#guys that ep was so good. the only people having a semi normal time are victor and sara who are apparently building a pillow fort

[silasplaskett]

absolutely no one got a break today. fatima can only eat rotting food and she kinda thinks her baby is a monster. jim is being tormented by a telephone. kristi is literally just trying to be a good friend and she gets caught in a bear trap. kenny wants to feed the town and avoid his emotions but everyone just wants to hug him and let him grieve. jade attempts to physically contribute to the towns wellbeing ONCE and immediately has visions of a dead man strangling him and drinking blood from a human skull. elgin wakes up from his first sleep in a week to a suicidal bird breaking shit in the house. tabitha literally going thru sleep deprived mania trying to solve the mystery of victors mom and gets so paranoid that she never left the town that the town forces her back. ethan JUST morbidly accepted that his mom is probably dead and shes literally about to show up again completely losing her mind.

[starlightkun]

⏯ teaser word count: 839 | full fic: 9.5k ⏯ genre: fluff, established relationship, band au, punk drummer!sungchan, sequel to filler episodes, reader isn’t completely boring anymore! yay!, she’s still figuring it out a little bit but it’s not a full-fledged quarter life crisis anymore, ft. shotaro/eunseok/wonbin as sungchan’s bandmates, and nct dream 00 line as reader’s normal friends™ ⏯ warnings: the usual cursing, and reader gets creeped on briefly in a scene but gets out of there very quickly, and that’s really it! if i missed any please let me know ⏯ extra info: this is the sequel to filler episodes, it cannot be read as a standalone! ⏯ estimated release: saturday, august 3, 2024 3:00 p.m. eastern time

At the end of the show, you were sat at the band’s merch table. In addition to being the de facto tour manager and photographer/videographer, you also usually managed the merch table for Roses for Eyes. The headliner had plenty of crew to spare to work it, but you wanted to help however you could, and this was honestly one of your favorite parts. Various members usually came to hang out by the merch table and meet and talk with the concert goers, and you loved hearing all the praise that was showered on the guys. Almost nobody had heard of them before coming to the concerts, but it made your chest puff up with pride at how many people stayed just to tell the guys how much they loved their set.

Roses for Eyes didn’t have a lot of merch. In fact, they had exactly one kind of t-shirt, and CDs of their one and only semi-professionally recorded EP for sale. Which made your job easier, you just had to either hand them a CD, or ask their size in shirt.

“Oh my god, you’re here too!” Your next customers were the women who you had spent almost the whole concert with, their eyes sparkling with recognition and delight at you.

“Yes, I am!” You laughed as one reached out to fix your hair. “I’m everywhere, I swear. What can I get you guys?”

They each got a shirt, and a couple got CDs too. As you ran their cards and accepted their cash, they raved to you about the show.

“You know, I’d never heard of them before this, but they were so good!”

“That’s what everyone says,” you replied with a grin.

“I loved the first song they played, that was like—” She started mimicking the melody, and you recognized it immediately.

“Ah, ‘Lonely as Mars’!” You perked up. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“What’s your favorite song then?”

“Oh, I can’t say.” You grinned. “It’s not released yet…”

They all laughed and giggled at this. One peeked at the track list of the CD she had just bought from you again before looking up at you. “Guess we’ll have to wait until it’s released then, huh?”

“Yes, yes, please keep an eye out!” You couldn’t help it, you were proud of your boyfriend and the rest of your friends.

“Alright, beautiful, we’ll stop holding up your line.” One of them chuckled, giving your cheek a final tweak before the four of them moved over to the short line to chat with the band.

You couldn’t pause on that moment for too long, as more patrons came up to your table.

Once people had finally started trickling out of the venue, and you had no line left in front of either your merch table or to meet the band, you were unsurprised when Sungchan pulled up an extra folding chair next to you.

“You know,” he let out a sigh, scooting right up next to you until your legs were pressed together. “I think we need to completely deck you out in Roses for Eyes merch from head to toe.”

“One, you guys don’t even have that much merch. Two, I think all that would accomplish would be making me looking like a crazed fan.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I am your biggest fan,” you acquiesced with a giggle at how serious he looked, squeezing his leg. “But we need security to let me in, you know.”

“What about a shirt with my face on it?”

“I think that’d be even worse.”

“It can say ‘CREW’ on the back or something.”

You laughed again. “I did tell that guy I was working, you know. Which did nothing.”

“I know, baby, I’m not mad at you.” Sungchan put an arm around the back of your chair, leaning in closer to inform you, “I was up on stage wishing I could’ve been kicking his face instead of the bass drum.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t hop off stage just to beat up somebody in the crowd.” You whispered back. “Even if it would’ve been deserved.”

“God, I don’t know if I can take another month of hearing you get hit on from right next to me.” He was presumably referencing times like now, with you at the merch table and him nearby talking to patrons.

“You think I like hearing people compliment your tattoos as an excuse to feel up your arms?”

“I don’t let them!” He protested. “And sometimes they do actually like my tattoos!”

“I know, Sungchan,” you snickered. “It’s hard being the hottest couple ever, isn’t it?”

“God truly gives his toughest battles to his sexiest soldiers,” Sungchan joked back, letting his arm drop down to your waist.

“Hey, on the bright side, tomorrow is the Venue:Hell show,” you reminded him. “I’ll have Jeno and Jaemin and my other two much less sturdy friends there. Not to mention Anton, Sohee, and Seunghan.”

He didn’t seem much happier about this, letting out a little grumble, “Mmm, alright.”

⤷ masterlist

[virtualpeople]

Get to know you: Sims Style

tagged by @goatskickin, thank you this was strangely relaxing :D

What's your favourite sims death? It's got to be the flight simulator in TS1. You ever been so sleepy you just drift right off into space? What about physically this time?

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? i guess semi-real? I've lost track of where the realism levels are at tbh. I love me some texture and shiny eyes is all I can specifically say, generally I just download whatever takes my fancy and hope for the best lmao

(now I'm just gonna derail this slightly to do my best grouchy old fucker impression and protest bitterly at the way the word alpha has come to be used to describe realistic CC, like arggghghghghg anything can have an alpha should you wish, why is this a thing >:( , ok grouch over)

Do you cheat your sims weight? Implying I ever play this game in a normal manner enough to have sims actually change weight from what they were originally created with in the first place

Do you move objects? Imagine playing sims 2 and not being able to move objects, truly a hellscape

Favourite mod? It's not exciting, but it's the SimBlender. Couldn't live (mode) without you, lil plant* fella.

*Other models are available

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack? Here's a vague answer for you all: The first sims game I got was the TS1 complete collection, so technically it was all the sims 1 EPs. And then when I got TS2 I got about 8 EPs/SPs in one go off ebay, can't exactly remember which ones other than it didn't include Apartment Life or Seasons, so what came first was really a good 50% of the whole game

Slightly off topic but the only sims I've ever bought new was the IKEA stuff pack when it was on clearance. Enjoy your £3 for this entire series, EA ;)

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing? LIVing, it's the mode where all the little computer people live :)

Who’s your favourite sim that you’ve made? Don't make me choose it could be so many of them ;-; Ok, maybe this guy. Or maybe this guy. Or maybe…

Have you made a simself? i tried a long long time ago but with very little resemblance. I have a very strange face that's hard to reproduce in <1000 polygons apparently.

Which is your favourite EA hair color? I'm quite fond of that slightly desaturated basegame brown shade, it's nice. Shame it's not really common in any of the more popular hair colour actions

Favourite EA hair? haircaesar, that short one that came with seasons. It's so… basic. So versatile. My beloved.

Favourite life stage? Adult. Elders second. I barely play any of the others tbh

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? I'd say technically for building, although it's more building characters and the world they live in. Gameplay does come into it, but more for letting sims play out storylines and interact with their world like in a soap opera way than the usual motives way of playing, if that makes sense - I'm constantly dishing out maxmotives because I had an idea of what I wanted to happen next but the sims would've otherwise been too grumpy lol

Are you a CC creator? As long as the title of CC creator doesn't expire after a couple of years of doing absolutely nothing (but definitely not retiring either) then yes

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad? I have been here for so many years and yet I've never said much beyond a couple of sentences to anyone, let alone having an entire squad lmao. Not deliberately, I've just got a habit of sitting here and collecting dust vibing

Do you have any sims merch? no, I don't think I've even seen any sims merch irl actually

Do you have a YouTube for sims? no.

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing? Many eons ago, back in the distant mists of time, I used to be able to churn out sims and buildings at a rapid rate all day long. Now I… can't. Am I getting more picky? Am I paying more attention to detail? Am I just getting old? Who knows

Who’s your favourite CC creator? Over all these years?? It wouldn't be fair to pick just one even if I could, there's so many people propping up my game and making it look nice :O

How long have you had Simblr? 4293 days apparently, that's a lot of days.

How do you edit your pictures? do I look like I know what editing is? These days I don't even crop my pictures, I just dump screenshots into a presized photoshop document and shunt them around a bit until the composition looks ok. At a push I'll boost the contrast/saturation a tiny bit, particularly if I've left low blue light mode on again and the colours look a bit odd

What expansion/gamepack is your favorite? TS1 - you know I think it might be superstar. I love how silly studio town is with all those fun things like the fashion runway and the film sets. The celebrity system is amusing too, and is a convenient way of making sims of famous people a bit less weird to have around as opposed to just having them as playables (imo anyway). Shoutout to makin' magic too though, still my favourite implementation of magic in the entire sims series

TS2 - Apartment life. The ability to build functional flats and having magic back (if in a slightly disappointing way compared to TS1)? Height-shiftable things? Nice.

I tag: YOU. (totally not a copout I mean it i love reading these things)

[dull-c]

right so, i have had a Super Fun week archiving 40 years worth of actual paper author contracts for work (kill meeee) + sorting last minute biz for little sissas wedding. subsequently I have only squeezed in a few rewatches over the last few days, and am generally existing on caffeine and fumes, so there’s absolutely nothing of substance coming outta this head rn. but! regardless! some incoherent Thoughts on some eps from my one semi-functioning brain cell under the cut

previously on the bad show......... daniel: you look good man! you look hot, sorry i mean sorry you still, sorry- got you got that- you still got that great ass, sorry, i mean you look fucken edible, sorry i mean sorry i wanna kiss you johnny: [takes this personally for some reason] //there is no kissing and everyone is mad about it//

1x04 -“the 15 inch, that’s a nice machine” makes me laugh every time. ahh yes indeed the 15 incher. Yes. That one. Almost as good as the 250 GBer. i know about computers. what are the other staff in this store DOING -kinda home of sexual that billboard thing huh? you working through some stuff jlawz? i love the idea of him not only drawing a 5 meter long paint dick on daniel’s face, but also his karate pamphlets trailing behind him all the way like drunken breadcrumbs -i just need you to know that i laughed at every single dick joke in this episode

-gonna skip right past the poop thing i think -and kyler’s 30 year old HS friend -daniel reacting a normal amount to graffiti on his billboard, nothing to see here. he’s fine he’s fine he’s kicking drinks outta peoples hands he’s ruining livelihoods he’s fine -tom cole definitely voted for trump both times -i cannot tell you how angry i was the first time i watched this and that jlawz big “no do overs” speech was revealed to be directed at carmen and miguel. sir i know you got trauma but try that hard with YOUR ACTUAL SON please -daniel: that’s too bad :D that you broke up with kyler :DDDD really sorry to hear!! [is happiest babygirl alive]

1x05 -do some yoga jlawz, it’ll be good for you!! -oh no robby buying pizza for his ma. he got the one she likes. baby boi :((( -gonna scoot past the lynne stuff but i repeat, i’m glad they pumped the brakes on this shit in later seasons bc this aint it!!! -daniel raising the rent on poor folks and then deliberately going to johnny to rub it and/ or his wealth in his face is objectively some supervillain nonsense, but if they wanted me to not like him in this scene maybe they shouldn’t have made him look so hot. i’m very shallow and dumb and he look sexy when he mean -“i guess sam takes after her dad.” kyler’s a gronk but credit where it’s due, that was a sick burn.

-okay daniel talking to miyagi at his grave > cleaning out the dojo > going back to karate > panflutes > hachimaki etc made me do an embarrassingly big cry. my brain is not in any shape to verbalise this rn but something about him fucking up, realizing it and heading to a cemetery and talking to miyagi all vulnerable like that really did a number on my feelings, especially coming right out of the tkk movies rewatch. he misses him so much ;_;

1x06 -boooo kreese sucks, even in flashbacks and when I can’t see his face. -“my dad hates [daniel larusso’s] guts” ok was jlawz just talking about daniel constantly the full 30+ years?? no wonder robby is mad, if every time he actually saw him he was like “hi dad!” and dad launched into an hour long rant about one guy from high school he interacted with a total of four times and three of those four times was him beating him up -demetri is a big vibe. love my beloved garbage disaster man, but pretty sure if I met him irl i would pretty quickly be like ‘ok buddy, for sure! yeah strike hard totally. anyway…. [already out the door] seeya!!’ -daniel asking everyone to do karate with him including his employees trying to fill that miyagi void is such an understatedly sad part of this episode. my old mens both so sad. ilu please go to therapy -miguel and sam are freaking adorable awkward babies and i would die for them -robby trying to use daniel to get back at his dad and then instantly imprinting on him is so funny. being charmed by daniel larusso is in the genes somehow -(not to be shallow ((is shallow)) but daniel looks so baby in that bit where robby comes to the house) -you know that scene in not another teen movie where they’re like “oh my god she’s wearing glasses! and overalls! and her hair is tied back!!”? the Hawk scene gives that in reverse vibes. like GASP, he gelled his hair!! and put on skinny jeans!!!

1x07 -it’s a montaaaage! -miguel no offense my sweet summer child but do not ask jlawz for advice on romance. his idea of courting is just obsessively brooding about them for 30 years and then when he finally sees them again stomping on their foot and running away -daniel being like “it was a solid business plan!” (re little trees) is so so daniel. i am gonna chew my own arm off i love this bouncy little pretend guy so hard -the UST in the committee meeting is off the charts. please stop looking at each other like that in public (also daniel being like OH GIMMIE A BREAK when jlawz said ‘kreese is dead’ is honestly the funniest thing in all of season 1. maybe the entire series) -i’m getting ahead of myself, but the golf and stuff montage has made me think – it’s kinda weird that they went with ali and jlawz going there in s3, right? idk miguel and sam is a cute little parallel to the movie, but A & J going there seems…. strange to me. although not any stranger than anything else they’ve done re: the original movie ig? hmm.   anyway! weird thought to end things on, but sometimes it do be like that. will resume normal rewatching transmissions on the weekend. might even have an actual coherent thought or two on something after I catch up on some sleep! i have high hopes

[yourfavouritetragedy]

I was adding onto the DSMP Actor AU post, but it turned into Wilbur musician AU, haha rip me, and I only know SBI anyways so here’s a separate post. (It goes back to actor AU at the end.) It’s hypothetically still in the same universe though, and obviously inspired by it. If anything’s phrased weirdly, it’s cuz this was originally an addition to that. 

tbh I kinda adhered to their IRL careers too much compared to the OP but whatever it’s fine. 

Also frick the “Dream SMP” for not having a better title lmaooo

Wilbur is an indie artist really on the come up

Your City Gave Me Asthma was pretty good for a first release, popular with both new fans and fans of his acting.

He had starred in a short mystery/thriller-ish series that started off disguised as a normal sitcom: Chilly in Lincolnshire {Editor Wilbur ARG}

It had a prominent release because of Jack Massey’s involvement and previous fame, but production was abruptly scrapped before it tied everything up with a bow on top, so to speak. It’s still unclear if this was actually planned in order to tell the story the way they way wanted. 

Even before that, critics had mixed reviews, either applauding the storytelling and acting or calling it “irrationally confusing, an amateurish attempt to box unconventional storytelling into a conventional medium.”

Also SootHouse was a sitcom that achieved a cult following during the two seasons it ran before cancellation. Either you’re a fan or you’re never heard of it, and people constantly forget Wilbur was in it. 

(He was a few other old shows on his resume too. Wilbur always focuses on the newest project, so everyone always forgets about what he was in before.) 

Maybe I Was Boring EP was initially just bonus tracks on his website, but his fans liked it so much he gave it a wider release

In between, he had a few comedy songs go viral on youtube. Everybody was so confused when they realized it was the same Wilbur as musician/actor Wilbur. He laughed about it in an interview, saying “How many Wilburs do you know?” 

That’s when it came out that “Wilbur Soot” was actually a stage name. (”Ha, fair, only one.” “Make that zero-- my name’s not really Wilbur.”)

He kinda disappeared after that?? Didn’t do anything, really inactive on social media. It was semi-confirmed that he was both working on his mental health and prepping some stuff (music, auditions).

But anyways he just released a series of singles, combined into Digital Love {E-girl trilogy}-- he’s transformed his image yet again, but this time he does take ownership of all his past ventures.

The release of Digital Love bridges the end of SMP Earth and the beginning Dream SMP. 

But before that there was MCC and the other stuff.

They are shows where celebrities team up do stuff-- you know the type 

but Minecraft Monday is still inexplicably Minecraft Monday. Some Youtuber just managed to get all these up and coming celebrities to play a Minecraft tournament. 

And that’s where the Sleepy Bois (minus Tommy) met IRL so that’s where they meet here. 

SMP Earth, like Minecraft Manhunts, is also a former show they were on. I’m going to call it World Domination. Don’t @ me; I know that’s trash lol. 

They and the Dream Team met up because of their shared fanbases and were even talking a crossover, but it didn’t really work that well for the stories so they scrapped it

They make a non-canon cross over episode anyways {no IRL equivalent, I think}

Everybody loves the cons. Everytime there’s a con, five friendships are made and eight ideas are created. 

Techno backstory time

He’s done a lot of long running, though not exactly popular, serials and sitcoms: Blitz, Survival Games, and Sky Wars. 

Winstreak: 1000 {Bed Wars 1000 winstreak} was so popular they made a second season, but it never got as big as the first. He worked nearly exclusively with Hypixel Studios. 

He was doing lots of random content for their new Sky World universe {Skyblock} -- the small studio was big on experimentation -- , when a fictional documentary, The Great Potato War, went proper viral. 

They made two sequels WHILE he was doing those celebrity team challenge shows and then World Domination, and they were actually good sequels.

Got a reputation for being shallow and a sell-out, but he makes a joke of it so much he gets away with it and constantly self-promos.

Also a kinda scary to work with for the first time because of how single-minded he can get, but once you realize how socially awkward he is it’s okay.  

Now that’s he’s in a lot of stuff with worldbuilding, he practically has the wikis memorized. 

Tommy mainly did limited series and movies before World Domination, where he met the SBI.

He’d had been a fan of Wilbur for a while, and was super star-struck at first, but got over it really quickly in his Tommy style

He still is a total fanboy at concerts and whenever a new music video drops. “I’m friends with the guy! I know him, Wilbur Soot!” “Tommy, you’re famous too.” “Yeah, cuz I’m practically in the video!” “No--” 

Wilbur takes Tommy to one of his concerts and he’s so hyped the entire time, especially to go behind the scenes and on the stage. 

Sometimes he gets stressed about the pressure of being a child star, but Techno, Philza, and Wilbur promise to stand by him and they make him feel protected 

One time Wilbur’s drunk and almost hands Tommy a drink before swearing and going, “You’re a bloody child! You can’t have that! God, what would Philza think?” Tommy’s not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

Philza laughs at the story and actually lets Tommy try a little in a more controlled, responsible situation. Tommy texts his mum first, and then hates the drink anyways. (”This is rubbish! I am a man, but I’m not drinking this!” Techno: “Alcohol is disappointing. I drink orphan’s tears instead.” “Techno WHAT--”)

Philza had been the star of a zombie apocalypse show: Golden Core 

He did canonically die to a child zombie in the movie version. Yes, they made a movie version of the TV show, because the Golden Core franchise actually has had many other shows {other hardcore series}. 

Everybody tries to get the child zombie props near him because of that (they’re puppets)

He’s done a lot of other things, like in the original actor AU post, but none of them came close in popularity. 

He gives the rest of the SBI the knowledge he’s gained from being in the biz for so long. 

There’s also a running joke about SBI meaning “Spy Boys Incorporated” and them starring in a comedy spy movie

The fans would very much actually like this to happen. There’s so many fanons for it (maybe I’ll write one....) 

Back to the DSMP. Maybe I’ll call it Dreamland or smth. 

Wilbur constantly asks Tommy if he’s okay after any difficult scenes

Especially when they were hanging out together a lot in the exile arc.

All the brother scenes were cut because Wilbur kept breaking down and crying in them.

Sometimes people actually ask Techno and Tommy if they’re actually brothers. Tommy tries to go along with it half the time on the basis of “it’s be funny,” so there’s a subset of casual fans that genuinely don’t know. 

After Alivebur was killed off, Wilbur was going to leave the show to concentrate on his music

But he missed the SMP and hanging so much that he just showed up on set one day saying “I’m a ghost now,” and everyone just rolled with it

Alivebur was so popular that, seeing that Wilbur was willing, they decided to bring him back for Season 3. He’s been avoiding doing heavy scenes, but he still seems really invested and like he wants to come back to the show.

Wilbur talks with Techno about writing and lore a lot

it’s one the few times Wilbur actually seems like the older one

Wilbur attempted to get a D&D group going in the cast, but the show was already close enough, with the amount of improvisation they can get by with

Tommy’s Pigstep cover happened, but the background was Philza clapping barely in time with just Wilbur on bass instead (and of course Techno’s “BAHP”s)

It was a charity stream. They had put on their costumes (clothes only) for a previous goal. 

This one was simply called “We rap.”

Some people were almost disappointed that Tommy was the only one actually rapping, but he was so funny it made up for it. 

Okay I spent the whole morning on this and it got way too long but I think I’m finally out of ideas. sorry haha hope you enjoyed! ^_^

[kentochronicles]

***SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 OF WANDAVISION***

HOLY SHITE MY MIND IS BLOWN

TOMMY AND BILLY CRYING

“Do you want me to take that again?” “Take it from the top?”

Agnes knows ! Tiger - Ralph

“Dark liquor” Vision being concerned

Billy and Tommy aged up?!

I DO NOT TRUST HAYWARD

SCARLET WITCH - TALKING ABOUT HOW WANDA DOESN’T HAVE A CODENAME

SIS STRAIGHT UP TOOK VISIONS CORPSE

HEX — HER POWERS GET REFERRED TO AS HEX POWERS SOMETIMES IN THE COMICS

CAPTAIN MARVEL REFERENCE

NORM SAYING NONE OF IT IS REAL

SPARKY THE DOG - VISION HAD A STAND ALONE AND STOLE A DOG

HER ACCENT

LAGOS

SHE DOESNT KNOW HOW ANY OF THIS STARTED IN THE FIRST PLACE

EVAN PETERS AS QUICKSILVER

DARCY GOING “SHE RECAST PIETRO?” MOOOD

X-MEN, START TO THE MULTIVERSE?!

WANDA CAN’T BE THE ONLY ONE CONTROLLING IT

IS MONICA MAD AT CAROL???

MONICA X DARCY?! WHAT A POWER COUPLE THAT WOULD BE

SIS REALLY ENDGAME - ENDGAME ENDED WITH TONY’S FUNERAL AND WANDA PROBS WENT STRAIGHT FROM THERE AND STOLE HER DEAD BF’S CORPSE (can’t really blame her, it looked like they were trying to experiment on Vis and could it be Hayward behind it?)

WHO WAS THAT ENGINEER THAT MONICA WAS GOING TO CONTACT?

BABY VISION

AND AGNES DEFINITELY KNOWS SOMETHING

DARCY FINALLY GOT HER COFFEE

SO VIS SAID THAT WANDA COULD’VE MADE EVERYTHING SUBCONSCIOUSLY AND THAT OVER TIME SHE BECAME AWARE OF IT, AND SIS DEFO HAS SOME CONTROL BUT IT’S NOT ALL HER. I THINK AGNES IS AGATHA HARKNESS AND EITHER MEPHISTO IS BEHIND IT OR IT’S NIGHTMARE AND THEY’VE MAYBE POWERED UP NIGHTMARE

***FURTHER UPDATES AND EASTER EGGS***

Auntie Agnes and Agnes saying she has a few tricks up her sleeve - we should definitely take note of that seeing as Agnes definitely has something to do with the whole situation

Wanda and Vision’s house changed again, being inspired by Family Ties, possibly Full House and Growing Pains

“Do you want me to take it from the top?” It seems as though when someone, this time Vision, steers away from the script, things either reset themselves or people become aware to some capacity, although Agnes probably already knows

Speaking of Growing Pains - It had a spin off called “Just the 10 of Us” in which the director for Wandavision, Matt Shakman, was apart of the cast - and seemingly also inspired the theme song for this week

We should definitely keep an eye on Monica and her potential for powers. With Maria last episode revealed to have gone by the name ‘Photon’ (which is a name that Monica uses as one of her aliases in the comics) and could inspire Monica’s name as she develops her powers - those scans didn’t look 100% normal. Monica has also used the Captain Marvel monicker in the comics

Wanda’s energy field and such being referred to as “Hex” short for Hexagon, could be a little nod to the comics where Wanda’s powers are sometimes called Hex powers

She’s never been referred to as the Scarlet Witch on the big screen - and it seems as though she soon may earn that code name

So we now know that Wanda stole Vision’s corpse from S.W.O.R.D, but did she actually re animate him fully? He’s still got the gem in the centre of his forehead, but the last time he had it was in Infinity War where it promptly got ripped out by Thanos - so has Wanda found her own way of reanimating him and he’s alive or is he dead and just a trick of the mind - though from other trailers/previews, Vis is seen trying to and looks successful at leaving Wanda’s barrier

They had a little call back to Captain America: Civil War with the Sokovia Accords, which were targeting the Avengers in general but were created when Wanda lost control of her powers and killed civilians

A little joke towards Vis as playing “Father Knows Best” in their little suburbia - Which was a sitcom that ran for 200 episodes in the 50’s

Sparky ! A little nod to the little green dog from the Walta and King comics run for Vision and unfortunately soon meets the same fate 💔

A little nod to Endgame when we hear from Monica that Wanda definitely could’ve taken down Thanos by herself had Thanos not rained fire - and Jimmy arguing that Captain Marvel could’ve just as easily done it - which leaves Monica with an angry look on her face

Good ol’ dial up internet

Can Vis “save” the residents of Westview? He can still seemingly interact with people’s minds, with or without the mind stone - Norm soon comes out of his trance as Vis snaps him out of it and asks to call his sister and that he has to save them all from “her” - now this “her” could be Wanda...but it could also be Agnes and then Vis shuts him down soon enough again and Norm goes back to his sit com self

Billy and Tommy are fully aware, or at least suspect Wanda’s abilities - after asking her to bring back Sparky from the dead and speaking of Billy and Tommy - could they be semi permanent fixtures in the MCU, it would help to introduce the Young Avengers eventually. They'll do Young Avengers at some point since Kang is supposed to be a thing in the third Ant-Man.

Teddy, unfortunately, I don't think will be here for a bit (I really hope he is though!). I think the guy they hired that everyone is rumoring to be Teddy might just be an episode about Billy coming to terms with his sexuality and Wanda and Vis learning to accept it in the way that era of tv they're in would go about with that kind of episode and the dude is just a dude - but again, I really hope it’s Teddy 😭

Wanda leaves the hex after a mini missile/plane tries to shoot at her - and she’s in her Scarlet Witch costume and is seemingly mostly back to her “normal self”, which includes her accent !

Lagos brand paper towels - “For when you make a mess you didn’t mean to” - a nod to Civil War again in which Wanda accidentally blew up a building in Lagos and caused the Sokovian accords to come to fruition

The mail man again - I also think he was in the commercial but anywho - “Your mom won’t let him go far” similar to “Much like she won’t let anyone leave” a potential nod to Wanda or Agnes not letting anyone leave?

“We can’t reverse death” and yet she brought Vision back - keeping in mind that he’s an android but still a little foreshadow to what happened at the end of the ep? Better yet, could Pietro coming back be a distraction for Wanda? Agnes or whoever introducing someone that Wanda lives in hopes that she won’t go full on breakdown superpowers or just to give her an attachment to Westview even more and make her not want to leave at all

“She recasted Pietro” EVAN ! I’m so pumped for this - it seems this could turn into the X-Men making their debut earlier than expected possibly? In any case, it’s a nice little Easter Egg to the previous Fox franchise of X-Men movies where Evan played Peter Maximoff “Quicksilver” alongside James McAvoy as Prof X, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and so many others - and with Deadpool being confirmed as Disney’s first R rated film, it seems Mutants are definitely on their way to the MCU

Agnes is definitely Agatha or a gender bent Nightmare

The way Billy shed himself and Tommy up was scary - definitely a little nod to his powers coming in

Multiple different perspectives of Wanda saying that Monica left

Red Hex dialled up to around light sources (computer, window, etc.)

Vision mentions reading Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man - which could refer to Mutants entering the MCU, Mutants being superior to humans

Agnes calls herself Auntie Agnes - in episode 2 during the title sequence in the grocery store there’s a product called ‘Auntie A’s Kitty Litter’

Agnes refers to herself as a Tiger and in the episode, there’s a Tiger on the dining table in the kitchen - could that be a listening device, her eyes and ears?

There are no other children in Westview - Billy and Tommy are immune because they have no prior trauma

Elizabeth Olsen’s photos are real and slightly altered with Sokovian flags in the background

In the birthday shot of Billy and Tommy, they have ‘1,2,3,4,5’ candles all on one cake

In the holiday photos, Vision goes from Turkey to Easter Bunny, to Santa and progressively gets more unhappy - realising he no longer wants to play along in Wanda’s Hex

During Monica’s callbacks to seeing Wanda’s pain inside her head, we see a new shot of Wanda crying - it looks like it’s around the time she stole Vision’s corpse, as the outfit she’s wearing is very similar, if not the same - could this be an after shot of when she’s trying to bring Vision back?

During the scene where we see the footage of Wanda stealing Vision’s corpse, the S.W.O.R.D logo that appears on the table has 8 stars around the rim of the logo but then has a 9th one in the middle - could this be a little Easter Egg to the nine realms of the Cosmos? And there’s also a map showing Cape Canaveral, could that be where S.W.O.R.D’s headquarters are?

Wanda and Pietro were born in 1989 to Irina and Oleg Maximoff - who were killed in an air raid when the twins were 10. In the comics, Wanda and Pietro were raised by Django and Maria Maximoff, before their true parentage was revealed as being the children of Magneto, however, in the comics this has been retconned so that Wanda and Pietro are no longer Mutants and the High Evolutionary had just disguised them as Mutants (something I think they should undo tbh - MARVEL, PLEASE MAKE WANDA AND PIETRO MUTANTS AGAIN!!!)

Speaking of the air raid, that was also referenced in Age of Ultron by Pietro and Wanda - “We were 10 years old, having dinner the four of us. And the first shell hits 2 floors below, makes a hole in the floor” - was the beeping Stark toaster be what that was referring to?

WHIH reappears for a brief cameo as the news service in the MCU - and Hayward cuts off Jimmy as he was trying to defend Wanda’s reputation, in which Jimmy then turns to Darcy and says “I try not to speak ill of people” Darcy then follows up with “Then allow me, Hayward’s a-“ and then she’s cut off by a shot back to Hayward saying the word “Terrorist” which would make sense as it seems with Vision’s corpse, he may have been trying to make sentient weapons and by subverting Vision’s will and blaming Wanda of doing the same. In the footage shown of Wanda stealing Vision’s remains, we see Vision broken up into parts and S.W.O.R.D seems to be experimenting on him and this seems to be the robotics/nanotech project that Hayward was referring to. Monica asks Hayward about the footage saying “When was this?” to which Hayward replies saying “9 days ago. Maximoff stormed our facility, stole Vision’s body and resurrected him” - this would mean that Wanda took Vision 2 weeks after the events of Endgame, about a week before Monica returned to S.W.O.R.D and Hayward didn’t tell her any of this and when he sent her in there, he knew exactly what he was doing - with her reputation after Civil War, this makes it easier for Hayward to paint her as the villain.

Back in Westview, Tommy wears red and Billy wears green - which are the colours that Wiccan and Speed wear in the comics, respectively. And it’s also the colours that Wanda and Vision are known for and appears quite a lot in their wardrobes

More in regards to Sparky, he was the synthezoid dog in Tom King’s run of Vision - the story being that he was originally a dog named Zeke who unfortunately passed away after digging up the Grim Reaper’s corpse and getting zapped. The Grim Reaper’s helmet appears during the title sequence of Episode 2 in the floorboards. Could Sparky have been trying to dig up a similar thing when he was caught by Agnes and consequently killed?

Monica mentions that she knows this aerospace engineer, they’re never shown but she is seen texting them. Could it be Reed Richards a.k.a Mr Fantastic? Hayward did mention that some astronauts used to work for S.W.O.R.D before a mission went haywire - though it seems a bit lacklustre to introduce such highly anticipated characters this way. Could it instead be the Skrull daughter of Talos that Monica befriended at the end of Captain Marvel? She mentioned that they had extraterrestrial allies in episode 4 working with her and Fury as apart of S.W.O.R.D - in the Spanish subtitles they use the feminine articles for this engineer - so I think it’s more likely to be Talos’s daughter

The board that we saw in Episode 4 now includes the mailman, drivers license and all - could he be Jimmy’s missing witness?

The tension in the room after Jimmy references Carol is similarly seen when in Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter asks Skrull Fury/Talos “How about Captain Marvel?” To which Talos replies “Don’t involve her name”. Fury, Monica and Talos were all on the side of the Skrulls by then end of Captain Marvel and the space station that Fury was on maybe apart of S.W.O.R.D. So did Carol betray them?

A slight reference to Captain America: The First Avenger is made when Monica pulls a Peggy Carter and shoots at something to see if it’s bulletproof, in Peggy’s case it was the iconic Captain America shield and in the case of Monica, it was her clothes that she was wearing after Wanda threw her out of the Hex

Abilash (Norm) never states that Wanda is the one that Vision has to save them from, it’s just “her” - could this instead be Agnes?

When Billy is training Sparky to sit, he puts the treat by his ear up to his temple - a future reference that Billy will one day share the same powers as his mum?

During the scene in which Wanda leaves the Hex briefly, she turns the guns onto Hayward but none are trained on Monica - she may still trust Monica slightly, whereas with Hayward, she slightly more pissed off because of what he was doing to Vision’s remains. And turning a bunch of guns on the people you don’t trust? Like father, like daughter as Magneto pulls a similar move in one of the X-Men films - Hopefully, the big cameo they keep teasing will be Ian McKellan as Magneto or the Magnus of this House of M adaptation

During when Agnes “found” Sparky, she says he died from eating too many leaves from her plants - in the Tom King Vision run, one of Vision’s kids ends up killing Sparky and sees inside his stomach that there’s a plant that Agatha Harkness grows in her garden

All the names that appear during the credits that Wanda tries to run to end the show and to stop Vision from talking are names of people who work on the actual Wandavision show itself

When Evan Peter’s version of Quicksilver shows up, he says “Does a long lost bro get to squeeze his sister to death or what?” I DO NOT TRUST THIS PIETRO - Similar to Wandavision, the Fox X-Men movies moved up decade by decade - First Class was in the 1960s, Days of Future Past was in the 1970s, Apocalypse was in the 1980s and Dark Phoenix was in the 1990’s - which would make even more sense as MCU! Pietro wasn’t born until 1989, whereas Peter was active during the 1980s. I reckon that this Pietro is Jimmy’s missing witness, Agnes’s husband Ralph and is disguising itself as a comforting presence to Wanda as Vision no longer brings comfort and is trying to bring Wanda back to reality - and when he shows up, the mirror in the background behind Wanda is slightly distorted but his hand looks red and in the shot as well, there seems to be a grey arm reaching towards Pietro - in the shot itself behind and in front of Wanda, there’s nothing there but in the mirror, there is! Either way, I do not trust this Pietro and it’s just an entity trying to give Wanda the last thing that could make her happy - but it won’t last, as everything is already breaking down around her.

I seriously seriously love this show so much 💙

[mochuelovelli]

Some Alt. Jobs for the Kids in the Future:

Mainly doing this as just a thought experiment. Usually people are of one mind on what the kids will *probably* be when they are older(myself included) so I wanted to give some alts that could fit their personalities.

Louie-Manger/Agent:Making this list mainly for him because I recalled Princess Carolyn from BoJack and how her job could fit Louie pretty well. Ik a lot of people headcanon Lawyer! Louie, I do too, but I think this would be a fun idea.

A manager's job is basically finding ways to get their client's hired or trying to tailor a client's project in order for it to be marketable. We already seen Louie do this in his ep this season but I think it be cool if became a legit job for him. He's still a McDuck ward so nothing with his business would be "normal" and he would have to do similar "schemes" to get his clients jobs, especially if they are inter-dimensional goat demons.

Louie would probably say the reason he became a manager would be "because I've been trying to convince people I am good enough my entire life, might as well make a career out of it". Edgy ik, but this is Louie we are talking about of course he say some dumbshit.

Dewey-YouTube Personality: this is probably just a less popular hc rather than one that's not talked about at all like the Louie (or the next couple examples). For me, I can't see Dewey being anything but some kind of globe trotting adventurer who would also record it for views. But in the case that DIDN'T happen, I think he'd become a youtube personality and make shows with his friends and family. I think it be really cute, that even as they grown older and become more independent, Dewey can still find ways to bring them all to his house to be apart of his youtube show(s) where he and a guest try to guess obscure history facts Webby comes up with (Watchers know what I'm talking about) or where he and some friends try to solve unsolved mysteries or try and bake without a recipe (im really showing what content i watch).

His Youtube channel would be sporadic like, "series" but he doesn't make actual playlists (Huey or Violet do) and uploads whatever he wanted to do that week. Good thing is, he never misses an upload date. Almost.

Huey-Military Engineer/Tech Guy (IE better Beaks): I had the hardest time with figuring out Huey since like Webby, he can pretty much be in any field to me (as long as its stem related). This suggestion to me is the least chill out of all of them but I picked it because 1. Huey likes structure and chain of command and 2. Science and defense systems.

Out of his brothers, Huey isn't the most WORRIED about safety but he definitely is the one who would do something about it to fix it. I can see him making some intergalactic defense systems and various prevention junk. Maybe he works under Gosalyn's administration[see gos] or he makes "unnatural-natural phenomenon" protection stuff. Kinda like the seawalls in Venice but like, stuff to make sure the Earth doesn't get destroyed because of all the crazy shit the duckverse has. Like ghost forcefields or the reversal of timephoons. I don't think he would be a Tony Stark character tho so I am not 100% with this one.

He could also just be a tech guy, but yknow, better than Mark Beaks. He accidentally has more followers than him would crush him in twitter fights (an example would be something along the Logan Paul vs Chris D'Elia). I find this just really funny, Huey would actually be what all those "good guy billionaires" claim to be (also he wouldn't be one just as a matter of principle). Owlson would probably be his mentor or maybe just business partner.

Webby-Comic Artist/Cartoonist: Webby, to me, can pretty much go into any field and I would be like "yeah makes sense". However I know in my heart she'd be some kind of spy or detective. Thinking about her being anything else was honestly kinda hard but then I realized she DOES have another hobby which could be turn into a career - her drawings and stories. Webby is definitely a creative person, maybe the most creative so far in front of or slightly behind Dewey, so I think she would like to make comics and cartoons.

If you want to be angsty, maybe she chooses this mundane route because she was somewhat conditioned by her granny (or her creators if theories are to he proven right) to be a super spy; choosing to be a cartoonist is something she was never trained to become and yet she still did because it's something SHE wanted to do for herself.

Lena-Poet/Song Writer: okay another one that might not be uncommon but I like to just see it thrown out there. Lena is cool in large part because of her magic but in a possible similar motivation to Webby, she wanted to be a poet not only because she was good at it but because she wanted to be. This doesn't have to be her main hussle, usually I don't see it as such, but I also think it be cute if she became a new Robert Frost (this is the only poet ik sorry).

Violet-Cosmologist: Most people see Violet as either some kind of chemist, professor, or occasionally a witch. I think another good alt tho would be cosmology since Violet herself wants to understand the world around her, which is a bit different from Huey who wants to obtain knowledge for knowledge sake in the case it might come in handy though not extremely. Cosmology as field in the dt universe must be WILD too since im pretty sure most scientists know of all the magic and junk, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if there was a legit subject on it or multiple. Trying to make sense of YOUR universe while knowing others exist along with time travel, possibly multiple after lifes? Its a lot. Perfect job for Vi.

Boyd-Therapist/architect: I feel like this isn't such a niche hc, but I do see more folks make him into his own superhero and/or an accountant. I might be playing into the Baymax stereotype of robots being good mental health assistants but idc, I think it's warranted since he has gone through and understands trauma. Maybe he focuses on those who need rehabilitation or are unable to get paid treatment. Maybe he just helps those who have committed crimes. Another alt is that he becomes an architect, building well planned buildings and public spaces in a flash by utilizing his vast abilities. He might even be commissioned to make space colony housing.

Gosalyn-Politican: Alright so, Gosalyn being a superhero like her dad is like, canon but again in an alt universe where it WASN'T (or maybe later in her life) I can see her becoming political. Frank even laid out some of what inspired this iteration of Gosalyn which included notable political activists, so as of rn its not that far of a stretch to say she might be interested in that. I have a feeling its happens because she gets riled up for something in particular rather than she always wanted to be a career politician or whatever. She would definitely be a less polished politician and that be her appeal, she'd kinda be like an AOC in that regard(im sorry I tried really hard not to name drop political figures but-). An example of her "abnormal" diplomacy tactics is where she stopped Ragnarok semi permanently by absolutely wrecking their shit. (She be dramatic about it like her dad, coming in her normal President wear and then throw it off to reveal some crazy wrestling shit. Louie would also make a lot of money that day.)

[killian-whump]

COLIN DREAM! :D

Okay, so this was a really long, really detailed and totally WILD dream, full of lots of celebrities (both real and completely nonsensical) and I was even a bit of a celebrity myself :D I’m only going to write up the parts about Colin and anything that’s required to help you understand those parts, because this beast of a dream was LONG and weird. For example, I spent a big portion of the dream dating Bruce Willis, who eventually proposed, but said “Will you marry me, Jeff?” and I was like *record scratch* “My name’s not Jeff. But THIS GUY’s name sure is!” and I pulled Jeff Goldblum, like, out of nowhere and then Bruce was like, “He’s perfect!” and they ran off together. I mean, just remember, this whole thing is a product of your pal KW’s subconscious mind. It’s probably best not to ask too many questions... I know *I* don’t...

Okay! So necessary background. The dream was taking place at what was essentially a County Fair of some kind. I was a minor local celebrity, mostly because I had a tiny bit role in something that got me associated with Brucie Poo (I kept calling him that? I dunno, don’t question it). I also had a stalker of sorts, who showed up periodically, claiming she was me and causing trouble. Also, there were some... size issues. Like, sometimes everyone was the same size, but then there’d be these windows of time where everyone morphed into different sizes based on how popular/famous they were.

So I knew Colin was at the fair, but I didn’t see him anywhere. He was listed as being an attendee, but there weren’t any events listed with him in it, so I figured he was just attending as a “normal person” and not as a “star” and someone just decided to add him to the attendee list to take advantage of his presence. But, you know, I was everywhere at this fair, sticking my nose in everything, lol, as one tends to do when it’s one’s own dream and they’re basically the star of it. So, of course, I found that rapscallion...

HE WAS LITERALLY WORKING ONE OF THE BOOTHS. Wtf, Colin. Why are you like this, even in our dreams??? It was a music/memorabilia stand, so he was selling vintage LPs and CDs and photos/posters of celebrities - mostly musicians. And he’d lightened his hair to a medium brown, and was clean-shaven and kinda styled his hair a bit different, so for some reason I thought he was “lying low” or something. So I was at the booth and he came ‘round and I was like, *quiet, conspiratorial voice* “Hi, Colin” and he was like, *equally quiet, conspiratorial voice* “Hi” and that was all, but he was ringing people up and, like, singing under his breath, kinda absent-mindedly, and he was just so chill and relaxed and had such a warm vibe, I was just... soaking it all in like a big, grinning idiot. I think I might’ve spooked him though, because he eventually skedaddled to the back of the booth, where I noticed HELEN was at, as well, and I was like “ahhhh precious Holin in my dream, I am blessed” (I tend to always be semi-lucid in my dreams, so I often know it’s all a dream).

Anyway, so while Colin was busy working literally hiding back there, I perused the wares a bit and found some EPs of The Enemies that nobody knew about, and Colin was on the liner art of them and I was like, “Oh, I better buy these...” and I was looking for more of them, because I didn’t want to miss any of them, but they weren’t filed correctly. Someone had put them in the B section - some alphabetized under “Band, The” and some sorted under “Boys, The” and it took me a minute, but then I was like, “COLIN, NO. COLIN, WHY DID YOU DO THIS. COLIIIIIIIN. You’re the only one here who calls them “the boys” or “the band” - like, you have to alphabetize them by their actual name, what, why are you like this, I love you so much” and I was almost crying, because it was so hilarious and adorable and I literally could not handle it, because it was such a Colin thing to do T_T

So then this totally super Irish fellow comes up to me, and he’s like, “Can I help you?” and I was like, “Wellllllll, I’m kinda just hanging around, because I was hoping to get to properly meet Colin and maybe get an autograph.” and the guy was like, “Oh! Oh, you’re a fan of our Col! Okay, alright, we all thought you might be a nutter...” and he was like, “Lemme go tell him.” and meanwhile, I’m here thinking, “I mean, all of Colin’s fans are basically nutters, so you weren’t wrong... but, you know, we’re good, well-meaning nutters...”

So I wait for someone to come back. Either the Irish guy or Colin. And I wait. And I wait. And somewhere in the midst of this, everyone reverted to their “fame” size and I got super big and everyone working the booth and shopping at the booth stayed small, and I was like, “Oh, good, now I can easily find Coli- Where the fuck did Colin go?” And I’ve got my magnifying glass and I’m like, “OH MY GOD, you’re kidding me, Colin, why are you still tiny?! You’re WAY bigger than I am!” and he’s like, “No, no, I’m just a normal guy” and I’m like “YOU’RE FUCKING RIDICULOUS, IS WHAT YOU ARE.” And then I felt bad for literally spying on him with a magnifying glass, so I put it away and I was just stood there, shaking my head, because WHY IS HE LIKE THIS?!

Then everything’s back to the same size again, and I’m perusing the wares some more. Suddenly, there’s Colin on a stage, and he’s introducing some band-I-don’t-know to come onto the stage, and he says “There’s a fan of mine here that I’d like to recognize...” and then he invited me on the stage to introduce the band, and just as I open my mouth to do so, my stalker suddenly does it instead, and nobody even noticed it wasn’t actually me. I was pissed, but I didn’t want to ruin Colin’s nice gesture with a scene, so I just... frowned, but let it slide. Besides, at least my stalker knew who the band was. But then Colin inerrupts the band and the song they’re playing and he’s like, “WAIT. Something’s wrong here. I wanted to let [my name was Angela in the dream - as part of my semi-lucidity, I’m often “role-playing” as people who are somehow me, but also Not Me, because it’s fun to be different people :)] do this, but someone jumped in and did it for her. So since that didn’t work... How about I sing a song I just wrote for her?”

AND I’M LIKE, OH MY GOD, WHY DON’T YOU T_T

And he starts singing this ridiculously adorable song all about ME and how awesome I am, and I’m like “I better remember EVERY detail of this, because I gotta tell everyone about it when I wake up, because this is RIDICULOUS.” And, guys, it was adorable. It was, like, this quirky sort of ode to everything about me, but done in this tongue-in-cheek way that was just kind of sassy and silly and very flattering and I was like, “YOU ARE THE CUTEST TEENY TINY MAN IN THE WORLD, I WANT TO PICK YOU UP AND PUT YOU IN MY POCKET, LIKE LITERALLY” and Helen was like, “Please don’t.” and I was like, “Okay.”

So then his song was over, and Helen was teasing him about this one stanza, because she thought he was complimenting himself in it, and she was like, “So... you think you have kissable lips, huh?” and he was like, “No, no, I was singing about her, not me. It was just a line, yeah? She’s famous and known for that,” and Helen was like, “Right, but you sang it like it was about you... are you sure it wasn’t about you?” and he was like, “No, no, shut it, nooooooooo” and it was the cutest thing ever? Blessed Holin teasing T_T

Then Colin got wind that I wanted an autograph, but didn’t have anything for him to sign. I mean, I had a Tic-Tac box, lol, but who asks someone to sign a Tic-Tac box?! So he disappeared off somewhere, and it took me a second to spot him, digging through the Celebrity Photos box at the booth for a photo of himself to sign, and I was like, “WHYYYYYYY are you like this?” all over again, because I could’ve done that myself, but he wanted to surprise me T_T

So I’m standing there, waiting for him to come back, and Helen’s there, looking lovely. She’d darkened her hair a bit to a nice light brown, and was in a 50s style A-Line dress with a stylish necklace and I was silently fangirling over her, because she was SO pretty and lovely, and I wanted to say hello, but didn’t want to make her feel weird. But then she looked like she might walk away, so I spoke up and said, “Are you Helen?” And of course I KNEW it was Helen, but I didn’t want to freak her out. Well, she gets a little suspicious/wary and goes, “Could be. Why?” And I played it cool kinda, and said, “Well, if you ARE Helen, I just want you to know that I really respect and admire you, and think you’re just lovely, and I know it must be hard to have to “share” your husband with the world, and I know you’ve had some bad experiences with Colin’s fans in the past, but I want you to know that he has a lot of fans who just think the world of you and are really rooting for you and Colin in every way, and we just want you two to be happy and healthy and we wish you both all the love in the world.” and she seemed touched by it and gave me a hug <3 BLESS

Then Colin came back, and he had a really nice picture of himself, and he signed it for me and everything, and then the fair was closing, or at least their booth was closing, so there were goodbyes and hugs and then I was all alone in their booth, because apparently they all just fucked off and LEFT THE ENTIRE THING BEHIND, with all the albums and photos and everything, and that is NOT how you run a profitable business, Colin.

Anyway, the dream continued, and I turned the booth into an Irish Ski Slope for some bizarre reason, I mean, the Irish part was to honor Colin, but I’m not sure where/how the whole skiing thing came into it. I don’t know how to ski? And then Brucie Poo came back around to rekindle our romance, or at least appreciate my breasts some more (he was a big fan, apparently), and there was no more Colin... (woe).

And now I have to go eat something, because I’m STARVING!!!

Hope you enjoyed my dream :) I sure did! <3

[jq37]

May we have a recap, please? :)

**spoilers for panic at the art show and home for the holidays**

OK people. I actually don’t have a ton of commentary on these two so I’m gonna try and keep it (relatively) short and sweet [Edit from Future Me: Failed Step 1].

Also, iirc, this is the week Dropout starts streaming new Fantasy High eps on Wednesdays which is very dope and I am very excited for. I probably won’t do full on recaps like I do for normal eps because, lbr, I don’t strictly have the time to be recapping these eps at all and it’s pure stubbornness that keeps me from making wiser time management decisions. But, rest assured, if I have an Opinion, you will hear it whether you want to or not. 

Anyway, on with the show. 

Last recap, I mentioned that this ep was giving me Aelwen house party vibes and now it reminds me of that ep in another way: Everyone rolled like TRASH almost the entire ep. It was so frustrating! They barely got any hits in until like halfway through the ep.

(Aw man, I just realized I’m gonna have to remember which spelling of Aelwen is correct again now that FH is coming back.)

I love how Murph is immediately like, “I need to make sure my wife doesn’t die during this fight avenging her fictional husband.”

Isabella also has Aelwen’s trick of poofing around the battlefield which is annoying as hell (ha) for the group.

Siobhan hilariously casts fear on Priya just to be spiteful. I thought she was doing it to help the evac process but no. It was a purely spiteful action. Bless. 

When Kug turns into an ape he, of course, turns into *the* NY ape, King Kong. 

“I roll a nat 20 on an epic shit.”

When Brennan was describing Kingston’s spectral New Yorker Guardians I was already thinking about that one part of Spiderman 2 (the OG Toby Mac version) and then he straight up said, “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us,” and I lost it.

“Deny the stairs the pleasure of my feet.” Emily is a poet.

I want to know what makes a pigeon spicy more than anything. 

The fact that Brennan killed Ox AGAIN and then immediately looked into the camera and let the audience know the dog was fine because he clearly Oracle stared into the future between eps and saw the entire internet sharpening their pitchforks  was so funny. 

About midway through the ep, Pete tries and fails to send Isabella back to hell and Isabella starts monologing about her plans and connection with Robert Moses (she stole the list from Santa and is/was gonna marry Moses apparently). I wonder if Brennan was like, “These players are for sure gonna murder her without getting any useful info out of her unless she goes full Bond Villain right now.”

And, proving my point, Emily immediately does 56 points of damage, royally f-ing Isabella up. 

This is a really civilian heavy fight which feels weird in a way the FH fights never did. Like, these aren’t even civilians who live in an adventuring town in a fantasy world. These are just normal ass civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Pete fails a wild magic roll after failing to teleport into the building and then gets a choice of getting really strong (which prob would have let him bust down the door) or to teleport in (which is what he does and exactly what he wanted). Very clutch when the dice rolls play into the story like that.

Kingston lightning bolts Isabella’s hair off which is just malicious but also totally called for.

On her next turn, Sophie gets hurt on purpose to get low enough to activate her ring, lets her hair burn for long enough to shorten it to a cute bob, insults Isabella, then knocks her tf out. 

I love that Emily took one of her teeth (a seemingly crazy move) and when called out by Lou was like, “It’s a link to Robert Moses” (a completely reasonable answer). That’s the Axford one-two punch.  

I didn’t mention it before but, Willie the golem is here, first immobile but then brought back by Misty. Post fight, he says he was somehow brought here by one of the evil factions of the city and says they’ll talk about it later. Also, Misty makes out with him (DON’T KINKSHAME HER).

With a high insight roll, Kingston is able to deduce that the group was ambushed (though not by Priya) and that their victory was a really important one for the fate of the city. 

(Sidenote: The amount that Pete is Over Priya in this ep is so funny.)

Back at Wally’s (which is where Kug is now staying) Wally has gotten Kug a dog bed to sleep in and fancy charcuterie cheese because he and Ricky are the only pure-hearted people in NYC. 

At the same time, Pete and Kingston have a very sweet heart to heart and then settle down at Kingston’s place to chill and listen to jazz. Idk how else we expected this to resolve, considering this is a Brennan Lee Mulligan DM’d show where the sacred pillars are Teamwork, Friendship, Communication, and Making up an NPC on the Fly Because One of Your PC’s Decided to do an Insane Thing. 

Next up is the Christmas ep and Brennan, Emily, and Zac are in sweaters for the occasion. 

Well,actually it’s the 21st and Emily immediately clocks that that’s the solstice. 

Are cookies the good carb?/Absolutely not. But have fun with your life. (I love Ricky’s soft jock energy.)

“I run deliveries,” Pete says to Kingston’s parents, not technically lying but also not being completely truthful. Misty would be proud. 

Going over to Misty, it seems pretty clear at this point (and it’s confirmed in the promo for next ep) that Misty’s fairy business is some kind of de-aging/reincarnation for herself. I wonder how many of these she’s done so far. She said she’s been around for, what? 200, 300 years? Assuming she’s been doing then reincarnations at about 65-70 years old and she reincarnates to around 25? Maybe 6 times? Idk. Just spitballing. 

Saucer of milk to keep the faeries from stealing her (non-existing) children. Faerie lore is wild y'all. 

Did you take another level of warlock?/Yeah bitch.

The fact that since Sophie has joined a monastery, she’s only taken Warlock levels and no Monk levels is very funny from a story perspective. It’s like, she finally comes to this sacred place to be trained to her full potential and she’s just spending what should be her sparring time playing with her cat in exchange for spells. Wild. 

Emily’s cat-like, self-satisfied grin when Brennan is like, “So you just jerry-rigged yourself clairvoyance powers, huh?” is so good. 

And she did it on the fly because Emily Axford is winning D&D. There are no points but she’s winning.

So, uh, Emily does, two things, very in character right after the other:

Thing number one: She send her unseen servant to spy on her family. Her dad seems hardline, “F, Dale. Whatever. Family first. She needs to get over it.” On the other side of the spectrum is her mom who is very upset about the whole affair with her siblings falling in the middle. 

The second thing she does, very casually I might add, is have her unseen servant BURN DOWN HER HOUSE SO SHE CAN COMMIT INSURANCE FRAUD.

EMILY

Everyone loses their minds and rightfully so. What a wild-ass swing that no one could have seen coming. I love it. 

“I look in my backpack which is now my home[…]" 

I almost forgot that Ricky was a fire fighter who would not abide that nonsense until Brennan decided to cut to him. 

Ricky just dolphin swims across the Hudson in 2.5 mins to go put out the fire that Sophie set. Amazing. 

Ally mocking Emily/Sophie: Truthfully, I don’t know what happened.

"I love John McClane, because he loves his wife.” WALLY

Wally: Oh we’re gonna tell a lie on Christmas.

“This is what winning looks like.”

I would really like to know what trace stuff what on the drugs Pete got from 7 but Ally rolled too low to figure it out.

“I disassociate fully." 

Well it took him a long ass time but glad to have Pete on the selling drugs to kids is bad train. Choo-choo, dude. 

7 saying you can hack in real life in reference to his AK-47 has the same energy as Hardison using the word hack in literally any semi-weird episode of Leverage. 

SOCIAL MEDIA IS VOLUNTARY PANOPTICON

So Kug goes with Wally to David’s house disguised as a dog and, despite that, blurts out that he’s his dad immediately. Well, he tries to. The Umbral Arcana stops him, unfortunately. 

"I lick my son’s face.” KUUUUG. 

Sophie showing up with a raw goose and hellish rebuking it is so metal and it’s a shame no one got to appreciate it. 

Me when Sophie’s Mom changes into black top in solidarity for Sophie’s mourning: F EVERY OTHER NON-SOPHIE BICICLETA. I RESPECT YOU. 

Kingston is hustling very hard to get his man Pete a job which is a very Kingston move. That’s how guys like that show affection. 

Didn’t mention it before but Kingston’s parents and Mom specifically adopting Pete is very cute. 

Sidenote: Idk what 7 was talking about Pete trying to stay low profile. He wears a cowboy hat (now a ZEBRA STRIPED one, courtesy of Kingston). I think the subtlety train has sailed my guy. 

Esther shows up at the firehouse, carrying presents for her mom and grandma and looking for Ricky. The says that she’s kinda dealing with something and it feels good to be around him (beat) magically speaking. Sure. I’m gonna keep my Hercules soundtrack on hand just in case anyway. 

I think Ricky is the only person who, with no pretense, could give his crush a sexy calendar featuring him.

Anyway, turns out Esther’s mom and grandma are the furies of Tompkins Square and she’s fated to join them or something. 

Esther causally: I defy you, I defy the prophecy.

The fury thing would explain why Esther’s mom would have cursed Kug. They are famously magical punishers.  

Ricky is a magically certified Good Boy but we been knew.

Zac’s restraint to respect Esther’s personal boundaries in lieu of getting a lore drop to stay true to Ricky’s character is amazing. Mad props.

So we slide over to Misty’s Christmas party which Stephen Sondhein is attending and him having a character card kinda killed me. 

There’s a post on tumblr somewhere about playing faerie  incapability for impoliteness against a vampires need to be invited in and that’s what I thought about when Moses and his vamp friends showed up at Misty’s house.

Robert tries to talk Misty into striking a deal with him for protection from Titania. She’s very much not having it.  

“You know Robert, I love a comedy and I love a farce. I’d like to remind you of who it is that started this and it’s not me and it’s not my friends but I can assure you Robert Moses that we will be the ones to end it if you do not. Do you understand me?” Damn. That’s a mic drop from Misty. 

[As I’m editing this, I’m realizing I somehow lost a BIG chunk of text. I’m not gonna write it all up again but the Cliffnotes are as follows:

Between the Solstice and Christmas, the gang goes Grand Central Station to see the clockwork gnomes that live there because trouble is apparently afoot. Some size changing nonsense happens and Pete shoots a dog (with mini bullets, the dog is fine). Lou is enchanted even though Kingston is not (a common theme with him). Ally and Emily are on the same nonsense wavelength (as usual). 

There are dope magical dragon trains under Grand Central Station that go to the shadow realm which is a place I’d like to know about. Kingston has never seen these trains before even though you’d really think he would have.  

Murph says Gnome Rights which is wild if you know what Naddpod is like. 

Anyway, the high priestess of the gnomes passed out the other day and they figure out it was due to pixie magic which is suspicious. They also know they pixies have access to a “time stone” which leads me to believe that it’s Brennan and not Aguefort who thinks that Chronomancy is the most powerful magic of all. 

Sophie and Jackson go to Dale’s grave on Christmas. Jackson explains that the Order of the Concrete Fist is basically a literal school of hard knocks. A counterbalance to all the reach for the stars dreaminess that comes with NYC.

Dale was their chosen one who was supposed to stop the monastery from falling when some unspecified badness crossed over to this side, but when he went to the place where he was supposed to get guidance, there was no one there (clearly tying in to what Dale said to Sophie last time they talked. I wonder what she needs to get to the top of? Empire State maybe?).

Watching Murph watching Emily, his real life spouse, play at grief for her fictional husband and do some truly insane things is so funny because you can clearly see him thinking, “I am married to this woman,” which, in fairness, is probably the main thing he’s thinking when he’s playing D&D with Emily.

I’m probably missing something but that’s all I remember. Back to post-Christmas!]

So it’s opening night at Misty’s show and, somehow, Ricky’s first show ever. 

I love that Don Confetti is there because of Siobhan’s offhanded comment for a handful of eps ago about him being a supporter of the arts.

Anyway, everything is going great until the second act when Titania busts in through the mirror which is *not* is storage as Misty requested but on stage. It’s a theater fight, y'all! And not the West Side Story kind although if that doesn’t come up I will be very surprised. 

“Let’s kill Titania!” –Misty in the promo

Just going straight to 11, huh Misty?

See y'all then!

[grimelords]

The hits just don’t stop coming!

My May playlist is finished and it’s only almost one month late! Everything you want and nothing you don’t from Nicki Minaj, the band that did the OC theme song and Italian Adele. What more could you ask for! 

Listen here!

Curious - Amerie: Amerie, who sang the world's greatest song 1 Thing and unfortunately never had any other good songs, surprise released a 22 minute album called 4AM Mulholland and a companion EP that was 20 minutes long called After 4AM last year. I don't know why she didn't just release one normal length album but anyway, because she's Amerie people weren't exactly eagerly awaiting a surprise release album from her so it came and went pretty quickly. This song though is really very good and sets a really nice midnight smoky tone that the whole rest of the album/EP unfortunately fails to really live up to. I also found out in my research that Amerie is also apparently a semi-influential book vlogger 'BookTuber' and last year edited a book of YA short stories where other BookTubers 'reimagined fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view. She's got heaps going on.

Vipers Follow You - Amon Tobin: Amon Tobin has lost his damn mind yet again. His last album was 8 years ago and it sounded like a hardware test for a new kind of million dollar sound system. Every single type of sound and frequency was crammed into it and it felt like a sound sculture that could physically attack you rather than an album that you listened to for fun. Now his new album sounds like the direct opposite. There's no drums on it at all and it's all stripped back thick and smooth acoustic-modelled textures and it's very nice. This song is a good example of the album feel overall: not exactly ambient or laid-back, but definite night music from a guy who has gone all the way from chillout trip-hop to walls of hydraulic noise over his career and it's always such a thrill to hear people pushing forward in their sound 9 albums in.

Do The Panic - Phantom Planet: Phantom Planet who famously did the theme song for The OC have reformed and released their first new song in ten years. This isn't that song but there was a bunch of people in the comments on the Stereogum article about it saying they were and underrated band and their 2008 album Raise The Dead has bangers and guess what: they were right!

Roman Holiday - Nicki Minaj: Roman Holiday reentered the billboard charts last month because it became relevant again via people putting it in memes where they would play a sped up version of the song over sped up videos of.. anything really. It's not a very good meme but I thank god for it because otherwise I would never have learned that it's a very good song. I also think there's a very interesting lesson to be learned here about Nicki Minaj because she premiered this song at the 2012 Grammys before Roman Reloaded came out with an elaborate Exorcist routine and everyone hated this extremely weird song and extremely weird performance so it was scrapped as the first single and they put out Starships instead. Nicki Minaj seem to me like an artist that has always struggled to ride the line between pop marketability and doing their own unique thing in much the same way as Eminem, and just like Eminem she's eventually settled in to a very safe and marketable version of herself. Roman Holiday is a glimpse of the Nicki That Could Have been that just starts singing Come All Ye Faithful in the middle of a song and does the chorus in an extremely dodgy British accent. There's a good bit on the wiki for this song that quotes Jessica Hooper's Spin review that says "the pop tracks are a paying of the piper and the too-perfect, Dr. Luke-produced songs are her penance for sneaking deranged yodeling ode 'Roman Holiday' in there." More deranged yodelling odes please Nicki!

Cousins - Vampire Weekend: I've never gotten into Vampire Weekend for an unknown reason. I like every song I've heard of theirs I've just never properly sat down and listened to an album and appreciated it until Father Of The Bride this year. I have however always loved Cousins. It’s got a completely deranged riff, the drums sound like their going to catch fire and it ends with chiming bells. It’s completely off the rails and I think the video is one of my favourites ever for just simply matching the tone of the song and the performance.

Lost Your Number - Nu Shooz: On the episode of R U Talkin' R.E.M Re: Me? with Ezra Koenig they were talking about grunge and the early 90s and how music that had 'authenticity' suddently became so popular. Scott's reasoning was that by the late 80s pop music had become so incredibly vaccuous and bad that people were yearning for anything with meaning. He said 'pop was so bad, stuff like Nu Shooz' and I immediately remembered how fucking good Nu Shooz are and paused the podcast to listen to them instead. This is an absolutely great song because the lyrics never rise above linear storytelling. 'I lost your number' is not a metaphor for lost contact or leaving someone or anything like that. This whole song is about trying to call someone but you've lost the piece of paper that you wrote their phone number on. She even describes the paper like maybe you the listener have seen it around somewhere, I absolutey love it.

Paper Trail$ - Joey Bada$$: Joey Bada$$ is a goon but he has good songs sometimes. If he wasn't a famous rapper he would be working full time in reddit arguments where people rank members of the Wu-Tang Clan. He's one of these 'real hip hop' 'lyrical miracle' guys and he even goes so far as to rework C.R.E.A.M in this song to say cash RUINS everything around me :O but this beat is nice as hell and I woke up with the bit where says 'shit is really real out here' repeating in my head.

Julien - Carly Rae Jepsen: I'm really loving this new Carly Rae album. It's not as heavy on hits as Emotion obviously but it's more even overall and has a lot more to dig into I think. I just keep listening to it. This song especially is so nice because it's a great example of how you only need two chords to get something extremely funky going.

Rock Non Stop - Cassius: Cassius finally have another great song! The nearly two minute choral intro is such genius because of how suddenly and forcefully it drops you into the middle of the most boneheaded dance song I've heard in a long time. Two different silly voices going back and forth with each other saying 'rock non stop' and 'gimme the good time', who could ask for anything more?

Just as I was about to publish this I saw the news that Phillipe Zdar died which is so sad! Just as they started releasing fantastic new music! So now this song is tinged with that sort of sadness which is unfair because it’s such a fun and silly piece of music, it doesn’t deserve to hold that kind of weight.

DOLO 5 - Dolo Percussion: This Dolo Percussion album absolutely astounded me. No melody! Just drums! For an hour and a half! It's a complete world of its own and you can get totally lost in the depths of it. Every song has a completely unique palette and it never ever feels boring like percussion focused music sometimes can, it's constantly evolving in every track and never settles into anything for too long. Things just come and go so naturally it feels like actually trying to figure out the structure of these songs would be impossible. There's a few moments where there's a hint of a bassline or melody in a some of the later songs and it completely shakes you up, like seeing sunlight again after years of absolutely thriving in the dark.

Song About An Angel - Sunny Day Real Estate: The way he sings 'running behind' in this is maybe one of my favourite pieces of vocal performance ever. He just shouted himself apart. Also the Genius description of this song is one of the best emo sentences I’ve ever seen: "The song is believed to be a conversation between a guy and an angel (possibly a girl)."

This Life - Vampire Weekend: The R U Talkin' R.E.M. Re: Me? episode with Ezra really put this album into a lot more context for me, because he's talking about being influenced by The Grateful Dead - not musically exactly but in the mindset and the idea of being in a guitar band and making guitar music in 2019 which is an interesting thing to think about. Anyway this has such a Dead feel to it and I'm really interested to see what they do live because as I've heard they're really mixing up their reputation of being a band that sounds exactly like the album and really going for it instead and doing absolutely anything which is a lot more fun.

The Past Is A Grotesque Animal - of Montreal: I've been getting heavily into Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer? this month and it's just so incredible. This song especially as the centrepiece of this whole album is amazing. The mindset is so intriguing to me: absolutely going though it in the worst way possible, getting divorced and everything like that but also somehow managing to keep it twee. The sorts of things that influenced this album would turn any normal person to heavier or stranger music but somehow he manages to believe so hard in the power of twee indie pop that he pushed it to the limit and create a masterpiece.

The Cascades - Janice Scroggins: You know that tweet about riding the bus and looking out the window and pretending the music you're listening to is the soundtrack to the movie about you riding the bus? That's me except with Scott Joplin rags and pretending i'm in a silent film where I embarrass myself in front of a society lady.

The Governor - Nicolas Jaar: I think i’ve probably already had this song on a playlist like three times so I’m going to stop talking about it but here’s my favourite thing this time: It could have just ended and been fine but instead it goes to saxophone hell and that’s what makes this a 10/10 song.

The Less I Know The Better - Tame Impala: My peabrain moment this month was suddenly developing a huge obsession with this song for some reason. Have you guys heard of this band ‘Tame Impala’? I really feel like they might blow up! One of my favourite things about this song is that the top youtube comment for a long time was ‘this is like the cuck anthem’. They’re right!

New Town - Life Without Buildings: Life Without Buildings feels like indie rock from another dimension. This came out in 2000 and for some reason I can't reconcile that fact with how it sounds. It sounds like it should have come out at least 5 years later. I cannot imagine this style of vocal ever working so effectively but somehow it just does. I'm hanging on absolutely every word and feeling it so intensely when in reality she sounds like something went wrong with the recording. I just love it.

Bang Bang Bang - Mark Ronson And The Business Intl: This is a hugely underrated song and this era of Mark Ronson seems to have been totally forgotten which is unfortunate. This song, Bad Romance by Lady Gaga and OMG by Usher all came out around the same time in my memory and I remember feeling very optimistic for the direction pop seemed to be heading in. Bombastic and unique and unafraid to be structurally different but then it turned out it wasn’t really a trend at all, it was just three great songs. So who knows.

Back To The Trees - Adele H: I suddenly remembered this song I completely fell in love with last year and remembered as a moderate hit only to find that it has <1000 listens on spotify and 300 on youtube. Simply not good enough, please listen to this song! Support my friend and yours Adele H: ‘The Italian Adelian’

Out There - Studio: What’s so good about Studio is it’s technically an electronic duo but it has the feeling of a jam jam band. Their wiki article is obviously written by their management but it also describes them as an ‘afrobeat-dub-disco-indie-pop adventure’ which is very true. It’s an adventure! It just keeps moving on and on through fifty flavours of groove!

Shut Up Kiss Me - Angel Olsen: This really is maybe the best love song ever written! Because it's about standing firm and not giving up on love! Stop pretending I'm not there when it's clear I'm not going anywhere / If I'm out of sight then take another look around!

Through This Town - Mia Dyson: If you ever need an optimistic song to lay down on the floor to then here's one.

Cry Flames - Rustie: I'm on my usual shit about how good Glass Swords was and how that it's a tragedy that this never coalesced into a major movement like it should have. This is such a good sound that just kind of disappeared because vaporwave and everything overlapped with the boring parts of it and the anime chillout version became popular instead. Sad!

Real Truth (feat. Tkay Maidza) - J-E-T-S, Machinedrum and Jimmy Edgar: I love this beat so much. The sort of beat that sounds like it's playing out of a droid that got shot with a lazer and is malfunctioning.

Aute Cuture - Rosalia: me putting these lyrics through google translate: oh my god she’s right this IS on fire

Self-Immolate - King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: King Gizz are a metal band now and they're writing the very best kind of metal songs - sci-fi about burning to death in the skies of Venus that's also a climate change parable.

Magic Arrow - Timber Timbre: Timber Timbre feel underrated to me. I never see anyone talking about them but they're one of the most consistently great bands around, I absolutely love them. There's so much space in this song, this whole style of minimal production is underutilised. It feels like if Wicked Game by Chris Isaak was about an 18th century cult leader instead which I think we can all agree is a much improved song.

Kim's Caravan - Courtney Barnett: I love this style of songwriting where you just sit on an extremely heavy bassline the whole time and have no chorus, which affords you the freedom to just get bigger and bigger and smaller as you wish. The Drones cover of River Of Tears works like this too and I think it's just masterful.

When The Movie's Over - Twin Shadow: My belief is Confess is front to back one of the greatest pop albums ever written. Please, please listen to it and be moved.

listen here

[vinylexams]

Heavy Heavy Low Low - Courtside Seats to the Greatest Fuck of All Time⁠

⁠ @heavyheavylowlow38 #heavyheavylowlow #hhll #deathwish @deathwishinc⁠ ⁠ I’ve been lucky as hell recently to snag insider info on some killer reissues and this one is no exception. You all already know how much I love HHLL, especially Turtle Nipple…, and through serendipity I got connected with Robbie from the band a few months back. I got to hear about how they are coming back to life after some years focusing on other projects, growing up and growing out, and evolving as musicians and artists in the process. They’ve worked with Twelve Gauge Records to put Courtside Seats on vinyl for the very first time and after they announced it on their platforms and immediately sold it out, they’re pressing another batch that you and the HHLL lovers in your life can and should snag before that pressing sells out, too!⁠ ⁠ What’s even more exciting is that I got to pick Robbie’s brain in typical VE fashion and he’s indulged me with all sorts of info about what they’re up to, whether or not we can expect new music, and some feel-good stories about huffing air duster and ripping shit up in an old warehouse on the California coast. Here it is in its unedited glory, but first…head to the website to pre-order your copy and then head to Robbie’s Indiegogo campaign to learn more about his upcoming short firm that’s scored by Nick from Tera Melos! ⁠https://deathwishinc.com/products/heavy-heavy-low-low-courtside-seats https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morning-deliveries-short-film#/

INTERVIEW

First and foremost, it’s been a minute since we’ve heard from Heavy Heavy Low Low and then out of nowhere you sprang back to life in 2019. What motivated you all to pick up this project again? I’m not sure what motivated it. We had always been trying to jumpstart the whole thing again for some time and I think that it might have been a case of everyone’s lives slowing down and examining that time with a weird reverence. I can only speak for myself. The boys are all in school or doing their own thing.

I imagine you’ve all been working on different projects since HHLL went on hiatus. Do you have anything that you or the rest of the band have worked on that you’d love us to know about? Danny has gotten pretty popular in the Kendama world. Chris is studying various forms of martial arts. Roo is endlessly going to school and currently scoring independent films. Chip is heavily involved in competitive fishing. I’ve been making short films when the situation and my wallet allow it. We’re all crazy excited about finally owning Courtside Seats on vinyl for the first time. Aside from bringing that album onto the vinyl medium, the pre-order page notes that there’s new artwork, too. What can we expect from that? When we made the CD we weren’t expecting to sell any really.. I did the art and Matthew printed them all at his job. Him and I folded every crease, glued the o-cards and vacuum sealed them all. I think it sold out almost completely at the record release show. We made the same amount of records as we did the original cd (500). The artwork for the original CD pressing was done on sketch paper without any comprehension of what could be done with drawn art and a scanner. Matthew was the computer wizard and back then, young and silly, it was all done on the cuff. The new art is a bit more modern and plays with mortality. Court-side Seats to The Greatest Fuck of All Time being a front seat view of a an ordinary, bumpy ride through life. I’m proud of it. What’s it like to bring back an album from the earliest parts of the band’s career? Do you still identify with the music? It is odd. It was a truly surreal time and place. We were out of our fucking minds. We recorded it in Mountain View, Ca in this giant warehouse that tapered into gutted office spaces. It was a weird white collar tomb on the outskirts of Silicon Valley right before the real tech boom. In the big part of the warehouse where we’d enter there were giant mounds of clothes meant to be donated to some third world country. We’d burrow tunnels in them and do huge dramatic flips from pike to pile. There was an aisle of outdated medical equipment waiting to be sent that we’d stalk through in the dark. It was a strangely magic place. Once you got through the warehouse you’d get to these office stations that had been fashioned into recording studios and that’s where we birthed this thing. We were so misguided. The amount of compressed air that we inhaled should have killed us. I contribute a significant drop in IQ to that shit. Smoking copious amounts of weed from gravity bongs. Recording with a hip hop producer, Deegan. Never a disagreement. It still feels like it was some strange purgatory of youth. I don’t miss it, but it was beautiful. Does this mean there’s hope of having Everything’s Watched, Everyone’s Watching on vinyl sometime, too? So, there was a guy who was very adamant about putting that record out on vinyl. We had a dialogue going for the better part of a year and apparently he had been in contact with Rhino Music and Warner, the two companies that hold the licensing to that album. He had received word that it’d cost an impressive amount of money, but he still wanted to shoulder it. Mind you, this dude didn’t have a label, he just wanted to put this thing out and apparently hadnt thought that all out. Time goes by, I’m waiting, not worrying one way or the other. One day I get a link from a friend, a Christian college website detailing that dude had been arrested for kidnapping and assault. Very sad situation. Dude seemed semi normal. Anyway, that was the last effort I’d seen put into that. I’d love to contribute new art to that release if any go-getter wants to try their luck. I’ve loved everything HHLL put out, but Turtle Nipple is in my top 10 list of favorite albums of all time. What was the writing the recording process for it like and how did the band feel about the new creative directions on it? EWEW was half previously recorded material re-recorded and half material written a year prior, kind of forced into a studio with producers we had no previous rapport with. Those producers/engineers were incredible human beings (RIP Tom Pfaffle! See you in the mindfog) but we were very young punk kids thrown into a foreign land where we had our agents visiting and there were platinum records on the wall and it was a total barrage of privilege and excess. It was beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel soul in that record. Turtle Nipple is a dense trip through time and the record I’m most proud of in our discography. I don’t remember how long we had to record it, I do remember that it was the only time we’d been given to experiment and layer our sensibilities in an environment that catered to them. Sam (Pura) was a perfect conduit to that vibe and time and space and it really came out just how it should have. I think about that album as a 70s exploitation directors filmography.. it veers violently from genre to genre and while most of the stories are fiction and far from personal testimony, theirs a peek into some shared insanity contained throughout. George Cosmatos wandering through a punk club on an edible. I think that that album is our bands true personality. Sam is a member of our band whether he’s playing with us or engineering for us. He gets us. I love the idea of an alternate reality where we had lasted a bit longer and did an album with Steve Albini. He’d probably hate us, but I love those ‘What If?’ Scenarios. I’ll ask the question EVERYONE has been asking so it’s on the record somewhere: Does this mean we can expect new material or a new album soon? Maybe even a tour? We have a new EP in the works. We have some of it recorded with Sam. We’ve posted a couple clips on Instagram. We’re incredibly busy and spread out in our personal lives. Chip in TX, Dan in FL, Roo in OR, Rob and Chris in CA. Adulthood is a bitter, pulpy drink! We are going to be playing again. We won’t be leaving the West Coast. We had our fill of middle America and the travel involved. We have talked to some of our buds from our early days of touring about playing alongside (opening for) them for a limited run in 2020. I think that qualifies as a tour. Also, if anyone wants to fly us to Europe to play a festival in 2020, we’d like that. It’ll be an interesting year. How does it feel to be welcomed back by so many adoring fans who still love your music and are hoping for more after a long hiatus? It’s incredibly humbling. I have heard from people throughout the years about how we had affected them and it was always just strange to me. I’m pretty self deprecating, so I just don’t understand how some shit I wrote could mean much to anyone. My mind is just a shotgun blast of panic. I guess all of ours are? I love my band mates and their talents, though. So I understand the sorta sirens draw to the greater extent. I think they only got to show themselves slightly, too. Weird existence. Give us a piece of band trivia you’ve never shared in an interview before! Gees. There is a step-in part to most 15 passenger vans. It is a black, hard plastic. It meets with where you close the sliding door. When we had no bottles to pee in, we would just piss in ‘the step’. This thing was a den of germicidal activity. Trash and piss I don’t think we ever truly cleaned that thing. What’s odd is that we so rarely got ill on tour. The Step kept us healthy on a steady diet of trash and piss and general scum. Finally, this isn’t a question but the hidden track on Turtle Nipple is a fucking masterpiece and I wanted you to know. Thank you! I think that may have been my idea to add some weird 70s funk into an old track of ours. I think it turned out cool, but I think it betrays our vibe on that album! I wish it’d have devolved into some weird, primitive Altered States shit.

[akatokuro]

The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episodes 37-38

Aiolia, are you like... okay? (HE IS NOT, IN FACT, OKAY.)

- Last time, I meant to write about these eps but I got hard-derailed with the need to scream at the walls about Milo. This seems to happen to me pretty often. It might be a problem.

- This whole Shaina-->Seiya subplot is still stupid as hell, and the way Seiya treats Shaina here is condescending as hell, but to be very very generous Seiya is at least perceptive enough to not fight back seriously because he understands Shaina essentially has a death wish. Sanctuary will fuck you up hard, dude. The mask issue is yet another way to approach the fundamental ways the entire institution of Sanctuary will break people over its knee.

- Hahaha, I love the way Aiolia enters the scene here, so ominous and terrifying! It's a great contrast to the very mellow, normal dude in the back Aiolia is framed as in his earlier cameos. HEY, SHAINA, DID YOU AND THE OTHER SILVERS REALLY FORGET I WAS A GOLD FUCKING SAINT WELL GUESS WHAT HERE'S A REMINDER

- Lia, are you... having fun sloooowly lifting Shaina into the air first - totally not to terrify her or anything, nope, no grudge here, what are you talking about, hahaha!

- I'm going to be repeatedly gushing about this through the next couple eps, but holy shit, Aiolia's Japanese VA is SO FUCKING GOOD.

- The way he's animated here is so good too! The combination of his flat tone as he introduces himself, his flat expression, and the way only his eyes move when he greets Seiya specifically - it really conveys a sense of tension and Lia being in very, very forced, tight control of himself right now.

- "lmao not even the gold saints knew that there were TWELVE ZODIAC-THEMED CLOTHS! like! twelve zodiacs! god! not just leo and sagittarius! who would ever have guessed!" yeah this is the most obvious thing for the broader lore to instantly fucking throw out the window because no.

- It's a semi-common fanon thing to regard Aiolia as "stupid", but honestly, he's never struck me as such - I like this moment where he's sizing up Seiya's answer re: Sagittarius, and comes to the conclusion that he's telling the truth. But still, murder mission means murder gon happen!

- Aiolia has problems with self-control--his emotions sometimes get the better of him and he can't help himself when he really needs to punch something because he's just SO FUCKING ANGRY--but that's a different thing altogether than just being stupid, especially since I think Lia is pretty self-aware about that aspect of himself.

- I love how Aiolia TOTALLY came here to murder the shit out of these kids, too. Like, think about the contrast with Milo later, when Milo offers to spare Hyouga for Camus's sake - Lia is apparently close friends with Marin, but does he extend the same courtesy? No. That Seiya is Marin's student doesn't fucking matter. He's here to perform a very baggage-ridden mission for Sanctuary, and that is what he is going to do, because Aiolia would really like to turn himself into a Good Saint Robot.

- And again, even as he's warning Shaina, Aiolia comes across as very tightly controlled and very short, played up as frightening and intimidating. His expression and tone doesn't change as Shaina pleads and he points out her emotional shortcomings. Aiolia can run very hot, but he can also turn himself very cold, and the combination of the two feeding into each other is what can make him potentially scary as hell, especially when you remove his inhibitions via a bit of brainwashing!

- That little detail of Lia clenching his fist and his fist shaking as Seiya accuses him of being another assassin from Sanctuary is really good. It should be clear from Lia's VA taking a BEEP BOOP BOP approach to his lines here, but Lia is internally struggling a lot already, and trying to press it down.

- Not struggling with internal conflict about his orders per se, mind you. Moreso struggling with not losing his shit over how fucking mad he is.

- And when Seiya tries to explain the situation to Aiolia, he gets this.

- Aiolia isn't actually stupid, but this is why he's interesting. He dumbs himself down because he feels he can't trust himself - both his actual thoughts and instincts, as what happened with his brother proved to him, and his ability to restrain himself. So what can he do but commit himself to his orders and the rules, especially knowing that he's already walking on a very thin tightrope compared to most people because of his TRAITOR'S BLOOD? (lmao, thanks Milo! Clearly the best friend Aiolia could ever hope for!) There might be a temptation to write off Lia as the "good boy" of the Gold Saints, since he's pushed as the protagonist figure amongst them, but he's really not. He's pretty complex.

- Lol considering how hard Shaina was shitting on and disrespecting Aiolia in earlier episodes... is seeing her so frantic and then flattening her effortlessly a little bit cathartic for you, Lia...? Just a little...?

- Lia's expression still not changing as he turns his FLATTEN BEAM onto Seiya. Truly the TermiLia right now.

- I love Aiolia's response to Seiya bleating off about his brother and why Lia is so loyal to Sanctuary. He is obviously trying to appeal to Lia emotionally by hitting what he knows are emotional weak spots and Lia is not having any of that shit. you are literally just making him madder seiya

- These sure are the words and expression of a very, very bitter man!

- Aiolos isn't exactly an interesting character to me as he is, because the series is by and large mostly interested in him as a straightforward admirable martyr figure - but he could be if you re-interpret him under a more critical lens. His treatment of Aiolia is kind of... something. I don't actually remember him ever offering a truly kind word to his little brother. Like, ever.

- There's even a fun ambiguity if you want to his line in this flashback about "You should be able to do this, because you have the same Cosmos I do - because we're brothers." Yes, it could be read as encouragement - as Baby Lia is obviously doing here - but it's also setting forth an expectation.

- Oh shit, this is some of the stuff I was planning on going through in my upcoming EIGHTEEN PAGE AIOLIA META. Uhhhh....... man, this situation sure sucks for Lia, being left behind like that! Aiolos! Issues! Probably! Yeah!

- Fucking Silvers!

- I'm glad Lia states that he hated Los and used that for fuel in terms of becoming a strong Saint, and also vaguely suicidal. You can totally see it. Leo Aiolia is a cold and hateful person in a lot of ways! It rules!

- Okay Seiya you deserve to be punched for this one

- lol Lia narrowing his eyes in response too hoo boy

- seiya why are you stripping that's shiryuu's deal

- ahhhh shit aiolia's va is SO GOOD! he was already pulling the "flat, controlled tone" before but after seiya hit him with THAT garbage he goes extremely low and dangerous and outright monotone, very audibly you're on thin fucking ice you little shit

- One of the little things that I like about Lia and how he subverts your first impression of "oh, this is the nice, protagonist-y Gold, right?" is that when you piss him off, he gets vicious and downright venomous verbally. Aiolia is capable of outright dripping with contempt for people in a way that's totally "oh, this is what he's been thinking the whole time, he was just holding it back." Like here, when he's practically sneering about "Oh, so this is all you've got after six years training with Marin, huh? You fucking scrub loser."

- Damn, I like Seiya crying as he attacks Aiolia again, knowing that it's hopeless! That's a nice touch. A LITTLE SCARED, HUH SEIYA?

- Lia, you totally should have been able to see Shaina moving and jumping in front of Seiya like that in time to pull back. You really should have. Is your mad getting the better of you? I know Seiya kicked it up several notches, but damn, man.

- yeah i do not think this is the face of someone who is actually going to be losing that much sleep over """"accidentally"""" punching the shit out of shaina

- And Seiya calls out Aiolia for not stopping his attack when he totally had the capability to do so, lmao

- Hahaha, so Lia lets Seiya punch him to let off some steam and goes: "Yeahhhh, my bad. Eh."

- I also like the detail that Lia can heal with his Cosmos! (And lol that Lia was originally going to just leave her there before Seiya called him out.) It's not an ability you actually see a lot of Saints have, including the Golds.

- Lia asks Seiya why he's doing this. Seiya starts to explain, but then Lia immediately cuts him off with THE POPE'S ORDERS ARE ABSOLUTE. aiolia are you like.... okay... i mean you asked him and he was answering y... all righty then. i mean i know that's what you've convinced yourself to cope but

- Then the shitty Silvers show up, and even these guys continue to shit on Lia for his TRAITOR'S BLOOD. Lia gets visibly mad and reiterates his determination to fulfill his mission and murder these damn kids. The Silvers ignore him, and obviously enjoy twisting the knife about being able to ignore him!

- Aiolos decides he's had enough of his bath and decides to give Seiya a hand! Wow!

- okay seiya really rocks the sagittarius cloth though. better looking than aiolos in it. sagittarius seiya is the best looking gold saint tbh. shiryuu is really hideous in libra unfortunately

- And this is Aiolia's face when Seiya puts on the Sagittarius Cloth. WHAT COULD HE BE THINKING? HMMMM.

- I love Aiolia, but he definitely has that smug Gold Saint arrogance running through his being as much as anyone else. "FOR THE GOLD CLOTH TO CHOOSE THE LIKES OF YOU..."

- But this whole thing is great, too. He was willing to let Seiya go - for the day - out of respect for Shaina and okay yeah he did feel a little bad about that, but now that Seiya's put on a Gold Cloth? Nah, you little shit. Sorry Shaina, looks like it's right back to murder o'clock for Leo Aiolia!

- Seiya, with Aiolos's help, manages to land a punch on Lia. He is very cute in his excitemement about this! AIOLIA IS NOT.

- THE TERMILIA HAS UPGRADED TO A NEW, MADDER MODEL. You'll note the feel of this whole thing is REALLY CLOSE to the intimidation of vicious, brainwashed Aiolia later on. All of that was legit in him. That's why it's still interesting as a facet of his character.

- Lia throwing out the "kono Aiolias" left and right. Considering his earlier talk about how much he hated his brother and wanted to surpass him, are we projecting a little bit onto this new kid wearing his Cloth, Lia? Maybe... maybe a little?

- "Aiolia, why are you so loyal to the Pope!?" "BECAUSE I AM DEEPLY TRAUMATIZED--I MEAN, BECAUSE, UH, HE'S A GREAT MAN! YEAH! FUCK YOU!"

- Lia's face when Hyouga and Shun arrive on the scene. YIKES.

- And here when he effortlessly blocks Hyouga and Shun's attacks, with a "lol, you're really going to try to fight KONO AIOLIA, the gold saint?" Again, the contempt and sneering just drips off of him - he's actively mocking them - in a way that is totally, one hundred percent consistent with the way he acts when he is brainwashed, and against Hades's mooks much later. Again, holy shit, I would LOVE to get actual insight into Lia's brain re: his opinion of Milo and the Silvers.

- It is sort of sad, though, as the more pissed off and frustrated Aiolia is obviously getting - jesus christ he just came here to murder some kids out of self-loathing, and then this bullshit with Shaina, and then that bullshit with the Silver Saints, and then the MEGA FUCKING BULLSHIT of Seiya putting on his brother's Cloth and actually hitting him, and now THESE little shits show up and complicate things even more - it feels like he more forcefully repeats those rote robot-lines about "as a saint, for justice, in the name of Athena, pope is like a GOD." Aiolia has issues, man.

- As the Bronzies keep challenging him, we get another shot of Aiolia's shaking, clenched fist. Once again I must emphasize that his VA is doing a fucking amazing job of continuing to escalate Lia's various shades of mad and the various levels of "I am seriously point two seconds away from ripping you little shits apart"

- Yes, Aiolia is refusing to listen and obviously repeating lines he's been "fed" - but once again, I don't think it's stupidity, per se. It's thirteen years of trauma where he had to crush out any personal doubts in order to survive in the environment he was in. But god these kids are making it HARD and reviving OLD FEELINGS and that's PISSING HIM OFF so they GOTTA FUCKING DIE because SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

- Hi Saori! Thanks for showing before everyone died!

- Leo "Fuck you I don't have time for this bullshit" Aiolia vs Kido "Fuck YOU I don't have time for this bullshit" Saori, go!

- I like how Lia refers to Aiolos by his name here, and as "the traitor Aiolos", though we see how in private, in his head, he still called him "nii-san" and he reverts to "nii-san" fully once he knows the truth. Aiolia had a hard life.

- thanks for the unnecessary flashback, episode, this writeup is already getting too long doot doot doot

- It's very hard to be told that "welp, I coped and doubted myself and twisted my thoughts and sense of self for thirteen years for nothing huh!" And I appreciate that Lia doesn't instantly believe her - he needs hard proof, because otherwise it means pretty much his whole life and everything he "worked" for just falls apart. He wouldn't be a bad fit as an Umineko character, really! <_<

- Saori selectively leaving out that Mitsumasa was also a horrible person but okay BABY SAORI IS CUTE AS FUUUUUUCKKKKKKKK

- God I love that Aiolia was totally willing to murder this young girl, too, to test if she was bullshitting him about being Athena. He was really going to try to punch her fucking head off. Aiolia owns.

- I LOVE SAORI FOR CALMLY AGREEING IT TOO HAVE I MENTIONED I FUCKING LOVE HER AND THAT SHE IS THE COOLEST?

- Lia's response to Seiya's outrage at the way he demands "proof." Even though it's brief, you really do get a sense of the weight of what Lia has been struggling with since Aiolos was framed, and how hard it is for him to just throw it all aside. And his "I need it!" re: proof.

- The ghost of Aiolos finally shows up, after all this time - exclusively to shit on his little brother. Hoo boy.

- It REALLY feels like twisting the knife for Aiolos to shoot him with basically "You're not only unworthy of being a Saint, you're unworthy of being my brother! You fuckup! You moron!" Like, again, if this is an indication of Aiolos's parenting methods with training Lia, uh... no wonder Lia has such deep-set issues...

- Like, Aiolia has legitimately suffered a LOT because of Aiolos's actions all this time, so to not have a single shred of compassion and only a very stony "you fucking failure" is pretty. Uh.

- Not that Lia challenges this himself, of course, as he cries over the fact that Los wasn't a traitor and "still fights for justice." Fully indoctrinated, after all!

- "I'm not suicidal over these developments or anything. Nope. Totally not running off here to get myself killed in atonement, encouraged by my brother's ghost who was yelling at me over what a sin I've committed. Not at all. Pay no attention to the sad lion behind the curtain!"

- Doesn't escape Saori's notice, either, as she quietly asks Lia not to die as he heads off.

- And Leo Aiolia exits the episode just as he entered it: in desperate, desperate, desperate need of some serious fucking therapy.

[idealisticrealism]

Blindspot 4x03

Had a busy Halloween week (my first ever!) so I’m extra late today. Also changed my format slightly bc what is consistency?

Reade-- What is there to say, other than he looks super cute covered in paint? It’s kinda weird that the usual ‘main team’ has barely been seen this whole ep-- and even then, mostly only through brief video calls or over the comms. And Reade wasn’t even heard from at all during the actual bomb disarming. Honestly though…. I’m kinda down with that. As much as I love the others, we all know Rich and Patterson are my Dream Team lol

Zapata-- yep there’s Zapata, jogging slowly away from her problems as usual lol. Seriously though what is she doing being apprenticed to a literal evil witch EXPLAIN GERO. Ugh I feel so bad for her but a little bit ‘serves you right’ at the same time. Though lbr I just want her to come homeeeee

Weller-- I feel like this dude has been on the edge of tears for like a year. Poor guy. But omg does he make a cuuuute Jackson Pollock lol. I love him being all serious and sarcastic towards Madeline while literally covered in paint and feathers. I feel like the real mystery of this ep is HOW DOES IT MAKE HIM HOTTER. Someone please explain. Also oooh he cannot be happy about being stuck in the station while ‘Jane’ is zooming away on a doomed train. ALSO SPEAKING OF WHICH, dude the bomb is on one of the lines past the apartment I lived in back in September. I got off at that station multiple times aaaahhhhhh this is so cool. Ugh now he’s back at the apartment crying over Jane again ahah. Seems like all the poor dude does these days is hug her and cry. But wait, maybe not! Ooooh he followed her and he has got his suspicion on. THERE’S the badass agent we’ve been missing!

Remi-- I feel like she actually feels a tiny bit bad that she made Weller cry?? Lol girl’s supposed to be killing him and she has a hard time even seeing him cry. Lbr she’s gonna fall for him despite herself, his mix of badass agent and suburban dad is apparently just irresistible to any iteration of her being lol. Tbh I loved the sequence of her disarming the bomb over the comms-- in most eps we would be with her and Weller and Reade out in the field and only hearing the home team over the comms, I loved seeing this turnabout. Also ugh she nearly lashes out at Weller when he lifts her hand bc she’s such an abused little puppy that she doesn’t know anything but coldness or punishment and I think she was startled and secretly pleased to be greeted with cheers and hailed as a hero. Ugh Remi honey you’re gonna grow to love it here. “... right under our noses, putting on a friendly face, pretending to be the hero” I guess she’s seeing some similarities between herself and Madeline lol. And then oooh on the couch, Roman’s like the devil on the shoulder trying to pull her back into the deep shadows of the dark side and then Weller appears and shines all his love and support all over her and Roman disappears for a moment. I see what you’re doing here Gero…. Also lol Remi must be surprised at how easily she can make Weller cry haha

Patterson-- okay firstly, how dare some guy make out with my baby and not know her name. Also, I just have mixed feelings about the making out in general but I am all about supporting my precious queen. THen I was like ‘pfft she won’t say her name’ and then SHE SAID HER NAME AND I SCREAMED and then it hit me that she was almost definitely undercover and I was like ‘oh a fake name of course, shit Gero you got me well done’ and then turns out it wasn’t an op but a whole different kind of ‘undercovers’ hahahahaha. Well good on you girl I support you and all your choices. BUT WAS IT A FAKE NAME OR NO??? Omg okay yes it was, thanks for the heart attack Gero. Is anyone else having early Grey’s Anatomy flashbacks rn lol or is that just me haha. Also flustered Patterson is the most adorable Patterson, fight me on it.Ugh poor girl cannot seem to catch a break this ep and you KNOW Rich is deliberately playing with her lol. But also I mean c’mon writers, Patterson is a professional agent, I can see her being flustered to start but let’s not act like she wouldn’t suck it up and focus on her job pretty quick. Also omg *dead serious voice* “I can already tell you, that I’m gonna scoff” is one of the best lines of the episode and probably the entire show lol. “Okay get to the part where you solved it. Oh my god I just sounded like Weller” hahaha well  he is your big bro, so makes sense you’d pick up a few traits lol. Great throwback to the ‘where math is done’ line too writers, nice work. Also wow the way she just went toe-to-toe with Weitz… why do I ship it a tiny bit lol?? And I also kinda ship her with Lincoln. Get it, girl!

Rich-- how was him being like ‘Hey guys here’s the terrorist’s address okay be careful bye’ one of the funniest things he’s ever done??? I stg whoever writes Rich needs to be my new best friend. Though tbh he does actually seem almost a touch subdued in this first scene, without that usual devilish gleam in his eyes… maybe he’s trying to show he can be both useful AND mature so they don’t actually decide to replace him with Boston haha. “I didn’t say magic, I’m not seven, I said magical cures’ hahahaha my baby. And he’s so excited to brief the recruits ugh. And then omg “sounds like the greatest takedown in FBI history I’m so sorry I missed it” aren’t we all, buddy lol. Also ugh him and his little recruit ducklings LET ME DIE. “There’s a bomber! Who bombs!” literally if someone who had Rich’s sense of humour and talked like he talks were to appear in my life I would marry them on the spot. “He’s probably an angry man with a victim complex, that’s a dangerous combination” OKAY EVERYONE LET’S FACE IT THE BOMBER GUYS CAN GO HOME BECAUSE RICH JUST DROPPED THE BIGGEST BOMB OF THE EPISODE RIGHT THERE. “Oh yeah, would an unprofessional do something like this??” The answer is yes and also marry me. And ugh he says his main reason for going after the book of secrets is because Jane is dying ughhhhh he is too good for this worldddd. Also wtf was that weird cackle when describing Roman that was hilarious. “It’s been very evident all day. Also I am like a sex-narc and you are terrible at lying” EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS MAN AND THIS FRIENDSHIP IS THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. “It’s very unprofessional, I think that’s what thrills me the most actually” hahahahaha. “This is my smug face, I save it for special occasions” hahahaaha c’mon no he does not, that’s just his normal face but THIS is why I felt he seemed more serious than usual, it was so his face could be extra smug later hahahaha. And the victory dance??? “You and me, Ride or Die”?? Let’s be real I am SO ride or die for these two there is literally nothing more important than this friendship aaaaaaaahhhhhh

Weitz-- I love this sleazy bastard and his weird love/hate feelings towards Zapata and his semi-corrupt work ethic lol. Also omg yasss he told them all about Zapata leaking info to Carter! I wondered if that would ever come out. And omg he’s Patterson’s hookup’s uncle THIS EP IS RIDICULOUS AND I LOVE IT. Also oh no “What am I saying, special treatment’s fine” was hilarious, like uh oh no way am I starting to love Weitz??? I am having feelings about a Patterson/Rich/Weitz dream team haha. “Might be our only shot at [Madeline], so it is unfortunate that you look like that” how does this show do so many characters with their own distinctive styles of sass I love it so much. Also, show of hands, who thinks this guy is on some kind of uppers because honestly at this stage I’m convinced haha. He’s especially nuts when he comes in to give Patterson the special computer-- which I’m sure that a) she already would have had one of, and b) someone in his postion would have just had someone deliver for him. Although it does seem like he makes any excuse to come hang out and be bizarre. He’s the boss I wish I had lol. Especially if I happened to be related to him bc wow there is some unabashed nepotism happening right here haha. Oh dear he seems to be coming down off his high right now and is getting grumpy. Better call his assistant to bring his next hit lol. Also “CAN YOU JUST CHECK HIS WORK PLEASE” clearly withdrawing-Weitz has no time for workplace flirting hahahaha. And ugh then Patterson stands up to him and he listens to her and holy shit that was a big amount of trust, if they were wrong the whole city is gonna turn on him for letting so many more people die than was necessary. Looks like he doesn’t just always do what protects his own ass??

Afreen-- you are a queen and I love you

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 9: Esper Roba and His Real Sweet Shirt

So, I’ve been real under the weather this past week. Usually, that is prime time to dive right into some anime, but, this certain sickness went straight to my cognitive center of my brain and I spent most of this week on the couch, or on my bed. Or halfway between the two. I made some weird choices, mostly concerning ramen, but I also decided “Youknow, I watch so much TV with my bro, I need to detox and balance my life, lets turn on some Film Noir without bro.” Which was not a great choice, mostly because I then complained about how much I hated this movie (that was beautiful, lovely, critically acclaimed, and just so, so, so grating) to bro directly afterward.

And then, every time I sat down to just write this review about Yugioh, I kept complaining about Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil.” (It’s a film noir drug PSA from the 1950′s, it’s just...it’s so out of touch that at one point they say they’re mainlining marijuana, which is not a thing, kids in the back, do not ask for that at your local dispensary) So my brain may have been pretty flu-addled, but at least I had enough sense to put off posting anything until I was finally healthy enough to delete all of that nonsense.

Because this is a show about cards and psychics who deal cards, and the occasional person that is not a psychic but can convince pretty much everyone anyway.

So, lets see what Rex is up to.

PS, he’s already lost before this episode began.

You’d think this would be normalized in their world by now. There are just...there are SO MANY psychics. So many that it’s hard to tell the real ones from the ones that are just normal people who are cheating at cards.

So, Esper decides to sniff out the only guy there who isn’t at all phased by psychics because he practically lives with one.

Of the things I did when I was sick--I spent, I want to say...2 hours on Pinterest and google search just seeing if there was a machine manufactured version of this shirt. Because legit--I like this shirt a lot. It took me by complete surprise because fashion in Yugioh is usually a hot mess, but I guess because they were like “we got to make him look weird” they made a shirt I would instantly buy off the rack. Mind you, I’m a girl, but like...man those peter pan contrast lapels on a muted pink with the large geometric angles is a real choice look.

I mean I could make this shirt but...if I did find this shirt, that’s essentially Esper Roba cosplay. But, from what I can tell from Google image search, only about 2 people have ever cosplayed as this guy, so I think it still counts as cute indie business casual like I think it does in my head. But I’ll never know.

(read more)

Anyway, I can tell I’m still lucid from my whatever sickness so, good luck to my bro when he edits this later, I’ll try to stop getting sidetracked, lets get back on point with Joey who has decided that it doesn’t matter if this guy is psychic or not psychic, because he’s got Plot-RNG, so he’ll be fine until at least the semi-finals.

This is real, there is a Joey Wheeler Rulebook. Guess how many rules it has.

That’s right, there are only two rules, much like how there are only two rules to  this tournament. Probably because after all the mind wipes, both Joey and Kaiba can only remember two things at a time.

So, speaking of forgetful boys, we get to have a look in on Tristan trying his best to woo a girl who has no idea what wooing is.

the montage of how incompetent each of these kids are without Pharaoh helping them out every five minutes makes it kind of incredible that they can function on a normal day.

(It can’t be day 2 right!? Unless Tea is a time traveler which...probably not?)

Tea is still just...wandering around... while meanwhile, Joey is just Gokuing it up.

And during all of that, Pharaoh decides the best thing he can do for his children is to just do nothing.

And it’s about here that Pharaoh does something that, seeing last episode feels at first a little bit unexpected:

But Pharaoh needs Joey to grow by doing things on his own so he does nothing. And I don’t really think this is necessarily back pedaling or forward pedaling on Pharaoh’s part. He kinda just does what he wants. Plus, that last guy beat up Joey once so Pharaoh kinda wanted to eff him up, and ripping up all his cards because he cheated was probably the closest Yugi would let him go.

Not like the charade lasted that long, other people in the crowd noticed that Esper was a fake when he overheard the wrong card over his brother’s microphone.

I’ll have you know that what I originally wrote in this cap was: “Is precarious ledge the new abandoned warehouse?” and Bro was like “Listen Rach, you are hella on flu medication but these words don’t make sense in succession” and I was like “I do what I want!” and went directly to bed. I later figured it out.

Anyways, Mokuba is ready to do his one job, and he’s surprisingly really good at it. Probably took some pointers from all the people that have abducted him in the past.

And this is where we find out that this psychic wannabe and his matching family are members of the local fashion circus or something, and he was spreading lies for no other reason than brotherly love.

And so Mokuba is suddenly left with his own, very uncharacteristic decision--does he stop the cheaters, which he has yet to actually do to a single cheater so far, lets be honest, or does he give in to his impulse to shelter bad big brothers?

Not like it matters too much, because he gets a chill from the North Wind, and whips his head around around to see a wispy-haired ghost on the balcony.

So he lets them off the hook and no one goes to card jail.

Is Tea human?

She knows all of this is being streamed live to the internet, right? Like she can just go look up Yugi’s twitch and see him standing on this balcony for 20 minutes doing nothing?

Like she is so concerned about his welfare and all he’s doing is standing perfectly still and safe over a Starbucks.

Anyways, next week, on Yugioh:

Does Tea find one of Yugi’s many bracelets and go “ah! a clue!” and then draw a picture of it in a big yellow notebook with a big green crayon? Did Marik just get bored or something? And most importantly, where is the beautiful Blimp I was promised??????

[kingofthewilderwest]

Haddock’s 2003 FMA Liveblog Part 4

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

I went to bed at a nice, normal time. And then 1:30 came around, my brain screamed “SURPRISE TIME TO WAKE UP” and uhhhhh it’s now 3 AM and I need to occupy myself for a little bit of time before I’m sleepy enough to return to the realm of happy unconsciousness.

Episodes 41-42

Ep. 41 Holy Mother

The central theme of this anime: The military sucks.

Yeah. Like that’s actually going to happen. “Don’t fight.” We know how shit like this actually goes down.

Bradley: Kills Martel inside Reverse Pinocchio. Blood splurts. Cut to: Extremely happy, energetic anime opening song with kids playing.

It would be a lot easier on everyone if Mustang knew something of what was going on, ya’ll. I don’t care if Hughes was like “You can reach the top while I investigate this privately.” At this point this is a hazard. A hazard.

There’s caution to keep people safe. There’s caution to keep yourself safe. There’s caution if you’re unsure of information. There’s caution if you’re investigating dangerous information. There’s caution if you’re uncertain you can trust someone. And on and on and on. But then there’s just caution for not the most well-written reason and seriously I keep feeling like this is sort of the latter, a semi-contrived reason for Mustang to be kept in the dark this entire anime.

Indie that’s rude.

Okay so racial relations in FMA 2003 versus FMA 2009. This could be like, a dissertation topic. I’ve been talking a lot about the difference with friends ever since I saw one semi-disrespectful post of FMAB talking about how it handles racial tensions, essentially saying that we’re supposed to believe one random, old woman (Shan) that the Ishvalans know that not all Amestrians are bad... whereas here in FMA 2003 Scar calls out the military’s discrimination against the Ishvalans to Ed in conversation and we’re supposed to understand believe what his point is. I 1000% understand the post, but don’t agree with that post.... but if we went into all the reasons why I don’t agree with its oversimplification of racial representation and voice in the shows, it really would be a dissertation right here and right now. Anyway. Now, while it is true that FMA 2003 shows a lot more of the perspective of the Ishvalans and gives a lot more straightforward of a minority voice, which is damn NICE, while FMAB focuses about the Ishvalan War more from the Amestrian side... FMAB is farrrrrr from without minority voice and complexity and meaningfulness and respect, too. FMAB does a very heavy job of calling out the Amestrians for what they did in the Ishvalan War as wrong and baseless, too - even if upper command (and Envy) started it, Riza points out that she and her fellow Amestrians carried out the bloodshed with their own hands. Watching the fourth OVA gives a lot of voice to people like Heathcliffe and wow. FMAB gives a lot of purpose to Scar’s motivations, too, from the start of wanting to kill State Alchemists out of well-understood revenge... to pulling him into a focus whereby he wants to rebuild Amestris’ Ishvalan population as he can. But where I think the BEST way to talk about the difference between the 2003 and 2009 racial messages in these shows isn’t that the minority voice is or isn’t given respect and time (because really, really, both *do* - let’s talk manga Miles, and Scar, and Scar’s mentor, and...). But what 2003 shows the Ishvalans saying is, “The military is shit. They destroyed us. We have the right to be angry. You can argue we have the right to fight back.” And while there’s a whole, whole, whole, whole, WHOLE lot of truth to 2003 and how things happen irl... there’s something really powerful about 2009. 2009 says, “The military is shit. They destroyed us. We have the right to be angry. But that DOESN’T mean we have the right fight back.” And that wraps into one of Arakawa’s biggest, most widespread message throughout all of her manga, from start to end: All humans are important. All souls deserve to be treated with the utmost respect as human beings. It doesn’t matter if you’re a suit in armor. It doesn’t matter if you’re a frog chimera. It doesn’t matter what your race is. It doesn’t matter who started the bloodshed... you should be the one to end it. You are a human, human is good, and the best thing we can do is help each other. FMAB is about breaking out of the cycle of “an eye for an eye.” Now FMA 2003 is showing, through Ed’s reactions and so forth, the conflict he has with the idea of “Eye for an eye,” suggesting also it’s not a good thing. But it’s really in 2009 where the message sparkles... because Scar becomes not someone with a vengeful purpose who wants to create a pure Philosopher’s Stone from military lives. But Scar is someone who goes from someone with vengeful purpose for what the military has done to him... to trying to be the better person, the HERO, who fights back and gives back when no one else would before. And fuck man. Scar and Scar’s brother are the damndest heroes in FMAB. There’s so much to be said about the pros and cons of racial representation in each show, 2003 versus 2009, but both really try to speak to important messages of minority discrimination, genocide, and the horribleness of what it is. NEITHER ARE BAD!!! XD But damn if 2009′s message of “Revenge is not justified. We will treat all humans as humans” is fucking wicked good. Like. Enormous applause to the Ishvalans for being the better people? They are the true heroes. They are the TRUE heroes of FMAB.

In FMAB 2009, Scar prevents an entire city (entire COUNTRY) from being used as an effective transmutation circle creating a Philosopher’s Stone. In FMA 2003, Scar is the one seeking to make an entire city into a Philosopher’s Stone. Interesting contrast. Sad not to have my hero Scar here. A complex antagonist in the 2003, who, from another framework could act as an antihero (the best antagonists imho are those whose perspectives could be written as “good guys” because they have understandable, human motivations)... but nevertheless, not a hero of the tale as in Arakawa’s final work.

Took fukkin long enough for Heart Eyes Motherfucking Horse Boi to find out. Thank you, Reverse Pinocchio, for acting with more sense than Markiplier and Virility Redux.

One beautiful moment with Al in the manga at Liore is when he pulls stuff out of his loincloth in public in front of his father, much to Hohenheim’s dismay and embarrassment. And here we have Armor stuffing his bro’s pocketwatch into his loincloth. I mean, it’s a fair place to carry things, buuuuut there is something to said it looks bad buddy. XD

I can’t judge talking military cats because we do like, have Jerso in FMAB.

Okay Bishie Boi I give you permission to kill a certain murderous State Alchemist Fucker. Go get Kimblee. Go get him. Martel hasn’t killed him yet. You. Please. Kill him. I don’t like Kimblee. Get Kimblee.

It’s so damn refreshing and applause-worthy to see full rooms of dark-skinned POC in an anime let’s be real.

Also not showing the eyes of ANYONE in the military during these scenes? Really good, chilling effect.

The name avoidance is getting really old homunculi pals.

Also love how many women are very prominent in the 2003.

GO SCAR GO. GO SCAR GO! BISHIE BOY, KICK KIMBLEE ASS!! GO SCAR GO SCAR GO SCAR GO!!!

.....that accidentally almost sounded like a Dr. Seuss book up there. Just need a little meter and rhyming and...

Dude there’s a fucking dragon on the end of that that is LEGIT.

You brought the kid back. You brought the kid messenger back. You brought the kid messenger back to Liore. KEEP THEF UCKI :ENW:EOGIN KEEP THE FUCKING KID IN SAFETY AWAY FROM LIORE IT’S A WAR ZONE YOU IDIOTS

Gotta respect how long Kimblee’s hair is in this anime.

[Camera angle constantly spinning around Kimblee and Scar while they’re talking] I get that you’re trying to make this dramatic but hell if that isn’t too much and somewhat dizzying.

Badass Al and his perfect-and-rapidly-drawn transmutation circles!

This anime had suchhhhhhhhh a slow start but finally we’re getting someplace. Not entirely well-joined together everywhere but we’re finally getting to Serious Shit and I appreciate it.

Al saying he’s hollow and not meaningless is a nice callback to when he was questioning the validity of his own memories, saying that if he weren’t human, then it wasn’t worth living. Exact opposite message here and thank. V good. This v good.

They get a lot more of Al’s intense and very real badass side down in this anime.

Sayin’ it like it is. Bruh, respect.

Yeah there’s lots and lots of good content rn.

“Can you hear it? The countdown to your death?” And this is why nobody likes you Kimblee. Fuck you.

Is this the part where we have Scar use his arm or something to change Al into a Philosopher’s Stone or whatever the hell it is that is the first stage of Al not being armor?

YES.

YES

YES YES YES MY WISH HAS BEEN GRANTED.

Are you.

Are you fucking kidding me.

Die already Kimblee you fuck

Well that’s gotta be traumatic to Ed

Dramatic shots of doom.

This ain’t gonna end well. Also we’re suspiciously close to the end of the episode with no resolution... I planned to watch ONE episode tonight but that might not be what happens eh.

Oh look the episode just ended.

Yeah fuck that we need at least just one more.

Ep. 42 His Name is Unknown

I’m v suspicious Scar ain’t gonna live through this. Hopefully also Kimblee. Kimblee needs to Be Gone (TM).

Aka “This is how the writers don’t have Al die right here and now.”

DING DONG THE WICKED WITCH IS DEEEEAAAAAAD!!!

Okay but Scar. Ishval’s Top Model. Bishie Boi. He’s like. Walking around so calmly with so little sign of pain. BRO YOU ARE MISSING AN ARM. And don’t you DAMN tell me “It’s but a scratch” or “It’s only a flesh wound.” Like I could Monty Python caption you right now you fucker and I shouldn’t be able to do that.

Oh hey look my liveblogging is showing my true swearing colors. Rawr. I’m a swearer. I like swears. FEAR ME AND ALL THE SWEARS.

(I usually censor myself a lot on tumblr for Things Like Swears BUT AIN’T NOT HAPPENING NOW YO).

Is.... is ANYONE going to do ANYTHING about Scar’s recently lost arm?????????? HE LOST A LOT OF BLOOD. LOTS OF BLOOD GUSHED OUT WHEN HE TRANSMUTED IT OFF. AND YET EVERYONE IS SO CASUAL ABOUT THIS. Let’s talk about Al’s survival chances. Let’s talk about how to change Al so he doesn’t go off into a bomb. Let’s talk about the Philosopher’s Stone. Let’s talk about your past history with Lust. HOW ARE YOU CONSCIOUS AND WHY AREN’T WE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR GODDAMNEDFUCKINGSHIT ARM.

At least have him pass out or something.

Nope we’re just going to stand around and stare at each other and be like “You’re not my brother’s girlfriend” and shit and not care about your lack of armness apparently.

Hey new intro. The music definitely has the same generic rocky upbeat flavor of the other intros in 2003, but I like this one the best. The intro also shows us not one but two separate shots of Roy so that’s even better. And even bestest, we just keep pulling in that photo of Horsing Around in the background again. We just keep sneaking that in. I really wish you WROTE Horsing Around better but HEY we get the PHOTO <3 <3 <3

So all that’s good.

Yesssssss finally in this anime you are having ROY MUSTANG ***DO*** SOMETHING. Finally DO something. (whispers) and yes, of course Riza is here, I love you two together

But seriously how long does it take for you to WRITE MUSTANG DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE SHIT GOING DOWN IN THIS FUCKING STORY

(whispers) Wife

Good for you, Alex.

“There’s no such thing as a military that doesn’t have corruption or evil in it.” I love when villains have damn truthful lines like that shit.

He’s really pretty in this shot.

Okay for all you mention Roy being the Hero of Ishval in this moment between Archer and Roy, and then there was that one scene waaaay back in Flame vs Fullmetal where we had Roy get a bit of a flashback to the war, and then I guess that ONE scene where he thought about doing human transmutation...... you really haven’t taken advantage. of. this. character. AT ALL. In this anime. You’ve really left him to sit by for dozens of episodes in a row. Develop this shit. Even if you plan to develop this shit down the road, this is just another example of uneven scaffolding in your writing. I went into this anime particularly because I was curious about the interesting Roy shit you were thinking about writing, and yet I feel like you’ve given me very little to work with? I mean. He’s present. We’ve had a FEW interesting moments with him, primarily at the start. We’ve seen him do some things like suppress the Ishvalans before they rebelled, and stuff. It’s not like he’s absent and you could critique my critique. But he still feels sooooo underutilized. He really feels underutilized. Develop all that trauma shit content and his ambition being the Fuhrer and his past with Ishval instead of just touching it here and there and referencing it in scenes and then being like “La la la and now all Mustang is gonna do in this episode is look suspiciously at people but not do anything active about the shit going all around him.”

So we’re SLIGHTLY paying attention to his arm, but still having an extended conversation about Lust instead.

I mean I don’t care if the arm got cauterized and there’s just a stump there, you still lost a lot of blood and there’s shock and trauma and shit. You are hanging in there way too good bud. THAT IS AN ARM.

That looks cool. And we know exactly what those symbols are.

Oh cool another arm gone AND YOU ARE STILL CONSCIOUS.

Now, after just a little gasping in pain and sweating, I’m going to stand up and calmly explain the history of my arm. COME ON SCAR ADRENALINE ONLY GOES SO FAR *YOU* *HAVE* *NO* *ARMS*

No one would even guess this is the screencap of a man who has literally just lost both of his arms.

In 2003, he loses both of his arms. In 2009, he uses both of his arms and destroys Bradley’s.

Yes, Indie. Tell Roy about your mother homonculus. At least do it for the sake of integrally including Horsie IN THE MAIN FUCKING PLOT MORE.

HOW DID SCAR DROP KIMBLEE FROM THE TOP OF THE BUILDING HE HAS NO ARMS HOW DID YOU CARRY HIM HOW DID YOU DROP HIM.

WHY ARE YOU STILL RUNNING AROUND.

Okay seriously how many times are you going to injure this guy and still have him be “relatively” okay? Because several gunshot wounds to his shoulders didnt make him lapse into unconsciousness either? At least he seems to be in legitimate lasting pain now? Not like that’s a GOOD thing to be in pain, but at least he’s not like, running around?

You should be like delirious tho bud

Seriously are these last two episodes “How many times can we injure Scar” like wut

Take that back he’s stood up and is waltzing around again wtf

I hate how the feels you get from this scene are 1). Scar is dying, 2). Scar is doing this for his brother [sob] and not... “we’re mass killing thousands of low-ranking soldiers and turning them into a Philosopher’s Stone.” Like something about that’s just wrong. Feels, good? But....

Power trio

This still is the most badass moment with these blokes tho:

[sigh] Mustang is just such a better character in FMA 2009 / the manga.

[whispers to Al] No it’s not. #1. Philosophers’ Stone. #2. You’re armor.

:)))))))))))

[twdmusicboxmystery]

All the 8s We’ve Seen So Far That Point to S8

Good morning and Happy Saturday! I've been promising this post for a while. I've put it off because until I get through the entire rewatch (all 7 seasons) this post won't be complete. But I also don't want to wait until October to post it. So here it is now. I'll continue to add to it as I go through the rewatches.

(*Personal Note: I've been semi-absent lately on SM. I'm behind on my Asks and my theories have been spotty. I apologize for that, and I'll do my best this week, but honestly it may continue through the end of August. I'm up against a book deadline and it's cutting into my theory writing time. I'll try and get some things written up today for this week, but please bear with me. After next week, things should return to normal.)

So, first off, the biggest reasons we're now looking at S8 for Beth's return are as follows:

1. She didn't appear in S7. Come on, you know it's the truth. Probably the biggest reason we jumped to S7.

2. The 8 Clocks around her in Slabtown (8 Clock Theory)

3. Rule of Threes. I wouldn't have thought this in the past, but she disappeared in S5, so S8 will be three seasons later. And we've seen TONS of examples of the rule of threes around here. (X).

All that said, while doing re-watches, I've seen an amazing number of things pointing to the S8 that I never noticed before, simply because I wasn't looking for it. This post is to illustrate how many 8s there have been.

Disclaimer: while it may be true that the 8 by itself doesn't prove anything about Beth, it DOES prove that something big is happening in S8. And you'll see as we go along how many of them are tangled up in Beth symbolism.

Season 1:

I'm sure there are more 8s in S1 than I have here. Maybe check out @angelthefirst1's metas, as I'm sure she found more. I wasn't specifically looking for them when I rewatched, so I'm sure I missed some.

1x03 - When running up to the rooftop to get Merle (he won't be there) there's an 8 in the stairwell. Perhaps suggesting that we'll see TF go back for Beth in S8, but she won't be there.

1x06 - At the CDC, when Jenner explains about the virus, he says walkers can reanimate in as little time as three minutes, or as long as 8 hours. The resurrection time is between 3 minutes and 8 hours, y'all.

Season 2:

I didn't pick up any specific 8s in S2, though again I wasn't really looking. So there may be some there. About the only thing we could point to is 18 Miles Out. Yes, it's 18, not 8, but still an arbitrary number. And obviously a big deal episode for Beth.

Season 3:

Ditto season 3. Probably more I missed.

These aren't necessarily specific 8s, but there was something I noticed while re-watching 3a. The MSF is always episode 8, right? Which is why we thought the 8 clocks in Slabtown just pointed to the episode Beth would "die" in. But I noticed that Sasha and Tyreese were introduced in the MSF of S3 (episode 8) which is important, given the Sasha/Tyreese Theory.

Also, when Daryl is briefly taken prisoner by the Gov and made to fight Merle, I noticed that they weren't rescued in the MSF, but rather in ep 9. I know this is a little off topic, but the point is that the rescue happened at the beginning of a block of 8 episodes, not the end. So if that's being used as a template at all, it just makes sense for Beth to show up in episode 1 or 9, rather than in a finale or MSF. Just saying.

Season 4:

So maybe I missed a lot of 8s in the first three seasons. Then again, maybe not. Remember that Gimple didn't take the reins until S4, so that's when the heavy Beth symbolism started.

Even here, I didn't notice many 8s until 4b. (Plenty of other Beth foreshadows, but not 8s.) Maybe I missed them. Or maybe the prison needed to fall first.

4x07 - It's important to note that 4x06 and 4x07 (Governor episodes) have tons of things that directly parallels to 5x08, Coda. I don't recall actually seeing many 8s in these episodes, but they point toward 5x08 in a very Beth-ish way.

4x11 - Rick escapes from the Claimer house, which has massive parallels to Beth escaping Grady. Before Michonne and Carl leave, Rick says, "It's 8:15." That points to 8x03, so maybe we'll see her escape then specifically. Later his watch says 8:25, which points to 8x05. He also tells Michonne to be back by noon, which is four hours away. This is season 4. Four seasons later = season 8. When they return 4 hours later, that's when Rick escapes and reunites with them. Just saying.

4x12 - Possible 8 behind Daryl in the trunk. It's partially covered. If it's there, it suggests 8x03, as the three is clearly visible.

Also, when the grandfather clock chimes in the golf club, 8 minutes pass. We first see it at 2:52 (Episode 2x10 is 18 Miles Out, btw) and when they go by it again, it chimes 3 o'clock. So 8 minutes have passed.

Finally, Daryl plays pool briefly. 8 ball reference.

4x13 - Maggie/Sasha/Bob come upon the tracks and a sign that says, 280. You can interpret that two possible ways, both of which point to s8. I originally thought it was more of a "100" reference. (2+8 = 10 but with another 0 on the end). And the 100s probably point to episode 100, or 8x01. The other way you could interpret it is by season. Beth was introduced in S2. When will she return? S8.

When Daryl tells Beth to go out the window and then leads the walkers into the basement, there's a tray of scissors. Yes, scissors. It looks like there are two rows of 4. In other words, 8 pairs of scissors.

Season 5

I'm not going to go through the 5s here. That would take too long and be too confusing beside all the 8s. Just keep in mind that we think the 5s may represent the 5th season Beth appears in, and that could be S8 (assuming she does appear ;D).

5x01 - Gareth asks his guys for their shell counts. One says his was 38. So we have the pairing of 3 and 8 yet again.

There are 8 people at the trough, four of whom die. They reiterate this when Gareth says, "We're only doing 8 before we go back to public face." The time for "public face" (I'm thinking that means when the whole truth will be shown to the GA) will be S8.

The wonderful @paulo_pedini (IG) recently pointed out to me that Crazy Tattoo guy also has an 88 Tattoo on his face. It's partially obscured by his beard. So that's two 8s, folks, possibly pointing at S8, and possibly pointing at the MSF of season 8. So maybe this dude will finally be explained then?

5x03 - The clock in Bob's room (when he dies) reads 8:40, which points to 8x08 or the MSF of S8. 

I really do think this has to do specifically with Sasha's arc, but given that she died in S7, I think it must have something to do with the Sasha/Tyreese Theory and what we haven't seen yet. Which, by extension, has to do with Beth. And then there's the fact that 8x08 is exactly 3 seasons after Coda.

5x04 - Well, obviously all the 8 clocks are in this episode. I believe there are three of them. Other than the clocks, this episode mostly contains fives. But the clocks are a big deal. One of the biggest.

5x05 - Well we have the finding of the firetruck here with an 82 on it. Plus there's the 102 on the door behind it, both of which may point to 8x02. Abraham has his line about having to been to "eight county fairs and one goat rodeo." So we have the 8 juxtaposed with a goat. And Eastman's goat, Tabitha was a resurrection symbol.

We also have the fact that apparently Abraham's group lost 8 people before finding TF. In this episode, Eugene names them all (eight names) and adds Bob, who was a major Beth proxy.

5x06 - Here Daryl and Carol follow the Grady cop car onto I-85. Yet another pairing of 8 and 5. Later, she says they're 3 blocks from Grady. If we take that as seasons, this was S5. So being three blocks (seasons) away from Beth would be S8.

5x07 - Lambson, after being captured, tells Rick he's known Dawn for 8 years.

5x08 - Of course this is episode 8. And Coda. Pretty important right there. When FG opens the bible he finds at the school, the page he opens to is Chronicles 8, and has Beth's name on it.

5x09 - Again mostly 5s here, which may = S8. The 5:10 clock may point to 8x02. There's also a pool table in the background here (8 Ball Reference).

5x11 - Lots of suspicious things from Aaron (a Beth proxy) in this episode. When Rick asks how many are out there, he gives several numbers, including 8. "8, 32, 444…" Also the two highways both suggest something interesting. The one he wants them to take is Highway 16 (and multiple of 8) and he says it's been cleared. Highway 16 = life and safety. Rick doesn't trust him and wants to take Highway 23. (2 + 3 = 5). On Highway 23 they find death, walkers, get separated, and have all kinds of drama. So that suggests S5 = death, separation, and drama. S8 = life, safety, and don't forget reunion with the family.

Also, one of Aaron's license plates has an 804 in it, which suggests 8x04.

5x12 - This is the first time we hear Deanna talk about the mansions starting in the low $800,000s. She later tells Rick it's almost 3:40. Granted, that suggests 3x08, rather than something in S8, but still. It's an 8. (And 3x08 was where Maggie and Glenn were rescued from their imprisonment.)

We also learn that Enid (sometime Beth proxy) came to Alexandria 8 months before Rick and TF did.

5x14 - Here there are more 3s that suggest 3 seasons from S5, which = S8. We also have a suggested 8 on a license plate.

6x01 - Eugene's 8 Ball Reference, all the 800s on the map they use. And we see the Alexandria sign that says the houses start in the $800,000s.

We also have them reiterating several times that Daryl and Sashraham will take the walkers out 20 miles. This is S6. If we convert that to two seasons, then it would be season 8.

6x02 - Lattice Work of 8s around Denise

6x03 - Here there's mostly more 20 references (S6 + 2 = S8) and Glenn's watch reads 5:10 which may point to 8x02.

6x04 - Lots here. Eastman had interviewed 825 criminals in his life (800 men, 25 women). His 5-year-old daughter found him crying after 8 beers (interesting number combo) and gave him a rabbit's foot (X). Infinity signs (sideways 8s) carved in Eastman’s house.

He says the prison allowed Crighton Dallas Wilton to work plots of land off of I-85. Not only the numbers, but this is the same highway Daryl and Carol took in 5x06 to find Beth in Consumed.

We have a 47 here, which I think shows the span of the first arc. (S4-S7). I suppose that doesn't suggest anything about Beth in particular, but S8 begins a new arc. What better time for her return?

6x05 - Denise's dialogue suggests a doctor will arrive at the gates when the war begins. Officially All Out War begins with S8.

6x06 - We have the highway with the 2, 4, and 6 in it. The next logical number in the progression is 8.

6x09 - Another 4 and 7 paired on the house. Again, current arc goes from S4 to S7. Just like the highway sign in 6x04, the next logical number for the next arc is 8.

6x13 - When Paula, Donnie, Molls and Chele take Carol and Maggie hostage, Moll asks how many are in Rick’s group. She says “Eight in sight.” And that’s weird because she should have been able to see ten people.

Also, in this episode we get all the alpha/omega/theta stuff. Remember that the numerical value for theta is 8 or 800 and they probably say that ten times in this episode.

6x14 - Before leaving Alexandria, we see Carol’s ash tray with 7 cigarettes in it. She’s smoking one or two, which means we see her smoking her 8th cigarette, while holding a rosary. (Remember Beth wore a cross bracelet when she was shot.). Right after that, she leaves TF to go on a journey by herself. Hopefully it will eventually lead to healing.

So this is what I have so far. That's mostly because I haven't finished my rewatches. I'll continue to point this out and reblog it before season 8 begins. But I think even at this point, you get the gist.

There are TONS of 8s. Way more than we ever had of 7s. So even if we're wrong and Beth doesn't show (we're totally not) SOMEthing big is happening in S8. And all the signs (*cough resurrection symbolism*) point to it being her.

Just saying. ;D Thoughts?

(Thanks to all those who contributed. If you can think of any I’ve missed, feel free to send them in and I’ll add them. ;D