#im not actually watching yet bc if im gonna use up my cell budget on a show i want it to b good so im waiting to see

[jupiterjunebug]

I like gooch, and hes over w the domestic audience (which, wtl is largely rural/small shows so makes sense). But declaring him a mystery surprise contestant that must not be revealed until the league begins is like. Literally peak comedy i think.

[coalessscence]

one of my favorite worst things to Think About are the ways herb’s casually neglectful childhood sometimes just....surfaces in the every day world of his life now. and since his whole shtick is my childhood was perfect my father is basically god and i have absolutely no parent issues idk what ur talking abt, he winds up having to flail, having to learn on the way down, and try to keep up a cover that he knew all along. which, usually, doesn’t work, and just makes it all the more sad. here’s a few examples i’ve thought of because i don’t love myself:

someone around the station gets stuck with something metal and comments they might need a tetanus shot. herb was definitely never taken to the doctor’s for a checkup and regular vaccinations as a child, and since he works daytime hours lucille takes the kids while he’s at work, so he literally has never had a shot and he doesn’t fully understand what vaccines are, aside from cultural osmosis, so he asks in telling confusion, “what’s that supposed to mean?” @piper-aileen-lenox specifically, thnx for making me think of this and ruining my life xx

when herb and lucille moved in together (i imagine they were engaged but maybe not married just yet) lucille made it clear to her rather sexist fiance that she was expecting him to tow the line around the house just as much as her, which he agreed to, except when she asked him to do the grocery shopping thinking that was a harmless thing he could do (not like she’d trust him to actually get the dishes clean or fold her clothes so they don’t wrinkle). they almost never had food consistently in the house growing up and if they did eat full meals, they only had the food for THAT MEAL around because 1. herb sr. and ruby (herb’s parents) lived an erratic lifestyle of little to no money or a whole lot of money but only for a second because it was burning a hole in herb sr.’s pocket, and because 2. ruby quickly learned spending money on food ahead was pointless because either herb sr. hecked off somewhere w/o warning and it went bad, or his deadbeat friends hung around and ate it all, so she only bought for that day if they had the money for anything. but since no one was ever around to TEACH herb anything and he figured most things out on his own, herb doesn’t understand all this and he literally thinks you’re not supposed to by food until you run out or that you have to throw out whatever you have left at the end of the week because....... who knows ???? that’s just what he thought. it caused multiple arguments early into herb and lucille’s relationship before she figured it out and explained it to him because he didn’t know well enough to ask.

when herb and lucille’s first child, bunny, was born, he had to be shown how to hold a baby by the doctor. he had literally never held or even interacted with a baby before until that moment. he had no siblings (that he knew of), he had no friends as a child because if he wasn’t the bully he was the target and he was an ass just like dear old dad so no one liked him anyway, and he had 0 other family. lucille realized in that moment as she watched his palpable confusion when she extended their newborn child to him that he was going to have a lot of learning and growing to do. she hoped he was ready for it.

god that time there was a station fam barbecue early into herb’s wkrp career and someone, maybe mr. carlson, is like ‘WHO WANTS TO BE THE GRILL MASTER’ like its a big deal and everyone is like oh it has to be herb bc he’s the newest out of us and hes aware all the men see it as a status symbol and he CAN’T be less of a man than another man bc Ego (tm) so hes like of course im the grill master !!! and then panics for the next thirty minutes because he’s literally never even stood next to a grill let alone used one HOW DOES IT WORK the first fifteen minutes he doesnt even have the gas on rip

when herb was, like, 15, he taught himself how to drive a car because one of his “friends” (peers who was a bully that he called a friend and hung out with to stop also getting bullied but who was still bullying him anyway, herb was just brainwashed into thinking that’s what friendship is) wanted them to go out cruising and herb wanted to be a Cool Guy and not look like a chump so he lied and said he could drive. they got pulled over, because of course they did, and herb got in big trouble for you know, driving w/o a licences. the kicker though is that herb didn’t fucking know you can’t drive without a license or that licenses and road tests and drivers ed were even a THING because he literally raised himself and no one ever  t a u g h t   h i m   a n y t h i n g. anyways his dad got called home to deal with it from wherever he was away at at the time and he got in big trouble for interrupting dear old dad’s work anyways so :) what a healthy family

surprisingly, herb DID know how to cook the basics. grilled cheese, pasta, stir fries, a couple casseroles. lucille asked him about it because he was always such a Gender Roles (tm) type of man who wouldn’t even wear a brighter shade of red than like. maroon. in case it got loosely contaminated with the concept of the color pink and he’d have to change his name and move to alaska. so why was he doing a “ womans job “ (cooking) and herb just looked confused and said “what, guys don’t cook?” she told him that no, they usually didn’t and would have laughed at her if she tried to make them, and he laughed awkwardly and absently stirred the pot on the stove and shrugged in mild confusion. “that’s weird. if i didn’t cook i’d have... starved, i guess.”

the bad news is his cooking wasnt GREAT and lucille was happy to take over because again.........self taught. and he has one (1) brain cell so. not Great

LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW ALL CLOTHES DON’T HAVE TO BE DRY CLEANED. his dad literally wore clothes that had to be dry cleaned Every Day (and we wonder why the tarlek family was short on the food budget god) (and they were ugly clothes too akdhfjfg) and ofc if ruby washed her clothes, it was while herb was at school. he dry cleaned so many clothes that do Not Make Sense to dry clean in college before he slowly figured that out.

did not know what an allowance was. bunny asked him for one and not willing to seem stupid to his swift daughter he told her to ‘ask her mother’, who thought it was hecking weird that her money obsessed husband would say that, so she asked him why and after several long minutes he just shrugged helplessly and said “what’s an allowance?”

don’t even get me started on herb and lucille planning their wedding ( ‘what kind of stuff should we put on the gift register?’ “put on the WHAT?”  ‘what are we going to put on top of the cake?’ “there’s gonna be CAKE?”  ‘i can’t wait for daddy to walk down the isle with me, it’ll mean a lot to him’ “your DAD is gonna walk you down the isle....?? but you’re marrying ME, right?”   ) also herb not knowing the wedding look of the bride is supposed to be a Secret and barging into the room w a question or smth while lucille and her bridesmaids are getting ready, and everyone is hella miffed and he’s like WHAT i’ve seen her naked before and theyre all like THATS NOT THE POINT HERB

herb did Not Know about seasonal allergies. he just........didn’t know. he just thought god hated him and every spring and fall his head sprung a leak. and the whole time he was growing up no one A. listened to him complain about them and put 2 and 2 together, nor B. just taught him about basic first aid stuff in general for that matter he doesnt know shit. anyways, then lucille was like why are you such a tough guy just stop complaining and take some medicine for your stupid allergies and he was like take some what for my what now

ANYWAYS herb’s mom left while he was v young and he doesn’t remember much about her. herb’s dad was literally   n e v e r   home. the people herb’s dad left him with would work for obscenely low amounts of pay or owed herb sr. money and largely used all the money for their own food, drugs, alcohol, or other more unsightly business, and left herb alone to fend for himself. this is the disaster human that that produced, thanks, family dynamics! don’t abandon your children, kids, thanks for coming to my ted talk

[rogue-rook]

many highlights from The Eleventh Hour from a first-time TAZ listener

featuring bits from Lunar Interlude III: Rest and Relaxation

oh god is this lunar interlude a goddamn ASMR experience

are carey fangbattle and killian dating?

i’m almost 100% sure griffin said “fisticups” instead of “fisticuffs”

griffin: “okay, you spend the next few weeks learning from carey” oh, okay griffin, i see, we’re taking the LAZINESS route on this campaign now. maybe there were some good snorlaxes to catch on that route or something, but now we’ll never know!

a semi-incomplete list of words that griffin has made up during TAZ: “cruft, geezers creezers, and scrumbled” except scrumbled was stolen from justin

my first thought when i realized taako and sweet ango were going to be spending this interlude together was “oh no taako is about to just bully the goddamn earwax out of sweet ango”

I JUST REALIZED ANGUS MACDONALD IS 10 GODDAMN YEARS OLD. where are his parents??? he had a grandpa who died, right? who’s taking care of him? did lucretia kidnap him to illegally “employ” THIS LITERAL CHILD at the bureau of balance??

WAIT IS LUCRETIA HIS MOM?

taako just called sweet ango “agnes”

THE UMBRA STAFF JUST TOOK CONTROL AND BLASTED “LUP” INTO THE WALL AND IM LIKE LUP!!!! ITS LUP!!!

the Hole-Thrower is a goddamn genius object but i wish it wasn’t just for “non-magical, non-living” things bc i wanna see taako throw a hole into an enemy

magnus: “i want a black mastiff” griffin: “but you know, theres’s no dogs on the moon!”

the grubby grifters went over budget at the fantasy costco and griffin's voice like animorph-style changed into garfield the deals asshole‘s voice and im like. uncomfortable

travis: “i’m now a level 8 fighter and a level 2 rogue” “which i think makes sense for magnus bc you’re a protecting guardian but you’re also kinda a nasty boy on that battlefield”

the grubby grifters are the only bureau employees not to be super choked up about boyland’s death and im like “hey maybe you assholes shouldn’t have tried to desecrate his crystalized corpse”

WIVES AND HUSBANDS AND STUFF

if the voidfish is either nice or neutral, then it singing to magus is adorable

if the voidfish turns out to be evil, then it singing to magnus is super super ominous

the director: “avi had to miss boyland’s rites of remembrance” merle: “i didn’t know that was an option"

names suggested for the woven gulch before griffin decided that: dry bones, gucci gulch, the taint, the devil’s taint, ravine, gulch, the blasted lands, the not-blasted lands, the flavor-blasted lands, the grandd canyon (not a typo), the taco bell grande canyon, the arid waste, tattoine

all the grubby grifters: “SUMMER LOOKS! SUMMER LOOKS! SUMMER LOOKS!”

taako: "thanks garfield, can we leave now?" "I WISH YOU WOULD"

sweet ango has to launch the grubby grifters down to the woven gulch and he’s so terrified and im like ango, they should be more nervous, they’re yOUR BULLIES!!

magnus: “we don’t have to mean EVERY time!” okay, magnus, that’s rich coming from you, seeing as you’ve been the worst to angus

travis: “you as the DM didn't remind your players” griffin: “oh i didn't know this was a baby game for CHILDREN”

magnus: “what it we just didn't attack them this round and just saw what they did?” merle: “WHO ARE YOU??”

griffin: “it's kind of rustic” magnus: “FINALLY, MY RUSTIC FOLK HERO THING WILL WORK AND PEOPLE WILL LIKE ME!!!”

“by their sacrifice, our home is made safe” WHAT THE FUCK!

griffin: “where the robe it, it has been stained or oxidized, turning it a bright crimson red" "oh.....like...the bad guys...” YALL THAT’S SO. THAT’S SOME SHIT. THAT’S SOME MYSTERIOUS SHIT

taako: “okay, cool, I’m not into labels either” yooooooo 

i googled the map griffin made for the town of Refuge and hot damn, that’s a well made map

magnus: “i rolled a 10 [on a perception check]” griffin: “you're in a prison cell with bars on it” merle: “i rolled a 1″ griffin: “you are in a cube shaped place”

griffin: “and then all three of you, have died” WHAT IN THE FUCK????? WHAT THE HELL??? WHAT????

THE SET UP OF THIS ARC IS BOMB AS HELLLLLLLLLLLLL

the fact that paloma sounds like bjork tells me that griffin is just straight up running out of different accents

[merle continues to sing to the tune of book of mormon] travis: “clinton. you just got clocked by a shovel”

justin: “i’m gonna delete the video i was making about how to do an infinite diamond glitch in the adventure zone”

griffin: “there are many rocks piled up” justin: “mini rocks are actually called pebbles, griffin”

griffy set up this quarry locker room tripwire puzzle exactly like a fucking game of hangman! the most deadly game of hangman ever

griffin: “lemme just say that diamonds are the currency of this town. you wouldn’t go to the US treasury to get dollars fresh from the printing press” justin: “what, you want me to get a part time job??” griffin: “i wouldn't hate it”

griffin: “i just agreed to what dad said without really processing what it was that he said, and what he said was the name "bjork" as bork” clint: “you gotta watch that shit, griffin” griffin: “i was almost an accomplice to that heinous act”

the grubby grifters just unquestioningly trust paloma the bjork witch without any sort of investigation checks or ANYTHING and im like what if she’s evil, my dudes. what if she’s leading you astray

griffin: “the human spell library, clint mcelroy”

griffin: “if you can just instantly bring back any dead person to life, it may reduce the narrative stakes of the adventure zone podcast A BIT!” AH SHIT SON!!

magnus: “im gonna....cut his arm off” griffin: “OH MY GOD!! YOU LOVE THIS SHIT! YOU’RE A PERVERT! YOU'RE EXPOSING EVERYONE TO YOUR FETISH!!”

istus is cool and awesome and she knits but all this shit she’s talking about it is just context-less gibberish

“you’re going to be amazing” AT WHAT, MOTHERFUCKER? YOU’RE COOL AND YOU HANDED OUT BOMB ASS GIFTS BUT WHAT THE SHIT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??

hot damn yall. this time chalice is trying to PERSUADE the grubby grifters and my evil bullshit meter thinks this is SUPER HELLA SUSPENSEFUL

AW SHIT! BACKSTORIES!

damn this chalice is so tempting. i can’t even imagine

these backstories are heartbreaking. im blown away by the way the mcelroys have crafted this part of the story, and so so sad. especially about magnus

“its not what julia would want” travis stop making me feel these things

magnus: “noelle ended up with a new shiny robot body!” taako: “an unkillable robot! I'd call that an upgrade!”

oh no the chalice is forcing them to watch the destruction of phandolin, what an asshole

magnus: “i’m gonna throw a whole bunch of robot arms into him” griffin: “okay, so you just have a hefty bag full of roboid arms??” 

merle: “we owe a big one to penumbra" magnus: "paloma"

magnus: “we gotta jump” roswell: “this is a shitty shitty shit shit plan, i hope you know that” i love roswell’s instinctive reaction when presented with a dumb idea, which is to respond with pure immediate honesty and tell the grubby grifters that their ideas are dumb as hell

this worm fight is bizarre as fuck, what the fuck are they even DOING???

aw the weird worm just wanted to escape the bubble so it could get back to its babies! that’s...almost adorable. if it wasn’t a giant fucking worm

oh good. the red robe is back. cool cool cool cool cool

magnus: “you’re proud of us? what? you’re a red robe, you’re one of the bad guys?” the red robe: “who told you that?”

GRIFFIN JUST CALLED IT A LICH!!!!!

the red robe said “lup, they don’t trust me. lup i can’t do it anymore” and “the next time we meet, i’ll need you to trust me completely. the hunger is almost here, and all this could be lost” YALLL IM CONFUSED ASSSS FFFUCKKKK BUT IM SO EXCITED ABOUT WHOEVER THE FUCK THIS PARSELTONGUE MOTHERFUCKER IS!!

well taako got a prophecy saying he would one day get power from “the man wreathed in flames” so like im pretty goddamn sure the parseltongue motherfucker is barry bluejeans. there’s a lich around, barry got blasted to hell by gundren rockseeker, and the red robe wants the grubby grifters to trust him, so like 2+2+2 probably equals barry fucking bluejeans here

the fact that they got to watch over the town of refuge for 7 years was soooooo sweet!!!!

hot damn the red robe’s been protecting magnus this whole time???

travis asking istus why there’s long gaps in their memories like hey trav griffy doesn’t want you or me or anyone else to know yet, but good try!

magnus: “if you get bored, there's this half-moon thing in the sky, you can come hang out with us” taako: “yeah most birds can fly to the MOON!”

kravitz!!! anytime kravitz shows back up is a GOOD GODDAMN TIME!! because i love kravitz

the red robe in the statue in Refuse HAS MAGNUS’S FACE!!!

i have literal goddamn chills. that is so good

this was a very odd meandering arc and i didn’t know what the hell was going on half the time but it was super super super enjoyable and some of the plot shit got me HYPED AS HELL