#hoping they will with the releases of npmd

[bby-daesung]

Wiggly Sweater Vest 💚

1/5 Lords in Black sweater vests

[teammightypen]

I STILL NEED TO WATCH NMT2

APOTHEOSIS GANG HOW WE FEELIN?

[starcanwrecked-confessions]

honestly, really fucking glad that the fandom hype is dying down. with the release of CC a lot of teens that came after npmd are losing interest due to time or general lack of content at the speed most of them is used to which isnt like bad for them, sincerely hope that they'll find another grove to stay in and etc im just tired of fandom being focused solely on Dead Teens The Musical Starkid Edition

here's to hoping that once again the fandom can hold conversations about adults without teenage characters being brought up regardless of whether they fit or not 🍻

~~~

[junkdrawernoggin]

SPOILERS for CINDERELLA'S CASTLE

Wanted to put a warning because if you can see it you should, and for all the folks who are going to wait for the YouTube release. There are also critiques in here, so if you don't want to see that, pass on by and have a good day!

I really really enjoyed it! I have a couple issues with it so I'll get those out of the way first. I mean these with all respect and kindness to the cast and crew.

Main Issue: You can tell who is an old Starkid member

This distracted me a lot. In this production there are only 3 original members on stage (I'm counting anyone who did AVPMs). That's Jeff Blim, Lauren Lopez, and Joey Richter. They are obviously all very talented. However

My critique for Lauren is that she did the same voice for Rancilda that she did for Ruth, and I wasn't a fan when she did it then. I haven't loved any of her sniveling loser roles, finding them far too annoying to enjoy. Emma and Zazzalil were fantastic, as well as her Tin Can roles. Please let her do that instead.

Edit: The Rancilda voice is actually not Ruth's. There is another character she does that has this exact same shrill thing going on, but for the life of me I cannot recall who it is.

Jeff is a great song writer, but he consistently writes himself parts that are out of his comfortable range. That or his vocal health is in serious disrepair by performance time. The "Castle on a Hill" demo sounds great, but in the DT performance I can almost feel the strain. I miss his lower range.

Joey did amazing puppet work; I especially enjoyed the parts where he was the old dwarf. The problem comes with the singing. NPMD I enjoyed his singing, and he's been good in the Tin Can productions. But you can hear him straining in the background which I felt hindered some of the ensemble parts.

I LOVE the old cast. They all bring unique skills to the table. But I think they are very comfortable now, and also sometimes make choices they think are good but in actuality hinder themselves. I'd love if a different writer came on board to mix things up. They need to be unafraid of giving honest feedback.

Now to the good!

The "new" cast members are so incredible!

Bryce rocked it, and I'm glad to see her highlighted after how well she did in NPMD. She sold every emotion, and her mix of wit and despair was heartcrushing. I would watch a 10 hour version of this production just to see more of her.

James was great. I don't find overly sexual humor that funny, but he did very well keeping a straight face and being utterly sincere with it all.

I will fully admit I have a crush on Kim and Curt, which colors my perspective of them a bit. Kim is such an incredible singer, I could listen to her all day. She's only the Fairy Queen for like...10ish minutes but she absolutely and utterly steals the show. No one else could've sold me that hard on how ethereal she was. Curt impossibly has chemistry with literally every person he's paired with. From the previews I was hoping Tadius and Ella would be paired up, so I am peachy pleased it turned out that way!

Jon was great, his role was clearly inspired by Septimus from Labyrinth and I love how hard he leaned into that.

I also adore Mariah, and I really loved this for her. She has had a pretty wild amount of diversity in all of her roles for Starkid. I was happy to see her really lean into the comedy and shenanigans of it all.

And the cherry on top, ANGELA!!!! I will admit, in Black Friday i wasn't her biggest fan. Mostly because I was so disappointed Mariah was unable to be in that production. However, she utterly shocked me in NPMD, that girl is MADE to play villains!!! I was a bit confused on why Angela was chosen for the stepmother and not Lauren, but oh boy when she came on stage I was HOOKED! She was fantastic. Is she a great singer? In my personal opinion, no not really. Do I really care? NOT AT ALL!! Highlight of the show 10/10

Also the set design was fucking incredible!! I like that they downsized (or at least it looked like they downsized) from the NPMD stage. It looked empty all the time. This time it felt so full and high budget. The lighting was phenomenal, the first time I've ever noticed lighting in a show and not for a bad reason.

The band was great, they always are!

The songs were...iffy. They didn't stick with me the way the NPMD ones did, certainly not like Black Friday or TGWDLM did. I'm a big music fan (I trained professionally to sing as well), so songs stick with me a lot even on a first listen. I know the opening "There's a castle on a hill as the story goes..." because I've watched the announcements so many times. Other than that, I really cannot tell you a single lyric from most of the songs in this show. Very odd for me.

Okay, going in for another watch. Maybe I'll have other opinions after.

[the-9th-genderfluid]

Fuck it ok i have fandom opinion rants now.

911: buck x tommy suck, buddie need to wait until at least season 9 tho or it will feel rushed. Also this whole season kinda was not great sorry to say. I hope that season 8 managed to take the cool ideas introduced in this season and address them better. Also we need more henren, and main character ravi pls.

Spies are forever: amazing, makes me too queer and depressed to function. My only gripe is that I want it to actually be more depressing and make agent Mega more traumatized. In spy again, its very heavily implied/outright said that after owens death, Curt became kinda a alcoholic. (The "and another" lyrics) This makes me not love the vibes of one more shot. This man is basically a alcoholic dont give him more alcohol? This is the only one of these opinions i will accept criticism, please help me understand what im missing here, did i read to much into the song spy again?

Star trek: no mad rants actually i love tos and im growing to like tng as i watch more. I do wish the fandom would make more fic that are not heavily romantic and are written like actual episodes? Like i want more stories where the sci-fi is more important than the romance. Also if the fic is more about relationships than the scifi stuff, more fics that are less sex based and more romance based?

Criminal minds: i hate the new evolution seasons so bad, i always say that the last season and all of evolution dont exist. I have tried watching evolution, and i hate how it was not new unsub every episode. Also yall get the same message as star trek, more fics with well written unsubs where the bau unsub stuff is the main focus, not the characters getting in each others pants.

Hatchetfield trio: release the npmd soundtrack on Spotify soon please? I actually love how every fic in this fandom has a "think about the implications" reference. I dont actually have more opinions on this, the fandom and source material is all really great.

Bones: i will never forgive them for killing vincent. Also i have opinions about the last two seasons and the ending and all that. I hate bitter sweet endings, where you feel like the characters will never be in situations like they were in the series. I prefer when it feel like the series could go on, instead of ending with everyone moving up and away. (Looking at you b99)

Ok well i cant think of more to say, so bye babes, boys and boomerangs

P.S please feel free to recommend fics based on what i say in these rants.

P.S 2 dont come at me for spelling, i dont care enough to make my i a capital I and all that.

[stellarom]

i haven’t had a post where i just sent my random thoughts into the digital universe in a bit so here’s the one i’m having now:

it kinda sucks that your musical taste can change. it can be great too but also not.

this thought specifically came because i was trying to decide how i was feeling about starkid’s new show. yes, of course i’m excited about content from them and i love bryce charles (see: axe man post), but it also sucks when an artist or group or thing that you love releases something that you… don’t love. right? so i’m wary is all, i’m not one to set high expectations for anything anyway. but i hope to love it.

and that got me thinking cause like. it’s possible that i don’t. i like a lot of the songs that have come out from hatchetfield. i love vhscc. closer to the time it first came out i liked twisted. but recently when i like rediscovered starkid through npmd, i tried to go back to listen to the twisted soundtrack and i couldn’t (still love twisted and a thousand and one nights though). but i so want to i just can’t get through it for some reason.

and it’s the same for all music really, i was pretty consistent in listening to rap/hip hop for a while, then did a huge hop back over to alt, and now i’m sorta tightrope walking my way through random songs.

anyways, change is just wild.

[aibafiles]

okay this is my last attempt at posting this in the hopes that it indexes in the tags properly 😭 ANYWAY.

please excuse the crackle but ive been very normal about the npmd soundtrack release all day today so here's a little WIP of the opening! being able to hear everything clearly for the first time i knew i had to get those harmonies down and there's a few other songs i want to try and transcribe...

unfortunately musescore gliss sounds like shit or i would have used it on "so long." alas

[toyzoneofficial]

ohhhh okay thoughts on npmd (warning for spoilers ofc!) (also warning for like. anti max/grace if that is something that upsets you)

-i couldn't see and hear everything super well on the digital ticket so there's probably a lotta stuff i missed and i definitely wanna see if there's more stuff i can find when the youtube version releases...

-ohhh pete and steph were really sweet <3 they were always sweet but not like hugely standout characters to me previously? i like them though. they're very cute together. their relationship felt like it moved really fast but idk. maybe that's how highschool dating works.

-grace was a HIGHLIGHT. god i love her she is sooooo messed up and SO entertaining. her scene with the cops was maybe my favorite scene in the whole thing (either that or the lords in black scene. or maybe max getting scared in the whalen house). still mourning what could have been with lesbian!grace though. i literally have a whole unpublished fic about her gay repression that will never see the light of day now. i have to believe she's still a girl liker in some sense but it will take forever for her to even begin to unpack any of that.

-max i am like...conflicted on. sort of. he was a REALLY fun character who had some really good lines and was very entertaining as a villain but i can just tell people are already tipping the line into woobifying him. guys he's really fucking bad. i mean his scene in the whalen house was kind of cute but his initial interaction with grace was literally sexual harassment. if she wasn't into it and he was portrayed as less charismatic people would be completely up in arms about that.

-maybe i'm just biased because "popular jock boy could have any girl he wants but is into the weird nerd girl because she doesn't want him and he likes the hunt" is one of my least favorite tropes in the whole world. like i don't think there is any story in the fucking world that could make that interesting to me. there are ways you could have done their dynamic that would actually interest me but straightforwardly shipping them is NOT it. major squick for me. i'm not going to go so far as to say that nobody should be shipping it but i don't want to see it lol

-i am ALSO biased because whenever a female character shows traits comparable to a traditional "mean girl" fandom shits all over her forever no matter how bad the actual stuff she did is and make up bullshit excuses for it. but when there's a guy character like that people just adore him without fail. this isn't a hatchetfield fandom specific thing though it's just general fandom misogyny and i am a Hashtag Mean Girl Defender

-dirty girl was a banger though.

-ruth was another highlight!! i mean we didn't get grace with a yearny crush on steph like i was hoping but we got a girl with a yearny crush on steph so that is still pretty good. she was such a sweetheart i think her death scene was i think one of the saddest for me personally in literally any hatchetfield property.

-richie was okay but he's on thin ice because of the attack‏‏‎ ‎on‏‏‎ ‎titan‏‏‎ ‎comment. BOOOOOO. WATCH BETTER ANIME.

-the lords in black scene made me CRAZY!!!! i love how insane the audience got too i think it made me even more hyped. so so so so awesome i loved their outfits i loved the dialogue i loved their creepy ass song i loved literally everything about it

-um. yeah. all i can think of for now. even if it wasn't a perfect show to me (black friday is still number one in my heart) i had a really really good time with it and i'm excited to see the fan content people will make!!

[ren-from-mars]

I’ve been doing some reflecting on this past year, and I really truly think it is the most artistic improvement I have made in any span of time. Of course, I’m going to be completely insufferable about it and have collected my best piece from each month with a few personal notes, so why don’t we go on a sprint down memory highway together?

January

At the start of the year, I was both adrift between fandoms and art styles. I was mostly aiming to find which style I could keep using, finish pieces quickly yet still feel proud of. It certainly worked in the moment, but as I pushed my boundaries more it didn't stick. Still, I look back on this style fondly! also proper throwback to my old username that i had for far too long

February

This was the start of me working on colour palettes. I lay down my main colour in the background and fit the rest of my colours around that. It was a good way to start experimenting!

March

Then the shift back to finding my style- I particularly like how the hair turned out in this piece! I also started trying more interesting poses here, and actually properly attempting hands.

April

I didn't finish any pieces in april as I had started working more hours and didn't quite know how to balance myself creatively at that point. I did lean into this style of sketch much more, which was good fun while it stuck around but ive leant away from it in more recent times.

May

Not much to say about may in particular, lots of the same things as the past few months with improvements here and there! just some steady progress :)

June

Cue the crunch of getting character refs done before artfight, and then only actually finishing one (which isn't actually complete, even to this day). But hey, more solid reference for My Guy ! I also leaned into drawing furries a lot more and have improved heaps in the difference of proportions!

July

artfight baybee!! no artistic differences, but it was a lot of fun scouting out other peoples character designs! I do hope to participate more this year :3

August

back to colours, though this month felt like a bit of a backtrack. Don't get me wrong, I do quite like this piece, but contrast-wise it doesn't have as much visual clarity as I would like. Regardless, a good learning opportunity!

September

Fun fact, I rendered this one entirely in greyscale! This was the start of me getting back into hatchetfield after being reminded of NPMDs release, and lets be real this part of black friday was chilling so I had to do something about it! I consider this piece a landmark in terms of my art journey.

October

Once again no real finished pieces, I was too busy watching nightmare time while waiting for the group watch of npmd. I did do a lot of studies of star wars characters from their live-action shows though, which was a fun learning experience!

November

This was the piece where I applied pretty much everything I had learnt throughout the year. contrast, colour themes, interactive environments and poses, the lot! and also. its them. how could i not

December

A perfect piece to wrap up the year with! Another step up from november, this applied lots of what I had learnt and pushed my boundaries even more. I have been aiming for more realism to actor's faces and body types, not out of it-has-to-be-canon-sake, but rather learning how to accurately depict someone's likeness from a few photo references. good practice for both live-action and animated characters!

Overall last year was absolutely wild. I can't wait to share my journey with you all as we go into 2024 strong!

[fandommemequeen]

my 2023.

yearly retrospective time LETZ GO!!!

last year i said 2022 sucked but uh,, 2023 was definitely worse :'o)

with the rise in queerphobic legistlation, school getting progressively harder to stay on track with, my dad dying, and just everything else that ive had to endure this year, its been difficult. but.. i somehow made it.

and you might be wondering how i got through everything. did i touch grass and magically everything was sunshine and rainbows? buy some overpriced self help book or online course that changed my life? No <3

i just,, did what i normally do. i played video games, talked with my friends, watched youtube, brainrotted over fandoms, listened to music, came up with cool outfits, somehow made it through skool, drew, wrote, cosplayed, roleplayed, made kandi and crafts, and just overall found ways to find joy in the small things, which goes a long way when youre trans in a world where your joy is an act of rebellion.

i also had some cool fandom moments this year! season 7 of siivagunner has been AWESOME, return to dream land deluxe was great even if it fricked with the lore a little, THE TOH FINALE WAS SO FRICKIN GOOD, marios madness may be my new fave fnf mod, NPMD THREW ME BACK INTO MY HATCHETFIELD FIXATION, i FINALLY got the kirby planet robobot soundtrack cd and the limited edition quiznos training game physical edition, i found ways to actually enjoy WDY again and leave behind itz toxic fandom, i got into pokepasta, tintn, gogos crazy bones, playtime with percy, inside job, tadc, i started listening to mal blum and against me and chonny jash, im currently being dragged into eggotama as we speak and im getting back into mpdsap,,

but the fandom that had the most impact for me this year was the june archive and restoration project. getting into TJA led me to discover bowlbys other works and get into one of the best fandoms ive ever been in, thanks in part to the june archive and restoration project fanserver. ive met so many cool people through that server, and getting to chat and VC with them has always been a blast. [yknow what? shoutout to all my friends that ive loved talking with all throughout 2023 yall are awesome]

back to life stuff for a moment here, i got to do a lotta cool stuff this year! i FINALLY homebrewed my 3ds [with a bit of help from jaco xd], GOT TO SEE THE HAUNTING OF NIGHT VALE LIVE, put together some awesome cosplays for gencon and halloween, im getting better at rhythm games, i got SECOND PLACE in my skoolz national cybersecurity codebreakers competition, i had an awesome bday, i went to go see barbie [my first movie in theaters since lockdown] and fnaf and both were AWESOME!! all of this despite everything thats happened in 2023!

and as for my creative projectz,, DIGIVERSE REBOOT EPISODE 3 FINALLY RELEASED BACK IN MAY!!!!!! holy frick i was SO PROUD of that,, in addition, ive been doing character reveals for gamerz epic megamix take, i created the doomed timelines awoken au, and ive strengthened my artstyle into what it is today while learning how to use my drawing tablet :3

in addition, getting into TJA and watching bowlbys animation legacy made me think about my past as a creator, and i started work on giving my old book ocs from my days in the TWOW fandom the care and attention they deserve, even if it means some slight redesigns or rewrites. speaking of TWOW, EWOW IS OUT AND IM GETTING BACK INTO TWOW AFTER YEARS!! feelz good to be back, and im hoping i can maybe properly host a minitwow at some point in 2024!

overall 2023 wasnt great, but i stayed silly and had fun despite it and i think thatz very swag of me!

now, every time i do one of these things, if i do an overconfident "bring it on" type message at the end i almost always end up regretting it, AND i am absolutely terrified about 2024 so i am not taking my chances!

so i leave u with this sentiment towards 2024 instead:

i gotta survive The Horrors anyway, might as well stay silly and do what i like while im doing it :3

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

@sleepboysummer okay yeah that I can help with! I don’t what your exact situation is, so I’m probably gonna over-explain a bit, but I figured I might as well just spell it out for any other questions or confusions people might have.

So if you’ve already purchased the NPMD digital download (the WITH BONUS FEATURES OPTION) (not to be confused with the original digital ticket from this past March): There are several ways to get to the bonus features but for whatever reason my way is to pull up the original email I got from Starkid when the digital download was released on Sept 15. Click on the link in that email, and it should take you to the product page, which has the bonus features as well. Otherwise, you can go to starkid.vhx.tv, sign in with the email you originally used to buy the download, and go from there.

If you didn’t already buy the Nerdy Prudes digital download with bonus features, you can either do so on the Starkid store or through starkid.vhx.tv. Just make sure you pick the bonus features option.

Unfortunately but understandably, just as with the previous Hatchetfield shows, there is no way to access the digital download bonus features without purchasing them.

Anyways, hope that helps!

OKAY BUT THE NERDY PRUDES BONUS FEATURES??

COMMENTARY? AUDITION TAPES?? ANATOMY OF A SONGS???

THE OG DIGITAL TICKET WITH ANGELA FALLING OFF THE CHAIR???????

Oh Starkid, you sure know how to spoil a girl!

[graceschasity]

Okay so NPMD premieres in a week, I am seeing it live the first weekend and will probably also buy the digital ticket when it comes out. I'm thinking I'll try not to post spoilers for a few days until the dt is out (no promises but heres hoping) but once it's out this will 100% be spoiler territory. I will tag ALL posts with both "#nerdy prudes must die" AND "#npmd spoilers" and will continue tagging spoilers til a week after the youtube release (which sk has said late 2023 early 2024) Starting the 16th I will be blacklisting spoilers with multiple tags until I see the show, until then I will be freely talking about things that are public such as song demos and cast tweets

[thespooksheh]

Ever since Abstinence Camp came out last year I’ve been torn over shipping Steph/Pete and Steph/Grace. They’re both great and love them both!

And Starkid’s return got me thinking about them again, and I finally realised:

Grace/Steph/Pete is the superior option here, clearly! I mean wow Steph you get a girlfriend and a boyfriend? Lucky…

[lopez-richter-fangirl]

Hahaha I definitely don't think that's why it's in there, just like with Working Boys it's probably just a shitty concept that had never before seen the light of day cause they didn't deem it good enough. But now I'm wondering why this is something that will return for Nerdy Prudes Must Die! Not actually Santa Claus is going to High School, but having one of their shitty ideas as an in-universe shitty idea

No but here’s the thing it HAD (kind of) seen the light of day and that’s why I’m not so sure they thought it was shitty. Nick talked about that idea in the 18 hour wayward stream (it’s in the lost footage) and he even sang a parody of their status quo that was about santa claus going back to high school that he said he’d thought about releasing. So I think he saw how much people latched onto working boys that WAS supposed to be shitty and figured he’d try it with an idea he actually liked 😂 But I hope that element returns in npmd!! Along with another iconic Joey/Lauren duo

[not-mary-sue]

1.) Because they didn't want to overshadow TCBOB.

2.) They were waiting for summer (and saw the perfect opportunity to have a Friday the 13th announcement)

Or (and I have no reason to think this, I'm just hoping)

3.) We're getting another announcement soon, such as a Working Boys release date, or even a NPMD announcement, and they wanted the wide NMT release to be close to that, as a joined refresher and hype exercise.

I think it's interesting that amongst the characters in the insta post, nick as hidgens is there, which rules out the theory some had that they may have reshot some of nicks scenes, but this indicates that they didn't do that, so why did they take so long?

I'm not one to judge, but like, what was with the delay? Were they waiting to announce something with the YouTube release? Idk, what are your guys' theories?