking- no, it's not. I was gonna say it was written by the guy who wrote the one with the exploding pumpkin under the sun line. What's that one? The season 14 episode?

C: Oh, "His exploded-" the- “Peace of Mind”! [G laughs]

G: Why are we like this? Why are we talking about this? Let's stop talking about this because it doesn't matter. I'm gonna cut it all out.

C: It was- I've looked it up, and "Last Holiday" was written by Jeremy Adams, who wrote “Scoobynatural” partnering with James Krieg.

G: Ugh, I hate you. I hate you.

C: I love being right about everything all the time. [G laughs]

G: Okay. So Crystal, what did you know about this episode going in?

C: I think I mostly saw a gifset of the final scene with the eggnog, and specifically, when Dean says, “Fuel for me and fuel for my baby.” So I remember seeing that before I knew Dean, and seeing that he had like, a little mark on his cheek, and being like, “Oh, that's kind of cute.” But now, I hate him, so it's not. [laughs]

G: Noo!

C: Yeah. Oh, and I think I also had heard that- what like, Jared Padalecki spiked the eggnog for real beforehand.

G: For realsies? I didn't know that.

C: Yeah, and that's why Jensen Ackles reacted that way when he drank it.

G: That's fun.

C: Yeah, I mean, it's Jared Padalecki though.

G: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Always the Jared Padalecki.

I'm very proud that we have not mentioned his name in this podcast for like, a whole season up until now.

C: Yeah, I think so. Because in the past, whenever I got our transcripts on our dash, it would be like, “This post contains filtered content: Jared Padalecki.”

G: Yeah! And it's filtered because it's Jared Padalecki! [both laugh] Well, to be fair, I have like, almost all actors- well, at least the main trio- filtered.

C: Oh yeah, same.

G: It's so funny, because I also think I have Benny and like, Crowley- [C laughing]

C: Yeah, because you're a hater who hates when Dean has other boyfriends.

G: [laughs] I'm literally a hater, and I have the muted, and whenever we mention them, they also get filtered out of my dash.

C: So real.

G: So good luck to this episode and its visibility.

C: Yeah. RIP.

G: So we'll start now. So we start in this like, house in the suburbs, you know, and it's a family who's celebrating Christmas. And my initial thought here was that it was like, the day before Christmas, because what happens next is one of the uncles, or like, I don't know, this guy in the family-

C: Grandfather?

G: I don't know. Is he a grandpa? The grandfather puts on a Santa costume, and like, does this whole thing where he like, calls in a way the little kid so that the little kid can see him, but he pretends that the little kid is not there, and he like, places the gifts, blah blah blah. And then sounds kept happening on the roof, and the kid is like, “Oh my god! The reindeers! They're coming to get Santa!” And but really, it's a monster. What happens is the guy gets taken by monsters up the roof, up the chimney. And he like, gets like, decapitated, or whatever. Like, he gets torn to pieces. It's implied that he gets torn to pieces because the scene ends with like, a foot falling down the chimney.

C: Yep, and it's blood-crusted.

G: Yeah. Dry blood. So that's fun. And apparently, it's revealed later that this was three days or like, four days before Christmas, I guess, which is so funny to me. Like, [laughing] why are you as a man dressing up as Santa Claus five days before Christmas?

C: But I feel like this scene does have- Oh, okay. It says in the opening thing, it says it was Seattle, Washington, one year ago.

G: Ohh. Well, we're stupid. [laughs]

C: Present day, it's five days before Christmas. But this scene happened a year ago.

G: On Christmas Day.

C: Yes.

G: Well, there goes my whole, "Why is he dressing up as Santa Claus before Christmas Eve?" But yeah.

C: It's Christmas. He's just being a good grandfather.

G: Yeah. And he’s dead now. RIP grandpa.

C: RIP to that guy.

So the title card looks like shit.

G: Yeah. [laughs] It looks absolutely horrendous.

C: There's what, like, badly Photoshopped clip art, like, Santa hats and candy canes around it.

G: I mean, I think it's supposed to be intentional. Like, it's not supposed to be pretty.

C: Yeah, it's supposed to be cartoony fun or whatever.

G: Yeah, but it is still ugly even at those standards, I feel like.

C: Yeah.

G: Yeah. I love this episode because of the whole Christmas theme, and-

C: Is Christmas a- is that a big thing for you?

G: Oh my god, Crystal, I'm Filipino! [laughs]

C: Yeah, that tracks.

G: It's very big! It's very big. I don't know if this is like, actually something that is recorded in some way or like, it's something people just say here, but like, the thing people say is that the Philippines has the longest Christmas season in the whole world. Because we start celebrating Christmas as soon as the "ber" months drop, and then, like, until February, so like, it's fun.

C: Until February?

G: Yeah. It's very-

C: It passed! It's over!

G: It concerns me that other countries have this like, Boxing Day, where it's like, the day after Christmas, and then they pack up the Christmas stuff. Once, we had an actual Christmas tree- like the beautiful one, the tree from like- yeah, the actual tree, and we did not put that down until my dad's birthday in March. [both laugh] Like, it was dry.

C: Oh, like it was an alive tree? It wasn't plastic?

G: It was an alive tree. It was an alive tree.

C: Nice.

G: We got it- the reasoning was like, we were not able to put it up early, because like, the alive tree comes from like, somewhere else. So it like, arrives in our house like, a couple of days before Christmas. So we're like, “Let's just keep it up for three more months. It's fine."

C: Yeah, that makes sense.

G: That was so difficult to dispose. ‘Cause, like, we don't have alive trees in the Philippines like, for Christmas. For obvious reasons. It's a tropical country. But yeah, that was so hard to dispose.

C: Yeah, I think we keep ours up like, until mid-January. So that's a little bit after.

G: Yeah. Christmas is super big here, and I love Christmas episodes because of that, because I'm like, “Oh, you’re just like me for real!” And I think that's a big reason why I got super emotional towards the end. Because, like, don't, you feel like every time you go on a holiday, and you're like, “Oh my god! The mortality is looming over everything. Because, like, who knows if next year, we’ll all be together like this, because someone might die.” So like, I felt very emotional.

C: Yeah. I mean Christmas isn't that big for me anymore. But like, when I was a kid, definitely, I feel like this would have hit quite hard.

-

C: Okay. So now we cut to the present day, and we're in Ipsilanti, Michigan, which is a city/town that I know of, because there's a Sufjan Stevens song about it, which is a good song. I recommend it. So there's someone being interviewed. There's some woman who- her husband got kidnapped or whatever, and Sam and Dean are interviewing her about the situation. And, you know, she's not doing well, 'cause she's like, “If he was kidnapped, then why wasn't there a ransom demanded? Why is he just gone?” And she's like, “It's three days till Christmas! What am I supposed to tell our daughter?” And Sam just goes, “We're very sorry.” [laughs] And then leaves.

G: He literally said, “That's not our problem!” [G laughs]

C: Yeah, like, "RIP to you, but I'm different." And we also find out that they found a tooth inside of the chimney. So, you know, something dragged him up the chimney, and he definitely died mid-drag.

So they're inside a motel, and Sam has basically a red yarn wall of photos of demons all around him. And he's looking up, like, I don't know. “Crampus,” “evil Santa.” Like, I don't know what his Google search terms are for these images. And yeah, Dean comes in. Sam makes a Mary Poppins reference where he says that it's a serial-killing chimney sweep named Dick Van Dyke. Great name, of course.

G: Yes.

C: And Dean doesn't know this reference. Like which, I think maybe- I know we made fun of him a lot in “Bedtime Stories,” but maybe the fact that the two things that he doesn't know are like, children's media implies that, I don't know. I don't know. What do Deangirls say?

G: "He never had a childhood." [laughs]

C: Yeah, that Sam got a childhood that Dean never got, and Sam was John's favorite, and John cuddled him and showed him Disney movies, and then he yelled at Dean to go clean a gun. [laughing] Like, you know, whatever imaginary childhood Deangirls created for him.

G: To be fair, I also don't know who Dick Van Dyke is. Like, I know the name, because of all the jokes, but, like, I don't know who he is. I know he’s in Mary Poppins, and he has an ugly English accent, but I knew that after. So like, prior to the whole-

C: [laughing] Do you use "ugly English accent" to mean Cockney?

G: [laughing] No! I mean, like, his accent was bad in the Mary Poppins movie.

C: Yeah, I don't remember his accent. I mean, I actually didn't watch the Mary Poppins movie, I just know, like, maybe a tiny bit about it, because when I was a kid, I read Julie Andrews autobiography or something instead of watching Mary Poppins. But yeah, I don't know. Well, Sam has seen it, and he and Dean are always in the same room, so I don't know. Weird. Who knows? This may have been another situation where Sam was like, “I want to watch Mary Poppins 'cause I think Julie Andrews is a good singer,” and Dean went, “Okay, homo,” and then went over to the bathroom to cover his ears.

G: There's so many “Okay, homo” scenes [both] in this episode! [both laughing]

C: [laughing] There's so many!

G: Literally, “Okay, homo.” [C laughs]

C: Yeah. So basically, Dean has found out that someone else got kidnapped this month, and he also got dragged up the chimney. And Sam goes, “I have an idea, but it's gonna sound crazy,” and Dean's like, “What could sound crazy to me?” Sam says, “Evil Santa,” and Dean says, “That is crazy.” Which, is it? Is it? They've dealt with weird shit before.

G: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what's wrong with these guys, but they treat it like it's super weird, because, like, [dramatically] "How can there be evil Santa if there's no good Santa?" Also, Sam says his iconic line “every culture," baby! "Every culture”! “There's an anti-Santa in every culture”! [laughs]

C: Which is so funny, 'cause that implies that there is like, a non-anti-Santa in every culture.

G: I love that.

C: There's a Santa in like, five cultures, like, max, I think.

G: Love that. Which, you know, is it too late to start an “every culture” count? Maybe we can like, look back-

C: - in our transcripts for the word "culture"?

G: Yeah, exactly. I think we should start.

C: We could do that. We could. But my laptop doesn't work right now, so I-

G: No, let's start it next time he says “every culture.” So look forward to that, BABPod listeners

C: So Sam says his whole “every culture” line, because, you know, there's a lot of evil Santas, and like, he gives three examples. He goes, "There's all sorts of lore." He also says, “That's what the lore says" at one point. So real.

G: Yeah. And it's fascinating to me that he was like, “In every culture, there's an anti-Claus. Also, the only way that this anti-Claus shows up in every single culture is that he's the brother of Santa.” [both laughing]

C: Out of Sam and Dean, who's Santa and who's the evil Santa?

G: I think Sam should be the evil Santa, just for funsies.

C: Yeah, just for funsies.

G: I feel like- I feel like Sam is a bit more judgmental, so like, he'll be able to be more petty in terms of the naughty or nice list.

C: Right. So you think he would go around and punish the bad kids? I mean, I feel like Dean's track record with children and mean- I think Dean's meaner to children, and I feel like Dean might have a more punish-y mindset. But I don't know. Sam's views on justice are also strange.

G: Oh my god. There's this one episode of Supernatural where they end up in a high school, remember that?

C: Oh, and Dean sexually harasses teenage girls or something.

G: No!

C: Don't they make a comment about lockers?

G: No. I have no idea, and if you're right, I'm gonna be so sad.

G: No, it's I I I have no idea. And if you're right, I'm gonna be so sad. But what I remember is, they're playing dodgeball, and he like, throws a ball at some kid, and the kid like, doubles over. So.

C: [laughing] Oh no! Yeah, I think Dean's gotta be the evil Santa.

So Dean goes like, “Santa doesn't have a brother. There is no Santa.” And Sam says, [sadly] “Yeah, I know. You're the one who told me that in the first place, remember?" [both laughing]

G: [laughing] And the way-

C: [laughing] There's such a long, sad look between them. Like, I get that's because it happened on a really bad night. Like, it was bundled with a lot of things. But in this moment, it's hilarious.

G: I laughed out loud. Like, the moment that scene happened, I was like, "This is my type of Supernatural episode." Like, after they explained it later that, like, the reason why he learned of Santa is fake is because blah blah blah blah blah blah, it's a miserable night, I was like, "Ugh, dammit." [C laughs] I wish it was just Dean told him one day, "Yeah, Santa doesn't exist," and Sam internalized it as a super lonely moment.

C: Yeah. [laughs] How did you learn that Santa didn't exist?

G: Oh, I never believed in Santa.

C: Oh, that's good.

G: I didn't receive gifts for Christmas from my parents, because we were not like, rich when I was young. But now we're rich, and I have a little sister.

C: Right, so she's getting the Santa mythology.

G: So she gets the gifts, but she doesn't get the Santa. It's like, my parents are still like, “We got that for you. There's no Santa.” And like, they don't want Santa to get-

C: The credit? [both laughing] Yeah. That makes sense. I think in fourth grade, you know, there were all these awful rumors going around my classroom that Santa wasn't real, and I went on like, a two-hour Googling spree about it, and I think I was literally crying by the end. [both laughing]

G: Nooo! Ah!

C: And then, you know, I immediately turned that around by- when my sister was 12 and still believed in Santa, I told her, and then she was crying. [laughs]

G: That is amazing.

C: And that's what generational trauma is. [both laugh]

G: That's actually like, so fascinating to me. You actually did believe it?

C: Yes.

G: That's so wonderful. That's fascinating

C: Because my sister and I would devise little tests, right? Like we would like, write a note to Santa, and then, like, hide it somewhere. We were like, “Our parents will never find this!" And then we would get a response, and we'd be like, “Oh my god! That was Santa for real. He just happens to have my mom's handwriting? Wow!”

G: You parents put so much effort to give you such a magical childhood. That's wonderful.

C: Yeah, they really did. I appreciate it.

G: I don't know, actually, if my little sister believes it. Because, like, my parents are like, “Oh, we got that for you.” But like, she still jokes around like, “Oh, it's from Santa!” you know? I think there's a part of her that still believes. Like, for example, one time she wrote a note that was like, “I want a little kitten for Christmas.” And then, like a couple of months later, we got a kitten, and she was like, “This is Santa's gift for me in the middle of summer!” [C laughs] So.

C: That's great.

G: Yeah. It's a magical thing.

C: It sure is.

-

C: And so Dean tells Sam that both victims visited the same Santa's village location before they got kidnapped, so they head there.

G: Yeah. So they go to a Santa village, and I was- this is part of the plot that, like, it's like, the middle of summer. It looks like it's the middle of summer, right? It's part of the plot, but like, I didn't know it at this point. So I was like, "Goddamn, they're not even trying anymore." Like, they're not even trying to make this look festive. And like, maybe it's supposed to look dingy, but like, throw a little something in there. But they do acknowledge it that, like, “If we're paying this much money, they should have gotten fake snow.” And they paid ten dollars? That's insane.

C: Yeah, that's a lot of money.

G: To get into that shittyass place. [C laughs] But they enter. And Sam is like, just walking around. They're just bantering. And then Dean goes forth and leaves Sam behind, and he sees a reindeer and gets a flashback. And the funny thing is, there's no reindeer in the flashback.

C: [laughing] Yeah!

G: What triggers this? He saw a reindeer, and he was like, “Huh. Remember when I had an event in my life that had no reindeers whatsoever?”

C: It's a great angle where he's just staring down the reindeer.

G: It's funny, because it looks like the start of a comedic scene, and then you get the saddest flashback of your life. [both laugh]

C: It really is. Also, like, earlier, when Sam and Dean are arguing, I think Dean says, “We had some great Christmases,” and Sam says, “Whose childhood are you talking about?” And I liked that exchange a lot. I like the very different ways that they experienced their shitty childhood and the various ways that they've chosen to process them.

G: Mm-hm. Yeah, so in the flashback, it's 1991, Christmas eve, and Dean is like 12, and Sam is, you know, four years younger. And Sam is wrapping up a present for John in newspaper. And Dean asked, “Where did you get the money?” and he's like, “No, I didn't steal the money. I got this from Uncle Bobby, and he said it was a special gift.”

C: Aww. That's sweet. Do you think Bobby gave it to Sam to have?

G: No, he said specifically that he gave it to Sam to give to John.

C: Oh, I see.

G: Maybe Sam was like, “I want to give my dad a present,” and Bobby was like, “Here we go. Here's something you can give him.” Also, I'm very curious about this. If he didn't know at this point that they were doing hunting, how is Bobby explained to him? "Here's our dad's my best friend who happens to have a house full of occult objects and guns."

C: Yeah, you know. "He's just got some weird hyperfixations. Don't bother him about it."

G: “Our dad's boyfriend is so weird!” [C laughing]

C: Yeah, no, 'cause in- sorry to talk about Interview With the Vampire- [G laughs] but in Interview With the Vampire, Claudia calls Louis “Daddy Lou,” and she calls his boyfriend Lestat “Uncle Les.” So yeah, "uncle" does mean your dad's boyfriend in this situation.

G: Yeah. Oh my god! When they were younger, they called Bobby "Uncle Bobby"! That's so sweet. That's so sweet. Yeah.

Is that common? Like, at what age do you outgrow the “uncle”?

C: Huh, I don't know, because I feel like most of my parents’ friends are Chinese, so I call them “shushu” or “aiyi,” which I guess means aunt or uncle. But I don't know what like, the English terms that people use for their friends parents' are.

G: I think people just say first names, right, in the US?

C: Like- even if they/re a generation above you?

G: For me, like, you're one year older, you already have something before your name, you know? So like I don't- It makes me uneasy to think that like, someone's older and I just say, “Hey, Bobby." [laughing] Like, that doesn't fly! What are you doing?

C: Yeah, I mean. I guess I did call like, my fifty-year-old coworkers and stuff by their first names over the summer.

G: Oh my god. That's the weirdest thing about having a job. Like, you call your coworkers, who are all older than you, by their first name. Your boss, you call- like, why am I not calling you, sir? This is so weird.

C: Yeah. I feel like professors go by their first names, too, now. It's strange. But I've gotten used to it mostly, I think.

G: What happens next? And Sam asks whether John is going to be around for Christmas, and Dean’s like, “Oh, yeah, he's going to be. Of course he is. He's just on business right now.” And Sam is questioning, "What kind of stuff? What kind of business?" and Dean just evades every question and Sam goes, “Nobody ever tells me anything!” which did make me so sad. Because you ever feel like that? You ever feel like nobody tells you anything? I feel like that's a common experience for people who are like, younger in the family. Like, “I'm so stupid because nobody tells me anything!” And I relate to Sam in that way. So I felt an emotion, a singular emotion, in this scene.

C: I don’t know how much I relate, but it did make me very sad.

G: Yeah, it's sad. And Sam like, keeps on asking like, “Is Dad a spy?” And Dean goes, “Yeah, he's James Bond.” And he asks, like, “Why do we keep moving around so much?” And Dean goes, “Yeah, because everybody is so fucking sick of you and your face. That's why we keep moving around.” [C laughs] He's so mean. And at some point, he shouts at Sam, and like, I get that if you are around each other that much, you are gonna shout at each other, and it's gonna get miserable. But like, because, like he's older like, I feel like you should, you know, control yourself a little bit more. Stuff like that. Try to be the bigger person.

C: My main thought-

G: What's your main thought.

C: My main thought during this scene, "Aw, it's sweet when child actors try to be angry." [laughs]

G: Aww, he's angy!

C: He's angy!

G: He's trying to be angy!

C: [high-pitched] "Don't ever talk about Mom again!"

G: Yeah, that's what happens next. Sam goes, "Is that why we never talk about..."

C: Dun-dun-dun-

G: "... Mom?" And then Dean goes, “Don’t ever talk about Mom again!” [C laughs] And then he storms out the room and says that he's going out, and he leaves, and that's the end of our first flashback.

C: Yeah. Baby Sam is so cute. I know I said this the last time we saw him.

G: He is so important to me.

C: He really is. And it's a different actor in this one.

G: That's Sam. He's literally Sam. This one is literally Sam.

C: What's his name? Like Colin-

G: Colin Ford?

C: Yeah. Yeah. This is literally him.

G: There's this one- oh, no, I think this is the Dean guy who was like, he's twenty-six the day the show ended or something like that. And that was super fun. Because he's twenty-six, dude!

C: Aw, yeah.

G: Dean comes back, Sam gets snapped out of his memories, and they go to this guy who's wearing a Santa costume. And they're making this guy out to be a creep.

C: Yeah.

G: I feel bad for Santas, because, like, they are made out to be creeps, I feel like. Mall Santas. They're just doing their job! They're being paid to do it. But I don't know. Maybe I'm too naive. What happens is there's a kid there, and then he goes to Santa, and Santa is like, “Oh, are you good this year? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.” Fun! And somebody approaches Sam and Dean like, “Do you have any kids? We'll take the kids, and we'll put them on Santa's lap!" [C laughs] And Dean says like, [both laughing] “No, but my brother here, it's his lifelong dream." And the woman goes, “No children above twelve, please!”

C: It's so good.

G: "No children above twelve." So real.

C: And she pauses before twelve, like she's trying to figure out how old Sam is. And she's like, "He's probably at least thirteen."

G: Yeah, maybe he's just a really tall thirteen-year-old.

C: Yeah.

G: And Sam goes like, “No, he's just kidding. We came here to watch.” [C laughs] And then, like, the woman takes this very poorly, and she's like, “Oh, you creep!” Yeah.

And yeah. Sam and Dean end up following the guy because he had a smell to him. Like, he smelled like candy, and apparently that's like, a sign of the monster they're hunting. So they follow him to his RV.

C: Or his house, I think.

G: Is that a house?

C: It's just small.

G: Okay. [laughs] I'm so judgmental. I'm like, "If your house is small, it must be an RV." Yeah. But they follow him to his house.

-

C: Yeah. So they're spying on him, and Dean starts going like, “Hey, Sam, why do you hate Christmas so much? Like we had a few bumpy holidays when we were kids…” And Sam goes, “Bumpy?” So yeah, more of that. And Dean says like, “That was then. We'll do it right this year.” And Sam says that he just doesn't really want to be involved in Christmas this year. Dean can do it himself. And, you know, Dean's like, "Well, that will suck and be lonely." So inside of the house they hear like, a woman yell or something. And because they haven't seen Home Alone, they don't understand this is a television. So they run into the house with their guns. Sam cracks a joke about how, “Oh, you love Christmas so much, but you're gonna have to kill Santa.”

G: You don't know this guy's evil? [laughs]

C: Yeah, geez.

G: You're literally busting in, guns blazing.

C: I know, right? They go in, and this guy is not torturing anybody. He's just on his couch with a gigantic bong. Like, this one puts Andy's to shame, honestly, I think. And he's watching some like, Christmas-themed porn, I think.

G: [laughs] Yeah.

C: And the Santa guy goes like, “What the fuck are you doing here?” And they try to come up with an excuse. [laughing] And then Dean starts singing “Silent Night” to pretend to be a choru- why did I forget the-

G: Caroler.

C: Caroler. Yeah.

G: Is caroling a big deal in the US?

C: It's never like, happened, like, around me.

G: It never?

C: Oh, I think when I was in choir in high school, actually, I think we did go caroling once.

G: House to house?

C: No, it wasn't house to house. That felt way too intrusive. I think it was just like, in areas with shops. [G laughs]

G: Caroling is a very big deal here. Yeah, I mean, like, when you're a kid you go caroling, and it's like, super fun. And you have maracas, and like the thing, and you sing outside with maracas. And it's always a treat, because the people who are rich in the households in the neighborhood give you tons of money. So super fun.

C: Oh, nice! You get money for caroling?

G: Yeah, that's the whole point! And, like the songs are like, it's a mix of like- It's not like "Carol of the Bells," but like, it's like, Filipino Christmas songs, right? And then you sing those, and some of them are like, literally like, asking for money, and then, like, they give you money, and then you have a special song for after they give you the money.

C: Like, “Thanks for giving me money” song?

G: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

C: That is fun.

G: It's like, [singsong] “Thank you / thank you / thank you very much / thank you." That's the song.

C: So true.

G: And then like, if they don't give you money, there's a song that you sing also. [both laughing] And it's like, “You're such a cheapskate, you horrible person,” like that's the message of the song. It's in Filipino, so I can't sing it, but like, it's wonderful. I love it so much.

C: Yeah, they are caroling songs in English that demand that you give them figgy pudding?

G: Figgy pudding, yeah.

C: But I don't know what figgy pudding is.

G: Mm-hm. I love caroling and and like, it's one of the most miserable things when the pandemic started, and, like, it kind of died down. And it was around the time that my little sister was at caroling age. So she still hasn't gone caroling ever! That's so sad.

C: That is sad.

G: But we plan to take her this year.

C: That's nice. Yeah, I feel like caroling's only a thing I see in Hallmark movies and also in Love Hard. [laughs]

G: Love Hard! [both laughing] A movie that we hate so much we made a whole Ko-Fi bonus episode about it.

C: Yup.

G: Check it out!

C: Yeah. Oh, and my ex-fiancee booed at this scene because she called it "a preview to Radio Company."

G: [laughing] Oh, no! I mean, they're making it sound horrible on purpose.

C: Yeah. He's a bad singer. And later, when Jensen Ackles wants to promote his band, Dean suddenly becomes a good singer-

G: He's still a terrible singer. "Just the good ol' boys."

C: Didn't he do karaoke with Lee?

G: Yeah. That's the song. I literally just sang it.

C: Nice. Yeah. Was he good or bad in that one?

G: I mean, he's singing as Jensen Ackles, and I wish he would stop, you know. I wish he wouldn't.

C: Yeah. Same.

-

G: So as they stop singing “Silent Night,” actual “Silent Night” starts playing, and we go to a house that's Christmassy, blah blah blah! And there's a little kid, and he's walking down the stairs, and he's like, “Santa? Santa?” because there's sounds on the chimney. And then somebody gets out of the chimney, and it's this like, bloody guy. And he- this scene, by the way is so long. It's so long. He goes upstairs. There's shouting in the room. He grabs someone who's like, wriggling for their life, and he takes this person down the stairs, and then all throughout like, “Silent Night” is playing. And there's a scene where he goes up to the kid, and the kid is terrified. Like most of the scene, the kid is confused, but this one scene, he's terrified because Santa’s leaning towards him, and then what he's actually doing is reaching out for the cookies. And then he eats it, and he takes the dad away. And this kid is traumatized for life.

C: Yeah, sorry, kid. Also, we don't see this like, evil Santa guy’s face. We just see, like, the clawed red hand. Okay, I'm kind of confused about this because we don't- when we find out who the monster of the week is, like, they don't look like that, and we don't see them transform, right? So like, who is it?

G: I think this guy is just in a costume.

C: Okay, including the red clawed hand? It's a costume?

G: Maybe- I mean, there's moments in the later on where they're like, you know, Sam lights a flashlight at them, and like, the guy turns a different face.

C: Oh, okay.

G: So maybe- there's hints of that going on.

C: Okay. I was playing scrabble with my ex-fiancee while watching this, so [laughs] I probably missed that part.

G: Did you win? Did you win?

C: Oh, we don't keep track of points.

G: Boo!

C: We win if we're able to use all the letters in the bag and actually spell out valid words throughout the board.

G: Boo. You have to be competitive.

C: I don't want to do math! [G laughs]

G: You're a math major!

C: [laughs] And?

G: [laughs] Prove my point!

C: Yeah. So we have Dean questioning the family that got attacked earlier. Do they ever explain why it's only men who get taken by the gods?

G: They're anti-misogynist.

C: So true. [laughs]

G: No, I think they are supposed to take the woman as well, but it's like, they failed, I feel. Because, like, she was being dragged out of bed, is what she said.

C: That's true. But it said that the attacker just knocked her out and then took her husband so it seemed like she was just attacked to like, keep her not fighting when they took the husband. Because earlier, it was like the grandfather, and they were interviewing a wife whose husband was taken. I don't know. Maybe it's a lore thing.

G: Yeah.

C: Yeah. So you know, she got dragged out of bed. She got knocked out. Her husband got kidnapped, or whatever. And, you know, she's having a terrible time. And Sam goes, “Oh, hey! Where'd you get that wreath above the fireplace?” And she's incredibly offended that he would ask about that during the worst day of her life. And Sam’s just like, “Yeah, sorry. Just curious, you know.” And then, when they go outside [laughing]-

G:[laughing] Dean goes, "What, you want to look at her shoes next? There's handbags there, too." He's so homophobic!

C: He's so homophobic. He is absolutely calling him gay here. Yowch.

G: But you know what? Sam's gayness got them something, because that wreath is also the wreath from the other house the other day.

C: Yup.

G: So, go, gay boy, go.

C: Go, gay boy, go.

And Dean was like, [embarrassed] “Oh, yeah, I noticed that. I was just like, making fun of you, you know, like, whatever. I'm a big smart boy, too.” [G laughs]

G: Exactly. So we go back to the motel, and Sam is calling Bobby, and apparently the plants in the wreath are meadowsweet, which is a very powerful plant in the pagan lore. And it's used for like, human sacrifice. So if you put that up your house, it's like. “Look at me! Human sacrifice me now! I want it so bad.” So that's what's happening, and that's why people are getting mauled to death. And Dean expresses surprise at the fact that "Why is it the pagan thing? Isn't Christmas a Jesus holiday?" It's so fascinating-

C: Yeah, he says, "It's Jesus's birthday!"

G: Yeah. He's like, [whiny] "Jesus was born on the 25th! So why are you lying to me, Sam?"

C: Yeah. "In the solar calendar, Sam!"

G: This is so fascinating to me, because, like isn't this something that's taught to you from the get-go? I mean, not taught-

C: I do think a lot of people think that it's Jesus's birthday. But yeah, I feel like it's pretty common knowledge now.

G: Yeah. Maybe, again, maybe it's like a difference in time, and it's like, "Now it's super common, but back then, people were more conservative about the idea of Christmas." [laughs] I don't know. But yeah. It's all Christmas- it's all Pagan, the Santa, the wreaths, the food, blah blah blah. And I like this because Sam like, is revealed to actually know a lot about Christmas. He's like, "Jess was actually born in the fall." Blah blah blah blah! So like, I like that detail because it's like a nice contrast to the fact that he doesn't like Christmas, and also that he knows a lot about it. I think that's neat.

C: Yeah. Okay, wait, was Jesus born in the fall? Because okay, like, it's because of the state of the lambs that- I thought I heard that Jesus was born in the spring because if there were like, new baby lambs when he was born, then that was the spring. I don't know. What have you heard about when Jesus was born?

G: Well, [laughing] he was born on Christmas Day! [both laugh] I don't know anything.

C: Yeah, Jesus Christ our sa-avior was born on Christmas Day. This is true.

G: It's so true. Yeah. I mean, I know nothing about the actual Christmas/Jesus lore. I loove calling Jesus lore "Jesus lore."

C: It literally is.

G: That's what we should call like, all Bible things. Like, Christianity, Catholicism. "It's Bible lore!"

C: Yeah. Is there a Bible fanwiki page?

G: Oh my god! Let's look it up. Bible fanwiki... there has got to be- Yes!

C: Yeah, baby!

G: Bible.fandom.com! Is it good? Is it good? I think it's- it's full of like, people.

C: Sorry, there's a page just called "Beautiful Women." [G laughs] Sorry, it's a category page, and it's under the most popular category pages.

G: Who's in there? Mary Magdalene... Ruth...

C: There's Bathsheba, Rachel-

G: Rachel?

C: Esther, Abishag, Tamar. Yeah.

G: Good for them. I love beautiful women.

C: Where's the unnamed narrator of the Song of Songs? Oh well. We can't have it all.

-

G: So Sam and Dean go to the Christmas shop, and Dean tells the guy in there that like, “Oh, we were playing Jenga at the Walshes right before one of their people in the family got taken and eaten by a monster! [C laughs] And this guy, Sam, wouldn't shut up about the Christmas wreath! So Sam, go tell him about the Christmas wreath.” I feel like this is also like, "This guy is gay, and isn't that so funny."

C: Oh, definitely. It definitely is. The same way that, like, what was it? In like, “Playthings,” Dean was like, “Oh, yeah, Sam looves dolls. He collects dolls all the time.”

G: Yeah, yeah. He's so mean. But yeah, the shopkeeper is like, “Well, I sell so many of them.” And Sam explains what he's looking for, and the shopkeeper-

C: He says, “It was yummy.”

G: Yeah. [laughs] Why did it say that?

C: I think he's trying to gauge if the shopkeeper is like, the person who's taking people and eating them.

G: Oh, yeah, but he's not. He says that it's sold out already, the wreath. And Sam's like, “Oh, why did you make it with meadowsweet?” And he's like, “I didn't make it. It was this lady from like, somewhere in the neighborhood. She made it and gave it to me for a free.” So they have a new suspect.

C: Yeep.

So they go back to the motel. And yeah, Sam reveals that a meadowsweet wreath would usually cost a couple hundred dollars.

G: I believe that.

C: Is this an extremely rare plant? Or0 whatever. I know that like, proper floral arrangements from a florist can cost like eighty dollars, so I guess that tracks. And Dean says, “Remember that wreath Dad brought home that one year?” And Sam says, “Oh, the one he stole from a liquor store?” which I think it's the only cool thing that John has ever done. [both laugh]

G: Yeah, apparently, it's made of beer cans.

C: Yeah, yeah. And Dean is very fond of it. He wants to find one just like it. But this is not so much a fond memory for Sam. He asks Dean, like, “Why do you care so bad about Christmas right now?” And Dean’s like, “Why are you so against it? Were  your childhood memories that traumatic?” And, you know, Sam says, “No, that's not it. It's just that you like, usually don't care about Christmas.” And Dean says, “Well, yeah, this is my last year.”

G: Ahhhhhhh.

C: And Sam says like, “Yeah, I know, which is why I can't do Christmas. Because it's would be really difficult for me to like, have a celebration and pretend everything's okay when I know that next Christmas, you'll be dead.” And both of them just sit there, being sad. And then we get a flashback, baby!

-

G: Sam is like, sitting on the couch, waiting for Dean to come home in the motel room that is their home at this point. And Dean walks in. He's like, “I got you dinner.” And Sam tells him, “I know you keep a gun under your pillow.” And Dean looks at the gun under his pillow, and-

C: [laughing] He's like, “No, I don't!"

G: "No, I don't! Look at this gun I'm looking at right now. It's not there, and I don't keep a gun under my pillow." But he basically says like, "Don't don't look at my stuff." And Sam says, “I know what Dad does too,” and then he takes out the journal, and he hands it over to Dean. And Dean is like, "Why did you read that? You shouldn't have."

C: "- read Dad's diary."

G: Yeah, Dad's diary. And Sam asks, “Are monsters real?” and then Dean goes gaslight gatekeep girlboss-

C: Yeah, for real!

G: - “You're fucking crazy.”

C: [laughing] God.

G: And Sam’s like, “No, just be honest with me. Just tell me.” And Dean goes, “Okay. I'll tell you. But don't tell Dad I told you. Monsters are real, and Dad is a hero. He's super cool. He's the coolest guy on earth."

C: Boo.

G: "He hunts them down and kills them.” 

C: Also, like, Dean says, “If Dad finds out that you read his journal, [both] he's gonna kick your ass." And then he says, “I'll kick your ass if you tell Dad that I told you about monsters.” It's just sad that corporal punishment is such a thing in their childhoods.

G: Yeah. And Dean is like, “Yeah, monsters are real.” And Sam’s like, wait, “Why would monsters be real if Dad keeps on saying that the monsters under my bed are not real?” And Dean is like, “Yeah, because he already checked under your bed. So he knows they're not real this time.” And Sam asks about Mary because he read about-

C: Hold on. You forgot the "Is Santa real?" thing. That was the whole point of this.

G: [laughing] Noo! Then he asks, "Is Santa real?" and Dean goes, "No. Santa isn't real." [C laughs] He's eight years old. I feel like this is an appropriate time to learn that Santa is not real. But according to you, this is a super big deal, so like, maybe not.

C: [laughing] It was a big deal

G: [laughs] God. And then- like, the thing is, it's not just me. I don't know anyone in my life who believes in Santa.

C: Oh, yeah, no, I was definitely- like, my sister was probably one of the latest people to know that Santa wasn't real. And then, yeah, I feel like I was also pretty late in the game, but my parents were like, just really good at keeping it up, I guess. They were like, "We'll tell you  some more about Santa when you're fifteen.” They said "When you're fifteen." They were planning to hold out until I was fifteen. [G laughing]

G: You're like, a full grown person at age fifteen. Like, you are a human being at that point.

C: Children are also human beings [G laughs], but yes, like, right, the logic centers of my brain or whatever.

G: Yeah, you're able to grasp shit at that point. So maybe that's why they were waiting until fifteen.

C: [laughing] That's still- that's really late.

G: Yeah. And Sam asks about Mary, and, "They got Mom, right?" And he says, “If they got Mom, they could get Dad. They could get us.” And Dean keeps reassuring him. But he keeps repeating this, like, "They could get us. They could get Dad. 'Cause they got Mom." And then Dean just reassures him that "Dad's gonna be fine. He's all right. We're gonna be all right, and Dad's gonna be here for Christmas." So Sam goes, "I want to go to sleep!" And then he goes to sleep crying, and the whole time I was like, "Why are you crying?" And I get that this is like, a big deal for him, and it's an emotional moment. But like, stop crying, you're such a loser, Sam!

C: Noo! No! He's eight! He's a little baby!

G: Maybe he doesn't look eight. Maybe because he looks older than eight and like, I fail to, you know, like, see him as a kid. Because he looks like, eleven, like, maybe twelve.

C: Okay, you have a six-year-old sister so you know what little kids look like. I have not seen a child in so long. Like, I'll see a nineteen-year-old playing a fourteen-year-old, and I'll be like, “Yeah, that's a fourteen-year-old. That's what they look like.”

G: Yeah, perhaps. Maybe I am like, the special case of someone who knows what children look like.

C: Yeah, exactly. Like, to me, Sam's definitely eight.

G: He's eight in spirit.

C: And it's very sad. I mean, okay, like, if you found out- f you, as a full-grown adult like, found out that monsters were like, for sure, one hundred percent real, and killed your mom like, wouldn't that be upsetting? Like wouldn't that be a little bit scawy? [G laughs]

G: I think, like, the fear of that "It's gonna get our dad!" and he obviously loves John because he's, you know, he wants to give him a gift-

C: Yeah, right, and John's out there hunting, like, right now.

G: Yeah. And it's really brings up the idea that like, maybe hunting is selfish because you're putting like, so much stress to the people around you who know about it, you know, stuff like that. Maybe.

C: Does Dean- I know that Dean doesn't believe John will be back for Christmas. But does he believe any of the other stuff he's saying?

G: I think he believes that John will be back for Christmas, honestly.

C: Wait, really? Oh.

G: Yeah, I think he genuinely believed. And then, when he figured out that like, it's not going to happen, he just stole presents.

C: Aw, that's so sad.

G: Because, like- you think this entire time he was like, “Dad's not gonna be here”? I feel like if Dad was not gonna be here, he's gonna be like, "No, Dad's not gonna be here." Like, he's not gonna lie to Sam. So I do believe that he believed-

C: He lied to Sam a lot this episode. [G laughs]

G: No, but about that? You think he'd lie about John arriving home for Christmas?

C: Yeah! I think he would.

G: But like, the lie doesn't fly, because Sam will know eventually.

C: Well, later, John doesn't show up, and Dean does lie about it. He says, “He was here while you were asleep.”

G: Well, to me, he did believe it. And then, like, he also was disappointed.

C: Okay, yeah, I get that, I guess, because he says like, “Oh, he'll be back, just like he was back last time,” or “He's always back,” right? Doesn't he say something like that.

G: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

C: So maybe he does believe that Christmas is a special day where John doesn't abandon them in motel rooms, and then he was proven wrong on this one day.

G: Yeah.

C: Yeah. Do you think Dean believes that they're safe from the monsters?

G: I think I think he really believes that John is like, a good hunter, etc. etc.

C: Okay. But what happened in "Something Wicked" happened before this, right?

G: Yeah. The shtriga, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

C: So Sam just doesn't remember being literally attacked by a monster already.

G: He did not see the monster.

C: He was asleep?

G: He was asleep, yeah.

C: But, like afterwards, John was all being like, he was being like, very overprotective, and clearly, something had happened. But I don't know, when you're like, five, you don't remember anything.

G: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

C: Yeah, all right. Well, poor kids.

-

C: We cut to Sam and Dean going to the house of the person who made the wreath. So they knock. And it's like, this Hallmark old people couple where they're like, white people with like, specific outfits and ways of talking that I feel like stopped being in real life for like, perhaps a few decades before this episode aired, maybe. They're very Hallmark.

G: Yeah, 1950s, maybe.

C: Yeah, yeah. So they're like, “Hi, like we just came over because we thought your wreaths were so neat. And you sold out of all of them before we could get one, so could we get another one from you?” And she's like, “Aw, no.” And they ask about the meadowsweet, and she just says, “Oh, it smells really nice,” blah blah blah. And then her husband comes over. He offers them some food. Dean reaches for it, and Sam slaps his hand away. [laughs] And they go back to the motel, where Dean is like, sharpening up some wooden stake, and Sam reveals that the people who live in the house, the Carrigans, they lived in Seattle before this year, which is where our opening kidnapping happened. And also, he noticed that there was a lot of pagan stuff inside of their house, and also, all their furniture is covered in plastic.

G: Yeah. Fun stuff. I think that's a very nice detail that their couch is covered in plastic.

C: Right. Like, they are not living here the way that most people would live in a place. Also, the wooden stakes are evergreen specifically, because that's what Bobby said would get them.

G: Yeah, and like, this gif is like- I think there's a post floating around that's like, “He's sharpening this stake, and then none of the wood shavings are going into the bucket underneath." [C laughs] And it's like, it looks so stupid because there's just wood everywhere except for the trash bin. Love that.

C: Yeah, are there like, outsider POV fics about like, the people have to clean the motels after Sam and Dean leave?

G: There should be. There should be like. I want them to go back to season 1, and like, the person who's cleaning- I know they discover like, John's room, but like, the person who has to clean that, I want to know his perspective. I want to know their perspective.

C: Yeah. There should be an episode where there's like, ghost of Christmas past, present, and future for them, and, like, the whole point is “clean your motel rooms before you leave.” [G laughs]

G: I mean, there's actually one episode right, “Lebanon,” that was supposed to be like-

C: An outsider POV?

G: - an outside perspective, which I wish they did that. I wish JDM wasn't available, or some other shit. That would have fucked so good. [C laughing] No, that's not how people say- Fucked so hard? That's it, yeah.

C: Yeah. I mean-

G: Anyway-

C: - everyone fucks better when JDM isn't available. [G laughs]

G: I love how you said that so quickly, like you're trying to get it in before I say my next sentence. [C laughs]

C: Yeah.

G: Yeah.

Okay. So finally, Sam and Dean go to the Carrigan house, and as they enter, they see the couch, and it is covered in plastic, and Dean is like, “See, it's covered in plastic,” and then they go down to the basement which Sam finds, and there's blood everywhere. There's like, weird shit. There's a bag of a person that's like, still alive. They don't update us on this person ever again.

C: Yeah, I don't even know if they rescue this person. [both laugh]

G: I mean, I sure hope they did. But also, there's a strong suggestion that they just forgot about him.

C: Yeah, 'cause they were- 'cause Sam was like, “Gotta run back and put up the Christmas decorations!” Meanwhile, a man is dying.

G: Yeah. Anyway, Sam gets attacked by the lady, and Dean gets attacked by the guy, and, like, the guy like, smashes his head against the wall, and then the lady smashes Sam's head against the wall. But before that, Sam flashes a flashlight at the guy, and the guy kind of changes appearance. So it's like, “Ooh, they're monsters.” But yeah, they pass out, and they wake up, and they're tied down to chairs back-to-back in a kitchen, like a dining hall, and the two people are like, walking around with bowls and shit and tools, and they're like, talking about how they're Pagan gods, and it's so horrible because people don't respect them anymore. And there was a time where they ate millions, or something, or thousands, or something. And now they just eat five, and isn't that so swell? You know what it is? Good for them.

C: Yeah, honestly, I feel like they're doing pretty well. If you have to eat five people a year to survive, I don't know, eat five people a year to survive.

G: Yeah. Your Interview With the Vampire tendencies are coming out. [C laughs]

C: Right. Okay, also, doesn't the man tells Sam, “Oh, now, don't get all wet.” [laughing] What does that mean? What does it mean?

G: Maybe that's like, a turn of phrase back in the day.

C: Yeah, 'cause they're old-timey?

G: Yeah. Anyway, they start doing the ritual, which is like, they put the meadowsweet wreaths around their necks, and they like, slice their arm, and then they get one of Sam's fingernails. It's such a graphic scene.

C: Yeah, you see it the whole time. They do not cut away at all. It's really good.

G: And then they're about to get Dean’s teeth- well, tooth, I guess- when somebody doorbells.

C: Which was so rude. Like, me and my ex-fiancee booed that Sam has to suffer the fingernail removal when Dean gets to keep his teeth. Like, okay.

G: I mean the fingernail will grow back. The tooth will not.

C: Yeah, and you can go to a dentist.

G: To get a crown? For a thousand dollars?

C: They could meet Garth- They could've met Garth earlier. Garth would've given it to Dean for free. We would have had Garth starting from season 3 if they had just allowed that tooth to be taken out of Dean's sad little mouth.

G: Exactly. Does Garth die in Supernatural. No, right?

C: I don't remember.

G: Yeah. I hope he doesn't. I'll be so sad if he dies.

C: Yeah, 'cause he'd go to Purgatory, and that would suck.

G: He'd go to Purgatory, yeah! [laughs] Oh my god, I like, I haven't thought about Supernatural's ending for a long time. And now, right now that you mentioned that he's going to Purgatory, it all just like, came flashing back in my head, and I am so pissed still at the way Supernatural ends. But we'll get to it when we get to it. Right now, we're talking about Season 3, Episode 8: “A Very Supernatural Christmas.”

C: [laughs] We sure are

G: Yeah. And the person in by the door is like, “Oh, here's some fruit cake. Oh, by the way…” and she starts talking about like, randomass things. And they're like, “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.” And then when they leave, they like, throw the cake on the floor-

C: And stomp on it.

G: Yeah, they stomp on it. They go back to the dining hall. Sam and Dean are not there anymore. Sam and Dean lock the doors on them, and like, keep them there inside by like, I don't know, like blocking the door. Which is so wild to me, because these are Pagan gods.

C: They're gods. But, you know, Sam and Dean are just so muscular,

G: Exactly. And eventually, they go to the Christmas tree. They rip out some branches from it, and there's- and the two escape from the dining hall. They fight, they get stabbed, they die.

C: Oh my god, we totally forgot about the earlier scene when- the woman, like, cuts Dean, and he yells, “Bitch!” at her-

G: Oh my god.

C: - which is so funny.

G: Well, not only that. He yells “Bitch,” and then the lady goes, "Oh, whenever I feel like cursing, I prefer to say fudge," and Dean says like, what is it?

C: He's like, "I'll try to remember that"-

G: "Don't you fudging touch me again. [both] I'll fudging kill you!" I love that.

C: Best scene. Okay. But back to this later scene, which is less funny.

G: No, it's your turn.

C: Oh, okay. So right, they have them locked in and Sam and Dean are- [G laughs]

G: I've already said this. I already said this.

C: Where are we?

G: We're done with the scene. It's like, the epilogue.

C: Wait. You talked about them killing them already?

G: Yeah!

C: [laughing] How did I miss that? Okay, great.

-

C: So we get to a flashback, you know, of that night. Sam, after crying himself to sleep, Dean wakes him up, and he's all like, “Oh my god! Like, Dad was here, and he brought like, this Christmas tree and these presents.” And Sam goes like, “Why didn’t he try to wake me up?” and Dean goes, “Oh, he tried to, like a thousand times, but you just kept snoring.” He's like, “I told you he would come and give us Christmas.” It's all very sad. Yeah. So Sam runs over to open his gift, and the first one is a Sapphire Barbie, and Dean goes, “Dad probably thinks you're a girl.” Trans Sam rights again.

And Sam literally says, "Shut up," and throws it on the ground. Like, Barbie's fun!

G: It's a Sapphire Barbie doll. That's fucking so expensive.

C: Yeah, like, you don't want it, you can try to sell it.

G: Yeah, Go on eBay, dude.

C: Yeah. And then he opens the other present, and it's like, a stick with like confetti on it, or- it's like a shiny tassel stick. I don't really know what you do with it.

G: It's a baton.

C: Oh, baton, right. And Sam’s like, “These aren't from Dad. He did not come here.” And Dean was like, “Yeah, he did,” but, you know, Sam does not believe him. And he asks Dean where he got all this stuff, and Dean says, oh, he just stole them from like, a nice house on the street. Did he have to break in? How did he do this? Was there a window open?

G: Maybe.

C: Or maybe they were holding a party, and he, like, was able to get in by pretending to be one of the kids’ friends. And then he like, hid them in like, a bag?

G: Are you serious?

C: I don't know.

G: During Christmas? [laughing] You're going to spend your party at somebody else's house?

C: People have Christmas dinner parties, don't they?

G: `Ehh. I don't know. I mean, this is Christmas Eve. Is Christmas Eve a big deal?

C: Oh, kinda, I guess.

G: Yeah, exactly. So like, you spend it in your house.

C: Mm. Sometimes. Yeah. And he goes, “I swear, I didn't know they were chick presents.” [both laugh] So true.

G: Every time Supernatural says “chick,” I’m like, “What a fascinating choice of word!” Truly a fascinating choice for it.

C: Yeah. Truly, truly. And Dean's like, “I prommy Dad would have wanted to be here,” and Sam says, “If he's alive.” [laughs] Soo true.

G: “I've known about Dad being a hunter for five hours, and I now wish for his death.” [C laughs]

C: Yeah, so Dean goes like, “Of course he's alive. He's Dad.” And in the present day, he's literally dead right now. So real.

And Sam hands the present that he wrapped for John to Dean, and he says, “Take this.” And Dean's  like, “No, that's for Dad.” And Sam says, “Dad lied to me. I want you to have it.” Aww.

G: He also lied to you!

C: He also lied to you. I guess, in the end, Dean hold the truth, and John has not had that opportunity yet.

G: Yeah.

C: So Dean looks quite touched about this, and he unwraps it, and it's the Samulet!

G: Whoo!

C: And he puts it on.

Okay, what the fuck is the Samulet lore? Did Bobby know it could find God when he gave it to Sam?

G: [laughs] I doubt it. I doubt it.

C: Yeah, okay, okay. And this is a very sweet scene, because in "Something Wicked," which is the only other, like, flashback episode that we get so far, we also see Sam giving Dean the gift in like, the Lucky Charms cereal box right? So-

G: It's his love language!

C: Yeah, this is Sam's love language, at least when they were younger, and I don't know. It's sweet. I enjoy it.

-

G: Yeah. So we're back to present day, and this is the scene- this is the scene that drove me to tears. We go back to the motel, and it's Sam, and he's waiting for Dean to arrive. And Dean opens the door, and it's a holiday scene. It's a Christmas scene. Sam has decorated the place, and he's like, trying to be upbeat and happy, and he's like, “Oh, look! It's Christmas!” and Dean's like, “Oh, you changed your mind,” and he's like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah! Try the eggnog.” And then Dean tries the eggnog, and it's super strong. So he makes a face and he's like, "Yeah, this is good." And then they sit down, and Dean's like, “Oh, let's have a seat. Let's do Christmas stuff,” and they exchange gifts. [C laughs] And both of them got the gifts at like, a gas store nearby. Dean gave Sam skin mags-

C: Yeah, it's called Frolic-

G: And shaving cream? Yeah. Frolic.

C: This is a hilarious gift, because they literally live in the same motel room and in the same car.

G: Yeah!

C: Like, at what point is Sam going to get to enjoy these the way they were meant to be enjoyed? Like, is he gonna go, “Hey, Dean, can you step out for an hour? I just want to really appreciate these gifts you gave me for Christmas.” [laughs] Like, what is he gonna do?

G: Yeah, but it's a funny gift. And Dean got like, an energy bar and some motor oil change for Baby, and he's like, “Food for me and food for my Baby!” or something like that. "Fuel for my Baby." Super cute, and, like, the entire scene feels so somber. Like, it feels so sad. It's genuinely so sad.

C: I feel like they put a little foggy filter on it or whatever to give it that nostalgia feel.

G: Yeah, and also like, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is playing.

C: Yeah, and it's the Ella Fitzgerald version.

G: I think it's a very nice touch. Yeah. And they say “Merry Christmas” to each other, and then Dean is like, silent, and Sam is like, silent. And you think they're gonna talk about it. But Sam just goes, “You want to watch the game?” [C laughs] And Dean goes, "Yeah." And they watch the game.

C: I love the way men love.

G: Agh. [laughs] I don't know why I reacted that to viscerally to that phrase.

C: It's a good poem.

G: It's a good poem. But like, this is not the- this is not what it's trying to say.

C: Yeah, it's not.

G: Like, this is "men do not talk about their feelings ever."

C: Yeah.

Is there a Christmas sports game that I'm not aware of? I know there's a Thanksgiving sports game. Is there a Christmas sports game?

G: I think there's a thing where, like, in the UK, at least, I've heard that, like, they have sports game during Christmas day. I never understand that, like, I don't know how that's possible.

C: Yeah, shouldn't the athletes have the day off?

G: I mean, I guess so, but- in the Philippines, most of the big athlete games, are like, university games. Or at least at my age group, that's the ones we watch. So like, of course, those are not going to be present during the holidays because the students are on holiday. So I don't know if it happens anywhere else.

C: Yeah. I don't know either due to never watching sports.

G: Yeah, so that's the end of the episode. What are our post-episode thoughts?

C:I'm thinking about a post that I saw that was like, “After Dean's death, Ruby finds Sam crying over [overlapping, both] a bunch of porn magazines." [both laugh]

G: Yeah, I love that.

C: Love that.

G: I think, honestly, I think we didn't do the episode justice. I feel like it's better than we're making it out to be.

C: I don't think we're being mean about it.

G: No, we're not being mean, but we're just also not able to express like, what makes it so emotional, or at least what makes it so emotional for me. I'm not able to express it in a way that like, I feel like I could convey.

C: Yeah. And I'm not able to express how cute little baby Sam actor is, which I think is the main reason I was emotional for this episode.

G: Yeah. I mean, I was full-on crying when like, Dean entered, and he was like, "Oh, you decorated." I was like- [sobbing sounds]. Like, I was full-on crying. So yeah.

Best Line/Worst Line.

C: Yeah, I really like Sam’s “Whose childhood are you remembering?” line because I feel like like- Dean is hurt by this because he like to make Sam's Christmases and stuff nice, and Sam still views them as really bad because their dad abandoned them in a motel. Whereas, like Sam is just like, recognizing that the reality of the situation sucked despite the efforts that Dean made to make it not suck. And yeah, I don't know. It makes me emo.

G: Yeah, I think my best line has got to be... Um. I don't even know. How about your worst line? What's your worst line?

C: Huh. I think that in the wreath store, the guy says about Sam, “Oh, he's a fussy one, isn't he?” and that's like, another way to call Sam gay that I found especially annoying.

G: Here's my worst line.

C: Yeah.

G: "Mistle my toes."

C: [laughing] Noooo!

G: [laughing] "Roast my chestnuts." [C screams] "Egg my nog"?

C: Sorry, what did they say about chestnuts?

G: "Roast my chestnuts."

C: Wait, literally, you could just say “nut on my chest.”

G: That's too forward.

C: I guess so. Anyway, also for context, this is from the Christmas-themed porn that the Santa was watching because I don't think we quoted that fully.

G: [laughing] "Egg my nog." I love that. Love that.

I don't know what my best line is probably like, when Sam was like- baby Sam was like, “They're gonna get Mom, they're gonna get Dad, and then they're gonna get us.” Because one, true.

C: Yeah, that is the order.

G: Two, it's like that kind of like, kid logic. You know how like kids, sometimes they say things, and you're like, "Yeah." I mean, you don't interact with kids, But like, kids tend to tend to have a way of thinking, based on my experience that, like, kind of like, it's so straightforward, and it's like- Kids do have a logical way of thinking. Sometimes, it's just misguided, because they don't know a lot of things. And in a way, I feel like Dean thinks of this as that. Like, “Sam doesn't know that Dad is so cool and so strong and so smart. So he thinks that he's gonna get us.” But like, the reality of the situation is this is true. It's just Dean doesn't realize it because he is the one who's like, ignorant about things. He's the one who has like, misconceptions. So I like that. I feel like, they're just two children. They're just kids. And this is just how kids think.

C: Yeah. Ugh, and when Dean's all like, “Our dad's a hero,” blah blah blah, like, he genuinely believes that. Like, I think when like, John started taking him along on hunts, he was like genuinely, really excited and proud about it, and it wasn't until later, when he was like, “Hey, wasn't it kind of fucked up that I was given a gun to put under my bed as an eleven-year-old?”

G: Yeah.

C: Yeah. It is pretty sad.

G: How about spreadsheet? I feel like this one doesn't have a lot of sexism and racism, but the-

C: A tad. It's so funny. But it's not like, direct, is the thing, right?

G: [laughs] Is it not? What is direct homophobia at this point?

C: Okay, you're right, you're right. Not everything can be "Could you get any more gay?" Sometimes, just saying "Oh, you wanted to look at her handbags" is enough, I agree.

G: What's the point that we gave "Oh, you want to- could you be any more gay"? We gave that a 3, right?

C: No, we gave it a 2. We did not give it a 3.

G: So we must give this a 1.

C: Okay, that sounds good. I will note that down.

G: Okay. IMDb. IMDb rating.

C: I think this is high.

G: Oh, for sure.

C: Like, I feel like everyone was like, “Cried at this” or whatever. Huh. I don't know.

G: He's dying! I think, like, it's finally sinking in on me that he is dying. I know they shove it in your face every episode, but this is the one that made me emotional enough to be like, “Oh my god! He's dying!”

C: That's true. I feel like- I did not care that he was dying, and I still don't care that he's dying, but it it is more than it was before.

G: I would say 8.9.

C: Okay, I was gonna go 8.8, I think.

G: Okay, let's check. [gasps] Oh, no, It's an 8.6. So we overshot.

C: Okay.

G: Let's see what people are saying. “Amazing episode." "Awesome show.” “Santa Claus is coming to town.” "A fudging great episode.” I love that. I love all those titles.

Oh my god! They're fighting in the comments because, like-

C: Oh? Oh? I love that.

G: There's like- I don't know. So there's- oh my god.

So there's this one reviewer named Amanda, and everyone is like, either agreeing with Amanda or disagreeing with Amanda. But I can't find Amanda.

C: Huh! Did Amanda delete?

G: Who is Amanda? Maybe the Amanda is like, a reviewer outside of IMDb?

C: Maybe so.

G: Oh my god! We're discovering lore on IMDb Supernatural.

C: We sure are.

G: [laughing] Oh my god!

C: What?

G: [laughing] I'm so- [laughing] I'm so sorry. I'm laughing again.

Okay, I'm going to calm down. There's one review titled "What-" [laughing]

C: I can't- what?

G: [laughing] Wait, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Hi.

C: Hi.

G: There's one- [laughing] I feel so stupid! I'm so sorry! Okay.

[laughing] "Why does young Dean call young Sam-"

C: What?

G: [laughing] Wait! Wait, wait, wait. "Why does young Dean call young Sam 'Devin'?"

C: Kevin?

G: [laughing] 'Cause there's a line where- I also was surprised. Like, I didn't mention it in the episodes, but like, there's a line in the show where Dean goes, "Let's just go to sleep, Devin," or something.

C: Oh.

G: Like, "Go ahead, Devin." [laughing] And this commenter is like, "Why? Why is he named Devin?" I'm gonna read the review. This is by MikeAbrams.

C: Okay.

G: "Did anyone else notice that at the end of the episode when young Sam is waking up, and young Dean tells him to get the presents, he says, 'Go ahead, Devin.' Who is Devin? He calls him Sam later at the last scene... The actor's name is Colin. Maybe he said Colin. Whichever, someone should have caught it. Pretty embarrassing. [C laughs] Everyone else notice this? And whoever said that the facts are wrong, this is Supernatural, not 60 Minutes!"

Oh, okay. The last part is about Amanda again.

C: Okay.

G: I think Amanda complained about the paganism being inaccurate.

C: Okay, that's valid. I didn't do my background research on this one.

G: Okay. But this one is like- this is to Amanda. "The writers did their research. I think it's you who has totally missed the point."

C: Huh. Yeah, wait. Where is Amanda? Who is this mysterious Amanda?

G: I don't know. I keep on looking for it, and I can't find Amanda.

C: Like, it'd be good to-

G: This ones says, "You really need to calm down. [C laughing] Amanda, you've got to calm down. It's just TV."

C: [laughing] It ony a TV show!

G: [laughing] It ony a TV show!

"Amanda, was it really that bad?" "Amanda Bickle, it's just a TV show. You have to remember that. Paganism is a made-up religion. Well, I suppose they all are. But there is something extremely artificial about the recent resurrection of pagan beliefs." Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

I don't know, and I am not the person to comment on this Amanda debacle.

C: Yeah, same. But I do think it's so funny that all of these reviews are just being like, "Amanda, shut up."

G: Yeah. "Who is Devin?" [laughing] I'm gonna make that the title of the episode, even though when I was reading it, I was completely incomprehensible.

C: Sounds good.

There's a review called "not that mean to pagans."

G: Yeah, [laughing] and it's a response to Amanda.

C: Yeah.

G: Oh my god. Somebody replied about the Devin.

C: Oh yeah, he said "dive in."

G: "MikeAbrams, he didn't say Devin. He said, 'Dive in.'" [laughs] Did he really say, "dive in"?

C: Yeah, to the presents. Yeah. I heard "dive in."

G: I remember in the episode, he did say Devin to me, and I was like, "Okay." I thought he was taking a reference like, a Devin. [laughs] This is the most amusing user review segment that I've ever seen. What is it- you people-

C: One person said, "Dean was a jackass as a kid. Sam was a whiner. I felt absolutely nothing about their flashbacks. Whoever wrote this should be thrown out on the street." [both laughing] Okay.

G: They did? Oh my god.

C: Well, they made him showrunner. So, sorry. garbage_can_kitty.

Okay, sorry this last review is titled, "The movie is also anti-Christian." It starts with, "I agree with Amanda that the movie is anti-pagan." And then- [laughs] "I am agnostic, and I consider myself fair to others who are religious. Every Christmas, I see so many movies, shows, and stories that defile the original meaning of Christmas [G screams], as it is understood to devout Christians. Anti-Christianity is akin to racism." [both scream]

G: I need everyone- I need everyone who is listening up until now, even after everything, [C laughing] to go to the user review section of “A Very Supernatural Christmas.” Like, we need you to do it. It's a fucking mess! There's twenty-three reviews, and every single one of them is wild.

C: Yeah. Jesus. Right.

Okay, yeah, I've also been thinking about how, like, if any of our listeners like, wanted to be on the show, they would just have to leave an IMDb review, and we would read it.

G: For our future, yeah!

C: So you know, that's something to think about.

G: You could be like- oh, also we record this like, two weeks in the past, so you can't do like, one week before.

C: Yeah, do it like- the last episode that released and then add two, and then you can leave a review on that one. But we are mean to basically every review we read, so [G laughs] I understand if you don't want to put yourself in the line of fire.

G: Okay. Oh my god, my throat hurts from laughing so hard at the Devin line. [C laughs]

So that’s it for this episode of Busty Asian Beauties! Next time, we will be discussing- wait. Season 3, Episode 9: “Malleus Maleficarum.”

C: Ooh, Ruby.!

G: Leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts.

C: Follow us on social media! We are on twitter at twitter.com/BeautiesPodcast- sorry, is it BeautiesPodcast? Yes. Okay. We are on twitter at twitter.com/BeautiesPodcast and on Tumblr at bustyasianbeautiespod.tumblr.com. Our official tag is #BABPod, B-A-B-POD, and thank you to everyone who’s donated to our Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/bustyasianbeautiespod.

G: If you have any feedback, comments, or inquiries, email us at bustyasianbeautiespod@gmail.com. See you guys next time! [both] Bye!

[guitar music]

[logicheartsoul]

I forget sometimes how much of a low energy activity giffing is for me... I got virtually 0 sleep last night and yet I managed to make 4 gifs (and technically 2 edits) and 1 of those I’m not sure to post coz it could work for an entire gifset I didn’t intend on making. (And yeah, I did also make a gifset too lol)

Meanwhile, writing is just hit or miss when I’m tired, I’m either all in the zone or it just doesn’t happen lol

[samsrowena]

why do you prefer late seasons sam? genuinely curious bc i would like to appreciate him more lol

oh i am so glad you asked!!!!!

alrighty so. basically. the thing about sam in the late seasons is that he is just so traumatized. like deeply DEEPLY fucked up. and i honestly just find that so very sexy of him

AKLSJFKSKLSL sorry for being deranged but i can't help it. that really is the main appeal for me... but i think also i just have a lot of trouble connecting with sam in the earlier seasons. i still love him i really do! i just don't "get" him a lot of the time???

whereas in the later seasons i'm able to do so more easily through his relationships with other characters like dean (the s10-15 sam&dean dynamic is my fav because for starters they finally stop that whole 'fighting for the majority of the season' thing unlike s4 and s6 and s7 and s8 and s9 lol) and also rowena (there's a post i saw soooo long ago which talked about becoming a sam understander through samwena and i WISH i could find it because. literally me!)

but yeah i mean i definitely agree with the consensus that in the later seasons sam needed more storylines and stuff and that they neglected the hell out of him as time went on (i will forever be furious we were robbed of proper witch sam! and also just like taking his psychic powers away in general)

but to claim he becomes boring or whatever? could NOT be me. he's not the smiley and happy-go-lucky lawboy he was in season one. but he SHOULD'NT be. he has been through so so much and he's so so tired. he's fucking exhausted. he doesn't open up anymore. he's scared all the time (he flinches when someone yells or when a door slams or when there's loud noises like hello????). like literally he has just been tortured and violated and betrayed and every other possible horrible thing under the sun and he is the absolute shell of the person he once was and that's! the! point! like that's exactly what you're supposed to do!!!!!!!

so yeah. sorry anon, i probably didn't convert you to late seasons samgirlism with this answer alskdkfkdkj but maybe these excellent tags by daniel @i-have-doubts left on my late seasons sam gifset will help:

#IT'S SAM. LOOK AT HIM. BOYKING BLOODFREAK UNCLEAN IN THE BIBLICAL SENSE SAMWITCH#he's valid he drinks blood he teaches the future god how to use his powers HE'S A LESBIAN he's a loreboy HE LAPTOPPIN IT UP#he always felt unclean and just wants to make his brother proud#EILEEN THE MOST STUNNING PERSON IMAGINABLE IS IN LOVE WITH HIM AND THEY ARE REAL#the most powerful witch ever and also queen of hell also loves him so jot that down#HE FOUGHT THE DEVIL AND WON. LIKE 5 TIMES#he likes fidget spinners like an absolute moron SOMEBODY SHOW THIS NERD A FIDGET CUBE#he literally doesnt know about oven mitts#he's immune to every torture under the sun but one (1) cayenne pepper flu cure has him in total surrender#HE SHOT GOD BECAUSE HE HAD NO FUCKS LEFT TO GIVE

[nimata-beroya]

I'm really proud of myself. I might be not a completionist, but I fulfilled half of the prompts given (twice as much as I did last year) and I count that as a success! Below, I leave you all the entries for this year @whumptober-archive

How to Save a Life (6.5k words) [Days 2,3, 16 & 31]

Teen | tw at your discretion | 3 of 3 chapters | whump, hurt/comfort, post order 66, post order 66, canon divergence, canon-typical violence, sequel to You're still there, I know.

No matter how much he screams internally or how many times Fox tries to kill Palpatine, or how many times he blames himself for not realizing the enemy was under his nose all this time, nothing changes. His body remains out of his control, only moving when Palpatine finally dismissed him from the office. He walks out like the automaton he has become, his mindless body following the orders of the Sith Lord.

Riyo will die at his hand, and there’s nothing Fox can do to stop it.

Ramaanla (1k words) [Days 4, 17 & 19]

General | TW mention of blood | one-shot | Whump, knees buckling, stabbing, hiding an injury, Mand’alor the reluctant

The duty of the Mand'alor is to look out for all Mandalorians. Sometimes, however, Din Djarin forgets to take care of one in specific: himself.

Running Out of Air (1.4k words) [Day 5]

Teen | TW Violence | One-shot | Whump, strangulation, force choking, implied beheading, implied massacre, nightmares

Kallus faces his worst nightmare yet.

Something In the Dark (2.5k words) [Day 10 (Alt prompt)]

Teen | no warning | one-shot | Implied Torture, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, mutual pining

Senator Riyo Chuchi and Commander Fox have an unexpected encounter in the darkness.

The Enemy Within (2.4k words of ?) [Day 22]

Teen | TW vomiting | 1 of 2 chapters | Whump, poisoning, vomit, protective Zeb

Bad meilooruns are everywhere, and not even the Rebel Alliance can save itself from the deadly consequences of having an enemy within.

The Tables Are Turned (3.1k words) [Day 25]

Mature | TW Implied sexual content | one-shot | mention of BDSM, whumpers are the good guys and the bad guys are the whumpees, role reversal, psychological torture, interrogation

Captain Rhamis of the Imperial Army takes the night off to indulge in his vices. Little does he know that his evening will go very differently than he expects. Instead of satiating his base urges, he falls into a trap, where former ISB Agent Alexsandr Kallus and Rebel Garazeb Orrelios force information out of him.

Magical Exhaustion (gifset) [Day 27]

Note to Self: Don't Get Kidnapped (gifset) [Day 30]

[fromaliminalspace]

For the gif makers ask meme... 14, 16, 34, and 48?

[ask meme link]

14. How long does it usually take you to make a set

for real, while technically i can make a gifset within a day or a few, i have a nasty tendency to procrastinate everything, literally everything, even stuff i actually enjoy. and when i do get around to actually making sth i overthink it. sometimes for months. yup. lbr overthinking (alongside chronic lack of spoons) is the main reason i create stuff so rarely and post it even rarer even if i have it finished for a while. i'm trying to improve, okay..? just gonna kick myself more often into calling things finished and posting them, i literally have dozens of gifset ideas waiting to be executed, several art wips (as well as finished pieces), two videoedit ideas, and quite a few k words of both fic and meta… the tricky part is just to get around to all of it

16. How long have you been making gifs

oof lemme see… in June 2020 i made my first gifs that weren't completely horrible cuz before that i was using merely a phone app for this with video editing software (this and this were made this way). and then in February 2021 i finally figured out what was missing from my PS and preventing me from editing gifs there and fixed it. so yeah, i've been relatively new to this, i guess..? though ngl the experience of very spontaneously making two videoedits before trying out proper gifing was a nice starting point

34. A set that took you a long time/was really hard but you’re really proud of how it came out

hm the stardust one is the first that came to mind even though it's more the case of "it didn't receive as much attention as most my other cql gifsets but i'm still quite fond of it" rather than it being particularly time/effort-consuming. not to mention that i'm hardly ever actually proud of anything i create but well, that's just my brain cockroaches messing stuff up. back on track, the WWX gifs in the trust parallel set were a pain to edit but eventually i ended up learning new tricks while groping my way around it so i'm not complaining

okay, if i were really to pick a gifset i'm proud of that'd be the ripples one, no doubts (gonna add the link once i actually finish and post it, i promise). it's the most advanced technically (don't even ask me how long i've been nitpicking it from all directions and how i'm still tempted to drop the current version in favor of approaching it from a whole new direction bc surely it can be done way way better if i just go nitpick it some more! ya know, the usual overthinking) and it's sth very personal to me thematically. the underlying meaning of it is too closely related to liminal spaces (or more like what i simplify as "liminal spaces" as i suspect my own understanding of this concept in general can differ quite a bit from that of other people) so putting it into actual words gets tricky. but this kinda comes with the territory so nothing unusual

48. How would you describe your giffing style

ugh honestly idek if i have one..? for real, i don't think there's anything about my gifs that makes them stand out much. at least there surely isn't anything that i deliberately make sure to integrate every single time (maybe i do unconsciously though, who knows). so i feel like it's more for others to judge ¯_(ツ)_/¯

what i can say is that when i do make gifsets i apparently tend to illustrate some narrative parallels or sth with them..? or just combine scenes with a quote that strikes me with fitting vibes. or both. also i like to have fun with the colors and lighting and use adjustment layers quite heavily (but gotta admit it's hardly an option to halfass this if i wanna my Yi City gifs to look vibrant and alive enough). i suppose alternative subtitles to all my cql sets are a feature of my so called style as well since i always translate them myself instead of going the easy way and copying any of the already existing ones. which is also fun! even if, well, adds to the amount of time and spoons i put into it but what can i say, it's a matter of habit by now

[amy-oswin-lovegood]

It's hard to believe this rewatch has come to an end! I'm so thankful to peacestew, parallel-univers, chillerhjemmesmiley, emziess, and everyone else who organized and contributed. When I was debating whether or not to participate in September, December felt so impossibly far away. I'd already made the Skam + English posts before I even knew this was happening, but I didn't know if I wanted to do anything else. Then I had an idea for the first clip, so I thought I'd at least do that and see if I wanted to do more later. And somehow that turned into making a gifset for each clip over three months. I'm honestly pretty proud that I was able to keep up with this, especially since I was figuring out how to make gifs as I went. I've been able to try out different layouts and effects and things and I've learned a lot compared to when I was applying edits to each frame manually on gimp. Anyway, here's some final rambling thoughts about Skam sesong 3. Thanks again to everyone!

First and foremost for me, there's the way the show deals with mental illness. Isak's ableism is subtly reinforced through small comments throughout, and then in a big way by Sonja's outburst. But then in the last couple of episodes, these views are dismantled by Magnus and Even and even Sonja, leaving you with the message that mental illness does not define or invalidate a person, that it does not stop them from deserving love or respect. Even's arc has helped me work through so much internalized ableism, both due to society and to my own insecurities. Over the last five years, I've felt my experiences start to line up with Even's more and more. Of course there are the manic and depressive episodes themselves, but also the frustration at feeling monitored, the dread of being a burden, the fear of hurting everyone else, and most recently the loneliness in watching friends graduate while being left behind. But seeing these experiences from an outside perspective has also helped me work through them in better ways. This show gave me comfort when I felt scared and powerless, and hope when I felt like I couldn't live with this anymore. Its message that people can still love you, that you are not crazy or broken, has carried me through many scary conversations when I felt people needed to know about my bipolar.

I've not struggled with my sexuality to the same degree that Isak does, but his relationship with his parents is something that feels very real to me. The complexities of having a parent whose mental illness causes you pain. Reconciling past hurtful actions with new attempts to make amends. Parents always fighting. The resentment for never getting a full apology, just sweeping mistakes under the rug. The desperation of I don't want to go back there I can't go back there please don't make me go back there. The longing for love and acceptance from the same person that you can't even trust to comfort you. Isak's parents may not be the focus of his character, but there's something really relatable about this being another thing he has to deal with on top of everything else, another problem that no one knows much about. Something that's always lurking there unaddressed, that you've learned to talk around and avoid. It's likely that a lot of other problems stem from these broken relationships in one way or another, but they feel impossible to fix.

Anyone who's heard me talk about Skam knows that I think it's amazing and has sat through at least a small amount of rambling about how they did whatever aspect just right. But even though it's been really important to me over the years, the only person I've ever actually shown it to is my sister. Because giving someone Skam, specifically season 3, feels like saying this is what it's like. This is what I'm like. And that can be terrifying, but at the same time that closeness has helped me explain things when I didn't know how, both to myself and to others. I'm so grateful to everyone involved in bringing this show to life, from the creator and production team, to the cast and crew, to the fans who translated and uploaded every single piece of content. Skam told real stories with real teenagers in the real world in a way I've never seen before or since. Stumbling upon this show on a sleepless night when I felt scared and anxious and powerless and alone changed my life for the better, and for that it will always hold a special place in my heart.

[froggi-mushroom]

Thanks for the tag @needcake

End of Year Review

What fandoms did you create for?

Hetalia! Although I did post some memes for other fandoms but I'm not sure if memes count...

How many works did you make this year? Fics (posted on ao3 or tumblr or wherever), edits, gifsets, moodboards, playlists, fanart, vids, meta?

12 fics and 1 gifset (and I think about 2 or three drabbles on here if I haven't privated them)

What are you most proud of?

I'm most proud of my most recent fic because I actually forced myself to take my time with it and be patient and actually do a bit of research which was surprisingly fun. I'm also really happy with this fic because even though I didn't take as much time as my most recent fic, it's quite a personal fic to me. I'm also happy with my French revolution fruk fic (mainly because it's an idea I've had for a while) but I do want to go back and change a few things at some point

What inspired you this year? Any specific works or creators?

I get inspired by the most random things. I suppose lockdown helped me come up with some ideas but I wouldn't really say it inspired me. I've read a bit of fanfic that's inspired me (not as much as last year, though, I've been a bit lazy when it comes to reading this year)

What’s a piece you didn’t expect to make? Why?

Everything I came into this year not really expecting to write much and a lot of my writing is very spur-of-the-moment and I don't really tend to plan ahead too much (which is something I plan on working on in the new year). I suppose if you want specific pieces, this fruk royal au drabble isn't something I expected writing at all. That au in particular is very self-indulgent so I always intended to keep it to myself but maybe if I finally get over my intense fear of judgement and general self-consciousness I'll finally write about that au more. Another is my engportfra series which I didn't expect to write this year because the au didn't even exist before September of this year and was thought up randomly one afternoon (and is another that I'm struggling to pick up again but will try to eventually)

What are you excited to work on next year?

I have a few small fics in mind for some other ships I like for Hetalia, and I'm hoping to participate in TGGTVAV week this year! (because I need to get back into it, and get the new book now that its out...)

I'll tag: @koolkat9 @witch-spellbook @amber-isnt-a-precious-stone @cunchishai and @iship2muchshit

[jengarie]

#showyourprocess !

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag up to 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you, @rinielle for tagging me! She chose the piece above (original post), and oh boy this one was a whole ass rollercoaster ride! Unfortunately, I hadn't turned on the timelapse feature for this but I'll try to go through each part of the process as best as I can!

The photos I'm gonna upload are gonna be a mix of screenshots and literal photos of my screen, because I'm taking some of them from my updates to friends, since a lot of the steps got lost in my painting process.

But before that, let me tag some other amazing creators!

@dragonji: this gif art!

@candicewright: this yibo painting!

@wendashanren: this gifset!

@mylastbraincql: this gif!

I haven't been able to keep track of who's been tagged so apologies if you've already done this! Also, no pressure to do it at all if you would rather not! <3

Planning

Sometimes, I get an idea first and find reference photos to go with that idea. But for this one, I sought out a reference photo first, and built an idea on top of it!

After that, I roughly sketch out the base pose. Usually, this looks very messy, but it doesn't really matter as long as I understand which part goes where!

The idea for the background didn't really come until the creation process because I don't think I really planned this to be a full piece.

Creation

Sketching

Honestly, from this point on, it's more of trial and error.

So, I redid the the initial base pose—made it cleaner and a little bit more detailed. See: the added definition in their arm muscles, the rearrangement of Wei Wuxian's legs, and Lan Wangji's hand on Wei Wuxian's back. If you look at the second photo, I also changed the pose a bit midway—I tend to edit as I go sometimes when I change my mind. (For this, I thought, given the Lan arm strength, it would be better to make Lan Wangji look more at ease carrying Wei Wuxian. This gets covered by the robes anyway though, so it didn't matter much in the end.)

I also started adding details to the base! I usually start with the face and then the hair! I usually go for the clothes next, but I dreaded the robes in this piece so I guess that's why I ended up with a basic idea of what I wanted for the background instead LOL I also figured out how I want the final crop to look like, so I blocked out all the other areas with an extra layer!

Okay, onto the part that killed me like ten times: the robes. There are a lot of interactions between their robes here given their pose, and not to mention they also have layers upon layers on each of them! So, to maintain my sanity and to keep track of which part is which, I color coded them into the most colorful sketch I've ever made.

Another reason why I filled in each layer of robe with a solid block of color, is so that all the lines underneath gets covered. Without all of the colors, the actual outline actually looks like the one on the right. What a nightmare!

I also ignored the crop again for this part, because it's always better to draw past your borders, in case you decide to rotate or tilt or whatever your piece later on. I didn't do the feet anymore though, because that I was sure wouldn't show in the final piece anymore.

After that, I did the sketch one more time and then started adding the base colors. (I didn't have a screenshot of just the base colors, and the final CSP file is a nightmare so I copy pasted the layers into a new canvas to show you guys :') )

By the way, I drew their robes flowing this way, because I wanted it to frame the lower arch of the moon behind them for the composition. It was a little frustrating that I couldn't get Lan Wangji's robes a little higher because of Wei Wuxian's legs but I later filled in the empty space with his forehead ribbon anyway, so it all worked out in the end!

Painting

Because apparently, I was a masochist back then, I merged the base colors all into one layer and started adding shadows to the robes. (These days, I add shadows first and then, merge. It's much easier this way.)

And then, I started painting! Again, I did the face first and then the hair, before finally the robes. This was my first time painting side profiles and honestly it was quite a pain to figure out LOL but !!! I think I did a good job and I'm proud of how it turned out. I again used reference photos for this one but I can't link any because they were just several random Pinterest photos that I didn't save.

Another thing to note is that I use the mesh transform tool a lot, especially on faces. That's largely why Lan Wangji's face looks so different in the latter two!

And then I went with the robes. Somewhere along the way, I realized I didn't like how I planned to do Lan Wangji's sleeves and the flowy part of Wei Wuxian's robes and I... decided, with much dread, to do them over. So I sketched on top of the painted layers and redid the robes, again.

It was at this point that I decided to take a break from this piece because it was honestly very draining! I think it took about three weeks before I decided to open the file again and continue it.

When I did, I just finished painting the rest of the robes and their hands. The blue details on Lan Wangji's outer robes were painted on a separate layer that I put on Multiply. I probably did more adjustments to the face and hair and stuff, because my painting process is honestly a mess :')

Final Adjustments

I added some correction layers on certain areas to fix some of the colors. See: Lan Wangji's sleeve becoming much brighter and paler; Wei Wuxian's legs having less contrast. And then I merged all of the layers (excluding the background) and added a bit of blur. See: Wei Wuxian's ponytail; the entire lower part; the flowing forehead ribbon. My reasoning for this is so that most of the detail (and therefore the flow of the eye) goes to their faces and expressions!

And then, I put a blue Overlay layer on low opacity to make Wangxian blend better with the background, added a bit of shadow on the inside and the lower sections and added the glowing details for the added flair. I initially wanted sparkles and/or stars but they didn't turn out as well as this did. I also upped the contrast by a little for the entire piece!

Aaaand, that's it! In truth, I did a bit more color adjustments to the whole piece, but I was a dummy who forgot to turn them back on before posting so ... oh well.

Posting

Before posting, I upload it either on my spare private Twitter account or on a drafted Tumblr post so I can check the colors on my phone. This is because the colors on different devices can look very different, and I would at the very least want all my pieces to look nice on both of my devices!

And then, once I deem it satisfactory, I just try to think of a caption and post! Some artists wait for a certain time where most of their followers are active, but I didn't have a lot of MDZS followers at this point so it didn't really matter to me.

It still doesn't really; I haven't actually been able to figure out when my MDZS followers are awake even now.

[scribeoffate]

End of Year Reflection

What fandoms did you create for?

Teen Wolf, minutely Yuri on Ice (I'm talking two tumblr ficlets)

How many works did you make this year? Fics (posted on ao3 or tumblr or wherever), edits, gifsets, moodboards, playlists, fanart, vids, meta?

39 fics posted on a03, I have no idea how many little tumblr prompts and a handful of moodboards/edits

What are you most proud of?

It is a three-way tie.

This moodboard: This was my first full shift Scott agenda piece and I have never made any kind of digital art before this year. It is such a small thing I am sure for people who do edits, but I learned how to make the wolf's eyes red and I was just super excited.

Being a whumptober completionist! I created a series of stories that used all 31 prompts and they're all different and I had a crap ton of fun doing it. (Even when certain people had to listen to me freak out about finishing.)

And as I said in another post, I really enjoyed how this Chris and Allison fic turned out. It was something a little out of my comfort zone and I had a lot of fun grappling with it.

Any stats you wanna tell us about?

I created a few tags, including Scott and Ken, Scott/Deucalion/Stiles, Scott/Deucalion/Malia, and Malia Tate and Mason Hewitt.

What inspired you this year? Any specific works or creators?

I think at this point, it is a well-known fact that I am inspired by basically everything.

@spikeface has been so encouraging about so many of my ideas and stories this year and it really did make a significant difference. At least two stories probably never would have been written if hadn't been for their influence.

And it is a blast sharing a fandom with @artisticentropy again. We had so many conversations about so many different fic ideas on our way to and during our vacations this year. And also at home at dinner and during family time.

@ryogalost and @houseofgeeks have been very good sports and occasionally even offered suggestions. @ryogalost is especially invested in the physics of Voltron Wolf's pants. :P

What’s a piece you didn’t expect to make? Why?

Really all of them. I claimed I was not writing fic for Teen Wolf. I lied. I do that. Let's go with this Sceo story. It's a gender swap kid fic and I probably would have never guessed that as something I would have written.

What are you excited to work on next year?

I am pumped to attempt a full bingo card for Scottuary. I have 3/10-12 stories written. (I am aware the final number keeps going up. Do you need an idea for a prompt? Let me know, I have more ideas than I have time.)

Tag some people!

@spikeface @artisticentropy @bisexualbuckaroo @livingbythewords

As always no pressure. And also if you want to do it and I didn't tag you, please do! And tag me so I can see your answers!

[seokmins]

𝗲𝗹𝘃'𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 💻

I was tagged by the lovely @woozi and @rumue​ to post my favorite or most popular post from each month this year (it’s okay to skip months)! Thank you both and excuse my rambling 💓

I've had this blog for ~a year and a half. 2021 was a little slower than I would have liked as I originally started out as a fic-writing blog and hit writer's block really bad as well as just not having time. But recently, I've started exploring gfx and Photoshop more to expand my repertoire and gain more knowledge. I've been pretty happy w/ my progress and can't wait to keep learning to see where it takes me next year!

January - August: I posted a bit here and there sparingly. Nothing really took off but I was proud of writing 5.6k for Twilight in July during my internship and publishing it on time for the collab deadline.

September: I opened requests for the first time and some have been a hit or miss. My Bang Chan drabble I wrote for Rachy just hit 100 notes, which surprised me bc it is the smallest work I've written (only 500 words) 😂 but I'm glad people enjoy it!

October: I took a random request despite closing them and wrote this female!Jinyoung drabble as requested. Although there were some circumstances that I was not pleased with, the drabble itself was fun to write and I'm happy with how it came out.

November: I started giffing!! LOL this was just me experimenting and trying/learning different things. Caratblr was SO welcoming :3 and I made a couple posts. Seventeen's 2022 Season's Greetings is my most popular post in 2021 alone hsdjfdsd and I really enjoyed creating my wonwoo gif and txt's lovesong one.

December: Another fun month of giffing! I also wrote Snapshots at 3am and it is very dear to my heart LOL. My Ai no Chikara gifset was used in someone's post which was cool to see for the first time and my mingyu/dk gif was the thumbnail for the dokyeom tag for a bit. Finally, my beloved dk gifset was my second most popular post of 2021 and I was really happy w/ how I colored it.

Honorable mentions: I'm really not too unhappy w/ any of my posts, I think they all show areas of strengths/weaknesses and you can see improvements in them over time. I enjoyed playing around with the font for my top 10 releases of 2021 and getting the dimensions right. I also briefly tried w/ gfx like my felix one, something which I hope to expand more in the future :3

I'm really thankful and happy for all the people I've interacted with — those who have helped, cheered on, supported, and just been great mutuals to me here on tumblr. Thank you all, I hope we can interact more in 2022!

Tagging (if you want to/haven't already): @yutasthetic @raethethey @seokmingming @jimeanour + anyone else :3