#but man being gay really does complicate the start of this stuff

[exopelagic]

maybe straight boy might have a maybe girlfriend. 18 dead 34 injured

[calware]

JOHN: that's kind of a weird question, but sure, i'll answer, haha.

JOHN: it's kind of funny, when i was a kid it really confused me when dirk would talk about "ante diulivan terminology" and all that. that stuff seemed so important to me when i was younger, like if someone was gay or what ever, but it really doesn't matter after all this time has passed. being a god for hundreds of years really puts stuff into perspective, i guess. JOHN: but my identity has definitely changed since i was that age. JOHN: back then, manhood always felt like an inevitability. i was going to become a man, like my dad, like every other boy does. and i was okay with that, in the same way we're all okay with breathing. like, what else is there to do? we don't question it. JOHN: so it took me a REALLY long time to really get that it wasn't that way, and that there were no inevitabilities. like my whole life i'm on this path walking toward a destination, but after walking it for a hundred years, it starts dawning on you that there is no destination on that path. JOHN: just the journey. JOHN: you can't see it but i am making a very wise expression right now. JOHN: not to be confused with harry anderson, a very different wise guy who has stood the test of time. JOHN: just wanted you to know that. JOHN: any way, after that, i started to understand that i could do things on my own terms. i'm not bound to masculinity, or anything at all really. JOHN: i don't know if it has something to do with my classpect, but i like to imagine it's like the breeze. it just does its own thing, traveling regardless of any path. it's freeing. JOHN: so i don't care what you call me, really. JOHN: for gender stuff, i mean. i'm still not attracted to guys. JOHN: but i don't care if you call me straight or a lesbian? so i guess i don't really care about that either. JOHN: it's more complicated than that, but i'm not going to get into it when none of it is really accurate to me anyway. JOHN: like i said, it doesn't feel important anymore.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2024 Anime Overview: Girls Band Cry and Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night

Girls Band Cry

GBC was definitely my favorite new show of the season…and, for some reason, it wasn’t picked up for streaming. It’s one of the many Girl Band Stories that came out this season, but it was the best one. The characters were messy in a way I loved, especially the main character Nina, who’s a complete disaster, angry and loud and sometimes annoying, but so completely real to my experience as a teenage girl who was bullied.

Nina was bullied badly in school, and she’s a high school dropout as a result. Her favorite band helped her get through everything and stand her ground, “saved” her when she was on the verge of giving up on life completely. So when she sees that her fave singer Momoka ended up leaving her band Diamond Dust after the band went in a more commercial direction, the two of them decide to start their own band. Nina is ready to get back at all the people who looked down at them, but Momoka has more complicated feelings about her former bandmates.

Nina being powered by spite—and the series valuing that stubbornness and anger—is what made the series stand out for me, especially because the series just let her be extremely obnoxious sometimes without worrying about her “likeability”,--it made her feel ‘real’ and kind of refreshing. This is a series that starts out with girls going around flipping off people multiple times. The dynamic of the whole band, despite them constantly butting heads, is entertaining. All the characters have rough edges and broken pieces, but they end up fitting together.

The dialogue is fun, the music rocks, the CGI animation is actually super good and expressive. The fact the girls they chose are new to voice acting actually led to some offbeat performances I really liked—the fact it wasn’t as polished as other voice acting fit the characters and honestly made them feel a little more authentic.

The pacing does drag a tiny in the middle, but the climax is explosive and exhilarating. It’s also kind of gay, but in the form of a love confession that’s never really followed up on, (probably so they can have wiggle room to be like ‘how ambiguous was it platonic or romantic maybe she meant she loves ~her music~’) so I don’t count that. But at least it’s the confession isn't completely forgotten about in favor of putting the girls with "appropriate" male love interests (coughs in Sound Euphonium) because the only man on the show of any significance is Nina’s father.

Wholeheartedly recommend the show though, I love these charming disaster girls playing rock songs that slap, finding socially acceptable ways to flip people off, and kicking doors so hard they break them.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night

Speaking of gay girl band stuff where romantic tension is never followed up on! I binged Jellyfish while I was sick so I guess it counts for this review. It wasn’t nearly as strong as Girls Band Cry but it had stuff going for it!

The premise of this girl band show is that Kano, a former idol who left her career behind after a scandal where she punched another member of her group, runs into Mahiru, a former artist who stopped drawing after a disheartening experience with a jellyfish mural she created. But it turns out Kano loved that mural, and she wants Mahiru to be official artist for her anonymous internet musician persona, JELEE. JELEE picks up other members along the way, including hikikomori VTuber Kiui/Nox Ryugasaki and fangirl pianist Kimura.

Jellyfish had a lot going for it. It wanted to explore the competitive idol industry ruining girls’ lives, abusive parents pressuring their children into becoming extensions of themselves, the budding romance between Kano and Mahiru, the struggle of being trans in a society that forces one into a rigid role and objectifies those it perceives as women, and struggles of remaining creative when often faced with negative feedback.

And uh.... It pretty much fumbled everything but the last two. Granted, it's a soft fumble. A gentle fumble. I can't be too mad about it.

Let's start with the plotline I think it nailed though: Kiui/Ryugasaki (they seem to still use their original name even at the end but also use another name, so that’s what I’m going with) is great, and pretty much the main reason I’d recommend the show.

They’re as blatantly nonbinary as can be without actually saying the word (genderfluid or bigender is also a possibility. But very blatantly trans, either way). They’re also very fun with their over-the-top superhero fantasies. And the storyline where they use their VTuber persona to be comfortable with themself and present themself in the way they want is super compelling and interesting. There are a lot of really moving moments with them, including them shutting down some transphobic bullies (and I mean blantantly transphobic). And we get to see one of their friends enthusiastically support them.

On the other end of the spectrum, the idol and abusive parents subplots were pretty badly handled—we had the usual plot where said parent doing one act of kindness redeems them and things never have to get messy, and the idol plot seemed like it was going somewhere in critiquing how the industry fosters competitiveness and comes down way too hard on its idols for minor misdemeanors or things that shouldn’t be an issue at all, like dating. But then it just kind of ended with a “well internet harassment and destroying lives is bad, but like, we’re all troubled, aren’t we. don't we all vent sometimes." (???)

The plot between Kano and Mahiru…basically there was cheek kissing, blushing, very blatant flirting...and then a big nothingburger of a finale. But hey, Kano does have a gay pride and trans pride patches on her bag, so there’s that.

There's also one absolutely bizarre moment I have to warn about. In one of the episodes the girls run into an adult woman who's had a lot of plastic surgery done. Said adult woman invites the girls to touch her naked boobs (on the pretense of showing them was augmented boobs feel like? Or something?). And they do. As a group. As the woman thinks "they're high school girls, I hope this isn't illegal." IT IS, LADY. VERY ILLEGAL.

It's so out of nowhere that I originally forgot about it writing this, like my brain blacked it out. And then we (thankfully) never see this woman again outside a two second cameo in the finale. Unclear why any of this needed to happen.

So yes, this is basically the Jellyfish experience. The writing of the show was often uneven, it could be really good one second, and rushed and forced the next second. And there are a couple of absolutely baffling moments,

But I'd say on the whole the show is a positive, mostly thanks to Kiui/ Ryugasaki. When it hits, it REALLY hits and the characters are all very loveable. So I give it a reccomendation with a few warnings attached!

[decepti-thots]

1, 8 and 12

"the character everyone gets wrong"

moving over to exRiD for this one. arcee is imo subject to this a lot, despite fannish sentiment around her being overall very positive. i suspect a part of this is that the segments of idw1 fandom i hang out in either haven't read much or all of exRiD and/or do not read it as often as other series like MTMTE, so she tends to be subject to a lot of 'flattening' into her most iconic, meme-y characteristics. fun murder lady who likes murder! yay! but the thing is that the popular perception of arcee in a lot of circles is perpetually stuck in what she started as, not where she was ultimately taken. arcee's arc in the latter parts of idw1 are about the ways she grows out of and beyond the original concept of her as Scary Violent Lady TM, and about finding personhood for herself beyond that. by the time you're a dozen or so issues into phase two, that entire concept of her is being questioned and developed by the comic! it would perhaps bother me less if that entire original presentation of her wasn't so heavily rooted in phase one's (trans)misogynistic portrayal that we're ostensibly all on the same page about being bad, and the later stuff that is largely ignored wasn't a direct attempt to work with and rectify. (this has gotten better in the past 3-4 years, though.) i don't think anyone is deliberately leaning into that, it's just a side effect of most folks in the places i hang out not being overfamiliar with the actual canon stuff. but. well. it does make me a little sad. she's got such a compelling arc! i would like to have more enthusiasm for it, as opposed to making fun jokes about her stabbing people. (on the plus side, discussing this before has persuaded at least three people i know of to read exRiD and they told me they loved her in it, so!)

"common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about"

anyone who thinks exRiD is light on character work, as per the above, is wrong. sorry. it has great character work! the division of 'MTMTE is for character stuff, exRiD is Plot TM only for dudebro nerds' is incorrect, and unfortunately remains a common sentiment. barber did not do it the same way that roberts did, but exRiD is intensely interested in its characters and barber has spoken at length about how interested he was in digging into character dynamics. if anything is barber's signature, it's his extensive use of internal character monologue, even! yes, he also really likes doing convoluted plots- and it's fair that is simply a turn off for people- but the perception he doesn't care about characters or interpersonal relationships is very unfair. this man did not do All That with thundercracker for people to write that off.

"the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them"

i did this question previously for aileron but also! also!! more people need to give some love to idw needlenose. as with aileron, it's not that people DISLIKE him, it's that he is great and i want more people to understand this. he's got a complicated cross-faction sibling relationship with tracks! he's a gay widower and it's really sad!! he's a hardcore True Believer in the decepticon cause and imo a wayyy better exploration of what a generic non-high-command decepticon is struggling with in the aftermath of the war ending as a real believer in the cause than stuff like the scavengers that gets more play in fandom. but he gets way less attention as idw exploring that, unfortunately. i love him so much, please join me in the needlenose stan corner.

[pansysgothgf]

The Buddie Grey’s Anatomy AU I wrote is done so here’s the rest of my moodboards for it + the rambling thoughts I have about the characters :)

Hen!! Hen’s the character I was the most excited about but also the character I feel like I did the least with because as much as I adore Cristina, so many of her plot points in the show seemed to revolve around her truly horrific boyfriends/fiancés/husbands. My hatred of Owen Hunt runs deep, so Karen ended up being partially inspired by Burke. I ended up mostly focusing on Hen and Buck becoming friends, but I do wish I got to spend a little more time on her :(

I ended up sharing Bailey’s plot lines and character between Maddie and Chim, which I’m pretty happy with tbh! My favourite scene to write with them was actually the first one of theirs I wrote for this fic, which was my whumptober submission that ended up being a chunk of chapter two. While they’re mostly based after Bailey, Maddie also reminded me a little bit of Jo (both of them surviving abusive husbands) and I gave her one of April’s plot lines in the final chapter, which was exciting! I did briefly consider incorporating Lexi, Molly or Maggie’s plot lines in for Maddie (the whole ‘secret sibling’ thing) but it just didn’t work with the way I set it up.

LUCY MY LOVE!! I became so unintentionally attached to Lucy while writing this so she got WAY more plot than I was initially intending haha! There’s something so magical about watching the first few seasons of Grey’s and seeing the dynamic between all of the roommates, which I tried really hard to incorporate into the fic. Then I realized I’d become attached to Lucy and Ravi and went… oh shit I’m going to have to actually give them plots rip. I had so much fun choosing which Izzie plots to give to Lucy since Izzie has some really amazing stuff to work with in the show. I ended up going with the two biggest plots (imo). Because I changed so much though, I ended up combining Izzie’s cancer plot line and Amelia’s brain tumour to create what I ended up with. I’m pretty happy with it, honestly, I hope I built it up sufficiently enough :)

Ravi!!! Ravi is what people wish George O’Malley could’ve been. As I’ve previously stated, I do not like the majority of Grey’s men, and this includes George. I ended up focusing mostly on George’s issues with confidence and his complicated relationship with his family. I also elected not to go the bus route with Ravi, you’re all welcome. Fun fact! I made Lena the orthopaedic surgeon because my biggest crack ship in all of 9-1-1 is Lena/Ravi. I headcannon them to be a lesbian and a gay man but they match each other’s freak, and they’re both just as surprised about it as anyone.

Honourable mentions (aka characters I want to yap about but didn’t make moodboards for):

Shannon: I based Shannon off of Addison Forbes-Montgomery-Shepherd SPECIFICALLY because of the season 1 finale. They’re both the secret wives that show up and create chaos which I love lol. I specifically left Shannon’s ending pretty ambiguous, mainly because I don’t know if she would’ve stuck around had she lived in 9-1-1. If we’re going off of Grey’s though, she’s living her best life in LA with a group of friends who she cares a lot about. I like to think that at some point Chris reaches out (probably when he’s a lot older) and they create a tentative relationship.

Tommy: I gave Tommy elements of both Mark Sloan and Owen Hunt (just his position at the hospital because seriously, fuck Owen Hunt). I decided on Tommy as Mark before Season 7 started airing which is WILD because I basically flipped a coin between him and Sal, but went with Tommy since he showed up to fly the plane in season 2. I wrote him and Buck kissing after Buck, Bothered and Bewildered though lol! I don’t really think about what happens to Tommy after the ending of the fic, although it’s definitely not what happened to Mark. Seeing as Owen doesn’t exist in this world, neither does the plane crash <3

Ok that’s it thanks for coming to my ted talk :)

[sirensskai]

My Ripp Grunt headcanons

It was about time I put them all in one place because as you can tell I’m obsessed with him and have a lot😭 Some of them might make no sense whatsoever or sound weird or are probably me just projecting but who cares lol. If I forget any or think of more I’ll add them later. Also it’s going to be really long…

Anyway… “So Kai, how much do you like Ripp???”

Me:

Birthday

I have come up with a birthday for Ripp. December 13, 1988. (Yes I know December 13 is the same date as Taylor Swift lol.) He is a Sagittarius (that’s canon but that’s why I picked that birthday). I see sims 2 Strangetown as starting in 2005 and he was age 16-17 back then. He’s a year and several months younger than Tank and 4 years older than Buck.

Height

Kind of short for a guy, about 5.5. Tank and Johnny are significantly taller and he hates it.

Identity

He is bisexual and transmasculine. Maybe non binary too, specifically a non binary man (like a demiboy or something.)

Ripp has always been attracted to all genders. He doesn’t really care about that (can fit pansexual too.) He is open to seeing multiple people at once so is polyamorous too. Which can be one way of explaining the romance aspiration. And yes, he has a crush on both Ophelia and Johnny.

He is transgender and knew something was up from an early age. Like a lot of transmasc people he went down the “tomboy” to trans pipeline. He didn’t fully realise what being trans meant and that that was what he was until he was about 14 though. Ripp chose his name himself, idc. He thought it was cool.

Johnny and Ophelia were very supportive of him being trans. He had them at school when the bullies found something new to pick on. As was his mum Lyla who he is very close to. Buck didn’t fully understand at first because of being really young but is still very supportive. (Also Buck ended up becoming Rebecca and is transfem herself but that’s another character headcanon lol) Lyla helped him start HRT.

General Buzz though… I don’t see General Buzz as entirely transphobic. I think he’s the kind of person to prefer having sons, but is still weird about Ripp being trans. He is kind of against it at first but gets used to it. He would also want Ripp to be a man in the “right” way (based on a Tumblr post I saw.) He messes up pronouns sometimes but at least tries. He still thinks Ripp is a fucking lazy ass disappointment overall though 😭 “yeah you are trans or bi, whatever, but you are still my worst son ever.” I think he would be more concerned if any guy Ripp dated was an alien over the fact they were a guy (oops, he already has a crush on Johnny Smith.) General Buzz’s conflicting views about Ripp with Lyla also contributed to those two’s strained relationship. He sees a lot of Lyla in Ripp, in both appearance and personality and he hates being reminded of her.

Tank was in a similar position of getting used to it over time. Didn’t mean he stopped wanting to beat his ass all the time though. He had some internalised stuff he had to deal with himself though (being his own person with his own wishes and also, gay.)

Ripp took Lyla disappearing very hard, especially since she was the one helping with his transition. He was on his own. Things got complicated because General Buzz was still kind of unsupportive. Ripp snuck out for several days to get top surgery by himself and General Buzz was very angry about that.

Personality

He’s a very sweet person overall. He’s friendly with almost everyone and hates conflict, but if he is confronted he loves taking the piss out of them. He’s very positive most of the time despite his terrible life. Very talkative and can go on and on. Tries to make a joke and lighten the mood with just about everything, including himself, even if he does go too far sometimes (which he instantly feels bad about if he makes someone sad.) Definitely swears a lot which his father hates, but he loves annoying his father.

Relationships

I don’t think he has a bad relationship with his father and Tank forever. They make up at one point and maybe they don’t become really close but they at least get along somewhat again (no horrible PSP ending in my sims game.)

He was very close with Lyla, probably the most out of all three of Lyla’s sons so he was devastated when she left, and even more so when he found out she died. One of the few supportive people in his life and she was gone.

Him and Buck (or Rebecca later) are very close due to them both having a strained relationship with General Buzz. Rebecca looks up to Ripp a lot. Also they end up both being transgender which they make a joke out of later. “I can’t believe we’re both Grunts and trans.)

He’s been friends with Ophelia and Johnny since middle school. He hangs out with them a lot and prefers being with them to being at home. He loves being an idiot with Johnny but is sweet with Ophelia. He fell in love with Ophelia first then Johnny.

He met Lilith after she also ran away from home. The two became close because of that. They love poking fun at each other. He’s afraid Lilith will make fun of him if he tells her he likes her (but Lilith likes him too.)

Self insert time, he’s really sweet around Lana. Ripp talks a lot and Lana barely talks at all due to their extreme shyness but he doesn’t mind. He cares for them a lot. He is the most calm and gentle to them and loves listening to them ramble about their interests. He might want to marry her.

Music Career

Ripp was always interested in music, mostly rock music but he is open to other genres as well. I see him as being very into Nirvana. He started playing guitar at school with Johnny Smith, covering their favourite songs. Lyla got him own guitar, and he also started writing his own songs, uploading them to MySpace or something.

At one point he runs away from home and gets a trailer for himself. Away from his father, he has a lot more freedom to do what he wants with his life. He’s still working at the gas station and going to a lot of music labels and he eventually gets signed to one. He has his first major song released through them.

Ripp is the lead singer and guitarist in a band as well as a soloist, with Johnny Smith, Lilith Pleasant and Mercutio Monty, the last two he meets and befriends at one point. (Idk what to name this band yet lol.) Johnny also plays guitar, Lilith is the bassist and Mercutio plays the drums.

His music style is very diverse. And I’m also going to base them off Lana Del Rey albums and songs because why not. His very early work is very acoustic. The first ep and debut album he releases has influences of grunge, surf rock and psychedelic rock. A lot of guitar sounds. And whatever sounds come out of AKA Lizzy Grant.

He goes through some tough things in life which is why he takes a break between his debut and his second album. The sound of this album is quite different. Still guitar heavy but also very slowed, dark and psychedelic. Probably some of his most depressing songs ever. Definitely has a song calling out General Buzz. His Ultraviolence era. It’s a little bit of a concept album too, there’s some sort of storyline throughout. He wears black eyeliner on stage.

The next album is experimental, a little bit of the style of his first album back with the guitar but also some trap beats in there. If I could describe it in a Lana Del Rey song it would be Freak Like Me Demo. Also the most horny album. Bisexual anthem in there though.

The latest album I’ve imagined for Ripp (idk why I’ve imagined all these albums for a sims 2 premade, please help) he explores pop. Lust for Life era (I’m still drawing that, I have a vision.) It’s a lot more uplifting than his previous work and it changes the world. Also somewhat of a horny album too. He dies the ends of his hair purple.

Ripp moves to Del Sol Valley at one point when he becomes a celebrity and gets a house in the pinnacles.

He is definitely very popular in terms of being attractive. There are people making thirst TikToks of him and writing self insert fanfiction and everything. (Couldn’t be me. /s) Some fans are really obsessed with him. To the point they would leak his unreleased music and post it everywhere which is unfortunate but some of them are so good (I’m writing a fic based on this.)

He also does campaigns and advertisements and things as part of being a celebrity, there’s a billboard or magazine cover somewhere where he’s modelling underwear 🙏 And he also hopes it annoys his dad if he sees it and recognises his face lol

His social medias would be hilarious and he would also own terrible people.

Other random hcs

I think Ripp was an unplanned child. Lyla was happy to have him but General Buzz not so much, he kind of hated Ripp from day 1.

He was a “problem child” at least in General Buzz’s eyes and also the schools he went to where he had behaviour issues and struggled to focus. His dad made him see a psychologist. He’s autistic (or aspergers back in the late 90s-early 2000s, also I don’t think General Buzz is the most up to date) and has ADHD. I don’t think this helped with General Buzz already seeing him as a disappointment. Ripp gets really fixated on music (both certain artists and creating it) or certain tv shows or very unconventional things that are kind of uncomfortable for some people. Like literally just the subject of woohoo interests him and he wants to know everything about it lol. I think he fixates on philosophical stuff too like death and the purpose of life (another thing that can lead to some uncomfortable conversations.) Very unlike the stereotype of autism because he’s really outgoing and social too, but it is a spectrum.

I think he shows a lot of affection through touch.

Really dark hc but… 😭 Although he pretends it doesn’t, I think the terrible relationship he has with General Buzz and Tank, as well as Lyla disappearing and dying did really affect him. Has depression and some self esteem and emotional issues and fears abandonment. He has considered *unaliving* before. Also a weird relationship with food. Although he has max interest in food, and he eats a lot of food (but mostly junk food) he grew up with the pressure to remain thin. The dark period of his life between his first two albums involved that and he may have abused substances too. I’m a terrible person, I’m sorry 😭. The romance sim part of him might have spawned from craving the love he didn’t get at home. He feels undeserving of a real relationship but deep down that’s what he actually wants.

I am sorry to him for giving him all these traumatising hcs but I can’t help myself. He was bullied in his school years 🥲 The psp secret of him being afraid of toilets from “one too many swirlies as a child” is to do with this. Tank was involved too maybe, but I don’t believe it was all down to him and he’s a terrible person. With the trans headcanon, I think he was picked on by both boys and girls. Girls didn’t like him for being “weird” and boys would go out of their way to hurt him for trying to fit in with them.

Due to General Buzz being in the millitary, he travelled to a lot of places and moved around a lot prior to going back to middle school in Strangetown. I think he would become interested in different cultures and pick up some words of different languages. He lived in Tomerang at one point.

Ripp is kind of feminine. He isn’t afraid to like “feminine” things and he loves jewellery and painting his nails.

He has a brow piercing and a septum.

He gets a sleeve tattoo.

Has rarely ever cut his hair in his life, he lets it grow really long and he doesn’t care. He would hate for all of his hair to just be chopped off (and that’s also what his father wants)

Smokes, both cigarettes and weed. Tries to stop smoking the cigarettes later on though. Him, Johnny and Ophelia get stoned together and sometimes Lana if she’s willing.

He’s quite arty (his canonical one true hobby is set to arts and crafts.) Spends a lot of his time drawing anything from animals to horny “anatomy” pictures because why not. He takes art when he attends college.

Ripp is a great father. Idc about that romance aspiration, just because he has that doesn’t mean he’s a deadbeat father 😭 Like I’ve said before, that sounds like Don Lothario but not Ripp. His nice points are too high for that. Also being like his own dad would be the last thing he wants to be. He really cares for any kids he has, and the people pregnant with the kids. He would be a really fun dad, maybe a little permissive. Basically the opposite of General Buzz (and also how I think Lyla was.) He also cares for people in general instead of just wanting woohoo out of them.

Ripp is left handed. Sims 4 actually set him up as left handed for me lol. Left handed guitars are unavailable to him to start with so he’s forced to learn right handed 😰 But later on he gets a left handed guitar and plays amazing.

He has a tooth gap.

Cat person. General Buzz, Tank and Rebecca are all drawn to dogs but Ripp is the only cat lover 😭 He gets a havana or a maine coon (or both.)

I think Ripp fits the pleasure aspiration more than the romance aspiration to be honest. An aspiration that involves some romance but also not being a total sleaze and wanting to relax and have fun sounds more like him. It fits Lyla too (another reason why they were so close is that they had very similar personalities.) Another aspiration that fits is popularity, he’s just a very friendly person who loves making friends.

Songs that remind me of Ripp:

[firespirited]

thought I might add a little to a question unanswered by the video essay: the why?

not as an excuse, not a full explanation either because there's still the matter of the Telos money.

but why does a man live, breath and eat for his channel/career without the passion for researching and learning?

I can tell you that he truly *did* devote his entire time and energy to producing videos and engaging with the commentariat as a full time job, though if the video scripts were copy paste. He probably feels like he's devoted his entire soul for years into this project and the copy paste was "just" to keep up with the youtube once a week upload demands.

IMHO, what we have is a bloke with crippling anxiety, loneliness and body dysmorphia with a pathological fear of rejection who attempted to build an online queer community that wouldn't ever let him down. As far i can can tell he barely left the house, didn't date and i started to wonder if he really had moved when he wasn't visiting any of Toronto's very gay friendly places or even some of the museums and libraries, wasn't making any local connexions even when people reached out. Instead, he spent his weekends chatting online (often on livestream) about gay media, business, youtube and film making.

I think he could have built that safe haven if he'd kept the day job, produced a fully credited video once a month which was in the format of let's watch this documentary, let's read this book, let's dive into a topic and read the various articles followed by his livestream chats. There is clearly an audience eager for it.

and that's where it gets uncomfortable, right? the lines blur between shyness + not wanting to be hurt vs not collaborating and not being part of other established groups. Canada not only has multiple gay filmmaking scenes, advocacy groups and even a whole bunch of Canadian queer youtubers. They don't have to all get along, because there's more than just the Canada based breadtube, there are a lot of smaller channels that'd love the opportunity to network.

Anyway, it was during a live that i bought up some local Canadian networking opportunity, he backed off quite hard in a way that felt like a little bit more than anxiety about the fierce competition that goes on for such stuff. It felt vaguely like Little Britain's "The Only Gay in the Village" but mostly I was reminded of folks in my life who decided to forge their own paths in charity work and activism, specifically the very dodgy intersection between missionary work and charity and charities that are about the joy of bringing fish to the hungry instead of helping the locals who know how to fish get the new motor for their boat. It's actually a really complex and nuanced conversation where sometimes the least colonialist choice is to hold your nose and work with the local catholic church - yeah I know, that level of complicated, here's some reading before I start on the importance of translating books to creoles being a better investment than teaching english to match an english curriculum and how relief work is often predatory business opportunities and how secularism is a tightrope balancing act and don't get me started.

It is possible to walk and chew gum and listen to music at the same time. We can talk about how plagiarism is bad, how the algorithm rewards it, how this guy is probably getting more ire than the right wing grifters also brought up, why left tube maybe feels a lil intimidating, why people build their own little digital or offline communes, how being an educator and being a thought leader get smooshed together in an attention economy that wants to create influencers with a parasocial engagement with folks that want personal guidance, sometimes stolen valour/plagiarism/fake cancer is for power and clout and sometimes it's a maladaptive response to a desperate loneliness I hope I never fully comprehend.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - a new #1 for me from Thailand

Nov 2022 Wk 4

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying the most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

609 Bedtime Story (Fri WeTV) 1&2 of 11 - Apparently VIPs get the next episode early. So I watched both. It’s a good story and a great set up and it opens with one of my favorite under appreciated Thai actors: Plustor (as Vee) in a side bartender romance with younger Game. Sunshine bisexual himbo + older tsundere = YES! Gimme! Main character, Mum, is your bog-standard player. (I weirdly love how they translate clubs & bars as “pub” in Thailand - and yes, I get that it ties to the history of the area.) Kinda fun street fight. NO SINGING. Game is BL’s new bisexual king! I will brook no arguments on this matter. Omg kisses already? This is a well paced story! OhmFluke man, can’t knock the visuals, their eye connection and sympathetic chemistry work is good. I never believe they wanna bone but I do believe them falling in love. ALL HAIL QUEEN MINT. 

Between Us (Sun iQIYI) 4 of 12 - This is such a fantastic show. I’m so glad they got OhmFluke back to play sides and support roles, it’s really making the found family aspect shine, especially in contrast to Win’s real family. This one is very complicated and deep and kind of modern. Very much the opposite of UWMA but in a good way. WATCH ALONG HERE.

My School President (Fri YT) 1 of 10 - it’s Love Sick + Korea and Japan's influence. Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but this is me: I never met a high school BL I didn’t want to grant a fair shake. At the very start we get self with a whistle and NO SINGING. Yay! Fantastic beginning. Our tiny music club president/idiot is definitely giving me Noh vibes & our suave student president definitely giving me Phun vibes - bonus this time no girlfriends! It moves this out of Love Sick arena, which was all chaos bisexuals, and into just completely gay. I’m happy with that and I like the dancing and the marriage on his mind. New candidates for one braincell friendship group from GMMTV (they love this archetype). Tinn is already pining and so completely gone. On a completely different aside, I really want a lesbian romance between Gun’s maa and the principle. I have a tiny ship sailing off to one side. 

Ai Long Nhai (Mon iQIYI)10 of 12 - holy crumbs outta nowhere, Batman. Lots of relationship chat not enough shirtlessness, but since I’ve been binging Oh! My Sunshine Showering Night it’s no problemo. Also yes, Nahi does look and act a lot like Joanan, Ai totally ended up dating his mother. 

Remember Me (Sun Gaga) 8 of 12 - Champ’s storyline is dull, although I like the actor. Yay, JaFirst got together!! Cute line, “can we skip being friends and just be in love instead?” LOVE THEM. Please can we take Mean out of that wig now? Why are the straight’s so boring? The Name stuff continues to upset me. 

I Will Knock You (Fri Gaga) 3 of 12 - When these two are sweet together, they are really very sweet and I actually kind of like it. I think Noey uses ter because he’s younger, and doesn’t want to use phi. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

My Tooth Your Love (Taiwan Fri Viki) 9 of 12 - while 609 and Between Us are v good, this is currently my favorite BL airing by a mile. The conversation between the young one and the bar owner made me hoot with laughter. “Are you trying to speak the language of adults?” probably one of the BL’s best put-downs. All the dialogue really: “Are you gonna make him tie himself in a red bow and send himself to you?“ “That’s nice. Can I choose another color?” It’s so fucking cute. The courting with food, and everybody taking photographs of how happy the dentist is. I can’t even with this show. Add the cutest smiles kisses, this is GREAT. I did in fact clap. 

Choco Milk Shake (Korea Strongberry Tues YT) 9 of 11 - Man, this show really makes me laugh so hard. Especially the cat character. I love how they called out the fact that they actually have customers for a change. Jealous Milk made me cackle so hard it scared the actual cat on my lap. How are they going to end this happy? In Strongberry we trust. Just repeat the mantra ABL, just keep repeating it. 

Eternal Yesterday AKA Eien no Kino (Japan Thurs Gaga) 7 of 8 - It takes me a lot to work up the courage to watch this show on Fridays. It’s so sad and traumatizing. But it’s also so good I can’t stop. I have to watch Tooth on either side of it to comfort myself. All that to say, it’s as we all expect: Michan is holding so hard onto Koichi that he has anchored him from death through shear force of will. Also… SWITCHES? Although, does it count if it’s necrophilia? Asking for a friend. 

Oh! My Assistant (Korea Thurs Viki) 1-2 of 8 - This has a very JBL feel (including the title), don’t get mad if I get confused. Anygay, this is a very silly show that acts like it comes from a very silly yaoi. Out gay younger seme (we stan) pretending to be tsundere is smitten by chaos bi uke puppy. And they gave us a very interesting new take on crash into me. It’s racy but in that way Korean does racy, like Love & Leashes. Cheeky racy. 

Happy Ending Romance (Korea Thurs Gaga) 3-4 of 8 - This is such a complicated show about profession, ego, reputation, safety, and trust, but not much about romance. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to Leo portraying evil (see most of his guest MV’s and half of VIXX’s) but I can’t trust his character, and I’m not sure if I’m meant to. Is that the romance? Or is this a romance about an editor’s love for a writer’s work? Or for the writer himself? And is there a difference? Meanwhile, I’m getting a bad feeling about the ending of this one. And yet... How much did I love the dialogue around love and possession? So much. 

It’s Airing But I’m Not Watching It

War of Y (Thai Gaga) 20 eps - it’s just all too much for me.

2 Moons 3 (Thai Mon ??) 10 eps - Possibly a future binge watch. Rumor is it’s banal.

Love Bill  (Vietnam Sat YT) - Bah Vinh is back but I’m too distracted. Also there’s a lot of fund raising stuff going on. I’ll wait and binge.

The Star Always Follow You (Vietnam YT) - same Team RL peeps we have seen before (Sunshine, Stupid) 

Till the World Ends (Thai YT) 10 eps - ?

Why You... Y Me? (Thai Weds YT) 10 eps - It's not primarily a BL, but another meta show about BL shipping, with side BLs. @heretherebedork is watching it, ask them about it. 

In Case You Missed It

To Sir With Love AKA Khun Chai (16 eps) seems to have ended HAPPY! This is a soap opera so next time I have a day off I may binge and trash watch.

GAP the series (Sat YT) is a classic office set romance. WATCH IT! It’s GL and this studio needs our support! I’m enjoying it but not chronicling my journey. (Also, the stairs are back!)

I decided to binge watch Oh! My Sunshine Showering Night. What a wild ride. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Dec 9: Semantic Error movie (Viki) - the repackage, rumored to have some added footage

2022 still to come?

Dec 19: Chains of Heart (movie? theaters?) trailer Suspense thriller about a forest ranger, smugglers, memory loss, and lost love. Stars Haii (Cirrus in TT2) and Poppy (Porpla in YYY). Adapted from a Y-novel of the same name by TJ Tommy. I don’t know if this is still releasing or if C19 impacted it. Delayed until Feb 2023.

This Week’s Crimes Against Fashion

Between Us punishing their crumbs. 

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

I LOVE HIM. (609) 

I love them! (Between Us). 

Magic crumbs (Ai Long Nhai) 

Truth (Ai Long Nhai) 

Cats.

Me.

Also me. 

(last week) 

[abuddyforeveryseason]

It's the Buddy for April 22nd! He's wearing the Capricorn Cloth (being a capricorn himself) of the classic Masami Kurumada manga Saint Seiya.

I loved Saint Seiya. I have all the paperbacks, even, I liked it when I was a kid. It's an interesting manga, in that it doesn't make much sense in retrospect, but when you're reading it, you're more interested in the beat of the plot than in the big picture.

The plot, as I understand, is that this rich girl Saori is the reincarnation of the goddess Athena, so her dad arranged for ten boys to get trained to be her protectors (the saints), wearing bronze armors based on traditional constellations. Then they get into a martial arts tournment to win an actual gold cloth, but complications start making it so they need to stop fighting amongst themselves, and start fighting actual bad guys.

In a way, it's a very toyetic story - each character has their own unique armor (or cloth) which is fits both them, and can be assembled to resemble its constellation, so kids had a lot of expensive toys to collect. And since the golden cloths (belonging to the strongest saints) are based on the twelve zodiac signs, kids already have a favorite character picked out for them.

Me, I'm an Aquarius, so my favorite was Aquarius Camus. The one with the ice powers. He also won a Literature Nobel, you know. But I never related to him, really. He's an ice guy, which is cool I guess, but, not the power I'd choose.

The manga's also very camp. The art's really old-fashioned, looking almost like sometihng from Tatsuo Yoshida's generation. Not a lot of attention is paid to proportions and depth, and the fight scenes are not dynamic. But that's one of the things I like about it, to be honest. It feels like there's a closer dialog between the artist and the reader when the art is so direct. It's the opposite of something like the manga version of One-Punch Man, for instance.

And the designs of the cloths, characters and enemies is also pretty unique, it's got that simplified design quality of eighties manga that's not as popular anymore.

One aspect that Saint Seiya, like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, isn't shy about is the gay subtext regarding some characters... it's most obvious with Andromeda Shun and Pisces Aphrodite, but also Virgo Shaka, Aries Mu... it's an intentional aspect of the story, but when me and my friends were kids watching it, we thought it was pretty "gross".

Even though it doesn't really make sense and it's pretty much designed to appeal to kids' love of shiny stuff and fight scenes, Saint Seiya is one of my favorite franchises. I'll be honest, I didn't know much about greek mythology when I first watched the anime, so I assumed a lot of the stuff Kurumada made up was actual part of ancient Greek myth. Still makes no sense why Capricorn Shura had the power of Excalibur, though... what does Excalibur have to do with Capricorn? Should be a Draco thing, or even Ursa Major...

The Capricorn print in the background is a public domain image.

[deathscastleofficielle]

Death's Castle - Pride Headcanons

Since my beloved Jack did this with his versions of the PDP Amnesia characters, I definitely felt like I should join in! So this is basically going to be a masterpost of the characters' queer identities with some anecdotes on how and why I came to these conclusions.

(Note, the artist has since changed their handle to NoxAtraWendigo, which is... Unfortune, but I'm afraid I have to move on.)

One more thing, I am mainly listing specifics here. As far as I'm concerned the entire castle is some shade of queer, but unless I have a specific label for them I'm not putting it in the list. For example, some characters have displayed attraction to the same sex, but you may not see any specifications there because I simply haven't determined if they're also attracted to the opposite sex, or even in that case if they're bi or pan. This stuff's complicated, and I don't like putting things in boxes if it's not entirely necessary.

WARNING: There are spoilers for Death's Castle under the cut. It would have been too hard to talk about their identities without pointing to specific moments.

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The Big Five

You know funny story this was never meant to be their official title, but Zoe picked up on Lullaby calling the primary Bros "The Big Four" so I guess that's what I'm going with now.

Stephano - Bisexual

This one isn't really a surprise to anyone who's been reading my posts or the fic itself, but Stephano is very much a bisexual man. This one was just a bit of lifting from the videos, despite how much he insists he's straight and the anecdotes of dating women he undeniably displays attraction to the same sex. The way I personally write it is that he has an easier time flirting with and finding initial attraction to women, but falls a lot harder for men.

Jennifer - Biromantic Asexual

While normally I think of specifics as I go, Jennifer was a case where I actually knew from the start what I wanted her sexuality to be. When I began conceptualizing her story, I knew I wanted her to be asexual but not aromantic for a few reasons.

At the time and even still today, a lot of our aro and ace representation was synonymous with each other despite them being separate identities. So even for just a fanfic, I wanted to make characters that showed more of the nuance of asexuality and aromanticism.

I wanted to explore her love for Pewdie through the lens of asexuality. It seems a lot of allo people base their initial feelings off sexual attraction, so what does such an intense love entail if sexual attraction isn't involved?

Jennifer is fat and struggles with her weight, and I'm sorry to point this out but I feel like a lot of body positivity boils down to assuring people (mostly women) that they're still sexually attractive. But what if being seen that way is almost as repulsive as being "ugly?" I wanted to write her story to focus on body positivity and beauty in a way removed from sex.

Honestly, Jennifer's story ended up being very personal. When I started Death's Castle I was under the impression I was simply a straight ally. By the time I got to her backstory though, I had realized I was asexual myself, but had struggled to realize it since my experience didn't conform to the usual stereotype. As such, there was a lot of catharsis writing Morning Glory, which is probably why her section is the longest here oops.

Mr. Chair - Grayromantic Homosexual

While Jennifer was thoroughly planned out, Mr. Chair's identity was kind've a happy accident. I sort of knew he was gay, but over time I realized that a lot of his writing lined up with an arospec experience. Mr. Chair is very unfamiliar with romantic love and what it feels like, and while he definitely feels something for Skully, it's never portrayed as particularly intense. As such, I came to the realization that he's definitely under the grayromantic umbrella. He experiences romantic feelings infrequently and perhaps not as strongly as others do.

Piggeh - Panromantic Asexual

Yeah, I made the character that did nothing but talk about sex ace. Deal with it. In seriousness, again, a lot of this was kinda just something that happened and honestly feels more on the lines of allegory than a straightforward example, but I think it's fine to make official. While Piggeh definitely enjoys sex, he isn't really sexually attracted to anybody. In fact, he finds most people (including himself) physically unappealing. Despite this, he does display romantic attraction, showing that appearance and gender don't really factor in for him when it comes to that. Again, ended up kinda cathartic in hindsight.

Mayo - Androsexual Agender (He/They)

This was a case where the character kinda just evolved as I wrote them, which you know what is fitting for a teenager growing and discovering their identity. He started as a boy, but as time went on I started to realize something wasn't cis about this kid. I played with a few ideas before I settled on him being agender. In-story, he first started to realize he may not be cis in Geode when Martin taught him that people can feel being a specific gender, inadvertently revealing that he didn't. This culminated in Peter's Gate where they realized that they felt uncomfortable being seen as a boy or a girl. For now he only uses he/him pronouns, but I'm hoping to start incorporating the they/them pronouns in future chapters.

I do see him being attracted exclusively to men or masc-leaning identities, hence androsexual. This has been established through him mentioning wanting a boyfriend in Binding Ties, and the implications that he had a bit of a crush on Stephano when he was a little kid. Unfortunately, not many romantic options since the other teenagers even remotely around their age in the castle are too old for them.

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

Other Bros

Martin - Genderfluid (All Pronouns)

Development wise this is a long story that is almost too hard to recall if I'm honest, but I knew pretty early on I wanted Martin to be genderfluid if just to display some of the world building. As readers of the fic will know, Martin was born female but basically swapped bodies with Sammy Sue in order for her to live as a woman and for him to start over from his previous life as "Susanna." Martin now presents masc, but they still identify as both genders, or sometimes none at all.

Also, quick aside. I kinda like that I have a genderfluid character that's over 40. It feels like less binary identities like that are often limited to teen or 20-something characters. So she's a good first step for my future projects.

Torchy - Transgender (He/Him)

I've had two headcanon voices for Torchy, and both are trans men, so I was just like fuck it, let's make him trans. That sounds fun. There really wasn't much thought in this decision.

Skully - Intersex (He/Him)

I couldn't decide if he was cis or trans, so I decided on both and neither. To be a little more serious, there isn't a whole lot of deep reasoning for this, I just thought it would be cool to have at least one intersex person in the castle and Skully was standing right there.

Also him being intersex has nothing to do with his ability to mimic voices. That's just a thing he can do.

Pipé - Transgender (She/Her)

This is a long story involving me wanting to do this from the beginning, a now ex-friend using a weird excuse to talk me out of it, and then me having to cram it back in before it was too late, but yeah. Pipé is a trans woman!

Bluey - Lesbian

There was a time where I might have said she was bi but you know what no this girl is gay as hell. Definitely has a thing for Jennifer.

Lullaby and Lisa - Sapphic

"Scout why didn't you just say lesbians?" Because that doesn't really convey the whole story tbh. Lisa is definitely a lesbian, but Lullaby I actually see being specifically gynesexual, which is the attraction to femininity and doesn't necessarily have to be gender specific. Either way though they're in a sapphic relationship.

Save Kitty Cat - Bisexual

Is this mostly because of his blue and purple color palette? Yes. But I have always seen him as being attracted to both genders.

Jesus - Transgender (He/Him)

Honestly this was mainly a "because it's funny" decision. It was inspired by a scientific thing that basically meant that since the biblical Jesus was born from only Mary without any male dna in the equation he would have logically had to have been born female. Thus, trans Jesus.

Disclaimer, Death's Castle Jesus is not actually the Jesus. He just named himself that because he also thought it would be funny.

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

Barrels

Red Chair, Gonzales, and Sammy Sue - Polyamorous

Sammy's getting her own section, but like Lisa and Lullaby it felt more efficient to put them together rather than doing three separate entries for the same relationship. But yeah, as many readers are aware, these three are in a polycule. Like many things, this was an idea I lifted from the now deleted fanfic Hyperthymesia. Their relationship has been one of my favorite things to write in Death's Castle, as their more stable and loving relationship provides an interesting contrast against the dysfunctional Bros, especially now that things have started to shift in both groups. Also it's interesting to write just how complicated such a relationship can get in a tumultuous setting like Death's Castle.

Sammy Sue - Transgender (She/Her)

And of course, another idea borrowed from Hyperthymesia, Sammy Sue is a trans woman. She was my first real experience writing a trans character, so she definitely has a strong place in my heart. As mentioned under Martin's section, she was born male but swapped objects with Martin and gained his female body.

Broom - Lesbian

Unfortunately I haven't been able to show this off much, but I definitely see Broom as a lesbian. I intended for her to have a little something something with Jennifer in Morning Glory, but I was told they had more of a sisters vibe, so I decided not to push it there. I have plans to establish her identity though, don't worry.

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The Filthy Pig + Bro

(because there were no other unaligned characters left lol)

Bunny - Aroace

This is a bit on the subtler side in my writing, but Bunny was always meant to be aroace. She never shows any interest in having a romantic relationship and only seems interested in sex for the purpose of reproduction, given that she had kits before being revived in the castle. I thought it would make her a fun contrast compared to all the rampantly horny swines she lives with.

Berta - Pansexual

Again, haven't been able to display this much given her only shown attraction is to Piggeh, but girl's pan. Gender doesn't matter to her, just that special something that apparently Piggeh had.

Gandalf and Rudolph - Polyamorous

Gandalf and Rudolph are in an open relationship. They're committed to each other, but have other relations on the side. I want to figure out a way to actually confirm this in Death's Castle, but it's hard since the Filthy Pig group doesn't really show up that often and when they do the pig trio are often in the background.

Adolf - Aromantic Bisexual

Keeping it simple over here. Adolf ain't much for romantic stuff, but still enjoys a good time with any person.

Bro - Bisexual

Bruno here loves both men and women. He's slept with Piggeh in the past, and previously dated Sammy Sue, which ended... Pretty poorly. He's also shown an attraction to Martin, which actually seems to be returned if their interaction in Geode is any indication.

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Miscellaneous Thoughts

I don't see Bengt being picky about gender, but given he's more interested in cutting people up than fucking them he's probably never put a label on it himself.

I know the Barrel King is into men, but the dude has yet to physically appear so I kinda can't go into it.

During a conversation with Jack, specifically about Tom Hardy's "Paint That Lady" he suggested that Peter could also be Asexual. That would be fun, but I'm not sure about it since some of his dialogue in Morning Glory kinda suggests that he isn't.

Stephano isn't ace, but I have joked with my friends that making him ace would have been a mercy given his... Situation, regarding Janus. But no I want him to suffer.

I've considered that Pipé could be aromantic, but a lot of that also boils down to me not really having a strong ship for her, so I don't feel comfortable making her officially aro yet.

I might remove the colored text if people report issues with reading it.

[juniperhillpatient]

I finished Yellowjackets and I already miss it! Any recs for what to watch to fill the void?

Omg I feel you every day of my life I miss Yellowjackets I wish I could watch it all for the first time again 😭

I don’t really watch that many shows so I’m terrible with recommending stuff 😅

If you want more depravity & complicated awful female villains & anti heroes with complex toxic sapphic dynamics Hostel 2 is my go to but you do have to watch the first one to understand it & I love the first one myself but it is very man heavy with characters lol

If you are really wanting to lean more into the messed up flesh consuming homoerotic codependent sapphic dynamic aspect specifically I’d recommend Ginger Snaps or Jennifer’s Body the main canon sapphic female relationships in both those movies are brain rotting in similar ways to JackieShauna. (Though Ginger Snaps gets incestuous so I know that’s as quick for a lot of people tread carefully)

Ooh as far as TV shows go you’d probably enjoy Killing Eve if you like Yellowjackets although that one the writing really goes downhill pretty badly so I do hesitate to recommend it unless you’re in it for the parts that are worth it & prepared for disappoint down the line…. Ugh but Eve & Villanelle are SUCH amazing characters!!

Dead to Me is another show that’s really good & far less depraved & more drama centric than the other stuff I’ve mentioned. However in my opinion the writing does go downhill but the first 2 seasons? Iconic. Not canonically gay like the other things I’ve mentioned but still a delicious dynamic between two complicated & somewhat crazy women.

Not in the same genre as my other recs but Bottoms is a great comedic movie if you just want crazy & sort of awful lesbians.

Oh —- ok last 3 recommendations. These ones don’t necessarily have the toxic crazy sapphic girlies element of YJ that I just assume is a big part of the draw (it is for me lol) HOWEVER they are some of my faves -

Hannibal. I love this show. It’s art. I don’t have anything else to say that hasn’t been said meow articulately by more hardcore fans. I watched this entire show in a fever haze when I had Covid so that probably affects my analytical ability but I promise it’s great. It’s also a little man heavy & the female characters could be… done better sometimes so that is a criticism I have that keeps it from being a number one fave for me but Hannibal & Will are VERY compelling & the plot & visuals are soooo good.

Scream mtv I honestly feel like you’ve seen this one I’m pretty sure but it’s a fave of all time & Emma/Audrey is one of my fave ships of all time. Excellent cast excellent writing it’s so good.

Bates Motel. This show is so slept on in fandom & it’s probably the best horror tv I’ve ever seen from start to finish it tells an amazingly cohesive prequel backstory for one of the most iconic villains of all time in a way that honors the book & film both of which I LOVE & somehow manages to stay fresh & shocking & exciting despite the audience knowing where it’s going. For quality horror tv I can’t recommend this show highly enough it’s honestly the best thing on this list on an objective level like the cinematography the fantastic acting from Vera Farmiga & Freddy Highmore especially but also Max Theriot & Olivia Cookie I just - I LOVE this show. Heavy heavy trigger warning though not just for incest which is inherent to a Psycho prequel but like…. Everything you could ever need a trigger warning for. There is a significant amount of SA shown so yeah be careful.

Anyway there you go you’ve probably seen a lot of the stuff on this list but this is what I could think of to watch next to somewhat keep the mood of Yellowjackets although of course we both know YJ is unique enough you’re never going to recapture that exact vibe 😉

If anyone else has recommendations also I’d also be curious! ❤️

Oh wait last thing my best friend Juliet Lewis plays another iconic traumatized girly with maybe worse daddy issues than Natalie even in Natural Born Killers. This is one of my favorite movies but it is NOT for everyone. You are signing up for unapologetic depravity & sympathetic serial killer villain main characters with a toxic relationship. Now for me those are selling points but it is a very messed up movie so yeah. Trigger warning for SA incest & basically every dynamic in the movie being the definition of toxic.

Okay that’s off the top of my head for watching after YJ I’m done now lol 🫶

****Edit I’m listening to music on my porch as I play on tumblr & I Know the End by my best friend Phoebe Bridgers came on & I remembered to recommend School Spirits it’s not exactly the same horror vibes of YJ but I just think you’d like it because it’s a delightfully creepy compelling & fun ghost story / mystery with absolutely wonderful characters fun cinematography exciting lore a good plot & a banger soundtrack ok I’m done now lmao go watch School Spirits it’s so great

[illarian-rambling]

For the WIP/OC Ask Game:

What's the deal with that evil desert?

How does magic work?

And feel free to ramble about your favorite characters and their most curious details!

Hi there!

I answered about the desert here, but I'll be happy to tell you about magic!

Magic on Illaros spills from a mysterious dimension known as the Veil. Different shapes will draw it out in different forms, much as different keys will unlock different doors. Some of these shapes are fire or ice. Others are more complicated, like memory reading and matter degradation/transportation/assembly (aka teleportation). People who learn to draw and harness these different shapes are known as rune scribes, or simply mages.

Sorcerers are where it gets a little funky. They are born with enzymes in their blood that are shaped in a way to allow the Veil to spill through into the sorcerer’s body. With their divine soul, they are able to manipulate this magic using simple, rune-adjacent shapes formed with their hands, called sigils. It's much faster than drawing on the Veil by drawing runes, but sorcerers suffer from exhaustion, migraines, nausea, and any number of physical ailments when they use up too many of their enzymes, though the enzymes do grow back eventually.

In addition to these two, there's also alchemy and divine magic. Alchemy uses magically mutated creatures to create potions, while divine magic involves people asking the gods to pretty please loan them a miracle. Divine magic is the most powerful form of magic, however, only a very select group of people can wield it.

There's also rotting magic. This isn't a type of magic someone can wield, but a natural effect. When magic stays too long untethered to a spell or rune, it will start to decay in a stream of microscopic particles. The people of Illaros call this sorcerer’s poison, but we'd call it radiation. They call it sorcerer’s poison specifically because sorcerers can draw on the rotting magic of their previously cast spells even when they're out of enzymes, though it has a chance of killing them via something akin to very fast radiation sickness.

There's a bunch of other weird stuff going on too, but I think I'll leave it at that ;)

The character that's been on my mind lately isn't one of the main cast, but instead a side character in MG3. Marius Montane is the younger brother (15 years younger) of Antonin Montane, the patriarch of the Montane family bank and father of Ivander Montane.

Marius was only 20 when Ivander’s mom disappeared, and since Antonin had more important things to do, he sort of took it upon himself to raise the boy after that. I'd say he did a decent job, all things considered. Marius was also deeply traumatized by the Montane family atmosphere, and 20 is not very old to be raising an 8 year old. Soon after, people made a run on Marius's bank, and he received a portion of Timaz's curse as punishment (the same, flesh-to-mist stuff Ivander has going on, but just on his leg). He trained Ivander strictly in hopes of keeping him safe from the curse, and the pain often made him irritable, so he wasn't always the softest of caretakers. His wife, Parva, helped too, but she died by the time Marius was 30. The pairing was an arranged one, so they were never in love, but they were quite friendly. Marius used his grief for her as an excuse to never remarry, as the Montanes are pretty keen on producing blood-related heirs, and that man is gay as the day is long.

He's just a really tragic character, all in all. After Ivander left, he thought about following, but could never work up the courage. He lives in terror of his brother. I think that's one of Antonin's cardinal sins; being the sort of man his little brother is afraid of. But don't you worry. Marius will get his moment :)

Thanks for the asks!

[johannestevans]

An essay, a romance, two podcast episodes, and a TweetFic!

Good evening!

I've just been chugging away this week as I've been really enjoying a videogame between other things called Kingdom Come.

It is, tragically, very heterosexual, but despite that I've been having a good deal of fun with it - it's a first-person action RPG set in Bohemia in 1403, heavily based off of real events, and prides itself on its realism.

When I first started out with it I had a lot of difficulty because it's intended to be a hard game and there's a steep learning curve, but once I got a hang of it I really got into it, and I'm enjoying it a lot! It's highly immersive, it gives you a lot of information about the context of the period and the culture around you, and I really enjoy a lot of the gameplay.

With that said, the game prides itself on its "historical accuracy", and while the broader events are contained, like... This is a white European gamer's idea of "historical accuracy". There's no queers, there's no POC, the gender stuff is very much based, again, in a white gamer's assumption of men versus women, etc. I'm very much enjoying it despite all these flaws, but the idea that it's historically accurate with no political slant to that "accuracy" would be very silly, lol.

I mean, just take the fashion alone - one of the context notes even mentions the different styles of clothing design based on things like gender, including the fact that fashionable men would often grow their hair out a bit... And then every man has the same 4 ugly gamer hairstyles, including two different styles of bad undercut, because longer hair styles would make this sort of man feel threatened and like his avatar looks too gay.

It's also a little bit janky and the visuals are not the best, with various bugs - if you enjoy Skyrim despite its fucky controls and flawed visuals, Kingdom Come isn't much worse than that! But they very much are there, and it's a little frustrating.

I'm gonna keep tipping away at it for the time being, and get all the juice out of it I can.

Media Recs

The chaotic reality of being a trans man on Grindr: From d**k pics to existential crises by Jackson King- I've obviously written about being a trans dude and cruising before, but Jackson's experiences as a big Black man are obviously different to mine as a white twink, and it's really interesting seeing where our experiences are similar and where they diverge!

Death Investigations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - This is an old episode of Last Week Tonight and John Oliver is not everybody's cup of tea, but I actually enjoy the show's dives and explanations into a lot of topics, and this one is so fucked up and Lewis even watched it even though they hate it when I send them videos that are longer than 5 minutes, so! This is a dive into the politics around death investigations in the US, the differences between coroners and medical examiners, the lack of regulation, etc.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, dir. Stephen Frears, wr. Hanif Kureishi) - So, this is a big movie from the 80s - I've recced a lot of Frears' flicks before, I like his work as a director, and this one is really interesting and pretty different from his usual biopics. It's a really interesting film in terms of its editing, its sound design, and its general presentation - it does a lot of creative time skips, a lot of details and context occur offscreen and make you fill in the gaps or infer the specifics, it's funny, it's emotionally complicated... Yeah. We saw it at the Palás and I just really appreciated it - it's been on my list for a while, and I'm glad I watched it!

New Works Published

Essay: Passing Privilege: Through My Eyes, as a Trans Man Who Passes

Second puberty and the waves we send through the spaces around us.

On Patreon / On Medium / On Tumblr

Romance Short: Very Well

A herbalist is dispatched to be the wife of a faraway priest.

Romance short, 7.5k, rated M. A herbalist is dispatched for his role in an arranged marriage of sorts with a priest of Aristaeus far from home. Adapted from a TweetFic.

On Patreon / On Medium

New episode of The Story: Wild Country

Horror short. 3k, Gen, rated T. Originally posted February 16th, 2023. A young woman walks home on a foggy night. First person POV, originally posted on /r/NoSleep.

On Spotify / On Google Podcasts / RSS Feed

New bonus episode of The Story: Centre Pocket

Centre Pocket, originally published December 1st, 2022.

2.5k, rated E, cis M/M.

After teasing all day, a twink gets bent over the dive bar’s pool table. Public sex at a pub lock-in, size difference, age difference, humiliation and degradation, anal sex with condoms, dirty talk, multiple partners, object insertion, implications of a gangbang.

On Glow / On Patreon

New TweetFic: Ordinary Love

suicidal artist who spends most of his time drinking heavily and getting high off paint turps who is obsessively in love with and keeps doing highly eroticised portraits of the local butcher who is literally just Some Guy but he is very flattered

CWs for suicidality, alcoholism, severe mental illness, past trauma, mentions of CSA and abuse. With those CWs in mind, this is pretty light, funny, and loving.

99_monochrome made some gorgeous art in response to this piece too! It's here.

On Twitter

That's all! See you next week!

Get merch on TeePublic | | Look through my Directory of Published Work | | Listen to my Podcast

[stackthedeck]

What are your thoughts on the new Spiderverse run? I'm only reading it because of Cooper and I managed to find some bits here and there.

Have a good one!

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS! First off, there's never been a spider verse that I didn't enjoy because I just love all the creative spins that writers and artists put on the spider mantel!! And usually, a spider verse run means that at least one of the new spiders will get their own mini series or even a full run (Spider-Gwen and Spider-Punk my beloved)

okay this got long specific thoughts and minor spoilers under the cut

And I love the five issue series of end of the spider-verse because all the new spiders are so cool!! And I think the evil wasps work really well because it allows us to check in on the other spiders we know and love but they're turned evil so that we can focus on the new spiders! It's a very visually engaging villain and it really doesn't need to be that complicated for an end of the multiverse story you know

I love Web Weaver more than words can I express I have not stopped thinking about Cooper since I read his issue!! I just want him to have a mini series after all this is over marvel please I will write it!! I think he honestly has the strongest introduction out of all the new spiders because he actually does stuff and it's not just his origin story. His design is gorgeous but also his panel layout was so engaging like that beautiful web page that summoned up his origin story!!! I love his writing and the jokes he makes, you can tell that a gay man wrote his dialogue like yes!! (Steve Foxe, sir I hope marvel lets you write more of this character please Slott can't be trusted with him!) But like he'd have such an excellent mini series because there's a plot hook established before he leaves for the multiverse and it's his relationship with Albert Moon!! It's a love square with two people I'm literally gaging yes please marvel please I need to see how this goes!! Like Cooper and Albert are exes, but Silk and Web Weaver have crushes on each other and Albert kissed Web Weaver! Like oh my god the drama and if I don't get a comic for either of them soon I'm going to fucking write it myself

I also adore the other new spiders!! I like the new spider UK, she's an interesting character with a cool design, but her writing was a little clunky but I think that would have been fixed if she had a whole issue rather than like a quarter. Same with Sun Spider, love everything about her but the writing could have been stronger but also this isn't her first appearance so idk why the felt the need to go over her origins again. I would love for both of them to get their own solos. The character I'm really excited about is Spintress!! I thought her universe was so creative and the way they translated the typical spider man villains into Disney princess stuff. I hope she gets like a children's book or since Disney owns marvel maybe a little animated short in the traditional 2d style like I'd literally kill for that!!

Okay, I love this spider verse, but its whole is less than the sum of its parts. Like it moves into Slott's Spider-Man run and it instantly stops being charming and exciting. It immediately focuses on Peter despite the fact that this whole series started with Anya Corazón and Julia Carpenter! And they started calling Peter the chosen one which fuck no!! The whole point of spider verse is that Peter Parker isn't special, that anyone can take up the responsibility of spider-man, that anyone can be behind the mask!! And then they take away the tension of the evil wasp turning the spiders by saying that 616 citizens can't be turned which like way to bring down the stakes! Noir now has a sword that erases people from existence which fuck fine okay whatever. But the new spiders are instantly pushed to the background so that Peter can have the spotlight! He makes a homophobic comment to Web Weaver, he's nasty to Spintress, and he hates Felicia for no fucking reason!! Like he's so out of character, but it's Slott so idk what I expected. I'm going to read how it ends, but fuck I wish like the core of the story actually cared about the new characters introduced because what's the point of having them there if they don't do anything

[leonardosfm]

               【  𝐥𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 !  】

been having many thoughts about my child. i did a little section for tidbits in his intro but i decided to add onto it because no thoughts just the red ear slider turtle boy. 

added inspo figured out. more to come most likely but this is what i’ve got so far !   dick grayson ( dc ) , kendall knight ( big time rush ) , lance mcclain ( voltron: legendary defender ) , sokka ( avatar the last airbender ) , peter parker ( spiderman comics )

> PREVIOUS HEADCANONS.

he gave himself his middle name. leo likes space and space media. he felt naming himself after jim kirk would be a cool move.

he has vitiligo around his eyes in the same pattern red-eared slider turtles do. would be in the same place the red is here. 

he is gay !! but he doesn’t know it yet … it’s a little self discovery journey he’ll have here in elias. 

he doesn’t know when his actual birthday is. splinter just assigned them random days.

he does have medical trauma from his days of being experimented on. he just blocks it out really well. the fact that he’s the medic of the gang is ironic. he can help others with ease but the moment someone tries to help him in that sense or he’s taken to a doctors office he freaks out.

the turtle transformation is painful so now leo will only transform if he absolutely has to … or if he needs to win a dance competition or something because he’ll do whatever it takes to win. 

he loves glam rock. if he could have background music when he fights rock you like a hurricane would be playing thank you !!

> NEW HEADCANONS.

thunderstorm enthusiasts. 

has heterochromia ( blue and brown ) from mutations. when in turtle form his eyes turn blue. in turtle form his red slider marking are in fact red and not pigmentations. this translates to lorena as well. 

theatre kid. ( derogatory ). will take karaoke night very seriously and can sing very well. ( x )

as a kid he was afraid of donnie’s softshell getting seriously injured, so he started researching how to heal softshell injuries along the way he decided to learn more medical stuff just in case. 

banned from asking splinter questions about their origins after leo asked an innocent question that revealed splinter didn’t actually know how old they were. 

speaking of his actual birthday is august 14th. leo is indeed a leo. 

cannot do math for the life of him.

 got scolded a lot more than the others as a kid; it’s why he’s so hard on himself and doesn’t take criticism lightly.

has really great taste in men visually but literally always misses the glaring red flags.

has an extremely flirty personality but when speaking to someone he actually finds attractive my man has no game. cannot pull whatsoever. his brothers are better at flirting at he hates it thanks !

called people ‘babe’ ironically at first, but now he can’t stop.

he sunbathes and tries to convince the others to come with him 

ate a frog for $5 once. purposely freaked mikey out with it. 

he likes nonverbal communication a lot and prefers it when he’s in a mood 

when it gets super cold he and donnie bundle up for what donnie calls “The Brumation Period” and leo calls “The Super Nap” and they just sleep on the couch together for like three straight days

once asked mikey to doodle on him when they were younger and kept his favorite drawing in his pocket once he found out what a tattoo was and plans to get it .. you know when he’s a real person in the eyes of big brother.

would never admit it but watching horror movies gives him nightmares sometimes and he has to hang in raphs room when he can’t sleep. whenever he can’t sleep you can find him in raph’s room tbh. he feels safer in there because he knows raph will keep him safe.

leo has a little bag filled with medical supplies. takes his role as the group’s medic seriously. 

insomnia due to mutation complications. his slider sleeping requirement and human sleeping requirements did not mesh too well. 

fluent in spanish and has spanish nicknames / pet names for literally everyone. 

tw. child experimentation: he and donnie are ‘twins’, loving dubbed the disaster twins. when they were being experimented on the two shared a cage. experiencing the trauma they did together left them ridiculously co-dependant. one is never seen without the other. it might be a problem but it’s a problem they don’t want to address. 

has a small fear of heights after he got dropped from a roof. he almost died and didn’t realize he was in actual danger until raph yelled at him. 

listens to 2000s pop RELIGIOUSLY. britney spears, katy perry, rihanna, kesha, miley cyrus, etc, etc, etc.

big fan of magic. he’s tried to impress his brothers by showing them a few magic tricks. he actually works very hard so they’ll think he’s cool.

he’s a biter. he bites people affectionately, not hard but just a little chomp. he didn’t a lot when he was younger now not as much. maybe when he’s feeling really affectionate. 

does not believe in ghosts. will listen to his brother’s ramblings ( if they believe ) but always reminds them that ghosts aren’t real. 

he’s the fastest of his siblings. he’s mastered keeping his movements light and quick. he might not have the fastest reaction time out of all his siblings but he’s the first one to catch a baseball if you threw one a the group. leo might not be able to deliver hard hits like his brothers can, but he makes up for it by using his speed, portals and a plan to get the upper hand in a fight. 

he’s not a hard hitter so much as he manipulates objects to hit hard for him, usually with the help of his portals. 

he can easily adapt in a fight. he may not expect the unexpected but he can work with it and play it off thanks to his confidence. he can be so caught up in himself and his goals to win. whatever he’s doing that he ends up with tunnel vision in the middle of a battle. 

leo has a win at all costs attitude when fighting. he will do whatever it takes to come out the other side with bragging rights, whether he’s earned those rights or not. 

humor is his coping mechanism. he used to make the others laugh when they were younger and being experimented on to try to cheer them up or distract them. if he’s laughing whatever's happening can’t be that bad or it won’t feel as real if he doesn’t acknowledge it. so he refuses to take situations seriously. leo also jokes to overcompensate for his insecurities, a fear of being average, and his perfectionism. knowing that helps you see that he does the same thing while fighting.

great strategist. he might not always be the one that makes a plan but he’s usually the one to bring ideas into action. 

he can be just as intelligent as donnie but he’s street smart instead of book smart. 

he feels like he’s nothing without his brothers because of that, he sometimes shows off as much as possible in a fight in order to earn glory and praise that could separate him from any other fighter. 

he doesn’t think he’s a good leader and does everything in his power to prove to his brothers that he isn’t a good leader. lot of self sabotage in hope raph will be leader again. 

very self-sacrificing. is willing to put himself in danger for the safety and well being of others. it’s not that he wants to die but leo’s very careless with his life. if he dies he dies. it goes back into leo thinking he needs his brothers more than they need him so he’s willing to throw himself into the line of fire if it means they get a chance at survival. he feels most people in his life don’t need him as much as he needs them. he took the whole it’s not about me thing a little too literally 

he never screams whenever he wakes up from a nightmare, so it’s difficult for someone to tell he’s even having one. before he wakes up, he just curls into himself, clutches his blankets close, and wakes up sweaty and shaking. even after awhile they never fully go away. 

in the future he loses his right arm while saving donnie. ( let’s give it up for the self-sacrificing baby !! ) once donnie was done being pissed at leo for almost dying ( let’s be honest they were all upset with him ), his brother joked it was karma for when donnie saved leo from shredder during the fight that sent them to elias. leo yelled at him for at least an hour saying he got to keep his arm. 

took literal months to convince him to go to therapy because ‘what if the healthy coping mechanisms make me lose my swag’ after a while he talks to his therapist like they’re his best friend. strolls in like he owns the place sunglasses and all.

harbors a lot of resentment towards his younger self. it fucks him up on the daily when lorena acts exactly like how he did when she was his age. he has to constantly remind himself that they’re two different people and lorena is not him, well, not fully. she’s her own person and deserves to be. 

when it came to saving aerwyn, leo was absolutely ready to take her in because he saw himself in her in that moment. had splinter not taken in him and his brothers, leo knows they would have been used for evil. their lives would have been worse than what they were already given which was pretty damn rough. the thought of the little girl falling into that kind of trap solidified her being adopted.

he becomes the leo we know from most other iterations, the mature traditional leader, in the future. he’s a little stricter in the future but mostly when it comes to training the next generation of hamatos. honestly the tired old man who’s a father / uncle figure to too many kids. if you’re wondering yeah, master leonardo has gray hairs and he does indeed dye it. refuses to gray first he’s too hot for this.

[xensergal]

Xen "Octavia" Sergal Goes On A Very Stupid And Long Rant About Her Favourite Show Helluva Boss Because She Needs To Get This Shit Off Her Chest ASAP™: The Movie.

This is a long, long ass fucking rant about this show. i will type shit as it comes up in my head. i dont care if my takes are "trash" or "shit" or whatever. its my tumblr and i get to choose whats posted here. ok.

its actually fucking insane how my 2 favourite shows are on near complete opposites to each other on the surface. you have an impossibly perfectly written show with 0 bad episodes and the greatest characters to ever be on TV (Breaking Bad), and then you have a 15-20m per episode comedy/musical/drama on youtube (Helluva Boss). but this isnt about me comparing BrBa to HB, its just about HB.

i have a lot to say about this show. a lot i really, REALLY couldnt get out due to twitter character limits/not really having many friends who watch helluva boss, so tumblr gets my full thoughts, straight from the top of my head. right as theyre being produced. enjoy.

Stuff

the premise of this show is pretty damn cool. a comedy/musical/drama about a bunch of imps in hell who start up an assassination business to make ends meet, while also yknow shenanigans n other shit happens like complicated love trigonometry, bc hey its a show you cant 1 thing forever bc thatd be stale *cough* SITCOMS *cough* and repetitive and would be a shit show, this isnt a shit show. its one of the best ive ever seen. but back to what i was saying. the show has a fantastic premise with good plot and cool characters i will get to in just a moment. i rewatched all of whats been uploaded for this post. to refresh my thoughts and finally, get all this shit off my chest which ive been needing to for all this time.

O YEA OBV SPOILERS FOR ALLLL OF HELLUVA BOSS DUHHHHHHHHHH

Pilot

this is 3 years old and damn does it show. the animation is very stiff (but still, well made) compared to later episodes, and especially 1 which ill get into later. but the pilot does a great job and introducing the viewer to the main characters of the show, those being Blitzo (Brandon Rogers), Moxxie (Richard Horvitz), Millie, and Loona (both Erica Lindbeck). all with weird, and fucked up relationships with eachother. M&M are a married couple (gross), Loona is a complete whore with syphilis, and Blitzo is her adoptive Father whos also a complete perv who stalks M&M at their house. its fun! its a good plot with good characters and its pretty damn funny. theres also a major supporting character introduced in this episode, Stolas (Brock Baker). i love him, youll see why very soon.

the pilot isnt without its issues tho, the pacing is complete ass with flashbacks inside of flash backs and its just, man idk its fucked up dude i dont like it. weird shit.

7.5/10, good shit, good opening to HB

Murder Family // S1: Episode 1

good episode! damn after a year of waiting after the pilot for something new people surely had high expectations and id say E1 followed, its pretty good.

plot wise it follows I.M.P on a job to kill some bitch n yknow shenanigans n whatnot moxxie fucks it up because hes a bitch and people almost die but moxxie saves em in the end its good and i like it!

some stuff changed from the pilot, mainly voice actors. Erica Lindbeck no longer plays both Millie and Loona, just Loona. meanwhile Millies new VA is Vivian Nixon and shes pretty good! Millie has more of a southern accent now which will make sense in a future episode. however Stolas also had a VA change, Bryce Pinkham. its flawless and makes me love Stolas even more, you will see why.

8/10 episode, great shit. much better than the pilot.

Loo Loo Land // S1: Episode 2

words cannot describe how much i love this episode. its flawless.

saying something is flawless is big, really big, but i do feel like this one is. and its all thanks to the opening sequence. the opening sequence makes the audience do a complete 180 about what they thought of a character, no longer is stolas just "a rich, important figure in hell who is extemely gay for blitzo" hes that, plus a loving and devoted father. and the music, its perfection. its the highlight of the whole moment alongside the beautiful visuals and deep character development. and on the subject of characters. Stolas #1 comfort character.

this episode introduces quite a few, the first 2 youll see are Octavia (Barrett Wilbert Weed), Stolas' daughter and Literally Me™, and also Stella (Georgina Leahy), Stolas' arranged wife who wants him dead as hell with NO shoes on in the casket for fucking blitzo. shes hot. very hot. girlboss. shes mean to Stolas tho :(

this episodes plot is cool too. I.M.P make an exception for Stolas and are hired to be bodyguards for the day at a theme park oh joy a theme park how whimsical and fun loving! oh goody! everything is on fire by the end of the episode! splendid!

but like yeaa dude this episode slaps, great plot great characters great shit, O YEA CHARACTERS i forgot about Fizzarolli (Alex Brightman) hes in this episode too, at least a robot version of him. Blitzo and Octavia hate him, thats cool.

10/10, i think this is the best episode of HB released so far. it also has Wally Wackford (Don Darryl Rivera)

Wally Wackford Counter: 1

Spring Broken // S1: Episode 3

oh damn! another banger! lets keep this good episode streak going!

this episodes also great. not as great as E2, but still great.

I.M.P get their parking spot stole by Verosika Mayday (Cristina "Vee" Valenzuela) whos a famous popstar in hell (thats why theyre in hell because they listen to pop and pop sucks listen to metal instead youll also go to hell but for a much cooler reason) and just happens to be Blitzo's ex girlfriend. so Blitzo challenges her to a duel where he bets I.M.P can kill more people than Verosika can fuck by the end of the day an who wins gets the parking spot (spoiler alert blitzo wins bc ofc, plot demands it) and then shenanigans lol.

i really dont have much to say about this one other than i like it, verosika is hot, drunk moxxie is funny, and that hehehoo sex joke. O YEA the musics good too its very good

9/10. banger

C.H.E.R.U.B // S1: Episode 4

i hate this episode. i really really hate it.

nearly everything which couldve went poorly, did. and i dont like that. let me explain.

the plot is okay, I.M.P go to kill a trillionaire. good! thats cool! fuck billionaires and especially fuck trillionaires. meanwhile a competitor, C.H.E.R.U.B, is trying to stop this guy from ending his life. and I.M.P cant have that so they convince him to fuckin die already lol. its fine but how the episode executes this is atrocious. you could easily skip through this one and go onto E5 anyway, this plot adds nothing to the current overarching storyline. yet.

for comedy, pacing and the actual joke is everything. especially if your main writer for this episode (at least by order of appearance in credits) has been doing comedy skits on youtube for many, many years now. no offense to Brandon Rogers, hes phenomenal, but this episodes pacing and jokes are trash. the pacing goes as follows:

Beginning plot development/jokes - meeting the competitors/jokes - joke - joke - joke - fight - joke - end joke. its trash and doesnt work at all imo. the jokes fall flat and its not well paced at all.

however there is 1 more point i want to bring up about not just the episode, but the show in general. regarding moxxie and the things which happen to him. moxxie in this show is essentially a less depressed Squidward Tentacles. this sounds fucking insane but Let Me Explain. the writing has him treated like a fucking punching bag for jokes and/or plot development. in E3, this was for plot development. he got stuffed in a beer keg and nearly got ate by a monster fish. this episode it was for no reason whatsoever. he just, got hurt and thats the joke. the joke is moxxie got hurt. thats it. next episode does it worse, ill get to it.

but anyway, this episode was shit but i liked the fight scene in it, that was cool.

4/10, trash but the fight was good. it also has wally wackford.

Wally Wackford Counter: 2

The Harvest Moon Festival // S1: Episode 5

wow.

when this episode first released, i didnt think much of it. i believe i said it was about an 8/10ish or something like that. rewatching it, i couldnt have been more wrong.

this episode has some fan-fucking-tastic plot. and it just might be the best plot driven episode to date. maybe E7 gives it a run for its money, maybe.

the plot is as follows, Stolas invites I.M.P to the wrath ring for a day off for the harvest moon festival. here we get to meet Millies parents Lin (Su Jan Chase) and Joe (Edward Bosco), but also Striker, whos played by Norman Fucking Reedus from video game kojima. and my GOD he fucking slays the role. besides Bryce Pinkham as Stolas, Norman Reedus as Striker has to be my personal favourite Voice in the show. its fucking fantastic.

however there is 1 character i do have to mention in particular, Sallie May (Morgana Ignis).

Why her in particular? she only has a few lines! yea true, however it gives me an opportunity to talk about the shows flawless LGBTQ+ representation. In Sallie's case, shes Transgender. you can tell the gender of an Imp by the pattern on the horns, millie for example has mostly black horns with thin white stripes, a sign of being AFAB. Moxxie and Sallie however have even sized black and white horn stripes, a sign of being AMAB. but what about other characters?

(these are all from memory so forgive me if any are wrong)

Blitzo is Pansexual

Moxxie and Millie are both Bisexual

Stolas is Gay

Stella and Octavia are currently unconfirmed (i think) tho i headcanon them both as Lesbian because i can.

Striker is also probably Gay i mean have you seen him talking to blitzo like cmon

(also funny side note i should add the VA's for Stella and Sallie, Georgina and Morgana respectively, both ship their characters together i think thats pretty fuckin cool i feel like i just have to mention that somewhere)

theres def a lot more ive missed, however these are the ones which come to mind. their sexuality/gender identity is never forced in your face, its never too painfully obvious that theyre gay for the sake of it, its pretty much flawless representation and i feel more shows should take a thing or 2 from HB in this aspect

Gushing over Norman Reedus amd LGBTQ+ rep aside, the plot revolves around a yearly game of strength in the harvest festival where blitzo and striker (among many others) compete in together. also tangent time

LETS COUNT HOW MANY TIMES MOXXIE GETS FUCKED BY A SHARK

3. thats 3 times. again, punching bad. what did moxxie do to you, anyway tangent over.

anyway striker competes in the games to gain the trust of I.M.P to stab them in the back by killing their gateway into the living world, Stolas. and you wouldnt believe who hired him (at least i didnt when first watching), Stella. anyway moxxie finds out, shit goes down, they fight, striker gets away. moxxie finally gains the trust of millies parents, big reveal, episode end. banger fucking plot and its just so damn good.

remember how i said the animation in this show gets really gooood,,this is the episode i was thinkin about when writing that. this episode has hands down the best animation (aside maybe the finale of E6) overall of any episode. with cool panorama shots which go around the whole charaters, n shit like that its great.

banger song too, striker did a sing and its good.

10/10, a great episode, but still a weaker 10/10 than E2. it also has Wally Wackford

Wally Wackford Counter: 3

Truth Seekers // S1: Episode 6

I barely remember anything from this episode, and at the time of writing, i only watched it five minutes ago.

so the plot is like, blitzo and moxxie get captured by crazy conspiracy guys called D.H.O.R.K.S (haha dorks) and its up to Da Girlz™ to save em meanwhile Da Boyz™ get truth gassed and spill a bunch of plot shit and its good i dont remember what exactly they said but its a fuckin good scene the animation is great with a unique visual style bc theyre hallucinating and OOOOOOOH the hallucination song its a fucking bop i love it (This is a good time to mention for anyone who yet doesnt know Sam Haft has put a bunch of the songs hes wrote for HB on Spotify, they may be just covers, but theyre still fucking great.) but anyway the fuckin, fight scene when millie and loona catch up to moxxie and blitzo is gahhdamn fuckin beautiful its so well animated n shit and then ya just got

Demon Stolas.

because fuck yes.

anyway yea good episode i guess plots good everythings good its just, i forget about this episode so often im convinced its not real

6/10, banger, just wish it wasnt so forgettable

OZZIE'S // S1: Episode 7 - FINALE PART I

rewatching this episode hurts. i cant put it into words how, its just a lot of fucked up shit to take in at once and i really do not want to write about this because its late and im tired so ill keep it fucking simple

Blitzo fucks everything up by using a fake date with Stolas as a cover to stalk M&M on their 1 year anniversary of their wedding, but then moxxie breaks into song and Asmodeus (James Monroe Iglehart) does not like that one bit so he and fizzarolli fuckin rip him a new asshole meanwhile blitzo interferes and gets both him and stolas into shit and my GOD this is where it gets depressing.

this song, despite it being a banger, is depressing as shit. i cant stand it, i cant stand how it treats blitzo and stolas

the shitty choices theyve made...

the people theyve thrown away...

its all coming back to them in song form. and it fucking sucks for them.

but m&m are doin okay ig they fuckin, hit fizz over the head and continued their song after that shit its all good for them tho ig or smthn idk im tired.

10/10, a phenomenal ending to the 1st season of one of the greatest adult animated shows ever written. it also has Wally Wackford.

Wally Wackford Counter: 4

THE CIRCUS // S2: Episode 1

damn i like this episode

i like the blitzo backstory with how he and fizz used to be before they now hate eachother, with how he met stolas and became his first friend. with everything really. its a great episode and like

damn its good idk what to say im tired its just a good episode.

Johnathan Freeman does a good job as Paimon, stolas' dad too even tho hes a shitty dad.

ok yea plot tho, it takes place like ~25 years before the pilot which is neat i like backstories. but like, paimon literally bought blitzo just so stolas could have a friend so he didnt need to be a father to him thats just. man i dont like that. blitzo and stolas are so cute tho i like them. uuuh fuckin, more stella content too shes back still a girlboss still hot, still mean to stolas :( you can tell im tired cant you lemme just say a thing

WAIT I FORGOT THE SONG AT THE END the song at the end is so goood i love it. idk if i like it more than You Will Be Okay but i like it its good i like it thats all i can really say rn. i could say more if i wasnt tired but im tired.

9/10, good shit, good backstory, good good good good episode.

SEEING STARS // S2: Episode 2

i have. so much to say about this. too many words to fit into tumblrs infinite character limit. but ill keep it brief because i want to

you have no idea, how long, i have waited for this to happen. just one scene between Octavia and Loona. just one, and now i have it. i am complete.

i saw this post which talked about star and moon symbolism between octavia and loona and it made me realise, holy shit, there is gonna be so much more octavia and loona content in future episodes if all this isnt a coincidence. and i am ready for it all.

i could talk about the rest of the episode if i wanted too, but i dont. i only want to talk about these perfect 2 minutes between these characters. i do think this is the best moment in the entire show so far. seeing a headcanon that youve had for so long (in this case loona and via being friends) become true, it connects with you in a way that not much else can.

and i dont care about the rest of the episode. not one bit. not right now anyway. i just want this moment, forever.

10/10. a good episode all around, and a truly, perfect moment. it also has Wally Wackford.

Wally Wackford Counter: 5

and damn thats like, all of helluva boss so far. ive been writing this for like 7h now becasue tumblr keeps breaking for me and i keep having to write anything all over again. god im tired. but im so glad to finally get all this off my chest after years of not really having anywhere to gush about this show. it means a lot to me, more than what people think. and i dont know where i would be without it, literally.

"but whats with the wally wackford counter" its there because its funny and hes a funny character.