#it helps me wrap my head around things

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

okay imma answer my own question bc i love sharing my thoughts.

so i'm certain that there was episodes of play of the week before season 1, because at the beginning of the spirit of christmas, chris says "welcome BACK to play of the week". every single episode of season 1 starts this way as well, which is relevant when you remember that spirit of christmas was not initially the first episode, and was planned to go last. so no matter what, there were other episodes that came before season 1. additionally, harper's locket makes reference to doing more horse, another episode of play of the week, the previous week (which doesn't make sense given the order they were released in, since the previous week was the lodge. i'm not sure what order season 1 was planned to be released in but this is why i think harper's locket was supposed to be first). whatever you think about the timeline of when more horse fits in, it does prove that there are other episodes that came before season 1. i don't know how many episodes this would have been (presumably not too many, just because of budget reasons) but i would guess maybe 3-4 before spirit of christmas? given that spirit of christmas aired 23 december 2019, i'd guess that play of the week started in late november or early december. i feel like this also adds up with what's said at the start of the lodge, about their previous halloween season (texas chainsaw massager and nightwear on elm street), as i don't believe these are part of play of the week, just cornley's previous productions. assuming these happened in october (maybe late september), play of the week starting in november/december lines up with that finishing.

now the question becomes whether there were other episodes in between 90 degrees and the nativity, between the nativity and summer once again, and after the cornley drama festival. after 90 degrees, i think the biggest factor is covid, as we know this exists in the cornley universe. if they did any other episodes afterwards, it only would have been until march (the first lockdown), so only about three more episodes, if that. however, i think it's reasonable to assume they possibly didn't do anymore, given that chris was arrested at the end of 90 degrees — they probably had some mess to clean up. i don't think cornley did anything during most of 2020. they did zoom goes wrong in october, the bbc children in need sketch in november, and in december (just before the nativity) they did the see it safely guide. given this, i don't feel like there were any episodes in between 90 degrees and the nativity. additionally, at the beginning of the nativity, chris doesn't say "welcome back", instead saying "welcome to this festive edition of play of the week", so i think that fits with real life with that being a stand-alone christmas special.

between the nativity and summer once again i don't think there were any episodes either, for several reasons. the main one is the fact that it's a plot point that robert was able to launch the coup due to the bad ratings of the nativity, which to me implies that it was their latest episode before summer once again. robert also doesn't say "welcome back" for this episode, just saying "welcome to play of the week", which gives me the vibe that he's trying to make it into a fresh start for the show, which would be strange if they'd been on recently. plus, given that in the nativity they've lost bbc funding, i'm guessing they spent a bit of time trying to get themselves back on the screen, and given the scale of season 2, back into getting funded by the bbc (plus robert presumably needed a bit of time to organise the coup). and finally, covid would once again be an issue, with the nativity happening pretty much smack bang in the middle of two lockdowns, and restrictions not fully lifting until around july (summer once again is september, and rehearsals for summer once again canonically was at least a full week, probably more, so between everything that was happening, they probably didn't have any other episodes before that.

finally, post-season 2, and honestly i won't decide my opinion on this until it's confirmed whether there will be a season 3 of the goes wrong show or not (i suspect there won't be, but you never know). assuming there won't be, i think it's certainly possible! they probably took some time off after the drama festival (given 7 out of 9 of them ended up in hospital) but i think after they all recovered, it's up to people's interpretation whether they kept going with play of the week, or if they started a new show, or whatever!

so, tldr:

there were almost certainly episodes of play of the week before season 1, my guess is around 3-4, starting from late november/early december 2019

probably no episodes in between 90 degrees and the nativity due to covid, but there was the zoom goes wrong, the bbc children in need sketch, and the see it safely guide in october-december 2020.

probably no episodes in between the nativity and summer once again due to covid, the lack of bbc funding, and the coup.

as of right now, episodes after season 2 are possible, but this could change depending on whether there is a season 3.

i need to know whether other people think that in-universe, there are other episodes of play of the week, or if the ones we’ve seen are the only ones the cpds ever did.

[fleshengine]

unironically, dealing with like... casual transmisogyny is the most exhausting thing. I see a post on instagram, the first slide says "trans erotica" and I think "awesome, I wonder what's in it?" As I go through the slides I notice... huh these first couple are all transmasc erotica, well maybe the last few will be transfem. So I keep scrolling, and while it doesn't specify if the books have transmasc or transfem characters, there are tags for the relationships and they're all fucking Ms. "MM relationship" "MMM polycule" and I get to the end and there's not a single one that has a transfem character. I go to leave a comment like "hey please put 'transmasc' instead of 'trans' so people know what you're talking about. But I check the description first because that's polite. They've already added a section in the description (at the very bottom) saying next time they'll be clearer. "Title slide should definitely say transMASC erotica! I will makes this more clear in future versions, as trans women and femmes are too often neglected in discussions of trans literature [double heart emoji] (added 7/8/2024)"

Remake the post? I'm not kidding. If other transfems see this post, get excited and then scroll through the whole thing and then go to the comments, enough that the poster was made aware of the mix up, then it's going to push this post in the algorithm. This person is benefitting from misleading people, and they are aware of it. But fixing it is just too much work. And like... okay fine I get that it's a little exhausting to re-edit the image and then takedown and reupload the post. But when I went to their account to take a poke around I saw they made a part II to their trans erotica post.

I thought "oh cool they didn't change the first image, maybe they've included transfem erotica now!" Second sentence of the first paragraph of description: "Offering up transmasc erotica collection PART TWO bc I've been staying fed recently [trans flag][black heart][bow][smiling devil face]" Which at least personally I found really frustrating to read. They used the exact same graphic for the first slide as they used in part I, again implying that there would be trans people in general. I went through the books, there's two amab enbies, both of which are side characters it seems one of which is the devil So yeah, horray, you included tranfems. But the focus is still clearly on transmasc characters. But to be fair, it was posted before the edit to part I's description was added. But also even though part II was posted before that edit, it doesn't have an edit of it's own. Probably because there's plausible deniability in the form of the amab enby characters, so they can claim that all trans people are included. Despite it being two characters in ten books, neither of which are a trans woman. It's the sort of fake, tokenizing inclusion that really starts to get under my skin and pour sand in my joints.

I went through all the posts they've made since part II, I'd go through all the ones since part I but I don't have that kind of time and frankly this is fucking exhausting. Every book they talk about, sans the two featuring amab enbies mentioned earlier, is about transmasc characters. In both erotica and other genres, that's all this person offers. It's also really telling when they make a post about "trans enby & gender queer book accounts of follow", where I would assume that they might shout out a transfem account that focuses on that side of erotica, and from what I can tell every single account of the nine they shout out is transmasc.

People in real life: "hey dude what's up?"

Yeah yeah reality check whatever. Okay so is this account in and of itself a problem? No, a 800 follower instagram account that talks about books does not a cause for alarm make. Is this indicative of a wider spread issue in the queer community? Yeah actually, the exclusion (intentional or not) of transfem stories and creators from the community starts with what individual people are engaging with. If all you read is transmasc books, and all you talk to are transmasc people then you're going to have issues when trans people aren't that. I'm not trying to attack this account, I didn't include their username very intentionally. I'm just using them as an instance of a specific brand of transmisogyny that I see a lot and find fucking exhausting, that being extremely trans positive accounts that only ever talk about transmascs. I don't know where I'm going with this. I didn't really have a plan.

There's an aversion to trans women. For a variety of reasons society hates us. People who have an easier time integrating with society at large tend to overlook that, and instead often adopt some of those aversions subconsciously. They're not going to mistreat you in public, or do anything obvious, they've got manners, but they're not gonna read books about you, or shout you out. It sucks because I feel like a crazy person pointing it out. I didn't talk about it for years because I thought people would think I'm weird, but discussions of transmisogyny on tumblr have opened my eyes to the fact that I'm not alone, that other people also see this, and that it's an actual problem.

Thanks sisters. It sucks on this boat, but at least it's crewed.

[puppyeared]

people who do STEM or administration as a career full time and continue to do art as a hobby, I am scared of you but like in a hot way. youre like if we were allowed to have cold drinks in winter. i look at you and think of miles morales with his two cakes. do you want to make out sometime

[puke-ur-gutz]

ppl joke about being stupid but then when you suffer actual cognitive decline and make your needs known to those around you are engaging in bad faith?

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Me, trying to write a sanguine: What would Chester Arthur do?

[velvetjune]

technically alan wake 2 final draft (spoilers ahead) is a Happy ending for the characters, but the spiral writers room video calling his enlightened self a possible demiurge or demon unsettled me far more than the original ending. that version, by his nature, already existing and overlapping with past loops, influencing and manipulating things without known reasons (to us and the Alan we play). it really makes that Alan out to be something else entirely through ascension and that this is inevitable. this could partially be because I kept seeing people say that the final draft was the happy end with a happy resolution for everyone, but I can’t stop thinking about what this means for Alan—and Alice!—going forward. That, along with the direct parallels to Yötön Yö playing out. It’s SO much to unpack

[48787]

New Transmission The fucking Scientific Instrument Class Pseudocons apparently developed what they're calling "Hetero Sapience" and are corrupting the brainmodules of the non-Pseudo 'cons around them by using annoying xenophilosophy words. Soundwave tells me they're 'Greek' and 'Latin' words, apparently. Cool, I guess? Anyway, if you see any SI Class 'cons causing... issues, just try your hardest to turn your brainmodule off before you start getting infected with their weird lingo, alongside all the other issues pertaining to letting the SI Pseudocons transmit data into your brainmodule in their own weird ways. Thundercracker, on a bet with Starscream, tried to get into an argument with one of them and his head literally exploded when it started talking about Alpha Trion's "Mythological Origins" in its weird dialect. He's mostly fine, CR Pods are working at 'peak' efficiency, but the facial reconstruction is apparently impossible due to some kind of corruption. I thought it was just some weird prank but there weren't even any scorch marks or anything. Just exploded. So yeah, just avoid optical contact and auditory contact to the best of your ability and you should be fine. Otherwise, try to force-shutdown your brainmodule if you can. Shockwave is working on a cure right now, mostly because I know he had something to do with this in the first place so he's going to be the one to fix it. He probably wanted a greater justification to do that weird data-transfer idea he mentioned previously. But it also explains the weird Thunderwing hypotheticals he's been asking me lately... Can I go one fucking cycle without someone trying to "Perfect Thunderwing's Work" or whatever other idiotic drivel that I keep finding our limited energon reserves siphoned into?? It's not even a Shockwave thing, it's like every damn Cybertronian these days thinks they have the "Missing piece of the puzzle" or whatever. In fact, Shockwave might be doing this as a weird threat against the other R&D 'cons to cement himself as the one and only Decepticon "Allowed" to have resources wasted on projects like that. Ugh, now that I think about it, that's probably a correct assumption and he's probably gonna expect me to thank him for it later. Ugh, and he's probably literally right. Ugh. At least his repairs both to himself and to his lab seem to be mostly complete so further research into the SI project should hopefully come along a little faster. Both Shockwave and Soundwave think the SIs could potentially be used as some kind of specialty weapon, but we'll have to see how they work on sparkless lifeforms, like biological lifeforms or xenomechanical lifeforms. The SIs don't seem to corrupt each other, but Shockwave keeps reaffirming that they're not "Sparkless Lifeforms" because they "were never lifeforms to begin with"... but I think he's trying to hide something. Usually Soundwave is the one to pick up on that kind of technological obfuscation, but he actually agreed with Shockwave and offered to send Ratbat to try to work out exactly what each "sapient" SI is now capable of on a personal level. We could have just had regular Cybertronians aboard to fill the role SIs fill. I would've preferred K Class to fill any role an SI could fill in all honesty!! But no, constructing cold wasn't enough, we just had to try to learn how to "Construct Frozen" and the "Absolute Zeroes" just had to be put on my ship. Whatever. I've probably said too much already. This was supposed to be a warning for my ship crew, but it's looking like it'll end up being transcribed on the golden disk as well so when this new Scientific Instruments of Destruction project backfires in some absurdly bombastic way there will at least be something remaining that says I was right. End of Transmission

New Transmission Okay so I was right, but so was Shockwave and Soundwave. Or, well, they were right just enough to make sure the backfire is postponed for at least another handful of cycles. Ratbat is still in CR from the investigation, but the cure Shockwave developed seems to be effective and Thundercracker is out and aiding the repair effort. Shockwave is now in contact with one of the SIs digitally and the other few are... integrating due to the personal efforts of Soundwave. I suppose now would be pertinent to mention not all the SIs developed the "Hetero Sapience" condition, many of them are safe for interaction. Soundwave is also currently monitoring their presence, Ravage is tasked with the regular SIs and Laserbeak is tasked with the "Sapient" SIs. Shockwave probably knows exactly what caused this event but he is preoccupied with the one he no doubt is either indoctrinating or ruthlessly interrogating. Report to Soundwave if you see any suspicious behavior, he has been working very hard to ensure the SIs have their purpose clearly defined (And closely monitored). And, Starscream, stop trying to convince the SIs that you are the leader of this ship. Not only have the majority of your efforts been wasted on subsentient automata, the only one you have actually found who possesses the ability to truly listen to you immediately came to the bridge to complain about you. They were the first sapient SI I communicated with directly and it was because they felt the need to complain about you. I almost feel embarrassed for you. Come back to the bridge so you can apologize to it or so I can teach it how to laugh at you. It's practicing right now actually! This moment of chaos should hopefully be largely under control now, the actual "population" of Scientific Instrument Class Pseudocons was actually quite fewer than initially expected due to an indexing error incorrectly labeling certain shells as SI class. At the very least, we have some more specialty warriors because of it all. End of Transmission EOF

[dykeogenes]

cupping your face gently between my hands. there are people in the world whose whole entire job is 'explaining terrifying bureaucratic processes that dont make sense' and you can ask them any questions you want. for real.

[pharawee]

I won't leave you. You're not alone, Name. You have me [...].

» BONUS:

Mom. I feel sorry for Name.

[bluejayblueskies]

i've often yearned to be in a romantic relationship, from when i was pretty young to now even though i now recognize that i'm aromantic and it's not something i actually want when push comes to shove. and this probably isn't anything profound, but i've started to wonder recently if i'm actually yearning for a romantic relationship or if i'm yearning for a deeply meaningful, intimate, and loving relationship with somebody who i can trust and show all the parts of myself and know that they'll always be on my side and spend the rest of my life with, and society has just told me over and over and over again that i can't have that without the romance

[watery-melon-baller]

its so fun :)) and awesome :)) that i cannot fucking make my brain focus on my homework :))) holy shit im gonna kill someone :)) why can't my brain just work for five fucking minutes :)) this is easy homework too I just can't concentrate on it at all :)) and it's due tomorrow morning :)))

[pepprs]

my anxiety is unbelievably fucking bad rn. i am so scared

[puppyeared]

for like 3 weeks i was wondering why i was sleeping so much and felt listless. and just now I managed to email 3 people and responded to a month old message in the span of an hour because I got back to TAKING MY FUCKIN MEDS..........

[slippery-minghus]

gods, why didn't i get a college degree in anything useful?

[saetoru]

ok if there are any artists out there who do comms can u like help me understand why there are no refunds for upfront payments even if you have not started the work at all ????

[vigilaent]

feeling torn re: my bruce portrayal cause on one hand there is the batman that i love as an active critique of brutality and vigilantism thin blue line rhetoric repackaged in a bat costume and a man who learned better kind of narrative over time but then on the other hand there is batman unburied bruce who would not fucking say any of that <3