#i'm fascinated by how insane the touring years were

[palomahasenteredthechat]

I KNOW WE KEEP BRINGING UP TOM HIDDLESTON AND I'M SORRY! But at the risk of giving myself away, I have been saying since the beginning that Joseph's breakout into fame mirrored Tom's in a big way! I made a few posts about it back when the fans were being insane in late 2022. I was there in 2012 when Tom first rose to overnight fame and I stayed for about 3 years before fully moving on. Just before the T.S fiasco thank goodness. The point of saying this is that in the beginning when I was seeing Joe do all these interviews and saying whatever he wanted without really thinking and making inappropriate jokes I was reminded of how Tom used to be and I wondered if the similarities in their journey's would continue in the coming years. I wondered, would we see this version of Joseph that we started seeing in the media tour for AQPDO. Because I used to wake up in the mornings and read Tom Hiddleston's twitter like the morning paper. The man was SO funny and he posted ALL THE TIME. But about 6 months in, after someone found his old Myspace (showing my age there) and posted a bunch of photos from his 20s and screenshotted all the silly things he said as a young man, he hired a publicist and that just stopped. Not like, slowly dwindled. Like went from posting several thoughts he had 10 times a day since like 2006 to radio silence. Only ever posting to plug his new things . He went from giving titbits about his life and making jokes in interviews (He sang a very inappropriate part of a Tim Minchin song in an acceptance speech after Tim gave him an award for example😂) to strictly professional and very private. His Publicist at the time (Luke Windsor) was always watching to the point that it became a fandom joke because he was just THERE all the time in the background of photos, giving looks off to the side of interviews etc. It was pretty clear that he was getting absolutely reamed behind the scenes for saying things he shouldn't and posting things on socials that they didn't approve of. Don't get me wrong, Luke was seemingly lovely and the fandom enjoyed his presence but he was GOOD AT HIS JOB which meant that while Tom lost a lot of fans that "missed 2012 Tom" and wanted him back, he was taken way more seriously in a professional setting and ultimately it was great for his career. This is what's happening to Joseph. The parallel of 2012 to 2014 Tom Hiddleston to 2022 - 2024 Joseph Quinn is so extremely interesting to me, I could go on about it forever but I won't force you all to listen. The point of the message is to say that Tom never did go back to "who he was" or at the very least his public persona changed completely and we never did get "The Old Tom" back. Even if he may have still been that person behind closed doors, we never saw him again. So I'm sorry to say, for anyone hoping that Joe will magically reverse his image and behaviour after the DC thing ends or if he changes publicists that that is not likely to happen, especially now that he's signed with Marvel. So I encourage you all to do your best to digest that info. Sit with it for a bit and decide if you want to be a fan of or follow "The New Joe" because unfortunately, he's here to stay. :(

Fascinating, fascinating stuff Nonny. I also remember Tom's 'I am incredibly excited' tweets.

I have to believe these publicists do what they do not only to professionalize the actor's brand/career prospects but also to help the actor manage fame. If you are constantly giving up a part of yourself to everyone it can consume you. Only giving the 'persona' is probably a shield.

Thank you for writing!

[tuiyla]

Something that I still find insane with Glee is just how much professional content was put out about it, both during and after the show. They had the actual show, the concert tours, the (3D) concert movie, the reality show specifically to get cast on Glee (two seasons of it which is one more than most shows even get now), the billboard charting songs/albums, the cast podcasts, and the recent fucked up docuseries. Not to mention the insane number of "Glee Audition" YouTube videos and other fan-created content like SimGM, fanfics, covers, GIFs, etc. I genuinely cannot think of a single other show that has ever had that much going on around it. No matter where you looked or what kind of content, you'd likely run into something Glee related. I first learned about the show because my classmates would singing "Don't Stop Believing" on our bus all the time, like the entire bus would sing the entire song. No one and no where was safe.

Also books and other merchandise iirc?

It's truly an insane scale. I think there were similar properties, but not at the same intersection of teen media and music as Glee was. Music really elevated it above other TV shows, in terms of revenue as well, I'm sure. I mean, what other show I could do as something as unhinged for as the singing database? They just produced so much content, and to think that the cast had to not only learn their lines and do the acting but record their songs AND learn choreography and do talk show appearances and other promos on top of that is already wild. Add to that the tours and musical appearances? It gets to a level that I'm pretty sure should have been illegal. Like, for real, the Glee cast was so infamous for being crazy overworked that it shouldn't have been allowed. Hard enough to film 22 episodes a year and that's without all the extra stuff.

And the fan stuff! That can be a tremendous amount even if the property itself isn't as accomplished as Glee was but you're right, that was - and continues to be! - impressive too. Again the scale of it, organized events and forums and popular videos like SimGM. You really couldn't go anywhere without Glee content.

I think I've mentioned this once or twice before, but I heard Landslide for the first time through the GCV. I didn't search for the Glee version; I had just read The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I wanted to know what the tunnel song sounded like. This is September of 2012 btw. So I typed landslide into youtube and the very first result, probably the second and even third, was the Glee version. So that was the one I listened to for years, exclusively, even though I had zero to do with Glee at that point. I'm sure there were other GCVs that sneaked into my life and certainly the mainstream, too. The show itself had a stranglehold on pop culture but the music was a whole new level. Glee was a machine producing so much content and I can only assume making an obscene amount of money. Idk what the cast got paid but I'd be willing to bet it wasn't enough.

Through godawful documentaries or in more positive ways but Glee's still part of the public consciousness because that kind of omnipresence doesn't just go away. Fascinating. Kinda terrifying. But very very interesting.

[placeinthisworld]

hello!! i'm so glad you liked my recs!! i've been so obsessed with maggie rogers lately after her album surrender came out it's just so insanely good! heard it in a past life, the album alaska is from is also soo amazing but sonically they're def very different i feel which is super interesting! i love when artists go different directions and try new things

did you get a chance to see taylor's directors on directors? i loved watching it so much it was such an interesting conversation and i just love getting to listen to taylor talk about how she approaches and thinks about her art it is endlessly fascinating to me!!

i saw your post ab the holidays and your family and i just wanted to say i don't have a very good relationship with my parents (tho i am going to see them) so i at least sorta understand and i'm sending you lots of love 💕💕💕

Yes omg I added them to my regular playlist too!!! When surrender came out I remember people went nuts and were sooo excited for the vinyl variants !!! I’m into collecting vinyl records and everyone I followed were raving about the album!!! I’m def gonna give it a listen! Alaska definitely wasn’t what I was expecting but it was SO fun and that make it even better somehow like the experiments artists do with their music is AMAZING!!! So much goes into a good song it’s incredible.

I did!!! I could listen to Taylor talk for hours 🥺 she must be such a great person to have a casual conversation with. I love her she avoided a lot of questions in the interview😂 the way she describes this is so engaging. I’m excited to see what the rest of the midnights music videos are like and SO excited for details about her film soon!!! PLUS tour stuff like she’s taking on so much I hope she’s taking care of herself ♥️

Awww thank you 🥺🫶🏻 I’m sorry you can relate ❤️‍🩹 I don’t have a real relationship with either of my parents and I barely speak with my brother so the holidays are so sad typically- but I have my bfs family that include me. I hope your holidays are tolerable and you can at least enjoy the end of the year. I’m here if you need to talk about anything! ♥️

- sending u lots of love back!!! 🥂💕

[harrisonstories]

The police stopping the show in Cleveland, Ohio and ordering The Beatles to leave the stage (15 Sep. 1964)

The Beatles and Me On Tour by Ivor Davis Excerpt #4 (another long read):

GEORGE’S COLUMN improved dramatically in the next few days as a result of events in Cleveland on September 15 and in New Orleans the following day – or “The Battle of New Orleans 1964,” as I called it in my report, which carried the headline, “Beatles Sing On as Fans Charge.”

First, however, came Boston, a week earlier, when the local police were charged with brutally treating fans like bowling pins. They had ridden their horses through the crowd to try to disperse the charging fans, who then began screaming obscenities at them. It was a serious overreaction by the cops, but not an uncommon one, because no one had ever before dealt with the firestorm that was the Beatles.

It was like a bad dream from the beginning. Exhausted, we had landed droopy-eyed and heavy-limbed at three o’clock in the morning at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts (instead of Boston’s main Logan International Airport), and before the engines were even switched off, the state police stomped onto the aircraft. With a heavy, “we’re in charge” almost militaristic force, they pushed the Beatles into a waiting car for the fifteen-mile ride to the downtown Hotel Madison, close to the Boston Garden. We followed in the second car to the hotel, then through a back service-entrance and onto a freight elevator to the eleventh-floor suites.

As we arrived, Mal [Evans] shouted, “Where the fuck is Ringo?” We looked around and realized we were one Beatle short. No sign of Ringo. Apparently Ringo and Derek [Taylor], in all the pushing and shoving, had been left at the airport. Ten minutes later they arrived at the hotel entrance and jumped out of a cab. Ringo raced into the elevator up to his room; Derek spotted me and said, “I need ten dollars to pay the driver, can you lend me some cash?”

“The police were truly awful,” Derek said – and the next day he got a stern rebuke from Brian [Epstein], ever wary of upsetting municipal police forces. At the conclusion of the Boston concert, Brian made a point of calling the major press outlets to publicly thank law enforcement for its splendid efforts.

Then it was on to Baltimore, then Pittsburgh – and then Cleveland, where it was clear the police force had decided nothing was going to sully their reputations when the Beatles came to the Public Auditorium. The atmosphere was much more tense than I had seen at any of the other venues – the police, like vigilant headmasters, marched down the aisles, batons clenched in hand, yelling at concertgoers, “Stay in your seats.”

As soon as the warm-up acts were over, the Beatles bounded onto the stage – guitars on chests like they were bulletproof vests. They had hardly hit their stride in front of the crowd of 12,000 with “All My Loving,” when a wave of fans leapt to their feet and moved inexorably towards the stage.

A brass railing gave way as the kids pressed forward. The police pushed back as the fans swept on like an unstoppable tide. In charge of security and fearing that his men would be crushed, Deputy Inspector Carl Bare, in his military-style uniform and soft-peaked cap, marched onto the stage mid-song, waved furiously at John to stop playing and then pushed the surprised Beatle aside.

He confronted George – almost nose to nose – waved his arm menacingly and ordered, “Get off.” He grabbed the microphone, turned to the audience and bellowed, “Sit down. Sit now.”

The crowd booed, John looked furious, and then Bare’s colleague, Inspector Michael Blackwell, joined him on stage, authoritatively motioning to the group to leave. When the band didn’t move, he literally shoved George and Paul off stage.

Hopping mad, John spotted radio reporter Art Schreiber standing in the wings. “Come with me, Art,” the incensed Beatle said. “We went up to the green room,” remembered Schreiber. “I locked the door so no one could get in to interrupt.

“John was fit to burst. Then I phoned my radio station and put John on live to talk about the madhouse and what was happening. ‘The police are a bunch of bloody amateurs,’ John indignantly repeated. ‘This has never happened to us before.’“

Schreiber, frankly, was delighted with the unexpected turn of events. While his rival WHK was promoting the concert, his station, KYW, was getting the scoop.

Back in the auditorium Derek strode to center stage, stepped in front of Bare and Blackwell and took the microphone. “Please stay in your seats,” he urged the crowd. “The Beatles want to play for you, but you mustn’t stand up. If you don’t stay seated, you can all go home. The show is over.”

The fans booed heartily, but Derek’s words helped calm things down. As order was slowly restored, he turned to Mal, who was standing by Ringo’s drum set and was preparing to dismantle them. “Get them back quickly,” he urged Mal. After a seventeen-minute interruption, the Beatles walked back on stage to uproarious approval from the crowd. The band retrieved their guitars and seamlessly picked up where they had left off.

Blackwell gave his side of the story in the next day’s local paper: “I don’t blame the children. They’re young and they can’t be expected to behave like adults,” he said. “And I don’t blame the Beatles – there is nothing wrong with their act. But if we hadn’t stopped it there would have been serious injury. One little girl was knocked down in the charge, and there were 300 other youngsters about to trample her.”

THE FOLLOWING DAY, still smarting from the Cleveland disruption, we arrived in New Orleans at three o’clock in the morning to the kind of sticky tropical weather that soaked your clothing through to your skin just walking from car to hotel lobby. Events had taken an unexpected Keystone Kops turn before we had even gotten to the Congress Inn.

First, the helicopter that was to whisk the band to the hotel had a flat tire, so an emergency call had to go out for limousines. Mistakenly, the limos raced to the wrong airport – showing up at New Orleans International Airport instead of Lakefront Airport. When the Beatles were finally picked up at the right airport and sped to the hotel with red lights flashing and sirens wailing, their limo took a wrong turn, tried to reverse and hit a police car. Fortunately, the only damage was the limo driver’s bruised ego.

At show time that evening, things went seriously wrong. To avoid the chaos that had gone down in Cleveland the night before, the police officers who were dispatched to City Park Stadium for security created a “safety zone” between the stage and the seating. They designated an empty stretch of grass that ran some 35 yards from the front row to the stage as a no-man’s-land. The idea was to keep the spectators sitting on the grass well away from the band so there was no way they could invade the stage. What’s more, a makeshift, three-foot temporary fence was hastily erected to further deter anyone from daring to move closer in.

It looked sensible at first, but just moments after the Beatles launched into “Can’t Buy Me Love,” fans sitting on the grass in the first five rows suddenly – and almost in unison – jumped up, trampled over the barrier and surged forward to the foot of the stage. The police, caught unaware, reacted hastily. Helmeted cops on foot and dozens on horseback galloped into the sea of bodies as they tried to block the tide of onrushing kids.

It was utter chaos. Every few minutes, a new wave of shrieking teenagers tried to storm to the front of the stage, and some even managed to clamber onto the stage to touch the Beatles. Mal and Neil [Aspinall], accustomed to coping with these juvenile onslaughts, tried to gently pry them off the lip of the stage, but the fans attached themselves like leeches.

I watched in disbelief. The cops were swearing, and at times the situation seemed totally out of control. Hooves were flying about. I saw two girls, trampled by a horse, writhing in agony. The faces of several hysterical girls were masked in blood, others lay crumpled in heaps, crying and moaning like wounded soldiers on a field of war.

As the Beatles played on, stretcher-bearers lined up to carry the wounded behind the stage, where red lights were flashing nonstop as the ambulances roared back and forth between stadium and hospital. “Police were playing football with the kids,” George later observed, “and we just kept playing.”

My eyewitness story that ran in the Daily Express got the biggest headlines of the entire tour. “Screaming girls and youths charged the stage during the Beatles show last night and turned it into the Battle of New Orleans 1964,” read my report. “More than twenty youngsters were treated for broken noses, arms, and cuts and bruises, after the wildest scene of the whole Beatles American tour.”

THE UPSIDE was that after all that unexpected drama, George’s column started to show more teeth. His version, penned by me, kicked off with a rather light-hearted comment about the way the gentler British bobbies handle things, compared to the heavy-handed tactics of their American colleagues: “It will be nice to see the friendly English copper again. American cops take some living with.”

Then the column took off:

“In Cleveland, without asking us, two senior police officers marched on stage and stopped our show completely because they said the crowd was getting out of hand. The safety curtain was pulled down, and we were ordered to our cars. With the cops shouting, ‘The show’s over, fellows, this is where we take over.’ It’s never happened to us before.

“But that’s the trouble with American cops – they’re over-enthusiastic, whether it’s for stopping shows, hurling us into cars, baton charging the crowd or just asking 30 autographs at a time.

“Anyway, we didn’t go to the cars because we had only done two numbers and the kids had paid nearly two pounds apiece to hear ten songs. We were hustled offstage much against our wills, and we went to the dressing rooms.

“When our press officer Derek Taylor walked on the stage to protest, the police told him ‘Don’t bug us or we will arrest you.’ The scene backstage, onstage and among the audience was complete confusion.

“Then the police allowed Derek to make an announcement. He said: ‘The Beatles have come thousands of miles to sing to you and they are bitterly disappointed that they are not allowed to. Do you want them back?’

“‘Yesssss,’ roared the crowd of over 12,000.

“‘One girl has been trampled,’ Derek announced.

“’And two more have fainted. We don’t want this to go on do we?’

“‘No,’ the crowd yelled back as if as one.

“Derek told them that if they behaved themselves we’d come back and finish the show. The rest of the show was one of the mildest ever. The fans stayed in their seats, frightened that if they got excited the show would be stopped for good and all.”

Then George’s column switched to more mundane tourist glibness:

“I had always imagined Basin Street and Bourbon Street – where Louis Armstrong and people like Pete Fountain started playing for their supper – would be roads you could walk down late at night and hear the echoes of jazz coming from the clubs. But Ringo told me that the Jazz Quarter is fading away. There are many clubs, but most of them have gone commercial, and have tried to attract tourists.

“There are still a few real jazz clubs going, and maybe after the show tonight we’ll get a chance to see one or two. If we don’t get spotted too quickly, that is. But that’s the story of the tour. So many American cities, but not much chance to see them very closely.

“I’m not complaining. It’s our working way of life.”

[elfyourmother]

so i've been watching a lot ot Defunctland, and it got me wondering what drew you to Disney? you're the person i kind of defer to when it comes to Disney, because you know SO much about it and are so passionate about it, and i'm curious where that passion came from.

We weren’t a go every year family but we went to WDW a few times when I was a kid because like 95% of New Yorkers we had relatives in Florida, and it made for a (relatively) cheap vacation. So there’s definitely the childhood nostalgia aspect at work. I have a lot of fond memories there, especially with my family, before things got so strained and I started to feel so alienated from them. We still joke to this day about one of my adult cousins being barely taller than the Ewok we took pictures with (they used to do Meet & Greets outside Star Tours in the first couple of years after MGM opened). Things like that. It also helps that as an 80s baby I was square in the perfect demographic to go nuts when WDAS began its Renaissance period. I had all those VHS tapes with the clamshell covers and literally wore The Little Mermaid out, to give you an idea.

I took a 20 year hiatus, my last family trip was in 93 or 94? Despite going multiple times we were not a Disney Family(tm), I wasn’t a little kid anymore (p sure my last trip was when I was 13? I know we just missed the opening of Tower of Terror at then MGM Studios). So Mom was like “alright that’s enough”, because like most folks she believed it was for small kids.

my first time back as an adult was in 2016, when she and I took my younger Floridian cousin there for her first trip as a junior high graduation present to her. Mom and I were absolutely skint but somehow made a quick, largely unplanned Memorial Day weekend trip happen and while the padawan had a good time it was the whole opposite of how I like to travel. I vowed to come back and do it “right” as soon as I was able. Because despite eating at the shittiest quick service places and staying off site, I fell in love with the parks all over again and it became special interest territory for me again.

Like even as a kid I was obsessed with Imagineering, specifically, and not just riding on rides or hugging characters. You have to understand that I was a giant fucking nerd basically from birth, staying up all night playing SimCity and similar strategy games, getting those Eyewitness Books on how stuff gets made from the library, etc. So I was fascinated by how the parks were designed, the storytelling in the theming, insane attention to detail, etc. 80s Epcot was heaven on earth to me, I probably loved it even more than MK if I’m honest. Fuck I used to collect the transportation trading cards for the monorails and boats! I used to tape all those Samantha Brown specials on the Travel Channel. Even the planning aspect was a thing I was crazy for as a kid. When mom would say we were going, we’d always get the Birnbaum guide for that year and I’d sit there with my little highlighter and Lisa Frank notebook making my must do lists, trying to figure out the best strategies for doing everything I wanted, etc. At 7-10 years old fam! 😂 And when I started going back as an adult that childhood special interest came roaring back with a vengeance.

Nowadays I can spend half the day just taking in the theming details at Animal Kingdom for example and I enjoy the atmosphere as much as the attractions. I maintain that one of the most beautiful sunrises anywhere on this bitch of an Earth is over Seven Seas Lagoon on the beaches at the Polynesian and Grand Floridian; I would put it up against the ones I saw on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean, even. And as an introverted femme, it’s the first place I’ve ever solo traveled to that wasn’t visiting friends or family, and felt 100% safe. My favorite is still the trip I took with Dandy but I have so much fun going solo.

The type of vacations I have there now are completely not what my mom could afford when I was growing up. We never stayed on property except a few visits to the Dolphin that my mom saved up for when it opened, thanks to Costco packages and nurse/govt worker discounts. I knew not to ask for anything and we never ate table service except for the odd character meal at the Swan. Which I understand completely in hindsight I mean my mom was a single parent and while she made ok money as an RN things were tight. But as an adult controlling the purse strings it’s a lot more fun.

There’s many more places I want to visit in the world, don’t get me wrong. I feel sorry for the Disney stans who never go anywhere but the parks. But even as heinously expensive as it’s gotten, even as things are stripped away and watered down by Chapek chasing shareholder profits at the expense of guests, it’s still my favorite place. I still cry when I turn that corner onto Main Street and see the castle. I don’t care how cringe other people think it is or how much we dreaded Disney Adults have become the internet’s favorite punching bag now that it’s not furries, bc of a minority of folks who would make any community look bad. I’m a proud Childless Millennial guest at the parks. One of the benefits to getting older is being freer and freer of fucks to give tbh.

Yes Disney is a terrible corporation that could really stand to be broken up (my fever dream is Parks Resorts & Experiences gets spun back off into their own division and taken over by an Oriental Land Co. type entity that will let WDI really go nuts the way they get to do in the Japanese parks). No, Cast don’t get paid nearly enough for this shit. Yes, Port Orleans Riverside needs to get burned to the ground and re-themed to something besides the damn Antebellum South. But the parks are special to me, still, and I’ll keep going as long as I’m able.

[frenchfrywrites]

oh god yeah, with how much luci loves his cursed records he'd deadass love going to haunted cursed factories 💀

tour guide: and here's were the exact same cause of death happened to 17 different workers over a period of 6 years!!

lucifer: oh!! fascinating!! tell me more!!

Yeah!!!! That's what I'm talking about baby!!! Chaotic man either goes on obscure weird tours to make them fun, or finds the most batshit insane most totally haunted factories to ever exist.

He'd also be the one to bring it up if the tour guide doesn't address it like..

Lucifer: AHEM sorry, you didn't mention it, but I heard there was an explosion that demolished half the building in the night, could you perhaps expand on that and why it happened if the factory was empty? 👁️👁️

[golbrocklovely]

review of sam and colby's hell week

since hell week is finally over, and i've had time to process all the videos, i figured now would be a good time to write out how i felt about each video. i didn't want to post about their videos during hell week since i was in the middle of writing for my 13 days of halloween and i already had enough on my plate lol

so here's what i thought about each of the hell week videos. i'm gonna give my general reaction, my rating of the video, and whether or not i would rewatch it.

i'm also gonna rate them from my favorite to least at the very end.

this is really long btw, so feel free to skip around or settle in lol

dracula's castle: this was good video to start off on. i think it brought a good mix of creepy and silly. nate and snc have such great chemistry together, and i hope they collab again soon bc i genuinely enjoy when they all hang out and do videos together. colby's fascination with their tour guide being a vampire was hilarious to me. and i have to note that i do like this video a lot bc it was about vampires, so it was right up my alley. hopefully they go to another vampire castle bc that would be sick. and they better take me with them otherwise i'm suing. but anyway, i saw everyone on here talking about it, and i wanted to add my two cents in that it really is so fucking strange how so many ppl/animals/spirits are drawn to colby. every new person they meet somehow always focuses on colby. him saying 'why is it always me?' is the god's honest truth tho. i was definitely unsettled by the spirit box (which again, colby looking like he's gonna die while doing it scares me) and the music box going off. i think that the video gave off nice creepy vibes, and i dig it. and the two most chaotic things i've ever seen colby do is literally shove his fingers into dirty vampire water and then bite into cloves of garlic. this man is insane and i'm not sure why i still stan him lmao

rating: 3.5/5

would i rewatch: yeah :)

~~~~~~~~~

catacombs: this video was interesting. this video didn't really fall into paranormal for me, but it reminded me of all the xplr videos they used to do back in the day. first and foremost, i would never in a million years go to the catacombs. beside that i don't like enclosed spaces like that, i'm a big bitch and personally believe with my luck and body that things would collapse bc of me. so... props to the boys for putting themselves into that whole situation. their tour guide not really caring about them or what they do was accidentally hilarious. the devil room they went into was definitely creepy and i can only imagine the vibe it gave off, regardless of if you believe in paranormal or not. occultist stuff is not something you want to mess with, and i swear to god i think the boys are trying to get something to follow them bc they don't protect themselves like ever. do i think it was weird that the candles burned out one right after the other, and the cloak fell? yeah i guess, but idk if it was paranormal so much so that they were already freaked out and it spooked them more. i will say, having that room get progressively colder and colby literally shaking/shivering from how cold he was was eerie. but idk... this video just wasn't as spooky as i would have liked it. also it felt kinda long and slow.

rating: 2/5

would i rewatch: maybe? not entirely sure.

~~~~~~~~~

queen mary: i find it really interesting how ppl on here disliked the video. i mean, i get it to some degree, but personally i really loved it. it's interesting how back and forth i go with amanda. in some videos i don't mind her, and then in others she's really kinda annoying. and in this one it was the latter. personally idk why she was there. she didn't really add anything or talk to any spirits, besides the guy that got crushed by the door. but even then she didn't really say much. i'm not entirely sure why the boys believe her when she says that she doesn't do research on these places (bc she also literally admitted to knowing facts about the queen mary so... you think she wouldn't research to see who "haunts" the ship???). while i believe in psychics and medium, something about amanda just seems... off to me. i don't think she's outright lying or making up the shit she feels/sees, but it just doesn't feel 100% genuine. also side note, amanda writing something down that didn't even really connect to what was said on the spirit box but acting like it did was so fucking stupid and funny to me. and then her saying 'you're not the darkest spirit, i've seen darker' or whatever was such an eyeroll of a moment to me. idk if she's giving off this energy of being stronger than she is for the video or for her own protection's sake, but idk it's all a bit much to me. AND HER NOT BELIEVING IN PAST LIVES??? that was kinda dumb. personally, if i could literally see ppl that were dead, i think my mind would be a bit more open past the traditional christian values lol alright enough about her.

matt was great addition to the crew and i just love how quick he is to pretend to leave. his humor is on par with what i would probably do. it was also fun to see the parts of ship that we didn't get to before. the ballroom was beautiful. do i think every crack was a ghost? no, but it was funny to see their reactions like it was. and then with b340... i'm not gonna lie, i got chills bro lol i do think something with that room is completely off. i can just feel it thru the screen. and even if you don't believe, you have to believe that whatever snc experienced in there has scared them to their core. i honestly believe that something in that room doesn't like being filmed and that's what happened to them. idk why they wouldn't either record with any extra camera or do a voice recording as well bc that would save them the bs of the camera shutting off and footage getting deleted. sam got really effected during this video and it makes me really sad. i hate seeing him upset. and i'm glad that both him and matt had the courage to walk away for a moment when things got to be a bit too much. especially matt. i hope he's doing better. nonetheless, i think the stuff that they captured in that room was definitely interesting and this was the first video i actually felt kinda spooked. and i need to mention it now, but i really do hope that in the future the boys find a way to record what the spirit box is saying and put it in the videos that way ppl stop acting like they are faking it.

rating: 3/5

would i rewatch: probably

~~~~~~~~~

pine barrens: idk what it was about this episode, but i had such high hopes for it... probably bc i'm from the east coast, i've heard about the jersey devil, and since i've lived around forests and explored them back when i was younger, i was excited for this video. and it ended up being really boring. i love the banter that seth, josh, and snc have, don't get me wrong, and that's really the shining part of this whole video. but something about this episode was just really lack luster for me. the lack of evidence wasn't really it, but something about this just wasn't even remotely creepy or scary to me at all. and it wasn't even like an xplr video where i can be interested in just the place alone. this could have been any random forest in the country and i wouldn't have known the difference. nothing about it felt special. i will say the man they talked to (who they later called their friend which was so cute btw) was so east coast to me, it's kinda hilarious. and i liked the info he was able to give about the jersey devil and the pine barrens themselves. maybe it's bc the boys didn't really do all that much research into the forest or the fact that nothing really happened, but i just didn't really enjoy this video. it had it's good/funny moments, but nothing about it was all that interesting. no offense to the boys, and i'm not trying to say that they should have given themselves more work to do, but a video like this... should have just been placed on xplrclub instead bc nothing happened. i mean, it's good that they didn't fake anything or try to force some paranormal shit. i do appreciate that. but this is hell week for christ's sake. i want spooky scary skeletons worth of content lol

rating: 1.5/5

would i rewatch: i'm not even gonna remember this video in a week or two, so no.

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hotel del coronado: amanda... oh amanda. i know i already complained about her in the queen mary video, but i need to speak on here again. while i believe her abilities, i don't think the confidence she has is warranted, if that makes sense. her half-ass attempt at a prayer shouldn't be the one thing that is protecting snc and faze from getting permanently haunted. and again, i just don't believe her not researching things. if i'm wrong, i will gladly apologize, but there is no fucking way. and honestly, i wouldn't mind if she did some research, it would probably do better for her to know who apparently resides in the building than to go in not knowing, plus it might help her connect to certain spirits better. and her stopping it right before sam could really get into things with the estes method... that's so fucking annoying. i'm sorry, but what authority does she have to ask a question that boils down to 'r u good or bad?' and expect an answer? if an entity is from a different plain altogether, has existed 1000s of years, and operates under the belief that god and satan are two actual beings... what makes you think it has to answer to you???? you're not god, you're not powerful. you are a 20 year old girl with the powers of the kid from the sixth sense. while i want sam and colby to be safe and do things methodically (so to speak), using amanda isn't gonna cut it. stop taking her on trips.

now onto the rest of the video, i know literally dick all about faze rug, but he seems lovely. i really like his personality and the way he vibes with snc. and good on him declining to do the estes method. that shit seems scary as all hell (tho i am kinda interested to do it but also really not). but i genuinely like how faze acts with snc. weirdly, i don't like his videos on his channel with snc, but i do think he brings a fun naivety to their content (not that they're any better at knowing lmao). the hotel itself is fucking huge looking and that hallway was definitely trippy. i get they have a beach theme, but you could have a nautical looking hallway without the stripes. that employee... i hope is doing good, bc you could tell that he was still choked up over what he experienced. i haven't had something like that happen to me but i do believe that at one point i experienced a time jump/a shift in the time line we're on now (feel free to ask me about that another time), and that freaked me out a shit ton so i can only imagine what he felt. also it was interesting to hear colby say that that seemed like his version of hell to him, just being stuck repeating yourself over and over again but going nowhere. and how i feel about the paranormal and spirituality was summed up well by the employee. so, the shit that happened to them in their hotel room was creepy, ngl. the estes method and colby are a match made in hell bc every time colby does it, it's too fucking intense for me. like, i just get more and more anxious as time goes on. and the things he was saying were spot on with the questions being asked. and that knock they had while sam was doing the estes method was crazy. i love how protective colby got, he literally grabbed amanda, faze hid behind colby, and then colby reached over to sam, basically throwing his arms in front of everyone. i'm still annoyed that the video got ended early bc of amanda. i believe that snc need to take precautions and stop when things feel too intense, but if they weren't feel uncomfortable and they hadn't gotten contact with something that scaring them... they should have continued. idk how amanda can go from chasing a demon out of the lizzie borden house to asking if a spirit is from the right or the left and that's the proof that they took things too far lol

rating: 2.5/5

would i rewatch: yeah i guess

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waverly hills: i genuinely enjoyed this video from start to finish. this is one of the only videos from hell week that i had no problems with at all. them bringing back and working with that investigation duo again was fun. i think they really balance out snc's behavior when it comes to paranormal stuff and reactions. there's a certain level of professionalism that they have that snc don't lol kat and stas were nice in the video too. i can't believe stas saw more figures. that's fucking crazy to me. i saw a figure once when i was kid and freaked out, i can't imagine seeing something like that now. the amount of evidence that snc got in this video was insane. the rempod going off like that... idk what could be doing that other than ghosts. colby's heavy breathing and being fucking terrified of the rempod and the noises it was making was scaring me. that boy really knows how to get under my skin. the music box acting up (also the comment of colby actually having a problem with the music box being dead was so funny bc i weirdly like the music box too) was also really strange. the story of william was so sad :( who would kill an old man just chilling in a building alone? it's nice that he was following them around and maybe even protecting them. and then all the activity they got on the fifth floor and the evp session. that shit was fucking crazy. i hope that snc buy a voice recorder at some point bc using that to hear sounds around you is awesome and really good evidence. that spirit box session also fucking scared me. the 'which hand' voice... oof i got chills bro lol

also i wanted to make a quick side note that when snc were talking about waverly hills and telling it's history, colby looked really hot. and he makes a lot of faces for some reason when sam talks sksksks

rating: 5/5

would i rewatch: 100%

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conjuring part 2: you all know how i feel about amanda in this video, and if not, read this post lol

but she was such a small part of the video, that i'm not gonna let her ruin the rest of it. so... i've said it a lot in this review, but this video was crazy. crazy is too nice of a word. honestly, this video was scary. anxiety-inducing. the fact that the second they stepped onto the property they were told 'you guys are fucked tonight' was one hell of a sign. the constant evidence they were getting was incredible. the double estes method? that was sick. and the fact that both their names came from each other was fucking insane. the rempod and the music box going off back and forth, like something was teasing them... that shit was spooky. and then when they were talking to the music box upstairs in the birthing room, that was heartbreaking to hear that the soldier needed help. but the second half, where they did the prayer outside and inside... i have no words. props to colby for staying inside by himself bc he looked so fucking terrified. sam did too, but colby was literally shaking like crazy and breathing like he ran a mile. and then sam seeing a figure in the window and then the door to the basement being locked. colby sounded so scared, and rightfully so.

my anxiety was at an all time high the whole time this video was on. it was like a horror movie from start to finish, and all i could ask for to be posted on halloween.

rating: 5/5

would i rewatch: already have lol

~~~~~~~~~

overall rating of hell week: 3.5/5

while i liked pretty much every video, i wanted more spooks and scares. if you're gonna call something hell week, make that shit scary. this was their first time doing hell week, so i'll give them a pass bc i can only imagine the crazy stuff that could be coming up for next year. i would like for them to bring back matt, nate, and the paranormal duo again, because those videos were the most fun to watch. kat and stas are also cool, but i figure they're gonna be coming back regardless haha josh and seth were also great, just not in the woods lol

and less amanda please.

i definitely enjoyed these videos. it's gonna be weird to not see them post every other day for a while. i'm gonna miss it truly.

favorite video to least

1. waverly hills

2. conjuring part 2

3. dracula's castle

4. queen mary

5. hotel del coronado

6. catacombs

7. pine barrens

[movingkeepmoving]

Sofía, Bulgaria - June 2019 🇧🇬

The second last day of my journey was ready to start. It started once more early but not as early as intended to at first. My original plan included a coach trip from Thessaloniki to Sofía, but as lucky as I was on this trip, I got adopted by two fellow fans who invited me on their ride on a more comfortable car. While I did know tiny bits of Greek, I didn't know a single thing about Bulgaria. Well, not 100% true - I knew they're part of the European Union, they don't have the Euro and they use the Cyrillic alphabet. That's it. I didn't know they were not part of Schengen and I also didn't know a single thing about their fascinating long history.

Once being dropped of in Sofía, I fell in love with the city. Its different, it's full of history - you can tell by just walking around for five minutes - and it's super green and full of parks. I head to my hostel, ring the bell and after a couple of minutes an old lady appears, telling me in broken English there's something wrong with my room and hands me a phone. The man on the other end explains me that they have anogher building down the road, the woman will bring me there, and they will upgrade my single hostel room to a studio for the same price. Alright?!? I follow her and we have a nice and brief talk in English. I tell her I'm from Germany and it's my first time in Bulgaria, I'm here for a concert, but not to play myself - to watch a band. She's charming and welcoming as she's trying her best in communicating with me.

She drops me off with her colleague at the studio house. This new woman doesn't speak any English, so she hands me her telephone and I talk to the guy I talked before. We discuss the final details and then I have a super huge studio with a kitchen and sofa and a large bed all for myself. I charge my batteries, check the nearby restaurants and download the local Taxi App. It works like Beat in Greece, you can pay via credit card and so you don't have to withdraw too much money from the next ATM. I'm craving something fresh and healthy so I get late lunch at a close by fusion restaurant that serves an amazing poke bowl. As I have a full day left for sightseeing, I decide to head down early for the venue. I'm totally on my own this time and you never know how crazy the Bulgarian folks are about gigs. On my way getting there I have the best and cutest old taxi driver you can imagine. She talks English, shows me some sights of the city while passing them, tells me to definitely use the app after the show to not get scammed by another cab driver as the venue is in a students area and he hands me a tourist info in English about the most famous sights. He also changes the radio station to the rock channel once I told him about my plans for the evening and in just that moment, the gig gets announced on the station and Dropkick Murphys are played on the radio...

Boy, was I wrong about the audience. Nobody shows up until 30 minutes before door. The first person I get in contact with is G. from the UK. He tells me he came down as DKM and FT are his favourite artists. Well once more - I'm not alone at a Frank Turner gig and I guess I never will. Doors open, and about 6 people head into the venue, an ice hockey stadium. Once the six of us are in, nothing happens for an hour. I walk around, get me a coke and water and some caramel popcorn as apperently this is what you can buy at a gig in Sofia. Franks set is moved back by 20 minutes and once he enters the stage there are some hundred people inside the venue while the rest is still out front smoking. (For the first time of this tour, the promoter made actually sure that nobody is smoking indoors! It's a blessing!)

Once more some Frank Turner fans gather around close to the front. I can hear them singing both on my left and my right side, which makes me smile like a nutter and sing even louder. It's once more utterly insane to whitnes Franks first gig in Bulgaria. I guess it's pretty hard regarding the size of the venue and the small amount of people who do know him. But it doesn't stop him. No, he tries even harder, chats his bits through the Bulgarian language and he even managed to sing "Eulogy" in it. It's like his magic trick, everytime he does that, the crowds starts to respect him a tiny bit more. He tells the crowd how crazy it is for him to finally play a show in Bulgaria and says its pretty special to him as he wrote his university dissertation about British-Bulgarian relationships. This evening I sing extra loud during "I still believe" - as it somehow became the song of my trip to the East. I would never had thought that I would travel all the way down to Greece to see my favourite artist opening up for an American band. Well in the end I travelled to those places and the shows were the red cherry on top of doing the trip.

Sofia was finally the gig where I was able to witness a FULL Dropkick Murphys gig. I got me a seat on the side and enjoyed the non smoking environment. From the very first start about 2700 people went nuts. While looking around I saw so many happy faces and I once more realised how lucky I am living in Berlin with 5-10 gigs every day. These people had to wait more than 20 years to see Dropkick Murphys play in their city - in their country. And the guys from Massachusetts showed them what Punkrock was about. At one point singer Ken stopped the band as he saw someone in the crowd doing Nazi salutes. Ken was all about to jump into the crowd and fight that guy. Everything happened at the other side of the room, I didn't see anything besides a raging singer. But in this moment Ken earned a lot of respect from my end.

Luckily the show was ready to continue and I wandered a bit around until a friend of the band invited me to come up sidestage to become part of the final stage invasion of my tour. I've been side stage for many shows in my life, but to see this wild and happy crowd from up there made my heart jump with joy. It was beautiful and being part of the stage invasion some minutes later felt absolutely unreal. Do you know this feeling when you just think you're dreaming? That was me, dancing and singing around on a stage in Sofía, Bulgaria. Even when I look back to it now, I can not really believe this did actually happen to me.

Sometimes life is full of big surprises and I'm still so happy I decided to do this trip when all my fellow gig buddies said they wouldn't join. Traveling and going to my gigs on my very own made me learn a lot about myself but also a lot about those foreign countries and their people who react differently to you if you actually interact with them. When you're travelling in a group you tend to keep to yourself and turn around to keep chatting in your group conversation. This wasn't possible for me, I had to get in contact with people and I loved it! One more day in Sofia ahead...