#i say it would be just a funny joke scene that riffs on the end of the first iron man movie and the birth of the mcu.

[sciderman]

got into an argument with my friend about the movie cause they liked it and i. didn't. i feel cursed and im mostly just annoyed that so many of my problems with it are so easily fixable. but alas. there is no space for character arcs or growth. the MCU demands more cameos

i joked with a friend that if they just added a scene at the end of the movie were sam jackson shows up to actually offer wade an avengers membership proper and wade told sam jackson to fuck off then the entire movie would have been a success for me

[clairyclue]

my thoughts on Majestic Rep’s RTC

it’s a lot sorry guys

tags: @jencattv @ray-winters @keatondj

(spoilers below the cut)

you can tell when ocean starts questioning her attitude and how conflicted she is, especially right after WTWN 

jane gets startled so easily poor baby

noel’s riffs are amazing!! (noel’s lament)

the choreo is awesome too!

mischa is a such a sweetie he genuinely cares so much about the other choir members 

mischa flipping ocean off before “i love you guys” haha

constance’s finger guns after “fornication” 

constance laughing at ocean out down jokes and then switching up is so funny 

i love oceans line delivery she’s like three seconds snapping i love it 

jane going from being able to move

fluidly during the songs to being stiff again she looks so confused every time 

ricky. just ricky ❤️

connie i thought the crystal meth joke was funny 

^^ i love all the dialogue in that scene i don’t remember it in original cast slime tuts 

fuck mischa’s adopted parents fr you can tell his anger is a defense mechanism because when he feels comfortable with the choir he’s so sweet!!

MISCHA FALTERING WHEN SAYING HES TALIAS FIANCÉ 

“THANK YOU FOR KILLING MY MOTHER AND INDIRECTLY KILLING ME” 💔💔💔

MY LIFE IS AWESOME 

(i’m gonna start categorizing by song now i don’t have much for WTWN and Noel’s Lament so)

jane dope 🔥🔥

mlia gives mad sibling karaoke vibes 

karna i see u bopping along 

the singing too is immaculate 

OK JANE i see u dropping it down 

TALIA

this mischa genuinely seems so into it he deserves so much credit in way of character work 

the way he gets all bashful during his Talia monologue 💓

background harmonies (constance is carrying and also i can hear her so well!!)

again riffs!! well done 

the choreo goes crazy!! this applies to all the songs tho 

the arms making a steeple 🥺😩

THE ENDING RIFFS 💔💔💔😩😩😩😭😭🥺🥺😞😞

the projection i’m gonna end it all 💔

MISCHA FUCKING CRYING INTO NOELS SHOULDER HELPHELPHELP and even once the dialogue moves on he’s still clinging to him and Noel rubs his back

“ocean why aren’t you talking right now it’s weird” (ricky in the bg: ☝️)

i love u connie awkwardness 

jane is so reactive to everything she hears like a little puppy 

“OKAY!! 😁😁😁😁” (autismo lore dump time)

oceans face when he’s explaining it 😀 to 🙁 to 😟

AND THEN SHE FUCKING MOANS U CATHOLIC FREAK (no offense to catholics reading this)

noel’s face me too bud 

ricky’s lore is kinda gross just because it wasn’t always this way. but sigh what can you do

SPACE AGE BACHELOR MAN:

ricky my little freak boy ❤️

spacedolls realness coming through 

“sure…😬”

rip ricky u would have loved therian tiktok 

little curtain face thing “it gets weird now :)” (•.•)

“THAT SON OF A BITCH !! 😡😡😡”

the emotion behind his lines the whole time tbh adds to the comedy (“i thought i told them !! 😕😕”)

the ending “b-b-b- bachelor man!” (“meow!!”)

we love u mischa hype man (again sweetest man alive)

constance’s “oh man!” was so agressive i loved it the one in the soundtrack seems so sad. this constance is less shy more awkward and i love it

THE BALLAD OF JANE DOE:

i know i know. but choreo. 

vocals!! ily jenna 

bg vocals as well!! 

the mixing 🥹

OK THE OPT UP????

the choreo at “a choir never complete” reminds me of the opening funeral scene from beetlejuice. definitely fits the vibe!

the borderline growl/anger in “and i’m asking why lord” yes!!!!

she sounds so desperate. crying. 

“does no one care?!” again the anger and emotion!

THE BG VOCALS AT THAT ONE PART SO GOOD THEYRE ANGRY FOR HER IT SEEMS 

the roller coaster. them being sucked back into it choreo wise. reverse looking. 

THE HIGH NOTES 💋💋💋

ocean being the one to put the birthday costume on means a lot to me. idk

ocean comforting her too 🥰🥰

janes birthday claps!

SNATCH !! 🧁🧁

ocean doing connie’s hair ❤️

savannah scene!! 

we don’t get to see it but i know the waltz is happening 

“ur ma best frand 💓“

^ and then ocean immediately snaps my heart again. 

“no you don’t ocean. 😕”

i understand oceans monologue she just. executed it badly. 

constance 😝 beat her ass girl 

“or they’ll call you a cow” baby. come here. 💔

constance. i get you. i get u connie baby. 

JAWBREAKER/SUGAR CLOUD:

oceans face ❤️ i don’t know how to describe it but she looks. proud. and her sitting almost re-evaluating everything in the back. (assuming)

ricky giving her the mic ❤️

HER GIGGLE

them scooting her around aghhhahahdhdbdheh

cloud props!

CONFETTI AND BALLOONS AND IM SMILING LIKE A FOOL

jane looks so happy with her ballon skipping around 🥹

the ending!! ILY CONSTANCE 

mischa helping her down awww

ocean and connie hug!!

can’t forget the nischa hug

ocean losing her voice inflection and sounding so genuine. so scared. so raw. 

janey when she gets chosen 🥹🥹

ocean and connie hug 2

JANE REACHING FOR RICKY SNDBDJWKDJDKF

ITS NOT A GAME/ITS JUST A RIDE

crying over the ending brb 

the slideshow will always get me 

something about the whole scene. houfhhhhhhh

“and you give and choose while you live and lose” and the lines preceding it get me 🥹

ARE THOSE REAL VIDEOS OF JENNA?!?!?!

KARNA SOUNDING LIKE THEYRE GONNA CRY

the first lines of it’s just a ride. no music. so raw sounding 🥹 the teary voices. the haphazard harmonies. 

ocean and mischa holding each other. big bro little sis 💓

“WOO!”

THEIR FREESTYLE DANCING! 

they’re having so much fun. they’re dead but they’re LIVING for the first time. 

all of the hand holding. my babes. 

[adultswim2021]

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job #34: “Universe” | February 23, 2009 - 12:30AM | S04E03

The first thing: Celebrity Zillions, a game show where big stars (Whoopsie, Steven Spielberg, Johnny Depp, others) all jump around while Mr. Zillions throws money down at them while suspended from the ceiling. I love this one, this is one of Eric’s best roles as the dreaded ceiling man. His eyes go nuts, and you gotta respect it. The concept of a television audience sincerely rooting for celebrities to get richer is very funny to me. Plus, the weird guys in this are simply "icing on the cake." Without checking to see that I’m right: I think this is the first time they use the Johnny Depp guy, who recurs several times in the Abso Lutely universe (including a very memorable Nathing For You episode). 

Then, what luck, the return of Pierre! This is a PSA called “All the Food is Poison”, which features a chorus of young cheerleaders. At one point they stage a cutesy tableau where one of the lines is acted out as if she is sharing this information anecdotaly and not through verse. This is another GREAT one. The part where the girls all look more and more troubled by the song is so great. I love stuff like this. It’s art.

We get a second Gettin’ it Dunn featuring known nuisance David Liebe Hart as a guest. He makes a truly unhinged comment about alien women’s pussies. Then they make him apologize on camera for it. I love this too!!! 

Then we get a Brule bit, where he tells us to use fruit juice to make ice cubes and then put “THAT in your milk”. These Brules Rules are more hit-and-miss than I remember, but this is fine! It’s a funny idea. Putting ice cubes in milk! What a fool! The first time I saw this I cracked up when Brule calls the viewer a “bimbo”. I like that he doesn’t know what some words mean!

Tim’s Discount Prices and Eric’s Premium Prices is really funny. Tim and Eric are businessmen and pitchmen to boot, and are dueling via commercial over whose business “fits the bill” and puts “money in the bank”. They are selling prices themselves, and have slightly different mission statements. This one has some funny lines and truly rude riffs. Tim saying Eric will “Rape ya!” is pretty nasty by today’s standards, but I think of it often, for some reason. 

The only truly weak link here for me is another installment of “Afternoon Review” (The daytime show for women), which the joke is just that it’s footage of weird men being weird, and demonstrating talents that would not be appreciated by women. It’s whatever, but it’s one of those bits that has the “season three stank” all over it. 

The host segments here are ones for the ages; in fact it has been made heckin’ immortal in the memosphere (the animated gif of Eric going “bwaaaaugh!!!!” while animated big bangs ripple out of his forehead, mimicking the hand movements he’s also making). This one is pretty funny and charming. Tim’s material is more absurd, he just yammers nonsense. He gets flustered describing the shape of the universe and just leaves it at “it’s not a bowl.” Eric’s material usually veers into sexual matters, because the guy is a horny freaking devil. This sketch also makes use of footage of Kaz trying to open a door with a sword, taken from a deleted season three sketch. 

Eric describes bonding with his neighbor’s son against his father’s consent by swirling a flashlight around against his wall through the window late at night in what could easily be perceived as a flirtatious gesture. “I do this every night with your son”, Eric boasts. One of my favorite endings. 

There is more Universe stuff in the EXTENDED SCENES of the DVD. Or, you can watch it right here on youtube.

MAIL BAG

dont publish this but i am not doing the funny man of tumblr bit, you got an anklebiter with different jaws than mine

Sorry, you can't use such wonderful turns of phrase as "anklebiter with different jaws than mine" and expect me not to print it. As a compromise I'll just put it in a font that's a little harder to read.

Xaviers Maneuver mafia guy is not Chinese but Chi-talian-ese. Thank you

Lucky for you, I am willing to sit my ass down and listen. I appreciate the correction.

[monellabella]

Dating Eddie Munson

a/n: (Reader is 19, works at family video with Steve and Robin) Was this totally self-indulgent? Absolutely.  (Reblogs and comments are much appreciated :))

Eddie makes you a D&D character in case u ever want to play one day

Begs you to make you own, “It’s fun! I swear.”

You start by sitting in on his campaigns after work and just watching and appreciating the story

You came to understand the game bit by bit and would lean in and whisper questions to Eddie throughout

Until one day you finally decide to play for real

Your character dies within the first 5 minutes but it’s cool bc now you can make a new one

Eddie’s disappointed his character for you died so quick, but when he sees how excited you are describing the character you came up with, he couldn’t be happier about it

You like to listen to him and his band practice

Just sitting around and admiring the way he looks so focused when he plays

Senior year, he tried to teach you guitar and you hated it bc you just couldn’t seem to get the hang of it

So he borrows his bandmate’s old bass figuring that it might be easier for you to learn

He goes crazy when, after a few weeks of practice, you play him a riff from a a Jimmy Hendrix song, and he just thinks you’ve never looked hotter

I mean, he’s just totally entranced by you 

It actually made him kinda horny

For Halloween that year you went as Joan Jett and Eddie damn near lost his mind

The smudged black eyeliner is what really did it for him

He requested you do the same look for him 

You though he looked unbelievably hot, but you would rather die than tell him that bc it would just fuel his ego

When you two started dating, you put eyeliner on him and painted his nails black and you couldn’t stop yourself from just pouncing on him

You get high together

A lot

He offers you the opportunity to be his fellow guinea pig when testing out new strains

You come with him to his drug deals

His funny little girlfriend perched near his shoulder (a/n not literally little so to speak)

Kicking leaves behind him as he does the deal

He likes to say you’re like a little bird

His nickname for you becomes birdie

His clients can’t help but be a little distracted by you 

“Hey,” Eddies snapped, “eyes up here. Ignore her, she’s not part of this.”

You’ll butt in with a joke when you can tell the person is nervous

He likes to play with your hands

And your hair

You teach him to braid and he practices on you

Likes to wrap his arm around you and give you a squeeze

But he especially loves sneaking up behind you and grabbing you in a hug

He just loves your reaction to it:

You scrunch up your nose and smile, pretending to hate it and chiding him for taking you by surprise (but obv you adore it even though it does really make you jump)

His hands are just always on you in really subtle ways even if you yourself are not a very “touchy” person (a/n can you tell that I’m touch-starved)

He makes you a hellfire shirt

But you prefer to just borrow his bc it smells like him

But you just tell him its bc its been worn more so its softer 

He complains that your shirt is a different size and tries to stretch it out in the wash

He ends up shrinking it in the dryer and now it’s a crop top

So at the next few Hellfire meetings, Eddie wore a shirt that was far too small on him

Needless to say, he was ruthlessly mocked by everyone

Especially Dustin.

you weren’t complaing though

He let you wear his dio vest and leather jacket just bc he likes to see it on you

He wants to get you into metal, so he’ll take you to record stores to just listen to tracks and then not buy anything

You spend half your time at the movie theater downtown, so you’re always sneaking him in to the theater to see new movies you think he’d enjoy and showing him your favorites down in your basement, getting so excited when your favorite scenes come on

He was never much of a movie guy, it’s hard for him to stay focused

It’s not that he isn’t interested, his mind just won’t calm down enough

But he tries for you and he ends up getting really into movies

He’s definitely not a film buff, but he’s learning to appreciate certain things like cinematography and sound design just from spending time with you and listening to you rant and rave about how good or bad a movie was

He did acid on one occasion and he had zero problems just staring at the cartoons on tv with you in his arms

He really doesn’t eat much that isn’t processed, frozen, or from a can

So you bring him leftovers from your mom’s cooking

You cook for him when you come over

You invite him over for dinner whenever you can

Your parents have no idea you two are together 

but they still don’t let him up in your room unless the door is open

No biggie, he just sneaks through your window later

the absolute nerd that he is, he quoted Romeo and Juliet the first time you did this  

like he memorized half a monologue

you threw at pillow at him 

He’s just a big softie and when he looks at you he’s just the personification of the heart eyes emoji

If you made it this far thank you I love you here’s a treat:

[waitimcomingtoo]

Where We Start Again -3

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Synopsis: how do you fake date someone you have real feelings for?

Series Masterlist and Regular Masterlist

Playlist by @tiny-friggin-human

The first thing Peter heard when he entered your apartment was shouting. You looked disappointed as you locked the door behind you and put your keys in a bowl next to door.

“Sorry. That’s my dad.” You apologized. “He claims using his “lawyer voice” is the only way he can get clients to listen.”

“It’s fine.” Peter assured you. “As long as he doesn’t use that voice on me.”

“Not unless your skirt is too short or you got a grade below a 90.” You said through a tight smile as you dropped your backpack on a kitchen stool. He uncomfortably shouldered his, unsure of if he should do the same.

“You can put your bag down. Put it next to mine so they can talk.” You raised your eyebrows suggestively. Peter shook his head as he laughed at your dumb joke and put his backpack on the stool next to yours.

“What are the gonna talk about?” He played along and you thought about it.

“Yours is probably telling my backpack about how scared he is since he heard your last five bags disappeared.” You whispered dramatically and Peter scoffed.

“I just lose them a lot, okay? I can’t believe you noticed that.” He mumbled. He did lose his backpack a lot when he had to ditch it for Spider-Man duties, he just never thought you’d notice that he always had a different bag.

“Sometimes I see things when I’m not applying lipgloss or brushing my hair.” You said through a big, fake smile and Peter got the hint.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He told you. “I know you do other things. Like paint, apparently.”

You looked at a small canvas hung on the wall together. It was a painting of squidward on a yellow background with your name at the bottom. You looked at it proudly and adjusted it so it wasn’t crooked.

“I hung that up there two years ago and my parents still haven’t noticed.” You laughed, but Peter didn’t find it very funny. “I think it’s kinda of pretty.”

“It’s lovely. You’ll have to make me one someday.” He said as he gazed at you. You seemed different now that you weren’t at school. You weren’t standing as straight and finally looked relaxed.

“You want me to paint a bunch of dicks on your ceiling?” You asked and he almost choked on his saliva.

“Why would you do that?” He asked in bewilderment.

“It was a Michelangelo joke, ciccino.” You said an unexpectedly authentic Italian accent.

“Oh. Um, pizza spaghetti spicy meatball to you too.” He muttered and you laughed loudly. He looked at you quizzically, never having heard you laugh like that before. It was never that loud or cheerful. You noticed his staring and covered your mouth in embarrassment.

“Sorry about that.” You said sheepishly and he shook his head.

“Don’t be.” He said softly. “It was nice to hear.”

“Come on. I’ll give you the rest of the tour.” You took Peters hand and lead him to a room at the end of the hall. “This is my bedroom. I’m sorry I don’t have Yoda on my sheets. I hope daisies will do.”

MJ’s words echoed in Peters mind when you didn’t let go of his hand. He blinked a few times as he looked around your room. He’d imagined what it might look like a few times, as he did with a most people. He was pretty sure Flash lived in a dirt hole outside of a SuperCuts. Whatever he imagined your room would look like, the reality was better. But as he looked closer, he noticed an absence of photos with friends or mementos from school. It was almost like your popularity started and ended on school property.

“Your sheets are fine. It’s smells like you in here.” He said without thinking. “Was that the creepiest thing I could’ve possibly said?”

“Nah. A boy in my Econ class told me he wanted to use my hair as a towel once. You’re gonna have to try harder to creep me out.” You let go of his hand and smoothed your skirt before sitting on your bed. Peter stood awkwardly near the door until he found the words to say. He didn’t want to take another step into your room at risk of ruining the wholesome atmosphere.

“Your hair looks soft and all, but I don’t think it’d be very absorbent.” He said finally and watched your face for a reaction.

“Right? Some people are so dumb.” You joked and he felt himself ease up. He took a few steps toward the center of your room and noticed a guitar leaning again your dresser.

“Do you play?” He asked curiously and you nodded. You got up and walked over to the guitar, fingering the strings as a soft melody played.

“A little. I can strum along time a few songs.” You told him. He joined you next to the guitar and touched the neck.

“Thats still something.” He assured you. “I didn’t know that about you.”

“Theres a lot you don’t know about me, Peter.” You quipped and stopped touching the strings.

“Good thing I love to learn.” He replied and you picked up the guitar.

“What’s your favorite song?” You asked and played him an energetic riff.

“You’re gonna laugh.” He hesitated to tell you.

“I would never laugh at you.” You promised.

“It’s Hey there Delilah. My mom used to sing it when she made dinner.” He admitted for the first time to another human being. He and Ned didn’t cover vulnerable topics, so he kept personal stuff to himself. It was hard to keep it in sometimes, but he never felt like he had another choice until now. I

“That’s a great song. She had good taste.” You said softly. You had heard about his parents passing from MJ when you asked her about the cute boy who sat at her lunch table a week earlier. You didn’t expect him to open about it so soon, but you were glad he did.

“Yeah, she did.” Peter agreed. He never expected to be talking about this with you, but it felt good to get off his chest.

“What was she like?” You wondered as you fingered the melody to Marry Me, Archie.

“Amazing. We used to do crossword puzzles together and she would finish hers before I read my second clue. And she always had something in the oven. It made the house really hot in the summer but my dad and I didn’t mind. We were happy as long as she was.” He reminisced. You listened intently to him as you played the song softly.

“What would she make?” You asked him.

“Pretty much everything.” He replied. “Her favorite was chocolate chip cookies. But from scratch, not a package.”

“Were they good?”

“They were so good.” He sighed happily. “She used to put extra chocolate chips on as the cooled down. I miss those cookies.”

You didn’t say anything but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. He knew you were listening, and that’s all that mattered. His eyes wandered to your bookshelf which was bare of books except for one.

“Charlottes Web?” He raised an eyebrow as he picked up the book and flipped through it.

“It’s my favorite book.” You told him. He was leaning a lot about you just from being in your room.

“Could’ve fooled me. It looks brand new.” He held it up for you to see.

“I only read it one time. When I was younger.” You shrugged and put the guitar down.

“But it’s your favorite?” He wondered.

“The ending makes me sad. I remember the story and how it made me feel, and that makes it my favorite.” You half smiled. “I just can’t read it anymore because-“

“It makes you sad.” He understood. “That’s cute.”

“You’re cute.” You nodded your head at him and blew him a kiss, like you were cat calling him. He looked away bashfully and brushed it off. “I’m serious. I really like this color on you.”

“So I’ve been told.” He mumbled shyly. “Thank you for the candy, by the way.”

“Well I had to pay you back for the gogurt.” You teased. “Should we get going?”

“Going?” He furrowed his eyebrows.

“To the mall. For a dress. Like we agreed.” You said slowly and he remembered why he was at your house in the first place.

“Right.” He nodded curtly. “Let’s go.”

~

“How’s this?” You opened the dressing room curtain and stepped out in a short maroon dress. Peters eyes lit up at the sight of you until he realized something.

“Isn’t that the same dress you just had on?” He asked.

“No. That was burgundy. This is maroon.” You said like it was obvious and it went right over Peters head.

“You look great.” He complimented, and he meant it.

“You said that about the last three.” You whined and looked at yourself in the mirror. You adjusted the dress nervously and decided you hated it.

“Yeah, but you do this crazy thing where you’re super pretty and look good in everything, so.” Peter shrugged and you bit back a smile.

“Peter Parker with the flirtatious banter. We love to see it.” You winked, something he was coming to see you did a lot, and went back into the dressing room. You came out a minute later in a long white dress.

“What do you think about this one?” You asked for his opinion as you smoothed the dress down.

“Oh my God. You look like Princess Leia when she - I’m gonna stop talking now.” He interrupted himself before he said something uncool.

“You don’t have to hide who you are from me, Peter. If you want to make a Star Trek reference, I want to hear it.” You folded your arms and admired the dress in the mirror.

“Okay.” He obeyed. “And it’s Star Wars. Star Trek is different.”

“Oh. Which one has the bunnies playing basketball?” You pursed your lips as you looked over your shoulder at the dress.

“That’s Space Jam.” He couldn’t even hide his attitude. “That’s not even-“

He cut himself off when he noticed the playful smile on your face.

“You’re messing with me.” He realized and you nodded.

“You’re cute when you’re riled up.” You shrugged a shoulder and disappeared back into the dressing room.

“How’s this?” You reappeared in a little black dress. It had a sheer layer over the mini skirt that was short in the front and longer in the back. You looked beautiful, to say the least. Like the person who designed the dress made it with you in mind. Peters eyes slowly trailed down the dress and a smile tugged at his lips.

“You know the scene in Mean Girls when Aaron sees the picture of Cady as a little girl on top of an elephant and smiles? And like, that happy song with guitars plays in the background?” He asked you and you looked confused.

“I think so, yeah.” You shrugged.

“That’s how that dress makes me feel.” He confessed and you tilted your head.

“Like I’m a child riding an elephant?”

“Like I’m seeing you for the first time.” He replied. “The real you, anyway. Again, not trying to sound like a stalker, but I’ve looked at you a lot over the last four years. But this feels like the first time I’ve ever really looked at you. You look - - you look happy.”

“Do I not normally look happy?” You asked quietly, turning to look at your face in the mirror.

“You have a sadness to you.” Peter admitted and your head whipped to him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying that.”

“No, it’s okay. No ones ever honest with me.” You were quiet for a moment following the confession. “What else do you see?”

“I see a really beautiful girl.” Peter answered honestly. He thought he was complimenting you, but you looked annoyed with the answer. He remembered what MJ said about you hating being watched and took that into consideration as he formulated his answer.

“I also see someone who’s smart and can solve a rubix cube in under a minute. I see someone who’s funny, but never at the expense of someone else. Someone who remembers your favorite candy and helps you glue a LEGO lamp together after school. And I see someone who would pretend to be my girlfriend to save me from a bully. That’s what I see.” Peter recited. You looked at him for a moment before taking a seat beside him. You looked like you were searching for the words to say, so Peter kept silent.

“We need to get you a tie to match my dress.” You said finally. You gave him a soft smile and took the hand that was gripping the arm of his chair. “Thank you.”

“For?” He wondered what he had done to warrant a thank you.

“For everything you said. No ones ever known me that well before. No one ever wanted to.” Your voice wavered and Peter thought he could see tears in your eyes.

“I’ve always wanted to.” He confessed. “And somehow, I’m getting the chance. I still worry that I’m gonna wake up and this will have all been a dream.”

“What?” Your expression changed from appreciative to annoyed too quickly for Peters liking. “Why?”

“Because girls like you don’t hang out with guys like me.” He shrugged like it was simply. You hastily got out of your chair and Peter feared he had said the wrong thing.

“Says who?” You asked sharply as you folded your arms. He was positive now he had said the wrong thing.

“Says everybody.” He said weakly.

“Fuck everybody.” You snapped and Peter jumped a little in his seat. “You are better company than anyone one of those sentient bratz dolls at my lunch table. I’ve had more fun with you these past two days than I have in four years with them. I don’t care what everybody says because I like hanging out with you. So I don’t want to hear anymore of this status talk. I’m just a person, Peter.”

“An extremely popular person. And your reputation would plummet if you were caught hanging out with an extremely unpopular person, like myself.” He tried to explain himself as he got out of his seat but it only made you angrier.

“Caught? Like I’m committing a crime just for being seen with you?” You laughed bitterly. “I don’t know who instilled in you that I’m some deity that no one can talk to, but it’s not true. I thought you understood that.” You said in disappointment before storming into the dressing room and swiping the curtain shut.

“Y/n- daisy wait. Wait.” He pressed himself against the doorframe and sighed. “I do understand that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on a pedestal like that. I know you’re just a person.”

He heard you sniffle behind the curtain and his heart broke when his worst fear had come to light.

He had made you cry.

“You don’t get it, Peter.” You said quietly through the curtain. “Everyone think I’m a stuck up snob or a perfect, plastic doll. And no one cares to get to know the truth. They just see what the want to see. I want them to see me the way you do.”

“Maybe they don’t deserve to see that. Daisy, you are this exceptionally phenomenal force of nature.” He promised as he tried to make amends. “You hold a power that their tiny minds could never understand. Forgive them. They’re slow.”

He smiled in relief when he heard a laugh from the other side of the curtain.

“Now that I have you laughing again, will you come out?” He pleaded.

“I’ll think about it.” You said after a beat of silence.

“For the record, I liked you from the first day of freshman year. Before you were popular.” He admitted to someone other than Ned for the first time.

“Didn’t my dad almost hit you with his car?” You asked as you opened the curtain just enough so he could see you.

“Yes.” He stuttered, surprised that his apology worked. “But I was jay walking so that’s on me. And as I waited for my heart to start beating again after nearly colliding with your dads Toyota Camry, I looked up and saw you crying.”

“I thought he killed you.” You defended your actions.

“But he didn’t.” Peter smiled easily. “And now we’re talking through a curtain because we’re fake dating and I can see your bra strap. What a wonderful world.”

You laughed loudly again, a laugh he was sure only he got to hear.

“Come in here.” You grabbed him by the shirt and tugged him into the dressing room. His knees weakened at the sight of you in just a bra and panties so he averted his eyes to the ceiling and counted to ten in his head.

“I don’t mean to worry you but I’m about to die, so do with that what you will.” Peter wheezed as he focused on the ceiling tiles.

“Relax. Just turn around.” You ordered and he obeyed. He turned around and tried to ignore the sounds of you getting dressed. “Okay. You can look now. You were saying?”

“I’m saying I liked you before you were the queen of Midtown Tech.” He repeated as he put his hands on your shoulders. “I liked you when you were just the girl who cried on the first day of school because her dad almost turned me into a skinny white boy pizza. I never thought I was gonna be good enough to talk to you. That’s why I’m worried I’m gonna wake up from this. Because it’s something I’ve wanted for so long.”

“You are good enough. You are so good enough.” You laughed sadly and stepped closer to him. “You’re the only one in this school who treats me like an actual person. I’m sorry I got defensive. It’s just because I’ve been wanting this for a long time too.”

“Tell you what.” Peter started. “You’re gonna buy that black dress and I’m gonna buy a tie to match. And I swear, I will never make you feel like this again. I never meant to make you cry, daisy. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you for apologizing.” You said sincerely. “I don’t get those a lot.”

“Then you better start getting used to it because I make a lot of mistakes.” Peter joked and your body shook as you laughed.

“I look forward to what you can come up with.” You smiled softly.

“Come on. People are gonna think you’re jumping on my skeleton.” Peter said as he opened the curtain and walked out.

“Okay.” You followed him out. “Wait, what?”

Tag List 🏷

@a-villain-vying-for-attention @wendaiii @dorbiksbitch @t-monosapiens-h @badhollandfluff @thisisthebiplace @silteplaittais-toi @seasidecrowbar @spideygirl2003 @5-seconds-of-mendes​ @bitchylittleredhead​ @oh-whatabeautiful-parker​ @everydaymj​ @write-from-the-heart​ @blackpetalsmeandeath​ @electraheart-3174​ @shawni-h​ @peterparkoure​ @sleepythighsweat @steebbb @traveleraroundsworld @averyfosterthoughts

[fictionadventurer]

I love writing, but I can't do humour. I love to read really witty, clever, pun-filled, character-driven humour, but the problem is, anything I write ends up sounding clunky and as if a cringey, overenthusiastic preschool teacher said it. What do I do if my characters are heaps funnier than me and I can't do them justice??

I'm surprised that you asked me this question, since I don't think I'm particularly good at writing humor, but I'll try to help. From your question, it sounds like you already have the funny content in your head, but just need to figure out how to put it on the page.

Some possible tips that might help:

Brevity is the soul of wit, so try to use as few words as possible for your jokes. "As few as possible" varies according to the type of humor and the characters involved, but using the minimum amount of words makes the humor snappier.

With that said, understand the type of rhythm that you're going for in a work. A Wodehouse style of zany narration will be wordier than a modern snappy, snarky dialogue scene. Figure out the style of writing that provides the kind of humor you want.

It helps to read your work aloud. Listen to the rhythm of the prose, watch for any clunky wording that interrupts the flow, then smooth away any rough spots.

If the humor is coming from the dialogue, try to minimize the beats and descriptions surrounding them. (And minimize dialogue tags) This helps the jokes stay front-and-center, so the humor shines more clearly.

If you can, develop your jokes with someone. Talk about the work or the characters, and don't be afraid to riff on the material to find the funny points of a scene or situation. Getting other brains in there can bring up jokes you might not think of, and playing off of each other can create a more natural rhythm to the humor.

Let the humor flow from the characters. A joke might be great in isolation, but if it isn't something that the character would say in that situation, then it's going to sound clunky and out of place.

Let the characters play off of each other. You can get a lot of humor out of the wildly varying ways that different characters react to a situation or to each other.

Don't underestimate the power of a good "straight man"--the character whose sensible sentences set up crazy responses from the loonier characters. It provides two different types of voices, which can do a lot to keep the humor from sounding too cluttered or clunky.

Watch movies. Listen to radio comedy routines. Listen to audiobooks. Watch Youtube videos and sitcoms, anything that provides jokes in audio form. This can help you understand what style and speed of humor you find funniest. Humor is a lot like music--it's all about timing. Listening to it, rather than reading it, puts the humor in a format that showcases the comedic timing. It also helps those "rhythms" to get stuck in your head so the humor flows more naturally when you're writing your story.

Remember that even if your characters can come up with a witty retort on the spot, you have a lot longer to work on the material. The sentence that takes two seconds to read can be added after months of considering the scene. Even if you write a clunky scene, you can always go back and edit to make things funnier.

[your-lips-are-very-red]

St. Vincent x Emma Madden Interview

This is the text from the St. Vincent interview that Emma Madden was asked to not use. Since Miss Madden has decided to take it down, I wanted it to be available somewhere online - in case she manages to get all the cached versions taken down, too. 

SOURCE: https://archive.is/wFkLN

About a fortnight ago I was commissioned to interview St. Vincent, an artist I have been inspired by, impressed by, turned on by, compelled by, curious of, in awe of, occasionally suspicious of—for the better half of a decade. I try not to think about other journalists too much, but St. Vincent has developed a reputation for intimidating us. For her last press cycle, she made her interviewers crawl into a pink box; she would play a pre-recorded message on a tape recorder if a question bored or irked her. I found that quite funny—irresistibly imperious—but I considered it an act of degradation rather than an interesting switch of power. I love famous people but I also find them quite silly, like a Schnauzer wearing a bowtie.

  I didn’t know why, but for around two hours after our call ended, I was reeling with nervous energy. I was vocalising it and trying to get to the other side of it, the way I sing songs when I’m walking through a haunted house. I woke up the next morning with a voice message from the editor who assigned this piece. I am fond of this person and I will not name them. MBC, the team in charge of St. Vincent’s publicity (which is helmed by Barbara Charone, who also works for Madonna, and is considered one of the more powerful and intimidating publicists in the industry) had been on the phone to this editor, demanding the piece be pulled. My editor’s words: “They said she’s terrified of this interview coming out.” The publication didn’t have a leg to stand on.

"Terrified"? That word didn't seem to square. I thought I had done a not-so-good job the night before. I ended the call thinking I hadn’t asked the right questions. St. Vincent and I didn’t feel like a good match in conversation (or at least not in this conversational setup set-up, for which I was given thirty minutes, and continual reminders from the person on St. Vincent’s team, who remained on the call with us, that we’d need to wrap up well in time for St. Vincent’s Instagram Live session with Paul McCartney, which directly followed our interview.) St. Vincent tended to interpret my questions in bad faith. I assumed she believed me to be a Bad Reader; presumptuous, judgemental, simple, anti-curious—all qualities that her latest album ‘Daddy’s Home’, which I’ve interpreted as a counter to the folly, inadequacy and meretriciousness of moral purity—counters. Anyway, she read me wrong. I love Lana Del Rey.

  I got a call from MBC later that morning by a man who sounded quite nervous. I told him I was confused, I asked him what the matter seemed to be. He wasn't totally sure, he said, "she found the interview aggressive." Aggressive? I complimented her and cowed to her and laughed at her jokes. "Well, the message has been passed down a line of many messengers, she might not have actually said that." The man on the phone said that this—one of his artists demanding an interview to be pulled—had never happened to him before. It hadn't happened to me either. I felt annoyed by how easy it was for St. Vincent to kill something I had researched and expected money for. But the interview started to seem valuable to me after I was told that she didn't want it out in the world. "Can we draw a line under this and just kill the piece here?" said the man on the phone.

Below is the full transcript of my interview with St. Vincent (save for a short and-forth about Tool which didn’t make sense when turned into text). My questions are in bold, her responses are in italics.

**for the sake of this post, Madden’s questions are bold and Annie’s answers are not** Hi, how are you? Good how’s it going?

Not too bad. What’s your mood for today? My mood for today, well it’s good, I’m getting on an Instagram Live chat with Paul McCartney in a couple minutes so my mood is a little bit nervous but good.

I’m excited to talk about this album, I think it has a sick sense of humor that I appreciate a lot. I’ve had a really fun time listening to it.

Oh I’m glad, thank you.

I’m sensing there’s kind of a 70s trend at the moment in terms of fashion and the ways some other bands are presenting themselves. Is that something you were anticipating, is that something you feel you belong to, or was it just kind of accidental?

Accidental.

Do you feel bummed about that? No I don’t, I always just kind of do my own thing.

Do you think there’s a reason why people might be inspired by the 70s today? Do you see an analog with our world today and with the 70s? I guess this album is based in 1973, right?

Between ‘71 and ‘76, so post flower children idealism, post the Summer of Love hangover, but pre escapism of gay disco and pre nihilism of punk. Life was bad but music was good, kind of vibe.

Kind of when the trash aesthetic was taking hold, especially by Andy Warhol. Does trash inspire you? Um like literal rubbish?

No like the trash aesthetic, I guess in the PR you call it sleazy, grimy. Yeah but the difference with sleazy is that sleazy tries to present as glamorous but there’s something off, trash is just trash. I don’t know if trash pretends to be anything other.

  Can you have glamour without sleaze? Sure, absolutely. I mean, like the 20s Greta Garbo way, I would say Golden Era Hollywood, I mean behind the scenes it was probably a nightmare but you look at it and it is very genuinely shiny and beautiful.

I love the sitar on this album especially on ‘Down’, the riff is so sick. How did you get to the sitar? Well it’s not a sitar per se, it’s a choral electric sitar guitar and so it was I think George Harrison made them kind of popular in the ‘60s, I think the one I have is from ’67 and it plays like a guitar but it has a resonating body on it so it sounds sitar-esque. It was made very famous in the Steely Dan Do it Again solo.

  I guess the main PR bulletin point of this album is about your dad coming out of jail. Why did you want that to be the main way that people might read this album? More like an entry point, the title Daddy’s Home to me I mean one, it is literal but also it’s funny and cringy and pervy and also I think more than anything kind of refers to my own transformation into Daddy as it were. Yeah it’s probably not anything I would’ve really thrown out there except that it was made public without my consent but I didn’t really get to tell that side of the story and I don’t bring it up for sympathy. It simply is my story, it’s not intended to be indicative of necessarily anything, it’s just my story and I was gonna tell it with humor and compassion, all of that.

Did you anticipate a lack of sympathy for your dad’s crimes and the subject matter of this album and did that factor into how you shaped this record? That’s the tail wagging the dog my dear. No, no. A lack of sympathy, well, which crime would be the most sympathetic? I didn’t do anything, I’m simply writing about something that I think on some level everyone who’s ever had a parent can understand in the sense of you’re often going “How much of you am I?” and we kind of do identity projection through all these things so no, it’s again, it’s not really there for anything other than my own anecdotal story.

At what point did you transform into this daddy character? For how much of your adult life have you been the daddy? Oh I would just say over the past few years, I’ve just been quite a bit more leaned back and shoulder shrug and say let’s just sit down in the old beat up leather armchair and have a tequila and chat it out you know. Life is complicated, human beings are complicated and I wanted to just write stories about flawed people. There’s a whole lot of judgement going around and not a whole lot of understanding. And judgement is anti-curious. There are some people, perhaps the more sanctimonious and morally pure, who might not be interested in an artist’s reflection on their father’s white collar crimes. Do you have much sympathy for those kinds of people? I mean I think I can get sympathy for all people. If that is the reason why they decide not to spend 46 minutes with my work then I’m sure there’s plenty of other work out there for them that they can enjoy that is morally pure. They should find pure work from pure people and enjoy it.

I guess last year’s riots brought abolition towards the mainstream, during the time you were making this record, which is partially about your father’s time in prison. How did that square with your thoughts on prison and the US carceral system? Well I have plenty of thoughts on it, I’m not totally sure how it’s relevant to this.

Well I was wondering if you have a standpoint on it or if you’d rather just be ambiguous? I have so many thoughts and opinions, I don’t presume that my thoughts and opinions are relevant on every subject though. I don’t have that much hubris.

I understand. I was wondering about the Candy Darling inspiration, how does she come into the fold? Oh I just, Candy Darling to me is such a beautiful heroine in that she came from Queens and went not geographically far but worlds away to Manhattan and became her true self and in that particular kind of combination of glamour and toughness, where you feel like her name should be on the marquee and yet she could stick you with a shiv if you said the wrong thing. And I just find her inspiring and really beautiful, and I didn’t know but I found out a friend of mine was close with her and was at her bedside when she died so I was just picturing Candy Darling’s ascent to heaven as taking the final uptown train.

Wow. Did you feel like you were embodying her on this album or presenting as her? No not as such, but definitely taking inspiration from some of her energy for sure. I do hear a bit of her voice on the title track, I was wondering if you were kind of modeling your voice after her? On Daddy’s Home? Oh, no.

I love the sultriness of that song, even though it’s just about signing autographs in prison. I found it really funny. Yeah it’s definitely again, I’m writing about my own story with humor and compassion and self-effacement, all that.

Do you see this album as a movement, does it have a narrative? Yeah. It’s a full story, it’s a full collection of short stories. It has a shape and everything.

That’s just how I listened to this album, as a series of short stories. I was wondering how they interlink in your mind? I guess you have the person on Broadway, you have your dad, you have the person who’s maybe thinking of having a baby or not having a baby. I just could write stories of flawed people doing their best to get by because I’ve been most of the people on this album at one point of my life or another. And again I could write about them without condemnation and judgement just, here we are.

Are you a nostalgic person? No not generally.

Not even during the creation of this album? I’m thinking of the humming tracks, your mum cooking in the kitchen. Not exactly, I think that this particular kind of music with its sophistication and some of the jazz language in the harmony and its sense of time, it was a kind of music that I’d loved for so long but never really dipped into myself, and I think we kind of learn things a lot of times when we’re ready to, and I think I was kind of ready to learn some of the lessons that this kind of music had to teach me.

Do you think about shame a lot? Um, I think that shame is the reason why most people do the violence that they do. I think violence is an expression of impotence.

What was it about the post-idealist era in particular that you were drawn to, why not go through the flower power utopia sort of 60s route? I think that there’s an intellectual orthodoxy that is involved in utopian thinking and a lot of times it doesn’t allow for either a complex set of incentives or it doesn’t allow for the totality of human nature in its equation, and then it fails and because the structure of any kind of power is really complicated so I think in general the desire… and I understand that we’re living in, in some ways, I think just with the internet part of it, in some ways unprecedented times. And I understand people’s desire for certainty in times economic strife, cultural upheaval, all this stuff. I completely understand the desire for certainty. But I don’t think it’s as simple as demanding moral purity and punishing anyone who doesn’t fix the orthodox criteria. I understand the desire but I’m not sure it’s gonna get to where I think we want to be, which is just general more equality, whether it’s wealth equality, wealth disparity, all that kind of stuff I just think the matrices of power are really complicated.

You were saying earlier about Daddy and how you were thinking about your dad and the overlap between you two and how we all possibly become our parents. I was wondering how you consolidate the influences of your parents? I don’t know anything about them obviously but I know that your mum was a social worker, your dad was an entrepreneur, and those seem like two totally opposing worlds. Yes, my mother is a social worker and she instilled in all of us I think the idea that the work we do should be meaningful and she’s definitely really humanistic and that kind of thinking I think, that had an impression on me. My dad wasn’t an entrepreneur, my dad was a stock broker I think? But I grew up with my mom and my stepdad and my stepdad was a very different kind of guy, just was an army brat and grew up really poor, and was just coming from a different mindset and they’re just very different kinds of people. Not a judgement thing, just very different. Yeah my mom definitely errs on the very humble side. And yeah, my dad is a complicated, charismatic person who’s also very intelligent, and who went down a path that was full of consequence. Yeah they’re really, really different people so it’s funny to kind of square who was who.

What does your dad think of this album? Oh he loves it!

Yay, that’s good to know. Did you ever rebel against your dad’s lifestyle growing up as a teenager? I didn’t grow up with him, and he was in Tulsa Oklahoma. I don’t know what lifestyle you’re necessarily presuming but..

No I’m not presuming, just wanted a little background on your relationship with him I guess. So he wasn’t in your life that much where you were younger? I would go and we would spend summers there and Christmas, but I grew up in Dallas for the most part with my mom and my stepdad.

Was this album in any way an opportunity to get closer to your dad? Not in any way consciously, no.

  But are you finding with age and with time you’re getting closer to him? Well him being out of prison helps in terms of just proximity. Yeah, here’s what I’m finding. I’m finding that we live by the stories that we tell ourselves and that sometimes we realize that the story we’ve been telling ourselves for a long time was either wrong or lacked a certain amount of information, and then we have the choice of whether to reject the new information because it’s too painful to rethink the story that we’ve been telling ourselves, or assimilate the new information and go, wow life is complicated, this is an interesting wrinkle. I choose to do the latter.

  Yeah, it’s very easy to bullshit yourself, right? Yeah, it's true in all kind of ways you know?

This story, the story of your dad, it almost seems redemptive. I mean I would say so, and that’s not in any way what I intended and you know, a lot of times when you’re making something, I mean you’re a writer you know, you have the compulsion to make it but you’re not necessarily sure where it’s coming from or why or any of those kind of questions, but I think there is the possibility of redemption, I do, I think there is the possibility of people to change and I think there is a possibility of things like forgiveness and growth. And if I didn’t think that there was a possibility for human beings to change, to grow, to take in new information and then continue to write their story, then I don’t know what we’d really be doing, you know? And that’s not really the world I want to live in, we’re a moving picture we’re not a still photograph.

Do you want to try and change the world, do you feel like you have that power, do you feel hopeful that there can be a better future? Sorry for the cheesy language. No, I mean I don’t think that many people would accuse me of being an optimist in a lot of ways, and I don’t think in terms of my “power to change the world” I mean I think all I can do is try to study the human condition and write about the human condition in some way that resonates and then maybe people will hear that and that will resonate with them and I think that ultimately the best case scenario for music is empathy because it’s like psychologically this is why we like to listen to stories or this is why we like to watch movies is so we can go down the empathy exercise and you can see yourself as that person in the film, see someone who isn’t like you in any way, shape or form from a just box ticking kind of way, but then realize oh, we’re very similar in some ways or what would I do if I was in that situation, we do all these things and we live by these stories and I think those stories well-told can encourage empathy and empathy can go out into the world and have a kind of transformative experience. I don’t really think about, I mean I think once I make a thing and then it’s out in the world and it’s for other people to assimilate or enjoy or not, whatever, however they take it, is absolutely fine by me. But it’s for them, it’s not my place in any way to say how people should or should not enjoy it or assimilate it.

Yeah the reason I brought up prison abolition earlier is because that might be how some people contextualize this album. I would say that that’s one lens. That to me would not be the main lens.

[I’m told to wrap it up]

Yeah let’s wrap up. So Tool cover album next? No, I wish.

Someday I’m hoping. I love Tool.

I feel your Paul McCartney nerves Yeah, I’m gonna go shower.

That’s always a good idea. Okay take care, thank you again for you time Thanks, bye.

[tartagliaxx]

hihihi this is really important i have spotted a fellow barbie enthusiast and the chILDE HC ADKNRWOFKS

ahem

your fav movie and why? least fav movie? fav love interest? FAV S O N G/SOUNDTRACK? 😳 thank u for your service ❤️

pls i will do anything to discuss barbie movies with ppl 😃

OHOH AND WHICH DO YOU THINK ARE CHILDE’S FAVS/LEAST FAVS? (of the above qs)

this is so chaotic...on another note i’ve been dying to talk to u but i’m too s h y lfmaofjs you’re so lovely so thank u barbie for being the gateway for me to say smth to u again 😎

hope ur keeping well and hydrated!! 🦋💞 xx (i—don’t know if u can remember me via my trademark sign off 😃 but that’s ok if u don’t lmaoo)

HELLOOOO!!! ofc i remember you bby!! so nice of you to drop by 💕✨ i am doing very well, thank you for your concern! i hope you are too uwu! i also see a highly intellectual being who’s both a childe simp and a barbie enthusiast 👀

huge and long barbie analysis utc!

my favorite movie is probably princess charm school ONLY because delancy was a bad bitch and i stan her and bc that horrid, horrid scene w blair tripping and busting into this wack ass modern hiphop dance in the middle of nowhere is so ridiculously funny. i am sure its both the worst and best thing they could ever have done. also the harry potter wannabe is an accurate representation of my last standing brain cell. least favorite movie is probably nutcracker? no specific reason i just dont vibe w it very well. OMG my favorite one is ken in fashion fairy tale. he carried the whole movie ahahahahhaha. literally would pay to see more of the exasperated, ‘im-having-the-worst-time-of-my-life-in-paris’ ken. i remember the airplane scene and the one with the pig AHAHAHHAHA peak comedy. as for the favorite song,, might be cheating BUT all the songs in the diamond castle soundtrack is a bop and i love it.

feel free to send in more barbie brainrot. lowkey also curious about your answers to the same questions🤧

i am inclined to say that his fav movie would be three musketeers bc duh action (childe lives for that scene where they make their weapons and clothes... also the training montage) BUT listen... childe would one hundred percent love princess and the pauper bc of preminger. he totally lives off his dramatic ass and jokingly copied his antics to piss off his siblings but somehow, some of it stuck w him and now he sometimes unironically act like him w/o him noticing. least fav movie would be barbie diaries. he HATES it. he thinks its corny and stupid and cheesy and just... he gets nightmares over the horrid animation (ngl he does like a few lines tho). his favorite love interests? are the twins in diamond castle. he loves the humor and the jokes and the charming (in his eyes at least) vibe. i would go as far as saying he probs acts like them on purpose when trying to woo someone of their feet. second runner up would be aidan for that sass and sarcasm but still reliable vibe. fav song is a round back to preminger’s solo: how can i refuse. i just see him singing it in the shower ahahahhahaha. or maybe the twins’ song in diamond castle. the uhhhhh double vision? one. imagine him doing the guitar riffs in the air w stupid guitar vocalizations. he would be so ashamed if someone sees him but he cant help it... it’s his true nature 👀

oh my god this ended up being so long ashajallajsal my bad my bad. i got carried away and did this word vomit. barbie just gives me so much nostalgia and i want to flex my useless knowledge over it bc my family had a passed down cd compilation of barbie films and its just— i binged them every single day after classes. i loved them bc princesses duh but now i love them bc its just so.. full of crack mentality and i totally live for that.

and pls,, feel free to send an ask about anything! like i dont mind you telling me abt your day, or asking for advices or questions and even more brainrot like this! i understand how it feels to have extreme shyness but i promise!! i dont bite and i would love to be friends ❤️

you’re so sweet and take care of yourself bby!!

[dreamsinger-rose]

TWT - Supporting Characters

Original Characters

I’d forgotten how at home the trolls are in the air. They’re so short and stocky that they look a lot more suited to living underground, like traditional trolls in stories, but it’s literally an entire village of Olympic-level gymnasts. I confess to wondering if they use their hair to hang from things/for support when they are being *ahem* romantic with their significant other…

No rainbow blood. When Satin accidentally pricked her finger, it wasn’t rainbow-colored blood. Not quite red, either - it looked magenta to me.

We saw some new sides to Biggie. I was frankly shocked that Biggie could get so furious at Poppy. The cartoon series makes it seem as if he could never lose his temper. Also, the line he says about not being cute anymore, I kept wondering if that was from Biggie, or from his voice actor? Biggie does show some leadership later, though, which I like a lot. Great character development.

And also for Guy Diamond, focused not on himself anymore but on his baby. I liked that they dropped the whole glitter farts thing rather than keep up the joke before it got too old. When Tiny Diamond says he’s going to throw glitter in their faces we humans would take that as an insult or a threat, but I’m guessing the trolls (except for Branch, maybe) are probably like, “Aww…thank you!” LOL

Sadly, someone really wanted to make Smidge unlikeable; potty mouth and whining galore. She didn’t even say OMG, which disappointed me since for some reason it always sounds so amusing coming from a troll.

Cooper – Epic personal journey that provided a really personal connection to one of the new tribes. We see that his personality is like his TBGO character – not as oblivious/dumb as he acts sometimes, even though he doesn’t have a filter between his brain and his mouth.

New Characters

Cooper’s family and Hickory were standout characters. Despite his divided loyalties, Hickory proved himself to be a kind man with morals in the end. I just admired Cooper’s entire family - a strong family that encourages everyone to be who they are, and their tech and protectiveness and sheer coolness blew me away.

Legsly –  I read somewhere that she can’t extend her hair, which essentially makes her less capable in some ways than other trolls, but she clearly doesn’t think of herself as ‘physically challenged’, so I can see why Branch was admiring her at the beginning of the movie. Maybe we’ll get a cut scene about her on the DVD.

Queen Barb was a pretty good villain, whose motivation, thankfully, wasn’t just out of pure evil. She had a lot of funny and astute commentary. “Hating things takes a lot of energy.” So true, LOL. The scene where she tells Riff to help her dad make the Rock troll hand sign is adorable and shows that people are people, who care about those who are important to them, no matter what they dress like or what kind of music they enjoy. Notice the juice box says “Fiber”? LOL. Such a dedicated daughter.

*Canon confirmation of TBGO; we learn in the chainsaw scene that a troll’s hair CAN be cut without hurting them.

I liked Riff a lot, as the apprehensive but insistent voice of reason, a lot like Branch. Just like Poppy, Barb might find the companion she’s obviously looking for if she takes a closer look. Maybe if he’d stop hiding behind that hat she’d notice him, like how Branch finally emerged from his bunker. Hm. Smart and interested in technology. These two guys should talk. I bet they’d be good friends.

[zosonils]

did i hear. phineas and ferb break up episode 👀👀

Yee Haw Babey i don’t quite have an entire episode’s worth of details figured out but here’s how it’d roughly be structured

>i haven’t figured out what they would even have to fight over yet [like i said a recurring theme of the series is that they’re absolutely ride or die supportive of each other, which is probably why this episode never happened lmao], but it’d be something which while ultimately inconsequential is pretty important to both of them. ideally they’d both be equally right/wrong, and no lines would be crossed, so the inevitable 14,000-post long forum debates over which of them was in the right will be boring and easy to ignore

>whatever the fuck incites this is either the opening scene of the episode, a mystery until the reveal near the end, or some noodle incident that never gets fully explained. one way or another, by the time they would usually be going through the Ferb I Know What We’re Going To Do Today Hey Where’s Perry routine, they aren’t on speaking terms

>at this point the a-plot kinda divides into two subplots, one following each of the brothers. phineas is trying to go about his usual shenanigans without ferb’s help, struggling to ignore the fact that he is repeatedly being punched in the face by how much harder everything is alone. meanwhile candace is trying to prod an explanation out of ferb as to why he’s sulking and playing spore creatures for the nintendo ds [please play spore creatures for the nintendo ds it’s unironically good] instead of doing something bustable outside

>candace teams up with isabella, baljeet and buford to figure out what’s going on and put an end to it - the gamer gang because watching them try to get on without each other is frankly depressing as fuck, candace because only busting one of her brothers would feel underwhelming

>the b-plot is that doof has invented a CARD-INATOR that will turn anything it hits into a card, because nothing is more disappointing than expecting a present only to just get a card. he plans to fuck roger over with this somehow. this will be relevant later.

>god it would be so funny if there was like a duet-structured song set up like they’re going to sing about wanting to make up but not knowing where to start, phineas has like a touching little verse where he openly acknowledges that he looks up to ferb a lot and he doesn’t know where to go without him, and then it gets to the point where you would logically assume ferb gets a verse and it’s just AUDIBLY UPSET HUMMING with like occasional cuts to candace and the gamer gang looking concerned that then pan back to ferb lying on the couch with his ds angrily making microwave noises and trying not to cry

>another verse where phineas talks about his instinct to protect and stand up for ferb and how he feels like he’s failed at the first step of that, brief instrumental break, cut back to ferb just having an entire anxiety attack in the living room at this point and humming loudly to try and calm himself down, conveniently he’s still perfectly in tune,

>phineas’ invention of the day ends up being something characteristically elaborate that’s themed towards ferb’s interests somehow, because this boy has no fucking clue how to navigate conversations about emotions and the only way he can think to apologise is by making something over-the-top for ferb instead of like. talking about it. he is so stupid god bless

>ferb, on the other hand, has apparently planned out a long and heartfelt apology-slash-request to make up with the help of candace and the gamer gang. various jokes are made about how elaborate this is in its own way. he’s got cue cards. he has a coloured poster board like a year 8 science project except it’s titled Phineas I’m Not Mad Anymore Please Can We Be Friends Again. there’s a diorama with moving parts and led lights installed. it’s heavily implied that he made at least one powerpoint presentation

>after spending most of the episode going from the living room to the backyard and back again, the gamer gang and candace head outside with ferb in tow to finally set up the moment of reconciliation. ferb looks at his first cue card like he’s going to read off it, then throws it to the side as he and phineas immediately forget their elaborate plans and just run headfirst into each other and hug and cry like the upset kids they are

>phineas and ferb have apparently made up, and not a moment too soon, because beep fucking beep linda is home and there is still a fuckoff massive apology gift and a very extensive powerpoint presentation in the backyard. candace briefly wonders if she’d really stoop so low as to turn the boys’ genuine emotional conflict into a busting opportunity, only to instantly decide that she absolutely would and immediately go into the MUM HOLY FUCK routine

>right before either of the boys can introduce their elaborate apology presentations, doof and perry’s fight of the day causes the card-inator to fire into the flynn-fletcher backyard as inators so often do, reducing both phineas’ invention and ferb’s multimedia presentation to cards. candace triumphantly tells linda to take a look at the boys’ extremely dangerous conflict resolution skills. linda takes a look. she thinks that it was very cute of them to make each other cards to say sorry for fighting. candace bursts a blood vessel

>oh there you are perry, phineas and ferb agree that they’ll never ever fight again, someone says something funny, guitar riff, cut to black

i made about a third of this up on the spot as i was writing it but yeah that’s how i think this episode would go! now that i’m thinking about it i want to actually flesh this out more, maybe write it a proper script or something

[jgroffdaily]

Warning: This article contains spoilers about Frozen 2

When Frozen premiered in 2013 and didn’t feature any significant solo songs for star Jonathan Groff, some fans were understandably miffed. After all, Groff earned Tony nominations for his roles in the Broadway musicals Spring Awakening and Hamilton (maybe you’ve heard of it?), and he played Jesse St. James in the musical-comedy series Glee. In other words, the man can sing.

Much to his (and fans’) delight, Frozen 2 rectifies this issue with the ’80s soft-rock ballad “Lost in the Woods,” which his character Kristoff sings surrounded by reindeer. The scene is reminiscent of cheesy music videos of the era and is one of the film’s highlights.

Ahead of Frozen 2’s opening weekend, Groff spoke with EW about his first reaction to the song, why he was worried it would get cut, the importance of seeing “a Disney leading man with a sensitive side,” and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The only solo snippet we got from you in the first Frozen was the short number “Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People.” Were you aware going into the second film that people were upset that you didn’t sing more in the original? JONATHAN GROFF: Well, that’s actually funny you say that about the reindeer thing because I feel like with Frozen 2, they didn’t take the easy route, which would have been to do a re-creation of the first movie or introduce a bunch of new characters. They just sort of dug in deeper with the characters from the first movie and cooked things and expanded on them. And they told me they were going to try and write me a song for the second movie, and I couldn’t imagine how they were going to do it. And then part of what inspired that song that I get in the second film is this weird personality quirk that Kristoff has where he expresses his emotions and subconscious through that weird voice for his pet reindeer, Sven — just as many of us who have pets do weird voices for — and that was sort of a funny joke in the first movie. Then in the second movie that quirk ends up becoming an entire ’80s soft-rock jam, and it’s sort of Kristoff’s way of expressing his deep, deep emotional feelings that he has for Anna. So they took that little quirk from the first movie and then expanded it into this intimate epic ’80s number.

What was your first reaction whenever they introduced you to the song and its concept? I honestly couldn’t believe that they were going to take such a left turn. I thought, “Oh, I can’t imagine that an ’80s slow jam is going to not get cut from the final product of Frozen 2,” because it was so shocking and surprising and jarring. And I think that’s part of what makes it so brilliant in the movie. It’s also really kind of a gift for the adults watching the movie because, you know, I’ve seen it three times, and the adults in the crowd are the ones that are getting all of the kind of ’80s references in the animation and the sort of execution of the song. The kids are laughing too, but the adults are the ones that are really in on the joke, and I’m thrilled that it made it into the final cut.

It’s so funny you say that, because earlier this week I was talking with a co-worker who had taken her daughter to a screening of the film. And she said her daughter got so mad at that part because she couldn’t understand why all the adults were laughing at Kristoff. [Laughs] They’re like, “Kristoff is really going through it!” It’s so funny because it makes sense. Even when we were recording it, I talked a lot with [composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez] about toeing the line between emotion and camp, and telling the joke of the song, but also doing it with real sincerity. Because those songs from the ’80s, they’re not making a joke. I mean, it seems like it’s funny now because they are such a music of a specific time period. But in those moments of those videos, it was a more innocent time. And there was a purity to it that we sort of laugh at now, but that purity is also actually what the character is feeling. So it was fun to kind of just have that balance of awareness and camp, but also actual emotion that maybe that little girl is plugged into, of “He’s really going through it.”

And you provided the vocals for all the reindeer in the song too, right? Yeah, I think it’s like 18 different vocal tracks that I laid in. It was the Kristoff and the Kristoff harmonies, and then the Sven background and the Sven background harmonies.

So we went from having not enough Jonathan Groff to having — Eighteen different vocal lines. [Laughs] Yeah, it’s chock-full in that particular song.

The film of course features plenty of empowering moments for young girls, but do you feel like having Kristoff sing a song might also be empowering to the little boys who are watching? I really do think so. I love that Kristoff is a Disney leading man with a sensitive side. And that’s what this song really expresses, is sort of his soulfulness. And oftentimes in entertainment, we’re seeing a man go off on an adventure and a girl left back at home singing about her feelings. And then this, as Frozen often does, they inverted it, and Anna goes off on an epic adventure and Kristoff is left to sing about his feelings and his love for her. And then when he joins the action towards the end of the film, he’s not there to sort of take control and take the spotlight. He’s there to support her. He rescues her from getting stomped on by a giant, and the first thing he says is, “I’m here for you, what do you need?” I think we really need to hear men saying that to women right now, culturally. And then at the end of the movie, she’s like, “I’m sorry that things are so crazy.” And he says, “It’s okay, my love is not fragile.” And that sort of enduring, supportive partner is, I think, a beautiful thing to have in an animated movie, both as an example for women of what they deserve and for men to take a page from Kristoff’s book.

Speaking of Kristoff’s playbook, how would you rate his proposal in the end? I think he nailed it because it came from the heart. And he meant it. He just felt it in the moment. It’s not that the other proposals were failures. It just wasn’t there. He saw it as a failure, I think, because he was feeling self-conscious, but it just was not the right time. And I think he spoke from the heart at the right time. I think that’s all you can ask when you’re expressing your deepest feelings for someone, which is just to know when the moment is to say it, and it just so happened that the three previous times weren’t the exact right moment.

A third film has not officially been announced, but if you could envision a song for Kristoff in a potential sequel, what would it be like? Oh, this is a really tough question because I couldn’t even imagine how Kristoff was going to sing in the second movie. I was like, “How are they going to get a mountain man to sing a song?” And they were so sweet, Bobby and Kristen, for saying, “We’re going to really try and get you to sing in this one.” And they ended up creating that ’80s ballad that I could have never in my wildest dreams imagined would have happened. So, I honestly have no idea.

Well, at the end of the film Anna becomes queen, which would make Kristoff the king… so maybe a riff on another song in the Disney canon, “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King”? [Laughs] That’s the irony of it, though, is that that’s not what he’s angling for. He’s just there to support her. I don’t know, is he a king if really the queen is the ruler? Yes, I guess he is, technically. It’s definitely not a position that he ever was anticipating or had the ambition to have. So maybe the words would have to change if we did that song.

Frozen 2 is in theaters now.

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #85: “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” | December 7, 2003 - 11:30 PM | S08E04

Happy 20th anniversary, Adult Swim. And, boy, what a momentous episode of Ghost do we have here to celebrate. There are a number of episodes where the guest is an event unto itself and this is truly one of them. Frequent punchline William Shatner is an absolute cunt... and a proper legend. His cuntiness and legendary status are two things that seem to be at odds with one another, and the Space Ghost crew have managed to come up with an artfully idiosyncratic episode to match Shatner’s weird-guy-ness. It’s a classic for sure, and important. But (making a “smug dipshit” face) is it funny?

YES! It’s FUNNY! I will admit though, the first time I saw this episode I didn’t quite know what to make of it. This is partially because I’m very much a Star Trek agnostic. I’ve never been into Star Trek. In the last few years I’ve watched most of the pre-Next Gen motion pictures for inane list-making reasons, and I enjoyed them to varying degrees, but Star Trek is truly not for me. I’m more of a... well, I’m not a Star Wars guy either. What’s the other one? Uh... Spaceballs. That’s it. I’m more of a Spaceballs guy.

But I feel like I’ve absorbed a lot of Star Trek lore through cultural osmosis. I vaguely understand that William Shatner has had some deliberately-paced choreographed fight scene on those rocks from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. When I hear music similar to the the music that Jim Carrey hums in The Cable Guy, I’m pretty sure whatever it is I’m watching is doing a Star Trek thing. And yes, I’ve watched every single Red Letter Media “Mike and Rich talk about Star Trek for 4 hours” video. But even today, after having picked up more Star Trek knowledge on my journey to the grave, I still have this nagging feeling of “I only sort of get this”.

Still, this episode has a handful of screamingly funny lines, and the episode ends wonderfully, with Space Ghost in his death throes, suffering the ultimate indignity of dying in front of William Shatner. There’s also the part where Zorak asks why everyone in Star Trek is black, and a part where Moltar nervously reads from his fan fiction (from a book labeled TARD WARS, hahaha). Shatner, who has a reputation for being arrogant and difficult, is as good a sport as one could hope. The show makes good use of his hammier moments, and only shits on him slightly in the process. The most notable moment is when Shatner says to Zorak “didn't you and I fight to the death?” to which Zorak replies “That sounds pretty dumb, man”. I’ve actually quoted this line many times. It’s one of the best.

Also, for those of you who like to track these things: the show features callbacks to other episodes and shows; the handimen at Zorak’s apartment are clearly extras from Sealab 2020/2021, one of the Leprechauns from Aqua Teen Hunger Force shows up, and there’s a poignant callback to classic Space Ghost episode “Banjo”. 

The title motif of this season is naming the episodes after Allman Brothers songs, and I always wondered about this one. Maybe I’m reaching, and it’s probably too disrespectful to be true, but I always thought that it was somehow a veiled reference to Shatner’s wife, whom he supposedly killed or let die. It’s simply too dark to be true, but it’s the first thought that immediately jumped to my mind when I first heard the title of this episode. Am I stupid for thinking this? Am I stupid because it OBVIOUSLY is a reference to that?? I simply do not know. I would like to know.

MAIL BAG

The big anniversary is upon us. What are your 20 favorite things about adult swim for 20 years going. Don't sleep on this question!

I gotta do SOMETHING special, so I might as well do this. More thought could have gone into this, but I spent about an hour trying to come up with episodes or moments from 20 different shows and putting them in rough chronological order. I limited myself to one episode/scene/moment/joke/whatever per show so it’s not all Space Ghost jokes. So, here we go:

Sealab 2021: “I, Robot”. Adult Swim proved it could be brilliant right out of the gate with the stealth premiere of “I, Robot”, but for Sealab it’s all downhill from here. (2000)

Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Space Ghost stops in his tracks to reminisce about the time Bobcat Goldthwait said "crack a window". The entire episode “Kentucky Nightmare” is brilliant, but this moment in particular so uniquely captures my sense of humor that it’s inexplicable. The dumb look on Space Ghost’s face when he stops in his tracks. Goddamn. (2001)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: “Mayhem of the Mooninites” I tried very hard to make this all be individual jokes or scenes or whatever, but this is another episode where the entire thing is just line after line and I can’t really pick. This, “I Robot”, and “Kentucky Nightmare” is like a perfect trio illustrating how good Adult Swim really was right out of the gate. (2001)

Home Movies: Jason casually reveals that his parents have no idea who Brendon and Melissa are and that he spends most of his free-time making movies with them. This is the episode “Storm Warning” which is overall one of the best episodes of Home Movies, but this scene is probably my favorite. Illustrates how simple and hilarious the comedy is on this show. (2002)

Tom Goes to the Mayor: the end scene in “Undercover”, where they’ve shoddily reversed Tom’s various unnecessary surgeries and called him “Taumpy Tears” to boot. Positively sublime. (2006)

Metalocalypse: Dr. Rockso’s music video. From the episode “Dethclown”. I was never in love with this show as much as the true fans were, but there were a handful of incredible episodes. This episode basically tells one joke over and over and it’s very funny. It really ends with a bang showcasing Dr. Rockso’s shitty music video that celebrates cocaine use. His singing voice is hilarious. (2006)

Assy McGee: I am the only person in the world that defends Assy McGee as being “actually pretty good” and it’s all entirely due to this one line: Assy McGee (a pair of naked buttocks with legs, whose ass functions as his head) is forced to attend a black tie event and is just milling around wearing nothing but a black bow tie. Through clenched anus he delivers the line “I can barely breathe in this penguin suit”. The whole show is worth it for that joke. I don’t even know what episode it is except that it’s from one of the first few. I might not even have the line exactly right. But, I remember laughing so hard. I may not have laughed at Assy McGee again. (2006)

Saul of the Mole Men: The opening theme song. And nothing else. (2007)

Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!: Jim and Derrick. I should pick something more user-friendly maybe, since this episode almost entirely relies on being familiar with Tim & Eric’s previous episodes. But goddamn, this episode is such a funny concept (which is basically Tim & Eric doing an alternate MTV-ified version of Awesome Show) (2008)

Moral Orel: “Numb”. When Moral Orel suddenly stopped being a quirky Adult Swim comedy and suddenly started doing episodes that resembled art films. This episode is a fucking masterpiece. I remember sobbing the first time I saw it. There are a few in season 3 that are like that, but this one is my favorite. (2008)

Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule: Terry Bruge-Hiplo reviews “Dumpster’s Children”. Another bit of comedy that I’d describe as “inexplicable” and “sublime”, and it all hinges on an old man’s mouth. Holy fuck. I don’t think I’ve laughed harder than this at a TV show since. (2010)

Delocated: The ending of “Mole”, an extended Face/Off riff where Jon goes undercover as the scary mobster Sergei. In the final moments of the episode he marries a woman, fathers multiple children with her, and only then is pulled out of the mission. The episode is a tour-de-force of comic acting by Steve Cirbus, who is graciously allowed to shine for most of the episode. But man, that ending is fucking wonderful. (2010)

Venture Bros.: The ending of “Operation P.R.O.M.” a flurry of emotions hit me when “Like a Friend” by Pulp starts playing. The scene is so well done and weirdly touching. Brock realizes that deep down he gives a shit about the Venture family and is genuinely terrified something might happen to them. And then he gets to slaughter a bunch of Zorak monsters, which is also weirdly sweet. It’s even touching on a meta-level knowing that Jackson and Doc tried many times and failed to include licensed music in the show. I love Venture Bros, but I think we’d all be better off if this were the series finale. Sorry. I had to say it. (2010)

The Heart She Holler: The first scene with Patton being taught the way of the world posthumously by his father on a VHS tape. The first season of this show is amazing, but that scene, especially where Patton does a little Japanese bow and says “oh, hot dog!” is just hysterical. Literally every time a hot dog comes up in conversation my wife and I quote it. Please, do not scorn her, it’s not racist when SHE does it. (2011)

Eagleheart: The All That Jazz inspired finale. “Paradise Rising” is mostly a masterpiece, and how it ends is so fucking incredible. Easily the most under-rated show on Adult Swim and I’m not just saying that because... you know (mimes dick-sucking) (2014)

Rick and Morty: I watched the first two episodes of Rick and Morty, thought it was good, but for some reason didn’t become a devotee until my wife made me watch the Mr. Poopybutthole episode. It’s still my favorite episode, I think. (2015)

Brett Gelman’s Dinner in America: The “Dinner with” specials are all really good, but goddamn, this one hits. Should be shown in schools. I am going to go to every grade school in my county with an AR-15 (to get past the guards, of course) and I won’t leave until they call an assembly and they let me fumble around trying to find it on vimeo and play it for the students. (2016)

The Eric Andre Show: Eric interviews Steve Schirripa. The bit where he has an intern dip his balls in Steve’s spaghetti sauce is hilarious, naturally, but I’m here to showcase the running gag where every time Steve complains how hot the studio is, Eric just wordlessly hands him an ice cube until Steve explodes. It’s one of the most childishly hilarious things I’ve ever seen. It’s perfect. (2016)

Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace: The Pick-Up artist sketch. I’m mostly unimpressed with MDE, and all but a few Sam Hyde bits leave me cold. But this sketch is a crowning achievement. I mean, I think these guys suck politically and are more mean than funny, but their sensibilities yielded one really incredible piece of comedy. Okay, I laughed at the blackface sketch too. There. You dragged it out of me. (2016) Joe Pera Talks With You: This show is beautiful and I love every episode. But the episode “Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements” Wherein Joe discovers a new-to-him song and can’t stop listening to it, is one of the most joyous episodes of television I’ve ever seen. A gateway episode. I tell everyone to please watch this one first. (2018)

[impalementation]

I think your take on Doublemeat Palace is interesting because to me it's emblematic of all the things that make Season 6 (particularly the back half after "Tabula Rasa") not work for me. It's relentlessly grim and unpleasant and I can feel the writers twisting the plot to make sure every character is as miserable as possible. I'm not opposed to seeing protagonists in a low point or even outright failing. Season 3 of Game of Thrones is some of my favorite TV ever. (1/2)

(2/2) But at a certain point the grim and gritty, if it's not well written, and broken up with some moments of lightness (like Buffy was previously known for) the audience gets numb. It also doesn't help that no one has any agency. (Magicrack, the not!wedding, Dawn doing zip) Again, I'm not opposed to dark plotlines. I'm opposed to incompetent writing.I don't think you can call an episode or an arc "objectively" good if it doesn't work for the majority of the audience it's been written for. 

 you know, i’m going to disagree about the “grim and gritty” thing. doublemeat palace actually stands out to me as being really funny. and for having a lowkey positive ending. true, the episode is about the soul-sucking prospect of having to do the same dreary work every day. it’s about how much it sometimes sucks to work, which is why you have willow dealing with the fact that recovery is a difficult thing that you have to decide to commit to every day, xander and anya facing the fact that marriage is also a lifelong daily commitment, and buffy taking an unpleasant and mechanical job in order to put food on the table (and the episode plays up that the managers have been doing it for five or ten years). but like, names like “manny the manager”? the weirdo robotic people? the exaggerated camera angles? the swirling cow and chicken? buffy’s constant attempts at jokes? “hot delicious human flesh”? a little old lady with penis monster on her head? this stuff is totally absurdist. i think of doublemeat palace as almost the opposite of episodes like once more with feeling and tabula rasa, where things superficially seem fun but are actually quite dark. doublemeat palace seems superficially unpleasant but actually has a wicked sense of humor. and i say that the ending is positive because it involves both willow and buffy committing to doing work. they’re faced with the opportunity to “cheat” at life like the trio, who steal money instead of having jobs, but ultimately decide to do the right thing. willow doesn’t accept amy’s magic and buffy doesn’t blackmail the company. 

that goes for a lot of season six, in my opinion. even late season six. people say there was less humor, and i think that’s true to an extent, but honestly i think it’s more that the tone of the humor changed. it got more sardonic and absurd, but was definitely still there. eg people think of seeing red as the episode where the two Very Bad Things happened, but outside of those scenes a lot of the episode is like, fascinatingly (to me) slapstick (the whole jetpack bonanza? “say goodnight bitch” “goodnight, bitch”). and has that really lovely conversation between buffy and xander at the end. in general, i think a lot more season six episodes have positive endings than it gets a reputation for. i already mentioned the ending of doublemeat palace. but the end of gone has buffy saying she doesn’t want to die, the end of older and far away has buffy deciding to stay home with dawn, the end of as you were has buffy deciding to break up with spike, and the end of grave has buffy, willow, and spike all making important changes for the better. as in, season six can be very dark, yes. but i would not call it a hopeless or cynical kind of dark. it’s about the characters clawing their way out of that dark place. not just a statement that “adulthood sucks.” you can argue that the season didn’t pull off its attempts at lightness, but i very much think they’re there. 

at any rate, i agree to an extent that if a work of art isn’t working on most people, that’s probably a sign it’s doing something wrong. but i’d offer the counterpoint that you might also say that if a work of art really works on some people, even if not everyone, it’s probably doing something right. as far as the season as a whole goes, i’d actually take issue, on a basic factual level, with the claim that it didn’t work on the majority of people. not to validate IMDB’s ratings for buffy’s episodes, but it does have an n=~2000 sample size and if you average out the ratings by season, season six doesn’t rank starkly lower than any other season. it’s on the less popular side, but it still hovers around an 8.0 average like most of the other seasons. moreover if you go by the big r/buffy polls (n=~120-310), season six ranks in the top three favorite seasons every year they did one (2011: 3 > 6 > 2, 2012: 6 = 3 > 5, 2013: 6 > 3 > 5, 2014: 3 > 6 > 5, 2017: 5 > 3 > 6). you can see the data for yourself if you scroll down to where it says “surveys”. perfectly possible that there’s data that paints a totally different picture. this is just what i had on hand. that ranking also doesn’t mean the majority of people liked the season, but it does act as evidence that there are a lot of people whom it really worked on. basically, i wouldn’t say that season six is disliked so much as it’s divisive. people seem to either love it or hate it. with a smaller percentage that likes it, but for whom it isn’t a favorite. or who appreciate what it was trying to do but don’t think that it succeeded. 

as far as doublemeat palace goes i notice a similar phenomenon. people either really hate it or they really relate to it. either they think the style is bizarre and annoying or they think it’s delightfully surreal. so it really seems like it’s up to the individual whether they want to lend more credence to one audience reaction or another in order to assess quality. 

which is why i tend to use my own rubric. when i ask myself whether something is good or bad, i pay a lot of attention to (1) is the work trying to do or say something specific? (2) how unusual or challenging or astute is the thing the work is saying? (3) how coherently is it doing that, and on how many different levels? (4) on a formal level—dialogue, cinematography, costuming, acting, pacing—how fluently was it executed, and how well did the formal choices contribute to the ideas in (1)? 

for the record, i don’t think that doublemeat palace is the best episode ever. i just think it’s solid, and fits nicely into what i think the season as a whole was doing. but the reason i say that it’s “objectively” solid according to my personal rubric—which granted, you’re more than welcome to not share—is that (1) it has a pretty clear idea that it’s exploring. the drudgery of work stuff that i mentioned in the first paragraph. moreover i think that idea is really relevant to the season-long topic of “what makes it feel like adulthood sucks”. buffy having to take a menial food job fits into the season’s food motif that i talked about once, which in turn fits character-wise with buffy’s ambivalence about being alive. a somewhat grotesque/humiliating job fits with the mood of material existence being unpleasant. (also, xander impulsively chowing down on food speaks to him probably not being ready for commitment) (2) i think this whole subject was just hella daring for the show to do. having been a poor and suicidally depressed 22 year old in a fucked up sexual relationship while working a menial job, season six and episodes like doublemeat palace just ring true to me as something for a show about growing up to depict. sometimes real life really is a grind, and sometimes it really does feel profane, absurd, surreal, etc. (3) i really like the way that buffy, willow, and xander and anya’s stories all fit the theme of episode but in different ways. i wouldn’t say the episode is a super nuanced take on drudgery, but it does have layers thanks to the three different storylines, and it comes off as clearly conscious and oriented around its theme. there are other parallels like amy, spike, and halfrek each being influences, too. (4) there’s some cool formal execution. not all of it. willow’s story, like a lot of her mid-season-six arc, is kind of tediously on-the-nose. but i enjoy pretty much every second of buffy’s part of the episode, because the direction is so in control of it. and i like the absurdist and genre-conscious playfulness. the soylent green riff, etc. 

i also disagree on your assessment of agency in the season but this post is long enough as it is. regardless, i certainly don’t begrudge you your opinion. it’s an often clumsy season. it also sounds like we enjoy things in different ways--i genuinely don’t care too much about writers contorting things in the interest of theme. i’m mainly trying to push against the implications (1) that the season was obviously just trying to be dark and grim, and just for it’s own sake or something. instead of for deliberate and interconnected artistic reasons that one could analyze and talk about, and (2) that there is some monolithic opinion on and response to it.

[ducktracy]

151. he was her man (1937)

release date: january 2nd, 1937

series: merrie melodies

director: friz freleng

starring: n/a

1937, what a year you are! this is the year that the looney tunes become looney to me, when they truly become recognizable as the shorts we love today. the biggest contribution of the year is mel blanc’s debut with porky the wrestler. daffy is born (as is petunia), ub iwerks becomes a director, his unit soon taken over by bob clampett, the merry go round broke down is instated as the looney tunes theme song, porky says his first that’s all folks... we have lots to look forward to! so as not to get too ahead of ourselves, we’ll focus on he was her man: the leave of a mouse’s husband does little to soften the blow of the great depression, and the poor mouse struggles to survive in the harsh world.

for once, berneice hansell isn’t providing the vocals for the poor, freezing mouse unsuccessfully peddling apples in the snowy streets. i’m not sure who it is—if i were forced to guess, i’d say martha wentworth, but that doesn’t seem quite right. regardless, selling apples at five cents a pop isn’t going too well for her as apathetic townspeople trudge by. there’s a rather prolonged and tedious gag of a thermometer dipping in temperature with each temperature. the gag itself is too drawn out to get a good laugh, but the catcall whistle as the temperature reaches WAY WAY BELOW! makes the gag slightly rewarding.

the mouse’s customers aren’t buying, and certainly aren’t in the consumer spirit. one passerby goes as far as to bite the apple straight out of her hand, leaving just the core, refusing to pay. the mouse is just about to pack up when a rather portly gentleman who seems to have his share of money approaches her for one. she thanks him as she ogles at her shiny, silver coin, unable to believe it. for safekeeping, she drops the coin down her shirt, the coin slithering all the way into her shoe.

content with the transaction, she heads home, skipping along gaily as she totes her basket of apples. the walk cycle is rather amusing because of how awkward it is—at first i thought it was because she had an entire COIN in her shoe, but i don’t think that’s the case. amusing regardless. as she gallops along, she thinks of her sweetheart, a rather brute, tough, scrappy looking mouse who doesn’t seem to be very friendly. regardless, she views him as a regular clark gable—literally, as his head turns into that of an amusing clark gable caricature. a very funny way of storytelling, but sad at the same time, as you can imagine her real boyfriend doesn’t treat her too kindly.

approaching her apartment, we get a rather long, stretched out gag that’s amusing at first but becomes stale rather quickly. as the little mouse tinkers up the stairs, a naked pig exits a bathroom, covered only by a towel. he spots the approaching mouse and hides back in the bathroom, doing a pseudo mel blanc giggle (that’s not actually him, but i’ve heard it in mel blanc cartoons. porky in egypt comes to mind when the camel summons porky to the mirage.) the oblivious little mouse heads up to the next floor, and the same exact gag resumes—the naked pig exits another bathroom and hides when the mouse approaches. the gag then repeats for a THIRD and final time as she heads up the next staircase. it’s an amusing gag, but certainly extended its welcome.

next, we hone in on a closeup of an upturned hat being used as a basket for playing cards. a pan out reveals that the mouse’s “clark gable” is perched on his bed, throwing playing cards into the hat, cigar in mouth and beer by his side. his girlfriend pokes her head in—“yoohoo! hello, johnny!” johnny doesn’t answer. the mouse places her shawl and basket of apples by the door, approaching johnny’s chaise lounge. “good evening, johnny.” “well? fork over the dough.” it can’t be mel blanc, but johnny’s voice certainly does sound like it. i believe it’s the same person who voiced the gangster bird in i’m a big shot now.

an amusing closeup of the mouse’s shoe as she presses one of her buttons reading NO SALE. surely enough, the tongue of her shoe serves as a red NO SALE sign while the bottom sole extends like a cash register, its contents just a couple of coins. “i did pretty good today,” she tells johnny, collecting the four coins and placing them in johnny’s outstretched palm. the timing is very nice and heavy in the next scene as johnny counts the coins and freezes. “come on, come on, where’s the dough?” his girl shakes her head and gives a muffled “i don’t know”, but it’s clear she’s hiding something in her mouth. johnny pries her mouth open, and a telltale gold coin is perched right on top of her tongue. “sooo... holding out on me, huh?” johnny threatens to hit her, and she shields herself. she attempts to explain herself, but johnny switches the topic. “how about some dinner?” gladly, the mouse takes her leave.

while the mouse prepares to make dinner, johnny looks out of his window. outside in the snowy streets is a voluptuous mae west caricatured mouse heading into the nearby saloon, and johnny is sold. shifty eyed, johnny appears to take leave as we transition to his innocent girlfriend cooking him bacon and eggs, singing “i’d love to take orders from you” (how appropriate.) the eggs and bacon on the skillet are arranged in a skull and crossbones, bubbling along to the music. good timing as the mouse notices this, squeaks, and turns her sunny side up meal into scrambled eggs as she hurriedly rearranges the eggs on the skillet. “oh johnny, dinner’s ready!”

she goes to retrieve her abusive boyfriend, but with no luck. he isn’t in his usual chaise lounge, but there IS a note in his place: “i’m thru with you — so long! johnny” in a panic, she looks for her boyfriend, calling his name repeatedly. there are a few intriguing angles, such as an up shot as the mouse searches under the bed. the wipe transitions break momentum and urgency, though—no transition is needed. (i guess i’m still thinking of the cuts in porky in the north woods) there IS a rather funny scene as she begins to faint, but catches herself. she skitters a few step backwards, approaching a pillow on the floor, and decides she’s much more comfortable passing out there.

another clever gag as we have a time card that reads “time staggers on!” with that, a drunken, hiccuping alarm clock stumbles across the screen. the gag in itself is very much reminiscent of the gag in the girl at the ironing board, another friz cartoon where a knight literally topples over to the ground.

in the saloon, the heartbroken mouse sings a lovely rendition of “he was her man”, while the gangsters and other bad seeds fight over the free lunch, paying little attention to the song. while she’s singing, none other than johnny himself strolls arm in arm with his mae west mouse into the saloon, patrons tipping their hats out of respect. johnny’s ex-girl spots him and happily declares “JOHNNY!”, leaping off the stage and rushing to meet him. she embraces him, but johnny pushes her off coldly. “beat it! i’m through with you!”

the mouse begs for johnny return, clinging onto him, but he refuses. her incessant clinging turns into a mini dance routine as both try to push each other opposite ends, with johnny hitting her and she smacking him back (good for her! put up a fight!) on the head, pounding him into his own shoes, with just a bowler hat poking out. a similar gag would be reused in another freleng classic, daffy the commando, with the ever cowardly turtle SHUUUUUUULTZ! shultz. johnny waddles around, pulling himself out of his hat, and whacks her repeatedly. the musical timing is excellent, a mini dance routine on its own, but very morbid and disturbing. johnny beats her senseless and propels her across the room, a spittoon decorating her head to contribute to the humiliation.

thankfully, she fights back with a vengeance. the mouse grabs a nearby gun on a table and fires, repeatedly. paul smith animates the outcome as johnny narrowly dodges the bullets. “hey, be careful! you’s gonna hurt someone!” while this doesn’t come off as a joking manner, this is the first time that line has been used, which would often be used as a punchline (like daffy in riff raffy daffy: “just a minute! you’re gonna hurt somebody that way! probably me.”) and he’s right; a bullet pings him right in the chest. johnny staggers around, gasping “ya got me... ya got me...” (another first for a frequently used punchline), eventually collapsing to the ground.

johnny’s “girlfriend” panics, rushing to his side. she begs that he speak to her, crying and shaking him, but to no avail. just as she puts her head in her arms, johnny perks up, totally fine. “aww,” he sneers, “ya just grazed me.” the mouse is not having it, and smashes johnny over the head with a bottle, rendering him unconscious. good!

the next shot we find a mouse freezing out in the snow, bracing against the blustery wind, peddling apples. but it isn’t johnny’s girlfriend. in fact, it’s johnny himself. “nice red apple. apples? apples?” we pan up to see johnny’s girlfriend lounging on the all too familiar chaise, contentedly tossing playing cards into a hat. the mae west mouse from before strolls by, and johnny takes kindly to her, calling her a babe and buttering her up. all we see is a bottle hitting johnny on the head, but we know who the perpetrator is as johnny reverts back to peddling his apples like before. iris out.

an interesting approach for sure. not often you find a looney tunes drama—eventually, all of the dramas would be very clear parodies of themselves (such as tex avery’s dangerous dan mcfoo.) this is a much more somber cartoon for sure, but still has its share of laughs. some scenes dragged on too long for my tastes, primarily in the beginning half, like the thermometer gag or the gag of the naked pig, but the second half picked up the pace rather nicely. this isn’t my favorite friz cartoon (it was certainly hard to watch at times), but i commend him for making such a moody cartoon. it has a VERY good story with good storytelling, and certainly arises interest. his musical timing is superb as always, especially during the confrontation at the saloon between johnny and his girlfriend. i’m neutral on this one: i’d watch it just to check out the storytelling and see such a different, moody approach to a cartoon, but there are better cartoons out there. if you do watch it, view with discretion because it deals with abuse and some scenes are definitely hard to watch. but johnny gets what he deserves in the end, and that’s all that matters to me.

link!

[jq37]

Ok thoughts on Six on Broadway fresh out of the theater (2/16; 3PM show):

First and most importantly it totally lived up to the hype that I've been trying and failing to not build up in my head since last year. And this might be the hypest audience I've ever been in. Everyone in line was talking like they already knew what was up and I saw a good amount of people in like crowns and space buns and stuff. And every single time a Queen got burned during the show, everyone “OOOOOOH”-ed like we were on Wild ‘N Out or something. 

While I was in line, I’m 95% sure I saw Toby Marlow sprint past me and then return 10 minutes later with a slice of pizza. 

I got a pin and I asked the dude for an Aragon pin and he was like, "Is that queen of the castle?" Like lol buddy welcome to your first weekend working at Six.

Before the show starts, they play pop songs but I assume with the keyboard set to organ or harpsichord sounds. The two songs I recognized were Truth Hurts and Havana.

If you’re here looking for intel on the seating situation, I had seats second from the top and way to the left and I still saw everything fine (and I am not a tall person) so I wouldn’t worry too much about where you’re sitting.  

Like I said before, it's such a hype show. Like even if you've heard the soundtrack or seen the show through ~other means~ I promise you're not ready.

Right when the show starts, they project out these Tudor rose projections into the audience which is a nice touch. It’s such a nice looking set in general with the lights in the back and the band up on stage. I really like how highlighted the band members are in this show as compared to other shows I’ve seen. It’s a hard job and I bet it’s nice to get the props. 

“Live in Consort” is the best pun in Six because it’s a reach but said with such confidence that you have to give to to her. 

"Donde esta my crown?" is already a funny line but it’s even funnier when you picture two British 20-somethings conceiving of the line.

Any time Aragon waves at the crowd, which is a lot, she Princess Diary waves which I love. 

A lot of people have had a lot to say about the American accents and it's honestly ridiculous. Like, we're already taking these historical figures so out of their original context that could hardly be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Like, Kathrine Howard can sing a Brittney Spears song but it has to be in a British accent? Come on. And I actually think some songs (like No Way and Get Down in particular) sound a little more natural in an American accent considering the artists they’re taking inspiration from.

I can’t believe they do this show without a break. This is like 90 minutes of pure cardio. It’s, “I’m getting exhausted watching you,” choreo. They didn’t stagedoor after and, tbh, good. Go lay down before the 8pm show please. That’s 100% what I’d be doing.

I have heard the Anne Boleyn intro before but it’s a million times funnier watching her actively peace out as she’s being talked about and then take a selfie and quickly stash her phone before the song starts. 

They really scrubbed as many of the “mate”s out of the show as possible which I get but I feel like I would have just left them alone since it’s such a common British-ism that I feel like people know. 

I was led to believe that in “Wearing Yellow to a Funeral,” Anne is cut off from calling Aragon a massive bitch but lol that was def a hard C and not a B they stopped her after. 

“What a weekend,” is also a killer line imo. 

Still wild that Elizabeth is never mentioned in this show except indirectly when Anne says when she had a daughter Henry killed her. 

Heart of Stone has def grown on me since I first heard it and Abby Mueller is obv amazing but it’s still weird to hear after a song about how this dude literally decapitated someone (“You’ve got a good heart?” Jane, what? Citation needed) and I think it’s good that it’s basically undercut immediately by the, “Severed head,” line by Anne. Also, I lowkey spent most of the song preparing for the cut to Haus of Holbein. 

I was not prepared for the cut to Haus of Holbein. 

Literally, I could not wipe the stupid grin off my face during the entirety of Cleves’ pre-HoH speech because I knew exactly the nonsense that was about to happen and it still surpassed my expectations. 

If I didn’t already know that Boleyn’s line was, “the whole of the Holy Roman Empire,” there is no way I would have understood any of that. The German accents during that scene truly do sound like they were told, “Do literally whatever,” and it’s so funny. 

Cleves’ throne rising out of the stage so she can sit in it is such a Moment.  

Brittney Mack’s operatic riff or whatever it’s called during the slow-mo part of Get Down is so, so, so fill the room amazing. Man it was so good. Also, I 100% did not realize that on the “take my fur” line, they breakaway rip her little jacket off and it’s this cool sparkly bodice piece under. Based on audience reaction, neither did they. 

I feel like everyone always talks about Boleyn’s energy in this show and they should because they’re right but--speaking for the Broadway cast--she’s for sure second to Cleves in terms of raw energy. 

During the roast, I think to Aragon, Howard strokes her cheek with the back of her hand which is super funny, as is her shaking her fists at the sky after the, “When will justice be served,” line to Jane.

Not a Surprise: I also Wasn’t Ready for All You Wanna Do. 

AYWD is the song I was most curious to see audience reaction to (w/ HoH being a close second) because, you know, it’s an ostensibly fun song except that it’s awful. But I think the mood of the audience kinda followed Howard’s. When she was joking around, everyone kinda felt like they had permission to joke around too--like there’s a part in the choreo that happens more than once where they put her hands on her and she shrugs them off and the first time it happened there was a laugh but when it happened again during the third verse when she’s clearly Over It and dancing in a really rote and exhausted way, no laugh.

(Sidenote: The juxtaposition of Cleves and Howard--arguably the most and least successful Queens--is always to interesting to me. The placement of such a “I’m so Dope,” song next to a, “My life was trash,” song. And, now having seen it, there’s a part in the Get Down choreo where all the other queens have their hands all over Cleves in a hyping her up kinda way and, as, in contrast, Howard is getting touched constantly in AYWD and it’s Bad.)

(Double sidenote: During verse four of AYWD, there’s a part where everyone walks in front of Howard and they duck so they don’t block her and Andrea like basically didn’t duck at all. It was lowkey super funny). 

Anyway, the breakdown was rough. By which I mean extremely good but rough to listen to. Like, I know it’s a part of the song so I knew it was coming but I’m so used to the studio version that listening to her full on sob through the last chorus was A Lot. You could feel the air sucked out of the room. Huge props to Sam Pauly.

So, iirc, in the West End version of the show, post Howard’s song is the fight which dissolves into literal hair pulling/having to break people up. In this version, it doesn’t got that far. They get to comparing miscarriages and the Cleves breaks it up and tells Parr it’s her turn. Then, she gets an intro to an upbeat sounding song that we never actually hear because she can’t bring herself to sing it. Then she goes into the same (or at least a similar) speech about, “We shouldn’t do this,” which leads into IDNYL.

When Katherine does the, “Katherine de Valois, I mean I don’t know,” line, Cleves looks at her like, “Bitch what?”

When Boleyn gives the, “Everyone notices that Jane can’t dance,” line, I didn’t catch Jane’s reaction like I wanted to because Aragon immediately breaks into a sidebar with her like, “Right? That’s totally true.”

During Jane’s verse in Six, everyone is actually pretty down with the Tudor Von Trapps line and then she says Royaling Stones and loses everyone. 

I didn’t realize that they did the same couples choreo during the Six that they do for Ex-Wives but I like that a lot. Very circular. 

It is extremely hard to not sing during a show like Six, especially once you’ve conditioned yourself for the past six or so month to start spitting out lyrics the second you hear any of these songs start. I really really hope they have Sing-A-Long tix at some point because I am willing to shell out for that and I think a lot of people in that audience would have as well.

Some random dude at a light say me holding my playbills and asked how I liked the show because he’d good things which, if an omen for the show’s prospects, is a good one. Opening weekend is probably not a fantastic gauge of show longevity because of course all of the hypest fans would be out now but if it can keep up this energy then man they’re gonna have a hit (well, a further hit). 

[painandpleasure86]

Burned all my energy (BreakyWeek2k19)

Author’s note: Hi ppl! This was for Day 4, but this last Thursday and Friday were so frenetic... I couldn’t post this before! Probably I’ll post for the last day... Thank u @runningfortocome​ for hosting this special week for this underrated ship and for supported me last Tues for the hateful anons.

Prompt for Day 4 that I choosed: “Back Chat/arguments in the studio”

Warnings: Angst and fluff.

Word count: +2.0k

Tag list: @warriorteam1924  @runningfortocome​

They love to each other. So much. But also argue a lot. Both have a big pride about their own opinion and that didn't helped at all. Not only in the studio, but also in the intimacy. At least in the last one scenario was always a lot easier to fix the things. Nothing like a special meal or something sexual couldn’t fix.

Record an album always was a challenge for the group. The four of them have different points of view about what to do. But the two of them were usually the worst. Fred always mediating, Roger always mocking to the couple. 

Around 1979, John showed to the group Another one bites the dust. He recorded bass, guitar, synths and claps as a demo. Meanwhile the group was listening it in the studio, Bri and Roger started to feel in disconform, mainly Roger. 

In a whisper, Roger told to Brian “please, if you want to say your disagree, be careful... despite that it’s so funny mocking him, i’m quite tired of both of you arguing”. Brian nodded.

Once the demo ended, Bri said to John with a kind smile "Nice song really, but..."

The youngest one started to feel the anger. Still in his chair, turned to them and he watched right to the hazel eyes of his man. Said sighing “ah shit here we go again ... always but. Nothing that I make likes you!”

Fred, half turned to Brian and John. Trying to calming the atmosphere, said with a cheeky face “You mean musically darling no?”, while winked and made some sexual gestures with his hands.

Brian watched at him pretty disgusting.

"That stuff it's irrelevant here" he said.

"It is Bri. Thanks to the gods that you're happy at bed, hehe." His blonde friend winked an eye. "If not, more hysteria. And the three of you are drama queens. Despite that's quite funny, sometimes it's tiring to see the three of you always discussing" throw Roger.

Bri, pretty done, almost screamed "oh okay, look at you, calling to us drama queens when you made a number for your song of the car some years ago!”

Roger started to be really irritated.

"That's your only argument! Change your cassette Bri!" yelled the blondie.

Fred stand up of his chair and puts between Bri and Rog, separating them with his hands. John just was covering his face trying to not say nothing. "That childish fight again…" he thought.

"Guys, quiet." said so calm.

They still watched to the another pretty upset.

"Relax, guys." continued the singer.

Looking at Roger, he said "the four we're hysterical queens in a some way… But just a real one, ha!" Roger smiled. 

Fred turned his face now to Bri.

"Now you can continue with your opinion about John's song."

Bri started to talk, but Fred interrupted him.

"First, something more Bri". His hands leaved the chest of his friends and walked near John to grab his shoulders, which was on one side watching all the scene. He ducked his head in direction of the face of the bassist.

"And you, darling… don't interrupt to Brian and start to argue again. Let the man speak".

Deaks looked at his friend and sighed deeply.

"Okay, Fred."

Looking at his lover "I'll not yell this time, love." He stand up of his chair. Fred was behind John now. The bassist walked to his man and hugged him with his left arm. Watching to that hazel eyes and caressing the cheeks of the guitarist, continued speaking. "Go ahead." And he kissed him in the cheek. 

Brian watched at the bassist and smiled, slightly blushed.

The environment it's relaxed again.

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

A couple of months later, The Game album was released. Another One Bites the Dust it's the most selled single. Bri and Roger should to recognize the ability of John there. And that was right  heeding to Michael Jackson that suggested to release that song as a single.

That album gave them tours for common lands to them like Japan, and visit for the very first time places like South America; where the band had an excellent and very warm reception from the fans. Where Another one bites the dust sounded in the discos and a lot of people enjoyed that funky vibe in the dance floor.

Even that song won the prize as Best Pop Single. Deaky and Rog were there to receive the prize. John, very happy. But Roger, pretty deceptioned "we are a rock band and we won a prize for best pop single? For God's sake…" he thoughts while they’re receiving the prize.

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

Flash recording. Releasing. And now another recording, the album that would be named Hot Space. Now have even more argues and problems, the sound of this album its pretty away of the rockish sound of  the band. The experiment with AOBTD was successful, so, the funky and the (slowly dying) disco music took over the album concept. Even of that way, Brian and Roger could insert rockish songs or at least with powerful guitar riffs. Deaky and Fred must accepted that after a lot of argues, for maintain the good environment in the studio. Specifically, Deaky didn't wanted to have problems with his lover. They have already problems pretending being straights, until decide get out of the closet. He often just sighed deeply, pretending that everything's okay. But his patience was reaching it limit.

One night he couldn’t sleep. Changed a lot of time his position in bed. Deep breath didn't worked in him. He have a lot of angry inside. He needed to vent thru a song. 

He get up of the bed so quickly and was to the studio where he write his songs. In that studio he haves books that covered almost an entire wall, having infront a comfy couch. Next, the window and in front the desk. To the right side of the window, lied his Fender Precision Bass 1968, a keyboard and an acoustic guitar.   

In the studio, he grabbed paper, pen and sat in front of the desk to start to write. Isn't that often that him haves a suddenly inspo to write a full song. But that night was one of the examples. Back Chat born. Reading the paper, he though “I love you… but i’m tired of you complaining about my things and talk behind my back, my dear”.

Trying to not make a lot of noise, he grabbed his bass that are there. He connected to an amp and started to play a bassline. Meanwhile, he thought “I’ll be so funky, more than another one bites the dust… and you will not have your solo. If i can’t modify your arrangements, you will can’t modify this. Eat from your own medicine. I’m so patient, i’m so kind with you, but i’m also done.”

Next day at the studio, he came with that paper in one of his pockets. They entered like any day, but he have a little surprise…

Fred asked finally to him “well darling, do you have something to the new album?"

He extended the sheet to the singer. He has read. The face of Fred was a mix between laugh and confusion.

"My dear, who made you that damage?" finally said watching at the greenish eyes of his friend, curious.

He crossed his arms and "posed". That pose. That face. That smile.

"Don't matters" he said with a ironic voice, and his eyes focused in his lover. Bri watched at him so confused.

Roger, watching the scene and drinking a coffee, said "ha! Couple issues. That's fun guys… I love the drama between you! Thanks to God that I always haves some popcorn! That's better that any soup opera…

Despite the joke, the tension came back once again to the studio. And that just was the beginning. Because after that, Deaky specified that he will play also the guitar, keyboards and even a drum machine.

Bri and Roger started to be very upset. 

"Deaky, man, I love you… but trying to replace me? I'm the drummer! Despite all, I must to play that part!" said the blonde.

Bri, of course, reacted even worst. "Really… REALLY? What the actual fuck? Plus… YOU DON'T WANT A GUITAR SOLO? AND YOU WANT TO RECORD ALMOST ALL? Seriously, this isn't the way to speak about our problems!

Deaky watching to his face and yelling, said: "I'm so done of that attitude of you and more when we try to experiment new things… Always guitar riffs it's boring! Not always we should sound like rock music! Really… my patience it's done for today. Don't speak to me, even you Fred. I just want to be alone!!!"

He grab his things and started to leave the recording studio.

"You should to be alone for being so mean with me!" said Bri almost crying.

John sighed and turned back.

"Look Brian… we're a couple no? Learn to accept your part of the responsibility. I have patience, but isn't endless." he said in a serious tone.

He watched to Roger and Freddie.

"Guys, for today I don't want to work. I'll go to drink something perhaps. Don't try to catch me, please."

He sighed. "Sorry Fred."

And leaved the studio slamming the door.

The three of them tried to back to work. Brian couldn't really. He was crying and drinking a lot of beer. After some hours, he fell asleep in a couch, so drunk, so sad.

Similar scene was John. After a lot of drinks in a near bar and avoiding the occasionals fans trying to get an autograph, came back to the home where the four habits when they're recording an album.

Barely could close the door. His head hurts. His throat wanted to vomit. Walked as he could to the bathroom and threw in the toilet.

When he ended, he just wanted to go to bed.

Opened the door of the room… him was already in bed. And he almost started to cry, but he hadn't energies at all. Just gone to sleep, trying to not wake up to him.

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Next morning, first in wake up was the guitarist. And he saw to the another one sleeping so deeply, snoring. He kissed him in the forehead and whispered "I still love you, funky man". And leaved the bed and the room. Moments later, John woke up and he find himself alone, with a hard hungover. He rubbed his eyes and said “ugh why I need to get out of this bed, i’m feeling so terrible”.

He took a bath. After choose his outift for that day and dressing, go to the kitchen to have some breakfast. He found the another three having a nice chat while they were taking their breakfast, until he entered to the kitchen to prepare some tea.

The three watched at him in silence preparing everything to his breakfast. When put the kettle to boil some water, he turned to his bandmates and ask “Who’s died that you’re in silence?”

“Are you better, darling?” Finally Fred says to Deacon.

He sighs deeply. “Yes and not. From the anger from yesterday… fine. But i’m still having a hungover and i’m hungry.” he says, touching his forehead and after his tummy.

Silence again.

Roger, after sipping of his cup of tea, look at John and says to his friend “c’mon mate”

He was confused. “What?”

Brian without rise his sight and moving the little spoon inside the cup of tea, said “an apologize, perhaps.” He sighed deeply and rise his head. Turns around still sat in his chair in Johns direction. “ Sorry for being rude with you yesterday.” added the guitarist.

He watched at him with tears in his eyes. The bassist ran to hug him so tightly.

“no, I’m the one that should apologize”. He caressed the curly hair with his left hand. Being near of the right ear of the guitarist, whispered “you will can have your damn solo if you want. You always get your way, haha”. Watched right to the face of his man, both hands holding that smiling face. He’s smiling too. “I love you”. “Me too my grumpy bassist”, added the elder one. And both kissed softly.

Roger and Fred watched the scene so happy to see that two happy again, until Roger watched to the cooker.

“Fred…? I should say it?” asked sipping his tea, quite cold.

Freddie watched to Roger and shaked his head. “Let them be happy for a moment” and giggled a little.

The water from the kettle was boiling intensely since a couple of minutes...

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